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Other recommended blogs: Amy, Calpernia, Claire, Gwen, Kara, Reise, W3bgrl-Auntie Solder.
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Sunday, 2004.02.01:
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Woke up this morn late because my Palm didn't go off. I dunno why, it just didn't. The first alarm apparently didn't trigger and I played with it for a while but couldn't make it sound. Beats me. But it was still early enough in the day to make up to Kyle's for Sunday brunch. He told me and Steve it would just be a simple exhibition of his Baghrir pancakes. Hah. Nothing is ever simple when it comes to Kyle.
Steve and I finally get to Kyle's house after some other delays. Kyle hadn't started making stuff but had most of the ingredients laid out and ready to go. The first oddity we spotted was the pot of shrimp carcasses. (That doesn't go with pancakes.) Oh no, he explains, that goes with the omlet. Kyle had decided to make an omlet with eggs and gruyere cheese folded around shrimp and scallops topped with a sauce made from those shrimp shells, accented with green onions and some daikon mini greens. (He says is secret is Galbani mascarpone cheese.) Oh but it doesn't stop there, no. He also had french toast dipped in beaten eggs infused with real vanilla beans and sugar. Wait, there was also the Moroccan pancakes served with honey. (I am so full.)
I love cooking with Kyle. He makes me feel so inadequate.
He generally uses
expensive non-typical ingredients and just does everything
with such ease and flair. And here I am trying to follow
his instructions, botching up simple things like pancakes,
and slicing myself unwittingly. (Hey, I didn't think kitchen
shears were that sharp! Then again what was I doing trying to
open a maple syrup bottle with them. Hm.) But I'm learning
little things in his presence and I aspire to one day be only
half as good as he is.Steve and I left shortly thereafter to go to one of his colleague's Superbowl parties. It's funny because I know people there but not all that well so I still feel a little bit like an outsider. Most of them know each other because they were close colleagues at one time in the tech support unit. But it was good overall. They had the usual pizza and chips. Because there were a lot of Indians there too there was also samosas and golub jamun. I was stuffed to the gills so I only had stuff to drink. (After we got home around 8:30p I was kinda hungry so I made a bowl of some Korean Sutah Ramen noodles.)
I was half expecting this particular guy to show up at the party, you know the one that had asked me to a company party. But he never did. Supposedly he's out practicing with his band or something. Cool. You know how I'm such a sucker for live music. (Non sequitur: check out Lidija's nanoguitar. Way cool.)
Just about the time when I had finished the noodles Steve's house fire alarm went off. We couldn't find a way to shut it off because it's one of these integrated security systems. Unfortunately, the previous owners had installed the system and had the master passcode which was not passed down to Steve. As a result the alarm rang on for like 10 minutes and we were helpless to do anything about it! We called up the security company that supposedly had installed the system but they couldn't give us any info without the master passcode. Which we didn't have. Fortunately it turned off but we still don't know what to do about it. We just hope it won't trigger again...
Monday, 2004.02.02:
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Having a laptop that spontaneously discharges its battery from 60% to 0% really sucks. I was in the middle of blogging and reading e-mail when my stupid T30 beeps then shuts off. Gah. One week before the production rollout and once again my technology is failing me. Why can my workplace just give me $5,000 and let me shop for myself and install my own software? Oh yeah, that's because they're cheap.
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The problem with being semi-stealth: OK, so Jen's going off for her surgery soon and a few of us in the gang of friends have been floating the idea of a send-off dinner. Fine, right? So I'm thinking the usual: find a place and invite some people. I was just about to write out to the planners: "why don't we also ask to see if Jen has anyone else that she'd like to come along?" Sounds sensible, right? Well...
Trouble is, some of her T* friends actually know who I am. And in this current group of non-T* friends there are people who don't know I'm T*. So, if we all come together I certainly can't ignore them at all which effectively blows my so-called cover. Argh.
Maybe I worry about those things too much. I mean, it's not like people who find out in this manner are going to be totally hostile. And, really, I don't know if they know already---because they might have heard through word of mouth from other friends. Arghargh.
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Worked like a dog. No, make that a pack of dogs. Actually, that pretty much describes the situation: a project which was previously staffed by a team of contractors has been reduced to a single person, me. So, in the past week I've been the only person to maintain, upgrade, debug, support, and coordinate a project spanning 4 small applications, 7 databases, and 10 application servers. Fortunately there are similarities between all of them, so it's not completely different stuff, but it's just the volume of work that has to be done. The truth is I'm not completely alone here: there is 1 other person on my team now but she's so green because they transferred her in about 2 weeks ago. The problem with that is that she really doesn't know the code at all and is relying on our other department mates to help solve problems. End result is that I'm pulling very long days and it looks like I will definitely miss V-Day now because rollout is too close to that day.
I was looking all dejected in my cube and a colleague walked up to me. She asked if I was OK and I said that I wanted to cry. But I had no tears left to cry because I was so dehydrated from not having had a break to get drinks all day long. It's true.
Pressure pushing down on me
Pressing down on you no man ask for
Under pressure
That burns a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets
That's o-kay!
It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming let me out!
Pray tomorrow takes me higher
Pressure on people
People on streets
-- "Under Pressure", Queen.
Tuesday, 2004.02.03:
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OK, so now because of me our production ship date has now slipped two weeks. It was confirmed today that because the applications are not fit to ship by next week that we must push out the release to accomodate proper testing. That means all the projects in this massive project are delayed which affects 4 other project teams and probably about 20 people altogether. I know I'm not all to blame but everyone's looking to me to come up with a solution and a timeline for fixes when even I don't know the full extent of debugging issues we'll face tomorrow. It's making me, my manager, and the teams in general look bad because we've slipped 1 date. I know if I explained the entire circumstance I'm sure you'd agree with me that it's impossible for me to handle all of this pressure and yet I'm trying. Why? Oh yeah, I'm a glutton for pain.
I want to cry. I'm just too tired to do so now.
So as an expression of my frustration I've decided to dedicate the remainder of this entry to visual word games.
Figure 1: What it feels like being the only real member on my project:
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Figure 2: What has happened in recent days:
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Figure 3: What will happen if I don't get some sleep:
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Figure 4: What I'm trying to do to lessen my daily support routine by offloading it:
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And there you have it.
Wednesday, 2004.02.04:
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Ugh. This is beginning to wear on me but at least we made progress today. Our prime developer was able to return to the project for a couple of days and of course he sits down, types for 15 minutes, and poof the project is mostly functional. Gah. Stuff like that just makes me feel real dumb. I'm so looking forward to my vacation.
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My bedroom is a real jumble of things right now since I haven't been able to clean it in over a week. 3 clean loads of laundry sit in a basket next to my half-made bed. Coat hangers are everywhere. Shoes litter what once was open hardwood flooring. The March issue of Marie Claire takes up the other bit. A guitar line cable snakes its way from my amp, under some unopened mail, over to my guitar laying in its case. Baby shower gifts still sit in their Targét plastic bags. The new pack of progesterone gel is wrapped in bubble packing on my inkjet printer. And several empty bottles of Aquafina are strewn about countertops and my desk. What chaos.
Thursday, 2004.02.05:
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For those of you who have too much time you can go and make prank calls with sound boards. Oh my gosh these are funny. Listen to some of the recorded conversations while you're there.
Also, if you want to check out some great looking tits go and take a look at Blue Tits and even Bearded Tits. (Gwen deserves the credit for this link.)
Friday, 2004.02.06:
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Absolutely stunning.
Gah. My hips are all tweaky again. I have no idea what's going on. As I've said somewhere in past writings, when I was 12-ish I distinctly remember my hip bones making popping noises once in a while but that went away maybe in a couple years. When I got on HRT it returned. Maybe it has been going on all this time but it is more noticeable now. And these days it's weird. It feels like extra pressure is being put on the outside edges of my hips and knees. (No, I'm pretty sure it isn't the DDR that's killing my legs.) I know my body proportions aren't changing based on measurements. All I know (and hear) are my hip joints making that pop sound again.
Saturday, 2004.02.07:
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8:30a is dreadfully early for me to be getting up on a Saturday, especially after having been so run down all throughout the week. But today was the day of Erin's baby shower and there was much work to be done. By the time I got ready from my morning routine Ursula had already begun setting our place up. She always gets up way early---in corollary she goes to bed early, so I almost never see her. So I amble on over to her and it's clear that the food supplies were dreadfully thin. Apparently she had gone shopping the day before but really hadn't bought more than some decorations and the frozen foods. A few minutes later I had this monstrous list of things to get making me run to like four different stores.
I hopped in my lil' silver baby and off it was to Starbucks for gift cards, the pet shop for kitty litter (no, not a party supply but we were running low), and a couple of supermarkets for stuff. I think all total for the prizes, the litter, the snacks, the salads, the drinks, and Ursula's famous guacamole dip ingredients the bill was close to $150. Eek! This was in addition to the decorations and frozen foods.
When I returned there Urusla was pulling the first batch of hors d'oeuvres (I can never spell that word) from the oven. Mmm...hot teriyaki skewers. I unpacked my lot on the kitchen table and started sorting and washing them. It was a lot of stuff.
Guests started arriving just shy of noon and we didn't have as much help in the morning as we wanted. Erin's sister was sick and the mom was late---they were supposed to have come early. But we were still able to bake, prepare, clean, and set up the place with the guests coming in. It's a good thing we really didn't make this complex because it would have been hard with just Ursula and me.
About 20 or so people piled into our tiny living room. Ursula had our biggest solo chair set at one end of the circle with padded cushions and all ready for when Erin would arrive and sit down. People mingled as we handed out safety pins to everyone---more on that later. Then as we took our seats the games began.
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After a round of introductions Ursula went by each of us with a basket full of things. The objective was to remember all the stuff that was in it. The person who can remember the most things wins. Believe it or not, I won. Out of 14 things I got 10. (Heh, so I got one of the prizes that I had picked up earlier in the morn.)
Various amounts of food were piled around the kitchen. Some were things we provided, other stuff people brought in. Ursula's guac rocks and is always a nice addition to all the usual stuff that shows up, tho' the cucumber sandwiches were tasty. I should have bought more Safeway flavored water because so many of the people drank that up.
The next game was a hunting type game where we blindfolded the contestant and put them in front of a huge bowl of rice. But in the rice were safety pins that you had to find. It was fun watching all of us try to beat the clock and some of us made quite a mess. The thing is rice and safety pins feel a lot alike and being blindfolded makes that really hard. The top winner was just amazing. She sifted through that rice so fast it was just flying out of the bowl.
What else did we do? Oh, gifts. Erin went through that mondo pile of gifts and got a stroller, lots of cute outfits, some miscellaneous stuff, and even a special mug from Tiffany's. The cards were a real treasure too---a couple people made their own cards.
We sat around a gabbed a little after that. Most everyone had their stories to tell about childbirth. Did you know that a woman produces different types of milk after the baby is born? (Kangaroos have the advantage being able to produce 2 types of milk at the same time.) I passed on my Mom's note about Chinese food: if you ever need to induce labor the old saying is eat Chinese food. Other women there said spicy foods are similar. Ah, even if they're old wives tales it's fun to hear.
With all the prizes given out, the food eaten, the gifts unwrapped, we called it quits in the midafternoon. Erin wobbled back to her car and we all loaded it up with the loot.
It was definitely cool being included among a group of women where no one questions your gender identity---you just are. It was a celebration of life and community. Guys so miss out on this.
Then it was off to a party for me. (Gee wasn't I already at one?) This time it was a b-day party. I had been out the previous few nights looking for b-day gifts and settled on some PJs for the birthday girl. Actually, this party was for both the b-day girl and her boyfriend because they have relatively close birthdays. It was also a potluck, but since I forgot that I only brought gifts.
We mingled, ate, watched TV in Spanish (because someone put the channel on and we were too lazy to change it). It was not exactly the most boisterous event I'd been to. We did break out Scott's gift: Scattergories. There were enough pieces to accomodate the six of us that wanted to play. That was fun.
Bored around 8:00p we decided upon a local bowling alley. They were doing that extreme bowling thing again. That was fun but hard to really carry on a conversation. We still got in a couple of good games before heading back and calling it a night.
I'm still really self-conscious when I'm out. Oddly it all comes down to voice at this point. It's crap. Utter crap. Nevermind what you hear on the voice page because that's me on a relatively good day. You see, today I was having to yell a lot and that puts a heck of a lot of strain on my throat. So already being hoarse from this week's meetings at work I go out and yell some more. The net result is I sound all strangled and stuff. Not good.
But that aside, it's great being accepted everywhere (just like a Visa card?). Sure there's bumps in the road all the time, but a cute smile here and there seems to make it all better. This is what I think the Real Life Test should be like: existence in the public world without question.
I guess I'm lucky in many ways, but I still think I've paid a lot of my dues. It has taken a lot of work and there's still so much more to be done. But I'm sticking with it because it feels good. Being at the baby shower, doing stuff with girlfriends at the b-day party. All that stuff is good and I like the way it's working.
Sunday, 2004.02.08:
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Room is a total disaster. It's 1:07a right now and I can't even go to bed because there's too much crap on my bed or on my floors. Just for giggles, what's left out? Hm.
6 pairs of shoes in the middle of the floor. Digital camera. Rolling Stones, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Stupid White Men, and Under the Tuscan Sun here and there. 3 coat hangers. Rolling desk chair with at least 4 pairs of jeans, 5 jackets, and 3 shirts. Laptop and carrying bag. Purse. Steaming plate form my new rice cooker. A couple dozen greeting cards. 4 rolls of wrapping paper. 2 bottles of Aquafina. Swiffer. 2 packs of tissue paper. Hairband. Junk mail. Sketchers box. New 9x13" Pyrex baking dish set. Voter registration materials. Cellular phone charger. Cinequest guide. Box of push pins. Oven mitts. Unopened Turbo Tax Deluxe. Scotch tape dispenser. Miscellaneous plastic wrapper. Walmart bag with dental floss still in it. Yesterday's socks. Used medication box and bottle. Half-eaten roll of LifeSavers. Electronic kitchen timer. Handwashable laundry bin. Laundry basket. Unfiled Christmas gifts. Jackets hanging from rack. Scraps of curling ribbon. Loose change. Receipts.
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Hm. I'm really taking a liking to Midnight Movies. And, cool, they're playing in the Bay Area on the 28th of this month.
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Oh, btw, you know that Kenya Flash? I was out for dinner tonight with a whole pack of people that I had e-mailed about it and they said it was, quote, the most viral meme they had seen yet. Even this one guy started doing this little gyration at the dinner table singing, "Kenyaaaaa! Come to Kenyaaaaaa!". O. M. G.
So, tonight's dinner was all about Jen. She's flying off sooner than not to get her SRS and more than a dozen of her close friends decided tonight was the most convenient time for everyone's schedules. By the way, none of the people there at the table are TG---'cept her and I. These are the people she's known for years who will hopefully be around for years to come. So there were more than a dozen of us that converged on this restaurant and we got a corner all to ourselves. It was definitely a feast. Jen sat in the middle so we could all talk to her and stuff. I think it was good for her to be surrounded by so many positive people. Sometimes she gets down thinking that people are going to abandon her in the midst of this great change in her life, but tonight was proof that she's got a lot of people saying little prayers for her. This is the way a send-off should be.
Monday, 2004.02.09:
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This is disturbing. OK, I've now talked to more than one person who has said they starved themselves in order to lose weight and muscle mass. That is really not healthy. One person did it because she was sick for a while. Another did it over the course of about 5 months by eating maybe a handful of peanuts or some jello. But it works. The body wastes away converting all that muscle and fat into energy because there is nothing else. There really must be a better way than this.
On the one hand I'd love to be a little bit more lean in certain areas but I don't want to risk my health. I hope I don't have some body dysmorphic disorder...
...
After a really long day at work (which kicked my butt) I stopped by a bookstore to use up the extra gift card. Finally picked up a Craig Chaquico album. I got one of his older ones, Acoustic Planet. Gotta love that guitar style of his.
The other album I picked up is someone I recently heard at the store: Peter Cincotti. Wow. If you like that Harry Connick Jr. style you ought to check him out. He's cute too.
(I think if I fall in love
with someone it'll be someone that has musical talent.)Tuesday, 2004.02.10:
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Jen and Tina left tonight. Jen's off for her SRS and Tina's off to relocate to a new city. It's a strange emptiness that's left.
And I'm looking at this counter on one of my web pages (no, none that you can access) that tells me how many days before SRS I have. Oh, that number is scary and becoming smaller by the day. It's like when I hit the half a year mark I didn't even know it had passed. Honestly! And that's scary because I usually am on top of these things. So here I'm looking at these shrinking digits thinking: oh man, I really need to start making travel plans. Ack!
Speaking of SRS, I talked to my secondary counselor (actually a licensed psychiatrist) and we had a jovial conversation. It has been 4 years almost to the day when I first met this guy. So he wanted to check me out and see if I'm still mentally fit. I tried my best to be all crazy but he still seemed to say I'm OK. So hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll have my first letter of recommendation in my hands. Yay!
Wednesday, 2004.02.11:
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I'm just worn out from work. I slept in quite a bit so I got about 9 hours of sleep last night. But that's about the most rest I'm going to have for a while. We're making progress with the issues at work but the database is going to kick our butts. Basically we've decided to merge 3 different systems onto 1 database and it all comes down to 1 database guy. He knows all. Who just called in sick this morning. Oops.
(We are so screwed.)
In my typical non-sequitur, one of my favorite words is nubile:
nu·bile adj. 1. Ready for marriage; of a marriageable age or condition. Used of young women. 2. Sexually mature and attractive. Used of young women.
The American Heritage Dictionary, Third Edition
Thursday, 2004.02.12:
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I finally put some of the final edits in the main sections of this site. The new voice page has a bunch of new instructions as well as voice samples from different time periods. This was one heck of a project!
Friday, 2004.02.13:
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I'm so brain dead right now. 2 hours of sleep has virtually killed my thought processes. I find myself watching Never Been Kissed on the tele because, well, my roomie left the TV on. Michael Vartan isn't bad looking. Hehe. I dunno...
What's with all this new boy interest? Why didn't I have it before? What was that trigger? Was it the shedding of my past when I went full-time? Is it because other guys now are starting to pay attention to me? Is it because I've tapped into something deeper within me that was once forbidden? Is it because I now assume a female role that I'm falling into the typical expectations of women?
Really, I can't see myself with a girl as a partner now. I don't know why for sure. I think back to all my old girlfriends and I remember that in our relationship I wanted us to be equals. To get that I was looking for someone that was also a bit of a tomboy, not your typical femme. And I was looking to the kind of a guy who's more on the softer side, catering and placating. What I wish right now is that I did have someone special. Just someone to snuggle up to. Someone to please, someone to hug, someone to cook for. I'm just rambling. Must be the lack of sleep.
Saturday, 2004.02.14:
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Hey kids! It's Valentines Day! Yay! (Well "yay" for some people out there.) In celebration of my single status along with a number of other people we have decided to hold an Anti Valentines Day Party. Why? Just because. I've got my roomie's devil horns that she wore for her Halloween costume and I'm in charge of decorations. Muahahha...
Oh if you want a good laugh, go and read Amy's court stories. Totally funny.
Last night met a couple new people who are friends of the gang. They're from out-of-state so it was sort of a special occassion to have them here. I like them, and not just because they happen to be fans of anime. Actually, it was odd that yesterday night was the first time in a long time that I've been with a group of more than 5 people that actually likes anime. Hm. But we didn't watch any in the end. No, instead we watched an oldie: Support Your Local Sherrif. It was mildly amusing.
Oh, I've got something brewing for this site but you'll have to wait. Maybe in a few days I'll have it complete. Hehhee...
Monday, 2004.02.16:
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Oh, this is bad. I was passing the dining room table yesterday when I once again spied the book that had been laying there since Tuesday last: Angels & Demons. I had food in my mouth and was bored so I picked up the paperback and flipped through the first few pages. By page 7 I was hooked. Damn you, Dan Brown.
Pretty much since yesterday I've been reading this book and I'm about 2/3rds the way through by now. I love the swift prose laden with the occassional use of the ambigrams all atop a bed of semi-factual conspiracy. One venue to the next, the site of a murder, a strange statue, a trail of clues, and an daunting set of obstacles. It has been a long time since a book as lured me into eschewing a day's plans in order to spend time flipping through its pages. When I went to bed I needed a bookmark; a loose dollar bill lay on my nightstand. Somehow it seemed oddly appropriate to use such currency, the ever-seeing eye of the pyramid poking out just a little now from the book side.
I'm told the Da Vinci Code is even better. Oh, I can't wait until Sarah gets back from her trip so I can get the book---she's borrowing it. Actually, I hear a movie will be coming soon of it. Very cool.
Tuesday, 2004.02.17:
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Wished Kara well tonight as she's off to surgery sooner than later. It was a cozy gathering of some 11 of us tonight. Quite the motley crew and yet we are all connected by similar threads. Oh, I am now known as "/" Amber "/"---in other words when saying my name you must hold your hands up in the air like slashes. (Well, it was funnier if you had been there.) Anyways, I hope Kara enjoyed herself as well as her last bites of solid food for a while. Claire and I split a choco-raspberry cheesecake. Mmm... choco-raspberry... Really, I think she and I do nothing but eat. (I still claim my ancestry is part-pig, but I don't know what Claire's excuse is.)
Wednesday, 2004.02.18:
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Thursday, 2004.02.19:
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Waiting for my data extraction to complete (which takes hours) I went surfing for music stuff. Found Tomcraft (a few videos available). I can't seem to find the CD being sold at any local department stores. Amazon is selling the Muc album tho...
Friday, 2004.02.20:
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Nice photography. Part of it is being at the right place at the right time. Part of it is the right equipment. And a lot of composition. I wish I had a better camera but in my case it's probably more of a quest to find better shots. I still like my butterfly shot and my Coit tower shot. (I should put them up here.)
Hey, another Valley girl is making it in the music scene. She left the computer industry to pursue songwriting and touring. Wow.
Sunday, 2004.02.22:
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Met up with Kara in her recovery suite. She's doing OK considering she's all beat up from surgery. She tried to show off all her newly-acquired scars and stuff. Ew! She was tired and languid but but she'll be fine soon enough. Kara did make mention that it hurt to laugh or smile. And since I'm mischievous at heart, I tried to make her laugh.
So, Claire, Joan B., and a couple others came back from V-Day and they too took a gander at the new Kara. Man, they must have had a blast in L.A.! And here I was stuck online monitoring my work applications.
I heard the event was great.
What an amazing thing...Oh, as a side note, can I just say that I am really jealous of some of the people that showed up at V-Day? I know beauty is really not the most important thing in life but I can't help but sigh looking at some of the photos and mentally kicking myself why I didn't start sooner...
Sigh.
Monday, 2004.02.23:
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Tuesday, 2004.02.24:
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It's 3:50a right now. This blog is brought to you by Red Bull, Round Table Pizza, and Ferry Corsten's Global Trancemissions 02. If it weren't for the aid of these fine devices I would be sleeping right now. On my keyboard. Because I'm working. Because the project I'm on has run into problems with its database. So I'm redeploying.
I wish I could think of something witty or humorous right now but all I'm thinking of is how I miss my bed. And my PJs. And my tooth brush. I'm stuck on Steve's plushy leather couches because I crashed at his place after leaving work for an hour or so. I'm on my IBM on DSL using VNC over VPN via PC on the LAN running Tomcat connected to the DB serving JSPs in a WAR uploaded with FTP. OMG, I'm hoping for R&R ASAP.
Wednesday, 2004.02.25:
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Thursday, 2004.02.26:
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Oh my goodness. I'm under the 150-day mark for SRS. Eep. On the one hand I would love to get that part over with. On the other it almost seems too short when I think of scheduling flights, hotels, aftercare, etc. SRS is going to be a major speedbump this summer where I'm going to be out of commission for weeks. I'm really not looking forward to that. And the maintenance after SRS. Ugh. That's really not attractive. Why do people think that trannies are all about having vaginas? It's really so much trouble to have one built for you.
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LOL. A friend just sent over this mega list of 464 pet names people call their, um, nookie. Some of my favs: bearded ax wound, rattlesnake canyon, velcro love triangle, bubble gum by the bum, Peter's grove, baby zipper. And the winner: Indiana Bones and the Temple of Poon.
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Under the green awning off of the main drag soft light spilled out onto the misted sidewalk. I could see through the doors well enough to know that I was about to enter a wall of smoke. I pressed on the cold door edge and it pried open enough to allow me in where the aroma enveloped me. Beef and pork sizzling on open grills filled my senses. Only a few other parties were in the waiting area but beyond this half-height partition was the unintelligible jabber and the tinker of chopsticks tapping porcelain plates. There was no receptionist at the front but an elderly guy in a yellow-collar shirt approached the front. I smiled and held up the handsign "5". He seemed to nod and then walked away.
I was a bit concerned that he didn't give me a number or anything; it wasn't until a party that came after me got seated ahead of me that I looked for another waitress to get a seating number. I eventually got the little sticky note just about the time a hand sheathed under red wool tapped my shoulder. I spun around and there was Claire smiling above me. Not far behind was Amy. But we were missing a couple of people...
The door opened again and they came in from the cold, our guests from abroad. Both were dressed for warmth, but not overtly so. Amy was in her casual workwear which, by the way, just made me shake my head---how can you go to work all andro like that and not have people question?! I was beginning to envy Claire's thick coat but the waitress return and it was time for us to take our places around the fire quite literally.
Soon after our orders were placed a couple bins of charcoal were placed in the recepticle in the middle of the table. The fire glowed in yellows, greens, and blues and was perfect for warming up my frozen hands. There's just something about a good Korean BBQ on a cold night. The dozens of appetizer plates, the table-cooked meat, and soups. Mmm... Claire and I were pretty much the hostesses at the table keeping the tea flowing and the meat well-charred. I'm happily full. I'm not complaining.
Done with main meal we sought some coffee somewhere. After a brief misdirection we ended up a couple blocks from the restaurant at this messy little place. Let's just say the restrooms here were a hover versus a sitter---I was quite surprised to see they had toilet paper. "Cheap dates," I told them as I paid for their coffee and snacks. (Yeah, a whopping $12. Whee.) Way back we got a tiny round table hugging the wall.
The conversation drifted from Space Balls quotes to cellular phones. I even learned a little Danish:
- skål: Cheers!
- kol kol mil freur: (I can't remember)
It was all in good fun though and I hope they had a good time. It could have been a quiet evening but you know me, I'm such a dork I like to make people laugh at my antics. I swear, I do not know how I managed to do it but after sipping through the lid of my white chocolate mocha the cup actually spat at me! The little bastard! I swear, all I was doing was taking a quick sip and the next thing I know I've got hot coffee careening up my right nasal passage and my shirtsleeve has these gobs of wet coffee stain spreading out. Damn, and this is a new shirt! Gah...I'm a mega-klutz. You can't take me anywhere.
It was good seeing the other two (C. and A.) and meeting a couple new people who apparently are on the message board but for some reason my memory fails me who they are.
Friday, 2004.02.27:
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Hm. Spent part of the morning tweaking a music idea. Wanna hear it? You know you do.
...Untitled #3e (1,985 KB)
Untitled #3 (3.7 MB)
I never wanted an SUV. They're big, bulky, high center of gravity, have way too much power for most people's typical needs, and suck up way too much gas. Exhibit A: Hummer H2. To me SUVs are a symbol of arrogance on the road that tells everyone else to move over or be crushed.
But...
Of all the SUVs, I've sorta had a thing for the Lexus RX300 series. And now it's even a little more tantalizing: Lexus Hybrid. Sure it costs an arm and a leg, but a luxury hybrid SUV? Hm. Check it out.
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The Graphire3 tablet is great except for one thing: I can't figure out how to assign the first button to a normal click and turn off pressure detection on the tip. If I accidentally graze the surface it thinks I want to "pen down".
Sunday, 2004.02.29:
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It's 5:00a right now and I was going to add this to "yesterday's" entry, but what they hey, it's well into Sunday as we speak and the sun will be up soon. It was a very long and interesting day.
The alarm cried out at the ungodly hour of 7:45a. This after I had spent the previous night having a very late dinner in a little downtown village eating Mediterranean food. I committed to running every Saturday with friends and I intended to keep that promise. So I jumped into my sweats and sports bra and I met at the rendezvous point a short bit later.
The weather was calm and even though it had rained not long ago I figured the trails weren't going to be extra muddy. The small pack of us did a few stretches and then headed off down the trail. Our path carves its way along some flatlands before turning uphill. Then the real test begins as the trails wend their way up amidst the trees and mountain lion lairs. This is one of many parks our area offers.
I've been getting increasingly better at running since I've started this routine. The first time I went running a few weeks ago I was in exacerbating pain and I had to walk a lot. The week after it was more of a radiating pain. This is a far cry from when I used to be in really good shape running 5:30 miles and averaging 10 miles/day in training. Oh, I remember those old cross country meets where like a hundred of us launched off of the top of a dirt hill at the signal of the gun---the penalty for being slow was a mouthful of kicked-up dust.
Anyways, today I ran with the only other girl in our little troupe. The other two guys are stronger and they just zip ahead. (A little voice in my head snickers, "I w1Ll 0wN j00 oN3 |)4y.") Fortunately Mina wanted to go slow and so I was able to keep up with her today. Oh, you don't know how often I felt that I should have stopped today because everything ached. Everything. But I pushed harder than I can remember in recent memory and every footstep, though unsteady, pushed me closer to my goal. I forced my way uphill as I saw Mina's figure slowly fade into the distance ahead, but I did not quit. I finally reached the downhill portion and my jelly legs found renewed strength. I broke into a sprint and passed her in no time---as I crossed the endpoint I looked back to see her coming down off the hill. Victory! I survived the pain to earn the feeling that I had accomplished something really good. And to that end I bought everyone their breakfast coffee. (These people are also cheap dates because the total was under $12.)
I ran a couple errands and staggered into my room. I glanced up at the clock and realized, shit, I was fashionably late again. A pile in the middle quickly formed in the middle of the floor as I toss everything off on the way to the shower. Steve rang my cellular just as I was drying my hair---since we were late he offered to start heading my way. I got everything together just as he knocked on my door. Heels, check. Black trousers, check. Pink low-cut sleeveless top, check. Cosmetics, check. Coat, check. And then we were off to Amanda's.
We finally found her living unit (not quite a house, not quite an apartment) and picked her up. Or met her, more to the point. We finally figured we could walk to lunch and so a few blocks down we found this coffee house that she goes to on occasion. It's funny, we ran into one of our colleagues on the street and so he joined us. This would not be the only unexpected encounter today.
We were pretty late walking back after lunch. I wanted to get shopping real quick because I really needed to see if I could find something suitable for dancing tonight---that was the plan at least. So we homed in on the nearest major shopping mall realizing we had under 2 hours to shop. See, the thing about Amanda is that she has a wildly inaccurate sense of time. She gets so sidetracked that we get stuck in places. It turned out we spent way too long in Macy's. In the end I was able to run around and get some things but nothing that I could really use for tonight so the trip was sort of a bust. Oh, and we were late too.
Our next scheduled stop was the mini concert we had tickets for and she thought it might start around 7:00p. When we got back to her place I checked the tickets and they said 6:30p! Nuts, we were already short of time and now it would be very hard to make it at 6:30p! Get this, while we're changing for the show Steve is playing with the radio trying to get it to be clearer. So, what does Amanda do? Instead of getting ready she goes over and helps him with it. Argh.
Amanda did eventually finish changing and we left in a hurry. I went the fastest that traffic permitted and when my car's clock hit 6:30p I knew we were in trouble because we still had at least 20 minutes to go. When we got to the City there was a backup on the highway so I dove down the first exit and then navigated my way up to our target location. It would take forever to find parking, and indeed it did. Cafe du Nord is at the tip of the gay quadrant in San Francisco, and that also has very little parking. We got ourselves into a parking space and that was 6:50p. We made double-time down to Market St. and popped into shops to get directions. Of course Amanda had to pause to buy gum.
You know what galls me about Amanda's tardiness isn't the fact that she's late but that she is unapologetically late. I mean, no mention of "sorry, I got caught up." No, her statement tonight was, "oh, they never start on time. 6:30p means 7:00p anyways." Sheesh. So when we got to Cafe du Nord I asked the bouncer if we had missed anything. He joked, "oh you just missed Aerosmith." Heh. But I did find out later we did miss the first act! Damn! And of course Amanda thinks nothing of that. How utterly disrespectful.
But, the band I did want to see we didn't miss, barely. I was literally in the girl's room doing my thang when I hear the first chords pumping out. They started! I cleaned up real quick and when I stepped out into the lobby true enough the band was in full swing. I found a spot by the wall. Steve and Amanda found their places there and elsewhere. The final band really suffered from a bad mixing job and it just ended up being prolonged cacophony.
Dissatisfied with the music and hungry too, we sought refuge a block away in the always open Bagdad Cafe. From inside the warm room we could watch couples hand in hand, some probably recently married. It still is a sight which throws me off because I'm not used to gay PDAs (Public Displays of Affection)---I know, blasphemy from a TG person like myself.
Then it was off to find evening entertainment because it was only about 11:00p. We muddled about a bit but decided on Asia SF. I had told Steve and Amanda about this unique place a while back and mentioned they also had a club there---it's GLBT-friendly, but most of the patrons are straight party-loving people. We went round and round and round the blocks looking for that magic parking space. Steve grew increasingly annoyed why I wouldn't take this space or that. We did find a spot 4 or so blocks away and we strode down the darkened sidewalks in the biting cold. As we passed a bunch of spots we realized it was the right move to park far out. (Broken window fragments and dimly-lit spots were closer to the club but I really didn't want to chance having Babs be the subject of random vandalism.)
As we were approaching Asia SF's club entrance I thought: gee, we're in the City and I wonder if I should have tried calling Amy and Claire. But, nuts, I left my celly in the car and besides Amy probably would be at home, far away. So we got in line.
Then a tap on my shoulder.
I turned around and there was this person I couldn't quite make out. She was wearing a dark furry coat and the main light source was the gas station beyond her---so her face looked dark. I took a slight step sideways and could finally make out enough of the face.
It was Claire!
I blinked and looked again, wondering if my toric contacts had rotated out of position. But, no, it really was! Holy rusted metal, Bat Man!!! I leapt up and gave her a big ol' bear hug. And then I looked to her left and there was Amy. Oh, totally weird! I had not told them anything about where I was going to be let alone when I was going to be there and yet there they were, arriving in line for Asia SF's club at exactly the same time. Whoa. Are they stalking me?!
After the shock wore off we did a round of introductions and it was into the club we went. Tonight turned out to be a house/hip-hop night with some of the local DJs. The room was pretty packed when we got there and it only promised to get more crowded. We decided to ditch the coats and purses back in the car so I walked back out in to the cold with the girls to return to my car. Not more than a block away was an empty space and so Claire arranged herself into a human barricade while I went to get Babs.
The night drug on with the boom-boom-boom from the speakers. Steve and Amanda were quite nonplussed. They could not get into the grove because neither of them liked this kind of music. After an hour of antics they gave up and wanted out. They found refuge in the set of couches in the corner; I danced away with the others trying to the most of our $15 cover charge and various Long Island Iced Teas.
That was fun but way too short. Anyways, we gave in and left about 12-something. We figured coffee would be appropriate and we went back to the Castro to this diner. About all we had were drinks and fries---which one of our members promptly ate themselves sick. Sheesh. At least there was no puking in my car.
We dropped Amy and Claire off and made the long drive back home. I staggered back into my bed after I had cleaned up around 5:00a. I'm mega-tired but happy.
...
OK, I'm done with this one. Yay. Changed out the lead synth for something more warped and evil. hehehe... Added in fades between the bass synth and its overdrive version. New appregiation popped in during the 2nd lead sequence. Bass drum kicked up a notch to be more thud-like than boom-like. Also made a better ending fader.
Untitled #3 (3.7 MB)Oh, so my other music comrade took a sample of this song and made the unbelievably rippingly good house mix of it. It is so awesome I can't describe it in words here. Ack, this is so cool!
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Entries may show the mood for the day. From best to worst moods here's the list:
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Ecstatic -
Happy -
Good -
OK -
Blech -
Sad -
Abysmal
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