This is in reference to Kelly Liam’s video “Kelly’s Shoes.” See what he looks like as a man and other youtube-ish videos he’s produced here. The muffins one is kind of amusing, though not as good as “Shoes.” I’ve only watched that one, and the one entitled, “Pleasant Valley Road,” but none of the others on that page.
I worked from home today, all day on that damn EFQ for ITIM document. Attitude.
I attended the monthly write2publish group meeting at Cameron Village tonight, flip-flopping no less than 1600 times as to whether I wanted to or not. Okay, 1600 is hyperbole.
I really only want to attend these meetings to hear the presenter, not for all the chit-chat (formally known as “networking”) that goes on before the presentation starts.
So tonight, I waited to get there until just before 7 (it starts at 6:30) to hopefully avoid any “pre-presentation” interaction,” which worked to some extent. The chit-chat was over, and someone was advertising an upcoming seminar she is hosting, which is about journal-writing, and I think one that Mary attended at one time — Finding Your Inner Voice — or something like that. After she finished, the “introductions” started, which was something else I wanted to avoid. Oh well.
The presenter, Sharon O’Donnell, was totally compelling. It is absolutely incredible the amount of work and persistence she has put into getting published during her lifetime.
What I like about these meetings is that they serve to ground writers — who envision sitting at Helios for a few months, throwing a book together, and imagining it rising up the bestseller list shortly after that — with a significant dose of much needed reality. I left there feeling both better and worse about realizing such reality.
I went to Helios after the meeting, where to my surprise, it was Tango Dancing night. The tables and chairs were all cleared out, and about 15 couples, more or less, tangoed the night away. I was fortunate enough to nab one of the only two or three tables left around the perimeter of the dance floor.
I took a couple of pictures of the dancers with my camera phone, which I never use, but have been thinking a lot about due to the class I’m taking, and I eventually tried to send one of them to both Irene and Robert, not expecting to be able to, since I don’t have text messaging service on my phone.
I brought up Irene’s name in my contact list, clicked on “Options list,” and then “Send pix message,” entered “Tango!” in the text field, and navigated to the picture through the Pix field, and hit send. It showed the progress bar and said, “loading…” until it was done and then displayed “Invalid destination!”
The same happened trying to send it to Robert. I’m sure it’s because I don’t pay for such a service. Oh well.
Joe arrived at around 10 or 10:30, and I finished my AIM conversations with Irene, Robert, and Steve.
We went to Flex at about 11:10, and met up with Kevin (av8rdude) outside. Good timing.
Inside, we met Gabriel, a guy visiting “home” (in Johnston County) from Seattle, at near the end of his week, desperate to see gay people, like a lot of us get after being “home” or exclusively with straight people for too long. Nothing wrong with straight people. I know it’s not a choice. I’m just saying.
I don’t know what we were thinking, but Kevin and I let Gabriel and Joe talk us into going to CCs after the show. It was hip-hop night, and those fuckers charged me eight bucks to get in. And I’m a member. Kevin paid $9.00. That’s highway robbery.
The music was killer inside, though, and I swear I’ve never seen so many gay, black people in my life in Raleigh. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a fair number of straight people in there, too. The place was simply jamming.
I always like being one of the very few white people in a crowd of black people, as it gives me perspective on how black people must often feel in everyday life. Though I’m sure there’s that element of “getting used to it,” that plays into things, too.
Kevin and I said goodnight to Joe and Gabriel at a little after three. I dropped Kevin off across the street from his house, as it’s on my way home, and he had walked to the bar.
Late night.