decidedlyodd

I’m at the Seattle Public Library using the free wifi and surfing around on my laptop for the first time in nearly two weeks. For some reason, I can’t actually get to this website from here directly. Instead I have to use a SOCKS proxy through an account I have at Berkeley. Weird. Maybe some internet link is down somewhere. The Speakeasy tech is supposed to come on Friday to hook up my DSL, but we’ll see.

Yesterday at work was a fairly relaxed day. Besides being Friday, GLEAM had a “party” in celebration of the final passage of the housing and employment non-discrimination bill in Washington state. Keenan (my peer mentor and co-worker) introduced me to some people, which is helpful since I really have trouble going up to random people and starting conversation. All I really need is that one in and things are fine, but breaking the ice is paralyzing to my sometimes. While there, some people mentioned this guy Thomas who recruiting had actually put in touch with back in November since he’s a UNC alum. Now, Keenan told me he knew Thomas, but I never actually knew how he knew him. Well, apparently the connection is through GLEAM… I’ll return to this in a moment though.

After that, the manager of my apartment building emailed me saying I’d have to give up my parking space because a tenant was moving into the furnished apartment (the space is included in the rent for that unit). I ended up leaving work a bit early (after only 8 hours) so that I could get the garage door opener to the new tenant. So I pulled my car out, gave him the clicker and decided I was going to do some shopping. However, on my way north on I-5 I saw a sign that said there was an accident. So, at the last minute I jumped on SR520 instead thinking I’d do some shopping on the east side. Then I sorta got lost trying to find this mall I vaguely remember being on I-405. I ended up driving all the way from Renton up Rainer Avenue into town before getting back on I-5. Fortunately, the accident had been cleared.

On the furniture front, I bought a kitchen table with 4 chairs (I think that’s the model, although I paid a lot less in the store) from JCPenney. It’s supposed to be delivered this coming Saturday, so I’ll soon actually have something to sit on besides the floor. Then I went to Target and bought some more new sheets. The ones I bought before at Mervyn’s don’t match–they’re the wrong kind of navy blue. So, now things will match at least.

From there, I went over to the Safeway in Queen Anne to go grocery shopping. On my way over there, Thomas calls me on my cell phone (I’d given him the number earlier) asking me if I wanted to go to a show. Later we met up and went to see the Infernal Noise Brigade at this place called the Lo-Fi fairly close to where I live. They were interesting. Certaintly one of those part music, part performance art sorts of things. It’s like a marching band gone horribly wrong (in the best way possible). Very hip and pretty cool to observe. After the band played, we kicked it around the bar for a bit just talking about Microsoft and Seattle and other random things. All in all, it was a pretty good night. It was so nice to get out and about on the town after spending every night I’ve been here lazing around an empty apartment or doing things like shopping for furniture. More importantly, it was nice to meet some cool new people and be social.

Still, all of this makes me feel like I’m part of some strange gay Microsoft conspiracy. My peer mentor is gay and the alum UNC put me in touch with is gay, but more importantly they both seem like great people. It’s just so different to how things have been for me in the past. I didn’t know of any gay grad students at UNC in my department. The undergrad GLBTSA people were annoying and it was very difficult to meet other gay people I might have gotten along with (well, except the Wednesday night crew–you know who you are). Mostly it’s been nice to meet interesting and friendly people, but the fact that many of them are queer is, well, different than what I’m used to but not in a bad way. Such opportunities and changes definitely played a role in my decision to move to Seattle.