Friday Nights, 1972-Present

Friday night rituals over the years:

1972: The Brady Bunch. The Partridge Family. Room 222. The Odd Couple. Love, American Style.
1977: Stay home. Get depressed because I don’t have any friends.
1979: Football games. Smoke cigarettes. Impress potential friends.
1980: Go to the mall. Smoke cigarettes. Get stoned with new friends. Come home and pretend I’ve been doing neither. Fool no one.
1981: Work at McDonald’s. Smoke cigarettes. Come home and pretend I’m not depressed about the fact that I no longer have friends since I no longer get stoned.
1984: Radio show. Smoke cigarettes. Pretend I’m not depressed about not having a boyfriend.
1985: Drive drunk to the queer bar in Winston Salem with friends. Get still drunker. Misplace cigarettes several times. Drive home. Pretend this isn’t a problem.
1990: Spend the evening drinking lots of free beer at XTC, smoking cigarettes, and being aloof. Drive home.
1994: Sit at home depressed and wishing the boyfriend I had could actually spend some time with me like he said he would. Smoke lots of cigarettes.
1995: Hole in the Wall. My Place. Ringold Alley. Manic anonymous sex. Cigarette afterward on the way home.
1999: Dinner with Dan and Jamie. Smoke cigarettes, while pretending not to be generally freaked out by life right now. In bed alone by midnight. Sigh with relief that at least I pretty much don’t drink anymore. Drinking might not be prudent this week.

There’s a message here. I’m not sure if I know what it is or if I want to hear it.

Love and Hate

Love my Planet SOMA family. No less than five people pointed me to this article in Salon today, knowing that it would be right up my alley given its familiar theme.

I’m finally ‘fessing up about Road Trip 99 now. Firstly, it’s been downgraded to Plane Trip 99 and will pretty much involve nothing much but North Carolina. Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the money to spend my customary three or four weeks on the road this year. So off I go on TWA, to spend some quality time with Mom and Dad on their 50th anniversary.

But that’s not for a couple of weeks.

For now, I’m just excited that it rained last night. It’s almost November. The rainy season is almost here. My mood should improve considerably. Yes, I’m a freak. Yes, I’ve considered moving to Seattle because of the rain rather than in spite of it. Yes, sunshine depresses me as a rule.

Things I love this week:

“All in the Family” marathon on Nick-at-Nite.
Stouffer’s Macaroni and Beef with Tomatoes (on sale at Safeway).
The parking space I got last night at 7th and Bryant, right across from the police station.

Things I hate this week:

Perpetual construction.
Those stupid commercials for SF Propositions I and J, with the over-acting ambulance drivers and the insipid screaming woman.
The idiots in the building next door.

Strange Phone Calls

Two very strange phone messages recently. Last week, some guy from Indianapolis called to ask if I’d receieved the article he’d submitted. To XY Magazine. This morning, the concierge from a hotel here in the city called to arrange one of my “walking tours” for a guest.

Now I am most definitely not affiliated with XY Magazine. I don’t even read it. I think it’s pure crap. And, while I do an awful lot of walking, I don’t give walking tours professionally. Granted, the thought has crossed my mind, but I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this idea to someone named Hannah at the Nob Hill Inn.

Of course, Southern politeness required me to call them both back and let them know they’d gotten the wrong person. Ever called a hotel and tried to leave a message saying “your concierge got a wrong number”?

Here’s the strange part. Both of these calls involve activities just barely similar enough to things I actually do to make me wonder if they were really just coincidental wrong numbers. I can almost imagine someone reading this site and getting the idea that I conduct tours, and maybe even looking up my number. God knows I get enough idiots who read Loftomania and email me thinking I’m a real estate agent, dying to sell them new luxury live/work condo…

There’s a very strange sort of visibility involved with this web thing. I guess, though, that I should get used to it after all these years. Hasn’t been a really big problem yet.

I just wish Hannah had been there when I called back so I could have found out where she got my number…

25 October 1999

Dang. I threw up the wrong date AND forgot to put my Ammiano banner back up. That’s what I get for experimenting, I guess…

Don’t worry if you’re feeling disoriented. So am I. I’m just playing around with some potential new front page designs. Ultimately, I figure I’ll end up with a modified version of the old one, just because it works. All the same, though, I may play with a few others over the next couple of days. Fear not, though. Frames, animated crap, and the like will not figure into the equation.

Weekend…

Dinner with Dan, his current, and Jamie on Friday night. 24th Street. Puerco Asada. El Trebol. Cheap food served by a nice lady who gives great “mom” vibes with a Salvadorean accent. Dinner was followed by ice cream at Mitchell’s. Banana. Made on the premises. I skipped the maize y queso, as these are not my idea of proper ice cream ingredients. But what do I know anyway?

Saturday night was dinner with Mark in Berkeley. Tandoori prawns. Eggplant something. Pakoras. Nan. No surrogate mom, but a good meal all the same. I left my cap on the table. They gave it back. Then Mark and I toured scenic downtown Oakland.

Against my better judgment, I went out for a beer later. On Saturday night. First time in two months or so. It was as big a mistake this time as ever. Apparently it was Lesbian Domanatrix night at the Eagle. I love Lesbians. I can tolerate dominatrices. But neither sight was what my hormones were looking for at 1:00 in the morning. Alas. My Place and Hole in the Wall provided no real relief either. Look for my Folsom Street obituary page soon. Even so, I got two free beers, so the night wasn’t a total loss. I must’ve been broadcasting depression rays.

Today I made eggs and bacon and grits, as is my usual Sunday morning habit. After I finished the paper and the “In the Heat of the Night” marathon on TNT, I drove out to the avenues to photograph a soon to be demolished Safeway and have a hot dog at the soon to be demolished Doggie Diner.

New “Simpsons”. Re-run on “Futurama”. A quick bowl of cereal and it’s time for bed, I guess…

Behind the Times

It didn’t strike me as odd at the time, but I closed an email message to Sarah this afternoon with something to the effect of “Gotta run…there’s the doorbell…” Sounds a little anachronistic in retrospect.

Yer behind the times humble host, volume 15:

I still prefer to read the newspaper in its cumbersome paper format, and I regularly spend money for content I could read free online. I make an exception for my hometown paper which I can’t buy here.
Iced tea must be brewed in a suitably stained pot. Iced tea in a can or bottle is a crime against nature.
I wish radio stations still had jingles and played music in the morning.
I have never owned an automobile with power locks or windows.
I do not automatically address strangers using their first names unless they introduce themselves that way, especially if they’re older than me. Yes, I behaved the same way even when I worked in retail customer service.
Canned vegetables are just fine in a pinch, thank you.
My long distance carrier is AT&T.
Give me “Maude” over “Ally McBeal” and “Streets of San Francisco” over “Nash Bridges” any day of the week.
The TV in my living room is a 20-year-old Sony. I’m not really inclined to replace it anytime soon.
Coke really does taste better from a glass bottle.
“Downtown” by Petulia Clark is still one of my favorite songs, even though it was released the year I was born. I listen to KABL more than KUSF these days.
I still use a 28.8K modem. I still believe all web designers should be forced to do the same.
My dream car is a 1964 Corvair convertible.
The last bar I visited was the Tonga Room. There will be pictures soon…