Somewhere only we know

Oh, I'm ready!

2009-01-09T18:06:00.003-05:00

I'm really sick of logging in to Facebook and continually being presented with this ad in the right margin - mostly because I want to know who that hot slut is, since I goddamn well know he's not on whatever pathetic dating site selected his stock photo.

Arrgh. He's probably not even gay, so I wish they'd just quit showing him to me.

Happy Friday, all!

Yes, I'm old and lame

2009-01-08T14:03:00.005-05:00

I'm not going to be exceptionally boring and go too in-depth into New Year's resolutions, since I don't really care that much about them and I can't imagine any of you do, either.

Two that I care (somewhat) about and their statuses:

1. Getting back to a regular gym routine.

Status: Currently very sore after doing biceps/back/abs on Monday, cardio on Tuesday, chest/triceps/abs on Wednesday. Goal for the rest of the week: cardio & abs today, legs/shoulders/abs on Friday, and possibly yoga on Saturday.

1a. No drinking Monday through Thursday.

Status: FAIL. Gave in and had a vodka drink last night. Meh.

2. Getting my financial house in order.

Status: I did some analysis of my finances, created a budget, and am trying very hard to stick to it. Example: I went grocery shopping on Monday night with $26 in my pocket and managed to spend only $25.45. For some pathetic reason, that made my night.

I realize this post isn't exactly scintillating reading - but yet another resolution that I made was to start blogging again - so give me some leeway; I'm trying.

At least it wasn't shoes

2009-01-05T09:36:00.005-05:00

Friday night, 9 pm. I'm home watching "The Golden Compass" (it sucked) and getting drunk by myself when No-Dice Joe texts me and tells me to come meet him and the rest of the Brooklyn crazies at McSorley's, where they're celebrating Alex's birthday.

As I emerge from the ATM around the corner from my apartment, I see 3 guys getting out of a yellow cab, so I hail it and jump in.

"Manhattan," I tell the driver. "7th and 3rd Ave."

He glances at me in the rearview mirror. "7th Street and 3rd Avenue?"

"Yes, 7th and 3rd Ave.," I repeat back.

A few minutes later, he asks me again, and wondering what's going on with this guy, I say firmly, "YES. Manhattan, East 7th Street and 3rd Avenue."

He knows I'm getting irritated, so he smiles and says, "Is amazing, this city. Those three men I just dropped off? I picked them up at 7th and 3rd, and now you are going there."

That makes me smile. New York is an amazing city, it's true.

I tip the guy an extra buck more than usual for making me smile and head into the bar to meet the crazies, where I discover that the birthday girl is shitfaced and wearing a large, pink hat that is somewhat Bo Peep-ish. After a few rounds (and a bar tab of $378 - holy shit), we decide to head to Libation on the Lower East Side, since this guy Brian's two brothers are hanging out there. Having only been there for brunch, I'm skeptical - it's kind of douchy there, and I know what the Brooklyn Crazies are like when they get their drink on - it usually ends in fighting - but we pour ourselves into two cabs and we're on our way.

I'm in a cab with Alex's fiance, Tom; his co-worker from St. Louis who's only been in New York for a few months; and Alex's co-worker Selma, who's French, drunk, and who also has been in New York for 3 months. St. Louis, I should mention, is crushing hard on Selma, and he and Tom are delighting in teasing her about her accent.

We get out on Ludlow directly in front of Libation. The others are there already, standing on the corner having cigarettes. As they finish, Joe and I steer Alex and Selma toward Libation, where the doordouche (a twenty-something white guy whose smile reeks of insincerity) asks what's going on tonight.

Selma, bless her French heart, points at Alex and exclaims, "It's her birthday! She is 33 years old!" I wince, knowing that's not going to win us any points.

The doordouche chuckles a little, looks at us again, and says, "Fine, I can let the girls in, but the guys are going to be $15 each."

"WHAT?!?" Joe yelps, and he turns to me and says, "That's ridiculous." I agree, and after the McSorley's bar tab, both St. Louis and I need an ATM again anyway. We discuss for a few minutes and then just decide, fuck it, we'll do it. I trot across the street to an ATM, and when I come back, we assemble before the doordouche like the supplicants that we are.

This time he doesn't hesitate. "Sorry, guys, but we just can't do it now."

Alex is confused, so I tell her that they're not going to let us in, and that's when her drunken, shit-kicking alter ego (whom we call Boots) emerges.

"Fuck you," she screams at the doordouche, and then rips the ridiculous pink hat off of her head and THROWS IT at him. "Go fuck yourself, you fucking asshole!"

Joe and I are cracking up, and to give him credit, the doordouche is as well without being meanspirited. We drag Alex and Selma across the street to some dive bar, where we discover...

...Tom already inside, a drink in hand, talking to some guy whom Joe informs me is Tom's cousin. Oh, New York.

Status

2008-08-26T08:27:00.002-04:00

I buzzed my hair off.
I completed 8 weeks with the personal trainer. I lost 5 lbs, 1.5 inches from my waist, an inch off my hips, an inch off my chest, and dropped my body fat by 3 percent. I also dramatically improved my endurance and my resting heart rate. My overall percentile rank went up 11.4 points.
Benjie and No-Dice Joe and I leave for Hawaii tomorrow for 12 days and 11 nights. You know you're jealous. And really, it's okay to be.
But first, today, I'm doing a day of gym/haircut/massage and then packing.
I'll be back, hopefully with pics, on Sept. 8th.

Easily the best part of my day

2008-07-31T15:22:00.002-04:00

You know what I love? Being on the phone with a coworker who's talking about a fight she had at work that day and listening to this:

"And I told him that I don't care if she thinks I'm difficult to work with, because she's a fucking bitch. And really, she is - she's a raging cunt."

Nothing makes me happier than when a woman is angry enough to bust out the c-word.

Then there's No-Dice Joe, who screamed it at a woman who threw him an elbow on a crowded Broadway sidewalk in SoHo a few weeks ago.

Or his brother, who once called a flight attendant a "malicious cunt" in Chicago, getting him - and his entire party - tossed off the plane.

Lotta anger in that family. Lotta anger.

Two things that made my day yesterday

2008-07-24T11:36:00.002-04:00

via Overheard, of course:

Fabulous woman: That's all vodka under the bridge.

--55 Bar

Overheard by: Girl Margaret

Queer on cell: I know... I know! Gosh, that is sooo gay!

(bewildered elderly lady looks at him)

Queer to elderly lady (in shrieking voice): Oh my god, oh my god, the faggot said gay!

--Central Park

...some hideous skirt convention you have to go to?

2008-07-23T00:28:00.002-04:00

A sampling from a work conversation today:

Coworker 1: We interviewed another woman for the position. I can't believe I'm telling you this, but she showed up wearing a two-piece denim suit.

Coworker 2: [giggles]

Coworker 1: So, anyway, she used to work---

Coworker 3: Wait a minute. Back the train up. Did you say "two-piece denim suit?"

Coworker 1: Yes, but not like you're picturing. It was more like a thin denim---

Coworker 3: No, I think it's exactly what I'm picturing, and it's godawful.

Coworker 2: That's what I said!

Coworker 3: Jesus Christ. A two-piece denim suit. I would have taken one look at her and said, "Never mind, you can go."

I think we were lying in the middle of it

2008-07-21T13:00:00.003-04:00

Saturday afternoon - Chelsea Pier. I'm lying on a towel baking with Brad and Rob and trying not to die in the overwhelming heat.

Directly to my left are a guy and girl sitting in lawn chairs. The guy is older than her - maybe in his early 30s. She's probably about 27 and hasn't shut the fuck up since we got there. They're reading trivia questions to each other.

Brad turns to me, rolls his eyes, and says, "Sometimes I wish I could just stop hearing things."

"Like old people who can just turn off their hearing aids," I agree. "And to make it worse, this bitch is really dumb."

He gives me a questioning look.

"The question he just asked her was, 'In which state is Boys Town located?'" I explained. "She guessed Philadelphia."

Woof

2008-07-17T00:29:00.004-04:00

Me and my fucking teeth - honest to Christ, I'm going to get them all ripped out and replaced with big honking chiclets like Hilary Duff. Oh, don't think I won't. I'll look like Thayne on "So You Think You Can Dance," all fucking smiles all the time because my lips can't close around those chompers.

Ugh. Remember all the root canal trouble I had last fall? Well, the gums around one of those (the finished one with the crown) were really irritated last week, so I gave in and made an appointment with the dentist. I also had a cleaning at the same time, since my last one was, oh, I don't know, a year ago. Oops!

So I get there and they clean my teeth, whatever, no big deal. And then the crazy Russian dentist lady comes in to look at my mouth and basically tells me that I really need a crown on my second root canal. (I never got one last fall because (1) my insurance was completely shot to hell, and (2) I had an abscess, so they didn't want to close it up completely.)

Then crazy Russian dentist lady tells me that one of my other fillings is broken and is digging into my gums. Terrific. Let's keep the great news coming!

She makes some snarky comment about me being so behind on my dental care.

"I don't know...I got busy," I said lamely.

"Well, Mr. Busy," she says in her Russian accent, "Now you need crown and filling at same time, and you need them AS SOON AS POSSIBLE - ASEP."

(C'mon, it's kinda cute that she spelled it "ASEP," isn't it?)

I marched my fat ass over there today for my 1 hour appointment, which ended up lasting two hours and ended in me staggering out of there, face completely numb, gums still bleeding, with a temporary crown in place.

And, of course, $370 lighter.

"$370?!?" I garbled to the receptionist, wiping drool from my face. "What about my insurance?"

"That's your co-pay for a crown," she said coolly. "And we don't take AMEX."

I jammed the AMEX card I had been holding back in my wallet and took out my Visa - the same bright, shiny Visa that I just paid off, and which at the moment had a $0 balance.

Life can be such a bitch sometimes.

One down

2008-07-07T14:56:00.005-04:00

I am not in a very charitable mood today for several reasons, and so I couldn't help but grimace at the gym earlier this afternoon when CNN showed footage of Jesse Helms' funeral, including his flag-draped casket. It actually makes me sick that such a terrible person warrants such a show of respect.

I came across two pieces this afternoon that agree with me. One is from Michelangelo Signorile and quite eloquently gives Helms exactly the send-off he deserves (quote: "He was a racist, a homophobe, a misogynist and an all-around hatemonger. Let's not let the media whitewash any of that").

The American media certainly seemed to, but the British didn't, thank god. As The Guardian put it: "To echo this newspaper's memorable comment on the death of William Randolph Hearst, it is hard even now to think of him with charity."

May you rot in hell, you evil son of a bitch.

[via]

La isla bonita

2008-07-03T11:17:00.004-04:00

Benjie, No Dice Joe, and I - and possibly Tits McGee - are going to Hawaii next month for 12 days. It's my first real vacation in several years, and goddamnit, I'm going to enjoy myself. (That means I've already vowed to delete my work email account from my iPhone before we go. Those bitches can fend for themselves for 12 days.)

Since I am the largest lady out of our group, and because I gained 6 lbs during my crazy months of travel in April, May, and June, I decided that desperate times call for desperate measures. So I hauled my fat ass over to Fitness Together - which, side note, is located next to a bakery...how cruel is that? - threw down my AMEX, and told them they had 2 months to whip me into shape.

They responded by charging me a lot of money and putting said fat ass on a diet and a 3x/week schedule.

I've been 4 times so far, and while I don't enjoy it, it's not awful. Plus I think they're all sort of amused by me.

Of course, that could be because I showed up on the Monday morning after Pride sporting two very noticeable hickeys.

Gay doctor of the year

2008-06-23T12:26:00.003-04:00

One of the things that I love about New York is the general attitude of its populace, particularly the younger set. And really what I mean by that is that most people I meet under the age of 35 work a wide range of jobs, but all have one thing in common: They love slacking off, being lazy, and drinking. A lot. And they work mostly to support their drinking.

Case in point: On Friday after work, I met Benjie for dinner and drinks at Vynl in Chelsea, and over the course of some terrible mojitos and some pretty good margaritas, he mentioned that he had been chatting online with some new guy.

"Yeah, he's Indian. He's a doctor."

"Oh, really? Cool."

"He's an intern or a resident or something. I don't remember. But he said he's the worst doctor ever."

"Ha! The ones you meet always say they're the worst at their jobs - like the worst waiter ever."

"No, really - he told me that he had to give a woman a gynecological exam and he put the speculum in her ass instead."

"Umm - no. No, he didn't."

"Yup. The woman was like, 'Uh, that's my asshole.'"

"Oh my GOD."

"I even asked him if he was lying, and he was like, 'No, I really did that.'"

It's a nice day for a white wedding

2008-06-19T18:56:00.004-04:00

College Friend Keebler's fiancee, Meg, was in the city today for a job interview, so I met her for lunch afterward at the Chelsea Grill in Hell's Kitchen.

During the course of catching up, she mentioned that she and Keebler had recently attended the wedding of one of our college housemates, a guy who now lives in Oregon. Although he and I were never close, just friendly, he and Keebler were very good friends - so much so that Keebler had been his best man.

I asked how the wedding was.

"It was very...them," she said, and sort of grinned at me. "Ceremony outside, reception outside in a tent - and very small, only about 50 people total."

I nodded.

"It was vegetarian," she continued. A beat, and then:

"And non-alcoholic."

I raised an eyebrow and met her eyes.

"Wow, you just described my personal hell," I said slowly as she dissolved into giggles at the expression on my face.

No press! No crease! Clean only!

2008-06-17T15:17:00.004-04:00

I bought a pair of these chinos (in white) a couple of weekends ago. I was in Boston all last week for the annual customer conference that I'm in charge of organizing, and our Thursday night activity was a Boston Harbor cruise aboard the Odyssey. And since I'm a slow-mosexual who loves a good theme, I decided to pair the white pants with a light blue polo, a summer sweater, and a seersucker blazer.

Needless to say, the bottoms of the white pants got a little dirty during the course of the evening. I dropped off a bunch of dry-cleaning a little while ago at place around the corner, and honestly? The husband and wife team who run it could not, for the life of them, understand what I wanted.

"Just clean these," I instructed as I pointed out the stains on the cuffs. "I don't want them pressed."

(They're light, casual summer pants. They're not supposed to be ironed.)

"No crease?" the wife asked, brow furrowed.

"No, I don't want them ironed at all. Please just clean them."

This is apparently akin to blasphemy in the incredibly complicated world of dry cleaning, as my request led to a heated conversation in Korean between husband and wife, both of whom were so confused.

Finally, the husband turned to me and asked me again if I wanted a crease.

"I want them wrinkled," I said. "No iron!"

"You like them wrinkled?" he asked. "You like wrinkled pants?"

"Just these," I nodded, and he shrugged in resignation.

Five bucks says I get them back ironed.

Facebook thinks I'm fat

2008-06-17T08:43:00.003-04:00

I'm going to write about last week's little trip to hell, but first I wanted to share something that greeted me in the left column when I logged into Facebook this morning.

Can you believe that shit? Facebook ads can just fuck right off.

Today's topic: Funny gays and hateful lesbians

2008-06-06T09:16:00.004-04:00

I was in Boston Monday through Wednesday this week, and Benjie left for a long weekend in LA this morning. On Sunday, I leave for Boston for another week and won't be back until Saturday afternoon...so last night was really the only time we had to hang out for another week.

I made dinner and we watched some good ol' reality TV, including this week's "Top Chef" and "So You Think You Can Dance," both of which are some of the best reality TV around.

This week's "Top Chef" infuriated me, though, and that's because of that hateful lesbian Lisa. The words Debbie Downer don't even begin to cover just how rotten she really is...as her fellow contestant Richard put it: "She's like a black cloud in the kitchen." Yeah, a black cloud of fucking bitch! At the end, after Antonia had been sent home and Richard and Stephanie were just sitting there trying to absorb it, Lisa actually confronted them because they hadn't fucking CONGRATULATED her for not being sent home - even though their friend had been. I would have hissed, "Congratulations, you fucking cunt," and stormed off, but those two are classier ladies than I am.

Speaking of classy ladies - how funny is Season 2 finalist Travis Wall on SYTYCD? The minute the cameras started following the mystery drag queen to the stage, I was suspicious - and when he climbed on stage and started dancing with the umbrella, I said to Benjie, "Is that TRAVIS?"

And sure enough, it was. And god, he's good. And so funny too. That's a boy who loves his drag - remember the MySpace photos that came out when he was a contestant of him in a dress?

Love him.

Happy Friday, all.

I'm gonna turn this thing around

2008-06-06T09:14:00.001-04:00

I'm trying. I just logged into Blogger, which is in and of itself quite the accomplishment for me. So cut me some slack.

I thought about it for a while and decided that I don't want to delete this thing, even though I know no one reads it...and why should they; it's not like I ever post anything.

But I'm going to really try this time.

The bitch is back

2008-05-03T18:31:00.011-04:00

Yes, I haven’t written in a month. But I’ve been busy, bitches. So busy. And here’s what I’ve been doing:

4 weeks ago:

- I went to Boston for a two-day, off-site sales meeting at which laptops, BlackBerries, iPhones, and general whispering were prohibited. Naturally, The Officemate and coworker Shannon and I were all sitting in the back row with open laptops and iPhones and whispered comments about everything, but mostly just making fun of everyone we work with and how super lame they are – including The Big Boss, AKA Miranda Priestly, who was wearing acid-washed jeans and, as Coworker Shannon pointed out, deserved to be mocked.

- The first night of the Sales meeting involved a team-bonding activity in which they bussed us to some appliance store, which not only sells ovens and refrigerators, but also puts on team cooking nights. I and the others were highly suspicious (you’re making me cook my goddamn dinner?), but they greeted us with aprons and an assortment of wine and appetizers, so I was slightly mollified. Then they divided us into half, and sent one half into a classroom where some old man lectured them about wine. The rest of us were then further divided into teams and assigned cooking stations, a chef, and recipes. The Officemate and I wound up on the same team, where we were instructed on how to quarter chickens. I was probably the best at it on my team, but then again, I’m a domestic little faggot and I’ve certainly carved a chicken or two in my time. (That sounds like a euphemism, doesn’t it?) But I wasn’t as good as Chef Steve, who could quarter a chicken in 35 seconds—we timed him.

- After my team finished, we moved into the wine education/tasting classroom, where there weren’t enough seats, so Coworker Shannon and Coworker None and I sat on a counter in the back. We were also three sheets to the wind at this point, so we sneaked in three bottles of wine so we could continue to drink. Yes, we felt the need to have a ready supply of wine AT THE WINE TASTING. And it’s a good thing we did, too, because the bitch doling out the wine sample fucking hated us for talking all through the session, so she skipped us every single fucking time. Can you believe that shit? And the old man teaching the class had no sense of humor and was as dry as a Mormon township, so he was no fun. One of the Executive Vice Presidents fell asleep, which was really funny, and since I was drunk, I of course felt the need to point this out to everyone. Eventually I grew tired of it all, faked a coughing attack, and fled out the back door. My smarter coworkers eventually followed suit.

- Then we skipped the dinner we had cooked in favor of more drinking.

- And went outside and took pictures of ourselves sitting on someone’s parked motorcycle.

- Followed by stealing bottles of wine from the store to bring with us on the bus ride back to the hotel.

- Where we invaded the hotel bar and two coworkers got into a fight that ended with one of them (a guy) in tears in the ladies’ room. Don’t ask.

- And then later that night, I totally had sexytimes with Coworker None.

3 weeks ago:

- I was in Orlando for a conference/tradeshow at the Hilton in the Walt Disney World Resort. Coworker Shannon and I met up at the airport, where she rented a truly awful Dodge Avenger that somehow managed, in two days, to need an oil change and have a flat tire. But the best part was that Shannon paid for a FastLane-type device to pay the tolls on the highways. Unfortunately, the car wasn’t equipped with that device, as we discovered when we zipped through the first toll and were met with a disapproving red light instead of a happy green one. However, since she had paid for the thing, she felt perfectly justified in going through the FastLanes anyway, so we took great delight in posing for the video cameras snapping pictures of us at each toll as we sped through illegally.

- The tradeshow itself was uneventful, but oh god, did we have fun at night. Some clients of ours were in attendance, so the sales people felt obliged to invite them to dinner with us at some fancy Italian place at the Swan. One of the guys on our team is very nice, but he’s the kind of guy that sometimes asks to be made of. Fortunately for us, he’s also the kind of person who, when you make fun of him to his face, actually lights up and LOVES IT. So when we assembled at the bar of this restaurant for cocktails and I threw down my AMEX, I began taking drink orders. Everyone ordered except for this guy, who begged off by saying (as he had the previous night) that he had promised his wife that he wouldn’t drink while he was away.

Now, if there’s one cardinal rule in Drew’s Guide to Life, it’s this: Thou does not refuse free drinks, particularly those on the company’s dime. So Shannon and I browbeat him a little bit, and he finally gave in. The order went something like this:

Drew: “What do you want to drink?”
Coworker J: “A vodka cran.”
Client A: “Gin martini, up, with a twist.”
Shannon: “Vodka martini, extra dirty.”
That Guy: “A martini, I guess.”
Drew: “Oh, thank god. What kind, vodka or gin?”
That Guy: “Sour apple.”
Drew: “Oh, for fuck’s sake…”
That Guy: “That’s what I want!”

- The real fun happened after dinner, when we headed to Pleasure Island, specifically 8Traxx, where Shannon and I discovered some troll woman wearing a neon security vest. We became obsessed with her and began stalking her around the club, chasing her up stairs while I snapped pictures with my iPhone. Finally we cornered her and she agreed to pose for pictures with us, and then she won our hearts by agreeing to let Shannon wear the Safety Patrol vest for a picture.

After that, we grew bored of the losers around us and departed for Mannequins, where the revolving stage quickly made us ill. By this point, it was down to Shannon, me, That Guy, and Client A, who was having a blast and was in it for the long haul. Shannon, to me: “I want jams. Let’s ditch them and go find jams.”

So we did, and found our way to the BET, where we were the only ones there aside from the bartender. That Guy texted me to find out where we were, so I broke down and told them (see, I’m not an entirely bad person), and they joined us. The club started to fill up by then, and we were having a great time dancing and doing shots. A while later, That Guy walked over to Shannon and me and said, “Okay, come on, let’s go.”

Outraged, we demanded, “What do you mean? We’re not ready to go!”

He sighed. “It’s 2am, you assholes, they just announced that the place is closed. Let’s go.”

But Shannon had spotted something that, in her drunkenness, looked to be the Holy Grail: an old-fashioned phone.

“I want that phone,” she said to me. “Let’s steal it.”

She ran over, grabbed it, and shoved the whole thing up her shirt. The receiver promptly fell out of her shirt, crashing to the floor and giving the impression that she had just given birth to a beige baby.

“I got it!” I yelled, and without hesitation, jammed the receiver down my pants.

“Now let’s just face each other,” she said, “And we’ll walk out of here and no one will notice.”

We shimmied over to the stairs, and we were about to take the first step, when some female security guard approached us.

“Excuse me,” she barked, “but what do you think you’re doing with that phone?”

We dissolved into laughter and surrendered the phone, but Shannon was a little more gracious about it than I was, since I reached into my pants and handed the phone to the woman by saying, “That was just against my penis. It’s probably still warm.”

And ran out of the club.

We then apparently posed for pictures with perfect strangers (neither of us remembered that until the following morning, when we checked the camera) and took angsty, emo-pictures of ourselves before climbing into the Avenger's backseat so That Guy could drive us back to his hotel.

Only problem: Shannon, Client A and I were all staying at a different hotel.

Resolution? Client A drove us back to our hotel in the Avenger while Shannon and I cuddled in the backseat and took pictures of ourselves.

When we got to the hotel, we somehow came up with the brilliant idea to have Client A take pictures of us both on top of, and behind, the deserted hotel bar – at 2:30 in the morning.

It was all going fine until some lumpy DoubleTree employee in a hideous jean skirt came clomping over and yelled, “Why are you opening the cabinets in the bar?”

I was so insulted that I gave her my best disgusted bitchface and said, really condescendingly, “We’re not opening ANYTHING. We’re just taking stupid pictures, and don’t worry, we’re going to bed now.”

And with that, we sprinted for the elevator.

Two weeks ago will come soon…

Things to ponder

2008-04-03T23:09:00.002-04:00

Who thinks that pairing a black shirt and black pants with light tan shoes is a good idea?

Honesty, who? Who would commit such a crime against fashion? And WHY?

(Aside from the manager of the New York Sports Club in my neighborhood, that is.)

I get so frustrated, I stay up every night

2008-03-24T12:03:00.003-04:00

I'm about to commence a busy 6 weeks and I'm really fucking dreading it. The last few weeks have already been busy, but the next few are about to get insane, and I honestly don't know if I'm up for it.

I'm going to Boston tomorrow morning for the week for some planning/strategy meetings (I'm getting headlights, yo!), and then I have exactly two weeks from today to completely rewrite all of our marketing collateral, presentations, proposal templates, and website content.

Then, in two weeks, it's off to Boston for another week for a sales & marketing summit, followed by:

- Orlando
- St. Petersburg
- Las Vegas
- San Francisco

The absolute worst part about traveling? How easy it is to skip working out and eat the crap food that's also so readily available - particularly when in Boston, where they have a seemingly endless supply of sandwiches, pizza, and soda on hand.

In the meantime, I have apparently expanded my job description to database administrator and have spent the last two days fighting to extract data from one system and get it into another, with no success.

This is why I drink, people. Because my job has consumed my life.

And because I actually dreamt last night about CSV files and APIs.

The latest in corporate mumbo-jumbo bullshit

2008-03-20T08:49:00.003-04:00

Headlights.

And no, it's not a euphimism for tits, although it would be awesome if half of my company were walking around saying that.

"Headlights" is an abbreviated way of conveying that you have to give someone advance notice on something. "A heads up," if you will.

Sample usage that I've heard this week:

1. "So we're slipping the 8.0 release to late June? We already promised the customer base that it would be end of May, so we'll have to give them headlights before then."

2. "Just give me some headlights on what you think the panel content will consist of."

3. "If we're rewriting all of the collateral prior to the April meeting, Drew's going to need headlights on the new product definition by Monday or we'll miss the date."

It kind of makes you die a little bit inside, doesn't it?

Bitches get stuff done

2008-03-14T08:50:00.006-04:00

While on a mission last night to procure this trench coat (the last one in all of New York, and it happened to be my size - medium!), I was flipping through this week's issue of Newsweek on the subway.

I know most people in my age range and social circle don't read it, but I always enjoy Newsweek. This week's issue features 13 essays by women, all about Hillary Clinton. And it's fascinating.

Like most, I saw the clip of Tina Fey's famous SNL declaration that "bitch is the new black." What really struck me last night, though, was seeing one of the aforementioned 13 writers quote it in her essay. Without Fey's delivery, and without the context of SNL, it actually comes off as really moving - and quite true:

FEY: Maybe what bothers me the most is that people say that Hillary is a bitch. Let me say something about that: yeah, she is. So am I, and so is this one. [Points to Amy Poehler]

POEHLER: Yeah, deal with it.

FEY: You know what, bitches get stuff done. That's why Catholic schools use nuns as teachers and not priests. Those nuns are mean old clams and they sleep on cots and they're allowed to hit you. And at the end of the school year you hated those bitches but you knew the capital of Vermont. So I'm saying it's not too late, Texas and Ohio, bitch is the new black!

The essay writer, Deidre Depke, asserts that when the media attacks Hillary (and they do; her positive press coverage from December to mid-February was 53% compared to Obama's 83%, according to a non-partisan analysis), it's women - particularly white and Latina women - who jump to her defense through their votes, saving her in New Hampshire, Ohio, and Texas. So, Depke says, unless the press wants to get Hillary elected, they better kill the sarcastic one-liners and the caustic sound bites, or the pissed off women of America are gonna make sure that come January 2009, HRC is the HBIC.

And hey, I'm fine with that. Most gay men I know - and even gay men whose blogs I read - are for Hillary. It's not so strange; everyone knows the gays love a strong woman. And I think Fey, for all her comedic posturing, is absolutely correct:

It's because bitches get stuff done.

Things that delight me

2008-03-12T08:30:00.003-04:00

To balance out yesterday's mini-rant, today I present...

Currently #3 on my List of Things That Delight Me:

This piece of gossip about Marc Jacobs Starfucker (and horribly tattooed Mariah Carey fan) Jason Preston.

Apparently he got the shit beat out of him in the street outside of Hiro on Sunday night after he defended some poor girl who was the accidental victim of a thrown drink intended for some guy.

1. I know it was the right thing for him to do, but in cases of such blatant attention whores, I always suspect an ulterior motive;

2. If you've ever seen this douche strut around a club like he's on a runway (while surreptitiously checking to see if anyone's noticed him), you'd agree that he sort of had it coming;

3. I know what Benjie would say: Ugh, just what we need, another crying straight girl at a gay club. Why was she even there?

Currently #4 on my list of things that piss me off

2008-03-11T11:07:00.003-04:00

Today's pet peeve:

People who don't understand the difference between "EST" and "EDT," so they use "EST" all year round because they think it stands for "EaSTern time."

Or something stupid like that.

Eastern Standard Time and Eastern Daylight Time. Daylight Saving Time began last weekend, so it's now EDT.

Why is this difficult?

On a related note: Daylight SAVING Time. Not SAVINGS. It ain't a bank, people.

God, I can't wait til I start writing my cranky old man letters to the editor.

'cause you asked for it, 'cause you need one

2008-03-07T20:36:00.004-05:00

I'm back from yet another crazy week of meetings and insanity in Boston, and it's Friday night and I'm still working in a vain attempt to "catch up," but all I can think about is this song, which has invaded my brain unlike any other song in recent memory.

I've been humming the damn thing since Monday, so I finally downloaded it today in an effort to GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD.

Like a faucet

2008-02-28T18:52:00.003-05:00

Why is it that whenever I fly, no matter how much Airborne I take, I get sick? What kind of diseased motherfuckers are on these planes, anyway?

My flight back from San Antonio landed at Newark at 11am this morning, and I spent the whole time sitting there dripping snot and looking sexy.

That's right, you know you want it.

Potpourri and a love letter to New York

2008-02-26T00:21:00.004-05:00

First: An interesting NY Times article on the state of Britney's financial affairs. (Use BugMeNot to avoid registering.)

Second: Traveling to other cities only reinforces my love for New York. This afternoon in San Antonio, I walked into a UPS store and asked if they carried extension cords.

"No, just some really overpriced power strips," the girl behind the counter replied. "I'd send you to Walgreen's but they're closed now. Actually, I can't think of any store downtown that would carry extension cords. Maybe CVS?"

Walgreens. Closed. At 4:30pm on a Monday. In downtown San Antonio.

Words fail me.

This is how we do it

2008-02-24T21:32:00.003-05:00

I basically worked all day yesterday (and part of today) because I'm fucking certifiable and I sold my soul a long time ago. And tomorrow morning, I'm on a 7:15am flight to San Antonio and won't be back until Thursday afternoon.

So how am I making myself feel better? Let me count the ways:

1. Going out last night for mojitos, followed by a night of booze, boys, and dancing at the Ritz until 4:30am.

2. Having the laziest Sunday ever, composed of pulling on clothes to go to brunch (sans shower), video game shopping, and excessive amounts of beer, cheese, crackers, and sausage for dinner.

3. And then there's dessert: wine and Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs. King-sized, of course.

Benjie and I, we're classy ladies like that.

But oh lord, this lady is going to be surfing the crimson wave when I have to wake up at 3:45am to catch that flight. They'd better hope to god there's a Starbucks or a Dunkin' Donuts at Newark Liberty or there will be blood.

Stupid dirty hippies

2008-02-22T10:44:00.004-05:00

I spent yesterday at an all-day conference in Manhattan for work. A few colleagues flew in from Boston to join me, including my awesome second work wife, Shannon. We split up to attend the first session, and after 10 minutes, my iPhone buzzed.

Email from Shannon:
Aaarggh this is so painful

I sent back:
I am in fucking hippie central

Shannon:
Ditch your session and let's meet for more coffee

And that's why I love her. (She's also a fucking drunk, which rocks, and if I were straight, I'd marry her in a heartbeat.)

But really, you should have seen the people there. A large portion of them worked for nonprofits, so I guess they don't get paid very well, but I don't think that's an excuse for any of the following:

- Bad shoes
- Mustaches (on women!)
- Unplucked eyebrows
-Wearing mixed shades of brown and black, all ugly
- Body odor
- Flood pants

I passed the time by giving everyone mental makeovers. The only time I was jolted awake was when a girl trying to explain online petitions pointed to my shoes and said, "It would be like if we created a petition to get this guy to change his shoes."

I looked at her, looked down at my shoes, and looked back at her before saying, "Uh, you've got to be joking, right?"

Out of all the bad shoes at this conference, sweetheart, don't you fucking dare point me out.

I will cut you.

I'm already torn

2008-02-20T08:17:00.004-05:00

I don't know how I feel about this or the entire Democratic nomination process in general. I like Obama for his enthusiasm, his optimism, and his charisma - all good qualities in a president. And I like Clinton for her intelligence, dogged determinism, and - let's face it - her Miranda Priestley-like qualities.

But on the flip side, I think Obama doesn't have the experience, and I think Clinton's abrasive personality alienates too many people.

So I don't know how I feel about this...I tend to lean toward Clinton, but I won't be heartbroken if Obama wins the nomination, either. Is that weird? Do others feel this way?

Hey, I'm still mourning John Edwards's aborted candidacy. He was my guy.

Like a goddamn cave woman

2008-02-19T09:10:00.003-05:00

Favorite part of the weekend:

The Ritz on Saturday night, when I got really drunk and, when beckoned to by some big black guy and his lady friend, went and "talked" to them. And by "talked," I mean I stood there smirking while he stuck his hands in my pants and whispered in my ear that he wanted to lick me from head to toe.

That is, until Benjie decided he wanted to go home - and walked over and dragged me away by the hair.

Good times.

Where it's at

2008-02-19T08:58:00.004-05:00

So it's pretty obvious that the blogging thing isn't working for me. Work has been consistently kicking my ass since, oh, last August, and it shows no signs of decreasing - if anything, it's about to increase. A lot. And right now I'm trying to figure out how I can be in both Boston and San Antonio on Monday. I think I need a clone.

Since the blogging thing isn't working, at least in its traditional form, I think I'm going to start microblogging instead. And for those of you who don't work for companies that revel in all forms of social media retardedness, microblogging is what you do whenever you update your Facebook or MySpace status to say little gems like, "Drew is hungover. So it's a typical Sunday morning."

I'm not going to use Twitter or Jaiku or Pownce or any of the other sites that specialize in it. And I'm not going to confine myself to 200 characters. I may still post a longer diatribe when I feel like it, but right now, this is where I'm going.

I can't waste time so give it a moment

2008-02-04T07:51:00.000-05:00

Okay, so it's the usual story - I haven't updated in forever because I was slammed with work, and then when I was free, I was really sick of sitting in front of my laptop typing.

So let's do a quick recap of what's happened:

- Britney done went fully crazy and got herself locked in the nut ward for 2 weeks
- I went to Boston for a few days and stayed in a hideous hotel room (that's a post that's coming, I swear)
- The 2 hour meeting that I went to Boston for turned into a 3 hour meeting in which New Boss did all the talking and went through 3 slide presentations
- Benjie and I saw Kathy Griffin perform at Madison Square Garden
- And then went out drinking, where we were getting free drinks...until he punched the bartender. (Well...there were extenuating circumstances, but I like leaving it this way for dramatic effect.)
- I turned 31 and sat in the dark in a corner of my room all day, rocking back and forth and sobbing
- I had jury duty at the NY Supreme Court in downtown Brooklyn (always a treat)
- And now I'm in Atlanta at a work conference until Wednesday night, and I spent last night sitting in a Hooters, drinking beer, watching the Super Bowl, rating the waitresses in terms of attractiveness, and almost getting into a fight with the asshole in back of me.

Is this what the south does to you? I think I'm almost straight now.

Well, except for the fact that my assessment of the Hooters girls was as follows: "Trashy. Tranny. Trashy. STDs."

Maybe not so straight.

*Oh, and one final item, related to the post title - I also managed to get this song stuck in my head for about 2 weeks, courtesy of Benjie downloading a great remix of it. So now I'm constantly wandering around, muttering to myself, "No matter what they say about love...I keep coming back for more..."

Gaah.

Aw, Heath Ledger...

2008-01-23T08:34:00.000-05:00

Saw this last night on a restaurant's sidewalk specials board on Fifth Ave. in Brooklyn:

Brooklyn reflects on the loss of a very talented actor and friend.

Our hearts go out to his family and friends.

May the light always find you on a dreary day.

Wasn't that nice?

I'm all class

2008-01-14T14:48:00.000-05:00

My work holiday party (which is always held in January) was Friday night in Boston. It was quite the event, and I'll try to post more later about it because it was really, really fucking funny.

However, I'm slammed right now with work, so you'll all just have to deal with this graphic representation of my night.

I think it nicely sums up the evening for me.

(By the way, I have no clue who the champagne hog is - which probably explains the look on my face.)

Crash and burn

2008-01-09T13:06:00.000-05:00

Saturday night, about 10:45pm. I’m sitting alone at the bar at XES in Chelsea, killing time until I meet up with Keebler and his girlfriend. I’m sipping a vodka martini and watching the finale of the most recent “Top Model” cycle on the plasma over the bar. It’s busy, but not overly so, and I’ve already scanned the bar for anything interesting. There’s a black guy in a blazer standing a few feet away who I think is cute, but he’s completely engaged in talking to another guy and some girl. He’s telling them a story; he keeps laughing and moving his arms around. I like his watch.

Two thuggy-looking guys walk up to the bar next to me and try to get the bartender’s attention. As they wait, the shorter one (he looks like a cute version of Nelly) surveys the bar.

“Look, they have all this wood paneling and the expensive drinks, but this place is definitely a dive,” he says, and I have to agree with him.

His friend (boyfriend, maybe? I can’t tell) nods absently; he’s watching Top Model on the TV as well. Nelly notices this, and when he asks the friend what it is, I smirk a little bit.

The friend says only, “It’s Tyra,” and this seems to satisfy Nelly. Just then, the blonde (Chantal?) trips one of the performers on the catwalk and freezes, horrified. I’ve seen it before, but I still snort a little bit, and Nelly does too. He’s hooked, I can already tell.

The two guys get their drinks and move away, and a few minutes later, I see them kissing, so my suspicions are confirmed…they’re more than friends. I go back to watching Tyra and company.

A minute later, someone walks over to the empty stool next to me and says, “Can I sit here?”

I glance up, wary, and see that he’s probably late thirties, not very cute, not very great skin.

“Yeah, sure,” I say, waving my arm at the stool, and I go back to watching Tyra.

“I’m Doug,” the guys says to me.

“Hi, Doug,” I say in return. I don’t offer my name. I’m not going to make this easy for him.

He gives in and asks me for my name, and even as I say it, I know what’s next – he’s going to make me repeat it. They always do, and this one is no exception.

I sip my vodka martini and check my phone again. Keebler told me he’d call when they were out of their cooking class, but so far, nothing.

Doug speaks. “Are you having a good time tonight?”

I smile slightly. “Oh…okay, I guess.” And then, to prevent further questioning, I say, “I’m actually just killing time – some friends of mine are a block away; I’m meeting them at 11 and I was early, so I decided to duck in here for a drink.”

As I say this, I check my phone again. It’s 10:56pm, and I tilt the phone slightly toward Doug so he can see the display.

“So what are you drinking?” he asks.

“Vodka martini, twist,” I reply. I’m still watching Tyra.

“What kind of vodka?” he asks, and I’m not sure whether he wants to order one for himself (he doesn’t have a drink) or buy me one. I don’t want to be rude (well, any more so than I’ve already been), so I tell him, “Ketel One.”

He nods and doesn’t say anything else. Just then, my phone rings. It’s Keebler, and he tells me that they’re out of cooking class and are a block and a half away. As he’s talking, I hear Doug order my same drink and I know that he’s buying me another one.

I hang up with Keebler, finish the last of my drink, and grab my umbrella and coat. “Nice to meet you, Doug,” I say.

He looks startled. “I just ordered you another drink.”

Ugh. “Well, as I said, I’m meeting my friends at 11, and that was them just now on the phone, so I have to go.”

“Better put the ixnay on that drink,” I say as I pull on my coat, and he looks disgusted.

I smile as I walk over to 6th Ave and see Keebler and his girlfriend. “You just saved my life,” I say, and they’re amused as I tell them the story. Gay socializing is a mystery to them, but I can’t imagine that this scenario doesn’t happen in bars all over, regardless of sexuality.

Every bar always has a Doug, doesn't it?

And you know, it's Friday too

2008-01-04T16:24:00.000-05:00

Benjie and I have 9:45pm reservations tonight at Nobu, courtesy of my employer. It's a combination of a reward for my hard work during our company launch and a holiday present from New Boss.

She started off by asking me what my favorite restaurant was, but she quickly changed her mind and brought up Nobu. When I confirmed that I hadn't been but always wanted to go, she sent the following email:

I highly recommend it. You should go there. The sauces are amazing!
Make sure you try at least 5 or 6 dishes. Take the server’s recommendations. Don’t just order sushi. Get a mix of cold and hot dishes.

Order the pineapple martini. It’s the perfect accompaniment to the food.

Take a really good friend, and have a great time.

Send me the bill.

As you can see, she's not a control freak at all...heh.

Afterwards, we're meeting up with No Dice Joe and a few others for a big gay night out - hopefully there will be stories.

And I cannot wait another year

2008-01-03T09:29:00.000-05:00

I always thought January 2nd was the most depressing day of the year. The holidays are over, I feel bloated and gross from drinking too much every day, not going to the gym consistently, and shoveling all kinds of wonderful, terrible foods into my maw for the last two weeks; the days are short and cold, it's back to work, and the only thing I have to look forward to is the acknowledgement in a few weeks that I'm now another year older.

Perfect.

Then I woke up this morning on my first official day back to work (I took yesterday off; I needed the extra day to brace myself for the onslaught) and discovered that January 3rd was really going to be the bitch, because it was 10 degrees outside. And now, a few hours later, it's a whopping 14.

Oh, and I gained 4 lbs over the holidays.

But all whining aside, I think 2008 is going to be a good year. Maybe even a great year. I don't know why this is; it might be something as simple as the fact that it's an even year. (I highly doubt that it has anything to do with the fact that I turn - shudder - 31 in a few weeks.) There's good stuff in the works, though: I'm working on being more financially responsible. I've been thinking more and more about writing a book. I've settled into an acceptable rhythm at work, but I'm becoming increasingly drawn to the idea of leaving my company and ditching this nuthouse, though I know in my heart that I'll only be trading one form of crazy for another.

Just like I do every year, I drew up a set of New Year's resolutions. They include everything from the staggeringly cliched (cut back on drinking, drop 15 lbs, and hit the gym more regularly) to the mindnumbing minutiae of everyday life (get new glasses; go for a physical; cancel the MasterCard that I never use).

The one thing I didn't mention was love. I'm certainly not giving up on the idea, but I think I'm finally beginning to realize that it just might not be in the cards for me, at least not now, and that's okay. While the romantic side of me likes to think that there really is a lid for every pot, the jaded realist is quietly pointing out that there are people all over the world who never find love.

Bad Robot posted something recently that I thought was really great and insightful; he was talking to his mom and she said...well, I'll just quote it directly instead of trying to paraphrase poorly:

One thing my mom said to me the other night, as I was talking with her about
some of the stuff going on in my life, was about how people perceive you (or,
me, in this case). And she pointed out how valuable it is to just be a strong,
healthy person, as often what people are looking for is not so much what you
give them, but what you can be for them. And if I am a strong, healthy person,
that makes me reliable and dependable and desirable to be with and around. I
think I've focused so much on what I wanted or needed or what I could
specifically give or provide to others that I overlooked the ephemeral nature of
all those things.

I think that's perfect. And a great way to put 2008 resolutions in perspective.

Happy New Year, all.

Putting up reindeer, singing songs of joy and peace

2007-12-29T20:45:00.001-05:00

Oh, Christmas. You’re over for yet another year, and as much as it pains me to say so, I’m happy.

I wasn’t very into the whole holiday spirit this year and I’m not sure why. About a week before Christmas, I realized that I had purchased one present – ONE – and that I really needed to get my ass in gear. I never wanted to be one of those adults who bitch and moan about how much they hate Christmas, and since it was apparent that I was on the fast track to getting there, I decided to make the effort to de-grinch.

I started by putting up the little artificial tree that my grandparents gave me years ago, which they themselves purchased in the early 1970s. It’s an interesting combination of tacky and sad, but I sort of like it.

On Sunday, Benjie and I headed back to Rhode Island for the holiday, this time via the wonderful cheapness of a Metro North train to New Haven, where his parents were kind enough to pick us up. Total cost: $14, versus approximately $160 for Amtrak. Aw yeah. We’re cheap like that.

I think I’ve mentioned before that on Christmas Eve, my family always goes to Mass and then has dinner at my grandmother’s house, where my mom’s aunt and cousin join us. Over the summer, though, we moved my grandmother into an apartment in one of those housing-for-the-elderly type places. It’s not assisted living; my sister and I have instead taken to calling it “college for old people.” And it really is like a dorm – she’s on the second floor, and she’s friends with everyone around her, and they all get together and hang out in each other’s apartments and drink wine and play cards or bingo or whatever and take bus trips to Foxwoods. So basically, she’s having a blast, and my parents no longer have to worry about her living alone and navigating stairs to do laundry in the basement.

ANYWAY. More about that later. My point is, we decided to continue the tradition of having Christmas Eve dinner in her tiny apartment instead of making the 30+ minute commute back to my parents’ house in deepest, darkest southern Rhode Island.

Unlike last Christmas, my sister was home for the holidays. I haven’t seen her in a while, since her previous nursing assignment was in North Carolina and her current gig is in Ohio. And while she’s still the same peach that she always is (eye roll), I discovered that she’s really off her fucking rocker in terms of her food issues.

She’s by no means fat (I think she’s 5’2” and maybe 115 lbs?), but she’s always been a bit fucked in the head in terms of what she likes and what she allows herself to eat. So while she’ll bitch at my mom about what’s for dinner, refuse to eat it, and steam herself some chicken and veggies while predicting heart attacks for the rest of us, she’s also the one who will stand at the island in the kitchen and eat directly out of the half-gallon of Edie’s Slow-Churned ice cream while insisting that it’s low-fat and low-calorie and doesn’t count.

Yeah. Sure.

This time, though, she was over the top. She was being a pain in the ass anyway on Christmas Eve (she spent the entire car ride to church worrying about whether her knee-high black leather fuck-me boots made her look like a whore), but when we were at my grandmother’s, she turned into a little food nazi. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast that morning and was starving, so I immediately attacked the deviled eggs and the potato chips and dip (yeah, we’re all classy like that). Sister Dearest eyed me and said snottily, “Hmm…it’s pretty funny that you can eat like that and not gain weight.”

I rolled my eyes, said something about not eating since breakfast, and basically ignored her. That’s when she said something about the pasta salad I made…she asked me not to add dressing to it until she had taken some.

I don’t know why I didn’t just let her have her way, but we all know that I can be a fucking bitch too, and I was sick of listening to her. So rather than make her happy, I upended half a bottle of Robusto Italian Dressing over the pasta, and I am not exaggerating when I tell you that she SHRIEKED.

Essentially, she pitched a hissyfit, and my father? Does not take kindly to her hissyfits.

“For Christ's sake, just eat it and then go throw it up!” he yelled at her, and I immediately began to guffaw while my mom smacked him and protested loudly that bulimia is the LAST thing Kara needs, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, and that he should just be quiet.

I’ll end the Kara Food Chronicles by noting that on Christmas morning, she decided to bake box brownies, and rather than adding the standard egg, oil, and water that they call for, she instead substituted Diet Coke. And while god knows that I love my Diet Coke, I’d rather it wasn’t an ingredient in brownies.

They crumbled to pieces when she tried to cut them, and I think she ended up eating them directly out of the pan. But it was okay, because they were made with Diet Coke.

* * * *

So – back to Christmas Eve and my grandmother’s apartment. As I said, when she moved in over the summer, she met a bunch of people, some of whom she knew years and years ago, when she was in high school. (She’s lived in the same town her entire life.)

One of the people she met is a guy named Bob, who has been extremely friendly and helpful. Bob built her a new table, shampooed her living room rug, installed new floor tiles in her entryway, and has accompanied my grandmother on several trips to the casino.

When my mom got wind of this, she decided to gently tease my grandmother and asked her what was going on with Bob.

My grandmother, horrified at the idea that someone might think she was even looking at another man and therefore defiling my grandfather’s memory and their 50+ years of marriage, admitted (rather uncomfortably), “It’s not like that. Bob…is gay.”

My mother burst into laughter, and when she relayed the story to me, we both laughed together at the idea that my grandmother – the woman who makes disgusted noises and faces when she watches two men kiss on “Brothers & Sisters” – is, at age 80, a fag hag.

Bob baked a pie for my grandma on Christmas Eve and stopped by to drop it off, so we naturally begged him to join us. He was in his “baking clothes” and was rather uncomfortable, so he agreed to stay only for a drink.

He did bring his cute little Lhasa apso along with him, though, and we all laughed as she dragged her toy along with her and begged for food from all of us.

“What’s her name?” someone asked, and I paused in taking a sip of wine to hear the answer.

“Halle Berry,” came Bob’s reply, and I wanted to die laughing.

Best Christmas Eve ever.

* * * *

A few random pics of my Christmas, including the obligatory Remy shot…

In fact, it's cold as hell

2007-12-25T23:24:00.001-05:00

This is 1/3 of a combination thermometer/barometer/humidity display (what's the -meter word for "humidity"?) that my parents have hanging in the kitchen.

As you can see, it was a balmy 62 degrees in their house for the Christmas holiday. Except on Christmas morning, when it rose to 65 after the oven had been on.

I cannot wait to return to New York and my sub-tropic apartment.

Proper Christmas update coming soon.

And so this is Christmas

2007-12-20T22:50:00.000-05:00

A box arrived for me the other day, all wrapped up in holiday cheer and bearing a FedEx label indicating it came from my company's corporate headquarters.

I was a little excited, I admit it. I was hoping for wine, or maybe some sort of gift basket. At the very least, some company swag.

Inside, I found the following:

- A candycane lollipop
- 4 mini candycanes (all crushed)
- A jar of honey from Trader Joe's (long story, but it relates to the company's logo)
- A pack of hot cocoa
- Two paper bees
- A bunch of fake tattoos of the company logo
- A signed holiday card from our two CEOs

I mean, I like my company and all, and they do a lot of stuff that they don't have to do (um...iPhone for Drew, anyone?), like gift cards and free lunches and dinners and drinks and stuff.

But I don't know. I guess I just thought that since we weren't getting bonuses (...again), I'd get something a little more...useful? Valuable?

I was IMing this to Zander the other night and he started laughing halfway through the list, saying, "stop! you're killing me!"

Trust me, it's killing me, too.

Christmas just came a week early

2007-12-18T22:56:00.000-05:00

Typically I don't post that often due to a lethal combination of laziness and a lack of updates, but I'm in the slightly unusual position right now of actually having TOO MUCH to write about. It's mind-boggling.

I mean, do I post about my trip to Boston last week where I got snowed in at my hotel and proceeded to get shitfaced with The Officemate and drank for 7 hours in the hotel bar? An update on the Match.com date I went on? My really shitty Christmas present from my company? The many different ways my boss pissed me off today, to the point where I was yelling at her emails in Outlook, "You fucking bitch"?

No. A thousand times No.

What I will post about is this:

Britney's sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, is knocked up. At the tender age of 16.

Merry Christmas, y'all.

I can’t say that I’m not lost and at fault

2007-12-11T00:38:00.000-05:00

I joined match.com a few weeks ago, mostly because I sit alone in this goddamned apartment all day and therefore never meet anyone, and also because I haven’t gotten laid in three months and am climbing the walls. (And really, I know I should just go on gay.com and find someone to fuck, but some weird, fucked up part of my psyche won’t let me do it just yet. Like I feel the need to prove to myself that someone would actually want to date me.)

So I was perusing match.com one night and stumbled across the profile of a guy whom I found really, really attractive – so attractive that, on an impulse, I actually paid the money to create an account so I could email him. With a bottle of wine by my side, I drafted a profile that I thought was honest yet funny and guaranteed to win his hot-boy love.

He never replied, of course (and really, color me shocked), so I decided to poke around and see if there were any other guys online I found attractive. And there were a few, and I emailed some of them and then, learning the match.com protocol, winked at others. (Ugh, it’s all so gay, isn’t it? And not in the good sense of the word.)

Along the way, I received some emails and some winks as well, but never from anyone whom I was interested in. It’s like, well, thanks, 50 year-old daddy from New Jersey, but I’m going to pass. And same thing for you, 31 year-old whose entire profile is filled with New Age bullshit. Or you, 30 year-old who is straight-acting, doesn’t have gay friends, and can’t stand femme guys at all. Take your gender issues and your internalized homophobia and keep moving.

That brings me to another point, actually. You cannot believe – cannot FATHOM – how many of the gay guys on match.com say that they want to have kids someday, and then go on to specify how many they want to have. What the fuck is up with that?

I made sure to include two salient points in my profile: I drink regularly, and I don’t want children. I like them just as much as the next guy, I guess, but god knows I don’t want any.

This is probably why not one of the guys in whom I’ve indicated interest has responded.

I went out on my first match.com date on Friday night. It went surprisingly well, but I’m sort of conflicted anyway. I tend to overanalyze everything, and after a single date, I have this really fucked up habit of moving into “fuck or flight” mode, wherein I think I should sleep with them (if I didn’t already), marry them, or just ditch them altogether. It’s like it’s physically and mentally impossible for me to just date someone like a normal person.

Some shrink is going to make a lot of money off of me someday.

Morning laugh

2007-11-30T09:04:00.000-05:00

How Could You Not Love This Town?

Cashier: How are you?
Customer: Do you want the honest answer?
Cashier: Yes.
Customer: I feel like the business end of a donkey. I am extremely hungover and did a mountain of cocaine last night. Now I have to make dinner for a 68-year-old gay artist who is trying to fuck me.
Cashier: I'm... sorry.
Customer: And the woman I love is in another state pregnant with her ex-boyfriend's baby, and I wish the baby was mine. And I'm sleeping with a dominatrix. And it's all true.

--Whole Foods

via Overheard in New York, Nov 29, 2007

My super ex-Super

2007-11-27T22:27:00.000-05:00

Something wonderful and joyous has happened, something that made me truly appreciate the meaning of Thanksgiving:

The building super moved.

Yup, the stupid bitch and her pit bulls and her husband who constantly yelled in Spanish in his crazy gruff voice are gone, departed for greener pastures. No more listening to her two (male) pit bulls humping each other and whining at all hours, followed by some neighbor screaming, “Shut those fucking dogs up!” No more calling 911 on her stupid ass (grand total: 3 times in two years). No more listening to her and her husband having screaming matches early in the morning and late at night. And no more listening to her annoying fucking Nextel beeps as she talked to all her friends.

To celebrate her departure, I’ll share a story about her that I should have blogged a long time ago, when it first happened, but hello, I’m lazy and The Worst Blogger In The World.

I should probably just write this all out, but instead I’ll supply the original IM conversation I had with Zander about it. It’ll help you to fully understand why Benjie and I are so happy that the bitch is gone.

Drew (11:08:36 PM): omg, do you want to hear the crazy story of the trashbags who live in my building?
Zander (11:08:39 PM): haha
Zander (11:08:39 PM): sure
Drew (11:08:48 PM): this is a blog post in the making, but it's so wonderful that I have to share
Zander (11:09:16 PM): haha okay
Drew (11:09:18 PM): okay, so you may have read before on my blog how I complained about our trashy, stupid super
Drew (11:09:37 PM): she was being really, really loud over the last two days
Drew (11:09:49 PM): and being strangely diligent
Zander (11:09:57 PM): ha ok
Drew (11:10:12 PM): she cleaned up all the trash and recycle, swept up the trash outside our stoop, washed down the hallways, etc.
Drew (11:10:39 PM): and then today, she gets into a screaming match with the woman who lives next door to me (she and this woman are usually friends, so it was weird)
Drew (11:11:01 PM): well, after they scream at each other for a while in Spanish, they switch to English
Zander (11:11:14 PM): weird
Drew (11:11:21 PM): and it turns about that our super is pissed off because her friend - Sol - called the landlord
Drew (11:11:24 PM): why, you may ask?
Drew (11:11:40 PM): well, because the basement on Sol's side of the building has fucking RATS in it
Drew (11:11:56 PM): and Sol thinks it's because the super let her friend store some stuff in there
Drew (11:12:12 PM): so the super flips out because her bud ratted (hee!) her out to the landlord
Zander (11:12:23 PM): omg...will ignore that pun
Drew (11:13:05 PM): Ha, you love it!...so they're going back and forth, and the super’s basic argument is that she's the super and she can do what she wants in the building
Drew (11:13:31 PM): cut to a few hours later, when her husband, this blatino man with dreds down to his ass, comes home
Drew (11:13:39 PM): and all of Sol's various relatives show up
Drew (11:14:05 PM): one thing leads to another, and all of a sudden there's a group of Mexicans gathered outside our building screaming at each other
Drew (11:14:19 PM): The super storms back in, grabs a fucking BAT, and goes back out
Zander (11:14:26 PM): holy shit
Drew (11:14:40 PM): meanwhile, I'm sitting here working and just sort of like, "Wow, I live in such a trashy building"
Drew (11:14:55 PM): then they all move to our courtyard - directly under my bedroom window
Drew (11:15:34 PM): The super’s husband is yelling up at Sol's family (they live next door to me) in their window, the super is screaming and cursing in Spanish, and all I can hear is, "Come down here, you fucking pussies!"
Drew (11:15:46 PM): that's when someone starts throwing fucking CORONA BOTTLES at them
Drew (11:15:58 PM): so there's glass bottles being thrown right outside my window
Drew (11:16:14 PM): I start laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation and call 911
Zander (11:16:29 PM): i can't believe this
Drew (11:16:35 PM): (which is the THIRD time I've called 911 on the super in 2 years)
Zander (11:16:39 PM): HA
Drew (11:17:16 PM): the cops come, and the super is standing there with a bat, one of Sol's relatives has a fucking KNIFE, and you can't hear a damn thing over all the Spanish
Drew (11:17:29 PM): it was like West Side Story over here
Drew (11:17:59 PM): 12 cops and some detectives come, and to skip to the ending, the super and her husband are led away in handcuffs at 5pm
Drew (11:18:03 PM): which is just AWESOME
Zander (11:18:08 PM): hahahaha
Drew (11:18:17 PM): it's now 11pm and the bitch just got home
Zander (11:18:16 PM): that is insane...
Drew (11:18:27 PM): and she's been cursing up a storm ever since
Drew (11:18:48 PM): i want to call 311 on her and have the cops come back
Drew (11:19:26 PM): now some friend of hers is standing under my window yelling at Sol's window, "Pussy!"
Drew (11:19:37 PM): god, I love this city

Since this didn't happen that long ago (six weeks?), I'm assuming the building management fired her trashy ass and that's why she had to move.

*Tear*

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, sweetheart.

Cor te reducit

2007-11-25T00:29:00.000-05:00

There are many reasons why I don’t really relish going home to Rhode Island (it’s boring, my parents’ house is isolated, and my mother keeps the house so goddamned cold it’s ridiculous), but there is one pro that I can never ignore:

I feel really cute there.

Backstory: Benjie and I rolled into town via the grace of Amtrak on Wednesday afternoon, powered by our self-made mimosas, two bottles of red wine, and three hours of making fun of everyone around us and scoping out the guys on the train we found attractive. We saw our respective families (my mother, after I got into the car at the train station: “Have you been drinking? Because I can smell it on you”) and then met up later that night for drinks at Paragon – which, like the rest of Providence’s East Side, was deserted due to the absence of all the Brown, RISD, and PC kids – and then went downtown to the delightfully trashy Mirabar. It was incredibly packed with fags and hags alike, both locals and those just visiting, like us. The line for the door extended all the way down the sidewalk, so Benjie and I had to wait for about a half hour to get in. We used the time well: We judged everyone around us and decided that we were too old for this shit (Drew) and we were much better dressed than everyone else, too (Benjie).

(I know this isn’t the point of my story, but it’s going to take me a while to get there, so sit tight.)

We got inside the club and immediately ran into D-Rock, who was reaaaallly shitfaced, and then a while later, we ran into Merc, who was drunk and also completely whacked out on some illegal substance. The kid was moving like a psychotic robot. I really don’t even know how to describe it, but when he wandered away to find his new love interest, I turned to Benjie and said, “I’m actually kind of afraid of him right now.” We got over it, though, when the fire alarm began to shriek.

That’s probably not a big deal for most of you, but when you combine the Mirabar locale (a disgusting old firetrap of a building that’s practically falling down) with hundreds of people packed into it, add in the fact that we were all the way up on the third floor, and then take into account the Station nightclub fire, which was in Rhode Island…well, it was slightly worrisome for a few minutes, but we figured it was probably the fire marshal kicking everyone out due to overcrowding.

Turns out we were right – it was around 1:30 AM when we got down the stairs and out into the street, only to find our unbelievably dumb fellow patrons standing in the street and waiting to be let back into the club. Which was due to close at 2 AM anyway, so really, what’s the fucking point?

“Let’s just walk over to the Dark Lady,” Benjie suggested, and Merc agreed, so we walked over a block and found that the Lady was hopping. We got beers and ran into some guys I used to know when I went out in RI. Merc was playing the little hostess, yelling to them, “Look! It’s Drew! He’s back!” One of them, Mike, lit up when he saw me and touched my hair, exclaiming over it, and then told me how good I looked while touching my biceps and yanking up my t-shirt to look at the tattoo on my arm (which actually really annoys me, but whatever).

Merc’s love interest – who, as I mentioned was completely shitfaced and stoned as well – flat out told me that I was his new friend and that he wanted to sleep with me, but I don’t think Merc heard him, thank god. Merc then told me that B-rad was upset that he couldn’t see me. And then on the way home, my phone rang – a call from D-Rock’s phone. I answered and some guy who had been out with D-Rock (who I don’t know) greeted me with, “Drew, how big is your dick? How big is it? I think you should stick it in me. You sound really cute on the phone.”

Yeah. I don’t know, either.

So Benjie and I also went out on Friday night, and as we’re once again standing at the bar on Mirabar’s third floor, I notice that the two older guys sitting off to my left are talking about me. I sort of catch the eye of one of them to let him know that I’m aware of what’s going on, and he grins sheepishly and says to me, “Yeah, we’re talking about you. You’re gorgeous.”

I smile warily and say thank you, expecting to move on, but he continues, “You could be a model, you know.”

His friend pipes up, “I work for a company that handles male models. Unfortunately, you need to be six feet tall to be a model” [and a lot more in shape, I add mentally], “but your face? Is perfect.”

I smile again and thank them before rejoining Benjie at the bar, and the whole time, I’m reflecting on what strange alternate universe I’ve fallen into.

And really, the point of this post isn’t to brag about how a few people apparently find me attractive. Quite the opposite, in fact.

You see, in New York, I’ve pretty much become accustomed to being overlooked, particularly when I’m with Benjie. I’m very, very good at noticing the reactions of people around me – at watching where their eyes go, their body language, etc. And most of the time, their eyes glide right over me and immediately lock onto him when we’re out. Sure, it’s annoying, but I’ve had two years to get used to it. I guess that’s why it’s weird to come back and find that some people have no problem with being vocal about the fact that they find me attractive.

And that, Rhode Island, is partly why you’ll always have a special place in my heart.

Alcohol, my permanent accessory

2007-11-12T22:03:00.000-05:00

I have worked every single day for the last, oh, I don't know, 2.5 weeks. Days, nights, weekends...yeah, I'm pretty sick of it.

So as I mentioned before (and if I were a good blogger, I'd insert the link there, but I'm shit and all three of you who read this drivel know it), I'm the only one writing the content for my company's new website, which is going live on Wednesday night. And I'm not nearly done.

But as I pointed out to The Officemate this morning on the phone: I have written 90% of the new copy while drunk. And everyone loves it!

The 10% that I wrote while sober? Was sent back to me full of nasty redlines and Tracked Changes.

Well, boo to that. Now I know why the greats were fucking lushes.

I've been going through the motions, walking through the part

2007-11-08T15:34:00.000-05:00

I try not to go into extreme detail about my job very often on this blog because, hello, I don't want to get fired. But I've encountered a situation recently that I've never been in before, and I don't really know what to do about it or how to approach it - and I need to get it off my chest somehow, and there's no one I can really talk about it with.

So I've been pulled into a lot of meetings lately with New Boss. (There are always other coworkers present; it's never just a one-on-one.) These are often difficult due to the fact that I'm on the phone and the majority of participants are in the same room; I often find myself staying quiet and just trying to figure out who's talking. This has been pointed out to me, however, with the gentle suggestion that I need to start volunteering more, so I've been making the effort lately to express my opinions and put forth suggestions.

Here, then, is the crux of the situation: New Boss basically dismisses every contribution I make, even if they're passing comments. I don't know if this is just part of her personality (she can be pretty abrasive sometimes), or if it's a reflection of her (lack of) esteem for me. But it's troubling me. And, as I've discovered, she and I are always at completely opposite ends of the spectrum on everything.

A totally made-up example that illustrates what my interactions with her are like:

Drew: Wow, the Pike was really crowded today - I think it was bumper-to-bumper the whole way in.

New Boss: I wouldn't say it was bumper-to-bumper the whole way in. There had to have been areas where the traffic was flowing. You should investigate a new way to drive in.

-Or-

Drew: I disagree, I think the question proved that there's actually interest in that point. We can use it as differentiation; it's not a detractor like we thought.

New Boss: Well, naturally we're going to think that every question means there's interest. I think we should take it out.

I talked about this with The Officemate briefly after New Boss spent two days either blatantly ignoring me or answering me condescendingly.

"I think she thinks I'm retarded," I said, but The Officemate assures me that's not the case. And honestly, I don't think it's that I'm out of my league. I'm pretty good at my job. The three of us had a brainstorming meeting with the CEO on Tuesday and he and I were in synch on a lot of the slides, often building off of each other and agreeing on key messaging.

I don't know anymore. I'm tired. I'm tired of never knowing the right thing to say or do. I'm tired of trying.

And sadly, that's starting to extend to my personal life, too.

Well I'm still standing

2007-11-07T12:54:00.000-05:00

Oh god, here I go again with yet another post about how I haven't written in so long. Unlike similar posts of the past, though, I actually feel (kind of) bad this time, since I honestly was trying to be a little more frequent in my posting.

I've been in Boston since Sunday night for work-related meeting fun. This particular trip has been a whirlwind (or, as that stupid bitch Heidi on "The Hills" would call it, a "worldwind"). I'm pretty much swamped right now, and yet I spent all day yesterday sitting in a conference room and trying to wordsmith two slides in a PowerPoint presentation.

Without going into too much detail, my company is changing their core focus and their name, and we're launching the new company next Friday. (Which means that - oh joy - I'll be back in Boston next week, too.) Along with that comes a new corporate website, and guess who is writing all of that content for that site?

You know it, baby. This asshole right here.

So today I'm holed up at my old desk, trying in vain to write some marketing crap without using the same adjectives over and over again, and decided that I'd go pick up a sandwich for lunch - just to get out and clear my head.

There's this great New York-style deli not too far from here, but it's kind of a pain in the ass to get to, so instead I trotted across the street to this new "gourmet deli" that opened in the time since I moved to New York.

Because I'm stressed and a big fat pig, I ordered a stuffed turkey wrap, which is just another name for a Thanksgiving sandwich - turkey, stuffing, cranberry, mayo...you get the idea. The other deli that I mentioned really does this well, with real turkey and homemade stuffing and cranberry sauce, so I had this in mind when I ordered it.

The new, gourmet deli? Used turkey lunch meat, canned cranberry sauce, and the piece de resistance?

Stove Top Stuffing. I shit you not.

I ate half of it before chucking the rest in disgust. I feel like I'm on Grey's Anatomy - I just sat here and started at the sandwich and said aloud, "Seriously? Seriously??"

Graphical support

2007-10-25T14:07:00.001-04:00

Obviously not the mini-pompadour I referred to previously, but at least it's a rough idea of what it looks like now as compared to before. Apologies for poor picture quality; I took this quickly yesterday afternoon.

Tell me sweet little lies

2007-10-23T23:55:00.000-04:00

I finally got my hair cut on Friday. I won some award at work that resulted in me getting $400 in American Express gift cards, so I made an appointment at Bumble & Bumble to get my mop under control.

The stylist basically razored off most of the curls I had on the back and sides and left the top long. He worked on it for a while, trying to style it, and when I saw the frustration on his face, I grinned ruefully and offered, "Yeah...it kind of does what it wants."

"Yes," he nodded, all serious. "It takes a lot of manipulation, your hair."

He put a bunch of styling creme and wax in it and poofed it up into a mini pompadour in the front - "Like Valentino," he said in his Eastern European accent.

I know it sounds weird, but I like it. It's stylish yet a little more conservative than the long hair.

So even though everyone hated the long hair and the curls (with the exception of my mother and grandmother, which ought to tell you something right there), the new hair cut has met with a resounding silence...which leads me to believe that (A) everyone hates it, (B) they haven't noticed (doubtful), or (C) they just can't be bothered to actually volunteer any sort of comment or opinion.

I don't know which one of those reasons is worse. They all sort of piss me off a little bit.

I know I shouldn't care, but I do. Goddamnit.

I got a green light, I got a little fight

2007-10-22T23:35:00.000-04:00

It all began when LoJo invited us to a friend’s party in Boston. “The Pink Party” – that was the theme, so everyone had to wear pink. Her Boston gays, as she calls them, have this party every year, and since LoJo has been lobbying me for a while to accompany her to Boston, I finally decided it was time.

Benjie came, of course, and since No Dice Joe had whined that he wanted to come too, I extended the invite to him. I used Reward Points to book a room at the Marriott at Copley Place, Pricelined myself a rental car, and before you knew it, we three were off.

My original plan (outlined in what Benjie referred to as “that anal email you sent us”) called for us to pick up the rental car at 11am at LaGuardia and be on the road by 11:30. That quickly became just a pipe dream when we arrived at the National rental location and were met with what had to be the strangest rental car situation I’ve ever found myself in – and I rent a lot of cars due to work, so I know from strange rental car situations.

They basically had a long line of customers and just one woman working the counter, a self-service kiosk (also with a long line), and another employee working the kiosk. Yes, they had an employee manning the self-service kiosk – something Joe took great delight in pointing out to me repeatedly as his blood pressure rose. (Benjie had also informed us when we left Park Slope that he was at a Grumpy Factor of 6, so between trying to limit my interactions with him and keeping Joe from exploding, I felt that I was doing quite the balancing act.)

I finally got through the line and got a car, and the woman told us to “go stand in the middle out there and wait.”

Well, that worked out exactly as well as you’d think it would, which is to say – not at all. Some woman ended up taking pity on us and tracking down a car, but only because I think she liked the sass that Benjie gave her about getting us a good car and not some minivan. It worked out well, though, because she gave us a free upgrade from midsize to a sweet Toyota Highlander SUV.

So we were off, right? Yeah, not so fast. Literally. There was construction and an accident, so we got off the highway, got back on going the other way, took the Triborough Bridge, hit more traffic, and then basically sat on the expressway in the Bronx.

Around 1:30, we hit Westchester and promptly got off the highway because Joe needed a bathroom and Benjie and I needed food. Two hours on the road, and we were only in fucking Westchester. It was going to be that kind of trip.

We finally made it, though, and that’s when the fun really began. Highlights in a list format, because I’m lazy like that:

1. Benjie turning into a little old nana upon seeing the price tag on a bottle of Fiji water in our hotel room: “SIX DOLLARS? For THAT? SIX DOLLARS?”
2. And again when Joe and I ordered up The Simpsons movie later that night: “You two fools are going to pay FOURTEEN DOLLARS for a movie you’ve both already seen?!?”
3. The party, our sole reason for going? Began at 8pm. We arrived? At 10:30. Ooops. Two and a half hours late is still fashionably late, right?
4. Our little run-in with Marriott Security Guard Clayton, who was not at ALL amused when he stepped into our elevator and saw us each holding a bottle of wine in one hand and an open Corona in the other. “You got into the wrong elevator, Clayton,” Joe said with a tight smile. “No, you did,” Clayton replied. He told us to go back to our rooms and ditch the beers before he confiscated them, so instead we went up two floors, chugged the beers in the hallways, and then went back down.
5. Our cab driver on the way to the party, who when I said, “Congress and D Street,” actually said to me, “You mean Congress and A.” And when I said no, Congress and D, he actually told me that he grew up in Southie and he couldn’t think of where we wanted to go. Oh, Boston cabbies. You’d never make it in New York.
6. He then dropped us off three blocks south of the intersection of Congress and D. Asshole.
7. Where we promptly witnessed some woman rear-end another car at a stop light. Ha!
8. Benjie getting into a bitch fight with some gay guy at the party, who apparently took offense when Benjie told Joe that the combination of Joe’s asparagus pee and the air biscuit that he launched in the bathroom was permeating Benjie’s clothing. The gay told Benjie that his annoyance was permeating the gay’s soul. That led to an interesting (albeit uncomfortable) showdown where Benjie got out the claws and laid into the guy, telling him he was ugly, had on bad jeans, and was balding. Meow!
9. Leaving the party and walking across the street to the Westin to catch a cab, and having a Westin security guard stop us on the street and ask where we were going. Benjie: “God, Boston is full of Nosy Parkers!”
10. Arriving at our next destination, the Roxy, only to be declined entrance by the bouncers, who told us they were closing. At 1:35am. On a Saturday. Even though Boston shuts down at 2am.
11. Asking everyone leaving where we could go for an after party, including a guy wearing sweatpants (!) who had no answer for us – but who then attached himself to our little group and begged for cigarettes.
12. Winding up at the Eagle and being leered at by the ugliest group of gay men I’ve ever seen in one place.
13. Trying for almost 40 minutes to hail a cab back to the hotel. For those of you who don’t know already: catching a cab in Boston after 2am is notoriously difficult. Joe threw himself on the windshield of one empty cab in an effort to catch a ride and the guy still wouldn’t drive us back.
14. Benjie being told outside the Eagle that he couldn’t have a beer bottle out there – and responding by throwing it into the street, sending beer and glass all over.
15. Arriving back at the hotel and having yet another Nosy Parker hotel security guard stop us in the lobby and demand to see room keys from ALL of us. Apparently we look like gay hookers. Or maybe it was because I was wearing a pink wifebeater.

There was much, much more, but the upshot of all of this was as follows:

Boston really, really sucks. And New York spoils you for living anywhere else.

Things that make my day

2007-10-10T23:25:00.000-04:00

Earlier tonight. I'm in line at C-Town buying ingredients to make dinner (bruschetta-stuffed chicken, asparagus with parmesan crust, and a trifle for dessert - is it any wonder that I'm a fat pig who can't get a man?) when I see her.

Blonde, early forties. In front of me in line at the register. And what's she buying?

1. A case of Natty Ice.
2. Two boxes of Maxi Pads.
3. A Carvel ice cream cake.

I was almost overwhelmed by the awesomeness of her purchases. Truly something that is more than the sum of its parts.

Now that, my friends, is a hot slut who knows how to spend a Wednesday night.

Employee of the Month

2007-10-04T22:53:00.001-04:00

This morning I got up at 3:40am, was in a car to LaGuardia at 4:30am, and by 5am was in my rental car crossing the Triborough Bridge on my way to Boston for a meeting that stretched from 9:30am until 5:30pm.

The only thing my boss said to me today was this evening, in the restaurant after dinner:

"Thanks for coming today. You're not driving tonight, are you?"

Okay, so maybe I was on my fourth mojito when she asked me that. I think I should just quit my job in Marketing and apply to be the corporate mascot - Drunky Le Femme, as Benjie has been known to call me.

Of course, when The Officemate jokingly referenced "checking [herself] into the Betty" tonight, I was the only who replied - in all seriousness - "Oh, fuck that. I'd go to Promises in Malibu so I could get massages, facials, and pedicures like Lohan. I mean, I don't really want to quit - I just want a vacation."

I know she are large

2007-10-01T23:17:00.000-04:00

It seems like every time I turn around, there's a new article or posting somewhere about Facebook or social networking or Web 2.0 tools and technologies - including blogs and wikis, which - in my humble opinion - are hardly new. (We're all over the blog thing and the wiki thing, right? Just checking.)

Anyway, here's a great example of Web 2.0 tools in action.

Below, a screen shot of Hairspray star Nikki Blonsky's Wikipedia page on the weekend of Hairspray's debut, back in July.

In case you missed it, the last line of text in the "Career" section says:

I KNOW SHE ARE LARGE BUT I LIKE IF IC OULD STICK MYSELF INSIDE HER

Which...truly, that's just beautiful that the owner of this particular thought managed to put aside his distaste for Blonsky's largeness long enough to articulate his desire to pork her.

Vicky spotted this, and in complete disbelief, captured a screen shot. Wikipedia's hot-to-trot crack editorial team of reviewers had it cleaned up shortly thereafter.

And now I'm sharing with you because I have nothing else to post. I'm on vacation for two days because my mother and grandmother are coming to New York to visit, so I'll be escorting them around to all the tourist stuff. Then I'm off on Thursday to Boston for two days for what's sure to be a bloodbath of a meeting.

Try not to miss me too much.

This is what we call deep, introspective, late-afternoon thinking

2007-09-25T17:01:00.000-04:00

Benjie (4:59:31 PM): anal sex is too much work for someone you only quasi-like
Drew (4:59:41 PM): I agree, a little spelunking is a lot of work
Drew (5:00:06 PM): can you imagine being straight and having to pound a vag every time?
Drew (5:00:08 PM): god
Benjie (5:00:17 PM): i would just be like, "suck me off bitch"
Drew (5:00:19 PM): you'd think straight boys would be thinner after all that work
Drew (5:00:32 PM): please, you know a ton of girls don't even do that!
Benjie (5:00:39 PM): yeah lazy whores

I'm walking into spiderwebs

2007-09-24T13:31:00.001-04:00

I don't like using the phone. In fact, I fucking hate it.

I think I have some low-level social disorder or something. (Hee - I typed that as "social disease" the first time and then thought, Wait, something's not right...) Work calls, personal calls...it doesn't matter. I can't tell you how many times I hear the phone ring, feel my stomach drop, glance at the caller ID, and then let the call ring through (or immediately send it, depending on my mood and who it is) to voicemail.

If given the choice, I will text you or email. (Or send a fucking card, which is what I do so I don't have to call my grandparents on occasions like their birthdays and holidays.) It's easier to get away with that in my personal life, of course, and it doesn't hurt that my cell phone literally gets a half-bar of reception within the bomb shelter-like brick walls of my apartment. Most of my cell phone calls go like this:

Caller: So blah blah blah blah blah.
Drew: Blah blah blah blah blah.
Caller: What? I can't hear you at all. You're going in and out. Are you there?
Drew: I'll call you back from my land line.
Caller: Hello? Drew?
Drew: I'LL CALL YOU RIGHT BACK.
Caller: Hello? Hel-
-phone disconnects -

So as you can see, I don't exactly jump to answer the cell's ringing. Even when my new boss calls me at 8:15 on a Sunday night to ask me a completely random question. As I explained to The Officemate this morning, "Fuck that. I sent her ass to voicemail. It was Sunday night and I was lying on my bed reading with a glass of wine in my hand. What the hell could she possibly want that couldn't wait until Monday morning? What was going to change between 8 on Sunday night and 8 on Monday morning?"

I think the only calls I take on a regular basis are from my parents, The Officemate, and Benjie. And you know what? That's just fine.

Everyone else can just fucking wait until I feel like calling them back.

The wonders of instant messaging during work conference calls

2007-09-20T14:26:00.001-04:00

The Officemate: oh my god
The Officemate: this is brutal
Drew: this really is
Drew: I feel like my grandmother is on the phone reading questions that she doesn't understand
The Officemate: yes
The Officemate: its so bizarre
The Officemate: [Sales VP] IMed me-- "shoot me now"

[after a delay while the woman asks the same question five times in a row]

Drew: jesus, lady, just google it later
Drew: ARRRGGGGHHHH
The Officemate: she is really slow on the uptake
Drew: i just want to bundle her in the car, ply her with Werther's Originals, and drop her off at bingo

Sturm und drang

2007-09-18T01:21:00.000-04:00

Work continues to be quite the rollercoaster. Last week, I had to rent a car and drive to Pennsylvania for a company meeting on Monday and Tuesday. But because we’re the Marketing bitches and that somehow translates to “party planners,” The Officemate and I had to get there on Sunday to assemble gift bags, sort company shirts, handle lighting and audio/visual needs for the executives, supervise the food planning, and decorate a hideous hotel ballroom. So yes, that’s why last Sunday at midnight, I was sitting on the floor of a hotel ballroom in Harrisburg making pretty table decorations out of brightly colored napkins and glass vases while The Officemate layered four different colors of M&Ms in additional glass vases.

Don’t ask – honestly.

On Monday afternoon, as the rest of my coworkers listened to a presentation about company benefits and goals, I was across town balancing in a 2nd floor window at our dinner venue, taping up crepe paper streamers and worrying that I didn’t have them twirled enough.

As I said to the bartender, who was watching me with undisguised glee, “You know, when I graduated from college, I never would have imagined that this is what I’d be doing at age 30.”

But I survived, and The Officemate and I received lots and lots of praise from all the executives for our superior organization, decoration, and ability to pull off shit like this with élan. So that was cool.

(Side note: I later said to The Officemate, “You know, we really should just become wedding planners. We already have all the skills you’d need, and we’d probably make a lot more money.”

She, having just gotten married back in April, stared at me in horror. “Are you KIDDING?” she gasped in disbelief.)

* * *

After the meeting always comes my favorite part, which is when the open bar tab and the general relaxation roll around. This is when my work is done and I can actually chill out, get drunk, and hang out with all the coworkers I never get to see – particularly during the day, when I’m rushing around barking orders at caterers to light the candles on the sheet cakes and to get more bottled water STAT, at maintenance workers to raise the room temperature by 2 degrees, and at befuddled facilities guys to unscrew the bulb over the projection screen that is ruining the CEO’s PowerPoint.

Yes, this is what my life is like during these things. So it’s no wonder that at night, I kick back, put my feet up, and get shit-faced on free booze.

At one point during the night, I found myself sitting in the hotel bar with two coworkers – one a gay man, the other a lesbian. The woman is a fairly new hire, so she doesn’t know very many people yet. We were chatting, and as the conversation is wont to do – particularly with my coworkers - it shifted into talk of sex.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” she asked me.

“No,” I smiled. And when she pressed me for details, I supplied, “I’m not so good at dating.”

This lead to further questions, so I confessed, “Well, I find it very hard to meet anyone I like – or am even really that attracted to. So my general MO is to go out every once in a while, get drunk, find someone to sleep with, and then never call them again.”

She got a strange look on her face at this point, and being drunk, I couldn’t read her expression very well, so I took a swig of Corona and forged onward.

“I don’t know, I’m fucked up. I probably need lots of therapy, but whatever. I just don’t find very many people that I like. I think of it like shoe-shopping – I try them on for size, but nothing fits very well. So I just keep moving on to the next pair.”

I should mention that she’s in a 10-year relationship, so I think she felt bad for me, but whatever.

* * *

Along those same lines, Benjie and Tits McGee and I went out on Saturday night to Barracuda, where I got very drunk (of course) and ran into a former pair of those shoes outside the men’s room. This one is slow and hasn’t quite caught on to my little reindeer games, so that was a trifle awkward.

At some point, I walked into the men’s room to piss, but it was full, so I turned around to walk out – and as I did so, I made eye contact with the guy in the stall – who I happened to have gone home with back in early August.

He followed me out of the bathroom and got all confrontational, accusing me of running away from him in the bathroom (not true, as I explained to him) and not calling him (completely true). He then produced this gem:

“Do you even remember me? You don’t even know my name, do you?”

I took great delight in rolling my eyes, casually extracting my phone from my pocket, and scrolling through my address book to highlight his name and phone number – all while sipping my beer.

He calmed down a little after that, but he still was borderline yelling at me about how even if I didn’t want to go for a drink with him, we could still have sex again, because it was good, right?

Ugh. NO and NO.

The night got slightly better when I went home with a cute Russian boy wearing an enormous bow tie and a velvet blazer. (Again, don’t ask.) On the way back to his place, he asked me how old I was. When I told him, his eyes bugged out of his head.

“30?!?” he said incredulously. “You don’t look 30!”

“Thanks,” I said dryly. “How old are you?”

That’s when he told me he was 21. Honestly, that makes him the youngest guy I’ve ever had sex with.

Best part of the night, though?

That would be 5am, when he said to me, “Don’t get too comfortable. I’m sorry, but you can’t stay.”

It seemed his boyfriend(!) would be returning early in the morning. Sigh.

And that’s how I wound up walking the streets of Bushwick alone at 5am in search of the fucking L train stop. I had given my last $20 to Benjie for cab fare home, since I felt bad for ditching him so I could get laid, and Bushwick doesn’t have a goddamn ATM anywhere – just blocks of warehouses surrounded by chain-link fences and barbed wire. For those of you who don’t know, Bushwick is pretty goddamn ghetto.

I ran into some Asian girl on the sidewalk, quite randomly enough. She walked up to me and said hesitantly, “Excuse me, do you know where the L train is?”

And so my new friend Jackie and I braved the mean streets of Bushwick together, finally found the L train and journeyed back to Manhattan, where I hit an ATM and grabbed a cab back to Park Slope.

Got home at 6:30am, completely exhausted, and tumbled into bed.

Maybe I don't look 30, but I think I’m too old for this shit.

Because I'm damn mad!

2007-08-29T16:08:00.000-04:00

What a fucking malicious cunt.

Leona Helmsley's will was made public today, and that's my take on it.

In case you couldn't be bothered to read the article, allow me to summarize:

$5M to her brother
$5M to grandkid #1
$5M to grandkid #2 (Both grandkids have to visit the grave of their deceased father - Leona's son - at least once per calendar year or they forfeit the cash.)
NOTHING to grandkid #3
NOTHING to grandkid #4
$100k to her chauffeur
$3M for the care and upkeep of the mausoleum in which she and dead hubby Harry are buried
$12 fucking MILLION DOLLARS to her dog, Trouble
The remainder of her estate - estimated in the billions - to her charitable trust

I mean, kudos to her for leaving so much money to a charity (although it seemingly belies all that Helmsley stood for in life), but I can't believe she fucked her two grandkids over like that. And, as Joe.My.God. points out, Helmsley apparently borrowed a page from Joan Crawford's copy of "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by nothing that she was disinheriting the two grandchildren "for reasons that are known to them."

God DAMN, I'd love to know the backstory behind what those two did to piss off Granny like that. You think maybe they told the old bitch exactly what they thought of her? Or maybe they just never visited her when she was sent up the river for tax evasion...

Maybe it makes me a complete and total soft-hearted sucker, but if I were grandkid 1 or 2, and two of my siblings got screwed over like that, I'd totally share my $5 million with them if they needed it.

Eh, who am I kidding - it's probably what's going to happen when my grandparents go. My sister already told me she thinks she's out of the will after she sent my grandfather a Father's Day card but neglected to send my grandmother a Mother's Day card - which did NOT go unnoticed, or unremarked upon, by Grandmother. (Of course, my sister also didn't send my mother a Mother's Day card, but I guess that didn't help matters.)

Then again, they'll probably disinherit the faggot grandson on principle, so what do I know?

As promised

2007-08-27T09:10:00.000-04:00

Just a few puppy-centric pics from the Rhode Island trip:

Vickie took great delight in chasing the dog around with his camera, especially after he discovered that Remy was afraid of it.

Having two strangers in his house while my parents were gone made him slightly more timid than usual - with the net effect of him becoming my little shadow.

Of course, that didn't stop him from performing his usual mischievous behavior.

Particularly when Benjie tried to take over the couch that Remy thinks is his.

Every once in a while, this is how I feel

2007-08-25T00:56:00.000-04:00

Karen: Yes, but you've also made a fool out of me, and you've made the life I lead foolish too.

I hope they don't ask to read it

2007-08-22T21:11:00.000-04:00

The Officemate called me today about some stuff that's going on at work - stuff that I won't get into, but the upshot was this:

"I told them you've been blogging for years now, which really impressed them," she said. "And they're excited about the fact that you can write very well."

I started laughing. "I'm sorry, but I just find the whole thing really funny. Who ever would have thought that the blog where I write about who I sleep with and how drunk I get would have possibly saved my job?"

But time makes you bolder

2007-08-21T23:48:00.000-04:00

Even though I pretty much hate change (as evidenced by the fact that I’ve worked for the same company for 8 years and had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, out of Massachusetts to New York), once in a while I do get bored and feel the need to freshen things up in my life.

This is apparently one of those times. Even though Benjie and I haven’t ruled out the idea of finding a new apartment by the end of this month, I’m…I don’t know, nesting. I just bought new frames for some candid shots that I want to put in the living room. I also just changed up the bathroom décor (I dragged Benjie to Bed, Bath & Beyond on Saturday to pick out a new shower curtain and bath mat; he retaliated by making me accompany him to the Barney’s Warehouse Sale at the Co-op in Chelsea, where my eyeballs were assailed with the vision of Amanda Lepore and entourage in the shoe section, but I digress).

I started to attack my bedroom, ordering myself a new desk and a chair from CB2. I want to buy a new bedroom set, but I’m making myself wait until February, when my tax refund comes in. (See how fiscally responsible I’m being?) And then I’m totally getting myself a queen-sized bed, even though it will basically engulf my entire tiny bedroom – assuming we stay in this apartment, of course.

The weather was really shitty here today, all rain and gloom and chilly, and I didn’t feel like working at all. And that’s how I found myself looking at furniture online and walking around the apartment with a tape measure in hand, trying to calculate what will fit where. After I buy a new bedroom set and mattress, my plans include a new bookcase for my bedroom, a new bedside lamp and a desk lamp, new curtains, and different art on the walls. And I want to buy a new bookcase for the living room, too. Plus new throw pillows for the couch. I think we need some new art in the living room, too.

You’d think I’d focus some of the energy on important things in my life, like finding a new job, a new apartment, losing some weight, or perhaps trying to actually get into a relationship. But no, instead I’m doing this shit.

Sometimes I amaze myself, truly.

I never really gave up on breakin' out of this two-star town

2007-08-20T23:47:00.000-04:00

I should start by saying that I’ve actually intended to write something every day last week, but work decided to go all haywire starting at 9am on Monday, my first day back from vacation, when The Officemate called me and said, “Oh, thank god you’re back, I’m so happy. You’re going to hate me, but I have a bunch of stuff that I need you to jump in and help me with.”

And then the week was just crazy after that.

But now it’s another Monday, so…let’s catch up, shall we?

* I spent a week in Boston for work, where The Officemate and I discovered quite early on that the Naked Fish in Westborough, MA closes really early. As in, last call is at 10:30pm. TEN fucking THIRTY. Which is so completely ridiculous that I felt no guilt whatsoever about indulging in a little snobbery about the benefits of living in New York.

* I was supposed to take the Acela back from Boston on Friday afternoon at 5 or something like that, but I escaped early from a work “town hall” meeting we had at some tennis club in the lily white, filthy rich suburb of Weston, MA. I figured I’d grab an earlier train, so I got in the ticket line…only to discover that the only other Acela was the one sitting on the tracks just outside the door. As in, ready to leave. I managed to get my ticket switched, hoofed it out the door and up the stairs, and made it on the train just as the doors were closing. Then I heard my name being paged, telling me to find the conductor. When I did, he asked me for my license, which I yanked out of my pocket to show him. Then he sort of smirked and said to me, “Missing anything?” Turns out that after I pulled out my wallet to hand over my AmEx to the ticket guy, I left the wallet sitting on the counter. I don’t know who ran it over to the train for me, but whomever you are…thank you so very much!

* I got back to New York on Friday night, and on Saturday, it was so fucking hot that Benjie cancelled our plans to go shopping in the city and demanded instead that Vickie drive us to the Roosevelt Field mall on Long Island so we could shop in the blessed air conditioning. Best part, though, was that when we dropped after we shopped, we decided to get some food before driving back to Brooklyn. Vickie looked up restaurants on his GPS and we sorted through our options:

Benjie: There’s Legal Seafood. That’s good, isn’t it?
Drew: Yup.
Vickie: That’s in the mall.
Benjie: Oh, I don’t want to eat in the mall.
Vickie: There’s Red Lobster, too.
Drew: Yeah, it’s right across the street; I saw it when we got off the highway.
Vickie: I like Red Lobster.
Drew: I’ve never had it.
Benjie: I had it once, I think.
Vickie: It’s good!
Benjie: Do you want to eat there? I don’t care.
Drew: That’s fine.
[beat]
Drew: I’m just picturing what Zander’s reaction would be if he knew we were eating at a Red Lobster. He would die.
Benjie: Well, it could be worse; there’s always the Olive Garden.

Upon arrival at the Lobster, we discovered that it was packed and that there’d be a 20 minute wait. We should have known better. After all, it was Saturday night on Long Island…naturally the Red Lobster was packed. We wandered over to the bar, where we opened the drink menus and discovered just how wonderful the Red Lobster really is. You see, they have a drink, and this drink is called the Lobsterita. It sounds disgusting, but it’s a frozen margarita. Only it’s not *just* a frozen margarita. You see, it comes in the biggest fucking margarita glass you’ve ever seen. And this drink? This drink in this big fucking margarita glass costs seven dollars. SEVEN DOLLARS.

I turned to Benjie and said, “You know, it’s bad enough that we’re the only homos in here. But then I think about how all the A-List faggots are either on Fire Island right now, or maybe P-Town, or if they’re still in the city, they’re out at some trendy restaurant. Whereas we---“

“Are sitting in a Red Lobster on Long Island,” Benjie finished. “And we love it!”

“We do,” I agreed.

What can I say? We’re trashy. You all know this by now.

* After the week in Boston, I was supposed to be on vacation, but right before I left on Friday afternoon to catch the train back to New York – to start that aforementioned vacation - the VP of my group said to me, “I think you should plan on being in the office on Monday.” It’s a long story and I won’t get into it now, but that’s how I found myself back on a train on Sunday afternoon, and in the office on Monday. Good times.

* The backstory regarding my “vacation” was that I was house-sitting and dog-sitting while my parents went away on another combination business trip (my father) and tag-along for a vacation (my mother). I invited Benjie and Vickie up to Rhode Island to join me, so they drove up on Wednesday night and we stayed through Saturday night, when my parents returned.

All in all, it was a good time, but it wasn’t particularly relaxing, at least not for me. I don’t know if I’m a freak or whatever, but I always have this idealistic view of vacations that’s completely unfounded in reality…I mean, when describing it to Benjie and Vickie, I was all, “Come on up, we’ll go to the beach and hang around and drink and grill and just relax!”

Except that I forget about things like the dog, who is, after all, my primary reason for being there. He’s used to being taken on a 20-30 minute walk every morning (my mother takes him at 7:30, but I pushed it to 8:30/9am), when the mosquitoes and biting flies attack every square inch of exposed flesh. And the fact that the dog sheds – a lot – necessitating me sweeping and swiffering and vacuuming every day. Not to mention stupid, ordinary, run-of-the-mill household things, like gathering the mail, putting out the trash and the recyclables, collecting the newspapers (they get 3 goddamn papers each day, all at different times), and emptying the dehumidifier in the basement twice daily. Oh, and neither Benjie nor Vickie cooks, so I was the one prepping and grilling and doing all that shit. And let’s not forget laundry – not only the towels and sheets we used, but also all of the laundry that Benjie and Vickie brought with them.

I also tend to forget about the fact that the weather never cooperates with my plans, so of course it poured on Wednesday afternoon when Benjie and Vickie arrived. It was nice – although not exactly hot enough for the beach – on Thursday, and then it absolutely down-poured all day on Friday. And if you’ve never stood under an umbrella in said downpour while swatting mosquitoes and biting flies and tried in vain to convince a 100 lb dog to take a shit…well, you’re luckier than I am.

Pics will follow as soon as I get them from Vickie and Benjie.

A true update is coming, I swear

2007-08-20T18:06:00.000-04:00

...but these made my day, so I felt compelled to share:

We've All Thought about It

Snotty woman: Excuse me, your friend is throwing up. You need to do something about it.
Drunk girl: I didn't throw up, I fucking spit.
Friend: Shhh... Just ignore her.
Drunk girl: No, she's a bitch. I didn't do anything. I want to spit on her.
Friend: No! Let's go find another place to stand. [Drunk girl turns and spits on woman as she's leaving.] I can't believe you just did that! Walk faster before you get arrested!

--5th Ave

via Overheard in New York, Aug 20, 2007

M4M Wednesday One-Liners

Queer: There are a lot of young kids out there learning how to spell 'glamorous,' and that makes me real happy.

--Canal Jeans Co

Queer to tourist: You're from Minnesota? My ex's father was a senator from Minnesota. I went there once to meet him... I forget his name, but what we did was very taboo.

--Prince St

Queer to another: Don't nudge me, you lesbian.

--Line for he Cyclone, Coney Island

Queer to boyfriend: You remind me of this autistic kid I worked with once.

--Park Ave

Overheard by: Katey

Queer on cell, perusing baked goods: I want a muffin. Do you want a muffin? This whole courtroom wants a muffin!

--Food Emporium

Overheard by: admittedly amused

via Overheard in New York, Aug 15, 2007

I can't believe I laughed out loud

2007-08-03T09:06:00.001-04:00

N.B.: I'm in Boston this week for work.

A phone conversation with Benjie...

Benjie: God, it's so fucking hot here.

Drew: Really? It's not too bad in Massachusetts.

Benjie: It's so hot, I wouldn't mind a bridge collapsing so I could go for a swim.

Drew: Oh. My. God. Did you really just say that?

Benjie: Shut up, you laughed.

You spent your life waiting for this moment

2007-07-20T12:13:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while, I go off of reading Gawker for a few days, and then when I finally do come back, I see something that makes me laugh my ass off and I wonder why I ever quit to begin with.

Today, they have this item, which originally came from Page Six:

WHICH "socialite" who's suffering photo withdrawal since socialiterank.com closed got down on her knees for a party paparazzo? He accepted her favors and then snapped away...

And while that's pretty great on its own (especially with their prominent solo pic of Tinsley Mortimer before the jump on the main page), what makes it even better is the following comment from a sick, sick reader:

My money is on Brooke Astor.

Sheer perfection.

Happy Friday!

There's no whore like an old whore

2007-07-17T22:47:00.000-04:00

Question:

I want to print some digital pictures that I have on my computer and frame them. Does it make me completely ridiculous and a total loser if I retouch them a little bit to make myself look better?

I'm not talking Faith Hill levels of PhotoShopping here. You know, just clean up a zit here, get rid of some crow's feet there...that kind of thing.

Have I completely crossed the line or what?

I'm not dead

2007-07-16T18:12:00.000-04:00

1. I'm strangely satisfied with how this summer is progressing - much more so than recent summers past. Benjie and I have been to the beach at least once each past weekend, we've played hooky from work and spent the day in the park playing frisbee and drinking wine, we had our little dress-up party, we had a small Fourth of July gathering and then saw fireworks on some guy's roof (don't ask), we've drunk a lot of sangria and mojitos, we've been eating a lot of summer food even though we don't have a grill (gotta love that Foreman grill!)... it's been good.

2. In a few weeks, I'm off to Rhode Island for a week to watch the dog while my parents spend the week in Washington for another of their now-routine vacations rolled into business trips. I'm trying to convince Benjie and Vicky to join me for a few days by tempting them with visions of the beach every day and hanging out, grilling food every night. If not, it'll be the dog and me.

3. As I said I would, I got my hair cut 2 weeks ago. The guy loved it, of course, and spent the first few moments running his hands through it to make it even bigger and poofier than it is when I try to tame it with product. He agreed that I needed to take some off the back but should leave the top long, so he whipped out the scissors and, voila! Two inches gone off the back of my pseduo-mullet.

Naturally, no one has noticed. When I came home, Benjie looked at me and said, "Did you even get it cut?" On Thursday night, we were on our way to View Bar and No Dice Joe was driving. He glanced at me in his rearview mirror and said, "I thought you were going to cut that hair!"

With the exception of my mom and Gio, pretty much everyone hates it, but whatever.

And, since I just mentioned him, I'll quote a Gio line: Here's graphical support. First two pics were taken about an hour before I cut it. Third pic was taken this past weekend. Not a very noticeable difference, I'll grant you, but it's very nice to have those 2 inches not stuck to my neck in the hot-as-a-crotch New York City summer we're having.

4. Conversation I overheard on Friday morning on a Brooklyn-bound A train:

Latina hipster: That guy loved my hair!

Latino hipster: They was all faggots. It was faggots that loved your hair.

Latina: He didn't seem gay. He didn't have any holes in his shirt.

Latino: Was he wearing polyester?

Latina: No.

Latino: See?

5. Benjie, Vicky and I saw the new Harry Potter movie last night (both because we really wanted to and because it was hot as fuck in our apartment and the idea of the air conditioned theater for two plus hours was too tempting to pass up). No Dice Joe saw it on Wednesday when it opened and was sort of blase about it, but all three of us really liked it. I do feel a little badly for people who just see the films without having read the books, as I think they're missing out on so much of the background info and on Rowling's richly detailed alterna-England, but hey...whatevs, right?

Alzheimer's, here I come

2007-07-05T18:02:00.000-04:00

So I just came back from my afternoon workout at the gym. This is how I know I'm old: I had to have one of the gym employees cut my lock off of my locker because, for the life of me, I couldn't remember the goddamned combination.

I've had that lock for more than 2 years.

And yet today, for whatever reason, the combination just sailed right out of my head. I found myself standing in front of it, brow furrowed, and only able to recall two of the three numbers.

I can't wait until I wake up on a corner somewhere and totally unable to remember anything about my life like this poor bastard.

Mermaid Parade weekend pics

2007-07-03T00:24:00.000-04:00

As promised, some of the pics from the Mermaid Parade weekend...

Benjie and I posed for the lovely Miss Whitney, who actually took all of the pics in this post with her fancy-pants new digital camera. Next time she visits us, I'm totally going to wait until that ho face-plants after a few too many and then steal it.

(Oh, and you can't tell in this pic, but B and I are both wearing jeans because I (rather stupidly) recommended it - it was 59 degrees that morning, so I thought it would be even cooler by the water. Yeah, well, cut to us arriving at Coney Island and it's in the mid-80s. Goddamnit.)

Below: Miss Whitney and me. Except for my fucking hair, aren't we adorable? Yeah, well, she won't be smiling like that when she realizes I stole her camera.

After stumbling around for a while and straining to see the parade over the hordes of people, we decided to wait in line to get some much-needed food. We kept trying to call No-Dice Joe and Crew, but apparently Coney Island is a black hole of cell phone reception. I guess there were so many people there that it overloaded the network? I don't know, but it's frustrating as hell when you show that you have a perfect signal, yet you can't dial out and you can't send text messages.

Eventually we managed to get through to Joe (or vice versa; I don't remember), and he came and visited us while we waited in line for food. Then Tits McGee showed up too, so a good time was had by all - particularly Benjie, who decided that since he was such close friends with some woman in line with him, it gave him license to eat fries off of her plate. Nice job, B!

Anyway, after getting food, we hit the boardwalk and met up with Joe again. Here, he and Benjie pose like the little ladies that they are.

Speaking of little ladies - after we hopped back on the F train and left Coney Island behind, we decided it was time to make the plunge into late afternoon/early evening cocktails. Benjie and I dragged Whit and Keebler to our favorite Mexican place for sangria and their terrace. Originally it was just going to be one drink, but that turned into two or three pitchers later...

After our sangria-fest, we returned to the apartment, where we cleaned up, changed, drank some wine, and then headed out for dinner and (what else?) more drinks! No Dice Joe was a few blocks away and already hammered, so he and Erin ditched the bar for a few minutes to come visit us at the restaurant and have a drink. Joe downed a Corona and then pulled the ultimate Irish exit: While we were all sitting there chatting, he abruptly slammed down his Corona, JUMPED OUT OF THE FUCKING WINDOW onto the sidewalk, and ran back to the bar.

Apparently, standing up and walking four feet to the restaurant's door was too much of an effort.

Regardless, we finished, paid, and then met up with that asshat again, where he posed with Benjie and Whitney:

And finally, one more of me, Whit, and Benjie. Aren't we cute?

Sky Harbor, you suck

2007-06-27T17:50:00.000-04:00

I'm just warning you, this entire entry is going to be one big bitchfest (well, more so than they usually are), so if you're one of those people who thinks I whine and complain too much, don't read it.

So I'm stuck at the airport right now. First US Airways moves my gate from one end of the airport all the way to the opposite side, necessitating a 10 minute walk.

Then, when I'm about halfway to the new gate, I see a monitor that says my flight is delayed by an hour. Terrific.

I duck into a Hudson News and pick up a Car & Driver and a trashy Stephen King novel to kill the time. I try to grab a Diet Coke, but alas - Hudson only sells bottled water. No soda. Uh, okay.
I walk over to some piece of shit chain deli and grab a Diet Coke, for which I am charged the absolutely outrageous price of $3 - for a standard 20 oz bottle. (The same bottle goes for $1.25 at any bodega in New York.)

I finally get over to my new gate, where I see an update on the monitor - my flight is now delayed an additional hour and 10 minutes. Perfect. That means I now arrive in New York at 1am, and I probably won't get home until after 2.

I get out the trusty laptop, figuring I'll catch up on my gossip and blog reading. I try to call up D Listed to see what my boy Michael K is up to (I'm wondering what he has to say about Paris's release from jail), but instead I'm greeted with this, courtesy of Sky Harbor's free wireless:

Jesus fucking Christ.

Sadly, there are people who think work-related travel is fun and glamourous. Trust me - it's inconvenient and annoying, and you never, ever want to do it.

That is all.

UPDATE: In the half hour since I posted this, my gate has been moved TWO more times. Grrrrr...

We're all stars now

2007-06-27T14:32:00.000-04:00

I've been in Phoenix since Sunday night for yet another work event. This particular event was at some isolated resort and spa and (unlike most other work events) involved very little work on my part, so I've totally been running out to the pool and baking in the 112 degree heat at every opportunity. I have a nice sunburn to show for it, too.

(And yet again, I prove why I'd be such a good little rich boy - did I take the chance yesterday to listen in on various executives preaching about teamwork and motivators? No, I swam laps in one of the pools, sunbathed, and drank mojitos at the poolside bar while reading. BEST EMPLOYEE EVER.)

Anyway, I have to check out of here in 20 minutes and catch a ride to the airport, but I wanted to post a quick update.

This past weekend was a big fat gay one - the Coney Island Mermaid Parade was on Saturday, and Sunday was of course Gay Pride in Manhattan.

Keebler drove down from Connecticut on Saturday for the Mermaid Parade, and we were also joined by Whitney, who - with her oh-so-fucking-cute dog Shine - drove down from Rhode Island. We took the subway out to Coney Island and met up with No Dice Joe and Tits McGee for sunshine, freaks, and of course booze and fattening food.

All of my pics are on my personal laptop, which is sitting on my desk in New York, so you'll just have to live with this little gem until I get home. I hate this fucking picture, but what the hell.

Please notice the one curl on top of my head that would NOT lie flat. At all.

After looking at various shots of myself from Saturday (and after being called a guido!), I've concluded that it's time for a good 2 inches or so of hair to come off.

I guess that's now next week's goal.

Better to burn out than to fade away

2007-06-18T11:39:00.000-04:00

As I came online to post, I just saw this headline, which talks about how the world's oldest man (he's 111) attributes his longevity to abstaining from alcohol - to which I say...

Boo, you whore. Who the fuck wants to live to be 111, anyway?

* * *

So the Summer Cocktail Party was a success. As promised, we served sangria and mojitos (both of which were a big hit) and lots of hors d'oeuvres, and we had a pretty decent turnout of people dressed in summer whites, linens, madras, seersucker, etc.

One of Benjie's coworkers came, and when she walked into our candle-lit apartment and saw everyone dressed up, she exclaimed, "It's like something out of 'The Great Gatsby!'"

Well...I know Gatsby threw some crazy parties, but I don't think any of them ever ended with five gays boys lying on the same bed at 4am, two of them in their underwear, one of them drinking directly out of the champagne and wine bottles, a la Amanda on "Ugly Betty," while playing games like, "If you could change one thing about everyone here, what would it be?" and "Who here would you kiss and who would you kill?"

Good times. (And yeah, fine, that was me drinking directly out of the bottles. What can I say? I'm classy like that.)

Those summer nights

2007-06-12T13:52:00.000-04:00

Benjie and I decided we're having a cocktail party on Saturday night, so I put all of my less-than-stellar graphic design skills to use and whipped up this oh-so-lovely invitation.

I do love that we're making everyone dress up a little bit. It's so obnoxious - it's completely us.

In other PS news, our super retarded super (after screaming at her pit bull to "shut the fuck up" for the last 10 minutes) just let out a shriek. Is it wrong that I'm really, really hoping that the dog is eating her face off right now?

Yeah, I didn't think so either.

Here's a Pride present for all the 'mos

2007-06-08T09:35:00.000-04:00

Great news, but it's long overdue:

Isaiah Washington Fired From 'Grey's Anatomy'

[via]

Pretty little hairdo don't do what it used to

2007-06-07T17:28:00.000-04:00

One of the most surprising things to me in growing out my hair (aside from the obvious, which is how much curlier it is in the back than I had expected) is the color. No grays, thank god - but it seems I have some subtle natural highlights.

I think that may possibly be the gayest sentence I've ever written, but it's true. Yes, I have natural highlights.

It's difficult to tell because my hair is so dark - at first glance, many people just assume it's black, which pisses me off. (It's dark brown, but when I put product in it, it looks darker.) Anyway, today when I got out of the shower, I combed it out, pre-blow dry, and parted it on the side just for the hell of it. (Yes, this is how exciting my life is! Look at me, living dangerously and parting my hair! Woo!)

As I was leaning toward the mirror to plug in the hair dryer, I happened to glance up at myself and noticed all these streaks in my hair. Naturally, my first thought was that I just uncovered a motherlode of gray hair that had been hidden under the rest, so I leaned in closely under the lights to examine it, and lo and behold, I had all these--I hesitate to call them blond, because they're just very, very light brown--streaks in my hair.

I don't know why, but that made my afternoon. It even made up for the zit I have directly above my upper lip that makes me look like I'm rocking a herpes.

* * *

Here is a (completely hypothetical) situation that may serve to explain why my job (possibly) has been frustrating the hell out of me lately.

In this (hypothetical) situation, my company has a Vice President of a group that I'm going to name Cookie Baking - both because I'm fat and love cookies, and because this is hypothetical and I'm allowed to do that.

Anyway, let's pretend that the VP of Cookie Baking emailed me yesterday with a questionnaire from an industry website, www.cookiebaking.com, and tells me that I or The Officemate needs to complete this survey.

Fine, we say. We'll do this, but do you happen to have the version we returned last year, when someone else from our company filled it out? Because that would be helpful in our bid for some small amount of consistency from one year to the next.

He writes back and says No, he does not. And then, in our hypothetical scenario, he writes back again and says, "We need to make sure we mention Cookie Baking in that survey."

As I may have said to someone yesterday, I apparently have just fallen off the turnip truck, because...really? A survey from cookiebaking.com, sent to me from the VP of Cookie Baking, and I need to make certain that I stress that our company bakes cookies?

Such an idea never would have occurred to me!

I'm very glad that this is all a hypothetical situation, because if that had actually happened, I would definitely have some gray hair.

* * *

One of the things that's getting a lot of play right now, both in my industry and beyond, is the idea of online communities and collaboration. We were on a work conference call several weeks ago and someone asked us all to go around and introduce ourselves, and then state what our experience was with sites such as MySpace and Facebook. It's really an age-thing, I think - as one of the younger employees, I'm more familiar with the aforementioned sites as well as Friendster, blogs, and Wikis than some of my colleagues. (One of our sales reps actually stated quite bluntly - and half annoyed - "I have no idea what Facebook is," which got lots of chuckles from all involved.)

The big push seems to be in making such communities available in the workforce, but to be perfectly honest (and not to sound all Tom Hanks in "Big," here), I don't get it.

The reasons I go on MySpace and Friendster are, like me, shallow and simple. I go on to leave my friends stupid comments, get hit on by strangers, and stalk cute boys who meet certain criteria. In other words, I use these sites because they're fun. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way, right?

But using similar sites to facilitate work communities? God, that sounds boring.

Somewhat related - the Times today had this article about parents trying to join sites like Facebook, as well as readers' resulting comments. Too funny - the vast majority of my coworkers on that conference call I mentioned indicated that their exposure to MySpace was due to them creating profiles in an effort to keep tabs on their kids.

Of course, I'm 30 years old and my sister is 29, and I know for a fact that my mother looks at both of our MySpace pages regularly, although she will only admit to looking at my sister's page and not mine (she's not a full-on MySpace member, for which I am grateful).

I wonder what she thought when my "Who I'd like to meet:" section featured a pic of Wentworth Miller's Gap ad and the accompanying text, "This hot slut"?

Hard to play a gig in this town and keep a straight face

2007-06-06T15:46:00.000-04:00

I just got off the phone with a coworker who ended our conversation with the following anecdote:

"I had dinner last night with the guy I've been seeing and one of his new coworkers, who used to work in LA - she's married to an actor and she knows some celebrities, and has been to parties at some of their houses and stuff. And she was telling all these stories at dinner...did you know that there are some actors who are gay, and they actually sign contracts with women, marry them, and pretend to be straight???"

Thinking she was being sarcastic, I paused before answering and waited for the clincher, but alas...it never came. She was completely serious.

Maybe I'm just jaded from reading too many trashy websites, blogs, and blind items, but--

Isn't that so adorably naive??

I’m gonna play some D

2007-06-05T01:06:00.000-04:00

Remember this? The story of the little root canal that could? Well, I do, and that’s not just because I had to pretend I was being interrogated by the Nazis in order to deal with the pain. No, I remember that because now the tooth in front of it – the second root canal that I needed – is starting to act up.

Oh, and did I mention that my shitty dental insurance was maxed out 2/3 of the way through the last root canal, so that was never finished? I think I meant to blog about that and never did …shocking, I know, because I'm so diligent about updating this blog!

(Yeah, so one day the receptionist from the dentist called to tell me that I couldn’t have the crown put on my tooth until next January since I had maxed out on insurance already – unless I wanted to pay for it myself, and they’d even give me a 10% discount for paying in cash! How sweet of them.)

I’ve spent the last few days with a dull toothache and a tender jaw, wondering how long I can ignore this until I break down and actually call to find out how many thousands of dollars the dentist is going to charge me – thousands of dollars that I don’t have.

I’m contemplating quitting my job and getting a new one just so I can have dental insurance. That’s wrong, isn’t it?

* * *

Speaking of wrong…I hope everyone has seen the clip of Sarah Silverman SERVING Paris Hilton at the MTV Awards on Sunday night. I have never laughed so hard while simultaneously being so embarrassed for someone. That’s how you know that I’m a softie at heart – I actually felt BAD for Paris fucking Hilton when the entire auditorium cheered at the mention of her impending jail sentence.

But, oh lord – Silverman’s joke about how the officials are making the bars on Paris’s jail cell penis-shaped to make her feel at home? And then ending it by saying that she hopes Paris doesn’t break her teeth on them – all while LOOKING DIRECTLY AT PARIS?

That made my night, seriously. Sarah Silverman has got some balls on her.

* * *

Benjie and I have embarked on a radical departure from the norm:

We have decided to give up booze for 2 weeks.

I’d like to think that it’s a show of solidarity for Lohan (not to mention Paris, Nicole, Shemar Moore, Ty Pennington, Michelle Rodriguez, and all the other celebs who’ve gotten DUIs lately), but it’s not.

And before I explain this, allow me to digress into something else that’s been bugging me lately: I confess that I also feel bad for the Linds. While I can’t condone drinking and driving and smashing your Benz up and the cops finding coke on you, I do think it was a tad ridiculous the way that everyone jumped all over her for being passed out in her friend’s passenger seat. Jesus fuck, people, she’s 20 years old – who the hell hasn’t done that at some point in their college career? I’ve passed out on bars, on bathroom floors, in the driver’s seat of my car in the parking lot of an all-night diner (with Benjie also passed out in the passenger seat), in my car at rest stops on I-95 at 4am, in my car in front of Merc’s house when he and his family were away on vacation…the list goes on and on.

I don’t know, I just feel like rehab is the first conclusion that everyone’s making these days whenever someone admits to partying a little too hard. Look at Tara Conner. She’s young and hot, she goes out and drinks a lot, snorts a few lines, has some inappropriate sex, possibly has a little hot lesbo action, and next thing you know, she’s branded a drunk and sent off to rehab.

Ugh, give me a break. It’s like when some of my more annoying coworkers get all holier-than-thou because I want happy hour cocktails right after we finish working for the day. At one such event, we were given drink tickets, and the most sanctimonious example handed me his tickets, saying, ‘I’m sure *you* can use them.”

When he saw me later, he stopped in his tracks and asked, “Are you drinking water?”

“No,” I replied cheerfully. “It’s vodka on the rocks.”

That earned me a look of horror mixed with pity and displeasure, but what the fuck - smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, right?

So back to why we’re giving up booze for 2 weeks. It’s quite simple, really:

1. The excess calories – particularly in margaritas, sangria, and mojitos – are making us gain weight.
2. Booze is expensive and we’re broke.

There you have it – I’m going on the wagon for 2 weeks to see if I can drop the 3 or 4 lbs that have slowly been creeping up on me. And it’d be nice if I could drop another 15 on top of that, but considering I hate the gym and love eating, I’m not exactly holding my breath.

But godDAMN, you don’t know how badly I wanted a glass of wine tonight while I worked late. 12 hours in and I was already wanting some Jesus Juice.

It's going to be a long 2 weeks.

Elizabeth, it's still up

2007-05-31T14:56:00.001-04:00

I'll have Part 2 of the weekend up later today or tonight, but for now, I had to post this because I seriously almost choked on my Weight Watchers lunch when I saw it.

I know it's been re-edited and whatever, but god, that Nancy Grace is such a fucking bitch:

Weekend, part 1

2007-05-31T00:20:00.000-04:00

The worst thing about holiday weekends is how they completely fuck you up and spoil you for the rest of the week. I mean, after 3 days of drinking, dining out, and lying in the sun, work is not exactly what I want to think about on Tuesday morning when I wake up nursing a margarita hangover and gulping water and Advil, you know?

With that said, I can’t even remember what I did on Friday night right now. Of course, I’m a little bit drunk right now anyway, because tonight was…wait for it…”So You Think You Can Dance,” featuring my British girlfriend Cat Deeley, which of course means that it’s officially summertime. And that means that I make mojitos and Benjie and I sit back and watch all of the young hot boys dance for us and speculate on their sexuality. As I said tonight, watching the show brings back fond memories of last summer’s sweltering nights (well, before we broke down and bought two air conditioners, anyway), when we’d watch the show and then find a nice cool bar to duck into so we could avoid the steamy, stale air in our apartment.

Speaking of stale air – on Saturday night Benjie and I went to Mr. Black, which I’ve vowed never to go to again. I have never once been hit on in that place, and this past weekend was no exception. Per usual, I found myself wandering the dance floor for what felt like hours on end with nary a bit of attention to be found. Finally, I gave up and started drinking Maker’s on the rocks. I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea (particularly after consuming mojitos, red wine, vodka tonics, and vodka Red Bulls), but I did. I got a call from Benjie a while later – he had picked up a trick and was ready to leave. The three of us shared a cab back to Brooklyn, where Benjie decided we needed more drinks. We headed off to the local corner bar. After a single drink, Benjie and trick decided to leave. I sat there alone and ordered another beer and listened to the jukebox and eventually started dozing off (it was about 3:15 am). When I realized I was getting sleepy, I cashed out, left, and hit the pizza place on the way home for a slice of Sicilian. They were all out, however, which – sacrilege! So I got a plain slice and meandered on home, where I passed out around 3:45 am.

At precisely 7:56 am, my eyes flew open. I remembered that No Dice Joe had sent a text the night before ordering Benjie and me to be ready for some discount, Memorial Day weekend shopping at Roosevelt Fields on Long Island. Crazy Joey had instructed us to be ready for 8 am. I had texted him back, “Make it 11 am, please and thank you,” but hadn’t gotten a response.

I groaned, sat up, and turned on my phone. Sure enough, Joey had texted me five minutes earlier asking if I was ready. I was in the process of replying to him to tell him No, Absolutely Not, when my phone started ringing.

“Are you awake?” Joey asked me. “Because I’m picking you up in 20 minutes, so you’d better get in the shower.”

“No, not really,” I said hoarsely.

“Too bad, you’re going,” he answered. “I came to dollar margarita night on Thursday when you called, so you owe me.”

And, dear reader, he was right. He did come to Chelsea for dollar margarita night when I summoned him. And he drove our drunk asses home on Thursday night and saved us cab fare, so I did indeed owe him.

I gamely launched myself into the shower, where – still drunk – I knocked over several bottles of shampoo and dropped the soap. But I was ready in time for Joey to pick me up. Of course, after we met up with Steph and Rebecca and Alex and were in the car on the way to Long Island, I almost threw up several times from the awful, no good, very bad hangover, but that’s beside the point. Let’s focus on the positives – I was ready in TWENTY MINUTES – with a hangover, people! – and that never, ever happens. Ever.

Sure, later that morning, I saw myself in a mirror and said out loud, “Wow, I look like shit,” and Joey kindly replied, “Yeah, you kinda do. I’m not going to lie.” But…TWENTY MINUTES. That is a bonafide record for me.

And I managed to choke back the hot sick in the car. Who’s better than me, I ask? Who???

Darling, what do you say?

2007-05-24T17:36:00.001-04:00

One of the scariest things about getting older was that moment of perfect self-realization in which I took a step back to assess a situation and realized that Yes, I Am My Father. Well, a taller, thicker-haired, drunker version of him, anyway.

My dad is in many ways one of those perfect "dad" stereotypes. He doesn't like to show emotion, he doesn't really engage in conversation, and quite often, he'll grunt or shrug when asked a question that he doesn't feel like answering. And, because he's a cranky perfectionist (see, I am him!), one of his mantras has always been, "If you want something done right, do it yourself."

This of course extends to me as well. In my teen years, I was forbidden from mowing the lawn because he didn't like the way I alternated mowing it. In my father's rule book, you cut the grass horizontally one week, vertically the next time, and on the diagonal after that. Or something like that. Supposedly, it's good for the grass. Anyway, I fucked that up (and I also ran one of the mower wheels off the grass and into one of the many, many landscaping beds in the front yard, sending gravel flying, hitting the mower blade against a rock, and effectively scalping a portion of the lawn), so I was removed from lawn duty and reassigned to car detailing, pool vacuuming, weeding, and trimming shrubs. You know, things that aren't hard and were equally as good for my summer tan. It was a win-win situation all-around.

This is a long way of saying that my father felt he could do a much better job with the grass than I could.

I had a similar feeling this week in Houston. So I think I mentioned before that we have a new employee on my team. She's very nice and I get along with her very well, but I find I'm having trust issues in handing over team responsibilities to her.

She was responsible for prepping for this event, so I sent her a list of the items that I needed her to ship to Houston. The list expressly stated that I needed two of our Dell monitors, and that she should verify that they were similar in both size and appearance. I also told her to bring two smaller bowls to hold our giveaways, but that she could leave the large glass bowl that we usually bring behind, as I wouldn't need it.

Cut to Sunday afternoon, onsite, where I'm unpacking. What do I find? Two monitors that don't match and the big glass bowl.

In the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal - it's not like I freaked out on her or anything. One of the monitors was adjustable, so I was able to make them the same height. I went to CVS and bought two small plastic bowls. And I mentioned to her in a casual aside that she should make sure from now on that she stays on top of things like that.

But that's not the point (and here I cringe, for this is another saying of my father's), is it? This type of thing happens far too often - often enough so that I wonder whether I'm a poor communicator, or if I'm all right and the world's upside down?

Another example: When I arrived on Sunday, our company's booth was set up completely wrong. I found the contractors in charge of setting it up, who were quite irritated that they needed to take it all down and start from scratch.

"Well, I called your company on Thursday and spoke with [woman's name]," I explained to the foreman. "I told her we were not using this booth, that you should leave it in the crates and just ship it back to us, and that she could dispose of the booth cads I had sent previously. Another booth was being air-shipped and would arrive this morning. Did you not get that message?"

"No, I did," he admitted. "But we thought that the pieces that arrived today were to supplement this one, so we combined them according to the specs you sent."

"The specs that I told [woman] to throw out," I pointed out.

"Uh...yeah," he replied.

So, reader, I'm forced to concede this one to my father: If you want something done right, you do it yourself.

And if you need me, I'll be sitting over here with all the other cranky old men.

The Houston sky was changeless

2007-05-22T08:30:00.000-04:00

Initial impressions of Houston:

1. Pretty skyline.
2. Downtown streets are all one-way, with synchronized lights, and very clean.
3. Reminds me of Denver - particularly Main Street.
4. Very humid.
5 No one walks here - perhaps because of #4. It's 7 blocks from my hotel to the Hilton, which is where the conference is located. The concierge almost had a heart attack when I asked for walking directions.

Drew: It's like 6 blocks, right?
Concierge: Yes, but they're very long blocks, sir. And you would hit lights, and you'd have to wait on each corner, unless you want to jay-walk.
Drew: I live in New York, I'm fine with that. But really - six blocks? That's what, no more than a 10-minute walk, right?
Concierge: It's all the way on the other side of downtown, sir. At least 25 minutes.

(It took 10 minutes.)

6. There's a cute little boy working the coffeeshop in the hotel lobby who has great hair and even better lips. He completely fucked up my coffee yesterday morning and I still tipped him two bucks on a $4 coffee. I want to take him back to my room, throw him on the bed, and do naughty things to him.

Drive until you lose the road

2007-05-19T00:21:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow morning – Saturday – I’m renting a car at LaGuardia and driving to some town north of Boston for the wedding of a college friend, whom I’ll call Scales. He and I aren’t particularly close, but he invited most of the guys we hung out with in college, so it will be good to see all of them again.

It’s also going to be a little strange. Several of the guys I knew in college are married, and two of them have kids. Which is to be expected, I suppose – after all, we’re 30 years old.

College Friend Jiza emailed me on Wednesday to ask if I was going to the wedding and to share his excitement about seeing everyone together for the first time in, quite literally, years. And while I share that excitement, I realized that the majority of the people I’ll be seeing tomorrow are either in long-term relationships or married. And then there’s me…I didn’t even get to bring a guest to the fucking wedding. I’m going to take the high road and assume that they were trying to cut down the guest list and NOT that they were afraid I’d bring a guy. (Although I’m willing to bet it’s equal parts from column A and column B.)

I guess I’ve been sort of subconsciously processing all this since I turned 30…we all have ideas when we’re younger of how we’ll be, or what we’ll be doing, when we reach a certain age. It’s a difficult thing to reconcile those ideas with the reality; I never would have imagined that at this point in my life, I’d be alone. Lately I feel like there are couples everywhere I turn, and I’m just some freak who can’t find anyone to love or anyone to love me. It’s making me more bitter than usual; full of “why not me?” questions and crazy, in-depth introspection.

Life has been strange lately anyway, so I suppose I’m more out-of-sorts than usual. There are big goings-on happening at work, and I found out on Thursday that The Officemate and I will be getting a new boss within a few weeks. I’ve been pondering for a while now whether it’s time for me to move on, so this may just be the push that I need to abandon working from home in my underwear and actually venture out into the big wide world of working in Manhattan.

For now, though, it’s one step at a time. First this wedding, and then bright and early on Sunday morning, I’m flying to Houston for 3 days for a work event that I’m in charge of. It’s already been a bloodbath in terms of planning and Murphy’s Law, so I’m not exactly holding my breath that all is going to go well.

One thing, however, is certain: I’m going to be in a beautiful fucking mood at 8am on Sunday when I arrive at Logan for my flight. And probably hung over, too.

Hey, we all know that’s usually how I do these things, right?

Right.

She knows Jesus, John Lennon and Cobain personally

2007-05-15T11:49:00.000-04:00

Actual voicemail I received on my work phone last Wednesday (picture some guy in a weird Southern drawl alternately yelling and speaking at a normal volume):

"I opened up my closet around 9 o’clock last night and Jesus Christ popped out and said, 'You will go to hell, sinner. You will go to hell!' And I’m like, 'Hi Jesus, what’s up? The light was on and I’m just trying to go to bed and you’re in here and you’re trying to condemn me to hell and everything. I got work tomorrow, come on!' And Jesus was like, 'I’m sorry.' And I’m like, 'Well, you can go down to the bar, there’s plenty of sinners there.' And Jesus Christ was like, 'Okay.' And we shared a glass of orange juice and a midnight snack and he left. But let it be known that Jesus Christ was in MY closet."

I really fucking love how the freaks always find me. Who the hell leaves that on someone's work voicemail?

Big girl, you are beautiful

2007-05-11T11:13:00.000-04:00

Whew.

So I'm back in New York, and although I'm traveling twice at the end of next week (once to Boston again on Saturday for a wedding, and then flying to Houston the following morning), I'm really hopeful that next week will sort of calm down and I actually begin to breathe again.

Got in late last night...my 6:40 flight out of Logan was delayed for THREE fucking hours due to fog delays at JFK. Didn't get home until midnight, after which I still had to boot up the laptop and finish a presentation for my boss that I've been working on for approximately five hundred years. (It feels that way, anyway - it's over 100 slides, and about half of them deal with sales pipelines, marketing campaigns, conversion rates, blah blah blah. All of which means that I've spent three days running reports and doing data analysis.)

Anyway - the fog has lifted today, but instead it's really, really humid. Like, sticky and gross. As in, you break into a sweat just doing normal shit, like walking.

And you know what else happens when it's really humid? (Girls, I know you know.)

My mop of curly locks, I've discovered, gets fucking HUGE.

(I kinda like it.)

Everything to everyone

2007-05-07T23:11:00.000-04:00

I've been told by more than one person that it's long past time for an update, and because I'm such an annoying little people pleaser, I'm doing just that instead of going to bed - even though I have to be up in 4 hours to catch a flight to Boston, because yes, I'm fucking traveling AGAIN.

So let's see, what's going on?

Two weeks ago was my big customer event, which - in all seriousness - I'd think I'd rather have my balls torn off than go through again. It was one of those things where everything that could have gone wrong did, from one of the guests of honor checking into the hotel and being told they didn't have a room for him because they overbooked (even though I wound up flagged as a VIP, in an executive suite on the concierge floor as an Elite member - ha!) to stupid stuff like the conference facility's sound system not working at all. If there's one thing I hate, it's trying to get something fixed while people all around me who are trying to "help" call my name repeatedly. I mean, sure, I'm a gigantic bitch and all, but if I'm frantically trying to rewrite a VP's PowerPoint presentation 5 minutes before he's due to go on, I don't need, "Drew, when can I get a look at my revised presentation?" and "Drew, do we have Internet access?" and "Drew, we ran out of coffee" and "Drew, it's too cold in here." People, you all need to get off my dick NOW.

These things make me want to rip my tie off, scream that I quit, and go lie on a beach somewhere sipping cocktails for a week.

Anyway - I survived that, left Baltimore, came back to New York for a day, and then left on Saturday morning at 7:45 on a train to New England for The Officemate's wedding. Several other coworkers and spouses were there as well, including my VP and his wife, who insisted on dancing with me but wouldn't let me bring my drink on the dance floor. (I think I actually called her the Drink Gestapo and told her I couldn't dance without a comforting drink in my hand. I am sooo professional.)

It was a great time and The Officemate looked completely fucking amazing, even though she did corner me on the dance floor at the reception and say, "We need to talk about all the things I didn't get to do before I left," since she's on her honeymoon for 2 weeks. I just laughed and told her she was nuts and that I refused to discuss work with her standing in front of me at her WEDDING in her wedding gown.

So what'd that crazy girl do? Sent me an email on Monday from the business center of her hotel in Costa Rica, outlining all the things I needed to cover while she was out. I love her to death, but she's sick. Her husband actually made her swear that she wouldn't bring her work laptop on her honeymoon with her.

The next day, I rented a car and drove to Boston for the week so I could be in the office to train the new girl on our team. Best part of that? The VP who was at the wedding walking in and saying to me, "By the way, my wife says you have a rock-hard ass. The gym must be paying off."

I flushed a particularly lovely shade of red at that, thank you very much.

More goings-on at work resulted in my boss sending me a message from his Blackberry on Thursday that said, "Are you planning on being in the office next week? If not, can you be?" And that's why my ass is on JetBlue's scheduled 6:30AM flight to Boston tomorrow.

Left Massachusetts on Friday night, drove to RI and spent the night with the parents and the dog, and then took the train back to New York on Saturday afternoon. Went out with Benjie and his new boy on Saturday to a party at the Bryant Park Hotel bar and then hit Merchants for food and drinks. Met a weird stripper girl and her hot Puerto Rican photographer fuckbuddy, who coincidentally lives 3 blocks away from us in Brooklyn. The stripper tried to set me up with some friend - she called him and said, "I have your future husband sitting right here in front of me." Sadly, he couldn't make it over. Because what's cooler than blind dates set up by strippers you met 20 minutes ago?

Sunday was late, late brunch, followed by catching up on "The Tudors" and me drooling over hot, hot Henry Cavill, who's my new boyfriend. I have seen the face of God, and it looked like Henry's slammin' big bubble butt of an ass. That boy is beautiful - no other way to describe him.
Saw Spider-Man 3 after that and liked it. Theater was packed and I wound up squeezed between two groups of people who chowed down on popcorn like it was going to be taken away from them at any second. Tobey Maguire is the fuggiest fug who ever fugged and kind of chubby. Drunkst has weird teeth, but they did a good job of disguising her saggy titties. James Franco is a hottie, and when he started dancing the Twist on the kitchen floor with Kiki and grinned that grin of his at her (you know, where suddenly his eyes crinkle up and his mouth opens wide, and it looks like his face just explodes with happiness), well, let's just say that I didn't even care later on when his face was all scarred. (Yeah, sorry about that spoiler. I suck. Still, go see it.) I'd totally let him stick it in.

Wound up at Miracle Grill after that, where I had the nastiest mojito I've ever had, followed by frozen margaritas and lots of appetizers. And somehow I got stuck paying the bill because I was the only one with money. Hmm. Curious how that works, no?

It's now 11:44pm. I have to get up at 3:30am, land in Boston at 7:40am, and am in back-to-back meetings beginning at 8:30 and lasting all day.

Ooh, I'm going to be in rare form tomorrow...

I'm just so relieved that it's over

2007-04-27T15:39:00.000-04:00

I'm back from Baltimore. The customer event is over. Done. Finished.

I emerged barely alive after 3 days, 12 hours of sleep, a cell phone that never stopped ringing, and constant stress. But it was worth it - I think - because it was praised by colleagues and customers alike as the best event my company has ever put on, and the most well-organized.

(My mother, when I passed that along to her: "You get that from me.")

Now I'm off to RI tomorrow for a wedding, and then on to Boston for a week in our office there to train a new hire. Full update to come soon.

There is no rest for the wicked.

This is why they love me

2007-04-19T10:23:00.000-04:00

Excerpt from a meeting I had yesterday to prep my coworkers for my big customer event next week:

Drew: The event will begin promptly at 8:30 on Wednesday. Dress code is business casual - and by that, I mean more business than casual. You should look professional, which means no jeans, no sneakers, no wrinkled shirts. You are to wear khaki or black pants...and they are to be IRONED. Golf or polo shirts are acceptable, as well as button-down shirts - which should also be ironed. Are there questions?

Coworker: Yeah, how do we iron?

Drew (slowly, enunciating): DRY. CLEANER.

An extra special way of saying "ghetto"

2007-04-18T22:55:00.000-04:00

I flew into Boston very early yesterday morning for what was supposed to be a quick two days of prep before my big customer event next week - an event that has been many months and many, many thousands of dollars in the making, and for which I am largely responsible because the Officemate is getting married two days after it, so she has bigger fish to fry.

We didn't get everything done, though, so I wound up extending my flight and staying an extra night. Sadly, I couldn't extend my room at the perfectly acceptable Crowne Plaza, and since this was so last minute and there appears to be some crazy hotel room shortage in the Metro West area...I wound up at the Comfort Inn. Yeah, I know.

[Just the other day, Benjie was mocking me for bitching about possibly having to stay at a cheap hotel/motel - calling me "Princess" and saying I couldn't rough it (which is funny for many reasons, but we won't go into that).]

I can fully admit to having certain standards when it comes to a hotel room, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In tonight's case, I guess I'm just not used to staying in the type of hotel where the desk clerk informs me upon check-in that she just got in trouble for checking in an obviously intoxicated guest*. Or where the iron is chained to the ironing board.

I only wish I were kidding.

*Although I found this terribly amusing when I got to my room, glanced at my reflection in the mirror, and noticed that I had several grains of salt stuck on the bridge of my nose - remnants of the two salt-rimmed margaritas I had with dinner. Oops!

Things that make me sad

2007-04-16T09:44:00.000-04:00

Stupid Nor'Easters.

I ain’t got seventy days

2007-04-09T23:26:00.000-04:00

(I apologize for not posting for so long – as Benjie said to me last week, “God, I’m so sick of looking at Tom’s ham hock of an arm on your stupid blog.” – but work has been really, really busy lately, and when I’m not working, I just don’t have the time or the inclination to sit down and write.)

Every once in a while on a Friday or Saturday night, a few of us will go to Mr. Black. Our nights out typically follow the same routine: We pre-drink in Park Slope, I take forever to get showered and dressed while Benjie yells at me for being so slow, we make to-go cups of Red Bull and vodka, and we take a car into the city around midnight.

For whatever reason, though, I never have a great time at Mr. Black. For starters, I usually don’t get any attention from anyone – or at least not from anyone under the age of 40 or even remotely attractive. Benjie and Joe are much more social animals than I am, so they invariably find people to talk to. And Mr. Black switches to house music right around the time that we get there, so I can’t even enjoy the latest trash from hos like Christina, Fergie, and Beyonce.

I have a theory that my brain has developed a defense mechanism for nights like these. You see, I never remember what happens when we’re there. I remember pre-drinking, I remember the car ride into the city, I remember walking into the club and checking my coat…and then I remember leaving and getting a cab home. But all those hours in between? Gone.

Oh, sure, there are flashes of memory: Wandering around with a drink in my hand – not because I need one, but because I just like to have something to hold onto. Running into Joe in the bathroom. Seeing this guy and then involuntarily stiffening my shoulders when he gives me a quick hug on his way by and tosses off an airy, “Hey.” Having some weird bald guy come up and launch into a fucking five minute soliloquy in front of me, ending with me staring at him and asking, “Are you done now?” and walking away.

Some people have called these little memory lapses “blackouts,” but I refuse to use that hate speech. After all, I remember everything that happens after we leave. I don’t throw up or pass out. I don’t hook up in the back room or in the bathroom (that’s Joe’s job).

I guess I just…sort of float away. My brain goes on vacation for a few hours, and my ability to recognize faces – which is practically non-existent even when I’m dead sober – reaches its all-time low. As I told Benjie, on nights like the ones I’ve described, I could walk right into my mother at the bar and I’d have no clue. I’d probably just spill beer on her, smile sheepishly and move to one side.

That is, if I didn’t ask her to buy me a drink.

When we talk I feel like I died twice

2007-03-27T17:54:00.000-04:00

Saturday started off nice, weather-wise, which led No Dice Joe and Co. to declare it a day of outdoor drinking. Benjie and I joined them at The Gate at 3:30, only to wind up inside ten minutes later because it was just too damn cold. That led to a marathon drinking day that was interrupted only by dinner at Beso in honor of Dine In Brooklyn.

We capped dinner off with pitchers of margaritas at the Mexican restaurant up the street, but not before Benjie and Joe decided to play by shoving each other full-force into pedestrians on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, Benjie shoved Joe into some guy who told Joe to watch it, and Joe decided to mouth off back to him, and it all went downhill very, very quickly...culminating in Joe yelling to the guy, "Go back to Wisconsin, you douche!"

I got between them and tried to get them to cool down, but the other guy sort of shoved me and said, "Get off me, dude," and that's when I thought to myself, "Honestly, why do I even bother with this shit?"

Anyway, nothing happened and we continued on to margaritaville unscathed. We took seats at the bar and Benjie took liberties with the bar's decorations by placing his cell phone atop the drink held by the bar's weird little statue:

(Please note that is *not* Benjie's arm in the photo.)

Hours later, we finally wound up at the bar around the corner, where Katie broke my heart by telling me that not only does she know my coffeeshop hottie, but that he's friends with her brother and they play in a band together. And he's straight. With a girlfriend. Of course. Oh, Brooklyn - such a big small town!

I mean, I always knew he was straight anyway, but ignorance is still sometimes nice, you know? It's like buying a lottery ticket when the jackpot is really high, spending the night dreaming about what you'd do with the money, and then not checking the ticket the next morning. Sometimes it's better to just have the dream.

I keep thinking something's gonna change

2007-03-22T00:59:00.000-04:00

So if a guy hits on you via Friendster, and you end up going out with him for drinks and he kisses you - a lot - at the end of the night, and you email back and forth for another week until you finally say to him, "So, are we going out again or what?" and he says yes and suggests dinner, but is sort of blase about the whole thing, and then you go out for dinner and have a nice time, and he suggests going back to his apartment to "watch TV" and you do that and he starts making out with you and you end up hooking up (he instigates that, too), but he has...um...issues, but you leave on a nice note and then you don't hear from him again and it's been four days...

...that means he's probably not very interested, right?

Just checking.

I was sort of freaked out by the whole thing for a while because, true to form, I made it all about me (mostly because it's not the first time that it's happened with guys I've hooked up with lately). I was lying on my bed staring at the ceiling and thinking the usual bullshit: I must have done something wrong. I'm not attractive enough, or thin enough, or funny enough, or good enough in the sack.

I ran this by someone whose advice I always trust for validation and he set me straight, thankfully. And you know what? I don't care anymore. Honestly. I suffer from some pretty shitty self-esteem sometimes, but there are certain times where I can look around and say with some degree of confidence that I'm cute, I'm funny, I'm (sometimes) smart, I'm educated, and I have a good job that pays me well. I'm a catch, goddamnit, and if the guys in New York don't recognize it, well that's their fucking loss.

* * * * *

When I was home earlier this month for my grandmother's surprise birthday party, Lesbian Cousin was sitting with her head in her hands bitching to my mother about how her love life sucks, and how she's getting older and she's still alone (her most recent GF had just broken up with her).

My mother, full of tea and sympathy as always, shrugged and jerked a thumb in my direction.

"Eh, don't worry about it," she said. "He doesn't have anyone either."

Well, I may be alone, but I've fallen in (completely unrequited) love, so you can go shit in your hat, Mother. Yes, I'm in love with the boy who works at the cafe around the corner.

Sure, some people develop crushes on bartenders (yeah, I've been there) or rock stars (done that, too), or other seemingly unattainable people on pedestals elsewhere. But me? I fall in love with the guy who fulfills my caffeine needs each morning.

How could I not, though? He's beautiful. Tall - probably about 6'1" - and lean, with dark hair, amazing blue eyes, and tattoos. And he's growing in a beard that has sort of a dark reddish tinge to it that's a completely different hue than his hair.

I'm 95% certain he's straight, but it doesn't matter. Each and every time I walk through the door and see him behind the counter, my stomach flips and my heart beats a little faster. That feeling hasn't happened to me in a very, very long time, and I miss it, so right now I'm content to just order my large coffee and stare at him longingly and soak it all in.

(Plus the coffee is really good, too.)

If loving Michael K is wrong, I don't want to be right

2007-03-21T17:42:00.000-04:00

I don't know if you bitches include Dlisted in your daily list of Places From Which to Obtain Celebrity Gossip, but ever since Benjie introduced me to the witty stylings of its author, Michael K, I've been hooked.

Michael K blogged about that annoying little crying bitch on American Idol last night (and no, I don't watch that wretched piece of shit show, I read about online it just like you did, but it's still fucking annoying). Unlike everyone else who wrote about the girl, though, Michael included this:

Isn't 13 a little old for that kind behavior? I thought she was like 8. Damn, at 13 I was crying alright, but that's because the boy next door was a little too big. I'm joking! He wasn't that big.

I almost choked on my Posh Spice diet of pretzels and Diet Coke when I read that. God, I love him.

Ghetto fabulous

2007-03-21T09:04:00.000-04:00

Here's one more reason why I don't shop at Macy's very often (unless they have a super sale, and then I'm so there with my stupid red Macy's card and all the awesome coupons they shower you with).

I saw this on not one sign, but SEVERAL signs throughout their Herald Square flagship store. There are probably hundreds of employees and thousands of customers in this store each day. Umm...has no one clued Federated Department Stores (Macy's parent company) in on the fact that "ladies" is one word, and that the plural possessive is not "ladie's"? I mean, they obviously don't have this problem at Bloomingdale's, so what's the deal? And let's not even get started on using the euphemism "lounge" in the first place...

Seeing things like this makes my soul hurt.

No second billing ‘cause you’re a star now

2007-03-20T00:36:00.000-04:00

Thursday night Benjie and I went to KGB in the East Village to hear several authors read some excerpts from their work. One of these authors – and our primary reason for going – was Josh Kilmer-Purcell, who wrote a fantastic book called “I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir.” If you haven’t read it yet, I highly suggest you pick up a copy, as it was probably my favorite of all the books I read last year - and both Benjie and I read a lot.

There weren’t that many people present at the bar, and I think Benjie and I were the only ones there drinking hard stuff; everyone else had beers. That’s probably why the bartender gave me my third Stoli & tonic on the house. But who cares what the reason was? Yay for free drinks!

Josh is also a columnist for Out magazine, so he read his latest piece, which he helpfully informed us had elicited the largest number of letters to the editor in their history. It was really funny – a riff on what straight people need to know to handle their faggots (think everyone’s favorite homophobe, Isaiah Washington) – but what really made Benjie and me laugh was how this lesbian sitting in front of us roared through the whole thing, especially when Josh used the word “faggot,” but when he dropped some little quip about dykes, she went all stony-faced. Uh, miss the point much, dyke?

After the readings were over, Benjie nodded to Josh on his way out and told him that he was going to harass him for a second. Josh looked momentarily startled, but he recovered quickly once he realized that we weren’t going to give him shit about the Out column. He asked if he knew us and looked genuinely confused when we shook our heads in the negative.

“Are you sure? You guys look really familiar,” he said.

Then Benjie told him that our friend Whitney would be so upset if she knew that we were there talking to Josh, since she’s a huge fan and really, really loved his book.

Josh didn’t hesitate. “Where is she? Call her and I’ll talk to her.”

And he did. She didn’t believe it was him at first, which made it even better. He told her he’d be in Providence soon and that she should come to his reading. You’d better believe that bitch will be there, too. That’s how much she loves his ass.

Best part, though? (No, not the delicious dinner and $12 mojitos we had at Cafeteria. And not the many, many $1 margaritas at View Bar that Benjie and I had later when we met up with Nathan and some of his friends. Or the fact that we got so drunk later on that night that we BOTH left our umbrellas at whatever club we ended up at in Midtown. I have no idea where it was – I just know that our friend Sai got us in for free, Michael Musto was sitting shooting the shit right near the bar, and we left our umbrellas and Benjie left his hoodie, too.)

Ugh, where was I? Oh yeah, the best part. That would be the MySpace message I got from Josh the next day in response to the friend request/note I dashed off to him:

[Whitney] wrote to me and said she was stoned when we called. freaked her out. funny.

My weekend, with shitty camera phone pics!

2007-03-12T23:42:00.000-04:00

Ugh - I can't believe it's been a week since I updated. And I was trying to be better about that, too. Well, onward and upward. Here's the weekend recap:

Friday night
I (foolishly) asked Benjie to show me his legs routine at the gym, so he obliged by trying to kill me with torture in the form of squats and lunges and his insane "gut-buster" ab workout, which entails hundreds of situps (Benjie) and lots of tears (Drew).

(I've decided that I really should try to get in shape before summer, and since I'm an old man now, I don't have a lot of time left before I'm the creepy old gay guy. So: I am on a mission now to drop some fat, gain some muscle, blah blah blah. Which basically means that I now have committed to hitting the gym at least 5 days per week and really cutting down on what I shove in my gaping maw during the work week, so I will now subsist on coffee, cereal, salads, and frozen Weight Watcher entrees. Il faut suffrir pour etre belle, as some wise Frenchy once said.

Aaaaaaanyway...I knew this diet would be coming, so this past weekend was one last fling.)

Benjie and I returned from the gym, made some pasta, and then collapsed in front of the TV while weakly tossing around the idea of venturing out for mojitos. In the end, we both decided we were too tired/lazy to do so, and we were both in bed by midnight-ish.

Saturday
Benjie and I had plans to go shopping with Nathan in SoHo, so we headed into the city in the early afternoon. On the way, we first saw this on the subway, which amused me a little:

Then, though, we encountered this hot slut on the F train:

I realize it's hard to see from the pic, so let me run it down for you:

Camo pants
Black Army boots
Not one, but TWO backpacks
An annoying cell on which she kept playing the same shitty rap song at max volume for everyone to hear

Anyway, we ditched her skank ass at Jay St, where we last heard her screaming at someone to find out if the A train was running. (Here's a hint: Those posters all over every column? They say that the C train isn't running, and to take the A because it's running local - so shut your hole and open your eyes, you freak show.)

Yeah, so we went shopping. Some of us bought expensive jeans (Nathan), some of us bought expensive coats for spring (Benjie), and some of us bought a sweater at Club Monaco and then a pair of Earnest Sewn jeans for $70 at Filene's Basement in Union Square. My parents would probably choke if they heard that, but when you consider that lately I've been dropping about $200 on a pair of jeans...well, it puts things in perspective, no? God, I'm such a frugal little lady these days!

Hit the discount liquor store on Broadway near Astor Place and stocked up on cheap wine, moved it along to the Body Shop and stocked up on buy 2, get 1 free facial care products, and then finally stopped off at Spice on University and 10th in the Village and had a very late lunch, complete with two pinky mimosas (I don't know, that's what they were called...they were pink, okay?) that Benjie and I sucked down.

Came back to Park Slope and drank the discount wine while we cleaned out our closets and disposed of all the clothing that we hate/don't wear anymore. Got a car into the city around midnight and went to Mr. Black, which has--oh-so-conveniently!--gotten new stamps for the door:

I think that's just fucking amazing, and I'm not being facetious at all. There have been many rough mornings where I could have used such clues as to my whereabouts the previous evening.

Let's see, what happened? We drank travelers of straight vodka in the car on the way to the club. Benjie's phone fell out of his pocket in the car and he lost it (but recovered it the next day from our thoroughly fucking awesome driver, who apparently didn't hold a grudge against Benjie for his comment about said driver's penchant for John Denver music...it was something along the lines of, "You know what I like about John Denver? He's dead."). We danced to music that was so bad, it was good...the Humpty Dance, for chrissake. Why? Well, because it's your chance to do the hump.

Benjie found a 21 year-old NYU boy to occupy his time while I wandered away and tried, alternately, to look friendly and approachable, and when that didn't work, to look bitchy and above it all. Then I got bored and decided that I wanted to leave, so I let Benjie know and then caught a cab back to Brooklyn, where I made love to a slice of pizza before crashing.

Sunday
Awoke at 10:15, and when I booted up my laptop to jerk off to some of Sean Cody's finest (oh, shut up), realized that it was actually 11:15. Hmmph.

Emerged from my room later to find Benjie. Pulled on clothes and went to a diner for brunch, where we both looked like hot baked ass with our bedhead, recycled clothes, and glasses instead of contacts. Decided that we had a case of the Sunday Gays...which means that we save all our hotness for Friday night through Saturday night. On Sunday, it's anything goes.

Went to the thrift store and sold the clothes we had decided to throw out the night before. Got $45, which we put toward our fatty, disgustingly good dinner: hummus and grilled flat bread, entrees, a bottle of wine, and dessert for both of us. Sat next to two lesbians, who talked about meaningful things like life and love while totally scoping out our food and then ordering the same thing. I filled Benjie in on "The Hills," LC's shitty internship at Teen Vogue, and why I hate Spencer Pratt with the white-hot fury of a thousand supernovas. (Just read this, okay? Then you'll get it.)

Came home and watched this:

It was...eh. Okay. Very pretty. Benjie and I were both impressed with Drunkst's ass. And Jamie Dornan was in it, briefly, as eye candy. He may be my newest crush.

Old people rock

2007-03-05T18:48:00.000-05:00

When I was back in Rhode Island this past weekend for my grandmother's surprise 80th birthday party, my parents filled me in on one of the more amusing RSVP voicemails they got from one of my grandmother's friends:

"Hello, this is Barbara...I'm a friend of your daughter's*. I'm calling to RSVP for the party you're having for Ilene's** 80th birthday. Oh, and I'm also bringing Gloria...here's my phone number in case you want to call me back to confirm, and here's my cell phone number, too. [Recites phone numbers] Okay, thanks."

She doesn't hang up, however, and then you hear her talking to her husband in the background:

"Yeah, that was for Ilene's birthday party. She's gonna be 80. She's very nice. She's not like my sister, that bitch. Fuck her! She really pisses me off, you know that?"

It is at this point that my father begins laughing uncontrollably and mimicking, "My sister, that bitch...fuck her!"

God, old people can be so funny.

*Since she's 80 years old and unlikely to be friends with my parents' daughter, it's safe to assume that she meant "your mother."

**This is even funnier, because my grandmother's name is not Ilene. It's close, but that's not it.