todd

On a scale of 1 to 10: 7

When Scott gets here in 2 hours... a 9.

My boyfriend returns to Louisville next week. His decision yesterday to quit his job and return to Louisville now stands as the greatest thing he's done for me thus far. I want him here. I need him here. Well, enough said.

A cool evening virtually guarantees a walk. On the scale: today was a 7.

Sent from my iPhone

All in all, a pretty good day. Work was light, which was my intent, and I'm glad to have achieved that, for a day at least.  Finished this week's Audible New Yorker, am about half done with next month's Audible Harvard Business Review. 

This has been the quietest Saturday in years, it seems. Just me, just my computer, just a few short walks outdoors in the heat, some muscle fatigue in the gym, more than a few hours of enjoying the cocoon of headphones in a café, a good book, a light dinner of salad and bread. And what does the evening offer? Some more café time, which I love, perhaps a walk if it's cool enough outside, and then some relaxation with a bad horror movie.

This is my new Saturday night ritual: the extremely crappy horror movie. It started with This, the network that's relegated to one of the .2 or .3 digital channels on local TV. To make use of one of the gimmicks, This is the home of crappy horror films on Saturday night. I don't mean merely bad horror movies; I mean terrible horror movies. Like Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland. Haven't heard of it? Of course you haven't. I watched Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers last week, and the only reason I'll watch the sequel tonight is because I know it will have to be even worse. There's plenty of great horror movie action, from classic to shameful, on Netflix, too, so that might be an alternative if SC3 is beyond what I can stomach.

Did you know Frankie Avalon starred in a horror movie? Haunted House of Horror from 1969. I don't think I'm giving anything away when I tell you that the house turns out not to be haunted, nor is there more than a soupcon of horror.

This isn't living room couch viewing. This is in-bed-with-plenty-of-wine viewing, and with the ready distraction of a computer on my lap, or the iPad, depending on my mood for engagement online. And it's a perfect way to end a very enjoyable and relaxing Saturday.

What's your favorite horror movie of all time, whether classic or crap?

A busy weekend ahead, and a week away on business-related travel next week, but for tonight, I'm hanging out at my cafe, relaxing with an espresso, and thinking about the week, and what lies ahead. I love my Thursdays. I also love it when my better half isn't working on Thursdays, but most of the time, he is, and that's cool because I have a great backup plan.

I'll be in Los Angeles next week for work, staying at a hotel in Hollywood. Anybody else but me would probably think it was pretty cool, but I've never been excited about Los Angeles. I love cities, but I like my cities less sprawling, less star-studded, more gritty, and with a subway that goes farther than a few token blocks. In fact, I can't think of a city that I like that doesn't have a subway. It's not a deciding factor, but it's a commonality.

I've not yet lived permanently in a city with a subway; if I did, I'd probably have a much less-idealized view of them. But with a gas prices so high, it's less a fantasy and more just plain common sense to think about what it would be like if I didn't have to own a car. This is the cherished dream I have and I might be able to make it a reality next year.

It won't be simple. I live about two miles from work in a city well-served by buses. But my morning commute is at 4:20am, about 45 minutes before the first bus. Walking isn't perfect because my route would take me through some areas that are a little unsavory. It can be done; I'm just a little nervous about a 40 minute walk carrying a $2500 computer, wearing a dress shirt and pants. The kind of look that says, "Mug me, won't you?" I might get a scooter or a bike. Hell, taking a cab to work every morning and riding the bus home would be cheaper than the monthly lease payment, insurance and gas for a car. My lease runs out in May, so I have time to make my gameplan. But I'm 95% certain I won't be getting another car. Currently, we drive it about 300 miles a month. You can't even justify the lease payment on usage that low.

This weekend will be a mix of hurricane-watching, trying to get some work done ahead of next week's trip, trying not to obsess over politics, and the usual mix of sleep, workouts, eating and farmer's marketing.

I let a couple weeks go by between posts. It felt more appropriate to let our vacation sink in... last week shortened by vacation leading into this holiday-shortened week. A couple of times, now, we've scheduled a vacation in such a way that we return a few days before another holiday. I don't know why I haven't done this more often, but I like it a lot. If the holiday merely prolongs the vacation, that's great, but there seems to be some kind of psychological boost to ending one vacation only to get another.

Or it could be that I'm gullible enough to believe anything I tell myself. Well, I'm sure I'm not the only one who suffers from that problem. That's about a third of the human condition, isn't it?

I've tried very hard to avoid politics, and I have to say, I've succeeded admirably since about 2004, even though my job makes it very hard to do. I used to follow politics closely, but the last few years have been demoralizing. Not merely because some politicians whom I don't like have been in power - that's always been the case. It's a combination of the tone of today's politics, its positioning as a sport suitable for play-by-play, the proliferation of lighter-than-air talking heads on TV and elsewhere, the shear weight of millions of people expressing their opinions about things about which they haven't bothered to learn a single thing. (There's another third of the human condition, huh?)

This is our god-given right, as Americans, to categorically take sides on issues about which we know nothing. But the Internet has changed the scale. Before, it was just the two loudmouths at work; now it's about 5 million loudmouths coming at me every time I open my notebook. This isn't a sickness of politics alone. About 80% of Friendfeed content consists of people commenting on posts they haven't read. After a while, you wonder how it can be that so many people derive such an intense feeling of self-worth by offering thoughts such as, "FAIL."

This seems an appropriate time to pile on a bit, by including Merlin Mann's priceless description of Friendfeed: "... the platform of choice for the web’s least interesting narcissists — and the slow-witted woodland creatures who enjoy grooming their fur."

I use Friendfeed. I like it. I like it so much, I bought the company. But, while the key to maximizing the effectiveness of the app is selecting the right friends and then weeding out the irrelevant content, sometimes I grow concerned that nobody is going to share something interesting and thoughtful; that everybody is going to port all their delightful cat videos into the service, or make pointless statements, hoping lots of people will comment back to them, and maybe add them as a friend. Thank goodness not everyone is using it as their own live puppet show.

Well, there are worse things in this world. Which brings me back to politics, doesn't it? I'm kind of starting to get into it. My subscription to The New Republic, which has languished since 2005, now gets my attention again. I've started reading a couple political blogs. Wow, that's intense, Todd. Why so deep? Maybe because I think Washington stands a fair chance of getting smarter, come January.

We can hope.

This is a short week. Shortened in a couple of important ways. First of all, it's rare for me to be finished narrating the New Yorker for Audible.com on a Monday night - usually, I'm deep into the work right now, rather than sitting and enjoying some coffee at a cafe. But I started early and that means a little bit of pain on Saturday and Sunday is followed by a rich reward tonight. And I'll get to enjoy that reward again tomorrow night.

The week is also shortened by our vacation to San Francisco and northern California this week - five days that we've been looking forward to for some time.

We usually make two trips to San Francisco a year, which is never enough. This year, a variety of circumstances, not least of which was the dramatic increase in airfares, caused us to cancel the Spring trip. We've come to see this as a big mistake, especially because our financial situation is rock solid, lots of money in the bank, no debt beyond a mortgage. Yes, being frugal is good and, frankly, if I was more frugal, I'd be in an even better place. But I believe in a balance of frugality and excess - the definition of moderation, right? Life should include travel to places we love and we've decided that, from now on, we won't be penny-wise and pound-foolish about the good things in life.

For me, one of the keys to this way of living is prudence, certainly. And the other is putting an end to as many expenditures as possible that don't give us commensurate pleasure. This worldview led us to do away with our cable subscription and our TiVo, for instance - a savings about about $75/month or $900/year. We still watch lots of TV - over-the-air HD, Internet streaming via Hulu and other platforms, Netflix, etc. But $75/month to have several hundred channels coming into our home was a lot of money for little benefit. For us. Anyone who goes through an exercise like this will have different conclusions, make different decisions, but possibly arrive at the same result. It has worked for us, in any case.

Well, that's quite enough about saving. Let's talk about spending.

Our trip will include a long-awaited dinner at one of the best restaurants in the country, The French Laundry in Yountville, CA. We've dined at some real gems, including Alinea in Chicago (which, depending on whom you ask, either gets the number one spot ahead of French Laundry or is a close runner-up) but this dining adventure feels more like getting to the roots of what really works with dining in the US. Thomas Keller, despite branching out to New York and Las Vegas, still puts out quite a spread in Yountville, by all accounts. It will be an evening to remember, and we'll be spending it with our closest friends, Michael and Bob, who are getting married on Wednesday. This is possible, at present, in California.

Here's to tolerance and equality.

We will have the privilege of watching them exchange vows in the hallowed halls of the San Francisco City Hall, and then we'll join them for three days in Napa, doing little beyond eating, being lazy, visiting a couple wineries, and working out (we're gay after all). Yes, it's their honeymoon, but hey, if it's fun, shouldn't you be able to share it? If Chuck and I are ever allowed to get married, (and that won't be anytime soon in Kaintuck) we'll do the same. Maybe in California. Maybe in Canada.