Yes it has been a week since I blogged, I'm bad, we know that. And for those hoping for a long and meaningful post, well clearly you've come to the wrong place - I rarely write long and have not once acheived meaningful. So instead a little update on a few stories or whatnot that I'm sure you've all been following excitedly.
1. Will he or won't he?
Well I've heard nothing from Air Canada so my hopes of a career as a trolly-dolly or air-mattress seem to have been dashed. I still have one more appointment booked for a physical, however, given that the training was meant to have started yesterday, I would suggest that it's a formality.
2. Corporate Bullshit
Yes they did ask me to stay on. I didn't. Fuck it (and them). They were nice and all gave me a bottle of Irish whiskey and a gift cert for a book store. But you know it was time to cut the cord. The first week on my own was a tad stressy, the second week a bit less so. I'm excited and hope things will move along for me. Oh and as regard stress...
3. Blood, Sweat and Tears
I left the law firm on May 19th. It has, therefore been 10 days or 6 work days since I left, and the excema on my hands is about 95% better. I had said that I figured that would happen when I left.
Other than that there's not much going on really. Certainly not much I'm going to blog about. Oh except i'm fat. Fatter now than I've ever been. Very bad body image stuff going on right now for me. Time to drag my ass back to a gym more regularly and stop eating out. I want to drop 10-15 pounds this month. I'm thinking herion will help.
The Internet Broke My Bath-House
I’ve had this conversation (er, fight) a few times now, but I think I’m right in saying that the Internet has had a very strong effect on baths and bars within the gay community. In my view, a not entirely GOOD effect.
In both cases the Internet has facilitated what amounts to a fracture in the social structure of the dating and getting laid part of gay life (and straights too, but that's a whole 'nother story - suffice to say that a lot of life revolves around gettin' some.)
In the old days (and I'm not talking about the 70s, while I suspect it's probably the same, I'll merely speak about what I remember from the early 90s when I first started going to the tubs - and a few years before I got a computer or knew what the internet was) we would go out to meet guys and (hopefully at some point) get laid. You went out for a one-night stand (getting laid) or a fuck buddy (getting laid regularly for a while) or a husband (getting laid for the rest of your life). Same then as now. In the words of David Byrne "same as it ever was.”
This meant that in bars people talked to complete strangers. At the time we thought we were pathetic with how afraid we were to approach some hot guy and chat him up, buy him a beer or whatever. But we did it anyway. Most of the guys I know did it. And once in a while you were successful (i.e. you got laid).
It also meant that at a bathhouse the doors to rooms were open. On any given Saturday night you'd find a third or a half of the room doors open and inviting. Now you don't. Go to the XS or Steamworks on a Saturday night, there's a wait-list for rooms (meaning they're all rented) and not one door will be open. Logic would tell you that they can't ALL be in the shower, or fucking, or changing. SOMEONE has to be hunting?
And now in the bars nobody talks to anybody. People complain this bar or that is cold and the guys stuck up (or this city or guys today or...) the point is that you have a bunch of guys in bars all waiting for the other guy to chat to him.
I blame the Internet. Because now when you want to get laid you go online. You log into a chat room, spot a small pic or description of someone you like and you chat them up. And before you know it you're describing your penis and what you'd like to do with it. Before you'd have had time for two beers at Woody's or a bad drag show, you've hooked up, met up, fucked and fucked off.
And what if you don't have a place to meet Mr. Right now? Where did you go to get off? Yup, the baths! You see? The guys at a bath-house are not there because they’re hunting, they're there because they've hunted and now they're just eating their kill (to carry on an unfortunate metaphor).
Is this state better than a few years ago? I think you could argue either way. But you can't argue that the Internet hasn't had an effect on the 'avenues of discourse' we have as gay men. Time was when we'd chat a guy up in a bar. Now we don't. Time was we'd go to the tubs and meet guys. We do so more rarely now. The Internet has done many amazing things. It has created communities where there was none. It has made freaks and pervs realise that they are not the only ones into wire brushes, chewing gum and mascots (or whatever -philia catches your fancy). It has (as Mike and Eric pointed out a couple weeks back) meant that those guys who are gay in some bumfuk little town, didn't have to move to the big city to 'be' gay. They can stay home, enjoy the farm and hook up with some other country boy on occasion.
But I guess I'm a bit sad that it really does seem to have killed the art of the pick up. Not the pick up that starts with "Stats?" or "what are you into/looking for?" but one that starts with "hi, can I buy you a beer?” The kind of pick up that is two hot, horny guys talking, flirting and playing with each other, until one finally says something innocent like "well I’m gonna head home, wanna come back for a bit?"
I guess I sound like Emily Post lamenting how Television killed conversation. But being a bit nostalgic for something doesn't mean you're a Luddite. It's still possible to embrace change and regret it at the same time.
Boring Update
On Friday I finished up working at the law firm. They had asked me to stay as I mentioned, and I had said I’d let them know based on the conversations I was to have with a couple of potential clients during the week. One of the ‘clients’ of course was Air Canada. Friday came and I’d not heard from the airline and while I could have stayed on I felt that a relatively clean break was necessary. For one thing I don't think they really need me that much. I mean I’d have to start taking on new projects if I stayed. I’ve been winding things down over the last while at work and as a result have a relatively light workload right now. And I don’t want to start anything new.
In addition to this feeling is the sense that as much as it feels nice to have them ask me if I can stay I don’t get that they really appreciate me being there beyond the obvious lack of hassle sensation. Now I don’t want or need undying affection (well not much), but I would like them to at least be a tad appreciative. It’s hard to describe really but on the one hand they ask me to stay, and on the other don’t tell the payroll department to continue to pay me. They claim to value what I do, but wont’ have a conversation with me about the possibility of my doing it for them freelance after I leave. So in a way I have forced their hands. I just told them that I was finishing up on Friday, let’s have the going away party and be done with it. I’m tidying up some work from home for them Tuesday and after that they can call me in if they need me, which they likely will (at a higher cost than my salary for sure).
The other benefit to this situation is that they’ll actually be forced to hire someone (well two someones) to replace me. Up until now I think they’ve not been working too hard on that front. (Another area in which they were dicks to me. I asked them to share the job posting with me so that I could send it around to people I know who might be interested in it, they refused, with that kind of blank stare that people get when you commit some horrendous faux pas like asking them for money or something. It’s annoying, because I think I’ve proven myself to them as someone who is willing to have really straight-forward conversations with them. So if they really just don't trust my judgment or think I’m such a dick that they’d never want to hire someone who ever knew me they really can just say so! But no, they just chicken out and do that rude “oh look over there!” sleight of hand thing and walk away.)
So with all of that going on, I just figured it was time to move on. The honest truth of the matter is that I was also not getting enough done on my own with being there nearly 40 hours a week. I figure this works best. I’ll be ‘on call’ for them for a while if they need me, forcing me to actually start my own business up. So tomorrow morning I’m moving the computer into the office I’ll be working out of and get started. The new website launches tomorrow too.
Discretion is the better part of ... oh fuckit.
I was gonna be all discreet with the job thing, at least until I knew something, but hell i've already said a lot anyway, so fuck it. But I had a very good 4 hour interview session today. I will go into greater detail another time, but the salient fact is that at the end the arch, gay (well they're flight attendants) interviewer suggested that while he was not offering us a job or anything, we did need to come in for a physical. So right now the psych test and the physical are all that stand in the way of a job offer. so unless I accidentally do coke or get diabetes in the next two weeks, or turn out to be crazier than even I think I am... I think I stand a reasonably good chance of, well something....
"Do you want to be wanted by me..."
So today they asked me to stay at the job some more. Seems that the TWO people they think it will take to replace me are harder to find than they thought. Irony is sweet. I said I had some meetings this week and I'd let them know. I'm enjoying this.
Cottage Musings
Sunday morning at Tammy’s cottage with her, Nino (her new fella) and Eric. The weekend has been movies punctuated by naps (and food). It has been nice and relaxing. Almost too relaxing really. I realize I’m not a very good ‘downtime’ kind of person. My brain keeps working, and not always in a good way. Lately, I have been concerned with what’s next for me professionally; I am leaving the law firm in 5 days, and as yet have not quite secured anything specific. There are a lot of things out there as possibilities, however having work is a binary state, you do or you don’t. Right now I don’t, so there.
And of course that could all take a left-turn on Tuesday depending on the Air Canada interview. I don’t think it likely (that’s not low self-esteem talking, that’s statistics: 2400 people interviewed for 80 jobs) but you never know. In a lot of ways I’m very excited by the idea of what is next. In one week I will either be a trainee flight attendant or a marketing writer with not a lot to keep me busy, but on the cusp of making a business great.
I made the mistake this weekend of finishing a book called The Coming of the Night by Jonathan Rechy, and watching the DVD of Rent. Both dealt with similar things. The Coming of the Night is about the last dying days of the 70s & 80s gay sexual revolution. The boys are still having it, all the time, everywhere, with everyone. They’ve only just noticed that a few of their number are beginning to get odd cancers and pneumonias. The title of the book refers to the night when the book’s action takes place, the night of a Sant’Ana wind in LA, when sexual energy is released and reaches a, well, climax. It also refers to the coming of a plague that means that a sequel set even 4 years after that book could not be written – as all the characters would likely be dead.
Then the next afternoon I watched Rent, a somewhat overwrought musical (hmmm redundant?) about poor New York bohemians who all seemed to have Aids (I think there was a spoof song about Rent called “Everybody Has Aids”). Of course a book about people living in a self-indulgent paradise, unaware of the impeding fall, and a movie about young, sexy, talented people facing their own doom with love and poignancy are going to pull at the heartstrings. But the combination of these two stories has put me in a bit of a melancholy mood for sure.
I don’t know why these Aids stories seem to have this effect on me. I don't have it and I don’t actually know that many people who do have it. But it still feels a lot like a possibility in my life, and in the lives of the people I know. Even this year I had a broken rubber scare. Someone whose blog I read had the same scare recently and blogged about it. So even now knowing what we know there’s still the possibility that things can change. But I don’t think it’s even that. I mean of course I feel closer to this as a possibility than I do to any other disease. I mean I smoked for years and yet never became entirely convinced that I’d ever get lung cancer. But somehow this seems more of a possibility than that ever did. But I don’t think for second that is why I feel really wonky emotionally after reading the book and seeing the movie. I think it has more to do with just plain, old-fashioned feeling a bit significant about the future. I think that finding out you’re dying must clarify the mind a lot. You’d realize there was not much point in fucking around with things, you’d better carpe the bloody diem real quick, as the number of diems left was shrinking rapidly.
Seeing movies of that (even if they’re singing throughout the whole thing) or reading books about it, well that’s sometimes enough for me to start thinking about whether or not I was seizing my own day. And being at a cottage with not much to do means you get to do a lot of thinking. I don’t know the point of this blog. I guess to just get down some thoughts and think some things through. The conclusion I’ve come to is that yes I’m seizing the day as much as can reasonably be expected. A lot of the crap I do, which occurs to me as timid scares the crap out of other people. So I should stop beating myself up about it. Secondly, my feelings, my emotions about what’s going on in my life are fine and valid, but they’re not real. Not in the sense of meaning anything. The fact is that I’m worried about the interview on Tuesday, I’m worried that I won’t get the job. Also worried that I will get the job and will have to survive on the ridiculously low training salary that they pay, or that I’ll fail out of flight attendant school or something stupid. I’m also worried that my business will or won’t be a success. But my worry about these things doesn’t mean shit. It just is. So yah I won’t lose sleep over the fact that I couldn’t sleep on Friday night or that I dreamt of bad interviews and suicide last night. God knows watching movies about people singing while dying is likely to do that to ya.
So instead of getting all up in my head about stuff, we’ll just say this was a pleasant weekend full of nothing much but some thinking.
The Departure Lounge
For nearly three months I have been in the departure lounge. I have resigned but not left. I have checked my luggage, passed through security, bought a duty free carton of somkes and a bottle of rye and I'm sitting in a cheap plastic chair staring at the tarmac. How that manifests in the real world is that I'm a bit more, um honest. Well no, to be truthful, I've always been honest. Now I'm doing it out loud.
On Sunday our firm held some sort of party thing, at which my colleagues worked. They worked the door, greeted and generally looked like pretty girls, and 'promoted' the firm. After that they stayed around at the night club and had a bit of fun. Entirely coincidentally, and in no way related to that event, one of the girls was sick on Monday.
Of course everyone thought the same bloody thing, but as the boss seemed to be swallowing her story, we all played along. Well they all played along. I have Tourettes. I asked her today if her hangover was better. The stupid cunt didn't hear me and insisted I repeat it. Following me into the kitchen, near the boss's office. So I repeated it. She then proceeded to argue the point.
Later the boss asked her if there was any truth to that suggestion.
She's pissed. Everyone in the office thinks I'm a hero.
客室添乗員
The above kanji is the Japanese translation of a job title. Those of you who know me well enough, will know that I have always had a secret desire to have that job. It is not a high-paying job. It is not a very easy job, or a nice one for that matter. It has, however, got a certain cachet. And ever since I was a little boy I've wanted to be one (one could say that it was the first hint I might be gay).
I'm not trying to be coy (oh hell yes I am). But I won't say what it is. Try a babelfish translation and see what comes up, it might help you. Shigeki, you, apparently, used to be one of these (and you're one of only two of my blog readers who can read that anyway).
Anyway, in a quite bizaare turn of events, I have found myself about to go in next week to the second interview for that job. I think the chances of my getting the gig went from miniscule, to slightly less than miniscule with the phone call today to schedule round two, however I am allowing myselsf to be cautiously optimistic.
I won't go into why I want this job, or how the reality of it might differ from my boyhood dreams, I frankly don't much care. It's kind of ideal right now. the training begins precisely two days after my current job ends. The job will only be temporary if I was to get it (max of 6 months). So if I get it, I won't have to even stick to it for very long (and the end of a contract is easier to explain than quitting/getting fired etc.)
So wish me luck!
I was going to try to paste my pal Hamish's press release here but his html and my blog don't play well together (I think it is the Scottish accent). So I will merely attempt in my sad way to tell you that you should buy his book.
Ideas in Stone is the latest novel from my buddy Hamish. It is a magical story of what happens when a city - ideas manifest in stone - begins to disappear. Does 'modernizing' old cities erase them? When you tear down an old building, does a piece of culture, a piece of life, a piece of you disappear?
That all sounds grandiose, but it's not, it's an intensely personal story told from the point of view of one cute, odd little Canadian boy, the son of a famous (in Canada anyway) singer who steps out from underneath her shadow to chase messages from his long dead father in a city neither he nor his father have ever been to.
This book is fantastic, fun and good. You should own a copy. There are two ways to read it. Download a copy of the e-book for free from his site, or, if you're like me and believe that a book is a thing, not just a story, then buy one. You'll get a hand-made copy of the book mailed to you.
In any case, buy the book.
