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Entry the Three Hundred and Thirty Seventh02 August 2001 More Time!! I don't allow myself enough time to write. :-/ I need to make more time (and not like I am now, at 12:15 a.m. - I need sleep, too!). Lovely day today. Got in a nice bike ride to work and back today, including a good trip around Hain's Point for good measure. I've felt so silly going haphazardly at my weight workouts, so I think I'll pare back to the basics - pushups and crunches - until I can get the thing set. I'm not doing myself any good and am merely frustrating myself when I do get into the gym, so phooey on it for now. So because of that, I rode down around the Point to have more time on the bike rather than time in the gym (or at work - ick). I think it worked out well, so I'll likely do the same on Monday. Good date with Doug yesterday. We had dinner at Red Sage (though I had to eat chicken - no veggie items that weren't swimming in cheese - blech), which wasn't bad, then wandered to my place to snuggle and talk. Reconnecting with his post-schooling, post-bar self is kinda fun, though I suspect we may need to plan more "dates" that are a tad more than just dinner and crashing at one or the other's house. We need to explore each other once again. Got to see Jack tonight. Dinner was Thai food (green curry - yummy!), and very yummy. We chatted for a bit in Dupont Circle, people-watched (two gay.commies wandered by and I introduced Jack to both of them, earning me the "social butterfly of the evening" award from him *grin*), then headed back to his place (it's closer than mine :-p ). He had accidentally let slip to his co-workers that I had this site, so now I'm infamous in his office. ;-) Too funny. My own friends, like Madam, don't read me that often, and I always find it kind of amusing that other folks read me at all. I don't know that I'm that interesting, but I guess some people find my thoughts to be a good read. Welcome to my neuroses, for what they're worth. ;-) I think I've gotten a bit more of a balance on exercise this week compared with last week. I know I can't push a long run like I did Sunday two weeks ago, the foot's just not up to it, but I'll get there. I'm looking at some more running and biking (and triathlon) training stuff to see what I can tweak or try to get better without hurting myself. We shall see. And the truly amusing moment of the day was when I was heading out to go meet Jack for dinner (all dressed up in the little black shirt I bought in San Francisco which makes me look like I actually have a waist and shoulders *grin*). The guy at the end of my hall was going into his apartment. He's kinda cute, we said hello to each other, and when I turned around to head down the steps he was standing in his open doorway cruising me. LOL! This isn't the first time we've cruised each other, but it was sooooooo obvious. Too funny. Archives |
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Entry the Three Hundred and Thirty Eighth05 August 2001 Cult/Hair 01/8/3 8:40 a.m. Running very late this morning, but sleep was more important today. Note to self: time to replace the screen condom on the Palm. I forgot to mention the other day that I received in the mail an invitation to join a cult. Eckankar was the name of it, so of course I had to look them up. They follow master Harold (or Sri Harold Klemp as he styles himself), an unimpressive, harmless looking middle-aged man. I didn't delve too far, reading only that they follow "ancient wisdom that resurfaced in 1965," which was enough for me. When I searched on Yahoo for them I also ran across a related group, "Souls like us: gay and lesbian followers of Eck," which made me wonder about queer folk are treated by Sri Harold, but I didn't see anything on my limited foray onto their site. Personally, were I trying to start a cult, and attempting to sign up members, given that queer folk are often a vulnerable community when it comes to organized religion, and given that the vulnerable are usually easier to brainwa.., er, lead, they would be prime candidates for recruitment. But I'm not a cult leader, so I suppose it's not my call. ... That was from Friday on the bus, and no, I've not felt like posting since then. :-p Saw Doug on Friday evening, right after work. Took him down to get a haircut, and it's actually a stylish thing unlike his old cuts from the mall near where he used to live. Not to say that his haircuts before were bad, they weren't, this one is just slightly more stylish. Unlike my current mop, which thankfully is getting hacked off on Thursday. The stuff has been driving me crazy since I got the cut - I didn't have the woman cut it down quite short enough, and now she's on vacation for the next five weeks. Oy. At least I know that Subairi will cut my hair well (and for all of you who keep searching for Subairi here in DC and hitting my web site, the number for the place is (202) 232-2974 and they're located on R St., NW, near 17th Street and the old Cobalt building). Yeah, I monitor the search hits, and some of them are amusing. I usually get several for Subairi each month, not to mention "gay moose pics" and the like. LOL! Saturday, after walking Doug down to the Metro and checking out the community market at Columbia Heights, I wandered home and slew more monsters. I met Jack later in the evening and we Metro'd up to Takoma Park to go to dinner at Mark's Kitchen there on one of the main drags through Takoma. It was very good (and veggie, though not all items on the menu were veggie), and I know I'll drag myself up there when I'm in the mood for some good veggie food outside my neighborhood. Wandered back here to my place after dinner, rented a movie and chilled out. Was very lazy and got up late this morning, eventually wandering down to Dupont and the farmers' market there around noonish. We walked down, and I walked the bike with me. Got some good peaches, tomatoes and zucchini, then biked back home. Spent the afternoon cleaning the apartment, secretly hoping I'd run into the boy down the hall who keeps cruising me while I passed his door taking garbage and/or recycling down. Alas, it was not to be this afternoon. But the place looks a tad better - all the trash is out of the place, and I got the furniture all put back from where they fixed the lump in my floor. Other than that I chatted online briefly and slew some more monsters. Should have worked on my KSAs, which was my intent, but I couldn't muster the energy for it. The game was too enticing. ArchivesNo Structured exercise, did ride back up from Dupont |
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Entry the Three Hundred and Thirty Ninth06 August 2001 Movie Night It's just now midnight as I finally sit down to write this. Tomorrow morning is going to suck ass. :-) Went to see Meet Me in St. Louis with Lawrence this evening. They do this thing, Screen on the Green, every summer and tonight's was the final movie. They put a big screen up on the Washington Monument grounds and start the film at sunset, always beginning with a cartoon. This showing was fun, lots of people (lots of gay boys, at a distance, there to watch Judy Garland singing). Not quite as fun as The Wizard of Oz two years ago when we passed out glow sticks to the little kids around us after the film went Technicolor. ;-) But still a great time. Mental note: sitting on the hard ground, even with a blanket, in bike shorts (which are, by design, next to nothing on your skin) can be rather annoying after the first two hours. A fabulous time overall. Had my typical Sunday night insomnia last night, and tomorrow's not going to be easier with the training I start for the next few days starting at 8 a.m. Ugh! I finished up a funding request when I got home (sometime after 11), mailed that back in, and now it's time for sleep! Archives |
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Entry the Three Hundred and Fortieth07 August 2001 Shut out I am so pissed at the moment. I'm on the committee to redraw the boundaries for the Area Neighborhood Commissions and Single Member Districts (what passes for local government here in the District - see http://www.anc.dc.gov for more info), post-Census. We had a meeting tonight, our second. The last meeting left me, at least, with the impression we'd be in the same place, a municipal building here in the Ward in which I live. So I rush home early, snarf down food, run out the door, get down there a little after the 7 p.m. start time, to discover they moved the location downtown, two blocks from where I work. I am -not- a happy camper. I wrote a (polite) email to the committee chair and my city Councilman informing them that less than 24 hours notice of a change in venue was -not- sufficient (they emailed us at 10 a.m. this morning, well after I'd left for work, at my home email addy). Grrr. Nothing like getting shut out of local politics! As if we don't have enough of that BS, having no Congressional representation. Sorry, my blood is just boiling over this one. Archives |
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Entry the Three Hundred and Forty First10 August 2001 Preparation I got a nice voicemail message telling me where the next ANC Committee meeting is (Monday, at the spot in the Ward again). In training most of this week, though since training was in our building, it was difficult not to have things dumped on me by work. :-p They reasoned that since I was in the building, I could hand things to them if I could work on them during the breaks, as if I had nothing better to do during my breaks. Oh well. Got the usual Friday crisis taken care of as well, and learned a thing or two about the web editing software they've given us to use at work (yeah, I know, I'm a lawyer and I'm one of my staff's two webmasters - don't ask!). Looking forward to a calm weekend. Can't decide now if I want to run or bike tomorrow. Probably a run at this point - I want to get my speed sensor and that might come in the mail tomorrow. They finally came into stock out in Cali, so they shipped the beastie yesterday. Woo-hoo! Another toy for the bike. ;-) I want to get myself some new gloves as well - I found some with padding across the whole palm and not just the base of the thumb like my current ones. A small repair kit bag for under the seat is in order as well. The boy scout training comes out again - "Be Prepared!" I can't help it if that typically means being over-prepared. ;-) As it is this evening, I'm fading rapidly (the tension tamer tea I had? general malaise from being on gay.com and chatting? who knows...), so it's off to sleep here soon. Archives |
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Entry the Three Hundred and Forty Second12 August 2001 Surreal Lesson learned: Don't start your bike ride if it starts pouring and there are the possibility of thunderstorms in the forecast. I got out the door, in the rain, without much difficulty. The rain gear I got last Christmas (thank you, RE!) worked fabulously, with the exception of the sleeves - I needed to close the wrists better so as not to have water on my elbow the latter half of the ride. :-) So the body stayed pretty much dry, and but for a tiny bit of water into the bag, everything else was fine, too. The lightning was actually kinda fun to watch. The cars were more fun - people get so nervous and skittish when they're driving in rain (myself included). Being on the bike in the rain was nothing like driving a car, though. Yes, I paid more attention to the road and what not, but I didn't feel anywhere near as nervous as I would have in a car. Strange, that, but whatever. Rode through a couple of patches of semi-deep, standing water while biking down to Doug's, through the successive waves of rain, but nothing major. Today on the way back, however, was beaucoup evidence of flooding. For one, Rock Creek Parkway was closed. This road which always has plenty of traffic on it, even at eleven at night and beyond, was dead. I could hear birds, and no traffic noise. That was bizarre. Neat, but bizarre. I eventually hopped up onto the road once I realized we could do so (people were running on this normally busy road - it was marvelous!) and took that the rest of the way home. Got back, cleaned up, slew monsters for a while on Diablo II, then got off my butt and zipped down to City Bikes to get some toe clips and an under-seat gear bag (don't have any tools for it, yet, but I'm getting there). Decided, after attaching the toe clips, that I should try them out before I have to ride to work in them again, so I got all geared up and went out for a ride, taking full advantage of the still-closed-to-car-traffic Parkway. Got down, turned around, hit the lap button on my hear rate monitor and suddenly realized that: a) I could now recall the lap info successfully to record it; b) I hadn't done a "long" workout this weekend at all; and c) I could try a "brick" workout (bike then run). So I zipped out on the bike, zipped back, ran into the building, deposited the bike and some clothing, switched to running gear and back out the door for a short run. It was so much fun! I loved that! I'm a tad sore at the moment, but it'll pass; I'll do a short run tomorrow instead of something hard, not knowing how the progress will be on cleaning up the trail down through Rock Creek Park yet. Better to give them an extra day. Though I'll miss the empty road. We should have flash flooding more often (not!). ArchivesRode back from Doug's; Brick workout |
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Entry the Three Hundred and Forty Third15 August 2001 Process I discovered last night that I don't have to do KSAs for my application for the one Big Government Agency where I'd like to work. So my application just got a whole lot easier. I've collected the stuff, have to fill out the one form on the computer tomorrow morning, pick the writing samples, and send them in to them. A big step toward getting the heck out of my office. Wish me luck! Archives |
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Entry the Three Hundred and Forty Fourth19 August 2001 Outta Town Final bit of exercise done, packing mostly done, about to do bills, arranged the train tickets (they forgot to give me a confirmation number, but I got one), checked the hotel, synched the Palm, etc. Almost ready to hop out of town, but not quite. Work is sending me to Manhattan for a week (anyone in the area who would like to meet me, drop me a line and let me know. I'll have limited net access while there, but I'll try and check my mail evening and morning. I am looking forward to the trip - field office visits are always fun 'cause you get to see first hand some of the problems you've been advising people on fixing. I realize I forgot to explain a government speak acronym in my last entry after a reader asked me about it. KSAs are "Knowledge, Skills and Abilities," a rather useless and redundant addition to many applications for federal employment. They ask you to draft these meaningless pages about how your "communications skills" are up the par and the like. *shudder* Thank heaven the Big Government Agency I applied to last week didn't require those, or I'd still be working on the application. Feh. Ran about 75 minutes yesterday, while by today's bike ride says it was about 13 kilometers or so. Very nice run, and I'm not terribly sore today (that was the other purpose of the ride - flush out the muscles with an easy workout). Let's hope I can get on a treadmill up in NYC. As usual, I'll be posting to my LiveJournal as often as I can, so look there for updates during the week. Until then, gentle reader! ArchivesShort ride to gauge yesterday's run |
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Entry the Three Hundred and Forty Fifth26 August 2001 Back again Back in town and glad to have my own bed again! Hotel beds suck elephant butt, period. I could not seem to get a decent night's sleep there at all, and it was a mess, to say the least. Forgot melatonin, too, which was a mistake. Oh well! Am back, am semi-rested and getting ready to hit the sack here soon. NYC was fun. Loved the traffic (hey, I didn't have to drive it!), loved the pace, loved the delicatessens, loved the people. It was just a very good, if very tiring trip. The evaluation went well, very few problems in my area of concern. I am glad I always stay through the Saturday, though, as I got a good chance to sit and talk with some of the managers after the fact, which was very enlightening. Have to learn these management tricks somewhere, ya know. :-) Enjoyed being with our office up there immensely. Got back to Union Station without incident yesterday, met Doug, then got a wonderfully mentally unbalanced cabbie. He asked for the fare up front, saying I looked like someone he'd had who had refused to pay, so he got exactly $.05 in a tip, and only got that because I had only a quarter and two dimes to pay the $8.40. He stopped several times at odd locations, almost ran over a woman trying to "stop to let her cross the street" (he did stop, but only after aiming for her and then stopping suddenly). It was a bizarre ride, to say the least. First time I've ever had a problem with a DC cabbie, and the first complaint I will be writing to the DC cab commission. Got home after that, hung the suit back in the closet, went and got dinner, then off to my friend Brian's party. Stayed there til 11-something, then home to sleep until 10 this morning. Just back from dinner with Lawrence up in Bethesda. That was a trip, leaving the city and being among suburbanites. They scare me sometimes (suburbanites). ;-) It was a lovely dinner of middle eastern cuisine, which is always fun. It was good to see and talk with the regular men in my life today (I called Jack on the way to the grocery store, post-brunch). I've missed them a lot, and was good to see and/or talk with them. Archives |
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Entry the Three Hundred and Forty Sixth27 August 2001 Shaved Legs and Local Politics 01/8/27 8:32 a.m. Maybe I've been reading too many biking magazines and books, but for some odd reason I shaved my legs this morning. I was trimming things up with my electric shaver, post-facial shave, when I just kept going with the little trimmer. I did not follow up with the regular shaver, nor did I take a blade to them, but I got the vast majority of the hair off my legs, just before heading out on the awful run I had this morning. They feel fine, but they look, well, odd. Suddenly you can see how truly, truly pale my legs are, without even the small bit of fuzz I had to blunt the blinding whiteness. It's also strange not having anything between my legs and my pants. I can feel every little brush of cloth up against my skin, at once awkward and yet vaguely erotic, like the caress of a light, but unknown hand across my calves and thighs. Not an unpleasant feeling, certainly, but a new one that I'm still trying to process. This also produced a considerable amount of hair that had to be disposed of, and not down the bathtub drain; heaven knows the poor drain has enough problems without having the equivalent of a small kitten run down its ancient pipes. That took a few moments, gathering up the remains of almost twenty nine years worth of leg hair in order to flush it all down the toilet. I suppose we men, not normally burdened with society's expectation that it is somehow correct and attractive to shave our legs, don't go around thinking about what a pain in the ass it must be to have to endure this on a regular basis. Sure, most of us shave our faces, but that doesn't compare to the much larger amount of surface area on the legs, not to mention the fact that you can see your face (unlike, say, the underside of your knees or thighs). ... 01/8/27 6:34 p.m. Totally forgot about the ANC Task Force Meeting this evening until I got to work this morning, so I'm on my way back down to Judiciary Square now for that. So much for a quiet evening at home. :-) Should be a trip, there's still a faction that wants to revisit the ANC boundaries to which we tentatively agreed at the last meeting. And I actually agree with them because the agreed upon plan means splitting one neighborhood among three different ANCs, not exactly useful for fostering the kind of cooperation that neighborhood needs to grow and develop. ... Spoke with Madam at lunch about shaving legs. She seemed much enamored of the liquid depilatory method (a.k.a. Nair, et al.), extolling the virtues of the newest versions of those formulas. We shall see. It's all academic unless I decide this is something I want to continue to do, so... So far day one has not been bad. No itching, no scratching, not terribly uncomfortable. Hopefully this will be the case tomorrow as well. ... 01/8/27 9:27 p.m. Whoever said, "If you want to see blood, wait until they redraw the ANC and single member districts," sure wasn't kidding. Wow. As for myself, I'm in a new SMD under any of the plans put forward tonight (my current Commissioner will be in a different one because my particular census block is just the right size to be an SMD of its own) so any which way it goes I'll be running for office next fall. We actually adjourned until Thursday, at which point I think I'm going to need a drink at happy hour. Fascinating process, though. People get so passionate about their neighborhoods and what not. I am glad the chairwoman took my suggestion and adjourned the meeting until Thursday, though. That group was not ready to vote on anything. What a mess this is going to be on Thursday. I love it. :-) ... Got home, post-meeting, worked on the legs again to try and get more of the stubble off (hey, if you're going to do something, do it well, ya know). Had a lovely conversation via cell phone with CE about DC politics on the way home. Very enlightening conversation. 'Tis good to stay up on things in other parts of the city. But anyway, now is time for sleep! Archives |
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Entry the Three Hundred and Forty Seventh29 August 2001 Fire 11:43 p.m. - they've just let us back into the building, about 45 minutes after the fire alarm went off. I had just gotten myself to bed, later than I wanted to, when the alarms started going off, just as they have multiple times in the past. Hell, the first two weeks I lived here the things went off every night at 12:15 a.m. Ugh. So I lay in bed, listening to the insistent clang, clang, clang of the ancient (1950s) bells throughout the building going off. Then I heard the sirens, hopped out of bed to listen for them and watch out the window. As I saw them come near the building them stop, though the lights still flickered outside, I knew it was real this time. Joy. I flipped on a light, looked for the pants I had on today, threw on a shirt and sandals, grabbed my wallet and keys just as someone started pounding on all the doors on my hall, yelling out that there was smoke on the hall and that we had to get out. I stayed calm (all this without any sleeping pills, too), walked out, locked the door, then at a normal pace down the hall as I watch people scrambling outside through smoke that was starting to fill the hallways. All those years of fire safety videos began to replay in my head as I made my way to the exit. Once outside I could smell that this was a trash fire, something quickly confirmed by the firemen's radios blaring out from the two engines parked out the side of the building. People came out in all states of dress, though all had pants and shirts on. Some wore pajamas, but all were clothed. Children, pets and other precious belongings came into view as I walked through the lot and over to sit on the low wall past the cars. Most people hadn't grabbed a lot, but some had backpacks and the like full of things. The pets were mostly well behaved, likely sensing the distress of their owners. The children were likewise well behaved. We weren't outside for long, it seemed they got into the trash chute and put the thing out pretty quickly, but it took a while to clear the smoke from the hallways to the point they'd let us back in. As people filed back in, clutching their belongings, most turned to the stairs to go up or down to their apartments, I alone went down the hall where I live, directly across from the outside door. The trash smoke smell still lingered in the hall, and I fear it will linger for a few days more outside in the corridors, a potent reminder of the mess caused when some idiot threw something down the trash chute, forcing us all to wait outside and fear for the safety of our home. Archives |
