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

In the last couple weeks, I buzzed off my hair, learned that my roommate is keeping her hair clippings in a jar in my bathroom, arranged a trip back to Colorado in August, arranged for my sister to visit New York for the first time in September, set up a consultation for Lasik surgery, booked a two (or possibly three, they haven't decided) week trip back to India for the end of the month, gone to Philadelphia for the day to take part in a sales meeting with actual clients, and repaired a broken front tooth.

However, interesting as any of those activities might be, they pale, for the moment, by comparison to what I'm about to do.

I'm walking out the door right now to go see my very first ever Madonna concert OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG. Yes, me = big fat homo, but dude:

Section FOOUU-URRR la la la la la la la!

She's totally going to invite me on stage to dance with her, too. I know because I totally had a dream about it. It was awesome!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

I fried four chickens for today.

I just got home. And then I ate an entire chickensworth of leftovers.

guest entry by Kate

I feel like I need to start by saying that I sort of hate it when people guest-blog or start a new blog or something and they open by verbally brushing the dust off their hands and saying something like, “well, it’s not looking so bad in here – a few plants, a coat of paint, and we’ll be in business” because the whole blog-as-house metaphor and hearty, folksy, chuckles associated with said metaphor have always sort of chapped me.

Having said that, I need to say that I am guest-blogging right this minute, and I find the whole enterprise just delightful.

Having said that, oh my god, I missed you so much, internet. I have no desire to cover you with a new coat of paint or buy you slipcovers, but I missed you when I was gone, I really, really, did. I missed you the way someone might miss an awesome game of tennis: the excitement, the sprinting, the endless thwacking. (I am going to refrain, but just this once, from talking about how I didn’t miss the occasional ball, so to speak, to the face. You can thank me later.)

I missed, most of all, having a forum to tell stories like this one: last fall when I got married and moved to Canada, I took a job as a nanny for a set of three-year-old twins, the mother of whom split her time between being a lawyer and being a CRAZY BITCH. And not to turn this entry into a “this one time at band camp”-style narrative, this ONE TIME, instead of giving me the standard one-week-pay as a Christmas bonus, she instead gave me a travel mug imprinted with her company logo. A. Secondhand. Cup. As a thank-you for raising her children. The payday following Christmas, she handed me my check and said, “Oh, and I have a little something extra for you!” and went into her office. “Ah!” I thought, “A little Christmas bonus!” She came out bearing a picture of the children posing with Santa Claus. A five by seven glossy of her children, whom I saw ten hours a day and whom I took to the mall to have that picture taken. When I got to my car and opened my paycheck I realized it was short, two hundred dollars short, because she docked me for not working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

I was off New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, and the night before I returned to work I laid face down on the floor cying because I didn’t want to go back. I did, of course, and at seven am the following morning I was wrangling the twins so she could take a shower when she turned to me and handed me a kleenex and asked me to throw it away.

I was halfway downstairs, one child on each hip, when I realized the kleenex contained cat crap.

It was one of 3,000 moments in the last six months that I have thought, MAN, somebody get me some INTERNET, I have something to SAY.

One: Most of the points I'd been planning to make today have already been captured in a far more coherent structure than I'd have managed, here. And also here. I am just so confounded and infuriated by the...the sheer irrationality of their "rational" decision. Apparently "intuition and experience" are new, binding legal standards of which I was previously unaware. It's bad enough just disagreeing with their conclusions, but it's worse when their arguments themselves are so insulting.
For example, part of the rationale is that because straight couples are, obviously, much more likely to have children accidentally, it is in the interest of the state to extend to these people the privileges of marriage. As an incentive. In case they accidentally get knocked up. However, because gays can only have children as the result of careful planning, they don't require (or deserve, apparently) the same incentive.
*blink blink* ...Whuh? Um...Does this mean that women on birth control, or infertile couples, are also banned from getting married? Because I, um...I don't think that's what they mean. And that seems a little inconsistent, don't you think? (Alternatively, my response could read "WHAT THE MOTHERFUCKING JESUS H FUCKING FUCKBALLS CHRIST," but that seemed a little crude.)

Also maybe this doesn't make sense, but it kind of makes it hurt even more, knowing that this came from New York. A decision this backwards, this harmful to me and to a lot of people I love, crushed a lot of the faith I've always placed in this state.

Two: Not fair, I know, but there's a part of me today that really agrees with him. It all comes down to a bunch of straight people who think that gay people are icky, and they use their status as a majority to deny us the rights and privileges that they so motherfucking flagrantly take for granted. Yes, OBVS there are lovely straight people who don't think this way, but I'm fucking angry and in the mood to generalize.

Three, unrelatedly: Go read the guest entry by the marvelous Kate, who I still love even though she's all married and crap, just below this one. I know, I know, most of you who USED TO read her must have assumed she'd been eaten by an Abominable Snowman, or else some black-hearted scoundrel had tied her to some railroad tracks and she was crushed before a Mountie was able to rescue her -- such are the perils of living in the Wilds of Canadia, or so I hear -- but fear not, she is alive and writing again! (Just don't ask her about her dog. Unless you have like two hours to kill.)

Regarding my last post, I think I need to issue a correction and an apology.

I do not, nor have I ever, honestly agreed with the whole "fuck the straight people" mentality. I said so in a moment of bitterness, and I know that at least one person I love dearly was more than a little put off by it. Phrasing the issue in those terms is inappropriate -- just like the New York courts, I framed the question at hand improperly. It's not straight people against gay people. It's people who honestly believe in equality, and fairness, and the value of other human beings, versus people who honestly believe that it's their duty to ensure that some people are viewed as inherently unequal, and inferior.

That's the real battle at hand. And trust me: we're going to win.

I've worn glasses and/or contacts since I was about nine years old. In just under two weeks' time, that will be twenty years I've required vision correction. I still remember convincing my mom I needed to see an optometrist. My sister had just gotten glasses, and mom was convinced that the only reason I said I couldn't see anything either is because I wanted the attention. I put a wine bottle on the table, backed a few steps away, and loudly proclaimed, "SEE I CAN'T READ THAT LABEL."

Of course, it helped that I also totally wanted the attention.

At the time, glasses seemed like they were so coooool, despite the fact that seriously I had the ugliest glasses on the face of the planet. Gold frames, double-bridge across my nose, about three sizes too big for my head. As I've gotten older, the glasses have been swapped out for contacts, and the backup glasses are much smaller, brushed aluminum or something, stylish, definite attention paid to the brand name, OBVS.

Still. Twenty years. It's way, way time. I just got home from my (eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee) LASIK consultation! It was fine, except it feels like my eyes are dilated to the size of the moon, I have a headache, and I'm a little nauseated from being utterly unable to focus on anything. Still, the people at Chelsea Eye were lovely, the office was lovely, I'm apparently a perfect candidate, and there's a 95% chance, they say, or getting 20/20 or better vision at the end of the procedure. I'm hopefully setting the appointment for a month from today, and then possibly throwing a little "Let's All Stomp On My Glasses!!" party. I seriously can't fucking wait -- I'll be able to look out my window at night! see my toes in the shower! and I won't have to answer that horrible question: "Heeere's one....or is two better? Here's one...and then there's two."

Also apparently I have crazy wolfman eyebrows to which I will be tending as soon as my eyes contract.

In two days, I head back to India, this time for two to three weeks. I admit, I've been a tiny bit concerned, what with the goings-on in my port of call. However, this email from the Indian office certainly set my mind at ease:

"The Bombay situation is OK now. The blasts haven't caused significant disruption so there's no reason to change plans. The only hitch may be a riot breaking out but the probability is low. The rains have also subsided.

I will keep you posted. Worst case, you may have to re-route your flights via Delhi."

Oh goody. Let's sum up, shall we?

Explosion: Minimally disruptive
Riot: Possible, but unlikely
Flood: Subsiding
Plague of locusts: Any day now
Rain of frogs: 30% chance

Um...whew. Isn't that a relief.

It's weird, I know, but I really *enjoy* airline food. It's more the process than the taste, obvs, but all the little packets to open? With your specially-calculated individual serving of butter or cheese or salt or chicken in mushroom sauce? The ritual of putting the chilled butter pat on top of the foil-wrapped hot meal, so by the time you've finished your tiny dish of salad (with concomitant individual tub of dressing), it'll be warm enough to spread. Nesting all the empty containers inside each other for ease of pickup when you're done. I also really dig the "why yes, I *will* have wine with that, thank you," and then getting a glass of free wine.

Yes, I know I've already paid for my plane ticket and it's not really free wine. But it feels like it is, and that's what really counts.

Then again, it totally sucks when you spill your glass of red wine on the front of the only pair of pants to which you have access for the next 36 hours. Not that I'd know.

This means, I'm sure you've guessed, that I'm back in the Wild Lands of India. It's all monsoony this time of year, and everything is gloriously green and growing. This also underscores Reason Number 9,276 Why I'm Glad I'm Getting Lasik: glasses that fog up the second you step off the plane. Or out of the car. Or out of the hotel. Go on, Atmosphere - just you TRY to fog up my EYEBALLS after I can see properly with them.*

I left New York on Friday night, and just checked into the hotel about an hour ago. In the interim, I've had four hours of driving from Mumbai, a nine hour flight from London, and a seven hour flight from New York. Oh yeah, and a little matter of a 12-hour layover in London. Be still my tremulously beating Anglophilic little heart! I engineered the itinerary such that I'd get to have a bit of a wander through the area I like to call "Oh good god yes, I've come home."

Covent Garden, the Embankment, all 'round Parliament and Westminster Abbey. If I'd read the tourist pamphlet I'd bothered to pick up, I'd have shown up at the Abbey in time to go inside and look around, but apparently that wasn't to be. Hyde Park is lovely and has some incredibly weird droopy trees. Old Compton Street is really, really gay. Unrelatedly, I totally had lunch and a couple vodka tonics on Old Compton Street.

Seriously -- I just feel so *right* walking around in England. It makes me really sad when I realize there's so much there I don't understand, having grown up elsewhere; the grocery had, like, dozens of different biscuits and I really feel somewhere deep down that I *should* know what they all are and what the good ones are and what the bad ones are, but I don't. At least there were approximately ninety zajillion English boys walking around to distract me from my dearth of biscuit-related knowledge. I found myself muttering under my breath about every three steps, "Hello I love youuuuuuu!" So that part was fun.

At this point I think I'm seriously overdue for a smallish nap of some kind -- I think I've gotten maybe 2 hours of bumpy, upright-sitting-in-a-plane sleep over the past two nights, and I'd prefer not to pass out in the middle of dinner. More updates, as they develop.

P.S. On the drive here, I TOTALLY SAW MONKEYS.

OH and P.P.S too: GUESS WHAT HAPPENED ON FRIDAY?? If you guessed that like an hour before I left for the airport, I totally the fuck got a PROMOTION, you'd be SO SO RIGHT because I totally did. Say hello to Biscuit, PROJECT MANAGER, and I can't even believe that I got an utter surprise of a promotion out of fucking nowhere, and it's been relegated to a P.P.S. status.

*Note: Dear Atmosphere: I love you. Please don't try to fog up my eyeballs. That sounds really unpleasant.

First, a very important message: Today is my sister's birthday, which means it is a scant FIVE DAYS until mine. Yayayayaya! Birthday for me!
Message ends.

Now: India. So far it's been a lot like last time, except this time I have a coworker around to talk to, which is great; when you see a funny billboard, it's a lot more fun to have someone to nudge and laugh at it with.

The work is different too, in a good way. The team here got an email about my promotion (HA HA HA, ME = TOTES PROMOTED AIEE), so this time around when they ask me a question and I say, "It should work like this," they say, "Oh, okay," instead of their usual response last time, which was more like, "Oh, okay...we'll just go ahead and check with your boss first," which kind of negated the entire reason I was here to begin with. Muah ha ha ha haaaa, the POWER, waa haa haaaa!

So last night my coworker and I went to the hotel bar, called Entresol. A duo of extremely blond people, a.k.a. the band "Summer Dance," were playing some soft rock, singing in very thick accents. (I put my money on Lithuanian.) My coworker decided he wanted to request a song, and dedicate it to the pretty blond singer girl (Miss Anna), but he couldn't think of a good one. I suggested Roxanne, which seemed in line with the stuff they were already playing, and it wasn't until after he'd turned in the form that we remembered the song was actually about Sting singing to a hooker. Oops. A few songs later, they read the slip, laughed, and we got ready to listen to her sing "You don't have to put on the redddd liiiight," but apparently that wasn't in their repetoire -- so they played the next best thing, which *obviously* was a song called "Suzanna" that neither one of us had ever heard. I don't think the band had ever heard the song before either.

Tonight after work, we went for a good long walk -- one that I took last time, actually. Out from the hotel, down a big road, and across a bridge with motorcycles screaming by a few inches away. Honestly, you really have to abandon your fear of death to get around here. Along the way, we stopped at the Pune Central mall, which turned out to be a great idea! I picked up a few more CDs, and then I found a copy of the $20 Eldest, by Christopher Paolini, for like six bucks (score!) and then a copy of the $80 Larousse Gastronomique for like twelve bucks (SUPER TRIPLE SCORE!!!). So that totally rocked.

The best part came a little further down the road, where there was a set of stairs leading up a hill. So, you know...since they were there, we went up them. It was kind of dark, and it was definitely steep, but at the top was a temple we got to sit in for a while that looked out over the whole city. It's pretty remarkable to see all the streets flooded with a million headlights from a couple million people.

When I got back to the hotel, I decided to just go for room service. I had the traditional Indian meal of fried mozzarella, a turkey sandwich, and a coffee milkshake, all of which were good except for the fact that they really have no idea how to prepare fried mozzarella, turkey sandwiches, or coffee milkshakes.

Now I should be off to bed; I have a long day of Managing Projects tomorrow. Ha! Ha! POWER!!

Last night I learned that the same waiter to whom I was completely inadvertently inappropriate is still working at the same restaurant. However, this time I managed to avoid making a complete ass of myself, which is a step in the right direction.

As usual, having too much to do completely invigorates me. The past couple days, I've had one big long meeting. This morning, I had that meeting, plus another meeting, plus a bunch of emails to write, graphics to design, and decisions to make, and so I'm all bright-eyed and perky, completing my stuff with scary efficiency. It's a very helpful trait when I have too much to do, but less helpful when I only have ONE thing to do and I never get it done because I go all sleepy and lazy.

Tomorrow morning, the office is taking us on a trip up to the Lion Fort before we start work. Awesome!! It's like an hour an a half hike up this big hill, with a view of the whole surrounding countryside. Remind me to bring my camera.

I'm also thinking that on my birthday? I owe myself a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape. Oh, and also a Swedish massage. Sweeeeet.

The clouds here are a little gloomier today than they have been earlier in the week. That, combined with the A/C someone decided to supercharge today, makes the office seem a little less than cheery.

Still, it's not too bad. I've already seen a tiny orange tabby jumping all over the corrugated tin roofs across the street. I saw cows or water buffaloes or something, pulling a little boy in a cart. I saw a bunch of goats by the side of the road on the way to the office. There's an apartment building opposite the office, and every day there's a different sari, drying in the wind, flying from the top floor window. There are two beautiful, rainbow-colored chalk mandalas in the courtyard down below. And hey - it's only two days to my birthday, so how un-cheery could I possibly be, right?

We didn't get to go to the Lion Fort today - the person who was going to organize it was out yesterday, but hopefully we can set something up for next week. I'm going to find out if the hotel can arrange some kind of outing for The Big Day on Sunday -- there must be something cool to see. Maybe I'll go check out the Snake Farm! Apparently there are snakes there.

This morning, there was a billboard with a cartoon drawing of one bald-headed child head-butting another little cartoon child in the chest. The caption said in big letters, "This butt-er sees red!!" and then underneath it said "But our butter? It's yellow!" and then there was a picture of a pack of butter. A few things about this strike me: 1) Man, they moved fast to get this billboard drawn and up so soon after the World Cup hoo-ha. 2) How did the pitch for this go? "I got it! This is the perfect opportunity to tie our dairy product to soccer!" 3) Dude, are you seriously telling me that the primary selling point for your butter is that it's yellow?

Additionally: After the attacks in Mumbai, the Indian authorities apparently convinced local ISPs to block access to a number of blog sites, on the grounds that terrorists were communicating with each other that way. Which explains why I haven't been able to get to blogspot since I've been here. I wonder how the U.S. would react if the same thing happened there? Now that I think about it, I'm almost surprised that it hasn't.

While it should have been obvious from the name alone, now I know for certain.

I really don't care for mung beans.

I've been sitting in my hotel, bouncing between the lobby because it has much better internet reception, and my room because I don't have to wear shoes in here, for most of the day. Working on my tiny little laptop, getting a bunch of stuff ready for a meeting my company has with a client in Paris on Wednesday.

A meeting that I just found out I'm to be attending.

Yep. I'm flying to Paris tomorrow night, staying for two days, and then flying the fuck BACK to India, where I'll be extending my stay for another week, so as to get done all the things I would have gotten done while I'm in Paris. Granted, it's something like 14 hours travel each way, but I'm really, no I mean REALLY, fucking excited at the prospect of being in PARIS for two days! And trading in some of this curry for some consomme! Ha!

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that while taking breaks from work, I've totes been looking up hot clubs in Paris. Does anyone have any recommendations of where to find the prettiest young Parisiens? (laugh)

Of course this morning, I had to rearrange my stay at the hotel. A few minutes ago, the Messages light on my phone started blinking, and then my TV turned itself on ALL BY ITSFUCKINGSELF, and started blinking, "Mr. Christopher, Please contact Reception to confirm your departure." It was seriously fucking creepy. As Kate said, "OMG It's like you're living inside KITT from Knightrider!"

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I seriously planned to steal that line and pass it off as my own, with orders to Kate that she couldn't tell anyone because it's almost my birthday. But then I felt bad and I couldn't. Yay, Kate is funny.

Tomorrow morning, some of my coworkers from the Indian team are arriving to accompany me on a birthday trip to the Snake Park. AIEE snakes! I was thinking about getting the hotel to arrange a car, but I just said to one of the guys, who suggested it, "If you told me how to do it so I don't fall off, I could probably try riding on the back of your motorcycle." Now I'm imagining that I can hear the very ominous DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNN in the background. "A lovely day in India ended in tragedy when..."

I think I'm about to head down for dinner. And maybe I'll get a drink in the hotel bar; there's an International Conference for Laparoscopic Treatment of Colorectal Disease today, so I'm sure to have plenty of really fun company.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR ME-EEEE
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

I'm so totally 29 years old now! I woke up this morning, had some eggs and coffee, and get a car to take me and three of my Indian coworkers to the SNAKE PARK, which was totally awesome. There were, indeed, many snakes there. And there was more zoo besides just snakes -- white peacocks and tigers and porcupines and sloths and monkeys! I have a great photo of the tiger sticking his tongue out at me! I almost slipped and fell into the mud like five times because it was raining the whole way through the zoo -- but it was nice, gentle rain where you don't even really notice you're getting wet. Also admission to the zoo was totally like six cents, which is crazytown.

Then we went to lunch at a place called Portico, and had something like nine million pounds of food. Plus two of the guys snuck out and bought me a birthday cake!! And they sang! It was AWESOME. They seemed to be impressed that I tried all the food, so that's cool because OBVS I like being the adventurous guy. (laugh)

And when I got back to my hotel? There was a cake and fruit! From the hotel! For my birthday, because it's totally my birthday! Now I feel really bad that I have to check out because I'm waaaay too full to eat any more cake! And then a guy knocked on my door and delivered a dozen roses from the hotel with a card saying Happy Birthday on it! TOTES SUPERSWEET.

So now I have like an hour and a half to chill out before I have to check out and get in a car for the long long five hour drive to the airport so I can go to PARIS, aieeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Life is fucking incredible, don't you think? *I* sure think so. WHEEEEEEEEEEE BIRTHDAY HAHAHA!

So every now and then I realize that I shouldn't even bother trying to come up with things to write about. I should just post the AIM conversations I have with CanadaKate, because honestly when we get going, I die laughing on a regular basis. We're funnier than the sum of our parts.

However, then I promptly forget and close the window we had just been chatting in, consigning all that comic genius to the wastebin of history.

That's really a shame, because now I'm going to have to tell you about Paris without all the !!!!! and OMGOMGOMG and JUMPING JESUS BALLS that the two of us regularly use to punctuate our conversations, in much the same way that a normal person would use, say, a comma.

First, let me just say that I've had like 4 double espressos over the course of the day, because being somewhere that does a decent coffee just makes my heart purr.

Second, OMGOMGOMG!!!!! JUMPING JESUS BALLS, but I love Paris! I was here for about a day and a half, like eight years ago, and I think I was too busy being a poor student on the very tail end of a month through Europe to really appreciate it. To start, my hotel is next door to the Paris Opera, and is not, in fact, a room with six bunk beds in the Young and Happy Youth Hostel (where everybody's young and happy!!). Second, I have a corporate Amex instead of being down to my last twenty bucks.

Both of those facts help.

Most of the afternoon was work, but I had a chance before my bosses showed up to walk around the neighborhood and do some shopping. I bought herbs, and three different kinds of salt. Remind me to try to pick up some foie gras before I go. Also if I don't bring my family baseball hats that say Paris! on them in rhinestones, I think I'll be disowned.

Then the coworkers and I went to the Hotel du Nord for dinner, and I'm sure it'll come as zero surprise to anybody when I say that I had both the terrine de foie gras, and also the filet of duck. MMMMPH.

It's such a shock being here directly after India -- I can't imagine a more polar opposite. Everything here is sumptuous and gilded and, well...just so European. The cars are all shiny and the windows are all shiny and there are stained glass atria everywhere and MAN does it do my decadent little heart good. Don't get me wrong, there are things I really love about India too, and decadent shiny places there as well, but I can't help having a stronger affinity to pate than to paneer.

I just got back to my room from taking a walk down the street to the Seine, where I looked at a bunch of domes that I didn't know what they were, and then, of course, the Eiffel Tower. When I was here last time, I remember thinking how short and unimpressive it looked, compared to what I was imagining in my head. Maybe it was just that I'd already gotten over that disappointment, but tonight? Tonight, man -- it was magic.

I'm back in India, looking out the window at a yellowing sky. My coworker headed back to the States today, so I'm back to being on my own for the next week. Con: Much less conversation and concomitant fear of vocal cords going rusty. Plus now I have to drink alone. Pro: I get to go upstairs for lunch which I don't think my coworker was too keen on.

I got into my hotel yesterday at about 5 am, and then woke up at 8 to go to work. Me = tres rockstar. 'Course, I don't think my brain has the foggiest fuck of a clue what time it's supposed to think it is right now, compounded by the fact that I use my cellphone as my watch and I don't carry my cellphone around since I have no service here. So I really honestly never know what time it is.

So let me tell you a little story. It begins in Paris, when one of my bosses was talking about his partner. And stupid stupid me, it took m a while to realize that he wasn't talking about his business partner. I mean, Jesus H. Stealthqueer, I had no idea! How embarrassing! I hope I don't have to turn in my toaster.

The next day, after our big meeting, I mentioned that I'd been chatting with this cute Frenchman who was at our demo. "You should call him!" my boss said. "Do you want his number? Do you need any condoms? Do you want some poppers?"

Just to clarify, yes. My boss asked me if I wanted any poppers.

Boss.

Offering poppers.

My other boss jumped in at this point, laughing, and said something along the lines of "Oh my god, POPPERS? What the fuck is a POPPER? Honestly, you gays! Poppers??" to which I replied, "Hey, it wouldn't be any fun being in a secret club if everyone knew all our secrets."

To top things off, they're already sending me back for the end of next week! And my boss? Already sent this guy an email. "He is arriving to Paris next week and mentioned that he would really love to train you," he said. "He is very excited about this."

I swear, I work for the coolest people in the fucking world.