Another Entry Without an Overriding Theme

I’ve begun to read books again. Since September 11, I’ve read almost nothing but the newspaper. In fact, a few days after the attacks I finally decided to stop reading the New York Times online and finally subscribe to the damn thing and start reading it on paper. I used to read it online every day at work, but I figured that once I started my new job I wouldn’t have that luxury anymore.

The only problem is that now I pick up the paper on my way out of my apartment building and I wind up reading the news on the train to work. Besides the fact that the paper is big and unwieldy and comes in eight million sections, by the time I get to work my head is filled with horrible scary unnerving things.

So this morning I started reading books on the train again. I’ve begun reading Hornito, by Mike Albo, which I picked up from the new paperbacks table at Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago and which is pretty darn funny. The protagonist is a neurotic, sex-obsessed 28-year-old gay guy who lives in New York. Hmm, I wonder why I like the book…?

Last night was pretty depressing. Sundays are sometimes like that, but I felt utterly slothlike yesterday. I spent most of the day indoors, wasting my time chatting away on the Internet. There were two aborted attempts at sex. The first was with a 44-year-old guy who had a nice picture, in a rugged sort of way. Neither is usually my thing, but I decided, what the hell.

I was supposed to meet him at a nearby park. I got there, I saw him, I was totally turned off. I quickly left before he saw me.

About an hour later I found another guy online. We decided to meet up at a nearby location. I went to the location and waited about 15 minutes. He never showed up. I went home.

What goes around comes around, I guess.

(I should interrupt here to point out that I’m still really psyched about Barrage Boy. The only reason I haven’t mentioned him lately is because he’s away, in the middle of a two-week vacation.)

(Why is it that whenever I meet a guy, he winds up going on vacation?)

Anyway, eventually it got dark — earlier than I expected — and I realized how fast the weekend had flown by. Here it was, Sunday evening, and I had to go back to work the next morning. It seemed like I’d just been with my parents, having dinner on an optimistic Friday night. And now I was feeling kinda down and lonely.

Fortunately, an instant message from a guardian angel and semi-kindred spirit appeared and cheered me up. After chatting with him for a while, and then talking on the phone with CanadaGirl, I suddenly felt motivated to go grocery shopping and then come home and do some cooking. I hadn’t cooked in ages, except for boiling pasta, which doesn’t really count. So I decided to go to the supermarket. It worked; as soon as I walked out the door, I felt better — a man with a mission.

I wound up buying the ingredients for chili and came home and made a big batch of it. I also made a salad (except I forgot to buy lettuce) and had some cheese and crackers while the chili cooked. By the time I ate the chili it was after 10:00 at night. I had two bowls, so I had no room left to eat one of the Entenmann’s donuts from the variety pack I’d bought.

Hey, folks: next Sunday’s the end. No more Daylight Savings Time. Ugh. In exactly one week, it’ll be dark when I get home from work. I’m not looking forward to that. I used to love winter… I used to like being indoors, all cozy and warm. I hated the summer because I didn’t like being outside. I was more of an indoor-introvert type of guy. But these days, I much prefer warm weather. I think I began to grow more comfortable with warm weather around the time I began to grow comfortable with my sexuality. Interesting.

Several days after we return to Standard Time, I move. I’m moving on Halloween Night, in fact.

Yeah.

See, my lease starts on November 1, but that’s a Thursday. I’m not paying for a moving company, so I need some friends to help me move, but they won’t be able to take Thursday off from work, so I’ve rented a U-Haul for the night of the 31st and I’m getting my friends to help me move all the furniture (which isn’t much anyway) that night. That’s nuts. Who ever thought of moving on Halloween? That’s gotta be the strangest day of the year to move. Maybe we can dress up in costumes and move my stuff.

And what will people think? Remember when you were a kid? All those rumors about the creepy guy who’d drive around in a U-Haul on Halloween Night, kidnapping little children?

Oh, wait. He didn’t drive a U-Haul. He drove a black van.

Anyway.

Time for some links. It’s been a while.

First off, we’ll miss you. Yeah, you’ve left… but entries like this make me glad that your blog’s still around.

Second, I’ve been meaning to link to a college friend of mine, a brilliant and creative guy who’s currently in grad school at MIT. He found my blog through that Associated Press article. (As far as I know, he’s the only person who’s found my blog that way. Newsweek hasn’t called, and neither has the New Yorker. So much for fame and glory.) Anyway, check him out.

Also read Art Spiegelman on his recent, instantly classic New Yorker cover.

Finally, be careful when buying Broadway tickets! Wow.