Biscuit: Tasty Doesn't Get You A Date To The Prom

I write this to report the return of The Australian.

The scene: my wonderful local gay bar.

The time: tonight, circa 2 am.

The cast: Me. Union Worker*. Art Student. The Australian. The Annoying Man.

(* The Union Worker is no longer a Union Worker. Stay tuned for a new moniker.)

Union Worker and I were enjoying a quick drink, discussing our varied work ethics, the Hard Sell technique, searching for jobs -- general topics regarding gainful employment. In walks The Australian. I had met him about four months ago, same setting. Several exceptionally pleasant nights were spent in his company, chatting away over a pint of Brooklyn Lager. (I should mention at this point that The Australian is almost painfully handsome, dashing, funny, and altogether what one might call quite the dish.) He went back home for a while, and returned to the city only yesterday. Poor boy was overcome with all kinds of jetlag, but still retained his charming quality of seeming to be enamored of everything I said. Union Worker beat a strategic retreat when, upon returning from the bathroom, he found me occupying his former seat so as to place myself in greater proximity to The Australian. Art Student joined us for a while, and made (as usual) a lovely impression.

At this point, Annoying Man makes his first appearance. He compliments Art Student on her hair, and she is duly flattered. She leaves shortly thereafter, leaving me in the enviable position of being The Australian's only company.

Annoying Man interrupts several times to assure himself that I am, in fact, Art Student's roommate. The Australian takes these interruptions stoically, and is always ready to rejoin our previous conversations. When he finally succumbs to the call for sleep, he kisses me, and starts to leave, whereupon he is caught in a conversation started by Annoying Man, asking whether he was interrupting anything. Honestly, if you have to ask...

So The Australian tells me that he is looking forward to seeing me again, and in an uncharacteristic surge of bravado, I mention that were I to see him in a venue other than the neighborhood meetingplace, I would not mind. He winks (he WINKS) and says that as soon as he is settled in, he would not be at all surprised if exactly that happened. And he saunters out with his cute Australian saunter, and at the door, turns and blows me a kiss.

Afterward, I got caught up in a frustratingly lengthy conversation with Annoying Man, but even that cannot dampen my spirit.

Hope springs eternal.

The Australian has returned.

I find eating soup from a bread bowl to be an immensely satisfying experience.

I need to smell lilacs, wet cement, dill, Chanel No. 5, and garlic on a regular basis.

I do not want to smell all the above smells all together.

I often do difficult things simply because they are difficult. This is why I took four years of German.

I do not entirely trust anyone who identifies themselves as a "dog person."

I do not entirely trust anyone who likes Florence more than Venice.

I find it intensely difficult to be negative about anything. Except boys.

I often daydream about saving people from dangerous situations, like fires and deadly international spies.

I often imagine accidentally dying in unpleasant ways, many of which involve subway tracks.

I often plan my actions were the subway tunnel to collapse / bridge to fall / elevator cable to snap.

I wish I still had my extra finger, but I am not as troubled with the loss of my extra toe.

There is much weeping and gnashing of teeth in Fulmy-town today. I was almost two hours late for work this morning, and would have been later but for the intervention of a ringing phone.

It is entirely the fault of my muzzy brain -- when my alarm went off this morning, my brain said to me, "Oh, you silly thing, setting your alarm. Don't you remember that today is Saturday? Go back to sleep!" Generally I feel that I can rely on my brain to provide me with accurate information, but apparently that was not the case today. I am highly disappointed.

Last night, however, was a lovely outing. A friend I was in a play with last summer met me for dinner after work and brought along his fantastic new boyfriend. Normally I might have felt a bit jealous of the boyfriend, but as soon as we discovered that we a) are both Mac people, and b) both own a Macintosh Cube -- well, to be honest, there is no way I could have disliked him. Besides, he is just generally far too nice for me to work up any sort of lasting envy.

It has been brought to my attention that yesterday's entry may require clarification, particularly regarding that business with extra bits of that and additional pieces of the other. Here is the full skinny: I am a mutant. And someday -- someday soon -- I will rise up and crush this puny planet with my six-fingered grip, and stomp upon you "normals" with my six-toed tread.

Until that all happens, though, I should probably explain that extra fingers/toes run in my dad's family. Polydactyly, I believe it is called, and strangely enough, it is a dominant genetic trait -- just an easily masked one. It is fairly rare, but not rare enough that Buster Brown does not have special shoes made just for us little tykes who need extra space to accomodate our strange, mutant feet.

And to further put your minds at ease regarding my plans of world domination, I should also explain that all excess digits have been removed. The extra left-hand pinky-finger came off within days of birth (they tied a piece of string around it until it turned purple and fell off in what I can only assume is a medical procedure familiar to those doctors who discuss things like humours, vapours, and the benefits of a good leeching). The extra right-foot pinky-toe was apparently attached in a slightly different fashion, so it had to wait for actual surgery when I was a year or two old.

The reason I do not miss the toe is that I do not want to be confined to strange, unattractive orthopedic shoes. The reason I do miss the finger is I have convinced myself that were it still attached, I would be a piano virtuoso. There are special songs written specifically for those with polydactyly, with our superior reach and all that, that nobody else can play. I would have been famous and entranced audiences worldwide.

And then I would have enslaved them to my dominating, world-crushing will.

You are all SLACKERS because you all REFUSE to entertain me with new entries while I stay at work late!

Well, except for the one person who actually shows some dedication to my own personal entertainment. And as for the rest of you...I'm sadly disappointed. You will just have to write extra-good entries later to appease me.

Today ushers in a startlingly fantastic mood. These are the various factors that contribute:

1) The perfectly sky-blue sky and the tiny perfect white clouds and the glorious, warm, vibrant direct sunlight.

2) The standard 9-to-5er joy at Fridays.

3) I look damn good today. I experimented with a new way of doing my hair last night and I find that I rather like it.

4) I'm rocking the "casual Friday" dress code. Granted, it's still khakis and a black button-up, but it's a vaguely-subtly-only-in-direct-sunlight sparkly black button-up, the sleeves are rolled just once, giving an impression of French cuffs, and it is not tucked in, lending me an air of insouciance. Plus, I am wearing topsiders with no socks. Watch me dig the no socks.

5) I am hungry and for some reason genuinely excited about the imminent prospect of lunch.

6) I have not decided what I want to do tonight, but everything I think of sounds so fascinating, I am certain that tonight will be a night for the recordbooks.

7) The work I am doing at present is so mindless and repetitive (attaching .pdf files to two years worth of client portfolio files, if you are curious) that I can actually pay attention to my music and not find it distracting. As a result, were one to observe my office, one might see, over the tops of the cubicles, a stylishly-coiffed bleach-blond head getting several kinds of jiggy while surrounded by a sea of corporate stolidity.

Guess who has to come in to work tomorrow (where tomorrow equals Saturday)?

Oh, right. It is me.

Big Fat Fuckall.

Things I have learned from the past few days:

1) Any good mood can evaporate when one learns one is required in the office on the weekend.

2) Nights destined for the recordbooks do not often happen when one has the prospect of a Saturday workday looming ahead.

3) Games of Telephone can be extraordinarily fun and lead to new nicknames. Example:
Silly nickname: Shivvybugfacehuggylove.
Iterations: Shivvybuttfacehuggylove?
What? Shivvybuttfacehoneylove?
What?? Shivvybuttfacehineylover?
WHAT? Shivvybuttfacebunnylover?
Did you just say Shivvybuttfacebunnyfucker?

Bunnyfucker. Now *THAT* is comedy.

4) Few things beat the joy of napping on the roof, when the sun beats down and the wind laps at you like surf.

5) When one goes into the office on a weekend, with no tech support people in sight, something will go wrong with the server that precludes any actual work.

6) I regularly order ten times more Chinese food than is actually necessary.

7) I adore getting email from new people.

"Its translucent color so alluring and taste and aroma so gentle and mellow offer admiring feelings of a graceful lady. Enjoy soft and juicy Kasugai Muscat Gummy."

Egads, but Japanese candy leaves me breathless, staring in awe at the delicious cartoony characters with huge bobble-heads dancing about on the label.

Last night brought a visit with a fellow d-lander. We have bonded over the fact that we both belong to that rare society of D&D-playing homos -- for some reason, a sub-group with a vanishingly small membership. Despite the fact that he has somehow never seen The Simpsons, I had fun. After all, how could one not, what with all the Japanese campiness and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark?

Besides, I visited a bit of Queens. Generally, people who do not live in Queens tend to say "Queens" with much the same tone that they might say "Jersey," but I found it to be quite charming. The neighborhood felt like a miniature vacation to a small town -- plus there was a statue of Athena, who has always been my favorite Greek goddess.

When I got home, there was a strange girl sleeping on my Klaus. Perhaps I should rephrase that -- there was an unfamiliar girl sleeping on my Klaus. I am as yet unaware of whether or not she is strange. She was sleeping when I got in, and was sleeping when I left for work. I do adore the flop-house nature of my apartment. Every weekend one of my friends takes refuge there, and anyone else who visits the city does time with us as well. We have created a weird little bit of commune, where everyone uses everyone's things (except my hair wax, arrr) and I think I rather like it that way.

Japan is light years ahead of the U.S. in the all-important realm of Snack Technology.

In addition to the Muscat Gummies mentioned earlier, I have also been indulging in "Pudding Marshmallow." Yes, the scientific advancement that the world has eagerly awaited since first chocolate was ever combined with peanut butter, pudding and marshmallows have now reached a state of connubial bliss.

Imagine, if you will, a marshmallow. Not your every-day Jet-Puft, dusty-feeling marshmallow, but a smooth, silky miracle of modern mallow engineering. Injected deep within this airy treat is a vein of creamy, caramel flan pudding. Pudding Marshmallow. The world may never be the same.

How have I remained so ignorant of the wonders of Japan for so long? There are so many candies to be tried and marveled over! (Although I shall have to be careful to avoid the candy containing whole dried fish.)

The strange girl on my Klaus is not strange at all. She is lovely. I will be hard-pressed to avoid monopolizing her time while she visits. Already the Shiv and I have invited her to drinks, Sunday brunch, a show, and a dinner party. She is that exciting.

The dear even bought beer last night, in an effort to fuel an apartment-cleaning extravaganza. I was so close to getting the place to sparkle -- I had that rare confluence of inclination and energy I find a prerequisite to any cleaning session; I had dance music; I had 4-0-9. What I lacked, apparently, was a scrubbybrush for my dishes.

"But why," you may ask, "didn't you clean something else, then? And do the dishes after you went to the store to buy a new...did you actually just call it a 'scrubbybrush?' Dork." And normally I might agree with you, except for the fact that these dishes so dominate the psychic landscape of my kitchen that I would find it well-nigh impossible to clean anything without having them out of the way first. They do not just sit quietly in the sink. They are actively dirty. The dishes are dirty at you. They have hunkered down in a squat, ugly, compact tower of hideousness that Lovecraft himself might need to invent another word to describe. That is why the kitchen remains in the state it is in -- all for the lack of a scrubbybrush.

Still, I was able to turn my back on the dishes (I could still feel them lour at me) and scrub down the bathroom. At least one room in the apartment smells like clean. I revel in small victories.

One hundred. One hundred entries. When I started writing this, I hardly expected to last beyond the dozen or so entries required to work out that initial bullshit angsty crisis in which I found myself in February. Instead, Diaryland has become a regular part of my day; I have found friends; I could hardly imagine something exciting happening to me without working out how to write about it. The therapeutic nature of this diary is not to be underestimated.

I reread a whole passel of entries last night. It is interesting to see what I have been writing about the past few months. Everything from the joys of yellowness and elevator buttons to despair-inducing coffee; freaky dreams to Paycheck Fairies; my foray into lockpicking to medieval medical practices. I like making myself laugh.

Given that one hundred entries is cause for at least minimal celebration, I am pleased to report another bit of good news: my freelance gig, which was scheduled to end tomorrow, has instead been extended. Indefinitely.

Even more exciting, it looks like the job will only be thirty hours per week, which means I get to roll out of bed at a leisurely 10 am every day. A few people have tried to convince me to take the 3-day-weekend option instead, but knowing my sleeping habits and my staying-out-far-too-late habits, the longer I get to stay in my bed, the better.

Please excuse me while I jump up and down and do a happy jiggydance.

(jigjigjiggy)

Ahem. Much better.

Exciting events:

1) In 45 minutes I shall meet a friend for Happy Hour at Chili's. Mambo Combo, here I come.

2) I met not one, but two CEOs at lunch today. First: CEO of Cosi Sandsich shops. Second, CEO of Subway Sandwich shops. They were, appropriately, eating sandwiches together. CosiCEO gave me a business card and told me to e-mail him for some free sandwich certificates. He looked vaguely like Mickey Dolenz," and SubwayCEO looked vaguely like Rick Rockwell.

3) I just landed a side project, troubleshooting a Mac for a friend of a coworker. I get to get my hands dirty with a new iMac. I positively shudder with excitement.

4) Did I mention that I just met the CEO of Subway Sandwiches?

5) How fucking WEIRD is that??

6) I bought a new scrubbybrush. The old one is absolutely nowhere to be found -- I can only assume that it managed to develop both sentience and legs, and ran away in terror.

Oh, the changes.

Things have been completely upended, and for once it seems to be in an entirely good way. Remember the strange girl? The one who was a houseguest last week? She is no longer our houseguest. She is our roommate. She has agreed to make her home upon the Klaus. The tension and excitement around the table last night, as we tried to talk her into it, was completely palpable. You could FEEL decisions happening.

In a way I am terribly jealous of her -- you only get to move to New York once, you know. I am jealous that she gets that rush, that feeling of euphoria of suddenly knowing where you fit; that she gets to do something so impetuous and amazing and brave. I cannot think of anything I might do that would equal the feeling I got when I first decided to move here, when I first crossed the bridge into Brooklyn, looked around, and said, "Holy fuck, I *live* here now." Maybe it is enough that I have felt that way once -- I imagine some people never get it at all.

In addition to being a thoroughly delightful person, one who somehow seems to tolerate the oddities of the pre-existing roommates, she also somehow managed to get us to sweep and scrub and tidy. My apartment is transfigured -- clean and sparkly. And there are fresh flowers on the tables. And new blankets on the Klaus. And new shelves on the wall. And the newest resident of New York City, safely ensconced where she belongs.

If you could hear me right now, instead of simply reading these words, this simulacrum of my voice, you would hear a very snuffly individual indeed. It is very difficult to express complex intonations such as sarcasm ("*I'm* not being sarcastic," is possibly one of the most misunderstood written phrases extant today), and doubly so for something as simple as a stuffy nose.

This under-the-weather-ness has left me lethargic -- which I suppose is no great change. At least I retain the energy to help keep the sink clear of dishes, thanks in large part to the stellar example set by my newest roommate. Drat, now I need to invent TWO new nicknames for roommates. Perhaps I will think about that today.

I just finished a long yet highly enjoyable task: catching up on the writings I missed over my brief hiatus. Goodness, but you all were awfully loquacious while I was away. I love that.

I am currently listening to "The Circuit Party, Vol. 6." I needed bounce at work today, and had neglected to bring "The Circuit Party, Vol. 4" with me. I had no choice, really. I was in desperate need of some Circuity Goodness. (sigh) This crappy dance music obsession of mine will be the death of me. I have no idea what that last sentence means.

Thanks to my foreshortened part-time schedule, I only have an hour and a half of work left today. It is difficult to squeeze the same amount of slacking-off into five hours rather than eight. Wish me luck.

I think I may be in the middle of eating the single best sandwich it has ever been my privilege to consume. Smoked turkey, cranberry sauce, cornbread stuffing, and Gouda cheese, on some kind of sun-dried tomato roll. (I am always careful to hyphenate the word sun-dried. For the longest time when I read that word in menus, I always said to myself, "How the hell does one sundry a tomato?" wherein sundry was pronounced sun-dree.) This sandwich is so good it almost hurts. I mean, it is good enough to write about in my diary, which makes it pretty damned good indeed. I wish everyone could taste how amazing this is. Well, at least I wish that everyone could taste it without me having to give any of it up.

I have been in my 5-hour workday mode for less than a week. Already, my bosses are asking me to come in early/stay late. Color me that particular shade of Not Surprised reserved for people who saw something coming a mile away.

Tonight I go see "Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Schmaltzy Pseudo-Romance Featuring A Curiously Wooden Hayden Christensen." At least, that is the impression I get going into it. With luck, I will be proved wrong and I will actually enjoy this thing. I think I am going more to see the venue (The Ziegfeld Theater) than to see the movie. Alas.

Speaking of movies, I just thought I would note an observation regarding the latest blockbuster, "Spider-Man." The very odd and (to me) extremely obvious homosexual overtones in the relationship between the Green Goblin and our pal Spidey creeped me out. I mean, if GG gave Spider-Man the "elevator eyes" or mentioned how much he wanted to be like a father (read: daddy) to him or pinned him up against a wall with his crotch smushed against Spider-Man's posterior ONE more time, I do not think I could have contained my ever-more-hysterical laughter. I have nothing profound to add to this observation, aside from a comment that I can really understand where the Green Goblin was coming from. Mm, Tobey In Tights. I actually just said that out loud. I may need professional help.

Christ in a sidecar, this is a god-damn-diggety-good sandwich.

Shortly after my escapade with The Sandwich, my cough returned with a vengeance. You know that feeling where you cough so hard and so often, the back of your neck feels like it will shoot backwards straight off your spine if you cough one more time? I do. I am also familiar with the crushing regret when one remembers the very large bottle of Aleve left sitting on a bedside table and not brought to work with one.

So I just went out and bought a large bottle of DayQuil. It has been such a long time since I have dealt with cough syrup, I had forgotten how thoroughly detestable it is. a) It is an extremely troubling shade of glowy orange. b) There are no words that describe that particular throat-constricting, wince-inducing flavor. c) Day-Quil is "non-drowsy!" so if this entry cannot show me falling asleep, it will at least chronicle my descent into non-drowsy madness.

My eyes seem incapable of blinking at the moment. Several muscles all across my frame are engaged in rather protracted bouts of twitching, in the way that suggests not so much restless activity as it does involuntary sociopathic tics. My head continues to rotate back and forth in a fashion similar to a startled sparrow, regardless of my best, stationary, intentions. Everyone I look at seems to have some sort of heavenly aura about them, usually in a lovely shade of pale blue. On top of which, I am listening to that usual abysmal music I subject myself to -- in which one song features this inspiring spoken word segment: "Are you ready?!? Woo! Well all right. How ya'll feelin' tonight? Ya'll feeling good? Well, you know I'm feelin' mighty good tonight. But you see, baby, it's a little hot in here. In more ways than one. So I've got a little proposal to make to each and every one of you here tonight. I think it's time we all...Go Down To The Pool. Ya'll wanna go down to the pool? I know ya'll wanna go down to the pool. Come on! Come on! Let's go! Let's! Get! Soaking! Wet!" Music like this can only contribute to my incipient insanity.

And what with all the non-drowsiness, can someone please tell me why I am both jittery and yawning? How is that even vaguely possible? Should not the non-sleepy-juice be kicking the crap out of the yawning-bugs? Rendering them utterly incapable of causing a yawn? Oh, right, the non-sleepy-juice is busy making my eyeballs vibrate instead.

I am terrified that this ramble is utterly incoherent. The other morning Used-To-Be-Union-Worker woke me up and we had a lengthy conversation in which he kept telling me that I was making no sense at all, and I was trying to assure him that, in fact, I was. In retrospect, he was quite correct, as I have no idea what I meant when I wanted to discuss "the air inside the radio," and I do hope that this is not a strange Quil-induced repeat of that episode. If it is...I hope I will be able to laugh at it later.

To start, I was quite right about Star Wars. If anything, I understated the situation when I described Hayden Christensen as "curiously wooden." A more appropriate term might be something that gets across the concept that he a) could not act his way out of a wet paper sack, b) delivers every line the same way, and c) does not open his mouth when he speaks. I do not know what exactly that term is, but I bet it is a good one. Plus he is ugly and I bet he eats kittens. Besides, the dialogue was monumentally awful, and the "love story" made me want to cry. In the sense that if I had seen any more of it I would have burst into tears of frustration and rage. It was just an abysmal train wreck all the way 'round. I do hate that after all this, I still say the final half-hour is worth the price of admission, but I have a weakness for the epic battle thing.

My Day-Quil related madness lasted long into the night. Especially as I had to take more of it so I would not cough during the movie. I definitely do not trust that stuff any more -- in addition to the side effects mentioned yesterday, it also somehow had the ability to drastically exacerbate my already overactive (and woefully underindulged) libido, making my entire night an exercise in lustful staring at passersby. (I can already hear ArtStudent roommate mumbling something about "What makes that different from any other night?" Ha ha.) On the plus side, however, the Quil-Madness motivated me enough (okay, okay, made me downright predatory enough) that I snagged a nice fellow from the bar for some recreation. Hallelujah for ending five-month-long dry spells! (No, for those of you prurient and curious enough to inquire, that boy from a while back and I refrained.) Now I just have to start the counter over again. "Wow, it's been eleven whole hours since the last time I..."

The sad part is that it really was not as fun as I remember. Maybe I should chalk that up to having a cold, in order to avoid completely disillusioning myself. Alas.

Another delightful Sunday de-lights itself while sleep wraps up my city. The sounds of Cowboy Bebop hit me from the next room -- my roommates are ensconced on the Klaus listening to the strange cadences of dubbed speech. I will rejoin them soon, after I take a moment to sort my day (as I am wont to do).

I did not sleep until 7 am. Playing games, losing myself in the life and experience of an invented man. When I am feeling generous, I say that my dice-rolling and my dungeon-crawling are an extension of improv theatre -- just a character I create myself. Responding to situations and threats in the way I wish I could in real life -- tough, hardcore, stylish. It was a good way to spend my night.

Waking. Vendors and sellers and buyers and eaters, strung along from one end of as-far-as-my-eye-could-see to the other. StyleGirl (the new roommate) and I ate and walked and tried on sunglasses, squinting into a sun looking down on my transformed street.

Later, entertainment arrives in an incongruous Chevy Impala. Decadence and cold water, drunk from a pewter mug. Few things make me happier than that taste -- it makes me think of the mountains for no reason I can discern.

And now Cowboy Bebop and my chosen family, in the city I think I own.

Good.

The elevator ride up to the 14th floor just stopped at floor 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, and 11. The one other man going to my floor, after everyone else had exited, looked at me and said, "Looks like we're really on the local today," to which I replied, "Absolutely," with a little chuckle. I do love subway-related humor.

I have not written an entry in some time of which I am particularly proud. I think this is because I am once again in a bit of a rut. I fall into ruts awfully quickly, it seems -- more than a week or two doing the same thing, holding the same job, going the same places, and my brain starts to tarnish, grow dull. I seem doomed to require a constant circus to be content.

As tedious as some of the projects I am working on seem to be, I do take great pride in the fact that nobody else is working on as many of them at once. Somewhere along the way I developed a great knack for multitasking: I can add Client Content to a template, create new sections for the Client Management area, update Dealer Management, create 550 (yes, 550) new buttons using the "sky" palette (as opposed to "slate"), make new popups for the User Entitlements, check my email, and write an entry. I think it may have something to do with the fact that I have spent several years honing my ability to carry on upwards of 8 conversations at once via the miracles of AIM. Clicking back and forth between all those tiny windows and coming up with something witty to say in all of them is taxing, certainly, but apparently also useful.

I suppose I shall have to find an adventure of some kind. I am flying back to Colorado this weekend for a brief "Happy Birthday Mom" visit, and while it will be fantastically nice to get out of the city for a few days, I already know that more than 12 hours of Colorado air leaves me gasping for the rarefied realms of New York. So perhaps that will not quite do for the life-affirming adventure I am looking for. Does anyone have any ideas?

I just joined a new diaryring (see lower left for confirmation of this fact). This is not the sort of thing I would normally join, but Alterna-Me created it, so I feel almost contractually obligated. I feel that I would fit into this group much better if now were, in fact, three years ago, but perhaps I purchased a lifetime membership. I will have to ask someone about that.

I was just reminded of the fact that once I bribed the son of the Denver mayor, a drag queen named Chocolate Thunderpussy, to let me and my friend into a club. I tucked five bucks (yes, I know, not a huge bribe, but hey) into her faux-cleavage. I like that story, and felt like sharing.

That is all.

I feel approximately seventeen times better about my life today than I did yesterday. I think I can attribute this to several factors:

1) I am, once again, eating the Sandwich. Everything looks better while one eats a sandwich that makes one's tongue positively writhe in delight, I swear to you.

2) Simply being reminded of the fact that I have done some pretty fucking cool things in my life -- started a revolution in Germany (or possibly Austria, I'm not 100% sure), bribed a drag queen, taught myself how to pick locks online -- makes me feel much more comfortable with the fact that right now I am a corporate weenie, forced to wear khaki Dockers every day and incorporate phrases like "leveraging that property," "adding value," and "marketing resources" into my everyday vocabulary. I know I will have adventures and wackiness again, and I know those are not incompatible with a corporate weenie lifestyle. In fact, one will help the other along -- money from the latter can finance the former.

3) I got to work with enough spare time to stop by Starbucks and order an iced quad venti white chocolate mocha. I take pride in the fact that this drink may well have the longest name of any caffeinated offering at Starbucks without the sacrilege of adding "skim" somewhere in there.

4) I figured out a fantastic way to automate the re-creation of those 550 buttons mentioned yesterday, so everyone at work thinks I am just tremendously fast (which I am anyway, of course).

5) I actually spoke with Alterna-Me last night, and neither we nor the universe exploded in a matter/antimatter reaction.

6) StyleGirl and I stayed up late last night downloading the Powerpuff Girls theme song, and various techno remixes and extended versions thereof. I have been humming them all day.

7) I think that pesky cold/whatever it was is finally starting to dissipate.

Plus, last night was another extremely productive cleaning binge. I think I can safely say that squalor don't live here anymore.

I shall attempt to keep the whinging to a minimum. Suffice it to say that the good mood that reigned early this morning was dashed to the ground and stomped on mercilessly by the $250 deficit in my bank account and subsequent discovery of a $400+ charge from AOL yesterday. I was so livid I could not find words to express my anger -- every time I tried, I merely sputtered and spewed forth a stream of half-formed syllables. No, the charge was not a mistake. It simply revealed the employees in AOL's "customer service" department to be the rancid-cock-gobbling krill-fuckers they truly are. Except for Brad, the nice fellow who helped me start to cancel my account, but then managed to get me a credit for over half of that absurd amount of money, plus free AOL service (in conjunction with my new cable modem). The remainder, which AOL gets to keep, I can only assume will be used to fund Finance & Billing Supervisor Margie's Ass-to-Face Transposition surgery and her expensive penchant for eating poor, helpless kittens.

In lighter news, I travel cross-country tomorrow. Back to the old homestead, the old stomping grounds, the old headquarters. I grow more and more apprehensive as it approaches -- I should really be more excited, but it seems that everyone I know in New York has planned some sort of exciting gala activity to occur the same weekend I will not be here. I know that all of the really funny things are going to happen while I am gone, and I will miss out on inside jokes for months to come.

On that note, I shall sign off for the evening. More to come tomorrow, I am sure, as well as a whole host of missives from the suburbs, probably centering around how much I want to be somewhere that is not the suburbs.

New York City can be a harsh mistress. Or harsh master, maybe. I just realized that I have never really considered NYC's gender. Perhaps that will give me something to think about while I am gone.

Anyway, master/mistress/gender-neutral-term notwithstanding, it can be harsh. Today is utterly beautiful, and New York is making me feel so bad for leaving right now. I skip out of work in just under two hours, get to LaGuardia, and presumably sit there for quite some time before we actually take off. Although now that I think about it, perhas I will not have as much free time as it appears -- after all, taking these boots off and running them through the X-ray machine and putting them back on is a lengthy process in and of itself. And it does take a while to be stopped at every checkpoint and have one's bags rifled through (Why do they pick me? Are bleach-blond gay boys with trendy New-York-style satchels and a flair for the dramatic really that high on the Danger list?).

The sound of sirens from the street below is already making me feel nostalgic and I have not even left yet. And I will only be gone until Monday. I never thought I would be so attached to a place -- I feel like I am cheating on a boyfriend by spending the weekend in suburbia. Damn it all. I am going to go drown my troubles in some soup-in-a-bread-bowl.

This is being scribbled with a broken stub of pencil on the back of some old tax documents in seat 27F of an American Airlines Super 80, Gate K12, Chicago O'Hare Airport, 8:47 pm local time, Thursday, May 23, 2002. Apparently a law has been passed requiring all persons occupying seats immediately adjacent to mine to overflow the confines of their armrests and press their fleshy, flabby shoulders against me, forcing me to curl in upon myself as if my muscles had atrophied. I come to this conclusion because this occurred on a subway, a bus, and now two airplanes, simply within the last two hours.

Plus I just watched my luggage leave my first plane and get hurled with great force into a waiting trolley, likely damanging any number of bottles of shampoo, cologne, haircare prducts, and soaps with which I am wont to travel. And now OUCH, while I wrote that last sentence I saw it snatched back from the trolley and thrown a minimum of 10 feet into my new plane, whereupon the elixir of pastes and potions previously liberated by the overly-enthusiastic baggage handlers was likely ground deep into the fibers of all of my clothes.

And furthermore, I would like to share a conversation from earlier this evening, aboard my first plane:

"Something to drink?"
"Hmm...coffee please. Black. Oh, and please don't bother with my dinner right now - despite the fact that I came here straight from work and due to the X-raying and the stripping and the searching, I had no time to get food, and despite the fact that the hours between 6 pm and 9 pm are generally considered to be prime, choice hours in which to consume an evening meal, and despite the fact that those happen to be the hours we are, in fact, aloft, and despite the fact that one can hear my stomach rumbling over the sound of the engines, well...I would much rather make do with the fresh baked taste of a single, one-ounce package of Rold Gold Colossal Cheddar Snack Mix because I applaud your attempts to lower the costs of running an airline and in turn (theoretically) to be able to offer lower fares, which might actually occur were people who run companies like airlines not actually greedy fucks who don't want to 'pass the savings on' to me, and besides, I would much rather spend the money ravenously descending upon a shamefully overpriced airport McDonalds like a retarded locust the exact microsecond I leave this airplane, two entire, excruciating hours from now."
"Oh, were you still talking, you sarcastic bitch?"

Ahh, you are so skeptical. Believe I made that up if you like. Only my hairdresser knows for sure.

And one more thing: I just had a lovely daydream wherein my flight to Denver was cancelled, so they put me up in a hotel with cold, cold sheets and that odd, distinctive hotel bathroom floor, and plastic vertical blinds over the windows, and I look at myself in the hotel bathroom mirror, and make myself suave, and go out somewhere -- I walk to the lake, like I walked to the beach from Miami's airport a few years ago when I was stuck overnight, or I just get in a cab and tell it to drive around until I see a sparkly restaurant sign that catches my fancy, and I will go in and have an adventure that makes this step backwards into the mundane life I left behind all somehow seem worth it, and that will make me forget what my girls back home are doing without me, because right now the King of Run-on Sentences could realy fucking use it.

P.S. Confidential to Face: I miss my Face! And also, please feed my cat.

This is the space in which I would be writing something witty about suburban life or the things my niece has said or why I am rapidly approaching insane.

Instead, I will simply say that I am full of ninety pounds of Bonnie Brae's superb pizza, and another 10 pounds of Bonnie Brae ice cream. I can hardly think, much less think clearly enough to compose something interesting.

Except to relate that somehow my mother has developed a propensity for plum- and pine-colored furnishings, which I take as a dramatic improvement over her previous 20-year-long infatuation with peach and pale blue.

Please pardon me, I think Mr. Wonka has a blueberry-squishing room I need to visit.

(pant pant pant)

I feel like a marathon runner, nearing the finish line. I have never found it so hard to maintain my pleasant veneer in my life. I am trying desperately to stop counting hours until I can be footloose and fancyfree again, but I am not being terribly successful.

Tonight I am once again so full I am in pain. Three nights in a row. This cannot be healthy. Remind me to go back to my usual diet of coffee, Vitamin Water, and take-out Chinese.

Speaking of Vitamin Water, if I do not get a Power-C Vitamin Water post-fucking-haste, I may kill someone. Messily.

I did get to meet StyleGirl's parents, though, and they were delightful. And her extended family was delightful. And her suitcase is fucking heavy, but still delightful. Her mom looks just like her. I suppose that is the other way around, actually -- she looks just like her mom.

Anyway. Food coma is making me babble about nonsense. Please tune back in for Fulminicious Goodness when I am not quite so smothered in gravy.

Hold on to your hats, kiddos. This is a biggun.

Monday. 4:15 pm Mountain Time.
I am finally sitting on the plane that will shortly take me out of Denver. I got to the airport almost three hours early, and a small bit of me feels guilty for leaving so soon. Oh well -- everyone can use more time wandering the concourses. Besides, I had time to buy an actual pen and actual paper to write these things down on, so I do not have to resort to stubby broken pencils and scraps.

I can see all of the mountains out of my little porthole. Grand sweeping vista + shafts of picturesque sunlight lancing down from the clouds + soothing piped-in music resembling a cross between Enya and the Princess Bride soundtrack + me looking soulfully out the window = penultimate scene in a romantic comedy, just before my calm, sensible true love throws caution to the wind, boards the plane, and tells me not to leave. I am feeling distinctly sappy at present -- but then again, airplane travel always makes me a bit maudlin and introspective. I shall do my best to rein it in.

I will, however, tel you that the two cute fellows I was eyeing in the waiting area and hoping to sit next to are, in fact, sitting next to me -- just one row ahead. Oh, my dearest darling Fate, how you do love toying with me. If only I had reserved that seat instead of this one...

Just get me East -- get me back to normalcy and my real life, and I will not even care that I am sitting next to a dowdy woman in an obnoxiously fuzzy sweater (the fuzz keeps rubbing my arm and driving me insane) who apparently finds it vital to point out that out one window the sky is blue, yet out a window on the other side of the plane, one can see rainclouds! Amazing, I tell you! She has told five people of this phenomenon already, including an attempt to draw me into conversation. (Note: Later in the trip she also asked me about one of my rings, told me it was unique, and then told me that she "really like[s] unique things." Wow.)

4:25 pm Mountain Time.
Honestly, do we really still need this same safety talk every time? If there is still someone in this world to whom the concept of the "seat belt" is unfamiliar, I put it to you that they are a) time travelers from the distant past, or b) cast members of "The Gods Must Be Crazy." Neither one seems a likely passenger on a flight from Denver to St. Louis.

5:05 pm Mountain Time.
The flight attendant, the main one who keeps announcing things, sounds like Harvey Fierstein. A queeny Harvey Fierstein. A queeny Harvey Fierstein with a cold. I cannot express how distressing I find it to discover someone who can out-Harvey Harvey.

5:20 pm Mountain Time.
Good thing I bought two pens. The first one has just become one with a vent in the wall, never to be seen again.

7:25 pm Eastern Time.
Currently sitting in the most fascinating room in airport history: the Smoking Lounge. I cannot imagine a place in which I would be less likely to lounge. A glass-walled room wherein as disparate a group of souls as I have ever encountered band together over our right to have a cigarette. Somehow the young 20-somethings have combined forces along one wall, and we are all looking with thinly veiled, trepidatious glances at the old wrinkly types who hold their cigarettes right between the junction of their two fingers, rather than between the first two knuckles, who all stand against the wall opposite. At the same time we contend with the curious and occasionally laughing stares from the "Nons" as they pass by on their clean-aired moving walkway. I swear, this room is often the highlight of my trip. I specifically schedule a route that takes me through St. Louis just so I can experience it again. Now, if you will pardon me, I am off to scope the newsstand for evidence of Vitamin Water, an addiction I have only recently recognized and have yet to understand.

10:45 pm Eastern Time.
There is a stretch of sidewalk just outside La Guardia's baggage claim -- the cement actually sparkles (as do many in New York: "The streets are paved with diamonds and there's just so much to see, but the best thing about New York City is (bum bum) you and me...") -- which is unremarkable but for the fact that it is always the first place from which I look up at New York sky, every time I come home. Luck and wind permitting, I shall plant my boots upon this patch of pavement in just under an hour's time. That curious phenomenon which I should, but rarely do, acknowledge as my life's adventure, is about to recommence.

11:47 pm Eastern Time.
My humid, loud, busy city, where (hot damn diggety) everybody walks fast. I am home. New York Fucking City. God damn, you're sexy.

Tuesday, 12:21 am Eastern Time.
Half an hour, one hernia, two smokes, and one long line later, I am in a cab. Rushing home. No idea why I create this absurd log of one trip home, but it feels good.

On the way in, the plane flew north, directly alongside Manhattan. I have never seen such a breathstealing view. I cannot even adequately describe the leap my heart took when I recognized the Verrazano Narrows bridge and thought, "Hey, that means that Manhattan is going to be right over...holy fuck." Everything. Laid out like a feast, just for me. Everything from the curiously bare and barren patch of recently cleared ground downtown, to the giveaway landmarks on 23rd, 34th, 42nd. The perfect rectangle of Central Park. Fiercely competing colors in Times Square. I could not have asked for a more perfect homecoming.

I have never been this attached to a place. A random collection of cement, asphalt, and neon. I love New York like it were my own soul. I know I will travel (and hopefully travel a lot), but in the same way that you know fire is hot and kindness is good, I know that this is mine. And I know that my destiny (bandied about and misused word that it is), my destiny is here.

A discovery: falling asleep in a strange bed while still wearing all of your clothes (even your belt and your bulky wallet in your pocket) is not as uncomfortable as it sounds. Provided, of course, you have had a sufficient quantity of apple-tinis beforehand.

A re-discovery: I really, really enjoy going on dates. I have not had an actual date in far too long -- this boy was a positive breath of fresh air. Fun, witty, engaging, cute. Can hold his liquor. Can hold his own in banter with me, which is probably more important.

A supposition: I am dreadfully low on iron, or some other property of red meat. I cannot seem to get enough of it. (Last night, in fact, I meant to order the tuna steak au poivre, but accidentally ordered the steak au poivre (sans tuna) instead. Medium rare, thinking it was tuna. It must have been something subconscious, as when the steak got to the table I tucked in like there was no tomorrow, and was damned glad I got what I did.) I am eating a big fat cheeseburger right now. It came kind of scarily rare, but I think it may be the best burger ever. I do not know if I will ever order anything well-done ever again.

A conundrum: I have another date with a different boy tonight. I do not know if I even want to go, as I think I would be quite content dating the first boy for quite some time. "Playing the field," as it were, is a lot more difficult than I remember. I am really out of practice with this whole dating thing, and stand amazed that I managed to get two dates on successive nights with two different people, after such a long period with no dates on any nights with any people.

An observation: Last night's boy reminds me an awful lot of the only boy I have ever dated for longer than three weeks. Except he seems to come without this previous boy's fatal flaws, namely, being dull and unclever.

A clarification: In case you had not picked up the tenor of this entry, I had an absolutely fantastic time last night. He felt rather comfortable rather quickly. I like that.

Free Will Astrology. It rocks.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Before proceeding any further, please arrange for a bright companion to rub your shoulders while thinking tender thoughts about you. This is no joke. I urge you not to read on until you are feeling well loved and appreciated. Why? Because it will drive home the point that you are most likely to express your full potential in the coming week if you are steeped in the sympathetic influences of people who see the best in you. Don't just wait around and hope for this to come your way by accident. Get out there and make it happen.

You heard the man, folks. Love me. My horoscope demands it.

Update on my strange and crazy social life:

I met the second boy for drinks tonight. Conversation was minimal, because he is not a good conversationalist. Alas. He was, however, attractive in that unconventional, good-god-I-just-want-to-touch-you kind of way, so I managed to stretch out the meeting for almost two hours.

On the way out the door, an absolutely adorable boy pulled me aside and asked if I had just been talking about Colorado. "Why, yes," I reply, and we have a quick 2 minute conversation about both being from Denver. I leave with the boy I came to meet, walked home (across the street), and promptly left again after the boy was safely out of range, to go back and talk to Colorado Boy again. He was funny and witty and all kinds of good things.

We have a dinner date.

What the fuck is going ON?!?

I feel like I am spinning a dozen plates on sticks while freakish carnival music whirls in the background.

I feel like I will soon preside over a vast killing ground of shattered plates.