And then sometimes things actually go well.
sometimes the world is too small; or, virtual life sucks too
Sigh…. this is when I wish I’d been keeping up this journal the past few months, because tonight’s (well, early this morning’s) entry needs the context of the backstory to make any sense whatsoever except to the people involved (who, if they even knew of the journal’s existence, likely would be grateful that no one else does either).
dinner with craig
Had dinner this evening with my friend Craig, whom I hadn’t seen in a while. When I wrote about Craig last year, he was in the process of moving to Georgia. Since then, he and his wife have divorced, and he has moved back to the DC area, where he now lives very close to me. We had a great time, as usual, over Tex-Mex, joking about life and our varied perspectives on politics, politicians, and the war; and catching up on each other’s lives, including the time Craig has recently been spending with his sweetheart of a son, over Maggie Moo ice cream.
Next week he and I are going to see Stephen Lynch at the Birchmere; and are planning to see Gaelic Storm there at the end of the month.
casualty counts
US: [Washington Post]
UK: [BBC]
US and Coalition combined: [CNN]
Journalists: [MediaGuardian UK](added 08 april 2003)
Iraqi “enemies”: [New York Times]: “American officials say numbering the enemy dead in the midst of battle is dangerous and ultimately fruitless. They say it is not a statistic that interests them.”
Iraqi civilians: [Iraq Body Count]
another resignation in protest
As reported today on Working Assets Radio, John Brown, until recently a senior member of the U.S. Foreign Service, submitted his resignation three days ago in protest of President Bush’s policy on Iraq. In his resignation, Brown wrote, “The president’s disregard for views in other nations borne out by his neglect of public diplomacy is giving birth to an anti-American century.”
“colin powell’s time-out”
Sadly, the one cabinet member closest to a dove in the current administration, my boss-of-sorts Colin Powell, seems to have been sidelined at least temporarily, if not permanently. “The radical and polarizing implications of the President’s style of management, be it in his own Cabinet or in the foreign relations arena, has rung out the death knell for moderates and people who seek and value middle ground consensus…. While the cost of war is always high, it is sheer folly that causes the unnecessary loss of such patriots, old friends and allies.”
government efficiency
Last April and May, in the fifth and sixth months of my period of unemployment, I applied for a bunch of jobs with the federal government, including the one I eventually landed. I sent the application for this one early in May, heard back in June that OPM had submitted me as a top candidate to the hiring agency, and then heard from them throughout July as they scheduled and rescheduled interviews and made me the offer; I was able to start the middle of August. Everyone here kept talking about how unusually fast that was, but I thought a third of a year from application to start date didn’t seem particularly speedy.
A month earlier, though, I had applied to two field positions with HUD. I never heard anything again, and once the State Department position started to move and eventually came through, didn’t think about the other positions. When I got back from Tucson on Monday, and collected my mail from the long weekend, there were two letters from HUD in the bunch. Turns out that they were two copies of the same letter about one of the positions, at the field office in Boston, indicating that my credentials had been judged to be appropriately well-suited enough to be submitted to the hiring agency… nearly an entire year after I applied.
The interesting thing about the position, if I correctly recall (it’s been a while, after all), is that if offered it, I would be able to choose any of the field offices in the Boston’s office jurisdiction in which to work: this includes mostly the New England capitols–Boston, Manchester, Bangor, Burlington, Hartford. I haven’t heard anything about the second position for which I had applied, which was the same position in the Pacific and Western Region: that one would include a number of cities in California, including San Francisco, and Honolulu; it also includes both Phoenix and Tucson. Since I was considered a good match for the same position in Boston, I’m hopeful that I might be considered for an interview for the Western and Pacific Region. It would be the sort of synchronicity–having the opportunity to live in Tucson after spending time there recently and having my friend suggest I move there–that has so often ruled my life (though choosing Tucson over Honolulu or San Francisco might not be an easy thing to do).
getting my just des[s]erts
I flew out of DC Thursday evening, arriving in Tucson around 10:30 MST. Roger and Raymond picked me up at the airport and drove me back to their house, where Roger had a wonderful soup waiting–a particularly special treat after the light and tasteless airline fare and worse, hurried airport Taco Bell meal during my layover in Houston. After eating, we all relaxed in the spa [sigh] before turning in for the evening.
[more pix] Friday morning we traveled west, stopping first at the lookout point at Gates Pass, and continuing on to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, a combination botanical garden, zoo, aviary, and natural history museum, where we spent most of the day. Friday night was one of Roger’s incredible dinners, topped off by a flourless chocolate cake he’d baked for his own birthday (two days later, but which we needed to start eating since it was too rich to wait to eat all of it on Sunday).
[more pix] Saturday we drove south, stopping off first at the Mission St. Xavier del Bac, and continuing to the artist town of Tubac, where we had lunch and (mostly) window-shopped. I saw a lot of things I’d have liked to buy, had I unlimited funds, including some beautiful tile work done in the style of petroglyphs. We returned home for a light supper and then went to see a terrific production of Tosca at the Arizona Opera.
Sunday was Roger’s birthday. We started later in the day, and did some local geocaching. After a quick trip to the supermarket for tequila, orange juice and munchies, we spent a relaxing afternoon and early evening drinking margaritas, soaking in the spa, and listening to ABBA, early Celine Dion, k.d. lang, and the soundtrack from Moulin Rouge. Then we finished the day with a delicious sushi dinner. Roger says it was his best birthday.
back from tucson tucsoon
No, I haven’t abandoned my journal so soon, as I did once before. Rather, I was away since Thursday evening visiting friends in Tucson, and just got back very late last night.
I had a wonderful time, though it was much too short, especially given the air of crisis and sturm und drang I came back to at my office; before I’d even finished reading my first email, five people including my boss had descended on me with “critical” needs… I’d only been out of the office two days forcryingoutloud. Nothing I do here, for better or worse, is that important.
I was already feeling conflicted about whether or not I want to continue living and working here in the DC area, and coming back to this sort of unnecessary panic doesn’t help.
so that’s why i throw like a girl
Recent research from the Institute of Psychiatry in London, and published in the January issue of Neuropsychology, suggests that the brains of gay men work like those of heterosexual women, while those of lesbians act more like those of heterosexual men, at least when performing certain neurocognitive tests and other mental tasks generally seen to show a bias toward one gender.