So I got this note from the Department of Parking and Traffic saying I had an old parking ticket to pay, dated 16 September 1996. The ticket was apparently placed on my former car about 12 hours before this happened. No wonder I never saw it and never paid it…

No weekend sex quest. I decided I just didn’t care. But I do have a new domain name. Now all I have to do is figure out what I should do with it. First person who suggests a watersports site gets smacked…

Changes coming soon. I’ve registered a new domain name (no, I’m not saying what it is until the DNS records are confirmed nd showing up correctly) and I’ll be moving things around, remodeling, and just maybe even adding some new content. It won’t happen for a couple of weeks, though. You will be warned.

I don’t really have any exciting news or observations to present today. I finally got over the strange flu-ish thing I had. I’m still bummed about Troy, but I’m moving on. And I put together a site for a friend with a spare house he’s trying to sell, in case you have a spare million-plus bucks hanging around in your wallet. And my part-time job still sucks ass, in case you were wondering.

I feel a sex quest coming this weekend, if anyone feels inclined to assist. I felt one coming last weekend too, but there wasn’t really any interesting sex to be found. There rarely seems to be any interesting sex to be found South of Market anymore, unless I’m just missing something really obvious. I’m not sure what happened.

Actually, I’m quite sure what happened. I’m just surprised that it happened so fast.

Some of this month’s bizarre queries on the Planet SOMA search engine:

• malegaycumshotporn
• amatuer dick underwear
• 0893915491
• ass hair
• barbra streisand wax museum
• oh mr. grant
• macaroni penguins
• woman who likes bestiality
• gaybuttsexorgy
• gordin berish
• fast food and chorestriol

Time for lunch…

This day sucked like no other day has sucked in a long, long time: transit nightmares early in the morning, an absolute mess at my part-time job, the little bug I seem to be catching, etc.

But most discouraging was the realization that my voice mail has been screwed up for a week. Upon checking the messages I didn’t know I had, I found that my friend Troy died Friday down in Riverside. Troy had been a co-worker and one of my first good friends in San Francisco. He was responsible for much of my love for the city and for much of my attitude about it. I still think of things he taught me (or made me notice) almost daily.

  

We’d pretty much lost touch a few years back. Drugs were a factor; watching what they did to him was too painful for me. I was selfish.

Eventually, he moved back to his parents’ home in Southern California. Just this year we’d been in touch via email, and we’d actually talked on the phone for an hour or so one night this summer. We weren’t altogether chummy again, but I was guardedly optimistic. He was planning to move to Seattle this fall and I was looking forward to seeing him on the way up.

Troy lapsed into a coma last week at his home and he never woke up. He was not yet 35 years old. I’ll miss having him in this world, and I will always be glad to have known him.

There’s a stereotype of the old-time neighborhood storekeeper, probably named Mr. Feeney, who ran the corner grocery store, watched out for all the kids on the block, disciplined them in the absence of their parents, and dispensed cheer and advice all around.

I guess such a fellow existed in some places, but my family must have lived in a different neighborhood at a different time. We were in the spacious suburbs of Greensboro NC, but oddly enough we did have a corner store right at the end of the block. It was a ratty little place called Mike’s Food Mart. Prior to being a dumpy corner store, it had been a dumpy house and then a dumpy antique store. Needless to say, my parents didn’t patronize the place.

I, on the other hand, patronized it pretty often, starting when I was about 14. I patronized it because I realized the slimy guy who ran it would sell me just about anything I wanted, no questions asked. This I discovered on Halloween night when my friends and I walked in, purchased four dozen eggs and two packs of cigarettes without any hassle at all. No ID check, no “why do you kids need all these eggs on Halloween night”, no nothing.

Over the next two years, I regularly bought cigarettes, beer, porn magazines, and more at Mike’s, always from the same slimy guy, who was always there and who never once questioned me. So much for the nice neighborhood grocer who looked out for the neighborhood kids. This guy was out to make a buck. Period.

Of course, I paid a premium. Cigarettes were 55 cents, a nickel more than at the 7-11 or the gas station at Zayre’s. Budweiser was three bucks a six-pack, compared with $2.25 at Winn-Dixie or Big Star (where I got carded about half the time). But it was worth the extra money to know that “Mike” would take care of me.

The dumpy little store finally closed about the time I graduated from high school, and it was then converted, ironically, into a dumpy little church. But I still remember it every time I visit my current corner store on Folsom Street in San Francisco. I think it’s owned by the same family…