Merry Christmas!

Wherever you find yourself this Christmas Day, best wishes for you and your loved ones.

Cuidate.

All Work and No Play

I have been working my ass off. Even for a workaholic like me, it has been too much. December is always a good time of year for picking up overtime as people with real lives want time off to prepare the house for arriving relatives, to shop, and do other miscellaneous things. I had already picked up a good amount anyway, but then I got mandated to work more. 70 hour work weeks have been the norm the past couple of weeks. Not fun. The extra money is definitely a plus, but I have hit the limits of my overtime whorishness.

So it is now early Wednesday morning and I have two more nights of work ahead of me before I finally get some consecutive days off. I am tired and irritable and I feel even more tired, irritable, and guilty because I have not blogged lately. I would love to be happier for you, the blogosphere, in this wonderful holiday season, but you are going to have to deal with some rants and anger from me. The world is a cold, dark place.

1. First off, some good news. Target is now carrying Tim Tams! Do you believe it? Tim Tams are the Oreos of Australia. They are these rich thick chocolate cookies that are really tasty. (Some Aussie friends of mine in London used to always bitch about the unavailability of Tim Tams in England.) If you have not tried them, make sure you do. Make sure you do not get fooled into buying the caramel ones! The chocolate flavored ones are the original.

2. Is anyone else annoyed by the stickers that breeding people have been outfitting their minivans and SUVs with as of late?

I am not trying to be a total dick. I have had the urge to blog about this for a while, but have refrained while trying to be realistic and sensitive to other people's feelings. What are people trying to accomplish by putting this on their car? It feels very "In your face!" to me, a gay man who is not planning to have children. (For the record, let me state that I do not have any kind of bumper sticker or decal on my car. The peaceniks of Northern California who cover their vehicles in "No on 8!" and "Celebrate Diversity!" bumper stickers irritate me too.) It feels like the person that is driving that vehicle is celebrating their ability and choice to breed; not only breed, but breed multiple times and they want to brag about it to the rest of society. Is this a good thing? The same vehicles inevitably have the My Child was Student of the Month at St Mary's Preschool bumper sticker. Again, I really could care less that your child was student of the month. My life does not need to revolve around your child. Yours does because you gave birth to it or adopted it. I also could care less that your child plays soccer or golfs or that you have a dog. If I choose to get to know you on a personal level, then I might care at a certain point. But I do not feel that I should be subject to your family's life story simply because I get stuck behind you on the freeway while I am in traffic. It is a pollution of public space. (I warned you all I was bitter!)

The other issue here is that I subconsciously associate the people who have vehicles with these stickers with the people who voted Yes on Prop 8. It is not necessarily a reasonable assumption, but I am honest about the fact that I make the correlation and it does not endear me anymore to the breeding families. Alright, rant done on that topic.

3. I get irritated around this time of year when people start asking me what my holiday plans are. When I tell them I am going to work or stay home, they act as if I am insane. My family lives in the east and I prefer to visit them at other times of the year. For example, I am likely heading out to see my brother on the East Coast after New Years when the flight loads taper off and I can get some time off. It is not that strange of an idea that one might want to spend their holidays in a non-stressful environment with friends and then choose to visit family at other times of the year. Welcome to 2008, soon to be 2009 people. The less stress, the better.

4. One other cool thing is that I got 2 A's in my classes this semester. It is unthinkable to me that I have a 4.0 average. I know it will not last through my entire degree process, but it is nice to have for now.

Alright, enough from me. Hope you are all safe and warm this Christmas Eve and somewhere you want to be. Cuidate and Merry Christmas!

This is Pretty Funny....

Very clever use of one of our people's art forms by the No on 8 people.  

Hope you are all having a great week.  Cuidate.

Is the Blog a Dying Art Form?

Is anyone blogging anymore?  As the days go by, it seems like more and more of my favorite blogs are disappearing.  As I clicked on one tonight, the all too familiar "Closed for Business" wallpaper was up.  I was a bit late arriving at the blog party, so I am not quite tapped out yet.  I have definitely slipped this past year in my blog diligence, but I blame that on having to work day shift for the better part of the year.  A day person, I am not.

In the larger sense though, the medium feels like it is shifting from simple rants and raves of the common man or woman to a more evolved media form.  Newspapers and magazines are being replaced by sites such as The Huffington Post or online versions of print media like NYTimes.com or SFgate.com.  Online newspaper articles now feature comment sections as blogs do and people seem to have endless amounts of time where they engage in petty bickering back and forth with faceless people.  When there is no accountability for your speech or actions, suddenly the exchanges become more heated and personal.  It is not like anyone at the grocery store is likely to call you out and say, "Aren't you Gail36SF?"  Yeah, not too likely.  The other palpable shift seems to be from having your own blog or website to the social networking sites like Facebook or Myspace.  When people see a few paragraphs of text these days, they usually say, "Ugh, I do not have time to read all that text." and then head to Facebook where they will spend hours poking each other or sending each other imaginary gifts.  I am on Facebook and yes, it is fun.  It is also incredibly voyeuristic and a bit of a strange experience.  Since being on there for a month or two, people from my high school in New Hampshire who rarely spoke to me much less had a conversation with me suddenly are messaging me and wanting me to be their "friend".  Uhhhhhhh ok.  If you did not want to talk to me fifteen years ago, then what is the big attraction now?  It is bizarre to look at some of their pages.  Most of my classmates have married, have kids, and are living in the same general area of New England that I ran away from as fast as I could.  I suppose one could compare the experience to turning on the TV and watching a Facts of Life reunion.  Yes, I vaguely remember Mrs. Garrett, Blair, Tootie, Jo, and Natalie.  But do I have a strong desire to see what has happened to them over the past fifteen years or so?  Not really to be honest.

I am hopeful my friends and family that blog will continue to do so.  It takes time and effort (which is the biggest complaint of many) to sit down and put something readable together.  On the flip side though, it keeps your writing skills up, forces you think, and to put something creative out there for the world.  Keep up the good fight people!  I appreciate your efforts.

Hope you all have your Christmas soundtracks on full blast on your iPods.  Cuidate.