(From Vacation)

(6-21-02)

The good thing about David Sedaris is he reminds me that I’m not nearly neurotic
enough. I just finished his book Me Talk Pretty one Day- it is so nict o have
the time to actually read an entire book in one day.

We have settled into the beach house here on St. George Island in Florida –
everyone else has since gone to sleep and I sit tip tapping this text into my
Palm keyboard. I know that many of my friends would find this kind of vacatio
boring as hell. To just sit around and hang out all day – and read and sit in
the sun and – my gosh – make our own food. I prefer vacations that are like
a retreat. I don’t want a busily paced vacation – my life is like that.

The beach house is awesome and there weren’t a whole lot of people out on th
ebach and it was on Saturday so we are hoping for a really quite solitudinous
(word?) week. I know that by the time Thursdy rolls around I’ll be foaming at
the mouth to get back into the Chciago fray but for right now I like not having
to listen to a goddamn thing about work.

Ever since I made the decision that I must leave my job as soon as possible
I find that my senses are driving me batty. the sound of a co-worker eating
a cubicle row away – the crunching of her fat free pretzels makes me engorged
with rage. The over-loud phone voice of one of the new temps also drievs me
batty lately as well as his pedestrian phone manner on voicemail – I told himt
hat most people listen to five or six voicemails at a time and really need succinct
messages – they don’t hve time to hear you bmble and talk about the weather.
It does reinforce to me how well I do my job and how I need to get paid for
being at the hlevel that I can function at.

Recently ________ got an ear infection in her other ear – the one that
isn’t aided by a hearing aid. So for a week we would now have to sream at her
while she would scream at us, ‘DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE JUST SAID? I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING
ANYONE IS SAYING!!’ And having to scream at someone really starts to affect
the way you relate to everybody – I thought I was going to rip my eyelids off
in a meeting that was in a conference room the size of a bathroom and was over
a teleconference where every is screaming into the poor little verbally abused
conference phone. Mark, my co-worker, is out until the 20th – his son is flipping
out at school so he taking medical leave to get all of that stuff figured out.
And then they seemed to all remember that Andy’s going on vacation (they’ve
known for months now) and that we have to get two temps in to replace and assist.
All of this the two weeks before I leave – so instead of actually doing my job,
Iget to do Mark’s job and train two others on how to do our jobs. the more I
loathe my job the more I loathe myself for staying in it. I am trying to design
a life that I can live and work in and survive and thrive in. I can’t take the
corporate gig much longer – I now that it will eventually wear me down – hell
– it already has. I did the therapy, I did the anti-depressants, I came out,
I did rolfing, I did acupuncture… the only thing left that could be contributing
to my depression and anxiety is – hmmm – just maybe – your fucking job??

What I have learned is that working there for five years has really betrayed
my advancement. Because they know that my vocation is not my job they really
don’t have any sort of career path set-up for me. And I have shown too much
breadth of skill – and too much depth. I can do a lot of things and I can do
them really well – but since they are not always being exhibited and called
upon at the same time it keeps my compensation low and my profile low. It’s
bullsit. I know that I’m too cricitcal for them to let me transfer out of where
I’m at – we’re still trying to implement this lemon learning management system
we bought. What a fucking joke of a system. I could have done better with some
CGI programmers and a fucking My SQL directory. Bunch of asshole developers.
Passing their shit-ass code off as a release – give me a fucking break. Cocks.
So I know they won’t let me transfer – out of the question – and a raise isn’t
going to happen anytime soon. And even ifI did get to transfer somewhere you
can bet that I wouldn’t be able to have any raise in salary grade. I gotta get
out. I got alot to do before I’m 30.

I do wish Ron was here with me. I realy don’t think he avoided going on vacation
with me to avoid meeting mom and dad – I really don’t think that that is the
issue. I was pissed that he told me he was going and then later on that he really
didn’t know for sure. It seemed like te same sort of bait-and-switch he pulled
with me on New Years Eve – where we’d already bought the tickets and he’d already
committed to go. Now I ask him each month when he knows his schedule and I will
not listen to a damned word he says or plan he makes until after that date –
this month it is July 10th. I get the hunch that Ron has a habit of doing whatever
he wants and then acting cute to get out of it. He needs to know that that isn’t
going to work with me. I ask for very few things from him right now and I just
need up front communication. I know his friends don’t like me because Ron isn’t
out partying like he used to and that the dating life is no fun for him and
his friends. It aggravates me the whole scene in Chciago sometimes. Drugs, dicks
and DJs. All guys want to talk about is partying and all of their requisite
drama. The constant need to be seen and show off – it’s lke we’re al running
for hottest couple awards or something.

I have to juice up another ultimatum with Ron and force him to come visit me.
I have hinted and mentioned and told him point blank to come see me. But it
still doesn’t happen. I don’t sit out waiting for the Clark bus home at midnight
to get home and go to work the next day because I like it. I don’t get home
from a full day at work and immediately shower and change and jump back on the
bus to go see him because I feel it necessary to my own personal health. It’s
part of the adjustments I make. I just don’t see the same inconvenience being
endured on his side. I need to get some equity here. it makes me feel like I’m
going into my usual over-giving friend mode where I am way too solicitous with
friends and it ends up making me feel bitter and anger for not being appreciated
when in the end it is a self-set-up anyway. There’s no reason he can’t come
see me after he has the entire four days off in a row. I need to not even engage
in tese kinds of exchanges.
I think it is good that he is working so muc next month because I have so much
stuff to build out and set-up as I prepare to resign from the dayjob that I
am going to need lots of un-interrupted time. I think what ultimately drives
me batty is I’m the one that has to establisht he boundaries. I feel like I’m
the one being un-fun (as always!). I’m always chided for not beign spontaneous
and just lving in the moment. As if that’s really going to solve anything for
me right now. In Myers-Briggs terms it is our N and S conflict. I’m seeing the
overall picture of working pretty intensely for a few weeks to position myself
to a much more manageable and creative schedule and he wants to party party
party. We sometimes talk abot what we’d be doing if we weren’t dating and he
metnions all the guys he would have bagged by now and I’m like – to what end?
Wha’ts the point?: Who cares? At the end of the day who really gives a shit.
It’s like the guys are all creating themselves into the perfect trophy that
they can then award to eachother. I say as I obsess about my lack of body fat
loss after a good six weeks of consistant cardio and lack of eating wheat for
a couple of weeks. I think dating guys has made me much more vain than I’d like
to admit. I guess it’s a taste of the scrutiny women feel so many centuries.
It’ll migrate over to straight guys more as incomes get equalized. I sometimes
wonder what things would be like if I was still dating women – would I be satisfied?
Would I still wonder ‘what if’? Sometimes I feel like itis just another group
of popular kids that I can’t be/refuse to be a part of.

Ron and I were sitting with Ray and Rey and some of Ron’s Philipino buddies
and Ron was remrarking on Ray (white Ray)’s hairy arms and was flrtatiously
rubbing Ray’s arms lustily. I guess it should have bothered me. I don’t know.
But one of Ron’s friends scolded him for such a display in front of me. I can’t
say that Ron’s need for attention and extraversion isn’t what attracted him
to me in the first place – it fascinating to be with someone that delights so
much in the attention of others. But I’d never consider doing anything equivalent
like that. Maybe I should.

I am constantly reminded and bowled over by how practical I am. Everything
I do has to be useful. I see a certain economy to time lately that I have so
many things to do and I want to spend my time aptly. I don’t have to time to
walk into Universal Gear or Body Body for the fourth time this week.

( 6-22-02)

And it is now Sunday night. It rained all morning so I didn’t get out there
to run but did get to spend a good hour and a half in the sun. I went ahead
and got some tanning oil with SPF in it so I can tan my hide – it says it has
beta carotene in it and I presume that will add to it’s tanning powers – sort
of like the story Ron keeps telling me about rubbing dark beer on your skin
and the dyes in the beer bond to your skin – I think he’s full of shit though
some of Eric’s latino boyz seem to do that.

Hit the calorie binge toady in a big way and will be backing the fuck off for
the rest of the week – I hope to run tomorrow morning. Heather and Brooks and
I watched the gift. I slept this afternoon for a while. Either mom and dad already
knew, already noticed or don’t care about the nipple ring. I feel really good
not being in the gay gaze right now. I was getting the urge for a pair of breasts
in my face earler today. Thinking of Amy’s tits and my tongue dancing on her
nipples and giving her that look as I sucked them – the sexiest look she says
I am capable of – where I’m sucking on her breast and smiling at her and looking
into her eyes all at the same time. I think of our hip bones rubbing together
and Jim Morrison screaming ‘Ride it ride it! Mojo risin’!’ as we made out to
candleight and the hot hot hotness of a Dayton summer.

was reading some more of The Artists Way today and reading it backwards to
refamiliarize myself with it. Plotting out my plan for te next few months –
I need to get a big sketchpad.

Dad for the first time mentioned gatric bypass surgery – I think that that
would be a great idea and I hope he goes for it. I think if he coupled that
with therapy it would really be a great way for him to get his health together
– it has worked for lotrs of other guys and women before and I think it’s a
great idea for him. I think he should also get liposuction while he’s at it
– just to try and undo as much damage as possible. I just want him to be healthy
so bad. It is good that he is such a tai chi freak. He and mom were doing tai
chi this afternoon on the beach. the beach is deserted and quiet and wonderful.
A couple or two will walk by but we never see any cars – it is so nice and quite.
I wonder where the fitness club is- I know that Brooks has been looking for
it.

I keep thinking of my plans for after my job. I realy need to get the web
design teleclass up and running – that is going to be a great meal ticket. Because
that baby I don’t have to have a net connection for – I can get the six session
up and running and also have a huge amount of people on the call since there
won’t be a webcast.

I really want to get good at rollerblading so I can blade down Clark to see
Ron or go to the gym. i think that that would rock. i can’t wait to get my trance
album done – I have so many different samples and loops and references that
I want to pack into different songs an dmotifs. I think it’ll be a ball. I just
feel this urge to make tons and tons of to do lists.

I’d like to make a good $24K extra + plus my living expenses already. And i
know that I’ll have to work a few hours at (employer) every month anyway so that will
be a shoe-in for $100 and hour. The big ass goal is to make $6K a month in order
to have enough t o put in a tax pool for quarterly tax payments as well as for
paying my own heatlh insurance.

I have to remember to stop trying to create things and just repackage and
rebrand what is already out there. I need to put together an ebook course as
well. Or offer ebook-making services for people. Offer to convert people’s documents
into PDF format. Stuff like that. And all of my StarOffice ideas as well. Openoffice
too. There is no reason that by the end of this year I am not totally mobile
and portable and living a much much more creatively fulfilling life. And then
my trance album gets release on MP3.com and climbs the charts and then one day
I hear my song being played in the clubs. That would be totally fucking amazing.
I’ve got so much to do before I turn 30. And I’d like to get a face peel as
well – maybe a dermabrasion – something to try and get my skin smoother maybe.
Inveset in my vanity a little bit. Go visit Karen for a spell – for nearly a
week – that would be such great fun. Have time to do all of the artistic projects
I ihave bouncing around in my head – get the acting/movie career back on line.
Get a voiceover demo tape together as well. Do my idea of a teleclass that is
really a play and the differnet phone conversations you hear are really a big
major cliff hanger drama.

(6-25-02)

I just woke up from a dream. It is 5:40 PM EST. I had started of having something
to do with Oprah and her office and she had a meeting or workshop at her office
that I was in and all I came upon was a few empty bookcases and some empty Schweppe’s
bottles. But I knew how much I wanted to have an office like hers and further
how much I wanted to have my own theatre company or building some day. Then
I was sitting in the Bingham theatre and it was empty but I was to give a talk
soon on some aspect of coaching and was thinking ho I should really get out
a measuring tape and start taking down the theatre’s measurements so I can copy
it when I have my own theatre built. That then led to thoughts of do I really
want to have a theatre in the round because then where do you put the orchestra
when you are doing musicals. Then Jeannie – some lady from the coacing conference
committee showed up and asked if I needed anyting and I said I could use a Coke
so we went off togheter to find a Coke and then we couldn’t find a vending machine
we liked but then did and then sh said for me to go ahead to the meeting and
she’d bring the drink in for me. I come in to the meeting room and it is packed
and I call out ‘d’oh!’ and a few giggles are heard. There’s a heavy-set white
woman standing onstage and she asks if I’m going to sing. I say I hope not since
I didn’t warm up – my voice cracks a bit because I’m nervous and then I put
my arms around her and start singing – ‘My kind of town… Chicago is my kind
of town.’ I twirl her in the only remnant of swng dancng lessons I can remember
and bring her back. I feel the nerves creep up my legs and my face start to
warm and I understand that I am dreaming and then I wake up.

Today has pretty much been a bust. It rained all morning and as remained overcast
all day. Mostly like that yesterday – though it did get snnny but too late in
the day and after I’d come in for the day. I went running yesterday and that
felt good.

I am ready to go back home already – I am so well-rested. I find myself making
tons of to-do lists in my head and getting everything together in my head of
what I’m going to attack when I get home. I had a great beard goign until today.
It was growing out nice but was starting to itch and that coupled with the lack
of sunlight annoyed me enough to shave it off tthis afternoon. Slept all afternoon.
deeply. Heavily. It is wonderful. I’ve read a lot of New Yorker magazines
as well as another100 pages of Lord of the Rings. They just got to the
hill with all the stones on it and realized that Gandalf isn’t going to meet
them. I have had very vivid dreams lately – that always happens when I’m well-rested.

I seem to be getting a lot of perspective on Ron while I’m away from him.
I wonder if he really just didn’t want to come on vacation with me – even though
I gave him many chances to state so – but I talked to him yesterday and he’s
bored silly and so is picking up trips for the week – meaning he has the week
off. We have to have a breif talk when I get back. I just ask for directness
– I ask for very little. And it has evidently gotten really hot in Chicago lately
– and he doesn’t have an air conditioner so you can bet I won’t be spending
many nights sweating my ass off at his place. I do want to get my rollerblading
together so I can rollerblade home at night.

Heather and Brooks went to the Piggly Wiggly – I wish I’d been conscious enough
to tell them what kind of stuff to get. We always eat so marvelously on these
vacations. Though I’m thinking that 10 days might be too much. I get all antsy
after day five. I keep thinking in my head, ‘Wednesday, Thursday Friday…’
and then Saturday we spend all day driving back anad then I fly back on Sunday
morning and then I have to get down into Boystown for the pride celebration.
Like I care – but I probably will want to go to some of the clubs and enjoy
then partying. I am considering taking a personal holiday on Monday so I can
actually have fun on Sunday night and have Monday to get my shit back together.
The more I bitch about it to mom and dad and Heather and Brooks the more I know
that I am doing the right thing. Part of me weighs if I will really tell them
why I’m leaving. Or will I just focus more on that I’m building out my own stuff?
Do i have the balls to say why I’m really leaving – or do I just save that for
the exit interiew. I don’t want to burn bridges but I don’t want to be a wuss
about it. I never signed on to be a help desk and the constant barrage of calls
is just wearing me down – and having to absorb the frustrations and anger of
hundreds of callers is just not my idea of a good time. What I have learned
is to never show off all of your skills too soon. The next job that I have I
am going to do nothing outside of my job description for the first six months.
No networking printers. No changing toners. That’s what drives me nuts is these
people refuse to learn the daily and frequent things that they encounter everyday
– and they aren’t dumb people. They just act like it’s cute to not know how
to run their hardware. It’s not cute – it’s a business liability. Like when
Paul announces to no one particular that the color printer needs toner. No one
in particular means me. Fuck it. I just ignore it. I’ll tell him where the toner
is but I’ll be damned if I’ll change it for him for the umpteenth time. He can
open the box and follow directions just like everybody else can. Just like I
did and learned how to do it. I have a fuckign degree in Acting – I was never
formally trained in any of this stuff – I think that that is one reason why
I have no patience – I learned everything through trial and error and reading
the directions just like they could. You know it’s time to leave your job when
the sound of your co-workers eating drives you nuts. It’s true. I can listen
to the crunchies of the woman over the row. God love her. But I can’t listen
to her crunch and munch much longer. It drives me batty. See how catty I’m getting?
This has to stop. I don’t like myself being this petty.

The house is great. the food is great. The sun could be better. But I need
to have a laptop next time I’m here. I can’tt stand this many days of not being
productive. I’m like, ‘Okay. I’m charged and rested. Let’s go back!’ And ther
amount of strawberry margaritas and Corona Lights we’re plowing through is just
astounding. Heather makes good margaritas. Maybe that’s why I slept so deeply.

I always get a stronge sense of renewal and resolve whenever I vacation. I
want to come back firing all 8 cylinders (4?). The proverbial ‘gangbusters’.
I keep slicing and dicing my potential income as many ways as I can trying to
reach about $1500 a week in income. that should gie me enough to live on and
save on and pay off bills and pay my own health insurance. I think the Dramatists
Guild has a group medical plan – I realized I’d let the membership lag so long.
So I’m going to try and renew that and et medical off of that.

For the first time I heard dad mention gastric bypass surgery. I think that
that’d be a great idea for him. I bet he’d lose a ton of weight. I hope he seriously
considers it.

(6-28-02)

I am totally lost date-wise – I thought it was almost the 30th. Glad that
we got over the ‘jesus-christ-iwant-to-go-home-so-bad’ hump and thins were a
little easier to deal with today – I think part of it is that it was sunny today.
Did some baking for an hour or so – didn’t do as planned and cut breads the
past couple of day s- te cake that was baked was too much to just have one time
this vacation – oh well – get the fuck over it – it was great cake and great
times. Had the Andy/Parents talk today where they asked if I still considered
myself bisexual or what and other numerous questions. A bargain vacation at
$450 – I defy Ron to get me to San Fran cheaper than that. Shit – my batteries
just blew out on my discman. Just hanged batteries. Better. Tomororw should
be easy – just sit in the car and read. I do want to finish Book Two of Lord
of the Rings which will put me in place for The Two Towers for July.

Got a coach referral from one of the referral websites. He had called on Monday
and so I left him a message – Keith Christiansen – lives in New York – or at
least had at 212 phone number for his work phone. And I need a day to get my
kitchen together and go through all of my email and I want to try and get a
haircut tomorrow as well. I mean Monday. and I want to work out too. Have a
day to myself for once. I need to decide on my order of events for getting out
of work though. I need to talk to Lisa and Steve and see what ideas thery have
for my marketing plan forr all of my classes and stuff. Ineed to call that Melanie
lady from coaching class – I need some of her energy.

(6-29-02)

I think today is the 29th. Just got back from t-shirt shopping with mom and
Heather and Brooks and then we had family picture time which went better than
it ever has. A few minor scuffles this morning when dad and I got into it about
the pledge of allegiance being declaed unconstitutional… it is notable that
the media is not prefacing all of ths with the fact that the words ‘under God’
are in there – over and over again they are just reporting that the pledge of
allegiance has been declared unconstitutional without mentioning that it is
really a church/state issue. Some guy on CNN saying that it is part of our country’s
heritage – though the reference to God in the pledge is abot fifty years old
and was (i have to research this but I’m guessing) was a response to the uprising
of communism and all the Cold War bullshit that started crowding the nation’s
mind. I think references to God should be struck from all government procedures
– if we are going to be so righteous that we really do have separation of church
and state. The school vouched decision doesn’t make much sense to me because
of he choice of the parents to spend the voucher where they feel it should go
– because there is tat choice made by the parent with the money I don’t think
it is a church/state issue. And the drug-testing decision to me sounds lke all
the stoners in band are just pissed off hey can’t smoke a bowl before yearly
try-outs. And the girl that had brought the case forward seemed to keep forgetting
that it was not a contingency to attending the school but it was contingent
on participating in extra-curricular activities. They’ll repeal it anyway once
Joe Jockstud gets kicked off the football team for pot use or coke. Dad asked
me if I ever considered being a politician and for some reasont aht has stuck
in my head all week. I do need to get myself involved with the ACLU and the
Electronic Frontier Foundation and the whole equal right thing.

And woe to Worldcom. I agree wtih Suze Orman that there should be a week where
we just get it all out in the open – every company that has perverted GAAP accounting
to their own greedy ends just get it over with. I wonder what’s cooking in the
books of my current employer. But I don’t know how we could have reported a
worse quarter than we did at the end of last year and if that was after creative
accounting then things must really be int he shithole.
I can’t wait to get back to Chicago. Part of me just wants to drive up to Tallahassee
and get a flight back right now. I have learned that I can really only stand
about five or six days off before I really start to lose it. Though if I had
a trusty Vaio laptop with me I’d be peachy keen – though I know that part of
vacation is getting away from the technology (he types on his Palm V keyboard).
I have gotten a lot of perspective on Ron and I though – in a good way. I see
how he needs to start putting forth effort to come see me and hang out in my
neighborhood. That I always end up relinquishing and giving in – like I alwasy
do with everyone. I gotta stand firm on this one – I know it sounds like a totally
dinky problem but still – I don’t enjoy sitting out for the bus home from his
house anymore than he would so I need a little equity.

The whole Worldcom deal reminds me of the rant that Lawyer Jim once told me.
‘Andrew,’ he always called me Andrew – that or Homie (he was a big fan of Dre),
‘what I learned in the past few months is that no one – no one – not one person
– gives a flyling fuck about anyting anymore.’ He was speaking of his trials
getting a book published. ‘No one gives a shit abot doing a good job – or sticking
to their word – or quality – or anything – no one gives a fuck.’ Of course this
is the same lawyer I haven’t heard from for six months.

(6-30-02)

We are all getting a little bit cranky and we all just want to be home in
our respective beds. We are in Alabama right now and probably have about 4 or
five more hours to Nashville. Mom and dad may drive on home – they aren’t sure
yet. I will be hapy to get to the airport and just be alone finally. I have
been thinking more and more about my plan of attack with implementing the new
life and thining I might start one iteration of The Artists Way now and then
start one six weeks later. I’m scared that I won’t be able to offer as good
of an experience in the teleconference version that I can in the live one –
but I know that that I’m just holding onto that to keep myself from doign it.

I feel the need to simplify everything around me – box up all the books and
put them out of my sight. Just box up all the extraneous stuff and put it in
the coset until I’m ready to move and deal with it. I should call Creative Design
and see if they are going to raise my rent this year and by how much. I am starting
to get hungry for lunch/dinner – I’d love to have a big fat steak or something
lket at would be really good right now. I am antsy to get everything started
needless to say. I think my first priority needs to be to get the Dreamweaver
class done and ready to roll-out. This would have been a great time to have
Zork on my Palm, eh? DUH! If I can get the Dreamweaver documentation done this
coming week that would be fantastic. Get the whole mini-site set-up, test orbitalk
on Ron’s dial-up… etc. I need to get Marshon’s site up in some sembelance
as well. I really should finish the website design teleclass as well – I was
getting so much done on that. That’s another one that I can run really easily
twice in a week and I won’t be using the conferencing stuff as much. I should
give that Gary guy a phone call as well. So let’s make the Dreamweaver class
our priority.


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