Soufflé Weekend

I've spent the last two weeks obsessing over cheese soufflé. Yes this is ridiculous; please join Sparky in making fun of me. But as you can see, on Memorial Day I finally was successful in creating the difficult French culinary masterpiece. Behold my first soufflé, full of eggy Gruyere goodness! It didn't deflate as in I Love Lucy and was... well... interesting. It basically tasted like a big poofy cheese sponge. Maybe next time I'll try chocolate.

In other news, the long weekend was terrific. Played dice all night Friday with the boys; spent Saturday helping Gallo with a big project he's creating (more on that shortly), and then saw some of Sparky's friends at Lucky 13 (and what a gross a dive bar that is. Complete with girl puking into a potted palm on the back deck... yuck); Sunday out dancing 'til all hours with Sparky, and Monday in Phancy's back yard having a nice relaxing barbecue. His yard looks great and I'm so glad I got to hang out with him yesterday. What a sweetheart.

Now I have to continue playing catch-up at work after being gone so many days last week. So, back to the grind — no time to even think about the Prop 8 ruling just yet.

Houston - What a shithole!

YAY! I'm back from Houston after a four-day transportation conference. The conference went very well and all three of our presentations came off without a hitch. I even got not one but two "Oooh"s from the audience during mine. Seriously, yay!

But that's not the real story of the trip. The real story is that Houston is a big shithole. I can't believe that it's the fourth-largest city in America (by population -- it covers a huge swath of Texas though); I can't imagine anybody wanting to ever live there.

First of all, downtown is incredibly dreary. The photo above is a main downtown Houston street at about 7:05pm, and as you can see there is one car, and one bus, for as far as the eye can see. I did manage to get one blurry pedestrian in the photo, which was also a surprise because, believe me, nobody walks anywhere in Houston. Even the McDonalds had already shut its doors by 7:00. Totally dead.

Then one night I took a cab out the 'burbs to find the gay bars with my fellow queer transit planners. The neighborhood known as "Montrose" has all the gay bars clustered together, which definitely had a feeling of circling the wagons in enemy territory. The neighborhood had "sidewalks" but I use the term loosely, because some blocks actually didn't have any sidewalks, and others had sidewalks at one point in the past, but now had ripped up concrete squares that literally rose three or four feet up where tree roots had busted them -- at least a decade ago. Walking the streets of Montrose really was a new form of urban hiking which required special footwear. I only wish I had a photo of that too. (Oh, and once inside, the bars were full of clean shaven twinkies no matter where we went... Texas is not bear country.)

And to top it all off, my hotel room had a fantastic view of Enron 1 and Enron 2, both now occupied by Shell Oil. Enron 2 was only half-built when the company collapsed under the weight of its shell-game crooked accounting scandals. Then, the huge american flag which they attached to the building in fall 2001 to commemorate our fallen, ripped off during Hurricane Ike and the flag's connector hooks clawed huge gashes out of the building's glass window curtain. That's some serious metaphor. The shiny 50-story building still has plywood taped over some sections of its facade. There are a lot of other evil corporations with HQ in Houston -- Waste Management, Hess, Elpaso Gas (which had great propaganda posters at street level).

What a creepy town, still filled with hucksters and crooks. Of course none of this should surprise me, because the head of Houston's travel modeling agency applied for my open position and spelled his own name wrong on his résumé.

Seattle wrap-up

Seattle, as always, was super fun. I just love that town, and have felt for many years that it was a good fit for me. Not that I'm moving or anything -- I love SF too -- but the trip reminded me of all the reasons I like it there. Back when I was married, my love of the Pacific Northwest was a source of friction because my Ex really hated it up there.

The conference was pretty great and then Sparky came up on Thursday night so we could hang out for the weekend. He hadn't been there since he was a little kid, so I got to show him all my favorite hang-outs!

Plus, Sparky's Aunt Jezzana lives there. She's a tarot card expert, and quite a hoot, and they hung out while I was in my conference on Friday. And then we spent the next two days just running around. Saturday was overcast but otherwise the weather was fantastic, especially on Friday when it was 70 and beautiful. I packed in quite a bit: breakfast in the U-District; Gasworks Park, Fremont and the Troll under the bridge; the Ballard locks -- which actually had fish swimming down the fish ladder!! -- and a great hike in Discovery Park. By Saturday night we pooped out on Alki Beach and watched a storm blow through.

Sunday we had dim sum in the International District (chinatown) with my friend Charlie, one more dose of Aunt Jezzana, and a flight home around dinnertime. Not to be outdone, we returned to San Francisco with a vengeance and saw Suppositori Spelling doing her patented watch-how-many-shots-I-can-drink-before-I-pass-out performance. Wow!!

Complicated Friendships

John's post on friendship got me thinking a bit over the past few days. I now basically have two separate sets of friends: (1) people I know from my own independent efforts, whether that be from the deep past, from work, or more recent acquaintances; and (2) people that I met either during or because of my marriage.

It's probably no surprise that the set of friends from the married era are the most complicated personal relationships in my life right now. They are tortured because things are now "so different" and they feel that the burden is on them to balance time and social engagements between me and my ex. It's funny; since they do such a good job of fretting over this, I never see what they go through and only see the results (and the results are that I frequently get to hang out with them and do fun things, and occasionally I am subjected to complete radio silence for a day or two when they're too embarrassed to let me know that they're hanging out with my ex.)

It's been almost six months now since our divorce. I think that's long enough that they really need to stop worrying about it; I certainly have. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. At this point, I don't particularly care if I do or don't see my ex when I'm out socially. That isn't to say there won't still be some awkward moments in the future, because I'm sure those will still occur. Can't avoid that. But it has only as much energy as people give it: I do hope my friends from that era really hear me saying that they don't need to keep doing this. I love them too much to see them suffer.

Happy Easter!

What a fantastic day in the park yesterday. Hope y'all had as much fun as I did! Sorry, no pictures though... some things are better left for the memories and not my burning eyes! :-)

Bike ride!

Wow, just got back from a 19 mile ride on the new bike. Sparky and I went from his place through "the wiggle" to Golden Gate Park, all the way to beach. That part was easy, it's basically all downhill. The way back, around Lake Merced and up over St. Francis Wood, was pretty grueling for a first ride -- 1300 feet of climb according to google maps. Ouch.

But, I made it the entire way without walking the bike, and other than a sugar crash in Glen Park which required an immediate injection of beef jerky and Coca Cola, the ride went without a hitch. And what a gorgeous day to be out there all afternoon!!

I love spring.

Sonoma for the weekend....

I'm heading up to Sonoma County for the weekend to test out my new bike on the redwood and bohemian highways. The past two weeks have been unusually packed with late nights at the office and even some work on the weekends, so the blog has gotten boring and the Billy has gotten cranky! This weekend trip should fix both problems.

I'll be heading up to Guerneville with Sparky, and we're going to bicycle either to Occidental or to Sebastopol for the amazing Mexican food at my favorite restaurant up there. Or, we might skip the long rides entirely and just fart around town and hike through the redwood forest at Armstrong Woods... it's supposed to be fantastically gorgeous and warm this weekend, so I don't really care what we do as long as it's outside, nowhere near a computer, and filled with tall trees. Yay, road trip!

Springtime!

After such a beautiful week here, it's only fair that springtime start today. I biked into work almost every day this week and spent Wednesday afternoon in the park -- it feels like my weekend started days ago!

Boy am I happy that winter's over!

Got my Fixie!

I am the proud owner of a new bicycle!

It's silver, it's fixed-gear (all the rage with the Mission Hipsters these days), and I've already begun commuting on it. No action shots yet but I'll post a picture or two soon. OK it's just a bike, but still... it's mine! I haven't bought a bike new since I lived in Chicago.

Hopefully this means a lot less griping about the Muni underground, too. And a tighter ass too!

Muni Meltdown -- it's back!!

It was too good to be true — a J-Church train with maws open and beckoning at the Van Ness platform. Of course it turned out to be my personal nightmare, a "medical emergency" on the train, which blocked all rail traffic out of the tunnel on all routes, for twenty-five minutes. This emergency was a heroin overdosing woman -- I can spot that look anywhere, after working at Civic Center for six years. When we did finally emerge at the Church Street Safeway, the wires were down over Market Street so it took another ten minutes to go one block. Then the train skipped my own stop for no explicable reason, and I had to walk back (and uphill, waaaah!) from 22nd. Gripe gripe gripe. Stay tuned for a later post on how urban local rail service is designed all wrong (think: no passing lanes!)

The past two days on Muni have been.... exasperating.

Yesterday there was the typical J-line trains coming in 18, 21, and 24 minutes (instead of evenly spaced) on my way to work; and then on the way back there were no J-lines at Van Ness for 18 minutes, and then a delay at Van Ness, so I took the first L-Terrible I could board (which was the fifth train to arrive at the station, due to overcrowding), and then got off at Church and walked all the way to the top of Liberty Hill and I still managed to beat that J-Church train home.

OK, so all this griping has a point. The unreliability problems on Muni would turn even the most ardent transit supporter into a single-occupant car driver. Parking at Civic Center is only $7 per day even at the daily rate, if you hunt around for the right lot. That's a lot cheaper than BART round-trip if you don't live in SF. For those of us who do live here, I know I'm not the only one that really wants to take Muni but is just bludgeoned by the awful user experience (on average, once or twice a week).

Thus, the photo accompanying this blog. This weekend, I am buying a "fixie" single-gear bicycle. I'm going to paint it pastel colors, and I am commuting up this hill with Billy Butt Power from now on. It can't hurt my physique, and I'll know exactly how long my commute takes, every day, from now on. I used to bike a few days a week when I lived in the Castro, before the bike was stolen, but it's been almost a year and it's long past time to get back in the saddle.

Blank

Feeling a bit blank today. On every level you'd think I had a great weekend: saw a show, went dancing until 2am with Sparky, met Nancy Pelosi, hung out with friends, made a fantastic dinner (beef burgundy over egg noodles, with fresh slaw on the side!) But for some reason I woke up this morning feeling a bit hollow. I have no idea why; I guess it's just "one of those days."

I'm going to dive into work for a while and get some stuff done that's been bugging me. I'm hoping that having some accomplishments under my belt will make me feel better.

Or maybe it's this dark weather! I was loving the rain for the past few weeks but perhaps it's time for a serious springtime comeback -- after all, it's March now. I'm ready for some sunshine.

Car broken into again... sigh...

OK so this isn't fun anymore.

Last month, my car was stolen from the block in front of my apartment; it showed up the next day with $200 of parking tickets and a giant hole in the dashboard where my stereo used to be. I had just moved to a place without a garage and wasn't accustomed to pulling the faceplate off my stereo, so hey lesson learned right? Right.

So last weekend, Sparky and I finally got the new kick-ass stereo installed, which I totally love. I've also gotten in the habit of removing the faceplate every time, taking it with me (not leaving it in the glove box, for example), and using The Club so they can't drive off with my car.

Thus, this morning, I find my car with the passenger window smashed and the glove box contents on the floor. So what's the lesson here?

1. Yes, it's a good idea to take the faceplate, since if I hadn't my new stereo would be gone again.
2. Should I just leave the doors unlocked and still use the club? At least that way they won't break the windows when they rifle through my car? I'm not sure if I want bums sleeping in my car though.
3. I could afford a fuckload of taxis and rental cars (and a sweet bike) for the amount it's costing me to park on the street.
   

Coraline - go see it!

Saw "Coraline" last night with Sparky. It's the first of these newfangled 3D movies I've seen in a theater. And I have to say, I think it was the best animated movie I have ever seen, period. Totally fantastic!

While the animation was completely breathtaking (especially the glass/window effects, the awesome kitty, and the Russian mouse circus), what made it so great was the fantastic dreamworld writing. It's based on a Neil Gaiman novel, and the story was simply engrossing -- a huge departure from the Disney drivel with the heavy-handed family morals every single time. I still cringe when people tell me they liked The Incredibles -- families everywhere are going to be scarred forever from that movie, just you wait.

Anyway, go catch Coraline if you get a chance! It's fantastic.

I'm just not that into you

A quick roundup of the weekend's events --

Friday night, Sparky and I went to "5th Floor" a very swanky restaurant downtown. I think we were there for almost four hours, since we got the chef's tasting menu which meant course after course of fancy food paired with wines. It was easily the best meal I've had in ages, and certainly one of the best I've ever had. Pretty fantastic. This was our big night out instead of going out on overhyped V-D.

Saturday I got my new car stereo all plugged in -- remember my car got stolen about a month ago? Well the new stereo connects wirelessly to my BlackBerry, which means I can now say "Call Suzan" and it will just dial her up through my phone and it comes through the speakers. It is beyond awesome. OK actually Sparky did most of the work wiring it up and connecting everything together, but in my defense I cooked him an awesome dinner for a private little V-D at home that night. I think he's starting to like the Turkish food. :-)

Sunday it was pouring rain like mad all day long, so other than a quick jaunt to the gym and one coffee with friends in the afternoon, it was a great Wii day at home. I really meant to go out into the nightlife at least one night this weekend, but the "horrible" weather kept me home. No complaints!

Monday was Divorce Day. My ex came by and we spent almost three hours going over our joint taxes and all the forms we need to fill out to make our divorce legal. Ah yes, all you gay-marriage proponents -- don't be surprised when lawyers want $2500 to file this form, this form, this form, this form, this form, this form, this form, this form, this form, this form, and this form for you to make the breakup legit. Heading over to City Hall at lunch today to drop off the paperwork.

I guess "I'm just not that into you" isn't enough any more...

Sick kitty

Sparky's cat was seriously sick all weekend, sorry for the lack of Billy updates. We still don't know what exactly happened; all I know is that Friday night after hanging out with Paul and Michael, we got back to Sparky's pad and the cat was screaming bloody murder, couldn't walk or stand up straight, and was clearly hallucinating. I spent most of Saturday in the kitty emergency room, and then had to help Sparky all weekend with with sub-cutaneous saline injections for dehydration, and carrying the cat from the couch to the kitty box. That cat sure got a lot of attention this weekend.

Sparky was a bit worked up over the whole incident but I think he'll pull through, too. :-) I think if it had been my cat I would have been a wreck. The whole thing did remind me of Mom telling Suzan, when her kitty was racking up veterinary bills, "Oh, just get another one."

Cooking Blog

I know I promised not to blog about cooking, but.....

...last night I made the best brussels sprouts I've ever created. This time they were cut in half, blanched, and then quick-sautéed with strips of pancetta, and just a touch of parmesan on top. I only wish I had taken a picture to show you!

This more than made up for yesterday's arrival of the California Secretary of State's rejection of my domestic partnership termination papers. I was hoping I'd actually be able to sneak through the process without a lawyer, but no luck there. So.... I'm going to have to lawyer up and do it right. Oh well, I guess that's why they call it divorce. The good news is, it's taking less and less time and emotional energy to deal with the divorce chores, which leaves a lot more time and energy for fun stuff like cooking!

Never Blog Angry

It turns out that even if you (or I) delete a post within moments of publishing it, Google Reader and other aggregation sites will pick it up and broadcast it. So the golden rule of blogging, which I learned well before I even started blogging, applies even more strongly than I realized. Never blog angry! Enough said.

This weekend was amazing. I didn't get to see as much of Charlie and Jim from Seattle as I would have liked, but we did manage to have a lot of fun at Spork in the Mission. Spork is a remodeled Kentucky Fried Chicken that is now the latest, hippest addition to the funky Mission restaurant scene. It was a bit over the top, but a great time. Saturday, Sparky helped me get my new Lutron dimmer switches installed in my apartment — one step closer to fully moved in!! — and then a rockin' game night with Zabe, Tom, and Darren. I was utterly humiliated in our game of Bang! since I misread my cards and thought I was trying to save the Sheriff when, in fact, I was playing the outlaw. Oops. Every time we play that damn game, somebody screws it up and this time it was me! How embarrassing... ;-)

Superbowl Sunday was loads of fun at Michael's, like every year. I ate and drank way too much but it was nice to have all my peeps meet Sparky and just hang out like normal people. That may not sound like much, but it was really appreciated. OK gotta finish this Van Ness Avenue bus service memo! More soon.

Lots to look forward to.

I'm having a busy weekend again — and I hope everyone out there is, too. My friend Charlie is in town from Seattle (yay!) plus games night tomorrow, plus Michael's annual superbowl party on Sunday. And, Zabe needs help computer shopping on Sunday (yay!)

I wrote up a big long blog entry yesterday, which was posted for about 1 minute and then I deleted it. I briefly forgot that I want to feed the sweet cuddly loving dog, not the barking hyper eats-pillows dog, since I only have enough food to feed one dog. Don't know if anybody caught it, but if you did please delete it from your memory banks!

Have a great one, everyone! xoxo

25 things about me

This virus has been going around Facebook for a while, and I had to write this up to satisfy my sister. But since you're not all watching me there, I figured I'd paste it in here too. These are 25 random things about me and/or my view of the world. Hope you enjoy.
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1. Carl Sagan has been my hero ever since elementary school.
2. I have an unnatural fear of being handed scissors.
3. While I’m still frustrated and disappointed that my marriage is over, the truth is I’m much better off without him. As Suzan said so well, “I used to think he was hot; now I just think he’s sweaty.”
4. I like my farts, they smell awesome!
5. Not only do I own a soldering iron, I actually use it.
6. My sisters and I used to sit around wondering why we never met guys that wanted to have sex as frequently as we did. The Charlton Curse. And some things don’t ever change!
7. I love what I do for work, and feel like I’m really changing San Francisco in significant, tangible, positive ways – nothing small about it. It’s a great feeling, even if the day-to-day office work (especially here) can be incredibly grueling.
8. Speaking of work, I really hate the phrase “good enough for government work.” I’ve never worked harder, or with better people, than right now at this agency.
9. Atari > *
10. I’ve never slept with a woman. In fact, I’ve never really seen girly bits up close.
11. While a lot of guys fetishize uncut dicks, I think they’re kinda creepy. Doing my best to learn, though!
12. “Would you like some watermelon?” is my favorite phrase to speak in Turkish. Discovering that I could communicate with strangers in a foreign tongue, albeit poorly, was a sublime moment in life. Karpuz istiyor musun?
13. If I could reinstall a different version of Linux on my computer every day, I would finally be truly happy.
14. For a long time, I forgot how nice it was to hold hands in public. But now I remember!
15. I think every American should live overseas during their twenties. Living in Israel for two years made me finally grow up, and I would never give that experience up. Glad to be home though.
16. If I have a next life, I want to come back as a Black woman with attitude and fabulous hair – which I can change every three days.
17. But, I don’t really believe in a next life, or any sort of fantasy sugarcandy heaven in the clouds, which is why I have to make this life as great as possible. We’re all stuck in this together, let’s enjoy it.
18. I never thought I’d be dating at the age of 39, but here I am doing it and it’s not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. In fact it’s pretty fun, so far.
19. Downhill skiing is quite possibly the worst vacation activity ever. Hurling toward large trees on an icy slope in blizzard conditions? I feel that way at work already! Why would I want more stress on vacation?
20. I remember laughing at a sign I saw at the No on Prop 8 Rally – “The only relationship Gay Marriage will ruin is my own.” I had no idea the prophecy that sign bore!
21. No matter where you are, it’s only as good as the people you’re with. Don’t move for work. Don’t move for money. Go where your friends or family love you.
22. I think the gold crown on my back molar looks like a little shark tooth ready to bite ya. I love it!
23. I think that 25 things is really a lot of things to have to write about yourself. I thought psycho-therapy was bad; this is navel-gazing to the extreme!
24. I am truly thankful that for every dinged pot, there’s a lid that fits.
25. I believe that what goes around comes around, and that the universe has a funny way of evening out the playing field. While nice guys do seem to finish last, I’ve found that the view from the back of the pack is pretty awesome if you catch the light just right.

Sparky...

...sent me roses today! Awwww!!!! :-)

Actually he tried to send them yesterday, since I was having a really crappy day at work. But true to the day's awfulness, the security "cops" in the lobby wouldn't let the delivery guy up since the front desk didn't answer the phone. They wouldn't let the dude deliver flowers. So they arrived today!

If you ask me, that makes this rose smell even sweeter.