Ketel-Rocks, Local Politics, Baked Shoes and Chairman Mao

[Why am I having such trouble lighting a fire under my blogging ass? It's not as though things aren't happening. I can't blame the weather (rainy today, almost without letup), the health (although I have to give in and say I'm fighting the first of the winter's colds), or the boredom (there isn't any).]

[Let's give it a shot. Friends David and Lance came to visit early this week from Ventura, not far from Santa Barbara and my old life, and even less far from the now-defunct bar where Sean had his first bartending job. David and Sean dated for a brief period back in the early '90s, and we're all still friends on the alcoholic lesbian model. The boys are the poster children for drinking copious amounts of unmixed, top-shelf vodka with little morning-after penalty, and I will say that after two school nights of following their regimen, I was none the worse for wear.]

[Since they own what might be the gayest store in Ventura, they did a little wholesale-based shopping at the gift showroom where Allen works, and in the process, I unloaded a product binder and a little sample from The Place Where I Work on them - they might carry some of our stuff, too. So this is what networking feels like...]

[Wednesday night, the Angry Young Man and I went to a mayoral candidate's forum in the basement of the Park branch of the public library (a classic early 20th c. Carnegie joint). Gavin Newsom was, of course, a no-show, so the crowd of about fifty concerned citizens sat in folding chairs (it felt a bit like what I imagine a 12-step meeting to be), listening to the candies' thoughts on San Francisco's perennial, serious homelessness problem. The issue is especially acute in my neighborhood, which is why this particular forum was held in the local library branch.]

[I was pretty impressed with most of the candidates. Even the ones who clearly weren't even remotely qualified were earnest and mostly sane, and had something to add to the discussion. One candidate is quite Ready For Prime Time, and in a city less run by money, he at least would be getting equal time with Gruesome Newsom. Sadly, San Francisco isn't that town, but Quintin Mecke will certainly be my first choice come Election Day. The AYM goes a little farther, and seems ready to have 10,000 of Quintin's babies.]

[Yesterday morning, I tumbled out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen to pour myself a cup of ambition, and noticed the oven was on, set at a low two hundred degrees. Hmmm. I demanded an explanation from the AYM, who replied that he didn't feel comfortable waking the young wastrels who live above us by drying his Vans in the dryer. (The way Maison le Trou is laid out makes this remotely possible.)]

[The AYM was packing for a trip to Rain-and-Rose-landia, see, and had washed his shoes, and now he was baking them in our oven so as not to disturb our neighbors' sleep. Never mind that these same wastrels are the ones who practice drumming at four o'clock in the morning right over my bedroom, or that they haven't seen seven a.m. in years unless they haven't been to bed yet, and that it would take more than tumble-drying shoes to wake them. I nodded, agreed that that made sense, and went away.]

[What else? I'm copyediting a manuscript for Violet (who's too busy taking over the world) by a Chinese-American memoirist who grew up in the Cultural Revolution. Fascinating stuff, and I'm learning so much. That's my plan for tonight, so anyone I may be dating will just have to wait for the protagonist to escape the People's Republic for freedom's land and bravery's home. Should happen in about eighty pages.]

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