Things that might be decidedly odd…

Solstice Saturday

Jason and I went to the Solstice parade in Fremont yesterday, preceded by Jeff Roberts’ brunch and followed by Mike Schafer’s BBQ. As usual, the parade was fun to watch. Even though my legs got tired from standing there so long, it’s worth it to see all the creative floats, costumes and general decoration participants prepare. It’s one of the coolest parades around. Since no text or logos are allowed, people really do have to get more creative about representing their concept or group visually.

After the whole Solstice parade plus 2 related parties, I dropped quickly by a friend of mine’s going away party before grabbing dinner and conking out for 2 hours from 7-9. Afterwards, I went with Ben and Jeff over to the Eagle for underwear/jock strap night. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–I like the Eagle because it’s different than any other bar in Seattle. I doubt I would ever go there frequently, but it’s fun to drop by for underwear night periodically. The city has been cracking down on bars a lot lately and you could see the effects of that in a more toned down Eagle. The staff was certainly more careful about what they showed on the giant projector screen (Hedwig and the Angry Inch instead of porn) and the attire of patrons (no exposed butts even if they were in a jock strap–complementary hankies provided to cover things up).

Identification

After having dinner with Robert, Mckenzie, Joe, Ben and various members of the latter two’s families, Robert, Ben and I went over to Madison Pub where we waited in line to get in for quite a while. Unfortunately, I’d left my ID in my shorts from when I went to Madison Park Beach this afternoon. The doorman wouldn’t let me in, so I ended up just walking all the way back home. It particularly annoys me, because I know I don’t look under 21. Moreover, the doorman was being inconsistent in who he was asking to see ID from, which pisses me off.

The whole thing just reminds me how over the whole bar scene I’ve become in the past few months.

Socializing

I ended up working a bit later than I expected yesterday. Afterwards, I went shopping at Target, Macy’s and Fred Meyer in Redmond to wait out the traffic and pick up some necessary items. Macy’s was a total bust–the store in Redmond is absolutely tiny and had very limited selection. The main purchase of the day occurred at Fred Meyer where I picked up some cute new underwear for an underwear party I’m planning to attend tonight.

By the time I got home and ate dinner, it was pretty late. I’d been thinking about catching the Pierced Arrows show at the Funhouse, but I wasn’t feeling it and it would have been too late by the time I walked over to Seattle Center anyways. Figuring I’d just stay home for the night, I started doing some laundry. Eventually Robert called and to make a longer story short, we ended up at The Cuff.

It was a rather unexpected evening in many ways. I met this cute guy on the dance floor who stuck around through breakfast. I really had no intention of taking anybody home (let alone going out in the first place), but there was some good clickage with him. It’s always awesome when there’s both good sex and good conversation.

Today I’m just taking things easy, getting some laundry and unpacking done.

Odd but Fun Night

Last night, I met up with Andy (a guy I met at Neighbors the week before I went to Mexico) and two of his friends at Canterbury over on 15th. We all had a few drinks and some interesting conversation. Later he and I played some pool, but pretty much as soon as we started the owner or bartender (some employee or another) loudly informed us that we all had to leave immediately because the bar was flooding and that he was very serious. Apparently, water started pouring down from the ceiling into the bar sometime around 1am.

We meandered over to Madison Pub to catch last call and ran into a group of three guys that both of us knew. One of them was a guy Andy used to date, one of them was a guy I used to date (Steven) and the third used to be the roommate of yet another guy (Jeff) that I dated. Even though I know that there are only at most 2 degrees of separation between any two gay men in Seattle, it still almost surprises me when situations like this arise that demonstrate how close knit socially we all are.

From there we headed over to 13 Coins for some late night eats. I wasn’t all that hungry, so I didn’t end up eating most of my omelette (which cost something like $15). It was nice chatting some more with Andy though and trying to decide if the entire wait staff was totally coked out or not. They all seemed way too chipper at 2am on a Wednesday morning.

Yesterday

Yesterday morning I managed to drag myself out of bed in time to go to Frontrunners at 9am. I’ve been better about this lately, now having gone for two weeks in a row. Unsurprisingly I’ve found it helps when I don’t go out the night before. It’s a bit lonely staying at home Friday nights, but these days I just don’t really care for going out to the bars more than once a week. It’s just too much of the same old, same old when I go to the same clubs and see the same people and dance to the same music more often than that. Moreover, I appreciate the socializing before, during and after the run more than at a loud bar or club.

After getting back from running and cleaned up, I ran some errands. Another great thing about getting up to go run by 9am is that by the time it’s all over, it’s usually only about 11am, leaving plenty of time to get other stuff done on Saturday. Since I’ve vowed to dramatically reduce the number of days a week I commute in my car over to Redmond, I decided I should take advantage of the relatively light Saturday traffic to pay a visit to my credit union (the branches around here are only on the Eastside) to take care of some business. The place was a zoo as was the Trader Joe’s I stopped at in Redmond, but I managed to get everything done.

Saturday night, I met up with Brian and Chris, who I’d seen earlier that morning at Frontrunners. We started at Brian’s place with some impromptu prepartying before moving on to Purr (where I lamely spilled the remaining third of my drink all over my pants) and then of course the Cuff. Initially, there had been some talk about going to the Eagle. The Eagle is the one gay bar in Seattle (well, except Changes in Wallingford) I haven’t been to. Chris wanted to go as well since there was supposedly a decent DJ that night, but somehow it never materialized in the process of satisfying the desires of everybody in the large group we were with.

Neighbwhores

Because I was in a sort of dancing mood and because I had so much with Chris last Thursday at Neighbors when he was in town, I decided I’d go again last night. The 80s music is fun to dance to and usually there are enough interesting guys to keep my eyes busy all night. At some point, I ended up dancing with some guy. It all happened somewhat randomly in that I was actually trying to dance near this other cute guy when suddenly I noticed this one was shaking his ass in my direction. My hand on his hip and a couple minutes later, we were dancing together like skanky gay men tend to do. Eventually, he said he needed to take a break and wandered off. I saw him again later, but he didn’t seem terribly interested anymore. Maybe he was playing hard to get or something because he really didn’t seem to mind me earlier. Meh, I don’t have time for too many games.

I resumed dancing with other people who I did and did not already know. A guy I know from CAMP was in town visiting (he moved away to San Francisco a few months ago) and I chatted and danced with him for a bit. At some point he asked me, “if I’d gotten that hickey tonight”? Hickey!?! Dammit. Then responded by saying, “well, it’s all about having fun” (or something like that). Heh.

Later on, I was dancing in this group of cute guys. During Duran Duran’s ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’ one of the cuter ones (tall, skinny with that hipster beard thing going on) tells me something like “isn’t this a great song?”. I, of course, take this as a hint that he’s interested in me. So we dance a bit more, but he keeps leaving and coming back. At some point, we’re dancing fairly close together and I make my move by putting my hand on his side. He sort of turns around and runs away! I kind of wonder if he was just some straight boy who got in over his head!

Anyhow, definitely an entertaining evening.

Weekend of Visitors

Both my friend Chris from San Francisco and my parents were in town this weekend, which made for a pretty busy couple of days.

Chris came in on Thursday night and Robert and I met him at the airport. Without Robert, who had to work early the next morning, the two of us headed over to Neighbors for 80s night. On Friday, my parents arrived at their hotel south of the city after work. We grabbed dinner over at Fish Club (which I hadn’t been to since Nico and I ate there in 2005 when I was interviewing at Microsoft) then I drove them back to their hotel before going out with my friends. I met up with Chris, Jeff & Drew and Ben & Jeff at Purr but only briefly. From there, most of us went over to the War Room, which was having its weekly gay night. I enjoyed the music and found the crowd fairly novel (lots of hipsters, gay hipsters and gays).

Saturday morning, I got up early in order to go with my parents to Monroe to look at a place that makes barn building kits. It was a relatively painless drive out there, so we took the extra time to grab breakfast. The barn place was interesting–I had no idea so much went into the design of barns. From there, we drove to Redmond to drive through the Microsoft campus so that my parents could see the general surroundings of where I work. We then continued on to Snoqualmie Falls for some brief sightseeing. After that, they dropped me off at my place in Seattle before getting back on the road home.

I spent most of Saturday afternoon kicking back after the past couple of late nights and early mornings. Later, I met up with Jeff & Drew and Chris for Ethiopian food. Queen Sheba on Capitol Hill was super busy so instead we went to a more hole in the wall type place on Jefferson and 14th called Masob. The food was tasty and very affordable for Ethiopian.

The four of us then returned to Purr for the whole stand-and-model thing. When the time was right, we went over to Neighbors for a bit. Unfortunately, it was sort of a weird night over there. This woman kept grabbing me to dance with her and this guy. I don’t know if she was his hag or girlfriend or what, but I wanted nothing to do with her. I had to physically remove her hands from me twice and then dance elsewhere! The other guys were getting sick of this sort of nonsense too, so we decided to go to the Cuff instead. The Cuff was like the Cuff always is, which in this case was a good thing (no drunk grabby women). However, while there I did have some guy’s hag pry my arms off her fag. I found this slightly tacky as the guy really didn’t seem to mind my arm being around him.

Sunday, the four of us met up again for brunch. First we tried the Five Spot on Queen Anne, but it was packed so he headed to another place in Ballard whose name I can’t remember right now. Drew drove us all back to the hill where I parted ways with them so they could rest up briefly before taking Chris to the airport.

Whew, what a busy but fun weekend!

Weekend Update

It’s been a few days since I’ve posted. Usually that means either I’ve been really busy or that I’ve been doing absolutely nothing at all. Blog volume seems to be the highest when I’m doing just enough to have something to write about but not enough to be tight on blogging time.

Thursday night, Evan, Ian and I went over to Neighbors for a drink and some dancing. I used to go there more often when I first moved to Seattle, but because the crowd I fell into later isn’t so much into that scene I rarely go there these days. The 80s music is fun to dance to though and the crowd is usually easy on the eyes. I ended up staying until almost 2am since I had a drink and needed some time to sober up before driving home (I’d driven directly from work to a party to the club).

Friday night I managed to go swimming for the first time in about a month. My busy travel schedule combined with that bout of strep throat really kept me out of the pool for quite a while. It was good to be back even if I felt like I had to drag myself back into it a bit. Afterwards, I grabbed Chinese food with some of the other people from the swim team before heading back to the hill for a party at an acquaintance’s place. The party was fun, but sort of a standard drink and hang out with people you already know. I ended up taking an acquaintance I’d almost hooked up with before back to my place. While we were trying to hail a cab, some crackhead was trying to talk to us and then tried to get in the cab when it came. Annoying, but harmless.
He (not the crackhead!) was fun and I suppose I can now stop wondering “what if”, but I am getting more tired of the whole no strings attached thing as time goes on.

Saturday morning, I got up fairly late (still before noon though) only to lounge around the house while I did some laundry. Early that evening, I went over to the CAMP Thanksgiving potluck. It was cool to see a lot of the guys from the summer, but at the same time it was slightly odd seeing them in a different context. The food was also pretty good, although since I had pre-eaten (you never know what’s going to happen at a potluck) I was super-stuffed by the end of the night. In fact, I probably ate too much because I felt sort of miserable for most of the rest of the evening.

After the potluck, I headed back home where Ken was supposed to meet me for a party my neighbor’s were having. Unfortunately, the party got cancelled, so we instead headed straight over to Purr for cocktails. The upstairs was open which was great because the main part of the bar is really just too loud for having a conversation with somebody. My stomach felt fairly naseous (probably from all the food earlier in the evening), so I didn’t drink anything. Eventually, we migrated over to the Cuff. I’d thought about just going home since I wasn’t feeling well, but I gave into peer pressure and went anyways. After lots of standing and a cocktail, I actually felt considerably better. I have to wonder how many times I’ve performed this bar visitation order (Purr -> the Cuff) since I’ve moved here though. It’s a bit trite, but I still usually end up having a good time so I can’t complain too much.

Sunday morning I caught up on my sleep. I was awakened by a call from one of the many Jeff’s I know asking if I wanted to see the new bond movie with some other friends later in the afternoon. I took him up on his offer and saw the movie. It was better than I expected. I’m not really a big Bond fan, but I thought this one was better than the fairly forgettable ones I’ve seen before. There seemed to be more comedy and more grit than usual along with the expected standard high production values. After getting home, I kicked back for a while before heading over to another friend’s place to watch Desperate Housewives. I just started watching the show this season, but so far it’s been entertaining even if I don’t always know all of the background story.

Today I went swimming again. I thought about not going, but decided that this was probably my last chance for at least a week since I’ll be visiting my parents over the Thanksgiving holiday. We did tons of backstroke, which was causing my arms to get fairly sore (you really do use some different muscles on that stroke). Even though I ran out of time before finishing the whole routine, it still went pretty well.

Yikes

I was just thinking I haven’t written an entry in a while when I realized it’s now been nearly a week. Yikes!

It’s official–summer is over. A finally relit the pilot on my furnace because it’s finally getting cold enough (supposed to be 40F tonight). With the end of summer, I’d expected my life to magically get less busy but so far that doesn’t seem to be happening.

The past weekend has been fairly busy. And by weekend I mean Wednesday through Sunday because of how early my social schedule tends to start up.

On Wednesday, my friend Don came over to give me tips on decorating my apartment. We made a list of the stuff I still need, which adds up to about $700 more to spend. It’s nice to see that I’m almost there. A few more shopping trips to Costco Home, Dania and Ikea and I should be set. Afterwards, we watched Lost on my TV. Don was impressed by how clear the picture on my TV is despite the fact that I only receive broadcast over rabbit ears (I don’t do cable these days). I’d been impressed with it before, but it was nice to hear a second opinion that the picture is truly outstanding. As for Lost, I was really confused about what was going on. I haven’t seen the show since the first few episodes of the first season. Perhaps I’ll go find a plot summary of the rest of the first and second seasons or something.

Thursday was the standard TV watching night. I jokingly refer to it as the night formerly known as Will and Grace night since the show’s been cancelled for a while now. There appears to be a movement to start calling it Ugly Betty night in honor of a new show with many camp elements that gay men everywhere must also be finding delightful. Afterwards, several of us headed over to Madison Pub and stuck around talking until close. Needless to say, I didn’t get to bed until fairly late after that.

Lately I’ve been swimming on Friday nights and the last one was no exception. The pool has been getting more crowded over the past month or so as people return from the lake and outdoor pools which are more popular in the summer. I grabbed dinner with several people from the team and then headed home before going out with some friends to the Cuff. I had a few drinks there, but unfortunately didn’t get to dance. It had been a really long time since I last went dancing which is unfortunate since I generally find it more fun than standing around drinking. I ended up sticking around longer than most because I often enjoy just sitting around people watching the dance floor. After a while though, it starts to get sad because there’s hardly anybody left.

Saturday morning, I got up early to go boating on Lake Union with some CAMP friends (Chris, Jack and Perry).

The boat we had was electric with windows that could be unzipped according to the weather. We went up to the Ballard Locks and then back, stopping briefly to visit with one of Jack’s friends who lives on a house boat in Eastlake. It was pretty fun drifting around and chatting with those guys. I got back home some time in the early afternoon and promptly took a nap. Originally I had planned to meet up with some guys for bowling but by the time I woke up from the nap it was too late. I did meet up with Robert and after walking all over the hill had dinner at Jamjuree (a Thai place) on 15th Ave East. I enjoyed the food there especially since it’s been a while since I’ve had Thai. After finishing up dinner, we meandered down to Pike/Pine to hit the bars.

We started over at Purr where we ran into some other friends. We went to the upstairs part in the back, which I’d never been to before. It was pretty neat back there–more chill and quiet compared to the rest of the bar. Because it was the first Saturday of the month, a few of us headed over to Bacon Strip at the Re-bar. It was a bit nostalgic because the first time I went out in Seattle was to Bacon Strip back in February and I hadn’t been back since. Unfortunately, the show seemed shorter than usual but it was still pretty enjoyable. As expected, we ate some of the complimentary bacon carried around on a tray by some “bacon slave boy”. Eventually, Ken, Robert and I decided to hike back up the hill to the Cuff. Everybody seemed to be there including the usual crew I go out with plus lots of other people. In fact, I ran into Chris (from the boating earlier that day) and ended up hanging out with him and his friends. We all danced a bit too which was fun. Afterwards, I wandered with them over to the QFC on Broadway since they were hungry. In typical drunk fashion, nobody could really figure out what they wanted but it didn’t really matter since we were all at least a little intoxicated. In the end, I seem to recall a few items being bought: some sort of veggie imitation chicken nuggets, a packet of ham lunch meat, some vitamin water and a loaf of bread. I didn’t get anything, although I did make a quesadilla for myself when I got home. Anyhow, it was fun hanging out with those guys even when we were wandering through QFC.

Because I’d gotten home so late, I ended up sleeping late this morning and skipping out on brunch. I lazed around most of the day actually reading (which I haven’t done in a while) and doing laundry. Still, I did get my act together and get out of the house to go swimming by 5. On Saturday Jack and I did some recruiting on Chris to join Orcas. He showed up today though which was really cool. He’s definitely somebody I’d like to get to know better. It was probably the busiest I’ve ever seen it though. I don’t usually go on Sundays because I’ve just been gone most of the weekends since I started getting more serious about going to Orcas. It was enjoyable though. There was a different coach than usual, who I’d actually met at Frontrunners several months ago (I think he’s actually a triathlete). His routine was pretty good even if it was a bit unorthodox at points (we had to do some push-ups between sets). I’m really going to try to go on Sundays regularly in the future. I’ve been regularly disappointed with Wednesdays (low turnout, hands-off coaching), so I’m going to do Sunday, Monday and Friday instead for now I think. I may even try to start doing the Wednesday night Frontrunner’s instead since I keep missing Saturday morning with my travel and social schedule.

After swimming, I went over to Billy and Robert’s place for dinner and to watch Desperate Housewives among other TV shows. Desperate Housewives was entertaining as usual, but we watched this horrible show called Brothers and Sisters. I almost got up and left because it was just so melodramatic and boring! Ugh, what a terrible program about rich people with overly dramatic problems! We did watch part of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO though. I haven’t seen him since his show on broadcast TV got cancelled years and years ago. On HBO, I think it’s even more entertaining than it was before because Bill seems to cut loose a bit more being on cable and all.

Whew, what a weekend! Next weekend, I’m going down to Oregon to help my parents move into their new house. It should be cool to see them and their new place.

Couch, Dinner, Drinks

After work today I did something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time–I bought a couch. I may have lived in my apartment now for nearly 8 months, but it’s just been a huge undertaking to actually buy a couch. I ended up finding one I liked at Costco Home a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, by the time I went to buy it today it was out of stock. So I paid for and ordere one, which hopefully will be delivered within less than 6-8 weeks.

From Kirkland I then drove to Robert’s place in Georgetown in an astounding 20 minutes (traffic was surprisingly light). He prepared a lovely dinner and had a few people over. While there, I found out that his friend Joe’s boyfriend Mackenzie graduated from Cal the same year I did, but of course we’ve (probably) never met before. Afterwards, Evan, Robert and I met up with other local homos John and Brian to hit up the nearby 9 Pound Hammer for a beer. It’s an interesting place than reminds me of my previous life in the east bay somehow. Maybe it was the hipsters or the grit or something else.