faucet

(another dual-meaning title!)

Tonight I am flying to Norfolk, Virginia.  I’ll arrive 9am EST tomorrow, where my parents, bro, and sis will pick me up on our way to Vacation!  This is a proper noun: Vacation is the annual week spent at a beach house at the Outer Banks, North Carolina. (People in SF seem to have no idea what the Outer Banks are, so click the link if you don’t either!)

This is our 20th year.  Vacation involves my immediate family (mom, dad, Katie, Mike) and my mom’s sister’s family: aunt, uncle, and the Cousins.  Another proper noun!  I have many cousins on my dad’s side of the family, but the ones on my mom’s side are the Cousins.  There are 3, and we are all close in age (in fact, “the Cousins” truly refers to all of us at once)   Katie 27, Dan 27, Megan 26, Mike 25, Amy 24, Kevin 23 (we even alternate back and forth family to family!)

Starting last year we’ve added another five: my uncle (mom+aunt’s brother) and his new wife and her three kids (the “New Cousins”—Chris 19, Rob 18, Lidiya 13)  So now there are fifteen of us!  We had to upgrade to a bigger house.

Vacation consists of: jumping in the waves; reading books on the beach, on the deck, everywhere; playing Wii (an ongoing tradition since SNES is a Mario Kart tournament), playing Mille Bornes, poker, Risk, and Trivial Pursuit (possible addition this year of Settlers of Catan); there is usually one day a year that is rainy, where we go see a movie (last year was Up, I’m suggesting Toy Story 3 for this year), we also watch movies at the house at night; big delicious dinners; and from when at least half the Cousins were over 21 onward, cocktails (have you ever heard of a Brew-Thru?  It is amazing).

See you in 8 days!

How does this happen?  The first thing you do, when you are rich and famous, is hire a driver!

The driver drives a black Lincoln Town Car and he picks you up everywhere.  If you are lucky, he is like Harold “Happy” Hogan!  How could this not be the ideal situation?  Who wants to drive, ever?  Especially if you are drunk!

This is part of a larger issue:  rich people doing it wrong.  They are always miserable and get drunk and call their wives dirty words and are filmed by their daughters eating cheeseburgers on the bathroom floors. 

Give me several million dollars, and I’d know how to handle myself.  I’d pay off all the debts/mortgages/loans of everyone I cared about, hire a driver, and take on projects and hobbies that interested me (a major one would be a campaign of anonymous street art/flash mob type things, things that would make people’s days stranger and more exciting, but they wouldn’t be “for” anything and wouldn’t be filmed  You’d just have to be in the right place at the right time). 

I’d still finish up school, of course, but boy would my models be sexy!  Laser-cut acrylic lit-from-beneath beauties! 

Nate recently posted this, which provided me with the perfect word, “transience.”  I’m not sure I’m sick of it like he is, but I certainly have thoughts.

I’ve started really getting the hang of San Francisco.  I have a very good sense of direction now, and can visualize where I am in the city with ease.  Too bad I’m leaving in 2 months!  I’ll be going back to Cincinnati, where I will be for 9 months—the longest I’ve been in one city in five years! 

Friendships suffer on account of all the travel.  Of course, I live in a time where it’s easier than ever to stay in contact with people far away, but I’m not very good at it; I consistently just fade out when I leave a place, not making any effort to keep in touch.

And relationships, forget about it.  The closest thing I’ve ever had to a “relationship” only lasted 3 months, and he lived 2+ hours away…   A few weeks ago, I was asked “how do you not have three boyfriends here already?” to which I had no good response.  The guy wasn’t even applying to be one of the three.  I’m fairly confident that, if I wanted to, I could “hook up” with a new guy every night, for as long as I’m in SF.  But who would want that?  Where are the guys that want to just hang out?

I should feel grateful for the opportunities I’ve had, and I do.  Not everyone is able to travel around on internships, or study abroad, etc.  But actually “living” somewhere would be nice.  Still waiting on that bookshelf.

If it were possible, the title of this post would have a half-tone comma between the second and third words, as both readings apply, simultaneously.

Seven months ago I posted my thoughts on drinking, and it is now time for another look.  After a particularly miserable afternoon a few weeks ago (where I spent 4 hours at a karaoke place with some Chinese people, not realizing that they planned to only sing songs in Chinese (except for Baby by Bieber, which I sang), and waiting 30+ minutes for a train, and an expensive taxi ride…) I went out to a club/party with some friends, and decided to drink.  I wasn’t super-hungover/depressed the next day, which was what I was trying to avoid by not drinking for the past 13 months.  So, yeah.  Further experimentation has confirmed that I can indeed drink (responsibly) without terrible next-day effects.

But do I even want to start drinking again?  I guess it is nice, on occasion, but it is expensive.  Perhaps I will just never actually buy a drink.  The one night, I only bought my first, but ended up actually drinking more than I probably should (or maybe it was because of lowered tolerance), so this should be easy enough to accomplish.  People like buying me drinks, I guess.  I always watch them get poured though, because Rohypnol.

I suppose I don’t need to decide one way or the other, between teetotalism and alcoholism.  I’ll take it night by night.  If I feel like it, I can have a drink or two.  If not, I can just keep on keeping on. 

What a show.  Nothing else on TV has ever prompted me to spend hours on a chart, that’s for sure.  This will be a long post, but hopefully interesting to fellow fans.  Spoilers will occur. 

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Last night someone commented on how good I smelled.  This reminded me of a conversation with a good friend a while ago, about our ideas for get-rich-quick schemes.  One involved going into the cologne business, selling my scent, which isn’t anything complex, but apparently people like it?  All I use is Old Spice original scent (chosen because a girl I had a crush on in 7th grade mentioned she liked it).  (Our scheme involved me basically selling my body to Old Spice, for a new product Old Spice + Kevin, name flexible)

Once in high school a guy hugged me real close, for a long time, explaining that I smelled real good.  He was cute and I liked it but I was in the closet and he was straight.  Small thrills.

A few months ago I was meeting a friend at his apartment, from there a group was going to a gay bar.  I walked to his place, a fair bit away, swiftly because of the cold.  When I got there and took off my coat, one of the gays exclaimed “someone smells real good!”  I thought to myself that surely it couldn’t be me, surely if anything I smelled like someone who just walked a long way.  But no, the source was determined to me.

All of this is to say: if you, dear reader, think me incredibly irresistible now, having never interacted in person, just wait until you get a whiff.

The Gay Hug is not defined by its action (that is, it is not a “gay” hug) but rather by its occurrence (that is, it is a “type” of hug).

I was first introduced to the Hug in October of 2007.  I was in Seattle for a LEGO convention, and as it happened, I had spent a fair amount of time that weekend hanging out with the Gayfols (AFOL is a community-acronym for Adult Fan Of LEGO; “Gayfol” is a portmanteau used by Jonesy and me.  I trust you can figure it out with the information just provided).  Upon the close of the convention, instead of the awkward wave (or rarely, a handshake), the gayfols each insisted on hugging goodbye. 

Fast forward to the past month.  As previously alluded on this here blag, I have gone on a few dates.  Without fail, upon first meeting, the date will hug as a greeting. 

For me, physical contact of this or any sort is reserved for special occasions.  My mom will hug me when I am about to leave for school, a foreign country, a far-away city, and rarer still this would occur with my dad (when he saw me off at the airport on my way to SF, for example).  I just don’t go around hugging people.  I hug and mean it.

But the Gay Hug is so capricious and freely-given.  I play my role in the transaction amicably, of course, but inside, I am thinking, “Hands off!  This body isn’t to be bandied about by just anyone!”

Today I spoke with the other new employee at the office, over lunch (office lunch—a topic for later).  She is from China (I think?  I don’t want to be ignorant and see someone Asian and automatically say X, but I’m pretty sure).  Anyway this is relevant because I said that I was a student at U of Cincinnati, which she didn’t know about.  I said that it was in Ohio, “far away,” but she didn’t really know where Ohio was either.  Finally I settled on “3 time zones away,” which she understood. 

A long time ago I read a book by Cory Doctorow, called Eastern Standard Tribe.  I don’t recall my thoughts on the book in full—knowing him, preachy—but the concept of society breaking into time zones, rather than by nation or culture, was interesting.  At the time I didn’t think it was plausible, but back then I had never ventured out of Eastern Standard.

Since then I’ve ventured out of -5, staying six months in -6, three months in +1, stood on the Prime Meridian at the Royal Observatory, and now six in -8.  Oddly, +1 (6 different) was less noticeable than -8 (3 different), probably because it was different enough to seem like another “place” entirely, while I find myself thinking “It’s X o’clock back home right now” here.

In Eastern, Jonesy would sign offline to go to work at midnight.  A convenient time, because I should go to bed soon afterward, but now he signs off at 9!  So early!  (He pointed out that when I used to go to bed at 11, that was his 9; just as inconvenient, but w/e!)

Don’t really have a conclusion to this, nor a clever witticism to wrap up…

I’m not terribly good at fashion.  Not high fashion, I don’t care about what’s on the runway/who designed what/that guy that just died who made uncomfortable shoes.  I mean regular, every day what-people-actually-wear fashion.

I’m certainly not “unfashionable,” you don’t see me in khaki cargo pants or um, something else that is unfashionable.  But most people/art-students-seen-in-the-halls/gays seem to dress better than I.  Perhaps I’m simply not working with enough.  Take a gander at Douglas’s closet, for example, and I’ve seen bedrooms more well-stocked than the Swan station.

Inventory Time!

9 long sleeve shirts

16 tee-shirts (my most well-stocked category)

3 pairs of jeans (black am appy, gray, blue w/knee hole)

4 pair shorts

12 pair underwear (boxer-briefs, fyi)

6 pair socks (white)

3 zip-up hoody sweatshirts

1 spring/autumm jacket

1 winter coat

3 pair shoes (no-stitch, D1, and painted black vans)

not listed:  “work” clothes (probably 3 pants, 6 shirts)

Listing it all out makes it seem like more, but compared to 57 v-neck sweaters, not so much.

Of course, I know that “fashion” is just a scheme to get us to buy new stuff every year, despite the old stuff still working just fine.  It is a time, money, and resource waster…  but check out these shoes!!  They are on sale!!!

Ones that I would want, in the order I would prefer them, from most to least, although any would be grand.  As they say, I wouldn’t kick any of them out of bed for eating crackers.

1. Time-Turner - Imagine sleeping in till noon, having a relaxing breakfast, and then turning back time to 9am to go to class.  Brilliant!  This would immediately improve my life and my grades and just everything.  Really, this is all about oversleeping.  If there were, say, a magic pillow that made me wake up at 7am every day fully rested, that would work too, without the risk of paradoxes/hippogriffs.

2. Seven-League Boots - These are boots that allow the wearer to go 7 leagues with each stride.  That’s 21 miles.  In many ways, these resemble the super powers Teleportation and Flight, reviewed here.  Their application should be obvious.  I hope they are fashionable.

3. Magic Bag - This is a bag that can hold anything, sometimes called a “pocket universe.”  Link has one of these; he keeps his hammer, goron sword, bow, and deku shells in it.  I would use this for everything.  I assume things in there are preserved in the exact conditional they went in, so I’d put sandwiches in there, cold drinks, all my art supplies…  This would have been real handy back when I was moving every 3 months.  I wouldn’t be able to defeat the White Witch or anything, but this is way more useful than a horn or the juice of fire-flowers.

4. Invisibility Cloak - I guess this would be cool, but not much practical use.  I’m not sneaking into the restricted section to look for books on Nick Flannel, you know?  I guess I could walk around in dangerous neighborhoods without fear of being rape-mugged.

Other Possibilities: Power Gloves (lift boulders), Deluminator/Street Darkener (“to siphon away the clarity made from mankind’s bulbs”)