A man messaged me online. He said he liked my profile. I told him we met before. He asked if I wanted to me again. I declined the invitation. Clearly, I didn’t leave a memorable impression if he didn’t remember meeting. I remembered him. It was not a fond memory.
Archive for November, 2016
Paint Brush Man
Posted in Uncategorized on November 29, 2016| 7 Comments »
Desperation And Loneliness
Posted in art, my life on November 26, 2016| 5 Comments »
I drove home from Santa Fe today. I picked up a cold so I took a nap when I got home. After a quick dinner, I went to the grocery store to pick up a few essentials. Being single in a grocery store on Saturday night is like standing in the epicenter of desperation and loneliness. I should have waited until Sunday to go to the store.
A few pics from Santa Fe:
Hitting The Road
Posted in friends, my life on November 22, 2016| 6 Comments »
I’m driving to Santa Fe tomorrow for Thanksgiving. I’ll be staying at Donny and Peter’s house. Sadly, Peter’s brother passed away a few days ago after a brief illness. Peter flew to South Africa to be with his family and attend the service. He will be missed.
Donny and I are preparing a scaled down dinner. Madame and her girlfriend, the heiress, have been invited but have yet to accept the invitation. I find this an appalling display of poor manners. Accept or decline the invitation. It’s not negotiating world peace. It’s only a dinner invitation.
It will be a fun getaway. I look forward to spending time with Donny who is one of my life-long friends. I’m also looking forward to checking out the galleries. I hope I can restrain myself. Wish me luck!
Wish You Were Here
Posted in art, friends, my life on November 21, 2016| 4 Comments »
I flew solo on the art tour Friday night. Paddy cancelled because the hair salon was given a three day eviction notice on Friday morning. The salon owner owes $85,000 in rent. Paddy is moving to another salon in the same strip mall. He has an opportunity to buy the new salon. I’m expecting Paddy to ask for a loan.
I made stops at Rule, Sync and the Center For Visual Art (CVA). Most of the ususal suspects were at the galleries. Rule had an opening for Jim Johnson and Vicki Lee Johnston. The gallery was packed. I’ll need to go back for a second look.
Scott Young installation on the roof at Rule Gallery:
Sync had an opening for Pamela Gilmore Hake and Jenny Wilson. Both had nice works on display but nothing moved me. CVA opened a show with works by Metropolitan State University Denver faculty. This was a good show. I favored the drawings by Charles Livingston. I’m sure that has nothing to do with the fact I own three of his paintings.
Charles Livingston drawings:
The rest of the weekend was filled with errands, laundry, house cleaning and workouts. At least I had fun on Friday night.
Winter Arrived
Posted in art, friends, my life on November 18, 2016| 6 Comments »
It finally snowed.
How did that Virginia T Coleman sculpture find its way into my yard?
Paddy, his guy and I are hitting the galleries tonight. After art, Jacqueline is joining us for roller skating. It should be a fun night.
Work Can Be Hell
Posted in work on November 17, 2016| 6 Comments »
It’s been a work week from hell. Here some of the issues I’ve had to deal with this week so far.
A software glitch prevented distributors in Kenya from ordering Interactive Voice Response products.
A product name was changed by not capitalizing a letter in the middle of the name. This caused many hours of changes to engineering documents and code. Tech companies love to come up with fucked up names that defy normal naming conventions.
A product deemed to be at end of life was resuscitated after a large stock was found in a warehouse. Why does this company have such a hard time keeping track of its inventory? Many hours of work were needed to update engineering specs and change code to enable distributors to resume selling the product.
Monday morning, I was informed via email of new global trade compliance rules for 2017. I didn’t have a clue what to do with these rules. Today, I found out support for the new rules is being outsourced to a third-party company that specializes in global trade compliance. Wonders never cease.
It was discovered that a product killed off two years could still be ordered. Oops.
Be thankful this company does not sell airplanes, rockets or self-driving cars.
Challenging Every Day
Posted in work on November 14, 2016| 6 Comments »
My new job is challenging every day. I’ve been told it takes two years to fully learn the job. I’ve only been doing the job for six months. I still have a lot to learn. An email or instant message can send my day into a tailspin. It doesn’t help that I have to deal with instant video. It’s like a text but it’s a video call. It just pops up on the laptop as an active video call. Thankfully, it’s only being used on a trial basis by early adopters and has not been embraced by the general population of employees.
I’m responsible for three product lines: multi-media collaborative conferencing, interactive voice response which includes text to speech and speech to text, and call center reporting metrics. I support new product introduction, lifecycle changes and end of sale. The client does a monthly release of software for most product lines. I have to keep track of fifteen software loads, five for each product line.
At times, I’m completely overwhelmed. I’m very thankful to have a great mentor who realizes I’ve been thrown into the sea without a life preserver. I’m thankful for her guidance every day.
I’m gaining great experience and this position looks good on my resume. I’ve been contacted by three recruiters since I added the position to my resume on Linked In. I’m pleasantly surprised that I’m in demand given that I’m fifty-nine. Even though the job is challenging every day, I feel blessed and I’m thankful every day.
Selections From Art Night
Posted in art, friends, my life on November 13, 2016| 3 Comments »
Paddy and I hit the galleries on Friday night. I ran into Rebekah at our first stop, Open Press. She joined us for the tour. I saw some incredible art. It’s just what I needed to refresh my soul after a week from the seventh level of hell. Here are some of my favorites from the tour:
Goodwin Fine Art, Ashley Eliza Williams, Convergence, oil on panel, $3,300
Goodwin Fine Art, Rebecca Cuming, Ruby, oil on canvas, $7,900
Gallery 1261, Mia Bergeron, Stoic, oil, $2,200
Sandra Phillips Gallery, Sue Simon, Inner Music, acrylic on canvas, $900
Spark Gallery, Bill Ballas, I Trata Mas, oil on paper, $200
Burning Sage
Posted in my life on November 11, 2016| 6 Comments »
The campaign worker moved out around noon yesterday. She left the garage door opener and house key on the kitchen island. About an hour later, I noticed she left the key but kept the Gucci keychain. I sent her a text inquiring about the keychain. At first she said she wasn’t sure what happened to the keychain. She thought it fell off. When I asked her how a key falls off a keychain she admitted to removing the key from the chain and losing the keychain. I’m guessing she learned a lot about revisionist history working on a political campaign.
I burned a sage smudge stick later that day when I got home from the gym. I also laundered the bed linens and the towels. The room still smells like the fragrance she wore. Thankfully, it doesn’t smell like rotting tampons. I opened the windows and turned on the ceiling fan. Double A told me to grind some coffee beans and put it in the room. I want her personal fragrance gone.
I’m going to immerse myself in art tonight with the usual suspects. There are openings at Gildar, Goodwin, Dateline, Sandra Phillips, Open Press, Walker, Spark and Core. I’ll probably hit all of them but Dateline. Wish me luck.
I’m Tired Of Fighting
Posted in my life, politics on November 10, 2016| 8 Comments »
Yesterday morning I was standing in my yard taking a break from work. I was in no mood to work. Mrs. Jackson, who has been known to support Republican Party candidates, was walking her dog. As she approached, I noticed she was crying. I asked if she was okay. She mumbled something about the election and that man as she walked by. About an hour later, Cindi called to let me know she had returned from Santa Fe. She had been crying all morning. Last night at dinner with Tom, Sheila and their campaign worker, I found out my campaign worker had been crying all day in her room. She had her door closed most of the day so I respected her privacy by leaving her alone. I didn’t know she was crying.
As a gay man of a certain age, I been fighting and supporting causes most of my adult life. I’ve celebrated gay pride in Dallas, Denver, San Francisco and New York. In the 1980s, I protested with ACT UP in Dallas to direct attention to the AIDS crisis. I saw the passage of Amendment 2 (a voter-approved ballot initiative that banned laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation) in Colorado after moving to Denver. I attended protest rallies and fundraisers supporting litigation to fight Amendment 2. I joined the fight for same-sex marriage.
I’m tired of fighting. There have been so many battles for AIDS research and funding, along with trying to secure civil rights. I’m tired of crying. I cried too much in eighties when most of my friends died from AIDS. I need to turn my disappointment with the presidential election results into motivation. If I give up, they win. At this point, I don’t know what to do but I’ll figure it out.
It’s okay to cry for a few days, perhaps even a week or two. But then it’s time to dry your tears. It’s time to figure out what you’re going to do.
The Corporate Slave 