So, something kinda cool happened. I got accepted to a program called Digital Directions at the Bay Area Video Coalition. I also told my manager that I'm stepping down. That means no more 50 hour weeks for me and no more crazy schedules. I'm very excited. This also means a lot less money. But whatever. It's bad to get caught up with such nonsense.

I've also been continuing to work on my soccer project. The women's pro league has just been cancelled. They announced this days before the world cup is starting. I think that sucks, but I think that it's kind of a ploy to get corporate sponsors to step up and support them. It's really disappointing and I feel badly for the players.

This past weekend I thought I was going camping on the Russian River. So I packed all my little camping necessities and bunches of squirrel food cuz I didn't have a stove or anything. Turns out out I was going GAY camping. I should have known being that it was Guerneville and all, the North Bay gay resort.

The 'camp ground' was a relatively small, consisting of nicely manicured lawns with a picnic table per every few camp sites. The sites were about 10X10. And instead of redwoods there were fruit trees scattered about. I made sure not to pitch my tent on the plum guts lying about and at night I heard the sound of apples plunking to the ground. Also there were no fire pits in sight although I read that there was a group bonfire night which I didn't attend. My friends who were camped out further down the way were kept up all night by the techno dance party churning out the gay faves.

Aside from the shock of my sissy surroundings, I was glad that the bathroom was nearby, there were hot showers available, I was forced to make friends with my nelly neighbors (complete with rainbow flag and leather body harness hanging off a tent, and all the queers one could ever hope for. I'm just never around enough gay people in San Francisco.

There was no seclusion to be found and my friends got caught with their pants down in what they thought was a secluded nook. But I'm sure they weren't the only ones trying to cop a feel as there was travel lube packaging on the asphalt pathway.

On day two we got kayaks and made our way down stream. My partner purchased an inflatable kayak which supposedly is great for rapids, but apparently is not so fabulous on placid shallow lakes. So, we trundled along leagues behind our gang. The slightest wind sent us spinning in circles and the river offered us to aid in reaching our destination. There were people paddling upstream as fast as we were paddling down, or as fast as P. rowed. I was little help. I was more of a hood ornament. Best part of the trip. The scenery was gorgeous, and well worth having to listen to P. complain. :)

I have a tendency to speak before thinking. It's a huge fault. Anecdote to follow:

The other day I went to see Erin McKeown, who I think is fabulous. During the show I became more and more convinced that I wanted to discuss her career trajectory. So, after the show I went to her and I asked her why she wasn't playing bigger venues. (She's been playing small clubs for years, and I think she's destined for bigger things.) She said that I should talk to her manager who was sitting nearby. Well, then I asked her a final question. Did she have a problem courting the gay media. (I didn't ask if she was gay. I figured that question would answer itself.) About the media she said that she didn't have a problem with them, but they rejected her because she refused to talk about her personal life. At this point I had mentally written her off as one of those closet cases unworthy of my promotional efforts. But as I was leaving, and against my better judgement, I went up to her manager and had words. Because why make one enemy when I could make two. I told her manager basically the same thing. She got so upset she started to speak heatedly about how I didn't understand how hard it was, how hard they worked, etc. So, I started to feel badly and back-peddled... I did understand yadda yadda. But maybe I didn't understand.

Basically, I think Erin should hitch herself to a little gay star and milk it for all it's worth. Hey, if she's happy doing what she's doing then I can't fault her for that, but there are two issues here. The age old to-come-out-or-not-to-come-out morality question and then the how to get famous question. I discussed the latter with a straight musician friend of mine. She was all for it. In fact she had patronized the Lexington trying to recruit an audience. She butched herself up for the event, but she said that they could see through her and that they knew she wasn't gay. It was a bust.

I know this is a cynical view to take, but it's practical. Lesbians are hella loyal, and one would be lucky to have them on your side. Erin's crowd was a bunch of staid middle-age bores who didn't dance to anything. Why would anyone chose that kind of demographic. Now the Gossip show a few days later... but we'll get to that later. So, I left feeling horrible. I was really trying to do something good, but I just made everyone feel badly. My friend said that maybe it was a good thing and maybe Erin will re-consider her pro-closet stance. I don't know. whatever. I'm an evil person. Right now I'm listening to a stream of Erin on Morning Becomes Eclectic. She's so cool. Not my type though. ;)

Last night my friend E and I saw Liz Phair at the Fillmore. I wasn't expecting much because her stage fright etc. is well documented, but she's one of the few people that I've never seen, so I had to go. E totally called her outfit. She was wearing a short skirt, knee-high come fuck me heel-boots. I'm totally stuck in the early 90's, so I said, uh, jeans and sneakers?

The good thing is that she played lots of old songs, so I wasn't disappointed at all. The not-so-fabulous thing is that a lot of the spare productions from Exile in Guyville were muddied up by full band arrangements which made her garage-style vocals seem very out of place and accentuated her off-key-ness. But if you like, go here to see a video of her on Morning Becomes Eclectic Scroll down and you'll see her.

I've been trying for an eternity to get a group together to play a board game with me, Settlers of Catan. And the more my attempts are thwarted, the more I become psycho-obssessed about playing the game. Last night I thought the groundwork was laid and I was sure that we were going to play. But then plans were made to meet at a bar (wrong off the bat) and then we moved on to a new bar--a smokey one at that where I copped an attitude with the bartender about the proliferation of smokers. We're in California fer chrissake, I don't have to put up with this! So I sat sullenly against the wall with my game under one arm, sipping water with my nose in my Myers-Briggs personality book.

read this column in which Kevin Smith disses Reese Witherspoon. Very Funny.

A friend of mine recommended a few books to me, and I haven't decided if she's trustworthy for that sort of thing yet. She doesn't like Sarah Vowell, didn't like Adaptation, liked the Hours...Jesus, I don't think that we have a thing in common, and yet, I'm forging ahead with one of her recommendations, Michael Cunningham's A Home at the End of the World. I identified with this one sentence, so I wanted to share.

"Adam alternated between listening to me and staring at the people sitting at other tables, with the unabashed directness of one who believes his own unimportance renders him invisible."

For an unrepentant starer, I find this to be an interesting and somewhat profound description of my favorite pastime.

Tonight I was settling in to a night of web browsing, when I came across a listing stating that one of my favorite singers was performing across town tonight--starting half an hour before. So, I started panicking. Should I get dress and race across town and then be disappointed because her set is over (this happened to me once before with the same artist a couple of months ago) or should I stay in my cozy pajamas?

I called the club, and the person who answered said that Tami had just finished her second song and if I came right now I could catch most of her set. I was skeptical, but got in the car, drove down the street, decided to take a cab so as not to have to deal with parking, parked, changed my mind, got back in the car, drove to the club, searched for parking for 5-10 minutes, and finally got to the club.

Of course she was done playing. This is no cliff hanger. I knew it would be so in my heart of hearts, but I was holding on to my shred of hope. I decided to ferret out the singer and give her a berating for not playing longer. She was fabulous and sweet (the only work for it) I told her how disappointed I was that I missed her and she apologized, asking if I was the one that called. She then asked if I'd like her to play a song for me. I envisioned Tami on stage dedicating a song to me. I would get starry-eyed and bask in the over-flow of her spotlight. Then she asked if it was weird if she played for me in the bathroom. "No, not at all." yeah, totally weird, but romantic in it's own down and dirty way.

Well, we didn't end up in the bathroom. It was an office of sorts turned into the greenroom for the night. I requested a song from her first album, Light in August, which she played on an unplugged electric guitar, practically whispering the lyrics at times so as not to disturb the band on stage. "They won't hear you," I told her, which seemed to free her up a bit.

Something about the proximity of our bodies, the unorthodox nature of my impromptu concert, and my insistence upon making inane conversation made me feel like we were doing something illicit.

I stayed for the next act, a brilliant woman playing under the moniker Bonfire Madigan. This was one of those nights that made me feel distinctly shitty about what I am doing or not doing with my life. I didn't even go to the peace rally today because I had to sleep all day. Life is hard for vampires.

I think that stories of vampires must have been started about people working graveyard shifts.

Every day after I'm finished working I try to rush home before the gold off the sun washes over the Bay. There is a short window of time in which I can settle in for a good night's sleep and pretend that it is still night. If I don't make it, I feel sick and dirty--flopping into bed all grimy. Who stays up all night and sleeps away the day? Losers. Certainly not the early bird catching the worm. Nope.

That's how I felt this morning as I stumbled into bed at 9 am, light washing my room in a sickening mauve collected from my sheer curtains.

It's not just sleeping through daylight hours that evokes images of vampires for me. I think that night workers are emotionally unstable. There is a lot of night time going on at my work. Two girls got fired for threatening eatch other. One wanted to shank the other one in the parking lot with her box cutter. One guy accused another of being some secret agent.He got all crazy eyed--the way only people with electric blue eyes can get--and said that he wouldn't want him following him home late at night.

Maybe it's a lack of melatonin--a supplement that I am taking by the way. There was a study that showed that women who worked weird swing hours were more prone to certain types of cancers. But then, there's a study for everything. I'm sure it messes you up though. I believe in staying in tune to your body's natural rhythms. I don't like to stay up too late or get up too early.

Maybe it's the hours or maybe it's all that hip hop we listen to at night. Eminem makes people want to kill.