Years ago...four years ago (damn I'm getting older), a high school in Beaverton (western suburb of Portland) was going to put on The Laramie Project as a school play. The principal wouldn't hear of it and cancelled. The Laramie Project isn't sexy or violent and it deals with a real issue, hate crimes, which is already a reality for any kid in one form or another but because the play was about a queer boy, it was pulled.
Despite the fact that it was pulled, GodHatesFags showed up anyway to protest the fact that the school had even let it be a consideration and protested outside the school. It showed us as part of the counterprotest but was pleasantly surprised to see the kids take care of it themselves. You can read all about it on indy.
Tonight I was walking Dean down SE 26th St and saw one the Cleveland High School reader board that they were putting on the Laramie Project. I didn't really even have to think about it. I knew I was going. I had a few other plans and dropped them because I had to be there to support this production. Also, proceeds from the play went to the Gay Straight Alliance as well as Darfur refugees.
The play was great. The students were solid actors and there was even good live music performed. I got goosebumps at several points throughout the play. And I left there with a sense that the future holds good things as far as these students societal views. Like Whitney, I too believe that children are the future.
I never really got the appeal of wi-fi in a coffee shop until today. My last laptop had a horrible time connecting to the internet anywhere but at home and even that was difficult. My new laptop can get online anywhere, no problem, except for at home which is terribly inconvenient. But this has prompted me to get out of the house today and update my blog so here I am at the Funky Door.
I love it. I'm able to work on my downloads and get all of my on-line stuff done while having access to great coffee and chill music and AC. Hell, I'm even on a couch. I think that there's a high chance I'm going to become a regular here!
On Wednesday, I celebrated CARF being done (and us doing well) as well as a friend returning to town and getting in to grad school with Hana Hou Hou Shu, a pink carbonated sake. It was delightful, especially for my last drink.
CARF had been so stressful that I needed every available resource at my disposal, including coffee and alcohol. However, since it's done with for some time and my job's about to get easier than it's been ever, I decided I could do without certain crutches. Initially, I decided I was going to give up coffee and alcohol. I found out Thursday afternoon that I am addicted to coffee and I could not function without it. I literally dragged myself into a coffee shop at 3pm and HAD to buy a cup.
I have found it a lot easier to give up alcohol, which really makes me question whether or not it's necessary that I actually do give it up. Two of my co-workers have decided to quit drinking for one reason or another and, on my last day of CARF, I brought up the idea to one of them that I may quit drinking. She said that you really do feel better without it. So that's why I'm doing it.
On Thursday, which was my first day of not drinking, a bunch of us went to the pub. Although I love drinking at the pub, I had just a 7-up. On Friday, we went to La Carretta, my favorite place to get a strawberry margarita. Instead, I had coffee. Then tonight, we held a bbq at our house, with lots of booze. Still, I stuck with lemonade all night.
I'm pretty sure that I will drink again but then again, I might not. One thing that I'm realizing is that I don't really have a good queer outlet if I cut out the bars. So, I guess I now have the motivation to meet some good queers outside of the bar environment which is probably preferable anyway.
Every now and then, I see a movie that really does a number on me. The first one I can remember walking out of completely dazed and unable to talk about was 'Natural Born Killers.' The second one was 'Fight Club.' After FC, I went home quickly and drank a small bottle of blackberry brandy. Tonight, I saw another movie that pretty much disabled me.
It weird because, with NBK and FC, they each hit me at the exact right time in my life to have a profound effect on me. They both pretty much marked the beginnings of beautiful friendships for me. Tonight, I saw Little Ashes and I don't think that it's necessarily hitting me at the right time but it's definetely striking a cord with me.
It's about an crazy young boy artist who befriends a writer and sort of wakes him up. They spend a lot of time together and become quite close as well as quite politically active. The potential for romance is there but then the artist leaves and remains artistic and crazy but drops the politics. He steps in and out of the writer's life from time to time, usually just for quick visits. Each time, he's changed a little. In the end, the artist gets married and is still fucking with the writer's emotions.
Yeah, the movie upset me.
I ended up walking home. I couldn't be around people who were going to discuss the movie and I needed time to think. I ended up sort of breaking down and walking up and down the same block downtown until I could get my head on right and start heading home. It's a ways to my house from Living Room Theaters but I needed a long walk. I think I need to make some changes...
I don't usually use my blog to tell stories but it's my blog and it was a funny day so here we go. I was driving out to Clackamas today and a jeep pulled up next to me. The guy in it was this big, trucker-looking guy. I'm in my white Lincoln with my pink shirt, big sunglasses and techno bumping. He looks over at me and then looks ahead of him. I thought that he was giving me a 'damn queer' look but then the car in front of him turns right and he pulls up a bit. When he did, I was able to see one of those mudflap decals on his back window. You know the ones with the busty lady in the seductive pose sitting down. Well, this one was of a muscular dude. It was awesome. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get to my camera quickly enough.
Later on, my friend and I were walking towards the pub and we passed by some Mormons. I don't know what happened but all of the sudden I started to trip over my own two feet. I was able to catch myself just before I fell over. When I recovered and we passed them by, she said that the Mormons did it to me with their mind because I was a non-believer. I thought, if Mormonism involved telekenisis, I'd convert.
Afterwards, I was leaving the pub and walked by two guys playing pool. These guys were very straight-looking and most likely were straight. One guy was older, gruffer and looked like he probably worked construction. The other guy looked like a beefed up frat boy. Anyway, the older guy was bent over the pool table, lining up his shot. All I heard him say as I was walking out was, "Looks like you lost your rubber." The other guy who was standing behind him responded, "Yep," I walker. by and try to hold in my snicker. As I was leaving, I heard the second guy say, "You know, that sounded really bad," and the other guy said, "Yep." Funny funny funny.
It's not a new thing and I did do a new thing but I liked these stories better.
Every three years, my company gets accredited by CARF, formerly the Commission for Accreditation for Rehabational Facilities (now it's Rehabilitational Accreditation Commission). Whatever it is, it's a pain in the ass.
For the past year and a half, I've been changing forms and performing tedious tasks to try to make sure that we pass accreditation with flying colors. Not to brag but we have one helluva program and we've been told that we have the best facilities around so we're pretty sure that we're gonna pass every three years. Still there's a lot of build up and stress around it.
The first year I was CARFed, I had just started working as a participant supervisor in the stores and I didn't really have anything to do with it. The second time, I helped train a store supervisor on what to do. This time, it was my focus for over a year and I considered walking off my job because it got to be too much. But now that it's here, I don't really know what I was so worked up about. You never know what the surveyors are going to ask or going to look at so you just have to get everything ship-shape. Today, I met a surveyor at four different stores and walked through each site with him. It was really very chill.
The best part about CARF is the year or so afterwards because the job is just smooth. I have at least a solid year with absolutely minimal stress. I'm ready to love my job again.
It was gay skate night and I wanted to go back. I even had my striped skirt picked out. However, I was beat down from work and lack of sleep and decided to check out a Balkan anarchist historian instead.
I don't know if I can call myself an anarchist. I mean, I pretty much have an anarchist philosophy on things but I hate labels. It's like religion. I take what works for me (which is hardly anything, kind of a Gian outlook) but won't say that I am subscribing to one particular religion. I just believe what I believe and I don't really want to explain it.
Anyway, Andrej Grubacic was a decent speaker and a self proclaimed anarchist since the age of 12. Again, I don't think that I can agree with everything that he said but I was able to take a lot from his talk and I'll pick and chose what I apply to my being. I don't really think that anyone should completely buy into anything that they aren't putting together for themselves. That just seems wrong to me but then again, that's just me.
Today I went to Gaycation (a gay night at a non-exclusively gay club) and had a Gay-toraid (a gayer mint julip) and still didn't feel very...gay.
I think part of the problem is that my expectations were too high. I was expecting Blowpony but it wasn't all that. Also, I didn't decide to go until it was too late and didn't wrangle up anyone to head there with me.
Gay-cation wasn't really all I really wanted and I just had to get away.
Years and years (and years and years) ago, my high school science teacher was showing off to someone touring and pointed out a kid in our class (who's dad worked on computers) and said, "Here we have one of our students who is using a laptop computer and therefore saving paper." Like I said, that was eons ago and I'm sure the laptop was roughly the size of a pizza box but I thought that, when I go back to school, I should at least be as advanced as my high school classmate was seventeen years ago. Therefore, I bought an Acer laptop today.
I know that I went from laptop to desktop not too long ago but it makes sense for me now to get a laptop. Plus I got a DJ gig coming up and I want my own machine. I bought it at Fry's today and I'm really quite satisfied with it. The only thing is that, as with all new things, it's made our old equipment, primarily our wireless router, seem ancient. My new machine has the capability of moving quick as lightning but our router's not giving it anything. Our neighbor's wireless however is another story...
I think my job just got a lot bigger.
Yesterday, my supervisor tells me that the director is going to be unable to give the tour of the Dallas site to a group of executives from thrift stores across country and they wanted me to do it instead. She gave me the material to cover and a guy from operations drove so I pretty much just had to recite material and answer questions, although none were really asked of me. Anyhow, I could see myself getting asked to do this again because I've now "done it before."
I was glad for the opportunity to go to the Dallas site anyway. The store is pretty much operated by people with developmental disabilities. Aside from management, they do every job in the facility except for cashiering and that could change someday too. It's damn impressive and I was pretty excited to show it off.
It's my 500th post. I wanted to do something special. I was going to roadtrip. Then I thought I'd just go for a massage or spa treatment. I also thought about getting another tattoo. In the end, I laid in flowers.
I went to take Dean for a walk and decided to take Raven and Sydney with me. The kids had been attached to a video game for the better part of an evening so it was a good opportunity for us all to get out. We went to Reed College just to stroll around the campus but ended up playing in a tall growth of weeds and wild flowers, all of which were beyond soft. The kids first ducked down and were completely out of sight. Dean and I hopped through the weeds and found them and then fell backwards. It was great. Simple, relaxing and enjoyable.
While walking back, the kids were really excited and played around the sporting field and on the bleachers, having way too much fun for bleachers. I have vague memories of playing on anything around the baseball fields in Hartington, NE because anything beat actually watching the game. I fondly remember "riding" the football training sleds, pretending they were land speeders with my sister and our family friend Mike.
I don't know if Raven and Syd had that much fun tonight but I think that it'll be a good memory for them. For that, I'm glad that this was how I spent my 500th new thing.
I don't think I'd consider myself a Trekkie. I can't name off schematics of the Enterprise. I didn't know Uhura's first name and I find it difficult to watch the original series. However, I found myself today that the front of the line to go see Star Trek on opening weekend.I thought it was awesome! I was unsure of how it would be with new actors playing beloved roles but the acting was undoubtedly the best part. And Zachary Quinto (Spock) is just plain hot!
When I started this blog, I said that a main motivator was to not have days go all Groundhog Day on me and seem like an endless loop. However, it's also resulted in me not really establishing a routine or comfort zone. I do have my habits but I am anxious to break most of them just to have something to write about. After Wednesday's double-thai, double-disappointment day, I decided to stick with what I know today.
I loved the Milo's experience I had last month at NCES training so I went back yesterday and had yet another good experience so I went back today. I sat in almost the same seat each time (I've been working my way seat by seat down the counter) and actually started reading my book today where I left off yesterday. The waitress, Mary Ann, actually said, "Whoa. Deja-Vu."
But it was comforting and it was good. I had different dishes each time and that's about all of the change I needed. I knew I enjoyed the atmosphere and the staff and I knew they had plenty of options for me so I went with what worked. And I couldn't be happier about it. However, I would recommend the hot vegetarian sandwich over the cold. But I'd get fries. Their Hungarian Mushroom soup is okay but it's better at Old Wives Tales. Just something I've learned by experience.
Also known as 'Thai-ed up,' 'Thai-erd' or 'Thai like an eagle.'
I love Thai food but I overindulged today. I had started the NCES trainings again so I got to go to the lunch spot of my choosing and have work pay the bill. I've read some decent things about Eagle Thai on Broadway. Unfortunately, I was under-impressed. It wasn't bad but it wasn't great.
I also heard some decent things about Kuhn Pic on Belmont. Again, I wasn't too impressed. The atmosphere there was at least charming because it is literally a mom and pop operation with mom cooking and pop working the front end.
The downside to doing this blog is that, given the opportunity, I will almost always chose to go out to somewhere new just for the experience even though I know that no Thai will top Thanh Thao on Hawthorne.
I've had a tumultuous relationship with hats. I can never find the right one. I've never tried on a hat and thought, "That's perfect for me." At least not until today. I found a great hat at Saturday Market. On Friday, I got my hair cut and realized that I am going to burn my scalp a lot in the sun if I don't start wearing a hat. And ta-da, I found one today at Saturday Market!
On Friday, I also lost my bracelet that I bought at OCF last year and I've felt naked since. I went to a couple different shops at Saturday Market today and was pretty disappointed. I found a decent bracelet at one shop for a good price and the guy custom made it to fit me so that was pretty cool and a first for me.
I hate buying brand new stuff but I love me some good accessories!
Oh, the irony in naming this place Chaos...
I love coming to this place to relax and I've never been here for breakfast before. In fact, I hardly ever go out for breakfast. Breakfast is such an easy meal to make and there's a great variety of ways to do it with the same basic ingredients. I mean damn, I can cook an egg. Why would I want to pay someone to do it for me? But that was before I met you, Chaos Asparagus Benedict.
Talk about a brunch to make you forget all other brunches. It was fabulous and the place had just the atmosphere I was hoping to soak in and I got to write a letter too which is rare for me. The shittiest part of the experience was knowing that the Chaos Asparagus Benedict was the special of the day and chances are the I'm never going to see it again...
This is supposed to be the worker's holiday but I had a lot of stuff to do so I worked...for a while. By the afternoon, I had most of my busy tasks done so I took it easy the rest of the day and then went downtown to the May Day march.
Really, it feels like I only go to marches now to see friends that I don't see regularly. This one was fun but felt relatively purposeless. However, I did get to walk in the streets. Later on, while heading to the Red and Black to listen to Adelitas, I got to see the Cinco de Mayo fireworks which was probably the highlight of my evening. That and having a really good conversation with a friend that I hadn't seen for a while. I guess that's what May Day's about to me now, reconnecting.
However, I did also get this good picture of this cop. Hee hee.
I first heard the saying, "When all you've got is a hammer, everything starts to look like a hammer," years ago from a friend in regards to indymedia. It stands true still. If there's one thing we can confidently do (but there's definitely not just one), it's throw a good benefit.
