Entries for April 2003 below

PRIOR MONTHS BELOW

04/30/03: Wednesday - 6am:

Moving Day!

Let the fun begin....

04/29/03: Tuesday - 8:30am: I forgot to mention yesterday that no, we didn't go to church as usual on Sunday. Joe was scheduled to preach instead of Penny. I love Joe for his compassion, but his preaching style doesn't do it for me. Anyhow, we had to get Steve's place ready for the open house. But being Sunday, I had to have some religious experience. It came to Steve's door. Two mormon missionaries rang the bell. The one said "We're missionaries with the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Can we share our message with you?" Instead of saying no thank you and shutting the door, I should have grabbed my crotch and replied, "I'm a homosexual. Can I share this with you?" They weren't half bad looking, in a cleancut kind of way...

I took a couple boxes home at lunch yesterday. I carried over one load of stuff to #84. There was a moving truck from JackTrux outside, and they were moving Arthur's stuff from downstairs. That's the same moving company that I'll be using on Wednesday. Arthur came into the apartment while I was there. He had a large piece of furniture that needed moved from downstairs through my apartment. I told him that I was using the same movers and asked about them. He said they were doing fine and were recommended by a friend. Rick Perna is the one who recommended them to me. I had seen that Arthur had re-posted the ad for his upstairs apartment. He's lowered the price by $100 to $2250. Guess he wasn't getting anyone good to look at it. His ad mentioned that the garden has lots of rosemary and an avocado tree. Cool. I didn't know that. After the one trip, I headed back to work.

I left work around 3:30pm yesterday. Jack got in at Montgomery Station. We were talking over the guy who had sat next to me, so he did the smart thing and move so Jack could sit down, LOL. I miss working with Jack. There's no one in my current work area whom I like to chat. Of course if I complain about that, I'm sure Karma will put me out of work to "solve" that dilemma. No thanks.

I got home and carried a few loads of stuff up to #84. My current apartment is looking rather sparse, which is good. I left around 7pm so that Jeff could show the apartment. I hope they tried to turn on the shower. I can just see someone moving in only to find that they can't use the shower. That'd freak me out.

After dropping off another bag at #84, I went to my WSD graduation. Oops, I mean "completion." I got there around 7:25pm. They emphasized that it would be starting at 7:30pm, NOT 7pm. However, I got there and they were already dancing. Whatever. I barely had time to put my stuff down before I was grabbed to form another square. We had 3 squares for most of the night. Very good turnout. Do they call the club people? I never get emails, so I'm not sure how they communicate to club members. I'm pretty sure that Steve Scott doesn't even have email. The night was not too exciting, but it got my mind off work and moving. Everyone got a completion certificate and badge, even those who have missed the entire last month and never learned all the calls. It turns out that Carlos had taken the class previously as a boy. I never knew that since he is so bad. John did get a badge. After 4 attempts, I think this is the first time they ever let him get a badge. He still sucks and messed up "Square Thru" (a call learned the first class and done several times each and every class) many times during the night. Whatever. It's over and I finally "graduated" and have a "real" badge. I've paid my dues for Foggy City Dancers and for El Camino Reelers, so hopefully I'll get their badges soon enough. Western Star is pretty much a joke.

I got home and called Steve for a bit. Then I carried two more loads to #84. I'm unable to go to #84 today because of the carpet cleaning, so I stayed for about an hour and unpacked or put away all the stuff I had moved to the kitchen counters. Mostly just put into closets to be out of the way for now. The real unpacking will come after the movers leave on Wednesday. Tomorrow!

I woke up at 6:30am and got down to the YMCA by 7am. Tomorrow I'll be able to shower at #84. Woohoo! The movers are supposed to call tonight and let me know when they'll be coming tomorrow. Hopefully early. It shouldn't take them very long at all. I'm not sure when the phone and utilities will be turned on. Comcast is coming over between 4-6pm for the cable and internet connection. After dinner, maybe we'll take a soak in the hot tub. :-)

04/28/03: Monday - 9:30am: Not sure if we would be eating bearlunch outsite on Friday, I stopped at Lee's Deli on Mission & Main and picked up a hot meatloaf sandwich and clam chowder. There was a nip in the air, so I also stopped at Starbucks for some coffee before heading to the grassy knoll at Justin Herman Plaza. Before I got to Spear Street, it had started to rain. Grrrrrr. I headed to the foodcourt at One Market. Due to the rain, it was packed, even more than normal for Friday at 12:30pm. I saw no bears and wandered through to the other side. Still no bears. I saw a couple open tables outside under the awning. Fresh air and sheltered from the rain. Nice. Drewbear showed up and then some others eventually showed up, including Capy, Anthrak John, Hector, Robert, and the Soward-Katzenbergers. Being a few days later, I've probably left off a couple names. Bingo Victor stopped by for a bit. Jim Gatteau walked by. Still orbiting elsewhere. Someone said, there goes Mr. Standoff Bear 1993-1994. Made me chuckle.

I headed back to work for awhile. The day dragged, and I headed home around 3pm. I packed up more stuff for a few hours. Steve showed up (woohoo!) and we checked out the new apartment at #84 and then ate at Firewood Cafe. We came back and Steve caught up on his emails while I packed for the weekend. We then went to Steve's around 10pm.

On Saturday I made tortilla rollups for the dance while Steve made devilled eggs. Most of the day was spent getting Steve's place ready for Sunday's open house. I think we did pretty well on getting things ready. I sensed a lot of tension between Steve and Peter. I'm glad for both of them that they only have one week before Peter moves out.

We got to the dance around 6:30pm so that I could drop off my bear cocktail table for the silent auction. We then swung by the store to pick up some Hershey's kisses to put out during Steve's open house before coming back for the dance at 7pm. The dance was ok. I screwed up something right away, but recovered quickly. I was very tired, and it took me awhile to get into listening mode for dancing. Most Plus tips were at class level, but they did do a full Plus tip. I did that just fine, even did "lead" girl for Spin Chain Exchange the Gears with no problem. The ECR class had just learned Linear Cycle the previous week and didn't get much practice apparently. They screwed that up a lot. They also seemed to have a problem with Follow Your Neighbor. I got in one square, and there was a person who screwed up every other call, breaking down the square several times. Between the hash tip and the singing tip, Rich Reel and his partner swapped over to our square from another square, replacing that horrible dancer (who happened to be dancing with Matt, making things worse). Poor Steve was in that other square and the bad dancer broke down their square as well. After one Plus tip, Larry Queen grabbed me and told me that "they" were getting dancers lined up for the next Plus tip, and I would be his partner. Cool. Both Larry and his brother Don are very encouraging and great mentors for me. I told Steve, and he was pissed that they didn't ask him, too. It turns out that it was the next Plus tip was the last one of the evening, so Steve was upset that we didn't dance it together. We had already danced 3 tips together, which I thought was plenty. I'll try to remember to save the last dance for him next time. For the first half of the dance, no one bid on the table I donated. I was getting worried. No way did I want to haul that thing back home. I considered putting down someone else's name as a bid, LOL. Well, Dennis Gomez finally put down a bid for it, and later Nathan upped the bid to $40 and won it for that. Guess I'll see the table again at his next pool party!

Got up Sunday and finished getting Steve's house ready for the open house. Went to the store for some replacement lightbulbs, took care of that, then we headed out for lunch at Max's Bistro. I had the Chicken Cheesesteak. I finally got something at Max's that I liked!

We got up to the City about 1:45pm. I packed up Steve's car and made a couple trips moving stuff to the new apartment. About 4pm, Steve left for the Lone Star and I stayed behind to move the stuff from the floor onto shelves. (The carpet is being cleaned on Tuesday, so nothing can be on the floor.) That didn't take long. Instead of unpacking, I just left the stuff in the garbage bags that I used for hauling. I got back to my place and carried up several more loads to the new apartment. On one trip, I found Jim and Richard outside the apartment looking at the For Rent sign that Arthur has listed for his upstairs unit. I invited them inside to see the new place. Sounds like Jim is looking forward to a hot tub party. :-) I continued with moving stuff until about 7:30pm when I got a call from Steve. He was leaving the bar and wanted me to order a pizza. Both Steve and the pizza arrived about 15 minutes later. We ate pizza and watched The Simpsons. I loaded up the car once more. It had started to rain hard, and I got pretty drenched. Felt good, though. We both went to the new place, and Steve kept and eye on both the open door and the car while I unloaded it. I got quite a bit done. I got home and Jeff called to schedule another open house for tonight. I was hesitant since it's in such a state of moving, but what the hell. If I don't get things picked up by tonight, then it serves them right for not getting my shower to work yet.

I woke up around 4:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. Around 5:30, I started packing some more. I carried up one load of stuff to #84. I got back, and Steve was awake. I asked to use his car for a load of stuff. That sure helped move more than I could have by just walking between the places. I've got the majority of stuff moved. I'll do a few trips after work today. The carpets are being cleaned on Tuesday, so I won't be able to go over there at all because the carpets will need to dry overnight. Most of the rest of my stuff will be done by the movers on Wednesday, with just a few items for us to move ourselves. The moving process sucks! I do think I'm going to really like it at the new place. I won't do most of the unpacking until after we return from this weekend's trip to Palm Springs. That's going to take awhile, but hopefully I'll be all settled by the time Steve moves his stuff. Then it's back to weeks of unpacking!

I left for work around 7am, stopping first at the YMCA to take a much-needed shower. Just one more day living without a shower! It looks like the shower at #84 has good pressure. Wonders never cease.

04/25/03: Friday - 8am: Yes, I had neglected to update a blog entry on Thursday. Thanks for your patience. Thursday was one of the longest days I've had, and I just didn't get a chance to make the entry. I've gone ahead and added the entry below, rather than making today's entry even longer.

Got up Thursday and did even more cleaning before going to work. I got downtown around 9am and headed to the YMCA for my shower. I guess I rarely arrive at that time, as I had never noticed all the ferry commuters marching into town from the ferry building. Arriving by ferry must be an interesting commute, but I certainly prefer to live in town. I love my City.

The locker room was fairly empty at the Y. I did manage to get some steam for a bit. There was only one person in the steamroom, and he arrived just before me and was adding water to make more steam. He then proceeded to spread his towel and lie face down away from the door. I got to enjoy a steam as well as the view of his ass. He was nice and beefy, very different from most of the lean guys I see there.

Got to work and saw an email from Jeff Feinman. He had lost the keys I had given to him a couple days ago. This is the 3rd set of keys he's lost. He was unable to let in the plumber. Unbelievable. I gave him a call. He wanted to come down and pick up my keys and make copies and have the plumber return at 12:30pm. I told him I'd just come home and be there for the plumber.

I got home around 11:30am and stopped at the new apartment. Arthur was on the phone with his boss, so he gave me the keys and I waited in my apartment. Having only been in there once before, it was good to look around more. It was even better than I remembered. So much storage space on the main level. Hidden windows in some closets from a different era. I think I'm really going to like it there!

Arthur eventually came up and we chatted for a bit. His housekeeper is coming today to clean, then I'll be able to move in stuff to closets and kitchen. The carpet is being cleaned on Tuesday, so it'll be ready for me to move the rest of my stuff on Wednesday morning. Arthur is looking to move out by the end of May, so he's been showing his apartment to potential tenants. I told him that he'd better get good ones!

I came home and waited for the plumber. He showed up around 12:45pm. He was here for about 30 minutes. He replaced the diverter and the shower head. I heard him turn on the water and the shower, and he told me I'd be able to now take showers. He then put chemicals down the drain to help a bit with the slow draining. He said that the tub was "a piece of shit and needs to be replaced." Whatever. He said he'd note that for work to be done, as well as noting to fix the toilet to stop the constant water running.

He left and I went back to work for awhile. After I got come, I checked out the shower, having giving the chemicals in the drain a few hours to work. I turned on the cold water and flipped on the shower. Water came out the showerhead, but plenty still came out the faucet. Grrrrr. I went to turn on the hot water. I couldn't budge the knob. He had tightened it so much that I couldn't turn it. I tried for awhile and gave up. Bastard.

I went back to getting the place ready for the open house. I cleaned out my closet pretty well, putting lots of clothes in trashbags to transport eventually to the new place. I put all those trashbags up in the loft, out of the way. I cleaned until about 6:30pm, then I relaxed and played the piano for a bit. Jeff showed up at 7pm for the open house. I gave him yet another set of keys and I told him about the shower not being fixed. He said he'd try to turn the hot water knob for me while I was out. I went to the new apartment for a few minutes before the FCD club night. My mail had been delivered there. Woohoo! I had noticed earlier that the postman had crossed off my name from the mailbox here, but had left "Zink." I gotta remember to fill out a change of address card for Steve, too. He gets some insurance mail here.

FCD club night was ok. At about 7:30pm, we had 7 dancers there. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another dancer walk in. Enough for a square! Woohoo!!! Then I see that it's dowager-hair John. No!!! I'm gonna kill Italian Mario. He had mentioned at the Western Star night for people to come to FCD on Thursday. That bastard. John was the only Mainstream dancer, so we had to dance at that level. :-( During the first tip, a few other dancers showed up, so we were able to do alternate Plus tips. Nothing too exciting. I was pretty tired by the end of the evening.

After class, I had Joe come over to see the new place as well as my old place. I think it startled Arthur to hear me downstairs and see the deck light come on. I'm sure he figured it out, and we weren't there long. It was the first time for me to be there at night. From the deck, there were partial views of the Bay Bridge. I could also make out the C and the A from the lights of the Castro Theatre. Cool! I had no idea we could see that from there.

I saw Joe off, then came home. Steve had left a message, so I gave him a call. He had gotten home fine from his trip. We chatted for about 30 minutes. I'm looking forward to seeing him tonight!!!

I then got everything off the piano and moved it to the livingroom for the movers. Then off to bed. Awoke around 3am and couldn't fall asleep. Typed in the Thursday blog and this entry up to this point. I'll finish it and upload it once I get to work....

Later, at work.....

I didn't fall back asleep, so I left home around 5:30am. I made sure to get a newspaper, since I was notified I'd be in it today for their Two Cents column. Sure enough, that horrible picture of me is on the front page of the "Friday" (E) section. Here's what I said about my neighborhood. (Sans photo)

I got to the YMCA and they asked to re-take my photo. That's my 3rd one there. Weird. I went ahead and gave them my updated change of address. The lockerroom was even deader than the 9am timeslot. I took a steam, and there was a lot more steam than usual. I was probably the first one to use it today, so the steam hadn't escaped out the door yet. It took me a bit to even notice that I was the only one in there. I moved to the back and relaxed. With no visibility and being alone, I went ahead and beat off. I love having an orgasm in a steam room. I'm really looking forward to next weekend at CCBC where the steamroom is even "steamier."

Got to work and gave feedback on some stupid peer review checklist. Our shop is so primitive when it comes to mainframe installation. There is no test system which to first install, so things are often installed with JCL errors. No checklist is going to necessarily find all those. Whenever an install fails, my stupid boss just says "we'll add it to the checklist." Stupid bitch.

I just won an eBay auction for some rainbow suspenders. Why did I bit on them? They are part of the ECR "uniform" to be worn briefly during the convention. I stopped at Does Your Father Know yesterday to ask if they had any. Nope. The place they ordered from no longer makes them, and they verified that no one else in the Castro sells them. The ones I got on eBay look like good quality ones, with the leather panel in back. May as well have good quality if I'm going to have to wear them for a whole 45 minutes once a year!

I've got to leave work shortly. The piano movers are supposed to arrive at 10am to remove the piano. :-( After that, I'll probably come back downtown for bearlunch, then work, then home to see Double-0-Steven. :-D

04/24/03: Thursday (posted on Friday) - Got home on Wednesday and finished getting sheetmusic sorted and in binders for the singalong. I then went to the store and got some veggies, cookies, etc. for the singalong. Got home and cleaned some more.

The singalong went well. 8 people showed up. Junior emailed at 5:30pm to RSVP. (I had forgotten that Norris is called "Junior" by his folks and hates it. Glad that I now remembered that....) It was Jim, Leo, Junior, Jeff, Tom, Leslie, Max and me. I didn't even notice that I had a Leo and a Max here at the same time. We should have done some songs from The Producers!

It was Leo's first time to come over. He has such a great bass voice, something we've been missing at the singalongs. It seemed like he had a good time. I think everyone enjoys these. Hopefully I'll be able to have them more frequently once I get moved.

After the singalong, I stayed up and cleaned for a long time, getting ready for Thursday night's open house. Exhausting!

Revenues at Schwab were way down for 1st Quarter. Earnings were reported down yesterday, so we got an email from the CEO. He said we'd be focusing on increasing revenue. He made no mention whatsoever of futher layoffs or any hints of that; however, in today's paper it has our CFO stating that more jobs will be slashed. I hate reading it elsewhere. Usually the company has been pretty forthright. Not this time. I printed out our severance benefits page today so that I'd have record of it. I'm eligible now for 5 months severance pay, plus the 60-day notice period. Hopefully that would provide plenty of time to find more work. After yesterday's meeting with my boss, I'm sure I'd be one of the ones let go. Of course, she should have been let go during one of the first rounds we had!

04/22/03: Tuesday, 9:30am - I stopped at Walgreens on the way home yesterday and bought a cheap mop, but I didn't wind up doing any mopping yet. Probably tonight.

Got an email from Jeff Feinman. He couldn't locate my apartment key, so the plumber couldn't fix my shower yesterday. GRRRRR. I KNOW that Jeff has a key, because I've found it on his keyring before when some other maintenance guy locked me out. It was just unmarked. I'm pissed. I left Jeff a spare set of marked keys after work. Hopefully he can reschedule the plumber soon.

Steve had left me a message. He had taken care of ordering the new telephone service. Good boy! I had asked that he try to get a number that spelled something. He outdid himself. Last digits are 2327, which spells BEAR. Steve gets a cookie!

I did some more packing and grocery shopping before going to square dancing. I saw sexy Rick in line. It was already 5pm, so didn't bother to ask him if he was done with his appointment and could come over for the previously-arranged fun. Left it to small talk. I saw Big Dan there as well. I love my neighborhood. :-)

Square dancing was amusing. Merle showed up, clueless as ever. Ditto with John. Ditto with Carlos. Actually, Carlos probably isn't clueless, just tipsy, as his breath reeked of alchohol. During a break, I mentioned to Don & Larry that they're renaming the class "graduation" to "completion." They laughed. That class is so sad. Meanwhile, Ron goes on about how good the class is, LOL. Italian Mario showed up all decked out in a blazer. Woof. I hadn't seen him for about a month, ever since my "Mario sandwich" at the FCD class. **sigh** Ron brought some choreo bits that were good. He asked me how I liked them, and I did. Turns out that Ron hates the creative part of coming up with choreography. Interesting. I can see where someone wouldn't like that. On the other hand, I think I'd like to come up with the choreography, but not necessarily do the calling. The choreography for square dancing is like a big math problem. I guess that's why it's mentally challenging. We had two squares for most of the night, so that was good. I got frustrated with John and Merle towards the end, so I just moved them pretty forceably when necessary. Ron did talk a bit about the Plus class. He made it clear that you must know the Mainstream calls independently in order to go on to the Plus class. I had heard John and Merle previously talking about going on to Plus. There's no way they'd be allowed. Bet I'll see them taking Mainstream in the fall for the fourth time. Even Darryl commented about how many times that John has taken the MS class, inferring to his ineptitude.

Got home and cleaned out the refrigerator for the most part, replacing the drawers and shelf that had been removed. There's plenty of beer for Wednesday's sing-a-long. It's from 7-9pm. Wanna come over, to help me consume some of this beer? There's Bud Light, Corona, and Bass. Just email me so I know to expect you.

I called today to cancel my DSL, phone, and cable. No problemo. A bit of waiting on hold, but the phone reps were all very pleasant. Hopefully the new installation will go as smoothly. I did call and leave a message for the piano company to call me to arrange for my rental piano to be removed. Hopefully we can arrange for piano movers to move Steve's baby grand into the new place soon.

Today they are taking pictures to post on the company's online white pages. I've meant to send in a pic for awhile, but I keep forgetting. It had better turn out better than the one that the Chronicle took! They are letting you preview the pic so that another one can be taken immediately if necessary. Also today is a meeting for the company's GLBT group. It's always interesting to see who shows up who you didn't know was gay.

This afternoon is the dreaded bi-weekly meeting with my boss. She has been rather annoying the past couple of weeks about statuses. Hopefully I can again come up with something to placate her. I had previously been on her good side. Looks like I've gotten on her bad side. Maybe I'll go for the sympathy factor, discussing my Dad's health and my sister's unemployment. Don't underestimate sympathy. In college, I was a music minor for that first year I attended. I did fine with theory, composition, history, etc. However, it was necessary to do some sight-singing for my Aural Skills class. (Not Oral skills silly -- I get an A+ there.) I did ok with figuring out the notes for sight-singing, but my pitch isn't great since I'm a poor singer. (I had classmates who were Voice majors.) For the final exam, part of it involved sightreading a song to play on the piano. No problem. Another part involved sightreading and singing. For the sympathy vote to make up for my being "flat," I brought along tissues and sniffled. It worked. The professor said "Well, you were a bit flat, but with a cold that's understandable." Got an A. I think the best I can hope for this afternoon is a B- or C+, LOL.

After my morning shower at the YMCA (no time for steamroom today), I stopped by the post office to check mail. I got an Easter card from Rick in PA. I still haven't found any emails from him, so maybe it's just a magazine thing; however, the magazine lists me as Gary Y., but he addressed it to Gary Young. Just curious. I do love getting mail at the P.O. box. :-)

Between meetings today, I need to photocopy some music for the sing-a-long. I've finished copying songs from my books, so now it's just a matter of making multiple copies. It's hard to hide the fact that you're doing non-work when you're copying from books. Copying from copies is less suspicious. Assembling them into the sheet protectors is totally suspicious, so I'll probably take that up to the 18th floor breakroom sometime today. Maybe that will give me some time to think up good statuses for my boss, LOL.

04/21/03: Monday, 10am - I dread waiting until Monday to update Blog entries for the weekend, but my home computer acts up. On my own webpage, my Internet Explorer at home won't do a "right-click, view source" for me. I have no javascript blocking it, so I'm clueless why this occurs. Can you enlighten me? It would make it easier to just "view source" and update from home. Anyhow, on with the details since Friday....

I had a nice lunch with David on Friday. We just picked up a sandwich from a deli and then sat outside at the tables at Mission & Steuart. It was a gorgeous day. I got back to the office and xeroxed about half a dozen songs.

I got home Friday and did a little packing. I was bushed and just stayed in for the night. I contemplated going out, but I knew that I'd be doing the Egg Party on Saturday.

I left about noon to go to the YMCA to take a shower. Cal got on the train at church, and I chatted with him until he got off at Montgomery. I'd see him later at the party. Took a shower, then got some steam. I was surprised that the steamroom was so packed for a Saturday. Nice to see so many naked men. :-) After the YMCA, I stopped at work and photocopied several more songs. I only have a few more songbooks from which to make copies, so hopefully I'll finish that up today. I left work around 1:15pm in order to get home and then to the egg party.

The Egg Party was busy. The jello shots seem to hit me right away. Drew refers to me in his blog as drunk or stoned or both. [Drunk, not stoned.] Not drinking too often, I guess I'm turning into a lightweight for such a fat bastard. I did manage to avoid the "magical" cookies this year, knowing how bad they impacted me last year. I got to visit with lots of folks and stayed for the duration. Got to visit more with Richard from square dancing and his partner, Dave. Dave said he'd be running for Mr. SF Bear this year. Chatted mostly with Alberto, Rich, and Dwayne. J was there, and I got to kiss him for a bit, but just briefly. :-( About a dozen people were still there when I left. It was a bit anti-climatic and I was in a weird place. I went to Starbucks, then home. Steve called and we talked for awhile. I missed having my friend at the party.

I fell asleep about 9pm with my contacts still in. I awoke at 1am and took them out. I then couldn't sleep the rest of the night. The jello shots really messed me up. Must have been stronger than I usually make them. I decided to avoid the Easter rush at the morning service. I did a little packing, but not much. It was my 3rd year anniversary in town, but I just stayed in. Saturday's liquor and lack of sleep messed me up for the day. I had an estrogen surge and watched a few movies on Lifetime. The YMCA was closed for Easter, so I didn't even take a shower on Sunday. I did finally go out for the 7pm church service (with the rest of the unwashed masses...). It was really good. Penny even donned a pope hat to make a point. She's great. The service was packed for Easter. I can't imagine how packed the morning service must have been. I got home and did some more packing.

They are supposed to fix my shower today. I turned on the water this morning just to see if it was still bad, which it was. A zillion ants poured out of the water knob. Pretty funny. Hopefully they'll do the same for the maintenance guy today, LOL.

I left home this morning at 7am and went directly to the YMCA for my shower. That certainly felt good. It'll be nice to have my shower at home working again. We never checked the water pressure in the new place. It had better be good!

I ordered new checks today with the updated address. I had been getting low on checks anyhow. I only write one or two a month. One for rent, then others for occasional things like square dance memberships, etc. The rest of my bills are done online. I love the internet.

Steve wants the new phone service to be in his name. Because they wanted all his credit info, he'll have to call to do it. I called him this morning and gave him the number. He is done with his conference. He was at F's and having lunch. He is going to the Library of Congress today to look up his published poem. That's pretty cool. I really miss him.

Rick was going to come over today, but he had to cancel. Hopefully we can hookup later in the week. I'll probably just go home and do some more packing before heading to square dancing.

04/18/03: Friday, 9:30am - TGIF. Good Friday. It seems I'm always happy to see Fridays come along. A "Good" one is even better. It used to be my favorite holiday because the stock market and my work was closed, but the banks were open. Schwab says it is closed on market holidays, but that's another of its lies since it makes us work Good Friday. I forgot about it being a holiday today. I saw the traffic report on TV today, and it looked unusually light, even for a normally light Friday. I got to the Muni station, and a couple of the trains were packed. I waited for an empty Castro shuttle. Shuttle queen. I was in the second car and was last one off the train at Embarcadero, having to pick up the newspaper I had dropped. I got to the top of the escalator and the place was deserted. I saw only 3 other people until the next BART arrived. It didn't hit me until I got to the second escalator that today was a holiday. I do have one Friday gripe: Every Friday, Muni moves the recycle bins away from the north escalator on Fridays. I end up walking to the north end of the station to drop off my finished newspaper in the BART recycle bins. Today, even the BART recycle bin was not at the turnstyle. Grrrrr. I wound up leaving the paper at Starbucks.

I didn't do much yesterday afternoon. Three loads of laundry and the dishes. I did speak to Arthur. He said that things will be set for me to move in on the 30th. He did agree to give me the keys on the 24th so that I can have my mail forwarded and that I can come over and do some measuring. I'll probably be able to move some stuff over as soon as he has the carpets cleaned, which he said will be done closer to the end of the month. I spoke with Jeff about my shower. They'll be coming on Monday to fix it. Meanwhile, more showering at the YMCA.

I forgot to mention that on Wednesday at WSD club night, Steve invited Fen to come to our class graduation on the 28th. He clarified and said that they were actually making it a class "completion" rather than "graduation." LOL. I'm guessing that since over half the class is bad, they didn't want to imply that they can actually graduate to the next level. It is kind of offensive to those of us who worked hard and attended every class. I think Darryl and I are the only ones who have attended all the classes.

I spent awhile surfing square dance websites yesterday. On the Boots In Squares site, they have a rather lengthy online video of them dancing to Deborah Carol-Jones. The video is poor quality, but at least I got to hear audio of Deborah Carol-Jones. Everyone says she's a great singing caller. They're right. She even sings her signature "Don't Cry for Me, Pasadena."

Got some good mail yesterday. I got my "Peel-Off in Palm Springs" confirmation. It said they were looking for people to share rooms, since all rooms are now taken. Well, it's been announced for months and months, so I can't really sympathize with those who wait until too late. We do have a suite, so we could obviously accomodate someone. After the inconvenience the last time we shared a suite, I'm not too keen on sharing one again. Hopefully we'll be sharing it only on an hourly basis.

I also received the vocal score to "Into the Woods." I've been wanting it for several years, but the $100 price tag was a lot. I found it for $72 online at half.com. I never had thought to look there. I just look on eBay occasionally, where it is usually just listed for $100 by the music store in NYC. If I can get them to sell on eBay for $90, it might make it worth the while to undercut that NYC store. Maybe a good hobby for Double-0-Steven.

I'm having lunch with David today. Gotta be sure to shower at the YMCA first, LOL. I'm anxious to hear about his new job. I'm meeting him near his office, which is right by evil Bechtel. hisssssssss

I'm going to try to make more copies for songbooks today. I'm having a sing-a-long next Wednesday, and it would be nice to have the copies made before then. Norris hasn't responded. I'm guessing he won't. Too bad. The extra piano player helps. Can you come over on Wednesday at 7pm and help with piano playing???

04/17/03: Thursday, 10am - Went to YMCA around 2pm for a shower, then back to work until 3:30pm. After my boss Debra's email the other day, I wanted to be sure to be around, even if it meant extra hours at the office. Amazing how appearance counts for so much and content does not. Work immediating a gay man.

I got home and did little. Steve called me from Washington. He was at F's and just had 4 martinis. F was in the lobby saying goodbye to a bear411 guy who had just come over. I guess F is certainly taking care of my baby! :-) Steve gets pretty silly after hard liquor. My cute puppy!

Traded some emails with Rick, whom I'd seen on Monday. Looks like we might be able to hookup on Monday. He thought Steve was cute, too, and asked about him. And I was just searching Google yesterday for a pic of one of those 3-way signal signs that I see on Dolores. Hmmmm. I didn't find one, so if you find a pic of one, let me know.

Went to the WSD club night at 7:30pm. Fen was the caller, and we waited for awhile to get started, as we only had 7 dancers. Alvin was supposed to bring the water, but didn't show, so Steve went to get some at Cala. Meanwhile, Nobu showed up. It took Steve about 15 minutes to get the water, then we finally had enough for a square. Fen called pretty fast, so that was good. Less time to break down, although John does his damndest to break down a square at any cost. His cologne alone can break down a square. [Side note: Joe had a good description of John's coif as "dowager hair."] More people eventually showed up, but not enough for more than one square. I danced all the tips, but didn't feel too bad about letting others sit out. If you wanna dance, be one of the first to join the square. Seems like everyone got tired after awhile, including me. I lost my smile for awhile after some other goofs. I kept my mouth shut, but was frustrated. I forced myself to smile after awhile and just continue. Floor time is a good thing. Fen did a good job.

Got home and watched the end of West Wing. I cleaned off the cocktail table (bear on its back with a glass top). Rhoda didn't want it, so I'll probably donate it for the ECR "Come What May" silent auction. It was a piece of furniture that I really liked at one time. I had the opportunity to buy it at Sam's Club years ago, but it wasn't there long. I found it a couple years later on QVC for about $50 cheaper. Now it's nothing too special. Gawd, tell me I'm not "post-bear."

My manager reviewed my online "objectives" yesterday. I got a response from the tool overnight saying that my manager had added comments. Turns out that the objectives date should have been 1/1/03 - 12/31/03 instead of 02/01/03 - 01/31/03 as had been stated on the site. She had changed those, but left my objectives intact. I'm guessing that I've probably written lots more reviews that she ever has or ever will. My goal today is to provide a status update that looks like a lot was accomplished, although this week was nothing compared to last week. She still won't be pleased unless things are installed. She has no sense of the projects. She just wants to see things that she can add to her own status reports. She's very "process" oriented and not a good manager. That usually works for me. I'm happy only being bothered once a week.

My apartment is looking pretty bad. Needs cleaning. I'm free tonight, so I guess I should try to get things done. I need to contact Arthur today as well. I'm anxious to get stuff moved, or at least get my change of address in place. I'd like to order some stuff online, but it's hard with a new mailing address that isn't in place, or with my credit card address not yet being changed. Oh well, less than two weeks, and that will all be done!

04/16/03: Wednesday, 8:30am - I went home around 11am on Tuesday to meet Steve for lunch. We went to The Cove. Patty Melt and Fries. French Fries. We then went to Starbucks for a bit before Steve's eye appointment. I went home and logged onto work for awhile. Steve called after his appointment, then I met him in the Castro and we took Muni and went to Costco. I ran into Rick on the Muni and chatted with him for a bit. Hopefully my schedule will allow me to hook up with him again soon. I did let him know that our new apartment has a hot tub. I think he needs a soak....

We shopped for a bit, not getting much: Listerine tabs, socks, and some slacks for Steve's trip. I looked for file cabinets to price them, but I found none. I would definitely like some for downstairs in the new place. We picked up his car and came home.

Steve napped for awhile, and I logged into work. My boss had emailed me yesterday, asking for my weekly status which is due on Thursdays. I usually wait for her reminder. This week, however, I had indeed sent it to her on Thursday. I forwarded my original to her. Stupid bitch can't keep track of things. She later emailed me that she thought my tasks weren't moving quickly enough and "Can we discuss?" Well, I was pissed, so I didn't reply. Guess my answer would be "No, we can't discuss." Bitch. I had gone out of my way last week and did 5 peer reviews and learned someone else's tasks to do while they were on vacation. Of course, that counts for nothing, I suppose.

I made Steve a pot pie for dinner, then he went home to pack for his trip, and I went to my square dance class. Class was really good. Harlen taught "All 8 Spin The Top," "Dixie Grand," "Linear Cycle," and "Spin Chain Thru." We've learned 23 of the 32 calls already. Class goes through June, so Harlen said he's really going to grill us and make us really great Plus dancers before convention. He called really fast last night, which was good. Some people screwed up a lot, but I did fine. Rick said afterwards that they had been watching me (he sat out several dances) and that I was the best student (how inappropriate), and that I was "scarily" good. I think he meant "just plain scary." I'm having lots of fun and I like the mental challenges. You really have to be a good listener and really focus to be a good square dancer.

In my Plus class, most students are decent. I found out last night that I don't like being in a square with Joseph or Tomas. Too many breakdowns. Ed, who's had lots of problems before after missing a class, missed class yet again. We learned a lot last night, so he's going to be quite lost. Besides new calls, Harlen really emphasized just stopping after "Explode And" and after "Allemande Left." It made us figure out ending position. Those calls are almost always followed by something else, but he wanted to make sure we didn't assume anything. He's a great teacher.

It'll be nice once we move to the new flat to be able to come home from square dancing and get then relax in the hot tub. Hopefully I can drag home a cute student or two to join me and Steve. :-)

Still pissed at my boss's email from yesterday, I made sure to get into work extra early today. I submitted my goals and objectives through the new online tool. Got that done. Guess I'll get started on some other "real" work today. Grrrrrr. My shower is still out. I splashed water on this morning and shaved, but I'll head over to the YMCA to see some ass later. Er, to shower, that is.

04/15/03: Tuesday, 9:30am - I went to the YMCA at lunch yesterday to take a shower. My shower at home still is not working. After that, I just went home. I saw a moving truck up the street that looked like it was in front of our new apartment. I walked up to check it out, and sure enough, they were moving Wendy's stuff. Woohoo! That should mean that I'll be able to get in there before the end of the month. I'll wait another day or so before I call Arthur about it.

Did nothing in the afternoon. Checked work email, etc. I got a call stating that my new glasses were ready, so I picked them up. They seem fine. Nothing spectacular or too odd. Signed onto m4m4sex to see who was online. Saw some good ads and some disturbing ones as well. I love the guys who say on their bear.net ads that one-night stands are not for them, but the same guys say in their m4m4sex ads that they are complete pig sluts. I hope I convey on both my ads that I'm not a pig. Just a slut. Ok, a slut who doesn't get sex very often. But I'm easy. Spread the word.

Square dance class was ok. They've learned all the mainstream calls, so there were no new calls to learn. Ron did teach styling for a few things. He continued to use Partner Hinge. Afterwards, I explained to him that it is a call at the Advanced level, not Mainstream. He didn't believe me, but looked it up and saw that I was correct. He said you needed it at Plus level to do Linear Cycle. I explained that at Plus level, that's only done from waves, so Partner Hinge isn't required. He had to concede that as well. I don't mind learning Advanced calls, I just want Ron to know the material so that he doesn't end using an Advanced call at a Mainstream dance. Not sure if anyone hires him to call dances. Class ended shortly after 9pm. I went to Starbucks with Joe, Abbi, Bob, Steve, and Alvin. It was good to socialize some with them for a bit. Luke was there and sat on the other side of me. I love a real neighborhood where I actually see my neighbors out and about!

I spoke with Steve after I got home. His tires are in at Costco, so he'll be driving up to the City today to get them. We'll go out to lunch, then he has an appointment with the eye doctor. The shuttle picks him up tomorrow morning from his house around 5am, so he can't stay up tonight for square dancing. I'm happy that I get to see him one more time before his trip. Having a boyfriend you like is a good thing. :-)

I got downtown around 7am this morning and took a shower at the YMCA. I stopped by the post office and got an Easter card from magazine admirer, Jose. He writes a bit too much for someone from a decent-sized city. Go out and meet people in your own area, folks! Oh well, I do understand the "safety" of admiring someone from afar. Of course, those who know me in person don't give me a second look, LOL.

04/14/03: Monday, 10:30am - Had a good time on Saturday night at the SBB game night. I played a couple long hands of Uno. I then jumped into the hot tub with Pete, Eric, George, and John. The air temp and water temp were a good match. Eric felt me up for awhile, getting me hard for a bit. Mmmmm. Can't wait to have a hot tub in my own backyard in a couple weeks. After a good soak, I came in and played Triple Yahtzee with Lee and George. I had only played "regular" Yahtzee before, but liked this version. Double-0-Steven spent most of the evening playing Fluxx. That was the most popular game of the night. I guess it's kinda like Uno with a vengeance. You have some cards that constantly change the rules as you go along. Looked interesting. Steve definitely wants to get it, although it seems like it'd be better to play with more than two people. Wanna come over for a game and then enjoy a soak in the hot tub???

Steve had a good time on Saturday and decided that we'd go to dim sum with SBB on Sunday morning. He said he knew where it was. I didn't pay attention to the email, but I overheard that it was in Cupertino at Hwy 85 & De Anza. Steve said that he had been there twice. He knew where it was, because after all, he had lived in Santa Clara. We drive down on Sunday morning. Steve's driving around for 30 minutes looking for the place. He had taken an exit for 85 and we were at De Anza, but Steve had turned off of 85 onto Steven's Creek. I just assumed 85 & Steven's Creek were the same since Steve knew where it was. They're weren't the same, obviously. I was furious. Some things that I hate include: bad driving, being lied to, and being late. I get all three in one morning. Bygones. I just now know to check addresses for myself. We instead ate at Marie Callenders. Food was ok, but service was a bit rude.

Got back to Steve's and he straightened up some stuff in his bedroom while I cleaned the toilets then vacuumed the carpeting. (Two chores he disdains.) The realtors are coming to his place for a preview on Tuesday. It was time for us to leave to go to the BOSF meeting. Steve decided that something HAD to be done before we left, so we spent 20 minutes doing that. It could have taken less than 10 minutes, but he "had" to do some stuff that he could easily have done the next day. I was bitchy. Then I had to endure more bad and rude driving. Both piss me off. Steve was pushing all my buttons yesterday, but he tried to be sweet to accomodate me. Thank god my period is just once a month. It could be worse. My friend, Rhoda, seems to have her period EVERY day except one day per month!

Got to the LS and to the BOSF meeting which I wanted to avoid. As a board member, it's my responsibility to attend. Of course, that didn't bother 4 other board members who didn't attend. I have missed the last two board meetings, but let them all know in advance. Anyhow, seems that they received 7 candidacy statements for the 9 positions. They determined who was running who hadn't sent in anything. John Stephens apparently sent his in, but to the wrong board member who didn't bother to forward it. Larry didn't send in anything, and they think he just forgot. They'd go home and contact him. They mentioned that I didn't send in anything, and told Jeff to put me on the list. I just shook my head no and signalled for him to remove me. He crossed off my name. They noticed that later and asked. I just said that I was even busier than John Forrett, so it wouldn't be right for me to run. (That's the logic Mark used to strong-arm John not to run.)

LS-Owner Kevin made an appearance. He said that he had contacted his lawyers, City planning, and an architect. Seems that there are some building modifications that can be made but will be very expensive. Kevin's all pissed about the anonymous letter to the fire marshall. Just fix the place, dammit. I love the LS, but at least comply with City codes, dammit. Double-0-Steven said we should picket City Hall. I can't stand stupid ideas. Let's see....the place doesn't comply with code. So we should picket to show that safety shouldn't be regulated? Being on the rag, I let Steve have it again. Poor thing. Pushes all my buttons in one day.

Not wanting to hang around the LS for more questions about not running again for BOSF board, I had Steve take me home. (I said I'd take public transport, but he was super sweet to try to overcompensate for pushing my buttons.) After the tension of getting that BOSF meeting out of the way, I got in a bit better mood. We played Scrabble, then ordered a pizza for dinner before going to church. Church was ok. I've had better music on Sunday nights, but it was still uplifting. There were some lyrics "Run with me" which Steve promplty changed to "Run from me. LOL. He is so good with words. We got home from church, played another game of Scrabble, then Steve went home. He had to pick up F in the morning in Redwood City and take him to the airport. Steve leaves on Wednesday for Washington for his Eckankar seminar and to visit there with F. I won't be seeing Steve until a week from Friday. :-(

04/12/03: Saturday, 10:30am - I worked from home yesterday, so I didn't bother to post, as it's easier from work. Yet, here I am on Saturday, posting from home....

I did duck out of work early on Thursday. I came home and mostly just relaxed except for some laundry. I did some work items, and answered some stupid email from my boss.

Thursday night I went to FCD club night. Including Fen, the caller, we had 8 people. We didn't learn any new calls, but we did do some calls from atypical positions. (Girls on the left for Track 2, etc.) I messed up a bit on a couple calls, but I think my brain was just coasting. It was not too exciting of a night.

On Friday I just stayed home. I did Peggy's project, which didn't take too long, and checked emails and phonemails several times throughout the day.

At 1pm I went and got my haircut. I think I just got it cut 2 weeks ago, but I wanted to time it right to have my hair cut again right before going to Palm Springs on May 2nd. I stopped at Starbucks on the way home. Wallpaper man, Dan, said hi as he entered and bye as he exited. He is so cute, and nice as can be. His amazing independence really helped as an inspiration to getting over Norris a couple years ago. Still, I prefer to just appreciate Wallpaper man as eye candy....

I picked up some spackle at Cliff's. Got several nail holes to fill in here. I got home and rested. Steve picked up F from Albert-ho's and they came up. We went to The Edge around 6pm. I only stayed for one drink then came home. They went to dinner with Paulie and Albert-ho. They stopped back by and we all went to the Lone Star. I waited in line for 45 minutes. F & Albert-ho & Paulie all cut line to be with Steve. I felt bad for the guys behind us, so I left my spot to talk with Richard for awhile. Bobby came out and waited in line with Richard, too. With only 49 people, I could probably list them all here, but won't. Jim Graham was there in line just ahead of Richard and me. He seemed more friendly than usual. With fewer people, there were less people to talk with, so he "stooped" to talk with me. No daddy bears with whom he could flirt. Steve was otherwise occupied, talking with Doug who will be the sound man for "Wicked." From what Doug said, it sounds like the show is going to be very good with lots of good songs. I'm really looking forward to it opening here. I have to wait until June 4th to see it. I spoke to Duane for awhile. He's losing some shifts so that bartenders can get in their hours working up in the store. As things are, the LS really sucks now.

Got home and we both went to bed almost immediately. My shower's not working so we'll head to Steve's this morning and shower there, hopefully after some ravaging. :-)

This evening we're going to game night with SBB. It's at Nathan's. Besides games, there'll be the clothing optional hot tub. Sounds more fun that BOSF game night already. :-) F had plans for today, but hopefully he'll be able to join us tonight for game night.

04/10/03: Thursday, 9am - Had our department lunch at Gordon Biersch. Joyce made a reservation for 15, lower it to 12, then only 6 people showed up. Tom showed up about 10 minutes later to make it 7. Group reservations really suck. I had the reuben sandwich. It was corned beef reuben instead of of my usual pastrami. I tend to not like corned beef, but the sandwich was quite good. We did end up having the 2pm meeting. It was none too interesting. Joyce asked for feedback on the all-hands meetings done by 6 of the VP's. I said it was boring. May as well show guts that you can be truthful. I'm pretty good at knowing when it's a bad move, but I'll be the squeaky wheel when appropriate.

My sister Judy is losing her job. Some company bought out the 401k division of the bank where she works. There's a slim chance that she'd be one of the 15 out of 250 to be selected to help with the conversion for 6 months, but she's got little hope she said. July would have been her 5th year anniversary where she's vested in the retirement plan. Being let go before then, she won't get a dime of it. That bites big time.

Last time I went to Steve's, I waited for 30 minutes for the N-Mission Bay to get me to Caltrain. Taking the train, the quickest from walking from work and taking the N is about 15 minutes. It only takes 20 minutes to walk, so I walked to Caltrain from work. It was a gorgeous day. Got to Steve's, then we went to Mountain View and met up with some other square dancers for dinner at Oregano. The pizza choices looked interesting. Steve had an Eggplant Parmesan pizza. I just had the chicken Caesar salad. Nothing special.

Square dancing was good. The 30-minute class review had us do Peel-Off from some unusual positions. That was good to know. During class, they reviewed Teacup Chain, then Andy called it in a very unusual pattern where all 4 "ladies" start by going to the center at the same time. He also called it where all 4 ladies go to the corner at the same time. I made one goof of not hearing "Single Circle to a Wave," but those dancing with me put me in the right spot immediately. The class learned "Relay the Deucey," which my class has been doing for awhile. For something different, I got to do it from the usual "boy" starting position, so that was good experience. Sitting out during an Advanced tip, I saw them do Cut The Diamond where the points were facing the same way. That lends to a very different feeling Partner Trade. Learnig and seeing all these different positions was great experience, as was additional floor time and interaction with those at ECR. At one point I was watching Andy dancing in an Advanced tip. He actually smiled at me. He doesn't seem to be a big smiler. I think he had seen that I'm dancing fine. Their class down there does a really good job. I believe they only have 5 students. The angels tend to mess up more than the students, as seems to be the norm most places (except with some hideous Western Star students).

Rick Perna stopped and said he needed to talk to me about considering being on the board of directors at Foggy City. Guess I should actually become a member first, LOL. (I did take a check on Tuesday, but George said to wait until next week.) I know that being on a board of directors is not a picnic. At this point, I think it would really sabotage my enthusiasm for square dancing, so I'll not even consider it. You may as well have some enthusiastic members to inspire the board. Those on boards tend to get in the rut of thinking they do all the work (which is often true). Enthusiastic club members help spur things on. Darwin and John W. are excellent examples of that as demonstrated for IBR planning.

Got to Steve's, watched the last half of South Park, then I went to bed. My ear was bothering me. I think I got too brutal with the q-tip yesterday morning. I was hoping to ravage Double-0-Steven, but it was too late by the time he got to bed, plus he had reflux. Did get in some cuddling. I'll program his Zire to schedule ravaging time when I see him on Saturday.

Got up at 6am, quickly showered and ready and in the car by 6:20am and down to the train. I had a great walk from Caltrain to work. Very pleasant morning. There is so much to SF that I haven't seen. I love my City! I got into work just before 8am. I could not stand to commute from the suburbs every day. I love the views from Steve's house, but that kind of life is definitely not for me. May as well live in the boring midwest if you're gonna live in suburbs. I hope Steve adapts to living in the City ok. I'm know he's going to miss his views. Hopefully our "partial" view will suffice. Our garden seems like it'll be very peaceful, and I think the hot tub will be getting lots of use.

Peggy had 5 more peer reviews she needed done. I volunteered for that and took care of it this morning. Hopefully this kinda stuff will look good to my boss.

I'll probably duck out in a bit and work mostly from home today. Lots to do there. I'd like to get as prepared for my move as early as possible.

04/09/03: Wednesday, 9:30am - I spent a couple hours working on the newsletter yesterday. (Copying, folding, etc.) I did most of the assembling up in the 18th floor breakroom. Few people use it, and it was an ideal place to work on it. Got them all out in the mail, so I'm done with that for a couple months except for getting interview questions to Harry Lit for the next issue. Is "Can I fuck you?" an inappropriate interview question?

I had my bi-weekly meeting with my boss yesterday. I dread those. Yesterday I had lots of updates to make my plate look full, so that made it easier. She's pretty clueless. We reviewed my objectives. Under "relationships," I had listed to give regular status updates to my business partners. She said that she doesn't want me to give them updates. How bizarre.

I emailed my apartment manager to let him know that my apartment maintenance has yet to be completed, and that I'd have to shower at the YMCA in the meantime. My shower is pretty much kaputt. No word from him. He hasn't even mentioned anything about my 30-day notice.

I decided to wear my "It Ain't Gonna Suck Itself" t-shirt to square dancing. That got some laughs and some very scared looks. Kinda like my "Cut the Diamond" yells do.

Jeff Dangermon said that he found out he was "in print." Thanks, Jack. I think Jack pays more attention to my blog than most others, based on the number of people who say that they "heard from Jack" about something in my blog. LOL. See Jeff, you're listed again. On an unrelated note, doncha just love tall, handsome men with nice asses?

Class was ok. Harlen was not there. :-( Fen filled in, but he's no Harlen. (Who is?) The new calls for the night were "Eight Chain Thru (1, 2, 3, etc.)" and "Explode and....." Throwaway calls, although I do like the idea of "Explode and......suck my cock." I screwed up once on a "Track 2" that was called from an unusual position. We did it again, and my brain got around it the second time. Other than that, I was very confident with all the calls.

Tuesday's class is 10 times better than Monday's. Much funner people with whom to dance. I really like dancing in a square with Michael Levy. Usually I don't even seem to have much interaction or even remember the other "girls" in the square, but somehow Michael is different that way. Hope I can emulate that. My partners for the night were Joe, Don, Larry, Jeff, Tony, and Ed. I still don't think I could focus much on dancing if I partnered with Mario. He was in my square several times, which is always nice. :-P

Last club night, Rick mentioned about what to do to get more people to attend. I said that they should at least mention it during Tuesday classes. Announcements came and went again with no mention of club night, so I piped up. I'm still not expecting much of a turnout. Guess we'll see!

After dancing, I headed over to Mark & Steve's for the last part of game night. As I walked up, Richard and Dave were also just arriving. Richard had just been in class with me. I got in and saw lots of great guys. With no Lone Star beer busts, the social interaction was a welcome relief. J was there. It was only the 2nd time for me to see him since staying overnight that Friday before the 49-thing at the LS. We immediately deep-kissed for a bit. Mmmmm. Good. He still likes me, LOL.

About 5 minutes after I arrived, I saw that Steve Cosmo and Double-0-Steven had arrived from their Michael Palin book-signing thing. I saw that Jim Gatteau was there, but I didn't have to say a word to him. I'm blessed. There were also two unflattering pics of him in the newsletter. Double blessed.

I played Uno for awhile with 5 other guys. Richard and Dave played, with Dave sitting next to me. I kidded with him a lot. Hopefully that made him feel welcome, being new to BOSF and all. Richard laughed a lot at my comments. I think I make him nervous. Maybe he should just make out with me for awhile....

We left just before 11pm and drove Cosmo home. He's got the best legs. My shoulders would like a closer inspection, though.

I didn't get much sleep. Tossed and turned most of the night. I got up and packed some stuff to take to Steve's tonight. I shaved, then headed out to the YMCA for my shower before work. The scales said I've dropped a few more pounds to 219.5. Guess skipping beerbusts DOES help. Only 40 pounds left to go, LOL.

We have a department lunch today. I think that means our 2pm meeting is cancelled. Off to Steve's this afternoon, then Mountain View for dinner, then Palo Alto for ECR class. I think they're learing "Relay the Deucey" tonight. That'll take awhile. Hopefully they'll learn something else as well. During the 7pm review, I'll ask to practice "Coordinate" and maybe "Spin Chain the Gears."

04/08/03: Tuesday, 10:30am - Went to eat lunch in the cafeteria yesterday. The salad bar has been changed to only have pre-made salads. That sucks. Guess I'll have to go out for a salad bar from now on. I ended up going home for lunch. I just stayed there. Big surprise. James, one of my business partners in Phoenix, had left a phonemail at work. I called him back and walked him through a problem for awhile. I seem to be getting more useful at work. Scary.

Square dance class was ok. Ron taught the "Hinge" family of calls. He started off with "Partner Hinge," which is an advanced call. Sure, just confuse them more, LOL. He also showed "Wrong Way Thar." He didn't explain the handholds, so I thought the "girls" would "star," since that is the callerlab definition. I asked Steve about it previously, and he told me "star" was right. Turns out that in gay square dancing, the norm is that even "girls" do saddle hands, like the "boys." Steve is good for enthusiasm, but not at explaining definitions. I'm sure that he'll be up on definitions like me by the time we start the Advanced class in October.

John seemed to do ok with his "boys run" move last night. I know that whenever I had to dance with him, I tried to guide him as much as possible. He did wear too much cologne to class again. Alvin said that we'd be focusing on square dance etiquette in upcoming weeks, so hopefully they'll cover excessive amounts of fragrance. As far as calls, the class has now learned all of them. Ron even taught them the styling for Grand Square, which can be tricky (or hazardous). He also did some calls from positions that Mike had done during Saturday's dance. I found that added more interest to the class. Ron did mention that the way he had taught "Pass to the Center" to our class was confusing. Maybe he's reading my blog. :-) The "graduation" for our class is set for Monday, April 28th. Since ours is the "Yellow" class, they want us to wear something yellow. Gross. I look hideous in yellow. Steve told me to wear my velcro shirt with "YELLOW" spelled out. That silly boy!

WSD is not doing Plus class until after convention. Ron said that he and the board of directors think that people should dance Mainstream for awhile before going on to Plus. Hmmmm. And I've learned all the Plus calls before finishing Mainstream. Go figure. Both Foggy City and El Camino Reelers do their Plus class right after Mainstream. Out of the three clubs, who has the worst dancers? Why, it's WSD. Not sure if it's because they break between MS & Plus, or if it's just that their MS doesn't provide a good foundation. Of course, most of my MS class should NOT even attempt to attend Plus class unless they get their MS skills down, which is likely not to ever happen. Whatever. Luckily I had the initiative to also study and learn outside of class. The WSD MS "class" is still going to dance on Mondays through June. I may use that time to learn to dance "boy." That would give me incentive to go. In Plus class, there are a lot of Mainstream calls that aren't used, so attending both MS & Plus helps me keep up the MS calls and definitions.

The diverter on my shower is still not working well. This morning I couldn't get more than a dribble out of the shower head. I called back the plumber today to make sure he comes back. I let him know I was moving out, in case that might expedite things to make sure it's ready for the new tenant. I should start walking to work and then just use the shower at the YMCA. The exercise will do me good.

I got an email from my father yesterday. His eyes are doing worse. The eye disease is hereditary. My sister Judy just had eye surgery and is still recovering from that. My eye doctor said my eyes look ok, but that I should wear my contacts less. Today I went ahead and wore my glasses to work. I'll give my eyes a rest and just put in my contacts for square dancing tonight.

Jeff got the newsletter finished last night and I picked up the CD from him (ok, from Philip) this morning. The work printer didn't do a good job. I took it across the street to CopyMat for printing. There were lots of IBR pics this time, so the quality is more important. I'll then just make copies at work. I need to get those out today. There's a Sunday deadline for announcing one's candidacy for board of directors, so the newsletter really needs mailed today.

04/07/03: Monday, 11:30am - Saturday afternoon I finished up the tortilla rollups and deviled eggs to take to the dance. I tried to drink lots of water and I rested some. Steve came home and napped a bit before we headed out for the dance.

The dance was good. I was able to dance "Plus" level ok. I goofed up some, but others goofed up more often than me, including my MS instructor, Ron. Jeff Dangermon said he watched me and said that I danced "Plus" calls very well. :-) It was good experience to get in floor time with some of the steps that I hadn't danced before (I think that "Spin Chain And Exchange The Gears" was the only one). Now I have no qualms about going to any of the ECR class nights, dancing Plus at "Peel-Off in PS" or at "Stumptown Stomp" in Guerneville in May. By convention in July, it'll be old hat.

Steve won a silent auction to take A1 & A2 advanced classes in October. I bid on a separate auction for it, but didn't win. Steve wants me to start learning to dance "boy" so that I can attend the A1 and A2 advanced classes with him. Most things for boy are same as for girl, just sashayed. Since I've learned the definitions independent of position, it shouldn't be too difficult. Steve assisted me in selling raffle tickets from 8-8:30pm. Got lots of compliments on my raffle selling skills, LOL. Someone from the club said that they'll have to recruit me more often for ticket sales. ;-)

The dance ended around 10:45pm. Our appetizers were all eaten, so that was good. I hate bringing stuff and leaving with lots left over. We got home and I figured it was really too late to go to BearHug. I wasn't too happy about that, since I really wanted to go. It didn't make sense to pay $15 to go for just an hour. Guess I'll have to wait until Palm Springs in May to get in some of that type of playtime.

Got up Sunday and changed all the clocks for Daylight Saving Time. Oops. Just realized I've yet to update the answering machine. Once we move, I'm just getting a phonemail box and skip the hassles of answering machines. No call from F, so we went to church as usual at 11am. The service didn't grab my attention too much this week. About the only thing I remember is Steve changing the words of "Abide With Me" to "Imbibe With Me."

F still hadn't called, so we went to Canton House for Dim Sum. For a change, Steve wanted to get more food than me. We had about 9 or 10 different things, so our bill was higher than usual. We stopped at Best Buy on the way home. I bought a couple of Zire handhelds. It's frustrating not knowing each other's schedule, so I thought this would keep us "in sync." Got home and played Scrabble. I charged one of the Zires. Steve got ahold of F around 4:30pm. F said he'd call right back. He never called back last night. Steve left for the Eagle about 5pm. I was tired and stayed home. Once the Zire was charged, I added my schedule and downloaded my address book from my Yahoo files. Still haven't figured how to upload my Zire addresses to the Palm Desktop program. I had installed Intellisync-for-Yahoo to download the addresses, so I think I may have to uninstall then re-install Palm Desktop. I'll try that tonight.

Steve called after he got home. He said the music was bad at the Eagle (duh), and that he'd gone to the Lone Star for a bit. My body could do with missing some beer busts.

Got into work early today. I tested out Peggy's procedures, and they worked just fine. She is really meticulous. Traded several emails with James today about the Insite process. Looks like he can't figure out report results that seem to match his specs. I was unfamiliar with the calculation, but I figured it out and am trying to get him to check his specs. Grrrrr.

Email at work was down for awhile. Additionally, I'm unable to access Yahoo mail today. I checked Hotmail, and that is blocked as well. The only time they've done previously is during layoffs and bad press releases. Hmmmmm.

04/05/03: Saturday, 8am - I got home from work around 11:20am. Steve arrived a few minutes later. We headed over to Arthur's at noon to sign the paperwork. Steve had previously asked on the phone if we needed to bring money, and he said no. However, when we got there, he was looking for first month's rent, then last month & security due on the 1st. Luckily Steve had his checkbook. I think I was able to convince him to let me move in stuff prior to May 1st. Even April 30th would work. This place has a lot of storage, but furniture might prove to be tight. We found out that we beat out 15 other couples for the apartment, so that felt good. He said that he liked us right away, even before he saw how good our credit is. We couldn't go into our new apartment since the current tenant hadn't been informed. We did get to see Arthur's unit. It is really nice. He has a fireplace up there. The views from his deck our exceptional. The layout is pretty similar to ours, but ours has the big basement room. He said that when he moves out, his apartment will be listed for $2400, which is more than our $2200. Guess the fireplace and views must justify that. We also got to go through the side entrance. With the basement room separate, it might be a great place for tricks. Heck, it will be a great place for tricks. ;-)

After that, we met F at Starbucks and went to The Cove for lunch. The fish & chips were a bit saturated. I went home to do some work, while Steve & F walked around and stopped by Catch to make dinner reservations. They got home about an hour later and checked email. Both of them napped for 1.5 hours while I played on the computer.

We went out to The Edge for happy hour. I got to visit with John and some others for awhile. Some guys I didn't know kept rubbing my ass. Cool. Walter & Bobby were there. Both of them whipped out their cocks. Even cooler.

After a couple hours, we went to Daddy's. Steve got in some big hugs and gropes with Jimmy. Albert-ho met us there, then we went to Catch for the 9pm reservations. A friend of F's met us there with one of his friends. We had a good meal, but I ate too much. I left with indigestion. Steve and I came home while the other boys wandered the Castro. The indigestion hung on until I fell asleep. When I awoke, the pain was pretty much gone. I've gotta be feeling good tonight for the square dance and the later BearHug.

This morning I'm making some appetizers for the dance. Steve is meeting F for brunch. I was super sweet to F yesterday, and he noticed. Always is good when Steve's fuckbuddy's like me, LOL. Steve & F are going to brunch with some of F's friends. I'm pretty sure I'll stay home. I need to rest up for tonight.

04/04/03: Friday, 10am - I left work pretty early again yesterday, but naturally worked some from home. I even volunteered to take over some of Peg's duties while she is on vacation. She has a checklist of daily jobs. That kind of thing I'm really good at doing. Hopefully that'll gain some brownie points with the boss. For me, it's any excuse not to work on other lame projects.

I removed most pictures and photos from my wall yesterday. Making the apartment "more sterile" will prompt me to get things packed and ready to move. I need to get boxes soon. An occasional box from work doesn't do much. Maybe a couple per day would do it.

Yesterday morning I gave Jeff the final stuff for the newsletter. I had already edited the first draft, but had an additional item to add. It's already the 4th. Hopefully Jeff will give me something soon in order to get this out. This might be my last newsletter to edit! I still will go ahead and work on the 2nd quarter interview with Harry Lit as I had planned. It'll be timely for Lazy Bear. My interviews seemed to be well-received, and I've had good people to interview this past year: Chris H. about Bear Lunch, Jim M. & Terry C. about their 25th anniversary, Loren M. about the ButchDick Collection, and Lynn L. about his photography along with all his IBR pics. I've run out of ideas for interviewees. If Kevin O. ever gets shit together about the Lone Star, that might make for a good interview. If he doesn't, that might make for an even better one. Of course, he'd better figure out how to get things going soon! I'm having L.S. withdrawals.

On my way home, my right contact popped out. It looked like it was bent on one edge. I got it back in, but it hurt some. At my eye appointment, the doctor mentioned that my right eye was all red and the cornea looked a bit irritated. Guess it was from the "bad" contact. I put my glasses on when I got home. I got a call that my new contacts were ready to pick up. Good timing!

I left to volunteer at Ba-Da-Bingo about 6pm. Steve drove past and honked. He had F with him. F is a delegate to the U.S. from a middle-eastern country. They hooked up about a month ago. F is the one who had a heart-attack-like episode when he started to fuck Steve last time. Hopefully Double-0-Steven won't be breaking his heart this time around! Got to bingo and everything was set up with 30 minutes. Last month it took nearly the whole hour. Maybe there were more volunteers. Steve and F got a pretty decent spot in line. At least a spot to get a number. It had started to rain, so I went home and got them umbrellas. On the way, I passed Arthur. We both saw each other, registered some recognition, but I was the first to figure out why. We stopped and chatted for a few seconds. He seems pretty friendly. I returned with umbrellas and hesitantly saved seats for Steve and F. I got yelled at later for it. I'm not doing that again. I think I'm done with volunteering at bingo. They probably would be better off if I paid for RSVP seats instead of volunteering and getting in for free. Drew was there with Richard, the guy he's been seeing. I hadn't met Richard before. He was really adorable. There was a hottie there whom I had noticed last time. I think we may have exchange m4m4sex emails before. I'll have to dig through my m4m pics. Black hair with some salt/pepper, dark eyes, beefy build. Mmmmm. He sat against the far wall from me, but we were in direct eye contact. He was with some red-headed otter. Grrrrrr. It's been my experience that those who are with red-heads tend to stick to red-heads. Well, they can have them!

Ba-Da-Bingo ran really long. They had a contest to bring new paddles, since the old paddle broke last month. That took up 30 minutes at the beginning, not to mention all the time it took up breaking it in throught the evening. Still, F seemed to have a good time. It ended after 9:30pm instead of the deemed 9pm. I was too tired to stay to help with my volunteer duties. Bad Gary. I'll probably miss bingo next month due to moving, and I probably won't volunteer after that. They'll forget about my ducking out by then.

After bingo, I went home while Steve and F went to The Edge. They were meeting up with Albert-ho. Steve mentioned that he thought F's fantasy was a 3-way with the two of them. I think F is really hot. A British accent and sexy middle-eastern features go a long way. Steve, however, would prefer being friends instead of fuckmates. Whatever. Steve gets lots of hot men, that's for sure. That's my boy!

I finished my "goals & objectives" for my boss this morning. I hate that crap. It's supposed to be for the whole year. In my job, that's pretty much a joke. We just take the assignments as they come. I have no idea what's down the line.

I'm leaving at 11am today to go home to sign the rental agreement. Steve will meet me for that, but he's spending the rest of the day with F. I think F is staying down at Steve's tonight. I've got no plans for the evening. Maybe I'll try to get into the Lone Star later in the evening. Guess you'll find out in the next blog entry!

04/03/03: Thursday, 9am -

WOOHOO!!!!

By the time we move in together, Steve and I will have been together about a year and a half. He asked me last night if I thought we were rushing things. LOL. I've had two partners where had met, moved in together, broke up, and moved out in less time. Steve's a keeper. The new place is big enough and designed so that we can each have our own space. Having an upstairs and downstairs will help a lot. Although I love my apartment and hate the moving process, I'm quite excited about the new place and moving in together with Steve. Yeehaw!

04/02/03: Wednesday, 9am - Got home pretty early yesterday. It's nice with nothing pressing at work for a change. I'm sure my boss would like to keep me completely busy all the time, but I don't have a meeting with her for another week. :-)

I did the dishes, then just played on the computer. Steve arrived around 4:15pm. We dropped off his credit report through the mailslot at Arthur's, then came back and played Scrabble. Peggy showed up, then we went to the Cove before square dance lessons. Some other square dancers happened to be there as well: Steve, Rick, George, and Richard & his (non-SD) partner Dave. I hadn't seen Dave since Buca DiBeppo. He didn't bother to reply to my friendly email, so I'm sure he has other fish to fry. I had the Beef Stroganoff special, along with tomato soup. (Mmmmm.) Too much food too close to dancing. I need to eat earlier.

Peg didn't stay for class. She dropped of an item for Saturday's silent auction. Hopefully her shoulder will be feeling better soon so that she can dance. A waste to have paid for something then not get the benefit of it. Class was good. We learned "Load the Boat" and "Follow Your Neighbor." I had already done "FYN" at club nights, so that was just review for me. It was good to do it in a full square. Steve and I had already reviewed Load the Boat. It always looked difficult, but watching the video and learning's Steve's mantra of "pass, ass, trade, pass" really helped. I had no problem at all. Tonight I'm going to ECR, so hopefully I'll get experience with some other calls as well. Looking at their website, it looks like the calls they've done that I haven't experienced are Eight Chain Thru (easy), Coordinate, Spin Chain Thru, and Spin Chain the Gears. I think I can get through the calls ok. I'll be sure to study their definitions on the train to Steve's tonight.

My "Cut the Diamond" sound effects continue to make people laugh, even Harlan. It's a bit much (Steve said they'd be able to hear me down the block), but fun. After the first outburst, I tend to tone it down in subsequent calls. When dancing with Richard and Mario in my square, I know I made them laugh with some of my other antic such as "Whip Me Whip Me" on Track 2 and my "Chase Right" moves. Anything to flirt. :-)

We got home and there was a message from Arthur saying that he had some questions. I called him, and he wanted to know about the evictions listed on my credit report. I was glad to be able to point out to him that the "Gary L. Young" and "Gary Phillip Young" were not me. He also said he was a bit hesitant about the piano. I assured him that I'm very considerate about playing it during decent hours and taking neighbors into consideration. He said that several people have been through the apartment so far, but he'd make a decision in a couple days. He did say that he really liked both Steve and me. It sounded very promising. Keep your fingers crossed! Say a prayer! Like a candle! Sacrifice your firstborn!

04/01/03: Tuesday, 9:30am - I took the bus around 10:30am and dropped off my rent check. Stopped at Burger King for a guilt-ridden lunch, then headed back to work. I worked on my "objectives" for my semi-annual review for a bit. They don't have the correct form to use yet, so it was pretty pointless.

I submitted a suggestion to the board about having online dinner reservations each month since members can't seem to remember whom to email. (People remember names of people they should email, not generic "activities@bosf.org" email addresses.) Jeff said he could do it in a couple hours time when he got the chance. M said it was up to the activities coordinator and kinda dismissed it. So much for making suggestions. I think I come up with some good ones, but it gets frustrating when they're frequently dismissed. I see everyone else's ideas dismissed as well, so I know it's not just me. Still it's a reminder that I have plenty of other things on which to focus since it seems I spend a lot of energy on BOSF yet end up making very little impact.

I left around 2pm for my eye appointment. I was in there for 1.5 hours. Grrrrr. Left with a new pair of glasses ordered, contacts ordered, and a debit to my Visa bill of over $400. And that's after insurance. Hopefully this next pair of glasses will be "wearable." I've looked like such a dork in every single pair of glasses I've ever owned. The girl did find one pair that she loved on me, but they were pretty bold. Made me look completely different than without glasses. It'd be fine if I wore glasses all the time, but I hate seeing people who swap between contacts and glasses and look so different. My brain can't handle it.

I did my credit report via RentTech. My score went from 752 a year ago to 729 now. Lack of bonuses I suppose. Still, nothing delinquent and only 92% of available credit used. That's good, right? On my way home, I dropped off a copy of the credit report along with a pay stub in Arthur's mail slot. Steve will drop off his credit report this afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed. We really, really, really want this place.

Got home and relaxed before square dance class. They had dilated my eyes, so reading mail or working on the computer wasn't an easy task. Square dance class was horrible. There were 4 of us for the first 15 minutes of review, including John and Merle. Ron knew John has trouble doing "Boys Run." We did "Boys Run" for 15 solid minutes. Both John and Merle screwed up every single time. (Sometimes one would get it right, but then the other would screw up.) Very frustrating. The rest of the classtime pretty much sucked. We had to review basic stuff over and over. During announcements at 8:30pm, they mentioned the dance on Saturday. This class has learned all the Mainstream calls except for "hinge" (although I swear he taught it), so they "should" be able to participate in the dance on Saturday. (Yeah, let me see some of them try! Keep me out of their square!!!!) It would have been easy to take 5 minutes to teach "Hinge," but Ron didn't do that. Makes no freaking sense. We didn't review anything too useful. Had class been like this for the first few months, I probably would have quit. Glad I stuck it out to see what a "real" class is like with FCD. Looking forward to class tonight, and I'm planning to attend ECR's class on Wednesday night. I'd like to try to dance Plus at Saturday's dance.

Jeff has completed a first draft of the BOSF newsletter. I need to do some editing today and hopefully get it out by this weekend.