Friday, June 29, 2007 | by nathan

Meh.

I forgot to talk about Pride. Wanna know why? Because I remember so very little of it. See, I woke up this past Sunday morning, missing Brian, who’d had to leave the day before to go to Atlanta for a business thing. I cleaned the house and bought some booze, sent a text message to about ten people to join me at the house for drinks before the parade, and forgot to eat a thing.

So when four people showed up at my house – apparently I’d accidentally clashed with another pre-Pride party – I was operating on an empty stomach and a bit of excitement, and I promptly drank two vodka and club sodas, three glasses of white wine, and two beers. Chambers drove me to the parade, where we met up with some friends, and he also bought me a very large Park Long Island Iced Tea, and by the time the Parade started I was a goner.

Once the whole thing was over I was tired and cranky, and it looked like it was going to rain. I’d been standing on the bleachers with my neighbor, Steve, who was so kind as to drive me home almost immediately after the street was clear. I got like 10 pictures, and stayed for probably 2 hours, and I realize now that things just aren’t as much fun when my man isn’t around. 

Friday, June 29, 2007 | by nathan

x365: A Note

You may have noticed that I’m starting to list people by their first initial only in this project. I’ve decided to do this for personal reasons, namely the fact that, when I write something particularly stinging, I find myself really hoping that person finds what I’ve said. One person did, and retaliated, and it made me realize that I just.don’t.care, and here I thought I did. What’s funny is that when I write something nice, I find myself hoping no one sees it. Is that odd? Either way – in the interest of this not becoming a psychiatric issue for me, I am largely – though not exclusively – going to use initials rather than full names. Though it should be noted that sometimes the initials are the initials of a nickname, a surname, a middle name, or – occasionally – a first name.

Also, my 27th birthday is on July 23rd, after which time each post will go from 26 to 27 words. That is all. 

Thursday, June 28, 2007 | by nathan

We Should Do Guest Voices. We’d Be Awesome.

So I was clicking through Flickr today and came across a bunch of photos of people as Simpsons characters. Turns out the Simpsons Movie website has a fun little toy where you can make yourself into a character. And you know I can’t resist rendering myself in cartoonish glory. So, without further ado, Brian and me – and a bunch of other people! – Simpsified!

Thursday, June 28, 2007 | by nathan

Surfage

A few new sites for you to check out:

Passive-Aggressive Notes. It’s my favorite new blog, consisting of just … well, the name is self-explanatory. Who hasn’t seen some mean little note tacked somewhere, in the break room at work, for example, or left by a roommate who, despite the fact that you see one another every day, is pathologically unable to confront you to your face about a minor little issue? I love this site.  

Hypeful. A new pop culture blog started by my friend Lucas, to whom I am going to write an impassioned plea, begging to be allowed to contribute. If you check it out today you can see what the baby on the cover of Nevermind looks like now.

Comics Curmudgeon. The oldest of the sites I’m listing here, this one analyzes the worst of the comics pages, which I’ve said for years are, without Bill Watterson or Gary Larson, little more than a vast wasteland of meaningless bullcrap. Except Doonesbury, of course. My personal favorite post of all time happened to appear there yesterday, wherein he analyzes a particularly disturbing installment of Popeye.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007 | by nathan

Page Management

As the year is now half over, I am taking stock of the things I told myself I’d try to do this year. Some of them, of course, are every day things that cannot simply be marked off, though I can tell you right now that almost every single one of those things will come up a "Not So Much" when all is said and done, and 2008 is born anew.

Other things I’ve let fall by the wayside. I decided that keeping a 10-year journal might be too much work for someone juggling a blog, a regular journal, an online column, a novel, a screenplay, and a nonfiction memoir plus the public relations duties of a medium-sized private university law school. So now that the novel, screenplay, memoir and grad school are over, I’m thinking of taking it back up, but obviously not until next year begins. Because I’m anal. But I’m still not sure, and if I don’t do it, it’s no big deal, really.

The other thing I really wanted to try was reading 52 books this year. I’m way, way behind, as, like everything else in my life, it fell by the wayside when I was struggling to finish my degree. Now that’s over, and I’d like to get caught up, and in that vein I’ve revamped the Book Project page a little bit, and I’m going to try to reread the whole Harry Potter series before Deathly Hallows comes out, but that means I’ve got to start, like, tonight. Which is fine. I have a theory I’m working on that I may post here, or that I may send to Mugglenet, just to see if they like it.

At any rate, I have to say that so far 2007 has been a pretty great year, though a few of my resolutions are already bust, like, "Watch less television" (though I have promised myself not to find a replacement show for Veronica Mars, which means – hey! – less television). I made myself a kind of mini-list for things to do this summer, and I haven’t checked it in awhile, but I think I’m good. I have to tell myself that these lists are just suggestions, things I’d like to do, and not things that once I commit them to paper, Jesus is up there on his Blackberry, irritably tapping the screen, looking over his glasses at me suggesting I probably should get to work.

Today I was writing my entry for the x365 project, and I looked at the next name on the list and got excited and went ahead and wrote the entry. Then I got excited about the name after that, and ended up writing over a week’s worth of entries. I don’t feel bad about this, as I stopped once I ran out of things to say, and it occurred to me that I’ve just freed up a bit of time every morning for the next week. I’ve been wanting to do a site redesign for awhile – it’s on my summer mini-list – and so if I get busy with that, at least there will be daily updates coming down the chute, even if my random ramblings like this have completely dried up.

But really, you should only be so lucky.

Thursday, June 21, 2007 | by nathan

Here We Go Again…

Some people look good because they honestly enjoy getting out on a basketball course or a tennis court every day. I’m not one of those people. You get me on a basketball course for even ten seconds and I’m going to make a complete ass of myself, prove that I have no sports skills whatsoever, and, when you inevitably start to beat me, I’m going to start seriously, horribly, trash-talking you, so much so that we probably won’t be able to be friends anymore.

It’s rather like playing a board game with me, come to think of it.

Anyway. I’m the most out of shape that I’ve been in – ever, but I’m slowly getting better, because I joined a wonderful gym, and I have a wonderful guy who accompanies me there every evening. But still, that’s not enough for me, see. My parents are scientists, after all, and as I am their child, I like to quantify things. I like to keep track. Charts, numbers, these make sense to me. And so, I’ve decided to start tracking my meals and my cardio workouts through SparkPeople, a wonderful website that’s free to join where you put in what you eat every day (I’m finding myself adding a lot of foods to their library because they don’t have the specific brands of things I eat), and track how much you work out. It has a place for tracking strength training, but I find their system lacking and so I’m not putting that in. But overall it’s a very helpful website, and I’m inviting you all to follow along, and join me. I’ve even set up a personal page – because apparently having three spaces on the web counting this IS NOT ENOUGH.

I’ve always heard people talk about how they get sort of "addicted" to working out, how the endorphin rush gives you a kind of natural high to which you look forward every day. I’m finally starting to understand that, because after I get off the arc trainer or set down the weights, when I’ve showered and steamed off for a bit, I feel unbelievably good.

I sound like such a Suzanne-Somers- L.A.-Weight-Loss- Nothing-Tastes-As-Good-As-Being-Thin-Feels- Margaret-Cho-When-She-Had-Her-TV-Show moron. Someone shoot me. After I manage to squeeze back into a 31-waist jean. 

Thursday, June 21, 2007 | by nathan

You’re Taking One Down

This hasn’t been an easy week. The first week back after vacation never really is, but this one has been especially trying. Brian’s been sick since Saturday, so we spent the last day of our vacation mostly just chilling in the hotel room, hoping he’d get better. Instead, he got worse. We had different flights back Sunday, and I didn’t arrive in Dallas until 8 p.m., and we didn’t make it back to Oklahoma City until around midnight. We still haven’t unpacked.

Monday I went to the gym by myself, as Brian was still too sick to go, and I rammed his car into a pole, leaving a serious dent in the front bumper, which will now have to be replaced. Yes, it was stupid, and I felt horrible, but it’s a testament to how wonderful our relationship is that I knew when I told him that he wouldn’t be mad at me, that he’d realize it’s just a car, and no big deal, and that he’d reassure me that, no, I won’t be sleeping under a bridge with the dog tonight, drinking gin out of some stranger’s shoe. So there’s that. 

Tuesday night it rained heavily in the city, as it had been doing all last week while we were gone. Brian managed to mow the front lawn before the rain started, but not the back, which is now ankle-high. I can’t really mow because as I get older, my allergies get worse and the last several times I’ve done it I’ve spent the next week feeling horribly ill.

So when I got home from work yesterday the house reeked. I opened the door and my gag reflex went bing! I realized that as we’d been cleaning the house the night before we’d forgotten to take the giant trash bag outside. So I took it out, but the smell lingered. Brian got home and we went searching for the smell. Culprit One was the trashcan full of grass clippings, which was sitting right next to the dryer intake, shooting the smell of rotting grass into the house. So we moved that, but there was still something more. 

We went to the den downstairs and immediately realized that the carpet down there was soaked. The rain had come into our downstairs den – possibly via the fireplace in there, or its proximity to the garage – and soaked about half the carpet. This has happened twice before, but this time the smell was worse than ever, and because I’m deeply allergic to mold, I began getting a severe headache, and my mood went south really fast. So we moved everything out of the den, rolled up the carpet, took it out to the front yard, and cut away the wet part. Most of it was still dry, so we unrolled that in the sun room – much to the dog’s chagrin – to get the smell out.

Also, as I mentioned before, getting the vacation photos onto Flickr was a feat of computering akin to hacking into the mainframe at Microsoft, and it ate a lot of my time yesterday.

This is pride week in Oklahoma City, so that should be kind of redeeming everything, except Brian’s company is having a huge event in Atlanta this weekend, and he’s going to miss everything. I’m still wanting to enjoy Pride, but without him it won’t be any fun. I’m probably going to invite a select group of gay boys over for drinks sometime in the weekend, and of course I’ll go to the parade and Angles afterward, but I need people to step up and help me have fun. This means YOU, gay people. This means YOU.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007 | by nathan

Where Ya Been?

 I finally got all the vacation photos uploaded to Flickr. I’ve decided that I hate the Flickr Uploader, except that it is really the only thing going. It’s like Microsoft Office in that way. At any rate, I’ll blog about the trip later, and I’ll catch up on x365 later, but for now – enjoy these! (And seriously, look at them because it took me hours, and I had to delete and re-upload about four times).

Highlights:

- A weekend doing NOTHING in Dallas except relaxing at the Belmont, a little shopping, but mostly some margaritas, a meal at Monica’s, and a whole lot of dancing at S4 before coming back to the hotel and talking about music – and me explaining why this clip gives me chills every time I watch it – all night.

- Standing in line to see the Indigo Girls and Brandi Carlisle at the Fillmore, and getting to talk to some very cool lesbians about San Fran life. Then, during the concert, when they did "The Power of Two" and Brian and I just stood there, swaying along with all the lesbians.

- The Yellow Mustang, the drive around Napa and Sonoma, especially when we passed the Indigo Girls’ BUS! A bird shit on me at Viansa Winery, but it was still my favorite one. 

- Seeing the "Various & Sundry" tour at Petaluma’s Mystic Theater, with Glen Phillips of Toad the Wet Sprocket, Grant Lee Phillips (formerly of Grant Lee Buffalo), Sara and Sean Watkins (of Nickel Creek) and Luke Bulla (of Blue Merle). Brian and I were both raised on acoustic country bluegrass jam sessions, and something about it is healing to the soul.

- Dinner with Brian’s friends Leslie and Megan from high school, who took us to Boulevard, a wonderful restaurant on Embarcadero, and brought some of their gay friends along to meet us. Then, later, going with them to the Virgin Megastore and buying a 2-CD Maria Callas in "Carmen" set, then walking back to the hotel from their apartment.

- Meeting several gay couples who’d been together 30+ years.

- Walking around the San Francisco Zoo for hours.

- Seeing the Pacific. Finally.

- Buying 3 bags of chocolate at Ghirardelli, then finding a liquor store – they’re open ALL NIGHT in Cali! – and getting a bottle of champagne, then going back to the hotel, drinking champagne and eating chocolate until the wee hours.

All in all, it was one of the best weeks of my entire life, and I’m coming back relaxed, refreshed, and more in love with Brian than ever before. The only thing that’s vexing me is a powerful desire to uproot and move to San Francisco, but whattaya gonna do? 

 POST EDIT: We took only three photos at the Indigo Girls show at the Fillmore with Brian’s camera phone. However, there is a wonderful set of photos from that show right here, and I highly recommend you check it out.

Friday, June 15, 2007 | by nathan

236 – Jamie

She showed up the first day of elementary school with only one arm. “Where’s your arm?” everyone asked. Eventually it became just another fact of life.

Friday, June 8, 2007 | by nathan

Can’t Drive 55

Last night I realized I had no idea where my driver’s license was. This is not an uncommon occurrence for me, as I am constantly setting things down and not remembering where I put them. In itself this wouldn’t be so bad, except that every time I lose something there is this inevitable, unstoppable flood of self-hatred that courses through my being, Bad Mind telling me that only losers don’t remember where they put their government-issued identification, and that it’s any wonder I haven’t become more successful in life yet, because clearly I am lacking in moral fiber.

Even that wouldn’t be so bad, except we’re leaving tonight for vacation, and the last I checked they don’t let you get on an airplane unless they’re reasonably certain of your identity. 

So I tore apart the house last night, looking in the pockets of every pair of pants, in stacks of paper, through my messy office. When I finally decided it had either been thrown out or left at a store counter, I said, "no problem, I’ll just find my passport, and they’ll let me on the plane with that, and I’ll deal with getting a new license when I get back."

Except I couldn’t find my passport anywhere, so I said, "Okay, no problem, I’ll just find that copy of my birth certificate that I keep seeing everywhere, and I’ll go get a new license tomorrow." You know – there’s always that one thing that whenever you’re looking for something else, it’s always in the way, and in my case this was a copy of my birth certificate. Except I looked for that for an hour and couldn’t find it either. By the time Laurie arrived so we could go to the karaoke bar, I was a mess of self-loathing. But we went to the bar – they didn’t check ID, and I felt like I was 17 – and had a reasonably good time.

I awoke at 4 a.m. completely stressed out of my mind about this whole thing. I got to work early and started calling tag agencies, trying to find out what I’d need to do. All of them had friendly voice messages that said, "We open at 8 a.m. Please call back during normal business hours," except that it was 8:19 and 8:28 and 8:freaking:37, and no one was answering the phone. When at last someone came on the line, she told me all I had to do was show up, because they have my fingerprints on file! And they can make me a new license! Wahoo! Now – don’t you feel bad about all the horrible things you said about your Big Brother?

So I go to the tag agency, and they say, yes, yes, we can make you a new license. So the kind woman with the Bulgarian accent stands at the computer, and slowly, her brow begins to furrow slightly. She looks up apologetically and says, "I’m sorry. Your license has been suspended. I can make for you a state-issued ID card."

I thought, "Fuck it. I want on this plane tomorrow, and I don’t want to deal with anything else before then." So I let her make me an ID card, which will get me on a plane, and though I’m not sure exactly why my driving privileges in the state of Oklahoma are suspended, I’m glad to let my vacation pass before trying to figure it out. After all, I drive so seldom. I haven’t bought gas in over a month. I just hope that when the reasons for my suspension come to light, that they’re absolutely hilarious.