Welcome, Foolish Mortals!

Okay, okay...I did see The Haunted Mansion this weekend. Twice. And, I liked it!!! The first time was on Wednesday the 26th. My boss let us go early so I met with Clark at Downtown Disney to see the film. I saw it again -- with Sean this time -- on Friday the 28th. Same place. The story moves along fairly well, plus all the little details from the ride at Disneyland make it worthwhile. Eddie Murphy's comedy takes a bit to warm up, but once it does, the movie becomes one good ride. And, if you do decide to see it, stick around for a little tag ending after the credits....

On Saturday, I saw Looney Tunes: Back in Action and am glad that I did. Definitely a fun film to watch, full of references to other Warner Bros. cartoons and films, and tons of the cartoonish action we've come to rely on from Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the gang. Brendan Fraser is quite funny as DJ Drake, a studio security guard who is fired and then must rescue his secret agent father. Steve Martin was a bit over-the-top, more so than usual.

Today, I used my free movie voucher to see Les Triplettes de Belleville, a French animated film. A so-so movie. Un peu comme-çi, comme-ça. I enjoyed the change from Disney and Pixar animation and liked the story of a young man who is kidnapped during the Tour de France only to be rescued by his Grandmother and a trio of singling ladies, the Triplettes of Belleville. But, I can't help but feel slighted by the film. I admit that I'm not the most patriotic person in the USA, but when Belleville appears on the screen, via a huge ship entering a harbor with an obese statue the would almost be a dead ringer for the Statue of Liberty (except for its enormous rotundity), it seemed to me to be an obvious swipe at the U.S. The streets are far from resembling anything European and skyscrapers abound -- it all just looked too American to me. Also, the residents of Belleville are all grossly obese, which seems to be a prevalent French belief that Americans don't excercise enough and constitute a country of fat people. The obvious swipes at Mickey Mouse and Disney left me in an unpleasant mood. as well. (In one scene, the grandmother climbs the stairs to the Triplettes apartment, past a clogged toilet with a very distinctive pile of excrement blocking the drain.) Maybe I read to much into what I saw on the screen, but it definitely tainted my perception of the film.

Difficult to believe I have a degree in French, huh?

As for books.... I finished three over the long holiday weekend. Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge, A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski, and "We Never Make Mistakes" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Instead of writing reviews here, which would take up far too much space, I wrote them for Amazon, and if you are interested in reading them, my reviewer name is gac1003.

Yes, I am very much into the entertainment pursuits in life: reading, music, movies, etc. My stack of too-read books must be well over 40 titles, plus Sean sells books for a living so one room is covered with obscure and current titles. My updated reading list, though, is as follows:

The Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson (still have about 550 pages to go)
Cabal by Michael Dibdin
An Arrow's Flight by Mark Merlis

I'll write a bit later about the events of Thanksgiving Day itself. I still need to sort through a minor bit of what happened. Until then!!


P.S. I could never be an editor. Nothing EVER looks good the first, second or third time. I'm sure that I've re-edited this blog entry at least 8 times now. -GC

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Hope everyone's having a great vacation so far. I know I am. :-D Just a quick note to say that I have NOTHING whatsoever to do with those banner ads. The one I just saw above my blog is for "Christian Science Fiction -- family friendly science fiction." Huh? I'm GAY, for crying out loud. No offense, but why not advertise books by Cleis Press or Mabel Maney?

In response to Joel's message about my reading more science fiction. I can't believe that I forgot about two books I recently read! The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess: in the near future, the Earth has become so overpopulated that the world governments are authorizing and promoting homosexuality to curb population growth; and A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller: set hundreds of years after the Apocalypse, following a group of monks as they try to safeguard the remains of the past from the greedy and power hungry men of the future.

See? I do read science fiction!!!

My family is having Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt and uncle's house. And, once again, my boyfriend has opted not to attend, just like last year. Sometimes I get the feeling that he doesn't like my family. I hate to say that, but he never wants to have dinner with my parents or to participate in my family's get-togethers. When something arrives, like a birthday or Easter, he finds some "out" like working on his eBay auctions or adding more books to his Alibris list.

Family is very important to me, and I'm very close with mine. I talk with my parents two to three times a week, and we email each other all the time. Plus, they don't live all that far away, perhaps 15 miles. Close enough to meet me for lunch during the week or for me to drive down for dinner. My grandmother also lives close to them. (She used to live in Ventura, CA, but can't get around as well as she used to so my mother and aunt convinced her to move closer to the rest of the family.) My brother lives on the same street as me, maybe a mile or so away. We play phone tag quite a bit because of the odd hours he works. My aunt and uncle live three to four miles away, in the same city, so I run into them on occasion at the store or in downtown. As for my cousin, he lives in Madrid, Spain. With email and instant messaging, it's not as far away as you would think. My cousin and his partner -- yes, it runs in the family -- also visit the states quite a bit, and I've stayed with them in Madrid.

Sean's relations just seem very tenuous to me. He rarely speaks with his father, unless he has to. He speaks with his mother a bit more frequently. And, even though they live just across the street, he doesn't visit with his aunt and uncle. In fact, most of their conversations occur when they stop by to visit one of their sons who happens to be our neighbor. (We see very little of him, either, but I that's not our choice.)

I don't know what to make of it....

Friday turned out to be uneventful. I met Sean in Disneyland, and he wanted to stay to see the (fake) snow. When he found out that the snow follows the fireworks at 9:25 PM, he decided that it was time to go so that he could watch The Lord of the Rings:The Two Towers special edition. All 4 discs. So I grabbed a quick bite at one of the hotel snack bars, and we headed for home. I admit that I was a little disappointed. I would like to have stayed for the fireworks and to ride the Haunted Mansion Holiday.

Saturday, I finished The Ark Sakura by Kobo Abe and am working on my Amazon review of it. Not a great book: too many side stories and additional characters to keep track of the story. I like Abe's writing style because it's very descriptive, but it was just not an enjoyable book to read. With that out of the way, I am halfway through Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge, which unexpectedly involves a gay character. (That's not why I bought the book. This came as a total surprise.) I also picked up the December selection for my reading group entitled A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski.

Later, Sean and I met with Clark to see The Cat in the Hat. I enjoyed it and thought Mike Meyers did a good job. The kids in the movie were great. Plus, Sean Hayes plays Mr. Hooberfloob and is the voice of the Fish. The theater was packed, too, but not with just kids. MANY adults were there, as well, some of whom talked throughout the film and kicked the back of my seat.

Today, I discovered through my AMC Moviewatcher's group that I could purchase advanced tickets for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. I drove to the theater and purchased 3 tickets for opening night!!!! Woo hoo! Another Xmas present out of the way!! Clark's coming over tonight to watch The Two Towers so I need to clean the house a bit.

Very quiet in the office today. The phones have hardly rung at all. I've received few e-mails. I think everyone's taking off for Thanksgiving and making it a week-long holiday instead of simply Thursday and Friday. That should make my job fairly easy next week. Yea!

Family news

My mom has been sick the past few days with a bad case of bronchitis. My brother is still on strike, thanks to Albertson's and Vons. He's predicting this to go possibly as long as March 2004. He recieves pay from the Union to picket, but it's barely enough so he's dipping into his savings.

Other Stuff

Wrote my review of Strange Brother and forwarded it to Amazon for posting. It's an interesting gay novel written in 1931 so you get the mindset and societal views of a time when it was very dangerous to be homosexual. Police offers trapped gay men into coming onto them so they could be arrested. If you wore drag in public, you would be arrested. Society reared you to belive that you were abnormal, that you should be ashamed to be alive because you didn't mesh with the rest of the world. So you had to hide, to keep those feelings toward members of the same sex to yourself. Those early novels called it living in a "shadow world" or "twilight world," someplace in between what society requires and what you desire, and instilling a self-hatred for being who you are.

Thank goodness we've moved away from that! Perhaps not as much as we would like, but thanks to TV, books, movies, plays, and men and women just not wanting to live with that kind of societal abuse anymore, we're in the public eye, fighting against those old issues and stereotypes. We know that we are not alone, have never been alone, that it isn't necessary to feel like third-class citizens.

Okay...off my little soap box. (My friends will note that was very unlike me! I NEVER opine like that.)

Tonight: Sean and I are meeting in Disneyland so that he can see all the holiday preparations: i.e, fake snow, thousands of multi-colored twinkling lights, a re-vamped "it's a small world," etc. Then, I'm off for the weekend!!!!

Went to the gym after work: 30 minutes on the treadmill then 30 minutes of weights. I don't do too much while I'm there, mostly trying to lose weight to stay healthy. Plus, I get intimidated by all the people that already have buffed bodies. No matter how much I work out, I know that I will never have the kind of body that is prized in the gay community.

Read two more ghost stories in the Benson book and finished Strange Brother. I should have the review prepped for the reading group this evening. My next book is Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge. It's been gathering dust on my bookshelf since I bought it. (I have far too many books waiting on that shelf....)

And, I called the Property Manager about our mailbox. Someone was to have repaired it either Monday or Tuesday. Since it's still leaning against the gate without any mail inside, I figured no one came. Good thing I called because the Property Manager forgot that I had spoken with him on Saturday regarding this.

Weird Dream from Last Night...

A female friend and I are at a table in a busy restaurant, talking about nothing in particular. Out of the blue, I ask her to marry me, and she says yes, but we need to do it immediately. We stand and hug, then I fit her with a bridal veil as we walk on the church grounds to a long, mission-sytle church like one of the Spanish missions from Father Junipero Serra. As we're walking and holding hands, a dark cloud comes across my thoughts. I need to tell her that I can't marry her because I'm gay. We approach the huge wooden doors of the church, and I make a run for it, dashing across the lawn and into the parking lot, where some of my friends are just shutting their car doors. One of them walks up to me, carrying a book which he says that both he and Steve received at the exact same time today. I recognize the book as my copy of Strange Brother, with the torn top left corner and the plastic separating on the back cover. They lead me to the church door where she is still standing, waiting for me. I tell her that we can't get married, and she agrees. I don't tell her why, feeling the need to hide it from her and the people sitting in the church. We open the doors onto a semi-stage in the church. She tells everyone that we're not getting married. I tell everyone, "I'm gay. We can't get married because I'm gay." I am relieved and peek around the bannister to see her sisters -- all equally as lovely as her -- nodding their heads. The church is not as full as I thought it would be. I turn to find her and her mother in my bed-- both fully clothed and looking at pictures of cakes that her mother bakes for weddings and parties. They point to one designed like a small jungle island with small palm trees, monkeys made from icing, a lagoon and a water fall with real running water. As I'm looking at it, my boyfriend comes up behind me, dressed only in shorts. He's tall with dark curly hair. We hug, and he nuzzles my neck. Then, I lift him over my shoulders and start dancing around the room to the laughter of everyone.

Kind of bizarre....I know this has something to do with the book I'm reading since I read about 75 pages before I went to bed. I have no idea who the girl and her mother are. Nor "Steve." No character in the book is named Steve. Hmmm.... I haven't figured out the jungle cake, either. But, after I woke this morning, my boyfriend at the end reminded me of Tom Everett Scott. Not sure why I would have a dream with him in it....

Christmas came early to my house! Sean decided to put up the tree on Sunday while I was at the movies. Can you believe it? Not only have many stores decorated for the holidays -- some, like Hallmark, have been peddling holiday items since August -- but, he's in the Christmas spirit. Ugh! Let's at least wait until after Thanksgiving to string the lights outside.

An eventful weekend....

After work on Friday, I met Sean at DCA for dinner and a movie. AMC built a theater in Downtown Disney so we see quite a few films there. That night, we watched Master and Commander with Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany. Bettany is fantastic as Dr. Stephen Maturin, the ship's physician. We made it home around 11 PM only to find that someone had hit our mailbox, breaking the post upon which it was sitting, and then leaning the damamged mailbox against the gate. According to the US Postal Service's web site, postal workers will not leave mail in the box until it is repaired so I contacted our Poperty Manager the next morning. One of us gets to trek to the main postal station to pick up the mail until it's fixed. Guess who that's going to be?

Saturday, I managed to read 150 pages of Carter Beats the Devil before we had to leave for the theater. I had no problems getting the tickets on Friday. In fact, I was surprised that I was able to get two tickets together on such short notice.

The play was titled Terra Nova, written by Ted Tally, who wrote the screenplay for The Silence of the Lambs. It is based upon Robert Scott's ill-fated expedition to be the first men to reach the South Pole. They lose to a team from Norway, but never make it back home. The actors portraying Scott and his team were excellent and really made the audience feel as though they were with the team. Two other characters, Scott's wife Kathleen, and the leader of the Norwegian team, could have been better written.

Only two-thirds of the seats were filled, with the crowd consisting mostly of couples over 55 years. I didn't think the subject matter would suit their tastes, and, sure enough, many left during the intermission. For those who remained, we were treated to some fine acting and storytelling. I enjoyed it, though not as much as Sean.

What really gripes me, though, is the audacity many in the audience to leave during the curtain call. All the house lights were up, the actors walking onto the stage to receive some well-deserved applause, and so-called "patrons" were already donning their coats and ambling up the aisles. That's just plain rude. I felt bad for the actors.

Sunday, I took things easy. Washed some laundry, cleaned house a bit, listed some books on Amazon, and finished Carter Beats the Devil. I also wrote two reviews for Amazon before leaving to meet Clark and Joel to see Die Mommie Die. What a fun movie! Very campy, full of sexual innuendo -- both gay and straight -- great acting, and the creators managed to re-create the look and feel of the Bette Davis/Joan Crawford melodramas of the '50s and '60s.

Updated book list:
The Ark Sakura by Kobo Abe
Strange Brothers by Blair Niles
The Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson (Because these are short stories, and the book has at least 700 pages, this will be on here indefinitely.)

Added a few more links: Joel's blog (W,W,W), The Center OC, and Rainbow Readerships (a gay/lesbian book group on Yahoo!).

Fun day at work: Most of my office has been dealing with computer and database problems for a good 5-6 months. Finally, thanks to our incredible Area Manager Kerry, we now have new G4 PowerBooks. I'm not accustomed to such a small screen. I will get used to it, though, as the computer runs much faster, and the OS is upgraded to Mac OS X. Yipee! We've been operating on 9.2 for far too long!!

Weekend plans: 'Tis the season for movies so Sean and I are going to see Master and Commander tomorrow. He's looking forward to it more than I am. (He likes Russell Crowe.) I just hope the audience doesn't go in expecting pirates and skeletons as in Pirates of the Caribbean from earlier in the summer. On Saturday, we have tickets (keep fingers crossed) for Terra Nova. The voucher arrived yesterday so I will attempt to pick up the tickets tomorrow. On Sunday, a small group is gathering to see Die Mommie Die at the Edwards University theater.

As for tonight, I'm continuing with Strange Brothers by Blair Niles. 100 pages so far.... I have to keep reminding myself that the book was written in 1931. That's the mindset of the piece. I'll delve a bit deeper into a review of it once I've finished.

Some bad news....the 12/5/03 taping of The Ellen Degeneres Show has been cancelled. We're a bit disappointed because now we must wait until January 2004.

In early October of this year, Sean and I met a group of our friends at Disneyland for one of the Unofficial Gay Days. Everyone wears a red t-shirt, goes on the rides -- oops, my bad, "attractions†" -- and generally has a great time meeting other people. One of our friends, Everett, whom we hadn't seen in a while, greets us both with big hugs and kisses, then looks at me funny and asks when I had the accident. "Accident?" I say. He pointed to a grayish-purple lesion about the size of a nickel on my right cheek. I told him that I was fine, that it was just a wart. He smiled and moved on to other topics.

At that point, I wasn't exactly sure what it was. The lesion had been on my right cheek for the good part of 10 years without anyone commenting on it. It blended with my skin color and on rare occasions, darkened to a brownish red because of too much sun. Three of the doctors I'd had within this time never said a word about it, and since it never hurt or caused any discomfort, neither did I. A few weeks before Everett said anything, though, I had noticed a change. It had grown in size. The color no longer blended with my skin, instead shifting from a flaky white to a grayish-purple. Still no pain or discomfort, but after Disneyland, I was unnerved enough to surf the internet to find out what it could be.

Bad idea.

So much information floats around the World Wide Web that in this kind of situation, it's scary. I diagnosed myself with basal cell carcinoma based on its size and appearance. But after double-checking a few images, I knew that was wrong; it had to be a malignant sarcoma. And, hadn't it grown to the size of a quarter since this morning? God, 10 years of sitting idly by while I allowed that thing to grow and to fester on my cheek! How could I have been so stupid not to have it removed earlier!! AAGGHH!!! I worried myself into a frenzy and couldn't sleep that night.

On Monday, I scheduled a doctor appointment for the next day. He poked the lesion, ran his fingers across it, stretched and pushed it, and finally told me that he thought it was either dermatitis (rash) or a keratosis (skin tumor). No way. It couldn't be that simple, not after all I'd read on the Internet. He was the doctor, though, and all I did was gather bits of information. What did I know?! The lesion, in all the 10 years I'd known of it, never bothered me, but he was concerned that with the recent changes I noted, the just maybe it might turn cancerous. For someone my age, a keratosis of this size was unusual. I could have it removed if I wanted to, or we could wait and see what happens. Without hesitating, I told him to get rid of it. Slice it, burn it, whatever he needed to do. Bad choice of words....

He had me strecth out on the examining table, then injected my cheek with a local anesthetic. After my cheek was good and numb, he brought out a razor and explained that he needed to send a piece of the lesion to a lab to confirm that it was not cancerous, calling the procedure a shave biopsy. Then, time to burn it off. I thought with liquid nitrogen, but I was wrong. No...he burned it off with electricity. Cauterized it, to be more precise. I don't know what the machine was called, but he wheeled it into the room, flipped a switch, and brought what looked like a chopstick with a metal triangle at one end close to my face. Electricity trickled‡ through that piece of metal each time the doctor stepped on a floor pedal. My cheek and eye twitched every time the device touched the lesion. My eye continued to twitch for a few minutes after the procedure. He spread some neosporin on it and bandaged the area. He was sure that he burned the whole lesion away but instructed me to watch for any signs of re-occurrence. The office would call with the lab results in about 5 days.

14 days later, suffering through the worst urge to scratch I'd ever felt -- it itched so bad!! -- and telling myself that something must have gone wrong because they were taking so long, that the lesion was cancerous, the office phoned. They called the lesion a "benign keratosis." No cancer. Woo hoo!! I literally heaved a sigh of relief then jumped for joy! I was so happy that I didn't care it took the lab two weeks to come back with the results.

I carry a red scar on my cheek in place of the lesion. The doctor assures me that it will go away in time and that the only difference anyone would notice would be a slightly lighter skin color should my face be sunburned.

I can live with that.

†Technically, Disneyland has only one "ride" in the park: Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Everything else is considered an "Attraction." See? Who says that "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" isn't educational?

‡I use the word "trickled" because the doctor assured me that the charge wasn't even strong enough for a light bulb to glow.

Well, that sucks....someone (or something) changed my blog template. All those comments are gone. :(

Woo hoo! Sean surprised me with tickets to a taping of The Ellen Degeneres Show in December! She's one of the funniest comics around, and her show is great!

I'm so excited!!!!

I admit it: I'm not the most tech-savvy person around so please forgive me while I tinker with the comments and the fonts.

Busy weekend...sort of. Sean and I saw the film Love Actually on Friday night, with about 200 other people. I give it an A-.

Saturday, I finished the novel In the Absence of Men by Philippe Besson. Not too impressed with it, especailly after reading all the reviews calling it "the next The Hours." I think that was said because as The Hours employs Virginia Woolf as a character, Absence uses Marcel Proust. But, that's where the connection stops. Don't read it unless you must!!! Cross that one off my list and add Strange Brothers, a gay pulp novel from the 1930's by Blair Niles.

Sean spent most of the day cooped up in his office, listing books and things on eBay. He did come down to watch Finding Nemo with me and our friend Clark, though.

Today has been quiet so far. I wrote two reviews on Amazon: one for the above-mentioned book, the other for a 1953 film titled Wages of Fear. My Mom called to say that she had been given a two-ticket voucher for South Coast Repertory Theater. "Did we want to use it?" Hell yes! Free tickets are always a good thing! But, we have to use the voucher by Nov. 16th. So probably on Friday or Saturday, Sean and I are going to see the play Terra Nova by Ted Tally.

I wrote before about dinner with my folks a few nights ago, going through all the photos from their trip to Arizona. Now, I want to tell you about how I "came out" to them. Back in 1994-95, I was still living at home, a recent college graduate trying to earn enough money to move out of my parent's house. I had a pretty good job handling Workers' Copmensation claims for a staffing agency. One day, a co-worker asked me point blank if I were gay. When I stammered and blushed, he took me aside and told me about the local Gay and Lesbian Center. They had helped him when he was just coming out; maybe they would be able to help me sort though everything going through my head. He gave me their number, and I called before I left work. They offered a "Coming Out Group" which met every Sunday, if I wanted to join.

That first group had about 25 people, mostly teenagers. (A few of us were in our 20s, but we were definitely outnumbered.) We talked about coming out to friends and family and heard horror stories about them being thrown out of the house, about putting up with verbal abuse from family and so-called friends, about the silence that some family members gave them. I remained silent, feeling scared, wondering if my family would act the same way. Hoping that they wouldn't. More confused and more scared than when I first arrived.

But, I continued with the group. Once a week for almost a year and a half. During this time, one of the leaders of the Coming Out group asked me to dinner. I was surprised. I had noticed him when I first joined the group, but thought he was out of my league. He was a little over six feet tall, blue eyes, beautiful smile and a gym body; I was -- and still am, to a small degree -- slightly overweight, wore glasses, and rarely smiled. He was of the type that either already had a boyfriend or had dozens of men throwing themselves at him, so I never really considered him. But, he asked me to dinner. And, I accepted.

It was after one of our dates, after he dropped me off at my parents', that I "came out" to them. It wasn't my decision to, as I was waiting for the right time. This wasn't it, but fate stepped in with other plans. I headed for my bedroom and was taking off my coat when my Dad walked in, carrying something rolled in his hands. We said a few words to each other, with me watching him tighten his grip on the thing in his hands. "What you got there?" I asked. He unrolled a copies of Out and Frontiers, said that my Mom had found them at the bottom of my trash can. She was in their bedroom crying, and he wanted to know if it were true. This was something that I had been struggling with ever since I knew for sure that I was gay, and I wanted to tell them in my time, when I was ready, when I thought they were ready. I have since realized that in some circumstances, screw planning and deal with things as they come. So I told him that, yes, I am gay. He didn't cry or shout or threaten me or anything that I expected. Instead, he said "Let's go talk with your Mother." Oh boy, I thought, and I followed him into their bedroom. The three of us talked for a good 3-4 hours. I told them everything: the Center, the co-worker, the Coming Out group, even about the man I had just seen that night. Instead of doing what I expected, what I remembered from others in group, they wanted to know if I was happy. I told them that I was. And that was that. I'm sure they sat up talking for another few hours after I left the room.

I have never regretted that day. My parents have been two of the most supportive people I could ever imagine. Okay, they don't go to P-FLAG meetings or march in Pride Parades, but I never asked nor expected them to. They love me for who I am, not for what I am. That's all.

After work last night, I drove to my parents' house for dinner. About a week ago, they returned from a 3-week camping trip to Arizona: the Grand Canyon, Montezuma's Castle, Tonto Natural Bridge, Tuzigoot, and the surrounding cities and towns. I watched their house while they were gone, and to thank me, they treated me to a nice dinner.

Looking through the photographs during dinner brought back memories of all the family trips we used to take growing up: driving up the coast to Oregon and then farther north to Washington State; the Grand Tetons in Montana; the cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, Colorado. In fact, one summer, my parents packed up my brother and me in the motorhome and off we went around the US. For four months, we saw everything from the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico to the Smithsonians in Washington, D.C., to Gettysburg to Yellowstone. All the places we'd only read about in books. I love my parents for that! (I think this may also account for my love of travel.)

Oops! Back to work!

How about this?

Just testing to see if I can get the font smaller.

Okay, Joel, you got me into this so let's see what happens....

Joel is a very good friend of mine, and while we were at the Gay and Lesbian Center last night, he told me about this site and showed me his own blog. I thought it might be a cool idea because I've always tried to keep a diary (I have dozens of unfinished diaries, with only one-third of the pages filled, gathering dust beneath my bed), but I never can keep up with them. Because I'm on-line quite a bit, this seemed to be the best way to keep track of thoughts, ideas, dreams, etc., etc.

First things first: I am an avid reader. (Thank you, Mom.) I read almost anything I get in my hands, with the exception of Harlequin-style romances. I'm addicted to ghost stories, world literature and gay/lesbian literature. My list of favorite authors includes, but is not limited to: Shirley Jackson, Paul Russell, Stephen King, Ambrose Bierce, Yukio Mishima, Haruki Murakami, H.P. Lovecraft, Dorothy Parker, and Gregory Maguire.

I am slowly working my way through the Top 100 Lesbian and Gay Novels list which a friend forwarded to me. It's kind of a weird list; not all the books belong on it. In my opinion, that is. Maybe it's just me, but I could not find anything gay/lesbian in content about "Death Comes for the Archbishop." Did I miss something there? But, the list has openend my eyes to many authors I'd never heard of (like Paul Russell).

Current reading list:
"Carter Beats the Devil" by Glen David Gold
"In the Absence of Men" by Philippe Besson
"The Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson"

Well, back to work before I get into trouble. ;)