A Blog Darkly
(28th March) Watching the cricket, isolating
So I wake up late and really dehydrated. The bottle of vodka I took out last night is 3/4 empty. I'm pretty sure I didn't drink all that, but I drank enough to remind me that gin, vodka etc just do not suit me. Not pleasant.
Wander down to the Basin in time for the second session at the cricket. Big crowd in, and it's sunny. But the play is very disappointing. NZ have bowled well but end up batting incredibly slowly and cautiously, and by the day's end have only scored 120 runs, in about 60 overs. Not pretty to watch.
I get home to find I missed a call from Laurie asking me to join him and others at the game. Sigh. At least I made it to the gym.
Party? Bleh. Got into long and pointless argument and made an ass of myself. (I was right, and she was winding me up, but I didn't need to be a bitch about it).
Had to break the news to my "wife" that I actually have a girlfriend. She was disappointed I think but took it well. She's a cool person. I hope we end up as friends seeing as I'm unavailable for anything else.
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(26 March) I'm "it"
The phone tag finally paid off. Probably the only time I'll ever take a phone call at work from someone who's being driven down a long straight Nebraska highway. (Though you never know).
Anyway, she's well and seems to be having a lot of fun on the trip. Communication is always difficult when you've got a time delay, lots of static on the line, and I'm half deaf. But we communicated a few things. Really anyway it's just nice to hear her voice
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(23rd March) Intercontinental phone tag
That's the game I've been playing with Cory.
Life is overly complicated by the time difference and the fact I'm at work all the time, meaning I can try to call her when I wake up, if I have time (about 2 or 3pm her time) or as soon as I get home, if I come straight home from work (about 12.30am her time). Of course, I haven't been coming straight home from work, which means I've only been able to call her at like 2am. Funnily enough, she's not answering the phone.
I'm getting by on the sound of her voice on her answerphone, and emails from mutual friends.
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(22nd March) Didn't say goodbye
Dammit.
I feel bad about this one. Cory's gone on her road trip and I didn't say goodbye properly.
We were chatting and she wasn't around so I wrote a goodbye, and when she didn't reply after what seemed like a good few minutes, I just signed off. Thinking I'd easily be able to chat with her in the next couple of days. And of course she was only briefly online, while I was asleep. And then couldn't get on anyway because her PC would be boxed up ready for the trip.
Good thinking Simon.
Hope she got my parcel, anyway. International mail had better not let me down.
Safe travels kid, I miss you already.
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(13th March) At least the game was all right
And I got to introduce Hillary to New Zealand rugby, which was on her list of things to do in Wellington (weird girl). The game could have been better, but we won, which means this season might actually be worth watching after all. I told Hillary that as she was sitting in my dad's seat she had to shout lots and abuse the ref - and fair play to her, she tried.
I also found out that she's a Chelsea supporter, which earns her several marks off with me. She's leaving town in a day or two so it was good to catch up with her. And in spite of the chemistry which I thought I was seeing between us early on, we never ended up hooking up. A good thing really. I've pretty much decided that the moral way to live my life is as though I'm in a relationship, and to remain faithful accordingly. Any other way of acting just doesn't work for me.
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(13th March) Some people live with this shit every day...
...but it's harsh when you're not used to it.
Walking home from the supermarket about 10pm. I've just been to the rugby, nothing much is happening now and I figure I'll get dinner and go home, have a quiet one.
Car goes by me quite fast and someone leans out of the window and screams at me 'where's your girlfriend you gay fuck?'
OK, not the most devastating insult in the world, but it was the look of true hatred on his face and in his voice that got to me. And I was scared - it was a car full of guys, and if they decided they wanted to bash someone, I wasn't going to be able to do much to fight back.
Then it hit me that some people have to deal with this all the time. I have a renewed respect for gay people, and anyone else who puts up with shit for being who they are.
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(12th March) Fucking fuck
How many things can go wrong in a short space of time?
Well, OK, only one new thing has gone wrong. But it's pissing me off enough.
The washing machine has decided to leak. Through the wall, into my bedroom. Onto my carpet. Bad enough. But under my bookshelf. And up the sides of my bookshelf. Right through my comic* collection. A fairly complete run of Crisis, which is probably hard to come by now. Luckily it didn't kill any of my photos, which were sitting on top of the comics. But we're talking water damage to maybe 20 issues. Mold on the carpet behind the drawers. (Obviously this has been seeping through for some time).
Fuck.
And the cat is still missing, and I have to explain that to Mary. Fuck. I feel like crying because I'm sad that she's gone - imagine how Mary is going to be. And I caused that pain. Fuck.
And etc.
*graphic novel, really.
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(12th March) Too little to do now, too much to do tomorrow
Weird how it works out.
Everyone has bailed on me for tonight. Rachel cancelled dinner because she's changed her medication and it's treating her badly. Which is sort of OK as I didn't have motivation to spend cash on dinner anyway.
Drake and Casey have nixed plans to go to Atomic (80s alternative club night) due to lack of funds (damn it, why can't I have some friends who have my taste in music and actually have some money?). I suppose I could call Anthony but can't really be bothered.
So nothing to do. Might go to a movie.
Tomorrow on the other hand: am going to engagement party. Have to leave that just as it will be getting interesting to come back into town for the rugby. At least I managed to find someone to go with me, Hillary agreed after Laurie and Anthony turned me down. Then got an invite to Echo's barbecue, which would probably have been a good time - I'm friends with enough of her friends that I think it would be.
But all of those clash. So, engagement party, rugby, then who knows?
Maybe I'll just make tonight the quiet night.
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(12th March) Contentment is....Oz
having finished a decent workout at the gym, and a long, funny, and loving chat with the one I love, and sat eating a delicious meal of fish and chips, to find that my favourite TV series is back on, with episode one of a new season starting in half an hour.
Oz baby. Oz all the way. The sickest, most violent, most fucked-up TV show you will see (well, until the next one).
Only downside? It isn't really a new series. I think it's series 3 again, and I'm sure it's been shown in NZ before (it's a few years old - the DVD of the whole series is already out). Little things give that away, like a character who was in a wheelchair last thing I saw being able to walk around.
Good stuff: two deaths (old priest has a heart attack and dies in his sleep, and the neo-Nazis' bitch murders someone in order to be accepted into the neo-Nazi gang. Classic scene as the chief Nazi hands him a tissue to wipe his lipstick off. - yes, this is hardcore stuff). I love it.
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(11th March) Love/hate affair with iTunes
So I burned my entire CD collection to my hard drive (21 gb, 11 days of music and 3800 songs, if you're interested). And it's great - iTunes has all the bells and whistles I could want.
Except when I try to burn compilation CDs from my collection. It lets me make a play list, and rearrange the order of songs on the playlist, and burns them in that order. But when I go to play the CD, they've been burnt in alphabetical order by the name of the artist. Damn. And I don't have time to fix them either. After all the effort I put in to construct some kind of playlist, to take the listener on a journey ;-), my plans are foiled.
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(9th March) This is the last time I read maths for fun :(
I guess it was a stupid idea from the start. But you know, it was the new book by my favourite author, who hadn't written anything except a collection of short stories since he wrote the novel I take my user name from, back in 1996 or 97. And it got a good review in New Scientist. So I thought, what the hell, read something new by DFW, and maybe learn something as well. Can't go wrong.
It.kicked.my.ass.
I only got as far as Newton or so before I gave up. There was no way I was going to understand the rest of it (I should have realised this when he kept mentioning 'it helps for this bit if you have some college math' - I'd have probably kept up if it had been statistics/probability, but not calc).
Here's the book I'm talking about, if you're interested.
Ha. And when I went to Amazon to find that link, I found out he has a
new book coming out. That's good news.
I wish he'd write another novel though. But after Infinite Jest, anything would be a disappointment.
(actually, that statement works on a couple of levels, now I think about it ;))
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(3rd March) And after all this....
I've got the fucking plane tickets.
Cory and I are going to see each other again. After all the stress and uncertainty and sheer impossibility of what we've been trying to do, it might.just.work.
Touch wood.
Well, we're over the first hurdle, anyway. And back in September this moment seemed a long, long way away.
Fuck I'm excited.
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(3rd March) Coleslaw
Chop 1 head cabbage, 1 red onion, and 1 carrot to desired consistency and mix in a bowl.
Combine 1/2 cup honey, 1/2 cup olive oil, and 1/2 cup of red wine vinegar (the recipe says 1/4 cup of the vinegar, but I put 1/2 cup by mistake, and it turned out good), 4 cloves of garlic, chopped fine, 2 tsp oregano and 2 tsp of basil, salt and pepper to taste. Mix thoroughly.
Pour dressing over the salad and mix.
Enjoy.
Makes lots.
Recipe thanks to that one Philly recipe book Cory bought me.
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(19th February) Woot! Evan Dando goes psycho, attacks fan!
Just got back from the Evan Dando show at Bar Bodega. It was a good gig, until Evan went psycho, jumped into the crowd, and started fighting this one guy.
He was playing solo, and it was a very quiet gig. Through most of the show this one guy was singing along really loudly, and out of tune. Most of the crowd were pretty pissed off at this. At the end of the show, Evan started singing a capella. This guy shouted something. Evan gave him the fingers (um, 'flipped him the bird' I think Americans say? ). The guy shouted something else, and all of a sudden Evan leapt off the stage and tackled him. They were wrestling for a while and the guy ended up on top of Evan, trying to punch him, with other audience members screaming at him and hauling him off, as you'd expect.
The crowd managed to seperate them and someone led Evan off with their arm around him. Then someone else said something to the abusive guy, and he head-butted him, knocking him to the ground. He looked in quite a bit of pain - he didn't get up quickly, anyway. (I left at this point, the vibes were getting pretty bad as you can imagine).
I didn't see if either Evan or the abusive guy threw a punch, or if they just wrestled, but it certainly looked as if they were trying to.
Evan had been acting a bit weird through the night, when he went off before the encore he spent some time trying to smash a mic stand, but gave up without doing any real damage. And towards the end he walked away from the mic and sang unaccompanied from the side of the stage.
Shame, as it was a good gig. He played 25 songs (or so he told us), most of the well-known Lemonheads ones, and the crowd, while not huge, had enjoyed the night.
Interesting way to end the night. When they were rolling on the floor wrestling, they were basically at my feet - they were close enough that I could have punched either of them.
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(18th February) Countdown!
By my count, in 57 days from now I'll be boarding a plane at Wellington airport, clearing that departure gate, and beginning a flight all the way to New Mexico, where my love awaits
Wow. This might actually just be happening. It's not long. 8 weeks and a day. I can handle that. I can definitely handle that. And I like the idea of being a househusband for a few days while she earns th money ;)
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(18th February) Confusion and cats
[Yes, I know I haven't posted for ages. Deal ;)]
This evening was spent with Mary, drinking her wine and making plans for my soon-to-come adoption of Martine (gorgeous little grey cat). Mary is somewhat neurotic about Martine's well-being in the future, so she's written me an incredibly long set of instructions as how to treat her. I think I'll do OK. (I have a feeling that Martine is more robust than Mary thinks, and that Mary's concerns say more about her than about Martine).
Confusion comes as I visit Casey's work to invite Hillary to a gig with me. I end up having lunch with Hillary, Case and Drake, and talking mainly to Hillary. I suggest the Evan Dando gig tomorrow but she's busy and doesn't really dig the guy. It's weird. I feel like she'd been giving me some pretty clear 'come ahead' signals (well, she asked me twice, on seperate occasions, to come into work and arrange to go to a gig with her, so that's an expression of some interest, right?). But whenever I suggest anything, she's turned it down.
Oh well. She's leaving town in a few weeks anyway, and may or may not be back. It also gets me out of the moral dilemma of 'when (and if) do I tell her about Cory?'. My internal moral guide (and Mary) says tell her first, but that seems kinda ridiculous without some sign that she's actually interested. Oh well. No big deal. Life goes on.
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