Surreptitious Opinionation

It started with the 20-40 people who got on the train where I did, who produced noise levels such that I could barely hear the L noises from inside the car. Those of you who’ve been to chicago know that this is truly a feat. For those of you who haven’t think a slightly-lower-volume-than-normal gay club. If neither of these mean anything to you, it was really fucking loud. And very irksome. By the time I was getting off the train I was thinking “If I could slit every one of your throats without consequence, I would”. I was cranky.

I got into a conversation with my mother the other day, discussing me and noise, and she said that I’ve always displayed aversion to loud noises. It puts an interesting perspective on me almost completely losing my temper on 2 2/3 years ago. It doesn’t say anything about the few similar events I can recall. Anyway.

Then there’s whoever the dude was that left his laundry to mildew in the washing machine. Meaning I had to put it in his basket. But he’d left it so long that he’d stunk up the washing machine as well. Bleh!

More positive spin on life later.

So, for years, I’ve been operating under don’t-ask-don’t-tell at work. And I’ve told plenty. I’ve manipulated social situations so that the straight people wouldn’t know I was hinting, but the gay people would.

So, the older, obviously homo dude in our office dropped the “partner” hint in front of me and my fellow health care intern a week ago. I tried to play off that, when we were talking to one another at an office social/food thing. One of us fumbled the pass, and he got huffy instead of the hint.

To clear this up, I asked if he and his partner would like to join me for the chicago gay men’s chorus pride concert this week, in email. I was also semi-serious. It’s lame going alone. And he seems like a pleasant guy.

Well, he has plans for pride weekend. But he referred me to another office person who was arranging plans for pride. This individual is encouraging me to be the spokesman for whatever office contingent we can gather together for the parade. Like, mail the office, telling them how to find the rest of us for parade spectation purposes. I’m a little reluctant, but I think it’s mostly because of entrenched habit. Broadcasting like that in my _professional_ life feels a little weird. Professional/personal separation. Not that it keeps others from discussing spouses and children. *shrug* I’m already remarkable for my veganism. I could be the most interesting intern they have for awhile. =) And my boss is at something of a loss for how to keep me busy. Yay for high productivity.

Oh, and 80% of interns get job offers. Sweet.

Another chicago diner meal. I will _not_ replicate my debt experience of years past. Some WoW time with

Then he buzzed my hair. It was getting long. I like the do. Nice & low maintenance. And took a pic. It’ll be good to have something remotely current.

That’s all. Beddybye.

I sweat the little stuff too much.

Saturday:

Gymnastics went better this time. I did manage to torque my shoulder a bit, but I was doing front handsprings, back handsprings (w/spotter), and some front tucks with fair degrees of success. It was kinda funny when flubbed a front tuck from the tumble track and went running off the mat (due to excessive momentum), dodging so that I went right between the ‘coach’ and the gymnast he was currently working with. No one was injured, but I was embarrassed

I met and showed him where the only gaming store in town that I know how to find easily is (without showering between). I purchased a copy of the eberron setting, and have ideas. ‘s idea was a “militantly gay paladin”. I may pursue this. Particularly a dragonmarked gay paladin. I did also find the idea of a warforged artificer intriguing. But we’ll see about that on tuesday.

and I went to the chicago diner after that. My first trip since april or something. I haven’t gone in no small part because the last time i was there, I left my number for a waiter again. Partially to minimize the chance of being recognized and remembered, and partially to deter myself from repeating what is becoming an unfortunate habit, I’ve held back. Well, that, and the place is flippin’ expensive. But I did discover tasty vegan stuffed mushrooms, and Robbie discovered the tasty vegan chocolate chip cookie dough milk shake. Maybe the food there doesn’t deserve as much abuse as I heap on it (even if it’s not worth the money they ask for it).

Briefly hung out with & roommates.

Went home. Played a little WoW. Participated in the backyard grilling with Mitch (the roomie) & the guys downstairs. Afterwards, they watched Night of the Living Dead or whatever it is. Between dinner and movie, Troy, the force for celibacy in the downstairs relationship, and a bush voter in november and I got into a polite, long-winded, and very odd political discussion.

Sunday:

I saw “Enron: The smartest guys in the room”. I left feeling not as informed as I’d hoped to, and not terribly entertained. It was a matinee, and I still felt ripped off. Why can’t all documentaries be like “The Corporation”?

Plans:

Back to a week of work tomorrow. Maybe line dancing on monday night, definitely suburban gaming experience on tuesday night. Probably gymnastics on thursday night. Supposed to work on arranging post or pre pride picnic things with coworker for next week. It’s odd to think this, but I’m not sure if he’s gay. I’m kinda suspecting he’s not. I think I’m going to buy tickets for the chorus show on saturday.

Also, as a frustrating sidenote, I may not be able to make it to ‘s wedding due to time and fiscal constraints. I plan on checking for esavers that week (this being chicago, that may actually get me somewhere). Otherwise, I will likely head down to southern illinois to visit the relatives that I flaked on over memorial day weekend. Heh.

Oh yeah, and at the end of the summer, I kinda want to go to europe. The places that caught my attention were Amsterdam and Copenhagen. My problem is that the only person I know from having met in person that I know is living in Europe lives in germany. And I haven’t talked to him in years. (he moved from chicago to germany as I was moving from chicago to pittsburgh). And my pure livejournal acquaintances (, , and ) in europe are not conveniently located. =) Plus, I’m thinking of squeezing this in to a time frame such that it wouldn’t really fit, unless I rescheduled my departure date from the gao to a week earlier. hmmmmm. I know I have a few classmates in geneva for the summer…

Movies I wanna see, in the order I’ll likely see them:

• Enron: the smartest guys in the room (seeing it tomorrow at the near-noon matinee)
• Howl’s moving castle
• Madagascar
• Batman Begins
• hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy

Additionally, on the “not currently out” list, i want to see

• fantastic 4
• the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe

Anyone want to join me on these expeditions? Suggestions of other possibilities also welcome.

There is a distinction between wanting to make a difference with your life and wanting to devote your life to a cause. I think I fall more into the latter category. In Bujold’s Curse of Chalion, at the end, a distinction is drawn between saints and others, in that saints offer themselves without reservation to the gods of that fictional world. Or the story of Ruth, “whither you go, I will follow”. It’s hard and yet not, to give up the idea of being pivotal, of being important of being a mover and a shaker. Reading a story by about his life gave me a bit of pause. I’m a militant, but sentimental agnostic. Militant: I don’t know, and neither do you. Sentimental: I think there is a definite value to belief and it is a beautiful thing, even if I don’t believe it is necessarily right.

Today is the annual diversity potluck. I made “cheese”cake and hummus. I bought marionberry syrup and pita to go with.

I worked out for the first time in chicago last night. It felt soooo goood. I’m still in pretty good shape, even if I have gained a couple of fat pounds (I’m sure the cheesecake and hummus will help with that). I’ve started back into the morning protein shake game. And I’ve been playing chicken with my sleep schedule. Asleep after midnight, awake before 6. Sometimes well after midnight, usually a few minutes before 6 (when my alarm goes off). Probably also related the air traffic which flies right overhead, before 6.

I can’t keep this up, I do not want to become a zombie.

Plans for the next seven days include: ffx at ‘s place this evening. A seminar on green roofs at green tech u tomorrow evening. Touring a downtown gym & getting free passes on friday. On tuesday, I’ll be heading out to libertyville for my first gaming session in 4 years with dungeon master extraordinaire, , who will be playing instead of dm’ing for once. =)

None of this seems designed to introduce me to fun, intelligent, single gay men. I would very much like a summer fling. Any suggestions on how to go about this are welcome. Work time.

USA today article found on .

Right, so, fuel cells, particularly hydrogen fuel cells are “pollution free” only if you think hydrogen comes from the hydrogen fairy. Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) are a very different technology, massively (like two times) more efficient at producing electricity from hydrocarbons. And that still creates carbon dioxide. Just half as much per megawatt hour.

As for burning coal without producing CO2, whoever came up with that idea did very poorly in chemistry 101.

Nuclear waste still represents a huge disposal problem. As I understand it, not so much because enormous quantities of it are produced, but because it sticks around forever, leaks out of nearly any containment you put it in, and cannot be transported safely over long distances.

And carbon sequestration gets only 5% (or less) of the funding for such a hare-brained scheme.

Biomass, people. Biodiesel for your cars. The things needed to make it work are a cheap source of vegetable oil (see also research on high oil algaes) and work on the emissions from diesel engines. Not prevention of CO2, but catching the particulates which cause worse localized air conditions.

Biomass sucks the CO2 out of the air because it’s based on harvesting solar energy with plants.

Cheap, effective solar cells.

Energy conservation. And the best way to do that is to _raise energy prices_. Slap a giant tax on non-renewable energy. You want to stimulate innovation? You want to see change in this country? Make sure that it affects major corporate bottom lines, and watch them do a 180 on a dime.

So, work on that first. Then focus on the further-from-usability fusion. Because we’ll need it, too.

There are a few highlights I recall as a very young kid. Most of them are memories of being told about them, but I have a few actual memories of the time. We were bouncing around as my dad finished his medical degree, and mom finished her masters in social work. I was told a story about a friend of mine named Scotty, from when we lived in columbus. He was apparently my best friend. After we moved away, the feds caught up with Scotty’s dad, who had kidnapped him across state lines after having his custody removed in divorce proceedings. Scotty’s dad killed his son and then himself. Apparently, after we moved to perry county ohio, I asked mom when I’d get to see scotty again. This broke her heart. I recall none of it. Before that, while mom was finishing up her master’s degree in michigan, my best friend there ran over me with a bike (it was an accident, no serious damage was done). I remember that as a fact, but do not remember it as an event. In perry county, my best friend accused me of rape. That one I remember. Vividly. I remember it the way one remembers an old injury that hurts every time the weather changes. So much of that is indelibly engraved on my brain. It’s odd how I didn’t remember it for years. I think ‘denied’ would be more accurate than ‘didn’t remember’. Regardless, forgive me if I ever come across as a little cynical about the title of ‘best friend’.

Yeah, I was the nerdy kid in high school, and was even more ostracized in elementary school. elementary school

This is going well. My supervisor and I get along. I’ve done one of the parts that I was pretty nervous about, and received praise both from my mentor (ie “buddy”) and supervisor for it. It was a phone interview. I know that it’s kosher to discuss the questions that we’re working on, and that it’s not kosher to discuss intermediate results, or personal opinions or impressions of the work in any sort of a broadcast forum. I’m don’t think it’s cool to get in to much detail regarding methodology, or roadblocks here. So, it went well. And I’ll leave it at that. My excel spreadsheet work has been a breeze, though, given that I haven’t done much excel work before, I continuously found myself saying ‘Oh, if I did that, everything would have gone much more smoothly, and been easier to document’, so I have a patchwork of subtly different methodologies. I’ll clean that up on monday and turn it in.

And I like my job. It doesn’t have the burnout inducing anxiety and high that I got in my days of teaching. It’s way more social than I ever found my coding jobs to be. The pay’s pretty good too. My coworkers are very cool. For the most part, it’s a low-key, friendly group of genuine seeming people. I don’t know that I’ve ever had the “well, what if I were to stay with this job for the rest of my life?” thought that lasted into the second week of a job before.

It definitely has its boring and tedious bits (and I won’t even be doing the worst part, referencing, as an intern, though our little exercise in that didn’t seem as horrible as my coworkers made it out to be). This may very well be the first job I’ve put in truly full time hours for two weeks. Wacky. It’s sucking away my time. I’ve correspondingly reduced my default view and subscriptions here. It’d be nice if I had more of a life in chicago, but that’s a project I’ll be working on soon. Besides, I’m only here for another 2-3 months. A subject for another post, I suppose. =)

I’m not married to the job yet, but signs are promising.

made an intriguing post. And I want to get input from my subscribers and friends on this one: lesbian culture. What is it? Does it even exist? Why does the ‘l’ always come after the ‘g’ in glbt?

As I was boiling water for my pre-packaged couscous it occurred to me that another perspective on this could be that gay men are more herd animals than lesbians. That of course led to the question of why. The money thing does seem like a likely explanation. The idea of culture being defined by mass marketers is pretty sad, but may be more accurate than I like to think about.

I guess my point is to question the value of a unifying culture for homos. Alot of the same resources that define the common experiences of gay, american, men of at least the middle class are also available to lesbians. There is a lesbian floor on gay.com, is it much used? If not, is that actually a bad thing? There are lesbian bars, but I hear they are fewer, don’t get as much business, comparatively speaking, and are generally less successful than gay bars. That speaks to me of the supply of lesbian bars exceeding the demand. I guess I’m asking what it is about the gay cultures (for conveniences sake, we could talk about geek, bear, drug, gym bunny, bar, and drag subcultures) that is so great?

I have lesbian stereotypes, though I have no idea if they are valuable descriptive groupings, let alone if they cluster into communities: lipstick, earth mother, diesel dyke, punkette, angry activist. To me those all imply a way of being, but not a way of being together. Comparing that with my conceptions of the gay male communities formed out of the cultures I listed above, I have at least as much of an association of common activies, or communication techniques as I do for descriptive elements of the stereotypes in the gay male categories. Is this because I don’t know dick about lesbian culture (no pun intended) or is it that there are lotsa lesbians who identify with these categories, but don’t congregate, because they don’t feel the urge to congregate, or what?