Watching New Years celebrations around the world tonight. Just enjoyed watching a performance of U2 playing Beautiful Day. Really great film of the performance. It had a real sweetness to it.

Surfing around online trying to decide whether to just give in and brave the cold (bone-chilling tonight) and find some friends to hang around with. Doing all of my holiday socializing remotely tonight, so far at least.

It's the afternoon New Year's Eve and I already feel bored. The office closed early and I have no plans for how to spend what remains of the day. Snow is in the forecast for Wednesday. My feet are cold. Maybe I'll go shopping and try to find footpads (they really do make things warmer) and something spicey to bake or brew tonight. It will be great if I can find a copy of "Video Fireplace" too.

Which David Lynch character are you most like?

One cultural quirk of anyone who grew up in Smyrna, Georgia is that you can't experience anything without placing some negative criticism on it. This is true of every thing - every meal from every restaurant, every film seen, every article of clothing, the service you get at the drycleaners or from waiters or cashiers. And it's beyond personal. It is truly a characteristic of that entire section of Cobb County. I used to think it was just something severely screwed up about my family but I've since met other people from Smyrna who act precisely the same way. The funny thing is, nowhere else does this mental phenomenon happen as commonly - everyone I know is appalled when they first meet someone from Smyrna and it finally dawns upon them that that someone is not just having a bad day. Not every day can be a bad day. When you're from Smyrna, you get so used to the attitude that it becomes invisible to you. I've been living in the city long enough to recognize it in people now and I've gotten pretty good a pegging people I meet from there, but they don't offend me like they do others. Are Smyrna people thick-skinned or just prudish and bitchy? If I was better with the English language, this could become a good comedic monologue. I am not that clever, however. So, discuss amongst yourselves.
Of course what all this points out to me is the troubling question: Am I that irritating to be around? Am I insensitive to others? How do I rise above my own cultural upbringing?

Christmas was not as bad as it could have been. I am not the only one in my family trying to avoid everyone else, thank heavens. This way I don't look so awful while I'm still recieving my traditional holiday dose of guilt.

Looking sooooo forward to the big chick night dinner on Saturday. It's always great and stimulating when everyone gets together. I expect this to be the same.

Went to Jae & Bill's holiday open house today. I brought my friend David with me at their request, having already met him at Shakespeare Tavern. Randy is in town from Los Angeles for the holidays and it was great for everyone to see him again.
Despite my concerns that David might become bored or uncomfortable in a room of strangers, he was fine. There were a lot of people with very young children there and he pulled out his bag of balloons and started to make balloon animals. Kim left for her sister's house with a pink poodle from David.
We had a great time, the best part of the day being the very lively socio-political conversation after most of the other guests left, with Jae, Bill, Sandy, Charlie and Randy. We ended up staying quite a while later than anticipated because the conversation was so enjoyable.

Sometimes I still want to phone e.k. and find out what actually happened on Thanksgiving day, but then I always imagine getting a lot of silent head-nodding on the other end of the phone. When we first got to know each other, he had no problem carrying on a conversation. Was this bait-and-switch?

Got a haircut today with Robert Marcinko, who has a ton of Christmas cookies given to him by very thoughtful clients.
Afterwards, went to bingo night at the Gravity Pub in East Atlanta. Lots of ball jokes coming out of Chaz. His favorite ball was B9, as in "the tumor is B9."

It was a monday at work today. That off-time kinda feeling as if nothing was functioning at full capacity in the company.
Tomorrow will be much better.

Had dinner with my pal David last night at Doc Chey's (peace, love and noodles). Chilly night (one of the few this year) and despite the cold we had gelato after dinner. Lots of good conversation. He's gleefully busy now with his life and energized by it. A good counter balance to my lack of energy that evening. If I was a dolphin, I'd be riding the wake of his boat.

Got a call from Gretch to confirm the number of folks to make reservations for the Big Chik Nite Gathering at Satsuki. I told her to count my in for two. And so the die is cast for a fun evening to look forward to between Christmas and New Year.

Christmas has me filled with anxiety now because I still haven't got concrete plans on how to spend the holiday and I do not want to be guilted into being stuck alone with my parents for the day (yes, I know - very bad use of the English language, turning a noun into a verb). I am starting to become resentful of my brother's ready escape device of being married with other responsibilities. It would be so nice just to kick back at home with some Chinese food and good books or videos.

Did I do laundry tonight? Noooooooo. Instead I filled my early evening having burittos with Sandy while Charlie worked on their latest home-spun project. Then I filled the next few hours covering myself with dogs and cats first at Nick & Audrey's house (four new kittens, three dogs) and later at casa de Lounge (three dogs, two cats). Followed it all up with a shower and benadryl. :)

Laundry is always a good activity for the morning hours anyway. Start the first load, then have that first cup of coffee. Throw the first load in the dryer and start the second load, then run a few errands close to home. Once the washing & drying is finished and the folding & ironing begins, it's late enough in the day to turn on the stereo without fear of waking neighbors.

If I were a work of art, I would be Piet Mondrian's Composition A. I am rigidly organised and regimented, although my cold and unapproachable exterior hides a clever way of thinking and a rebellious and innovative nature. A lot of people don't understand me, but I can still affect them on an emotional level. Which work of art would you be? The Art Test

I need more clothes and towels.

Was going to do laundry tonight but it's much too cold and wet outside to slosh around carrying bundles of clothes to and from the laundromat. Decided to make do on the last-choice socks and undergarments and just stay cozy at home with some hot tea and a warm monitor.

I am 60% British, just like
Sir Elton John
Roots in the UK, the rest of your hair is in the US.


Take the Brit Quiz at
www.darrenlondon.tripod.com/britquiz1.htm
Quiz written by Daz

I am finished with all my holiday shopping except for my parents.
I'm completely stumped, as usual, on what to do for them. This will probably resolve itself about 8PM on Christmas Eve. That might actually produce the most creative result to the challenge.

Was in Criminal Records today and overheard the new Dictators CD. Very good "come back" album. I may have to buy that for myself after the holidays, along with the new No Doubt CD and, hopefully, the new Elvis Costello CD. I was in that store picking up the last issue of Bust Magazine since it seems (sadly) they're kaput. Also ended up picking up a couple of TMCM comix while there.

My right ear itches today. Alot. Weird, huh? Really annoying.

Got two more Christmas gifts wrapped today. That leaves just one more child's gift to finish shopping for and I'll be totally finished shopping for my generation and the one below it. Still have to decide on Mom & Dad's gift as well as sending my Grandmothers' gifts out.

Sitting watching TV last night eating dinner and had a weird fluttering sensation in my chest. Nothing uncomfortable or painful in any way - just like a wild spasm. Sat and wondered if I should be concerned or, if there was any point in being concerned since it was over in a few minutes and I don't think there's anything I can do about it. NOT a normal thing to happen.

Few minutes later my friend David showed up at my front door on his way to an art opening to see if I'd like to come with him. It was a very nice surprise for him to come by like that. I also thought it was a good idea to be with a companion should I collapse in a mysterious seizure or heart failure. Of course, I felt fine the rest of the night but my inner-Woody Allen had a healthy amount of concern.

Going to the show was fun. It was at a commercial gallery complex in Buckhead. Wide range of work from painters to sculptors to glass blowers to photographers. Too bad I'd eaten already because the catering looked good. There was an animal welfare organization benefit attached to the even somehow. One of the animals up for adoption was a beautiful chocolate-brown chihuahua with a gimpy hind leg. She was a retired breeder, I think.

Witty sayings:

In Hell the animatronic Santas dance to the Big Mouth Billie Basses.
> So true! Which means Wal-mart is a living hell.

We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.
-- Talmudic Saying

Got up this morning ready to have leftover duck panang for breakfast. Once I started to dig into it, I saw that the restaurant had given me Sandy's leftover salmon. I sent an email to let her know before she opened her lunch today. The rest of our correspondence went this way.
"So how was the salmon?"
Pretty good, actually.
"As was the duck!"

Tonight I had a really pleasant burrito dinner and conversation with my friend Kevin, followed by more coversation at a nearby coffee shop when the restaurant closed, followed by more conversation and window-shopping when the coffee shop closed.

Awake later than I should be.
Finished with laundry.
Looking forward to eating out with girlfriends.
Making drawings for pinatas.

Sometimes I wonder if something is terribly wrong with me and no one has the heart to tell me.

I am reminded of the ex of a friend of mine who has a look-a-like cousin who is indeed very learning-disabled. She always used to worry that she herself was retarded and that her family were just pretending she was normal when they were around her to spare her feelings.

The idea is that the person who no one comes clean to will spend their entire life wondering why things work out the way they do rather than being liberated by the undeniable, completely objective truth.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving (also known as Turkey Eating Day). E.K. is coming over tonight and we're going to avoid our respective families together for the next 24 hours. Going to The Belfry - once-a-week goth club - tonight at Nomenclature.
Tomorrow we'll be catching a matinee of Amelie at the Garden Hills Cinema. That's the plan, anyway. I also know that the Star Community Bar will be open Thursday, Thanksgiving night, so I may go there to see if Chaz Lounge or any other characters I call friends are there.

Not too much exciting at the moment - I'm doing laundry at home. Hoping I don't have too much insomnia tonight.

Question of the day for myself is "Am I just a malcontent or should I expect more out of my life and what I'm getting out of it?" Is it okay not to be satisfied where I am or do I think too highly of myself and what I can go after. Rock the boat or not?

Everything I remember dreaming last night had a similar theme - I dreamt of the older generation of women in my life and all of them were losing or had lost their minds.

Yesterday was a good day for movies. I saw Monsters, Inc. at an afternoon matinee and then saw Waking Life later that night. Both very good films in very different ways. Both animation. Also found Death and Dream candle/tea glass votives at Oxford Too.
Today, I finally found the new scrapbooks I'd been looking for in the same store I'd looked before and couldn't find any last month.
BTW: Binders Art Supply is having a frame sale.

I got the rest of my photos from the last two weekends from the lab today. Looking forward to sharing them with everyone involved. Wish I'd taken more at Paul and Sheryl's party, which was very well planned out to a Cold War theme. Now I just need to find some suitable albums for these Kodak moments. Just flat black paged scrapbooks with acid-free paper in large pages. It doesn't seem like it should be as hard to find books like that but I haven't seen any like that when I've looked recently. Binders and Wolf don't seem to carry them any more.

My best friend Chaz had somehow completely killed my motivation for writing in this weblog by declaring it uninteresting. Looking at other weblogs, mine may not be the best on the net by a long shot, but I hope it may still be of some interest to friends and family, at least, who might use it as a passive way to keep in touch and up to date with how my life is going.

I'll work of entertainment and enlightened content later. I don't really do commentary like that.

Saturday before Halloween I got to participate in the Little Five Points Halloween Parade with some friends who formed the group "The Grateful Gluttons". Later that night, I went with some of the "Gluttons" to the Woodlogic Halloween party - the best masquerade party in my opinion.
Sunday, I went to the Spooky Horror Puppet Show with my friend J. Great fun - a really saucy adult-only show, complete with a spooky tunnel to walk through and, as J. put it, "be groped by ghouls".
Wednesday - Halloween night itself was uneventful. I did laundry and, living in a city apartment, there are never any trick-or-treaters to entertain here.

Saturday E.K. and I finally got together after three weeks of different complications (work, weddings, car trouble) that kept us from our usual weekend date. Went out to dinner in Morningside. While we were out he took me to Eclectic Electric Gallery where I was asked to pick out my birthday gift (two weeks early). After much indecisiveness on my part, we decided together on a very attractive, kinda zen-garden-ish lamp with loose gray pebbles in a steel base and a gentle white silk drape of a shade. A good cross between the two of us. I am thrilled with it. And a much better light to read by than what was already in that room.

Sunday I had every intention of making it to The Mall to buy some necessary items like jeans, office clothes, etc. Ended up taking a nap instead, as drowsiness struck me down just after a run through Little Five Points. Rather than needs, I ended up purchasing some very delightful toys, like "SPOOKY -the thing what squeeks" Took it home and showed it off later that night to my next door neighbor.
Had my new toy, my beautiful new lamp, and a cool purple transparent extension cord. My kitchen was lit only by the soft red glow of chili lights strung across the wall. Home felt pretty cool for the first time in a while to me. Had a kinda holiday-like magic to it.

It's Monday night. I am sleepy and I have been a bad Blogger. I am putting this in to try to catch up and get back on track with daily rituals. Today was one of those exceptionally long work days where nothing was really accomplished. Spent most of the day training a new employee. Tomorrow will probably be more of the same.

And lastly - Congratulations to Pam, one of the Women, who shared the news of her and Seth's engagement with everyone today! EDW (estimated date of wedding) sometime in October of next year.

Spent most of the weekend attending different weddings of family and friends.

Ended Sunday by visiting two friends and their baby, an evening filled with a lot of conversation catching up on the last two weeks and Mexican food together at a restaurant near their home.

The first breath of Autumn cool blows in this morning with thunder storms. The lightning even invaded my dreams.

Last night I dreamed of being romanced by beautiful men while on a trip accompanying my mother and her friends. To compare the dream to a TV sitcom, imagine Greg (myself) being pursued by Dharma (fun, creative men) while traveling with Kitty and her set.

This has been a very quiet week. The main circle of friends has been silent and the I am in touch with a lot of people the past two weeks who I had not heard from for quite a while. The distant get closer and the close are busy with other things.

It's been a long weekend. I worked Saturday and today trying to move a large project along that should be finished and delivered by Monday.
My head hurts. I took one ExedrinPM and might take another one before bed.

On the terrorist attacks today:
What can I say? For some odd reason I am not a bit surprised.
I am outraged, but not shocked. With all of the extra government spending of the Bush administration on military, it is almost as though the government was preparing for war.
I certainly hope we don't jump the gun on placing blame before we know absolutely who is responsible. I hope we pick up, rebuild and continue on without giving any group the satisfaction of hindering or inhibiting this country's life and prosperity and celebrated individual freedoms.
Deja vu - This seems so much, on a grander scale, like Pearl Harbor.
Meanwhile, everyone has their own theory as to who is responsible, how the country should deal with them and what would be another target or if there would be more attacks.
Friends from outside the USA send their concern and sympathy.
I watch and listen and continue.

Question of the day was "when was the last time you had a wishbone?"
It's been years since I've pulled or seen a fresh wishbone.
...and just what part of the bird does the wishbone come from anyway?

Up late puttering around my place again. Must put myself to bed with some reading material.

Thinking about Halloween costumes.

I could go with a macabre theme, but I am also drawn to the idea of portraying Chiana, a character from a scifi channel show Farscape who is totally gray from head to toe. That appeals to me because it is similar to an idea I've had for a while that was a bit of subtle performance art/ social experimentation: I have considered adopting a
completely computer putty-gray or beige wardrobe and hair color to more completely blend into an office environment. A kinda chameleon camouflage of sorts.

Insomnia

Some nights I can't even seduce myself.

Spent most of Saturday and this morning in Brooks, Georgia with E.K.'s family.
I was invited to lunch on Saturday and what would be a small family gathering that would include both of his brothers and his sister. That was my first opportunity to meet the rest of his immediate family.

Finally found a new watch today - a little Timex Indiglo with a built-in alarm and timer/stopwatch. Very useful.

Made an impulse buy of the "Emily the strange" book. Cute. Like the varnish-plate extras in the printing.

Went to eat with E.K. at Zocolo. Finally made it out to this restaurant in walking distance from my home... after it's been open how long? Actually, this was the first night I didn't see a line wrapping around the building of people waiting for seating.
Good meal. A bit more authentic Mexican cuisine - not as salty and spice as what you think of with Mexican food here in Atlanta. Had mole chicken entree, followed with 3-milk cake for desert.

I had a lot of difficulty waking up this morning, even though I shut down early last night. Don't think I was completely conscious til after lunch.

Today was the last of my Japanese classes.
I may take it again some day. The instructor was quite good.

Tomorrow is Thai food with the women. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!
It's been a while since the girls have all gotten together.

So last night I dreamed I was in the darkroom printing again. The prints were underwater photos if people not totally unlike the Howard Schatz stuff... but all of these photos were black and white fine prints and the people photographed were elderly, thin and white-haired in Greco-Roman drapes. The white on white of the old people and the still white concrete of the pools they were photographed in was stunningly ethereal to me.

My Hello Kitty blowdryer works great.
They make a Hello Kitty coffee maker too, but I've promised myself that my next coffeemaker will have a timer on it so I can wake up to fresh coffee every morning.

Watching the Gilmore Girls and wondering whose song is in the opening credits of the show. There's not a lot on TV at 8pm on Tuesday night.

I got my new Hello Kitty hair dryer today. I haven't used it yet, but it's a quite cheerful pink color and has six speeds.

Tonight I'm going to my Japanese language class in the Evening at Emory program.
Next week will be the last class. Although I've learned a lot, I've been a completely slack student. Looking forward to the NEXT time I take this class.

E.K. and I had a lovely brunch at Babette's Cafe with Jae, Bill & Jake Harrison. Was afraid it would be as oppressively hot as it was yesterday, but the weather stayed my comfort range and no one seemed to be wilting.

Everyone else is doing it, so I'm going to try my hand at keeping a web log and seeing how I like it. Maybe this will also serve as a good memory and relaxation tool as I review my days and occassionally offer an impression or opinion on the events of the day. Maybe I'll also have the most boring weblog in existance, but it'll be mine.