Journal

I seem to be developing a fan club at work. I’m not yet sure if this is good or bad. Lemme ‘splain.

It’s certainly gratifying that people find that I can actually help them learn about their PCs without resorting to jargon. I’m not above telling them something like "it’s that thingy on the right", despite what it says in the humor piece above.

And when the totally clueless call, usually to apologize that they can’t figure out their PC, I remind them that if people didn’t call, I wouldn’t have a job. Or I say that although my knowledge of medicine ends at Neosporin and Band-Aids, that doesn’t disqualify me from working in a hospital. It just means that working in the O.R. probably wouldn’t be a good fit for me.

The fact is that I enjoy my job and it shows. I regularly bust chops with callers, and the worse they feel or more intimidated they seem, the harder I try to put them at ease and make them feel good. My favorite time busting chops was when I had a Doc on the line who was all bent out of shape because Windows informed him of a fatal error. I told him that in my line of work, fatal errors don’t leave through a discreet door in the basement, and that we perform resurrections daily. It put him back in the right frame of reference.

I’ve always felt tech support was 75% psychology, 25% technology. And besides, what self-respecting gay man wouldn’t enjoy a job where you can talk on the phone for eight hours a day?

On the other hand, it’s embarrassing to have another tech wander down to my cubie to say so-and-so has a problem and would like me to call them back. If it’s an ongoing issue, certainly that’s acceptable, and much of the time I do the same – it saves the caller from having to start all over again at ground zero.

But more and more lately it’s callers with new issues who prefer that I help them instead of my ten or so equally competent co-workers. The whole idea of the "next available technician" thing is to distribute the workload evenly. And how are the new guys supposed to learn anything if the callers keep asking for me? Isn’t that what goes on in the School of Medicine? The Docs train the Residents, who train the Interns. Everyone needs experience.

It’s been just over a month since I’ve seen him, and that was during an argument at 5:00AM. I’ll never forget that. Only twelve hours later, before we had a chance to apologize for being assholes, or to continue the fight, he was taken. Gone from my reach, from my sight for what could turn out to be over a year.

True we really needed a time-out. I’ve just started to feel like my old self, and not the suicidal old self either. And I know a certain amount of pain and sadness is good for him. And I know what hurts him even more is it that he has no control over anything or anyone. That’s one of the things he has to learn too.

The whole thing gets to me every now and again, but the interval seems to be increasing, and that’s good. I’m glad we’re no longer fighting and I that no longer feel I too am a prisoner, only in my own home waiting for his call.

Which leads to my biggest problem right now. I have no place to live after May 31^st. It’s had me so down that I haven’t even looked for a place in almost two weeks. And I have less than two weeks to find somewhere, decide what to pack and what to jettison, hire movers, change the utilities, and everything else that goes with moving.

The rain that threatened today never materialized, and although quite a bit cooler, the afternoon was sunny and clear. It’s been 10 days since we had rain. Lawns are turning brown already. This doesn’t usually happen until July.

Can you tell I walked home from work today?

Monday night while writing back to a friend, I hit on the idea that if I take my weekend backpack to work with a change of clothes instead of my weekday backpack, I could change after work, walk over to the Lilac Festival and hang out. I’d get my walk in, have dinner without needing to cook or wash dishes, catch some rays and some live music.

Last night I was beat. Besides, it was 85° and muggy. That sort of weather doesn’t bother me in July and August, but in May, I haven’t quite adjusted to it yet. So I took the bus home. I fell asleep waiting for the bus, I fell asleep on the bus, and I left a trail of clothes from the door to the bed, and went down for a two hour nap. I have no idea where that fatigue came from.

So tonight, 65° and dry, I did the walk home through the park bit. Of course it’s all uphill from the hospital, hence the name Highland Park. I hadn’t considered that, because my usual route home skirts around the end of the park where it’s a little flatter, and only five minutes or so uphill.

Although it’s a fairly moderate grade, after 15 minutes of walking uphill on Mt. Hope Ave, I thought I’d blow out my left knee. Naturally my knee brace was home in the other backpack. It took forever for the light to change at Highland Ave, and by then it started to feel a bit better.

Fortunately Highland Ave is cut into the side of the hill so it’s fairly level. So between that and another incredibly long light at South Ave, my tendons (or ligaments, I can never remember which) decided their originally specified location was just fine and everything popped back into place.

It’s so bothersome when parts of your body have wanderlust.

Considering it was a weeknight and still early, there was a pretty decent crowd. I wandered around trying to find the blue lilacs. They’re my favorite just because they’re different. I never did find them. But I noticed that the larger bushes were still at peak, and the smaller ones, presumably because their smaller root systems couldn’t get enough water, are well past peak.

I worked my way back and forth going up the hill to the reservoir, and snapped a few pics, using silver instead of silicon, so it’ll probably be months before I get them developed. Finally I had no choice but to go straight up a fairly steep grade to the Conservatory. My goal was the Conservatory stage.

Two white hots, four bucks, a pint of Molson draft, three bucks, and a nice table in the sun, maybe 50 feet back from the stage. The band, Florida Luna, was really quite good. Three percussionists, guitarist, sax and bass, doing Latin flavored jazz. I quite enjoyed them.

And why is it the cutest guys always play bass? Not that I mind. I like my bass on the heavy side anyway, and if it’s a cute guy making my nuts vibrate, so much the better! Blond, long hair, tall, nice build, so it wasn’t long before I found myself cruising him. It was hard to tell for sure, between his dark glasses, the distance and a fairly good-sized audience, but I got the distinct impression he was cruising me back.

I had the most interesting encounter at the bus stop this morning. First, some background. I’ve started taking the 7:25 to work instead of the 7:05. This explains why you haven’t heard any Burl Ives stories lately. My bus home doesn’t leave until 5:40, so I’m frequently at my desk until 5:20 or so. The 7:25 gets me to work at 8:10 and at my desk by 8:15, so it all balances out.

When I was taking the 7:05 regularly, every so often this incredibly sexy guy would jog by. Since he runs in the same direction as the bus, I could get away with pretending to look for the bus, when in fact, well, need I go on?

I had to get an early start this morning for my first visit with Jeffrey. More about that later. In order to get to the jail on time, I had to catch a #24 from downtown at 7:25. I needed to hit an ATM on the way, so I had to catch my regular route, the 18/19 at 6:55 heading in the opposite direction as usual. Got it so far? A half-hour earlier, across the street, and going the other way.

When I got to University Ave, I had the "Walk" light so I crossed without paying much attention. As I reached the bus shelter on the other side of the street, I turned around, and here was the sexy jogger diagonally across the intersection, running in place and waving. Not sure if he was waving to me or to someone in a car, I just kinda half-waved back. At which point he grabbed his crotch. My half-wave turned into a full wave, he waved back, then jogged away.

Since after next weekend I may not be using a bus stop where he runs by, I’ll be getting up early for the next six workdays to see if I can catch him "our" side of the street. J

Debbie has gone missing again. He hasn’t talked to her since last Friday, I got a 30 second phone call from her on Tuesday, AFTER they shut the phones off at the jail. She was to get a large chunk of money from welfare yesterday, which probably means she’s out smoking it. And don’t forget, she’s six months pregnant with Jeffrey’s child.

He really loves Debbie, and all he asks is that she check-in with me by phone so he knows she’s okay, and maybe a phone call or two every week. He feels helpless and abandoned. There’s nothing he can do about it. These are things he needs to learn how to deal with, but with all that together, he’s just overwhelmed.

I know he was glad to see me, but he cut our visit short – just 15 minutes of our hour – because seeing me there and not the woman he loves was heartbreaking. I will understand completely if he asks that I don’t visit. If it breaks his heart so completely that the woman he loves is not in the chair next to me, I don’t want to add to his misery by being a reminder.

The results are in, and we’re negative. Part of Saturday night’s story that I left out was that the AIDS-Rochester Outreach Project van was parked in front of the Forum. Mark and I decided there’s no time like the present, so we went right in. BTW, I asked his permission to tell the story and the results.

It’s been a year since my last test, and they do it differently now. There’s no blood draw! Needles and those test tube thingies don’t bother me at all, I get several vials taken three or four times a year anyway. But the blood and needles bother a lot of people, so they don’t get tested.

The new test involves putting a toothbrush-shaped thing in your mouth for five minutes. That's all, and the obligatory paperwork of course. And get this, the results are back in less than a week instead of two weeks for the blood test.

Now there’s no excuse not to get tested. Everyone I’ve ever asked has said, "Either way it turns out, not knowing is worse than knowing." If you don’t know, find out.

So, we have the Politically Correct part of Saturday night accounted for, now for the Politically Incorrect part.

Anyway, she and Jeffrey talked for two phone calls. They made arrangements for phone calls two nights a week, (I forgot to ask which two,) and she’s promised (again) to call me on the days she won’t be coming for phone calls, just so I can tell Jeff she’s alive and well.

He’s thought all day about visits too. Based on how he felt this morning with only me there, he doesn’t want any visits unless both Debbie and I are. So that puts next Wednesday out, and probably next Saturday too. Besides, he doesn’t want any more morning visits either because he’s "just not himself" in the morning. And weekdays are out entirely. So the only time he’ll let us visit is Saturday afternoons. What a prima-donna!

I’m not as pissed or disappointed as I sound, but I have to spout off somewhere! He has some good reasons for the weekday part. He gets rec from 8:00 to 9:00, meditation from 9:00 to 10:00, and he doesn’t want to miss out on group, counseling or other stuff like that at other times. I can understand that. In fact I applaud that. He’s in there to work on himself and get himself straightened out. But it doesn’t make it any easier on me. It’s harder to take than I thought it would be this morning. And Saturday afternoons there are a zoo.

The past conspires to shape us in ways we may never recognize.

That hit me so hard it was almost physical. I’ve been rehashing the past quite a bit lately, and not just here or at my psychologist’s. We are all products of our past. Every thought, every interaction, every event changes us in some way. Most of the time, the changes are too small to notice. We may never recognize them. But they do build up over time.

That the past conspires to shape us, puts a little different spin on it. Conspiracy.

Hauling down my Webster’s Unabriged, I find that of the five definitions, the second one comes closest: "2. An evil, unlawful, treacherous, surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot."

Sometimes we speak of our past as destiny. "It was my destiny to do (or be) whatever." Yet, even in that usage, it refers to what was once the future. So, for the word "destiny", let’s go with Webster’s second of five definitions again, "2. The predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible course of events."

So the sentence could be taken to mean, "The events, thoughts and interactions of our past, plot the inevitable course of our future." Our past determines our future, without our realizing it. Manifest destiny, sort of in reverse.

What happens when one thinks of the present as the future’s past? If the past determines our future, and since the present is soon to be past, what effect do our current thoughts, interactions and events have on our past, and hence, our future?

Personally, I think quite a bit. We must learn from the lessons of the past, think of all the interactions and how they played out. Then in the present, make the determination of what thoughts and events, when combined and interacting with our past, will yield the future we desire.

Subject to random stuff of course, like getting hit by a bus. J

Think about this a bit, then go read my friend Noah Grey’s journal entry for May 15. I could link you directly there, but you’d lose out on the richness of Noah’s site. Spend some time, a lot of time, checking out the whole thing. He’s an amazing man. And don’t forget to come back here for the rest of this entry, okay?

So write this down: The Dark Backward, Entries, May, fifteenth : letter to a ghost. Now click here.

I could have written the same letter to my addiction. I no longer want addiction in my life.

I have written the same letter to Jeffrey. Yet, I always want Jeffrey in my life.

Strange how the same letter can be to someone or something we hate, or to someone or something we love.

And I don't know what to do with and about either one.

Shortly thereafter, the note from Rainhawk came in, providing a clue as to where the answers lie.

Since I stayed up too late writing last night. I didn’t make it out early this morning to see my jogger. L Actually, it didn’t change my mood much at all. I had a little touch of fun and mischief in there today.

The driver of the 7:25 is a really nice woman. She genuinely enjoys the public contact that comes with her job. She chats and jokes with anyone who’s willing to do the same. She must have been in the same kinda mood today too.

Today’s bus was one of the older GMs with the heavy-tinted windows. But what am I going to do, demand a Novabus Classic? So when the bus rolled up to the stop and the doors opened, I couldn’t see if there was anyone getting off. Some mornings yes, some mornings no.

I stepped in, the driver gestured and said, "Wait, there’s someone getting off."

I backed down the steps and let the other person off, then stepped back in.

The driver gestured again, "There’s another one coming." I backed down the steps again. The other rider got off.

This time, I waited. She says, "Well don’t just stand there, get on!"

As I climbed in and slid my pass through the reader I said, "See? I take direction well."

As she punched my pass she replied, "Well then get on the next bus!"

Howls of laughter from all, especially me.

The only seat I could see was just behind the seats that face the aisle, next to the Big Guy. He’s achieved a bit of notoriety on the 7:25. He’s a know-it-all blowhard. And loud. And, well, big.

I don’t give a shit, we’ve talked before, I know what I’m in for, and somehow it seems impolite to stand in the aisle next to an empty seat, or even half an empty seat. I mean, it all but screams, "Eeeew. I’m not gonna sit next to you!" Like they've got cooties or I’ve got a superiority complex or something.

He knows where I work, and has an idea what I do, so he started in this morning about some sort of translating computer he’d heard or read about. It allegedly translates between five languages or something. We’ve had this conversation before, and it lead somehow to the UN.

He gets to the end of his dissertation and asks me, "Do you think a machine will ever be as good a translator as a person?"

"Not until they understand context and emotion," I replied.

He seemed to agree with that, discussed emotion for a bit, then concluded, "It’s a shame that machines are taking over the jobs from people."

"They’ve been saying that since the Age of Steam, and we always seem to find something else to do with our time." Yes! Got him!

The first is right around the corner on University Ave, across from the Memorial Art Gallery. The ad says, "Studio in mansion across from MAG. Refinished inlaid hardwood floors, fresh paint, updated kitchen & bath, laundry & parking. $400/mo inc. all utils."

The second is on Upton Park, which runs parallel to Goodman, my present address, and is the street I use when I walk to The Corner Store or to the Forum. It’s a nice quiet street of turn-of-the-century (the last century, not the one coming up!) Victorians. I’ve been hoping for a For Rent sign to pop up on this street since March.

The ad says, "Well kept 1 bdrm in Victorian house, hardwood floors, skylight, porch, free laundry & parking. $565 inc. heat." According to the realtor, it’s upstairs, (not so hot) and has southern exposure, (perfect!)

By comparison, I'm presently in a studio in an early 50s high-rise, southern exposure, I updated the kitchenette, the bath could use renovation, coin-op laundry, parking, $430/mo inc. heat.

Alas, no dishwasher. And the movers will have a bitch of a time getting the couch and credenza up the narrow stairs, but I took it anyway. J

I wrote a check for the one-bedroom in the Victorian at number 20 Upton Park. It’s a nice little place, painted tan with white trim and dark-green shutters. One of the smaller homes on the shady tree-lined street, I’ve often admired it, and several others, on my walks to and from The Corner Store and the Forum. It has three apartments, and a large, albeit shared, front porch, which already has a couch on it. And I’ll be using the same bus stop, so I could still run into you know who. J

The living room’s south-facing bay window has the windows on the angles, but not the straight section. I figure I can put the desk in the bay, and I’ll have daydreaming windows on either side. Furniture layout and more importantly, speaker placement, will be a challenge because there’s only one wall that’s not broken up.

The hardwood floor continues through a large archway into the eat-in kitchen. It has two windows low in the wall, sloped ceiling with the skylight, and tracklights. It’s not the best layout in the world, but it’s so much less cramped than mine is now, although the fridge is still the same size and not frost-free. I’ll have room for the microwave cart and a small kitchen set. I won’t have to eat at my desk any more!

Through the kitchen to the back of the house is the bedroom. It has two windows on the south, one on the east. It’s one step down from the rest of the apartment, and has an ugly dark-brown shag rug. On the other hand, the closet is enormous.

One thing I always fear in these old converted homes is fire. Who knows what shape the wiring is in, or how overloaded it is. I was pleased to find that not only is the fire escape off the bedroom window, there’s also a back stair which leads from the bedroom to a back door, and then to the basement.

The bathroom is off the bedroom behind the kitchen. It has only a stall-shower, but there’s a good-sized linen closet and a nice mirror with one of those movie-star light strips above the sink.

Both the living room and the bedroom have ceiling lights in the center of the room, which spells ceiling fan to me! I’ll have to run quite a bit of cable and speaker wire. I have no clue where the phone jack is, but it’s less of a problem with the cordless, and several of the outlets will need to be changed from two-prong to three.

I got e-mail from Willie yesterday. He e-mailed about six weeks ago that he had two job offers, one with a Nicaraguan textiles firm, and the other from a US oil company. I didn’t write about it then because I didn’t want to jinx him.

He wrote that he took the job with the Nicaraguan firm, but quit as of yesterday. It wasn’t the same as he’d been told, there were differences with the bosses, and it was two hours commuting from his home outside Managua. He has another offer, which sounds like a better fit, and pays more. I hope he gets it and it turns out well.

Of all my friends, Willie is the one I worry about most. It can’t be easy being gay in Nicaragua with the cultural and political oppression of homosexuals. Especially after spending two years here working on his Masters degrees, and experiencing the relative freedom we have here to be out and to be ourselves. We are not yet equals in our society, but we’re so much better off here than in Nicaragua and other Latin-American countries.

I’m starting to work out the logistics of everything. There’s a shitload of stuff, old magazines, electronic junk and I can’t remember what else down in the basement. I have all the boxes from all my consumer electronics and computer equipment down there too.

Since I’m moving 100 yards at best, I don’t think I’ll need to box up all the electronics. So between the bankers boxes freed by tossing the magazines and junk, and the boxes from the electronics, I may not need to get any boxes for moving. I figure I can put all the Styrofoam packing material in trash bags for now. Then I’ll have the huge box from the TV, which I’ll probably fill with clothes, large boxes from the LaserJet 4 Plus, the PC, monitor and the microwave, and the smaller boxes from the stereo receiver, CD changer and VCR.

The speaker boxes are probably not useful for anything other than the speakers themselves, but it’s probably best that they go into the boxes anyway. Every time someone tries to move one, (they weigh over 50 pounds each, 22 or 23 kilos as I recall) they always put their fingers into a woofer like it’s a handle or something.

A lot of clothes I don’t wear any more are presently in 16 bankers boxes on the top shelf of the walk-in closet. Most of them are only half-full anyway. Discarding some clothes and combining several of the boxes together should free another eight to ten boxes that way.

And I hope it’s not too late to get movers for next weekend. Jeffrey recommended that I call in the favors owed me by my family. First, I don’t want to lower myself to their level, calling only when there’s a chore to be done or a check to be given. Secondly, both my brothers have bad knees, (a combination of genetics and motocross racing) and there’s my father’s heart condition.

And besides, once everything’s in the new place, I want to be alone so I can figure out where everything goes without 20 people asking me questions. Movers know what they have to do without you telling them, and they go away all by themselves after you give them the check and a beer or two.

When you have ADD, trying to focus on anything is a chore even without distractions. With so much going on at once, I get nothing done at all because I flit from one thing to another like a hummingbird on crystal meth, leaving a trail of unfinished tasks in my wake. I easily get overwhelmed, then either shut down completely, or turn into a raging maniac. (Usually the latter.)

While I can still write, post entries and e-mail from work, I expect to be offline from home until the middle of the week of the 7^th. I’m quite sure new TV cable will have to be strung. Both Music Choice and the Road Runner cable modem are very sensitive to noise and out-of-spec signals on the cable. The advantage is I’ve never had a better picture.

I may not even have telephone for a while. My phone service comes in on cable TV too. If there isn’t already a cable TV phone customer in the building, I’ll have to wait until they can put their magic box in the basement. If they won’t do that, I’m fucked. I still owe almost $500 to the traditional phone company for the cellular bill Jeffrey ran up last summer.

I awoke this morning at 7:45. I did nothing at all. I tried to amuse myself on the web, but even that pinnacle of human achievement in the time-wasting category did nothing for me, except wasting time.

It was almost noon before I could get the energy and incentive to walk to The Corner Store. I bought orange juice, cold-cuts, bread, cookies and ice cream. By the way, it’s around 260 paces from the front door here to my new front door. And from there, it’s 150 paces to the front door of The Corner Store.

The exertion of walking and counting, then making and eating two sandwiches, put me back in bed by 12:45. Except for a brief call from Jeffrey at 1:30, I slept until 3:30. Since then, I’ve carried three shirts, a pair of jeans and some socks from the living room to the laundry pile, and returned with the shoe box I’d set aside for 1999 receipts and stuff.

Into this box, I put the folder containing all of Jeffrey’s letters, drawings, arrest warrants, bail receipts, property receipts and money receipts. I added Willie's letters, address and phone nunber. And I put the unpaid bills in there too. I made several lists of things to do. It was the only way I could justify sitting in bed.