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Oh, the shreddage. Yesterday as an initial step in the big move, we went through a lot of our files and papers, sorting and shredding as we went. (Indeed, we’ve found that one of our handiest purchases has been our shredder. There’s something satisfying about not only throwing away some unneeded piece of paper, but also speedily obliterating its sensitive information to bits.) Apparently I had kept every paycheck stub from my current employer, which is almost six years’ worth. I had lots of old bank account, credit card, and telephone statements, which seem so quaint now that I do all my bill paying online.

Going through old boxes, you also find some neat things. Thom discovered a bunch of audiocassettes, including one that his father had recorded of Thom’s 1980 high school production of Bye Bye Birdie, in which he played Albert. We listened to some of that while doing our sorting. Little Tommy, singing “Put on a Happy Face.” How cute! That’s a keeper, of course.

I was being coy in my previous entry and didn’t reveal the results of Thom’s job interview in San Francisco last Friday, since I thought I’d let him blog the news first: he was offered the job on the spot! The details are yet to be worked out, but it looks like he could be starting mid-June, which means for us the next several weeks will be a flurry of planning for the anticipated move out west. More updates as the situation develops, of course.

DALY CITY, CALIF. — What a jetsetting week this has been! Last Tuesday we got back to Arlington from our vacation in London. A few days later Thom flew to San Francisco for his job interview, then that evening I flew out to join him, and we’ve spent the weekend here in Daly City with my parents. Thom and my parents have met only once before, so it was really nice for them to spend some time together. (At one point my mom told Thom he was family, which I thought was sweet.)

Tomorrow it’s back to the workaday grind (if I can stay awake after tonight’s redeye flight). By the way, tomorrow I turn 29… whoa, the final year of my 20s!

LONDON, UK — Where did the last seven days go? I’d intended to write more while we’ve been here in London, but we’ve been so tired after each day of sightseeing. It’s been a fun trip and we definitely saw a lot of things; trip reports and more photos to follow. Tomorrow morning we reluctantly head back to the States.

Cheers, London. We’ll be back someday!

LONDON, UK — This is just a quick post to say that we arrived in London safe and sound early this morning. (I still can’t believe we’re really here!) Today the weather was surprisingly pleasant and perfect for sightseeing, so once we got into town we spent the morning walking around and taking in a few of the iconic sights, like Buckingham Palace.

I’ll be uploading photos to my London set on Flickr whenever I get the chance. For now, it’s almost 1 a.m. here, and time to rest up for more sightseeing and a couple of West End musicals tomorrow!

Our London trip is upon us! Up until about last weekend, the trip seemed so far away, but now it’s like, “Ohmygod, it’s here! Do we have everything?” In a few hours we take a short flight from Washington (National) to Newark–for a two-hour layover, but we know all too well how that seemingly gaping time window can crunch down due to delays–and then we’re off to our transatlantic flight to London (Gatwick), which gets us there tomorrow morning (flight map). Everyone, pray to the weather gods!

We’ll have internet access at the hotel, so I’ll try to post some entries and photos while we’re there. (I was doing an image search on the web for London guides, and I found one of This is London, from the series of children’s books on different world cities by Miroslav Sasek; I totally remember checking them out of the library when I was a kid.)

Speaking of travel, when we get back home next week, we’ll be back up in the skies before too long, headed to the Bay Area for a few days. Thom has a job interview in San Francisco that Friday, a follow-up on a phone interview he had last week; the process is going really well, so fingers crossed! I’ll fly out to join him that evening, and then we’ll spend the weekend with my parents in Daly City. I should start a blog feature, “Where in the world are Jeff and Thom?” (Or appropriately, “Où est mon maître le prince rebelle?”)

In anticipation of our upcoming trip to London (we leave in four days!) and also in celebration of the Queen’s 80th birthday today, I’ve raised the Union Jack over Rebel Prince land. (Photo uploaded by bitrot on Flickr.) God save the Queen!

In other queenly news, beginning this Saturday, HBO will air a two-part miniseries on Elizabeth I, played by Helen Mirren. She will also appear later this year as Elizabeth II, with James Cromwell as Prince Philip, in a movie directed by Stephen Frears entitled The Queen.

Early Sunday morning, I was channel surfing, and More Tales of the City happened to be on Logo; I’ve seen the original Tales, but not the entirety of the subsequent two series, so I stopped and watched some of it. It was the episode where Michael (“Mouse”) is hospitalized for Guillain-Barré syndrome. He receives a letter from his mother, which includes some Anita Bryant-fueled statements against gays, and from his hospital bed Michael dictates a coming-out letter in reply.

At some point in high school, long before I had come out to anyone, I read a reprint of this letter (it originally appeared as part of Armistead Maupin‘s serialized story in the Chronicle), and it captured so many of the things I wanted to say to my own parents that I thought about giving them a copy. (I never did; incidentally I didn’t come out to them until a few years later, when I was in college.) So while I was familiar with this letter, I’d never seen or heard it read aloud. Watching it on TV I was so moved that by the end I was bawling, and later when I told Thom about it, I got all misty-eyed again.

Here it is, reprinted from literarybent.com:

Dear Mama,

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write. Every time I try to write to you and Papa I realize I’m not saying the things that are in my heart. That would be O.K., if I loved you any less than I do, but you are still my parents and I am still your child.