Chronology

[Chronology update Nov. 3, 2007.]

[El Camino Real was the old Spanish and Mexican road connecting the missions, presidios and pueblos of California in the pre-American period. I've never not lived in a town located on this route.]

[Huntington's Journey Along El Camino Real:]

[6/10/69: Born, Doctor's Hospital, San Diego, Cal. (hospital later renamed Sharp-Cabrillo, presumably in honor of San Diego's most important historical figures: me, and the Portuguese sailor who discovered California.)

1970: Move with parents to Sonoma, about an hour's drive north of San Francisco, in the beautiful if overhyped wine country.

1971: Sister Kate is born.

1975: Move into house where parents still live.

1975-1981: Become withdrawn geek in elemenentary school.

1981-1983: Come out of shell to a certain extent during junior high. (Thanks, Susanna!) Have first and only girlfriend during summer '82.

1983-1987: On balance, I actually like high school. (Fall 1984, have first sex with boy. After losing touch, I ran into him in 1992 and '96, and this year, he passed away.) In typical fag fashion, band, choir, and drama save my life. (1986: Finally awarded Eagle Scout award. Yep, there are queer Scouts - boo!)

1987-1990: Attend University of California, Santa Barbara. Drop out, except for summer school, until Spring 1993. Live in dorms first two years, then live at the sumptuous Pacific Oaks Apartments in Goleta, 1989-1993. Sean becomes roommate for the first time in Fall 1991.

1992: Meet Rafe, a friend who was to inform my life (I used to say "dominate," but that word no longer seems accurate) until we "break up" in 1999.

Feb. 1993: Move with Sean and Rafe into roach motel apartment in Isla Vista

Apr. 1993-June 1993: First "real" boyfriend, also named Bill. He leaves me drunk and puking on my bathroom floor on my birthday. My most memorable dumping.

July 1993: Sean moves back up to the Bay Area. He keeps in remarkably close touch.

Oct. 1993: Rafe and I leave I.V., me to move with Jessica and Michelle into a beautiful house in Santa Barbara's western hills.

Nov. 1993: I meet and fall in love with Ben, my first real, long-term, no joking relationship. I find it easy to gradually stop going to class, and drop out of school a second time without telling anyone, and pretend to graduate the following June. Shadow hanging over my head ever since.

June 1994: Move in with Ben, once again in Goleta.

Sept. 1995: Ben kicks me out. Max and I find an apartment in downtown Santa Barbara.

Oct. 1995: Rafe moves to San Francisco. We talk every day.

Apr. 1996: Period covered in the Santa Barbara Diaries begins.

Oct. 1996: I move to San Francisco. The S.B. Diaries become Absolutely 14th Street.

Apr. 1997: John and I meet, and we move in together in September 1998.

June 2000: I begin transcribing The S.B. Diaries and Absolutely 14th Street here at Diaryland, run out of old material, and start writing what's going on now.

June 2001: Within a week, I receive some very bad news and some very good news: the good news is that I'd been accepted to the New College of California School of Law. The bad news is...something I was finally able to write about as 2001 drew to a close.

Aug. 2002-May 2003: The second year of law school brings a lowered GPA and my publication of a commentary in my school's law review, of which I was managing editor.

June 2003: I hate it when people leave town and say such-and-such a trip "changed their lives." But this month's trip to Greece, with a group of my law school classmates, comes as close as a trip can come, and the memory of its delights provide me with much consolation in the difficult subsequent months.

Aug.-Dec. 2003: Big and little earthquakes: I begin my last year of law school, I leave the hotel job I'd been working for extra cash for a legal internship in a San Francisco government office for no cash, John and I move (after five years in an apartment) into one of the few freestanding houses left in downtown S.F. Finally, as the year jerks and sputters to an end, it becomes obvious that John and I aren't working, and I move during the holidays into another room of the house. A bad time...

Summer/Fall/Winter 2004: Bar review, taking (and failing) the Bar, working part-time at the Friendly Neighborhood Cabaret, and having a really hard time finding a job related to the law. Not a lot of entries, not a lot of fun.

2005: Worked the box office at the Friendly Neighborhood Cabaret, January to July. Had another, shorter period of depressed unemployment, July to October. Niece was born, met boyfriend Chris, and got a sales manager job at a wholesale lighting company, all in one October week. Life was lookin' up.]

[2006: Good fun with Chris ended (at least romantically) at the beginning of May. Moved out of my downtown studio into what I knew going in would be a rather absurd living situation nearby. Kept the job, kept up the same round of friends and family, went on anti-deprssants to see if they'd help.]

[2007: Quit the anti-depressants. Had good times in Santa Barbara, Sonoma, the Russian River and Portland. I've spent too much time fairly miserable in 2006 and '07 (maybe quitting the pills was premature - not sure about that yet), but things really have started to look up since I moved out of the absurd living situation and in with Chris and Elisabeth at Maison le Trou. It's really nice being in something resembling a household again. I'm looking for the next thing now...I think I'll know it when I see it.]

[June 2008: And know it I did. In late November '07, I joined the staff of a web startup, redroom.com. I'm now the Homepage & Special Projects Editor, and it's the best job I've ever had. The last year has been such an improvement over the previous three or so that sometimes I can't believe it. I feel like I've finally, mostly, come out of the dark time that began my third year of law school. There are still messes to clean up, and I'm still in thrall to too many bad habits, but the worst, at least the worst that I've seen so far, is over.]

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