here you have it

goodbye july

wow. so, here we are. tomorrow will be august, which means that in 2 weeks, molly and i will be moving into our awesome house on the east side!!! so you think i've been busy packing and cleaning and getting ready to move? no. notsomuch. then what's been keeping me so busy that i haven't had even one tiny little minute to throw you, my faithful followers, a little snippet of what's been happening in my life?

1. vacation pictures are posted! see the "road trip 2004" photo album on the bottom of the left side bar, or click here. they are not all fully captioned yet, but they are all labeled with locations.

2. a date.

3. the democratic national convention. even though i only watched it on thursday for kerry's speech, it was an exhausting ordeal. since i have awesome friends who watched the ENTIRE convention, they made sure that i got to see al sharpton's speech , i strongly strongly strongly recommend that you watch it. he is such an awesome speaker. watch the video, seriously people, just watch the video.

4. an article in the wisconsinite. i am really sad that their website is down, and i'm not going to post this whole article for you, but let me give you a tasty little tidbit:

"Fuck you, Dick Cheney, and the oily, corporate ass-kissin', election stealin', worker-screwin' putrid cloud of political pollution you and your cronies rolled in on. ... Fuck your war. Fuck your labor hatred. Fuck "Kenny Boy" Lay and Halliburton's milti-billion dollar no-bid blood suckin' war profiteering deal. Fuck your Patriot Act. Fuck your rape of the environment, your shameless use of 9/11 for pure partisan political gain and ... Fuck your sick health care system that cares for profits, not people."

so there you have it. love and politics. i think it's been the theme of july.

be excited

1. i have tickets to see utah phillips in september!

2. i have tickets to see ani difranco and margaret cho toGEther sometime in september (extra special thanks to victoria for the advance heads up)!

3. i will be moving in less than one month! goodbye campus, it was fun, but drinking and partying all week just isn't for me. plans are coming together nicely for when and how to get stuff from here to there. some of it may involve me trading vehicles with my sister. that means i'm going to have to let my sister have my car for a weekend. in minnesota. *wince* but i'll get a pickup truck out of the deal. a pickup truck will be priceless.

4. i got most of my vacation pictures back! you are now thisclose to seeing a vacation photo album on this very weblog. stay tuned!

4. molly looked so damn happy last night. awwwww.

5. i am so damn happy.

the hanky code

so a couple months ago, i was at club 5 with some friends, and one of them brought to my attention a glass case in the mens' bar that features a thing called the hanky code. this was the first i'd ever heard of such a thing. apparently the hanky code is a way to communicate sexual preferences by placing a colored bandana or hanky in either your right or left back pocket. i was intrigued, but a bar is no place for learning, so i kindof put it on the back burner of my mind. so last saturday, when abby and i were in boston, there was a person on the T that had a nicely folded hanky hanging very neatly out of one of her back pockets. had i not known about the hanky code, i would't have thought anything of it, but i do know about the hanky code, and i wondered all the way home what she was trying to tell the world about herself. what could it mean, what could it mEan?!? when i got home, i turned to the trusty internet for answers, and answers i got. the hanky code is HUGE. there seriously needs to be some sort of quick reference field guide or something.

if you do a google search you'll find a whole bunch of sites that give you a whole bunch of info. the best one i found (so far) is the first one listed, by sexuality.org. my favorite is that, at the end of the list, there are things like a teddy bear, mosquito netting, a handy wipe, or a toothbrush that can be placed in a pocket like a hanky.

google also gave me sites for the goth hanky code and the christian hanky code. it amuses me into next week to think of what might happen if someone mistook one of these codes for the other. for a really amusing example, in the christian code, a light blue hanky on the left tells us that the person believes in a sprinkle type baptism. in the sex code, however, a light blue hanky on the left identifies a person looking for oral sex. there's a conversation i'd like to be a fly on the wall to hear... another good one is red. you can look it up yourself.

in other news:
abby has posted some pictures from our vacation on her site. digital cameras, why do you tempt me so? my pictures will be developed and in my hands on friday. maybe i'll get some of them scanned and up by the weekend. stay tuned!

2,900 miles later...

we're back from the whirlwind week i call summer vacation! it's nice to be home again, to play with the cat, to know where my toothbrush is, and to eat cereal with soy milk in the morning. so how was vacation, you ask? intense. emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually... intense in a very good way. i can't even make sentences, so here's a list of tasty bits:

sitting on the dock and catching up on the family
napping in the hammock
watching/helping grandma in the kitchen
the chocolate covered birthday baby, and the sugar high that ensued
grace and sunday dinner
mix cds from friends
queers in ohio
naked time
meeting and being liked by abby's family and friends
the ocean
lightning and rainbows over the ocean
learning to body surf
sand castles
being haunted by a ghost
food
taking pictures of things from the car
my first canoli experience
the T
being in love
making it up as we go

when we were in the car, we made a huge huge list of highlights of our trip. i wish i could go back over every minute of the whole week. stay tuned for a trip photo album, additions to the friends photo album, and probably more stories about the last week.

here's an appetizer till i get my film back on friday...

damn, vacation wore me out.

va*freaking*cation

when life becomes a routine, it's time for a vacation. with all the crap going on at work, this one couldn't have come at a better time. get me the hell outta here. so tomorrow i'm leaving madison and heading out on the open road with abby for an entire week. here's what's on the menu:

the car
indiana
my family
sunday dinner
a hammock
mountains at sunrise
pennsylvania
her family
mix cds
new jersey shore
surfing
more family
rhode island
more family
manhattan
friends
boston
more friends
more car
more mix cds

i think that at this point, i've gone over the edge of being excited to being overwhelmed and just wanting to pass out. and i haven't even left yet!

may your thoughts guide us on a safe trip.

we will return to our regularly scheduled blog after this short break. feel free to get a snack and/or use the restroom.

peace out.

it is a great day when

i sit on a dock at night and make out with abby while watching fireworks. then go home to sleep sleep sleep with the softest, coolest, comfyest new sheets on my skin, with the cool rainy air drifting to me through the window. the sounds of the city lull me to sleep so i can dream of wonderous things to come.

vacation = t - 3 days

these are the days

there are no words. i will say this:
this is the best summer evEr!

and i just posted a new photo album of friends. i've only worked on it for a few minutes, so if you're not in there, don't freak out, you will be very soon. stay tuned!!!

quoth bitch and animal:
"i'm on a joystick ride
i'm moving on to my next three lives
i'm a quarter junkie
thirsty for you"

whirled peas

is it really thursday? is it really the first day of july? where the hell did june go?

the highlight of my summer is usually the twin cities pride festival, which was last weekend. so after one hella exhausting week at work, i piled myself and a couple awesome friends into my car and headed out on friday night. we stopped in rochester and hung out with my family before driving up to minneapolis saturday morning. the festival was awesome, as usual, but i feel like i'm getting less and less into walking the vendors and more and more into taking a nap in the grass in front of the drag king stage. shit, i think i'm getting old. i think i've hit the point where i don't even want to get into political or religious discussions, i just wanna hang out with queer people. is that too much to ask? (ahem, you minnesota democrats, who took up way too much time in the sunday parade. less politics, more dancing!) saturday night was interesting. 1 hotel room, 8 queers and 4 bottles of liquor later, we were at lucy's, an interesting dyke bar/dance club in st. paul. officially, i still remember everything before the tequilla, which was totally abby's idea. things kindof went downhill from there. but you know what, i had a great time. there are so many things i could write here to the peole involved in that night's turbulence, but i won't because i'm not like that. keep your drama.

it was good to run in to some old friends in minneapolis. some i got to hang out with a little bit, others just exchanged brief pleasantries. we need more time.

some highlights of the weekend and the week, as it's slipped out from under my feet:
music and singing out loud in the car
lauren
laying in the grass (on more than one occasion)
minnesota nudists
the advice people
victoria
new friends
"if you ever want a piece of something that isn't madison drama, give me a call"
lorenzo
fellow parade goers and finding a spot to sit on the curb
the neon drag queens on rollerblades
"peaches"
the whirled peas people
letting someone else drive
farenheit 9/11
lefty
food in the park
walks
a hand to hold, and everything that goes along with that
things finally slowing down at work
having 4 hours of down time to get myself focused

extra special thanks to molly for cat sitting, and to victoria for giving us a ride back to the hotel. you both made my weekend that much more enjoyable.

listening to ellis:
"never were the words ready, you weren't prepared for the wall of emotions that hit you from the side"