On thursday night, I went to the SF electronic Music Festival. It was quite good, especially Chaos Butterfly who did a set of two laptops with violin, singing, wine glasses and a little portable radio. The radio was a bit too much, but the looping/splattering algorithms were really nice.
I was planning on going again on Friday, but as I was gathering myself to run the day’s errands, somebody knocked on my door to inform me that my car’s window had been smashed. Sometime between 11:30 and 12:30 in the middle of the day, somebody smashed my window and the window of another car down the block. There’s been at least three other broken windows in the last two weeks, but those were at night and on the sidewalk side. Those cars had their radios taken out. My street-side window was just broken. So I spent hours on the phone with insurance and cops and getting the window fixed. I found somebody in Oakland who could do it that day, but I didn’t notice when I got my car back that they totally fucked up the window switches. (When I bought my car, I wanted manual windows, but you can’t get them with VW diesels.) The one that controls the replaced window is popped out of position and the other one is just unhooked. I could go back monday and waste more hours, but force them to fix it. Or I could just DIY it. I have a feeling though, that I’d have to take the door apart to get at the switch backs to fix it. It seems like you can’t just pry off the front plate. Do any of y’all have experience working with buttons and whatnot in doors?
The manager or whoever of the shop thought it would be funny to “tease” me by pretending to forget who I was. Hi, just wanted to remind you that I’m a man and you’re not and there’s a power imbalance here. Guys don’t treat each other that way. Whenever straight (seeming) men read me as female and treat me in a gendered way, it is double plus ungood. Usually, they don’t do the flirting/dominance thing so much, but he heard me on the phone and my name before seeing me in person. I’m going to change my name to Charles. (nickname “les” still works with it.) Like George Sand or something.
Then went to factory second clothes chain store and bought clothes to go to a wedding. The fitting room person told me to go to the men’s fitting room and then laughed and said she was joking. Cola says fitting room person wasn’t harassing me, just read me as male at first. Whatever.
Felt stressed so skipped the music festival and went to a bar called Zeitgeist which was loud and crowded and full of strangers including some guy who looked exactly like Captain Jack in Dr Who. He was even wearing a bomber jacket. He then proceeded to mack on my for like half an hour in an extremely irritating way as if he was actually Captain Jack. He was somebody’s friend, not just random stranger. I told him to bug off. Flirted with twice in one day by strange boys. I’m a guy, leave me alone. If they read me as male, maybe they would bug me less (not captain jack, though), but really, I’d rather be invisible entirely. I like people, it’s just individuals that I have to deal with that I can’t stand. How do straight men get laid? Flirting seems to involve objectification and amplification of power systems. “Hi, I am strong and you are weak, would you like to submit to my sexual gratification?” That’s the more polite version.
Saturday, woke up early and went to wedding which was hours and hours and hours long. I like the happy couple, but I didn’t know any of their friends, except that many of them were at Zeitgeist the night before and I’ve seen them around occasionally. It was a whole lot of hours of talking to strangers. Drunk strangers. Anyway, it was pretty.
Ellen is back in town.
that is all
Update: I want to make it clear that I liked everyone fine on Friday and Saturday night (as long as they weren’t macking on me), I just don’t like having to interact with lots of new people because it’s stressful, not because there’s anything wrong with the people, just because there’s just a lot of them.
Tag: Celesteh
