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Searches and Labor Day

OK, extra special quality points to whoever sent me a detailed message sometime this month by entering it as queries on the search page. It came out a litte disjointed and out of order, but that added to the appeal. If you change your mind and try to find your Inner Boyfriend, please let me know…

And to anyone else who has the same idea now that I’ve mentioned it: it’s been done already…

I think this month’s best search would have to be a tossup between “big chokechain mambo pussies” (probably a joke) and “homosexual black metal ring” (probably not, alas). Also, my undying affection goes out to the hungry soul who searched for “pot roast”.

Lots of work for me this Labor Day weekend. Sites to be designed, sites to be redesigned, and more, all in a valiant attempt to maintain my upscale lifestyle in America’s most overpriced urban region. In other words, I’ve got Rice-a-Roni bills to pay.

And I’ve got to get ready for my annual “ridiculously long but that’s the way I like it” road trip, which will now have North Carolina as its midpoint, as I’ve decided to surprise my Mom and Dad on their 50th anniversary. Itinerary coming soon.

Planet Cincy?

I have seen the future and the future could very well be Cincinnati. Planet Cincy. Whaddaya think?

Upon looking at a map tonight while planning this year’s road trip from hell, I suddenly realized that this Ohio city might be the perfect place to relocate. It’s not a really objectionable sort of place. I imagine it’s pretty cheap. It’s appealing on many levels just because it’s the sort of place most people prefer to move away from rather than move to. Cincinatti was once the largest city in the midwest, and it’s been losing population steadily since 1950. I like that trend.

And best of all, it’s about a one day drive from alsmost everyplace I’d ever want to go, including Greensboro. I could visit Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Washington, New York, Atlanta, Saint Louis, and Kansas City on a regular basis. I could be home with Mom and Dad within nine hours.

And I could listen to Doctor Johnny Fever every morning on WKRP, right?

That said, this year’s road trip extravaganza is set to include New Orleans, someplace in the greater Cincinnati-Indianapolis area, and most definitely the Piggly Wiggly Museum in Memphis. Other suggestions will be accepted, but I’m not planning to do too many detours off the I-80 and I-10 paths. I’m also allowing a maximum of three weeks.

Off to the kitchen for leftovers now…

10 September 1999

 

So I was walking down Harrison Street Wednesday night. This yuppie wannabe drove up next to me and asked me where TGI Fridays was. I responded “I’m not sure. Sacramento? Maybe Walnut Creek?” He didn’t get it. I chuckled the rest of the way home, wishing I’d told him it was in an alley near the corner of 6th and Mission.

Yes, I’ve been working a lot this week, with things happening on just about all of my freelance sites at the same time (of course). And I’ll let you in on a little secret: I have an interview for an actual full-time job next week. No, I’m not saying where, but I will confess that San Francisco is the location. Details as they occur. I still haven’t decided for sure if I want a full-time job or if I want it to be here in San Francisco.

For now, I’m still planning the November road trip, and I now have invitations to Memphis, Mobile, New Orleans, Nashville, Washington, and Indianapolis. Color me grateful and excited. Anybody got a good idea for a 50th anniversary gift for Mom and Dad now?

I’m planning to give the site a little attention as soon as the crunch winds down. Bear with me. And send me all your stories and pictures for next month’s “official” premiere of Did You Bring Bottles.

I’m going to dinner now…

Hurricanes

Call me sick, but some part of me really wants to be on the east coast with Hurricane Floyd tonight. Maybe not right at the beach, but at least close enough to feel some actual storm action.

California wouldn’t know a storm if one came up and bit all 40 million of us on the ass simultaneously. I heard thunder and saw lightning last week for only the second time in seven years here. And even then there was no rain to speak of. Even El Niño was a disappointment. The weather is so wimpy here. Of course, that’s a good thing on those days when it’s 95 everywhere else in the country but only 66 here, I guess.

Things I love this week:

  • Today’s constant cool, gray fog.
  • Midnight Cowboy.
  • Roseanne (the sit-com, not the talk show).

Things I hate this week:

  • My part-time job.
  • My part-time job.
  • My part-time job.

18 September 1999


Recycled photo and semi-orgasmic smile from June…

Enough of this class warfare stuff from the past few days. It’s time to get back to the meat of what Planet SOMA is all about. To be more specific, I scored three boxes of Count Chocula yesterday at Target, thanks to an email tip. Seems they’ve receieved their Halloween shipment, complete with Scooby Doo marshmallows. Halloween appears to be the only time of year they allow the stuff past the agricultural inspection station on I-80 and into Nothern California.

Thanks to ever-vigilant readers of Planet SOMA, I’ve had a very good Count Chocula year. This more than makes up for the fact that I’ve been broke all year and that I seem to have given up sex entirely.

Time for a few updates:

Isomnia

This sucks.

It’s 5:00 in the morning. I haven’t slept yet, even though I went to bed at 11:30. I have to be at work at 9:00. Calling in sick is not an option today.

Unlike some past sleepless nights, there were no particularly disturbing thoughts keeping me awake this time. I just couldn’t get to sleep. I was awake at 2:00. I was awake at 4:00. And now I’m just waiting for a little more daylight so I can go into work early, finish up early, and maybe come home and grab a nap.

Which, of course, will throw me off schedule when I try to go to sleep tomorrow night. Or is it tonight? I’m not realy sure anymore.

Dammit, even on my worst and most angst-filled nights, I usually go to sleep eventually. This sucks. But I already said that. I guess I’ll switch from Citra (so I can go to sleep) to Coke (so I can stay awake) now…

On a completely unrelated note, for those of you who are keeping score, it was a year ago today that I revamped the site adding these journal entries to the front page. Apologies for a less than stellar anniversary piece.

Thunder and Lightning

Thunder and lightning for the second time in two weeks. Imagine my surprise. That’s more than we’ve had in the past seven years here.

Of course, I was able to experience it first hand at 3AM, as I was enjoying yet another insomniac moment at the time. But today, I was able to stay home and “enjoy” feeling like crap, although it was a little hard to sleep through the construction noise and the earthquake.

Yes, another little baby earthquake. I almost didn’t notice it. Frankly, the quake didn’t shake the house nearly as much as the pile drivers have been doing for weeeks. However, since there was no pounding noise accompanying this particular quiver, I realized it must be a natural phenomenon.

The earthquake only lasted a couple of seconds. I get to listen to the pile drivers for two years, while the freeway nextdoor is repaired, a mere ten years after it was damaged by a real earthquake.

But I’m babbling. Back to bed now. More about job interviews, road trips, and why my neighborhood is going straight to hell coming soon…

Here’s the Story

Damn, do I feel old…

It was thirty years ago this week that the Brady Bunch made its primetime debut on ABC. And I remember watching it that first year. I almost never missed it. The few times I did usually involved a trip to the brand new mall in Burlington. I was usually grumpy the whole time.

The number one song in America on this important date in American history was “Sugar Sugar” by the Archies. It was a bubblegum universe, to be sure. No Vietnam, civil rights issues, or junkies in sight.

At one point, by the time I was 11 or 12 (a year or two after the Bradys had moved into syndication heaven), I remember catching upto four episodes a day. Must have been a special slice of heaven for my mom and dad.

Unrelated…

  • I had a job interview last week. Imagine my delight at not being asked one single question which started with something like “you are trapped on a desert island with two rubber bands and a piece of gum…”
  • Why did I pick the hottest day in two months to hover over the stove making gumbo?
  • Am I some sort of freak? My voice never cracked when it was changing.
  • Yes, that last rhetorical question was inspired by the Brady Bunch marathon I’m watching.

Happy Monday.

Bugs

I asked my vegan friend today if there was an approved way to kill mosquitoes. I knew this was, at best, a rhetorical question. Firstly, and most obviously, vegans don’t approve of killing anything. Secondly, it’s damned near impossible to kill the little bastards without living under a perpetual toxic cloud anyway.

So Shawn told me there’s some smell which mosquitoes really hate, but he couldn’t remember what it was. Do you? And do you know if it comes in a roll-on?

I don’t really understand what’s up with all these bugs lately. They seem to have appeared last summer as a reaction to El Niño. Apparently they liked it here. I’m not amused. If I wanted mosquitoes, I’d still live in North Carolina.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m sleeping with the windows open thanks to the miserable weather we’ve been having lately. Of course I don’t have screens. Until last summer, I didn’t have bugs.

It was 92°F (33°C) today, the hottest it’s been here in two years. I hate it. But the fog’s coming back in tonight. There is hope.

Things I love today:

  • Bay TV.
  • The ceiling fan in my living room.
  • Maude and All in the Family from 11-12.

Things I hate today:

  • The weather.
  • The bugs.
  • The weather.

October 1992

Seven years ago today, I was in Denver for the first time. It was the middle of a pretty exciting week for me. I was 28 years old. I had just said goodbye to my friends and family in North Carolina. I was driving across the country for the first time, headed for a new life in an unfamiliar place.

I had no idea what I was getting into. I’d been here exactly one time before and decided on that two-week visit that I needed to live here. I had a grand total of five friends on the west coast. Four of them were in San Francisco. I would be living with two of them in a studio until we found a bigger place.

I was a long-haired malcontent working for a retail chain making eight bucks an hour. I’d just bought a 1990 Chevy Cavalier for the trip, which took me through Nashville, Kansas City, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Winnemucca. I liked Denver so much that I considered staying there. Strangely, I haven’t spent any significant time there since.

Of course, I ended up living with another of my four friends for over six years. I shaved my head. I went on to become a manger with said retail chain, making significantly more money, until I eventually quit to become the marginally-employed freelance type you know today. Someone torched the car. I started a little personal website which became a big personal website. San Francisco has lost most of its mystery.

Everything was so exciting during those three days in Denver. Everything was new and different. I had a sense of direction and I was looking forward to the future.

Now that I’m bored with almost every aspect of my existence and too damned lethargic to do anything about it, I really miss those days and that thrilling, wonderful, frightening trip across the country. I wish I could get that feeling back.