In case u have time

In case y'all have time, this week its Banned Books week, here is the link to the famous books that have been challenged over the years:

http://books.google.com/googlebooks/banned/

Go check it out - if you have time.

Various and Diverse

First of all, yes I am still in class, so not a lot of time

Second, the only gay at the mall was having lunch at the food court and who sits in the table behind me but one of those lousy coffee dates I had last year ... I guess I am not the only gay at the mall after all.

Third, I made a decision, if i pass the exam tomorrow and the project next week, I will purchase a new cell phone, and no dear Cherry Ride, it will be a Samsung (the new one, not sure what the model is) not a Razor.

Change and over,

PS. Pictures and more posting next week when I am done.

Confession

Been trying to catch up on my reading of “The 16 Pleasures” for this Sunday’s meeting and guess what, I am not doing well, not with another week of class and an exam on Friday but I am still trying, so I am reading the book everyday at lunch, it serves two purposes:
1) keeps me out of the classroom during the lunch break – I need the mental break
2) keeps me from wandering into Nordstrom and buying something I do not need, the same applies to all the other stores on the mall, every time I walk to the food court I pass the Apple store, and the ibooks keep winking at me “buy me, buy me”

But no I am not doing any of that, I am not even buying a new cell phone, since I am screwed by my contract and would need to pay full price to get a new cell phone right now. Sigh, I really wanted a razor, but not right now.

Where am I going with this post, well today as I was reading the book I stumbled to a passage that just held me and made me think about where I am, and what is coming next, this was it:

What bothered me, I think, was the feeling that once again I had ventured out into the world of men and, the rough and tumble world of adult sexuality, only to fail, to be found frail, inadequate. And now I was being sent away to a safe place where I wouldn’t hurt myself or make a nuisance of myself.

Funny how a book can all of a sudden describe how one feels at some specific time.

There, need to go back to class…

In the mean time

It has been a while since NPR has furnished me with some neat story, but today I was going through the BBC site and found their 2006 photo contest and found some amazing pictures. This year I bought a digital camera and one of my goals is to take a class on digital photography so that I can take better pictures.

In the mean time I show you the link and the winner picture - so far- here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/5348588.stm

Also this post serves as an in the mean time, before I can post about the amazing party I had last weekend. I never thought I could bring so many people together and I have to thank the Diplomat for all his help, the party would not have happened without him. Also have to thank Imelda for putting together a great evite that brought all the kids to the Architect's apartment.

Finally still in training, a week and half more to go, I am tired, but I start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Whale spotting on the Delaware shore

While on Lewes Beach in beatiful Delaware shore, be hold, a whale tanning, the photo above.
Yes darling readers that is me, in my 165 pound, jumbo-petit figure. Darn I feel like a Macy's customer now!
Class goes on, and I have little time to post anything, but there are some cute stories I would love to share with ya.
1) Security Cameras that talk back, in some town in England, gota love'em.
2) The Clinton Interview
3) Book club tardiness - me on page 16, the meeting next sunday (October 1st) LOL

So that is all for me, be good, exercise (I have not, see proof above) and thanks for all the love, seriously. Your comments have made my week. Not the turning 30, and the stress and the sense of nothing that pervades me. However the cake for the party has been selected, and the details seem mostly undercontrol.

I am a mess

It’s one of those times when nothing is right, everything goes wrong and no matter how much on tries things keep not working out. This weekend I went to Rehoboth for a fundraiser and after a very successful time at a bar where we managed to raise 1000 for the team, my world came to an end momentarily. Have u ever felt that you are just not good enough, and that since you will be turning 30 in a week, you will never be. How come one makes all this effort and still feel paralyzed, how is it that even if you thrive at socials events, the minute you sit down for dinner with 17 people, you feel like you are trapped and you loose all your appetite? Well I have an explanation for it, its called anxiety and feeling like I am back at square one.

As I type this, I can not help but think, that I am being a drama queen, that this is not that bad, that it is an irony of destiny that I am being trained in the same tool (a couple versions later) that I was trained for when I first arrived to this country, and even if this time around my job does not depend on the exams I am presenting every Friday and the project I will be completing in two weeks, I still feel like an absolute insecure 23 year old that has no clue whatsoever about life or anything. Maybe it is that this week I turn 30, and I still think I am just no where near where I want to be, or the fact that I am just stressed and after giving it my all, last Friday I got a disappointing grade in an exam I should have aced. Maybe it is that this weekend, when I saw a picture of me at the beach I thought, shit I am a whale, and I will always be one. Maybe it is that I have not learned to curb my expectations of myself and I wanted to get terrific marks so that I could go back to my bosses and say: “see, I can do it”. Maybe I am just a mess, I was hoping that by the end of my twenties I would figure it out, and I just haven’t and I am afraid that I will never will.

These are the thought that have gone through my mind the past week. Class takes all of my energy and this week I am going to have to skip the gym – making my whalish figure even a bigger problem, but I can not do it all, and I am scarifying some gym time, for study time and sleep time. I am getting old, and I can not do stuff 16 hours per day and still wake up fresh every morning. Also this week I am turning 30, on Friday to be exact and on Saturday I am having a party. Because even if I am tired and stressed I recognize that one does not turn 30 every day and that I have a lot to be grateful for, my friends, my job, my life and my family, I still feel fat and ugly, but I have come a long way and even if the next step is not clear and I need to keep going.

Any who this is a random entry; I just needed to put my ideas and feelings in paper. I am not sure I will be able to blog much, but at least I have an entry for today, lets see how I fare tomorrow and the day after that.

The only gay in the mall

Today, as I have been doing for the last 3 days , I walked to the mall to get lunch. Yes being trained right next to Tyson’s mall has its advantages, and its disadvantages. When it comes to the later, mall food is the main one. Basically there is no way to avoid carbs, not matter how hard one tries they sneak on you in tray after tray of anything you could possibly order. So today I had a burrito (the tortilla, not tortila was the bad one) and a side salad with no dressing. Yuck! Yes that is all I have to say for the lovely lunch I had.

But that is not what I meant to talk about. As I was walking into the mall, I started thunking about gay life in the suburbs. We all know the gay couples that move to the suburbs, yes, you know some too I am sure. So I wondered why I had not seen cute gay guys at all in the three days I had been having lunch at the mall. I looked high and low, yes trust me, all I could see was a see of pleated khakis and braded belts. I am not kidding it felt like the locker room on high school. The other half or more of the population at the food court were soccer moms and professional women. So I looked around and could see no one and I though how funny I now feel like the only fag in the village in Little Britain. I finished my lunch and started composing – in my mind – this little post that I am writing about the burbs and the gays. Suddenly as I was walking past a store I notice:

1, Poster with the sexiest abs I had ever seen (that is all it showed)
2. A twink wearing size 26 jeans, what would only be considered a painted on shirt, a Louis Vuitton Bag and a paper boy hat. Said twink was a male and was swishing down the mall like only the best can at JR’s or any urban gay watering hole or gym. So there, I saw another gay, probably a retail queen (I am a snob) or someone’s boy toy, or just the other gay in the mall, surely there had to be more was my thought.

3. A sign that said “20% off on all bottoms”. I am not sure how that works.

And those are the little adventures I have now that I am so close to Tysons. Yes they are boring, but they make the break between 4 hours of class and another 4 hours of class so much bearable.

Opening boxes

Slowly but surely opening boxes and updating the space.
More like a excuse because I am in training and have 0 (read nill) time to do any decent writing - though i have never claimed this to be seriois or decent writing - but this week will migrate lists and play with fonts and stuff.

More tomorrow ...

Hello, welcome to the new site for Knitting, we just moved.

The old stuff is here:

http://knittingondeck.spaces.live.com

Beginings

So I have a treat for all of you, and especially me, by happenstance, a friend sent me the picture of the birth of knitting on deck.

Last year in Atlanta, while waiting on deck for my events and while cheering, I was taught how to knit. This is the picture that records one of those very moments.

Miscellaneous

I do not know what to write about today. I could write about the party, with the piñata, the margaritas and the Mexican food. About the plentiful presents and the wine, champagne and liquor I received. But I have no energy for it. Instead I am going to talk about the craziness that is about to begin this Friday or Saturday in Germany. As I am sure you all know this weekend the World Cup will start and for the next month or so all the young American straight men will join for the first time the world in celebrating soccer. I had always thought that soccer was of little importance in this country, but yesterday talking to our new coach (a straight guy) he said that he might fall sick when the US plays. I was impressed and I realized that football might be picking up in the US, and that is impressive. In Mexico, as in the rest of Latin America, Asia and Europe, everything will stop, and people will be talking and thinking about football exclusively. Offices will install TV’s for people to watch the games and parties will be held to watch the games over weekends. Total madness, I remember in 1986 Mexico hosted the World Cup, and even I was interested. I collected the album with all the teams, and even cheered for both Mexico and Spain. I remember classes were cancelled (I was in the third grade) and we would watch the Mexico games at school. Of course that was the beginning and the end of my love affair with Soccer, not because I have not tried, or been forced to try. It was around this time that I joined a Soccer team in the Club Asturiano – the club my parents belong to – and I have never had any coordination so you can imagine how that went. I hated every minute of it because I was terrible at it. I was short sighted but at the time no one had figured it out, so I was the blind, gay kid trying to play. Sad, sad spectacle that was.

Well in any case, I guess the world and even I will pay attention to the cup, I want to see how both Mexico and Spain do, afraid they will not go far, but hope is eternal.

Ohhh and I have a request, I just got a gift certificate to buy books, at a known establishment in DuPont Circle, and I need suggestions, please send them via the comments.

Thank you cards

Today I left the office before noon, I had to run some errands and get lunch. I thought that 45 minutes would be more than enough, but you see I had one thing I needed to do, and that was getting thank you cards. Unfortunately in Ashburn there are not many independent stationary stores. The first thing was to go collect my debit card; I had forgotten it Friday at a Burmese restaurant, then I went to purchase a sandwich remembering that there was Hallmark store by the Corner Bakery in a little strip mall not far from the strip mall where the Burmese place is at.

I went to Hallmark hoping for some funny cards, and found 2, just 2, everything else had flowers, or pooches, or kitties or well nauseating poems and horrid early 90’s coral reef palette colors. Then I remembered that at the Mall there was a Papyrus, and at least there I could get some nice ones. So I drove to the mall, this is an indoor mall, not a strip mall. I parked outside of Hecht’s and made my way to the food court, and looked for the store, but it was no where. SO I checked if they had stationary shops, and alas, they did another Hallmark store and a Carlton Cards. I shuddered looking at the packets of cards they had. Hideous, they said 15 year old girl, 10 year old gay in training, or 70 year old wearing depends. Then I got distracted by the Gap store, they have some cute shorts for summer, and I am not sure I have mentioned this, but now that I have embraced the gringo in me, I am going to wear shorts all summer. Except to work, I will wear shorts during the day and evening when appropriate. But by then I realized I had already spent 1 hour in this endeavor.

Finally in the middle of the Gap, I realize that next to Harris Teeter, there is a stationary shop. And so I hurried out of the mall and drove to yet another strip mall and went into a not very promising store called “Zazu” and at the very end of the local, they had all their stationary. There in a little corner, among all the wedding invitations I found the Crane thank you notes. Of course then, I had to decide which model I wanted, should I try the generic card, should I get some personalized stuff, what to get. So I talked to the two women running the shop and the brought from the back some cards they had not displayed, they are off white, with embossed thank you in the front, perfect. All in all 20 USD, for 20 cards, compared to the 3 bucks per card at Hallmark I thought these were a bargain. And yet again I proved how ridiculously gay I can be. I spent 1.5 hours searching for thank you notes, and probably managed to drive 4 miles to get them.

Well that is all for today … this weekend a party was had, in my honor nonetheless, which was a bit unnerving. It was fun ! Thanks to all who attended and a little post on the festivities tomorrow.