Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

Admittedly, I’m not the biggest music geek on the planet. Mostly I use my old iPod to have some background noise at work, and the shuffle to do the same on transit, neither of which offer the highest quality sound, either out of the iHome speakers at work or the old iPod buds.

So imagine my delight at the detail I can hear in the sound from the iPhone’s buds. It’s a marked improvement over the other devices.

Of course, the fact that I’m sitting in my otherwise quiet apartment might have something to do with that, too.

Still figuring out the bluetooth headset. When I’ve managed to use it (I somehow unpaired it earlier?) it’s sounded good on my end, and haven’t had complaints from the family members who’ve called today. The form factor is nice – it’s not huge, and doesn’t feel like it’s going to fall out if I move around. And seeing the charge level for the thing on the phone’s screen is a nice touch.

Other than that today’s been boring as all get out. I still feel under the weather; it feels like I’m fighting a cold. Napping was on and off, and did some reading (finished a book from the pile! One down – five gazilion to go!). Prolly an early night, try to get some more sleep tonight, and back to work tomorrow. I can’t handle another day at home, I’ll go stir crazy.

I feel like I should feel better on a day when I mailed off a check to pay off a student loan (how tempting it was to write on the check: “From hell’s heart I stab at thee. For hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”), but I’m just sort of blah. Did manage to get more sleep last night, but still mildly restless. No run this morning, but planning on doing one in the heat this evening instead. Allergies haven’t helped any, either (snot much? thanks).

Work, after being all “ZOMGWTFBBQ!” for the past couple of days was relatively quiet today, with fewer instances of forehead slapping than I’ve had most of this week. I am very, very glad it’s the weekend, though. I don’t think I can handle any more (work) stupidity right now.

Finally cooling off in here now that the thunderstorms are rolling through. I can’t really hear them over the dishwasher, though. It was a ‘clean the apartment and do laundry night’ for me, hence the dishwasher running. The dining table looks nicer without so much crap on it, as does my desk. Amazing what actually filing the stuff in the ‘to file’ pile will do for the place.

Now if I could just make a dent in the ‘to read’ pile.

Good bike ride this morning. I’m hoping the weather will be relatively nice so I can run in the morning. While I’ve been biking a lot more, and finally getting back to swimming, I’ve neglected my running over the past week, which is probably a contributor to the foul mood from yesterday (which was gone after a good night’s sleep and the ride this morning).

Popped by the bike shop to pick up supplies. Sadly their choices of Shot Bloks was very, very limited, so I only picked up a couple. I’ll have to pop back out somewhere else to pick up more. Still haven’t been able to try the margarita flavored ones, but I wasn’t too keen on the pina colada ones. They were okay, nowhere near as gross as vanilla clif shots were, but not a favorite. I prefer the black cherry or cran-razz flavors so far. Oh, and the bike shop was able to take my old bike tubes to recycle them. Yay! Better than dumping them in a landfill, for sure. Glad I remember to take them with me to work this morning in anticipation of the shopping trip.

Swim tomorrow, then maybe dinner in town with BC and some friends. Have to behave as I have a long ride on Saturday, around 4 hours or so.

Clearly feeling more than a little bit of volunteer burnout today. I know it’ll pass, but at the moment I could take the three organizations I’m currently doing work for and happily pitch them all directly into the Potomac. I think this always happens the days I have meetings at the cult co-op. Those can be so incredibly contentious, over the smallest things, that they’re frequently quite unpleasant to sit through. Makes me wish I had already picked up how to knit, as at least that could occupy my hands while I listened to them drone on.

Got to see BC last night for dinner and a horror flick. Whoever set up the arms at the theater so they could be pulled up between the seats and out of the way is a genius, as that made cuddling during the movie all the better.

And to whoever decided to start the as-yet-unreleased new Nicole Kidman flick with images of a space shuttle breaking up on reentry, may you die a horrible, painful death. Like any of us needed to see that happening again. Watching the first shuttle accident live on TV in Junior High was bad enough, having to help with post-cleanup efforts from the second one in the early 2000s was worse. Seeing it on the screen was not pleasant. So, yeah, thanks for the memories, asshat.

Oh, and the smell of pot and incense is back. I’ve placed a call with the local police lieutenant to see if they can do anything about it if I report the smell when it’s back. Not entirely hopeful, but wanted to know my options there. I’ve had it with these folks, and with this smell.

My stomach decided to misbehave (damned lunch burrito) so I cancelled the swim and came home instead. Once here I decided I’d had enough of the crap on my desk and dining room table, so that’s all mostly cleaned up now. Caught up on mail (but not on magazines – oy), shredded what needed to be shredded, prepped other stuff to file, and mostly made the place fall into order again, which definitely helped bring the mood up from the stomach and lack of swimming.

I need to do the same in the bedroom, but I’m holding off until tomorrow or Friday because one of those two days my new dressers are arriving. I couldn’t say for certain because I have a meeting one of the two days with my deputy general counsel and his schedule’s somewhat in the air, so one day or the other I have the meeting, meaning the other day I get my furniture. It’s worth it because the meeting will be another step closer to killing off a major pain-in-my-ass project, but I really, really want to get my clothes off the floor. Their presence there has been driving me nuts, ever since I got rid of the other chest of drawers. Not that I regret getting it down to my parents and niece, but the floor stuff has got to go. Then I can do a goodwill donation run and get rid of unused clothes and be much better off.

And perhaps even think about finally having people over in numbers larger than one.

Despite what I’ve done it still doesn’t feel completely together yet, though. I guess my expectations are still high. Doesn’t help when I go to friends’ places and they just look like someone actually thought out a plan and coordinated what they were doing. I’m starting to get there, but it’s a slow process on my budget, and it’s an area where I’m feeling the more hummingbird side of my patience (as opposed to the buddha-in-the-wilderness side). It’s frustrating, the waiting and slowly choosing stuff. I want it all done and together NOW, but it doesn’t happen that way. At least some order is coming out of the chaos, and that’s a good thing.

Was up at about 3 this morning because the pervasive odor of tobacco smoke had filled my bedroom. The air unit in there was the culprit, and the smell ended up driving me from the bedroom entirely (the air unit in the living room? no smell whatsoever). I’ve smelled a light odor like this from that unit before, but never this bad. It did eventually die down and I went to bed again around 5:30 or so, for another 2 hours. Not the way I want to be awakened, nor is it terribly conducive to being all that productive today.

Posted to the cult’s email list and it found that this has happened before in other units, and building maintenance can put some sealant around the pipes to prevent it from happening again. Thankfully they’re in the process of doing preventative maintenance on the units this week, but I’ve asked them to bump me up on the schedule and get that done sooner than the Thursday date they have for me.

Disgusting.

So, I am be-couched (be-sofaed?). In any case, I have seating.

An orgy of cleaning followed an announcement on Thursday that the delivery guy would be here today (as opposed to two more weeks from now, which was the original delivery date!). The place actually looks much, much closer to what I want it to look like, with all the stuff off the dining table (including the dust). I’m sure I’ll get pictures up later.

Anyway, he arrived, in a mini-van with my couch strapped to the top in a big box. The thing is large enough that we couldn’t fit into the elevator, so up the stairs it was. So glad I live on the 3rd and not the 8th floor. Assembly was easy – screw on the legs and flip it over.

I’ve found a taker for the old futon couch, but that won’t happen until tomorrow or Tuesday, so it’s taking up some room. Thankfully I have the room for it, without needing to trip over it every time I go to the kitchen, but I’ll be glad when it’s gone.

I do need to get art or a mirror or something for this wall, though. The bookshelf used to be here, and that obviated the need for anything, but now that it’s just the nice, low sofa, there’s a big lot of plain wall there that is crying out for something. Paint, a painting, something.

Otherwise there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot else going on this weekend for me. The time shift was hell on my system for some reason, so not a lot got done this week aside from work and the cult’s board elections. Hopefully this next week will be better.

Spent a good chunck of this morning with a splitting headache, both from physical sources (lack of sleep, the sore), and work itself (another Big Government Agency is proposing something that I can’t find any legal basis for doing). An overly heavy lunch and some advil helped somewhat, but not completely. Was very happy to leave, though it was a tad late.

The newbie program proceeds apace. Having a weekly conference call is helping tremendously this year to keep us focused and going (and to spread the work). I think we’re doing much better than last year at this.

I rearranged the living room furniture in anticipation of the new couch. Yeah, I have several weeks yet, but I wanted to experiment before the thing was actually here. I’m not entirely convinced this set up works, but we’ll see. The books from the one bookshelf are still all over the floor, so it’s hard to tell how it’ll look when it’s all together.

After deciding I needed to keep myself out of the house as much as possible yesterday, I did just that. Wandered up to Dupont to get coffee (had used the last of it to caffeinate myself yesterday morning), and lunch at City Lights. Devoured two plates of steamed dumplings (was starving by that point), then off to Adams Morgan.

Popped into Skynear, looked at several pieces of furntire, and bought a couch.

Yeah, was just going to window shop, but said “screw it” and got the couch. I’d been eyeing it off and on for a couple of years now, so I screwed up the courage and ordered it. Will come in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I’ve got to rearrange funiture again.

Shopped a bit more, popped in to se a friend, then home. Tried to nap, didn’t work, so I hopped online. When I did, friends were setting up a dinner & a movie thing to see “300”, so I said sure, why not, and hopped out again. We met at a loud beer hall restaurant with a large selection of beers, a cousin to the Brickskeller here in DC. Several ciders with dinner (a very, very disappointing pasta – definitely a burger kinda place), then off to the movie, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I think they did a good job staying true to the roots of the story in the graphic novel in the way it was filmed. Very entertaining.

Then it was off to Remingtons for a couple more beers. Met several friends from gay.com, some of whom I’d not seen in years, some of whom I’d not met in person.  Headed home via Metro (15+ minute waits at each station), alone. Was fun, and social, and far, far too late to be out, as is witnessed by the cold sore this morning. All things in balance, and when you push too hard, too fast, you pay. I regret not an instant of it, it was far too much fun, and needed. Though I would prefer not to have the blemished lip, it, too, will fade, and balance will return.

Or, Why I’m Far Too Serious For This Shit

I’ve had folks ask me to help them with piercings, and they always describe how “hot” it’s going to be, and how much they want it, and what they want to do with it (and what they want me to do with it), etc. But I just can’t seem to get into “scene” space when having those discussions.

What runs through my head when someone says they want a piercing is not the finished product and how it’s going to look, but rather who to see to have it done, and how long the healing is going to take, and what safety precautions you have to take to protect both the piercing itself and the piercee in general, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum. Frankly, I think the folks who want to be pierced (permanently, as opposed to play piercing) as part of a scene are delusional. The flesh is not going to be ready for any sort of play, and it’s got to be protected against infection, which severely limits what can be done as part of the scene.

Having advised several folks on piercings in general, and PAs in particular, I’m always careful that they know things like how long it’s going to take to heal, what you should and should not do with it, immediate aftercare, etc. It’s a big deal to hack out a divot of flesh and put surgical steel in your body in its place; it’s a wound, and has to be treated as such.

I’m certainly not qualified to pierce someone, nor would I try. And my favorite piercer here in DC is as straight as they come, so I’m not going to inflict some overly horny gay man who’s popping boners left and right as he’s getting ready to pop in the metal on him. Not that I think he’s not seen it all, but I think I’d be embarassed as all if it happened while hand holding the piercee.

All of which makes me far, far too serious when someone just wants to talk about how hot it would be to get pierced somewhere.