Dream

Had a couple dreams the other night; one was weird, the other was close to nightmare territory.

In the first dream, I was in a car with Emily Gilmore from the Gilmore Girls (you know, on the WB). The car Emily and I were in rear-ended a police car. Heh, I said “rear ended.” Sorry. I’m twelve. Anyway, Emily and I rear…er…hit a police car. The next thing I know, we are standing outside the car looking up at the sky. But the sky was not the sky; it was a tarp painted to look like the sky. The sky/tarp was bulging in areas, sagging in other area. It obviously had not attached to the…ceiling? I don’t know. As I am standing there, Emily has disappeared by this time, I hear the voices and sounds of construction workers working; there are drilling sounds, hammering, etc. I was looking up to the unfinished sky when Rory’s father (from The Gilmore Girl, again. What can I say, I like the show), ran past me pointing to the tarp/sky yelling, “Do you see that?!” As he ran past me, I started to take pictures of the unfinished sky with my camera phone. When I looked over to where Rory’s father ran, he was in a camera store with a bunch of men I didn’t recognize trying to buy a camera so he could take a picture of the sky/tarp-thingy. I then looked over the other way from the camera store and saw Emily Gilmore sitting under a tree looking upset. And the dream ended.

The way I figure it, in my dream, I was at the point between the present and the future (The Twilight Zone, not the Rod Serling version, the new one from the ‘80’s, did a show like this). I was witnessing the building of the future by the people that do that, whoever they are. Weird, huh?

In my other, the curtain behind my bed was wrapped around my neck, chocking me. I made myself wake up from that dream by trying to scream a little.
I didn’t sleep too well the rest of the morning.

Any dream interpreters out there?

Questions

I have a friend, Mark, that lives in San Diego (where I'm from), we haven't seen each other for some time, but we email back and forth alot. The other day he sent some questions he came up with (I think he was bored at work). Most of the questions are just one word where he left the answers to my imagination. I've added links so you guys and girls(?) will understand what I'm talking about with some of my answers. Here you go...

George Bush?
Answer:
When giving a speech, he looks like he's trying to pass a kidney stone

Dick Cheney?
Answer:
Looks like he failed to pass a few kidney stones

Dan Renzi?
Answer:
I don't know why, I have never met and never seen a good picture of him (I never saw him when he was on The Real World), but I have a bit of a crush on him

Toby of vividblurry?
Answer:
Needs to smile more

Chris? [boys briefs]
Answer:
I hope the new man in his life works out

Rain?
Answer:
Falling on my head like a memory

Politics in general?
Answer:
Showers. Lots and lots of showers

Should I have a blog?
Answer:
No. Absolutley not. Blog servers are at capacity and cannot possibly handle any more blogs. What? Are you trying to cut into my fan base?

[Mark replied with, "Fan base? What fan base? You might want to pull your head out of your ass"]

Shouldn't you be working?
Answer:
I'm not at work. I downloaded your email when I got home -I notice you wrote this email using your work account...shouldn't YOU be working?
[his answer: Shut up!]

There were a few others, but these are the best, I think

A College Story (with very little editing - so be gentle...)

It was about 45 minutes into “Northern Exposure” when in the distance I heard the siren of an ambulance. I noticed flashing lights as an ambulance turned the corner and pull up to the front of Sarah Hall (the freshman and sophomore dorm). I figured some freshman had probably slipped and fell down the stairs breaking his or her leg. Not thinking much about the ambulance, I turned my attention back to the show, when, out the corner of my eye, I noticed three vans pull into the maintenance yard across the way from Sarah Hall. Shortly after the vans stopped, satellite dishes were raised from the roofs three vans. That’s when I noticed the police cars parked alongside the ambulances. As I was standing at the window, the channel five news anchor broke into Northern Exposure announcing that there has been a shooting at _______ University.

It was a couple of days before the start of first semester classes, I was in the middle of moving all my stuff into the campus apartment when Steve showed up with his parents in tow, no doubt to help with his move from LA. He was a bit stand-offish and irritable (I assumed it was because his parents were there constantly asking him questions). After about two hours, Steve’s parents left, Steve unzipped a large gym bag and pulled out about ten bottles of various kinds of liquor, and a one of those paper shooting range targets with fives small holes in different areas of the target. He didn’t say much as he was unpacking, but when he did speak, what came out of his mouth was the voice of those cartoon teenagers from MTV’s Beavis and Butthead. I thought the voices was his “shtick”, albeit annoying. It wasn’t until sometime later that it became clear that Beavis or Butthead were the only voices he would use the majority of the time.

As the news anchor finished with the “breaking news” story with “more at 11”, I turned back to the window and noticed that there were more police cars parked at differing angles both in the access road and the grass in front of Sarah Hall. On the road in front of my apartment building, a dozen or so residents of the apartment building were gathered staring and pointing toward the goings on down the road. As I stood watching, no longer interested in how this week’s Northern Exposure ended, I heard the door unlock, and turned to see my other roommate come in.

“What’s going on? Why are there all those people standing in front of the building?” he asked.

I pointed to Sarah Hall where the news trucks, ambulance, and police cars were parked.

“What’s that all that about?”

“There’s been a shooting at Sarah’”, I told him.

“What! When did this happen?”

“Not to long ago, the ambulance has only been there for about ten minutes.” I told him.

“Shit.”

...to be continued

Busy, busy...at work! Ugh!

I made the mistake of telling one of my managers I was bored and needed something to do. Well, he gave me something and it is kicking my ass a little. My plan of writing stuff during work hours is not panning out as I had hoped. Never fear, I will have that story I told you about posted soon (maybe by the weekend). In the meantime a little something has been swimming around in my head that I might be able to write today. So check back later today or tonight for, what I hope to be a somewhat interesting little story.

-Michael

Working on a story

Blogging will be lite this week, I think. I started writing a short story over the weekend and if all goes well I should have some of it posted later (after Chad does some grammer checks for me).

Funny.

Dan Savage over at The Stranger has a suggestion for those don't are having trouble with the coronation of Bush II. He so funny!

Links!

I finally got the links up and working in the sidebar - my HTML is slowing coming back to me...
There will be more added later, but I have a "meeting" to go to now.

Grrr!

I'm trying to set up a links column in the sidebar, but I can't seem to get the HTML to do what I want it to do!

That soft, wet, spongy feeling...Mmmm. Oh, yeah.

Washington -- On the heels of electoral victories to ban same-sex marriage, some influential conservative Christian groups are turning their attention to a new target: the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.

Social Security

I decided to remove this posting because I have decided to make this a politics-free blog (unless I find something amusing). Polictics are, more often than not, depressing and I want this to be fun or, at least amusing.

Lunch

There is a new lunch place opening about a block from where I work here in San Francisco called Julie's Kitchen. On the window is stenciled the price for lunch in which you pay, not by what you order, but how much you order. You see, one pays BY. THE. POUND!

Is this what lunch has become?

"I just got back from a wonderful lunch."

"How much did you get?"

"3.25 pounds."

"Sounds delicious."

I don't understand the language, but I understand the blog.

Why should you go to this blog? Um, well. Duh!

So, Michael, tell us what you did over the weekend.

It was 3:00 am on Sunday, I was sleeping nicely after getting home only an hour earlier from Powerhouse Bar. I heard a noise as if someone had dropped something followed by shuffling. It took me a second to emerge from the fuzzy-headedness of sleep to register that those sounds didn’t seem to fit, especially with what I experienced about 30 minutes before. Often times, especially late at night or during the weekend, people will randomly push the door buzzers at the entrance to my apartment building, tonight was no different as someone had done just that. I generally ignore the buzzer when it is so late (or early) in the day. What worries me most about when this is if someone in the building presses the “door” button on his or her intercom without thinking, therefore letting anyone into the building. A few minutes after my door buzzer went off, I heard someone try to unlock my door with a key. The sound of a key entering a lock is unmistakable especially when it is about 2:45 am. I was too groggy to think too clearly about this until I heard the “thump” noise and the shuffling sound. It was when I heard the “thump” and the shuffling my head suddenly cleared and I started to remember the door buzzer and the sound of someone putting a key into my lock.

Because the way my building acoustics are, it is sometimes difficult to pin point direction a sound is coming from. I couldn’t figure out whether the noise was coming from my neighbor below, to the side of me, or my neighbor in the adjacent building. Like I said, it is difficult to tell. After I had shaken the grogginess from my head, I turned over to peer out the window directly above my bed thinking my neighbors in the next building might be up. No, their light was off. Then looked out the center window (my apartment, like all the apartments in my building, have bay windows), nobody on the street below; nothing looked unusual. Then I slowly pulled back my curtain and looked thorough two slats of my blinds of the other window, and I saw someone on my fire escape!My heart skipped a beat and, surprised, started to feel sweat trickle down my back. Standing in my underwear, looking at this stranger, I remembered what I heard just 15 minutes before: the buzzer going off, and the sound of a key in the lock. I quickly ran for my phone with the intention of calling the police, but I couldn’t read the numbers of the keypad (the lights were still turned off.) I didn’t want to turn on the lights because, this is what ran through my mind, I didn’t want this guy to get away, I wanted him arrested for…whatever it was he was doing! I spun around and went to get my cell phone. After locating it, I dialed the police. I was put on hold at first but was connected to the dispatcher quickly
.
“SFPD. What address are you calling from?” the dispatcher inquired.

“____ __ Street, number__,” I whispered.

“Is that on the _____street side or the ___ street side?” she asked.

Impressed with the accurate detail the dispatcher had of my location, I said, “the __ Street side.”

“What is the problem?”

“There’s a man standing on my fire escape and I don’t know who he is,” I whispered back, surprised by how much I was sweating.

“Can you describe him? How tall is he? How old do you think he is?” She asked.

I described how tall, how old I thought he was. She told me to stay on the line until the police officer arrived. After a few moments, a police car passed below. I told the dispatcher a police car just past on the street.

“You’ll need to let the officer into the building,” the dispatcher informed me.

I ran over to the intercom pushed the “talk” button and whispered, “hello?” A voice came over the intercom, “SFPD.” I buzzed the officer into the building and waited for him to come up the stairs but before the officer got to my floor, my cell phone rang; it was the dispatcher. She asked me if the man was still on the fire escape. I ran back to the window and carefully peered between the blinds. The guy was crawling through my neighbor’s bathroom window.

“Oh my god, he’s climbing into my neighbors bathroom window,” I whispered loudly.

“Okay, you need to go to your door and show the officer which apartment he went into,” she informed me.

I ran as quietly as I could to my door, when I opened my door, a police officer was coming up the stairs with his gun drawn just like the cops on NYPD Blue! I told the officer the guy just crawled into my neighbor’s bathroom window; I pointed to neighbor’s door. The officer waved me into my apartment. As I walked down my hall, I heard the officer bang loudly on my neighbor’s door, “Police, open the door!” he shouted three times before my neighbor, or someone, opened the door. I could hear the officer tell ______ (my neighbor) he needed to get into the apartment because there was a report of a prowler. As I was listening to this, I was shocked to hear my neighbor refuse to allow the officer entry into the apartment. I thought, “Shit, _______ knows the guy that was on the fire escape!”

“Sir, I have to get into your apartment,” the officer said sternly.

“You can’t come in here!” _______ told the officer sternly.

“Listen, there is a pro…”

“He was just having a cigarette out on the fire escape!” _______ said loudly.

“He’s not supposed to smoke on the escape, sir” the officer informed _______.

This is where I couldn’t really hear anything but muffled talking. A few moments later, I heard my neighbor’s door slam shut. The officer, I guess, left.

After all that, I couldn’t get to sleep for about an hour.

Now for some time I have had my suspicions ______ hired escorts!

What I'm wondering is what I will say to ______ the next time I see him!


-Michael

Learnin'

I am thinking about taking some courses at UC Berkeley College of Extended Learning to help with my (attempts) at writing.
I think this course, followed by part II, might help and also this course. What do you think?

I want to be Jon Stewart

The man rocks!

“Just ‘cause you weren’t there, that’s not [God’s] blessing. My guess is that was an oversight. Seriously, how far up your own ass do you have to be?” – Jon Stewart expresses his annoyance after Star Jones thanked God for sparing her life, since she honeymooned in Thailand less than a month before the tsunami hit.

So Gay....

On his site,Joe has a list of the gayest things ever done by some of his readers/friends. Here are two of my favorite:

Chris @ Boy's Briefs

About three years ago, my best friend and his partner decided to open a sex club. So I wasted an entire weekend helping them set up the maze of walls. I probably spent twelve hours sanding glory holes with an electric sander. Trust me, it's imperative that you get glory holes really smooth.

And

Jim @ Jockohomo

Lady Bunny and I rode an elephant down a New York City street in the middle of a January snow storm. I was wearing only a pair of white Calvin Klein underwear and police boots, she was decked out in a Halston, that once belonged to Agnes Morehead. Out of our minds high on a whopper hit of Ecstasy, we lost the circus trainer/guide somewhere downtown, and couldn't steer the damn animal towards the nightclub, let alone parallel park it for her 3 A.M. appearance. After circling the block a few times we finally got it to slow down near our destination, the club doors opened as the strains of Sylvester's Do You Wanna Funk came pouring out. Leigh Bowery looking like a shattered disco ball stormed out and wrestled the naughty pachyderm down long enough for us to fall into a snow drift.

Here's mine:

Years ago, when I was in High School, our family decided to draw names for Christmas. My Uncle Dan drew my name. Now my uncle was a manly construction worker that always had a new girlfriend. He would often point out high school girls to me and comment on how, he was sure, I would like to get to "know" her. Well, I guess he asked my mother to ask me what I wanted for Christmas. I told my mother, not knowing my Uncle was my secret Santa, that I wanted Barbra Striesands "Broadway Album".
Yeah. Babs' "Broadway Album". If that wasn't a clue to the family, I don't know what is.

What's your gayest thing?

The OC

I was going to publish something, but it was stupid, so, never mind

To Make My Studio Apartment Look Less Like A Dorm

I am so excited! I mentioned in a previous post about the new console table I purchased that matches the [barrister] bookcase I have. Well, because I am "the gay", I did google search for the company, Sitcom Furniture so I could gaze at my purchase while waiting for it to be delivered. My bookcase and console table are part of the Metro collection. Isn't it the coolest look ever? I can't wait for the console table to be shipped to Cliff's Variety (where I also bought the bookcase), so I can go pick it up. Unlike when the bookcase was delivered, I don't think I'll have to ask Mikey to help get the table from Cliff's to my apartment.

A Conversation at Work

Co-worker: "China Airlines cancelled my flight, again"

Me: "Again?"

Co-worker: "This is the second time"

Me: "Why do they keep cancelling?"

Co-worker: "Evidently, the flights were not full enough"

Me: "Hmmm. You'd think with a billion people, they'd be able to fill their planes"

Co-worker: "Yeah"

Oh, Christian, you bad boy...

Christian can be funny:

January 10, 2005
Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor
given documents he thought were true
failed to thoroughly investigate the facts
reported documents to the American people as true to make his case
when confronted with the facts, stonewalled, apologized and launched an investigation
number of Americans dead: 0
resigned as CBS News Anchor while cohorts were fired

George W. Bush, President of the United States
given documents he thought were true
failed to thoroughly investigate the facts
reported documents to the American people as true to make his case
when confronted with the facts, continued to report untruth, stonewalled an investigation, and later admitted to "miscalculations"
number of Americans dead: over 1100
given four more years as President of the United States while cohorts were honored with medals and promotions

This is how it's done:

The man has such talent! Everyone should go over and read Joe.

The botox award goes to...

Joe Scarborough of MSNBC, the most botoxed man on TV.

Grooving to Neal while Tai-ing a few on.

What do Chad and I do when we go out to the local video bar, Badlands? Groove to the latest '80s cover from Gwen or Briteny? No, of course not. We grooved to the sounds of Neal Diamond's "September Morn," "Solitary Man," "Forever in Blue Jeans" (singing along to "Forever In Blue Jeans" in a gay bar is what life is all about), rocking to Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb singing "Guilty," we were definitely "Right Down the Line" with Gerry Rafferty! The sublime happiness of listening to midwest radio jingles from the '80s, or sining along with the theme to The Muppet Show (number one on my list of things that are good) is difficult to explain. It helps to be with someone that is as big a nerd as I am. Love ya, Chad!
How did we accomplish such a feat at a video bar blaring the latest candy? Easy. Chad has recently become a "Pod" Person. Yes, Chad has one of those eloquently designed pieces of perfection, the iPod. So, you can imagine the quizical looks we were receiving from the other patrons. "Why...what, what ARE they doing? Don't they know Maddona's singing "Vogue?" That's the point, boys. Yes, Chad and I rebels. Rebelling against YOU!
So, there we are, each with one ear phone in our ears being very anti establishment. Chad and I will be glad to imbibe the tasty Mai Tais the cute bartender created for us, but we don't feel the need to bow before the wardrobe malfunctioning talents of Janet Jackson or the subtle sexuallity of Li'l Kim. Give me Neal and the Muppets any day. And more Mai Tais. And if you can let me keep the bartender, even better.

-Michael

P.S. Does anyone know how to create a link within a post? Update: I figure it out. I dug up the buried HTML code I used to play with...

Not sure what it will be

I'm not sure what this blog will turn out to be, except to say I hope it spurs some sort of creative flow with the results of finding my "voice". You see, I have some notion of wanting to write. I have several short stories either started or in the infancy of being born - I'll call them zygotes. But I also have a fear that by writing this blog, I will find out that my life is actually quite boring and, therefore, not have anything interesting in which to mine a story. I don't THINK my life is boring. Hey I just got back from a coffee date! Ok, so it only lasted for a little over an hour, but still, a date! I'll let him make the call back, if he wants to. In the meantime, I can take comfort in the recent purchase of a new console table to match the bookcase I bought a few months back-so much for paying off my credit card. Where was I? Oh, yes. Life possibly being boring...Yes, well. I hope my life is not boring. If I find out my life is a tad boring, I will make an effort to change that. I don't know, maybe I'll start drinking and you can then read about my wild a crazy nights of drinking with quality people that inhabit the bars around my neighborhood. Sound good? Hello? Anyone listening? Fine. Whatever. I need a drink.

The New Year was such a drag!

I hope everyone had a nice New Year and all your resolutions will be quickly forgotten and you will continue live a life that pisses off the likes of George Bush and Jerry Falwell. God Bless the Sinner!

For my New Year celabrations I was in LA by invitation of a friend (we actually dated for a bit back when I was a wee lad of 26). D (my friend) invited my down for dinner at his and his boyfriends house in the Hollywood Hills-and what a dinner it was. Very tre gay! Six courses served by a cute waiter, he also was the bartender! Now I didn't drink becuase I had a bit of a cold and needed to save myself for the next night's activities. Dinner was wonderful. The conversation flowed with wit and a bit of baudiness. I felt as if we were all in a time warp sent back to a 1920's "salon". All that was missing was Dorathy Parker!
After dinner we gathered ourselves, got bundled up (it was freezing! If you have ever been to LA, you know sometimes it can get to be VERY cold), and we walked up the hill to the end of one of the streets overlooking the LA basin. With LA laid before us, the Hollywood sign over our shoulders, we toasted in the New Year while illegal fireworks exploded around LA. It was truly a nigt to remember...But not as memorable as the next night.

On Saturday a bunch of us got together for the real New Year's celebration: Hollywood Flash Bash. Now I will not go into the details of what Flash Bash is, you can go to the web site to read all about that. I do need to tell you that the evening was fun, surreal, and...painful. Hey, you try wearing high heels for 6 hours straight! Go to the website (I'm the one that looks like Marilyn Manson on a bender).
Flah Bash was a lot of fun. We went to the Panteges Theater (the patrons were not "into" it, I'm afraid. Snobs!) We made a visit to Hollywood and Highland, we were loved there-I felt a little bit of the celebrety while there. I was even asked for my autograph! And who knew L. Ron Hubbard would have a Christmas house? Well, after Hollywood and Highland we limoed it to WEHO (what, I didn't tell you we hada limo? We diiiid). All the gay boys were out, of course. We went to a few bars and had a few drinks. Talked to some cute boys (this is when I regretted being in drag!)
Other than being separated my friend that had the keys to my rental car, all went very well. I recovered my keys the next day and came home to rainy San Francisco and quickly took the rest of the week off from work. Weeeeee!

First time...

Why start a blog? Because I love public naval gazing! No, just kidding...sort of. Actually... my friend Chad said I should start my own blog (we were sitting at The Bar in the Castro at the time-yeah, clever name! The Bar. sheesh!). To be honest, this is not the first time the thought of creating a blog has crossed my mind, but Chad can be persuasive, so he gets the credit for tipping the scales in the "blog" favor. So, let's see what happens.
Anyway, here it is, for what it's worth.

I'll try to write something clever and witty later. Right now I have a wall to stare at.

Kisses,

Michael