Evil Machinery.

You know you're gay when...

With my birthday and Christmas approaching far too rapidly, I decided that I deserve a new toy, something that doesn't require a lot of maintenance or learning curve, so I've been looking online and in-store at a new 13.3-inch Apple MacBook.

My first and current laptop is a pre-owned 11-inch iBook G4 in classic Apple white. This thing, which I've now had for two years (and bought myself at my 40th birthday, gulp) has been absolutely amazing both in functionality and in increasing my productivity. I've had absolutely no problems with it, either. And as with anything you love, I will hate to part with it yet I know that if I am to purchase a newer product, I'll be able to do so much more, at home and remotely, on a faster machine.

So I finally talked myself into spending the money (thanks, credit cards and special holiday interest rates!) and with the BF's blessing we headed to the local Apple store to ask a few more questions and make a purchase.

I don't know about you, but if you love Macs and love going into the Apple store, it doesn't really matter whether you are making a purchase or not. I drool every time I enter as I am just so enamored of their overall product line and design. I love going to the store no matter if I've seen the same thing ten times previous.

It's also fun to go to the store to drool over the hot Apple boys (and girls, if you're into that). And that's what we did this evening, ready to find someone cute to help us out with the purchase.

However, there...was...no...one...cute. Seriously, no one. Monday night it was packed with sexy people. Tonight, nada.

So, we left. No, I'm not kidding...we left. Yes, I'm a horrible person, but we giggled all the way to the car because of the reason we were leaving and it's SO worth coming back just to check out hot guys and hot product. Yes, I'm that shallow, or at least I am on occasion.

November 19, 2008 | Archive

Some 2008 Photos.

These two photos are from two photoshoots earlier this year and just now revisiting (as I've been doing some maintenance and organizing on computer).

I've always liked these two but didn't publish way back. I'd forgotten how much fun both of these people were to work with, equally professional and different, which shows in these photos. Each of them are now in Los Angeles and successful in their own way. It was cool to hopefully have been a part of that success and to have met them.

November 18, 2008 | Archive

Keith Olbermann on gay marriage.

I've been wanting to write something about California's passing of Proposition 8 but just haven't had the energy, the heart or the place of mind to put something intelligent down on paper, as it were

Randy sent me a video link in which commentator Keith Olbermann from the show Countdown with Keith Olbermann lays it all out just as I think I wanted to do had I had the intelligence and time.

I had no idea this guy was around anymore as I only recall him as a local Los Angeles news or sports anchor from years ago. Some say he's a raving lunatic and a hater, even, but of course that depends on what side of the fence on which you plant your butt in a chair.

Depsite who or what he is and what other ideals he may stand for, I can certainly stand behind him on this. (The following is the text of his on-air commentary from November 10.)

"Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

"Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

"And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

"If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

" Only now you are saying to them—no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?

"I keep hearing this term 're-defining' marriage. If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.

"The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not 're-defined' marriage, some black people still couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not 'Until Death, Do You Part,' but 'Until Death or Distance, Do You Part.' Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

"You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay. And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.

"How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the 'sanctity' of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

"What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.

"It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

"And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

"With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.

"You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

" This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial. But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

"'I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam,'" he told the judge. 'It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love.'"

November 14, 2008 | Archive

Family Circle.

A few weeks ago I was able to see my good friend Tammy, husband Ryan and baby hatchling Rio, at their new home, an awesome circular space-shippy 50s-modern looking thing on stilts with a view of south San Diego

It'd been ages since I'd seen them all together, or separate. The baby, who is no longer a baby, but a walking and talking and pointing and trying on my shoes and dancing and eating little ball of yum, was adorable. She was so fun to be around and get to know.

I also took some family photos for them, and I'm hoping they like them as much as I did, especially this one which was a total accident. It's certainly not the best work on my part, but I think it shows a beautiful family dynamic that just makes me smile.

November 6, 2008 | Archive

Vote No on Ate.

There are so many changes going on in the real estate industry (as most people are aware) and as I'm in the industry they of course affect me and many of my friends, locally and otherwise. It's easy to blame one person, as in any instance, but I think ultimately the blame lies with many people and many instances that created the 'downfall'.

For the first time in my life I know so many people who have lost their jobs or have been affected in some way because of this current crisis. I think the real estate market may have hit bottom (at least that's why I read) and will (very slowly) rebound. I also think that today's elections, possibly the most important since that whole George Washington thing, will help bolster confidence not only with the financial crisis but in all areas of the nation's current general shitiness.

I actually don't really want to write about it as it's all kinda depressing. My train of thought was just leading to us thinking about our upcoming, long-ago planned vacation. As long as neither one of us loses a job before the end of the year we are still heading out of here; we deserve it. Vacations and credit cards go together. Screw our personal financial status: Charging our relaxation is stimulating the economy.

And since we are, so far, planning to book it out of here, we'd love to be beautiful and skinny and wear square cut bathing suits and eat whatever we wanted but that ain't going to happen. We've been trying to diet for like five months yet it never seems to work as we have different schedules and eating habits and eating healthy costs money, money we'd rather spend on our vacation.

I was once posting my weight here to help keep me motivated but, well 1) I ended up not losing weight so it was pointless, depressing and counterproductive and 2) the scale battery died (quite possibly because I'm so fat I killed it).

So now, as it becomes too late to matter (or is it never too late?), I'm suddenly on a diet (again—at this stage a Panic Diet, actually). I'll freakin' eat cardboard and drink water every day if I need to, even to lose just a few pounds so I can fit into the same 'fat' shorts I fit into last year during vacation. So I'm voting No on all high-calorie foods. I have to have a strong will this time around. Yes, a strong will or a willing finger to cram down my throat after each meal.

November 4, 2008 | Archive

And just like that, it's the holidays.

October started out pretty decent but progressed into scary madness. Okay, not really—just being dramatic to honor the passing holiday. However, I have no idea what happened to all 31 days.

So now, a new month is here, already, and the official start of the holidays...and that pretty much means even more hectic schedules for everyone, and we've designated the beginning of the month, November 1st, as our official begin our diets day (again for like the fifth month in a row).

The man friend had to work last night, Halloween, but we were able to cruise around town and check out a lot of neighborhoods and scary decorated houses. (Some where scary because they looked like they were already decorated for Christmas, not Halloween.) It was so kind of him to forgo sleep to get out and enjoy my favorite holiday with me. He also bought many decorations for our balcony including spider webs, ghosts, pumpkins (which I carved, something I've not done for seven or eight years at least), a floating ghost and black lights.

When your man understands your obsession with Halloween, it's really better than sex. I'm so lucky.

November 1, 2008 | Archive