June 4, 2025
12:08am – We are settling into bed, about to fall asleep. It has been an OK evening, although some sneaking suspicion lingers that I have been too quiet, or distant from GF tonight. I haven’t talked enough? Maybe I’m wrong. I felt very at-peace tonight – calm. When I get calm and content I kind of get quiet, I think, especially when I get tired/sleepy for the evening. This is one way she and I are really opposites – she is a big talker and likes knowing what I’m thinking and asking me questions to get to know me even deeper, which I love doing, but sometimes I am too close to bedtime for that to work. I am much more with-it and awake in the morning, but she is NOT AT ALL a morning person. I big spoon her for a while until I need to roll over to pass out, myself. I can’t sleep unless I’m facing the edge of the bed, which sucks as far as cuddling her to sleep goes. I have been staying up later, recently, often after midnight when I call it a day. I try to stay up later, because she is way more awake this time of night, and I try to hang, but I often can’t. I just can’t be awake till 2am during the week. I feel bad about all this as I doze off.?
7:05-8:40am – I don’t recall waking up overnight, and just after 7, I pop up. Eventually I get up at around 7:20. A good friend messages me, saying the book she’s reading is fantastic. She and I are both working on the “My Novel Life” challenge – where we read a novel from each year, we’ve been alive. In order. She is on her first one, from 1992. I tell her I am so happy to hear she’s into it and tell her that my 2nd book in that challenge, from 1978, is about 1100 pages and it’s kind of daunting. I’m waiting for it to become available at the library, so I can start it. I kind of like how friends feel good about messaging me nerdy texts at 7am. I am behind on my current book (I’m not behind, I just put too much pressure on myself to read more when I actually read plenty). So, I go into the living room and get back to “Interesting Times” from T Pratchett. I make it from pg. 90 to 120, which is all I have time to do this morning before having to get ready to be seen out of doors. At 8:05 I shower & get ready. Yesterday, I attempted to wear a tshirt I hadn’t worn in a couple of years, and I found out that it was not as undersized as I remember. So, this morning I try another, and again, it fits way better than I thought. Am I shrinking up a little? Nice! It’s green and it says, “carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man”. I wear this under a buttoned-up shirt. Yesterday I remarked to my boss that I’ll wear my kilt today (since last summer I got chewed out for wearing shorts to work; the head of this place is kind of a reactionary). Ultimately, I decide on just a pair of black pants; to not ruffle any feathers – I already am walking a line putting up any Pride Month anything in our area, so a kilt would just make the MAGA-ish admin grumpy. I make coffee at home, because my paycheck gave out yesterday, so that means no stopping for any while on the way to work. Dressed, travel mug ready, and cats fed, I kiss GF bye, tell her I’ll see her at home later for lunch, and head out. It’s an amazing sunny warm day out here!?
8:40-9:30am – I start up the car, and pop on book #2 I am reading – “The Cabin at the End of the World” by P Tremblay. I typically have 2 books going at a time – 1 hard copy, and 1 audiobook for the car/office. During the drive. I don’t think about much; I’m just listening to the predicament the couple in the book is facing. It’s a home-invasion horror. The windows and sunroof are all open, and days like today make me wish I had a slightly longer commute. Since it is a straight shot to work, without a Dunkin’ detour, I make it there by 8:55. I slide into my office, and put on the audiobook again, on my work laptop. I check emails – nothing. I check my to-do list – nothing (it’s a very slow period in our annual calendar; our summer period will start next week, so that should be more work). I go to MS Teams and schedule a quick conversation with Coworker, regarding a small staff game event that we have wanted to plan. I start reading again.?
9:30-10:30am – I totally forgot about writing a diary!!! Shit! So, I stop my book, open up my Google Doc, and start throwing down every bullet point I can regarding the last 9+ hours. I throw on a Spotify playlist I’ve been into the last few days “Surf Punk”, which has enough energy to help me type harder, I think? Lots of Cramps, Jay Reatard, Man or Astroman, the Gun Club, Descendents, etc. Coworker comes by my office door, and wants to chit-chat, which is fine by me; I have most of the necessary bullet points down for this entry, and I feel like I stay in my office too much like some recluse, that the opportunity to talk and connect more with others in a work setting? is a welcome change. I mention to her that I do this EDLM project, and she thinks it’s the coolest thing. This sparks a conversation about Muncie, and how the EDLM folks get people to participate in the journal project. I say it’s mostly BSU-affiliated people, and they have had a hard time finding “townies” to take part. She says she doesn’t doubt that. We talk about how Ball State wasn’t always the “enemy” to townies. She is a Muncie native and seen how people used to readily take to BSU, but some president or another in the past basically shunned townies from entering campus, so that didn’t help townie relations. We talked about how townies feel like BSU is “taking over everything and doesn’t care”, where she says there is some truth to that. Taking over the schools some years ago was a good move to get rid of the rampant corruption in the schools, but it still was bad optics for many people here in town. We talked about how “everyone hates Burris kids”, and how that is at least somewhat historically perpetuated by BSU, allowing prof’s kids spots in there, as perks of taking professor jobs, while making townie kids fight it out in a lottery. For me, it’s always fun to chat with someone who grew up here, to try to get at the truth as to why some things are the way they are. I feel like I am caught in the middle of the Muncie town/gown divide; I am not, nor have I ever been affiliated with Ball State, but I also did not grow up here, only arriving in 2014. I’m not in either camp. I have an extensive education without having been to BSU, so I kind of fit into both. This has allowed what I feel to be a unique position to hear honest opinions from both sides on the whole thing. Anyway, after some time, Coworker gets called away, and I go back to filling out my morning here. By 10:30, I have the entry caught up.?
10:40a – A good friend posted yesterday where he is putting together a D&D fundraiser event for a local LGBT organization. I ask him the details, and he says they want it to be an 8-hour thing with hopefully 60 participants. Wow – he needs to find SO MANY DMs. He says he has 3 so far, which would be good for approximately 15 players. I really would offer my services, but that organization is frequented by a couple of people that are very bad; I have had some very toxic interactions with a couple of those individuals and shouldn’t really be in the same room with them anymore. But at the same time, I’d love to help with the event and do my part to help the queer community here. I wonder if I participate, can all parties be civil and act like adults? One can hope. I tell him to put me down as an emergency option, if he doesn’t get enough DMs otherwise. It’s Pride Month; it’s the least I could do.?
10:50a – I’ve been sitting here for too long; I head out to get some steps in – downstairs to the mailroom, and maybe a time or 2 around the block; it’s too nice to be stuck indoors! Out on the street, downtown – “Blood Visions” is a really good album, and man, it’s nice and warm and sunny out here! It’s a good morning. I am back in my seat by 11:05 – they should really fix the HVAC in this building; it has been sweltering in here the last couple of weeks. GF messages me, saying good morning, and she is in this Google doc, reading about my morning. She woke up with a nasty headache again; those seasonal allergies are doing a number on her. GF and I are planning on going to Indy Pride, here next weekend. She has never been to one, and I haven’t been to one in years, so it’ll be a good thing. We are going to make up tshirts to wear that day; this past weekend, we bought them and the vinyl for her Cricut, to create them. I have a word doc open now, trying to figure out how to format the thing I want. I knew I wanted a silly, shitty dig at JK Rowling, and after messing around with ideas, I settle on something like this:
This will be pink text on a black tshirt. I do this while talking with GF over messenger about lunch plans. She agrees to venture out and grab a little something, while I make my way home. I leave the office at 11:30.
11:30a – Driving home, I realize I’m blaring the B52s – oh well; it’s Pride Month! A Chartwells truck is coming out of Minnetrista; I pass it on that intersection with Wheeling. I was reminded of that terrible all-staff lunch that my former employer had catered by them. It was worse than school-level bad. What was that…2018? 2021? Who remembers. Then it hits me that I am SO GLAD to feel that far removed from that whole setting. I drive on. Rock lobster. I get home at 11:45.?
11:45-12:45p – She has not made it home quite yet, from retrieving lunch, so I type on this for a couple of minutes until she returns. We greet, she seems to be in a great mood, and we start in on lunch while filling each other in on the day. Several topics come up: (1.) We talk about upcoming anniversary gifts, and how getting one (cotton anniversary) is not required, as we will be getting married on our anniversary this year, and that kind of takes precedence over a usual anniversary. I say I still want to see what kind of cotton gift I can come up with, and say I’ll make it small-ish. (2). She tells me about how her job is being stupid, again; it’s something new every day with them. (3.) She reminds me she will have to be out doing a job thing tomorrow evening, so I should cook dinner then, and she’ll do it tonight, where she agrees to do a cacio e pepe with chicken sort of thing. (4.) She mentions where she sees that Gibson’s arena is now selling lunch foods and I say hey, wanna go skating? – and she reminds me of her trash ankles. Like, it wouldn’t be pretty! (5.) I see where local nazi-douchenozzle Ryan Webb has posted in a local awareness Facebook group where Donald Trump’s approval rating is now “up to 53%”. I briefly toy with the idea of responding that Rasmussen polls historically skew conservative in their bias, but I realize that pointing this out will change nothing, and that he will go on being the trash person he always has been. And it’s too nice of a day to worry about stuff like that. Don’t get me wrong – I am SO stressed about the state of the world this year, but I feel kind of at a loss as to what to do about it. We all should be taking to the streets, but everyone I have seen has kind of had this “if we put our heads down and ignore it, maybe it’ll go away” kind of thing, and I cannot be a one-person uprising. But for now, I guess I have to enjoy the fact that it’s a nice day and that as a person in the LGBT community, I am not yet imprisoned for it yet. After all of that, I kiss my GF goodbye – I’ll be back in a few hours! And I head back to work – Listening to more of that playlist…Twin Temple/Delta Spirit.
12:53pm – Back in the office, I guess someone came into our department and spilled a giant drink on one of the workstations. My boss and Coworker are busy cleaning it up…they are both annoyed that the person did it and just left without saying anything to anyone. I would have been too. I sit here at my station with my McDonald’s unsweet tea and type this. Boss starts a brief, cheery conversation about ordering tea, and the best places in town for it, and how difficult it is to get places to do “¼ sweet, ¾ unsweet”. So now I’m just sitting here by the giant window, watching people come and go from the building.?
1:06pm – GF sent me back to work with one of the leftover cookies she made for our book club, back on Monday night. They are these magnificent rainbow flag cookies, since we read an LGBT horror book for our club’s June meeting. Taste the rainbow!
I open the ziplock baggie and enjoy dessert. I’m so lucky to be with such a sweet person! I don’t super feel like it, but I decide to get back into my audiobook – I want to see what the couple is going to do about the people taking them hostage in their own home! I read, and hold down the department, until…
2:35p – Well….the book is turning nasty, and I love it. I got to the end of one very long chapter, but also people started congregating in my area, as happens sometimes, so I took that as a cue to take a break from the book. I start perusing online for an anniversary gift and come up with a couple of cotton-based ideas. I check in with GF, to see how her toe is doing – after I left from lunch, she, while trying to avoid stepping on a cat, kicked the fridge by accident. She asked how do you know if your pinkie toe is broken. I said ?????, but she reports now that her toe isn’t swollen or anything and the pain has died down. Looking back on the Ryan Webb post, I see some others have done the job for me – pointing out how those numbers, reported from Newsmax, are very likely fake news, and other, more reputable polls show Trump underwater, still.?
3:04pm – I start proofing this entry, making sure I take care of typos and all that. I get up again to get some more steps, checking the mail. Starting to think about giving Boss a heads up that I am going to leave early. I pull up Youtube and see that a booktuber I follow just did a video on a book I read a few weeks ago, so I watch that. It put me in that book’s mood which made me listen to New Order which I know, I know…but that’s what happened. It’s not the music for this time of year – more of a fall thing, really. I look up some of the other book titles mentioned in the video and add them to Goodreads.?
3:39p – I really want out of here. Nothing is going on that I have to deal with for work. Maybe holding out until 4 won’t look too bad. I wish Boss would stop hanging around Coworker’s desk, which is within sight of my station – I’d like for it to be easier for me to sneak out. Delaware County Awareness-Uncensored’s new Facebook cover photo is amazing – waiting for it to get barked at by the trolls.?
4:10p – OK, time to make my move. I left and went home.?
4:30-5:45p – I got home and everything was fine. GF mentioned that since she has been at home all day, it would be nice to go do something. I said sure, have any ideas? I threw out “how about we try and find a trivia night”? We looked around and found one every Wednesday at 7 at The Clubhouse, downtown. Neither of us had been there before – there has historically been a lot of chatter about Accutch this and Accutech that made me not care to go there. But why not just to check it out? They were advertising half-price apps! Sounds fine tonight. She suggests we find some friends who might want to go with us. I text my 7am-book-message friend and Bookclubfriend. 7am declined but asked me to ask her again next time. Bookclubfriend surprisingly said yes! Not bad for 45 minutes’ notice. We get ready and head out by 6:30.?
6:00-10:30p – We get there and there is a message on the door saying there is a private event until 7, and they will reopen at 7:30. Crap. So, I let Bookclubfriend know, and we take a little walk, ending up down at Fox & Sparrow tattoo. GF has had a few things done there, and to talk to them about getting one done on my leg. Bookclubfriend meets us outside, and the 3 of us chat with one of the Fox & Sparrow employees. He goes back inside, and the 3 of us walk back to the Clubhouse. Eventually, we get a table. Trivia starts at 8, and we get food. We ended up doing pretty well; I maintained about 5th place throughout, out of around 40 players, but bomb the final question, so I finish in 11th. GF was consistent throughout and ends up 5th overall! The host afterwards comes over and says, “It’s nice when a newbie comes in and scares the regulars!”. Bookclubfriend struggles, finishing 20th, vowing to return later to redeem herself. We all say we should do more trivia nights – I think there is one at the Heorot, and at Elm Street? We leave out at 10 and are back at home hanging out in the bedroom by 10:30.?
10:30pm – We lay there, relaxing, cooling off (it was so hot in the Clubhouse). We played a little “Would You Rather” (Aircrash vs Sinking Ship, Piranhas vs. Shark, Volcano vs. Earthquake), and I talk about how I wish I were better at expressing myself verbally – as during trivia I said a couple of things in conversation that sounded not at all like the sentiment I was thinking – also I felt like I was being too quiet, when I was actually really enjoying myself. She reassured me that everything went just fine.? After some amount of time, I didn’t check, but I assume it was after 11:30, we close up shop out front, and head to bed proper. You could kind of tell she wasn’t as tired yet, but she knew I was. I don’t know what to make of that kind of deference – I suppose it’s flattering, but I keep telling her she is of course allowed to stay up if she wants. She’d rather be awake in bed with me than out doing whatever in the living room. In the end, I was happy to have someone around that takes me into consideration, for a change. I don’t need obedience by any means; adults should have their own agency and all that, obviously. But it is nice to be factored into someone’s thought process. As most nights now, my last thoughts I remember in a day are hoping she’s ok.