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

Given how much stock I tend to put into my horoscopes, I am highly disappointed in them this week. You would think it would be the obligation of a horoscope to WARN people about CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGERS in their world. Apparently, that is NOT in fact the case, or else my horoscope would surely have warned me away from doors.

First, there was Tuesday, where a door smacked me in the face and chipped my tooth. Then, there was Saturday night.

I was outside smoking a cigarette with Flexible. I was saying something to him as we walked inside, and apparently in a remarkable feat of uncoordination, I cracked myself in the head with the edge of the door. I opened up a charming vertical gash in my forehead that a) did not stop bleeding for an hour, b) made me feel dizzy and nauseated for an hour, and c) made a particularly wonderful first impression on the whole giant tableful of Flexible's friends who I was just meeting that night. Actually, the new cut matches very well with the pre-existing vertical slash in my forehead, acquired while starting a revolution on a German train several years ago.

My horoscope should also have warned me about bottlecaps, as I have two slices on my right index finger from trying to open bottles this weekend.

Also distressing: when one is having a conversation about relationships, and out of nowhere start crying one's stupid head off in a completely unforeseen reaction to what appears to be some kind of unresolved daddy issue revolving around trust in a relationship. Particularly distressing when one has prided oneself on not having any unresolved issues regarding a father that one really does not particularly like and has neither seen nor spoken to in over three years.

Much has been happening lately. I will sum up, with the aid of a numbered list. This list is NOT intended to imitate the style of one Miss The Kate, despite my threats to write an homage. The list just happens to be the easiest way to polish this news off.

1) Shiv had a brilliant show on Monday, along with the good ol' Letdowns. Flexible was the taking-your-money-at-the-door boy and I was the guy who fetched him things and took money when he went to the bathroom. It was a huge amount of fun and he is the coolest boy ever for being the door boy. Serious.

2) While at the show, Wang's girl totally felt me up. And then Wang started. So at one point I had FOUR HANDS all groping my chest and trying to make my nipples hard. To say that it was a disquieting sensation would be an understatement, but it definitely won Wang's girl huge bonus points for coolness.

3) Also on Monday! I did five (5) and I repeat FIVE FIVE FIVE!!!! pullups! Hanging from one of the spiral stairs here at work while waiting for the elevator! FIVE. Like, in a ROW. I know that this may not seem like much. See, all my life, I have been the boy who could do no pullups. None. Zero. And on Monday? On Monday, I will have you know, I did FIVE. Also, I totally think that I could have done SIX.

4) I seem to have more in common with Barry Manilow than one might suspect. Seems we both have problems with hitting things with our stupid FACES.

5) Yesterday was a very momentous day for me. It marked my three-year anniversary of living in New York! THREE YEARS. I spent a good chunk of the day alternating between a surge of pride that I have made it this far, and a crushing certainty that I deperately need a few days off from here quite soon, or else face the prospect of going quite nutty.

6) I celebrated my anniversary by buying myself some movies -- the DVDs of both "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "Equilibrium." Oh, yes. I do rule.

7) I have just been informed that tomorrow? Tomorrow I will be picked up at my house. In a car. And that car will drive me somewhere. That car will drive me to a Blimp. A Fujufilm Blimp. And I will get in the blimp, which apparently comes pre-stocked with donuts, and I will ride around in the blimp eating donuts in the blimp with other people who are also in a blimp, and this really begs the question -- Who The Fuck Rides Around In A Fucking Blimp?!?!? Answer: ME!!!

8) This blimp-ride will be coming to me courtesy of a certain Miss Little Owl, whom I adore beyond all reason.

9) Tonight I may buy a new video game. Midnight Run II. ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

1o) (So maybe I am a little like The Kate) I have been spending my subway rides reading a fascinating new book. It is called "Single Sourcing: Building Modular Documentation." I have been placed in charge of writing the manual for our product at work. Hooray. I am about to be a published author again. I say again, because in college? I wrote three phone books. Phone books and technical manuals. This is what I always dreamed of, kids.

11) My fingernails are getting dreadfully long because I am trying very hard to stop chewing on them. I should clip them, but I have...um...never clipped my fingernails before. I do not know quite how to go about it.

12) I am a soup whore. Give me soup any time, any where, and I will eat it. I love soup.

13) "Blimp" is going to be my new slang term. As in: "Dude. Dude, that is so Blimp." or "Damn! This soup is Blimp!" "Blimp" definitely carries positive connotations. One wants to be Blimp.

14) There are people who actually advocate not having sex. Ever. In your WHOLE LIFE. There is far too much for me to say on this topic, so just insert a horrified and indignant rant here, and pretend I said it.

15) Finally, I leave you with this. Lion King Porn. I cannot believe I live in a world where there is a MARKET for LION KING PORN.

Yep. I am lame and non-updatey.

I have pictures of my blimp ride. I have yet to post them.

I have interesting events to relate. I have yet to tell them.

I am clearly in the middle of some introspective solitary-confinement urges, which will, with any luck, go away soon.

Hopefully as soon as I am finished with the soul-sucking task of reading manuals on how to write manuals.

Yeah, yeah. I know.

Much has been happening in Fulmy-land. Less than a week until Sea reappears, for one. Hooray!!! We are going to have a welcome home party and I will make everyone wear pirate hats.

Sunday was a street fair right outside my house, and at one point I was recruited by some intentionally-horrible-for-comic-effect acrobats to be in a pyramid of people. When they told me they wanted me to be their "bottom," I tried to sit back down, but instead was talking into getting on my hands and knees in the middle of the street which wasn't much better. And then because they were really really bad acrobats, the pyramid fell in on top of me. And one of them tried to jump over WeeGirl, our latest houseguest, but he missed and his ass hit her on the head.

Today I am wearing a new t-shirt with Lionel Richie lyrics on it. "Easy like Sunday morning." I was altogether pleased with my new shirt for a total of about an hour, at which point my wacky neighbor asked, "Does it say 'But expensive like Friday night' on the back?!?" at which point my shirt definitely seemed to be lacking something, which was pretty sad. Whenever I try to forget he said that, I am happy with my new shirt again.

For the past several days, I have had songs from the Buffy Musical stuck in my head. I just listened to the entire CD three times in a row in an effort to dislodge them, but I do not think it worked. I think I have merely exacerbated the situation.

The reservations for Disney World are, happily, and finally, SET IN FUCKING STONE. No more wondering and crossing my fingers and hoping. It is SET and I will be in Florida from July 11 to July 16. When I called Disney World to confirm, the reservationist read out the details. "Let's see...you, and your guest...'Flexible'. And a king-sized bed." Yes, lady. We're gaaaaaaaaaay. Then a week after I get home will be my birthday! And the day after that, my work is taking us all to the beach. July is a good month.

With any luck, a vacation will reset my insane-o-meter back to zero. That would be nice.

Also, I have decided that I am physically incapable of living another day without owning The Da Vinci Code. Seriously.

I mean, have you even SEEN their fucking incredibly HOT web site? Have you even SEEN it? With the...the PUZZLES? And the...the HOPPING ALL OVER THE WEB and the LOOKING UP OF STUFF?? I mean, like, SERIOUSLY, people. I need this book, and I need it like months ago.

and in my third entry of the day, can someone please tell me why the world has to mock me ALL THE GOD DAMN TIME.

WAAAAAAAAAH.

As advertised, I ended up buying my very own copy of The Da Vinci Code. I am already over halfway done -- I was worried that I was going to be juggling three books on Saturday (I am re-reading Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash," and of course this Friday at midnight is the release of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," or "HP5" as we like to call it), but I have a feeling that Da Vinci is going to be over and done with by, oh, say, tonight. I'm devouring this book, people, in great big vicious gulps. Sure, it seems more than a little episodic (Here is a clue. Here they solve the clue. Here is another clue. Here they solve it again.), but I am finding it more than intrigue-y enough to satisfy my basic, primal need to be a secret agent.

Also, for some reason I have found it intensely difficult to type the word "Vinci." In the, say, FIFTY times I have typed it in the past 24 hours, I have entered the word correctly on the first try a total of ZERO times. "Vinco." "Vini." "Vicni." "Ninco." "Vinco, Vinco, Vinco." It is shameful, I tell you. Shameful.

And now for my favorite quote of yesterday, taken completely out of context: "I'm a little sore. I think I was a little too...ferocious with myself earlier."

I have opted to play a d-land game, inspired by my little pornax poppet, Mare. Here is the skinny: She asks me five questions. And then I answer them. I gather that she answered someone ELSE'S questions before she started soliciting her own question-askees, which makes me think that I am supposed to make the same offer. Therefore, write me or note me or book me if you want five questions, posed by yours truly, to be placed in your guestbook/other convenient receptacle, for you to answer in your own diary.

I will have you know, that part of the game is what scares me. I am near-certain that I will not be capable of imagining questions even half as wonderful as those from Miss Mare. Apply to the Questions Game at your own risk. At any rate, here we go:

1.As a child, what freaked you right the hell out?

The space underneath my bed. Every night when I was going to sleep, I would stand in the hallway, turn off the lightswitch just inside my bedroom door, back up a few steps, and leap onto my bed, so as not to allow my oh-so-fragile footsies to come anywhere NEAR that horrible yawning chasm. For some reason, I was convinced that it was full of witches. This also created my sleeping posture: I would start out by curling up on my side into a tighter and tighter fetal position, and eventually roll over so my knees were directly beneath my chin and my butt stuck up into the air. My mom has several pictures. Do not ask. You will never see them.

2.What's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you? Describe.

My friends do wonderful things for me all the time, from recognizing that my ego constantly craves both attention and compliments which they provide to my eager Leonine self, to watching movies with me every night for a week and then recognizing my need to briefly become a hermit, to being wonderful sparkly scintillating hilarious and fantastic people who thankfully let me hang out with them. There is not one single nicest thing I think I could pick, aside from maybe how it was really MIND-NUMBINGLY nice for my mom to have me in the first place, not to mention still be nice to me after some of the not-so-nice things I did when I was a few years younger.

3.If someone said to you that tomorrow, you have to go to work, but not to the job you've got now, but rather any job in the world - where would you be punching in in the morning? And why?

Oh, this is tough. I am going to assume that this mythical scenario also includes a magical matter transporter, so I can still live in New York and work wherever I like. I think I would either be working as a chef in a restaurant in London, or I would be an art restorer in Venice, or I would be a librarian in Paris. Or I would be on an archaeological dig in Scotland, or maybe Egypt. Or I would be creating costumes for a play, or I would be rehearsing to be in a play, or I would be in the makeup chair preparing for my next scene of the best movie of 2004, in which I deliver what critics consider to be the single most inspiring speech by a movie hero in the history of film. As for why? I have always kind of had a conflict between my desire to a) be intellectual and artistic and quiet, and b) my desire to have every single fucking person in the world to know my name and love me.

4. Any sordid plans for the weekend? If so, describe. If not, why not?

My plans for the weekend are anything but sordid. I fully intend to spend Saturday baking cinnamon rolls with absurdly thick cream-cheese frosting and maybe some orange zest, drinking tea, and reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Sunday will be much the same, except possibly replacing the cinnamon rolls with an omelet involving goat cheese and maybe shallots, and replacing the tea with massively strong coffee. Sunday night, Little Owl and I will finally be picking up Sea from the airport, on the very last leg of his journey, and escorting him safely HOME to Brooklyn. I tend to discover that my weekends were much more sordid before my Flexible arrived on the scene. I think most of my past sordid behavior was an attempt to find someone pretty to bring home with me, and, well. It is hardly necessary anymore -- I already have a boy who makes my heart leap every time I see him and who has the ability to make me get teary-eyed on occasion just thinking about how happy I am to be seeing him later that day. There is nothing else I want.

5. What food could you just not live without, and why does it make you so happy?

Wow. Mare is not pulling any punches here, is she? I am supposed to select one food, without which I would not want to live? Is there any possible way to narrow this down? There are Scotch Eggs, the very first meal I ever had at a restaurant on my own and which are probably single-handedly responsible for my raging independence. Pot Roast, for reminding me of every Sunday until I was almost 10. My herb-roasted turkey with shallots that I have made a staple at my Thanksgiving table, because it is amazing and also creates the best gravy known to man. Veuve Clicquot champagne, for reminding me of the wild importance of decadence. Gelato bought on the streets of Venice. Soups beginning with the phrase "Cream of..." Power-C Vitamin Water. Fried-egg sandwiches with just-toasted bread and a layer of actual mayo and completely liquid yolks. Puff pastry on virtually anything. Malt vinegar, which I have been known to drink straight on occasion. Very rare grilled tuna steak. And thick earthy mushrooms, and creamy crumbly divine blue cheeses, neither of which I will eat when Flexible is around (as he is deathly allergic to both), and as a result I like even more when I get to sneak a few bites of either while he is away.

And thus. My magical experiment into the world of Question-Answering comes to an end. Actually...that was rather fun. If anyone ELSE wants to ask me questions, please. Feel free. Really. That was fun! Hip, hip, HOORAY!

I ate Burger King for lunch today. I have not eaten Burger King in what might be called "a coon's age," provided the coon in question was approximately six months old.

It was not as good as I remembered it.

In other news, here is a photograph I saw this afternoon on cnn.com:

Here is my question to you:

A) Is this a picture of young Jessica Lynch, viciously attacked by Iraqis and then rescued by her fellow soldiers, only to live an exciting new life consisting of book deals and movie rights?

B) Or is this a picture of young Dizzy Flores, Starship Trooper, viciously attacked by giant killer bugs and then rescued by her fellow soldiers, only to live a very brief life consisting of her gasping, bleeding head in her boyfriend Johnny Rico's lap?

I feel like I am lagging behind Taydo lately, as he mentioned both Friendster (to which I introduced him) and Wing (to which he introduced me) before I have.

Alas.

Still, I cannot help but mention the fact that yesterday, I also received music from a certain songstress in New Zealand! You have no idea the sheer joy this brings me, people. "I Could Have Danced All Night," performed by Wing, as well as "Wing Sings The Carpenters." I tell you, when I hear her sing it, I truly believe that We've Only Just Begun.

You will get goosebumps when you hear her command: "Don't talk of stars filling above; If you in love, sew me! Don't talk of dreams filled with desire; If you on fire, sew me!"

Really. I could keep on about Wing for days. I highly recommend getting your own copies of her CDs. Except keep in mind, I bought the LAST COPY of "I Could Have Danced All Night," you suckers! You waited too long to get your Wing on! HAHAHA! You will never hear it! EVER! MUAH-HA-HA-HAAAAA!

You can still buy "The Sound of Music and The Prayer performed by Wing" and "Wing Sings The Carpenters," though.

The past week at work has consisted largely of me sitting immobile and staring blankly at my screen. I have been waiting for the arrival of "The Complete Reference: FrameMaker 7," and I am slightly embarrassed that I am happy to report that this 847-page tome is here. I am already up to page 193. What has my life come to, that I have been looking forward to receiving an instruction manual?

On a huge plus side, it actualy feels like summer today. It is the first day this year about which that can be said! Hurrah! Sunshine and no clouds, both in large quatities!

I recently combined both of the above facts into one single activity. My office is on the 26th Floor, and we have a large ledge outside -- one might easily call it a balcony -- on which former employees used to take breaks. I just took the manual, a chair, and my cigarettes outside, thinking to relax in the sun. I am happy to report that I did get about half an hour out there before the heat became too much for me, and there is already an appreciable difference in the pasty-white ghoulish nature of my arm-skin. However, I had planned without factoring in the element of sweat, so by the time I came inside, my shirt was rather damp, and I am rather smelly. Thank goodness my desk is at quite a remove from everyone else's. To make matters worse, I returned from lunch and promptly dropped an unopened bottle of Arizona Tea on the linoleum floor, where it just as promptly shattered, and then sprayed a gushing wave of Tea all over a five-foot-wide circle underneath my desk and chair. The bottle itself splintered into the tiniest shards of glass imaginable, making clean-up loads of fun.

So, to recap: I am sitting at my desk, treading upon a sticky, Tea-scented floor, and listening to microscopic grains of glass scraping underneath my feet. My shirt is damp, I am sweaty, I am slightly smelly, and I have 654 pages of a software manual to read. The sun, however, is out. Sea is home. And I am meeting the hottest boy south of the North Pole for dinner, where we will discuss things like our impending trip to Disney World.

On the whole, I would say that today's scales definitely are tipping towards "Good."

I actually had several other things to discuss with you today -- most notably, the mind-numbingly stellar new Macintosh G5, Harry Potter, and the incomparable Mrs. Miller, a delightful songstress I discovered while searching Johnny-A-Go-Go for his opinion on Wing.

But something else has come up.

Now, regular readers might recognize the fact that for me to be more excited about something than I am about a Macintosh -- mush less a BRAND NEW, NEXT-GENERATION 64-bit-processor Macintosh G5 that can support up to 8 GB of RAM, sports an entirely new Jonathan Ive brushed-aluminum design, four discrete thermal zones, a Superdr...

Huh? Right. Sorry. Something more important than that.

Here.

I mean, this is, well, HUGE, particularly coming on the heels of the Let's-Get-Married-In-Canada bandwagon. When I first read about the decision, I started laughing and smiling and promptly sent the link off to everyone I know. I talked about it for a minute, bad-mouthed Scalia, and said YAAAAAAA and WOOOOOOO a lot.

And then all of a sudden I burst into tears.

I think it kind of hit me, that from a legal, governmental standpoint, I'm not wrong any more. Officially, my country does not look down its nose at me for who I love, nor does it have the power to punish me for the same.

I sent a link to the article to my wonderful amazing HR Lady. She replied,

"that's great! i read the whole thing just now. i have always thought it incredible in a bad way that anyone would presume to say who we can and cannot love. or kiss or hold hands with walking down the street or gaze lovingly at or make love with. i'm glad for the progress... : )"

Officially, I'm okay. And for all of my top-level posturing that it does not really matter, there has still been a little seed of anxiety, a little disappointment at being so disapproved of. Now, clearly this is not going to actually change anyone's mind as to whether or not I am right or wrong -- but at least now, wherever I go in the country...I have the law on my side.