It’s a snowy Tuesday, first real snow of the year. Looks nice right now, tomorrow it will be frozen and slushy making for treacherous walking. Safely inside where it’s warm I have a sudden pang for hot chocolate in a ceramic mug with a little ceramic bird on the rim of the cup that you can whistle through. Oh but those are long gone. Perhaps relics to be dug up in a couple of thousand years by archaeologists wondering exactly what type of ritual these chipped mugs served. Or perhaps they’re in some landfill somewhere, picked at by hungry gulls.

At work things have been very quiet. Most of the office has been attending a Bio-technology conference around the block at the Waldorf Astoria. That’s a relief, I’m actually able to get some work done without interference from Tom Chin. I spoke to Carla the former receptionist the other day, and she agreed that Tom Chin is really just a little old lady. She still hasn’t gotten her W2 and was wondering where it was, so she called me. We keep intending to meet up for a drink after work, but it won’t be tomorrow since tomorrow is my trip to the NYU Dental School, and Thursday is Valentine’s Day.

Bill called today and suggested going to Arthur’s for steaks. I told him it would depend on how my teeth are after tomorrow night. I’m obviously a bit apprehensive, not for the dental examination, but more for the fact that I fear they won’t see me since I’m not a New York City resident. I don’t mind students working on my teeth, I have faith in the school, for no real reason, just hope. Perhaps it’s will be like Scrubs, only for dentists. Last night was another night in front of the TV.

Watched a documentary on Malcolm X on PBS. That was good but I had seen it before. In the late eighties I was perhaps the only white boy wearing a Malcolm X T shirt in North NJ. I got into Malcolm after watching Do The Right Thing which closed with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X. I never read Malcolm X until that point and everything I knew about him was that he was a bad bad man. He really wasn’t and most everything he said made sense. Once he left the Nation of Islam his vision widened, after his trip to Mecca where he realized that white people aren’t all devils as the knelt down next to one another praying to a rather large rock. Somewhere there is a Polaroid photo of me taken by Pedro with myself splayed out on the black and white tiles of a men’s room in Secaucus wearing my Malcolm X t shirt.

Since I had seen the documentary on Malcolm X before and I knew how it ended I decided to go to bed. No Advil PM, just straight sleep (if I can call it that). No dreams of me being chased through a beer hall/refugee camp by Siouxsie though my former room mate Jimmy Lee made an appearance apartment hunting in Hoboken. I heard he lives in Austria now with his Austrian wife. In case he’s Googling his name (and with a name like Jimmy Lee there must be thousands) and he probably is, hello to Jimmy Lee. And for other people Googling themselves, hello to Rae Guay, Maurice Menares, Bill Ryan, Isabelle Gonzalez, Ann Louise Boyles, and Catherine Cloud. Catherine just got a grant, Harpy discovered so congratulations to Catherine Cloud as well.

Gong Xi Fa Cai to Song and Ray!

Some snow pics

The other day with Chaz

Tonight

Sans flash

From Rod2.0
An excerpt from Julian Bond’s opening plenary speech on Feb. 7 at the 2008 National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, convened by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Partial transcript:

Sometimes it is the simplest of acts, sitting at a lunch counter, going to a new school, applying for a marriage license, casting a vote, that can challenge the way we can act or think. That’s why when I am asked if gay rights are civil rights, I say, ‘Of course they are.’ [Applause]

Civil rights are positive legal prerogatives. The right for equal treatment before the law. These are rights for everyone. There is no one in the United States who should not share these these rights. Rights for gays and lesbians are not “special rights” in any way. It is not special to be free from discrimination.That is an ordinary, universal entitlement. [Applause]

That man had to struggle to gain these rights are precious. It does not make them special in any way…. The more civil rights that are earned by others, the stronger the arm defending my civil rights. If my neighbor gains civil rights in any way, it does not dilute my rights. [Applause]