Misadventures of the Little Hedonist

IN THE BELL JAR

2006-07-14T10:39:00.000+01:00

I feel so very strange. Unrested. Anxious. About everything. And I don't know why. I think the new sleeping pills my doctor prescribed are making me paranoid and slightly depressed? My dreams are all fucked-up and paranormal. I have so so so much nervous energy. And chills. I feel like something very bad is about to happen. I hope it doesn't, and I don't know why I feel this way. I want to be sedated. I want to move to Antarctica and live alone in an igloo with no neighbors, but maybe keep nearby some friendly non-confrontational seals for comfort and conversation.

I abhore it when people use the word ironic incorrectly. Ironic is the most erroneously used word in casual conversation of my generation. It drives me crazy when my peers do not underestand irony but relentelessly say, That's so ironic. That said, though, without being ironic, apparently everything else bugs me right now, too. I feel like I'm going to flip? Not in an angry way. I feel like I need to go dancing and jump off a stage into a big crowd of people who catch me, people who do not use improperly the word ironic.

I don't know why, I don't know why, I want to know why. My weekend is looking rather calm until Sunday, which means I will continue being paranoid until then (and probably after then). Ever get that feeling that you need to mentally and/or emotionally prepare yourself for some unknown forthcoming event that's creepy or awkward? I can't sit still. I want to chain-smoke but I've quit smoking.

My friends are having a big BBQ for me on Sunday afternoon for No. 31 of my 52 going away parties. But that's not it. A BBQ is not freaking me out. Neither is the dinner party that my flatmate has planned for Saturday night. Nor is the drinks get-together I'm supposed to attend tonight. So what the fuck is wrong with me?

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
I'm drowning in assholes. - Burr Steers

PROUD TO BE A MEXICAN

2006-07-12T17:12:00.000+01:00

~~Since I am a Mexican...~~
No.
~~Since I am in a longterm relationship with a Mexican...~~
Nope.
~~Since I was raised with Mexican slaves who mowed our yard, cleaned our house...~~
Definitely not.
~~Since I met these Mexicans...~~
Nuh-uh.

Since I was raised in Texas and therefore raised on Mexican food for approximately half of my culinary life, the inner-workings of my body and palate have Mexican food cravings way, way, way more often than the average Londoner. Or New Yorker, for that matter. I've tried multiple supposed Mexican or Tex-Mex restaurants in London. And they're all such shite that the "food" is inedible. I even went to the Texas Embassy restaurant near Trafalgar Square once; I just stared in horror at the plastic, flavorless 'food' they brought to my table. I've tried both Cantina Mercado and La Perla in Covent Garden, both of which made me depressed to be a white boy. (Which pretty much goes against that whole racist philosophy in Texas that if you're not white, then you must be a Mexican, no matter your actual ethnicity. Really, it's sad: Non-Caucasian = Mexican.)

At Cantina Mercado, my margarita was delivered to me in a thimble, which caused me to cry into the bowl of Cool Ranch Doritos that had been set in front of me when we had ordered chips and salsa. I've even ventured down to Greenwich and tried a random 'Mexican ' restaurant down there; they served us chips (as in potatoes) and mushy peas with our 'burritos', which were prepared in wheat wraps. I immediately made best friends with the Mexican busboy and in Spanish asked if he could do anything; alas, he could not, as he had given up, too.

For two years I had given up. Then, about a month-and-a-half ago, I met these Mexicans at an international conference in London. As soon as I saw the Mexicans, I ran over to them, wrapped my arms around them, and cried. When they peeled me off, they called security. When the British security guards rushed over, they asked me what the Mexicans had done to me, which only confused my beloved Mexicans even further.

Later, during post-conference drinks, the Mexicans told me about a restaurant called Taqueria in Notting Hill (of all places for Mexicans to be). Naturally, me being me and having no short-term memory, I forgot the name of the place until yesterday. I magically remembered the name of it this morning and demanded to my flatmate that we go there today. And we did. And it was just fucking magical. This little blond Texican was one happy little spicy jalapeno during lunchtime today. I highly recommend it. Plus I had like seven margaritas so it was especially good.

I am Mexican, after all, so I should know. Ok, so I'm not Mexican, but one time when I was a kid, I brought Jose and Jose water when they mowed our yard, and another day Lucia taught me how to vacuum. (Which explains why, to this day, I only know how to vacuum, and am fucking rubbish at cleaning my bathroom or any other grimy household chore.) I always had Mexican babysitters, too, which was pretty liberal of my parents for snobby 1980s Dallas and Houston. The slave trade in Texas is still alive and active today. I'm just sayin'.

I am a TexicanNewYorkerLondoner.

In other news, I love being a man of leisure. I am no longer bored. And I have also (temporarily) fought off the guilt of not being a workaholic for a month...or two. Yesterday, I somehow, magically - this post is just full of magic!, wrote half of that book chapter that's due at the end of the month, and secured another teaching job for the fall. Today, though, for the rest of the afternoon, my flatmate and I wandered all over Notting Hill, Westbourne Grove, and again through Hyde Park - with me taking pee stops every five feet due to the giant To-Go margarita that I convinced my new favorite Mexican waiter to give me. Oh.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
If Jesus was a Jew, how come he has a Mexican first name? - Billy Connelly

SNIPPETS

2006-07-11T10:21:00.000+01:00

I am convinced that my brain is going to be sporadic and frantic until I land in New York - which is two weeks from tomorrow - and will then continue franticness for some significant time thereafter.

Awesome and I found an apartment. It's in the East Village, but not way over in Alphabet City, and right above Houston - perfect location. It's big. It's clean. I've seen many (hopefully truthful) photographs. It's only for 3 to 6 months because we're doing the 'furnished thing' when we first get back, since the furniture I still possess is in Awesome's dad's house in Dirty Jersey, and also because we don't want to worry about furnishing an apartment the second we return to Manhattan. It's also on the exact same block as one of the bars I frequent that has 2-for-1 Happy Hour until 10pm! Oh. I have priorities.

My flatmate Peter just returned to London after a long absence, and has major plans to be attached at the hip with me until I leave. (Not in that way, you pervert.) So instead of working or packing, I have elaborate plans for the two of us to venture all over London to neighborhoods I've not been to, or have only been for limited amounts of time. Me thinks this week we'll cover the rest of North London because it's the prettiest part. Where else do I need to go before I leave?

Yesterday I went to uni to complete some PhD paperwork. Me thinks this is the last time I will ever have to go there...until January. I was unshowered, wearing shorts, a children's t-shirt, flip-flops, an Abercrombie baseball cap, and aviator sunglasses, when I accidentally ran into one of my students. I talked to her for a good two or three minutes before she even realized it was me. She said, "Oh, I thought you were one of the students! Or, like, somebody's little brother."

My weekend was strangely sporty. But I love how my native London friends play sports: During our boozy Saturday afternoon picnic in Hyde Park, one of my friends retrieved a baseball and bat from his car, and demanded that we all play. Except, all my friends referred to baseball as 'Rounders'. And none of them knew the rules. And the rules that they did know were all wrong. There is a serious problem when I of all people am the only person who knows the rules of a sport. My favorite part of Rounders was that we all carried a glass of champagne while batting, running bases, and fetching the ball. It was like The Alcoholic's Guide to Baseball, and often in slow motion.

Saturday night after watching the Germany vs. Portugal 3rd place game, we frequented some more of my regular Islington yuppie bars. (Speaking of football - how boring was Sunday night's World Cup final?! So boring until penalties...) Around 2am when it started sprinkling on our outdoor table, we decided to call it a night, particularly since we had been sipping wine and champagne in the sun all day. After everyone else got a bus or taxi, I decided to walk home. This was when the sprinkling became a violent downpour. It was hysterical, and one of those Londony moments I will miss. I just kept walking. I passed large clusters of people hiding desperately under bus stops and shop awnings, all staring at the little blond freak casually strolling home in the thunderstorm. I was beyond soaked when I got home but just stood in front of the mirror laughing at myself.

Ryan, my straight boyfriend in New York, was just fabulously hired by Rupert Murdoch to be the new Features Editor of the New York Post. I most certainly plan to be naughty and end up on Page 6 every morning. Thank you. Yesterday, on Ryan's first day, he had to do a random tabloid-y story about Johnny Depp, and interview a straight guy, a straight girl, and a gay guy about Depp's career and sexual prowess. Guess who the gay guy was? I can't wait to read the fluff article in today's paper, at least the online version (um, including the fact that in the article I am outed to all of New York City). Look at me go: I've still got two weeks left in London and my name is already back in a New York newspaper. Heee.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings. - Jane Austen

DEAR MOTHERFUCKING ASSHOLE:

2006-07-08T10:49:00.000+01:00

In order to temporarily escape my post-PhD and -Euro traveling poverty, I am toying with the idea of getting a part-time job when I return to New York, before I begin teaching again in the fall. (This may not be possible because I may need to go down to Dallas for a week or two in August.) I don't mean like as a waiter or bartender, because I have never served people, and I know I would be complete shit in customer service. Sometimes I am rude. I also do not mean as a temp or anything because those people are scary, and not much has changed in the Manhattan temping world since Working Girl. Plus, I would prefer part-time work where I don't have to file other people's paperwork, fetch folks coffee, and get sexually harassed. Rather, if I have time between moving continents and starting work in the fall, I'm considering doing temporary or part-time editing jobs.

About 4.5 years ago when I quit working full-time for my television show to do my full-time MFA, I opted to look for part-time writing or editing work. So, I decided to send my CV to about 10 to 15 law firms, inquiring about paralegal editing/research work. The problem on this fateful day, though, was that I was in a very, very bad mood when I drafted my cover letter, and instead of writing To Whom It May Concern: and then replacing it with the appropriate Human Resources name, I wrote:

Dear Motherfucking Asshole:

This letter is in regards to the part-time paralegal position...

...and accidentally forgot to change it...on every letter I mailed out. I did not realize that I had done this until three days after making my angry mistake. Then, about a week later, I received a positive letter from one of the law firms, stating:

Dear Mr. Hedonist,

Although you have the right attitude, we are looking for someone with a little more legal experience...

Of course I received no response from the other firms. Oh well. Everything worked out for the best - much better than 'the best', actually. So, I have faith that everything will work out for me within the next couple of months, too. It always has in the past, so why am I freaking out about my future now?

In the meantime, I am currently in hell still eliminating all of my worldly possessions to not have to pay for extortionate intercontinental shipping costs; pay for extra airplane baggage (which I already know I'll have to); etc. Moving is so fucking expensive!!!!!!!! Grrrrrrrrrr. Um. Both of my coffin-sized suitcases are only halfway full and already over the weight limit. I am so fucked. But am completely open to all travel suggestions involving baggage weight issues; posting large boxes; sneaking extra personal items across the ocean; and more. Does anyone need a TV? No? How about two stereos? Nuh-uh? Want three giant bags of clothing - both in adult and children's sizes (but all of which was mine)? Maybe I can just write a nice, sweet letter to British Airways in advance, voicing all of my concerns: Dear Motherfucking Assholes...

I will also go procrastinate packing and writing book chapters all afternoon by having a long, elaborate, boozy picnic with a bunch of friends in Hyde Park, which will serve as No. 19 of my 52 Leaving Parties.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
There are no accidents without intentions. - Alex Miller

POSTPARTUM POVERTY

2006-07-06T09:33:00.000+01:00

I am brain-dead. I have postpartum PhD dissertation syndrome. I worked obsessively on this ungrateful 600-page motherfucker for 2.5 years, gave birth to it, and then passed it along for a trio of 'superiors' to judge, who will eventually then pass it to an even larger panel of judges. Is this process really acceptable? You wouldn't pass along your newborn baby for judgment, would you? I mean, unless you were a shallow mommy obsessed with beauty competitions.

I don't even want to think anymore. Especially analytically. Now I just want to be stupid and rich. I want to speak in cliches and buy mass-marketed clothes and furniture and be a silly sheep, lost in a flock of other clones. Ok, maybe not - just typing that last sentence made me queasy with conformative shivers.

I had to give up my baby for adoption! And now I'm supposed to start producing new ones immediately? Just when I thought I had beat the career system with workaholism and over-ambition, I have realized that the career system has turned me into a big cheap whore.

Yesterday afternoon, in attempts to procrastinate researching and writing the book chapters I must compose that have deadlines within the next month, I instead decided to pack. Really. I am still here for three weeks but yesterday I packed up my life. I have two coffin-sized suitcases sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor, both stuffed with clothes, books, shoes, and more. Then I have two (surprisingly not-so-)mammoth boxes stuffed with similar contents, both waiting for a shipping company to claim them - but I sort of need a definite Manhattan address before this can happen. Having a destination to ship my costly winter wardrobe to is probably necessary. Years ago, one morning when I was 22 and hungover (perhaps this is superfluous?) I accidentally wrote only Grandma on a birthday card and dropped it in the mailbox, blondly forgetting that the card would not actually reach my grandmother because I don't live in a Disney film. So, I wouldn't put potential retarded shipping mistakes past me.

My flatmate is out of town this week but when he returns on Monday and sees my empty closets, bookshelves, etc., it will be fascinating to see if he breaks into tears, or if a smile slinks across his face. I'm a leetle bit over-emotional and ridiculous right now. It's the postpartum depression. (And also the fact that I HATE HATE HATE when I have no control over and security with my future endeavors.)

My friends keep asking me if I am a leaving party. And when I say No, they all begin shrieking about my apparent insanity. Uh...most of my friends don't even know each other. And I am quite convinced that they are all so different that should I mix them together, they will explode. Or implode. I've always been that guy who has friends in every single disparate social circle in the world, rather than having a group. I don't do groups. Groups scare me. So instead, I suppose I'm having three weeks of leaving parties since my friends have made elaborate plans during the remainder of my time here. I really prefer this anyway, because whenever I've tried getting automatically repellent friends together, it's so stressful for me, the host.

My friend Kate just moved here from the Netherlands, so I must go meet her now. I am still very poor. She's going to be rather surprised when I explain to her that the best activities to do in London are free - like stealing tourists' drinks in Covent Garden pubs; pretentiously pretending to shop for expensive artwork in fancy galleries; perhaps swimming the Thames; and whatever other free things I can invent this afternoon.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
We were so poor my daddy unplugged the clocks before we went to bed. - Chris Rock

THE DRUNKEN PROM KING

2006-07-04T10:39:00.000+01:00

I awoke yesterday morning with mud-covered feet and grass in my hair. I'll splain. This is my weekend in reverse, I suppose.

Early Sunday afternoon, my Mancurian friend Dexter and I purchased an entire shelf of beer from an off-license in Vauxhall, and made an alco-picnic in the breathtakingly beautiful park behind the Vauxhall Tavern. I say 'breaktakingly beautiful' because it's not so much of a park, but rather, a big grassy hill covered with empty bottles, beer cans, and other trash; passed out homeless alcoholics; clusters of large muscle-head bald homo men; and the gruffest, most criminal-looking lesbians I've ever been within feet of. Thus, I am being exactly one hundred (100) percent ironic, including - and this is personal taste here - the muscle-heads. What's the attraction of steriods, little peenies, and assuming a group identity? All afternoon Dexter and I found it remarkable how easy it was to find each other in this sea of shaved heads and drug-induced bicepts. But hey: To each his own. Finding each other was especially easy since we were the only people present who had hair and non-matching outfits.

After drinking our own bodyweights in the sun with a small group of large homos, some of whom Dexter knew from Manchesterland, we all pushed our drunken way inside to watch a drag queen do The Dame Edna Experience, which was just mediocre...until the guy ripped off his wig, threw his tits into the audience, and just sang. It was rather strange; this man has an amazing lady-rocker voice and ranks vocally with Pink and Joan Jett. Then, the Vauxhall Tavern immediately turned into a repulsively sweaty den of muscle-heads snorting themselves into K-holes, set to the monotonous tune of bad early-90s techno music. Naturally, I refused to stay inside, and instead spent the next seven (7) hours making new friends outside.

I don't know what the hell got into me on Sunday afternoon. By the end of the day I had played with every group on the hill, which was now a wonderfully disparate collection of Souf Londoners who had just stumbled upon the loud grassy hill. Every time Dexter came out to reconvene, he found me with new strangers, all of whom kindly provided me with tons of free beer and other relaxing party favors. It was like I'd never left the house before in my life; I was king of the hill by nightfall, and shortly thereafter. At one point, after my brain had officially gone home but had left my body behind in Vauxhall, a large-breasted lady convinced me to roll down the hill with her...which we did...which inevitably caused us to roll directly into groups of people...some of which we just knocked over until they rolled down with us, everyone laughing loudly and hysterically. And then we did it again. Four times.

This extreme socializing also helped the wicked hangover I had accrued from the night before, particularly since I drank for about 14 hours on Saturday, as well, and also because I forgot to eat anything but beer. I went with my flatmate Peter, and our friends David and Patrick, to watch the parade, where Irish Paddy and I had decided to start drinking on Oxford St. before noon. It was nice standing in front of Selfridges with a half-liter bottle of Leffe Blonde (well, a few of them, actually) while the Selfridges makeup counter employees sprayed us with sunscreen. (I now have a lovely tan, which always makes little blond me look much healthier, as I was born to look like a surfer boy instead of a sickly city dweller.)

After Dexter walked in the parade and sang in the choir, he came to meet our drunken quartet, and we all made our way drinking through Soho Sq., Leicester Sq., Trafalgar Sq., and every other Sq. (and street, for that matter) in between. Perhaps my most mortifying and memorable moment of the afternoon was when I was standing with a big group of friends and was singled out by two approaching teenage boys. The children specifically targeted me apart from the crowd, presented me with a flyer, smiled all excited-like, and then ran away. My flatmate, who has a creepy predilection for teenage boys, immediately questioned why they only approached me, which then prompted the rest of my friends to wonder the same thing.

Then I looked at the flyer, which read Gay Prom! The UK's first gay prom for ages 16 to 19. At which point everyone in the group who knows my real age (almost 28 - exactly one month from today) errupted with laughter. I then quickly convinced Patrick, who looks nearly as young as I do, to go with me to the prom in two weeks, just because I think it'll be absolutely hysterical. Then Patrick and I spent the rest of the afternoon effortlessly asking elder nearby park-goers to buy us Jello shots from the countless people selling them. Who says you can't accept candy from strangers?

Again, I don't know what got into me this weekend. St. Patrick and I were out of control on Saturday. While wandering aimlessly, I passed multiple people I knew, but did not even realize it until I got texts from them minutes later. At one point I sat in a park next to a few of my friends and did not even realize they were there - they had apparently been talking about my drunk ass for about an hour, and at some point, while wrestling with Patrick in Soho Sq., I texted said friends and lied about being somewhere else. Bad little hedonist.

Saturday afternoon was followed by more exhaustive drinking at our flat. And sticking with the reverse chronology of my liquid weekend, I suppose I should say that Friday night was the boozy starting point at a friend's birthday party in Stoke Newington.

I am so fucking poor. And I am never drinking again. I mean, until tonight, for another friend's birthday. It's not my fault. Blame my prom date.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Alcohol may be man's worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy. - Frank Sinatra

BEGGING FOR IT

2006-06-30T12:23:00.000+01:00

Our New Age Spiritual Leader Faith Healer Magician Yanni (i.e. our Manhattan broker) may have already found us an apartment. I should not say more at this point in time because I don't want to curse anything. Awesome and I have asked Yanni to play hopeful, motivational sounds on her synthesizing keyboard to secure this place.

I repeat: While in a state of ultimate poverty, it is absolutely impossible to have a social life without spending too much money. At least in cities like London or New York. At least when you go out with groups of friends, all of whom have more money than you because you spent all your money traveling all over Europe while they were working 9-5 jobs. This financial pinching is especially difficult when all of your wonderful friends are also wonderful alcoholics. Tonight I've somehow been roped into going to friend's birthday dinner (which is thankfully in relatively less-expensive Stoke Newington instead of, say, Chelsea or Kensington), and then to another friend's birthday party later this evening. Why must people still have birthdays when I am this poor? Yesterday I had to spend more money for two expensive birthday phone calls for more friends, one in the States, one in Germany. Selfish bastards; they should all be able to skip a year.

Also, it is EuroPride weekend in London. Regular readers of this website know damn well that normally during Pride weekend, I hide underneath my duvet in my flat, watching bad action blockbuster movies, and wondering when it's okay for us to go back to being Ashamed. But my good friend Dexter is coming down from Manchester for the weekend, and he's really active with EuroPride, including walking in the parade and performing in Trafalgar Square. He eats fire and eleven-inch swords while stripping. He also makes me go to clubs and drink excessively.

In another strategic move, this morning I sent out a mass email to all my London friends, springing upon them the semi-surprising information that I am moving back to New York in a little over three weeks. Within one (1) hour, five (5) of them sent sad emails, all offering to purchase me countless drinks all weekend. See? I have alcohol strategy. Hopefully this very depressing streak of my leaving will continue until July 26 so I can continue taking advantage of my British friends. What? I'm not ashamed. It's not like I'm begging; I am simply accepting friendly offers. Every night. I am, however, lying, as Dexter does not eat eleven-inch swords and fire while stripping, but rather, he sings in a choir. Same difference.

Also, it is too fucking hot.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
I'm leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when it's not raining. - Groucho Marx

NEW AGE CHIC

2006-06-28T23:11:00.000+01:00

I just gave my final UK guest lecture before I move back to New York. Moments before I began my highly motivating, life-altering performance (what?) to a packed room, a prancy girl in a plaid skirt marched to the front row, bent down towards a mousy girl who had been sitting there for at least 20 minutes, and told her, "Sorry, could you get up for a sec?"

The mousy girl rose. Then the prancy girl slid into the seat and stared at the front of the room, completely ignoring her surroundings. The mousy girl was so mortified that she just stood there, staring at the prancy girl. Finally, the prancy girl acknowledged her, and said, "Oh, sorry to leave you standing," and flipped her hair back to face the front of the room.

Again, the mousy girl was so taken aback that she simply collected her things and moved to the back of the room, defeated. I was unable to keep from laughing during the first 10 minutes of my lecture. This prancy girl is my hero. She don't fuck around, man. She sees what she wants and takes it.

In other news, just when I complained about having nothing to do, I made two mega To Do lists, one Pre-Move, the other Post-Move. I now have just enough to keep me busy. Plus, I looked at the due dates for the book chapters I must write during the upcoming months, and two of them are in August - and I've not started researching either of them yet. Woops. This still won't keep me from wandering aimlessly with friends all over London, scouring sewers for miscellaneous change for drinking money.

In even more news, it is absolutely impossible to find an apartment in New York without a broker, especially if you're not physically there. And even if you are there, it helps. During my early 20s I threw away thousands upon thousands of dollars on broker's fees for apartments in Manhattan and Brooklyn. It sucks, but that's just how it works if you want a nice place.

Awesome and I have secured a broker. But, um, her name is Yanni. Yanni. As in the man with the long crimped blond hair who played Live at the Acropolis some years back in front of a crowd of fried Greeks and, presumably, chunky Midwestern middle-aged American tourists. Yanni, as in the man who looks like a deflated, prissy Lord of the Rings character dressed in 1980s lesbian vests, with too much Rave hairspray plastering the yellow mane down his back. I said Yanni. Did you get that? Yanni?

This has, of course, become a regular joke during Awesome's and my multiple phone calls daily, as we now phone each other every two minutes to report everything regarding apartments, employment, insurance, shipping procedures, plane tickets, and everything else that goes with moving.

I'll say, "So have you talked to Enya yet today?" (uncontrollable, cheesy laughter behind two attempted serious voices)
"You know her name is Yanni," he'll scold me, "And yes, I have. She just had lunch with Kenny G." (more uncontrollable, cheesy laughter)
"Well," I'll quip, "If she doesn't find us a place fast, I'm firing that synthesizing bitch and hiring John Tesh instead."

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
I'm an optimist by choice not by stupidity. - Yanni (forever!)

S.O.S.

2006-06-27T11:42:00.000+01:00

Oooooooooooooooh-kay! And now it's time to play Tell the Little Hedonist What the Hell to Do With Himself For the Next 30 Days!!!!

I've gone on my last European trip. My week in Italy was the finale. Wales does not count because it was for a conference, and frankly, Cardiff is shit; the entire city centre looks like Oxford Street (and is apparently substituted for Oxford St. in small-budget films). I was supposed to spend a week in Switzerland in mid-July but I had to cancel this trip because I am too impoverished. I have no money. Normally I might say, Where the fuck did all my cash-flow go? But in this case, please just consult my lovely little sidebar with all my Euro trips. Uh...I don't travel cheaply. I don't know how. I've never even stayed in a hostel. Ever. Never in my life. I went to Switzerland two years ago so it's okay that I'm not going back yet.

I've submitted my PhD coursework. Which feels really, really fucking strange. It's all over. Done. Fini. I'm not officially a doctor yet, though, since this whole process takes so long. My advisors must read my lovely 600-page dissertation (oh, I know - !!!!!!!!!!!), suggest edits, and then approve me to my unknown thesis committee, who then takes a requisite minimum of three months to read it. And since I'm working in New York starting in September (or perhaps August), this means I won't be able to return to London until January to do my Viva. So I'll be back.... (Note: I have a problem discussing my Viva, which in Britian is pronounced Vy-vuh. When spoken aloud with a British accent, this sounds a bit rude, like a naughty part of female anatomy. And I have to defend mine?)

Pretty much every major film premiere, awards show, behind-the-scenes shoot, etc., takes place in Los Angeles over the summer. Nothing happens here in London because there are too many tour groups with matching jackets infesting the city center. Nothing happens in New York because every director and producer is at his/her share in the Hamptons and simply will not work. So my TV job is empty. Done. Fini. Unless some random celebrity dies or gets pregnant with triplets, me thinks that my last London interview and/or shoot is ovah.

So. Now. What the fuck do I do with myself for the next month? I've magically just gone from the most psychotically busy person in London to the most bored person in London. See, some people may think that having nothing to do is a highly wonderful, relaxing time. But I am the type of person who goes absolutely insane if I have nothing to do with myself. I get depressed. I get into trouble. I go cuckoo.

Also, as I mentioned above, I ain't got no dough. I spent it all in Italy. And Hungary. And France. And Portugal. And everywhere else. I even spent extortionate amounts of money in the States, mainly in the Hollywood Hills and in Napa and Sonoma vineyards. I am so poor I don't even deserve my maid. What? Yesterday I actually considered not picking up my expensive dry-cleaning, and asked myself if I really needed those clothes after all. In order to ground myself for at least one full day, yesterday I spent the entire day watching half of my Sex and the City DVDs. You might be thinking, "Oh, that's not so bad, that's just a few hours of DVDs." But no: I mean the entire series; not just one season. I'm not really someone who can sit around and watch TV. All day. Every day. For a fucking month.

What's really tragic is that I can barely afford to drink. And because of this, I cannot continue on with my regularly busy social life. Having a social life is really expensive! I don't have any credit card debt and there's no reason to start now, you know.

See, with all this frightening time on my hands, I made a major plan to wander aimlessly all over London, venturing into random neighborhoods to which I've never been. I was going to start this escapade yesterday. Then it poured rain consistently all damn day. But...like...what happens when I get down to, like, way Souf London, and I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing but pubs? What's the good of wandering aimlessly around London when I can't do a pub crawl? Oh.

I mean, it's not like I'm destitute. Well, it is, but I must save what I've got. I'll sort of need, oh, you know - an apartment when I return to New York, not to mention money with which to furnish an apartment. I wonder if I can have my insanely pricey Scandinavia trip reimbursed? Oh. Guess not. I am seriously considering prostitution but my wardrobe is rather conservative nowadays. Plus, I know that with the "Pay up front" philosophy of whore-dom, I would totally just take the money and run, which might result in getting beaten-up or perhaps even death.

Oh, I've still got work to do. I've got chapters of upcoming books to write. But I've already switched gears, you see - all of these chapters require lots of research in Manhattan libraries and cultural societies. My normal flailing about in the British Library stacks won't exactly be helpful. So during August I'll be hiding out in the Lincoln Center and midtown libraries and shall keep myself busy...at least I hope I will...I work too damn fast. Tomorrow night I am giving my final lecture in London (at least final before I move back) for an important literary society. And then that's all. Then I shall have no point to exist. (Have I mentioned I'm a workaholic? I just did my 4-year PhD in 2.5 years. Before that, I did my three-year MFA in two years.)

So. One month. What to do, what to do? All of my CDs and DVDs are already alphabetized. My wardrobe is ready to be packed. I've got wheelbarrow-sized piles of stuff to donate to charity. I am embarrassed to report everything else I've been finding to do with my time. Yesterday I did not perform an hour-long karaoke performance to Pink's new CD...although I didn't even know the lyrics and did not make them up as I went along. I did not do this three times in a row. The neighbors must think I am mentally retarded.

I hereby take all of your suggestions. I'm desperate here. My Vy-vuh and I are gaping open, waiting to be told what to do.

In the meantime, I will now go pay for one (1) movie but then sneak into three (3) more for the remainder of the day. I'm even packing snacks. I can't afford popcorn.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest. - Dylan Thomas

PIECES OF ME

2006-06-25T15:02:00.000+01:00

Everything is all weird and anti-climactic and spooky right now.

I've just returned from Wales, and before that Italy, and before that 18 other European countries. Really. Twenty countries. I've been everywhere. And I promise I'll write about Italy soon; I'm just not in the mood today - I'm exhausted and so out of it and have a bit of a summer cold.

I'm moving back to New York in exactly one (1) month. I'm sitting here in the middle of the living room floor, decidedly alone for approximately one week's time because my flatmate has also been away during June. Sometimes I get in these moods when I tell myself that solitude is necessary and my only option of maintaining a clear head - even though deep down I know that I'll really drive myself temporarily crazy, inside my cloudy brain. I'm in oddball hibernation. During these times I don't answer my phone or my doorbell; rarely respond to emails; and even more rarely, sit still.

There are piles of stuff everywhere. Hundreds upon hundreds of stacks of miscellaneous paperwork, some important, some very important, and much of it soon to be tossed into the recycling bin. I've ransacked both my closets; there are mounds of clothes - tshirts, jeans, nice trousers, button-down shirts, sweaters, jumpers, jackets, cardigans, coats, trainers, boots, dress shoes, and more - everywhere, to be donated to charity. There are giant stacks of books, from fiction to textbooks to travel books to more, congregating near the floor-to-ceiling windows. Bags of electronic cords and computer discs and converters that nowadays seem to serve no purpose. Mountains of random academia I don't know what to do with. Small mounds of leftover international money and loose change - Euros, American Dollars, British Pounds, Hungarian Fornit, Czech Koronas, Danish Krones, Swedish Kronas, Swiss Francs, & Mexican Pesos (why the fuck do I have pesos in the UK?). Overstuffed leather CD and DVD booklets. Dangling press passes from premieres, awards shows, and other big London shoots, all twisted around each other. Overflowing accordian file folders. And more. And more and more and more and more.

And I'm not even a pack-rat. I don't really collect stuff. Where did all this stuff come from? I'm doing again what I did 2.5 years ago - preparing to stuff my entire life into two check-in suitcases and two carry-ons to take from London and return to New York.

So much has changed. But this feels like deja vu. So, so, so much has changed. But the best thing about this - the absolute luckiest thing - is that I am returning to my best friends in the world (and Awesome, of course), the people I left behind. Far more important than all this stuff surrounding me on the living room floor, are the people in New York who've known me since my late teens or early 20s, the ones who know more about me - great, good, bad, horrible, and illegal - than anyone really should. I've met quite a few people here with whom I know I'll remain in contact, but they just don't share with me the complicated history that my New York "family" does. And it's time to return to them. I am tired of jet-setting and making billions of amusing anecdotes in jumpy conversations with people I will most likely never see again...for at least a little while.

The next few months are going to feel really fucking strange with all this (re-)transition. I'm tired. Pleasant, but tired. Proud, but tired. Pensive, but tired. Purposeful, but tired. It's just time...

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
True friends stab you in the front. - Oscar Wilde

THE ENEMY

2006-06-13T09:27:00.000+01:00

When I returned from Portsmouth early Sunday afternoon, I hopped on a bus at Waterloo Station that would deposit me back home. The route of this bus went through the Strand and past Somerset House, along the outskirts of Covent Garden, and near Oxford Street. And as we passed through these popular London areas, I watched them from my window. They were everywhere, already, this early in June. They wore fanny-packs and had large boxy cameras swung around their necks. They - those people - stood in groups of 5 to 8 or more, all peering over a gigantic map of Central London. Some of them had small, screaming children in tow, tiny creatures that won't even remember being here. Many of them waddled down the street with enough extra weight that, spatially, one of them = three Londoners. Dressed in pleated khakis or tapered denim shorts, some of them wore uncrunched baseball caps advertising American football and baseball teams. They are the ones who go to Manhattan, stand on the corner of 8th Ave and 41st street with a mega-map, and actually ask native New Yorkers where 8th Ave and 42nd St. is. So in London, they're beyond lost.

I threw my hands over my face in horror when I saw that one of them was already wearing his "My Wife Went to London and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt" shirt. I couldn't look at them anymore.

They will be everywhere - already, so soon in the summer - in Europe. And I leave for Italy early tomorrow morning. The closest airport to Florence is Pisa, so I know that as soon as I get to Pisa, there will be gangs of globular folk rushing towards the city centre to snap a quick photo of the Leaning Tower, to braggartly 'show everyone back home' or 'everyone at the office'. They'll be in organized groups, livestock creatures pounding pavement in herds, all competing verbally about their kids, what trips they've already taken, what tacky tours they've over-paid for in years past.

When I went to Rome and Venice last year, it was ice-cold January, so they weren't around. This time will be different. In Florence I will wonder if going to see the David is actually worth wading through crowds of immensely slow walkers, syrupy talkers, and loud squawkers. Hopefully, Siena, the city to which I travel after Florence, won't be as bad. Perhaps I will dye my hair black and paint my skin olive sometime this afternoon, in order to not be mistaken for one of them. I booked myself rooms in really nice hotels just in case I'm too mortified to mingle amongst them. To avoid them, I will hitchhike into the countryside and shack up with a poor Italian family who makes me homemade pasta and wine.

After Siena, I expect that having a long weekend in Rome shall be safe because this wonder-woman will fly me around the city on her moto, keeping me away from all of them. We'll go back to her villa and cackle about overstuffed Jansport backpacks, tennis visors, and teased and poofed-up peroxided fake-blond bouffants. She and I will dine and drink at authentic city-folk joints, places that are not featured on The Travel Channel, establishments to which Rick Steves has never been. We'll watch futbol with natives all afternoon, and if any of them pass by, they'll wonder why Italians are watching "soccer". We'll snatch fanny-packs and Fodor's guidebooks and industrial sized cameras as we whiz by groups of them.

Mortified. Until I return to London on Tuesday morning.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Why is it called tourist season if we can't shoot at them? - Anonymous

BUBBLE BOY

2006-06-11T15:48:00.000+01:00

Okay, so the city of Portsmouth doesn't exactly have the best reputation in England. That's one way of describing it. Another way is: Portsmouth made me so physically ill that I had to leave early.

Dependent upon where I am, whenever late spring/early summer rolls around, my head begins to explode. My allergies are getting worse with age, and in some geographical locales, I am one teeny step away from needing to be hooked up to a respirator. It's rather freakish to watch, I would assume. Within seconds I go from a happy-go-lucky little hedonist to a miserable Quasimodo. I have sneezing fits; my sinuses sharply ache so badly that my face squunches up in pain; I become a snot faucet; I can't breathe; my eyes go completely bloodshot; sometimes I turn red. Before I moved to London, whenever I would go to Awesome's apartment, he would watch this transformation and question if I was a werewolf (which might be quite fun). Awesome's bratty evil cat was not only the spawn of Satan (it pissed on all the walls whenever Awesome left the apartment), but that creature also made me sneeze like no animal, pollen or weed ever had before. At one point, just as my entire face was running down my chest, I threatened to never go to his apartment again. Um...Awesome's cat now lives on a farm in Wisconsin, where he has lived for the past two years. For Awesome's emotional sake, I hope it's a real farm.

Dallas usually does this to me, too. Last year when I was visiting my mom there, I nearly OD'd on assorted prescription and over-the-counter allergy medication that I kept popping in hopes that my head-exploding would cease. But Portsmouth was such fresh unbridled hell that I didn't know what to do with myself. I would've prefered to snuggle with Awesome's cat than attempt to breathe in Portsmouth.

Even when I was going south on the train, I started having a violent sneezing attack before I even arrived in Portsmouth. It was so bad that everyone sitting near me on the train got up and moved to sit elsewhere. As I walked from the train station to my bed-n-breakfast, sneezing, snotting, coughing, crying, and exploding, I immediately realized that my entire weekend would be like this - and I had to present a conference paper...as the chair of my department sat in the room. So, Friday night I also realized that in order to make it through my weekend of pain, I needed to be drunk the entire time. (I am sure you are surprised to hear this.) Although my cutesy b&b was on the edge of Portsmouth on some random corner called Spice Island, lucky for me there were two lively pubs downstairs, both of which were advertised as Football Free.

I could not sleep at all on Friday night, no matter how hard I tried. Explosions! in my head were nonfuckingstop. You know those allergy commercials where shiny happy people run through fields of flowers? That is my absolute worst fucking nightmare. If I tried to run through polleny fields of flowers, I know I would explode. Why do those commercials show all those breathe-able people dashing through open fields of pollens and allergy-inducing weeds? I wouldn't run through fields of flowers like a loon even if I could breathe in them. These allergy commercials make about as much sense as those Vagisil and other vagina cream commercials that always feature a cured woman riding a horse or kayaking feverishly around a pond. I don't understand? Once you have your vagina burn under control, this means that you suddenly want to hop on a mule or go paddle-boating, while the smiley non-allergic people run by you in the field? Is that how it happens? I can only imagine what exciting outdoor activities might occur after being cured of chlamydia.

Anyway, apparently lots of people in Portsmouth (or at least visitors) have similar allergy problems, so the swanky conference building had allergy-attacking filters in their air-conditioners! I was so happy that I hugged the convener when he told me this. Then we made out a little bit and I let him goose me. I didn't want to leave the building. After I gave another 'performance' that was both attended and received very well, I considered that since I had been a success, maybe I could ask the convener if I could sleep there instead of at my b&b. He thought I was joking, so he said No. Then, once outside again, I victoriously proceeded to restaurant-, cafe- and pub-hop with a cynical gaggle of thirty- and fortysomething highly literate and entertaining British men. I love being the young lad to whom my elder colleagues all want to donate countless pints and live through vicariously. Almost as much as I love kayaking with my horse and a breath-able vagina.

This said, though, I was unable to sleep on Saturday night, too, as my sinuses waged another hellish war on my leetle body. It was so incredibly awful. Soooo awful. See, Portsmouth itself is not necessarily the giant shit-hole for which it's known. There are some nice, cute, charming corners to it. Sure, there are the industrial ports and docks and all that ugly grayness, and there is that giant capitalist debacle of American chain stores that every British city now unfortunately has. But Old Portsmouth is really cute and quaint. However, because I apparently should've packed an oxygen tank for the weekend, there is no way in hell I'm ever going back to Portsmouth. Last night after not sleeping again, I considered finding a 24-hour off-license so I could buy some vagina cream to rub up my nose, and see if it had the same flowery and peaceful affect that allergy medicine supposedly has. I got the first train back to London this morning and skipped Day 2 of the conference. I had no choice, man.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find out what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion that it must be an allergy to consciousness. - James Thurber

3 YEARS

2006-06-08T11:25:00.000+01:00

Well, June 7, actually. I just didn't have time to write yesterday.

Three years ago on this day, I awoke in a bed with Awesome. We're guessing that we met sometime after midnight on June 7, since we stayed at a Brooklyn bar chatting until sometime after 4am. Then, after asking me repeatedly to go back to his apartment, I finally agreed (this was during a period when I had just announced to all my friends that I was trying to work on my extreme slut reputation). Thus, we've now had a three-year one-night-stand. In retrospect, I guess my going home with Awesome ironically ended my slut days. Yesterday afternoon this arrived at my front door, compliments of Awesome:

(I told him this bouquet is symbolic, that he unconsciously chose the colors - it's Aryan and Rican toned flowers!)

As I am the least domestic person alive, and my flatmate is the second least domestic person alive, we do not have a vase. So, yes, that is correct - what you see in this photo is that I have used my Brita water pitcher as a vase. Classy, huh? It was either that or I dug through the trash for assorted empty wine bottles.

That morning, three years ago, I ran off to brunch on the Lower East Side with some friends, casually thinking that I'd never see him again. Now I'm glad he was so damn persistent. So. For all you single people who don't want to be single, please go have as many one-night-stands as possible. Oh. And...um...for all you single people who love being single, please go have as many one-night-stands as possible.

My mom says, "How did you meet Awesome?" And I say, "Grad school."

Oh - and Awesome and I are moving in together in a little over a month. Well, I mean duh. Did you think I was moving back to New York and this wasn't happening? It's been three years. Supposedly three years is the Make It or Break It point. It doesn't feel like three years, at least time-wise. Density and jam-packedness, it feels like more than three years - we've marched all over Europe and the States together, been to family weddings and a funeral, and countless other random personal things that I've never divulged on this website. And now, all of a sudden, we're gonna receive mail at the same address, have joint same-sex insurance, and fear the weekend when both our mothers coincidentally want to visit.

I have to leave for Portsmouth early tomorrow morning, where I'm speaking at yet another conference that lasts all weekend. I've heard that unlike Brighton, Bournemouth and Southampton, Portsmouth is a stanky shit-hole of a town. Um...I'm really excited?

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Assumptions are the termites of relationships. - Henry Winkler

AMER-I-CA(N'T)

2006-06-06T09:19:00.000+01:00

Last night I was in an ultimate state of simultaneous horror and mortification. But just because of TV. Did anyone else watch that Channel 4 documentary about Patrick Henry College, which is in the States, specifically Virginia? I do not watch TV. Normally. Sometimes when I'm home alone, I'll turn it on just for background noise (I abhore silence), but nothing ever captivates me enough to watch, you know, actual shows. I've tried watching Michael Scofield on Prison Break and he doesn't even seduce me to watch an hour of TV. But last night, this documentary grounded my ass to the sofa, and I was horrified.

This cult called Patrick Henry College is a for-real university where they only accept white heterosexual Christians who sing hardcore Christian carols and, you know, nursery rhymes together like 18 times a day, complete with banjo accompaniment and those real fanatics who sing with their arms up in the air like they have rancid diseases festering in their armpits. And then they all take field trips to the White House so they can tell all the Republican congressmen how much they love them! They go in groups, like it's a special field trip for which their parents signed permissions slips. This is part of the course curriculum. Like Mormons, they dress up in suits and bring bibles to the white house. Well, to be fair, one guy needed a bible to sit on and see while watching a press conference - he was totally shorter than me. I've been to DC before, but I'd never realized that all the Republican senators in the White House need speech lessons, as they all turn two-syllable words into 7-syllable words, and speak really, really loud, as if everyone around them is deaf. Then, the P.H.C. cult members go attempt to pester the Democrat congressmen whenever they can spot one, and harrass them about abortion, gay marriage, women's rights, minority rights, etc. At point I watched a gaggle of female students hypocritically preach to a Democrat senator about how there should not be as many women in the workplace because all women need to raise babies in captivity; it was so odd, as if they didn't even know what they were saying.

Watching them was so spooky. It's like the characters of The Crucible escaped like 200 years later and bought some suits at present-day Wal-Mart that they thought actually looked good.

In one scene, three girls were brain-washed into believing that only "good" families are those where the woman stays at home to cook and clean while the man works in the White House for Jesus (although, as I watched closely, I did not actually see any footage of Jesus in the White House - he must've been in a meeting with Moses, Bush, and the Virgin Mary). In another scene a sophomore stood in front of the entire school congregation and told all the students how he was kicked out of his 19 extra-curricular activities because there were exactly two (2) nights when he drank and smoked (horror, I know!!!!!!!!!!), and "turned into one of the people we all hate." Just by watching him you could tell he had a flask in one of his khaki pants pocket, and a joint in the other, but as long as he lied, it was okay.

They don't even drink or smoke or have sex. They only watch American Idol and play Christian Charades about donkeys and virgins and donkey virgins, and then write letters to Southern congressmen. One guy had never left Virginia before - because he didn't see the point. Another guy was 22 and his balls still hadn't dropped. Another guy looked like a regular frat dude but walked with a limp "that God gave him." That's just not a very good present. If God gave me a limp, I'd give God a permanent broken arm. Rather, I'd give God a hysterectomy with an Exacto knife, no matter God's gender. A female student told everyone that getting a job after college, as well as life in general, is just like playing frisbee golf. (At which point, voilent laughter caused me to spit Chenin Blanc all over myself.) And she was serious about it, with bad metaphors and everything!

Most worrisome: This university has the most interns in the White House on an annual basis!!! No, they really do. No exaggeration on my part. The university prides itself that the White House, the building that governs America, accepts the most interns (and new graduates) more than another other school on earth! How fucking scary is that?

Then, they all go lynch niggers, Jews, faggots, feminists, and Gloria Stuart, that old lady from Titanic. Okay, I'm exaggerating about that last sentence, but I bet they want to. That will be next. Negroes, Queers, and Gloria Stuart. Out of curiousity and fear (and to make sure that this was a real place, that I wasn't watching a fictional documentary or mockumentary), I checked out the university website. They actually have a non-discriminaton policy where they say that black people and other minorities are allowed to apply. Funny, though, I didn't see any minorities in the documentary.

I mean, really. Fucking frisbee golf? That's not even a real sport! I have changed my mind. I am never moving back to America. I can't!

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named 'Bush', 'Dick', and 'Colon.' Need I say more? - Chris Rock

MANCURIAN MANIA

2006-06-04T14:36:00.000+01:00

I am really fucking happy. Most people who read blogs typically enjoy taking an emotional dip into someone else's stress or misery. That's completely understandable. I don't know anyone who would rightfully admit that he'd like to hear someone tell him, "I am SO HAPPY!" on a daily basis. But right now? I am. And I'm not always happy. I had approximately 1.5 years of blogging misery, cynicism, depression, and anger after my dad died. I complain about missing Awesome all the time. I always tell you how stressed I am. But today? This week? These past two weeks? Really. Fucking. Happy. So, since I'm not always a jovial little munchkin, I am not going to be self-deprecating in the least, and revel in my currently explosive joy. If you do not wish to read pure Happy Happy Joy Joy, and instead desire only misery, please click elsewhere. (Don't worry, I'm sure I'll be back to my cynical self soon.)

This said, though, I am so sick of using my brain. So I've resigned from doing so for a little while. Well, at least at the rate I usually use my brain - I still have quite a bit of work to do. See, on Tuesday afternoon, I submitted to my thesis advisors my dissertation (which is, at present, approximately 600 pages of meticulously researched, composed and edited prose and theoretical density), along with my whopping 20-page bibliography, and the massive list of my upcoming publications, past/present/future academic conference activity, among all the extra scholarly things I've obsessively been doing. Once I clicked the Send button and the hefty email finally squeezed its way through virtual reality, I sat there staring at my laptop screen, blank-faced and confused about the rest of my life in its entirety. So I'm tired of my brain. All I want to do now is have sex, eat, and drink - anything that is excessive to my body but does not require thought.

And because of this, I told Awesome that I will be returning to him as a fat drunken whore. His response was so genuinely sweet. He told me, "Awww...baby. You've always been a drunken whore." So, it was sweet in the fact that he did not call me fat, only an alcoholic slut. See? Sweet. Of course, he then followed up with, "Please only concentrate on the drunken part instead of the whore part."

To further explain my happy-go-lucky-ness, my past four days in Manchester was just fanfuckingtastic. I forgot how friendly Mancurians are, especially compared to Londoners. Wednesday afternoon when I was waiting for my friends to get off work, I went to a pub that had wireless internet access. When I couldn't properly configure my laptop, I asked the barman for help and nine (9) strangers ran over to help me. Thinking back now, though, perhaps they were all trying to rob me.

During the past few weeks, I have met the most phenomenal people whilst galavanting around the UK, many of which live in London. Why am I just meeting all these wonderful Londoners right before I move back to Manhattan? I gave another great conference presentation this weekend, and really, genuinely, whole-heartedly enjoyed the gaggle of people whom I met at this conference. It was all just so...fun. I think I've made more friends in the past month then I made during of all elementary and junior high school. And I've still got multiple trips left this month, too.

I also just spent three nights with my Mancurian friends Dexter and Dunkan, whom I have just demanded must come to play with Awesome and me in New York this autumn. I've known Dexter longer than I've known Awesome - we met in Manchester five years ago and spent nearly every night during a 10-day period going barring, clubbing, and/or playing at his flat. Now? We still went out a bit this trip, but now that we're old men (i.e. I'm almost-28 and he's now 30), he and Dunkan were highly domesticized and had people over for boozy nights full of Bree Van De Camp-esque appetizers, and their lively children (i.e. dogs). Awesome will be so proud of me when I report to him that I went with Dexter to take the dogs for walks in the park (for some reason, Awesome likes to do humane things such as this). I'm not particularly fond of animals (and am allergic to most of them), and I don't even know how to microwave soup from a can. I can only make coffee and martinis; the only pet I've had during my adult life was my fish, Nicholas Poindexter Godiva XVIII, and he committed suicide just to get away from me.

Yesterday Dexter and I had a playdate all afternoon where we drank approximately 42 bottles of wine in the sun at a table on Canal Street until we could no longer feel if we were burning to a crisp. Nor could we tell how loud our shameful commentary was as we watched the stream of colorful people parading down the cobblestoned catwalk that Canal Street is (the original British Queer as Folk was not actually fictional, you see). After drinking said 42 bottles in the unexpected blasting sun, I think at one point I climbed on the table and took a short nap from dehydration. At another point I may have peed myself, I don't know.

I have dissertation meetings this week. I've got more conferences coming up. I leave for Portsmouth on Friday morning. I'm going to Italy again next week. There's a helluva lot going on. But usually, at least for me, a psychotically busy hedonist makes a happy hedonist.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
If you see someone in Manchester with a tan, don't believe it. They've just gone all rusty. - Anonymous old woman

DAS URTEIL

2006-05-31T09:45:00.000+01:00

So, uh...

I am moving back to New York on July 26th.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Don't you ever wonder maybe if you took a left turn instead of a right you could be someone different? - Anonymous

TRAIN-SCOTTING

2006-05-30T10:30:00.000+01:00

Stirling is so beautiful it made me vomitous every morning. Wait. That didn't come out right. Let me 'splain. I'm getting ahead of myself.

On Thursday I gave a presentation at a conference in London, which went over extremely well. Before my panel, strangers were coming up to me all morning, saying that they couldn't wait to sit in on my presentation just based on the abstract I had written for the bulky conference program. Yeehaw. At most academic/research conferences, there are multiple panels going on at once. When my panel started, there was only a small cluster of people in the room. After the first speaker, another 10 to 15 people flowed into the room. After the second speaker, another huge cluster of people gushed into the room, until every seat was taken, and people sat on the floor. This particular paper is being published as a chapter in an upcoming book - which, oh shit, I just checked my calendar, and it's due in to the publishers today. But this whole reception felt really, really good.

This particular conference was more sociology-based rather than literary-based, so there were all kinds of nationalities, ethnicities, etc. in attendance. Very late in the night, I found myself at a pub near Spitalfields, pissed beyond belief with an Austrian guy, an Italian guy, a British girl, a Mexican girl, a Dutch girl, and a German guy (who was one of those few people to whom I was so incredibly attracted, and just simply yet strangely intrigued with, that I thought I was going melt, explode, or both). What will I do when/if I return to the States and I must only associate with Yanks? I'm such a European snob now. Thank you. I'll have to join a British Ex-Pat group to remain sane. I met the coolest people all weekend; Thursday was just a start.

I am so scatterbrained and in-need of completing my lengthy To Do List today that I cannot even concentrate on reporting drunken nights out and successful work-ish things in London and Scotland. See, I'm only here one day this week - tomorrow I must hop on another train to Manchester to give yet another conference presentation, and to play with my fun Northern friends Dexter and Dunkan until Saturday (yay).

So. Yes. Stirling. Absolutely gorgeous. I was so hungover on Friday afternoon when I arrived that I was barely able to walk around the town. But the parts I did see were so breathtaking that it just did not seem real. Stirling is an adorable town smack in the middle of absolutely beautiful Scottish mountains. My conference presentation here went really well, too; I was on the last panel on Sunday, and after my presentation, the keynote speaker came up to compliment me. So, as far as work goes right now, I'm totally on a high. I was also incredibly hungover all day Sunday. Again. And then yesterday, too. I really must stop this nonsense, but when all these kooky liberal arts strangers get together for just a few days of random introductions, sometimes it's just eccentric, ecclectic madness. And because I have ADD (how else to explain it?), unlike most other people at these conferences, I have turned my entire brain and identity into a multi-interdisciplinary mess, since I've got my hands and ideas in so many different facets of conference and book publication topics. I am making myself bipolar. Or, more like quad-polar.

Sunday night, since most people had already hopped on planes or trains to leave, I ended up hanging out with one of the few people who remained. After sharing about four bottles of wine, we ended up grabbing a fifth bottle and marching up to the top of the mondo hill that features Stirling castle. It was already 10pm, but since Scotland only has like 4 hours of darkness this time of year, we watched the sunset over the spectacular view of the town and mountains. I was kicking myself for not having my camera; now I want massive blow-ups of these picturesque views hanging on my urban walls in London or New York. I also now want to see all of Scotland. I'd been to Edinburgh before, but everywhere north of Edinburgh and Glasgow seems even more beautiful.

Dude! What am I doing!? I gotta go!

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
No one in Scotland can escape from the past. It is everywhere, haunting like a ghost. - Geddes MacGregor

50 HRS IN COPENHAGEN

2006-05-24T09:33:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned in my Helsinki misadventures, Copenhagen is small, about the size of Amsterdam, if not smaller. The whole city is really laid-back and enjoyable, though. I arrived late Friday afternoon and had walked through the city (in pain) by nightfall. Plus, compared to other Scandinavian cities, perhaps because of its microscopic proximity, Copenhagen is crawling with tourists, particularly American tourists. On the train from the airport, two bickering American couples in their late 30s competed with each other with less-than-impressive travel stories about their adventures around exotic lands like Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Tuscon, Arizona. Naturally, I threw up on all of their shoes.

When I arrived at my hotel, another gorgeous Scandinavian greeted me, only this time it was the flirty fit homo desk attendant. My Danish hotel was nicer (and pricier) than the other hotels of my trip, so I wasn’t really bovvered when it began to downpour on Friday night and I decided to retreat to my hotel. Plus, there was a bar near the front desk, and really, that’s all I needed.

Earlier in the evening, I had peeked my head into a couple homo bars just to see what they were like, as Denmark may just be the capital of the homo world. Homos! Everywhere! The whole city was like a Pride Parade. I checked-out three homo bars and didn’t stay for a drink at any of them. Seriously: I just ran in and ran right back out. They were like any other homo bar in any other city with the same merciless, impending blanket of doom: dark, depressing, soulless dens of misery, with the same lonely people lurking about, searching desperately for a fuck or a conscience. Why don’t homo bars have windows, sunlight, or even light fixtures, for that matter? In this respect, perhaps the reason I do not like homo bars is because I do not think I would like prison. I really enjoy and appreciate light – natural sunlight or artificial light – and also, you must fear what will happen in both prison and homo bars if you drop the soap in the bathroom. Then there are the obligatory rainbow flags that must hang on every wall in every homo bar, just in case you’ve forgotten what type of establishment you’ve entered. Thus, it would only make sense that prisons must have rainbow flags hanging from every wall, as well. Right?

Anyway, when I returned to the hotel that night and ordered three pints from the desk attendant who doubled as the bartender, he asked who was I was meeting. I told him, “Oh, these are all for me, so I don’t have to disturb you in about ten minutes.”

He laughed. We talked for about three hours, with a few other random guests coming and going for a drink. After he had snuck a few drinks while working, and had asked how many nights I was staying in the hotel, he said flat-out, “We’re going to have sex before you leave Copenhagen.” The way he said it, I could tell that this guy has had sex with every homo guest who has ever stayed at this jovial, transient hotel.

Now. Any faithful reader of this website knows that I love nothing more a combination of genuine, unabashed personality display (i.e. no pretense or bullshit) mixed with an incredibly strong, innate dose of confidence. You tell me to go fuck myself and I’m all yours. After I accidentally spit out a little beer on my shirt from being startled, I explained Awesome to my new hotel pal. Hey: at least if Awesome and I ever break up in the near future, I’ve already got a list of people all over Europe who want to have sex with me. I’m in international hooker! Oh. Wait. This promise is exciting in itself, particularly since there’s a cruel part of my psyche that enjoys being an empty flirt. I have a lot of reasons for my monogamy, but thankfully I can upgrade these reasons with innocent, playful, drool-worthy flirting. I do no doubt that Awesome does this when I’m not around, too, so it’s not like I’m faulting anyone. It’s fun. It’s naughty. It’s human.

It rained the entire weekend in Copenhagen. Which was okay, I suppose, since the city really is miniscule. I went to the Carlsberg brewery and when we got free beer at the end, I am not ashamed to admit that I got back in line three times. On the second serving, I told them I had a twin brother; on the third they figured out the truth. I walked along the canals forever (in pain) and saw all the cutesy neighborhoods downtown. I saw the famous Little Mermaid monument, based on Hans Christian Anderson’s beloved character, where large groups of American tourists (‘large’ as in group numbers and globular waistlines) took turns taking photos with the statute, one-by-one, as if it looked different each time. I went to the Royal Library and Theatre Museum in Christiansborg. I wandered aimlessly, all over the city, for most of my time there. I did not go on the tacky tourist tides in Tivoli Gardens.

On my last night, when my hotel bar/desk attendant friend got off work after we’d been drinking for a bit, and after I declined going clubbing with him, I returned alone to my room with a bottle of red wine, and sat on the bay window seat with my laptop, working on my dissertation and conference paper edits (my real world), and watching the Saturday night thunderstorms and lightning. Awesome called my hotel room really late that night, just as I had nearly fallen asleep, pressed against the window with an empty wine glass in my lap. At the end of my Scandinavian tour, my solitude, the thunderstorms, and his familiar, comforting deep voice was far sexier than any of the Finnish, Danish and Swedish supermodel look-alikes I met all week.

Tomorrow I am giving a long lecture at a conference in London. Then, Thursday morning I am off to Stirling, Scotland, where I’m speaking at another conference all weekend. I shall return late Monday. I am still one busy midget. And now you know all my whereabouts. Okay then.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
No matter where you go, there you are. - Unknown

41 HRS IN STOCKHOLM

2006-05-23T09:12:00.000+01:00

Everyone in Stockholm is a tall thin gorgeous blond supermodel. It was sort of fun, being the only little blond midget whisking through crowds of Amazonian Swedish gods and goddesses. I was like a Junior Swede! And when they’d look down at me (physically, not condescendingly), I would just smile and speak to them in plain English, as everyone in Scandinavia speaks better English than many Brits and Americans do.

While I don’t typically prefer blonds (I must not be a gentleman?), I have no qualms about stating that Stockholm made me curse monogamy. Tall. Thin/Skinny. Pretty face. Arresting eyes with long lashes that catch rain. That is my type nowadays. That’s what Awesome looks like, only with a yummy dash of Ricanness. In my early-20s, my type was bad boys. In my mid-20s, my type was indie rock star types (Awesome’s former and current look). Now, my type is rich. The weekend before I flew to Scandinavia, my flatmate and I were walking down Holborn, and one of his former colleagues drove by in a convertible. The guy climbed out of his car, smoothed back his expensive hair, pricey clothing, and flashed his costly smile. You could tell that he had just come from playing tennis at the country club, or from investing three billion pounds with his stockbroker; either one of these is fine for my fantasy. He may not have even been attractive to anyone else. But to me, hot damn. I thought I was going to shoot a wad clear out the top of my forehead. Oh. Excuse me. So, this is why I was cursing monogamy while in Stockholm. Swedes are so clean and yummy and sophisticated looking. They all look like The Sound of Music children who grew up and became barristers, politicians, and just…wealthy.

By the time I arrived in Stockholm, my back-ass pain (please refer to yesterday’s entry) was at such an ultimate high that I had resorted to sprinkling Hydrocodeine powder into my beers. I mean, look, I couldn't even take level photographs. I was giving myself roofies. If you are a policeman, attorney, tax collector, potential or current employer, student, or my mom, I am exaggerating. Otherwise, you can believe me.

My leetle beety hotel was in Old Town, which I thought was the most charming part of Stockholm. I really, really liked Stockholm. It’s one of my favorite European cities I’ve traveled – it’s clean and sophisticated and friendly, not overrun by fucking tourists, and all just so charming in an adult (not pornographic, just not childish or tacky) storybook sort of way.

On my first night, I stood in pain at 90-degree angle on a street corner near my hotel, pondering whether to cross one street and go into the Irish pub showing the football match, or cross the other street and go into the crowded pretentious homo bar. Not wanting to watch football or discuss hair products, I was so thankful when a little bar on a third corner caught my eye. I walked inside and there were only three patrons, so I fell onto a barstool in pain and ordered the most expensive beer on the menu. Pulling myself up onto a barstool must’ve looked like a difficult Olympic gymnastics event, for which I definitely got last place. Erik, the gorgeous tall blond supermodel bartender, struck up a conversation with me, and ten minutes later, another bartender arrived to take over Erik’s shift.

Then, to my fantastic surprise, Erik decided to stay and drink with me all night long. He was fucking hysterical. The two of us sat in the corner of the bar, downing Swedish beer after Swedish beer, laughing our asses off, and talking about damn near everything. I now have a heterosekshul Swedish boyfriend in addition to my American and British ones. I do not know why heterosekshul men latch onto me so quickly – perhaps because I am a generally non-threatening, non-queeny homosekshul…happily ‘just’ a gay dude… - but I’m certainly not complaining. Me thinks it is also because I laugh non-stop. Yes, that is my duty in life. To unite hetero- and homo- dudes together in happiness and shatter all the gay vs. straight stereotypes with lots of beer and laughter. I can do it.

Erik is a born-and-bred Stockholmian Old Towner, so we made an all-day date for Thursday, as he knows everything about everything. Plus, since he just quit his high-powered, high-paying job to go travel the world for a year, thereby living out his 30-year-old-life-crisis, he is also rich. Thus, I had no choice but to bask in his wealthly looks and attitude all afternoon, for reasons I mentioned above. The only reason he quit his job before the summer is so he can work in a non-crowded bar and watch every World Cup game while drinking with strangers like me.

Thursday morning, after consuming my Hydrocodeine cappuccino, we wandered along the canal forever until we had crossed yet another bridge and reached Djurgarden. We walked aimlessly through the gardens, etc., until we found a random gate that was only 1/4th of the way open, and decided to be brave and crouch through to see where it would lead us. We talked all afternoon, and he informed me that most Swedes would not go to Helsinki if you paid them to do so, and also that Copenhagen residents are like hick versions of Stockholmians. I got the lowdown.

After a while Erik had deciphered that were in Stockholm’s Open Air Museum, which is a really cool collection of old, architecturally disparate buildings scattered throughout lots of well-preserved land. The buildings ranged from old windmills to old-time country homes that were open to the public, among others. After a while, we found ourselves wandering through flocks of large birds and other little animals that nipped at our trainers.

When I saw a bear cub standing just a few yards in front of me, I screamed like an excited fat lady at a pizza buffet and cowered behind Erik’s tall frame. I could tell that he was a bit unnerved at first, too, but then he informed me that we had accidentally wandered into the back entrance of the Stockholm Zoo, which is apparently connected to the Open Air Museum. I was especially embarrassed when the five-year-old boy a few feet away from me (but on the correct, pedestrian side of the fence) was not half as terrified as me. When we saw more bears approaching us, we quickly climbed back into the normal part of the zoo where paying customers walk through. Erik and I played with the bears, seals, and some other animals that have been cruelly taken out of their natural habitats and have been trained to do tricks for tourists. When we reached the entrance, we realized that we had snuck into the grounds of the Open Air Museum and forgone the 80SK, which really wasn’t a problem.

Then, after some more Hydrocodeine (I shared!), we drank for free all night. I really would have preferred a massage from Erik, but I think that asking for this would’ve been a wee bit forward, not to mention the guilt I'd feel when I would have had to tell Awesome that I’d gotten an erotic back-ass massage from a hot Swede. See, sometimes, like once a month, I have a conscience.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see. - G.K. Chesterton

44 HRS IN HELSINKI

2006-05-22T11:21:00.000+01:00

At this point in my PhD student lifestyle, I am near poverty. So, you would think that I’d have saved the less expensive countries to travel to during this time of near-homeless hedonism. But instead, I saved the Scandinavian countries and Switzerland – the most expensive parts of Europe – for last. Stupid Hedonist. Bad, Hedonist, bad! Returning to Italy next month ain’t exactly gonna be too affordable either, particularly Florence, Tuscany and Rome.

I don’t know why I wanted to go Finland. Uh…I still don’t know why I wanted to go to Finland? In Helsinki, the best things to do…are…uh…um….well?...uh…I was there for two days and I still haven’t figured that out. Helsinki is really small. I covered the entire city in an afternoon. I walk quickly and (seemingly) with purpose and a keen sense of direction, and thus often speed through foreign cities without ever consulting a map, but still get a thorough, substantial feel for the place, too.

About a week before I hopped on the plane to Finland, I pulled a muscle in my lower back when I’d been running one morning. Awesome has since given me the high-tech medical term for this muscle, the name of which I quickly forgot. So we’ll just call it my back-ass muscle. Not that I have a front-ass, too, but rather, I have severely injured whatever muscle it is that covers my entire lower back and then stretches down into my left ass cheek (this morning, the pain seems to have moved down into my entire left leg, too?). By the end of every day while trekking across three Scandinavian cities, I was in such pain that I would limp back to my hotel. I looked and felt like a raped whore after a 72-hour shift. Picture Elisabeth Shue at the end of Leaving Las ~~Anus~~ Vegas and that's me. Only, on some unfortunate days, I would leave my hotel in the morning limping, rather than waiting for pain to overtake my entire body after a day of walking. (Why do I always break myself at the most inopportune times?)

So, understandably, I was popping Hydrocodeine pills like Tic Tacs all over Scandinavia. If I could have injected it directly into my bloodstream or had a daily Hydrocodeine shake for breakfast, I would’ve. Awesome nursefully instructed me to not swallow massive amounts of Hydrocodeine and then walk around for 8 to 10 hours a day, that it would only make agitate the pain and make things worse since I would have no idea whether or not I was aching. So, me being me, I did the exact opposite of what my private nurse practitioner instructed, and wandered aimlessly in a state of faux joy (!!!!). I! Loved! Everyone!

I know that the sizes of Helsinki and Copenhagen are comparable to Amsterdam. And while I do not remember much of my trip to Amsterdam for obvious reasons, I did my best to feel no pain – NO PAIN, BABY!...well, at least on and off – all over Scandinavia. Thus, I’m not sure if I have an authentic take on any of these cities and countries – but hey, when do I ever? Plus, at the end of every night, when I was literally panting or grunting while limping like I’d been bum-fucked to Saturn and back (this feeling might sound pleasant to some readers, but oh, it was not), I recurrently decided that my only option was to get really, really drunk with strangers, in order to numb the pain in my special middle zone.

But wait! There’s so much more to tell you about Helsinki! I limped around the 1952 Olympic Stadium and completed an entire lap in pain (I pictured a bottle of Ketel One at the finish line)! I rode on a little rickety wooden boat out to Island of Pihlajasaari (I don’t know about you, but this is the sound I make when I sneeze) and gimped about in the lush Finnish greenness! I gluttonously inhaled an all-you-can-eat Finnish food buffet! Oh. Wait.

I’m not really sure what the culinary fascination is with buffets in Scandinavia, but they’re everywhere. Even at posh restaurants. All my life I have had a mondo problem with the concept of buffets. Consider what a buffet is at gloriously white trash American restaurants like Cici’s Pizza, The Golden Corral, Pizza Hut, Fresh Choice (wow, how ironic is that name?), et. al. If, as a restaurant patron, you separate yourself from the buffet-goers, what you see, without slight exaggeration, is a bunch of farm animals waddling up to a trough. It’s unnerving. Who wants to eat from a trough? I don’t, especially with my back-ass pain. Some people must’ve thought I was making passes at them as I hovered over in pain while reaching for salad tongs, and all the while sticking my ass out for all the restaurant patrons to see.

I cannot get involved with buffets because, really, what they ask people to do is to become snorting piggies who dip their hands and ladles into a giant bin of grub. If you really think about this, I’m not even speaking metaphorically. There’s always the big fat piggies who return to the trough like eight or nine times, as if this is his/her last meal on earth; and all the while, they’re glancing around to see if the other farm animals are counting how many times they trough-it-up (and duh, of course the other animals have a piggy tally). Then there are the uncultured suburban child piggies without manners who literally stuff their hands and faces directly into the trough because they don’t know any better, and then wind up with mac-n-cheese stuffed up their snouts and buttermilk gravy glopping down their pink faces. Sorry, but: You (anyone) + buffet = feedin' time at the livestock ranch.

Waddle, waddle; dip, dip, grab, grab; snort, snort; stuff, stuff; check please! That’s a buffet. Or, rather, a trough. So, how and why, then, are these methods of eating so bloody popular all over Scandinavia? I don’t know. You probably don’t know. I’m not even sure that the skinny Finns, Swedes, Danes and Norwegians know either, but buffets are the places to eat in Scan-land. And, um, they’re like way cheaper, too, which is why I went. Twice I even snuck dinner into my bag. I was not pleased when I had limped back to my hotel on Tuesday night and my laptop was swimming in salad dressing – which, at one restaurant, they had accidentally called Rhode Island instead of Thousand Island. (Who knew the smallest state had its own condiment!?)

That’s all I can report about Helsinki. Really. Period. Capesh. Well, other than the fact that I drank with two friendly male Finns for like five hours one night, who then ended up beating the shit out of each other in the street at 3am. I saw at least two fights a night in Helsinki. Those Finn guys love to fight, like it’s a requirement after heavy drinking. Even more so than Irish blokes. Whenever this happened, I would just give in to my back-ass pain, lay down in a pile of my blond midget self in the street, and play dead. Then I would sneakily crawl away when no one was looking. Worked every time.

So. Helsinki. Sort of a thumbs down. (But now I want to go to the north of Finland to play in more pretty Finnish greenness.) Just go to Stockholm instead, which I loved and shall report about tomorrow.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
The cool thing about being famous is traveling. I have always wanted to travel across seas, to like Canada and stuff. - Britney Spears

I, ROBOT

2006-05-13T11:10:00.000+01:00

All I have done this week is work. Really. 'Das all. For, on average, 15 to 20 hours per day. Absolutely nothing to report. I assume no one wants to hear about my boring dissertation, or about the five (count 'em, five) 20-page conference papers I've somehow researched and written this week, some of which will be published in upcoming books. Plus I'm in charge of a lot of things right now work-wise, in like five different realms of responsibility.

I am a fucking machine. But, uh, a machine that churns out lots of wonderfully quality work, as I must be the best at everything.

This is not just natural drive or ambition, either. The only thing I make time for is to go running for an hour or two every day. But I use this as some form of punishment, one that, after a given time daily, finally makes me feel fantastic (and fantastically numb). Some night/days during bouts of insomnia I'll go running around 3am, through Smithfields meat markets near my flat; I know half of the gruff blood-covered night-owl butchers there by now. There is something very wrong with me...?

Now I must decide whether or not to take my laptop with me to Scandinavia early tomorrow morning (specifically Finland, then off to Sweden and Denmark). With my approaching dissertation due date and tons of upcoming conferences and book publication dates, I must decide whether it'll make me crazier to be around my evil laptop, or if it'll calm me down knowing that I can make angry, angry love to my laptop and work whenever I suddenly, psychotically need to, while also strutting through three countries during the next week.

Machine, I'm telling you. I. Am. A. Machine. And I'm quite worried that my fuse is gonna explode soon. I'm gonna burn out. But I can't stop. I can't say No to current or future work responsibilities, opportunities or performances. I don't chill out, ever. And I definitely don't sleep. Sleep? SLEEP!? What's sleep? The darkening circles under my eyes are gonna propel me from looking like a 21-year-old to a 121-year-old.

I will also take any Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen suggestions...and, um, all drink offers...

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
I'm anal retentive. I'm a workaholic. I have insomnia. And I'm a control freak. That's why I'm not married. Who could stand me? - Madonna

I AM MY OWN PIECE OF MEAT.

2006-05-09T14:04:00.003+01:00

Sometimes I assign to my Advanced Writing Workshop undergraduate students more 'general' exercises that give them creative freedom when assembling a short story. Some of these all-encompassing assignments deal with the fundamentals of writing prose fiction, such as 'write a scene of violence' or 'write a short fiction about a specific type of workplace'. Yesterday we workshopped their Sex pieces. Writing about sex - graphic, romantic, or both - is one of the basic fundamental types of writing that every writing student should attempt (if not master).

One of my students, an attractive young female who, in recent months has already concerned me by emailing a bit too frequently, wrote a piece about an attractive young female student (who looked exactly like her) whose university professor ravages her on his desk after class. The professor/lecturer was about 5'6, had blond hair and blue eyes, a slim but naturally stocky figure, was in his early 20s, and dressed conservatively for class although he had piercings and "tattoos that sometimes peeked out if he wore short sleeves." Her piece was very graphic (although literary and 'classy' nonetheless), complete with detailed body parts and explicit sexual acts. It was also rather excellent.

Hrrrmmmmm. There were far too many similarities between this blond conservatively-dressed professor and me (except for the fact that my students apparently think I'm in my early 20s). The only difference was that this professor had a wife. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Awesome can count as a 'wife'.) At first, I thought, Oh fuck, what do I do? Everyone - everyone - in my fiction workshop stared at me, waiting for a response. Some of them had turned completely white, some with discomfort or nervousness, others with pure excitement. Some of them were drooling. The writer of this Sex piece sat at her desk, staring down at her paper in silence.

I collected myself in milliseconds. I don't even think I blushed. I didn't play dumb, but didn't entirely tackle the painfully obvious situation, either. I proceeded to workshop her piece like I would anyone else's. Thus, basically, I had to sexually objectify myself before a room full of hungry students. Like...I had to tackle the language descriptions of my own body parts and appearance, as well as what 'this character' could do with said body parts. It was a rather surreal experience (it would be pretentious to say existential), and I'm honestly surprised I was able to contain myself without bursting into uncomfortable laughter, as I am prone to do in both social and professional scenarios. Needless to say, this girl gets an A for the entire term. Oh. What?

Since I have so much fucking work to (still) do this week, I am hereby off-the-sauce until this weekend. Well, except for tonight, when Clare and I will playfully portray a heterosekshul couple and attend a couples-only birthday dinner at some fancy restaurant near London Bridge. I fully intend to bring along my copy of this aforementioned student's Sex piece so I can let all of my friends know what I'm (apparently) capable of doing to Clare. Heeheehee.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
My reaction to porn films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first 20 minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live. - Erica Jong

OH, ARTISTE, MY ASS.

2006-05-07T15:12:00.000+01:00

My flatmate just performed for me his impression of my apparently loud arrival home at 6am, complete with the back-to-back karaoke stylings of Goldfrapp's Ooh La La and Robbie Williams's Forever Texas, to which I apparently sang along to my i-Pod while consuming my 'dinner' of another Kronenbourg and chips with chili sauce, and dropping half of the contents of my yellow styrofoam box all over the floor. It was a lovely recreation of my (apparent) inebriated state when he heard me (apparently) saunter through the front door when the sun was rising this morning. I would see his performance again. Hell, I'd pay for it.

I have not hung out in Camden since my early 20s when I used to come to London on holiday, back when I flew across the pond and did not see the light of day for 7 to 10 consecutive days. But for some reason, pub and club decisions made by my wonderful friends have brought me back to Camden for two consecutive weekends in a row. I don't even remember the name of the club we went to last night? I guess this means I had another paralytic weekend, but whatever, I worked my ass off last week, so again, I needed it. I'm so thankful that my friends are ultimately decisive about where to go - this way I can remain apathetic to everything in my social life and not have to plan a damn thing. And now, while sitting in my bed with a vat of coffee at 3.30pm on Sunday, I can remember all the fun new people I met last night...but how did we end up at that club, anyway?

On Friday night I dragged a few friends to Actart, which billed itself as an exciting evening of photography, performance art, and multi-media. This was the biggest debacle of shit I've waded through in years. I'm the type of person who frequents 'alternative' theatre, photography galleries, and just odd-ish art period. But this was pretentious non-talented shite at it's absolute high of pretentious non-talented diarrhetic shite. Don't get me wrong - I work with celebrities and media moguls much of the time, so I have no problem with pretense. But, um, I only like pretentious people with talent. Or at least good-looking pretentious people who fully comprehend that they're pretentious snobs. Or at least pretentious rich people. I'm allergic to poor artists. And on Friday night, I sneezed nonstop.

Some of the evening's samplings included an early 30something tone-deaf indie showtune queen who thought he was performing in front of his bedroom mirror instead of before a group of paying customers. Later, when this guy saw me at the bar, he offered to put my drink on his performance artist tab, as if I was supposed to be impressed with his high-level celebrity status. When he asked me what I thought of his "art," I coincidentally had to excuse myself for the toilet. Strange, how I didn't return after having a wee.

Another devastating act was a French chick who wore lingerie and face paint, and lip-synched to some French diva's spoken word act while climbing around on top of a dummy. I was embarrassed for her, so much that I wanted throw my jacket over her and help her escape the building. I refused to clap when she had finished, although all the Eurotrash surrounding me applauded and offered empty, pretentious commentary while puffing on three cigarettes at once. Because, as everyone knows, when you chain-smoke and watch performance art pensively while wearing early-80s Mancurian post-punk apparel, you are deep, introspective, and intelligent. (Whatevuh. Ain't bovvered.) Again: mortified. Then two guys who were supposedly shocking (I guess?) stood onstage and took knives to each other's chests, slicing flesh wounds and thereby creating permanent scars in their skin. But at least it was "for their art."

The more drinks we had, the more my friends and I would wander around the three-floor building, pushing our way through clouds of marijuana smoke, and laughing our asses off at everything in our immediate vicinity. During one dramatic number, we tumbled onto the floor with laughter, so loudly I thought all the grandiose artistes were going to kick us out. On another floor, I was asked, "What do you think of when you hear the word Hard!? Quick, tell me everything that comes to your mind, and I'll paint it and then act it out for you!" By this point in the evening, I answered to the artiste, "Oh, get a fucking job."

After my weekend of bad art and Camden kids, this afternoon and evening I find it mandatory to go sit with some yuppie friends in a yuppie cinema in yuppie Islington and watch tacky, brainless Hollywood films.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Bad artists always admire each other's work. - Oscar Wilde

DR. WHO?

2006-05-04T18:07:00.000+01:00

I am nearing completion of my PhD, so I'm not officially a doctor. Yet. But because of my membership to assorted professional organizations, some of my mail reads Dr. (First name) (Last name).

Now. I open my mail maybe like twice a month. Horrible, I know, but I have three addresses in two states and in two countries. Also, I'm never in town, and when I am, I just toss my mail into a pile because, well, most post is trash. When I recently flew back from San Francisco to London, I was mortifyingly bored, so I finally had a chance to go through all my mail. For some reason, the guy who sat in the middle seat next to me found it necessary to look into my lap during my entire mail-opening process. (I must sit on the aisle because I drink a lot on airplanes, and therefore I pee a lot, too.) I also had headphones on, and was watching back-to-back episodes of The Catherine Tate Show and Little Britain, and probably laughing too loudly, so I didn't particularly care that this random man was watching me open credit card and bank statements, random letters, and all kinds of junk mail.

Everyone's in-flight entertainment was paused when a Virgin Airlines flight attendant announced, "Ladies and gentleman, we have a sick passenger on this flight. If there is a doctor or a medical professional present, please ring your call bell." The guy next to me punched his bell immediately and, as I sat there watching Catherine Tate's chirpy characters, I thought, Oh, so the peeper is an MD.

When two flight attendants arrived, my row neighbor pointed to me and said, "He's a doctor!" I dropped all my mail in my lap, covering my ripped-up jeans and the lower half of my Abercrombie Kids sweatshirt, and looked up at the flight attendants, doe-eyed and confused.
"You are!?" one of them quipped.
"You look too young to be a doctor!" the other said.
I removed my headphones, mashed down my blond bedhead, and started to speak. But then the first flight attendant continued with, "There is a passenger with appendicitis who is in severe pain! What can you do!?"
"Um..." I began, "...write him a short story?" They stared in confusion, so I continued, "...uh...edit his grammar and sentence structure? Give him a lecture on 'the postmodern condition' or about the progression of the social novel or all about psychoanalytic critical theory?"
"Sir, what are you talking about?"
"I'm a PhD, not an MD. Sorry I can't help you."
Embarrassed for ringing his call bell, the guy next to me reaffixed his headphones over his scalp as tight as they would suction his ears.

And for this very reason, when I have completed my PhD, I will not tell anyone about it publicly or socially, only professionally. Except for Awesome. Whom I will make call me doctor all the time. Especially at home. Specifically in the bedroom. In bed. During... Oh. What? He is a nurse, after all.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Be suspicious of any doctor who tries to take your temperature with his finger. - David Letterman

I AIN'T BOVVERED

2006-05-02T13:09:00.000+01:00

The children of London are not okay. I am mortified of them. Terrified. Horrified. Not only in the realm of embarrassment, but also for my own safety. And they should never be off school, ever. Bank Holiday weekend just passed - for American readers, this is like Memorial Day or Labor Day or Presidents Day, and the kids get a day off school. Only in Britain, it's much less creative and self-important with the day names; there are multiple bank holidays but they're all called, well, Bank Holiday.

Yesterday morning at 9 my doorbell rang. I stumbled downstairs and answered the door to find a girl, presumably about 8, and a boy, presumably about 6, standing before me, neither of them phased by the fact that the weird blond guy who just opened his door stood there in only boxer shorts.
"Have you got any plants?" the girl asked.
"Huh?" I grunted.
"Have you got any plants?" she asked again, all angelic-like.
"Huh?"
"Cuz if you've got plants, we could water them for you."
"No. We don't have plants. Wait. Where's your watering can?"
Then the small boy grabbed his crotch, screamed "Right here!" and they both laughed uproariously. But it was me who became terrified and shut the door. As I stood there panting and wondering how to perform an exorcism on a six-year-old lad, I heard the next-door-neighbor's doorbell ring. I soon heard the angelic, "Have you got any plants?" 30 seconds later this innocence was followed by more devilish uproarious laughter and another door slamming.

Later, yesterday afternoon as I wandered through Chapel Market near Angel, a girl, presumably about 10ish, literally grabbed my arm and yanked off one of my headphones. She pointed to the small blond boy with her, and pleaded, "My brother - and my other brother, who's in that shop over there (she pointed to a videogame shop) - need to exchange some things but they won't give us the money without an adult!"
I looked down at the sack that the blond boy held uncomfortably. It was as big as him. Inside was what looked like years worth of used merchandise, and immediately I knew these evil spawns of Satan were attempting to get reimbursed for used and/or stolen videogames.
"Can you just say you're our uncle!?" the girl yelped. She pointed at the boy again and pleaded, "You look just like him!"
The child had snot running down his face, looked like he hadn't showered since 2003, and looked a bit cross-eyed. "No I don't," I told her. "Besides, where are your parents?"
"They're home! Please just do it anyway!"
"Look," I started, "The second they hear my American accent, they're going to know I'm not your uncle." I told myself that this would shut them up.
She paused, considered what I had professed, and then said, "It's okay, cuz we could have an American uncle, couldn't we?"
"I have to go. I'm late," I said, defeated.
A barrage of profanity spewed from the lips of these young kids, so loud I could hear it through my headphones as I walked down the street.

Later, when I was up at the Angel cinema and texting my friend Edwin to see why he was late, three boys - presumably about 8ish - rolled off the escalator on scooters and surrounded me like a gang of bandits on wheels. At first I thought nothing of it, and continued texting, holding my mobile at about shoulder height.
"OI!" one of the boys bellowed. "DID YOU JUST TAKE A PHOTO OF ME!?"
"What?" I asked.
"OI!" another screamed. "DID YOU NOT JUST TAKE A PHOTO OF US?"
"I don't even have a camera."
"YEAH BUT LEMME SEE YOUR PHONE!" the third yelled.
"My phone doesn't even have a camera on it," I promised, holding up the back of it.
"QUICK, TAKE HIS PHONE!" the first boy yelled to the third one.
I retracted my mobile and stared at them in disbelief. "That was like the worst robbery attempt I've ever seen," I told them, truly disappointed by their efforts.
"YEAH BUT SHUH-UP THO!" the second gang-boy spurted. Then he turned his scooter around and rolled away with the other two children following him.

I returned home yesterday evening as nightfall approached. I walked through a gang of kindergarteners who used their index fingers to pantomime guns. An elderly woman passed by them and asked, "You lads playing cowboys and indians, then?"
One of them shouted - shouted - at her, "NO! We're playing Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels!"
Another five-year-old chimed in, instructing, "After I steal his cocaine I've gotta kill the other bloke and then fuck his lady!"
Horrified, the old woman ran away. So did I.

I hate children. At least Islington children. Where are their parents? They need cages, not classrooms. I also REALLY FUCKING hate my dissertation this week, but that's a whole other story.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Social worker: All I want to know Vicky is where is your baby?
Vicky Pollard: Oh, I swapped it for a Westlife CD.
Social worker: Oh my God, how could you.
Vicky Pollard: I know, they're rubbish. - from Little Britain

WORRY WORRYING WORRIED

2006-05-01T12:46:00.000+01:00

Well. I got my paralytic weekend. Saturday night at Koko in Camden, since none of my senior citizen friends in their late 20s and early 30s do drugs anymore but still go out a lot, everyone double-fisted drinks the entire night. Whenever someone went to the bar, he/she would return carrying about 10 beer bottles, and pass them out to our group of 10. At one point I found myself on the middle of the dancefloor holding seven (7) bottles. Yet strangely, nothing compelled me to share. Particularly since my friends had the same glass contents in their hands. Then, of course, were the bottles of vodka we snuck in from which to shoot all night. I needed Saturday night. I've not had a night like that in a long time. I have no idea what happened in the rest of the club because I think our group only payed attention to each other.

Awesome called me on Sunday afternoon to demand, "So how many homos came up and hit on you or danced with you or just came up and kissed you? Cuz, baby, you know that happens, and don't deny it doesn't."
"Argh. Baby, I didn't meet any homos last night. For all I know there weren't any there."
"Are you sure?"
"Boyfriend, the only men who danced with me were Simon and Allie."
"Who's Allie!? IS THAT THE GAY ONE!?"
"No. Allie is straight, too. And the only man who kissed me was Simon. But he always kisses me, as he is a wonderful drunken fool," I told him.
"I know. We have to do something about that. Baby, give me his girlfriend's number."

After nearly three years, I still really like having a naturally jealous Rican boyfriend. It just makes me feel so loved and protected. It's psychotic, in a way, I know, but hey, that's just to what I am accustomed. He's a worrier. But I couldn't be with a non-worrier.

I'm a naturally paranoid worrier, too. My parents are/were; it's hereditary. But because of awful past occurences, I just assume that everyone dies. Really. That's what happens inside my head when I cannot get ahold of someone. My father didn't call me back late one night and then my sister called the next morning to report his unexpected death. A few months before my 19th birthday, I called my childhood best friend on her mobile and she didn't call me back; the next morning her mother called my mom to say that she had died. My junior year of college when my thesis advisor (with whom I was rather close ) didn't email me back, I arrived at his office the next morning to learn of his sudden death.

Everyone just goes and dies on me, you see. Hence my unfortunate psychological prowess for automatically preparing for the worst. My prolific imagination definitely does not help things, either. In fact, it makes things worse. While sitting around freaking-out about someone's whereabouts, the most horrific scenarios are staged in my mind, causing my blood pressure to increase for no reason, other than the fact that I've got an over-active, dramatic imagination. Yes: I expect to be fully senile by the time I'm 50.

Nowadays, whenever someone in my family calls each other, the conversation goes like this:
"Hi."
"What's wrong?"

Yesterday my little brother didn't call me back all day so I sat around worrying and preparing the eulogy for his funeral, too. When Boy finally called me at midnight, he told me he had been at his roommate's dad's funeral all day. The roommate's parents' car was hit by a drunk driver; the mother is still in the hospital with a tube stuck down her throat, so she couldn't even attend her own husband's funeral. And yesterday, poor Boy just went through the same emotions he felt at his own father's funeral, less than 1.5yrs after it all happened. I cannot imagine what Boy's roommate's family is going through; I've met them all and they're such nice, happy, grateful people. Or at least they were. I couldn't imagine dealing with death and such profound anger, since really, this father was murdered by some jackass who crashed into him.

Cars scare the shit out of me, man. They are pure evil on four wheels. I often feel much safer living in London or New York. I wonder if I'll ever actually want to live somewhere I must drive instead of walking everywhere. Probably not. I mean, until Awesome gives birth to triplets, we buy an SUV, and move to Connecticut. Oh fuck: I can only imagine Awesome and me as parents - we would paranoiacally worry about our kids so much that they would run away and join the carefree circus, or the Bloods or Crypts, or the Church of Scientology - it's all the same thing.

Oi. I still have so much work to do during the next two weeks. If I don't start completing things rather than just working on them, I'm gonna have to drag my laptop all over Scandinavia.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will. - Epictetus

LET'S GET RETARDED.

2006-04-28T15:39:00.000+01:00

It's Bank Holiday Weekend. I just taught my last class of the week. Yesterday I worked my final shoot of the week. I've edited over 400 pages of dissertation this week. During the next two weeks I hope to finish a (semi-final) draft of my dissertation, write and prepare four (4) conference papers/presentations for May, write two (2) chapters of books to which I am contributing, grade like 50 papers, start working on three (3) conference papers/presentations for June, and have lots of more TV shoots lined up. I am tired of thinking about my dissertation. I even worked on it nonstop in California, and when I wasn't working on it, I was mentally processing and re-processing it. I am tired of sitting around working all day, missing Awesome, and worrying psychotically about my future (and working on making it happen), since I have no idea what will become of me, us, or anything after July 26th. Every night that I've gone 'out' in I-don't-remember-how-long, I have made a conscious decision to not go too crazy so I wouldn't be too hungover the next morning so I could work way too much. As of late, I've been the highly responsible one. And quite frankly, I am fucking sick of it.

This weekend I am getting fucking paralytic! It. Is. Time. Tonight I have unmentionable plans. What? Tomorrow night one of my straight boyfriends, Simon, turns 30, and is having a giant party at Koko, the club space where Camden Palace used to be. I've not been to a proper club in ages, as I work all the damn time, travel random places where I don't go nutty, and am 42. I mean 27. Clubbing just hasn't seemed so enjoyable to me during the past couple of years, perhaps mainly due to the fact that I'm in a monogamous relationship. See, back in my club kid days, I knew that the only way to meet people and make friends was to take copious amounts of illegal drugs with beautiful newfound friends and immediately have sex with each and every last one of them. What?

I don't really give a flying fuck what happens this weekend. I hereby temporarily abandon all responsibility and more importantly, all guilt. Paralytic, I'm saying. PARALYTIC. (Now. Let's hope I'm not cursing myself into permanently breaking various limbs.)

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
The 'not-giving-a-fuck' meter is as far into the red zone as ever before. - Metallica's Lars Ulrich

JUST A LITTLE DOSE OF MASOCHISM...

2006-04-26T12:48:00.000+01:00

Tom Cruise is SUCH a Twat. SUCH a Twat! The man cannot engage in normal conversation. He must 'act' everything but the trouble is that he is an awful actor. When answering questions, it's like he's a robotic television - he'll switch channels from a soap opera character vying for a Daytime Emmy, to an overexcited football fan, to the Most Boring Man on Earth. But while 'acting' during these 'conversations,' he never actually switches out of the plastic 16-year-old Hollywood newbie character he has perfected over the years but never grown out of. Twat. Most celebs tend to work crowds at premieres and awards shows for about 15 minutes, 30 minutes tops. Mr. Cruise stayed out there for THREE FUCKING HOURS. I must now fill out an expense report since I must've spent £82,601,841.00 on my mobile calling my L.A. office to push back my satellite feeds 92,582,746 times. Twat. Does he not know that he single-handedly turned my already-long day into a 15-hour day of work? Twat. And you've got wonder what all this crowd-pleasing is all about - does he really have such low self-confidence that he must feed off all this fandom and ass-kissing in order to feel praised? I am confused. Twat. But the sum of these wonders does make him an interesting freak, someone I cannot help but continue psychoanalyzing. I really wanted to ask him, "So...Tommy...are there any aliens here...right now?!"

It actually felt really good to be back at this type of nutty work - we had a bunch of people in town from Los Angeles, too. See...when people from LA come to New York or London, I forget that they do not realize how the rest of the world works. Just like when 9/11 happened and my LA office would call us in NYC all the time - they treated it like it was a giant Hollywood blockbuster, coming soon to cinemas on Melrose Ave and Sunset Blvd! Every time they asked for footage it was like they wanted to the see next film trailer that had been directed and produced strictly for audience consumption. I fucking hate Los Angeles. Yesterday they were actually surprised and irritated when - shocker! - the temporary rain postponed our rooftop shoot. I quickly explained to them that I was absolutely mortified and appalled by this unexpected weather and that it has never rained in London before yesterday, ever, that this wet phenomenon was a completely new experience for Great Britain. Then we all had a shot of wheatgrass, a keg of Evain, and a colonic. It was magical.

Later, when the makeup chick and the hair guy (everyone else was much older than me, even the people I tell what to do, so these were the only people who wanted to go out after the long shoots) asked to go to a pub, I quickly swallowed five pints of lager while their 'healthy' vodka-cranberries quickly conquered all the oxygen in their brains. When the attractive and surprisingly non-flaming hair guy asked me to go back to his hotel, I couldn't help laughing aloud at myself when I told him I could not accompany him because (a) I have a boyfriend, and (b) I had to awaken early this morning to perform colonic irrigation on myself after doing three hours of yoga. Note: I do not like yoga, and don't even know what colonic irrigation means.

So this is my impression of me at work, running back-n-forth through oncoming traffic from Leicester Square to my satellite feed point near Goodge St., screaming at my LA office via my mobile and to innocent passersby simultaneously: FUCK! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY! PLEASE MOVE! COMING THROUGH! FUCK! SHIT! GODDAMNIT! MARY KATE AND ASHLEY OLSEN! FUCK! FUCKING FUCK! FUCKINGMARYKATEHASLEYHILARYDUFFFUCK! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FUCKING MOVE! HELLLEWWWWW! FUCKING FUCKITY FUCK! (whereupon I am suddenly hit by and slide across the hood of a taxi while dashing across Oxford St.) OWWWWW! FUCKING FUCK- ALMOST THERE, ALMOST THERE, ALMOST FUCKING THERE! FUCK!

And then I get to the satellite feed point and think, "For what?" "For fucking what?" "So America can see what a twat Tom Cruise is?" "FUH WHAT?!" Oh my, I still love my job. Today I feel on top of the fucking world again. All I needed was a little bit of broadcast journalism masochism. And now I may focus on my dissertation again. I think.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Masochism is a valuable job skill. - Chuck Palahniuk

EVERYTHING'S JUST FINE.

2006-04-24T13:34:00.000+01:00

I returned from the sunshine of San Francisco (at least it was sunny when I was there) to sit outside in the London downpour and watch my friend Edwin run the London Marathon in a three-piece suit and bowler's hat. It was actually quite fun sitting out near Embankment getting soaked with a bunch of friends, each taking turns to go buy the next six-pack. Watching the costumed London Marathoners was more like watching a parade, which means that it was much more exciting than I had originally thought. After hours of watching thousands of runners stream by me, I entered a trance-like state where it looked as though the concrete was moving like the belt of a treadmill. Maybe I was just buzzed? It was also great fun being there for a purpose, this being to cheer on a friend, along with whomever else we our group fancied screaming for. Oh, I know what you're thinking - since when am I nice and encouraging?

Not that it's anyone's business, but everything with Awesome and me is delicious. This is hypothetically the last stretch of time before we will live in the same city, be it London, New York or San Francisco. Or, Limon, Kiev, or Toledo, wherever our random personalities float us next, should we relocate elsewhere. When two such strong-personalitied people like Awesome and me, two people of such stubborn caliber, innate competitiveness, and paranoid psyches, go through a three-week long period of testing each other to guarantee that we're worth each other's future, it's fucking HELL. No reality television show is this difficult. None of those fuckers on Surviver, Big Brother, or The Apprentice could possibly endure what the two of us just went through in California. And that's all I'm gonna say about that. Love is so fucking ridiculous.

So back to me suddenly being nice. I love taking care of Awesome. Just like I love taking care of my mother, siblings, and closest friends. With Sistaman and Heather in Dallas, Colleen in New York, Julia in San Francisco, Faith in Berlin, Jen in Milwaukee, and Clare in London (along with my other ladies scattered throughout the globe), I have a gang of Charlies Angels-esque ladies who support and love and watch over me nearly as much as Awesome does. And that ~~man~~ ~~boy~~ man will do anything for me. Anything. As will I for him. This was reconfirmed for me during the emotionally and psychologically HORRIFIC time we just spent together, and even more so now that we're abruptly apart again. But my ladies are different. Under any circumstance, when they're involved, you do not fuck with me or them. Because if you do, they will fuck with you back, with so much spooky estrogen and overly-protective maternal instincts, so much that you won't know what hit you. Listen, muthafucka: My Girl Gang will cut you.

Oh yes. Me and the niceness. See, when my father was alive, I was quite a spoilt brat. Sometimes I still am. But on a deeper level, whenever I had a panic attack (as I am prone to do, although I am typically the cool, collected one who calms down and psychotherapizes everyone else), Dad was the only person who could calm me down. He'd tell me to stop worrying, stop freaking-out, to collect myself, and that, really, everything would indeed be just fine.

I don't have that anymore. When the caretaker 'Daddy' role is a prime aspect of a father-son relationship, when said father dies, complete fucking shellshock occurs. And for some reason, a year-and-a-half later, it's hitting me now more than ever. This is probably because I am undergoing massive future changes in my life, so my psyche is spinning out of control.

It took me this past year-and-a-half to fully realize that absolutely no one is there to take care of me anymore. Never again. No calling for help, no leaning on, no comfort, nothing. Termination. Zilch. Well, death, really. I am all on my own. This is not meant to sound depressing, just as plain-and-simple fact.

So, you see, ever since my dad died, my priorities have started to switch from wanting to be taken care of to wanting to take care of everyone I love. Instead of sucking everyone dry of everything they're capable of giving me, my primary goal in relationships is to give give give, much more than taking. I'm 27 - of course I want to keep taking everything and anything from everyone. That's what I'm supposed to be doing at this age. But instead, I want to be like my dad. And until my friends and lover are in the same lonely, stranded state of unfortunate independence due to the early death of their father, I want to show them how fucking amazing it feels to be treated like my father treated me.

This said, though, yesterday evening when I had a wee panic attack, so much that it made me physically ill and vomitous, I took a chance and called Awesome since my father was obviously unavailable. He managed to calm me down but I waited to cry until after I had hung up the phone. Now if only I could sleep more than one (1) hour per night...and stop having such awful dreams...

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
If you ever catch on fire, try to avoid seeing yourself in the mirror, because I bet that's what really throws you into a panic. - Jack Handy

SCATTERBRAINED

2006-04-19T21:15:00.000+01:00

I've had an emotionally grueling two weeks for many reasons, ones I do not currently wish to discuss. My insomnia is at an absolute horrible high. I've barely slept since landing in Los Angeles over two weeks ago. This pattern continued in San Francisco and doesn't look like it will end before I get on another plane back to London on Friday. After I proceeded to 'Fuck the pain away' (and still am), I decided to channel all my emotional turmoil and psycho stress into intense physical activity, becoming the Fittest Man in San Francisco. I always feel like an Olympian every time I climb the hills of this city. After just a week of hardcore jogging, running and sprinting, I think I've climbed every mountain across the Golden Gate bridge. I know every block of this city and refuse to climb the baby hills, instead opting to punish myself by climbing the mammoth ones. My entire body hurts but it feels better than everything in my head and heart.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

You know how sometimes you hear a song on the radio or in a bar that's so fucking catchy, so annoyingly poppy and irritatingly wonderful that you can't help but love it? But you can't tell any of your friends that this song makes you feel good because when you hear it from a car radio or a lounge DJ, you feel like you and your friends are in an episode of 'The OC' or 'Beverly Hills, 90210'? But you still can't help but go buy the CD at Virgin Megastore, but in order to overcome your embarrassment of purchasing such a shit CD from a singer who can only sing three chords, that you purchase three additional CDs that you don't even want or need? I am not listening to Natasha Bedingfield's 'Unwritten' on repeat right now.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

My sister and her homo friend were in town for the long Easter weekend. About a year ago, when my sister and I traveled to and arrived in Barcelona, our taxi dropped us off in the city centre since we sort of neglected to remember our hotel address. Sistaman stepped out of the taxi, handed her Louis Vuitton bags to a Spanish teenager, announced, "Here Jose," and turned to me and said, "These Mexican kids are so nice."
"Did you know we're in Spain?" I asked.
"Same thing," she said before ordering a martini from the boy and digging through her purse for some painkillers.
I beamed in a combination of pride and embarrassment.

When my sister arrived on Thursday morning, my phenomenal girlfriend Julia (as in the Julia with whom I was attached at the hip for a year in London) came over to meet her. Sistaman walked through the door with a champagne glass she had taken from her First Class airplane ride. Julia said nervously, "Hi. I'm Julia. I meant to bring you a martini this morning but I forgot. You can still make fun of me if you want to, though."

Julia no longer thinks that I am Karen Walker, instead opting to compare this character to Sistaman. I have been demoted, but only a little. It's okay, though. After not living in America for 2.5 years, I barely know what materialism, capitalism and consumerism are anymore. I live out of suitcases for fuck's sake. I'm in three-to-five countries per month.

The entire entertaining weekend was spent with Sistaman, her cycnical homo friend, Awesome, Julia, and Sistaman's wealthy French ex-boyfriend. When most people go to Napa or Sonoma, they manage to get in about three vineyards per day. For Sistaman, Cynical Homo, and me, though, our Friday in Sonoma and Saturday in Napa were cutthroat sporting events. And we won. We really, really won. We went to eight vineyards each day. No reader of this website is surprised, though, I'm sure.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

We're trying to decide whether or not to move back to New York together and continue the planned affair we started three years ago. We've almost made it. Will I stay in London? Will he stay in San Francisco? Will New York be the answer? Will New York even work, or were we young idiots when we made this plan 2.5 years ago?

From across the room he watches me sip from my giant coffee mug (it's my 8th cup) and type ferociously on my laptop. I'm in my low-waist-hanging karate pajama pants and a children's thrift store t-shirt. My bedhead is everywhere. I look five. My legs are curled underneath my body in a small chair and my head bobs up and down to the cheesy song on my i-Pod. He knows I don't care who watches me, who's around, apathetic to what's happening outside my own little world. This is one of the sights he fell deeply in love with in my Brooklyn apartment almost three years ago. He told me I was his idol. I told him he couldn't date his idol, that he needed to humanize me, that I'm not a trophy, that I'm not perfect, that I can fuck-up as much as everyone on earth. He told me that I was perfect and I said I'd never live up to that expectation because I know better. He watches me across the room now, wondering why I'm not perfect, realizing that I'm not a diety, and wondering what will happen next. He is disappointed that I am not a mythical god who will save him from all his fears and insecurities, and now that he's out of his Northeastern comfort zone, questions if he still loves me. (We're talking high school friends, college friends, all of them - they all moved to the big bad city together...I don't understand...I can't...I always did it myself...only myself, no support group...I've never been in my comfort zone). I grew up when I was 18, all alone, everywhere, whoring and wounding my emotions and psychosis everywhere, without a support group. Why must I coach someone else? I'm now a too-numb twenty-seven-year-old 42-year-old. Does this mean I must be with someone who is 50 instead of my real age?

I watch him drift in an out of sleep on the sofa, his big sloppy eyelids opening and closing over his beautiful blue eyes. He's a mess. He always has been, he always will be. Will I commit to a mess? Can I commit to a mess? Do I still love this mess? I originally fell in love with this extremely well-intentioned, sweet, and brave disarray of personality quirks and quibbles. Is it okay to think this way? His thin dark hair is strewn across his pronounced forehead; his long fingers occasionally traipse over his long legs; his bones are collapsed into a pile of supreme, natural relaxation that I have never and probably will never experience. He looks like firewood, burning across the room into an ashy pile of himself - pretty fire, pretty fire, pretty fire. I am jealous of his ability to relax and fall asleep at will. His ability to turn off his brain. He loses everything, he breaks everything, he forgets everything. But he loves me. He's not as tender and comforting as he once was. But he loves me. I think.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

London moves on without me. How dare It. Moments after my flight lands on Saturday, I will interview Tom Cruise about 'Mission Impossible 3' at a press junket. I've not interviewed him before; he's fucking odd, though, I'm betting, but he is one of the big, 'necessary' celebs I suppose I should meet during my career. Tuesday night I'll work the 'MI3' premiere. Sunday I'm going with a group of my Brit friends to watch my nutty friend Edwin run the London Marathon...in a three-piece suit. It's a gimmick, and I hope he doesn't sweat to death. I plan to hand him cans of Guinness as he runs by.

Nothing impresses me right now. I really wish something would. Something, anything, needs to happen.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them. - Jack Kerouac

FUCK THE PAIN AWAY

2006-04-11T17:22:00.000+01:00

(Yes, I stole my title from a brilliant Peaches song. What of it?)

Is it possible to have too much sex? Because since I've arrived in Los Angeles, motored through LA and Riverside, and am now in San Francisco, all Awesome and I seem to do is have sex. It's the reaction for everything. I'm tired - let's have sex. I'm mad at you - let's have sex. You pissed me off last night - let's have sex. I'm hungry - let's have sex. My conference presentations went really well - let's have sex. It's raining outside - sex. It's sunny outside - sex. There is weather, some form of weather, any type of weather, on the other side of the hotel room window - let's have sex. Drunk = sex. Happy = sex. Excited = sex. Sex Sex Sex Sex Sex. Sex sex. Sex. It's like the past (almost) three months of my workaholism and his...just...general character of being himself, being hyper-paranoid 'Awesome', has transformed us into nymphomaniacs.

Why the hell else haven't I had time to write? Well, I've been working on my dissertation since I've returned to San Fran. In Los Angeles I saw friends the entire time. I played tourguide for Awesome, driving him around the Hollywood Hills, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Sunset, and everywhere else in the richer parts of Los Angeles - all the places I'd memorized from having to go there for work during my early 20s. Plus, this past weekend I was at a big conference. I walked in to registration and the ladies behind the desk announced, "You're our Master Panelist!" after I gave them my name. When Master Panelist is said aloud, it sounds a bit pornographic, no? I was worried that my nametag would read Master Panelist, but luckily it did not. Everyone else at this international conference had flown in to LA and had driven or was shuttled down to beautiful, mountainous Riverside to present one (1) paper on one (1) panel. Being my psychotic, over-ambitious self, I presented (3) papers on (3) panels, one of which looks like it will result in another upcoming publication for me. (Which, coincidentally, was announced as the only panel at the conference to result in publication - woohoo.) Yay...another chapter in another book! Now that I've secured all these chapters, perhaps I should actually start writing them all. Oh. Plus, the keynote speaker, a rather famous man in the world of academia, sat in on one of my sessions and then grilled me with questions. After I proceeded to tell him he was wrong about everything, he offered to write me a recommendation letter for anything I needed. Ain't it strange how in some professions, when you tell your superiors to go fuck themselves, then they offer to give you their first born child?

And then Awesome and I would have sex some more. That's all we've been talking about. Sex! Don't think that we didn't rush back to the hotel to have quickies in between my conference sessions. See, on Awesome's and my long distance phone calls between London and San Francisco, it's like everything has been discussed except sex. I mean, really - how fucking much can a nurse and a doctoral student/lecturer/tv producer tell each other about their professional lives without faltering in conversational attention? It's like the past (almost) three months have built up so much fucking tension in each of us that our only choice of activity while together is to hop into each other's pants at any given second.

Then, when I try to sleep, I cannot relax unless Awesome holds me down. It's quite strange - like I belong on a mental ward for patients with psychotic tendencies who cannot calm down. Like Sybil. Or Randle P. McMurphy. Insomniatic me must lay 3/4th on my side, 1/4th on my back, while Awesome nearly climbs atop me from the other side, holding my body down. Otherwise I suppose I must levitate above my bed with so much pent-up tension and just pretend that I'm sleeping? Who knows. I'd love for someone to videotape me when I claim to be sleeping (because I am definitely not; I'm just going through the motions). I bet I look just like Linda Blair in 'The Exorcist'. Awesome fares no better, though - he twitches and shakes himself to sleep while atop me, so it's like I'm trapped underneath a fidgety amusement park ride that's fallen off its track.

Or, maybe we both have rabies.

Anyway, now that Awesome has a few nights off, and I'm gonna calm down just a teeny leetle bit, I can resume writing on my website as normal. Awesome's birthday is in a couple of weeks so I'm taking him to the Matthew Bourne production of the all-male 'Swan Lake' and to dinner at some restaraunt he's been dying to go to but hasn't been able to score reservations. (Working in the TV industry for the past 8 years has taught me to make phone calls and get whatever the fuck I want, sweet-talking every man, woman, child, and alien in my path.) This afternoon we're going to a highly recommended spa in Japantown (I forget the name? Kabuki Springs or something?) so that I may soak away my tensions and Awesome can attempt to soak away his natural paranoia. The last time I had a good massage, just as the masseuse was knuckling out my insane knots, I barfed through the hole of the massage table I had so much tension. I hope to throw up all afternoon.

Then, my sister and her friend arrive in town on Thursday morning. Me + Sistaman always makes for interesting stories...

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Sex relieves tension. Love causes it. - Woody Allen

CALIFORNIA WITH HARRY POTTER

2006-04-03T18:01:00.000+01:00

I've just packed, checked-in online, and printed off my electronic Virgin Airlines boarding pass. I'm flying to California again tomorrow. It's a looooong flight. And I have a teeny attention span. But for twelve (12) hours tomorrow, I shall again be soaring across the pond. I just did this 12 hour flight from San Fran in late January, and I'll obviously have to do it again when I return to London in a couple weeks. Only tomorrow I'm flying to Los Angeles instead, where I am meeting my Mexican, whose flight arrives just moments after mine (if our flights are actually on time, that is).

During these excruciatingly boring half-day flights I've taken over the past few years, no matter how many new films Virgin or British Airways show, no matter how many times the flight attendants return to me bearing more baby bottles of booze, and no matter if I'm flying to New York, San Francisco, or Dallas, never once in the past five years has Harry Potter failed to be featured on every international flight to and from the United Kingdom. He's always there, on every seat-screen, and is typically the only consistent element of my dozens of long-haul US/UK flights that I can count on. It's like time does not pass - Harry Potter is always waiting for me and everyone else. He has been on every flight for half a decade now, and it's not looking like he's leaving. He keeps getting older but he stays put.

For some reason, long rides on airplanes and trains force me to work nonstop - and I get so much done. It's an odd, hypocritical thing; there are so many distractions around me that there seem to be no distractions at all. So chances are I'll have written another section of my dissertation by the time Harry Potter and I land at LAX.

I am such a nice little boyfriend. Awesome has never been to Los Angeles before and wishes to see all the cheesy Hollywood tourist attractions. Thankfully I still have lotsa work colleagues who have become my friends during the past five years I've worked for my TV company. So, I've scheduled some personal tours of studio lots and 'insider' spots of Hollywood to which most tourists do not have access, like personal driving tours of celebrity Hollywood Hills homes, and more. (One of my Los Angelean friends used to work for The National Enquirer so he's more of an accomplished spy than a CIA agent.) I work for a major studio, which I believe charges like $100 for tours. But not when you're my boyfriend! My friends and I can give them for free! See, working in a shallow industry occasionally does have its benefits! More importantly, I am SO excited to see my California friends. I've not seen most of them in years! Even my college roommate has moved out to LA and is apparently Tyra Banks's assistant or something (both of whom are insane - I imagine it's a good match). I don't think I've ever used so many exclamation marks in my life!

In my other professional world, this weekend I am speaking at another reputable international conference right outside of Los Angeles. I had originally submitted proposals to three different sections of the conference in hopes I'd be accepted to one of them. But to my pleasant surprise, I was chosen for all three. (Woohoo.) However, this meant I had lots more work to do. I think I'm ready now? This conference will devour almost my entire weekend.

When I used to travel to Los Angeles for work in my early 20s, my company always put me up at the Beverly Hilton, I drove pricey rental cars, and expensed everything I ate and drank. This time around, we're taking our chances and staying in a small hotel in West Hollywood, and probably eating every meal at In&Out Burger. A producer friend of mine made the hotel reservation for me and emailed the confirmation soon after, saying, Hey! I reserved you the room Jim Morrison died in! Is this supposed to be a good thing?

So, the moral of all this celebrity bullshit, conference description, and reuniting with Awesome once again, is that I shall be MIA for almost a week. I then return to San Francisco with Awesome next Sunday, where I'll stay for almost two weeks. I am so fucking excited for like 19,548,626 reasons. I assume Harry Potter can't wait to see me again tomorrow morning.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees. - David Letterman

COOL. CALM. COLLECTED.

2006-04-02T12:40:00.000+01:00

All of a sudden it's spring in London. I don't want to be inside my flat now. Ever. It has shockingly been sunny here all weekend. Last night as I sat upstairs in the fantastic John Snow pub near Carnaby St. surrounded by my London friends, I felt like I hadn't been out in this city in years. Country-hopping often makes me forget how much I love London - the pub culture, the lowkey, relaxed and welcoming Britishness of my friends here, the whole picture.

(This photo was actually taken from the television studio in which I work far too often. C'mon, you don't think tourists get this view from above, do you?)

Uh...this said, though, I've just booked three week-long trips, one per month in May, June and July. In May I'm going to Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen. June brings me back to Rome and also to Florence, Pisa and Siena (I went to Rome and Venice in February of last year). In July I'll travel around Switzerland, specifically Zurich, Lausanne and Geneva (I just barely ventured into northern Switzerland in summer of '04 during my two-week trip around Germany). After frolicking all over Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and Eastern Europe, I've realized that I unintentionally saved the most expensive countries for this spring and summer. Hotels in, flights to, and everything else in Scandinavia and Switzerland are fucking expensive! I've also booked a long-weekend trip to Stirling, which is for another conference, one that promises me another chapter in yet another publication. (Yay!) I loved Edinburgh but Stirling seems a bit more 'country' than Edinburgh or Glasgow, which is completely fine by me. Please feel free to start emailing your Scandinavian, Swiss, Scottish, and Tuscan recommendations now...!

Also, this morning while consulting last night's drunken texts on my mobile, I apparently promised my younger brother that if he finally gets his ass over to England in June, I will pay for his flights, hotels, etc. in Italy. This was a rather stupid move, as I can barely afford to send myself all over Europe. Boy is rather well-traveled, but he's not been to Italy. He's not even been back to England since I've lived here; my sister has come to see me twice. See, when my sister and I were Boy's age, we had the pleasure of being spoilt rotten by my father. Since Dad died almost 1.5yrs ago, I've been spoiling Boy as much as possible. Sometimes purposely, sometimes unknowingly at first. I temporarily upgrade myself from the elder brother role to the dad role more often than I realize. He needs it. He's a happy 'kid' but at 22 he's inevitably a furious young boy, at the crabby age when every young male childishly protests growing up. It's what we do. So, uh, this means I will assist his psychological development into manly adulthood by spoiling him with airplane tickets and pasta. Oh.

I'm off to play with friends in North London now. It's all springy 'n shit. Maybe it's the weather, I don't know - but I'm all relaxed this weekend. I've gotten tons of work done over the past few weeks. I actually even feel like I've got my dissertation under control and have a meticulous plan of work/attack until the end of May!

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Work is much more fun than fun. - Noel Coward

SICILY: LIES & LUDICROUSY

2006-03-31T14:32:00.000+01:00

This is really one of those times when I wish it were completely and totally safe to post questionable photos of myself all over my website. Specifically, the photos of F and me covered in squid ink and more, looking like we got into a brutal food fight in the back of a Sicilian beach restaurant in Mondello. So instead, picture it: Us, the table, the walls, everything, splattered in various colors and sauces, the two of us completely uncaring about the native Sicilians staring in amusement. There's black ink dripping down our faces, off our teeth and lips, and staining our clothing. We're covered in various liquid substances from the messy, interactive food we've ordered. Of course, there are bottes of wine - empty and in-progress - all over the table. And all the while, we are laughing hysterically, drooling black ink, red sauce and vini all over everything in our immediate vicinity.

See, if I show you this photo of purported Sicilian Mafiosi meeting in Piazza Indipendienza:

Then I also want to show you the next photo of our Palermo series where I go and join the Mafia, integrating myself directly into the group, between two ancient men professing about whatever the hell it is they're meeting about. I'd also want to show you F standing in a large group of white-haired Mafioso-esque wives and widows in the Cappella Palatina.

Or I'd show you photos of us running drunkenly down the boardwalks and beaches of Mondello. I'd show you us biting the heads off of giant squids (I obviously didn't follow through with my promise of playing it safe with my culinary choices following my food poisoning). Alas, I would show you photos of us strolling down main shopping streets, or wandering aimlessly through busy Sicilian markets with a lovely afternoon vini buzz. I'd show you the two of us hysterically mimicking the statues in front of the Fountain of Shame. I can show you part of the fountain, just not our impresson if it:

I would show you the more civilized lunches we had throughout Palermo, and then way up in Monreale, a hilly town high above Palermo. But since I cannot and will not do this (I have my reasons, you know, as does F), I will show you the view from Monreale:

Sigh. I would love to show you inside the chambers of the rather harrowing Convento dei Cappuccini, where the monks there have prepared an incredibly disturbing display of corpses, some skeletal looking, others preserved with skin, flesh and eyeballs still attached. Perhaps the most disturbing corpse was the three-year-old girl buried in a glass case who literally appears to be staring at people who approach her. But see, my lack of photography here is not personal prohibition in this case - they don't allow photography inside.

After a while, we adopted the Sicilian Mafioso culture and started lying about everything. We did not pay for one bus ride anywhere in the three towns we visited. At every museum or landmark that charged admission, our response was always, "We're archeology students" - this always got us in free everywhere!

Our hotel was thankfully not in the touristy area of Palermo, so we were able to dine and drink at authentic restaurants with natives.

Since I arrived in Palermo still on the brink of post-food poisoning, my behavior at restaurants was ridiculous and, thinking about it now, was probably a bit offensive. My stomach shrunk so much and was still in a bit of pain following my weekend from hell, so I rarely had an appetite. Still, though, attempting to be native as possible, F and I would order three course meals. I would take three bites of each dish and the hefty, colorful Sicilian waiters would approach my table to ask what was wrong with my food. I would tell them nothing, that it was wonderful (actually, no, this is a lie: F would tell them this in Italian), and then they would all stand around staring at me like I was some sort of anorexic waif. Traveling around Sicily ain't ultimately pleasurable without an appetite. But at least I could drink. And now I'm feeling a helluva lot better.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Sicilians are great liars. The best in the world. I'm Sicilian. My father was the world heavy-weight champion of Sicilian liars. From growing up with him I learned the pantomime. There are seventeen different things a guy can do when he lies to give himself away. A guys got seventeen pantomimes. A woman's got twenty, but a guy's got seventeen... but, if you know them, like you know your own face, they beat lie detectors all to hell. - Vincenzo Coccotti (from True Romance)

MEETING THE MAFIA

2006-03-26T21:10:00.000+01:00

Okay, so tomorrow afternoon I'm gonna go meet this beautiful nut, who arrives in Palermo just moments before my flight arrives. I'm veddy glad she coming over from Rome, not only because she speaks fluent Italian and will therefore save me from the Mafia and Sicilian thieves, but also because she is uber-fun. After my weekend-long dose of hellacious food poisoning, I will do my best to not be overly adventurous in my dining choices. The same cannot be said for my assorted wine and liquor choices. Oh.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
If you're a young Mafia gangster out on your first date, I bet it's real embarrassing if someone tries to kill you. - Jack Handy

IN SICKNESS AND FRANCE

2006-03-25T17:57:00.000Z

You have been warned: The Disgusting Factor of this post has been cranked up very high.

Beginning last night from 10.30pm and lasting until 11.30am, I lived on and in my toilet. There were many times that chunky liquid shot from multiple holes in my body, and eventually, pure liquid spewed when there were no chunks left. Many times I was diarrheaing into the toilet and puking into the bathtub simultaneously. (I've since cleaned the bathtub, but please don't tell my flatmate anyway.) I felt like my body was possessed. For 13 hours I ran back-and-forth between my bed and the toilet, emptying out my little body. And when there was nothing else to empty out, I stood over the bowl dry-heaving violently. At one point, due to fever and faintness, I fell over, nearly hitting my head on the bathtub and knocking myself out. For 13 hours I had chills, the shakes, and extreme dizziness.

Now I am so light-headed and weak. Rising from bed - and now the sofa, where I plan to live for the next 24 hours - is beyond difficult. I feel like I've got the worst hangover in the history of hangovers. But I didn't even drink last night. Before going to bed last night I took all of the pillows in my flat and built a grande pillow slope at the head of my bed. It hurt too much to lay down flat and I had visions of myself choking to death on vomit. I normally like that my flat is two-levels; right now, though, I feel like I need someone to come over and install an escalator, as it takes me about five minutes to descend the staircase.

In between bathroom trips 18 and 19, I texted Awesome to ask him what was wrong with me. He immediately started freaking out (as he tends to do - I'm the level-headed one between the two of us) and demanded that I go to the hospital and be hooked up to an IV. If you're not British, then you're probably unfamiliar with the practices of NHS: if you arrive at the emergency room and wait there dying for less than four-to-five hours, you are considered lucky. There was no way I was going to be away from a toilet for longer than a three-minute period.

It's nice I have someone who worries about me so much, even if he is 8 time zones away. But see, sometimes he's just crazy...in a rather endearing way. Uh...Awesome called my friend Clare at 2.30am and demanded that she go over to my flat to take me to the ER or at least to stay up with me so I didn't faint and fall over. I protested and she returned to sleep. Later, at around 9.30am (3.30am Texas time), my mother texted me to see if I was okay - I quickly realized that Awesome had called her, too. So sweet. And a little bit psychotic.

See, the thing about having a nurse as a partner is that he'll ask me the most mortifying questions that I don't want to answer, questions that he's used to asking and learning on a daily basis while at work. Last night, for example, included the questioning Baby, what color is your shit? Is your vomit completely chunky or liquid? What's the consistency of your vomit? Meanwhile, I'm thinking, Awesome, I do not want to tell you what color my diarrhea is because, well, in the future I actually want you to have sex with me again.

I am so dizzy. I cannot eat anything. I really want to try slurping down some broth or tossing some small crackers into my mouth but the thought of extending 13 hours of horrific bathroom time is really not something I want to do. Earlier I called Simon, one of my straight British boyfriends (one in the pair of men who take care of me when Awesome cannot) and asked what sort of electrolyte-replacing sports drink I could go purchase since this damn country doesn't have Gatorade, which, as everyone knows, is the best thing to drink when vomitous or shitty (speaking literally).

Within the hour, Simon rang my doorbell toting a bag of Powerade bottles along with a boxful of Dioralyte, which he promised is electrolyte-replacing magic in powder form. Also included in the bag was vegetable broth cubes and Camomile tea. Hey, I don't care if I sound like a 5-year-old right now. I rarely let anyone take care of me but right now I fucking need it.

Oh. Wait. I'm supposed to be writing about France. I'm not well. But anyway, Clare and I arrived in Montpellier on Tuesday afternoon, cabbed it to our hotel, and then ventured into the city centre. The centre of Montpellier is gorgeous - tons of restaurants, cafes, and shops on old-stoned squares with spectacular fountains and monuments. Although Montpellier is not huge, it's wonderfully possible to wander around the city centre aimlessly and wind up in cute squares you've not passed through before. We also wandered around the botanical gardens, the Arc de Triumph (yes, they've got one like Paris), the brand new business district, and went shopping where I spent way too much money on new shirts and, um, a swanky leather jacket (even though I already have one). Montpellier residents do not have the pretense of Parisians; everyone we met was so friendly, whether or not they spoke English. On our first night we met a group of fun Frenchies who took us on a wine bar crawl and protested when we kept buying them drinks. One of them offered to drive us to the beach the next morning. See? Crazily friendly.

This Dioralyte is kinda nasty. Oh. France. Focus. Clare and I wandered, we shopped, we even went out and played on the beach in Palavas. But what we did mostly was eat. This was perhaps the most gluttonous trip I've ever taken. And, um, I, the vegetarian, randomly decided to eat a bit of fish since Southern France ain't exactly suitable for vegetarians - especially in the gorgeous, expensive restaurants we went to. You would think that eating fish after not doing so for about seven years would have made me ill, but I was completely okay. I'm like a naughty Jew - I'll occasionally sneak some shellfish for the protein but that's about it. Normally I survive on fake meat and tofu. I mean look at this:

The gluttony was worth it. I mean, c'mon - this is what we were supposed to do in the South of France. Along with all those patisserie delights and tons of wine, this was some of the best food I've ever eaten (and I'm not someone who typically gets excited about food). Or, if you're a carnivore, be seduced with Clare's foie gras and duck dishes:

On our third day there, we grew more adventurous with our food choices. Even sharing this massive plate of raw shellfish at the beach was okay:

I know this because Clare has not been violently ill since our gluttonous holiday. Rather, I'm guessing that this immense dose of food poisoning is from the oysters I sucked down. I've not eaten oysters in about a decade. Clare refused to get involved with them, instead telling me that she thinks they're disgusting, with "the consistency of cum and the taste of salt water." Any food that serves as an aphrodisiac is usually fine by me, but I'm convinced that these little fuckers are responsible for my misery:

But see, the weird thing is that these vicious oysters did not declare war on my body until 30something hours after I slurped them down my throat. That ain't right. I'm still ill, just not violently so.

Clare just called to check on my well-being and ask if I wanted her to bring over some oysters. Two minutes later Awesome rang and described his current nausea. (Me: Oh shutup, you did that to yourself with excessive alcohol, where as I was attacked by sea creatures!) I told them both to fuck off. And now I must return to the toilet.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
My mother had morning sickness after I was born. - Rodney Dangerfield

A PROMISCUOUS ROMAN IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE

2006-03-20T15:54:00.000Z

I stayed home and worked all Saturday afternoon and night. I was also up working until about 4 this morning, before teaching at 10. I don't know if this makes me a loser or a grown-up. But I got tonsa shit done, so that's good.

Sunday afternoon, after much protesting on my part, some friends drove over to pick me up for an afternoon of wandering aimlessly through St. Alban's. Our mini road trip led us first to the picturesque garden and lake areas of St. Alban's, and then, as expected, for lunch at a pub, smack in the middle of the lush greenery. After a few pints, my friend Clare suggested that we go wander around the Roman museum in order to sober up before driving home. We did so, and after about 30 minutes of looking at dusty Roman pots and dull weaponry, I excused myself to the toilet, my bladder full of Guinness.

A few moments later, upon my return to the museum's center, I found Clare, Simon and Bernadette sitting spread eagle in the middle of a giant lecture hall, which was filled - filled! - with children ages 3 to 10ish. Clare, Simon and Bernadette are all 28, a year older than myself. A special presentation had just begun, which consisted of two British men dressed up as Roman gladiators. Luckily, their costumes were much more believable than their attempts at Roman dialects. Clare, Simon, and Bernadette are all more-or-less about my 5'6 height (give or take an inch or two), so when I lay eyes upon them, they nearly blended with all the kids. Upon closer observation, though, it was obvious that three adult bodies had smushed their way into a room full of primary schoolchildren. The three of them were holding hands. I then got on all fours and crawled through the children to join my friends.

About 15 minutes later, as my friends and I were now dozing off during this excruciatingly painful acting duet of Roman history, the Roman 'actors' asked for a volunteer. I sat there questioning if this was legal, as the 'actors' were both aging British men with wrinkly knees, both wearing mini skirts, and one of whom had unknowingly flashed the audience when he bent over to rescue the sword he had dropped. Because of his age, it understandably took about three minutes for him to bend over and retrieve it, so they audience really got a disturbing show.

The man who referred to himself as Prometheus (it could've been Promorpheous or Promiscuous, for all know) said, "How 'bout you, mate? The little blond boy ova' dehh'." I followed Prometheus/Promiscuous's pointing finger, attempting to figure out which 5-year-old he had selected as his volunteer. On my left, Clare was laughing so hard her entire body shook. On my right, Simon had buried his face in his girlfriend's lap to prevent himself from guffawing too loudly. It was then that I realized Promiscuous, the man who had just mooned this group of children with his pruny arse, was pointing directly at me.

"Dude. I'm like 30," I mumbled slowly.

At which point, Promiscuous removed his authentic wire-rimmed 'Roman' eye-glasses and pranced a bit closer for a better look at me, his child of selection. At which point the four of us rose and climbed over the gaggle of giggly children as quickly as we possibly could.

And now...Clare and I are off to Montpellier for a few days. Clare chooses holiday spots on what she wants to eat, while I choose them on what I will be drinking. So, similar to our trip to Brussels last fall, for the next 72 hours, we will be the most gluttonous pair in Southern France.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
The better actor, the more stupid he is. - Truman Capote

SUCCESS, CHAMPAGNE, & NORMAN BATES

2006-03-18T13:27:00.000Z

Prior to my flatmate's leaving for Africa, I was all excited about the prospect of having the flat all to myself. You'd think I would stick around more. But neeeoooeeww, even when I'm in London I don't even seem to sleep at home. I left my flat yesterday late afternoon for a bit of St. Paddy's Day pub crawling in and around Covent Garden, and just returned home today.

After Covent Garden I ended up at a friend's pub in Bounds Green, which, considering the history of the neighborhood, is a plush, fantastic pub, where I played with lotsa friends I've not seen in a while. See, the thing about working and traveling all the time nowadays is that I seem to be neglecting all my friends in London. Last night, since my laptop was not physically attached to my fingers and legs, I temporarily forgot that I was even in London. My good friend Clare has just temporarily moved to her parents' big home in North London while she is 'in between' flats. Yesterday evening and especially this morning, when Mummy awoke me with a giant breakfast spread across the dining room table, I thought I was hallicinating, and that I was in yet another of the B&Bs in which I've been staying while traveling all over England. During my confusional misplacement, and slight hangover, I thought Clare was going to slap me when I asked if I was supposed to tip her mum, and especially when I handed over my Visa. Having only met her parents a couple of times prior, and having the partyboy reputation I've displayed to them previously, this morning I felt like Spud in that scene from Trainspotting when he awakens in confusion at his girlfriend's parents' place. (Only, in comparison to this scene, thankfully I hadn't shit myself and splattered the kitchen walls with the nasty contents of the dirty sheets.)

Two weeks ago, the B&B I stayed at while in Leicester was gorgeous - I didn't want to leave. It was so cute, comfy, and quaint. This past week while in Yorkshire, though, I thought I was in the little place from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. The owner was a yappity, rather deranged man who ran around in loud flannel pajamas at all hours of the day, emulating a spooky Norman Bates-esque oddball. When I awoke the first morning I was there, I expected that he would serve me breakfast in one of his mother's dresses. Whenever I am in such situations, I just think of the satirized characters of Little Britain, remember that they're weird but harmless, and then calm myself down.

Speaking of Yorkshire (and excuse my hardcore American kick-ass phrase), this weekend I totally rocked the fucking film festival to the ground. Because of my presentation/lecture, my article has already been chosen for another book publication (yay!). I wish I could just get paid to write and research lectures/presentations and travel all over the world giving speeches. I was by far the youngest speaker at the film festival - everyone else was at least 10, 20, 30, or perhaps even 40 years my elder.

I am far better accepting punches in the face than I am compliments. I'm not one of those people who automatically returns a compliment to the person who has complimented me, as that seems like a cliche or cop-out. It's a sort of fake benevolence, and I'm not so into human plasticity. Still, I have no idea what to say when I receive praise, as my Type A, driven personality tells me that I only want to hear what's wrong with me so I can continue attempting to perfect myself. So, as I stood around receiving praise from dozens of film festival admirers, I somehow proceeded to drink two bottles of champagne, in an hour, on an empty stomach. (I repeat from a previous post: I am far more comfortable talking to 3,000,000 people at once than I am just 3.) When I excused myself and went to the toilet and saw my plastered face in the mirror, my conscience told me, "Dude, you must get the hell outta here before you say something stupid or offensive to one of these people, or before you fall on top of one of them."

So I ran away. Far, far away. Well, as far away as my Norman Bates B&B. I am laughing about this now, but at the time, the worst part was that I shoved my champagne glass into the hands of a high-profile film festival convener, and said, "Here, please hold this." Then I ran away and didn't return for fear of having to accept and respond to more compliments. I am far more comfortable being the cynical fuck-up in the corner than the one getting all the attention. Maybe it's part of my Middle Child Syndrome, I don't know - but we second-borns don't wanna be in the damn spotlight; we just want to be the best via quiet self-confidence. Many middle children aren't particularly interested in pleasing others; when it comes down to success, we only want to please our unpleasable selves.

Now, even though I am tempted to go play with more friends all weekend, I really must lock myself in for much today and tomorrow and knock some of these dense items off my infinite To-Do List.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
You know what I think? I think that we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch. - Norman Bates

AND REPEAT...

2006-03-13T21:20:00.000Z

I am notoriously atheist, but what the hell:
OH MY FUCKING GOD I HAVE SO MUCH TO DO!!!!!!

During an eight (8) hour period of lying in bed last night, I slept for maybe two hours total. I cannot turn off my brain. I wish I could operate it like a light switch. But it won't switch off. I have too much to do and apparently way the hell too much to think about. And tomorrow morning, I must hop on a train to Yorkshire, where I'm speaking at a major film festival for two days this week, which will most likely result in another publication for yours truly. I return on Thursday afternoon. If you guessed that I'll be attached to my laptop during the next 50 hours - on the train, in the hotel, at the film festival, at the pub after the film festival...oh... - then you are correct. I promise I shall tell more recent stories of my ridiculous life when I return.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. - Henry David Thoreau

PORTO: PROPOSITIONS & PORT WINE

2006-03-12T10:38:00.000Z

I had thought that Portugal is like the dirty cousin of Spain but it is so not. Much of it is gorgeous, especially down by the Douro river. I went from freezing London weather to t-shirt weather, which was an immediate shock to the system, particularly the notion that I would have to return to coat-n-scarf weather. Porto is hillier than, say, San Francisco - now my ass hurts but I bet it looks fantastic from climbing mini mountains for 48 hours.

Since I don't speak Portuguese I spoke Spanish to most of the natives, hoping they would understand me. Most did, or at least pretended to. My hotel was amazing, and not as expensive as I'm used to paying while traveling around Europe. Portugal - at least Porto - is grossly inexpensive, I'm guessing because it doesn't have the overblown grandeur of other European cities, specifically Spanish cities like Barcelona or Madrid. Now I want to go to Lisbon and Faro, too.

I typically do not fly the cheaper UK airlines (i.e. Ryanair or Easyjet) and book myself nice hotel rooms because if I'm going to travel somewhere beautiful, I want to do it right, damn it. When flying across Europe, I'm a British Airways boy all the way. I want to feel like a little prince and not be depressed my entire trip because I can't sleep in a hotel full of loud college-aged tourists or something horribly unforseen and irritating. I never stayed in a hostel when I was in my early 20s, so at 27, it's not like I'm gonna start now. Since I made the mistake of flying on Ryanair (which ooo, I have tons of scary stories to report about them in a near-future post), my flight was three hours late, so I arrived at my Porto hotel nearing midnight on Tuesday. I hung out at my hotel bar with a youngish German guy - I still love hotel bar meetings with strangers.

The next morning I wandered around Old Town for a while, and then, after lunch (all the food I ate in Porto was strangely, unanimously phenomenal), I marched across the Douro River and did what I came to Porto to do: I went port wine tasting all afternoon. Pissed, all afternoon, for free. And damn good port it was. Fantastic. Gorgeous. Delish. I can still taste it. I started at Ferreira, and did a not-so-painful tour where they rewarded us with three kinds of free port at the tour's end. I am normally the last person who is even remotely able to survive the most minimal amount of tour time - I hate them! But when I know there is free alcohol at the end, I'll wait around. Once when my parents were visiting me in London, they wanted to do the tour of Windsor Castle. The precise second that the costumed British tourguide uttered his first asinine anecdote and a crowdful of American tourists belly-laughed, I literally took off running down the hill in the opposite direction, as far away as I could get. So. See? Hate 'em.

Anyway, at the second port lodge I went to, Burmester, I was chatting for quite some time to the English-speaking girl who worked there (I was the only guest there, so she just kept refilling my glasses to 'taste' more), when a heterosekshul Australian couple walked in and started tasting with us. After 1.5hrs of 'tasting' at Burmester, we thanked our host and the three of us wandered off to the Barros lodge. I spent the rest of the afternoon with these fun Aussies, and we impressively went to every port lodge except for Cockburn, which I suggested might be painful should the male Aussie and I go tasting there. I've never had herpes, and I sure as hell didn't want it from a port lodge.

After the lodges in the Foa do Douro, we headed over to the Batalha area of Porto and had a massive Portuguese dinner and then went to another wine bar. Since nothing goes better with food and alcohol than sex, the topic of sex became our conversation late in the night, and then the Australian couple asked if I wanted to return to their hotel room for a threesome. While this was a surprise (there was little flirtation leading up to the proposition), the proposal wasn't forceful, but rather, sweet in a way. I obviously declined. What is it with heterosekshul couples these days? I'm certainly not complaining about the open-minded desires of experimentation. This is not the first time I've been propositioned for a threesome from a straight couple. Hell, I 'dated' a male-female couple for a while back in Brooklyn. Awesome recently told me that he was indirectly propositioned for a threesome by a hetero couple in San Fran, too. And in Porto, if it weren't for my monogamous relationship with my beautiful 'Mexican,' I'm sure I would have gotten involved with the Aussies. They were both pretty, especially the fit guy. Those nutty Aussies - they don't know if they're straight, gay, bi, or dingo. But I thanked them for the compliment, stumbled back to my hotel in the misty rain with Jamiroquai blaring through my headphones, and passed out in my glorious room.

Thursday morning I awoke shockingly hangover-free (in my 'old age' I've learnt the importance of frequent hydration during a long day of drinking) and during breakfast I met a homo Asian guy from Canada. (It was like I was the conversational/social slut of Porto.) He was a bit boring, but we hung out much of the afternoon, stopping by a few touristy places like the Baroque Torre Dos Clerigos (big-ass cathedral with a tall tower featuring great views of the city) and the Se. I eventually broke away and wandered around the city on my own, and then caught my flight back to London late that evening (about which I have more obnoxious Ryanair tales).

The reason I've not written in so long is because so much has happened in just the past two days of being back in London, and I'm still really busy. More stories to come soon...

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Half the fun of the travel is the aesthetic of lostness. - Ray Bradbury

WIENER DOG

2006-03-06T21:28:00.000Z

You know those scenes in Welcome to the Dollhouse when middle child Dawn Wiener becomes extremely frustrated with something or someone, and then the camera focuses on a closeup of her boiling face and the audio plays barbaric war cries? Middle child Dawn Wiener's whole face burns, her eyes pop out, and you can almost see little red horns sprout through the top of her forehead. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you must go rent Welcome to the Dollhouse immediately. 'Cuz this middle child hears those barbaric war cries in his head and goes more than just a leetle bit psychotic when something suddenly disturbs him, too. I wonder if war cries blaring on internally installed brain-stereos are common in middle children who now live their adult lives like destructive locomotives? And this is why I drink. The end.

After picking up my formerly broken laptop, I made an astronomical To-Do List in my Microsoft Outlook. I am busy until mid-July. Seriously. The last due date is some time around July 20th. Then, I was so overwhelmed that I closed my computer and then spent three ridiculous hours on the phone having two separate conversations where I attempted to convince my closest girlfriends Colleen and Heather to have my babies some time during the next 6 to 10 years. As soon as one of them agrees, I'll put her name and gynecology appointments into my Outlook, too. I wonder if they know they're in competition? If so, I hope they're not both secretly planning to lose. During these history-altering telephone conversations, which I've convinced myself will somehow change the way the world spins on its axis (I needed an important excuse for not working), I did not open an expensive bottle of Orvieto Classico that I've been saving for a special occasion. I am not on the last glass right now. I am definitely not about to open another bottle while having more ridiculous conversations with my flatmate Peter.

Next weekend Peter is going to Africa for one (1) to two (2) months. He told me the exact number of weeks approximately ten (10) minutes ago but I have forgotten due to no longer having short-term memory because of excessive club drug abuse when I was young and stupid. Ask me on July 20th and perhaps I'll have remembered by then. But probably not. While Peter is gone, when I'm not off galavanting somewhere on my trip list (ahem, to the right), I will become a reclusive gnome who drools all over my laptop and myself. Sometimes I really wish I was black. Which is completely unrelated but true nonetheless.

In the meantime, to continue this unexpected bout of procrastination that really must end soon, tomorrow I am flying off to Porto and shant return until late Thursday night/early Friday morning. I just performed a formal 26-minute oration with small cameos of interpretive dance and mime about how I absolutely must take my laptop to Porto with me so I can work in my hotel. After giving me a standing ovation and a bouquet of Pinot Grigio bottles for my performance, Peter threatened to toss my laptop out the window. When this threat did not work, he reminded me that I will be pissed the entire time in Porto since I will spend most of my time at the Port Lodges near the river. For fear of dropping my beloved laptop after too much port tasting, I have agreed to travel laptop-free, and will instead write my dissertation, conference papers, and book chapters on my hotel walls with my own shit. Oh. Was that just too much?

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. - Charles Bukowski

THE GREAT UNKNOWN

2006-03-05T16:43:00.000Z

In order to force away my Sunday morning hangover, I went for a three-hour walk in the unexpected sunshine of Central London. The most comforting thing about my winter wandering is that I am completely disguised under layers of sweatshirts, a coat, navy scarf, thick blue wool beanie, and massive blue-lensed Aviator sunglasses. I'm a ghost swerving in and out of slower pedestrians as I quickly wrap around the Thames' wondrous bridges. I'm a quick little unstoppable blur of blue, today with Kayne West's Late Registration and the Arctic Monkeys blaring through my iPod headphones.

I have grown to love London even more than I ever expected. It wasn't always this way. With New York, it was a gradual admiration for the city that grew on me the longer I lived there. With London, though, it was different. This vicious bitch I now proudly call home has tricked and taunted me over and over, but now, all of a sudden, London and I have reached a sort of calm. A mutual understanding. A supportive agreement that enables me to feel completely comfortable and 'at home' no matter if I'm shooting through mobs of perky tourists and families in Covent Garden or staggering home alone at 4am through Smithfields, returning the stares of blood-covered butchers at the meat markets. I hardly ever feel like That American anymore. The Yank. After over two years, I am no longer the American-Dallasite-New Yorker. I feel so much a part of this fantastically messy city.

I've got so many friends here now. I no longer feel like I'm 'borrowing' my friends' closest mates when I go out with them. I don't pretend for my acquaintances in hopes that people will like me (when have I ever consciously given a flying fuck about that)? I am not one of those people who can and will hang out with anyone just to have another body around. I have to geniunely, really like people's company to spend time with them. Trust me: I would much rather be lonely alone rather than lonely with other people. But now I never feel lonely here!

I don't want to leave London. And I'm not saying that I'll have to - yet - especially since I don't even know where I'll live in approximately four months time. Right now, at least today, the thought of returning to New York feels like a step backwards.

Awesome told me yesterday, "My new hospital (in San Francisco) loves me. I feel like they're prepping to keep me on as permanent staff." Meanwhile, I sat there thinking, Really? That's great, baby. But. Um. My university in London loves me. They'd probably hire me full-time. And I'm really happy here. My real name is now all over the internet, associated with conferences, publications, premieres, awards shows, etc., and I've really started making a name for myself here. Now that we've both left New York - which we both said was 'temporary' - this is not supposed to be happening to us yet. Not at 27. Couples who are 40 are supposed to be struggling with promising career moves and juggling their relationship and professional life so intricately that it doesn't end up a mess. But not us. Not this. Not yet. It's too soon for that. Right? Is one of us supposed to become a supportive housewife or trophy husband? Cuz that's sure as hell not going to happen. I won't do it, and I wouldn't respect Awesome if he did.

But. We. Need. To. Be. Together. Soon, damnit! And we both know it. We know it's been far too fucking long thus far. And we can't wait. But what is supposed to happen? I hate not being in control of my future. After all this time, although we're now eight (8) time zones away, Awesome's and my trust for each other has surprisingly grown, yet we still tend to grill each other like over-protective parents. Last night Awesome called my mobile while I was out with my two (2) straight boyfriends in Shoreditch, and demanded, "Who are you with!?"
"Edwin and Pete."
"WHO ARE THEY!?"
"They're straight."
"Oh. Okay."
"You've met them. More than once. Calm down."
"Oh yeah. Okay sorry."

Lucky for Awesome, though, I hang out with heterosekshuls 95% of the time, so he rarely has anything to worry about. I abhore gay bars. Awesome, on the other hand, goes through phases where he loves all things gay, for which of course I don't condemn him. But when my lapses of trust naturally occur, the conversation is typically like this:
"Who are you with?"
"Oh, some of my fellow nurses from the unit."
"Women?"
"No. They're guys."
Upon which he hears me groan and/or sigh loudly, and say, "Oh."
"Don't worry," he'll say. "Neither of them are attractive whatsoever."
Silence from me.
"One of them is really really fat."
Silence from me.
"The other one is completely repulsive. Ugliest person I've ever met. They're not even fun, really. I'm sort of miserable."
"Where are they?"
"Sitting right across from me."
"Can they hear you?"
"Oh. Yeah. Woops."
"Well, that's nice of you."

So. This is why we must be together soon. I mean, like, living together as adults, and this fucking childish, fairy-tale long-distance bullshit must conclude. In addition to the distance driving us crazy and occasionally making us depressed, we are now affecting the psyches of innocent people by antagonizing their physical features and, in my case, being so cutthroatedly ambitious and workaholic that I stomp over people like they're 19th Century servants. This said, though - I am still laptopless, which - horror! - prevented me from working all weekend. Instead, I have therapeutically been intoxicated nonstop for the past 50+ hours, and playing worry-free with friends whom I've not seen in a while. So why the fuck am I being so neurotic now?

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
The busy have no time for tears. - Lord Byron

ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME

2006-03-02T16:07:00.000Z

Hey, know what there is to do in Leicester? Nothing. There is absolutely nothing to do in Leicester. I now know what David Williams and Matt Lucas are satirizing in my beloved Little Britain, and Leicester is only 1.5hrs away from London. If you're American, then you just read that I have returned from a 'city' called Lie-kas-ter. If you're British, then you probably already know that in Leicester, everyone awake and out-n-about after 6pm is 21 or younger, as Leicester is a very studenty town. If you're Australian and thinking of traveling to Leicester for a mini-holiday during the two-year visa you've managed to score from the British Embassy, then please cancel your plans. If you're Canadian, I am so sorry for you.

My conference went well. Well, no, that's a lie. It was shit. Rather, my presentation went over very well, but the entire time I was there, I was thinking, What the fuck am I doing here? Have you ever gone somewhere for work and wondered how it was possibly relevant for you be in attendance? But then, weeks later, you realize that your presence at said function was actually beneficial to your career? Well, that's not going to happen to me with this conference. I felt like a different species of creature compared to those in attendance. In fact, I know I am. I am mortified to go into more detail for fear of the smelly conference attendees who might Google the conference topic, time and place. I might be lynched or magically turn into a witch. These are your only clues. Well, besides these keywords: Sci-Fi, lesbian virgins, anger, oppression, and obesity, none of which relate to me whatsoever. Instead, I gave a presentation on the work of writer JT Leroy/Laura Albert and male prostitutes/hustlers in literature and film, all of which relate to me completely. Wait. Now I've confused myself. I'm not for sale. Am I? Anyway, if you still think that JT Leroy is the male bitch of novelist Dennis Cooper, or have not been informed that young male author JT Leroy is really a suburban woman approaching 40, then surprise!

I'm not even making sense. Leicester has made me an idiot. (I know what you're all thinking: Oh, no, silly. You've always been an idiot.) To make matters worse, I am currently laptopless, which, for someone who works ALLLLL the damn time and is physically attached to his laptop 20 hours a day, feels like someone has chopped off my penis. Following the death of Iggy, my iPod (but the beautiful birth of my new iPod Ichabod), Luigi, my laptop, is in the hospital. He died Tuesday morning so I rushed him to the hospital before I rushed off to Leicester. Luigi will hopefully be released sometime tomorrow morning so I may resume my normal workaholic life. (At the present moment I am suffering through the afternoon on my flatmate's desktop, which of course has none of my highly important files, etc. Nor does it have my incredible surplus of photography files. Oh fuck. There are nekkid, highly sexual photos of Awesome and me stored in my laptop, all of which are easily accessible. No wonder why it's taking so damn long to fix. The computer technician is downloading them all to make pornographic posters to plaster all over Central London. I really am for sale! This stream-of-consciousness is now over.) Without Luigi, tonight I will eat sleeping pills and catch up on beauty sleep. Now that my cold is finally improving, I have vowed to no longer look like roadkill.

With all this said and done, though, my presence at this conference has granted me a spot in another upcoming publication. This means that I shall soon be published in four (4) upcoming book collections, with more in the works. Yay.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Just look at the Paris Hilton phenomenon and the way every other teenager looks like a prostitute. - Tom Ford

YOU SICK BASTARD

2006-02-26T13:49:00.000Z

You would think that my cold would have improved by now, but it so has not. Friday night my friend Clare came over to store some things in my flat since she was moving out of her flat on Saturday morning. I stood on a rolly chair in my bedroom, shoving bags of Clare's things into the cupboards above my closet. Then I started coughing so violently that the chair sped across the room and I went flying in the other direction. For a moment I thought I had landed on the ceiling.

Last night I had two glasses of wine at a dinner party and fell asleep on my friend Kris's sofa. When I awoke underneath layers of fabric three hours later I discovered that my body was being used as the coat check. But I was very warm. The last time I fell asleep at a party was in Nineteen Ninety Never.

My flatmate Peter told me that yesterday afternoon I was apparently blowing my nose at ear-shattering decibels but suddenly stopped, keeled over for a power nap, and then awoke 20 minutes later to blow the other nostril. And all the while I just thought I blew my nose so hard I got dizzy.

This afternoon I decided to make homemade soup since I was sick of eating the canned shit. I do not have a domestic bone in my body; making toast is 'cooking' for me, and it's a difficult task for which I always feel accomplished if I don't burn the bread. It took me like two hours to dice carrots, parsnips, potatoes, etc. for the Spicy Winter Vegetable soup recipe I was attempting. All was going well until I used the handheld food processor and exploded chunky brownish green soup all over the kitchen walls, appliances, and myself. After I bellowed loudly through my congested head, Peter dashed into the kitchen to find me standing there with soup dripping down my head.

I need some more weekend. I am mortifed of what might happen while teaching my Monday morning class.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Be careful of reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain

BOOBS! EVERYWHERE, BOOBS!

2006-02-24T13:41:00.000Z

My awful cold prevented me from sleeping on Monday and Tuesday nights. (This is added to my absence of sleep from the previous week.) Come Wednesday I was in a narcoleptic state but still could not fall asleep due to barking like a seal and having a hypocritical nose that gushed snot and was blocked-up simultaneously. After I miraculously completed a conference paper/presentation for next week, I swallowed two doses of Night Nurse and crawled into bed. If you're not British and are unfamiliar with Night Nurse, think about the effects of Niquil and multiply them by 20.

Exactly three (3) minutes after I closed my eyes, my mobile rang. It was my work, telling me that I needed go to cover a behind-the-scenes of something and then they gave me an address. But before I was told what it was that I was covering, the Los Angelean producer grabbed another telephone and hung up on me. I somehow dragged myself from bed, threw on some decent clothes, fixed my bed-head, and began sludging towards some random studio space in Shoreditch, almost to Hackney, to which I'd never been. At one point I might have fallen asleep on a doorstep on Kingsland Road, I'm not sure - I don't really remember much by this point. The Night Nurse was serving its absolute purpose of putting me into an automatic deep sleep.

When I arrived, I presented my press pass and explained that I was meeting my crew upstairs. A security woman led me into an elevator and up to the studio. When I marched off the elevator, three topless women smiled at me. One waved. I decided immediately that I was hallucinating because of the Night Nurse and my insomnia. I told myself that this was all a dream. I told myself that I had fallen asleep on Old Street or Hackney Road and, strangely, I was dreaming about breasts. My eyelids opened and closed heavily about six or seven times while I attempted to decipher if this was actually happening.

I walked further into the studio. Boobs! Everywhere! Insanity! This must be a joke, I told myself. The L.A. office is obviously having a go at me. They've sent me to a porn shoot as a fucking joke. Completely naked women circled around me while I struggled to remain conscious. My mobile rang, and after pushing the Send button but before I got a chance to say Hello, a fellow producer said, "So you're at the Naked News auditions, right?" I groaned Yes, as that was all I was able to say.

I had to interview all of these breasts. I thought to myself, For someone in his mid-20s, I am quite an accomplished journalist; I've got a very impressive resume. I have been to every major entertainment awards show in New York, Los Angeles and London at least once. I was down at Ground Zero with a camera crew for a month after 9/11. I have met some of the most famous, infamous, and influential people on the late 20th century. Now I'm talking to tits. But then I reminded myself that in November of 2004 I had to interview a dog who knew how to use an ATM and pay a pub tab. So in actuality, today didn't seem so bad.

During a five minute break, in order to keep myself entertained and awake, I replied to my younger brother's text with, Hi Boy. I'm interviewing a bunch of nekkid women. Not kidding. I'm surrounded by bare tits! You would love it. I am now straight.

While asking quick questions for soundbites, out of complete delirium, I began laughing. Loudly and uncontrollably. It suddenly dawned on me how ridiculous I must've looked surrounded by all these breasts. The bare chests of these women were all at my eye level, some even higher. I was a little blond kid in a candy store who didn't even have to bend over to catch a full-on view of all the treats. Breasts! All over the place! Amazing! And all the while, I am positioned in the middle of the room with a microphone, doing my best to remain standing, coughing up mucus and childishly wiping my nose on my sleeves because I have no other choice. I felt like I was inside of a giant womb. And apparently, in my Night Nurse-induced state, I found this hilarious. I don't think I've ever been in such a hysterical state before.

Later, when I returned to our studio to do my satellite feed to L.A., I listened to the excited yelps and moans of the male satellite electricians in both London and California while they watched all these naked women. Then, during the short interviews, the electricians in both cities fell on the floor laughing because the audio of the Naked News ladies' interviews was completely drowned out by the sound of my uncontrollable laughter. So basically I compiled a piece with myself laughing at a bunch of boobies with the visual of lotsa nekkid ladies.

About six hours later when I was finally home and in bed, I received a reply text from Boy, who stated, Yeah. Right. Straight. Whatever. You're straight until you interview a giant penis.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
I've got little feet 'cuz nothing grows in the shade. - Dolly Parton

SICKNESS, DEATH & BOYBANDS

2006-02-22T09:38:00.000Z

Out of complete desperation, one of my 'mature' students was forced to bring her daughter to class on Monday. Towards the end of class the precocious 7-year-old asked if I was in Hanson. Hanson? C'mon, surely I now look old enough to be mistaken for a Backstreet Boy or a 98 Degree'er. Apparently my American accent prevented me from qualifying as a member of Westlife or McFly in this little girl's eyes. Even when I wear nice trousers, a tie, and sometimes even fake eyeglasses, I am mistaken for a Boy Bander. It's inevitable, really, no matter how I dress. Honestly, though, I really hope I never lose my young looks because then I'll just look like an aging, wrinkled old midget. I.e. one of the Backstreet Boys. Upon hearing this little girl's inquiry, which she asked in all seriousness, I replied, "Mmm-Bop," and continued with my lecture.

Today, though, I look like the corpse of a Boy Bander, as I have come down with an awful cold after the intense, exhausting few weeks I've just had. I've got another conference in Leicester next week so I am grounding myself (without alcohol - horror!) until next Wednesday. That's a week of planned healthfulness, which will be a world record for me. Please consider my March trip list on my sidebar - I absolutely cannot afford to be ill right now! The only question now is how much self-discipline I'll have for nursing myself back to utmost health.

In other news, I'm afraid to report that Iggy is no longer with us. When he wouldn't stop acting-up, I finally took him to the Apple store yesterday. The men at a the Apple Genius Bar were unable to revive him. And although Iggy was 6 weeks out of warranty, the nice Apple Genius who helped me felt so sorry for me that he gave me a new iPod anyway. I now have a high-school-crush on my benevolent Apple Genius, as he illegally gave me a free £150 iPod, whom I have named Ichabod. Since Ichabod was conceived out of love and pity, we'll see how long he lasts. The only shitty thing in this whole scenario is that I've lost all 4,600+ songs that were inside of Iggy 'cuz I, um, sort of don't have my iTunes backed-up on my laptop.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
You can only start a boyband if you kill one of the ones already out there. - Good Charlotte's Joel Madden

OFFICIAL REASONS FOR SLEEPLESSNESS

2006-02-20T16:12:00.000Z

The most irritating thing about being an insomniac is when I am actually able to go to sleep but otherworldly forces like celebratory footballers, annoying children, and German tourists keep me awake.

On another note, when I was the fat kid in school, the only team the other kids picked me for first was Tug-O-War because they knew I would quite literally weigh them down. Luckily, they sure as hell wouldn't pick me now. Just wanted to share this little snippet of my tormented life. I was thinking about this on the train coming back from Liverpool yesterday morning, when I was wedged between the window and an exceptionally large German man who didn't seem to notice that his ass lopped over into my lap during the five hour train ride back to London (the painful five hours was a result of Sunday traintrack work). But I'm getting ahead of myself again.

See, Thursday night I could not sleep because around 3am when I finally finished prepping for my weekend conference, my flatmate arrived home with not one but two 'children' with which to fondle. One of these children thought it would be adorable to come climb into my bed without warning, as many anorexic bobble-head 18-year-old homosekshuls seem to believe that everyone thinks they are adorable because their balls have yet to drop. As someone who typically only relates to persons older than myself (and is typically only attracted to my elders), I do not find children adorable. Upon feeling this teenager nestle up beside me, I kicked It so hard that It flew onto the floor. After feeling my hard-knuckled feet stomping each of Its limbs, It ran down the stairs like a whimpering...well, like a whimpering child. Then I had the privilege of listening to the laughter of children until dawn, which now makes me think that I could make some extra money by opening a post-club Day Care in my flat.

See, Friday night when I had returned to my B&B after having a few drinks during a rather calm but internally-firecrackin' evening with Irish, it seemed that everyone in the B&B was having a football party. Every hotel in Liverpool was booked up this weekend because of the giant football match. There were scallies abound on every corner of 'Livuh-poooooh'.

See, Saturday night I did not sleep because - although I had sworn to myself that I would not - I went out post-conference with lots of academic friends and did not return to my B&B until about 5am, just three hours before I had to catch my train. Luckily I am on a career path where I get to meet people who know how to party, many of whom can drink almost as much as yours truly. I quickly found myself getting tired of Irish - he just didn't do it for me this time around? When meeting new people, I often have the attention span of a talent scout - if I get bored, I move on to the next person within milliseconds. It's amazing that I've not grown tired of my boyfriend yet, and vice-versa for him, since he shares my attention span for most other people. A few of my friends often compare me to the character of Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) from The Talented Mr. Ripley - when I find a playmate whom I love and love and love, I wish to play with him/her nonstop, but then (sometimes unconsciously, even) I grow tired and move on to the next person who strikes my fancy. This is all a part of my excessive personality, you see.

So this weekend in Liverpool, my bestest friend was a part-time film producer/part-time university lecturer who is the spitting image of Guy Ritchie (but much more of a bad-ass), who declared himself my own personal tour guide. I had met him last November when I'd gone to Liverpool for another conference, but it wasn't until this conference when he saw me give my rather controversial presentation that he wanted to be my mentor of all things in life. Without one iota of humility here, my, um, performance at this conference was fan-fucking-tastic. I'm very pleased. A man at another prestigious UK university offered to pay me to speak to his classes during a big event they're having later in the spring, as well as pay for my accomodation, meals, etc. I knew everyone by the end our drunken Saturday night. Irish is dead to me. Well, not really, we'll remain friends, of course, but I no longer have a fun high-school-crush on him. Now I'm in high-school-love with my new Guy Ritchie friend. Being in a monogamous relationship is so much fun - I'm allowed to have high-school-crushes on straight men and know they won't escalate into something greater.

See, last night I did not sleep because after the BAFTA awards I had a satellite feed that lasted until 2am. Then I went to one of the big after-parties with a beautiful Asian lady correspondent I met who had flown over to work for a Canadian show, the name of which I shant mention. After chasing Jake Gyllenhaal around all night, I now have dozens of photos of him and everyone else who was there. I originally thought I'd have a bigger crush on Heath Ledger, but he just didn't do it for me in-person. He's quite nice nonetheless. I really wanted to go sit on Ralph Fiennes's lap but he refused to socialize with anyone, I assume because he didn't want to field questions about his prostitute mistress. My favorite part was when Philip Seymour Hoffman started telling everyone about his rampant drug use and verbally ripped on multiple fashion designers. And the rest of my backstage stories I probably should not share... When I finally got home there was another loud drunken child in my home. It was like Neverland Ranch up in here this weekend.

Then, this morning I had to teach again at 10am. And this is why I am Walking Death. Tonight if someone or something or somecocktail prevents me from sleeping, I ain't gon' be happy! Thank god I have prescription painkillers.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
People actually live with their id exposed. They're not good at concealing what's going on inside. - Phillip Seymour Hoffman

LIVERPUDLIAN TEMPTATION

2006-02-16T10:45:00.000Z

Tomorrow after I teach my last class of the week, I'm hopping on a train to Liverpool. I've got a conference all weekend and then must train-it back to London immediately to work the BAFTAs on Sunday night. Then I must teach again on Monday morning, most likely with a wicked hangover since I know I won't be able to avoid going to the drunken BAFTA after-parties. Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Ralph Fiennes, Charlize Theron, Renee Zellweger, George Clooney, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and the rest of the attendees better be ready for me. When I'm a busy boy with a nonstop schedule, I am in no mood to fuck around. Work hard, play hard, baby.

So. Who lives in LA? Well, besides you, of course, my little bicoastal transplant media mogul. (Oh. Excuse me. I'm all about cheesy nicknames this month.) I ask about LA 'cuz I'm about to click the Send button to RSVP via email for another conference in SoCal at which I've agreed to present in April. I've still got lots of Los Angelean TV "coworkers" at whom I often scream while shooting on location in London, or freak-out with via telephone while climbing the satellite bays in the London studio. My legally insane roommate from college just moved to LA, too, and is apparently Tyra Banks' assistant. Anyway, Awesome is going to meet me down in LA in early April, where we where galavant all over the bars on Sunset Blvd. and in West Hollywood, my old stomping grounds from back when I was a full-time bicoastal TV prodigy. Then I'll go back to San Fran with Awesome for a couple of weeks during my spring break.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Last November when I went to Liverpool for a conference, I met a heterosekshul Irish guy, presumably about my age, to whom I confessed my automatic undying love. After I told him about Awesome and he told me about his girlfriend, he confessed his automatic undying love for me, as well. Since this event, I've received sporadic emails with excerpts including, Well, I really shouldn't be in Liverpool this weekend. But since you're there, I really must stay in town. How could I not? I'll go anywhere you are. What other conferences are you presenting at this term? It'd be worth going just to see you.

How do I respond to this? See, I know the bastard is performing this empty flirting on purpose because he enjoys it. And I plan to give it right back because, well - he's straight! The fact that he is absolutely gorgeous has little to do with my attraction to him. I mean gorgeous in the royal, blue-blood looking sense. The guy looks like a prince. All the other males in his family are barristers. His storybook name is posh enough to make the Queen cum simply upon hearing the syllables that comprise his identity. I wish I could write his full name here (just to prove it) but alas, I will not give the wonderfully egocentric prick another reason to Google his own name.

Rather, it's the unabashed cockiness - not even cockiness, really, but pure, unquestioned confidence and self-assuredness - that makes the insides of my thighs throb when I sit across from him. When someone is confident and confrontational enough to fight with yours truly about anything (and this rarely happens), I must do everything in my power to not climb across the table and straddle his lap. That evil, snarky but sexy smile of his makes me melt into a puddle of drool within seconds. Last November, I could feel everyone else in the conference rooms staring at us, probably wondering if the two of us were going to explode.

The fact that this homosekshul vs. heterosekshul empty flirting will never reach climax brings a sort of tantric quality to every conversation and competitive across-the-room gaze that we give each other. When two people go at it for hours without climax - be it physical, verbal or emotional - all you do is yearn for more. And more. And more and more and more and more and more and more and...oh. Phew. I need a shot of vodka.

The fact that Irish is equally passionate about all of my life's loves make things even worse, of course. For example, I cannot talk to Awesome about any of my PhD research or conferences or teaching pedagogy or media activity or my professional life in general because he does not understand. That's normal. It's fine. When Awesome talks to me about his nursing life and throws all these medical abbreviations and acronyms in my ears, I have no idea what the fuck he's talking about. He speaks passionately and obsessively and he really cares about these things - and I listen thoroughly, but these technical terms and procedures are meaningless to me, other than the fact that they mean something to my partner. Which is okay, I think - who the hell would romantically want to be with someone who shares every aspect of your life, especially your professional world? Who wants to bring the office into bed or to a romantic dinner? Sexual attraction is so much hotter when it's with someone completely unexpected and dissimilar, and that's what Awesome and I've got.

So why am I shaking right now? Uh, perhaps it's because Irish can read my mind like a psychic and says what I'm already thinking before I say it. (And this has never happened - ain't nobody think like I do.) Perhaps it's because whenever Irish speaks to me I feel like he's reaching down my throat and deep into my chest, stroking all of my internal organs, and also perhaps it's because I know I do the same to him. Perhaps it's because this empty excitement is empty pleasure which will inevitably result in empty but responsible non-satisfaction. Oh my, that doesn't even make sense - I can't even fucking think clearly.

I already told Awesome that this weekend I'll be texting him every five minutes.

I am meeting Irish at his flat tomorrow night immediately upon my arrival to Liverpool. The mofo better not do one of those performances when he answers the door in a towel because he accidentally "just got out of the shower." I might die right then and there, right on his doorstep. Especially since I'm not the cheating type. Wait - he's straight. Oh, who am I kidding? Why am I worrying? This is a game, after all, and I do not lose games - I'll make this Irishman fall apart by Sunday morning. At least he'll take my mind off of my conference presentation, as I am the first speaker on Saturday morning. I'm not gonna sleep tonight.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Sex is God's joke on human beings. - Bette Davis

MY FUNNY DIGITAL VALENTINE

2006-02-14T09:28:00.000Z

You know that theory where if your electronic devices don't work, then you should beat them? But when you beat them, they don't actually improve? I'm sure you've done it - like, if your TV is out of focus, you walk over and bang the top of it?

Sunday evening when I was waiting for a bus to take me home, I finally got tired of my i-Pod's rude behavior. As of late, Iggy, my i-Pod, has been so moody that he rivals Awesome's and my moodiness combined. He skips to the next song in the middle of my favorite tunes without warning or reason; turns himself off at random moments; will only play certain songs that he likes; and so on. So Sunday evening, at this fateful bus stop, I removed Iggy from his protective leather i-Pod condom and threw him at the brick wall of a stationary store. After doing so, Iggy worked perfectly!

Thus, the mature, responsible moral of this story is that whenever you're having problems with something or someone, you should domestically violate him/her/it.

Well, maybe: a small child who was waiting at the bus stop with his mother witnessed my Iggy abuse, as well as my excited and pleased reaction after the abuse, and followed my lead by throwing his Gameboy at the wall. His mother was not happy when the Gameboy split into three pieces. I looked at her son like he was insane and then gave her a facial expression saying, I mean, c'mon, who the hell would throw an expensive electronic device at the wall?

Now. Yesterday evening when I was on my way home, I turned Iggy on and he was completely blank. Until last night there were over 4,600 songs on my i-Pod. Over 4,600 songs and Iggy was only halfway full - I felt like such a digital failure. I could not complete him. All of the songs were gone and Iggy was entirely shallow, the bastard.

This morning, though, when I leaned over and caressed Iggy's soft circular touchpad, he had magically replaced all of the songs on my i-Pod, telling me that since it's Valentines Day, he had apologized for his behavior, and had also forgiven me for my act of domestic violence. My flatmate thought it odd when, from the next room, he heard me scream, "You do that again, bitch, and I'll beat you so hard you'll end up in the hospital!" Tonight I'm going to an anti-Valentine dinner with some friends, but Iggy is not invited.

Like Iggy, I've never found the point of Valentine's Day. I can't say it any simpler: It's fucking stupid. Last year I mailed Awesome a card that read, Happy Bat Mitzvah!, and on the inside, Honey, you're a woman now. Since he showed little appreciation for my gift, this year I mailed him a box of chocolates shaped like collagen-infused lips and a large box of Solpadeine since he's hungover quite often, too. So romantic.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
I don't understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine's Day. When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon. - Anonymous

HANGOVER SUNDAY

2006-02-12T13:28:00.000Z

...and so that's why today is the ideal Sunday to stay inside all day with a massive hangover. It's been pissing down rain since I arrived home at 5am. Well, I say down. Right now it's actually raining sideways. No shit. One hundred percent horizontal icy acid British rain. On another note, I am incredibly nauseous and dehydrated. I also currently hate the inevitable horniness that hangovers bring. Oh. Too much information? (Cue: Awesome gets on an airplane and flies here immediately.) I've just medicated my migraine with a phenomenal triple dosage of Solpadeine Plus and can now relax in a codeine-induced euporia all afternoon.

Last night I was at a Destroy The Flat party. This sounds more rebellious than it actually was. Basically, three of my friends know they're not reclaiming their deposit when they move at the end of February, so they no longer give a flying fuck about the state of their flat. In our younger days I imagine that everyone could have really made some major contributions to damage the place. Last night, though, as a bunch of late-20something and early-30something North London yuppies sat around a Highbury flat, each of us with our own joint and our own keg of wine, the most we managed to do was burn the carpet with a shisha coal, and then someone broke the toilet seat completely off the bowl (I don't know who, and I don't know how).

Also, I have a question: If I quit socially "smoking" (as in smoking cigarettes while drinking) during the second week of January, does smoking weed or fruit coals from a shisha pipe count? I don't think so. So there. I've not been a social smoker for a month now.

Also, I have another question: After all these years, I am still dumbfounded and occasionally mortified by my alcohol intake ability. I'm so small - where does it all go? I want to know. Really. My siblings are small, too, but the three of us easily outdrink the largest people in the room on any given night. Therefore, the moral of this story is that we have talent.

I quite like getting "older" (yes, I realize that anyone over the age of 27 wants to smack me when I type such a statement). Last night, for example, instead of ringing up Carlos (isn't everyone's dealer named Carlos?) and knowing that we wouldn't fall asleep until sometime on Tuesday afternoon should we ring up Carlos, we talked about Remember when... and about all those youngters who take club drugs and inhale assorted powders. Thankfully, though, none of my British mates have babies to bring to house parties. Yet. Some of my friends in New York do. The last time I was at a big-ass party in Manhattan, I stood at the vanity in the bathroom and watched one man snort lines to my left and another man change his baby's diaper to my right. Approaching 30 is fun - you never know if you're going to inhale cocaine or diaper fumes!

Nearly everyone I know is coupled or wants to be. Of course I miss Awesome in these situations when I'm collapsed in a large lounge with a bunch of couples - perhaps that's why the majority of my friends are single women: I make a fantastic surrogate date. Now we all like to talk about things like traveling instead of always discussing clubbing and promiscuity. Everyone says things like: I've got a uni mate we can stay with in Madrid! Another person: Oh, we can stay with my brother in Gothenburg! A third: I've got keys to my grandfather's empty retirement flat in Faro!

Ask anyone and he/she will confirm that his/her dealer is named Carlos.

Last night before I drank my fourth bottle of wine I got out a pen and pad and started drawing up contracts for those friends to sign who claimed I could stay with one of their family members in foreign cities. I've got a whole packet now.

What? I've never met a dealer who was not named Carlos.

Oh yeah - now I've booked trips to Porto, Montpellier, and Palermo, all in March. Yeehaw.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
I love drugs, but I hate hangovers, and the hatred of the hangover wins by a landslide every time. - Margaret Cho

THE FINISH LINE

2006-02-09T11:41:00.000Z

Until a revolutionary meeting yesterday, this had been the extent of my relationship with my primary PhD advisor:

Advisor: We need to arrange a meeting to discuss your PhD plan for this term.
Me: Okay. I can meet Mon and Tues of this week or Thu and Fri of the following week.
Advisor: Excellent. Wednesdays are great for me, too.

Yesterday I had a major plan of reverse psychology to march into her office and ask, "So. When was the exact point in time that you decided I was mentally retarded?" But instead she said, Do this; change this; rewrite this. You're doing everything correctly. And to be honest, you've always worked faster than we can keep up with you. You're almost done, you know. I was absolutely floored.

The words You're almost done scrolled through my mind like a bright red digital marquee board all night long. I mean, I had planned on finishing my PhD in at most three years (it's been two as of now), as I am a psychotic workaholic. I completed my three-year MFA in two years. I have problems with stagnancy and boredom - everything must always be in motion and changing all the time. Why do you think I move around and travel so much?

Only question now is: Where the hell am I gonna live when the summer is over? London still? New York again? Pluto? Saturn? Jupiter? Am I really mentally prepared to pack up my life again and haul my ass off somewhere else? Damn my boyfriend for making me fall in love with him and his wanting us to move back to NYC together. 'Cuz I sure as shit am beyond tired of living apart.

In the mean time, this afternoon I will book trips to France, Portugal and Sicily during the weeks of March that I'm not off somewhere in the UK giving conference presentations.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
A white boy who makes C's in college can make it to the White House. - Chris Rock

WE BROTHAS DONE GOT SCHOOLED

2006-02-07T09:22:00.000Z

I am speaking at countless conferences during the spring semester. Next month I am also speaking at a well-known film festival. Yesterday morning I taught my first class of the spring term in a massive lecture hall. For a few moments I went on a random tangent about how I rarely use literary examples written by Dead White Men because they are barely relevant for a multi-cultural classroom during this new millennium of sparring globalization.

And then I come home from uni to find an email from my baby brother. Boy occasionally asks me to look at his work before turning it in and often times I don't know what to tell him. This, for example, is one of his most accomplished works of academia, which was the persuasive speech written for his Speech Writing class:

Hey dude will you tell me if this is good?

Why Midgets Should Be Pets

by Boy

Have you ever been sitting on your couch playing your FIFA Playstation game and you run out of beer? Then did you wish your dog could go to the grocery store and buy more beer for you? But then you realize, Dumbass, my dog can't drive and he doesn't have a wallet. So that's why you need a midget for a pet. If you have a midget for a pet, he could clean your house for you and also go buy you beer when you run out. And then while you're playing FIFA again, you could put your beer can on his head like he's a little table...

The email he sent me yesterday had his paper on Black History Month attached:

Cultural Diversity With Black Men Athletes

by Boy

I love black people! Some black people are so tall. Many of them can run really fast, and not just because they're running really fast getting away from the police. Many black people are so tall because of history. In the olden days, black people were called negrows. Get it? Ne-grows? This gives them height. Speaking of height, lotsa black people like to get high...

Truth be known, Boy actually got an A on his midget speech after some careful revision. How this happened, I do not know - I would have failed him. This time, though, I told him that he probably shouldn't turn in his Black History Month paper and just go ahead and fail the class. Boy is five years younger than me but I will most likely finish my PhD before he finishes his seven-to-eight year BA - and I haven't been going to university all of my life...I worked full-time for a few years in between.

Granted, self-censoring is not really my forte, either. Last fall I gave a very graphic presentation about the representation of prostitutes and porn actresses in millennial cinema. In graphic detail I discussed what Pretty Woman's Vivian Ward would really have had done to her if the film had any element of truth. Taking my cue from real porns, I verbally stuffed into Viv's vagina a candlestick, a mobile phone, and the Las Palmas Hotel suite's blow dryer, and then had Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) rape her and leave her for dead. I painted the picture of Shirley Valentine being anally raped; Linda Ash from Mighty Aphrodite giving head for cash in the middle of Central Park; and Jodie Foster's hooker from Taxi Driver being held at gunpoint while a client made her fuck a horse with a strap-on. I expected a giant room of Angry Feminists to throw books at me afterward but most of them hugged me, and then the key note speaker asked me to come speak to her class this term.

On my old blog I must've written a snippet from this presentation because multiple times my Sitemeter told me that some people have Googled my quote:

Thelma and Louise may have abandoned their phallic shaped weapons and plummeted into the Giant Vagina of Mother Earth...

Dude. If you are one of these people, you so cannot take credit for it when writing your term papers. I will cut you. Okay, not really. But at least give me a citation.

Perhaps I will give more substantial information about my upcoming conferences and publications, as they are quite reputable and I am very excited to be in print on an international level (Yay!). But do I really want everyone to know my full name after all this time? Hrmmm...

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Remember what the Bible says: He who is without sin, cast the first rock. And I shall smoketh it. - Dave Chappelle

BUDAPEST: BATHING BOOTIES

2006-02-05T10:51:00.000Z

I think I'm finished with Eastern Europe. After spending one (1) week in Prague last spring, I told myself that there was no reason to return to the depths of depressing and dark yet decorous Eastern European cities. Even last fall when I found myself in Vienna - beautiful as it may be - it was Eastern European enough for me, as were parts of East Berlin when I was there last August. Now, this blondie is staying West for the remainder of the time I reside in Europe.

The rainy gray sky of London is a fucking rainbow compared to the heavy fog that drowned Budapest during the three days I sludged around there. Yes: the architecture is exquisite. Yes: the landscape is gorgeous. Yes: the food is quite yummy (even for vegetarian me). Yes: Hungarian wines are delicious. But during the course of 72 hours of solitude in Eastern Europe, I was contemplating suicide.

The first bath I went to was Kiraly. I studied the baths in Budapest extensively, and every source highly recommended Kiraly. What I found out immediately upon entry, though, was that on Men's Days, Kiraly is Gay Cruising Central. The whole "Hey, let's hook up in the locker room, Stud!" culture has always repulsed me, so you can imagine how repellant I found the Kiraly baths. The desperation and lack of class of men in situations like this are enough to make me want to renounce my homosexuality altogether, join a Southern Baptist church, marry a plump divorced mother of five, and live unhappily ever after in a trailer park where we shoot for sport "those damn homosexuals" who meet at bath houses. In case this aforementioned statement has failed to convey my repulsion, I will also say that I had waves of nausea for the rest of the afternoon, and if any homo checked me out on the street, I threw Eclipse Winterfrost mints at his face. I went through three (3) tins of Winterfrost mints in one afternoon. That's an entire three-pack case.

Note to all skeevy homosexuals or those who mistake gym locker rooms for sex clubs: Homosexuality is no longer illegal, so it is no longer necessary to behave like primitive ogres who are not allowed out of your cages or caves during broad daylight. Thank you.

(And now a POV shift from first to third person...)

Picture it: Fat Hairy Hungarian men in Speedos, all gliding through thick clouds of steam as they inch themselves into the giant central Kiraly bath.

Now Picture it: Fat Hairy Hungarian men in Speedos gliding across the pool and sitting centimeters from the small American man-boy, the only blond in the building.

Listen to it: The Blond screams, "HANDS OFF, JACK-ASS!" if a finger should happen to 'accidentally' traipse across his leg, causing everyone in the Kiraly baths to all stare as if a rape was going down. The Blond did not care if said Hungarian men speak English or not.

Picture it: Apparently the common Kiraly bath gesture for "Hey, let's get it on, you big Fat Hairy Hungarian" is to extend your hand on the bench of the sauna, steam bath, steam room, or Jacuzzi within centimeters of the person next to you. This happened to the Blond whenever he moved, so he became very frustrated, particularly since he just wanted to relax.

Listen to it: Upon seeing the approaching hands, the Blond bellowed loudly, "OH, GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!" or "I can't fucking believe I just paid like a million Fornit to be fucking perved at all goddamn afternoon" or "Get away from me, you desperate fucking homos."

Even when a very fit man from Newcastle approached me, introduced himself and began conversation, I was repulsed. In normal circumstances, I would have been extremely attracted to his Geordie features, as he looked like a fitter version of Robbie Williams and sounded like Jamie Cullum. However...(A) I refuse to cheat on Awesome, and (B) The entire situation made him repulsive to me. My two-hour Kiraly bath ticket quickly became a 45 minute one and I got the fuck out of there before someone handed me a Hungarian Roofie Mai Tai.

After being in a bad mood and assaulting passersby with Eclipse Winterfrost mints for the rest of the evening, I was determined to turn the tables and replace this horrible bath experience with a good one. So, on Friday morning I headed on over to the luxurious Gellert Gyogyfurdo, which features a spread of what are perhaps the most famous baths and pools in Budapest. I paid what seemed like a million Fornit and - beyond excited - submersed myself in the giant warm co-ed pool. For the next 45 minutes I was surrounded by screaming children accompanied by their screaming parents; gassy elderly couples who kept making extra bubbles in the water; and approximately four (4) hen parties (for Americans: bachelorette parties), all of which featured grating accents from must be the least educated areas of Britain and Australia. Again, my two-hour ticket quickly turned into approximately 45 minutes of torture.

Still determined to relax or at least not be perved at or farted on, I hightailed all the way over to Szechenyi Furdo, which is a large bath house on the northeastern outskirts of the city centre. Here - finally, fucking finally - I was able to relax for my full two-hour ticket in glorious steam baths, hot tubs, pools, etc. The clientele there was also MUCH more agreeable for my tastes: many of the bathers were around my age, and (please allow me to sound like a valley girl for a moment) like, way more fun. There are 16 different kinds of medicinal spas and pools, and I like me some variety. Szechenyi Furdo even features a big-ass wave pool that twirls you around like a ride. All was going well with my new English-speaking bath friends until some Asian tourists overheard me making Tsunami jokes. What?

Now...again...just like I said one (1) week ago, I am really glad to be back in London.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
You know when you put a stick in water and it looks bent? That's why I never take baths. - Stephen Wright

A SMALL PORTAL OF ME LIFE

2006-01-31T09:10:00.000Z

I really should not be flying off to Budapest this evening. I've got tons of work to do before Monday. Tons. But since I booked my trip to Hungary early last December, alas, I have no choice but to go. So I'm taking my thermal underwear across Europe and freezing my ass off in 15-degree F weather until Saturday. Which means I'll probably have to hibernate all weekend (i.e. work). In addition to tons of uni prep and revision, I've got quite a few conferences across the UK during the next few months, for which I must begin researching and prepping now.

In a ceremonious attempt to compete with last year's travel roster, I am going to Budapest alone. My first trip of 2005 was to Venice, where I also went alone. But as the story goes, I met lots of people there, and then gratefully ended up in some crazy girl's villa in Rome. When I went to Edinburgh alone, I met a friendly Scot in a pub who took me home for dinner to meet his wife and kids. So, who knows where my reputable socializing will take me in Budapest. Knowing me I'll probably genuinely compliment some lady's breasts in a Turkish bath and she'll kidnap me for an American green card. Ooo, I can't wait to relax in the baths. I wonder if anyone else will have textbooks with them while they're soaking?

I am able to shuttle off to Gatwick just as soon as the damn Oscar nominations come out. If Keira Knightley, Judi Dench, Bob Hoskins, Thandie Newton, or Rachel Weisz are nominated (they're the only Brits who possibly would be this year, I imagine), I must go interview them for soundbites. So here's hoping that none of them are! Oh. In actuality: I'm quite positive that I'll be sitting down with Rachel Weisz around 2pm, and then Judi Dench soon thereafter. I mean, how am I supposed to say, "C'mon, Dame Judi, spit it out, I've got a plane to catch"?

Also, with this small, albeit well-rounded portal into my life, flecked with Academia, Travel, Conferences, and Showbiz, if someone reading this knows nothing about me, he/she must be beyond confused. But so am I - eternally, mortifiedly confused - so don't worry and just go with it. And also cross your fingers that I make my flight in time. Brevity, Dame Judi, brevity!

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Get busy living, or get busy dying. - Stephen King

SLEEPWALKER

2006-01-29T12:43:00.000Z

When I awoke this morning, my flatmate Peter told me that I had been sleepwalking again last night. In the middle of the night I apparently opened his bedroom door without knocking or warning, and asked for Awesome. Peter told me that Awesome was not in his bedroom. I told Peter that I really needed to find Awesome. Peter said that I wasn't my usual assertive self when I was on my middle-of-the-night search. Instead he told me that I was very concerned in a sweet sort of way, like a lost little boy who had had a nightmare. Concerned, Peter brought me to consciousness and I returned to my bed.

I barely remember this happening, and I wouldn't have remembered any of it unless Peter had brought it to my attention.

I used to sleepwalk all the time when I was a child. When I was 8 years old, my father once found me halfway down our street. When he caught up to me, I told him that I needed to go to the movies. At 2am. I do not remember any of this.

Another time, when I was 12, I walked into the living room of my childhood home, where my parents were watching television. Apparently I stood behind my father's plushy recliner and announced, "I can't go to the left."
My mother said, "Excuse me?"
"I can't go to the left."
She answered, "Well, why don't you go to bed?"
"Oh. Okay."
And I went to bed. Again: I have no memory of this.

Even earlier, when I was 5, apparently I needed to use the toilet but sleepwalked into the kitchen, opened the bottom cabinet drawers, mistook the cabinet for the toilet, and pissed all over the dishes. My mother threw away all the china in the cabinet and had to replace everything.

Multiple times during high school I would even take showers in my sleep. Maybe I was worried about being late for school, I don't know? My father used to tell me about how he would hear me turn on the shower around 2, 3, 4am, and begin getting ready for school in my sleep. Not even the blasting water could awaken me. One time before my sleepwalking shower, I accidentally threw my pajamas into the toilet and peed in the dirty clothes hamper.

Two years ago, when I first moved to London and my ex-friend Jon came from NYC to visit me, he angered me royally by being his usual selfish self. After going out all night - and completely unbeknownst to me, I swear - I sleepwalked and pissed directly into his Paul Smith shopping bags, all over his expensive new suit and other new clothing. Since I had been putting up with his shit for three days without complaining about his behavior, I was so proud of my bladder the next morning when he discovered his damp designer apparel.

I don't know why my sleepwalking involves urine so often? Perhaps that's usual for most sleepwalkers, I don't know. I'm thankful to have a kind flatmate so I didn't go ring the next-door-neighbor's doorbell when I was on my search for Awesome. Who knows what sort of trouble I would get myself into, or where I'd end up, if I lived alone.

I told Awesome about my search last night and he started crying, I think out of happiness.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
In Australia a doctor has discovered a female patient whose sleepwalking causes her to go out and have sex with total strangers while she’s asleep. ... They could have diagnosed this years ago, but no guys ever complained. - Jay Leno

LONDON LOVER

2006-01-26T22:41:00.000Z

I fucking love London. So much. From the second I groggily push my way through crowds of map-toting confused tourists at Heathrow, I immediately remember how entranced I was with this devilish city the first time I came here so many years ago. It's fantastic to be back, and even more fantastic to know it's the city that's now most Home to me. When I turned on my mobile, a barrage of voicemails from my Brit pals errupted into my ears, each of them welcoming me back.

Confession: I go to an Old Man Barber. It is impossible to fuck-up my hair. No matter how you cut it, it's going to stand up straight, poofed-up, thick, and at-attention. I mean, c'mon - I'm Southern - my follicles compose what looks like a giant blond dandelion, and chances are I will never be bald (here's hoping, anyway). Most men must gel or wax their hair to make it stand up; I smear Paul Mitchell wax through my hair to calm it down. More than once I have asked my mother if she conceived me with a black afro'd milkman. I've been to the foo-foo-shi-shi salons in Soho where you sip champagne while your flamboyant hair artiste sculpts your 'do. I've been to both the Vidal Sassoon and Toni & Guy Acadamies; I left both these places feeling like runway model roadkill, and ran immediately back to my Old Man Barber and had him shave off the Edward Scissorhands-esque calamity that my hair had become. At my Old Man Barber, the three dudes who are there daily know what the hell they're doing, and they don't need to take a break to read Cosmo and have a fag halfway through my haircut.

So anyway, when I walked into my Old Man Barber this afternoon, horribly jetlagged from the eight (8) hour time difference (I cannot sleep on airplanes and can rarely take afternoon naps), one of the Old Man Barbers asked, "You want the usual, mate?" I smiled, shook my head Yes, and collapsed in the chair. And now I have an adorable new haircut that allows me to look 15 again instead of an exhausted, floppy-headed old twentysomething.

Last summer when I returned to London after a 2.5 month absence, everything was different. My gym had quite literally burned down to the ground. All the city libraries in which I research were under construction. Even my own flat was undergoing many DIY changes. And I hadn't given anything or anyone permission to change! This time, though, after being gone a little over a month, everything seems to have magically remained the same. My flatmate Peter greeted me with open arms and then presented me with chocolates and gossip. I have the best flatmate ever, for so many many reasons.

Naturally, after changing climates from London-NYC-Dallas-San Fran-(back to)London during the past month, not to mention dramatically changing water supplies, I have been waiting for my body to crash. So now I've got a bit of a cold. I was actually waiting for illness to overtake me, but with any luck, this won't last long. Peter, who does not drink, also has a bit of a cold. So, tonight before I crawled into bed, we toasted each other with a shot of Night Nurse, which is quite ceremonious as I'm sure this will be the only time we share shooters. Which is only fitting since the disgusting licorice flavour of Night Nurse is reminiscent of Jagermeister. Now the Night Nurse is really combining with my jetlag and I'm totally drifting...

I already miss Awesome terribly. But I am veddy veddy glad to be back. I cannot fucking wait to go play all over Londonia all weekend.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford. - Samuel Johnson

SAN FRAN FINALE

2006-01-23T23:59:00.000Z

Although Awesome had to work the first few days I was in San Francisco, he has had the past week off, which explains why I've not written. Like every week when we are attached at the hip, I feel like a month has gone by, yet it is all a blur. And thus far, it has been the most romantic, nonstop frivolous, and random week we've spent together.

This morning after returning a rental car near Fisherman's Wharf, we collapsed in a booth at a diner. Instead of perusing the menu, I could not stop reading the small print and charges on my rental car receipt. I began having conscious, painfully realized nightmares about my finances. When the waitress came to take our order, Awesome and I were wailing about our overwhelming credit card statements and our grotesquely underwhelming bank statements.

It still amazes me how I've lived in London for two years (at least on-and-off, and mostly on) and unlike all of my American, Australian, South African, et. al. friends who live in Londonia temporarily, I have not acquired any credit card debt. Especially since I travel all over Europe twice, sometimes thrice a month, and return to my three "homes" in America without reservation. So, if you ever need professional training in how to manage money, please let me know. Granted, I always want to murder my asshole student loan officer. Also, after I complete my PhD and that fugly bitch Sallie Mae visits me once a month, I will hate her, too. I would rather Aunt Flow visit me every month than Auntie Sallie Mae.

Awesome and I have a movie life and we're only 27. We're a traveling nurse and a PhD student/adjunct professor/infrequent television producer, and we still (barely) live within our means and warrant a romantic long-distance reality television show. So what the hell am I complaining about? Also, my saying "We" is currently okay with me, as we've had an amazing month together in New York, Dallas and San Fran. Just give me another month to start freaking out about being in oversexed, overpartied and oversingle London. And grant me this same month to horribly miss Awesome once again. We're in the Long Distance Home Stretch now anyway.

After the diner waitress skeptically brought our bill to us, the two young men complaining about finances, we paid the fucking bill and ducked out of the diner, back into the blasting San Fran sun (does this city EVER have winter?!). See, whenever we start feeling guilty about money, we know our extravagant time together is over. The honeymoon must stop. And it's so fucking depressing each time. Especially since we always seem to be on our honeymoon whenever we rejoin.

During the past week, we went out to expensive lunches and dinners with my San Fran friends (or by ourselves). We went to every major exhibition at every museum here. I think we both now have new wardrobes. We rented a car and drove up to Mount Tamalpais with more friends, and then hiked around for a few hours. In the driver's seat, I felt like my father, since he used to drive my family all over the mountainous regions of Colorado, Hawaii, and New Mexico when we were kids. The rest of my family would be clutching the "oh shit handles" as he zoomed down winding roads of giant American mountains, his SUV hugging the sides of cliffs. But he always just kept driving, zooming and zipping along, unphased by the jagged twists and turns into gravel pits and sudden stops. This time around, though, I was my dead father, maneuvering my family of friends down to safety while their nerves caused them to shreik and moan.

Awesome and I went out every night during the past week, sampling bars, clubs and lounges all over San Fransisco - his temporary new home - and more often than not, were invited by friendly Californians back to their apartments after venues closed. One morning we got home at 11:30 and went to sleep around 1:30pm, but most of the night is still a wonderfully youthful fog. Well, except for after I showed interest in some girl's poetry, she took me into her bedroom and begged me to have sex with her, shoving her hands where they shouldn't have been, while I shoved her off and told her 92,000 times that I am completely in love with my boyfriend, who was in the kitchen with her roommates. Silly poets.

As we walked home from the diner this morning, we racked our brains for places to go, things we hadn't done during the past week. I grabbed Awesome's hand and walked quickly in the direction of his apartment building. We talked about how shitty we felt after our week-long surplus of socializing and hedonism. We vowed to be of utmost health when we see each other again in early-April. We said we felt disgusting and unattractive. When we got back upstairs,I stripped and stood naked in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, visible to any of the neighbors should they look across from nearby Bay Area windows.

"What are you doing?!" he yelped.

I just stood there, smiling. He told me I looked gorgeous, much to my own current disbelief. 30 seconds later, Awesome stood naked at the window with me. And he was beautiful. There we were, two imperfect bodies and minds, two occasionally insecure people, high above a famously imperfect city. We made love on the sofa and then moved to the bed, pretzeling every last one of our limbs around each other under the covers. As he nodded off for a nap, I kissed his long eyelashes and closed my eyes, knowing damn well that this afternoon was far better than all of the extravagance and dollars we spent during the past week.

After enduring an 11-hour flight starting Wednesday afternoon PST, I'll be back in London on Thursday morning.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
It is an odd thing, but everyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world. - Oscar Wilde

TALES OF THE CITY

2006-01-15T08:36:00.000Z

San Francisco is quite pervy. It's beyond ecclectic. Thus far, my favorite unanimously common attribute about the people here is that, unlike in New York and Los Angeles and London, no one thinks that he or she is a celebrity, and no one really wants to be one. This is a bad city in which produce a reality television show. Unlike in Manhattan, the young population of San Francisco does not seem to have the annoying need to feel so fucking special all the time.

San Francisco has the worst transsexuals I have ever seen. And there are a lot of them, everywhere, walking the streets during mid afternoon. I'm sure the fact that many of them are so obviously crack and/or crystal addicts has a large portion to do with it, as they cannot afford the products at the Mac counter, and instead must steal from Rite Aid. The first night I was here, I saw four poorly made-up transsexuals. Three of them were on my flight. None of them even come close to resembling women, and most of them are minorities. The lower-class street drug addicts roam freely with the upper-class yuppies, very unlike the Disneyland-like neighborhoods that Manhattan continues to produce and remodel. When Awesome and I were here last June, we walked by City Hall in the middle of a Sunday afternoon and saw a bunch of lower-class city dwellers smoking crack in broad daylight, out of a foil pipe, each of them just relaxing in the sun on the curb of a major intersection.

San Francisco has a surplus of peepers. I've been going to the gym in Awesome's building every day since I got here. From one of the weight machines, I can look out the window at the high-rise building across the way and see at least three apartments with telescopes. In the building most visible from Awesome's windows, which is still a few blocks away, I can see one man who sits in front of his plasma flatscreen television all day and all night. He alternates between his white leather sofa and the bench press next to the sofa, but he is always there, every time I peek across the city. In another window, two floors up, there is another man who walks around in his blue or black or navy or dark gray boxer shorts, often times rubbing his big beer belly. He's not a large man, he just has a large belly, at least from what I can see. Although it is cold at night here, he switches from looking out the windows in his living room to standing directly on his balcony in his underwear. Two nights ago when he looked like he was fondling himself on his balcony while simultaneously clutching a pair of binoculars, he saw Awesome and me half-glancing in his direction. He turned out all his lights but we could still see the dirty silhouette of his porky belly and hand-stroking, obviously still focused on whatever apartment he was spying on in our building. I hope it was not ours.

San Francisco still has tons of wonderful freaks who live like they're still in the 70s, before the Bushes or AIDS or www.everything.com or before marijuana was a pop culture protest. And none of them are apologetic. But San Francisco also has a surprisingly large bunch of fratty partiers, particularly in the North Beach area, where Awesome and I went out last night with some of my friends. At a big horrible club that was really a big horrible bar with a big horrible DJ, I felt like I was back in Manhattan's Grammercy or Upper East Side neighborhoods, surrounded by New Jersey and Long Island guido and guido-ettes who never should have taken the train into the city that night. We left immediately and found a charming microbrewery with a funky jazz band strumming and blowing their instruments in front of a crowd of fascinating local oddballs.

San Francisco has clarified for me that my clubbing and drugging days are long over, as I have not had a desire for a couple of years now (on the whole, at least) to live that self-destructive lifestyle. I was born a yuppie and I will die a yuppie, whether or not I wanted to admit this in my early 20s. But thankfully since I am a fucking weirdo who does not relate to 99.9% of humanity, San Francisco has told me that it is okay to be this way and to care more about life experience and humanity than about 401Ks and investments. At least for now.

San Fransisco has a lot of scam artists, as I have witnessed and am told. Today I helped a friend move out of her apartment at a second's notice when she discovered that her roommates had been pocketing her money and not paying the rent, after only less than three months of living there. Instead of being a club kid or a peeper or a shaker, I am now a mover. But all my friends here are classy, and she moved from a gorgeous apartment in Hayes Valley that resembles the building from "Melrose Place" and into an even nicer house in the Castro. For my moving generosity, my wonderful friend, who is a born and bred Brooklynite, with whom I often played in Manhattan, took me to dinner at the best sushi restaurant I have ever been to. When we left the restaurant, we saw a scam artist rush into a bar, perform a long monologue about how she was having her period, and then steal three ladies' purses as she dashed into the bathroom (of course we reported her to her offenders). Even all the crack addicts are performers.

San Francisco is making me fall in love with it, but hasn't worked for Awesome yet. I've been here for just a few days and have already met nearly as many people as I keep in contact with in New York and London. Plus I already knew quite a few SF folks, so that helps. Meanwhile, my poor boyfriend has had to work his newly uncomfortable 12-hour night shifts and sleep all day, and is unable to appreciate the city. Yet. He has no problem meeting and maintaining new people; but I am the social climber, and my unwillingness to be plastic and overly perky works magically in this city. As a magician, I will lovingly give Awesome all of my friends when I leave this city, and hope (and know) that he will also find his niche, temporary as it may be. He will soon have a week off where I shall show him my new findings, and discover more with him.

My San Fran friends are now all plotting for me to move here. My old New York pals say, "When are you moving back?" My London crowd questions, "You're not leaving, are you?" I am playing Musical Chairs, only with cities instead of seats. I always dreamt that my life would be like this, and now, at 27, I just don't know what to do. My elders condemn me when I say, "I feel like I'm 40," while my younger friends cannot understand.

In London, I have no insurance, and I do not need it. I only have one British credit card, one set of house keys to a home I do not own, and no investments. Whenever I return to New York and Dallas, my friends and acquaintances talk about their new 401Ks and with whom they invested during the last quarter. I list the 15 countries I went to last year and they have no relateable response, but can all compare their Bloomingdales receipts and the game plans their stockbrokers told them to follow in the next quarter. I do not give a flying fuck about the new boutique that just opened on the Lower East Side, and am appalled that I once did. I do not want to hear what everyone wore and ordered when they scored reservations at the new bed-bar in the Meatpacking District. I would much rather listen to the latest nasty, aloof cock-sucking story of the transsexual streetwalker and why he feels the need to smoke and snort his way into getting hormone supplements.

In San Francisco, I am questioning how and if I will continue having an 'alternative' lifestyle without conforming to social norms. Especially with a monogomous life partner, with whom I realize and re-realize I am so in love every time we cuddle up at night, or awaken pretzled together in the morning. I have so many decisions to make in the next six months. That whole expression "the ball's in your court" does not really make sense for me. I am the fucking ball, bouncing not only from court to court, but from league to league, team to team, and game to game. But, like, do I have to choose a game? Especially in America? Or can I just keep playing every game until I get tired of being drafted? I'm not ready to retire from anything just yet.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment. - Rite Mae Brown

A DAY WITH MY FAT

2006-01-10T23:53:00.000Z

Last night when I finished drinking the last drops of Pinot Noir directly from the bottle, I walked into Awesome's bedroom to find that he had switched the pillows to the foot of the bed, and had also pulled up the covers up to the place where everyone knows the pillows belong.
"Boyfriend, you're all fucked up. You're too long. You'll never fit on your bed this way."
"Just lay down," he told me. So I did. He then turned me over to face the window, tucked me in like a five-year-old, and climbed into bed behind me, spooning me and orchestrating my face to look out the window.
"Ooo," I said, looking at the Golden Gate Bridge through the low horizontal window.
"I've been waiting for you to see this and for us to fall asleep this way since I moved into my apartment on Friday."
"Ooo."
"So now, when you wake up tomorrow," he told me, "This will be the first thing you see - it's beautiful in the morning."
I had fallen asleep by this point, so he nudged me, and again I said "Ooo!"

I awoke this morning and looked out the window towards the bridge. All I saw was fog looming over the entire city. I also awoke to the sound of Awesome using the blender in the kitchen - at 5am, no less, before going into work. I walked naked into the living room and stood in front of the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. Awesome walked over, wrapped one arm around me, and then I heard the sound of him drinking something. I turned around and realized that he was drinking fat (i.e. a protein shake), which allows him to remain more at-weight than underweight (bastard). I offered to let him blend my own personal holiday fat but he refused. It's amazing how quickly I gain and lose weight, as if I have Sickle Cell. Thankfully, I do not.

Since I couldn't go back to sleep after Awesome went to work, I decided to take my fat for a walk. The first step of my physical improvement regime was to purchase the latest "Men's Health" magazine so that I could read about working out instead of actually working out. I soon found myself at a cafe on Union Street near my surrogate Pacific Heights high-rise "home". As I sat there flipping the pages about Absolute Abs and Perfect Pecs, morning joggers whizzed by me. "Those poor unhealthy slobs must be so jealous that they don't have a health magazine," I thought, stubbing my cigarette into an ashtray and ordering another Absolut Bloody Mary.

A man on a bicycle stopped on the street, directly in front of my table, when he realized that his shoelace was caught around his pedal (or spokes? I don't know - I've not been on a bicycle since last April in Amsterdam, and I wasn't exactly coherent). As I ashed my cigarette and took the celery stalk out of my glass to show my waiter that my glass now had room for more vodka, I looked at this poor cycling man and my first reaction was to laugh. My second was to ignore him. Now. If this happened in New York, passersby would push the struggling cyclist over, kick him in the face, and then steal his bike - not because they wanted to use it to workout, but because they wanted to sell it on Ebay. If this happened in London, passersby would all walk by and pretend that neither the man nor the bike were actually there. In Dallas, fat people would stop and wonder what a bike was. Here, though, in peppy San Francisco, three people (three strangers!) stopped walking - two of them held the man up and the other untangled his shoelace. I thought I was hallucinating. I thought they were all going to makeout afterward.

[So, side note to New Yorkers: Do we live in New York BECAUSE we are like this? Or are we like this BECAUSE we live in New York?]

I then took my fat to a grocery store near the Marina to kindly stock-up Awesome's new place with healthy food including fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, wine, vodka, and tofu.

Then my fat reluctantly accompanied me to the gym in Awesome's building. I have not gone to the gym since late July of last year, and oh, I have missed it. I actually love working out. But I also love drinking. I already eat healthy because I am borderline vegan (except for those two weeks in New York in December when I ate pizza thrice daily, and the two weeks following when I ate Mexican food every day in Texas). All my clothes still fit me; I just feel like crap due to being SO fucking out of shape. See, now that I'm in my late 20s, I have realized that in order to not be fat, if I wish to still drink a lot, I must ALSO work out a lot. "Men's Health" did not tell me this; Heineken, Amstel, Guinness, Corona, Becks, Fosters, Carlsberg, Kronenbourg, and their friends told me this.

After over a five-month gym absence, I do not know how I performed this miracle: I ran three miles on the treadmill; I did the Eliptical machine for three more miles; I watched "The View" on the TV above the rowing machine (oh); I swam laps for a good 30 minutes. And now, magically, although I am certainly not finished with Operation Health Improvement, I am already feeling 90,398,148 times better, after just one day. I still have my holiday fat but lemme tell you - it'll disappear quickly. Earlier this morning and afternoon, I was in severe pain. In two days I expect to hurt like a motherfucker. At one point, while on the treadmill, I looked down and questioned if I needed a sports bra.

And then I remembered the prime rule of physical exertion, dieting, and working out: How you think you look doesn't really mean shit. What matters is how everyone else thinks you look. Right? Another homo gymgoer flirted unashamedly with me and asked me a series of questions about my tattoos, in which apartment I "live", and where I go out. (Which I shall later report in detail to Awesome, as I am oft-entertained with his spurts of Puerto Rican jealousy - perhaps he will buy a gun this time around. Perhaps not.)

I then took my fat for a walk all over mega-hilly Pacific Heights and (S)Nob Hill, wearing one of my favorite children's t-shirts and favorite ripped jeans, my poofy blond hair waving in the wind. I must've had a radiating Gym Glow because every last homo checked me out, leeringly and unending, and I must admit that this made me feel phenomenal. (After this small spell of self-doubt and validation from others, I may now return to my secure self.) Well, this and the fact that I finally had sex three times last night - Awesome would not have sex with me in my mother's house in Dallas after I jokingly told him that he would be cursed forever should he make a move.

My fat and I are now at a charming internet cafe in Pacific Heights. In about an hour we are going for many drinks with my girlfriend-baby-lovey-dovey-princess Julia, whom I so miss in London. And instead of Mexican food and beer, my fat's and my San Fran dinners will be vodka, hummus and celery (so, basically, potatoes, alcohol, chickpeas, and water).

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
If you are young and you drink a great deal it will spoil your health, slow your mind, make you fat - in other words, turn you into an adult. - P.J. O'Rourke

CALIFORNICATION (AGAIN)

2006-01-09T19:44:00.000Z

I am ready to get back to London. However, I am about to leave for the airport to fly off to San Francisco to "play house" for 2.5 weeks with my skinny gay Puerto Rican boyfriend Awesome, who is indeed skinny and gay but only half Puerto Rican. When I do return to London at the end of the month, now we'll have an 8 hour time difference instead of a 5 hour one. Why must things just keep getting harder? Anyway, hopefully during the next 2.5 weeks I shall finally understand why the hell this crazy Rican loves me so fucking much.

I tried having this conversation with my best friend Heather last night, over margaritas at a random bar on Greenville Ave (which is apparently Dallas' trendiest string of bars, as you are actually able to walk from bar to bar for a few blocks instead of driving drunk in your mammoth of a vehicle, mowing down old ladies who've lived in central Dallas for 90 years). Heather told me, "He just does. Just accept that."
"No, Heazie Breezy Beautiful Covergirl. That does not work for me. You know I'm like a five-year-old: I must know why about everything."
"You shutup; just accept it and don't wonder why all the damn time. When you wonder why and have to define everything you'll just ruin everything."

If reincarnation is true - and I've never actually given it much thought, really - then I wish to be born again as one of the stupidest people or animals or plants or cheerleaders or American presidents on earth. This way I shant over-analyze and over-question every damn aspect of my life.

"Now what do we do, Heazie Breezy Beautiful Non-Colored Girl?" I asked after placing my empty jacuzzi-sized margarita glass onto a table shaped like Texas.
"Well, this is Dallas, so this means we can only eat, drink, eat, drink, shop, or eat."
"So. Drink?"
"Yes."

During the next 2.5 weeks, while Awesome contemplates homosekshul marriage and acts like the dreamer I love, I shall be my realist self and take my fat-ass to the pool and gym in his building, which I am told overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge among other San Fran monuments and bodies of water (again, I'm not so good with the geography, so this means that his window must be high above the Red Sea). After 2 weeks of sitting around in Dallas, eating, drinking, eating, drinking, shopping, and sucking down a surplus of Mexican food, margaritas, and beer, I am mortified to look in the mirror. Thankfully I can lose weight as quickly as I can gain it, as many midgets can.

If the next 2.5 weeks go well and Realist Me discovers WHY WHY WHY about Awesome's, my, and our existence on this planet, specifically in London, New York and San Francisco, who knows what our future shall be. After Awesome saw Pride and Prejudice he hatched a plan that while he became a wedding planner for his own wedding, all of our friends would perform a Jane Austenian dance routine in ball gown and tuxedo costumes.
"But boyfriend, none of my friends live in the same city. Some don't even live in the same country. Will you be sending a dance instructor all over the planet to teach everyone we know?"
"Oh."

Not too long ago he also decided that we needed a 6-foot deep lap pool on the brownstone that we will hypothetically one day own in Manhattan's West Village. I shot him down at first, explaining the impossibility of this idea, but when he looked like he was going to cry, I humored my dreamer boyfriend for a good four months. Then, one day, he called me and said in all seriousness, "Boyfriend, I talked to my father (who is an engineer) and he says that those 19th century buildings cannot support a pool on top of them."
"Really? Wow, boyfriend. This is such a suprise to me."

Shit, I am totally running late.

For the record: If I owe you an email, and chances are that I do, I most likely shant be able to repond to it until the end of the week. Awesome does not yet have wireless in his apartment yet because, unlike in New York, where everyone steals their neighbor's connection, in San Fran you must have a password. If I owe you money, you will never be receiving it.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Some cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go. - Oscar Wilde

GONNA DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN

2006-01-08T00:42:00.000Z

While writing on my former website, not one day went by when I did not worry about someone finding my blog who really should not find it. And it's not that I have any more horrible secrets to hide than you or anyone else. It's just that while I can control what comes out of my mouth during conversation, and to whom I spew such taboo phrases, and the times I choose to spew them, when words are historicized in the text of a blog, these words can potentially be used against you. It should come as no surprise that there are a lot of assholes in this world who will purposely twist your words should they irrationally deem it necessary. I do not want to set myself up. I do not want to be taken advantage of. I do not want to regret typing something. I do not want to be fired from a job or denied one, or offend a close friend or family member, or make a horrid mistake because I typed something sarcastically or in the heat of anger or passion.

Neither of my professions allow me to be as sarcastic and "fictional" as the tales I type on my blog. I am in the public view and must maintain a professional persona where my private life is not even allowed to come into play. 3/4th of the statements I make are sarcastic, so I do not wish to give anyone the wrong impression. Sarcasm and exaggeration are dangerous games to play, especially with my jobs.

Thus, anonymity is highly necessary. While scrolling through my original blog, I realized that I could be accused of many social crimes including slander, alcholism, drug use - so I deleted it all. Well, almost. I saved only a few posts for personal posterity while deleting nearly every entry during the time period of 2-5 am on Saturday upon returning home from a drunken party. And yes, it sucks to have lost 2.5 years worth of self-reflection. Well, it kind of sucks. Not entirely. This is better.

Upon clicking the delete option over and over and over again, I also realized something else. When/if you use your real identity - complete with photographs and all, in my case - you are fucking yourself over for whatever you really want to say. You are forced to censor yourself. One of the very few political uprisings that I would protest in the streets of any major city is censorship. Especially for art, particularly writing. When/if a writer censors himself, he lies to himself. I don't make it a point to lie to anyone I love, so why lie to myself? With my name and photograph plastered all over my website, I automatically run the risk of harsh judgment and personal attacks of my character, mainly because I open myself up so much instead of just making a ridiculously mundane list of what I did on any given day. With anonymity, the same may ring true, but when readers cannot point a finger and identify a face in a lineup of blogger criminals (i.e. persons who emote their absolute beliefs, opinions and wishes), then writing in "diary form" allows me, the writer, to be much more vulnerable and honest.

Censoring myself does not challenge me as a writer. It only threatens me.

I am tired of giving myself this disservice in so many ways. I always preach about how important it is to not deny yourself personal honesty and to never be plastic. Originally I just decided to give up blogging altogether. But I've come to love this part of my life, and I've met quite a few excellent people in person, too. If I wish to know someone - be it a fellow blogger or a reader - than the anonymity will inevitably erase itself. (Plus now I won't have nightmares about stalkers or be uncomfortably recognized on the street, which only happened a few times.) Even more important, I find blogging an utmost therapeutic and self-reflective activity, at least the times that I write for myself instead of for an audience. Plus, I go crazy if I don't write nearly every day.

I mean, shit - I love scribing about partying, traveling, sex (not porn, though, don't worry, I won't become one of those sites), working professionally with celebrities, and always blasting my (typically) alternative views about damn near everything...and I'm fucking tired of not being able to do so. I love making mistakes, as they only make me more experienced and wiser - but people are not supposed to admit their faults, desires, fuck-ups, or taboo thoughts as readily as I love admitting mine. Especially in America. Now this can change without consequence.

(I feel like someone just handed me a microphone.)

So. No more self-censoring. No more "fiction." I will open myself up to the world like a giant vagina, writing to myself and generally ignoring my audience (not in a derogatory sense, of course - one should never write for an audience, but rather, simply be aware of an audience), because when blogging for an audience, the writer forgets himself and doesn't say what he wants to say. I am quite ready to start over anyway.

Okay then. This is for all the muthafuckin' middle children of the world, we confused and moody people, many of whom email me on a monthly or weekly basis - because I do not want to let them down.

This is also a fantastically therapeutic start to 2006.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship. - George Bernard Shaw