And Then There Is California

Product Misplacement

Okay. Obama lost. Yay! But who cares what he's saying in his elitist, hope-filled concession speech. Look at the three silly queens in the A&F shirts behind him.

I say they're straight. I mean, what three respectable gay men would all go out wearing practically the same tshirt? But, my partner thinks they're just silly gay lemmings.

Gay? Straight? Or product placement? Talk amongst yourselves...

I Wanna Be Sedated

I made it through the holidays without any major casualties, other than an exhausted mind and a sore body. Since Thanksgiving I've been to Palm Springs twice, Catalina Island, the Monterey Bay area, Las Vegas, a snowboarding trip to Dodge Ridge near Yosemite, and Big Bear Lake. And somewhere between all the travelling, my parents visited for a week and work was nuts.

Yesterday at work, we launched the site that I've been designing for the past few months, and now my workload has practically disappeared. Well - relative to what it used to be. So I've taken to cleaning up my computer and shooting pics of my workspace. With the future of the company being somewhat foggy at this point, I figured I needed some sort of mememto to look back upon when I'm at home in two months, jobless, watching The View.

So all of the business and things that have kept me extrememly busy for the past couple of months have suddenly ended, and I feel somewhat lost... a bit like a truckstop whore whose been rode hard and dropped off again to once again resume the life of a lonely lot lizard. Bored, exhausted, yet still horned, looking for the next trick...

"Nothin' to do, nowhere to go. I wanna be sedated."

This weekend will be the first in some time without plans, so I plan on using it to rest a bit. But most of you who actually know me, also know that I can't sit still for too long. I've managed to pick up a small freelance job, and I definitely need to redesign my portfolio site. And you know, I think I'll go snowboar ..

A Day To Remember

The thing that I love most about Southern California - other than the warm, friendly, humble people, of course - is that I have the ability to snowboard all winter and surf all year. I've done them both in the same weekend on several occasions, but it's always been a goal of mine to do both in one day.

I got up this morning at 6am, packed up the SUV and headed to Snow Summit. I was there by 8:15 and on the lift by 8:30. The snow was great, but the wind was ferocious, stopping people dead in their tracks as they were exiting the lift or trying make their first few turns. By 11am, the wind had blown off the snow in a lot places, leaving solid blue ice.

I was on the road again by 11:30 and back in Long Beach by 1pm. I unpacked my snowboarding gear, loaded up my surfing gear - along with Jaeger and Larry - and was riding waves by 2:30. It's now 4:50pm and I'm sitting on the couch grinning from ear to ear as I watch a surf flick.

Ok - you can touch me now. I said you can fuckin touch me!

Holiday Hindsight

I could blame it on all the travel I've done in the past 6 weeks. Excess is usually a good scapegoat. Or, I could place the blame on others, which is generally the easiest route. So as I sit here in a feverish state, nursing an extremely swollen and sore throat, my initial thought is to blame my boyfriend. Afterall, even though we went on a trip with a group of fellow barflies, it turns out that Larry didn't want to hang out in bars. Go figure. Wish I would have known that BEFORE the trip began because it would have made for a happier Larry. But you know what they say about hindsight. Then again, he didn't exactly twist my arm and make me drink excessively and go skinny-dippin night after night in the 45 degree moonlight of Palm Springs which resulted in this feverish condition that is currently producing these evil thoughts. Is he responsible for that? No. So I'll choose not to play the blame game. Instead, I'll just say that my New Years weekend, on a scale ranging from Cold Turd to Shit Hot, was just plain Crap.

There were other incidents that brought a depressing tone to the weekend's festivities, but you all don't know me that well yet. And I just don't feel comfortable enough at this juncture in my blogging career to reveal such horrid and personal things.

All that said, I'm certainly not trying to give the impression that I didn't have any fun, because there was certainly plenty of that. It's just that in my current feverish state of hindsight, its all the bad things that have brought about the rating of 'Crap'. So I'll move on to the good stuff.

There was the incident of Stacy, who came to our private resort with nothing but a condom on her head, a bum leg, and skid-marks in ..

Work Hard, Play Harder

The past two months have been absolutely crazy for me. It all started the weekend before Thanksgiving with a marathon road trip to Vegas with a short stop in Palm Springs. I returned home to welcome my parents for a week over the holiday which also included a whale watching excursion in Dana Point and a trip to Santa Catalina Island. The following weekend after they left was spent in San Diego visiting friends. All of this happened while a new site has been brewing at work complete with crazy, ever-changing deadlines and mind-numbing stress.

Needless to say, Christmas snuck up on me this year. I'm not saying that it wasn't welcome, but over the past few weeks I haven't even had time to breath, much less go shopping. Thank god for the internets.

For the third year in a row, Larry and I spent Christmas visiting his family in Salinas. But since his family isn't exactly down with the whole gay thing, we stayed at the Hyatt in Monterey, where we spent most of our time. And other than a constant battle with some very loud snoring, our stay was very nice thanks to the beauty of the Monterey Bay area and a monster swell in the water.

After an exhausting 8 hour drive on Friday night (2.5 hours just to get out of L.A.), we woke up Saturday morning and decided to take the 17 Mile Drive from Monterey to Carmel. We made stops at several stunning vistas, but the most memorable was Ghost Tree, pictured above (click to enlarge). Not only does it offer a stunning view of Carmel Bay, but it also happens to be California's

Things That Make Me Giggle (TTMMG)

Like a nerdy, brace-faced catholic school girl on a first date, this makes me giggle uncontrollably. But hey - I'm not judging anybody here... I'm just sayin that it makes feel a little dirty.

Whoah.

And Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Program

There are a few of you out there who have been a little bitchy about my blogging absence. But only for those were actually somewhat polite about it, I'll do my best at coming up with an adequate explanation for my somewhat extended siesta.

I've been busy. But not a normal, everyday-kinda-busy. I've been tunnel-vision-busy. So busy, that the only thing I could focus on was my business, and the business of being busy. Busy to the point where my bathroom visits had a time limit.

The majority of my business has been work related with a new project that kicked off at the beginning of November, complete with insane deadlines. Then there was a 10 day vacation that consisted of Thanksgiving, a visit from my parents, a road trip though the desert, a trip to Catalina Island, whale watching and a lot of shopping. Then there was another trip to San Diego, a lot of surfing and then a flu. So cut me some slack, because as you can see, I was occupied with some very important business. If you want get on someone's case about long, blogless absences, go over to Johnny Is A Man and do it there. He was gone for far longer than me and the only thing he did was get a new boyfriend.

Oh - and one more important business item to note - I grew a vacation beard which started my new Fidel Castro look. And in the short period of time that I've had it, I have quickly discovered that there are massive amounts of burly gay bears who adore my Castro Chic.

Warning and/or Advice: Beards attract Bears.

Coming up with advice like this is HARD WORK - so back off.

So anyway... I'm back, I fee ..

This Week's Soundtrack

I smell a weekly post in the air. We'll see if it lingers. I always like to share music, and what better way to do so than the internets?

Here's what I've been listening to all week during my long-ass California commutes:

Beck: The Information - Another amazing album. "Cellphone's Dead" has been on repeat all week.
Silversun Pickups: Carvavas - This LA band has had me hooked for the past month or so.
Salsoul Presents: The Definitive 12" Masters Vol. 1 & 2 - I used to have a lot of these on vinyl, but it's oh-so-nice to listens to cuts from the best disco label ever on CD.
Discotheque Volume 1: The Hacienda - All the stuff that got me into DJing.
Meat Beat Manifesto: Storm the Studio - Jack Dangers is one of my all-time favorite DJ/Producers and this is my favorite MBM release.