I saw Jenny Lewis at Spaceland last night

More to come.

six feet and rising

I'm feeling tired and not that interesting, despite the fact that in the last few days
1) I rode in a police department helicopter (300 feet up, 75 miles an hour, no door on my side and not-as-windy-as-you'd-think) and
2) I lied to my therapist (I wasn't in the mood to see him on Tuesday).

Let's see if any of these favorite Six Feet Under quotes get me going:

Margaret: [on having sex with other people] You can't fuck my friends, I can't fuck yours. No fucking of mutual friends. Never in Hawaii. Never in a hotel that costs more than $300 a night. And never in a hotel that's under $75 a night. Not on holidays. And there are others, I just can't remember all of them at the moment.

I'm not going to be fucking other people any time soon. The vegetarian Bacon is a winner on several fronts--all of her quirks are charming, from her love of sweet alcoholic drinks to her nervousness that she's boring me ("I must be totally boring you...") every time she speaks for longer than 8 seconds. She can small-talk just about anyone, with an edge of shyness that endears her to all, and her My Little Pony trivia knowledge is endless. Also, whenever I start to make a thumping electronica sound with my mouth, she lifts her ams up and does a semi-sincere parody of a teenage dancer at a rave. I was going to say that I'm smiling just typing this, but that's not exactly true--my facial expression is stoic, but my heart sings.

Ruth: Thank you. I've had the best time coming to this funny little restaurant and having you yell at me in the bathroom.

A vice-president took out my department for lunch today, as a thank-you for some extra work we accomplished three months ago. I ended up sitting at the corner of the table with Sally and Jeremiah. Sometimes rattlesnakes invade the parking lot where we work, so the vice-prez told us a few stories about security guards picking up baby rattlers with their bare hands.

By the time we walked back from the restaurant, Sally was talking about the time she camped with friends. They needed to scare away a circle of hungry-for-their-BBQ'd-chicken wolves. It involved lots of shouting and singing of "White Rabbit."

"So we crouched down with our backs to them and turned around and lifted up our arms and shouted, Yaaaaaaaa!" In demonstration, she turned her back to us and spun slowly around and raised both arms, ha ya! I almost took off for the hills.

Maggie Sibley: I know that if you think life's a vending machine where you put in virtue and take out happiness, then you're going to be disappointed.

I'm done. I almost deleted this post. But I kept it, because I want to remember my thoughts about the veg Bacon on this day, the longest of the year.

we're here, we're queer, we want more beer

Last weekend was pride (uh, Pride, but I suspect only San Francisco should be allowed to capitalize theirs). The official agenda: Love. Equality. Pride. The real agenda: Hot queers. Equal access to drugs. Yelling "woo-hoo!" as the Bangles play the opening chords of "Hero Takes a Fall." I steered clear of the drugs but couldn't avoid the Bangles, a brief concert I attended with veg Bacon and a couple of gay ladyfriends.

We weren't particularly queer that night, even when we were drinking at a Silverlake leather bar after the Dyke March. Pride is not a particularly queer event, a term which implies progressive politics and challenged gender roles and leather wrist cuffs. Queer itself has many variations--the gay punk Latino high school kid, with fake ID and nervous Robert Smith hand motions, or the hipster dyke with slim hips and emo hair, or the straight-laced, athletic, cubicle-lurking FTM--and the variations continue with gay (Ambercrombie & Fitch boy? entertainment industry lesbian with Ellen-style sneakers? homeowners with 1 dog and 2 adopted kids?). But queer and gay just barely cross in the Venn diagram.

I like to think of myself as queer--it stays out later, it frequents cooler clubs and better concerts. But sometimes I am so, so gay. I work an office job complete with cubicle, work email, health benefits, and professional dress code. I own a cat and attend a gay-friendly Episcopal church. I shop at Trader Joe's.

That was Saturday. On Sunday, disgusted with the whole enterprise, I sat at Panini's off Santa Monica Blvd. with my gay-married friends Wilder and Oscar (get it?) . With three other queers, we drank pitchers of hefeweizen, smoked clove cigarettes, and watched the world go by. It was a long, drunk, happy day.

the bitch is back!

I had that phrase run through my head recently; I was trying to recall where it originated, and I settled on the ad campaign for Alien³. In Aliens, Ripley uttered the famous "Get away from her, you bitch!" Which would make "the bitch is back" a perfect tag line for Alien³--even though imdb lists Alien³'s first tag line as the incomprehensible, In 1979, we discovered in space no one can hear you scream. In 1992, we will discover, on Earth, EVERYONE can hear you scream. Um...what!?

But I'm back, after an extended leave of absence. I know my 1-2 readers will be thrilled by my return to the internet stage. I'm somewhat delicate these days; my feline friend Ferdinand (let's call him F³) has been ill, with a mysterious malady.

The vet, who seems smart to me because he has a brusque manner, ruled out the all the usual suspects of feline AIDS, leukemia, diabetes, etc. We know from blood tests that F³ is anemic. We know from X-rays that F³ has a slightly enlarged heart. (Awww! He's got a big hawt!) What we don't know is why he became listless, lost 2 lbs., and developed a fever a few days ago.

Right now he's lounging around at home, meowing at the slightest mood change, getting picked up and cuddled every six seconds, and basically doing all but ringing a bell and ordering me and my roommate around the house. He's on the mend, folks! God bless 'im.

I could be delicate for other reasons. I've cried twice in front of the vegetarian Bacon--once thinking about the fact that her mother died two years ago, and is never coming back; and once on Tuesday night, when F³ had been admitted overnight to the brusque vet's office. Both times vegetarian Bacon ended up comforting me and, the time about her mother, giving me some kleenex. Maybe I'm just sensitive. Call me Jewel.