All Over the Board

1. About half a year ago, I noticed the beautiful salads the San Francisco Soup Company sells. So many people were happily eating them. They looked so pretty. So I got one. Then you know what else I got? Violently ill. That's right, the beautiful salad tried to kill me. I was so sad. For months I watched the happy people munching their pretty salads, wishing I could be one of them, knowing I wouldn't survive an attempted murder twice.
   
   This week I've been a little crazy, and today I decided to try the salad again. Let me tell you, they were just as beautiful today as they've been when the salads are in front of other people. The grass was just as green for me! It's now seven hours later, and I feel fine, so it seems like the first time was just an unfortunate fluke.
   
2. This may come as a shock to some of you, but GQ, my gay boss, is gay. I know! Anyway, one of our sub-tenant people was back in the office today after having gone camping for a long weekend. He and GQ were talking, and GQ asked where the guy went camping. They talked about location, and then I heard the sub-tenant say something about not being "too close to the homos or the meth-heads." Ever see those movies where someone's head dramatically jerks up and their eyes get wide? That was me.
   
   GQ didn't react at all to it, so I kept my mouth shut. Is it possible he missed it? GQ's been gay for like, his whole life, so maybe he worked out decades ago how to deal with comments like that?
   
3. Speaking of GQ! Recently, he and the other attorneys in our suite got their photos professionally done, for their respective websites. The photographer came to our office twice, and had zero sense of humor. One of the attorneys said, "One or two shots should be enough to capture my beauty," and the photographer was all, "What?!?! But how will I ... only two shots?!?! Blarphen?!?@?!" and we had to tell her she was joking. The photographer promptly developed a huge crush on GQ. To say she was disappointed would be a huge understatement. Her whole face fell, and she asked me a thousand questions about where he was.
   
4. The new season of Dancing With the Stars has begun this week, and the two people I was interested in seeing were Leah Remini and Snookie. I don't think Leah Remini is particularly smart, but she's funny. Sadly, it doesn't seem like she'll go far on this season. Girl can't dance. Plus she's very uncomfortable with her body (see: Amber Riley). Snookie however, can apparently dance. Shocker!

The List

At work I currently have a list full of names. These are names of gay professionals in Northern and Southern California. It was each person's name, their title, the company they work for, the county, and their email address. At the top of the list, in bold and extra-big font it says Privileged and Confidential. The list was given to me in a folder. There was some data entry to be done with this list. Any time I am not entering the data, the list is to be kept in the folder. If I walk away from my desk, the folder is to be kept in a drawer. If you've never done it, data entry is pretty mentally dull. The mind wanders.

When my mind wandered I noticed that some of the email addresses are not work email addresses, but personal ones. My gay boss is very out. I know, because we had a talk about it, when I had to call someone and out him, and wanted to confirm this was okay to do. Our sub-tenant is a branch of a law firm that includes one lesbian lawyer and one gay lawyer.

In my office, everyone is out. Very out. Lots of very un-PC gay jokes are made on a regular basis. Seeing this list, where some people used their personal email addresses rather than their professional ones was a stark reminder that not all the gay people are out. When I noticed this, I looked at the locations of the people using personal email addresses to see if my guess was correct. It was - all the people who used them happen to live in the very Republican, conservative area of the state.

Whenever I hear of somebody gay who isn't out I want to encourage them to move to San Francisco. Irrationally, I think since I'm straight the right thing to do would be to move out so there's room for the gay people. They need this city more than I do. But the issue isn't that there isn't enough room. I don't know what the issue is (though this being a super expensive city probably has something to do with it). Probably can't presume that all gay people have the same reasons for not moving to a more gay-friendly place than wherever they live.