Singapore/KL Bangkok Stuttgart Washington DC Toronto Colorado Springs San Francisco

Thank goodness my upgrade came through in the end, as I was one hungover little puppy on Friday, and I needed the space to stretch out. The worst part was the drive from Heidelberg back to Frankfurt -- at one point I was about to ask the lady driving us to pull over so I could puke. Not always an easy thing to do on the autobahn.

Thursday night was very intriguing with my US colleagues, and I decided a couple things. First, if you have lived in Germany for 5 years you should probably know more than half a dozen words of German (words which were often used incorrectly, I might add). Second, it's too bad when people live in a foreign country and only hang out with other Americans. We met up with this happy hour group and one lady, who'd been there 8 years, told me the only people she ever hangs out with are Americans (and she's half-German herself). If I lived there I would do what Douglas is doing, live downtown and limit my contact with other Americans.

Now I'm back and a little messed up. Went to bed around 10 last night, got up at 6:30 this morning, which wasn't so bad as I got to see a beautiful sunrise. No more travel for another 12 days, as next weekend's jaunt to NYC with Dancin' Mike was cancelled, as he needs to save money for something big coming up. Something tells me I can use the down time.

So...Germany.

It's going well, and I have to get up in 6 hours to come home, so this will be short.

Work-wise, it has been a success. We are meeting with our US colleagues here (our German collegues come later) and we have gotten the response we wanted. And that makes our job back in DC much easier.

Socially...a mixed bag. I was lucky enough to see Douglas the one day I spent in Stuttgart, where he works as a defense contractor, but we only had time to have lunch, and I wasn't able to work it so that we could spend the night there (so that I could meet his live-in-boyfriend, Sven...yay for Doug!!). Tonight I went out with my co-workers (all of whom are straight, including a 58-year old grandmother), but it was all good, even if I couldn't be as fabulous as I normally am, I was still pretty...well, "fabulous" would be the word. I met some cool people and had a good time and saw a few hotties.

But now I'm off to bed. I need some sleep because a) I didn't sleep well last night and I'm messed up, and b) my upgrade hasn't come through yet and I'm afraid I'm stuck in Economy Class tomorrow. Considering I came over in Business Class, and have now been spoiled, that sucks!

So, I'm sitting out here on the 18th floor watching the world wake up. Well, actually, most of the world seems to be awake and I'm the one who's just catching up with it.

I'm waving at people but they don't see me. Or maybe they just don't care.

In a few hours I fly to Germany...after getting off the plane in Frankfurt at a little after 9 tomorrow morning I have a meeting in Heidelberg at 1. No time to catch our breath, I suppose. Hope I sleep well on the plane (yay for my business class upgrade!).

Got my tickets for Bangkok and Singapore the other day. I get to spend a weekend in Bangkok, where I'll get to visit Raberd, then run to Singapore for a few days and finally meet some online friends I've been chatting with for years. Very cool. Canada is probably next on the list for meeting online friends. And Malaysia, you better watch out!!

I want donuts but I guess that means I have to go get them.

We went to a wedding last night, Adrian's college roommate's. It was very fun, we met some great people and Adrian saw some friends from college whom he hasn't seen in years. His high school's 10-year reunion was also last night, and we'd thought about leaving the wedding reception to drive back for that, but he realized he knew more people at the wedding than he ever knew in high school, so we just stayed. And in fact, were the last ones to leave. Hope the newly-married couple wasn't too tired to have sex, 'cuz that would be bad.

I haven't packed yet for Germany. I wonder if I need to do laundry? Better check on that.

Douglas is in Germany. We're supposed to be in Stuttgart one day so I'm hoping to see him. I've had this trip planned for the last 5 weeks, and naturally people got added to it at the last minute and then developed an agenda that didn't match our flights and hotels. Naturally. try changing your travel arrangements for Germany right now and see how far you get (hint: it's Oktoberfest time).

Many friends here in DC probably wonder what's happened to me, I've dropped off the face of the earth. Travel, of course, plays a part in that, but other things do to. Need to talk to people and let them know what all's been going on but finding the right time to sit down with folks isn't easy. And even I'M not sure what all is going on, so it's tough to explain.

Damn. I really want donuts. Guess I better go find my pants.

Word reached us at work today about the military coup in Thailand. I'll admit, I didn't see this coming, I really thought the military was going to chill out and wait for the November elections. My bad.

It was about noon our time when I heard of it, as the coup happened late Tuesday night Bangkok time (they are 11 hours ahead of us). I didn't have Raberd's number with me so couldn't call, and instead fired off a quick e-mail message of support, not knowing if it would get through (all web servers in Thailand were offline) and of course it was pretty late by then anyway. I waited all day and was happy to see a reply when I got back from Adrian's family's house, about 9:30 here. He said things weren't too bad, though all their news channels had been cut off, but he was able to get news online. I called him right away and we chatted for a few minutes (he wasn't going into work today) but I let him go when the military leaders were coming on TV to make some announcements. He sounded good on the phone, stressed but not scared, there's been no violence and apparently the soldiers and their tanks have left the streets.

One weird element to this is that last night I made reservations to go visit him in 3 weeks. We'll see if that still happens. Why couldn't they have waited a month??? (see, even in international relations, it's ALL about me)

Back from Seattle. Long weekend. The work part went really well but socially it was a bust. We were staying in the suburbs and according to the desk clerk a cab down to Capitol Hill last night would have run me $20-30 each way. That's just too much to pay for going out alone, plus I had to get up at 4:30am today anyway (my boss was a little paranoid about catching the plane) so I never did go out.

And then I get home today and I have an e-mail from a Seattle person I'd written to...he'd written me back yesterday evening and was up for going out, but alas, I hadn't given him my cell number and I wasn't in a position to check e-mail yesterday. Dammit.

Off to the airport to fly to Seattle. Back Sunday.

BTW, technical issues prevented the posting of entries earlier this week, which are now up. So you have a little catching up to do below.

The Honolulu trip has been rescheduled for the end of October. Which is too bad as I was kind of thinking about a vacation trip then. Hmmmm. Lots of rethinking to do.

Honolulu will be for work, as we have a new boss and he needs to go meet with folks there. The Seattle trip this weekend is work too, I was hoping for some fun but there are so many people there from the office, the chances will be limited. Alas.

My trip to Honolulu next week has been cancelled. Damn.

Finally got together with Ethan tonight, after 2 weeks of not seeing him. Not really sure what I ate, but it was good. I think it's a good sign when I'm the onnly white person in the Korean restaurant, the food is probably a little more authentic. Just a guess. I'm really glad I met him here, he's turning into such a good friend. We always have fun together, maybe because we're introducing each other to new things. That's always a good time.

Methinks it's time to add him to the Friends page on the website. Must grab one of his hot MySpace photos. Or convince him to let me shoot a new pic, either way.

Khamla and I went clothes shopping today, something I haven't really done in a while. I always hesitate to spend the money, I guess. I'm to the point where I'm buying stuff at H&M, or stuff that's on sale, or ideally, stuff that's on sale at H&M.

So we went to H&M, and also to Mexx. It was kinda nice to have Khamla running around saying "this would look great on you," "let me find the right color for you," "here I found this, go try it on." Having someone focus on you and try to make you look good is always fun.

Then we went and got Vietnamese sandwiches.

And then we came home and helped Adrian and Khamla's nephew with his math homework. That was fun, too. But not as much.

OK, I'm not actually job hunting, but I just spent two very fast-paced days in Colorado at a job interview. Let me explain, lest my DC friends become horrified by the idea of coming over for a farewell party just after the housewarming party.

I was asked to interview for the department chair position at my old school. The invitation came the day I left, and I've spent the summer thinking about it. I don't want to leave DC, nor do I want to return to that school. My future plans aren't entirely clear, but they don't include that, I'm pretty sure. However, I want to continue working with some of the folks there, and I'm not prepared to burn bridges by not even applying.

So I sent in my application package, and along with 4 other professors, was invited to come out and interview with a bunch of people (Friday morning is a total blur). My plan is to go through the first round of interviews and then gracefully bow out after a reasonable amount of time. I think I actually have a good shot at this position, but I'm the #2 choice, and the other candidates are all good, so they'll get a good person regardless.

And then I won't have to throw another party. Not yet, anyway.

(For the record, I’m in Colorado on a quick business trip. Sitting here, I can’t say I really miss it. But at least our old house is still standing. There was some question about that due to a fire alarm a couple weeks ago. Apparently the alarm company is still notifying me of such things even though I told them to stop.)

Monday night after dinner I ended up back at The Web. It was “Men Without Pants Get A Free Drink” night and I figured that could be interesting. I wasn’t sure about the whole “going without pants” thing but I was prepared just in case (I wore some nice undies that make my butt look good). Once I got to the club I realized my preparations were in vain – the only pantsless guys among the 15 or so scary people there were some old white guys (I should mention here that The Web is a predominantly gay Asian club). So my jeans stayed on and I paid for my drinks. Some creepy guy was cruising me heavy, following me around the bar and standing close to me while staring. I talked to a couple of the go-go boys, one of whom is starting art school in a couple weeks and we talked about what got him to that point and how he prepped for it, as I have a friend who’s thinking of design school but is afraid he doesn’t have the background. Another go-go boy gave me some good advice on where a guy should go to go dancing on a Monday night, so about 1:30am I found myself at Splash, a club I hadn’t been to since Adrian and I were there three years ago.

I grabbed a quick drink from the muscle boy behind the bar and staked out the dance floor. It was a pretty light crowd by this point but one cutie caught my eye and I caught his (I also had another creepy guy start hitting on me but he got the hint and moved on). His name was Ernesto and we danced a bit, then he headed off to the restroom and seemed offended that I didn’t follow. I didn’t see him again, but I did see this one hottie dancing with two lady friends. He was a great dancer, so naturally I wanted to be near him – it nothing to do with his looks, nothing at all. No, really. Anyway, this trio moved closer to me and hottie and one lady went outside to smoke while the other lady stayed and danced with me. Since one good way to get to meet someone is to make a good impression on his friends, I naturally turned on the charm. Fortunately, she was pretty cool in her own right, having just come to a gay club for the first time. The other two were her friend Rex and his cousin Zee. Zee lived in Jersey and Rex was visiting for a week. We went out, met up with them, then headed back inside to dance and dance and dance.

Stepping back outside for another smoke and some communing with the local queens from Queens, Zee announced that they needed to be back at the ferry at 3am. Problem: it was now 3:10am. And we were at 17th St and 6th Ave, while the ferry was at 29th St and 11th Ave. Uh oh.

They took off walking and I offered to go with them for safety in numbers, and also so that if they missed the ferry they’d have a place to crash, that is to say, my hotel room. Let’s be honest here, Rex was hot and seeing him without his shirt would not have been a bad thing. Plus, they seemed unsure about where they were, and even though I’m not really a New York expert, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have an extra person along, as the area they were headed to was not the best part of town.

Around the time we hit 9th Ave Zee decided to call the ferry station and see if they were still open. She called Directory Information and finally got a number but got no answer when she called. Uh oh. Last ferry’s probably gone and now they’re stuck in Manhattan. But wait! She remembered that the busses from Penn Station go right buy her house so she tried to get the number for Penn Station. When she had trouble getting through I asked “are you sure you don’t mean Port Authority Bus Terminal?” Uh, yeah. So we decided to just jump in a cab and go there, and since it was 3 blocks from my hotel, we still had that as a backup.

They were ready to jump out of the cab while I went home (I think Rex might have started to get the idea I wouldn’t mind see him shirtless and was probably as nervous about that as I was about the creepy guys earlier in the evening) but I didn’t want to leave them stuck there, as it was almost 4am and the folks hanging out at the bus station then aren’t on society’s “A”-List. They found that the last bus before dawn had left at 2:30, so I stepped aside while they talked and they decided to take me up on the hotel room.

We got there at 4 and ended up never sleeping. We just talked for the next 2 hours, they were both really interesting with some cool backgrounds. I won’t get into all that, of course, as it’s not right to discuss other people’s private lives, but I will say they have some cute tattoos. As the clock rolled around to 6am they wanted to head outside and smoke, and I suggested that they might want to catch an early bus, as they’d have better luck during rush hour. So we went out front, they smoked while the sun came up over 8th Avenue (hidden behind buildings, but still…), then I got hugs and kisses (yay!) and off they went. I know they made it home OK because we traded MySpace info and I got a hit from Zee two hours later.

I, of course, went back to bed for about 3 hours, as we were going to do some shopping that day before taking the train back to DC. The night could have been a total loss, but I got to meet a couple cool folks and have an adventure on the Lower West Side, and that’s always good. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sunrise in New York, so I can add that to the list.

You may be wondering where Adrian was in all of this. Well, that’s another story for another time.

New York, as always, was a very good time.

We went up on Friday the 1st, which was Adrian’s 29th birthday. In this it was a lot like his 24th birthday, when I surprised him with a trip to New York. (though that time, I started to get off the train in Wilmington, Delaware. Adrian was not amused.) Dinner was a sandwich from Au Bon Pain at Union Station, followed by cheap wine from the Club Car on the train. One of the smarter things we did was upgrade our train from the standard regional train that got into New York after midnight to the earlier, and faster, express train that put us in around 10pm. That gave us plenty of time to catch a cab and make our way through the approaching storm (thank you, Tropical Storm Ernesto, for following us from DC to New York, so we could enjoy you for yet another day) to our hotel, and have plenty of time to change and go out. As it happened we got up there faster than our friends who took the Chinatown bus, even though they left DC before us – traffic on Labor Day weekend, especially with bad weather, can be a real bitch.

Friday night we went out to The Web, one of the friendlier clubs in New York in my most humble opinion. Friday is a good night for them, and there were plenty of cuties to watch and dance with. And of course, a cute go-go boy asked for my number, which always warms my heart. Angelo and Josh and their friends Ruben, Prakash and Albert met us there once they hit town, but I don’t think they really enjoy dancing very much and after a while they left without telling us. We took off around 3:30 after lots of fun and Shirtless Adrian Dancing. (the gym is paying off for him)

The original plan was to head out to the US Open on Saturday and try for general admission tickets, but TS Ernesto had other plans and the whole day of tennis was rained out. That was probably OK, as we didn’t get up until 11:30 anyway. We decided to do some shopping after brunch, but first we headed down to a salon where one of Adrian’s old co-workers from DC is now working. After a 30-block walk through the rain and a call to Directory Information, we found the salon. More importantly, we found it closed, and later got a text message from Adrian’s friend saying he was at the beach all weekend. But at least I worked off the Eggs Benedict I’d eaten. We went back up to the new Apple Store on 5th Avenue, which I think would be a good place to take a date. Very nice.

The storm was getting on our nerves so we called it a day. We went out for happy hour drinks at a bar called Therapy – me getting absolutely soaked along the way, not in a “wet t-shirt contest” kind of way but in a “wet poodle” kind of way. We met the other guys down in Little Italy for dinner, which was very good, but unfortunately all my drinks (that is to say, both of them) caught up with me, and I wasn’t feeling as chipper as I might have wished. Afterwards we headed back to Therapy with the boys, which had picked up a bit, and a couple hours later we walked the six blocks back to our hotel after putting the boys in a cab.

One of the things about going around with a group of people is that everyone will have different things they want to do based on their interests, their financial status, and their definition of “fun.” Some of the guys had talked about going to Atlantic City that night because there “wasn’t anything to do” in Manhattan. I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around that idea. These are the same guys who were sharing a plate at dinner, something I’ve seen them do before, so you wonder how they can afford Atlantic City. But I digress. Like I tend to do.

Sunday I got up and trotted out to the US Open, figuring that with all the matches they had to make up from Saturday, this would be a pretty good day. Unfortunately, after standing in line for half an hour (and missing the train back to the city by 2 minutes) they told us there weren’t any more tix for the day. So it was back to the hotel, and we thought the guys were joining us for brunch at Food Bar in Chelsea but there were some issues with the whole “waking up” thing, so that didn’t happen. Adrian and I had a great time, with good food and a cute waiter (and a really hot bartender, who was not allowed to serve us mimosas until after noon – I’ve never heard of this in New York. Or anywhere.) We met up with Angelo and Josh and went to the The Bodies Exhibit, which was a very surreal look at what we all look like inside. Using real bodies. Preserved. With skin removed. Josh bought chocolate afterwards. I don’t know how.

That night Adrian and I saw Avenue Q, a musical I’d seen a couple years ago that I always wanted him to see. Any show with racism and puppet sex is bound to be either really good or really bad – fortunately, this one is really good. We had a great time, then walked over to Don’t Tell Mama, our favorite little piano bar, where we met a veeeerrrryyyy gay guy and his girl friend who had moved here together from Kansas a year ago. He appeared to be hitting on Adrian. At least, Adrian was the one to whom he gave his number. We were there pretty late, since we obviously couldn’t leave while people were buying us drinks, and on the way home we stopped for hot Italian sausages from a street vendor because they smelled SO good. And tasted even better.

Monday we finally made it to the US Open, where we had tickets for the main court in Arthur Ashe Stadium. We saw Nadal beat Novak and Roddick beat Becker (who had beaten Agassi the day before, damn him). A very good day of tennis, and also a good day to get some sun, considering it was about 3000 degrees in that stadium. A fantabulous time was had.

Monday night was an adventure, but that will have to wait.

I needed me some New York. In a big bad ugly way.

The trip to New York was one long adventure, and stories will be forthcoming, including tales of world-class tennis, puppet sex, gravity intolerance, go-go boys, sunrise on 8th Avenue, dead bodies, and Kansas-style homosexuality.

We're off to NYC for the weekend. Today is Adrian's 29th birthday and we're celebrating the way we celebrated his 24th: the US Open, a Broadway show, dancing, good food, and more.

Entries have been a bit spotty this week and probably will be for a while. Adrian and I have some stuff we need to figure out and I'm not sure I want to do that on these pages. Once I start typing everything starts to come out, so I may back off the journal a bit for a little while as we sort through some things.