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

At last! The wonderful, sweet, and long-awaited arrival!

No, no, no. Not of my sister's baby. I mean of my ATM card, silly.

It has really been ages since I have had access to immediate money in my hot little hand. Since before my vacation, at any rate. Apparently my bank decided to take their sweet time replacing it.

Of course, now that my little chip of blue plastic is where it belongs, back in my wallet, I wasted no time taking it out and immediately blowing $152 in about an hour of online shopping. Before you all gasp in horror, though, hear me out:

• A package of relaxing vanilla/buttermilk/lavender bath salts, soaps, lotions, and potions for my sister. She is about, oh, nine months pregnant at this point, and very shortly will be in desperate need of some self-indulgence. Well, even more so than she is right now, anyway.
• A bouquet of roses and other assorted pretty flowers from Israel, to be delivered next Tuesday. If my nephew has not appeared on the scene by then, the doctors are going in there after him Tuesday morning. Hence, flowers.
• Thursday morning is my five-year-old niece's birthday. So she is getting a "Barbie Loves Spongebob Squarepants" Barbie. Seeing as how my niece loves both Barbie...and Spongebob Squarepants.
• And finally, in keeping with a long-running inside joke with my niece (I know, you are wondering how long can an inside joke have been running with a five-year-old, but trust me on this one), she will also be receiving a wheel of Camembert cheese. The joke essentially involves the desirability, or rather, the lack thereof, of receiving "STINKY CHEESE!!!" for one's birthday. We have been threatening to purchase stinky cheese for one another for several years now, and I decided that, five being such a landmark number, it was time to make good on the threat.

At last! The wonderful, sweet, and long-awaited arrival!

And yes! This time, I mean my nephew! He is finally here!!

He actually showed up a few days ago -- Saturday, at 8:10 am. I found out right before I was due to go onstage in our first real performance of Much Ado About Nothing, in which (as I cannot seem to remember if I have already told you all this) I play Don John the Bastard, i.e., the villain. Needless to say, I was not feeling particularly villainous after getting that phone call, but I did the best I could.

Here is a snippet of a conversation with my niece (the one who is due to recieve a piece of stinky birthday cheese in a day or two):

"So what happened to YOU today?"
"I got my new baby brother!"
"Yeah! Isn't that exciting?"
"Yeah, it's exciting and he's so small and guess what else and guess what else? 'Cause I'm going to a birthday party later at my friend's house for her birthday? And she has a waterslide."
"A waterslide, huh? Wow, this is like the most exciting day EVER, isn't it?"
"Uh-huh! And if you want when you come visit I can save you a cupcake."

I love that! Getting a brand new baby brother is on the exact same level as, say, going on a waterslide, or eating cupcakes. Everything is full-tilt jumping-up-and-down excitement with her.

As for my nephew? He is perfect. Lots of thick dark hair and perfect little blue baby eyes and the olive skin that comes from my mom's side of the family. A little scrunched-up squooshy pumpkinhead perfect wonderful baby boy. So far my sister and brother-in-law have only managed to email one picture to me...so without further ado, here he is.

And only three more weeks until I get to skip town and go visit him! Hooray!! (I think perhaps my cupcake might get a little stale.)

Please take a moment to think a few happy thoughts towards the lovely, the adorable, the incomparable Little Owl, as she is laid up in the hospital and scheduled for an emergency appendectomy in a few short hours.

Also, her mother is absolutely the most adorable thing in the world. She even invited Flex and I to come with Owl on a visit to the family home in Providence. Plus, even at midnight, even standing in front of a hospital in the middle of Queens, she still managed to look absolutely glamorous, like she had just stepped away from a dinner party. Now I know where my Owl gets it from.

I will conclude by saying that my group of friends? We totally rule the school when it comes to taking care of our own. Owl calls me, and when I call back for an update from the middle of the wilds of Manhattan and cannot get through, I call Shiv who calls and calls until she does get through, then calls me back and not only leaves me a message with an update, but directions to, and the phone number of, the hospital. And the information that Tranq was on standby, should anybody have need of him. Flex and I hightailed it to the hospital, found Little Owl in surprisingly good spirits (which may have been the painkillers talking, but I am not certain), and called the gang back to relay the news of the impending surgery. I even tried to cheer Owl up a little more by reminding her that tomorrow afternoon she would be a whole pound lighter. It was totally like the Justice League, springing into action.

I know. I have fallen off the face of the planet. I have a lot to tell you, and I hope to get around to it. For now, the most important bit of news involves eating.

For lunch today? I ate six pounds of God.

We had a blackout. I walked a lot to get home and then I drank beer on my roof with StyleGirl, her parents, the boyfriend of a neighbor, and the Neff. We looked at stars -- stars that were actually visible from within the confines of New York City. It fucking ruled.

My raise went through. I celebrated by becoming a consumer. I finally, after two years of lusting and wanting and drooling, finally bought an iPod. I have been spending the time since ripping every CD I own and tranferring their contents to my teeny tiny shimmering white-and-chromey wonder. The headphones they come with do not quite fit in my ears, leading me to think that either Apple designed headphones that are too large (which everybody knows cannot possibly be the case) or my ears are freakishly tiny. Perhaps I will require surgery to fix the problem.

I also bought an iSight. This was more of a spur-of-the-moment thing, as I have no actual need of an Apple-branded webcam. Nevertheless, there is a stylish aluminum tube (you have no idea the mangled disaster I made of the word "aluminum" the first time I tried to type it) looking at me from atop my stylish transparent-plastic monitor. If anyone wants to engage in a little webcam chatting action, let me know. It is tremendously fun, and I can show you my room (yes, the Real Royal Bedchamber), my cat, my teddy bear, and pictures of my niece.

Flex and I had our seven-month anniversary. We went out to an utterly fantabulous dinner with the best ribs ever concocted, three desserts (one of which featured marshmallow creme and therefore was consumed with the sort of speed that says, "Stay out of the way of my Spoon of Devouring, lest you be grievously injured by marshmallow-creme-laden lacerations"), and a lot of liquor. For the record, let me reiterate here that I love this boy with all my heart, and count myself luckier and luckier every day that he is in my life.

I met my soon-to-be new roommate. He is moving to New York from the wilds of Tennessee. He had never been to New York before last Monday. My household prides itself on being an open, welcoming, hostel-like venue, so the idea of teaching someone entirely new all about the wonders and magic that is New York makes me very happy indeed. He and I and Flex and the new roommate's friend all went out for drinks, and I realized partway through the evening that I have seldom, if ever, had a Boy's Night. My wonderful girls are always part of my crowd, and you know how much I adore them, but it was a nice change to be out with just a little gang of the homos.

This is the last weekend of my play. It will be a relief to be done, but it has been fun all the same. I shall close with an image or two of me, being evil, and wearing my shinypants.

The gang, all being evil in a believe-it-or-not completely unplanned pose.

Me, preparing for my moment of evil triumph.

Me, complaining about the trials and tribulations of the evil villain.

And me, tricking my "good" brother into believing my latest evil eeeeevil plot.

So that was more than one or two pictures. So sue me.

And also, as mentioned in a recent entry, Chipotle has made it here at last. Blankwave, another Denver transplant, is totally and completely my hero for tipping me off. Until they opened up shop, presence-of-Chipotle was the single indicator in which Colorado was better than New York. No more!

I think that should catch everyone up with the details of my life. Have any questions? Guestbook me.

I simply must keep current, mustn't I?

The answer to that question: Of course! Therefore, in keeping with my desire to be abreast of all the latest trends, I just added a DVR (that is Digital Video Recorder to you) to my cable package. A built-in little TiVO to record my cooking shows and my Star Trek and my Family Guy and my Homovision (e.g. Queer Eye). And I will have the luxury of watching them any time I want! That...well, that is simply lovely.

Another luxury to which I was recently introduced: having poetry written for me. I do not think anyone has composed an ode in my honor before, so imagine my pleasure when I discovered this little gem in my guestbook, courtesy of the always-charming Mare-Ingenii:

Now look, my dreams, they're not dull
In all the wrong places, I'll mull
Like last Sunday, in Mass,
as I pondered his ass
and worshipped that New York god, Ful!

Not ONLY was I being pondered during church, people, what specifically was being pondered?

That is right.

My ASS.

My ass was being thought about in CHURCH. Even if only in the confines of a saucy limerick, the very idea brings me paroxysms of joy! Given the general attitude towards the combination of church-going religion and sauciness (read: highly unfavorable), I think that means this poem qualifies for the genre of "avant-garde," right? That clearly puts me on the cutting edge -- nay, the bleeding edge -- of both technology AND art.

Synthesis, people. It is the name of the game.

So I never got my DVR. I am not as cutting-edge as I would like to appear.

I carriedmy old cable box all the way to the cable box store. I even rode the bus to get there, which should tell you a little something about how much I want this DVR. Then I stood in line for 45 minutes, only to be told that I had to pay my current bill before they could add a new service. No problem, right?

It would have been no problem, had I not inexplicably removed my checkbook from my satchel yesterday morning.

Sigh.

Following that little disappointment, I popped over to the Upper East Side to meet up with Flex after work. And since his parents are out of town, nobody was there to stop us from going back to their place, jumping into their pool, and taking a little midnight swim (cough cough). That bit was great, but it was a little strange falling asleep in his little brother's bed.

And now, I am wasting away my day here at work, looking through online catalogs for pants to buy. My current pair seems to be mere moments away from falling apart, and buying new is no longer an enjoyable task, it is officially a necessity. I am currently rocking the flared jeans / light blue button-up wherein I am trying out that whole only-tucking-things-in-in-the-front thing (and it seems to be working fairly well) / multi-colored-checked-tie-that-is-the-hottest-tie-in-the-world in a relaxed loose knot / spiky hair / aviator glasses / Docs. And when I say I am rocking that look...I am ROCKING that look. I only wish I had remembered to pack my black leather and silver chain wrist band. Oh well -- I will know for next time.

And finally -- what kind of fucking insane dijon mustard is on my croque monsieur? My tasty lunch sandwich seems to be made of ham, cheese, mushrooms, and apparently napalm, carpetbombing the delicate tissues of my insides with firey love.