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

The heat, combined with unemployment, has clearly rendered my updating abilities woefully inadequate. Things keep happening about which I mean to write, but as soon as I sit down to do so, I think, "Eh, it's too hot. Why bother?" So be thankful, gentle reader, for the Herculean effort this is taking right now.

A brief bit of catch-up would seem to be in order.

Sunday. Gay Pride. Or, as one friend likes to call it, "Will and Grace host the Parade of Roses!" The major salient points I would like to share with you regarding this day:

1) Homos get fucking pushy when they want to get to a crowded bar to order up their Cosmos.

2) I was forcibly made out with by a scarily large Swedish man named Karl. A packet of gum fell out of a hole in his back pocket, and I brought this fact to his attention. He shoved his ass in my face (I was sitting on steps at the time) and yelled "STICK IT IN!!" I explained that the gum would only fall out of his pocket again if I did so, and in response he turned the other cheek (get it? Ha!) and yelled it again. Then his pushy lesbian friend grabbed my arm and demanded he and I be introduced, at which point he slobbered his HUGE FLOPPY LIPS all over my nice non-floppy ones. Then I left.

3) You know what we get just for being homos? If you guessed "Fireworks!" then you would be right. We get our very own fireworks display just for being queer. I hardly need mention that it was a very tasteful and attractive display. I also know that the fireworks were particularly revolutionary, thanks to a man who I can only assume had a PhD in Fireworkology and regularly proclaimed the "new!" nature of each different type of explosion.

Since then, I suppose not much has happened, leaving my original declaration that I need to "catch up" sounding fairly unnecessary. Mainly I have spent my time sweating, applying for jobs that most likely will never acknowledge I exist, being very hot, sweating some more, and doing some laundry. This weather renders me very sleepy -- and that combined with no job makes Fulminous a very slothful boy indeed.

It has come to my attention that my days of updating my diary once, twice, possibly even thrice a day have fallen by the wayside, wherein "the wayside" represents my extreme laziness. Well, partly laziness and partly that so many things have been going on hardly know where to begin.

It is funny, really, that one can be unemployed and spend one's day sitting on the Klaus watching movies and the Food Network, yet still collect so many interesting stories and happenings that really properly belong in one's diary, all at the same time. I will try to sum up.

The Special Crossover Event I mentioned a few weeks ago occurred last weekend. The charming, handsome, and altogether dashing young Finn came to visit. Windy City meets Big Apple, and I could not have been more pleased with the confluence. It honestly seems laughable now that we had been concerned with our face-to-face chemistry (which really can be vastly different from phone- or email-chemistry, after all). A whole new library of in-jokes was created during those three days alone, where "It's not you, it's me" is my personal favorite. Plus, all of my friends seem just as favorably impressed as I, and I take that as a very good sign. My friends have impeccable taste. Plus, I discovered that eating peach pie in bed is a tremendously satisfying experience.

Above and beyond that little adventure, I also bought a suit at the local Salvation Army. Charcoal grey, Ralph Lauren, summer-weight wool/cashmere blend, fits like a dream, twenty-five bucks. Eat your heart out. I wore my new suit to a thoroughly unexpected interview on Tuesday, flashed my smile around the office, and was offered a new, full-time, benefits-laden, money-oozing, title-bestowing position on Thursday, which clearly and for all time marks my recent purchase as my "lucky suit."

Incidentally -- check out my new digs if you are curious. Yes, I know the site needs some work (3-D buttons?? I mean, honestly,) but that is what I am there to remedy.

I also saw the Powerpuff Girls movie. Its coolness is NOT to be underestimated. "Alas, my little ones...I do not rock." HA!! Monkeys are FUCKING FUNNY. Plus I just discovered (via a handy quiz) that were I a Powerpuff Girl, I would be Bubbles. HARDCORE!!!!

Tonight, the gang and I hung out with a boy who apparently just had a bit part as a crack dealer dressed up as a chicken (I do not know, I did not get a plot synopsis either) in a movie to be released in February, starring...get this...Macauley Culkin and Marilyn Manson. The mind reels.

Yesterday was this one's birthday. I did a lot of cooking of burgers and corn and guacamole (you know, standard rooftop picnic fare) for her and her co-workers and she seemed to have had a lovely time. At one point, as I flew around the kitchen, alternating between sweeping the floor, doing dishes, seasoning the burgers, running to the living room to crack open a few bottles, popping out to the vegetable store for corn, and zipping to the other end of the neighborhood in an abortive attempt to help StyleGirl carry home a grill, I mopped the sweat from my brow and asked Sea why I always end up being the uber-host at our parties. He just looked at me quizzically and replied, "Well, it seems like you just enjoy it more than anyone else," with which, upon brief reflection, I had to wholeheartedly agree. As a matter of fact, I fucking LOVE it. More than almost ANYTHING. That delicious frantic rush of doing too many things in too little time. This is also why being a stage manager agrees so well with me.

On a sad and slighly related note (segue with me through the references to cooking and you will get it), of the five different sources of funding I had been assured would cement my hold on a slot at the French Culinary Institute, classes beginning July 30, guess how many fell through this week. Go on, guess. I will be waiting for you when you are finished.

If you guessed that ALL FIVE fell through, you would be right. So it appears that the past three months of anticipation are all for naught -- I will not be attending culinary school this year. I am trying to balance the tremendous amount of sad from that with the tremendous amount of happy from the whole new job thing. But if you happen to know of anyone with $26,750 that they are willing to offer me in exchange for some stellar fucking tuna steak, let me know. In the meantime, I plan on becoming the best damned amateur cook this side of the Mason-Dixon.

That about takes care of my news. When I am employed (starting on MONDAY) and thus leaving the house on a regular basis, expect more regular news from the Land of Me. For now, I am off to visit Sleepytown. Wish me luck, and remind me to tell you about my revolutionary dreams.

I'm singing the "Do Not Fall Asleep" song right now. I'm making it up as I go and it has to do with the fact that I am at my new job and have yet to do, well...anything. Several people have told me that I will be doing something soon, but until then I have my hands full, staving off yawns. I find it surprising that doing so little can be so tiring.

I think that there is a very pretty building just outside the window to my right, but I cannot tell for certain -- there have been cardboard boxes pasted up over the windows. Damn programmers and their penchant for darkness and Mountain Dew. Not to imply that there is any Mountain Dew to be had right now -- just that when one mentions programmers, one has to imagine them (us? shudder) living in little programing caves where the lights are off, faces lit by blue monitor-glow, and the sound of M.D. being swilled echoes from every surface.

Or is that just me?

It also appears that spirals are to play an inportant part in my life soon. The three-bedroom apartment it looks like I will be moving to has an iron spiral staircase that must be used to get to what will be my bedroom, AND my new office has a spiral staircase that must be used to get into the office at all. I do love coincidence.

I am sucking air through my teeth so as to maximize volume of air (out of entertainment for me) but minimize noise (out of consideration for new co-workers), remembering when I played Archie Lee Bowman and had to walk like an ape because the director was avant garde.

I am imagining Thanksgiving with white curtains on the front windows and things wrapped 'round the railing of the spiral staircase and a great heaping table and my arm curved into place and candles and maybe some spilled wine that everybody laughs about.

I am building excitement for moving and starting new and not being tied down to a place just because I painted it once, and I am remembering that we still have no mail slot and I have to squeeze around the fan-stand every time I walk through my door and we have no living room because it is filled with bedroom instead and the kitchen floor is too large and therefore dirty all the time and is an unpleasant shade of white anyway and the bathroom tile is hideously old-school-avocado-green and not a slightly-less-hideous old-school-powder-blue and we have no staircase yet and I love staircases especially spiral ones with alcoves at the top that belong just to us.

I am thinking of getting another cup of tea since I discovered tea bags and paper cups and a microwave all on my own on a secret exploring mission of great secrecy and shushness, just because I wanted it to be secret, and also I discovered the bathroom in my searches so now I do not need anybody to show me where it is, even though it is lodged away in a hidden back hallway, next to the tea.

I am planning on how I can revolutionize the way things work around here by doing things like knowing what exactly a use case is, knowing how to draw a decent sitemap, and having a clue about how to describe functionality for a given web page, and applying those bits of knowledge to making specs that are helpful and written in proper English but then being annoyed that I cannot do so right now because I have not yet been here for a full day so revolutionizing things might be just a skootch premature.

I am relaxing because even though I have done absolutely no work except reading some very poorly written User Interface tech specs (being the User Interface Developer these could be very important for me), I have been able to check my e-mail aproximately 39 times and nobody has told me that I cannot. E-mail access soothes me immensely and I do not feel as scared and briefly panicked as I did this morning.

Vindication.

Now that article is truly a pleasure to read. There really are few things better than justifying a blinding obsession so satisfactorily. Plus, it makes me laugh and laugh.

People are playing soccer in my office again. I think this may be a usual activity, and I may be forced to take part at some point. This creates visions in my head of me saying "Whoops," and a soccer ball flying out a window in a great crash of glass, killing someone on the street below.

For your own safety, avoid the corner of 39th and Broadway.

Also, I think that the HR person here may become my new best friend. I have found it to be a rather ironclad rule that Human Resources people are not there to make Resources available to Humans so much as they are there to laugh maniacally and prevent any Resources whatsoever from reaching any Humans at all. This one seems to be a rare exception -- it looks like she actually tries to keep the "H" in "HR." As a result, I will have money pouring out of my ears on July 31, and not August 15 or possibly Aug 31 -- waiting times which have been enforced at several previous jobs. I may have to buy her a present.

Plus, I have come to the conclusion that tea is most definitively NOT coffee.

And then this happens to completely destroy my pleasant mood.

DON'T FUCKING HURT A CAT. Good god.

I could not leave the kitty entry up as my main entry all night long. So, as I am off to bed, it is time for me to replace it.

With this!

Oooooh. So many new things to buy.

I spent the first hour at work watching the Keynote address at the MacWorld Expo, being held just down the street from me, even as I type this. By the miracle of modern technology, I was able to watch via computer, so I get the added benefit of being paid for sitting on my behind and watching a geeky speech about all of the wonderful new gadgets I get to lust after.

Also, I had some real work to work on today. I have already burned through it and am now awaiting an analysis from the fellow I am replacing. He, however, has gone to lunch, leaving me with the opportunity to do some quality time-wasting.

In other news, it is now less than a week until my birthday. Quarter-centurians, UNITE! The big 2-5 is quickly approaching. I was nervous about it at first -- not so much nervous, really, as horrified -- but I think I am beginning to see the benefits in being 25. Primary benefit? It is an odd-numbered year for me, which have in the past turned out quite well. Much better than those awful even-numbered 22s and 24s.

Tea continues to fall short of the delights of coffee. I mean, tea does have its own particular delights, but it hardly replaces coffee as my caffeinated beverage of choice. I may have to tackle the coffeemaker soon.

p.s. It is almost my birthday.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
I hope you say more goodbyes in the next week than you have in the previous 11 months combined. It's past time, sweet prince or princess, to bid adieu to all the things that no longer serve you—and even to some things that do serve you but demand too high a price in return. So please say "au revoir" to your obsolete game plans and "adios" to your outmoded assumptions. Bark "sayonara" at your rickety psychological crutches and "auf wiedersehen" at the symbol that reminds you of your deepest resentment. Whisper "begone, nuisance" at all illusions that divide you against yourself.

This is the second such horoscope I have read in as many days telling me to let go of old things. Okay, okay, I get it! I decided DAYS ago to move out of the old apartment and into the new, less expensive one! You can stop calling now!

Sheesh. Pushy stars.

My job rocks. It rocks SO HARD.

I just found out that I get TransitCheks (why do they think that eliminating a "c" in "Chek" makes it cool?). I get three weeks of vacation. And I get...

(Are you ready for this?)

Membership in a Crunch gym.

At my last full-time job over a year ago, I got a membership to a gym. I had just gotten into a groove, going three times a week, when I got laid off. Now I get another chance, and already visions of me going to a club and taking off my shirt are dancing through my vapid shallow little head.

Plus, the gym is directly across the street from the office, which means I actually stand a fair chance of going on a regular basis. It is never the exercise that bothers me. It is merely getting my lazy ass to the gym that tends to pose a problem.

Also. The brand-spankin'-new Flagship Apple Store opens today. I might be scared that I know the address to that page off the top of my head, but instead I think I will just be happy that New York City finally has one of the damned places. I bet you can guess where I am going after work tonight.

I am currently eating sushi.

I got sushi for lunch. All by myself.

For those of you who do not know me personally, I do not have the same utter-adoration attitude towards sushi that it seems everybody I know has. I am not terribly fond of seafood in general, really. But every so often, I get an irrestistible craving for sushi or seafood or something (once including a GIGANTIC tureen of fish soup in Nice, France, ordered by me who up to that point had never ordered fish ANYTHING, save battered fish 'n' chips from a Captain D's in suburban Denver) that will absolutely not be sated until I am, say, three-fourths through the meal at which point I remember that I hate seafood. A tuna roll, a salmon roll, a California roll (yes, I know, it is tame as far as sushi goes). Plus I have a can of green tea and a whole bag of the infamous Pudding Marshmallow.

Plus, I discovered why the elevators do not go to my office's floor. Seems that our office used to house a real-live Garment District sweatshop, and the elevators were bricked off so the owners of whatever company used to be here could keep tabs on their sweatshop workers as they went up and down the little spiral staircase. That also explains the large number of outlets in the floor.

I feel so fucking New York right now.

This is hard for me to talk about. When I try I end up stuttering or just breaking out into an absurd goofy grin that words have trouble squeezing around. All of my thoughts are laden with superlatives, and I will probably be living off this experience for years.

I have had a brush with divinity.

Well, pseudo-divinity, anyway. I went to the new Apple Store yesterday. The new flagship store in SoHo. I ogled, I ooohed, I aaahed. And then I turned around and saw Steve Jobs.

Yup. I know that at least a few people reading this are aware of how insanely fucking cool that is. He was just hanging around, looking at his new place. And after I squeaked and hid behind a column for a while and sort of vaguely skulked around, I managed to get up the gumption to say hello. So I walked up to Steve Jobs, God of Everything Apple, said, "I just wanted to say congratulations -- this store is amazing!" And he said, "Thanks! Thanks very much!" and then SHOOK MY HAND. Steve fucking Jobs shook My fucking Hand.

In my personal cosmology, I cannot think of anyone I wanted to shake hands with more. Not even Ryan Phillipe. When I floated out of the store, I tried to call The Shiv and my hands were shaking so much I had to dial four times. I think my favorite part of the whole experience is discovering that Steve Jobs has a tiny little bit of a tongue thrust, a teeny tiny bit of a lisp on the "s" in "Thanks." No, that's a lie, my favorite part was that I fucking shook hands with Steve Jobs. (The bit about the lisp is still true, though.)

It is a wonderful feeling when one gets repaid for one's GOOD karma. Holy fucking god, I talked to Steve Jobs.

It's official.

A quarter of a century old.

Me.

Right now.

And everything is turning around. Right when it should be. New job. New apartment. New year.

Power to the Leo.

I can certainly say this much: my twenty-fifth birthday was far better than either of the two birthdays preceding.

Also. Yesterday I was listening to Aqua on my headphones, bopping my head around (as is my wont). You know, singing "I'm a Barbie Girl, In a Barbie Why is everyone looking at me?" I look up and take off the headphones and everybody was singing me happy birthday. With a Black Forest cake. Let me remind you, I have only been here for just over a week. And you know that someone went home and told the story about the cutest little dancing gay boy who had a birthday yesterday.

Plus, I had a party wherein I rolled around my new empty apartment with my friends. I discovered that I have forgotten how to perform a somersault and that I suck at dancing with a partner. My tremendous friends brought nibblies and drinkables, as I am currently too poor to feed myself, much less anybody else. Let me just say that enough was brought that somehow, through some mystical vagary of the power of liquor, I am still somehow drunk at the time of this writing. The ride in on the subway this morning was intriguing.

Additionally, I adore my new apartment, although I do not think I can recall anybody who did not mention that my spiral staircase will be treacherous in case of intoxication. (We tested this theory thoroughly.)

Now, I just have to adjust to saying, "Oh, I'm 25." Not terribly difficult, you might think, but I have a very stubborn brain indeed. In the meanwhile, I have a Cruel Intentions soundtrack to listen to.

"LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Congratulations, Leo. The shrieking gargoyles from the fifth level of hell have decided you're no longer worth harassing. They've headed back to the nasty pit they came from. Similarly, you can disappear your fear about those pious monsters from the garbage dumps of heaven. They've also given up on tormenting you. For the foreseeable future, in fact, there's little likelihood that any more demons, bad guys, or jerks will try to tickle you into hysteria with a vulture feather. You are, as we say in the consciousness industry, free."

Saying anything more would just be gilding the lily. Free Will Astrology, I love you.

I can see the tip of the Chrysler building in a reflection on my monitor. It peeps in the window behind me and bounces off my screen so I get to say, "I have a view of the Chrysler building from my desk!" It strikes me as funny sometimes, the things New Yorkers use as status symbols. "I can see the bridge from my roof!" "Oh yeah? If I climb onto my fire escape and hang upside down during a stiff easterly breeze, I can see a corner of the Empire State Building!"

At the same time, we're not supposed to look at any of these things when we're standing underneath them -- to look up at a landmark invariably brands one as a tourist, one of those slow-crawl-moving, tennis-shoes-and-black-socks-wearing, disposable-camera-toting, I-heart-NY-tchotchke-buying folk who clog up the sidewalks and get in everyone else's way.

This dichotomy often confuses me, because I want to look up at these famous places but I am not supposed to. So I end up either pretending to scan the sky for changes in the weather, or (more often) just sort of squinting and vaguely rolling my eyes skyward while keeping my head level, in a sad effort to disguise the fact that I am sightseeing. Immediately afterwards, I hike my side-slung satchel up on my shoulder and start walking at midtown-businessperson speed, weaving in and out of slower pedestrians, just to prove to any passersby that I am no moseying visitor to this city -- I know how to move.

Justice has been served.

As the above article explains, Scandinavian mega-band Aqua is one step closer to ultimate victory over Mattel. Seems that Mattel objects to the sexual innuendo concomitant with Aqua's 1997 bubblegum-Europop anthem, Barbie Girl. Seems that nobody but Mattel cares. This might leave the Aqua folks free to focus on other things, such as joining forces with me to take over the world.

In celebration, Aqua is currently piping in through my headphones. Come on Barbie. Let's go party.

In other news, expect a redesign of my site shortly. Among my birthday presents (did I mention I recently had a birthday?) were 1) a birthday e-card featuring Steve Jobs in a party hat, which has become my most prized e-possession, and 2) a Gold membership to this ol' tub we like to call Diaryland. I mention these two items together purely by chance -- I do not mean to imply that a certain celebratory CEO will be the centerpiece of my new design. Of course, I am not exactly denying that, either.

Earlier today featured email wherein I declared that the IT guy could go fuck himself with a swordfish. (Thankfully the letter was not addressed to said IT guy. Do not make enemies with the IT guy.) This is not, just to clarify, particularly in character for me. Nor is the comment that I really wish I had some Rammstein to listen to. I was feeling very dark and angsty, but judicious application of a free chimichanga has lightened my mood enough that at least I am not frowning violently. The sky is still looking rather sour, the IT guy did spend most of lunch talking loudly about Traci Lords and hot redheads, someone made some kind of "joke" about unwanted advances from those "pretty boys" in the West Village that (pre-food) almost made me cry, and I still have a month's worth of moving-related work to do in about 5 days. But at least I have some food in my belly and can thus theoretically regard all else as mere nuisances.

In happy news, I will soon live in a home with a kitchen and living room tinted "jean blue" and "pear green." I am still interviewing colors for the position of "My Bedroom Walls."

I do still wish I had some Rammstein. Screaming at the top of my lungs, even if only vicariously, sounds tremendously satisfying.

ADDENDUM: I just drank a mug of half-and-half with three sugars, and am prepared to declare it the most horrifyingly wonderful thing I have ever consumed.

One of the programs that apparently comes with this computer I use at work is the CD Player. This souped-up bit of software will do fancy things like show a picture of the CD cover of whatever you listen to (provided it is a CD of some big star that everybody is supposed to care about), and it will even provide a handy list of similar artists. I am tremendously amused by this: I just popped in Madonna's "Music" because I am a big homo who listens to Madonna, and the list of similar artists is as follows: Paula Abdul, Sheena Easton, Kylie Minogue, and the Pet Shop Boys.

First of all, I am amazed that Paula Abdul (American Idol notwithstanding) and Sheena Easton are still mentioned in polite company at all. And the Pet Shop Boys are not similar to Madonna in any way except for the fact that (you guessed it) homos are supposed to like them both.

I wonder who has the job of coming up with those lists. Do you think they laugh to themselves all day long?

In other news, I cannot leave my office. Apparently there is some sort of "fire" smell, resulting in the elevators being turned off. At the same time this fire-smell is being discussed, a building-wide announcement is heard: "Attention! Please disregard ALL alarms! Thank you!" I have often wondered what would happen if a real fire occurred while alarms were being tested. Would they have to make an announcement that said they were just kidding about ignoring the alarms and this one is for realsies?

I am starting to get a little silly with this diary ring concept. I keep finding new rings that absolutely must be represented on my page or I will prove myself to be a faithless infidel of some sort or another. I need to stop looking entirely or I will have a list longer than most of my entries.

For my listening pleasure today, I brought along Sea's copy of "The Teaches of Peaches," a former-Canadian-school-teacher-turned-German-sexy-rap-star. There are not enough words to express how happy it makes me to listen to her exhorting unknown persons to "diddle her skittle -- because there's only one Peach with a hole in the middle," or offering her heartfelt advice to "fuck the pain away," while all around me people are having conference calls and looking very businesslike.

StyleGirl and I both thought that SOMEONE needs to cover a Peaches song. At, say, a show at Meow Mix, on say, maybe August 16th-ish.

The thing that I most look forward to about this move is that when it is completed, I get vast tracts of my brain back, with which to process things at my leisure. I will no longer be expending my valuable synapses thinking about color schemes and where to find more boxes and how in holy hell I am going to manage to pack everything I own in the next few days.

"Hey, IT Guy. I guess I was wrong when I said my computer was all set up. I'm getting an error when I try to start up HomeSite."

"Oh, so you lied."

"Ha, I guess so. Sorry about that."

"So do you like being a liar?"

"Not particularly, ha ha. Sorry. Do you know what I could do to fix this?"

"Here's what you do. You close your eyes real tight and count to 100, and when you're done it might be fixed. And you have to stretch your arms way up to the ceiling so the magic computer energy gets channeled into your machine."

"Ha ha. Any way other than that?"

"Well, you could throw a five dollar bill down here on my desk and I bet it'll get fixed right quick."

"Um, given the option, I think I'd have to go with closing my eyes real tight."

"Oh, really."

That was the end of the conversation. He is still sitting at his desk and I still cannot use the program I need. I think he was TRYING to be funny and is unaware that he failed.

In other news, I am, at long long last, financially solvent once again. I just ate a chicken sandwich with avocado and balsamic-vinegar-onions. My stomach owes my wallet a profound debt of gratitude.

Beyond that news, I am profoundly tired and cannot wait for this "moving" ordeal to be finished. At least I have "The Teaches of Peaches" to keep me entertained.