I moved over to Sam’s side of the office this morning, since he’s gone back to Raleigh for good. Casey delivered the message that Sam didn’t have room for the extra bag of Pistachios that he’d bought, and that he had them in his office.
I did not make as much progress today on the W2K Installation Guide as I’d hoped. I spent too much time on EAGLE communiques, which had to be done (Wes’s AIDSWALK 2002 communique, and the general one). I’ll definitely be in working on Saturday with the rest of the team. I don’t have a problem with that.
Brad stopped by to tell me that he wouldn’t be able to make the gathering with LA-area EAGLE member, Paul Doyle, at Woody’s tonight. Brian Glover and Steve McKuen both let me know they couldn’t make it either.
At about 5:00, Casey stopped by to tell me that he was going to join me and Paul at Woody’s tonight. I was very surprised, and very pleased. He’s fun to hang around with. I really thought he’d be too tired after getting up at 4:45 this morning to take Sam to the airport.
We went back to the hotel. I went up to put on a sweatshirt. Casey went up to get a jacket, but came back with a sweatshirt over his t-shirt.
We drove to Laguna Beach in my car. We parked at a meter, which was still in operation at 6:10. A quarter for 10 minutes, and the meters were operational until 7:00. Casey had two quarters and put them in to buy us 20 minutes.
I wasn’t sure exactly where Woody’s was, but it turned out to be just a couple of blocks down. When we arrived, Paul was standing outside the bar, on the phone, talking to: Jay! How wild.
We went in to get a drink while Paul finished his conversation with Jay. I asked for two dollars of my change in quarters, and Casey volunteered to walk back to the meter and put in five more quarters to take us to 7:00.
We had an interesting chat with Paul, talking a lot about the EAGLE cruise and working for IBM. Casey and I wanted to get something to eat, and Paul recommended eating in the very bar we were in. We took his recommendation, and he left us to eat.
I had a House Caesar Salad (no anchovies) and the Ginger Soy Bay Scallops and Jumbo Shrimp with risotto. It was about the best thing I’ve had since I’ve been here. Casey, and I had good conversation about a lot of things: Myers Briggs, Tivoli “Boot Camp,” Extreme Blue, his boyfriend and what is attractive about him, a deaf movie, our current managers, and our managers to-date.
We left there and walked up to the Boom Boom Room, and went in for about five minutes. Casey got carded, and before the guy looked at his ID, he said, “How old are you?” He looks very young. I took him to the window in the game room, where Steve and I were a week ago. I wanted to show him the ocean where Steve and I got soaked. We went outside, and I said, “Let’s stop in here for a second,” and took him into that video store we stopped in last week. I wanted to see if the same guy was working. He was. I said, “Sell any more Rambones since last week?” He laughed, and said, “Oh no. Let me tell you what happened with that.”
Turns out the guy who bought it came back to the store, and sat out in front of the store on the curb for a while. He said the guy had it on his shoulder like he told him to do. LOL. Then he evidently went and put it in his car, and came back to sit.
Shortly after that his (the clerk’s) ex-boyfriend came by. He said he (the ex-boyfriend) is a very little guy, and a total “bottom.” And the ex went up to that guy and started coming on to him. He said he just laughed, knowing what was in store for the ex if he kept that up.
We walked down to the water there, and it was just beautiful. The moon was lighting up the water nicely. Casey was kind of amazed that we were right at the water, and how beautiful it was right there at the end of a street between buildings and houses.
We walked back up, and crossed the street to Main Street. That same black drag queen that was there on Halloween was there performing. I really like her for some reason. We sat and I had a drink. This guy named Mervin or Merlyn, came up and introduced himself to me. He said to Casey (who was without drink), “What are you drinking.” Casey said, “I don’t drink.”
A few minutes later Mervin/Merlyn came back with a bottled water for Casey. His second free drink of the night. Back at Woody’s he had a coke. When it was almost empty, the bartender came over with a complimentary refill.
I asked Casey to drive the car back, since I had been drinking and he hadn’t. It was a nice time.