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The Joys of Being Single

There are many reasons why I’m glad to be single. A big one is the fact that if I’m single, I couldn’t do what I did yesterday. Not that I did anything all that interesting, of course. I left the house about 10 AM for a very long drive, which included Stockton, Jackson, Auburn, and Grass Valley to give you an idea just how long. I put a couple of things in a bag in case I decided to spend the night someplace. I ended up getting home about twelve hours later.

If I had a live-in lover, perish the thought, it just wouldn’t have worked that way. To start with, he might have wanted to come along, which would have eliminated at least half the fun. There would have been planning and compromises (“Are you ready to eat lunch?”) and I probably wouldn’t have covered as much ground.

If he’d decided not to come along, there would have been a different set of issues. I would probably have felt it necessary to state where I was going (I didn’t know) and a rough estimate of when I might return (I didn’t care). There might have been problems with the possibility of spontaneously spending the night.

I probably would have ended up staying home and watching movies or something.

Yes, I know that there are benefits to HAVING relationships too, perhaps the biggest being that there’s someone there when you DO want another person around. But right now, I’m too self-centered and too in love with my independence to make the tradeoff. Especially when traveling, which I just about always do alone.

On the other hand, it might be nice to get laid on a regular basis…

Randomly Friday

Random babbling on a Friday morning:

  • To the cute guy who kept glancing at me at Wendy’s on Pine Street yesterday: please contact me and tell me if you were interested in doing the nasty or just thought I was some kind of freak. Thanks. By the way, your jeans fit quite nicely…

Other random thoughts for a Friday morning:

  • They tore down the giant neon Canadian Club sign by the freeway a few blocks from my house. I didn’t hear a word about it until I read it had already been done in Scott Ostler’s column. San Francisco is now one step close to becoming Walnut Creek. I imagine the 17 Reasons sign on Mission Street is next.
  • Someone appears to have torched another live/work project under construction South of Market. Note to idiot: there are better ways to express your opposition. It doesn’t do much good to “save the neighborhood” if, in tyhe process, you risk burning out the very people you’re trying to save.
  • Thanks to Becky for this article on the virues on livermush (which is NOT the same as liver pudding, even though I do come from east of the Yadkin River)
  • A new selection in the “give me a fucking break” department.
  • Cry me a river. Goodbye, Julie London.
  • A site after my own heart.

It’s back to the Poseidon Adventure on AMC for me now. I may hop over to Boardboys too, where chapter three of my first published porn story premieres today. But I already know how both of them end, so I might just go for a walk instead…

The Neighborhood Grocer

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…

R.I.P. Troy Reed

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.

Changes Coming

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…

Great…

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…

Car-free Option

One of the biggest things I’d miss about living in a large urban area would be the ability to get around without a car. Even though I actually have one, I almost never drive it in the city. It’s just too much of a pain in the ass, given parking, traffic, and the alarming recent increase in the number of idiots on the streets. It’s usually easier just to walk most places I go, or sometimes to take a bus. My car is pretty much for trips to the supermarket and, more importantly, for trips OUT of the city.

Tonight, we took BART to Oakland for dinner, followed by a long walk. When I lived in Charlotte, we never took a train to Gastonia for dinner. In Greensboro, a fairly large city, I don’t think any of the bus routes even operate after about 6:00 at night. Tonight’s trip took maybe ten minutes longer than driving would have and the frustration level was almost non-existant.

I love having a car, but I also love not HAVING to have a car.

Clean House

David’s first rule of casual copulation: in the rare event that one’s house is completely clean one evening, no potential sex partner will see it, no matter how promising things may look early in the evening. Period.

The laundry is done, the dishes are washed, and the floors are vacuumed, and I’m sitting here watching “Badfinger: Behind the Music“, all by my lonesome. That’s OK; I did have nice cheap sex earlier with a boy in very convincing bike messenger drag, among others. But I rather wanted to bring someone home. And I thought I was going to at one point. Oh well…

Things I love tonight:

  • Badfinger.
  • My stunningly clean house and “Downy fresh” laundry.
  • Half-price Hallowe’en candy at Long’s.
  • $1.69 Stouffers at Ralphs.
  • Alternaboys with surprisingly large penises.

Things I hate tonight:

  • Cute boys (named Steve) who are sober enough to cruise me very agressively (to the point of snuggling, even) but are too drunk to have the attention span required to get past that point.
  • Forgetting to set the VCR and thus missing The Simpsons while engaging in the aforementioned snuggling.
  • The asshole who stole the brand new jack from my trunk just hours after I bought it last night.
  • Laundromats.

November Sucks

Jonno was right; November sucks. It’s freezing and the heat in my apartment isn’t working. I have an ingrown pubic hair and a big shaving-related gash on my left cheek. I’m thinking of calling in sick to my part-time job tomorrow rather than going in and committing the grisly murder I fantasized about all day today.

And there’s still no elected leader of the free world…

I guess things aren’t all THAT bad, though. I had my fill of barbecue this weekend. Real barbecue. North Carolina barbecue. Chopped pork in a vinegar and pepper sauce. None of that ketchupy crap the rest of the country uses. I was happy.

I’ve also spent two quite pleasant low-key evenings with a nice guy who met me through email. See? That could have been you. But then again, you might have been miffed at the fact that I’m not really fit human companionship this month. David (the David who isn’t me) wasn’t, fortunately. He gets extra points; I’ll write more when he gets to 50.

I’m thinking of taking a few days off from this space. Of course, that’s in addition to the few unannounced days I already took off. Check back though. I may change my mind later tonight if I have somthing more to say, or if I really go on that killing spree at work tomorrow.