Had my Thanksgiving dinner today at Millennium. Avoided all of the turkey festivities locally. And, given it is a day of eating meat and watching football, traveling around the country never really appealed to me.

So, here was the menu (I chose the salad over a soup, the mushroom torte over a roasted squash, and the pumpkin dessert over a chocolate one):

Cornucopia Medley
Wild mushroom pate, winter vegetable terrine, Fuyu persimmon and mint relish, root vegetable caponata, and a roasted chestnut.

Salad
Baby spinach and winter greens, satsuma mandarins, shaved beets, fennel, sweet sesame vinaigrette, and spiced macadamia nuts.

Entree: Wild Mushroom Torte
Marinated seitan, portobello and wild mushrooms, tender yuba, crisp pastry crust, custard of truffled Yukon gold potato and porcini mushroom gravy, served with maple-pecan roasted yams, roasted shallot brassica vegetable medley and cranberry-pear relish.

Dessert
Pumpkin Chiffon Pie with pomegranate reduction

I am writing with great news. Today, Macromedia fired me.

I was planning to leave in February, but there is no longer a need to debate when I will be ready to leave financially and all of those other things. I’m gone now, never to return.

It’s time to turn a new corner and see what happens.

As my faithful readers both know, my plan to leave Macromedia began when I was on sabbatical. In six weeks of Thailand, I wrote a novel in the most relaxed, fluid environment possible. I would wake up, have breakfast, swim, write, swim, have lunch, read, write some more… and that is how the entire day rolled out.

Now, the takeaway wasn’t that I enjoy leisure. That wouldn’t be very surprising. The point was that I wrote an honest-to-goodness end-to-end novel. When I’m at work, I try to write, and it is a pained process because work is also end-to-end writing, and I can only write so much per day. Desire doesn’t seem to play a big part in the equation, writing a Macromedia press release or the novel I love both tap the same resource.

So, upon my return, my goal was to quit my job as soon as possible. Sadly, I was in no financial shape to do that. I had a LOT of credit card debt, which I was already in the process of paying down, and I wanted to save up enough that I could coast for a while, work on the novel, maybe get a part-time job, etc. Things were recently starting to line up to where I thought February was a very safe bet as to when I could leave. But, now, it’s over. No more. Good riddance.

Oddly enough, I spent today busy. I actually wrote stuff that will be used for nearly a month after I’ve been gone. Then, I was supposed to have a 1:30 p.m. one-on-one with my boss, which is our normal time to meet. I had spent the minutes before that wondering how to inflate what little I was doing into enough to make it sound good in the meeting, an ongoing weekly ritual.

When I got into the meeting, someone from HR was there, and I immediately knew things were going to go well in this meeting. My boss said it was my last day at Macromedia, and I immediately replied, “What took so long?”

He left me with the HR person who went through all of the forms, etc., that they needed to review with me, and within 15 minutes, I was at my desk, packing up what few things I needed (mainly this week’s organic produce and multivitamins), and walking home.

Before I left, I asked the HR person (who wasn’t following me out the door) if there were layoffs today or something. She said that my termination was “performance-related.” It was way more attitude-related than performance-related, but why quibble, she’s setting me free.

I don’t fit into the corporate culture. It isn’t my thing. I can’t get excited about it anymore. I hope never to return to it (aside from having a big publisher use me to try and make money, that’s OK). The energy is all bad there. I’m not bashing Macromedia in particular, I don’t like any corporations.

I always said it would be so much easier if I let myself get pulled in, drink the kool aid, think we’re changing the world. It would make the day go by so much easier. I’ve seen enough people who live on that side of things. I think they are delusional, but they seem a lot happier.

Because if you are on the other side of that fence, you just have eight hours of useless work that make you feel like you wasted your time at the end of the day. Keep on that downward spiral for five years, it makes you downright bitter. You resent everything you do for a living except get paid. It’s a horrible way to live, and you end up selling yourself for way too little in the process.

So, it’s finally over.

I’ve literally been unemployed for less than an hour right now, so I can’t offer too much insight into “what’s next?”

I do have a nice mound of cash for now. I’ll probably not work through the holidays, just because I don’t want any interruptions when I start writing the book, so best to save that for January. I don’t want to put it down, go to Pennsylvania for a while, and have to find my way back in again. Since I didn’t quit, there is unemployment, a Bush presidency, and way too many unemployed writers in San Francisco, which is a very good combination for me, as well.

I guess I can’t say what the future holds just yet. But it just got a lot more optimistic and positive.

Been a whirlwind week and I’m finally getting around to having my employer pay me to tell you about it…

Saw the musical theater version of The Opposite of Sex, which was interesting, but didn’t leave me wanting more. I’m still rather content with my non-singing DVD version. The cast was great, and the music was good, but ultimately it just didn’t add up for me. Of course, I said that about Wicked, too, and that’s still going on Broadway after a year.

After the show, I went to a late night Halloween party where I knew a lot of people. My costume this year was my Santa suit, with a red T-shirt with white lettering underneath reading “Looking For Ho’s.” It was interesting walking to the party down Sixth Street, where a lot of drug dealers and hookers, or people who just hang out there all the time and look like drug dealers and hookers, hang out — with many of the black men saying they knew where I could get a ho.

This would be the beginning of my realization that if you put the word “ho” on your chest, you are responsible to talk on the subject of ho’s quite a bit. I finally get to the party, and all goes well. I only have one jello shot the entire evening, otherwise just hanging out clean and sober. Seeing a lot of people I don’t see often enough.

At one point during the party, a girl comes up to me and a group of people, reads my shirt and says:

GIRL: So, you’re looking for a ho?
ME: Well, I’d prefer three.
GIRL (confused): You need three hos?
ME: It’s kind of what I’m known for.

This went on for a while, and while never revealing the connection to her (Santa says “Ho-Ho-Ho”, of course), it was at least fun for everyone else in the circle of people. The girl eventually just walked away.

On the way home from the party, I share a cab with Courtney Love and Wonder Woman. At a traffic light, the car next to us is filled with young Asian guys, rocking out to music that is way to soft to be head banging at that level. The light turns green, and they pull out ahead of the cab. A horn blasts. It is them, alerting a slow-moving car that it is headed directly toward them, driving the wrong way in the furthest lane away from where it should be. It doesn’t turn away. They don’t turn away. It is all slow motion as they approach and ultimately collide head-on in front of the Civic Center Post Office. the last thing I remember seeing is the airbags inflate in the Asian boy car.

The next day is Halloween proper, so the costume gets reused. As the festivities don’t even begin until evening, a friend and I decide to see a late afternoon movie first, so he can get good parking, and then after The Motorcycle Diaries (yum, Gael!) and dinner (yum, Nirvana!), we will do the Halloween thing.

Rather than be in full-on Santa gear for the whole movie, I leave most of it in his trunk, parked in the Castro. But quickly realize that I am now just walking around without a Santa suit with a pun-less shirt that just reads “LOOKING FOR HO’S”!!!

It began immediately. When I got on the bus, the (black) driver said, “I wish I was going with you!” It is a motif that will repeat several times. At the movie theater, the people lined up for a subtitled independent movie aren’t entirely clear why someone who is looking for ho’s would be in their midst.

Things get better when the rest of the Santa suit is applied that evening.

First of all, the ratio of people in costume to gawkers is really starting to make the Castro less fun. That and the abnormally straight vibe throughout, which is strange for the Castro. I mean, if you are a young Asian guy wearing white sneakers, white shorts, and white angel wings… in the Castro! … and also holding your girlfriend’s(?) hand, it’s just going to be a confusing night for everyone. At least wear a butch costume if you are going to be seemingly alarmed by gay boys checking you out. I mean, you are practically naked, what do you expect?

Even before dinner, I was photographed a lot in my costume. The highest exposure I got was when we walked by Daddy’s, the leather bar on Castro, and in front was a guy in a full leather hood, underwear, and handcuffs, whose costume seemed to be whatever his master let people write on him in Sharpee. So, as Santa, I took it and wrote NAUGHTY across his lower back, and posed for what seemed like 40 photos.

After dinner, we went to a nearby friend’s Halloween party, hung out there for a bit (again, no drinking, no sweets), and then went back into the street festival. Oddly, I didn’t encounter many people I knew, which is rare, so that had a negative effect on the night overall.

The costume worked though, as I could hear references to my costume (Santa’s looking for ho’s… his shirt said looking for hos) behind me as I walked. A lot of girls, many dressed as ho’s for the night, took their picture with me. The other main reaction was from younger, straight (usually black, which I only mention because the costume (or rather the reference to ho) really seemed to resonate with black attendees the most) people saying they were looking for ho’s too, did I know where the ho’s were, can Santa bring them a ho, etc. Again, not sure why, but I never anticipated I would be engaged in this much ho talk.

Probably home by 12:30 that night, as it was a work night, and I didn’t run into anyone else I knew that might have wanted to extend the night elsewhere.

On Monday, I went to see Marilyn Manson in concert. I have been a big fan for a while, but the show just didn’t do it for me. Not having seen him for several years now, since he always plays SF when I am not around, he just didn’t seem as hungry as he used to. What used to seem inspired now seemed rehearsed and part of his shtick. It’s like what I experienced when I saw KISS, except in this instance, I had been around to see all of this same material when it really worked onstage.

For example, Manson has always performed Sweet Dreams with a utility light, overexposing his face in the harsh light, and before the band kicks in, smashing the lit, exposed bulb on his chest. I’ve probably seen more than a dozen Manson shows, and he has done this at the majority of them, but he used to break the bulb on his chest, to the point where blood would actually run down his chest where he actually cut himself. This time, it seemed like the light wasn’t exposed, the cage surrounded it, and when he brought it toward his chest, the lighting guy potted it down.

Now, this could be a small thing, and do I really expect him to bleed for me every time? No, but what I want him to do is something that reflects that same energy and risk onstage. He’s not the best singer, and the music is so loud and industrial any lyrics I like are nearly inaudible live, so… yeah, he does need to do something outrageous.

Even his last number, where he reprised an amazing piece of theater from the Antichrist Superstar tour, he appears in some Nazi/religious overtoned performance, and he used to rip pages out of a Bible, throw them into the crowd, and then toss the rest of the Bible into the crowd. No Bible this time.

I guess I wanted inspiration and felt like I got shtick, and a $40 ticket price. So, Manson is off the list of performers I need to see live.

Tuesday night was all about the election, but most of it didn’t happen Tuesday night. The party I ended up at was filled with people, all looking more grim as the results came in, but without the Bush victory being announced that night, it was anticlimactic. Most of us watched or heard about Kerry conceding from work the next morning, leaving us with a numb feeling all day.

There are a number of blogs where you can read about liberals sick that Bush will be in office for four more years, so no use me adding to the mix. Ultimately, on a micro level, nothing changes for me. I am quitting my job in early 2005. I am finishing my novel. I am losing weight. And 2005 is going to be the year of the boyfriend. (Interested applicants can use the Contact me link at the top right).

I guess the upside, albeit depressing, is that Bush really won this time. So, he didn’t hijack this one at least.