AS TIME GOES BY...

It seems incredible to me that I have been here in Nowheresville for almost exactly two years. Of course, I do remember how the time went by, but it still amazes me that I have a real job [however briefly] and am on the verge of moving out to the Big Woods to live near my boyfriend. Two years ago I don't think I had a clue that either of these things could happen, in fact, had more or less made up my mind to just forget about the good things in life and get on with feeling miserable and making do with what work I could scrounge with outdated graphic skills and a knowledge of Microsoft Office--two things, I realized only too clearly, that put me on a par with kids forty years younger, however much older and wider I was.

So, first of all, I am grateful. Not that any of the joys in my life are unalloyed, but I do realize, without the Goat's prompting, that I don't have AIDS and don't live in Baghdad, and it just gets better from there on out. However things go out in the Big Woods, I will at least know that I did my best to make it work.

I am in the stage of this project where I am beginning to be grateful that the deadline is approaching rapidly--I have this moment on every project where I am convinced that I will finally be exposed as a fraud, and this time there is the added certainty that they will be convinced that they should never have hired anyone so old and so fat to do a young man's job. On the other hand, I am getting to hang out with the guys on the floor again, and it gives me such pleasure to remember what life used to be like. It won't last long, but God it's good while it lasts.

Himself is off on a a scenic tour with his sports-car buddies, burning up gas and seeing the sights of the Northern Wastes. He is scheduled to show up here at the end of the US leg of the trip, which just happens to be the night before my move. There is a cranky little voice in the back of my mind that tells me that it would have been awfully nice if he had been here to help just a bit, especially as I can say with some degree of certainty that I will not be ready when the truck rolls up. I think most people with slightly more self-awareness, or with slightly less ADD, might have at least offered to help. Actually, he did; he was going to drive in once with his truck and trailer, and take a bunch of the bigger things, but ever since I realized that I was going to have to hire movers, even that offer has been forgotten. I suppose you could call it realism, but to part of me it still looks like a lack of concern.

But, in the meantime, back to being grateful, above. I am pretty well aware that I come with a certain amount of negative baggage--not least the baggage around what used to be my waist, back when I had one--and that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones...

Anyway, be that as it may, I will be packing like a maniac until I have to leave town for the Near Midwest [Eastern Midwest? Middle East?] and will fall directly into the move on my return. I know that it took me all fall to get all of this stuff out of my house and studio to begin with, and still took a rented truck to get rid of most of my studio, but it just floors me how much junk there is here. At this point it's easier to have it moved than to sort it all and get a dumpster between now and my departure to take care of some of the "extras." Time is money. I've known that all my life, even before it became the main theme of my education, but having it rear up and bite you in the ass still hurts. Well, what else was I going to do with the unexpected windfall from this Last Real Gig, anyway?

I am going to be somewhat thin on the ground for the next few weeks, so please just hang in there till I get back.

Oh, I almost forgot: "Stupidity, Chapter II" was my 600th post, and a glance at StatCounter at the bottom of the page tells me we are closing in on 16,000 visitors. It's too bad almost half of them [over 46%] are here for one particular gay underwear picture, and it's too bad that sites that actually do feature gay underwear pictures get 16,000 hits in a day, not in almost two years. Oh, well... We do what we can.
C