Nada Otter, Nada Bear
I was on FaceTime with Gabriel late last night for 42 minutes, and you know what? I would not have done this before the world stopped being normal, but in the Time of COVID I'm giving him a Social Review point for that. Lea too! She was in their living room with him, often chiming in during conversation. And: pretty much any time I have spent an hour with someone on video chat, effectively "hanging out" the only way it's possible to do so these days, I have given them a Social Review point. 42 minutes isn't quite an hour, but, it's close enough. And there was really no other purpose to the call than to socialize.
Granted, it was unusually late: that 42 minutes began at 10:38. Gabriel ostensibly had a gay-related question, and I was the only one of his gay friends he thought might actually be awake. Seriously? I'm actually usually asleep at that time—and, indeed, I was in bed. Technically I spent that entire call in the nude. (I was under the covers.)
Gabriel has this odd desire to be able to lay claim to one of the subcommunity labels within the queer community, even though he's straight—but, "if he were gay." He's large and hairy but not fat, which seems to rule out him being a "bear." He's lost a lot of weight but won't ever be svelte enough to be considered an "otter." Apparently a "wolf" is basically an "aggressive bear"?? This was news to me. I guess the Village Voice has known about the term since 2012.
I had to tell him, weight loss notwithstanding, among those terms, "bear" still probably comes closest. Some might go for "wolf" but I think the descriptor "overtly masculine" is tricky with Gabriel. To the untrained eye, he certainly comes across that way. But I know him far better than most and I can tell you, emotionally, he's much more like the stereotypical idea of a woman. (I am not saying that pejoratively, for the record.)
I don't fit into any of these categories myself, really. The best I can come up with for myself is Girly-Man with Dad Bod. And even "Dad bod" often has even more of a belly than I do.
Anyway! That's what Gabriel started with, but it wasn't the only thing we talked about. TV shows, Marvel movies, furniture. They were sitting on beautiful leather chairs and couches in their living room that apparently came from Lea's parents from storage, and which I guess she had in her house as a kid. I was stunned that the furniture was in such good shape after thirty years. I also said it really irritates me that I can't come see their house, and Gabriel agreed. But, what are you gonna do? Maybe I'll get to see it in . . . fuck, I don't know, late 2021?
Another thing I had to mention. It was so nice seeing him in a relationship with someone he clearly still has fun just sitting at home with even after a year and a half (I think?), as opposed to someone who makes him want to throw himself out the fucking window. There's no predicting the future, especially with Gabriel's history, but Lea feels kind of special, or at least solid, in a way no woman in his life has felt in a long, long time. It had been easy to have high hopes for him with Kornelija very early on but they still started with huge amounts of uncertainty, getting married with her being deported as the alternative. I think he's been with Lea long enough to be able to see any signs she might be a psychopath, and so far, there don't seem to be any red flags. I feel better and better about her with him as time goes on.
Oh! Gabriel is also putting together a video of Happy Birthday messages for Tess—who turns 13 on Saturday—and he left me a voice mail yesterday, giving me very little time to get creative as he asked for it same-day if possible, asking me to send him a ten-second video of my own. After scrambling in my head for ideas and quickly shooting them all down because they weren't authentic enough, I finally decided to go up to the roof and just send the very first take of myself being silent for most of the ten seconds I was asked for, with the Seattle skyline behind me, until I just suddenly blurted out "Tess Happy Birthday!" at the very end. Oh fuck it, here, I'll even share it with you.
After I texted it to him, Gabriel wrote back, You're a pyscho. Thank you. To my delight, Gabriel last night essentially described it as "quintessentially Matthew," something I'm not sure Tess will get, but Gabriel does. He said he's watched it several times and laughed ever time; he's shown it to others who it sounds like they don't quite know what to make of it. Which of course also kind of cracks me up. Gabriel also commented on how obvious it is in the video how aware I am of the camera, and that is something I am also aware of, and was aware of while filming it. My narcissism has nuance and layers, you know! That said, I also kind of deliberately put very little effort into it, largely because of the short deadline I was given and that Shobhit would be home soon and I needed to make dinner. And yet, I still kind of love the end result. I would love to see the full video Gabriel is making with all the people Gabriel got to send video messages for Tess, including apparently some minor celebrities.
So, what other news? Well, I have taken my iMac in to a nearby computer repair shop. They have both the iMac and the external hard drive which has the backup(s) I was trying to restore it to, which also has a huge amount of very valuable data on it, including recently digitized home videos that are too recent to have also been on the old external hard drive. For now though, I'm choosing not to worry about that. I just want a working desktop computer again.
I wound up taking it to this place on 12th called Computer Love, which as it happens, is directly across the street from the new orthodontist I went to a couple of weeks ago! So, an easy walk, and slightly closer than the "Apple approved" place at Harvard Market. But, at Shobhit's urging, I called to compare pricing with Computer Love, which did not have an automatic diagnostics fee, and would only charge one if the computer screen was not working, and that is not my computer's problem. So, I canceled the appointment at the other place, and just walked the Mac over there yesterday afternoon, taking a short break from work. I should get a call back this afternoon as to what they think the problem is, and hopefully what they can do to fix it as well as what the repair will cost.
This is the place Shobhit had taken his laptop to, although when he did that, his laptop was toast and he had to buy a new one. His issue was different though, as he had spilled water all over it in one of the planes on our way back from Australia and fried the hardware. I didn't spill anything on my computer, so for now at least, I still have some hope.
As for the rest of the evening, I made a pasta salad using orzo, and I used the entire 16oz package so it really is very pasta heavy but that's okay, with chopped romaine lettuce, some slightly sautéed vegetables (onion, mushroom, celery), and a bit of both feta cheese and seed based salad topping from Costco. I really could have added more of pretty much all those non-pasta ingredients, but whatever, it still worked.
Then we watched three episodes of the new HBO version of Perry Mason, which is quite dark, but entertaining. That about filled up the rest of my evening, before I got the FaceTime call from Gabriel.
[posted 12:27 pm]