Charlottesville

Well, I did decide to make the drive to Charlottesville- I left the house at 7:45AM and missed all the potential traffic jams and was in Charlottesville by 10:15AM. My mom lives just down the road from Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello, pictured above.

I even made the supreme sacrifice this morning of going to Catholic mass with my mom, my sister and brother-in-law at the University parish. To say that I despise the Catholic Church is a pretty fair statement, but I went because it makes my mom happy. I find the institutional Catholic Church to be corrupt, dishonest and hypocritical among other things. The sermon today was on humility - something the Prada Pope and most of the Church hierarchy need to practice themselves rather than acting like feudal lords. In any event, there was plenty of eye candy at mass, as well as a number of easily identified probable closet cases (like I was while a student myself), no doubt wasting time, energy and emotional peace trying hard to pray away the gay.

After church we stopped by my nephew's dorm (he just started first year) and I met his roommate and the two guys from the next room next to his. Wow, they don't call UVA a cute boy school without reason!! Then it was on to the pool at the complex where my mom lives - no eye candy there except for one hottie - before going to my sister's new house that she and her husband just bought. It's a gorgeous house and let's just say the neighborhood is rather different than my own neighborhood which is "in transition" and beginning the gentrification process (translation: gays like me and Raymond are buying houses and redoing them so that all the more affluent straights will want to move into the neighborhood).

All in all, a very pleasant day (I studiously have tried not to think of all the work sitting on my desk at my office). Tomorrow on the way home I will stop by and see my daughter who just started college at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Surprisingly, even though VCU is located in the former capital of the Confederacy, it is among the more liberal universities in Virginia, with outstanding arts programs. We'll do lunch (probably in Carytown just west of VCU, which is Richmond's gayest neighborhood) and maybe check out any shops that are open.