Yay.

I've hit the thousand-hits-per-month mark. Now I can lose interest in the blog and teach myself to play banjo, instead. :)

Recovering from the birthday bug.

Kept waking up not wanting to get out of bed.

Finally figured time to eat -- I haven't in two days -- so I'm gonna go to the flea market but first I have to listen to my voice mail which was filled up so no new messages can come in.

That takes a good ten minutes or so, and guess what -- David's in town, and that strange number is his freind from whose phone he is calling me. The exact second I finish with the messages who shows up on my doorstep but David.

We sit around, drink tea, I play him some records, we go out to lunch at Pho No. 1 and I break the two day fast with the only restaurant food I ever want when I get sick. We come back home and go to Mecca, where I buy three records and he buys a bunch of art books and then leaves them with me. He leaves around five PM on the El Paso/Los Angeles immigrant bus bound for El Paso. Very glad I got to see him. Needed something to get me out of the mood that I'm in, and his showing up when he did how he did did that as well as anyone could have.

I don't want to go to work tomorrow, but I really need to. Not just for the money, either -- I need to get out of this apartment and focus on anything other than how my stomach and intestines and muscles all feel. Two days more or less immobilized inside is enough to drive anybody slightly crazy. The weekend was an almost total waste. I couldn't even clean the catbox or unclutter an inch of counterspace or do any of the domesticities that make being at home that much more worthwhile. I've been stuck in bed. I think I got up twice, maybe three times yesterday to use the bathroom and drink water. I haven't had the energy even to read, most of the time. I may watch one of my library movies now. But I want to get to bed at a reasonable hour, meaning around the time I'd have gone in to work in my previous life.

Nightmares.

Birthdays are always hard for me -- the last two weeks I've had bad recurring nightmares every night that I've had every year about this time since I was two. Plus new ones and variations on old themes -- thus the one where I'm in the yellow clapboard house in empty space about to get killed when a thousand giant logs come rolling down an invisible hill has evolved to one where I'm working at Foxes but it's a nuclear power plant and my job's to monitor the core and on leaving I have to throw a switch and hang up a telephone at the same time to avoid a criticality incident at the same time I'm keeping the panhandling crackheads at bay. Then there's that crazy elevator in the office building, which has a huge living polar bear behind glass in the basement. One weird dream is fine, but as many as I've had lately just makes me go catatonic -- if I don't *have to* be somewhere I'm not, and I don't want to talk to anyone about anything. Then yesterday went out to Furr's with some of the guys from the group and had a lot of fun but I am *never* eating there again I got so sick. I'd hoped to go to Gathering of Nations today for my birthday but I have just now gotten out of bed. Birthdays seem to be marked for me by weeks of nightmares and by throwing up. At least the good ones do. Better sleeping than waking nightmares.

Needles in haystacks.

The kittens were all trying to get out of the box so I took all out on the closet floor and let 'em explore -- oh what a scene. I closed the bedroom door. They are all over the place.

Here is how medical billing works, at least to my best understanding at this time. It might best be analogised to three people working together on the task of finding 172 needles in a haystack before five PM, arranging the needles in order from shortest to longest, then accurately subdividing the found needles according to gauge, then rearranging them into groups according to the manufacturers of the needles (and calling needle manufacturers for verification that the needles are indeed their own, when need be), then sorting them chronoligically according to date of manufacture before documenting the work that they've done and finally dropping them all into 17 different haystacks to which they will have to go back weeks from now to make sure they're still there. Meanwhile, new needles keep coming into the haystack where we're already working, but we need to get the needles that are in there now out first.

I am enjoying it. It's like a puzzle. The 90801s cost more than the 90806es and the 61/59 application/write-off from Medicaid is not to be confugled with the 48.52/62.48 application/write-off from Presbyterian. But once you've done it ten or twenty times -- get this -- it starts to actually make sense! That's scary. But it's fun. I'm getting to be *fairly* confident of my ability in doing the simpler more repetitive things, finally.

Meeting was good. Got some DVDs from the library -- "Rashomon", "Madness of King George", "The Apartment". Sometimes I just don't *want* to read.

Late night (9:02 pm).

Apologies to online people with whom I normally engage in lengthly banter back and forth through emails -- I haven't forgotten you, I've just not figured out exactly when to fit in everything now that I'm up all day. Yes, working nights is madness; but when you do it long enough you learn to make the madness work for you. This feels more natural, but suddenly the evenings are filled up with other things and going online does not take precedence over sleep. Plus my priority tends to be to post in here, and just tonight it took over 25 minutes for the "new post" page to load, thanks to the wonder that is Alltel. Yes, my internet connection at home is lousy. But it's either this or get a phone line, pay phone bills, and then get an ISP, blah blah blah blah, and yes this is honestly the cheapest, easiest way for me to go online. Plus I do like the portability of it.

Today we mailed HCFAs. That's pronounced roughly "hickfahs" (not gonna bother with the IPA). It's how you submit claims to the insurance companies. Made a million piles of HCFAs on the floor arranged by company and then went through and separated them out by date of service. Then Bill printed envelopes and labels and I put 'em in. Entered some patient records and posted one deposit, which seems to me to be the most complicated part because I'm still not clear on what to do with all the denials which come in maybe a dozen common varieties (and a zillion uncommon varieties) and they all have to be dealt with differently.

Ate lunch with Leo at this little hole in the wall family restaurant very nearby. Burgers and burritos in one of those spaces that seems to be a different family restaurant every few months. It was really pretty good, except that they messed up our orders, and their coffeepot exploded, and it was kind of pricey for what it was. But heck, I respect 'em for setting up shop at all, and they were *really*, *really* nice, though kind of in that sad "maybe we're failing because we're not nice enough, so let's be nicer" way. Sad though -- one of those places you just *know* won't last for very long. Completely empty when you walk in, greasy air from thirty years ago, two people working, both family members, lots of mistakes, in a building completely ill-suited to the purpose at hand. Dirty kitchen not their fault but just made permanently dirty over years to the point that you *can't* deep clean it. Signs facing the wrong way, left over from previous tenants of the space advertising things put on the new tenants' menuboards not because they specialise in that but just because it's on the sign and come to be expected. Reminds me of the little short-lived Russian place in El Paso that I ate in every day for a month just because I *knew* I'd never get borscht like they made it once they closed, and the sword of Damocles was visibly hanging over the owner's head. The burgers were delicious. But burgers and breakfast burritos ain't enough to keep people comin' back, I fear.

I bought a fan! I still refuse to get an air conditioner, but the whole "I'm only going to use antiques" thing kinda fell apart where fans were concerned when I got cats. You know -- the nifty old ones you could stick your whole hand into while the blades are spinning. Lovely, yes, but way too dangerous. It's the same reason I don't *use* any of the kerosene lamps (except the radioactive Thorium mantle lamp, from time to time, because I *do* like to live *slightly* dangerously, and the light *is* unique). I *could* live by kerosene light, if I had to, but I'm not gonna waste the kerosene I have and kill myself with carbon monoxide 'til I actually *do* have to. Meaning when I have to take cover in the fallout shelter behind my apartment. In the meantime they look pretty and that's good enough for me, for now.

The air conditioner on my car is dead. It blows but doesn't cool the air. You think I'm getting it fixed? With the interlock? Hell no. "Yeah you can fix it but I have to stay here all day long and maybe into tomorrow while you do it so I can blow into the car every time you need to start it for whatever". That little car has served me well but it's got some sort of evil gypsy curse on it (nothing against the gypsies). Did long before I ever got it. Can't really go into the details of that here but I do know it's true. As it is now, the windshield's cracked, the driver's side lock has to be locked from the outside, the passenger-side front door has to be locked and unlocked from the inside, but opened from the outside (meaning either I play "chauffer" or riders get to roll down the window to let themselves out), the trunk can only be opened from the lever underneath the driver's seat, and so on. I've gotten half a dozen tickets over broken taillights and license plate lights and aside from the Night of the Thirteen Martinis, seem only to get stopped for the stoopidest reasons, and then, fairly regularly. Good motor! Great mileage! But everything *around* the motor's falling apart, being made of cheap plastic that disintegrates in the sun. The car is cursed. Bah. But I can't quite live without it.

Don Schraeder's right -- I am addicted to my car! Damn it, I still need to return those books to him.

Shop like a Mexican, part two.

Today I finished reading Voices from Chernobyl. This book is an amazing oral history documenting some of the millions of lives irrevocably changed by this preventable disaster in the words of the people affected themselves, many of whom have since gone on to resettle the highly contaminated "exclusion zone" surrounding Chernobyl's Reactor No. 4. We're coming up on the 20th anniversary this coming 26th of April, and I'm just dying to find out whether anybody covers it at all.

I can not recommend this book too highly. The closest thing to it in terms of style might be A.G. Mojtabai's Blessed Assurance, which uses oral history as a starting point to document the lives of people around the Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas, where tens of thousands of Plutonium pits are stored. Both books are deeply moving, though for very different reasons. (Mojtabai's book inspired me to visit Amarillo, which in a rather roundabout way, led to my finally resettling in Albuquerque.) Rather than wax eloquent about Voices I'll just say it's summed up beautifully by the title for Part Three: Amazed by Sadness. I read the whole book in three long sittings. Having started I could literally not pull myself away from it.

For anyone not wanting to bother with a book, or else just more inclined to action, I'll recommend chernobyl.info.

I'm back to reading the Lincoln Perry ("Stepin Fetchit") biography now, which is completely different. Bluebear is fun, but it's fiction, and fiction is a waste of time, the way I read. So it's just sitting at the back waiting for me to need something completely, totally eescapist.

What else? I CLEANED THE STOVE TODAY. Big deal, right? Well -- it was filthy, and it didn't work, but now it's clean and doesn't work. Except three burners. Did my shopping like a Mexican again today and what a joy -- I bought three pounds of Carne Adobada from Hi-Lo Market on Fourth St. (just South of Menaul) and have been simmering it for four hours now. Three bucks a pound, as opposed to three bucks per burrito, just as long as I'm willing and able to cook it myself. I've already eaten some of it and plan to just let it simmer 'til it falls apart. Then I got potatoes at Rio Grande Fruit and Vegetable Co. down on Isleta Blvd. and boiled those. My house smells better than it ever has before. I went back to get a block of lard after I'd finished all my other purchases there and the cashier knows me by now and the look on her face was priceless when she saw the effeminate white guy who doesn't even pretend to know spanish go back just to get lard.

I've got four different kinds of tortillas, Mennonite cheese, eggs, salsa, potatoes, and now carne adobada and should not go hungry for a week. Amazing how my mood improves not just by eating but even just by having food inside the house! It's literally something to come home to, other than the cats, and I don't want to eat the cats.

No title required.

My goodness. The last post was from today but it says it was from yesterday because that's when I opened the tab -- almost 23 hours before.

Just got out of the palace where surprise of surprises WonderCow (now fuzz) and marcoshark were there. Amazing how the palace never dies.

Musical musings.

The guy behind fallwell.com emailed me back after I wrote him a little "congratulations and thank you" email the day the Supreme Court declined to hear the bigot's suit against him. That sure was nice. I imagine he must have gotten thousands of emails that day.

I've got some kitten pictures in the Supplement. Not all the kittens are represented in those photograps. They squirm around and go everywhere when you try and take their pictures.

Today is Saturday. I have two days off -- in a row! That hasn't happened in over a year, unless I was going out of town or in jail. It feels like a vacation. I went to the Flea Market today, without having to stay up for it -- it just happened to be open when I was up. Got a couple of two dollar books and avoided the temptation to spend $125 on a beautiful Italian accordion. Why? Because I have enough already and despite my good intentions know damn well I'll never get around to fixing that one key that sticks.

I did finally get a mouse pad. Actually, it's a Mouse Rug -- matching the rug the mother cat threw up the five placentas on. Design, colour, everything. Perfect match. Love it.

At my magical window now listening to side two of Sylvester's "Stars" in glorious warm embracing analogue. One big old Technics speaker on each side of me. Near perfect stereo separation. If I could get the speakers off the floor just a bit it would be great -- but I'm not ready to go down that road just yet. I can enjoy the near-perfection of the setup for the moment. This incredible golden light under the battleship gray sky won't last much longer. Thinking of putting typewriters under the speakers but once I do that I'll have to move the mirror on the North wall of my bedroom up a few inches, too; that's not a project I want to undertake just now. Plus the speakers will look way bigger, probably. Finding two typewriters whose boxes are the same exact width is a tricky proposition, too.

This isn't music that has lasted forever -- this isn't "You Make Me Feel" -- it's "I Who Have Nothing". I've never heard this piece before, but it's amazing. Sounds like an old negro spiritual layered over a steady disco beat with a sort of bluesey piano underneath and some remarkable percussion above the piano. Mark (the DJ at Foxes) told me "anything by Sylvester" that night some months back when I kept running over to the booth to ask him what he was playing and what I should try to find.

I got this one yesterday at Mecca Music and Books, right across the street. It's an amazing record store and an amazing bookstore. Very bricks and mortar. Very small business. It's cluttered and quirky and I don't think they have a stinker in their entire stock which literally spills out onto the floors. I've also never gotten a scratched record there. It's one of Albuquerque's magical little spaces. I try not to go in more than once or twice a year, because I always lose at least thirty dollars before I walk out.

Also got some more Brubeck, because I can never have enough. And a new record from someone called Swayzak on David's recommendation. Yes, a new record. I played side one last night, and think I didn't give it the attention it deserved.

Just raised the speakers. Hate how they look. Love how they sound. Hell -- how they *feel*. I can get that feeling of the air moving around me like I did at Foxes without ruining my hearing.

Disco beat on mechanical drums. Sounds like a heartbeat. Piano. Orchestral effects. Electronic sine wave sounds popping in and trailing off. African drummers. Sylvester's coutertenor voice shines crystal clear above it all. Amazing. I can't believe I've never heard this. It sounds downright experimental. Closer to Radiohead than to the Village People. There is amazing disco music out there, besides the standard songs that never die. It's too bad it's got the lousy reputation that it has. It's a very rich genre. Just like rock is rich and Elvis it's not "all the same". I was raised in a classical and liturgical music atmosphere so "popular" music of any kind was always somehow a little bit less than respectable. I can hardly ever do more than make little adventurous trips out into that music since I'm so steeped in Bach, but my god, I swear it opens me up to new worlds.

There's a show tonight at Foxes. I've been up since 7:30 AM though so there's no point to my going. I'll probably be asleep before it starts. It seems like a whole other world right now.

My god the sound's amazing. I can hear where everyone is placed as clearly as if I'm in the room with them. These vibrations in the air around me come from grooves cut from vibrations in the air around Sylvester. There's some visceral sense of connection to the music that I absolutely don't get from CDs or mp3s or anything else digital. This ain't music encoded, baby, this is MUSIC. It's taken me two years to get it set up so it sounds good and still I've got no way to copy records, even onto tape. Oh well! I guess it's just destined to be one of those perfect experiences I can't share with anyone since it is *this* *exact* *spot* where it *happens*.

Also got a new suit yesterday at the little San Juan thrift store next door to Mecca. Well, not new -- but it fits -- and for ten dollars a suit, you can't have too many suits. Also two bow ties and an ascot. You never see bow ties or ascots. If I could tie a bow tie I would wear it.

Saturday night, eight fifteen. If you can't tell I've had this tab open all day and been posting now and again through the day so it's very rambling and aimless. The Mexican family two doors down has at least five cars outside and a ton of kids. It feels weird not to be going out, even to work.

I paid my bills today -- before they're due, even! I never have enough money to pull that off. Tonight I did. Also wrote a letter and mailed it to Chip explaining apologetically that I'd forgotten I had a prior engagement out of town the weekend he wants me to work.

I'm getting restless. Spent so much time buying records and suits I forgot to buy food. Now the Rio Grande Fruit Stand is closed and I don't want to waste my money at Lowes where everything is overpriced and smells rotten. I could eat at Flying Star but I want to stay home. Don't want to deal with trundling off the computer and driving and all of that -- stuff.

This music sucks. Soundtrack to a movie I'd heard good things about. The record's scratched too. I'm stopping it before it ruins the needle.

Beatles. Ruined. Oh well -- 99¢ down the drain on that one. I'll live.

Doors. Waiting for the Sun. Rough, but it plays. I know the Doors already. If you can't tell I'm going through my collection of stuff I've never listened to yet. I'm saving Brubeck for when there aren't zillions of kids running around. Hm. A Doors song I've never heard before. Someone has robes and monkeys. Sometimes I wonder whether Jim Morrison was on something. I think he went to school here. Not to touch the earth. Worth getting on better vinyl. Oh my. Lots of songs I've never heard before. Not anywhere. This is definitely worth getting.

Damn it I can't find Barry Manilow Live anywhere.

Time for Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado". I need a whole different setup for those records that play stacked on top of eachother. I don't think this one's stereo but that's fine. It sounds nice. And it's a change.

If I don't stop writing now this post's going to keep going nowhere. So I'll stop. The time is 9h08 PM, regardless what blogspot tells you.

I'm loving the days.

Today was insanely productive. Leo was there when I got to Bill's house this morning and he was already tearing through the piles of papers making order out of chaos. Leo (not his real name, either) is a younger guy who also works in the office, schedule permitting. He's the organizer. Bill's the one who knows the business inside out. I'm new enough all I can do is just minimize my own errors and try and soak up as much up as I can. When all three of us are working at once, my god, there's energy in that room! We all worked something like 8½ hours today and I never got really tired. Did charges and payments, did an audit of charges and payments, posted a few new patient records to the system, and finally ended up filing Medicaid claims.

There's a lot to remember. Since it's all Windows programs there's also the erratic behaviour of those to take into consideration. But it's really fairly simple, over all -- just don't make a mistake in certain places, 'cause then the claim won't get paid, which means we won't get paid, neither will the providers, and the patients will be stuck with huge bills while we'll be stuck with even more of a mess than we deal with to begin with -- and guys just coming off the streets seem to forget the difference between their group numbers and policy numbers, believe it or not. And since you *are* human and *will* make mistakes, you just double check everything.

When I left Hartman, Mr. Hartman wished me well with words to the effect that he hoped someday I'd find a job that used my brains, not just my back, or brawn. I think I've finally found that. This is the first job not requiring me to carry heavy objects. I'm glad he wished me well -- I think it worked.

I also like that I'm still working with people with serious mental health and substance abuse problems. I *love* that population. They amaze me simply by surviving. What's even better is that I'm doing it using a system that's specifically designed to disengage me from the craziness involved as much as possible. I get to help the person out by making sure that their data gets entered correctly and they don't have to pay a bill they can't afford for services they seem to need. It's not my business if their girlfreind's cousin's brother in law's uncle is chasing them with a baseball bat or not. I'm not giving them rides across town to evade the police, bailing them out of Sandoval County Detention Center in the middle of the night 'cause the next door neighbour's son finally got paid, talking them out of suicide just long enough to eat something, or buying stolen goods at cut-rate prices trying to minimize the harm that they can do with whatever I give 'em. I'm just making sure their health care gets paid for. Zero conflict. Zero emotional involvement. I see the numbers, know exactly what they mean, and do not need to know the details. I *love* that. I've done the research and I know the backstory. They all follow one of precisely 27 plots that just play out over and over. Don't need to get lost in all that, just enter the numbers right and move on to the next.

Popped into Foxes to pick up my last paycheck. Chip wants me to work coronation weekend. I want to! But I have to be in El Paso, which I think means I don't even get to vote for Empress. Oh well. I'll tell him soon enough.

He did get a letter from STOMP and the FIRST EVER smoke free night in any gay bar in the State of New Mexico will occur at Foxes on Monday, 5 June of this year. No one can keep me from Foxes on that night!

I also paid car insurance today. Last day before I miss the deadline, which I can't afford to do! I hate paying insurance with a passion.

Enough for now. I have got books to read.

Be well!

Library report.

I forgot to mention I also returned some overdue books to the library. Better 216 days late than never. Sure am glad they don't charge fines here. To the Erna Ferguson branch, which I really do like.

Checked out three more. Mel Watkins' Stepin Fetchit: the Life & Times of Lincoln Perry which I just *know* is going to be amazing. Walter Moers' either nonsensical or brilliant The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear with 136 black and white illustrations and 2 maps because -- well -- it was simply irresistible:

It is really quite easy to picture a square yard of multidimensional space -- provided you have seven brains.
Simply picture a train travelling through a black hole with a candle on its roof while you yourself, with a candle on your head, are standing on Mars and winding a clock precisely one yard in diameter, and while an owl, which also has a candle on its head and is travelling in the opposite direction to the train at the speed of light, is flying through a tunnel in the process of being swallowed by another black hole with a candle on its head (if you can imagine a black hole with a candle on its head, though for that you will require at least four brains). Join up the four points at which the candles are burning, using a coloured pencil, and you'll have one square yard of multidimensional space. You will also, coincidentally, be able to tell time on mars by the clock, even in the dark, because -- of course -- you've got a candle on your head. -- p. 256

Finally a little light reading in the form of Svetlana Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster.

On record two of Saturday Night Fever, now, as I write this -- I swear there are waveforms in here that aren't on the CD. It's a much richer sound. More layered, if that makes any sense, or is even possible.

Crazy people.

Thrift store finds:

Red Wing penny loafers in my size. Brand new. Ten dollars.

Original soundtrack of "Saturday Night Fever" on pristine vinyl. A buck fifty.

Listening to the Beegees now in glorious analogue. It's not loud and I can *feel* the music every bit as well as at Foxes, and make out the lyrics besides.

Too bad I never raided that shelf in the liquor closet with all the *real* treasures from the Disco era when I had access to it! Heh heh. Don't think it didn't cross my mind! Screw the liquor, keep the records under lock and key, 'cause your freindly doorman has his eye on 'em. Ah well. I'll just have to build up my collection the legitimate way, now. I know where the old disco ball's stored, too. It nearly got thrown away during the managerial transition, but I found it and stashed it away back behind *everything*, where apparently lots of other doormen have done much the same thing with stuff they knew shouldn't be thrown away way back whenever whoever else was trying to get the place cleaned up. If I had electricity in the ceiling in the living room I'd love to set it up in there.

If it's possible to be brilliant in bureaucracy, my new employer is brilliant. Since it's clear to anyone who reads the blog that he's a "program person" too, I have to make up a name for him, or else my pronouns are going to proliferate beyond anything readable any time I speak of my new job. Therefore, I'll call him Bill.

I got totally stuck several times today. One time there was some number I needed but didn't have or something similar that just "isn't working" for me, so Bill goes straight to the right webpage for the insurance company -- one of hundreds -- enters the username and password, five clicks later downloads the correct 297 page document, figures out in under a minute that he needs to print out pages 41 and 42, does so, glances at them, finds the magic words he needs to circle in black marker and fax back to the provider so that they can fix it on their end. It's all done in about five minutes. Could I have figured it out? Mmmaybe. But it would have taken me hours, easily.

Another time there was this one guy who was being a jerk -- he was trying to use Medicaid ("the payor of last resort") to pay for his kid's mental health care when they were already insured by their mother with whom he was clearly not speaking, which amounts to insurance fraud, whatever the family dynamics may be. (No wonder his kids are messed up.) Well sir -- he didn't accuse the man of anything -- he was very polite and patient and he got the information he needed out of this creep, then left a message for the mother saying what we needed from her, informationwise. Still hadn't heard back from her when I left but the point is this guy knows how to move claims through the system, such as it is, and it's a HUGE mess. A lot of the job -- and I mean a LOT of it -- seems to be just figuring out where the mistake is -- assuming there's only one -- and quite often it's more than just one, then correcting it when we can and when we can't telling the person who can fix it what needs to be fixed since everyone everywhere seems to be ever so slightly confused. Basically: do whatever you have to in order to make it right, and keep the process moving forward.

Without mentioning names, 'cause the whole confidentiality thing's way more important here than in *any* job I've *ever* worked before, I will report that my idea that most people with Northern New Mexico surnames are crazy is indeed borne out by patient lists. It's nice to see it in writing, as it were. Like the family that named all their kids the same thing. Four kids, male and female, and I swear they've all got the same name, if you just change a single letter here and there. Some people just need a good slap upside the head. :)

And oh yeah I'm still dealing with crackheads. Only now I think we classify 'em as 304.90s or something like that. Different scene, different lingo, same crowd, different game. I personally prefer them this way. They don't bug me to use the telephone, reek of liquor, bounce off the walls trying to sneak in, or give me hurt puppy looks when we enter their treatment codes into the computer. It's so abstract -- to the point of absurdity -- that I love it. I'm finally getting used to the day schedule, too. Ten in the morning works great -- I get to enjoy the mornings. And the evenings. What more could I possibly ask for?

Bravo tutti, Mr. Lamparello, Mr. Levy.

Because I'm *really* tired, I think I'll just give you what I find to be a very worthwhile link to fallwell.com (that's right) and point out that Mr. Levy (Mr Lamparello's lawyer) came from Public Citizen, which you-know-who (I voted for him twice) founded. The bigot (with whose correctly spelled name I shall not sully your computer) took Mr. Lamparello to court over his superb website, and just today the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the bigot's case against him. Mr. Lamparello, in short, won the lawsuit.

It might not be as momentous as Lawrence v. Texas, but that's not the point.

There are no small victories when justice is done in this fight.

My super-secret, life-long dream.

Sometimes I'd swear google can read my mind. This Reuter's Health News Article showed up in a "web clip" this afternoon -- Sleep-wake Mix-up May Lead to Near-death Sensation -- right as I'm at the tail end of a crazy long spell with zero sleep. The subject's a phœnomenon called REM intrusion.

I started a post earlier, while I was waiting for Amy Goodman to come on the radio and tell me what all's going on, but it went in so many crazy circles I'm not going to waste the wordspace posting it. But yes, Rumsfeld should be indicted.

Suffice to say I'm very tired. Slept all day Sunday, couldn't sleep on Sunday night, so stuck it out on zero sleep through all of Monday. That's today.

Flipping back to days is so bizarre I can't even describe it. There are people everywhere! It's hot, there's traffic, and of course the sun is out. Stores are open for business and you can get most anything you'd ever need (i.e., everything besides liquor and Frontier food). Then suddenly the meeting that was my morning meeting is my evening meeting and I don't have to head in to work right after it's over, which sure is nice, making the day less long than I had dreaded by default. On the same day I start my new job we start with new chairs and coffee people, which just amazes me how perfectly this little life transition timed itself.

The job is very good. So far I'm getting paid to shuffle papers, then reshuffle them a different way, and finally a third way, making sure everything's in its proper place for later when we enter information into the computers. I like the way I'm being trained -- I'm being told when I do something why I'm being told to do it the particular way I'm being told to do it. I wish more employers did that. "Because I say so" is absolutely never good enough a reason for me to do anything. "Because it needs to be that way for the next step in the process", on the other hand, is always good enough.

I have decided that it's been my super-secret, life-long dream to be a bureaucrat. So deep inside me even I did not know of it, but now I wield the date stamp with an iron-fisted finality and grace that the whole universe itself make sense. If working in insurance was good enough for Kafka, then it's good enough for me. Perhaps Gregor Samsa suffered from REM intrusion.

Since I spent so much time today fiddling with AdSense, I figure it's time for a shameless plug for a product I really do give a rat's ass about. So without further ado -- go buy my mother's book. I'd tell you all about it in glowing terms but if you're reading this probably the best things I can tell you is that I helped proofread it (scary, huh?) and most importantly that it's got embarassing baby pictures of me somewhere between the covers. I'd mention it by name, but then she'd find the blog when she searched for the title.

Insert winky-pointy-nosed-pointy-mouthed-smiley here.

Time of Change.

Most of my life -- well, since I was seventeen, anyway -- which is almost "most of my life" and certainly "most of it" for what I was conscious of it -- at times of Change I've always gone back to my dog-eared Wilhelm Translation of the I Ching and thrown the coins, built up a hexagram, and read through the Judgment, Image, and relevant Lines to see what this remarkable book has to randomly offer on where I am at any given time.

I've never, ever shared with anyone what came up, but what the hell -- since having a blog seems to mean that I have no secrets, here's what I came up with this time:

No. 22 -- 賁 -- Pi: Grace

becoming

No. 27 -- 頤 -- I: The Corners of the Mouth (Providing Nourishment)

and I'll be damned if it wasn't dead-on appropriate to my current situation. Briefly, for anyone who's unfamiliar with how it works: the third, unbroken Yang line (the "nine in the third place") in the first hexagram is the important one, being the one that changes, but the resulting, broken Yin line in the same place in the second hexagram is not taken into account at all in reading the second, since it *isn't* a six, but effectively, an eight.

Here's what I get from it -- again, briefly. Small undertakings require grace, which isn't such a force in the universe to suffice for great undertakings. Grace deals with "clearing up current affairs", but not with "deciding controversial issues".

Thus the earlier trigram relates directly to my leaving Foxes, which I dare admit I managed with considerable grace -- rather unusually for a bar, where people changing jobs often results in bad blood, bruised egos, burned bridges, and the like. Momentous as it seems for me right now, this change is really a small one -- ultimately, for all I say about my job being my identity, all I'm doing is changing how I make my money, which is (literally) how I nourish myself, an idea that figures centrally in the resulting second hexagram. Wilhelm's commentary on the first hexagram's nine in the third place reads, in part:

One is under the spell of grace and the mellow mood induced by wine. This grace can adorn, but it can also swamp us. Hence the warning not to sink into convivial indolence but to remain constant in perseverance. Good fortune depends on this.

The second hexagram, as I read it, regards self-care as the foundation for service to the community at large and stresses again the importance of perseverence. The Judgment reads, in part:

Pay heed to the providing of nourishment
And to what a man seeks
To fill his own mouth with.

In other words: the purpose of my having a job is to be able to take care of my own damn self. Not to get money to blow on thirteen martinis, even if I *don't* work in a bar.

The Image for the second trigram reads, again in part:

Thus the superior man is careful of his words
And temperate in eating and drinking.

Thus relating to the mouth, not only what goes into it, but what comes out of it -- this blog, for instance!

The lines for the second trigram (1) give me a swift kick in the butt for whining at the I Ching about letting my magic tortoise go (i.e., leaving Foxes), then (2) remind me not to get distracted, line three gets skipped, then (4) has me "turning to the summit for provision of nourishment" which "brings good fortune", while my "spying about with sharp eyes like a tiger with insatiable craving" brings "no blame". That's easily my favourite line -- the text itself *and* commentary. Line five reminds me of my limitations, while line six promises success in great endeavours just so long as those limitations remain in my own awareness.

It's always been like that. It's not fortunetelling -- not astrology -- doesn't pretend to tell me when I should go out to parties or stay home or who I should sleep with -- but it does invariably give me an idea where I am and what I need to follow through on and what I need to let drop by the wayside. Serves as a tool for me in gaining clarity on any given situation. It's always given me a fresh perspective on where I stand at any given moment in relation to the universe and sort of always starts me delving ever-deeper into things Chinese, internal-external relations, directions of motion, and so on.

The more I've read over the years the more I've come to understand -- when I read through the whole damn book the first time around it was just because I was interested in Joseph Cambell and Carl Jung and stuff like that. I surely didn't *understand* it. I still don't. But the metaphors are more familiar to me now, the semantic clusters around ideographs relating to "moistness" or "mouth" for instance have clearer mappings in my mind and always seem to *mean* something when they come up!

So yeah, perhaps I am a superstitious bastard, but what the hell's the harm in that? I love this book. It doesn't tell me what to do, but does lend clarity to my life as I live it -- and even if I am just playing games with my own mind in saying that, then what's the harm in it? It surely beats the empty "what now" and "a part of me is dead" feeling I had last night.

Last Dance.

What now?

That's the question in my mind.

There's just a big old gaping hole. I'm not the doorman at Foxes anymore. Part of me's in that place forever, but I'm no longer a part of it. It's in my past. It's gone. It's over. I do not know what else to say. I've no idea what will happen next.

The last sign I'm posting as doorman.

I made it from an email I got from Rebecca Dakota, the Tobacco Cessation Coordinator for Equality New Mexico (EQNM), the same bunch that got us all together to head up to the roundhouse and lobby both houses to defeat twin Denigration of Marriage Acts on Valentine's Day last year. She said to circulate it. So I posted an edited down version of the email on craigslist forums and worked this up into a sign. In typical nonprofit fashion it's still got too many words but hopefully it'll be clear enough what it's about to work as a bar sign. It reads as follows.

Want to quit smoking?

New Mexico's first ever LGBTQI tobacco cessation program begins Thursday, April 20th.

These free classes will double your chances of quitting.

Equality New Mexico (EQNM) and Stop Tobacco on My People (STOMP) have teamed up for this pilot course, designed to help Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and HIV+ people QUIT SMOKING.

This course will be led by LGBTQI facilitators at Irysh Mac's Coffee House,
110 Yale SE.

Classes meet:

Thursday, April 20, 7 pm;
Thursday, April 27, 7 pm;
Thursday, May 4, 7 pm;
Sunday, May 7, 3 pm;
Thursday, May 11, 7 pm;
Thursday, May 18, 7 pm;
Thursday, May 25, 7 pm.

Classes last no more than 90 minutes, and are designed to empower us all to lead healthier lives.

You can be smoke free!

For more information or to reserve a space, call "Court" at 280-5808, or STOMP at 988-3473.

Funded by the New Mexico Department of Health.

Needless to say if anyone around town's actually interested in quitting smoking you should actually call those numbers -- I ain't postin' this here to be little Jack Horner; I'm postin' it 'cause we need people in those classes, damn it.

I edited out "questioning" and "two-spirit" not to be small-minded or uninclusive but because LGBT is worse than bad enough! "LGBT" (let alone LGBTQI) is NOT A WORD. Linguistically speaking, it's a random string. It's not something that *anyone* looks at and thinks "oh that's me", it's a meaningless alphabet soup until you analyze it to the point of thinking out what all the letters mean. It's not even an acronym. Trust me -- no one who goes to Foxes is gonna be so offended by the non-inclusion of "questioning" or "two-spirit" that they don't call *because* of that.

I'm not saying there's no legitimate difference there. I know damn well there is. But honestly, if I had my way, I'd just say "gay" and leave it there, and not because I'm a male chauvanist pig (which I am, btw), not because 92% of our customers are, well, gay (and they are), but because you can look at it and pronounce it. You can read it out loud without sounding like a damn fool. It passes the spoken word test. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. But LGBT just sounds like a long-range missile.

So to the Department of Health, I'm sorry if I shouldn't have used your name on it without prior approval or something but uhhh there's no way I can submit this for review and so forth on the last day I work at Foxes which is a Saturday and a holiday and if I post this maybe we'll get somebody in from it whereas if I don't we definitely won't so please don't hate me and I'm acting on my own initiative here so don't hold it against STOMP please, thanks very much and thank you for the classes and I'll be there even if you try to stop me.

Enough! It's almost nine AM. My circadian rhythms are screwed.

Good Friday.

When you expect it to be busy it will always be dead.

When you expect it to be dead it will always be busy.

This is an axiomatic truth of working in a bar. Nothing's predictable. Nothing.

The last couple of weeks were relatively disappointing, businesswise, so naturally with Easter weekend coming up we *knew* it was gonna be dead. Since we *knew* it was gonna be dead, we got slammed. Which was totally fine. What a wonderful night. Paul Vigil performed as Priscilla -- she doesn't show up very often -- because she had heard Martinique wouldn't be coming out, but then Martinique *did* come out. So we had a very good show with a number of very strong performers.

The bad news is I left the camera at home.

The good news is I got the best pictures I could reasonably expect with my cameraphone, regardless. Too bad Victoria left before I could get her to pose for me. Amazing how I ever thought I'd document something. The best that I can do besides writing about it is to grab some crummy cameraphone pictures. But if you're so inclined, I've got two posed shots from the vestibule wherein I work, under the "ugly lights" we turn up right before we close. They can be viewed in the R.M.C. Supplement.

One final plug for Foxes -- if you *ever* want to see a drag show in its natural setting, uncluttered and ungentrified, then honey, Foxes is the *only* place to go! The age-old tradition of female impersonation lives on, even thrives, at Foxes. Saturday nights. Ten o' clock sharp -- drag time. Thirty-five years or so they've tried to shut us down, but we get through it each and every goddamn night one day at a time in our own way, and I'll be damned if Albuquerque doesn't *have* a "gay community" *because* of it.

I'm gonna miss it, man, but I doubt you can keep me out of there for long; and where being in a bar's concerned, what more "legitimate purpose" is there than showing up to tip performers on occasion? (Oh yeah, working there -- but who wants to be in a bar every night? You'll go deaf, or go crazy, or both.)

Those nelly queens do more for the community combined than almost anybody else. And I'll be damned if I'm not gonna drop a dollar or two for them from time to time instead of just giving it straight away to charity X, Y, or Z, because even though the Court isn't perfect, it's the combined effect of all that money raised and coming from a group of people who don't give to charity otherwise *at all* that *is* the foundation of "gay community".

It's homophile organizing at its best -- on *our* terms, on *our* turf, and no one I know turns down checks from the United Court of the Sandias on account of their not liking drag queens or because they work inside a bar or any other reason any critic might cook up. And if you want to understand that particular historic concept, from the inside out, and from the bottom up, what better place to get a feel for it than Foxes, with its memory four generations deep in a community made up of people too well known for forgetting who we slept with the night before last?

I'm gonna miss Foxes tremendously.

Foxes withdrawal.

Two nights left and I'm already going through Foxes withdrawal.

Jay is working out great. He's eager and on top of things. He just got his server's permit today and he scored 98 out of 100 on the test. He said I had already gone over most of it with him, reading the liquor code out loud and whatnot.

I guess I thought I'd be all emotionally involved right up 'til the end; winds up, though, I'm leaving the place in capable hands, so there's not much to do but be there to answer questions and point out some of the finer points of being doorman. He had precisely one question for me tonight, one of those tough judgment calls over whether to let a person we've denied entry just drive away or call him a cab. I told him by all means offer, but we can't make him take it, and all we can do in that case is record his license plate in our book and note that we neither admitted nor served him. We asked one person to leave. It's working out quite well as far as training goes. He's ready to be on his own.

Of course tomorrow is Friday, and then it's Saturday, and we've got shows both nights, plus pool on Friday. I'm already feeling a little superfluous most of the time, but I'm glad I still have those two nights left to train him on the busy nights, 'cause it's a whole different ball of wax when it's busy.

Time to get busy.

Just installed two Firefox extensions, both from Google -- the first is a toolbar which incorporates the search engine, page ranking, and a bunch of other stuff I've hardly even touched as of yet, right up into the toolbars. My favourite part of it so far is the translator, which automatically shows translations in Traditional Chinese of any word I hover over with my mouse in webpages. Doesn't have to be Chinese, of course, but that's what I feel like looking at right now, and so be it. It's got "the novelty will wear off" written all over it, but for now I'm having scads of fun looking at the ideographs for all the nasty language that I use:


The other is Blogger Web Comments, which shows excerpts of what people blogging have said when they've linked to external webpages while you happen to be on the page they link to, and it fits really nice and compactly way down in an out of the way corner. No idea how useful that may be since I don't make a habit of reading other people's blogs, with a couple of exceptions.

Gadgets! For free! Only time will tell if they become invaluable tools to me or just boondoggles that I uninstall a few weeks later 'cause they lag me. Nice to have 'em I suppose.

Today was an OK day. Missed acupuncture. Duh. Went to my meeting. Made a "meeting in progress" sign when I got home that we can put on the door to discourage church people from wandering in like there's nobody there -- it's a lot less anonymous, you see, if there are random people just coming and going for no good reason. Did it as much to play with photoshop and the printer as to actually serve any useful purpose. But we do need a sign.


Then to Harold's 24-hour laundromat where I did the laundry I've been driving all around town this last month! That took about two hours, and it was gruelling, I tell you.

Then home where I folded it and hung it up and put it all away. I've still got more to do but it's *really* nice to have clean clothes without running out first.

No I didn't go home twice, I wrote all out of order. I'm having a Tarantino moment.

Cleaned the catbox. Again -- amazing how bad it really isn't when you do it every few days.

Cleaned the ionizing air filter's collector blades.

Puttered around online. Searched all over for an eight colour rainbow flag. You know -- the original design. Found lots of GIFS (used one as the background in the above sign) but wanted -- still want -- an actual eight colour flag -- preferably not printed, but sewn out of eight strips of coloured flag fabric. The one in Harvey Milk park is probably a little too big for my purposes -- not that I'd turn it down if someone had an extra they just needed stored. I'd give my right arm for a Gilbert Baker original. I can't find one *anywhere*. Tried to post it as an item wanted on eBay but the bastards said I had to give 'em a credit card number before I could do that, so screw them. Did discover wikipedia, which is a good thing.

Being all into that frame of mind I searched for Harry Hay, which turned up some interesting links, including at least one that I'm sure gets me on some sort of FBI watch list for just having clicked on the link without even knowing where it led. It was a numeric IP address, you see. If I were the organization hosting the site, I'd use a numeric IP too! Let's just say it involves a certain very thorny controversy over one of the oldest heterosexist stereotypes in the book and leave it there. What the hell -- since I'm linking externally tonight, here's the site, which constitutes neither an endorsement nor a condemnation, just in case you want to get on some watch lists yourself. I may look at it later since it seems to have transcripts. Let's just say that his HUAC testimony was perhaps this amazing character's least controversial chapter. I also got lots of good solid information about the Zuni Mountain Sanctuary which I've wanted to poke my head into for a while now and now actually may some day before I get too old.

If you can't tell, there's stuff I've been avoiding. Having a pretty good day online may not beat a good day in the outside world but it sure beats the "I feel I should be searching for something but can't remember what" feeling I get sometimes in chat rooms. Enough for now. I can't procrastinate any more tonight. Sun rises in a couple of hours, so it's almost bedtime. Saw the most amazing little tiny longhaired feral cat out front -- solid black, never seen him before. Enough for now. I'm going in circles getting nothing done. But only three more nights I have to live like this. Sunday I get off to adjust, then Monday I'm on day schedule. It's gonna be an interesting flip.

It's definitely working.

The new doorman, Jay, seems to be right on top of things. Doing everything right. Not the same exact way I'd do everything but that's fine -- he's got a different style, which Michael sums up nicely as "replacing the bitch with an asshole". I'm finding myself able to step back and just watch him. Not like a hawk, either -- he's very capable. It's interesting -- he talks to people very comfortably like I never could. I was a fly on the wall. He's a part of the bar in a whole different way. He belongs there. I don't.

So I'm finally disengaging from Foxes. Three more days.

The ghosts of Foxes haunt me.

Since I've now got a Photographic Supplement I'm going through my pictures digging out those worth putting in there.

Still -- I don't have a shot of Martinique! I've got some great ones, but they're not there. I mean, they're in the iPhoto album, but when I go to drag it to the desktop, it won't let me. Then I search for the picture by filename and it's GONE.

While I think it may be something as mundane as my not knowing how iPhoto worked in the first days after I got my camera, or having misplaced files, I certainly wouldn't have deleted my best shots, so I prefer to stick with the idea that the ghosts of Foxes for whatever reason don't want me disseminating pictures of Martinique.

She's the greatest.

You'll have to take my word on that.

I think it's gonna work.

Trained the new doorman tonight. His name is Jay. I think he's gonna work out fine. He was eager to do things, even when I told him "just follow me around while I do this and that" and seemed to follow everything I said until I kinda got lost myself in the Liquor Code (specifically the part about Inter Local Option Transfers). He was checking IDs already, including those of three transsexuals who walked into the bar all at once, providing the perfect opportunity to address that one particular challenge. And he got on quite well with Chip and Alex and Rod, so I think he will do just fine. Chip seemed in a good mood when the evening was over.

Immigrants' rights take Central.

Woke up this morning at 3 PM to the sound of hundreds of honking horns on Central. Knew what it must be before I even looked out the window. Dressed and went out to the street and look what my neighbours from two doors down are doing.


I go back in to change my shirt to the pristine white one since that's the colour of the day. Follow the demonstrators in their cars and they've swamped downtown Albuquerque completely.

Wonderful day. I love it -- *this* is critical mass -- when I'm all disengaged and the protests literally wind up on my doorstep and practicaly pull me out of my home to walk Eastbound on Central, and then all around downtown, and then back.

Printed up the pictures and gave copies to my neighbours. The Navaho lady next door says "the Mexicans are coming" and that she "doesn't like Mexicans". I do what I can to explain it's about policy, that we're not being "invaded". But man oh man. I love it. *This* is grassroots, community organising. More later. The minutes aren't free at the moment and I'm costing myself a fortune.

Firefox is driving me crazy.

Clear sign I've been too much online tonight.

Somehow I have managed to screw up all my password settings and make the bookmarks toolbar in firefox effectively disappear, which sucks, 'cause that is how I get around. I don't mean that I hid it under "View", I mean that all the bookmarks there are gone in the toolbar itself while still showing up in the bookmarks manager. I don't know how I did this. Maybe the computer's got a bug, I didn't have any of these problems before I got a "Firefox prevented this site from opening a popup" message which have never seriously screwed me up before. All I know is that I'm remembering "coming to" one day back in LA with every single folder on my computer renamed after mythic and historical figures, so that for whatever reason suddenly "drafts" in "emails" in "documents" was "xerxes" in "hermes" in "apollo" and so on, meaning I had to spend a week reconstructing it from the document level up. I guess if that's all that I messed up this time I'm lucky 'cause I'll just have to learn a different way to get around but it's driving me nuts.

OH OH OH.

Nevermind.

I just figured it out.

That was a dumb way to kill three and a half hours if ever there was one.

Announcing the R.M.C. Supplement.

I got tired when I had to search for something in the blog to load the archive pages and wait and wait and wait as multiple pictures downloaded. So unless they pertain directly to a specific night's post, photographs are now going to be posted in the R.M.C. Supplement, which I'm sure will be a monster to load unless you've got a fast connection, which I don't.

These aren't art photographs. They're basically snapshots -- the infamous ten thosand pictures of the authors' cats, &c., &c.. You're not going to get stunning plays of light and shadows and brilliant composition, you're going to get a notion what Foxes looks like on the inside as of a certain date or be able to tell Chip from Alex or Victoria from Martinique. That is all.

Finally this crazy weekend's over.

David, as I told you, came to visit. That was wonderful, but difficult. He came in at eight AM on Friday, meaning by the time I got off work on Friday morning I was better off staying up to pick him up than going to bed.

His show was on Friday, and the weekly Alibi did a wonderful full-page preview of it, so it was crazy busy. Lynne Johnson and David Nakabayashi were also in the show; I know both Davids from drumming and Lynne through David. Met David N's girlfreind and we had a wonderful conversation over cigarettes about El Paso and revolution and stuff. Since David (not David N., but "my" David) was doing drawings and I couldn't take him away even though he was staying with me we arranged that he'd swing by Foxes when he got done with the show, from where I'd take him home.

What I didn't know was that there was another opening all the people from that show went to after that show let out at nine. So ten o' clock rolls around -- then eleven, then midnight, and still no David. I can't focus on working because I'm sitting there picturing all the horrible worst case scenarios you can imagine -- him walking up Central towards Foxes, him walking down Central towards home, him getting in a bad car accident with Lynne just out of sight down Central, him getting lost, him falling prey to rastafarians or crackheads.

Finally he shows up. All is well. I don't think of myself as the sort of person who worries about people but I was sick-in-the-pit-of-my-belly worried. I've seen so many people die badly or disappear and resurface, or disappear and not resurface that it isn't even funny. Glad to see him though. Introduced him around to the key people in the bar and everyone was really nice to him but by that time he was so worn out himself he just sat quietly, off to himself, most of the time.

When I come on, before David arrives, I ask Chip if it would be all right for me to introduce a freind to him when he comes in. He smiles and says "that would be lovely" in the very midly mocking gay-man way that acknowledges I'm using formality more suited to high tea than to working at Foxes by asking. The courtesy backfires (in a good way) when the guy I got the application from at Gear Werks pops in twenty minutes later for a drink. Tells me he just got fired after quitting. Weird, but that sounds about like how they do things at the Ranch. It occurs to me -- I've got Chip and Midnight and Albert all asking me if I've "found a replacement" and of course I haven't (that isn't my job), but here's a freshly unemployed bar worker looking for a job so I ask him if he'd be interested in doing this. He says he has some questions but he's interested; I introduce him to Chip, and it isn't until after we have closed that it is clear the freind I asked Chip if I could introduce was not this particular person. Regardless -- he is hired more or less on the spot. I'm training him on Monday.

Back to David -- he's 25 years my elder, and people would ask me more of less how I know him or who he was to me and I'd just show them the silver ring that he gave me. Almost everyone said "really" like it was a complete and total shock. The ring I wear, on my left ring finger, and playfully speak of alternately as a "decoy" or "repellent" does indeed mean something and is not just some meaningless trinket the likes of which some gay men adorn themselves with to no end whatsoever. I love him but his genius doesn't exactly shine through when he's sitting not talking to anyone, and what with his thinning, long graying hair and downright Confucian goatee that he plays with I can only imagine people thinking in bafflement something like "the doorman refuses the advances of hot horny young twinks for this aging hippy?". Of course it isn't nearly that simple, but that's all between us and none of your damn business. :)

Today David and I went to R.B. Winnings coffeehouse on Harvard to see his exhibition there, which was completely separate from the one he had at the Yale Art Center the night before. I take a couple of pictures of him by his drawings on display. Then we eat at Petra, the Jordanian restuarant next door, and it is utterly divine. We run off to Flying Star on Central 'cause he's heard the Santa Fe weekly tabloid (called "THE", for some incomprehensible reason) has a picture of his in it, unlike the Alibi, which mentioned him but only had pictures by others in the show. We eat a hurried dessert there and I drop him off at the aeroport.

He left his shirt here, with his glasses and two ten dollar bills in the pocket.

I'm already dressed nicely, if just a touch teperamentally -- the Nader Suit's shirt, my bullfighter's red tie and "keep coming back" tiepin, my crackhead's leather jacket with the drag queen's lost silk sash through the belt loops, so I throw the Royal Fusiliers' Museum grenadier's cap on my head to top off the incongruously dressed undeniably homsexual person covered in meaningful articles of clothing that is me and head on in to Foxes.

I get there early and sit and talk with Chip and a very nice regular customer whose name I should know but don't. He's got misgivings about the new guy and offers me a two-dollar an hour raise. I'm touched, and thank him, but I can't. But can I work on certain nights? Coronation weekend? How about if I come in just on Fridays and Saturdays? Oy vey. He's making it *really* hard. He tells me he doesn't think I really want to leave and I tell him he's right because he is. I thank him again and tell him I will have to think about it but it's pretty clear I really truly can't, even if I can't put the reason why into fewer words than this entire public journal.

I'm *sure* I will go back, from time to time. Too many big important shows, the smoke free night, and who knows what else may come up. But by "go back" I mean occasionally, and only. For a legitimate purpose. For an hour or two at a time, if for that. And if I'm already working full time or close to it during the day in a job that pays much better I can't afford to be spending my free time in bars (working or not), and wouldn't even want to past a point if I'm not drinking, and I don't want to drink, and that is that.

As far as show nights go it was dead. Gigi did a wonderful job on the set and Victoria brought down the house in the most gorgeous outfit I have ever seen a drag queen wear but by now everyone's burned out on shows, shows, shows. So there were very few performers and fewer customers, and by the third or fourth number all those who tip performers were "tipped out", and so we didn't raise much money.

Frank came by and as is his habit stood right in the doorway talking to Sean for hours. They have something in common in that they like the drag queens -- most gay men don't. Poor guy must be extremely lonely. Doesn't drink, just stands in the door and talks and honestly gets in the way. Finally it occurs to me that I can ask him very nicely to move. I do, he does, and everything's freindly. Because of the way that things work in a bar this very simple solution has never occurred to me before tonight.

Right as I'm thinking "why do we put up with this from him, if anyone else just came in and stood in the way and talked for hours we'd tell 'em it was time to go", he tells me casually in conversation dropped into this long damn story about he saw Victoria on Lead, well not on Lead, but on the street a block south of Lead, Lead's the one that runs East, right? No? Maybe it was Coal, but it was a block south of that, and he was down there visiting his freind who delivers for Dunkin' Donuts but anyway he sees Victoria on the street and says "hi" only of course Victoria wasn't Victoria then, she was Aldrin, and she said "hi" back, and Central is blocked off by dozens of cop cars right now between Alvarado and San Mateo because someone was murdered at the Village Inn.

Oh really! THANK YOU. So this is why we don't just tolerate but welcome him! He's always on the streets, gets around, and winds up being a source of valuable intelligence.

I tell Mark, the DJ, about Central being blocked and he agrees to make an announcement, only he can't do that 'til the show is over. He does, and I tell every single person coming in and going out about it 'til he does. Finally I hear it back from someone that I didn't tell, which is how I know the gossip's worked its magic and the job is done -- the story's come full circle, saturation's been accomplished, everybody knows, and what I'm hearing is the same thing that I spread.

One guy comes in pendulum walking and when I ask for ID says he was already in here before and shows me the stamp from the Ranch. I explain we don't stamp people and I'm sorry you're already drunk and I can't let you in. He doesn't fight but continues to think he was there earlier. He wasn't. He literally did not know where he was.

Then the disgusting old troll comes in. A brief aside -- I don't call people trolls -- hate the word -- just reinforces ageist tendencies in gay society -- but some people deserve it -- it has nothing to do with age (there are young trolls, believe me), but with a certain attitude, this person had it and displayed it in spades, so anyway, this disgusting old troll walks into the bar. The guy that's with him doesn't have ID, but he has his girlfreind's, which Alex got to be the one to catch 'cause I left him to check while running out the door to deal with a drunken crackhead freak who wanted to know where the nearest payphone was to call 911 even though he couldn't tell me what was wrong.

Again -- guys, if you're reading this, and at this point, I surely hope you are -- do NOT underestimate Alex! I might not have even caught that this guy had someone else's ID -- I check for dates and lamination and printing, not for pictures, usually, but Alex does! Always! All the stuff about him? Personality issues. He's a damn fine doorman in his way, which is just totally different from mine. Give him the raise you offered me and see if he doesn't overcome some of those personality traits that drive you insane.

So anyway the troll is at the bar, his freind is at the door and since Alex is standing right there I tell him hold on here and I'll go tell your freind what's up. I do. Of course troll has ordered two beers now and isn't leaving them for anything so he goes to the door, gives his ID-less freind the keys to his car, and goes back to the bar to drink. Two minutes later ID-less man is back with troll's jacket. (The troll's name is Michael, not that it matters.) Then troll gives me a go to hell look and calls Foxes a "sewer" while telling me they let his freind into the Ranch. Fine, I figure, he's an idiot who's mad because we didn't let his freind in and doesn't give a shit about my running clear across the bar multiple times to try and keep things amicable with his freind who can't legally be there at the same time I'm warning people about a crime scene encompassing multiple blocks and patrolling the parking lot for the roving crackhead who wants to call 911 which absolutely can't afford to happen from Foxes for anything that's not Foxes' problem. I tell him nicely that the Ranch doesn't care if they get shut down but we do. He repeats the sewer comment a second time, which I take personally. I walk clear across the bar and pull his drink. I pour it out. The guy is trying to pick a fight with me and if he'd done it *at* the door I wouldn't have let him in in the first place.

Chip and Albert meanwhile don't "get" that I'm *pulling* a drink and think I'm just trying to be helpful cleaning up and threw away a customer's drink by mistake. I explain it as well as I can at the time given that the place is throbbing with loud music and I'm emotionally agitated what with having a belligerent drunk at the door at the same time I'm making sure everyone knows where the cops have blocked Central. I explain it as well as I can and tell Chip I'm literally three places at once. Chip tells me very nicely "let it go for now" and has Albert replace his drink. He does. I tell Chip "I defer to your judgment but I'm going outside for a minute to get me some air", assuming that the sewer rat is someone "important" enough not to offend. Such things do happen. After close I'm finally calmed down enough to explain it to Chip and we all agree it was a simple miscommunication and if it had been clear to him that sewer rat was being belligerent and saying nasty things about Foxes he would have backed me up. I believe him. We all laugh it off.

I don't drink, and I wanted to pummel him! He had *no* business being in there. We all know that now. I halfway hope he shows up before I'm finally gone so that I can flat-out deny him entry. I doubt that will happen, though; "sweet revenge" seems not to be my lot in life, and probably it's for the best. I do think that he got the message. He's not welcome. Didn't even finish his replacement drink before leaving five minutes later. He is poison. He knows it.

This demonstrates the intensity with which I identify not with other people but with places. Person insults a freind or family member, I mediate, negotiate, and try to change their mind. Person insults a place I have identified with, I go absolutely NUTS.

Thanks here to everyone in AA who surprisingly enough have never said anything worse about Foxes than to ask, very matter-of-factly, if it "ever did get cleaned up". (I'm glad to be able to report at last that yes, indeed, it did.) If anyone in the groups had ever said anything even remotely as rude about the place where I work as the sewer rat did I have *no* doubt I'd drink over it the very same night. I love Foxes. I always will. You can take the boy out of the bar, but you can't take the bar out of the boy. Thank your for having the wisdom to know the difference.

Again, a mostly wonderful night with one really truly fucked up thing which even with damn-near perfect communication and coordination could have ended very, very, very badly. Another night spent thinking for hours how much I'm gonna hate to leave it, and a few intense moments reminding me I absolutely must.

Again, a delightful crowning moment after the fucked-upness. Three positively adorable young guys dancing lewdly and lasciviously, and getting Chip involved, and breaking a chair, and getting the eyes of *everyone* in the bar *glued* on them transfixed as it unfolded. One of those magical moments people will remember and talk about long after I am gone. And me just standing in the door watching it all and knowing that I played some little part making it happen. And I even got pictures, which *never* actually happens. My work is almost done.

One more weekend at Foxes.

Sleep Deprivation Crash Course.

I can't do this like I used to. Time was when I could run for days on end with zero sleep. Those days are over. I think I prefer it this way, honestly -- life's much more sane -- but it's sure surprising when suddenly you just expect your body to let you keep going and going and it won't, no matter how much ginseng you take, regardless how much coffee you pour down your gullet.

David just left on the aeroplane back to El Paso. He'd come up for a day. More about his visit in my next post probably. For right now though I'm just taking ten minutes to go online and check out that Sylvester song I finally got around to downloading.

Sunday should be nice and quiet by comparison. This song's getting me in the mood to work at Foxes. Hehe. I love the old disco songs. They're electric. I feel them deeply. I guess you kind of have to working in a gay bar, otherwise they'll drive you crazy. I'm gonna head out now.

Movies are not an option.

I have completely lost the ability to watch movies.

It started when I was a projectionist, and worked with film. Presentation became so important that I can no longer sit in a darkened theatre and lose myself in film -- I lose myself instead in bad projection. I know within the first 48 frames of opening the damper that the sound loop is too loose or too tight, that the intermittent sprocket's running off dead center, that the cam needs to be replaced completely, that the shutter needs to be retimed (damn stupid belt drives), and that the studio's going to be *really* unhappy if they don't shave down that aperture plate before the trailers are over, and almost always it's some combination of those plus a dozen other things that can go wrong I'll know about by *seeing* it onscreen.

Of course I've *never* seen a film projected by anybody but myself in truly sharp focus.

The only time I ever managed to pick up a refund of the ticket price was when I went to the manager and told him reels three and five were interchanged in "Jackie Brown", that clearly their projectionist did not check to see whether the heads and foots matched up, or maybe whoever had the film before had cut them off without the leading frames, but anyway, the film did not make sense. It had already been there for a week, he didn't know, no one else had complained, and he just thought it was Tarantino being Tarantino. I told him check the leaders, and he gave me my two bucks to shut me up before I made him run upstairs to prove me right.

So in theory if I watch a DVD on the computer everything is fine. But it isn't so easy. The Ren & Stimpy DVDs are garbage -- digital manipulation ruined the animation, and pretentious packaging ruined the title cards and feeling of the show. I'll watch my old VHS tapes from season one on Sunday morning Nickelodeon, thanks very much, next time I want to see the Ren & Stimpy Show correctly.

But beyond bad presentation, my taste is seriously screwed.

My taste in movies runs from the disturbing to the dreadful. I buy used DVDs that would absolutely *never* sell if I did not show up, ten bucks in hand. If I lived in the days of the Edison phonograph I would agree wholeheartedly with Edison himself that every record made had to serve the purpose of "educating" the listener, resulting in bad, heavy-handed renderings of two-minute excerpts from operas sung way too fast. At any rate: every movie I watch seems to need to have some socially redeeming purpose to it -- has to educate or carry a message of some sort -- double goes if it's fiction. So no lighthearted musicals for me, thanks. Romantic comedies? Not tonight. Period pieces? Puhlease. Science Fiction or Fantasy romps? Don't waste my precious time.

Insomniacs of the world, take note! The movies that I watch are worse than bad for your condition. Do not watch them.

Tonight it was "Sometimes in April", an HBO production which winds up being utterly superb. Production values aren't the problem. Subject matter is.

The subject matter? What else? The Rwandan genocide of 1994! Close to a million people killed in the Hutus' genocidal campaign against the Tutsi rebels in a former Belgian colony. I loved "Hotel Rwanda" and this is a very different take on the same situation. Amazing film. But do you think I'm gonna sleep tonight? OF COURSE NOT.

If I go into a video store and the package seems to have pictures of people having any sort of fun, I veer away from it! No! I will not watch movies that make people feel good! I don't want to see movie stars playing movie stars! I want to feel utterly rotten! I want to know there's hope for humanity, but only after thousands die in massacres and lie in unmarked mass graves populated by fine actors that I've never ever heard of!

This is why I don't usually watch movies! I mean, seriously, the best I've done in terms of "feel-good" cinema lately was "Kinsey" because his study was so damned important. Or maybe "Stewie's Untold Story" -- alcoholic dog and gay baby equalling comedy in my sick mind.

I guess I'm going to go to bed now. Not that I will sleep.

Screwed up.

I'm shooting myself in the foot. Right and left.

I can't work days and nights anymore. A few months ago, well, doing just that was the only thing keeping me sane. Moved heaven and earth just to get to Hartman and to Foxes right after the arrest because hell, it beat sitting in jail.

Now I've had some months just working Foxes and the ample free time's come to mean a lot to me.

Now I get a day job but I screw it up royally. I don't say "I can start in two weeks" like I should, I say "I can start now" because honestly I want to get a sense of whether it'll work for me before I give notice. Then I try it for a couple of days, like the people and the work, give notice, and suddenly start missing shifts at the day job because my body wants to sleep. Two days in a row now I've slept through my alarms. All my energy's been focused on leaving the job that I have and getting started on the new one's simply fallen through the cracks.

No idea what happens next but I've given my notice at Foxes and I'm not taking it back. It's out of my hands; I'll follow up with the day job but after missing two shifts doing so honestly scares the hell outta me. I guess now I'll follow up with the hospital too and see what else is out there besides and just hope for the best.

Part of me wonders whether I just don't want to leave Foxes. All my life I've attached myself very strongly to physical places rather than to other people. My mother's latest theory is that it's a manifestation of Asperger's Syndrome. Maybe it is; I honestly don't know. What I do know is that I become emotionally involved with the physical spaces in which I work. The Cinedome in Seattle. The Paramount-Publix Plaza in El Paso. Starbucks No. 573 in Studio City. Frontier Restaurant, right here. I love buildings with rooms inside of rooms, with attics and closets and basements, places where the history seeps out from underneath the fifteenth coat of paint. I feel like I become a part of where I work and leaving such a place is like reliving the pains involved leaving the womb. Changing jobs is always an identity crisis for me, because I *become* my whole job.

I missed the meeting of STOMP today too. That's the LGBT-specific smoking cessation group affiliated with the State Department of Health and what have you. Went to a couple of their meetings and have been arranging a smoke-free night event at Foxes, sort of running inbetween the bar and activist crowds. Still think it's gonna happen, even though I'm leaving, 'cause I'm leaving on good terms, and that smoke-free night is important to me. But it kills me that I miss the meeting for the stupidest of reasons -- 'cause I sleep through the alarm.

I'm not even staying up that late. I simply have no energy to get up out of bed. Is it the time change? Again, my mother says I've always had troubles around it. Is it the kittens screaming? Who knows. All I know to do is take my Ginseng, try not to isolate, and hope that somehow everything works out.

Yikes! It worked.

Sort of.

Invited people to comment and got a new comment within five minutes of posting. Thanks, Madie -- my god you've got a lot of blogs! Poor me, I've only got one big unmanageable monster. Hi right back at you also from Albuquerque.

Unfortunately since I inadvertently double-posted "Carnival of Freaks", one without the final paragraphs, and since the comment somehow wound up getting published to that post instead of to the finished one I'm stuck with either deleting the comment along with the unfinished post or leaving the finished and unfinished posts posted. Buh.

So please pardon the total lack of professionalism. Heck, it's an Albuquerque job. What'd you expect? :)

Carnival of Freaks.

Such was the title of tonight's show, hosted by Faye King, a.k.a. Kilroy ("the gothfather"), formerly known as Luvinya. Of the three candidates running for empress it would be fair to say Kilroy is the one with whom I have the most pronounced differences. But he puts so much energy into his performances, and always keeps them fresh given so limited a palette, and brings so many people in to Foxes, that I must admit he would bring something to the court if he did win.

As for Anastasia, I think she's got the strongest platform.

As for Gigi, I think she's got more experience in drag than anyone else running.

Any of the candidates would bring a lot that's good to the post. Any of them could still have a disastrous reign, for very different reasons. I'm still not saying who I'm voting for. And if you're reading this and running, honey, trust me -- you *don't* want my vote unless you want to visit Nadersville and fast. I've never, ever picked a winner.

I have to wonder how much people burn out doing shows during campaign season. Each candidate hosts three shows, and it's almost unheard-of for opposing candidates not to perform in eachothers' shows -- I take it as a gesture of goodwill and unity of purpose. Goodness knows other bars have been burned to the ground because the "wrong" person won a coveted tiara, sash, and title; so the cross-performing of the cross-dressers seems to keep everything all nice and clean. Sort of. But it can not be easy getting up in drag two times each weekend for three months and then still having to do it once a week for the rest of the year. And during campaign season especially, everyone who runs has to be charming regardless how tired they are.

Miss Kitty came back tonight. He's been in precisely four times since I started and always makes a stir. Old-school flamboyant undeniably homosexual person. I find him an amazing character, a sort of archetype not seen at all in younger generations. Imagine Quentin Crisp. Something like that.

Of course he's always flighty and never belligerent but still he's in people's faces and they are drunk enough to pummel him into a bloody pulp. Spent a good portion of the night just telling him nicely "you can't be there" and "please don't do that". Flirted back with him part for his own protection, part because I'd love to hear his stories.

Two meetings tomorrow that I really ought to go to. One's around ten or eleven AM. The other's at three. I really truly don't want to. It's been a long damn week and I have not had one day in more than a week when I didn't have to have people in my face all the time. I hate to say it but honestly think it's going to come right down to whether I'm asleep or not. The time change has me all screwed up already.

Cat B is being weird. She's taking kittens out of the box one by one and dropping them on the floor at my feet, first in the kitchen as I'm cooking and now as I type. They start to scream and crawl around and she talks at me as if to say "YOU handle him now". Uhm. OK. Maybe that's how they learn to walk. I honestly don't know. She's done it with two kittens tonight, both the most independent and dominant of the bunch. Maybe she's just tired of nursing them since they always wind up on top of the pile. At work or at home, I've been nursing the kitties all night.

Oh, by the way! Anyone confused by the post "Hm" a few down should know it replaced a post where I inadvertently said something about my google ad sense account that I shouldn't have. Whoops! But since I deleted it as soon as I realised it hopefully they won't pull 'em. But the essence of that post is now missing. So here it is.

I'm getting tons of traffic! I suspect a lot of people just search for this or that, read a single post, and leave. But 72 page views in a single night? Several nights a week in the 40 to 50 range? 926 for March, up from 401 for February, with it looking like I'm gonna break the thousand-hits-per-month mark in April?

Who are you people? I know some of it's probably robots. I know some of it's people I already know read. I know some of it's me reloading when I post something new. But the rest of you -- are you right-wing gun nuts trying to learn how your enemy thinks? Aliens? Mutants? I honestly don't understand who all is reading this. I'd love to.

Feedback's one of the best things about having a "blog". You don't have to agree with me to comment. I don't bite and love it when somebody sees something differently that I do; I don't have to change my mind to understand where you're coming from on any given issue and am enriched when you do. I do reject comment spam, and once rejected a flame against a previous commenter, but if you're out there and real it can't hurt to say "hi".

So consider this a shameless, open invitation -- if you're reading, and you haven't commented, please pop in, show your face, and introduce yourself. You don't need to have a blogger account to do it and can even stay anonymous to everyone (including me) if you prefer. Suggestions? Make 'em. Seems I've got an audience. May as well know what you're looking to get here as not.

The doorman speaks.

Bless 'em all there's zero drama about my leaving. Everyone who knows says they're sorry to see me go but there's none of the "traitor!" finger-pointing to make my last days miserable I was sort of half expecting. Midnight and Chip and Mark even effectively said I'd be a fool not to take the day job. Many supposedly "better" places I have worked, this hasn't been the case! Because you guys aren't deliberately making life hard, I can stay focused on making my last two weeks my best.

So for the first time ever, I now address myself directly to all of you inside the bar. Yes, the doorman *does* speak, but through his writing more than through his rarely spoken words. I know it's inefficient, but it is my own way. I do not care to shout above the music if I can ever avoid it. It's time to shift this thing from voyeuristic peeks inside the door for those who'd never dare set foot beyond the vestibule to flat-out here you are, and here am I, and welcome to my world and this is how I see it, disagree as you see fit.

The funny thing tonight was when two beautiful pit bulls came into the bar since the doors were wide open. A hilarious minute ensued with Alex and myself chasing the dogs around the crowd and me picking up the bigger black and white one from under the pool table to take him out. I think Alex was afraid to touch him. I hope you guys enjoyed the visuals.

Martinique paid me yet another rare but therefore meaningful compliment after Alex and I asked somebody to leave and got him out without a scene through planning and communication. I appreciate your kind words more than you will *ever* know, but honestly wish they came without coming at Alex's expense. He's still a damn good doorman, even if he does slack off a bit on certain things (he makes up for it in other ways) and gets fed up what with me being around him all the time.

Since word's now spreading about this little journal of mine amongst those *in* the bar, I wish to offer up an apology before they stumble across it to anyone who I may have offended by anything I've ever written here -- but most specifically right now to Kristen, Jay, and Kilroy. In typical Foxes style it's kind of "backhanded compliment" stuff but no less sincere because of that.

It's not my intent to make any of you look ridiculous -- I know it takes a lot to perform like you do -- on stage or not. However imperfect the Court may be by the standards of nonprofit organizations geared towards raising funds from and serving the needs of independently wealthy elderly matrons from upstanding families, it's *still* the only such organization that *reaches* the crowds at Foxes *at all* and you all play invaluable parts in it. So what -- you drink too much and get stoopid and drive me nuts sometimes; you're still all cornerstones in gay society.

As for you, Michael, read back a bit and you'll see a progression. (The same can be said in a general way of anyone else about whom I've ever written a less-than-kind word, aside from maybe Crazy Tony and Alfredo and the other various and sundry criminals we've gotten rid of.) First everybody loves you, then you're a goddamn self-important pain in the ass who won't leave Martinique alone because you can't tell that she's giving off the electricity that says "keep your distance". Mister President, indeed. Guess what -- the more you drink, the more of a pain in the ass you become. It's that simple. I'm not saying you or anyone else has a problem with it, 'cause it's just not my place to say that about anybody, ever, unless I've seen the autopsy report showing that your brain retains THIQ or whatever. But I do say what I see. We still love ya. Just don't go asking us to kiss your ring after your fifth blue hawaiian and we'll treat you royally, believe me.

It's just, well, getting sober in a bar is not the funnest thing on earth to do! I see things that I did when I was drinking reflected in your various behaviours now. The little things you do for fun when you come in each night start to strike me less as cleverness and more like ploys to get attention; and frankly, I find myself wanting no part of it. Suffice to say: part of me thinks I ought to go back and edit out some things I've said, or change some names, but no. I don't do that! The idea here is not to show a fully-formed idea to the world, but a work in progress.

I change and my perceptions change with me. That's the idea of this kind of writing. Change is precisely what makes a public journal dangerous, but change is its own honesty, and honesty is powerful. In those moment where something changes, where opposites arise from eachother, lie truths that can't be distilled any further, which can only be a little understood by how they manifest externally.

Yes, I've had way too much caffein tonight, but you know what I'm getting at. Before I get into discussing hexagrams (maybe someday, but not tonight!) I'm going to sign off.

Be well!

Norton