Many mornings, kids on ponies walk by the house. I wonder what that's about? It may be some sort of retarded child program. The ponies have 3 adults alongside. One adult will have her hand on the child. They never go faster than a slow stroll. Yet, despite all these precautions, the child will wear a helmet.

Steven and I had dinner over at C3's. It was a quiet evening. I needed it. I've been working long hours. On top of that I was helping Steven move.

Steven has finished moving in. It's been a crappy few days for him.

The mover he hired flaked out. Steven scrambled, but managed to find another mover.

The telephone company didn't hook up his buisness line.

Also, the sale of his house fell through. He's thinking about renting out the house. Maybe FSBO too.

I played hockey last night. We lost 6-4. Only one goal went in while I was on the ice.

Bleah...

The sale of Steven's house is falling though. The buyer couldn't get the financing she needed. At least Steven will get to keep the escrow deposit.


Steven is bummed about it.

Old photo's....

Saturday night, Steven showed me some 12 year old pictures. He's changed a lot. Now he is a muscle bear. 12 years ago he was a thin twink. Now he has a shaved head and a beard. Then he was clean shaven and had a full head of hair.

When we mentioned that to Mac, he got out his old photos. Now Mac is stalky, hairy, bearded and has short hair. Then he we thin, smooth, and had big poofy eighties hair.

Steven and Mac are almost unrecognizable from their older photos. Their faces are almost the same, but everything else has changed.

Saturday, C2 and I worked on the deck. He didn't say more about flaking out on Thursday.

Saturday night, Vic, Paul, Mac, Joe and I had dinner together.

Sunday, the gang had breakfast at Mac and Joe's

Sunday, I bought some career guidance books. I've been bored with my job, and it's affecting my productivity. I'm trying to figure out what to change.

Sunday night it was back to Mac and Joe's to see the final eppisode of Sex and the City It wasn't that good.

Hmmm.

Survivor Potluck was last night. In the afternoon, C2 email and said he was going to show up. But, then he didn't. He didn't return my call either.

Today I got this email from him...

From: "C2"
To: "BC"
Subject: RE: Survivor potluck

Barry,
It wasn't a good day. I'm a bit bummed, stuff. My apologies if I caused
any problems.

R/C2

I'm annoyed that he didn't call and cancel. He's never flaked out on me before. We delayed dinner about an hour waiting for him.

He's not telling me what he's bummed about. I suspect it's being single. I know that the couples can get on his nerves.

Here's a good career rule-- always have a book on your desk, that makes it look like you are reading how to do a better job. You don't have to read the book. It just has to be there. Keeping up appearences so to speak.

I've accidentaly applied the above rule. My manager noticed and gave me a complement.

Just had a weird lunch conversation with my co-workers. Most of my co-workers are very small, or very tall. Over lunch we were complaining about how hard it is to find good extra-small or extra-long clothing. The normal sized people started bitching about how hard it is to find extra-medium sizes.

Ok, I guess you had to be there.

Played hockey last night. We won 4-3.

Matt and Sandy found two houses that the like. Today they are making an offer on one of them.

Steven just left a message. For Valentines, Vic gave Steven a gold ring.

I guess they are getting married.

I have a bit of a cold so I stayed in Friday evening.

Saturday, I hung around with C2. We worked on the deck for a bit. In the evening, we watched a movie ( Once Upon a Time in Mexico) and played chess.

I haven't played chess in years. It was hard to think 'chess' again. The game was a draw. At about midnight, C2 said "I want to go home, and this game is taking too long."

Survivor potluck was last night. Mac and John arrived first. We had a somewhat weird conversation.

I met Mac shortly after he met John. The two weren't dating yet, but there were some sparks between them. At the time, I didn't know that, so I gave Mac my number. Last night Mac told me, infront of John, that he seriously considered calling me.

John said he knew that Mac was interested in me, so at first he was very aprehensive about hanging out with me.

Oh well.

Dinner was good. We watched the Spongmonkeys. They were originally an internet cartoon before they were turned into a Quizno's ad

Last night Steven moved some stuff to my place. We don't call him the fancy fella for nothing. He's bringing over much nice stuff-- art, furiture, candle holders, nick nacks, kitchen supplies. It's changing the look of my house. It's going from simple rustic to "gay"

Edwin (My house cleaner, and Steven's ex) is helping Steven pack. He sighed that my house used to be so easy to clean.

I had a date last night. A real bonnified get-to-know-him date. Not a sex first, ask questions later meeting. That was the first time in months that I've been on a date.

He's a nice guy. He's from Portland but work brings him to Seattle regularly. We met a few months ago at Movie Bears and kept in touch.

It sounds like he's just comming out of the closet. He doesn't go to any Portland area gay bars. He used to be married.

I'll keep in touch.

Steven has started moving his stuff over to my place.

Matt and Sandy are house hunting. Sandy is a bit uncertain about the process. He's comming up with weird ideas that are slowly being squashed. His first instinct was to make lowball offers on many different properties. He has now learnt 1. That he does want to live in many of the places. 2. Most homes go for their asking price. 3. Making lots of offers pisses off the agent because of the paper work involved.

Yesterday, C2 and I worked on the back deck. We poured most of the hot tub pad. I never realized how hard it is to pour level, flat cement. On top of that cement eats your clothing and your skin.

In the evening Matt, Sandy and I hung out with Mac and John on their boat.

Later on I went out to the Cuff. Terry was out by himself. I wonder if he's single again. I wonder a lot of things about Terry. There is nothing I can do. Two years ago when I asked Terry out, he didn't say no. He said he wasn't ready yet. A couple of weeks later Terry met a guy feel in love, fell out of contact. Till now.

Had a big Survivor Potluck last night. (Mac, John, Behr, the Fireman, Matt, Sandy, Bruce, C3, Steven and the Tease)

Most of the guys left at 10pm, Behr and the Fireman stayed till 1am. We watched weird Internet films and played XBox.

John was just laid off. He works part time for a couple more weeks, but that's it. I wonder how Mac feels now. Both his room mates (John and Behr) are unemployed.

Today John got the bounced cheque in the mail.

He said this....

>Barry,
>
>I got your check in the mail. It says returned for NSF and is stamped Fraudulent. It's check # XX on an YYYYYYY Bank account.
>
>I'll bring it to you tomorrow night. See ya then.
>
>John :-)

Weird. I wonder what made them think the cheque was Fraudulent.

Lol. Steven is not my Sugar Daddy. Steven is an great friend. His partner Vic, lives about 4 hours away in Cananda.

Steven wants to move to Cananda. But the necessary paper work has not been approved. Until then he wants to save money and sell his house. This way, when he is approved, he can quickly move and have some cash until he finds a new job.

D'oh. I bounced a cheque to John. John is organizing a group vacation to Mexico. I gave him a cheque to pay for my share. The cheque bounced. I'm not sure why; my account has enough money in it. Maybe I wrote "2003" instead of "2004"

Everyone knows. The bank won't say who bounced the cheque, just the dollar amount. Since we all wrote cheques for the same amount, we all had to call each other and say "My cheque has cleared. Has yours?" Mine was the only cheque that hasn't cleared.

I know the gang is going to harass me. I've been thinking up snappy comebacks...

"If we split the restaurant bill everyone owes $15.00"
"I'll be right back. I have to rob a corner store."
or
"Would you take a cheque?"

Monday night I had dinner with Steven. It looks like he's sold his house. He'll be moving in with me before March. We worked out the details, like rent, shared food & cleaning. I'm looking forward to it!

Played hockey last night. We lost 1-0. A very tight game.

Yesterday I was over at C6 and Silent J's for a Super Bowl party. It was fun. A few of the party bears was there, so was Scottie. I met Scottie in December and I think he's very cute. I called him and sent him some email, but he never replied. At the party he was very kissy and huggy with one of the party bears.

Oh well.

C2 is better.

I was out of town for a few days. Steven, Vic and I went snowboarding at Big Sky in Montana. It was a great weekend.

I lucked out. It was a busniness trip for Steven. So, he picked up my hotel, air fare and most of my meals. Thank you very much Steven!

I had fun snowboarding. Steven also tried to snowboard, though he's a bit new at it. I don't think his equipment is right, he kept getting cramps in his feet. Next time, I supect he'll ski along with Vic.

Big Sky is 8000' above sea level. The air is thin. It can freek you out. Ordinary motion like standing up can leave you short of breath.