Life is such a sweet insanity.

I think that I'm finally busting out of my cabin fever mood. The weather has warmed up finally, with it topping 32 degrees today. Plus, the sun was out, which is always good. It's suppose to warm up to 40 by the end of the weekend, and I find that quite exciting, because we'll be able to open the kitchen door. The rain gutters are so clogged with ice that we can't get the door open without doing a body slam into it. I think the cat finds us crazy the way we slam in and out of the house these days.

Work has been chugging along. It's been interesting, because we didn't have any water in the building for the past two days. I had to walk up the street to use the bathroom. Not a good thing after you've had a Wendy's Chicken Bacon salad (bad for me, I know). And considering I work in a sixteen-story building, you wouldn't really think that we'd lose water, but we did. Something about busted pipes and the bank flooding down below. Hopefully it shorted out our checking account and plopped more money in it.

Earl and I have decided to go on vacation after all. We are going the second week of March and we're headed to Phoenix, Ariz. (and points south). I guess he admitted that he loves the desert as much as I do. We're still pulling all the plans together, but I am really, really, really looking forward to it.

We've also decided to take Valentine's Day off and just spend the day doing something for ourselves. Whether it's a 20 hour car ride or going wild in a hotel room, it's going to be just for the two of us. We like doing things like that.

I've been reading online about this yoga sinus draining thing. I find it intriguing - its suppose to cleanse your sinuses with salt water and get rid of any infection that may be starting. I might give it a whirl and see if I can clear up this stuffy feeling.

I've been grooving on Xena again. I feel guilty watching the "Oh" channel because it's suppose to be for women, but I'll take Xena however I can get her.

I'm going to surf the web and call it a night.

I've decided that I have been quite moody for the past week or so. Cranky. A little bit irritable. I finally figured it out this morning. Two words. Cabin Fever. I am suffering from cabin fever.

I received a new Adventure Cycling magazine this week and it outlines the tours available for 2003. I am REALLY wishing to go on a bike ride. Soon! I want to get on my new bike and ride ride ride like the wind, there's no doubt about it. I want to pack some camping gear and get away from it all for a couple of days. Me, my bike and the road, with Earl waiting at the end smiling.

I'm kind of frightened of the fact that I have a touch of cabin fever, since it's still only mid-January and with the way this winter has been going, spring is probably a ways off still.

Earl was toying with me yesterday and suggested a trip to Arizona for a week this spring. How I love the desert. I would leap at the opportunity to go hang out in the desert for a couple of days. Is it my cabin fever talking? Perhaps - but I think I was meant to be a creature of the desert. There's a whole spiritual thing for me when I think about the desert.

I've been playing The Sims and "Sim City 4" all day today. We picked up the new version of Sim City yesterday - I'm really enjoying it. I had two guys in my Sims family, but they refuse to hook up. What's up with that?

It's amazing what you can do with Google. Earl is downstairs watching the Eagles game and every once in a while I can hear shouts of sports ecstacy coming up the staircase. I'm glad he's enjoying himself. I like to watch football, but not on television. Honestly, I have a hard enough time watching it while sitting in a stadium and keeping track of everything. Trying to keep track of what's happening on a 27-inch TV is way too much work. :)

So I'm busying myself up here exploring nooks and crannies of the internet with Google. I have "safesearch" on whenever I search on Google, because frankly, I don't care if Vera wants me to show her tits on her webcam when I'm searching for software downloads. I find it amazing that you can put in people's names and find out so much. I put in my name first, and came up with all sorts of posts I put the usenet (the newsgroups) back in 1989 and 1990 when I was working for DEC. That was kind of weird. I printed one out for Earl (it was about the TV show Isis) and his comment was "You haven't changed a bit." I guess in some respects I haven't.

Then I started plunking in the names of people I used to work with and once in a while dated during my DECcie days. Surprisingly, Mark is now an accomplished musician in a band in San Francisco. He was very strange, much like myself, and others in the Digital gay group BGLAD wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole. Me? He was just my type.

Then there's Marcus, who is still all political, living in Washington, D.C. now instead of Boston. He was the oldest guy I ever dated, he was 40 at the time, I was 22.

There's Derek - who's an accomplished software engineer in New Hampshire. A nice guy, but a lousy kisser. And he used an electric razor, which is a definite deal breaker with me. (Long story). Come to think of it, I think he was an accomplished software engineer when I dated him. I guess I didn't notice.

Ah, yes, Buck. Who worked in the building next to mine. A very fine looking man, who took me to the movies my last night of living in New England. I didn't really give myself the chance to get to know him better, but he seemed like the wild type. He dressed in leather and had a military haircut (remember it was 1990 at the time) and seemed like he could be wild. I couldn't find out much about him on the internet. You wouldn't believe how many guys go by the name Buck in Boston.

So then I looked up my old roommate from this area and found him working with the Empire Pride Agenda. How very good for him, I sent him e-mail suggesting Earl and I meet him for dinner sometime.

I suppose this walk through my past was all started because of something that happened this afternoon. Earl and I went through a hellish hour of grocery shopping at the local Price Chopper. Now, we both hate Price Chopper with a passion, but decided it was close and to give them "one more try". Oy. Not only is the store horribly outdated, over crowded and populated with Italian women with big hair and furry coats (and I'm not talking about their jackets), but they have the worst self-serve registers I've ever seen.

Anyways, while we were shopping, we ran into an old friend of mine, Melissa. Melissa and I worked together at the Association for Retarded Citizens back in the early 1990s, when I first moved to the area. We were both single and we both worked the same shift, Tuesday 12 noon to Thursday 3 p.m. (straight through), only at different community residences. We'd go out on Thursday nights together. Melissa is probably the only woman that I ever had even an inkling of a romantic feeling for. After a while, a few unfortunate incidents transpired and I quite coldly quit talking to her, for about a year or so. After I was an absolute bitch for a year and went out of my way to ignore her, we started talking again (why she started talking to me again I'll never know) and then poof - I was determined to get into radio (which she supported), determined to make a doomed relationship "undoomed" and then she went and did her thing... exploring what she wanted and such. I've thought of Melissa often and wondered what she was up to. I've always wanted to tell her that I was sorry that I was such a wench towards her during a difficult time. And here she was, standing in front of Earl and I in the milk department, with her gorgeous nine-month old baby and seemingly long-time partner. She looked beautiful and I was so happy that she had found her path. I couldn't really tell her that I missed her and was sorry for all that had transpired, because it really didn't seem appropriate in the middle of this hideous grocery store. But I suppose there was some closure as that I knew she was doing o.k.

So I'm babbling. Earl was a little surprised at how "rocked" I was by running into Melissa. So I had to explain the whole thing to him. He's so patient with me. But this little meeting has me re-evaluating my lot in life again. Do I want kids? I don't know. Do I need a new career? Perhaps, but where to start at 34 years old? Should I just give in and declare myself insane? Probably, but not likely.

He's just come up to tell me that the Eagles won against Atlanta - 20 to 6. I suppose Philly is celebrating right now. :) I look over at him as I'm typing this, and he tells me, again, how much he loves the iMac I bought him for Christmas. And then he tells me that he loves me. I never thought I would have found someone who could understand me. I'm glad I did.

I am sitting downstairs at our breakfast table. Earl is cooking lunch (I believe we are having sausage roll) and watching some entertainment gossip show at the same time. I've been messing around with the computer and I just got around to taking a shower.

I have to admit that after 34 1/2 years in this life, some people may be right. My moods can be like a pendulum. Now I'm not some whackos that goes from 0 to 60 on the rage scale in five seconds, but I guess I tend to look at all sides of the situation and I tend to want to try all things. For example, I switched web page software today (again) and installed Microsoft FrontPage 2002. That's a complete 180 from my anti-Microsoft stance last week, now isn't it. :)

When I'm on "one side" of an argument, I stay on that side and stand my ground, but when it's more trivial stuff (should we go to the movies, what do you want for supper, Linux-Windows-Linux-Windows) I tend to look at all sides (advantages/disadvantages) of this situation. Does this mean I'm a mess? Maybe ... but at least I recognize it now.

I'm slowly accomplishing my 2003 resolutions and it's Jan 4th! I haven't fallen off the wagon yet.

Tonight we are going to see "Lord of the Rings", the second installment. We watched the DVD of the first one on New Year's Eve, now we're ready to see the one currently in theatres. After Lord of the Ring, we watched Dick Clark and his usual drop the ball ceremony. I have a theory that he's really not there at all and just recorded 15 years or so ahead of time and now we're seeing that. But I can be a conspiracy theory whacko when I want to be.

I finally decided to shave off my mustache. When I did so, I instantly felt better about myself. I don't know why I put such stock into my physical appearance, but I admit it, I am very vain. I may not be the prettiest on the block, but I carry myself like I am. :)

It's been several hours since I started this entry, now Earl is taking a shower and we are getting ready to head to a 6:30 movie - "Lord of the Rings". It should be a fun night.

12/29/2002
I've been slightly following this story about the cloning of a human, presumably in Europe. Now, I'm a pretty liberal guy and I have pretty libery ideals, but the idea of cloning human beings makes me sick. It's coming to close to playing God for me. There are many whackos in the world who would like to play God, and this just gives them another tool to do so. And to name her Eve. What a crock of crap. I personally find the idea of cloning a human similar to purchasing a car just like your own at a junk yard so that you have spare parts. And that is just sick (the cloning, not the extra car). Maybe they see something beneficial that I don't see, but right now I think human cloning is just wrong.

Earl and I are busying ourselves about the house today. Baking, exercising, cleaning. It's an odd time of the year, since work is "stop and go, stop and go"... not very busy at all and with so many days off you can't really keep track of what day it is. Not that I'm complaining or anything.

I worked on my clock system this afternoon and got the outdoor clocks working again. I haven't mentioned this to Earl, but I'd like to get a miniature tower clock for the front yard, when the new landscaping goes in this spring, even if we have to have it custom made ourselves.