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December 30, 2002
I STILL NEED A ROOMMATE.
I STILL NEED A ROOMMATE. I STILL NEED A ROOMMATE. I STILL NEED A ROOMMATE. TELL YOUR FRIENDS.
Posted by G at 12:35 AM
While dropping off my videos
While dropping off my videos today, bumped into John Cameron Mitchell. Seemed nice, although a bit short.
Posted by G at 12:34 AM
I NEED A ROOMMATE. I
I NEED A ROOMMATE. I NEED A ROOMMATE. I NEED A ROOMMATE.
Posted by G at 12:19 AM
My whole life I wanted
My whole life I wanted a big brother. I knew that my sadistic parents had simply shipped him off, both enjoying my suffering at the hands of my sisty uglers. I just didn't know that I would get a bevy of adopted brothers, guys that I now can say that I love. My new family stretches from coast to coast, tied together by horrifying moving trips, rough times, shared bathrooms, and fart jokes. Brian N is my musically talented brother, my mental opposite, drifting around whimsically and terrifyingly when it comes to bank accounts and lanes on the freeway. I love him. Evan is my brother I can always count on, to bring down the garage in the perfectly wrong direction, barbeque the perfect 'beer up the ass chicken,' or to sit quietly on the porch having a good beer. I love him too. Dave and my new sister-in-law Erin are there when I have to join the underground, ready with a fake identity, a Kiss costume, and a shovel. I love them also.
I'd never had a big brother until I came here to NYC. Dan's the cool older brother that I always wanted. He negotiates every conversation with ease, always makes people feel good about themselves, and let's me feel not only is it okay to be who I am, it could even be cool. Even better, he's the ubercool brother who lets me hang with his friends. He's the older brother I get to ask questions about sex. Hell, I started this silly blog because of him. I get to be the comic book sidekick, without all the stupid homoerotic overtones. So what the heck happens when the hero leaves? Do I change the costume, start my own comic franchise? Maybe ScooterBoy? A gay hero that races around on a souped up Vespa, doing superrenovations to homos in need...
I'm going to miss him a lot. He won't live that far away, but the distance will grow. It's the same with my other brothers, and my sisters. I miss the daily communication, the familiarity. I know I can pick up the phone or hang out, but it will be different than yelling across the loft, asking if something matches, or watching Buffy together, or laughing at each other's escapades.
Posted by G at 12:19 AM
December 27, 2002
Some friends from other states
Some friends from other states have asked whether I'm going to be in Times Square for New Years. Not only no, hell no. I've definitely become averse to freezing weather, milling throngs of drunken puking teenagers and pickpockets. Times Square is a wonderful thing to walk through- once. It is the bright shiny optimistic capitalistic electric example of the amazing allure of America, and the dangerous greed and environmental waste flipside. Plus I don't know the words to Auld Lang Sine (Zine? Sein?)
I definitely have the desire to have a New York New Year, maybe go somewhere dressed in a tux, laughing with friends over some political joke. Maybe I'll just go with friends to some huge club, jumping and sweating to some music, flailing my rhythmically doomed limbs with goofy Texan abandon. I definitely want to be kissing multiple guys, friends, maybe even a few girls at midnight. Maybe even for some minutes past when everyone's big balls drop. My big resolution is to kiss more this year. I love kissing, I love the feel of the distant heartbeat transferring to my lips, the flush of heat in contact, the single minded focus of the moment, the sacrifice of air for passion.
I publicly resolve to do the following:
Tell people more often why I like being around them.
Tell people more often why I don't like being around them.
See one Broadway show every month.
Get a library card, start borrowing books rather than buying them.
Sunburn my ass on a nude beach.
Learn Spanish.
Try acupuncture.
Eat horse.
End every sentence with "as the will of God demands"
Posted by G at 02:52 PM
I think I have some
I think I have some genetic disorder that renders me completely incapable of keeping/locating remotes. I'm sitting here typing letters and such, the phone rings, I pause the player. I leap up to find the phone which I've misplaced (it's randomly on the shelf next to the stereo in my room), talk on the phone while wandering around the loft, hang up, set the phone down, again randomly. I sit back down, where once again I realize that I had taken the remote with me when I went to answer the phone. Damn. I eventually found it, next to Dan's plants that I keep alive. Why? I was wandering around. I should probably eliminate the cordless phone.
Posted by G at 02:45 PM
December 26, 2002
Yummy. Nothing like nursing a
Yummy. Nothing like nursing a hangover the day after Christmas. I think I should backtrack a wee bit...
Frank and Brett came up from DC last weekend, it was a good time. Frank is this perennially happy person, wrinkle free and perpetually like a kid at Christmas. When I usually meet people like this they tend to also be incredibly stupid. That's what makes Frank so special. He's very intelligent, but just doesn't worry about things. I found out that one of his friends had wrecked one of his scooters, and he was quite calm about the whole thing. I wish I could be that way. I'm not.
Drove back with Frank to DC, went to a lovely bar called Feint. The music was good, the beer was cheap, and the crowd was enjoyable. Ended up meeting a few guys there, including one who was a former Peace Corps volunteer in Russia. Mir tyesen. We ended up talking to a guy who was Russian, then the group expanded to the Russian's friend, who also happened to be the neighbor of the Peace Corps volunteer guy. Their dogs are often walked at the same time.
Jim, Frank's roommate and one of my best friends, is thoroughly disgusted with my uncanny ability to meet guys. I simply have no real fear of rejection, as I don't take it personally if someone isn't interested in me. Everyone knows that I love talking, so it is very easy and natural for me now. When I first started going to gay bars, I had to get totally drunk to even talk to someone, but now I realize that EVERY person there wants to meet other people. One just has to make the first move.
Posted by G at 02:16 PM
December 22, 2002
I have all sorts of
I have all sorts of things to write about, but first I really, really, really need to finish my term paper project. Then I'm off to DC this afternoon for a few days.
Posted by G at 01:36 PM
December 21, 2002
It's really nice to wake
It's really nice to wake up in the morning from a bad dream about school, suddenly realizing that I basically don't have to think about it for nearly two weeks. I plan on doing totally frivolous things like using a tanning membership, playing videogames, and reading. I'll have to schedule those things between all the drinking and carousing with friends, but somehow I'll do it.
Thursday night I went to our school's Christmas party. I wore the same thing I always wear, as a pair of jeans and a nice sweater aren't too difficult to match. I was amazed to see little teacher Phoenixes rising from the ashes, dressed to the nines, nails done, hair elaborately coifed. These are not the same people I teach with every day, I'm certain of it. Then they began to dance and I realized that they were still the same group of people.
I saw my summer principal, the woman who had hired me. She was transferred to another school when I had started in the fall, so it was good to see her. She and I were laughing about some events from the summer session when she admitted something funny. At the job fair, she and the other administrator separated away from me for quite a few minutes. I thought they were deciding whether I was too smarmy, but they were debating whether it was okay to allow an UNDERCOVER NARCOTICS AGENT into their school. They thought I was too good to be true. Awwww....
Posted by G at 10:13 AM
December 16, 2002
It was a weekend of
It was a weekend of visitors and reunions with good friends. This weekend I definitely put the 'ho' in host. Sparky introduced me to our houseguest Alex, the Italian Brazilian guy from London, then promptly left for his family holiday celebration. Let's just say that fun was had in his absence. My friend Third World Kevin Yamami arrived from Uzbekistan, looking like a freshly minted terrorist. I see Kevin on a seasonal basis, and his beard/hair combo is always in a perpetual state of change, yet always funky. This time he has a mammoth goatee/beard stretching up to the rims of his glasses, and a scruffy shaved head. He looks like an intellectual Hell's Angel.
He has just returned from a year of working in Uzbekistan/Afghanistan. He has changed some. Like me, he has had a severe idealistic battering. After working firsthand in Afghanistan, his distaste for religious and political NGO's is as evident as my growing disenchantment with teaching. I don't think either of us could ever be truly cynical, but we definitely feel there is some kind of cosmic joke happening all around us. We're all just waiting for the punch line, hoping it will have better delivery than most of my bad puns. He was planning on being in the city for a few weeks, but his schedule was reduced to just the weekend. He and I have gone through a lot together, and I really regret not spending more time with him.
We did go shopping down Broadway all the way to Canal Street. I love shopping in NYC. It brings out the poet in me. We dove into the sea of consumers, buffeted by waves of shoppers, black coats and white merchandise foaming around us. People crashed up against the buildings, flowing in and out of the buildings, spending money, creating money. It's dangerous, it's inexorable, it's vibrant.
The party at Rooster's was quite fun. His first batch of gin gimlets were a big hit. I sampled one, recommended to him that he add more sugar next time. He didn't believe me, then looked around and discovered that he had added corn starch by mistake. I totally understand, I've added rat poison instead of sugar myself so many times, I've lost count. It was wonderful to be slowly sipping my glass of wine, watching other friends succumb to the deceptively mild gimlets. The most amusing drunkard example was Beth. She became quite silly, then switched to belligerent, especially when I commented on her music choice. I thought she was going to attack me with the jewel box. Her dramatic finale was a comet imitation, slowly being drawn around the sun of Damien, only to collide spectacularly with the table. Her inebriated impact launched plates, wasabi peas, and olives into the conversational atmosphere, signaling her prompt vomiting and bedtime. Not that I can look too smug. Unlike certain bald teachers I happen to know, she didn't give full body massages to everyone in the room, nor did she attempt to do chinups on delicate lintels. It's just nice to have other members in the 'drunken fools' club.
Posted by G at 08:51 PM
I can't wait for May
I can't wait for May to arrive. I can't wait for May to arrive.
Posted by G at 07:57 PM
I just wrote a blog
I just wrote a blog entry for forty minutes, attempted to post, and LOST IT ALL. Nothing like going fetal from a typing disaster.
Posted by G at 07:56 PM
December 10, 2002
Back to full yelling strength,
Back to full yelling strength, used frequently. Eight more days of this, then I'm off for holidays. My administration will replace all the basic materials, bless 'em. I love my principal and administration. They really do take care of me. My main losses will be the cd player. I have to say that EVERY teacher is praying for the MTA strike, as school is curtailed. We stand with our union brothers! I am pushing for resolution by Friday the 20th, as I need services at that point again.
Posted by G at 09:02 PM
December 09, 2002
My voice was just sufficient
My voice was just sufficient to yelling at students today. Hot tea, cough drops, basic mayhem. I've been trying to decide some kind of gifts I could afford to give to all of them. While I was sick on Thursday and Friday, they apparently decided to pick their own gifts. My cd player, all my supplies from my stapler to my markers, my chalk, my erasers, even the Family Name bucks. They slashed some of my posters and destroyed my grading book (last quarter's book, thank goodness).
I think I'd rather talk about the uniquely wonderful NYC mixture of dog poo and snow. Until I moved here, I always had large enough gardens to not worry about picking up poo. However, picking up dog poo is difficult here when it snows. Being hot, it immediately creates a steaming hole in the snow, which creates a frantic search, almost like the Swiss after an avalanche. Eventually you find the little snow berries, but you can't be certain that you got them all.
Now that the snow is melting, I'm discovering that many dog owners also missed some, as there is a mix of ice and skidded bits. Very exciting on my way to work.
Posted by G at 08:14 PM
December 07, 2002
Nothing seems more fun than
Nothing seems more fun than eating breakfast on a Saturday morning. I've walked the dog, slipped back on my robe, made some coffee, and now I'm scanning for some cartoons. Damn. Where have all the good cartoons gone? I miss the Cartoon Network, Bugs Bunny, Dexter's Lab, the PowerPuff Girls. I remember waking up in the wee hours with a frantic sense of urgency, racing to the television to watch hours of cartoons. Not necessarily good, but still my favorites. Space Ghost, Thundarr the Barbarian (with Ookla the Mok!), the Superfriends, and the constant familiar comfort of Bugs. Most people my age know they can solve any mystery with a girl named Velma, learned their classical music from Bugs, and their Constitutional Preamble from Schoolhouse Rock.
Now that I'm pretending to be a adult, I still watch some fun shows. Prehistoric Planet on NBC is amazing. It is the perfect educational show, showing all the dinosaurs, ancient mammals, explosions, that sort of thing. I love the digitized animals, the attention to detail. Today they showed the first real ancestor of the whales, even making sure that the mammal still had vestigial whiskers. Speaking of doomed dinosaurs, Christian Slater is the narrator. I hope he gets good and drunk after doing each show. Maybe his role on West Wing can redeem his last few years of career suicide.
The other show of note is Bushnell's Secrets of the Hunt. Go to the website, check out the wall of death. When did hunting become such an expensive sport? It is similar to the Harley phenomenon, watching as baby boomers fly into a spending frenzy. These hunters have all the high tech goodies- night vision goggles, GPS locators, laser distance finders to gauge their shots, even laptops. Every show then has the wonderful conclusion where some silent boy points the dead animal's head towards the camera while his father bonds with him. I want to see a slightly different show, one where they use the technology for the flip side.
They should do one of those junkyard wars, except arm the herbivores with remote control non-lethal weapons. Secretly find out where this Bushnell show films, then film this Terminator-style turkey taking on these poor boomers in camouflage. At the end of the show, the turkey holds the neck of the limp father, gobbling in a sinister manner, while the boy weeps in a cage. No death, just Deer with sonic stunners! Stealth turbo turkeys! Maybe the bull with the rifle tail from Bugs Bunny. I'd like that.
Posted by G at 11:13 AM
December 06, 2002
From my amazing sister, the
From my amazing sister, the DJ goddess in Dallas:
"Here's a funny. One of our interns asked my real name. I told her Bonnie
Curry. She got offended and said, "You know, just cause I'm young doesn't
mean I'm stupid. I'm not gonna tell my friends".
To which I replied, "My name really is Bonnie Curry".
She said, "Wow... I would have thought you would have picked a better name
than that.".
I'm going with young AND stupid.
Posted by G at 07:41 PM
Yup. Going insane. Day two
Yup. Going insane. Day two of basically no talking, and I'm chewing the older exposed wiring for stimulation. Help!
Since I'm not going home or to some place tropical for the holidays, this is an official 'fishing for invites' for Christmas. Anyone doing anything interesting, want some company? I'm up for anything in the Northeast.
Posted by G at 07:35 PM
December 05, 2002
My dog is some kind
My dog is some kind of pee-holding animal deity. She nobly sits there with all four legs crossed until I'm ready to take her out. My throat really hurts, so I was postponing the trip outside into the snow for as long as possible. I finally noticed urine shooting out of her nose, so I decided it was overdue.
It is brilliant outside! Bear was leaping about, the drowsy snow waking up in her black coat from all of her frolicking. I forgot how much she likes snow. I forgot how much I like clean, crisp snow. All the sound freezes except for the scrunching underneath your shoes. Even that isn't a sound, more a feeling transferred through the soles of your feet. My peppered dog keeps racing around me, ears flat against her head, imagining herself some kind of superdog. I want to see my city draped in my first snow here, towers hunched down to keep warm, steam rising from the grates.
I think this takes me one step further towards being a New Yorker. I know I don't qualify yet, as I still think most people live in small closet spaces, and I still don't take taxis. But I now can say things like "That knish was merely decent" with some kind of authority.
Posted by G at 11:46 AM
It's Thursday morning, I'm sitting
It's Thursday morning, I'm sitting here in my Uzbek chopon robe, and my poor dog is stoically waiting for me to take her outside. The snow is making the city as silent as my vocal chords, both situations benefitting from my hot tea, laced with a shot of Jack.
It's the end of Ramadan, and it amazes me that over two years have passed since I was in Uzbekistan. Two years ago, I was teaching in an unheated school, living in an unheated apartment, but looking quite svelte at only about 135 pounds. I look at my expenditures here in NYC in absolute amazement. Texas Chris was here this weekend, and I spent about $150 in only three days. Three days. In Samarkand, I was living on a Peace Corps stipend of only $28 per month, and that paid for my housing and most of my food. We had a miserable sodding idiot for a country director, the most nightmarish combination of hippie and bureaucrat ever inbred for government service, and so our country's volunteers basically were starving because our stipend didn't keep up with inflation. Even then, I supplemented my stipend with my own $20, and was able to buy beer on the weekends.
What happened to that person? For a short time in life, I was ecstatic about being able to buy basic foodstuffs. The amount of money I spend in a month now would have shocked me two years ago. I think it has to do with economies of scale.
Posted by G at 10:37 AM
December 04, 2002
My roommate is having an
My roommate is having an un-wedding to the Rooster. I received this bit of news via a message on the answering machine from one of his friends. Had a huge panicky moment, as I thought this meant he was moving out. Went immediately to his blog to find out the news, it said he's not planning on moving. Whew.
Best wishes. Proud to call you a friend.
Posted by G at 10:28 PM
I've temporarily lost my most
I've temporarily lost my most valuable asset- my voice. A nasty combination of cold weather, a sinus infection, and tons of yelling in my class have disabled my larynx. One would think I could simply post a 'do not disturb' sign on my mouth, but I CANNOT STOP TALKING. I've found another voice in this blog, but I also prefer to talk to the point of babbling. I made it through today, but it is almost impossible to teach if you can't speak. I don't think I'm going in tomorrow, but I bet the enforced silence will drive me to blogging insanity.
I had fun with Sparky's family at Thanksgiving last week. He has this pangaea-sized family that scares normal-sized families in theaters, restaurants, and tables. It was so much fun to watch the ten different conversations lobbed across the huge dining table. There were no polite conversations with the person next to you. Everyone basically found the person at the most distant point of the table to be the most fascinating conversationalist. I was expecting some kind of angst filled family that repressed everything, but they were all scary-good. The food was good, the atmosphere was good, the weather was good. There were some scary obese rabbits in poop filled cages in the garage, but that's merely evidence of teenagers in the house.
Posted by G at 10:21 PM