Life Update

What's been going on in my life since the last update?

Well, we made it out of the apartment in time (though it was fairly close) with some help from my parents and Naveen. Didn't leave it quite as clean as I wanted to, but it was pretty good. The condo is pretty awesome, even though it's still, technically, not quite finished. The laminated-wood floors look really nice and the paint job is pretty good, overall. We LOVE having the extra room; in the condo, we have an actual kitchen as well as a larger living room and a second bedroom that we're calling the office (and which houses the computers).

Steve and Matt have been preparing for rush; Rik decided to become associate for a while because he was afraid the commitment would be too much to keep up with his schoolwork. I am, at long last, an alumnus (woohoo!) although the distinction is pretty much a technical one since I have to take Steve to almost all the events anyway. We have two very promising rushees signed up already, with a supposed 2-3 more from Marcus. Also, Florencio and (hopefully) Efrain are planning on coming to some events, as well as the regional governor, Robbie, for induction.

Denver Pops Orchestra and BrightonMusic Orchestra have both started up again, good in that I enjoy both, but bad in that I once again have a regular schedule that I must follow. DPO has a bunch of good music for the upcoming September concert, which is an animal-themed childrens' concert, including Flight of the Bumblebee (from the Tale of Tsar Saltan), Peter and the Wolf, and the Overture to The Wasps. The Brighton pieces aren't so interesting, but, on the plus side, we are growing again, which is definitely a good thing.

A few weeks ago, I was hired by a programming startup in Boulder, which is incredibly exciting for me. The good news is that, although I had no real experience with C# (the language of choice) before beginning, I think I've picked up at least the basics pretty quickly.

Got together with Rader last week for the first time in a long time. We hung out, went to dinner and played some Illuminati. (Steve and I think there should be a Futurama Illuminati game, but we can't come up with enough Illuminati groups.

The refrigerator doesn't get as cold as it should, so it's been moved up on the priority list. We've had to throw away some milk and some lunchmeat already.

WarioWare: Smooth Moves (Wii) is a very bizarre game. Metroid Prime 3 (Wii) is pretty cool. Resident Evil 4 (Wii) is cool, but I heard that RE5 won't be available on the Wii, which is ridiculous because the control system on the Wii is the best I've encountered for the style.

Went to a family party last night in welcome of the Wayward Travelers, Amy and Terry, who had been away all summer (more or less). Also, mom's half-brother Dean was there, which was nice. Played Wise or Otherwise, Guillotine and RoboRally. Someday, I will win at RoboRally. Really.

I can't think of any other news that's fit to publish, so I'll sign off for now.

Well, let's see... I'm positive stuff happened Monday, but I can't remember what. Tuesday I went over to Rader's for a while and we hung out and went to the mall where I couldn't stop myself from buying "GURPS: Discworld Also." It's a great manual, but now I need "GURPS: DiscWorld." Oh well! Wednesday was New Year's Eve... I won't go into much detail, save that it was fun, and, as Pinky says, I got my first kiss from a boy at (approximately) midnight. Yay! Good tidings for the year ahead. And then, later, I got my first kiss from a straight boy, smack on the lips, woowee wasn't really expecting that one. Oh, and it turns out I'm a bit of a 'ho, but aren't we all, deep down, just a little bit? Thursday morning the family went to Target and used a coupon for a free sitting and a free 8x10. And we didn't buy anything. What a deal, eh? Friday I went over to Jim the Cactus' house for some all-night rp'ing with Oni. The first few hours sucked because everyone was playing computer games and technically they were RPGs, but... yeah. Geoff had no fun with dat shi'. But after we started actually playing it was fun. We played "Solaris" for a while and then some "Paranoia," which is a fun and funny-ass game. Spoon is just amazing at it. Every time I turned around he was shooting someone for being a "commie mutant traitor bastard." (Those are the bad guys in the game. I've nothing against communists, just like I have nothing against republicans. But they're still wrong). And it snowed overnight, which meant I had to drive home this morning in a Honda del Sol (which is a two person sports car, for those of you who don't know), which was very interesting. I made it, obviously, so everything turned out alright.

I finished The Front Runner. It was good, very powerful, I liked it. There were some sex scenes that I don't know were necessary, but I still cried throughout the entire ending. I identified with most of the characters, which is odd for me. Billy, Vince, Harlan, even John and a little bit Jacques. I want to be like Billy, I feel frustrated like Harlan, sometimes I want to go wild like Vince (and, sometimes, I do...), and I want to fight for equality like John. And poor Jacques. I'm afraid I'm most like him, despite what I wish for myself.

Apparently our Big Brothers have been feeling left out, which isn't good. I'm not sure what to do... I haven't been to that many social-type events myself. I know there was the New Year's Eve party, which Tony did come to, and there were some brothers that went out last night or the night before, but I didn't go with them. And I've been in contact with my brother, though unfortunately he's not been in town lately. He will be in town for a while on the 8th, so I will get to see him then. Ooh, I bet he'll be at Dream. That will work out nicely. I suppose I should try to arrange something, too. Maybe a hike before school gets started again? Depends on whether the weather gets nicer or not. I'd like to spend some time with Brandon, too. Still need to talk with him before I let this get too far in my own mind.

And this is bad: I've been considering dropping DLP. Or, at least, considering the ramifications. I won't, of my own volition, I know, unless it becomes too much of a burden on my schoolwork. But... It just now seemed quite tempting. I'm not quite sure why, either.

Anyway. Back to other things.

Well, I know it's a bit late, but Happy Solstice, and in about a half hour, Merry Christmas.

I played a candlelight service tonight (actually two). It was a good service. Nearly inspired me to join. Fortunately, I regained my senses in time. But there was a certain sense of community that I haven't quite found otherwheres. DLP is nearly there. I'm not quite sure what it needs. But I think it will come.

We finally got ahold of Eizo, who has agreed to do the gig, though he will not be sticking around afterwards for dinner. Poor guy. I wanna hug him and let him know it'll be okay.

Folks, also, if you're mentioned in here, even if I'm not very nice to you, then you need to remember that I still like you. I like folks even if I find what they do silly. And that's most everyone, including myself.

I also wonder whether I've been very Taoist lately. It almost seems like I want to coerce events into what I want, which strikes me as very un-Tao-like. Maybe I should just let Brandon and myself be and take whatever happens? The other side of that, though, is that I don't want to miss out on something like that because neither of us was willing to make a move.

Supposedly Kyonee and Papu have a blog on blogspot. I want to find it.

And, Scott just helped me remember that, "whether you swim with the current of the tao or against it, it still sweeps you along." So the answer to my question is: relax.

And happiness was regained in the student, and the Tao flowed onward.

Goodnight. Merry (freakin' ;-) Christmas. Love to you all. May peace be found in all of your lives.

Update:

The rest of Monday went alright. To be honest I don't remember much of it, but that's not because I was drinking. Tuesday most of the colony went over to drop off the gifts for the family, and then Papu Kyonee and I walked Tony to his final, then I went to help Nara move into her new dorm room. Met her father, who really reminds me of Rader's dad. Anyway, then we went to dinner at Libby and I went to the UMC to meet with Veronica. She's got a lot of ideas about how she wants the site to be updated, but I think she doesn't have so many about the design, so that's good. It gives me some creative freedom and some time to think about the design as well. We talked about it for an hour. I also got the passwords from Eugene for the website and the email address, which is a hugely good thing since Veronica wanted me to create email lists for the judicial and legislative boards, and the name that I had picked for the leg board was already taken... By the ASSG... so, now that I've got the password for the list, I can start doing that. Plus I can get into the website now, too. And eventually I'll tell them how to use the outlook thingy with the email. Or maybe we'll just transfer the account back to webmail. Either way.

Wednesday morning was the Intro to LGBT Studies final. It was really easy. And the prof brought muffins and orange juice! And green carnations for us, a la Oscar Wilde. Yay! And I got an A- on my revised paper, so that's definitely a good thing. I came back here and played around on my comp some more (I've been learning to use the GIMP lately), and along about 2:30 I started wondering where Jason was, and whether or not we'd be doing the queer eye thing. Turns out he assumed that I'd be going with Chris & Co to LotR:RotK, which I totally would've been, except that I thought we were going to do the Queer Eye thing. But, it did work out, we went to see the 3:30 showing (which got out at 7, doncha love it?), and then we went to dinner. The movie was AWESOME. Gorgeous, exciting, I laughed occasionally, I was teary-eyed in certain parts, I really don't like it when people clap for a non-live performance but oh well, they were excited. And, of course, as Jason said, Elijah Wood is hot even when he's dirty and injured. My stance is still that these three movies are a masterpiece.

Anyway, that about brings us to now. I'm going to lunch with Tony in a little bit here and then hang out with Scott. But first, a shower.

Oh, yeah! My Big Brother is a drag queen! Hehe, how cool is that?

So, I'm thinking ritual suicide is a good option at this point.

Hi, I'm back from my physics final which was this morning. It kicked my ass from here to Mars and back again. I think I'll be lucky to pass the class. English is definitely looking like a good major right now.

Since the last update, good and bad things.

Wednesday night was rehearsal, which got out early, which was nice. Thursday was sleep-and-work-on-take-home-exam-and-paper day. And then go to class and turn them in. And then do a dance for joy because class is over for the semester. Yay! Afterwards, I went to jazz rehearsal for the concert on Saturday. Rehearsal was alright, nothing really great, though. Got my mail from my parents'. Friday I worked for four hours 'cause I didn't have any class and then came back and wasted my time on my computer for a while until the guys came over and we wrapped presents for the family we're adopting. We talked for a while afterwards, and they decided my apartment needs to be "queer eyed," so wednesday afternoon we're going shopping. 'Twill be interesting, and hopefully not too expensive.

Saturday was my french final. It either went well or very poorly. We'll see. After that, the jazz band played for the Festival of Lights (actually, we played before the parade started because we played during it last year and it was much too cold for us). There were good parts and bad parts, as usual. Afterwards, I came home and went to Fiasco's to meet the Brothers and most of the rest of the pre-colonists. Then we headed back to the Brothers' hotel room and talked and played "Mafia." It was much fun. I played four games and was the murderer twice. In a row. Mwhahahah! I almost got away with it the second time.

Sunday morning I had to work for four hours starting at 7:30. We had a banquet buffet that we had to prepare for. I was only able to snitch one half of a potato pancake, though, because I had to rush home and over to Fred's to get to the DPO concert. The concert went really well, actually. My parents came and said they enjoyed it a lot. Then, back up here, and I was able to make up a quick pizza thingie before heading off to Induction. Actually, Webb saw me along the way, and I didn't have anything decent to dress in, so he let me borrow some of his clothes. Thanks Webb! I'm going to need to get a tie and find where the hell my khakis have disappeared to (they must be at my parents' house, since there's nowhere here to hide). Induction was fun, and interesting. The view from the mountain is amazing. I must start hiking. Eighteen of us is quite a number, but I think we can do it. Afterwards we went back to the UMC and had a little party/meeting. There's a lot ahead for us to do, but I know that we all can do it. We also got divided up into "families" by who our Big Brother is. Mine had to leave earlier than he expected, so he wasn't there, but that's alright. We've got surrogates for when he's not here. My siblings are: Jeff and Tony. Yay! I like Jeff and Tony (wait-a-minute, I like everyone...). After the meeting, we went to OC and hung out for a while. Brandon can be such a sweetie sometimes.

We're a colony now! Yay! And we're on the map, too!

Anyway, I think that's about all I've got to tell you right now. Queer eye for the queer guy on Wednesday, I'm meeting with Veronica on Tuesday to go over the website, and Thursday is clubbing/partying, as is Friday, come to think of it. I need to get gifts for people yet. Eep.

Stupid physics.

Well, well, well, apparently someone is reading my blog since someone requested comments... so they should work, now. Be happy.

I forgot something that was actually really cool that happened last friday. In A-S, the prof brought in a swordmaker to talk to us about swords and other weapons from the time of the anglo-saxons. He brought in a fairly wide range, from a Roman cavalry sword (replica) up to an Irish, well, it wasn't exactly a broadsword, but as I recall it was two-handed. Swordmakers used to take soft iron and carbonized iron (steel), and make parts of the blade separately. Then, they would weld them together, with the harder steel on the outside and the iron on the inside providing support. Of course, some also folded the steel into the iron to get a blend... and Damascus blades (or what were called Damascus blades in the old days) were made from taking the steel and iron, melting them together and then fashioning a sword. But that process usually left the blade very inhomogeneous. When higher temperatures were reached later, the smiths had access to a relatively cheap form of homogenized metal... and sword prices went down. Very interesting lecture, nice guy. He brought in some speartips, too, and we got to handle the weapons (heheheh). Only the guys seemed to actually pick them up though. Maybe the guys were just the pushiest? Ah well, anyway.

Friday night... I did get to go to the party, kinda. I got there a bit early, and helped set up (and injured my finger somehow... I think the couch that we had to move had splinters). And for some reason I ended up folding the host's laundry. I'm much too nice sometimes. I shouldn't be such a pushover. Anyway, the party had just barely started (and wasn't really going yet) when my parents called, saying that the parade was done. Apparently the Parade of Lights folks are very good at ending on time. So I walked over to the Civic Center and met my parents. We took the bus home, and not just any bus, the SLOW bus (which kinda annoyed me. Taking the park-n-ride I could've been to Wagon Road before the bus we were on got back. I could've stayed longer, but I would've had to not go with my parents) because it was cheaper than the park-n-ride. I understand that, but it doesn't really matter to me since my bus pass is good for the entire system. Oh well.

Mom and dad got me a present for my birthday, which did please me. It's my very own DVD copy of the Original Broadway cast recording of Into the Woods. I was very happy with it, and I'll have to bring it up here to show Jeff so that he can marvel at the beauty and talent of Bernadette Peters. We watched it Saturday evening, and I've decided I like the second act much better. It's more... allegorical, and you know how good I am with allegory, so basically it slapped me in the face with it, but I still love it. And Amy got me something, too. I'd asked for a small CD rack so I could put it on my desk and hopefully clean up some of the nightmare that it is. So, I now have a CD rack. It turns and holds 80 CDs. Thanks Amy!

That's interesting. By saying, "you know how good I am with allegory," despite my knowing perfectly well that you probably hadn't any idea how well I dealt with allegory, I was able to convey to you how good I am with allegory through the use of the formula. Neat.

Saturday morning dress rehearsal went okay. We only ran a few moments into the choir's time (about 5 minutes), and so we were done by about 10:30. Bobbette and I went to her house after calling Arte, and I played with her new recorder while she fed her animals. Then we practiced. When I got to my parents' house, my sister was watching Pirates of the Carribean, having just purchased a copy last week. So I watched it, too. Very nicely done, well-acted. The plot drew me in and kept me there, despite being just a bit far-fetched. Johnny Depp was, to say the least, fabulous. And sexy. Wanted to shag him right then and there. Well, maybe not in the living room. But yes. Then Into the Woods, and then random television for a while until Degrassi: The Next Generation came on. I like that show, even though it's for teenagers. I think it deals very well with real issues and everything else you hear said about such shows. Plus Marco's cute.

Sunday, the first concert went okay. Not great, but not poorly. The audience still enjoyed it. The second concert went better, in my opinion. The trumpets said they had a harder time in the second one, but I couldn't hear any problems. I think I'll see if I can borrow the "Olde English Aires" from BrightonMusic for the quartet to play in our upcoming gig. Yes, that's right, the quartet has a gig. A wedding, on the 27th of December, downtown. Really our first gig since summer, though we did have a small reception for a bank opening in October (I think). Anyway, Russian Christmas Music went much better the second time. I'm glad that we've the opportunity to play more difficult pieces like that, even though the group's small and not as good as some others around here. Anyway, after the concert I rushed back to Boulder for the dlp meeting, which was good. We got a group picture in, though Jessie's been on a cruise. "Paste 'im in!" they said. Oh, and they did the sweetest thing for me. Apparently someone let slip that my birthday was the fourth. So they got me a cake and sang and everything. Candles, even, though I missed blowing out one. What a neat bunch of guys!

Today, work, school. Almost done. GSA ally training was cancelled for tonight, which makes me wonder if we'll ever have another GSA meeting. I hope Arte got my message.

Also, apparently Jason's founding the "Bois of Boulder" group, which he wants to be a social coalition of queer groups in the area. I know that we do have a coalition of sorts, Queer Town Hall, but I don't know that it's so social. I think it's a good idea, since I know almost no one outside dlp. If it weren't for dlp, I would know... Jess. And I wouldn't be on speaking terms with Craig. And that would really suck. I just hope Jason does a good job with it, because we definitely need coordination in the community here.

Well on my way to having my poetic license revoked:

As snow piles up on the ground,
And on the internet I dick around,
Time keeps on passing
And instead of you sassing
I should into my head some facts pound.

Oh, I forgot... after the dlp meeting, Jessie, Jeff, Clay, Bill and I went to Peaberry's for coffee/suchlike and talk. My resolve to spend more time around Jessie and eventually steal him away from Jeff is well on its way. Mwahahaha! Then we came back and I got to put a 20 pound turkey in my freezer.

And for some reason I can't make that sound dirty. Sigh.