~Wednesday~ I woke up at 7:50, immediately disoriented because it was bright out already, but my alarm hadn’t gone off. Turns out it wasn’t set. (Love that “no blame” passive voice.) I can’t remember the last time, if ever, I’ve done that. I calmed myself, “Don’t go to the Alzheimer’s place. It’s an isolated incident.”
Because I was running behind and didn’t want to wait for the CAT bus‘s half-hour interval, I picked up the Wolfline #9 Greek Village bus at Gorman and Kaplan. The young man sitting next to me was reading a book, and as is my M.O., I strained to see the title along the top of the page. At the top of the left-hand page I thought the first word was Ishmael, which made me think, “Oh, it’s Moby Dick.” And of course, my next thought was, “Oh, that’s the character’s name, so it wouldn’t be along the top of the page.” And it clearly didn’t say, “Herman Melville” up there.
I tried the right-hand page, where I eventually made out, “A Long Way Gone.” Since I hadn’t heard of it, I made a note to Google it later in the day. Then I returned to what had drawn me to the gentleman in the first place. Beautiful face.
At a subsequent stop, in the heart of Greek Village, a young man and young lady got on the bus who were just all over each other. Flaunting their heterosexuality, as it were. The boy had the most incredibly hot legs—if you go for that sort of thing (and I do)—and his face was hot, but only from the nose down.
The thing that ruined it from the nose up was the totally disheveled hair sticking out of a baseball cap whose brim was somewhere between his eyes and left ear. It just looked stoopid. And you know that hat didn’t just “land” that way. It was more like that infamous one… “strategically dipped below one eye, your scarf it was apricot.” But I digress…
It was steaming hot in our building when I got there. I’m not sure what that was all about—whether the air-conditioning was messed up or if some brilliant thermostat somewhere decided that since it’s now officially autumn, the heat should be on. Either way, I didn’t like it.
While my work computer was booting up, I Googled “A Long Way Gone” on my laptop, only to find that it’s a book by Ishmael Beah that I have heard of, actually, I think from some story on NPR. I thought it was interesting that the subtitle contains the words “boy soldier” when I was just talking about “soldier-boy” yesterday.
I have connected with a third person from my high school years who has a gay child. The previous two have been friends with daughters. This friend has a gay son—who came out in junior high school. How wonderful! Coincidentally, this article about coming out at that very age graced the New York Times Magazine section: Coming Out in Middle School.
So glad times are a-changing. Lest I get too giddy, however, there are still problems out there: Gay Student Receives Death Threat at NC Campus.
I had another blog entry highlighted on 30thread.com today. It was the one about interesting hits you might get if you set up a Google Alert on your name. 🙂
I had a meeting in another building with a manager who is a peer of my manager. When I arrived he said, “WoflBytes TV is down, and I have to ride over to another building to fix it. Wanna ride?”
On the way to the building on Centennial Campus, we talked about most of what I’d come over to talk to him about. Once there, he fixed what he needed to fix, and then we looked at a web page I’m working on for him using a network-connected computer right there.
He dropped me back at my office, where after about an hour, I left with my colleagues and friends, Garrison and Jen, for a little “happy hour” at the Boylan Bridge Brewpub. We met another bunch of geeks there, and I actually drank three glasses of beer in spite of the fact that I don’t drink beer.
This was my second time there, and I hadn’t planned on returning since they don’t sell mixed drinks. However, I thought it was worth sucking it up (literally?) to enjoy some social time with work colleagues, and it was nice to sit outside, which I didn’t do on my first visit there. That bar has a view of Raleigh’s “skyline.”
Garrison was generous enough to give me a ride home.
I stepped outside my townhouse door to go dancing to find my car missing in action. My first reaction was not, “Oh darn, someone stole my car,” but, “Oh yeah, damnit, I parked down by the Wolfline bus stop this morning.” I walked down the street to find the “Nematomobile” right where I’d left it.
Dancing was fun tonight, and one of the reasons was because in the middle of our second or third dance, I caught sight of two chicks out of the corner of my eye, which in and of itself is unusual in Flex, and then I recognized one of them as my aforementioned friend, Jen! What fun.
She had her friend Mandy with her, and they both took the lesson, which was a new dance to Alan Jackson‘s Good Time. As is usually the case with dances, I’m not lovin’ it yet, but I’m open to the fact that I’ll like it better as time moves on—almost assuredly not until the magic moment when something snaps and it becomes rote.
I’ll take this dancing affirmation in the form of a tweet: “Check it out! @nematome is a great dancer!” Sweet.