Author: cheerfulchaotic

Here there be Spoilers

Last night, I saw the two towers at midnight, vaguely guilty feeling about not plugging away with Ro at the code for work for his presentation foo. But oh well, I so would not have motivated myself to do work.

Dinner was cool, the movie was good, though not nearly so good as fellowship, imho. I genuinely liked the editing they did for the first one. This one amended many important bits and pieces that made me cranky. No spoilers. But bleh.

Tonight, wc3 with where I beat him in what ended up being a fairly close contest, then we both got spanked by the computer. (me make bad orc). I went to the gaming thing in lake merrit (or where ever it is) again. I enjoyed myself, and met this cool couple, who drove me home. Played the transportation network with the lady last week. And flirted with the gentleman somewhat subtly (I hope) before I noticed the wedding ring. =) In discussing ex-roommates whilst they drove me home, he suggested that a particular situation with my first actor roommate (first roomie in chicago) was about worrying about people thinking we were a gay couple. That gave me momentary pause, then I said that since it was in boystown, that probably wasn’t an issue, and while we were both gay, so, so not together [hey, , do you remember Jeremy?]. Didn’t seem to prompt so much as a blink, though they might have thereafter shown an increased interest in conversation.

Also thinking of chicago reminds me of Nicholas Alan Dickey. I wish I still had pictures of him. He was pretty. And we had a really cool dynamic, when it got going. Ah well, some things not meant to be.

Much interesting conversation. Home and long chat w/ , need sleep soon.

So, something that shows up often (for instance, in the voyager episode I just watched, and the evolutionary viability of societies, blah, blah, blah), is the question of the good of the individual v the good of the society. In many ways, serving one serves the other. But at times, they do come in to conflict. But where they do, societies favoring the good of the whole tend to out survive those favoring the good of the individual. This is not good news.

I started off the day by buzzing most of my hair off. Didn’t do too bad a job. Ro called, to say he had stuff to do in the city, so work later in the day. No prob. Hang out, fooling around on simon’s laptop. Eventually, I played a game of wc3 with Simon’s Brother Jake against two easy computers. We got trashed. Walked to Ro’s. Met him at corner while he was parking. Talked about my transcontinental biking plan, and a possible reasonable amendment to it, wherein I stop off at various intentional living communities on the way (as well as with friends and families). Exploring alternative living structures. Maybe I could even write a book. Hm…. =)

Lunch blehs. Not much on euclid that’s doing it for me these days. Need to find something new there. Or, more sensibly, need to cook stuff before hand. I’ll get up early tomorrow, and cook lentil stew, yeah, that’s the ticket, lentil stew.

Slogged through more work stuff. The insights I gained working on it on Saturday (by myself, in, admittedly, a not terribly structured sort of way) appear to have collapsed into mush. Insert noises of whiny frustration here. But still progress was made.

Back to my place, hooked Ro up with lj. Power cord from Tom finally arrived. Stupid UPS, YAY TOM! I have my clunky old laptop back online. No more work today. Bad me. <duck head in shame>. Nap on couch. Off to the clinic to get info on another training for me and Jason.

Afterwards, I headed off to the YMCA w/ Ro, who bought me a membership (I owe him half. He’s treating this like an employment benefit). Yay Ro. Worked out separately for a couple hours. Then we went off to the White Horse. Karaoke night. Lots of the younger GMHC medics were there. Lots of other pretty guys too.

I’m generally awkward in bars, and bad about approaching people. While at the bar, though, it seemed I kept ending up chatting with Ro.

Tomorrow, my plans are for much work and a trip to see the Two Towers with da roomies, and some friends. When informed of this plan, Ro was interested. Which is cool, hooked him up with the info.

I like Ro. He’s a great guy. His presence has had a big influence on my life out here. I like spending time with him, we have alot in common, and we have great communication. But I need to spend time with other people. And neither of our romantic lives are prospering at present. <shrug>.

Social initiative, from me, that’ll happen.

Is that a bird? A plane? Why, no, it’s a pig!

Today was my final exam (written, multiple choice) & full mock (blood draw, physical exam, oral swab, etc). I passed both. Then I came back. Got yelled at gently for not being willing to do exams & stuff. Started off helping the swamped paperworker, moved to giving results over the phone, then in person, and finally saw 4 appointments (supervised, and my supervisor did the blood draws).

It was actually cool stuff. I liked it, had fun, saw some very interesting people.

But I’m almost done with classes. Bonus classes include every cool thing we could cram into 2 hours that will make you an amazing medic, and counseling skills.

So, in truth, just one more week. Hmmm. How strange is that going to be. I won’t have a substitute for a life on friday evenings. =)

So, last night, post training, which wasn’t especially useful, I wanted to go to a party in the city, that one of the other medics was throwing. My first choice in rides canceled, nobody else at the training wanted to go, except for Russell, who said “come with me to the Bear’s Lair (UC Berkeley on campus bar), we’ll only be there a few minutes, then we’ll go.” If by “few minutes” he meant “two hours” and by “go” he meant “not go”, then he was completely correct. More likely he was just being his ego-centric self, and wanted me along for the attention I could be milked for. Then I later remembered ‘s and ‘s housewarming was last night too. Conveniently bart-able if I’m not mistaken. Bleh.

It occurred to me as I was pinching my fat, pre-shower, that I probably am in better shape than most. And that I likely have as much muscle as I have ever had. I did weigh more during my days on the swim team (by no more than 10 pounds), but I do wonder how much of that was fat (going to an all you can eat place and stuffing yourself until you’re choking back reflexive gagging will do that to you). I didn’t have a six pack then, either, but I didn’t really care about that nearly as much then. I was concerned with my body mostly in terms of what it meant I was able to do in the pool, and later, in the dojo.

Maybe I wasn’t thinking aesthetically, because I never took the notion that someone might think me attractive seriously. At least, not a guy. Now I find myself thinking of my body most often as a visual lure for attracting men, and of its apparent (to me) flaws in this regard.

This is a terrible state of affairs.

Biking helps somewhat with this. As does the occasional trip to the gym. Also want to get back into wall-climbing and get the wheels, axles, bearings, & brakes on my skates replaced (not that they’d be doing me alot of good in the rainy season. Hmmmm.) Not because they produce major changes in my body, but because they give me other criteria to judge myself by, and other goals to shoot for.

I guess what I meant by ‘social technology’ was ‘non-materially based technology’. Language, for instance, is a communicational tool, something that can be adopted by basically anyone (at a very significant time and effort cost of the adopting party). It is commonly spread, upgrades, blah, blah, blah. If you don’t like my terminology, offer something better.

Going online in search of human connection is like becoming an archbishop to meet girls.

Another online quiz that has me dead to rights.

my sexual appeal