Category: Uncategorized

Connection 0 of 3: Overview

I’m feeling disconnected. Not just out of proper context, as I had been when I went to visit in Toronto, circa 3 or 4 years ago, but nearly lacking completely in context. This is both new and … not.

The last time I haven’t been so context free since I moved to chicago the first time, and to college. In college, there was nobody I knew. I got excited when I spotted the scary guy who’d ‘hosted’ me over a sleeping bag weekend, and the homo dancer dude whose floor I slept on that same trip (Lysander?). Neither really remembered me. I built a social life from the ground up, like most college students do. It’s expected, most people have the same experience, and so it’s comparatively easy.

In chicago, the only people I knew in the area were , , and . I signed up with front runners (gay running club, with which I’d been affiliated in pittsburgh; it has chapters all over the place) and the gay swim team. Through , who I met from frontrunners, I became acquainted with (and signed up with) the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus. I met Stephen Starkey at Motorola, and Glenn-Paul through gay.com (hey, yet another reason to swear off). Most of the rest of my social life was either conducted through these groups, with these individuals, or with people I met quite randomly.

This didn’t make for the deepest of roots in chicago. So now I’m feeling disconnected or shallowly connected. I’m going to examine this in a series of 3 posts over the next couple days: the first devoted to family; the second devoted to friends; and the third devoted to sex and romantic relationships. Each of them promises to be fairly lengthy. For now, I’m off to the apple store to bitch about my iPod and my unusable cd-rw/dvd player drive, as well as to get some blades.

end of summer fast approaching

I am more than halfway through my internship. And still thinking seriously about taking it as a full time job, albeit, trying to manuever a position in sf, as opposed to chgo. Wacky.

I have about two weeks between my final day of work (Aug 19th) and my expected time in austin for labor day weekend (sep 1). I also have a 4 day weekend in early august (either aug 6-9 or aug 11-14). I want to visit sf, for my multitude of friends in the area, and also spend some time with in austin before partaking of the loungerat geekfest. But, I feel I may have more time on my hands than I can reasonably occupy with these endeavors. Any suggestions? (other than finishing responsible, perhaps even important, tasks like overdue final papers and updating websites)

Sadly, europe is too expensive for this year.

fun evening with pharmboi

at work:

  • be reassured that I am loved by supervisor.
  • engage in office business chatter with coworker (same level as my supervisor), where he gets huffy about being confused with the other gay manager type (I’d actually confused him with my suburban mom supervisor, but oh well. Remind me never to use the phrase ‘soccer mom’ around her.)
  • send email to coworker discussing being gay in the office.
  • spend 2 hours with low level anxiety about reception of email.
  • talk to coworker in his office. He is friendly and complimentary. He says that I “have balls” for inviting the office to a pride parade event (actually, I’m easily pressured by a younger senior analyst, but leaving that aside). I share with him the frustration of surgical unhappiness + travel. He is understanding, sympathetic, and amused. I’m pretty sure he thinks I rock. I’m also pretty sure he wants me to come back to chicago field office. He did show me a shirtless pic of him and his boyfriend. I hope I look half so good when I get to be that age. Hell, I wish I looked half so good now. I still wanna check out the chicago field office.
  • realize what a pain in the ass meeting minutes can be to write up. Particularly when it’s more ‘summary of meeting events reworded to be more easily understood’ than a blow by blow of the meeting’s content.

evening before pharmboi:

  • check out chicago fitness center, minimalist, a bit out of the way, but affordable. ($300 for a year, if I go that route on my eventual return, $60/month for straight up)
  • check out gym with “tan” in its name, next to whole foods. Offers little more, way more crowded, marginally more accessible, $50 more / month. Fat fuckin chance.
  • whole foods shop-o-rama
  • home, shower, etc.
  • look in mirror and realize I have lovehandles.
    • bump up urgency of gym membership and rollerblade purchases

With pharmboi:

  • Mama Desta’s (must find better ethiopian in this town)
  • ‘milk’shakes at chicago diner
  • smokefree drinking at sidetracks, where he introduced me to midori sours, (from my limited drink vocabulary, I selected long island iced tea to follow) and then the world of podcasts.

Now home. Sleep soon. Work tomorrow.

New personals ad

Seeking: dorky gay guy. Must be articulate, supportive, and intellectually inclined, some competitiveness okay. Gentleness and sensitivity strongly preferred. Ambition and environmental consciousness desired. Endearing awkardness a plus. Fondness for scifi, comic books, strategy and/or roleplaying games (board, tabletop, and/or computer), On again/off again or more frequent gym habit, familiarity with computers, particularly open source, also pluses.

C’mon a guy can dream, right? If you know such a person, in chicago, minneapolis, or possibly le bay area (assuming I get offered a job with gao, and swing a transfer), please, do arrange to introduce us.

[ETA: in retrospect I’m thinking the “musts” could use a “must be able to handle complex syntax with grace, see below”.]


This poll has been brought to you by the letters S, C, and U. Please, do not attempt to take it seriously, do not operate heavy machinery afterwards, consult your PCP if vomitting persists.

Latter Days

I’ve been wanting to see Latter Days for awhile now. I could swear I remember recommending it. Or maybe disrecommending it… Anyway what better time to watch it, then when I’m flying so that I can distract myself from irrational anxieties? I think the movie rocks. It may even be in the lower echelon of my favorite 10. Probably not the top ten best movies ever, but I had a number of themes I found very appealing. The skin factor gave me a moment or two of discomfort playing it on the plane next to a mother whose son was sitting just on the other side of her, but oh well.

Latter Days is the story of a mormon missionary and a gay waiter tramp. boy meets boy, and… *spoilers*