ZeeGeezer

200 Words

Bob, of bob's yer uncle, has started a little writing exercise: every Tuesday he's going to post a piece that's exactly 200 words long. He posted his first piece today. It's not a challenge or anything, but it seemed like an interesting thing to do, especially when you are sitting at work with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO. So I thought I'd try my hand:

200 Words

I rode my bicycle from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It was hard, but not as hard as you might think. After all, I had been training for almost a year.
I didn't ride alone. 1,839 other people rode with me. We had each raised at least $2,500 for AIDS treatment and research. Riding our bikes to Los Angeles was our reward.
The ride took seven days. We set off from the Cow Palace on Sunday and arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday.
The Cow Palace is not in fact in San Francisco: it is in Daly City. But it is right at the city limit; as soon as we cycled out of the Cow Palace we were in San Francisco. So we did ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
At night we camped.
On the sixth day of the ride, Friday, I spent much of the day crying. The physical effort had left me emotionally naked. I cried because I felt unbearably alone in the midst of a couple of thousand people. I hadn't expected that. I had been expecting a miracle to occur and change my life. There was no miracle.
But my life may have changed.

I Like this Meme

Age: 54

Where did you grow up? London, ON

WHAT DO YOU CALL:

1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks? a creek - homophone of creak

2. What the thing you push around the grocery store is called? a shopping cart

3. A metal container to carry a meal in? a lunch box

4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in? a frying pan

5. The piece of furniture that seats three people? a sofa

6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof? an eavestrough

7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening? a porch

8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages? pop, if it's in a bottle; soda if it's in a can

9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup? a pancake

10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself? a sub or submarine

11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach? a bathing suit

12. Shoes worn for sports? running shoes

13. Putting a room in order? tidying

14. A flying insect that glows in the dark? a firefly (but didn't have none where I grew up)

15. The little insect that curls up into a ball? a woodlouse

16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down? a teeter-totter

17. How do you eat your pizza? With a knife and fork until I get to the point where the crust is thick enough that the topping isn't likely to fall in my lap,then with my hands.

18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff? a garage sale or yard sale depending on the weather

19A. What's the midday meal? lunch

19B. What's the evening meal? dinner

20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are? a basement

21. What do you call the thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places? a drinking fountain

22. Harass: Where does the accent go? "ass"

23. Vehicle: Where does the accent go? first syllable. And you don't say the "h": VEE-ickle

24. Latter: Pronounced with with a "T" in the middle or a "D" in the middle? with a "T"

25. Kitten: Pronounced with with a "T" in the middle or a glottal stop in the middle? Glottal stop

via Rotten Ryan

Revolving Doors

Van posted this morning about being fired. By email. Now that's gotta suck. Especially for the first time being fired. I was kind of fired last October. My first time too. Well, I was told my contract wasn't going to be renewed past December. Which felt a lot like being fired. But at least it was done in person.

Any place that fires you by email sounds like the kind of place you don't want to be working at anyway. Cowardy custards, all of them.

This afternoon Van posted that he's signed a contract for a new job. Which goes to show that being young and a doctor does have an up-side. [it has a down-side? - ed.] Yesterday my contract was renewed until the end of March.

Today the non-profit I work for announced a 20% staff cut and a 5% pay cut. Any bets I'll be here in April?

I haven't talked about going to see Take Me Out in San Francisco last Friday. It was an interesting play. Somewhat heavier than I had been expecting, but still amusing and well-done. Some memorable lines, which, of course, I forgot within moments of thinking,"I must remember that". And lots of lovely dicks to see. Penis length was clearly an important criterion in cast selection. The Chronicle review linked to is pretty well spot on.

The Adman Cometh

Matt just said it for me.  Although my view might be slightly more um, nuanced.  I don't actually want anyone to die.  Just to go live in a cave.

Mind you, there is a bit of a dilemma.  Advertising has made the ubiquitous web possible while at the same time, advertising has hopelessly corrupted the ubiquitous web.  We increasingly rely on the web as a primary source of information, yet we cannot trust what we find on the web to be free of public relations and advertisers' lies and distortions.

My small contribution to the war against viral advertising is not to buy or wear anything with a Swoosh on it.  Even if that might mean buying second-best. 

Oh, and having a blog that no one reads so no advertiser will ever approach me.  Or spam commenter for that matter.

And not watching (much) commercial tv or listening to (much) commercial radio.

Mind you, if every one started making ads for free, that might undermine the whole industry sufficiently to eventually kill it.

Spiffy

I wrote a post yesterday but clicked the wrong button in Ecto and it unceremoniously closed the program and I lost my post. Naughty, naughty Ecto. So let me try to reconstruct. Not that it was all that interesting. My conversation with the therapist this morning was much more interesting, but I'm trying to avoid that.

I bought a tux yesterday (i.e. Wednesday). It is, as the car dealers say, "pre-owned". I'd looked in several thrift stores for a tux, but there were none that fit. This one does, although I was upset to learn that the good fit came in a size larger than I had been expecting.

I've never owned a tux before. And I've only worn one twice - once for my wedding (I shudder to think of that one - Holy 70's Batman! A grey tux). And then last year for the chorus' Christmas concert. Just haven't moved much in the tux-wearing strata of society. But now I'm available for James-Bonding, and wedding singing. And choral galas.

I'm available for several guys at the gym too, but that is completely different. And certainly doesn't involve wearing a tux. The really, really cute guy, the Keanu Reeves look-alike, and I said hi to each other in the shower yesterday. But he's 25 years younger than me. He spends a lot of time looking, though.

Speaking of which, it's time for a little cardio. And a little sightseeing.

Conspiracy Theories

I don't very often just link to someone else's blog posting, but this is worth memorializing.

Guess he gets the finger from me

Kevin Drum drives a Hummer!?!?!?!?

I half suspect that my entire Northern California readership would disown me if I ever fessed up publicly to the brand of car I drive.

Update: I just went to read the article Kevin cites. In the blurb it says that Tom Wolfe is "bewildered by a sex-mad society". And connects this with liberal elites. That the elite is forcing immorality on the good God-fearing folk of America. And that the Bush vote is a reaction to this.
This is hogwash. The good God-fearing folk of America are managing to twist morality perfectly well, all by themselves. It's not the coastal elites who have a "twisted morality". Maybe it's just that the coastal elites are rather less hypocritical. Bringing back school prayer isn't going to make the culture less sex-mad. Neither is banning gay marriage, or even rounding the gays up and sending them to the camps. Not when sex permeates everything the way it does in this culture.

Another choice snippet from Wolfe:

You are considered twisted and retarded if you support Bush in this election. I have never come across a candidate who is so reviled. Reagan was sniggered it, but this is personal, real hatred.

Umm, how about Bill Clinton? Talk about personal, real. irrational hatred. Bush has been subject to nothing like the venom that Clinton endured.

Phone sex

2 hours on the phone with Ponytail last night. There is no one else in the world I can imagine spending two hours on the phone with. With him it seems like 10 minutes. Good thing he's got an unlimited national minutes plan. The bad news is that his lease runs until April. The good news is that he might just be able to find a sublet. One of the things I told him on Sunday was that I want to fuck him. So I thought yesterday I should be equitable and let him know that I need him to fuck me too. This was a surprise to him. Apparently he thought I didn't bottom. Can't imagine where he got that idea from. Speaking of ponies and tails and such, this guy really does seem to be hung like a horse. Oh my.

I love the General

But only in the most Christian and spiritual way, of course. Otherwise my boyfriend might get miffed. This post of his is a keeper: Staying the course:

George was the first guy I called when my septic system backed up a few days ago. I knew when I called him that he didn't know much about septic systems--or any kind of home repair for that matter--but I like him because he's folksy and personable and reminds me a lot of myself. ...

Old Blogs Never Die ...

I just noticed that all the posts I moved here from Blogspot back in March or whenever were still there and indexed in search engines. And they contain real names that aren't found in this blog. So I've deleted those blogs, after Blogspot kindly reminded me what my username and password were. The innocent and not-so-innocent need to be protected, my dears.