It's Monday and I'm cooking red beans and the house smells like good food. Wish you were here.
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8:04 PM
Dear Steve: Thank you for your correspondence, but we regret to inform you that Ms. Ciccone has been dead for some time now. She suffered near fatal injuries during the filming of Dick Tracy, and although she made a jaw-dropping recovery around the time of Erotica's release, she soon experienced a massive relapse. She was so weak by the time Alan Parker chose her for the lead in Evita, we all knew death would not be long for her. She died at the wrap party for that film in a freak mehendi poisoning. The case is still under investigation, so we are not at liberty to discuss the particulars, but signs currently point to a disgruntled woman who auditioned for a walk-on part as an elephant seal in the "Cherish" video, was rejected, and then later acquired a position as a chambermaid in Ms. Ciccone's home under an assumed name. Thankfully, Ms. Ciccone's forward-thinking backers had planned for just such an incident and hired Regina Belle at a much reduced rate (she isn't working much these days, now is she?) to sing new material, and brought on Debbie/Deborah Gibson to serve as a body double for a limited number of live performances. Of course, most of Ms. Ciccone's appearances these days are on video, made from splicings of old footage and new, digitally enhanced work, based on Ms. Gibson's languid movements in a specially designed electronic catsuit. We are unfamiliar with the specifics of this process, but the results have been very impressive, have they not? Of course, this is all classified information, and it is given with the understanding that you will keep it private. Should you choose to violate this implied agreement, let us just say that (a) we know where you live, and (b) little Lourdes has taken very well to her private handgun lessons. We hope you gather our meaning. Thinking of you during this time of grief, we remain,
10:27 AM
Like most superheroes, I could be using my powers for good--"powers" in this case meaning time alone in my house. I could be organizing my three-foot-high stack of miscellaneous bills, stickynotes, and ungraded mid-terms. I could be emptying trash cans and washing dishes. I could be mopping, for chrissake. But like many who have come before me, I am weak. I have been swallowed up by the dark side, revelling in the Seven Deadly Sins and even thinking up some new ones. My latest invention is "Sluttony." Sloth + Gluttony = Sluttony. It refers to my habit of eating copious amounts of food while laying in bed watching repeats of National Geographic specials I've seen five times already. Of course, now that I look at it, it could have other meanings, too. Like gorging yourself on...well, I'll leave it to your imagination.
6:58 PM
If anyone sees my boyfriend this afternoon, tell him that I miss him dearly and that the house is, indeed, still standing, although I broke a glass pitcher yesterday because it wasn't able to handle the half-gallon of still-hot iced tea I'd just made. (The hounds and I avoided the glass shrapnel, and the sound was kinda cool, so everything worked out fine.) You can give him a kiss, too, if you like. Oh. One more thing: ask him to call or email me at some point. I just want to know that he's still alive and that his friends haven't secretly set him up with a job and an apartment or anything. Nothing serious.
10:29 AM
When did this turn into va-fucking-cation week? I haven't been out of town in over a year. And I don't mean, like, I haven't been on a real vacation in over a year. No. I mean that for the past 12 months, I have been held prisoner within the city limits of New Orleans, the Big Easy, Sweet Lady Gumbo, Old...Swampy. Except for the occasional Wal-Mart spree in the suburbs, I've not strayed more than five miles from my own home. And I'm not even under house arrest or anything. And I can't feasibly go anywhere interesting for many more months. <tantrum> Wah, wah, wah. Blech. Phooey. </tantrum> Although I detest the thought of moving, even that's starting to look appealing. Calgon, take me away. How's about helping a guy out? I want a little break from humdrum reality. I'm not asking for a free trip to the Ural Mountains or anything. Tell me a story, share some exceptionally good porn, whatever. Entertain me.
4:42 PM
Fine, just fine! In retaliation, I hereby vow before goddess and everyone never to buy Of course, it's only a District Court, and even if the Supreme Court concurs, the ruling can't be completely effective (can it?). I mean, the Internet's "about" a lot of things--ease of communication, speedy data transfer, and porn come first to mind--but all of it seems dependent in part on the "public domain" nature of previously restricted property. You know, porn sites don't call up sweet little Talvin Demachio and ask if they can use his picture, nor do they call the porn studios who own the copyright. I promise. And besides, can you imagine the nightmare that this sort of standard, taken at face-value, would impose on web hosters, ISPs, and the like, ensuring that not a single one of their users transmits any sort of data branded explicitly or implicitly with a copyright? Maybe technology can be altered to adapt to such restrictions (I dunno, I'm no propellerhead), but if they put me in charge, I'd start with a massive overhaul of copyright law. The opinions expressed on this site are solely those of the author and are protected under copyright and droit moral legislation worldwide. Theft, plagiarism, or other misuse of this content constitutes a violation of the law and will result in prosecution, perhaps even fellatio. Don't make me hurt you, sucka.
8:38 AM
New Yorkers beware: Jonno is sporting one of his patented facial masques. I'm not exactly sure what that portends, but it can't be good. I just thought you should know what you're getting yourselves into.
1:16 AM
Like I said, Angels in America is a beautiful play: smart, poetic, real, magical, sexy. And it's a great work to put on a syllabus, because no matter what your students wanna discuss, it's in there. I keep coming back to it year after year because it unsettles and saddens me. So much of the play is about love and transformation and life-changes and things falling apart: relationships crack, lovers outgrow one another, sometimes die. And it's not just the Hedda Gabler/Titanic kind of splitting where one of the pair is clearly the martyr, the other a vandal. Kushner's smarter than that; every character is likeable in his own way. Even Roy Cohn has a certain charm--although in real life he was the apparent reincarnation of Vlad the Impaler. What I mean to say is that there are no obvious solutions here. If these characters were placed on a deserted island by a major television network, viewers would have a hard time picking which one to boot off first.
If you've ever had someone suddenly taken away from you, the play's narratives of love and tragic loss are particularly poignant. You remember that feeling you once had, that promise you made to yourself about never taking people for granted, and you're slightly ashamed that you forgot it so quickly. When you say goodbye to someone, even if you're just going to bed in the next room, say it like you might never have the chance to say it again.
9:28 PM
Okay guys, today I'm trying to polish off an article on the sex life of homos in the provinces. Given my personal peccadilloes, it should come as no surprise that I've chosen to focus on the various elements of cruising in the sticks: how to get laid in Redneckistan. I've already got a list of pointers worked up (e.g. develop a taste for Coors Lite and don't be shocked that the local DJ hasn't got Kevin Aviance's latest white-label single handy), but I'm wondering if you boys and girls might have anything to add. Those of you who live outside the metropolis, how is homo culture different in your neck of the woods? What do you find appealing in strangers? Repulsive? And you city-dwellers who occasionally visit the country, what things do you notice when you go there? What do you find most unusual? Most exotic? Most appealing? The article's framed as sort of a Cosmo guide to sex among the haystacks, but I think there are some interesting issues at work here that might make for good reading (if I can manage some good writing to convey it all). So what are you waiting for?
6:45 PM
It is a rule of etiquette in the South to refer to certain persons as "Mister/Miss + His/Her First Name." For example, if I were addressing Leah Chase, famed proprietor of Dooky Chase Restaurant, I might call her "Miss Leah." It's a practice more commonly used for women, though I couldn't say why. I think it's great to use a semi-formal term of address like that. It's a simple, genteel way of showing respect to someone while maintaining the intimacy associated with first-name-basis relationships. Of course, maybe my affinity for the formality has something to do with my upbringing: as a child, if I didn't respond to an adult with "m'am" or "sir" my daddy would have knocked me into the middle of next week. (In fact, he probably still would.) And if I'd even thought of calling an adult by first name, there's no telling what would have happened.
Only thing is, this form of address is typically reserved for use with people of color to whom one is obligated to show respect because of their age. The implication is that "Miss Chase" would be too formal, too respectful to be used with a person of color. So by saying "Miss Leah" (and she is, fyi, a woman of color--Creole, to be specific), the subtext goes something like, "I could call you Miss Chase, but since you're a person of color, I'm not gonna go quite that far. I'll show you some respect, but not as much as I would a white woman of your same age." Of course, that's pretty fucking lousy. What do you do with a custom that's so charming and despicable?
11:18 PM
9:45 PM
10:05 AM
2:56 AM
10:07 AM
First impressions are important, especially when it comes to novels. I have fantastic visions of Danielle Steele and John Grisham cracking cats-o-nine-tails on the backs of a dozen minions, pressing them to think harder, to think outside the box, for that one perfect opening sentence that will draw the reader in with a tantalizing taste of things to come. But if there were a competition for the best opening passage ever, I think Gore Vidal would probably win for Myra Breckinridge:
Now that's some fancy writin', ain't it?
9:56 AM
When goddess gives you lemons, make lemonade, right? Same goes for corks, apparently. (Courtesy of the delightfully wacky Mr. Pants, who also links to a video clip of Jenny Jones when she appeared on Star Search sporting the biggest hairdo west of Marie Antoinette's rotting corpse).
1:07 PM
Last night, I took a bus. I used to take them all the time to get back and forth across the city, but now that I both live and work in the same neighborhood and I have my own wheels, I rarely see the inside of a bus or streetcar. I wasn't particularly happy about riding the bus. I would have preferred to be in my car, but as vehicles made in 1987 tend to do after 13 years of service, it had broken down. I had it towed to a garage miles away because it's the only reputable one I know. [ Of course, I'm probably being too judgemental of the other garages I've tried. I'm a faggot and I don't know much about cars--though I'm always willing to learn--and I feel intimidated by these painfully hetero working-class men covered in grease. It's like I'm back in high school and although the meatheads aren't really taunting me or anything, something in their eyes tells me they're thinking, "Fucking pansy. What can I do to make his life miserable today?" But that kind of defensiveness, it's just the way I am and since I don't believe in psychotherapy, I'm probably not gonna change anytime soon. Whatever. ] Anyway, the car's not the important part. The bus ride is. I walked out of the garage and over to the bus stop, and there, for the first time in I don't know how long, I stood around doing nothing. No meetings to attend, no speeding through traffic to get where I'm going, no hammering out grant applications at the last minute to meet deadlines. Just waiting. And waiting. And idly chatting to the other people waiting for the bus. And reading a great book. And getting frustrated when busses would pass on their way back to the station, not picking anyone up. And being relieved to see the right bus finally heading our way. And the smell of the ice-cold air conditioning inside (though the weather was bearable since it was dusk). It would have driven my boyfriend completely insane, but for me.... And on that ride back home, the quality of light in the trees, the color of the sky, the sounds of the bus hulking through early evening traffic--it brought back a flood of memories: back to when I first moved here, and I took the bus all the time, and everything was new and exciting, and I was making friends and living like a kid who'd just graduated from college, and it seemed so long ago and so beautiful I could have cried. It's like revisiting your old high school or just trying to look at a very familiar place as though you were just seeing it again for the first time: the scents, the colors, everything new and crisp. I don't get bogged down in the nostalgia; I just like to let that feeling, that buzz, flit around in my stomach for a while and I smile.
10:28 AM
"I thank you in advance for your swift attention to this matter and remain, sincerely yours..." I could write it in my sleep.
11:12 AM
I typically don't have much of a sweet tooth; if anything, I'm addicted to salty things (get your mind outta the gutter, Betty). So why is it that I'm suddenly craving king cake? It's not even in season (Epiphany through Fat Tuesday). Of course thanks to the tourism industry, Gambino's makes 'em year-round, and since they've got a shop Uptown, I could swing by and get one on my way to class tonight, but, well, it'd kinda be like having a yule log at a 4th of July picnic: a total turn-off. I feel the same way about cereal for supper. (Sorry, Jonno, but I do.)
10:16 AM
Over the course of my life, I've had to come out several times. There was the homo coming-out--I enjoyed that one so much I did it several times: once when I was 14 (to a junior high pal and his older sister's homo friends), then again when I was 19 (to a new group of homo buddies), and then the big one when I hit 20 (I was about to be outed to my then-girlfriend and chose to do it myself before things got nasty). Of course, I'm of the mind that if you're a homo, you're sorta coming out every day, so I guess I'm still in the process. I've also come out in other ways: as a bear-lover (and I don't mean Smokey), a social smoker (which makes me like a bisexual--neither camp wants me in their ranks), and here, on this website, I came out as a former D&D player (I could link to the archive file, but I'm not quite that masochistic). I only wish I could have come out as a deb--though now that I think about it, I look kinda crappy in white. Maybe it's best I skipped that one. As some of you might have guessed, today I must come out again. No, I don't get into scat--despite some rude accusations from certain email correspondents who shall remain nameless. And I'm not crossing back over into heteroland anytime soon.... Any guesses? None? Okay. I'm a gamer. A pretty avid one at that. Now, I don't get into the mindless sort of shoot-em-up kickboxing stuff, and I don't even look twice at the sports games, but give me a good Tombraider, and you'll have just managed to shut me up for the next eight months. My latest obession is Thief 2: The Metal Age. It's got all the things that really get me going, notably good graphics and a low-kill/high-puzzle factor. But I gotta tell ya: the controls SUCK. They're all over the map. My poor qwerty keyboard can't handle it. But of course, that's how I know I'm really hooked: my fingers are tied in knots, yet I still keep playing. Why did I choose today to come out? Well, the office is really quiet right now--just a few people passing up and down the hall--and the only noises are the sort of sniffling and scuffling you hear in the game while you're waiting for someone to turn their back so's you can sneak into someone's bedroom. Everyday sounds I'd normally overlook now have me pressing ALT-W and holding my breath. If it's that engrossing, it must be pretty good, huh? I'm okay with my game-lust, I guess. Just don't tell my mom. She still remembers the happy day I finally gave up the Atari and the Intellivision (am I dating myself?). She'd be so disappointed.
2:09 PM
So. Seven hours after I began redesigning our company's website, I decided I'm really kinda fond of the original. So I trashed it. All of it. (Well, I'm not that impulsive. It's sitting around in a junque folder if I should ever feel the urge to tackle it again.) Must...avert...gaze...from...monitor....
4:05 PM
Naked Killer: better than Office Killer (sorry Goddess Cindy) and way better than Killer Klowns from Outer Space, but not nearly as entertaining as Return of the Killer Tomatoes ("They are gardeners and carpenters. They are not tomato men.") or a rousing rendition of "Psychokiller". Nor is it as enjoyable as Heroic Trio, the best of the supadupafly-kung-fu-fashion-lady as highly-seasoned-killer genre goes (if there is such a thing--and I think there is). But of course, when I'm looking for fashion and murder in the same place, I prefer the oh-so-rare Modesty Blaise (Whither Monica Vitti? Whither?) or the 1990s PVC-totin' equivalent, Aeon Flux. [Editorial query: Why do fags feel drawn to strong, deadly, wacko women? It's like Ab Fab's Edina says to her gay ex-husband when he and his partner get excited at the impending arrival of Patsy's supposedly fierce sister: "You boys are so predictable. Give you a well-dressed woman with a drug habit and you're falling all over yourselves to get to her." (Or something like that. I paraphrase.)] I did, however, see a very real, very admirable woman this evening in a documentary on PBS. Edith Heap is a Londoner who worked for the Royal Air Force during WWII. She served as a "positioner," which basically meant that she stood around a large map of the countryside listening to Air Force radio and moving little markers about to denote planes' positions in the sky. One day during a battle skirmish, she heard her finance shot down. There were no screams from his cockpit or anything, just another pilot describing the plane plummeting toward the ground. Without knowing the plane's call letters or anything, she knew it was him--just knew. When the modern-day Edith spoke about that feeling of intuition and the mourning she went through, even though the ordeal took place more than 50 years ago she quickly choked with tears. Couldn't speak. And she was furious at herself for getting so worked up about it. Such a strong, common sensical woman. She reminded me of my grandmother, a farm-running, gun-toting, fish hook-baiting woman whom I miss very much. If I ever find myself in such a trying situation, I hope I've got the chutzpah to pull through it level-headed.
11:59 PM
3:22 AM
Every Saturday at 6:00pm, I'm reminded that this is the embodiment of evil in America. But they're so gosh-darned cute and campy, how could you ever destroy them? Well, short of jerryrigging a flamethrower, locking the entire cast in the basement of an abandoned building, and toasting their overwrought vocal cords. I guess that would work. In other news, my buddy Lesley finally made it to town. I should probably go ahead and position the Advil bottle close to my side of the bed. It'll just make tomorrow morning more a little more bearable. (Funny how those sommelliers like to drink a lot.) And somebody finally washed the dishes and put the new roll of toilet paper on the dispenser. Frat points: -20.
6:39 PM
So, I'm no tech-head--not by a longshot--but this uTOK thing looks kinda interesting. At least, I think it does. As I understand it, it's sort of a freestanding guestbook for every webpage on the planet. Anyone out there given it a test drive?
5:04 PM
Truth be told, cookiepuss, I have a habit of lusting after unlikely TV personalities, too. Luckily, I'm not alone.
4:42 PM
Storms in New Orleans are sudden and violent and intensely beautiful. I can't imagine living without them.
5:34 PM
Um, why hasn't anyone told me about this before? Surely a couple of my porndog pals must have known about it.... I mean, eBay conceptual art? Woo hoo!
5:04 PM
The opening speech of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches is one of the most powerful ever penned. Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz, speaking at a woman's funeral, touches on issues of nationality and affection and identity and...well, it's pretty amazing in scope (to me, at least). The thought that this speech was at one time just stuck in Kushner's head, or saved to a flimsy floppy disk, or scrawled on a crumpled piece of paper--the thought that it could have been lost makes me weak in the knees. I've copied out a selection I find particularly moving. Don't let me know if you hate it.
4:50 PM
Looking back over my last post, I think Jay probably said it better--and in far fewer words. I bow to your eloquence, monsieur.
11:17 AM
HEY! I'm about to get EXTREMELY pedantic here. You might wanna click back later when I've got something a little more lighthearted to share. I'm just sayin. Huzzah! There's the sort of Britcrit we know and love! I knew he'd find that pesky text lying about somewhere or other. So his fundamental question is this: "Why are married people being financially rewarded?" And my response: I dunno, maybe it has something to do with a little thing called Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman! ...Oops. That's from something completely different. (I hope someone out there knows what I'm talking about.) Seriously. It all boils down to that quirky-but-lovable economic system we've gradually adopted as our own: capitalism. More specifically it has to do with capitalism's raison d'etre, private property. Private property--be it land, t-bills, or an entire collection of original, boxed Barbie dolls--is just that: private. It belongs to an individual or a specified group of individuals. When those individuals shuffle off, their private property remains (unless of course they've made arrangements to be buried in the manner of those decidedly anti-capitalist ancient Egyptians) and must therefore be passed on. And, of course, the legal family makes for convenient lines of such inheritances, conserving property and power among bloodlines. Marriage perpetuates and extends those bloodlines, thereby maintaining the family's wealth. Oh, and let's not forget: building family = building the nation. So, basically, as long as we've got private property, the family will be of central importance, because, yo: it's all about the benjamins (and keepin' 'em around for your hunny). That doesn't mean we shouldn't open ourselves up to more diverse sorts of legal unions: if Jonno and I were to decide that Tom was really top-notch in our book--and who's to say we won't?--we should be able to form a three-way hitch that'd ensure the proper handing-down of all our photos, mementos, and my sizeable collection of McDonald's Happy Meal toys. (Actually, you can have 'em all, Tom. Jonno can't stand 'em.) So given all that, is it any real shock that governments favor the family unit? I mean, maybe when we start mowing down people at 30 like they did in that lovely Logan's Run, maybe then we can talk about nixing financial breaks for the old married folk. But given our current position, I think it's a bit unreasonable. Besides, legal unions ain't all that. I mean, married folk have to attend twice as many family functions, which takes all the fun out of saving a couple hundred bucks on annual taxes. The great thing about it, of course, is that I think Tom, Jonno, and I would probably agree on a lot of the same issues. I'd even send him an email if my #@$%! SMTP server was working properly....
10:55 AM
For those of you who share my passion for Squishy, you might wanna take a look at Fan Mail. I mean, I dunno if Pamie's behind it or not, but you never know. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.
3:56 PM
I've just come from a grants review session in which the panel discussed more applications from organizations with horrid acronyms than I can possibly recount here--groups like ARTISTS: ARTs In Schools To better Society. No, really. Such convoluted names always remind me of that passage from Metropolitan Life in which Fran Lebowitz ridicules the entire phenomenon with fictional organizations like HURTS: Hemophiliacs Usually aRe Terribly Sick. The session wasn't all bad, though. I got to re-read a big chunk of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, which I'm teaching on Thursday. If you haven't read it, well, I don't know what you're waiting for, but hop to it! As a little interesting lagniappe, the author of Angels, Tony Kushner, is from Louisiana's bayou country (somewhere out near Grand Mamou, I think), though he now lives in NYC. Interesting mix of identities the man's got going on: Louisianan, gay, Jewish, intellectual....
12:10 PM
Yes, boys, it seems as though someone has taken an uncharacteristically Foucauldian/poststructuralist stance on the matter--unusual for a Brit, since they all seem so keen on materialist/Marxist philosophy. (Um, sorry. That's just my years of highfalutin' grad school jargon coming out. Sometimes I slip. I'll keep it to a minimum.) I mean, I understand what he's trying to say: historically, marriage has been a sort of institutionalized inequity, so if queer politics are about reshaping norms and ideas of what's acceptable and getting rid of social inequity, why adopt marriage as one of the planks in our platform? Unfortunately, that sort of philosophy falls on some very hard rocks in the face of legalities that prevent g/l/b/t partners from securing inheritances, visitation rights, and countless other benefits that legally joined partners enjoy (except, of course, in the great state of Vermont). And yeah, people who prefer triads or quadruple relationships should have those rights, too. Ultimately, the point is that "marriage" or some sort of legal union is beneficial for partners who've chosen to share life, love, a house, and the good china. Just because marriage hasn't always been fair doesn't mean we need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Oh, politics, schmolitics. This makes my early-morning head hurt. Follow Sparky's lead and read the new issue of Handbag. It's British, too, just to keep the Anglocentric thing going.
9:12 AM
Our accountant is here today. She comes in about once a week or so, just to reconcile the books and make sure everything's coded properly in the financial database. She's very smart, very efficient, and at times I loathe the ground upon which she walks. I hear you ask, "But how have you come to depise this tall, lanky, Midwestern girl who's always been pretty good about staying out of your way?" Well, I've got two reasons. 1. First thing when she arrives, she sits herself down at the office manager's desk, and for an hour they gab about kids and recipes and vacations to Florida and relatives and...well, you get the drift. It'd be fine, I guess, except the acoustics in this office absolutely suck, so even though I'm a good 10 or 20 yards away (I was never very good at football and can't guess distances to save my life), I get to hear every single banal word of their conversation. I could close my door, but I figure prattle outweighs suffocation any day. Wine, whine, whine. Poor me. 2. I may find it in my heart to excuse high-decibel banter, but there is one thing for which I will never forgive our perky little accountant: she has taken it upon herself to include me on the CC (not BCC, mind you) list for all of her Christian email, most of which has been forwarded to her from other Amy Grant fans. (My sales rep at Apple--Apple, of all places--has taken to doing the same thing.) So 2 out of 3 mornings, I can expect to open my inbox and find therein a story about some carpenter and a couple of fish and someone's good works and blah blah blah. I wanna nudge her into a corner and tell her, "Honey, I was raised a Southern Baptist. If you think I haven't heard every single solitary Hallmark-sappy, Paul Harvey-style sob story, you would be sadly, sadly mistaken. So, yo, bakdafukup." Of course, she's pretty tall, and I think she plays a lot of sports. She might be able to take me out with very little effort. Maybe I'll just bite my tongue. P.S. I have officially given up on Tombraider: The Last Revelation, which Jonno gave me for x-mas (no more "Christ" in this missive). I made relatively short work of the first 5/6 of the game, but then I encountered a glitch which I've not been able to get around--even with many reluctant glances through the Eidos online help center. I guess I'll just wait for the movie.
10:50 AM
Thanks to the sweltering heat, I'm trapped inside for most of the next two months. Normally, this wouldn't be so bad, but I've got a really short attention span, and Jonno can only entertain me so many hours of the day before he gets cranky. Ergo, I need something to amuse myself. So I've devised a little project that should keep me occupied--and maybe you too--at least for a while. I haven't worked out all the kinks yet, so I'm reluctant to explain the particulars (I mean, knowing how I am, they may change), but to get started I need two of you to volunteer to participate. All you have to do is send me an email and a couple of pics of yourself (preferably a face shot and a full-length) and I'll be in touch. There's only one stipulation, and that's that volunteers shouldn't have a website of their own--or if they do, they shouldn't have pics of themselves posted anywhere on it. I know it sounds cryptic, but I promise, it won't be painful. The rest of you, sit tight. Maybe this'll be fun, maybe it won't. We'll see. P. S. On the pics, I'm not looking for nudes.... Well, not really.
6:20 PM
Jonno and I have recently taken to dancing around the living room a la Robo-Z Gold from Bust-a-Groove. If you know what I mean, I'm very, very sorry for you.
3:40 PM
Um, like I said: in New Orleans, there's always an excuse to party (with your hairdresser). My personal favorite's shown on the site linked at the bottom of that page.
1:18 PM
You know how sometimes on game shows like "The Newlywed Game" (get-to-know-you sort of shows) people are often asked, "If you were an animal, what sort of animal would you be?" Well, normally I'm totally confused by such questions. I mean, I'm pretty easygoing, which maybe you could call "monkey-like" (and I am a monkey in Chinese astrology), but I can also be really stubborn, much like the proverbial mule. How do you choose? If I were asked that question right now, though, I'd know: I would be a baby harp seal. That's how I feel as I'm walking down the street and the scorching July sun is beating down on me like a starving Inuit. Really. It's painful. <*tidewater drawl*>That heat's just unChristian.<*/tidewater drawl*> Which reminds me of a very short story involving my friend Zod.... A couple of years back, Zod was having a late night/early morning breakfast at Shoney's when a fousome of churchgoing women slid into the next booth. About five minutes into their conversation, Zoddie overheard one of them say, "...so I told her that I was doing the work of the Lord, and if that bitch didn't like it, well FUCK her." (It was the "Christian" part that triggered it.) Hee hee. I miss you Zoddie. [Ed. note: Zoddie now informs me that it was, in fact, the infamous Bianca del Rio who overheard the conversation, and that she was in the waiting room at Charity Hospital, not at Shoney's. Frankly, it's beginning to sound a lot like an urban myth, but, well, you know, it's still funny.]
4:36 PM
To anyone using Netscape for Mac, I wholeheartedly (well, how 'bout halfheartedly?) apologize for my uninformed usage of css and a troublesome background gif. If you're seeing this after a day or so of not being able to read my tiny, tiny type, you know what I mean. Many thanks to Casey for pointing out the error of my ways. Now if he'd only write a few more of those seedy little tales....
4:25 PM
So it's reductive. Okay, really reductive. Still, it's a start. I mean, you can't know the players without a program.
10:44 AM
Hee hee hee. I just signed up as a member of this online community so I could throw a little early morning shade at some very humorless people who have little better to do than call Brad Pitt by his first name and critique hexafunny websites that seem to impugn Monsieur Pitt's questionable dignity. Anyway, since I was kinda posting a flame, I wanted a username that was a bit aggressive. I found one. And the confirmation email looked like this:
Tee hee. They called me "fudgepacker."
10:41 AM
Six Absolut/rocks/dirty + 80-degree nighttime temperatures + an evening of slumming in drag queen/hustler bars a la John Rechy = complete, utter exhaustion. Can someone please make me a refreshing mint julep on the fly?
2:14 AM
8:51 PM
Six Unrelated Things 1. I had a Proustian moment on my walk to work this morning--all because of architecture. The buildings in our neighborhood are old, you see; most date back a century or more. They were built in the European style, abutting the sidewalk (no front yards, only courtyards). So when you traipse down the street, you can't avoid hearing the sounds of your neighbors' domestic life: you're pressed against their bedroom walls every step of the way. I passed beneath a bathroom window, and I heard water running in the shower and caught a whiff of shampoo. It only lasted a second, but it brought back a shock of ambiguous memories. I don't know where I was or how old I was when the memories formed, but the combination of that sound and that smell made me really happy. Bathtime fun with someone I loved. 2. A syllogism: a. Artists are incurably weird; 3. Syllogisms aside, I really enjoy politics--particularly office politics. It's such a big facilty here, with everyone divided into factions, that scheming to get what you want is always an amusing challenge. Kind of like Dangerous Liaisons without the sex. 4. My fratboy quotient remains steady for today. I get points for breakfasting on cold, left-over pizza (my favorite, favorite delicacy), but those points are negated by the significant amount of left-over ratatouille (read: prissy food) I also consumed. Normally the empty beer bottles lying around would swing things back toward the fratrat side, but, well, they're Beck's. 5. Someone forwarded me an email today which I'm sure most of you have already gotten and deleted: "The 15 Telltale Signs That You're Being Stalked by Martha Stewart." I did, however, find one of the points amusing: 13. On her show she makes a gingerbread house that looks exactly like your split-level, right down to the fallen-over licorice downspout and the stuck half-open graham cracker garage door. Don't hate me. Well, okay, if you must. 6. My friend Zoddie feels a little down. Won't one of you Atlanta ho's drop him a line and take him out for a drinkie-poo? 7. I use Internet Explorer. When I surf, especially when I'm browsing links, I like to open links in a new window, just 'cause I sometimes find it difficult getting back to the page I started from. But after doing this a certain number of times, IE goes a little cukoo--like, my windows lose everything but the address bar and the right-click menus stop working and I can't open any new programs. Is anyone else having this problem? Does it have anything to do with zapping javascript-opened windows? Is there anyway to fix it without holding the entire population of Redmond, Washington hostage?
11:19 AM
10:27 PM
California dip left to ferment in the back of the refrigerator for four months (give or take a week) is not edible. Interestingly enough, the same rule applies to spicy bean dip. In fact, based on careful observation, it's my theory that this holds true for all dips. Somebody notify Scientific American ASAP. (Which is my way of explaining that I've just spent the last bit of my holiday cleaning up the kitchen. As Homer Simpson might say when contemplating Patty and Selma in an oilwrestling match, "Uhhhhhhhhh... [shiver]".)
3:53 PM
Holiday pro: Once you're an adult, there's no more playing dress-up with mom and dad and/or attending silly events at the First Baptist Church Family Life Center. Holiday con: Your friends' holidays parties often invoke themes, which require elaborate costumes, theme-specific potluck offerings, or both. Holiday pro: Rare free time spent with friends makes you realize how silly it is that you can only make time for one another on special occasions. Holiday con: Holidays give you a chance to see the many personalities your friends possess as their alcohol tolerance ebbs away over the course of the day. Holiday pro: Holidays give you a great chance to spend the day with your dog. Holiday con: Spending an afternoon with your dog shows you how desperately in need of a bath she is. Holiday pro: Time away from work gives you time to catch up on things around the house (e.g. reading, cleaning, sleeping). Holiday con: Spending too much time in your own house makes you realize how you and your boyfriend have the same domestic hygiene habits as frat boys, including the week-old beer bottles (but not the hot sorority babes). Holiday pro: Holidays give you plenty of time to go to the fagbars and not worry about waking up early for work the next day. Holiday con: Every other homo within 300 miles has the same idea. Holiday con: And the music sucks ass.
12:04 PM
In bed at 10pm. Up at 3am. Back to bed at 7am. Up again at 8am. It's a little frustrating. At least I was entertained for part of it. During the second round of sleep, I found myself dreaming of Cocoa Beach, Florida (no idea why--I've never been there or anything--but it might have something to do with my childhood fascination with Larry Hagman on I Dream of Jeannie). Anyway, I was staying with Tom Chase--yes, that Tom Chase--who was acting as my real estate agent or something while I looked for a suitable summer beach house for Jonno and me. Tom went down to the basement to throw in a load of laundry, and when he came back, he suddenly noticed that I had an unfinished tattoo of a parrot that covered nearly all of my left thigh. I, of course, was terrified; in my book, parrots fall into the same category as unicorns do as far as tattoo subject matter is concerned: avoid them at all costs. Gradually I calmed down and went to pay my electric bill. Then I woke up. It seems silly enough, but I checked my leg when I got out of bed, just to make sure. It was that intense. Funny thing though: my electric bill's due Wednesday, and I'd completely forgotten. Creepy, no?
8:26 AM
3:33 AM
Don't look at me--Jonno's got the pics. On an unrelated note, I wish Mother Nature would get over this Robert Smith/Trent Reznor/Danielle Dax kick she's on with all the grey and the glooming and the schvitzing and the no-swimming in the afternoons. Of course, if it were sunny all the time (like it was in May), I'd be complaining that it was too hot. Go figure.
8:57 AM
Today's genius worthy of serious, stone-cold worship: Christoper Durang. This afternoon, I reread Titanic, and I was really astonished that I'd forgotten how funny it is. Case in point: Lidia, the Captain's roughly 13 year-old daughter, is wandering about the ship's dining room and suddenly plops down beside Teddy (a 20 year-old dressed as though he's 14).
With all my laughing-to-the-point-of-sobbing, I'm sure the neighbors thought something awful had happened.
5:16 PM
Ungh. Noon. Just getting up. Head + back + shoulders = pain. Good party. All-purpose pick-me up for days like this: biggie fries and copious amounts of clear carbonated beverage. (Try it, you'll see.) That and a Biore and I'll be good to go.
5:14 PM
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