Yes, I am Alive

Sorry everyone. I have sworn to myself that I am not going to beat myself up about not keeping up with the blog, but I have been keeping up my usual hectic schedule and free time has been at a minimum.

I started back on day shift at the beginning of July and this always throws a wrench in my natural circadian rhythms. I start my days at 8 AM which is the best of the day shifts. (If I thought 8 AM was a bad start time, I could have been stuck with 4 AM. WTF? What kind of evil genius made these shifts up? On a really evil note, my workplace used to have a 12 AM shift to 10 AM which seems to defy all concern for semblance of a life. Thankfully, that shift no longer exists.) One of my coworkers is out on maternity leave and expected to have twins, so my boss has graciously approved a transfer to her vacant night shift while she is out. I get back to nights in September which will be a nice early birthday present. How long my coworker will be out is still up in the air, but the longer I am on nights, the happier I will be. So each day I stumble through work being half awake and commuting at the same times the rest of you do. It is an ugly existence, but I am managing.

If you believe this one, I have still hearing NOTHING from the bank regarding the loft I put a short sale offer on. The offer requires the bank to respond to my offer within 90 days, so July 30th marks the ninetieth day. I expect to hear something this week, but this process has become so drawn out that I am hardly excited about the prospect of home ownership anymore. I am sure things will change in the next few weeks as frantic calls and paperwork change hands. Throughout the process, my mindset has been to refuse to get excited until I have a set of keys in my hand and this continues to be my philosophy. I feel cautiously optimistic, but there is still a whole set of lingering questions and fears regarding my upcoming jump into home ownership.

My family is gathering together for a reunion of my mom's family in upstate NY in a couple of weeks. I am looking forward to seeing my immediate family as well as some fun aunts, uncles, and cousins. Still, these things always end up being kind of dry and I am the fun token liberal gay of a large breeding Catholic family. (Conversation overheard from one of the previous reunions. "Oh my God, can you imagine John Kerry as President? How insane would that be?" No crazier than your boy W people. Yeah, I fully expect to see some Fox News T-Shirts this year.) Thankfully over the years, some people's dysfunctions have overcome my gay status and several of my cousins have healthy drinking problems. Life can be sweet that way.

I took a couple of courses over summer semester that are finishing up this week; (Yet another reason this one has not been blogging.) Macroeconomics and the humorously titled Math for Liberal Arts. Macro- has been boring as all hell, but the class is pretty easy. My math course has turned out to be unexpectedly fun. Ok, fun is not the right word, but amusing. The book is decent and deals with practical applications of math such as compounding interest on investments, different types of loans and how interest is calculated, as well as logic and statistics in relation to Vegas style games like blackjack and roulette. At least it is not plotting parabolas and useless stuff like that. Cal State requires a C in a math course to graduate and thus far, I have a B. So even though math is not my favorite subject, this course has not sucked as bad as I thought it would. I have just a few pre-req courses to finish and then I should be ready to start at Cal State next fall. Good stuff! The 4.0 remains intact and I wisely took my math course pass/fail, so I may be able to extend the streak until 2010.

Beyond that, it has been a nice summer. I pulled a muscle in my back a few weeks back while running (which was a new experience for me). It has healed nicely and I am back to my normal workout routine of running every other day. I got a low end rowing machine for my loft and I have been rowing while I catch up on my DVR programs on non-run days, so that has been a fun toy to have around. After the unfortunate incident of my former hip hop instructor becoming a strange alcoholic stalker, I had not found a replacement dance class in the last six months or so. A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine told me about some classes offered at the YMCA in the city. I attended one and liked the instructor a lot, so I will probably start heading that way when I have time. They have two classes a week on Tuesday and Thursday and hip hop is a really good work out, so I am looking forward to getting back to class.

Gay Pride was a lot of fun (as always). I made the fatal mistake of consuming too much alcohol without enough food in my stomach and ended up paying for it later on, but overall it was a good time. After many years doing the same thing year after year, I am going to scale back Operation Parade and Cocktail next year. I am not a huge drinker anyway, so I think it is time to make a change as we enter a new decade next year.

One quick thought that I have been pondering lately is the transience of life. The passing of both Michael Jackson and Walter Cronkite were a big reminder to me that all of us are going to pass away one day. I remember my first memory of Michael Jackson from a fourth grade birthday party of a neighbor. His birthday gifts from his parents were a Sony Walkman and the Thriller cassette. All of the boys at the party stayed up all night listening to the tape and watching 48 Hours. For a kid from a sheltered upbringing, this was revolutionary stuff. I spent the better part of the next year or two being obsessed with Michael Jackson (as was everyone in 1984) and dialing 1-800-MICHAEL in the hopes of speaking to the singer personally. In fact, my repeated dialing was the reason my parents finally acquiesced and got call waiting. My father complained he could never get through when he called home. Even though he got creepy after Bad, Michael Jackson in his golden years (or should I say black years?) was such a huge talent. It is hard to believe he has passed on. Cronkite was also a huge part of my childhood memories. My parents were dedicated fans who watched night after night, especially through the first big political campaign of my life, the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan. I am fiercely nostalgic for the days of a non-24 hour news cycle and people watching the news each evening to get their fix of national and world affairs as well as news programs of substance and subtlety rather than car chases and sensationalist video clips. I remember Cronkite's gravely voice as he delivered the news in the twilight of his network news career and it never dawned on me that he would one day not be with us. As I grow older and begin to loose more familiar figures to me, it reinforces how quickly time passes and how one must make the most of his or her short time that he or she has here.

So that is a quick update from me. Hope each one of you is having a great summer and I will try to blog soon.

Cuidate.