Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.

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Assorted points and stuff from the past week in sort of an order:

-a good though ultimately over priced salad (t�was wee small) for lunch consisting of tomatoes roasted to skin blackness while still on the vine (though served cold so why bother?) and beets on top of mozzarella.

-standing in a very, very, very long twisty goes all the way out the building line to get into the criminal courts building downtown, wondering why only one of the x-ray machines was operating.

-passing by what appeared to be a crew of folks filming an Indian musical dance number in the courtyard at the hall of admin downtown.

-passing by what appeared to be a wedding photographer shooting pics of a youngish asian couple using the metal sides of the Disney Concert Hall.

-a group of middle aged male German tourists were taking pictures of a sign at Los Angeles city hall which said �EMPLOYEE ENTRANCE ONLY� and directed the general public to go around the corner. Their faces were all bright red, and they all wore shorty shorts that American men never wear any more...outside of an episodes of Reno 911 or a gay pride festival that is.

-Two young African-American women waiting for jury duty became very excited when they realized that the older white man sitting next to them was Kurt Russell. At least I think it was Kurt Russell, I�m always confusing actors names and faces.

-Two older women eating dinner suddenly cracked up laughing after mentioning a funeral.

-It took a mere two hours before the crazed pressure of work made me wish I was back at jury duty, though in truth that had it's own (mild) annoyances. The main one being that so many people in the panel I was on were working so hard to get off (requesting meetings with the judge, working on progressively loosing their English skills) that the process of selecting the jury took at least two days longer than it should have. Then again, had the process gone smoother, I would have been back at work that much quicker (even if I had been called up for questioning, which I wasn't, given what little I knew of the case, there was no way the defendant's lawyer would have let me stay), and I did need the break.

-a somewhat loud discussion at work about whether insects would better fried or baked (merits being an odd jumble of taste and �health�).

-a guy in an SUV who apparently thinking that my driving at the speed limit was far too slow, maneuvered around me so that he could jump a red light...exaclty in front of a police car exiting a gas station.

-Saw the L.A. Women�s Shakespeare Company production of As You Like It. It was fine, though definitely not the best thing they�ve ever done; part of the problem for me being that I don�t think too much of the story�s plot or its deux ex machine ending, the other being that I never quite got into the Wild West setting they used. I�ve had no issues with Shakespeare set in the modern day, the Balinese royal court or fascist Italy, but for some reason I just couldn�t deal with cowboys speaking all elegant like.

-The night of the play was an odd in that I was apparently far more attractive than usual. While walking down Melrose to the theater I noticed a guy doing the hanging out in front of hip store turn to check me out thing, at the theater two different men did the smile & look a long time thing, and a young guy who was part of the smoking in front of Canters crowd offered me one of his cigarettes as he did the look the prey up and down thing as I was waiting for friends. I decided to ignore that I was odd enough to be his father and just be flattered.

While that kind of attention is normal for many of the folks I follow online, it�s quite strange for me. Granted, I�m in a relationship, so I don�t mind the being ignored since I�m not looking for anything to happen, it�s just that I wish that a far more normal story did not involve men blowing smoke in my face while trying to pick up my dyke best friend not realizing that she�s a she.

-I went into my usual comic book store and then left a half hour later with only an L.A. Weekly (one of the local freebie weekly rags) because nothing seemed worth buying. A disappointing situation made even more so because it was followed by a lack luster dinner at Zanku chicken. While I normally love the place, that night the chicken was so dry that not even being drowned in garlic sauce could save it.

-Mother�s day (both of them) came and went without any major arguments, quite an accomplishment.

-I�ve taken to wasting time watching cooking demo/lesson video pod casts on iTunes. While they tend to range from the expected boring to interesting, they also range from unusual (grilled watermelon �steaks� topped with feta & micro greens (would it taste good, or is just strange for the sake of being strange?)) to bad (a woman teaching �basic� cooking

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