[This was my first real entry]

I’m off to Monterey this weekend. No real itinerary, so you’ll just have to read about it when I get back.

I spent every evening this week repainting my apartment, and now that the weekend is here, all I want to do is sleep. Sounds fine by me.

[Strangely, no, I never did comment about my trip to Monterey. Here’s what I DO remember from it, now over 5 years later (in other words, there was absolutely nothing to report):

I went to what I thought was a queer bar, but had turned into a totally empty sports bar. Went to what was still the queer bar, and after being cruised by some yuppie creep for a half hour I went back to the hotel and slept.

I ended up going to Santa Cruz as well. It was pretty much just as unexciting.

I walked around downtown Monterey and Santa Cruz quite a bit, and ate at a total of 3 diners. I posted pictures of them somewhere after that, but now only remember it was “Grandma’s Kitchen” in Monterey and the ‘Santa Cruz Diner’.]

I went to San Francisco over the weekend. Despite the fact that it was San Francisco, David showed me an incredible time. He took me shopping. Outside of the City.

On my way up on Saturday morning, I managed a stop in Merced at a mildly trashy diner on the south side of downtown. The waitress who served me was a used piece of middle-aged trailer trash, who was incredibly rude and kept glaring at me as if I was the source of all her problems. I only wish I would’ve had something smaller than a penny to tip her. Just goes to show that no matter how many flags you wave in front of your business, it won’t make you any better.

So I’m going to spend the rest of the week convincing myself that I must be more productive next weekend. I’m trying to work out a bit of a trip around the west half of Fresno County: eg. Coalinga, Mendota, Kerman, Firebaugh, etc. Should be some good material, and a lot of soggy cotton 

I escaped Reel Pride with a trip to the West side. I toured Easton, Caruthers, Huron and Coalinga. Tomorrow I will take on Mendota, Firebaugh and Kerman. Fun.

Very nice day. I’ve been in great spirits pretty much since I woke up, and I plan on going to bed as such as well. So if you have any bad news, please refrain from reporting it until I wake up tomorrow.

I met David and his lovely mother at a Denny’s in Stockton. The company was absolutely perfect. The restaurant was absolutely pitiful. Bad service, bad decor, substandard food… But we did enjoy a fruitful (for me) tour through a couple thrift stores in Stockton. I managed to score a few records, a bunch of old 78rpms, a new outfit, an Xmas present for my Ma, and a rare smooch in the McDonald’s boy’s room… But don’t tell anyone…

Drove back home singing to Bev and Let’s Go Bowling at the top of my lungs. Attended Paula’s birthday party for a pinch, then it was off to Fred’s for Nate Butler’s 10th annual “Mmmm Mmmm Xmas” party. I had my single dry gin martini. I sang along with the Xmas songs. I videotaped the elves doing dirty things. A fun time was had.

Now I’m ready for sleep. I’ve neglected a few things I should have done today, so I’ll be skipping the computer show at the Fairgrounds and just sticking to my chores, and maybe try to cash a rain check I left an old friend which I failed to inform him was actually written…

Why am I still up? I must get my beauty sleep so that I look my best for David when he arrives tomorrow. We’ll have a lot of “catching up” to do, so don’t expect much email from me ’til Monday…

…To Amy. It’s foggy and chilly and I’m in good health. A rare combination, and I’m in a good mood today. All in all, I think this will be an exceedingly pleasant weekend…

I’m spending entirely too much time on the 2000 Census site today, which surely isn’t helping me lighten the load of work since I took over the job of two people last week. Luckily, we should be hiring a new phone and typing person next week, which will honestly reduce my workload by about 40%. I’m amazed at how much time I waste answering phones and typing insignificant piddly shit. If that’s off my back, I can actually devote my time to stuff that matters, like making sure the company isn’t going broke.

It will also mean that I can get around to scheduling my vacation for this coming spring. My goal is to actually come through on my revolving promise to visit Andrea and Cho (among others) in Seattle, and schedule stops in Portland and Vancouver/Victoria at the same time… I have a scary feeling that I might decide on relocating to the northwest once I’ve visited it…

Anyway, David is coming today. This is such a good thing, I won’t even say how much I’m anticipating it. Maybe more Fresno updates next week.

In only a few more hours, I’ll be hosting my favorite fellow traveler for a special Valentine’s version of our usual weekend together. Complete with a Saturday evening session with Sippy & Old Guzzler.

And speaking of travelling, I thought I’d mention that I will be visiting the great Northwest with this very same person in early April, and he has inspired the idea in me that I should bring along the iBook, just in case there’s some important stuff worth cataloguing. Along those lines, if anyone has any suggestions as to cheap divy motels, diners, cheap divy restaurants or places to avoid, or even roadside attractions that I might otherwise miss, please let me know . I have this sinking suspicion that I will be falling in love with Portland when I visit it… We’ll see. I’m sure there will be more on this subject as the trip draws nearer.

Hungry and tired. As expected, the decongestants left me with precious little sleep for a second night in a row. But at least tonight I’ll have a legitimate reason (aka “sex”) for not getting to sleep early… Now to contemplate lunch…

I forgot to mention Saturday that it’s only 4 weeks (less, now) until my superfun road trip to the Great Northwest with David. It’s gonna be hecka hecka fun. I’ll be visiting my old old old old buddy Andrea, doing some down & dirty book shopping and even downer and dirtier snogging with David. Not to mention the fact that I’ll be spending a whole 8 days with said person, which will be the best part of the trip.

Damn, I miss you.

I’ve been spending way too much time here lately. At least it distracts me from the fact that I haven’t been spending enough time at all with him.

But that will be changing tomorrow. My first time in Los Banos for something other than gas, fast food or a driveby. And I’ll be there with my favorite person. Yay. Los Banos is one of those towns that’s always screamed “explore me!” And now I will.

Expect a full travelogue (as well as some older ones which I’ve neglected posting) at TheHyaena sometime next week…

A wonderful, eventful weekend with David. More firsts (I seem to have a lot of those with him), which included doing an overnight roadtrip with someone not in my family or not for academic or employment purposes. We did a quaint old style Denny’s in Santa Nella/Gustine, the white trash diner in Los Banos, the fried artichokes in Castroville, the oldest Mexican diner in Salinas and a quick drive-thru in Watsonville. Anyone know what the immigrants were protesting there yesterday?

Some firsts in bed, as well. Aside from my first motel sex, I’ll let you all guess at what the other firsts were…

It was increadibly cold this morning. Maybe I just get too accustomed to having that body in bed next to me to wrap up in on weekends. Hopefully this weekends-only thing changes soon. I’ve said that already, I think…

Seriously, I do plan to post a trip journal over at The Hyaena. I’m just still working on the motivation to do it…

While you’re all waiting for that, you should head over to the Message Board , where a cute little tiff is going on. I was briefly thinking of axing it, but it’s amusing me right now, so I’ll let it go for now…

New and improved navigation, thanks to some stolen code and a few hours of experimentation. I think it looks much better.

Not that this week has been all that exciting anyway, but don’t expect much in the way of updates until Monday. I’ve really been slacking on my web work lately, and I just can’t seem to change that right now. I’m now more than 2 months behind on my trip journals, and I’ve only partially completed my media/tapetrade stuff over at TheHyaena.

But I’m off to see David after work, and this is a very good thing. I hope I don’t injure him in my friskiness, considering it’s been 2 weeks.

I say once again that I simply cannot let that happen so often…

Tomorrow I’m off to the northwest with David. Needless to say, I’m excited as hell. It will only be my third time out of California, the first being to Ensenada when I was about 10 and the second being Las Vegas a few years ago. This will most likely be much more enjoyable and exciting. Not to mention the fact that I’ll be seeing Andrea for the first time in 4 years.

iBook is ready to accompany me on the journey, and feeling friskier than usual, since he got a special treat yesterday in the form of a superfast 512MB memory upgrade.

Potential updates from the road, but no guarantees.

Back and still alive. I’m a little tired, my clothes are all a little more restrictive, but I’m happy nonetheless. Coming soon: random thoughts on the northwest, and Seattle in particular, as well as a radically revised Trips page. Right now I’m just trying to sort through the massive amounts of data, and get it all back to David so that h can do the same…