Crazy Tony goes to jail.

Nice night. Mondays are good now that Chip's working them. People follow him from bar to bar for years on end.

A cop arrested Crazy Tony. You know, the last known drug dealer who just the other night I told could not come in. He's easy enough to peg -- the pusher as a personality type really only has two acts -- hurt little puppy ("what did I do?") and big important man ("don't you know who I am? I run this whole goddamned state") and both are aimed jointly at manipulation and intimidation. Fuck him and everybody like him. Prey on your own kind in your own damn bars (not that your kind *need* bars in the first place).

I saw him get arrested, right in the parking lot. Not good -- I just hope it won't count against us 'cause it happened on the property. We've got logbooks going way back to before we finally got rid of him, and they make it *very* clear he is *no* part of Foxes. The officer had to get him down on the ground 'cause he was resisting arrest. Don't honestly know whether because it was obvious I was watching or not (I'm still a big believer in watching the police) but he did everything right -- got him down without hurting him and cuffed him and put him in the backseat of the car. Winds up what he got detained for in the first place was pissing on the front of our building (see? being mad at the doorman can backfire, especially if you're DUMB about it) and what he got arrested for was refusing to sign the ticket.

Without going into details I waved and shouted out "thanks" to the officer and told him "we've thrown him out several times, he's not allowed in here, ever" just so he knows that where Tony's concerned, we're on *his* side, not Tony's, and *not* because we're angry at him for the petty crime of public urination, but because he is a predatory straight man cruising gay bars for queers whose lives he can summarily ruin. Also served to suggest, if they want to pursue locking him up, that we've got ample logbooks we'd be glad to share with lots of stuff about him in 'em if they'd help put him away.

Now realistically, I doubt that will happpen. I'm sure he'll be out shortly. With any luck he won't be able to post bond and spend at least a couple of weeks at MDC (have at him, boys!) until he goes to trial, which means at least until that time he's one less annoyance for the doorman to put up with.

Strange dream, procrastination.

Here's the dream.

I go in to work at Foxes one night but *everything* is different when I get there. Overnight the place has been transformed -- there's now what serves as a little "office" space where the booth was by the pinball machines, and there are two whole separate little "bars" rising maybe 18 inches off the ground around it and in the corner by the door onto Central. The idea is that people sit on floor cushions there -- very Japanese.

Then the liquor store next door is gone. Of course you can see in through the cracks in the wall, and what do I see but the back of a Chinese market like Ta Lin, complete with rice steamers and bamboo paddles sitting on high shelves.

Then there are some doors that no one's opened for decades which we've just now gotten open and the rooms are filled with treasures, and each room seems to have a name. The Dresden Room is full of spinet pianos and since we need to get all the stuff in there out by Saturday I decide to take home a little 17th Century clavichord or harpsichord with a super sweet tone that only needs to be tuned and a Hammond Organ (since one is never enough). The Paris Room is full of very high-end designer clothing from the late '50s and early '60s, and I take some shirts and pants and things like that. Then in the London Room it's all antique furniture, the likes of which would make Charles drool.

Ah well. You can always dream. :)

Now for the procrastination part. I do *not* want to do laundry! I need to. I organized it all and it's ready to go on out the door but I don't relish going out at this ungodly hour. Thought at first I'd just wait 'til after one since bars close at midnight here on Sundays but I think I'll put it off another day and do it after work tomorrow night. I'll still be up and running then -- right now I want nothing more than to sit around and enjoy my apartment.

I'm on drugs.

Specifically, Chinese patent medicines.

The seasonal nastiness chose a good time to hit me this year. Got acupuncture today and the doctors and interns got a big kick out of my being happy to give them something really solidly *wrong* with me to work with, even though I looked like hell. Plus I've read enough of the textbooks at this point to know to tell 'em what colour my phlegm is and stuff like that, so most of the time, they don't even have to ask, I just know what to tell 'em.

It was a complicated treatment, as far as what I've gotten at Southwest Acupuncture College Clinic's Wednesday Mens' Health Clinic (now advertised in Albuquerque's gay bars) so far goes. They did needles in my front and back and moxa on my back and -- get this -- bloodletting! Not something that they advertise, that! But it was pretty painless -- basically, they did a fingerprick on Guan Chong (Sanjiao/TB-1) on both hands, and I could feel the difference almost instantly (the Chinese ideograph "Chong" carries connotations, as a verb, of "surge" or "flush"). Felt literally like when you stick your finger on a thumbtack, not fun, but ten or twenty seconds later the bleeding had stopped and *all* the pain in my face from three days of blowing my nose was *gone*. I also got five good hours of sleep tonight, without congestion, which I haven't had since Friday. They also manipulated the needles, rather than just letting them sit there, which was nice.

Then they prescribed Chaun Xin Lian, which Tony prescribed for me once long ago, and which I was already taking leftovers of just 'cause it seemed the right thing for me to do with what I had to work with at the time. But the dosage they want me to take is *way* ramped up from what it says on the bottle -- 18 pills a day! Plus 24 Kudzu (Ge Gen Wan) per day for the smoking -- again! Plus 2 American Ginseng concentrate tablets. Plus one eyedropperful of Wild Oats Milky Seeds tincture. Plus 24 Liu Shen Wan, which I'm quitting after this bottle is gone even though they work wonders in clearing acute toxic heat because of the toad venom in 'em (which a recent study in the Chinese Journal of Modern Developments in Traditional Medicine links with adult arrhythmia) and am already replacing with 12 Bi Yan Pian. That's something in the neighbourhood of 80 pills I'm taking every day.

Amazing how Chinese Medicine treats HIV like common colds and common colds like HIV. :)

I missed the meeting tonight but called the chair and told him I was going to just as soon as I possibly could. I finished up the last class in DWI school Tuesday night -- woohoo! I can legally drink again. The funny thing is that I really *don't* want to. Besides being sick, I kind of like where I am four months into sobriety, and figure I might give it a chance to see where it can take me. I surely never thought to myself four months into my drinking "gee I hope I can do this forever", so I think I've got the motivation to stay off anything that would interfere with my Chinese treatments, which are suddenly *the* most important thing in my life.

Catch up.

Great weekend.

Standard issue bar drama on Saturday ended well when the drunken fool who came to pick up his battered wife went off in handcuffs after she'd come to Foxes just to get away from him because after they left he tried to throw her in the street -- in front of a police car. I hope they get the fucker for attempted murder.

Same night, foiled a sting operation complete with undercovers and underagers. Details of that are in the incident book for the bar. Also warned AMC before they hit down there.

Sunday was great.

Monday was great.

I'm sick with some nasty seasonal bug everyone's getting sick with. Good thing for me I've got acupuncture tomorrow.

Wow!

I can access everything on craigslist on the phone. This is sure to
prove a productive killer of time. Pool tournament tonight and as
usual we're busy for it. Lots of lesbians here tonight. I like that
and remember when it was just Lori who dared set foot in here. Glad
we've come far enough that they feel welcome here.

Officer Apodaca, I love you.

Driving home tonight I see a cop car in my rearview mirror -- this is maybe thirty minutes ago -- right as my interlock decides it wants me to blow into it again.

Right as I finish blowing into it, and while I'm putting it down, the blue and red lights up on top start spinning. The spotlight shines on me. I pull over at once. Kill the motor. Kill the lights. Roll down the window. The officer walks over with his flashlight identical to mine, and actually peeks out from it enough so I can see him. Doesn't shine it in my eyes, but in my lap -- not trying to blind me like some do; he just wants to see what my hands are doing.

Officer Apodaca here, with APD. The reason I pulled you over sir is that the light over your license plate is out.

You have *got* to be kidding me, I think. Of course I don't say that. I just say "really -- I had *no* idea" (and really, I didn't).

He wants license and proof of insurance.

License right here in my wallet -- have to get the insurance from the glove box.

Do you still reside at --
Seventeen-nintety-three-and-a-half Central Avenue, Number Four; yes, I do.

You have an interlock license. Do you have --

An interlock? Of course. I do.

And I show it to him, complete with flashing "RUN" light.

Excellent. So I assume you haven't had anything to drink tonight.

No, but I do work in a bar.

I see. Which bar?

Foxes.

OK. Find your proof of insurance, I'll be back in a moment.

I find it -- in my wallet, also there is a copy in the glove box. I hear something over the loudspeaker. I make out the word "insurance" just barely. I reach out to give the thumbs up, look back and nod, and finally hold the slip of paper in my hand just out the window in the bitterly cold wind. He walks back over, checks it, tells me I'm free to go, but do be sure to get my license plate light fixed so he can read it.

I thank him and wish him well. He just takes off before me while I wait for the interlock to let me start my car. I start it up and head right on down Central.

This means that both criminal summons I received were, in fact, cancelled as I'd been told they were. If they had not been, there would have been a warrant for my arrest, and I would be in jail right now. Likewise it means I'm not in any trouble for that gray-area period where it was not clear whether I needed the interlock license or just the device.

Officer Apodaca showed considerable humanity by just giving me a verbal warning. I'm sure the standard procedure is to issue a ticket, which requires getting the light fixed and going down to traffic court in person with proof of the fixed light to get it dismissed. That's the way it's happpened both other times I've gotten pulled over here for broken lights on my rear end. Perhaps he figured I had probably had enough of courtrooms for a while. I don't know. But I am deeply grateful that he handled it just like he did.

Part of me wonders whether it was he who pulled a car over into our parking lot earlier, and whether, if it was, he decided to stop me having remembered my car from the lot hours earlier. I guess I'll never know.

Poor Michael -- the guy from Chevron right across Wisconsin -- same one who nearly got castrated by Martinique when he was drunk and bugging her, who I got a license number for when he had a beer runner do a hit and run on a fellow employee. He'd been planning for months -- a 21st birthday party for some trailer park freind of his and rented the 1956 Chrysler Imperial Limousine I wrote of here once before. There was booze in the car, and balloons, and flowers, and he had everyhing planned out all perfect and paid for well ahead of time. He wanted me to go along but no I had to work. Finally a few weeks back he said he'd pay me sixty bucks to ride in front dressed well and open doors for him. So what the hell, I figured, that'd be more than I make working here, and I said I would do it.

Then last week he gives me a one page contract and just says "sign it". I tell him after I read it, and pocket it for a couple of days. Then I read the damn thing. I was to report for duty at the Chevron at midnight, check under the hood, in the trunk, and under the car (for what, I have no clue) and do complete walk-throughs of all buildings he and his party were going to enter, be responsible for the party's safety, scurity, and dignity, and hold whatever money he won at the casinos, and wear exactly what he said I should, which I'm happy to say I do not even have in my wardrobe. No way.

The contract also required 24 hours notice if I decided not to do it, but I never signed the contract, so I just went to work tonight as usual and didn't answer the phone when I knew it was him. I was gonna tear it up but Chip wanted to read it so he showed it around and everyone had a good laugh at the thing. Michael had talked to Chip at Foxes and Midnight at AMC repeatedly about having "reserved" signs put out (we didn't) and all sorts of stuff like that there. He ordered jello shots made especially for him (he hates vodka, but the jello shots were made with cheap vodka, wonder how *that* happened!). He and the birthday boy and Darrin arrive in the limousine which has taken them from across the street to Foxes and proceed to get extremely drunk extremely quickly. Every time one wants to leave, another has just started a drink and then the person who wants to leave orders another. Then they start playing pool. Before you know it, it's 1:30 and half of the three hours they'd rented the car for is up. We close. They get into the car. We lock the doors. The car won't start. The battery's completely dead. The tow truck arrives just as Chip and I leave.

Three hundred bucks to rent a limousine to take him right next door to Foxes.

Serves him right. I like him well enough but when he drinks he's utterly insufferable.

My blog's neglected.

I've spent way the hell more online time in emails lately than on here. Life didn't stop happening or anything, I've just had a bunch of stuff I needed to deal with privately come up.

Let's see -- tomorrow I get the interlock data downloaded at 2 and then go to a meeting of STOMP which is the LGBT-specific smoking cessation program here. Dreadful acronym -- standing for "stop tobacco on my people". (Huh?) I miss the Mattachines and Daughters of Bilitis -- gay groups should have magical, evocative names, not nasty sounding acronyms that don't make sense -- but that seems not to be the world I live in. Don't know if they can actually help me quit but it can't hurt just to attend a meeting, see what's up, figure out what resources are out there, bring some brochures or something back to Foxes, and just incidentally put my name and face in front of still more local queers (because, you know, I haven't *really* slept with *everyone* in town).

Friday I go to look at the house with the lady who wants to hire me as a handyman, assuming the deal goes through. How I got into this some of you know -- it's really strange -- too strange to publish here. For the rest of you, I'm afraid you'll just have to chalk it up to magic, 'cause I don't want to give away all of my secrets to the filthy breeders. Was supposed to meet her today but I had to cancel -- not the greatest way to start things off, but I'd forgotten I had acupuncture! That is my *top* priority right now.

Speaking of which, it was superb. I got a reference to some place called Lotus Dragon where they teach Qi Gong, which I've wanted to study for over a year now, only lacked a good reference. It's an inextricably integral part of training in Chinese Medicine. Now I've got a reference.

And it costs a whopping 55 bucks a month.

Not a bad way to start out down this long crazy road to becoming a practicing Doctor of Oriental Medicine before I'm 35.

I can afford it, if -- and only if -- I stop smoking.

Bored to be alive.

Sitting on dancefloor. Lights perfectly synced to Alex's rave music.
Two hours now without a customer and I am bored. Centered the disco
ball last night and tweaked the lights all perfect. Now there's
genuinely nothing else to do but sit around and not complain about
getting paid to do absolutely nothing.

Martinique's farewell.

Tonight was the busiest night I have ever seen at Foxes.

We had 131 people in at once. Capacity is 180. The back bar was open and every table and the bar and dancefloor were all packed.

The show began at eight o'clock sharp and lasted for four and a half hours.

I was the last person to see Martinique. I opened the door for her and watched as she got into her car and drove off shortly after her last number: "We're All in This Together", complete with four encores, because the receiving line refused to stop growing. I even stood in line and tipped, something I *never* do, not out of callousness, but out of a disinclination ever to walk away from the door. She made a speech which was both moving and eloquent, and which I wish I had a transcript of to post in here -- pretty much says it all where my working at Foxes is concerned.

This is the sort of night I *live* for.

Unfortunately I wasn't dressed for the occasion. I'd spent all day moving furniture in with my mother. She left just about an hour before the dinner was set to start -- best food ever served in any bar, ever -- and I had to clear hurdles just to get there when I did, two hours early.

Everyone in Albuquerque's gay society was there, or represented. Everyone. Without exception. Every organization (including AA, and not just by me, either). And several organizations that weren't gay besides, but only came because of Larry. Larry is the fellow putting Martinique into the box up on the shelf, and he's a selfless powerhouse.

Paul Vigil gave out Pride t-shirts as souvenirs to people in the bar after the show. Mine's from 2001. I'm wearing it now, over the dress shirt I moved furniture in.

And finally I have a bedroom. What a joy that is! Not just a "bedroom" in the way the realtors use the word, but an actual room with a bed and a dresser and a chest of drawers all arranged sanely on top of a sparkling clean floor.

Sure feel like testing it out before the sun rises.

I think I'll do just that.

Mother in town.

Yes, she's in town. And as far as I know she doesn't know I'm writing about her, although I wouldn't put it past her to read this for months on end and never even let on that she did.

First to the Palms -- the amazing Trading Post three blocks from here I never go to 'cause I don't have money for the things they sell. (Neither does she, but then, she goes there *maybe* once a year, for me it's simply where I turn to get home every day.) She bought eight fetishes (you hush), and five of them wound up being by the same artist -- Patsy Natewa, I believe, from Zuni. What can I say? When someone's art speaks to you, it speaks to you, and Ms. Natewa is working in exquisitely good form. Seven of the eight were from Zuni. One was Dineh.

Then to Southwest Acupuncture College where she buys me a book -- "Grasping the Wind: An Exploration into the Meaning of Chinese Acupuncture Point Names" by Andew Ellis, Nigel Wiseman, and Ken Boss. Wiseman and Boss' "Glossary of Chinese Medical Terms and Acupuncture Points" is more responsible than any other single book I have for whatever understanding I possess of Traditional Chinese Medicine. I guess I've got just enough Linguistics coursework in me or something that it makes *perfect* sense presented that way. I think it's safe to say that anything from Paradigm Publications is very much worth reading. I'm going to enjoy this very thoroughly.

Then I took her to the meeting, which was fun for me, but poor her, I think she was just bored stiff through most of it, especially since we had a business meeting afterward. But heck, she gets to meet my freinds without being in a smoke-filled room in the bad part of town that way. She even brought brownies.

Then she took me out to dinner at Amerasia, Albuquerque's only Dim Sum restaurant. I've wanted to try it for years. Tonight I finally did -- it's not San Francisco's Golden Dragon by a long shot, but it's very, very good, and very reasonably priced, besides.

Dropped her off at the hotel and went to Foxes.

From the sublime to the ridiculous.

First two hours of my shift one guy, who wasn't causing problems otherwise, refused to get out of the stall in the men's room. Meanwhile his freind who had his keys drove his Lincoln all over, coming in and going out four times while he stood in the stall, angry at him for taking his keys. Meanwhile a third freind and I conspired behind his first freind's back to ensure that his car didn't get stolen. Then his freind with the keys did -- I don't know -- something with a complete stranger in the car. I filled up three trick slips with notes in code just in case anything happened that needed to go in the logbook, but nothing did. Finally I called a saferide for the guy in the stall without telling the freind with the keys and cancelled it five minutes later when they all walked out and drove away.

Elliot, I've got my eye on you and anyone you're with or ever talk to, from here on out. You can ask Anthony where that'll get you if whatever happened tonight wasn't just random stupidity, which I grant you it may well be.

Yeesh.

Then Albert told me somebody needed to go, indicating a fat drunkard who was annoying some lesbians at the pool table. After he's cried wolf so many times for people looking at his boyfreind I'm a little leery to approach the guy but do anyway because sometimes he does see things that need attention when I don't. Good thing he saw this guy behaving like an idiot. I told him he needed to go and he was slow but left without a fuss. I found a bottle in his jacket, slipped it out, held it up for god and everyone to see, and walked over to the door with it, just like leading a donkey. Gave it to him outside the front door and told him he couldn't come back ever again. Ten minutes later he's slumped over his bicycle in the parking lot. I go out with the flashlight and it's freezing cold -- Albert says I should knock him upside the head with it but I just shine the light on his lock, four tries later he gets the combination right and weaves on down the sidewalk, out of sight.

Someone I apparently slept with in drinking days gave me his card. He works for -- well -- I shouldn't say. But apparently the universe is trying to tell me something yet again.

I'm sorry to everyone who emailed me today that I haven't answered one of your notes. I'm not trying to be rude, it just seems to happen. Heh. I'm also shining up the bedroom floor (which takes forever because suddenly it's bitterly cold) and trying to stay on top of a handyman day job offer which might start in a couple of weeks if all works out. I'm going in to Hartman to organize their inventory again on Tuesday. I still also need to get the hospital application finished up and do my taxes. Tomorrow I finish finishing the bedroom floor and bring in furniture and tend the door at Martinique's Farewell, which is likely to be the busiest night I've ever seen.

I am insanely busy.

Bedroom floor.

Ripped out the carpet in the bedroom today. The floor in there's in pretty sad shape so instead of try and make the little polish I had last, I got a self-wringing mop and the whole three-step stripper/sealer/finish deal. Cost a small fortune but I'm sure it'll be worth it. I want the asbestos staying where it belongs -- on the floor -- 'til I can afford to get something better put over it, or get them removed.

Stripped the floor after getting off work. Now it's drying and it's taking forever; I had to rinse it off three times so now it looks like hell -- but since the bed's going in there that is the most important room to have the floor "right" in from the get-go. Maybe I can move a desk alone, but a bed? I don't think so.

I need to get more mayonnaise. Just made my first sandwich in years and all mustard is just too much.

Just applied the first coat of sealant. Doesn't smell half bad but I'm sure it's bad for you. Need to let it cure for at least 30 minutes before going over it again. Probably longer, since it's pretty cold.

4h45 AM -- what is that noise -- sounds like a big old jet taking off -- like a 747 but right up close. Ah the joys of living in the heartland of the bomb.

I really want to -- need to -- get some sleep. Furniture's coming Saturday, not Friday, so I suppose I could, and spend tomorrow finishing the bedroom floor except -- my bathrobe's in the closet in the bedroom, just beyond the freshly sealed floor! I'd get it but I don't want footprints sealed right into the floor. Though maybe some centuries from now after we've all completely self destructed some bright young anthropologist would find the apartment under a heap of rubble and figure out from it I was wearing size 12 Sperry Topsiders from Dillards twenty years after their manufacture and rightly surmise that here lived an impoverished but happy and obsessively clean faggot way back when who for whatever reason stepped on a freshly sealed floor.

Speaking of the closet I left the carpet in there. It's pretty damn near pristene, and it was actually a nice colour whenever it was picked out. It's in the areas where there's *any* traffic or *any* risk of water damage that it's ruined, which is pretty much everywhere except the closet, since I practically live on the Bosque. I may take it out later in there but it's *not* a priority.

Ten more minutes 'til I can check on the floor.

Seven more minutes.

I'm getting impatient.

This is driving me crazy.

I'm killing time and just using the blog to kill time.

Screw this. I'm gonna go run a finger at the edge between the rooms and look at it and decide to let it cure correctly and just go to bed all dirty.

Suddenly I'm very popular.

My inbox was exploding when I came home and checked today.

Three new comments from three people, not one comment spammer among 'em! The most noteworthy was one from someone who says he tested false positive too and thanked me for the FDA contact information -- that's *very* gratifying, to know that little post reached its exact intended audience. Seeking out false positives is a "needle in the haystack" affair if ever there was one.

Did the meeting tonight and it was great, then spent forty bucks on -- get this -- groceries! Somehow I still feel that I shouldn't have, but what the hell. With any luck they'll feed me for a week.

Acupuncture treatment today was at the hands of a different student intern 'cause the three o'clock slot was already taken. Went well -- one of the needles hit a nerve ending, which isn't one tenth as bad as you might think! It was just intensely electrical for a few seconds, then a minor readjustment ten seconds later everything is back to hunky-dory. She put more little beads in my ears for the smoking, and I'm wearing them now.

Over the hump.

The living room, for all practical purposes, is FINISHED.

Only one room left to go with ripping out carpet involved: the bedroom, and it's small and sparsely furnished to begin with. EASY.

Finally I have a good picture of the Brinsmead piano, since I had a clean room to move it into. Pardon me please as I dare make it BIG. I want you to see the detail in it, so I think you'll understand how I fall in love with these things when they're going dirt cheap. It is very much one of a kind. This is a flash picture because the flash brings out the depth of the thick walnut veneer.

This instrument is a thing of wonder. It's lost a few little chips over the decades but can you imagine it coming this clean into my hands after over 135 years, so that you can see the reflections of the keys in the finish? So you can still read the pattern in the delicate latticework cutout? The sharps are rounded, and it's got 85 keys, and a fold-up music stand and latticework candlestick shelves and brass pageholders and if I remember right dates back to 1870 or thereabouts. The quality of craftsmanship and attention to detail are nothing short of astounding. There's *nothing* in this piano that isn't handmade, start to finish. May never play again, but damn it, sometimes it's worth having a really big candleholder for two cheap religious candles from the nearest grocery store.

Kitchen floor.

This wound up being a snap, compared to what I thought it would be.

The kitchen, it seemed, was, of the four rooms I live in, the one most cluttered with the fewest things. Most of it wound up being wasted space -- empty boxes, nearly empty boxes, cabinets with one thing in them and a bunch of stuff in front of them, pots for houseplants, usually filled with nutrient-poor, leeched-out old potting soil. And of course the table that I couldn't get to, which I'd placed at an "interesting" angle, making getting behind it quite impossible.

The floor was nasty and is still not beautiful, but now at least it's clean, if not quite clean enough to eat from. I'm not going to shine it up yet -- the kitchen is my pure functionality room and who gives a rat's ass how it looks 'til the rest of the apartment's perfectly livable. I can eat cornflakes, damn it.

The stuff from the kitchen went into the cleared-out area of the living room, so I can use it to pack things into from the remaining portion of the living room while I rip carpet out in there. Moved in the bicycles and polished up the table, the rest I'll move back in tomorrow, which should take a whopping ten to twenty minutes, at the most.

The end is in sight! I hope to finish up the living room floor tomorrow because Wednesday is my busy day, even though I'm not working. Thursday I hope to do the bedroom in one fell swoop and have it *ready* for the furniture that's coming from downriver.

My bipolar living room.

So here's a quick and nasty cameraphone "before and after" comparison of the living room as it stands right now.

"Before" is the front of the room -- I'm working from back to front, and you can see the carpet and just how far I've gotten on it. You can also see the cats who had to get into the picture, of course.

"After" is the back part of the room. I think you can see where I'm going with this.

I really need to get some daylight pictures.

Three fifths.

The living room is three fifths done.

Moved the Los Alamos bookcase over by the desk.

The next bit's tricky -- most of what's left sitting on top of the carpet is stuff I want to sell. But if it comes right down to sell it or give it to Goodwill, I'll give most of it away -- the free space is worth more than the couple of hundred bucks I *might* get -- if I'm lucky.

Went to a Pride benefit at AMC. I swear, I only stayed ten minutes -- got a plate of food, gobbled it down, and left. I didn't want to stick around.

A new sensation.

Specifically: not wanting to go to work!

The reason? I fixed up the third of the living room all nice where I'd ripped carpet out. Locked the cats in the bedroom and gave the floor six coats of some industrial nastiness called "Glare" which is a shiny sealant varnish type thing. It looks as good as it *can* look, considering the tiles are fifty years old and have spent at least the last decade covered by the most hideous carpet you can possibly imagine.

Then I moved the rolltop desk. This was the biggest single hurdle to my cleaning. It's a monster, moving it three feet took a good two and a half hours. First off it's huge and weighs a ton. Secondly, I used it as the "throw it there" spot until it was piled high with everything imaginable. Finally got it cleared off. Took out the drawers from the top section, laid them out. Then the drawers from the bottom section. Slid the top onto the typing table and pulled it away only to realise I'd lost two wheels. Slid the top back onto the bottom (you hush) and fixed the wheels, then pulled it off again and moved it clear across the room. Turned and moved the bottom section to where I wanted it, in the far corner, rolled the desktop on top of the typing table assembly over and slid it back on into place.

Having all the drawers out I reorganized most of 'em and surprise, surprise! after I get rid of all the ATM slips that are so old they're too faded even to read and empty boxes and whatnot I have several that are totally empty.

Where the desk was before was nice enough in that it sort of broke up the long narrow living room into two smaller roomlets, but it had the unfortunate effect of making the back half of the room go very dark. The light from the window in front is incredible, expecially in the morning, but by simply having the desk where I had it, I effectively threw half of that glorious natural light away.

Here, then, is that corner right now, by the radioactive light of a kerosene Aladdin thorium mantle lamp:

Went to work today and Alex got his ego bruised because I took the power source to the laser we were moving out onto the dancefloor and insisted on installing it myself -- with his propensity to shine lights in people's faces (he thinks it's funny) I told him very straightforwardly I'd rather piss you off for an hour than get retinal detachment for the sake of your amusement. He threatened to quit. A pointless threat -- if he'd been serious he would have told Chip, not me. Alex is like an easily distracted cat: one second he hates you, then someone gives him a glowstick and he's happy for the rest of the night.

A minor miracle we made it through the night without bloodshed. One guy I shouldn't have let in (and wouldn't have if I'd known how he was behaving) was in everyone's face; he wound up leaving right before close without quite having managed to pick a fight with anyone.

One dumbass bitch ordered a saferide and when it came I told her it was there but she "wasn't ready". I told her it won't wait and we won't call you another. Saferides are for people who don't waste them (we've only got five), or my time, or the taxi drivers' time. I rip up her slip in front of the cabdriver with an apology and tell him we're never calling her another so he knows we're on his side. Of course she asks again later and I told her I'd already told her no more free rides for you little missy (minus the "little missy" part, I'm not *that* big a bitch). Later she stumbles right into me coming off the dancefloor and I just say "goodbye" and push her gently out the door. Yes, push her gently -- getting her off of me and moving her towards the parking lot. She tries to come in later but hell no, you're drunk and out of control. She wants to dance. I tell her dance in the parking lot. She's with Kilroy ("the gothfather") and some other regulars but it absolutely doesn't fucking matter. She's drunk. They handle her. I'm not a goddamn babysitter.

The saferide leaves with another super-sexy guy who tended bar there long ago who I think lives in NMAS housing now. We talked a long damn time at super-close quarters. Damn it, why do all the ones with magnetism have the bug, and/or use drugs?

Speaking of magnetism I was magnetic tonight. With the exception of some minor friction between myself and coworkers and those two customers I mentioned people were just all over me, regardless of my grubbiness from having moved the desk. Must be the phase of the moon or something.

Albert told my organist freind from a couple of weeks ago to leave and he did. My freind yelled some half-drunk obscenities at Albert from the vestibule but didn't start trouble or anything else. I'll call him tomorrow to let him know what's going on. Albert tells me after he's gone that he's "86ed". "Of course", I say, knowing damn well he's too lazy ever to write anything in the logbook, and wander calmly back into the office to ask Chip very politely "is Albert allowed to permanently 86 people because they look at his boyfreind? I only ask because he's done this before, and the guy he just did it to is a very good customer, drinks well, but not too much, and never causes any trouble."

I would never have done this to a fellow worker but Albert's being absolutely childish. He spends up to half of any given shift with his boyfreind -- in person or on the telephone -- regardless of the customer situation, and many people have indeed complained. It's to the point now I don't do much of anything he tells me and know damn well I'll "get away with it" because in short he does not have good reasons for what he does; I do.

He's spoken to. Chip emerges from the office, smiles at me, and says something really nice I won't repeat. You'd think it was the first time anyone did Starbuckish things working in a bar. Maybe it is. I think the standard etiquette (judging from the people I work with) when you have a difference with a fellow worker isn't to talk calmly to the supervisor if you can't work it out with them but to slam down drinks and growl and pout and say bad things behind their back.

Yet we survive. Go figure that one out.

Puzzles.

Ripped out about a third of the carpet in the living room and pulled up all the tacks. Started the application for the mental hospital.

Got out of work before one this morning.

Read this AP newswire story on my cellphone while working the door on a very slow night. It speaks for itself.

By RAY HENRY
Associated Press Writer

February 3, 2006, 3:14 AM EST

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. -- A young man dressed all in black went on a rampage at a gay bar with a hatchet and a gun Thursday, wounding three patrons in what police said appeared to be a hate crime.

One victim was in critical condition.

Police searched for 18-year-old Jacob D. Robida, who was wanted on charges of attempted murder, assault and civil-rights violations.

According to court papers, Robida's mother told police that he briefly stopped by the house less than an hour after the brawl and was bleeding from the head. In Robida's bedroom, officers found Nazi regalia and anti-Semitic writings on the wall.

"Obviously we have a man who's dangerous, who's not rational, and he has weapons," said prosecutor Paul Walsh Jr.

A bartender said it was around midnight when a teen wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and black pants walked into Puzzles Lounge, a gay nightspot in this historic seaport city of 94,000 people, about 50 miles from Boston.

He flashed an apparently fake ID and ordered a drink, then asked if the place was a gay bar and was told it was, said the bartender, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Phillip, because of fear for his safety.

The bartender said the teen finished his drink and walked back to where two men were playing pool. He shoved one of them to the ground, then pulled a hatchet from his sweatshirt and began swinging at the man's head, cutting him, Phillip said.

Other patrons tackled the man, sending the hatchet sliding across the floor, the bartender said. Then the attacker pulled a gun, shot a man, and then fired another bullet into the chest of a patron who was leaving the bathroom, the bartender said.

He then ran off into the night.

Police recovered the hatchet and found a knife outside. The knife was not apparently used in the attack.

According to court papers, a woman in the bar recognized Robida as a current or former student at New Bedford High School. School officials would not confirm whether he was enrolled there.

Robida graduated in 2001 from the city's Junior Police Academy, a "boot camp" that teaches discipline to 12- to 14-year-olds, many of whom are referred by juvenile courts or social services agencies, Acting Police Chief David Provencher said.

Police identified the injured men as Robert Perry, Alex Taylor and Luis Rosado. One has a gunshot wound to the chest, another a gunshot wound to the back and severe cuts to his face, and a third suffered multiple cuts, police said. They would not specify which man suffered which injuries.

All three victims remained hospitalized. Police said one was in critical condition, but would not say which man.

A family friend who answered the door at Robida's home said his mother had no comment.

The owner of the bar, Richard F. Macedo, said he planned to be open Thursday night because closing would amount to giving in to homophobia. He said the place and its customers have never been targeted before because of their sexual orientation.

"We've been here almost 15 years," Macedo said. "All it takes is one bad egg."

Some bar patrons, however, said there has been occasional low-level harrassment over the years.

About 150 people, including Mayor Scott Lang, attended a candlelight vigil outside the bar Thursday night.

"This was a crime against everyone in this city," Lang said.

This story raises so many complex issues it's impossible to go into them all. So -- far be it from me to second-guess how other people do their jobs 2000 miles away based on a single word ("flashed") in a newswire story written by someone who has likely never worked the door, but that's precisely what I'm going to do. It should be taken solely in the spirit of self-reflection, because that's all it is. If I lived in New Bedford I would be at Puzzles tonight and tipping *very* well regardless what I order, not saying a critical word to anyone, just showing my support by being there.

This is precisely why you make prospective customers hand you their IDs -- so you can insepct it *and* their behaviour, besides, and who cares if a few regulars dislike you because of it. You're not in this line of work to be popular, you're there to keep 'em safe from deeply troubled, well-armed idiots like Jacob -- and the cops that trained him. You don't get in trouble because someone feels less important for a few seconds, you get in trouble when you break the law or make a mistake letting the wrong person in or the right person in at the wrong time. This is precisely why you have a rainbow flag out in the foyer for people to see before they set foot in the bar -- so you can always say "you knew damn well what you were getting into when you came here".

You're not confirming that they have something that looks vaguely like a driver's license from three feet away, you're feeling it, looking at it under three different kinds of light, checking the expiration and birth dates and names and pictures and type of ID and the printing and lamination. You're memorizing everything you can and scanning the rest into the machine so there's a paper trail if you get audited for liquor code compliance. You have about three seconds to do all that before you start to look confused -- which is OK if there's something unusual about the ID (for instance, if the person had it while he stood in water for five days after Katrina, or if their house burned down, or if they're just plain old from a state you've never seen IDs from previously).

The Washington Post version of the story quotes Phillip the bartender saying that Jacob drank one drink in under five minutes, then ordered and was served another before going on his little rampage. I can only hope the communication between staff at the bar where I work is good enough that if some hooded twinkie with valid ID that I'd let in started drinking like that the bartender would raise an eyebrow and cock his head at me just so, indicating which one I should watch.

Sounds about right though where the rest of it's concerned. Doesn't seem like any of the staff made any serious mistakes, which just serves to remind me how dangerous this business *is*. I could literally see it happening in front of me while reading it. That is exactly how things happen in the bars when things go wrong. Everyone sort of hangs together. We protect our own kind -- though usually not 'til after it's too late and the harm's done.

Let's hope there's no such drama in these my final weeks at Foxes. Let's hope I have at least a hand in training my replacement. I turn in my application to the hospital on Friday.

Payback continues.

I don't care how fabulous you are -- it simply isn't every day a drag queen you've met once and only once bails you out of jail and disappears. So when it happens you knnow you owe the universe bigtime. And if you're sober and aware -- surprise! -- the universe will give you plenty of little chances to make good on that debt.

Went to visit my sponsor after the meeting today and what was in the street right in front of his apartment complex but an organizer with a ton of papers scattered everywhere.

Being the urban archaeologist I am I take an interest in it and pick it up. Cosmetics, ruined from the cars driving over 'em. Receipts. Contact lenses. Optometrist's prescription slip. Insurance cards. Bank cards. Driver's License. British Passport. Resident Alien card. Forty-five pounds sterling. Checkbook. Check registers. And about a dozen credit cards to very high-end stores.

Well shit. If I just leave it here someone'll take the credit cards and someone else'll use the ID to sneak into a bar (probably mine) and she might get deported and will at least have to spend the next week talking to banks and stores and immigration and embassy and DMV bureaucrats. I gather it all up (except the cosmetics) and take it with me and resolve to try and find the person.

I get home and go through the papers. There's one with the woman's email address and another with her phone number. So I call her up at 10:30 at night, a total stranger, asking her if she'd lost an organizer with a bunch of important papers.

She's in shock, just like I was when my car got broken into in LA. She feels violated like I did and doesn't really know whether to trust me. (Doesn't this resemble an Al Qaeda tactic?) I calmly stay on the phone with her while I go through her personal stuff telling her what all's there. She says someone broke into her car and stole her purse earlier that day, so apparently where I found it is where they dumped it before I went and put my fingerprints all over everything. She said there wasn't much cash in it, but aside from the pounds sterling, there was none.

It's probably up someone's nose or in their lungs by now and I hope the fuckers fucking overdose on that shit or at least get busted trying to get it and land in jail for a year. I give her my phone number and name and address and she gives me her work address and I'm going over there tomorrow to return it.

Let's hope the cops aren't there to question me about it; she had already filed a police report. Now that I think of it I probably should have called them and told them where the pile of papers was. But heck, I wasn't gonna stand guard over it while they took their time showing up and wasn't gonna leave it there for someone else to riffle through and go on a shopping spree, either. I've got nothing to hide and did the best I could with what I had at my disposal.

Only in Albuquerque.

Cleaning, cont'd.

Didn't get up 'til about three this afternoon which turned out to be a great thing 'cause it made me feel the urgency of the need to clean before my mother comes up next week with a depression-era bed and chest of drawers she doesn't want anymore, while I definitely need both.

Got a carpet cutter and a floor scraper yesterday and started off putting them to good use. Took out all the carpet and the padding from the little vestibule in front of the bathroom and for the first time since I moved in over two years ago the bathroom door closes! Another tiny step closer to getting this place nice enough for guests.

Listening to the radio (Amy Goodman's on at four) there's not much I can do but sort papers so I start in again on the animation table. I don't need a whole damn stack of Nader/Camejo 2004 flyers, so I just save a few and sort everything else into two piles: "save" and "throw away". A big hurdle in getting this far was I thought I had to organize everything all at once, so the bills go in one stack, the activist stuff issue A in another, activist stuff issue B in another still, false positive stuff in fourth, tax and income stuff in a fifth, and so on until I've got ten zillion stacks and before you know it they're just all one big pile again, but somewhere else, and like the blog, in reverse chronological order.

Not today! All the "save" stuff goes in a box I can move from one place to another. After eighteen months a phone bill is a phone bill is a phone bill is a deposition is a summons and I'll worry about sorting them all when I get that far -- if I do it now it'll just stop me in my tracks, and man, I've got momentum. The animation table's cleared before I know it. I never did use it here for anything but stacking stuff on so I tear it down and stuff it in the trunk of my car.

The kitchen's serving nicely as my "deal with it later" area. It's still a mess but I hardly use it at all -- that's how it got to be a mess in the first place, and I *will* get that far eventually this time. I can feel it.

Suddenly I have floorspace! And more piles of papers on the floor. So I go through those next. I keep finding more and more books. *There's* Radclyffe Hall, finally!

I straighten the dutch wall clock so it runs again.

Sweep up all the stupid crap (styrofoam peanuts, chicken bones, paper towels, candy wrappers) the cats got everywhere and the carpet is all too clearly visible. Still got two typewriters and a stereo turntable on it but I can move those easily and when it's light tomorrow (today) I'll go about ripping that carpet out and cleaning that piece of the floor, then clear the desk (I just started on that) and move it in two pieces (might have to take out drawers and stuff, we'll see, no biggie) to its new place on the floor that's clear where it won't darken half the room while simultaneously removing the single biggest obstacle to ripping out the remaining carpet in the living room.

The tiles are old asbestos tiles. Nice enough but the simple fact of the matter is I can't scrape 'em without raising dust so I got me a nice little respirator today for the work that remains (he says while lighting up another cigarette). And a screwdriver since I can't find mine. And something called a "bear claw" that should serve nicely to remove the tacks at the edges of everything. Hopefully by the time I need to move the piano and organ the place'll be clean enough I won't be afraid to ask someone to help.

Also got a window scraper 'cause I'm gonna get that far, damn it!

A quick confession. I went to WalMart last night after I got off work. I literally got lost in housewares. Found the section I was looking for and the tool that I thought I needed and took it off the hook but the car stereos were all booming some obnoxious pop rap song about "karma" so I took it as a sign and didn't buy it. Good thing I didn't, the bear claw's what I really needed anyway, not cut-rate wood chisels. Plus I can still say that except for that 49 cent nail clipper I got in Fort Stockton (fuck you, Fort Stockton, Texas) so I could cash a check to get gas and get the hell outta town I haven't bought jack shit from them since 1986. I took some pigment samples for the bathroom, though, so I wouldn't look suspicious walking out empty handed at 3 AM while still costing them at least a couple of pennies but damned if I'm buying anything there. Ever.

My apartment *feels* better. Hard to explain, but it does.