I'm not particularly concerned about not being employed, despite the slim chance that I won't even be appointed a new term due to cutbacks. Problems like this don't stress me. I just do what I can do to make things work out. No muss, no fuss. The Earth will keep turning on its axis no matter what I do for a living. And I'll continue having a damn good life no matter what I'm doing for money.

In truth, I've been more interested in the weather around here the last few days. Our Winter and Spring this year have been the windiest and coldest since they started keeping records in Monterey.  The last five days have finally broken the trend. It was sunny, temps up in the 70s, and only a gentle breeze! Monday, I took advantage of the nice weather and went for a 20 mile bike ride around the coast. I pushed it and averaged 18mph on the flat parts and topped at 36mph on one downhill stretch.

Another upshot of the weather has had my brain a little conflicted. I've been wearing shorts to work the last few days, and yesterday, my old friend Chris did too. Do you know of Chris? He and I go back to the third grade. We became good friends in High School and I was completely in love with him by college. I wasn't out then, and neither was he. I didn't know if he liked guys or not, but I never once saw him go on a date and he never talked about girls to me. We spent a lot of time together over the years, and he became the first person I ever came out to. That was when I found out for sure that he wasn't gay at all. At first, he seemed to handle it well, but when he figured out I was in love with him too, well that seemed too much for him and he wouldn't have anything to do with me for several years. I sensed some anger in him about it as well.

Chris rejecting me like that really wiped me out for a while. I'd been in love with him for eight years by then. It was like loosing your love and your best friend at the same time. I grew to hate him for it. Or at least I tried to and succeeded some of the time. I wanted to hate him for rejecting me. It made the rejection much easier. Its been a couple of years now since the worst of all that. We're speaking again and somewhat friendly although not remotely as close as we were in the old days.

So why did the warm weather and Chris in shorts so addle my brain? Well, I think I spent half the day checking out his legs. He's not a particularly handsome guy, but love can do a lot to improve someone's attractiveness. I guess I saw his legs and felt some of the old stirrings and physical attraction from before. At one time I would have wanted to marry him and I don't need those kind of feelings for Chris cropping back up again. It will only cause me more pain. Still, how could I look at his very nice legs and not feel a little randy?

We spent the morning watching a rented movie in bed. The movie was "Rushmore" and I highly recommend it. Its funny and intelligent. I could identify a great deal with the lead character, Max, who was always rushing off to work on some great self actualizing project but didn't have time to accomplish any of the basics that people expected of him. I'm a lot like that. The movie was my highlight of the day. After that, I promised Brent I'd look at furniture in furniture stores with him. I like nice furniture, but furniture is one of those things I just take for granted as being there. Shopping for it bores me to no end, but Brent was very excited that I'd go with him. So I did.

The next day, Saturday, I drove seven hours to Shasta, stopping in San Jose to buy a few bits of mountaineering gear that I would need (despite having no money, just credit). When I got to Shasta my plan was to camp at the base of the mountain and start climbing the day after. The problem was it was windy (20-25mph), rainy, and cold (49F). I didn't feel like setting my tent up in the mud and rain, so I had to get a motel. Try that in a resort town on the 4th of July weekend! I ended up 30 miles away at a truck stop Motel 6 and didn't get my room until 10pm.

Sunday the 4th dawned bright and clear, a great day for climbing. It was also nice and cool following the storm front. I climbed from the base camp area at 6,000ft up to my high camp at 9,100ft in about 4 hours. It took a while to dig out a flat tent site, then melt enough snow on my stove to make some dinner and a hot drink. The temp went below freezing minutes after the sun disappeared behind Cassaval Ridge, and was quite chilly indeed by 9:00 pm. I stayed out anyway to watch the fireworks shows of towns all over northern California from my lofty airie on the side of the mountain.

Monday morning I got up, made a little breakfast and dressed to climb high up the mountain. Being alone, I didn't plan to attempt the riskiest parts of the upper mountain, but I wanted to get close enough to survey them for another trip when I would make a summit attempt. It was still well below freezing and my spikes dug firmly into the snow and ice. The air rapidly thinned out above 10,000 ft. As the mountain got steeper and the air thinner I found I was only able to climb perhaps five steps before I had to stop for a minute or so to slow my frantically beating heart and stop panting. An hour and half above 10,000ft and I'd only ascended another 1,500. High altitude was definitely a new experience for me. I called off my ascent at 11,500ft. The last 2,500ft of that mountain are going to be tough next year. I better get in shape!

From my high point, I carefully descended to my camp at 9,100ft, broke camp, and continued on down to base at 6,000ft under a full load of 50 lbs. It was 4:30pm when I got to my car and I was too wasted to drive six hours home. Instead I drove an hour, then found another Motel 6 in Redding, CA where it was 97 degrees. The contrast in temperature was amazing compared to the 27 degrees I was in less than 12 hours ago and maybe 60 miles away. Gotta love California! I showered at the motel, then went out and had a huge steak dinner. The waitress was shocked that such a little guy as me could put away such a massive amount of food. I burned a lot of calories on the mountain. Another nice feature of the dinner was Giant's baseball on the TV. I don't like baseball, but the pitcher for the Giants was very cute and having a good night hitting and pitching. I enjoyed watching such a cuttie enjoy the game of his career.

There's a lot I could write about today. I'm not sure where to begin. Last weekend I officiated at the World Superbike Championship's USA round - one of a series of 16 races held in countries all over the globe. My job was supervising the pit lane, gridding and signaling the motorcycles at the start, and judging any false starts. I prolly used up another few seconds of my 15 minutes of fame by flagging each row of motorcycles for their warm up lap on global TV. In addition to the fact I love racing came the added bonus of unusually warm weather. Motorcycle racing always attracts a large number of very cute guys and the weather necessitated them to remove their shirts. The eye candy around the track was very nice indeed.

I'm still working while unemployed. It will be several more weeks before my job is officially reinstated. I'm unofficialy working anyway, because the lab needs me. My accumulated vacation time has been cashed out and I'm using it to live from this month. My boss will give me the time as unofficial comp time when I'm back on the books.

My dad found out about this arrangement this week. I was trying to keep it from him because; 1.) He'd make calls and appear to be influencing the hiring process (he's a senior prof at the school where my lab is). and 2.) He'd tell my mom and she'd worry herself sick that I was unemployed. Well, I know the first concern came true, and I'm pretty sure the second did too. My dad can't have any real affect on the re-hiring process - its actually handled out of San Diego. But he can make it look like he did, and I don't want people to think I'm working at this lab because of my father. I want them to know I'm here because of my Unix and TCP/IP network skills and my sea experience.

This weekend I'm going on a little trip with Brent. He's got some time off on a weekend for once, so we're going to drive to Lake Tahoe. I've reserved one of the cabins that the ski shop I work for during the winter months owns. They're giving it to me at cost in exchange for me doing a little PR work with one of the motels we using in the winter for ski tours. Killer deal I can't refuse. A few hours work over the weekend for $200 worth of lodging.

Interestingly enough, a few of my fellow tourguides are in a local play production this summer. The ski shop has reserved the entire front row for all the other guides and their guests to go to the play tonight. I've invited Brent to go with me. It's going to be amusing to see how they all react to my male date. I'm not closeted (I even wear a rainbow flag pin quite often) but I don't bring up my orientation out of context either. It's never really come up at the ski shop before. I'm wondering how they'll react. I'm going to present the situation very matter-of-factly. Brent's my date, just like any other dates anyone else brings. I know if I take the attitude that it's an everyday, humdrum thing for me to have boyfriend they will have to echo that attitude - at least publicly. I'll be watching them for hints of surprise in their eyes! The whole thing amuses me to no end. I fear no reprocussionns. I'm their best and most experienced guide. They need me. They like me. They're my friends. Now they're going to learn something new about me. BTW, I've already told Brent about this plan. It amuses him too. I wouldn't want to surprise my boyfriend by making him the center of an interesting social situation without asking him first, you know.

Tuesday, July 20th 1999