I've just been really busy at work and haven't really wanted to turn the computer on when I came home. But that doesn't mean, loyal reader, that I don't love you.
Normally, when I have my days off from work, I like to spend one of them just sitting around doing next to nothing. Surfing the web, watching some TV, that sort of thing. Then I do some domestic-y stuff, errands, and the like on the other of the two days.
Problem is, I was off on Wednesday the 13th and did a lot of running around and I had big plans to do almost nothing on the 14th. The day of the blackout. When I went into work to help out because I knew it'd be crazy. Plus, I couldn't very well sit around with no power watching TiVo and surfing the web.
But since my folks came into town last week and I spent my days off with them, I haven't really had a "sit around and do nothing day" since the 13th.
And I really, really want one.
Ugh.
Who would have ever thought that there would be a time that those were words you would not want to hear?
Well, my friends, thanks to SoBig.f, that time has come. And as I was checking my mail remotely this afternoon, I came to the conclusion that my computer, or the computers of a lot of people I know, have been infected (I have something like 20 virus-related emails in my in-box).
I am currently installing updated virus definition files and about to perform an elaborate search of my hard drive, so we're optimistic for a full recovery.
But in the meantime, Bleah!
I kept having these dreams last night about work - specifically about ordering limousines.
Ugh.
Now, I'm totally not "well rested" and due to go back.
In other news, the mouse problem rages on. I caught two last night, and need to stop for more mousetraps today.
Like many overly cultural New Yorkers, I have spent a bit of the summer in the process of planning my season tickets for the upcoming "Arts" year. I have 8 Metropolitan Opera tickets, 6 New York City Opera, I have the brochures for the Philharmonic and for Manhattan Theatre Club.
I had looked at the brochure for the Public Theatre, and almost bought a ticket just because I wanted to make sure that I'd get to see Chita Rivera (remember how I feel about Chita). So I was sort of relieved by this, even though I was sad about it at the same time.
In other news, what it is about a box of Triscuits? They make me, like, want to eat the entire box in one sitting...
...who sits next to his mother at "Avenue Q."
Don't worry, I cringed when Rod sang about wanting to eat Alberta's pussy.
My parents are in town, along with another couple who they are very good friends with. (With whom they are v.g.friends?)
Anyhow, we went to see "Nine" this afternoon. My mom somehow managed to snag front row center tickets which, while not great the whole way through, as you couldn't get the full beauty of many of Leveaux's gorgeous stage pictures, you did have the advantage of being up close and personal with, among other things, Antonio's butt, Jane's chest, Chita's feet, and, somewhat suprisingly, the fabulous legs of Miss Laura Benanti. It was gorgeous to get to see their expressions up close - the very delicate side of some of the acting, as opposed to the bigger stuff that I had seen when I saw the show before (which had been in the first row of the mezzanine, both times).
But the best part was getting to worship at the shrine of Chita. I brava'ed and all that. And during the curtain call, at the very end as she was leaving the stage, I blew her a kiss. And she WINKED at me. Chita Rivera WINKED at ME!
Well, I just about melted. I sat back down (what, you didn't think the story would have a standing ovation?), amidst all the applause. My mom's friend saw me oohing and goohing and she said, "He's just like a little boy."
And I said, "You mean, I'm just like a big fag."
The other bizarre quote of the afternoon was pronounced by my mother, during the Grand Canal sequence of the show - where the stage fills with water and they all splash around. Some of the water, of course, got onto those of us in the first row. And so my mother said, "Antonio Banderas made me wet."
God, I'm gay.
My mouse trap has worked! Now... how do I get the un-dead squeaky thing out of here...
So after being at work for 14 hours, (I hate OT almost as much as I love the time-and-a-half on my paycheck), I finally got to go home. And I am sitting in a nice, air-conditioned taxi, being whisked across the East Side. Sitting in the back, calmly, minding my own business, trying to relax after an extraordinarily long, stressful day at work, and trying to relish those last few minutes of sanity before my parents arrive in the City tomorrow...
And then...
Honk Honk KERRRRR-ASH!
Luckily, I was not hurt. The taxi didn't appear to be too terribly damaged when I saw it, either. I was, however, panicked and stressed out. Even more luckily, the taxi happened to have come to a stop right in front of a restaurant I know and call somewhat frequently via work. So I waltzed right in and declared, I'm Jon from the No Tell Motel, and I was just in a taxi that had an accident on my way home from a pisser of a day at work and I want a cocktail NOW. And I got one.
After the vodka was all gone and the cops finally on the scene, I went out, made a statement (they were both sort of at fault - my guy punched the light, and the other guy was jumping it...).
Then the nice policeman said I could go home. And that's just what I did.
Or, in this case, lighbulbs.
Here are two images. One, a regular nighttime satellite view of the eastern Seaboard. Next to it, a photo taken last night, during the blackout.
Well, that was, um... fun.
I was home, IMing Jeff at 4:11pm yesterday, when the AC just sort of fizzled and then cut out. I figured it was just a hot day and the local grid was overloaded. So I called 311 and waited a couple minutes. I finally got an operator and informed him that my power was out. "We're experiencing techinical difficulties throughout the system," he said.
"ConEd or 311?" I asked.
"We're experiencing techinical difficulties throughout the system," he repeated. I tried a couple more times, but got the same reply.
I threw on an orange polo shirt and some Gap cargos and walked outside to see what was going on, and when I saw that it was not just my block, I started to get weirded out... then my cellphone failed and I started hearing people say how widespread it was. I used a payphone on the corner to call my mom (1-800-COLLECT. Like I had quarters?) who informed me that she, in Toledo, Ohio, was also without power. That was when I started to freak. And the fact that I got cut off from mom and couldn't get her back on the line didn't help.
I didn't know what else to do, so I went to the hotel and helped out there all night. Our back-up power generator was working - but then it failed. What a crazy night to spend in a hotel. Walking up 10 flight of pitch-black stairs with just a flashlight is not my idea of a fun time, and I hope to never repeat it. Yes, I stayed in the hotel. I figured I'd rather deal with 10 flights of dark stairs than 20 blocks of pitch-black Manhattan streets.
And I stayed at work until about 7pm today. For me, in the hotel, I would have to say that the blackout was more trying on the staff of the hotel than 9-11-01 was. On 9-11, we had power, we had internet, we had (some) phones, we had information of what was going on, and even though we were terrified, we knew what was happening. Last night, though, we had no information, no control, no knowledge and we were having problems with as basic of things as water. And some other stuff that for proprietary work reasons, I can't really discuss here in the blog. Let me just tell you it was not fun.
Good God, I need something to eat. And a cocktail. Or 8920.
There is a test, at www.PoliticalCompass.org which measures, of course, your political compass. Mine is in the Lower Left quadrant - on the Leftist Liberal side of things, ranking comparably to Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and The Dalai Lama. I'm politically almost the exact opposite of POTUS. (I can't hardly bring myself to type his W'y name)
My exact scores, in case you want to see if you're more liberal than I am:
Economic Left-Right: -5.62
Authoritarian/Liberatarian: -5.69
I guess I am proud to be with such intelligent people as Gandhi, Mandela and the Dalai Lama. Now if we could only get Shrub to listen to us...
(By the way, I found the test courtesy of Ryan at Running-Commentary so go check out his blog, too. He has a very interesting and perverse riff on black toilet mold.)
I forgot all my troubles and went downtown tonight for the first time in a while. It was fantabulous, from my flamingly homosexual waiter at Sushi Samba, to the fish-eating Lesbians next to whom I sat, to the fact that there's an ingredient in one of their desserts called "espuma" and I asked the waiter what it meant.
He told me, then asked what I had thought it meant.
"Something naughtier," I informed him.
"Yes, well, I can see why you'd think that."
When it came, I told him, "See why I thought it was what I thought it was?" We both sniggered, and then I said, very quietly, to him, "Can you imagine that I'm sitting here eating espuma and sitting next to two lesbians?"
After becoming sufficiently intoxicated, I walked (not in a straight line, mind you, I was a drunk homosexual in the Village, mind you) to the Cherry Lane Theatre to see Kiki and Herb in their "Coup de Theatre." It was fabulous and hysterical, in a terrifying way. I don't think I ever envisioned a way that the story of that psychotherapist who asphyixated his patient in a "rebirthing" ceremony could ever be made funny... but it was, by Kiki, in her terrifying way. And I got to kiss her!
And to top the evening off, I got some cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery.
Cupcakes, High Drama, Espuma and Lesbians. What more does a fag need?
I'm going to take a slightly different direction today to riff on two Broadway actresses who seem to take a lot of the same roles, even though in my mind they're totally different. The two ladies are Rebecca Luker and Laura Benanti. (Gosh, I just realized that if Luker were to go by Becca or Becky, their initials are inverse of each other!)
Now, Benanti replaced Luker as Maria in "The Sound of Music" on Broadway, and Luker was just named to replace Benanti as Claudia in "Nine" on Broadway (which, as an aside, can you believe that they're talking to Jenna Elfman to replace Jane Krakowski?!?) They've also both tackled the same role in "Wonderful Town" -- Luker in a studio recording, Benanti at "Encores!"
Now, I think Benanti is a wonderful actress with a beautiful voice. Luker, however, in my opinion, can't act her way out of a paper bag. Granted, the last show she was in on Broadway was that terrible revival of "The Music Man," but still...
Benanti was born in 1979. Luker does not reveal her age but is old enough to have two ex-husbands. Luker is blonde. Benanti is brunette.
They're just so different. So why do their CV's keep overlapping like this? I assume it's just a conspiracy to piss me off.
So my blog is publicly traded and I didn't even know. Two people collectively own 4,000 shares of my blog, and I just found out this morning.
Somehow this is both disturbing and uplifting at the same time.
In other news, I've been working too much lately but I just watched the pilot of "The West Wing" on my TiVo. I am excited that Bravo is airing it from the beginning. And I'm pleased that my TiVo has not yet suggested I watch "Queer Eye..." But it did record something about forensic files. It knows me so well!
How else would I actually find out that A 30-year-old man was sentenced to probation for entering a funeral home's living nativity scene last Christmas and having sex with one of the sheep
This is the first article on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" that I actually think says something interesting. And gets why I think the idea of the show (I admit to not having watched it; note that I said "idea") is offensive.
Then again, I am pretty much opposed to reality TV in general.
The web of celebrity has become so tangled that movie stars seem to think, once again, that they're qualified to become the next governor of California. Between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gary Coleman, not to mention Arielle Huffington (that's three people with strange accents for you), wouldn't you say the election's a farce? Would anyone care to explain what any of these three have done to have a resume which qualifies them to bring a huge business such as... the economy of the state of California... out of the toilet? (At least it's an eco-friendly, low-flush toilet, being that it's California.)
Anyhow, Gary Coleman can't be the governor of California. He has an apartment building to manage on Avenue Q.
The next reality show is going to be on gay men trying to become country music stars.
So I thought it'd be fun to try and come up with some potential song titles that you might expect to see on a gay country music CD:
Another Bottom in My Bronco
Hairdressin', Flow'r Arrangin', and Lovin' Him
My Daddy Went to Prison, and Now I Have Two
or
My Daddy Went to Prison, and Now He's Bubba's Bitch (I'm not sure which is better)
Happy to See His Belt Buckle Again
Pork Sausage on the Bar-B-Que of Love
Cletis Dropped the Soap Again for Bobby Ray
Rodeo Queen
or...
Two Cowboys, Two Horses, One Sunset.
Hey, it could work!
I'm sure y'all have some more suggestions.
I was in Barnes & Noble on 82nd and Broadway yesterday, and I was walking through the magazine section. They had the current edition of GQ on display. Johnny Depp is on the cover. This, in itself, is not strange.
What was odd about it was that there was a woman who was having a conversation with Johnny. Depp. Who was only in the room because of his photo on the magazine cover.
"Ooh, lookin' good, Johnny. Come over here and give me some of that sugar." And she kept going.
I'm not making it up.
I lived in Seattle for a year or so after leaving graduate school. I was looking for somewhere to escape, to just sort of run away and not confront, among other things, the fact that I did leave grad school on the terms I did (and which I may blog about in the future).
So, fresh out of grad school, without a degree, well, it was sort of like Princeton walking onto Avenue Q. Only mine was the job equivalent.
After some very frustrating rejections, including my rejecting a job selling windows on no salary but only commission (read = $0), I went to a head hunter. We decided that between the fact that I could type 80+ wpm, knew my ass from a hole in the ground, and gave good phone, that I could be a great administrative assistant. I had a couple of interviews, and then she said the dangerous words. "Well, I could try you with W."
"W?"
"W." The headhunter replied. "She can be difficult. Some people find her very hard to deal with." Difficult was an understatement. She was a New Yorker, Jewish, and a lesbian, working in a conservative, mostly good-ole-boy Republican commercial real estate office in the Pacific Northwest. (Yes, there are LOTS of conservatives in Seattle.)
She goes through assistants like J-Lo goes through bad movies. One girl only lasted until lunch on her first day, when she left in tears.
I figured, "What do I have to lose?"
And I lasted a year. And I left because of a new opportunity and a lack of a future in real estate, not for any fault of W's (even though she was evil sometimes... well, a lot of the time. But you try telling your boss, "If I have to go pick up your dog, to whom I am allergic, from the vet one more time, I may throw him in Puget Sound.") I think a lot of it was a facade that she put on - a "tough character" she felt compelled to be to stay competitive on the fierce scene she was working on - and she was good at what she did, too. She may have been a bitch, but she was great. I learned so much about how the world of "work" works. And that's invaluable. At least I got something out of it... the salary was for shit!
The theme of my blog this week was started with the previous entry, and will continue with this one. It's... funny (or embarassing) things I've done in the past.
One of the most drunken nights I ever experienced was mostly caused by a bartender at a place called JR's in Houston, Texas, when I was an undergrad. It's a gay bar, of course, and I went there that night with a straight friend (on whom I had a crush, of course) who was "doing research" for a role he was playing in an upcoming play for our theatre department. He was playing a gay man, so he wanted me to show him the clubs.
Anyhow, when we got there, they were doing a margarita special. We had a few of those, then decided they weren't strong enough. So we switched. I remember a couple of mind erasers, which, in case you don't know, is a rocks glass with a shot of kahlua, a shot of vodka, and some soda, and two straws. You suck it down (two straws for more volume of alcohol to go more quickly into your system). After that, the barman decided we should try mind erasers with a kick -- Jagermeister instead of Kahlua. I am not sure exactly what happened after that... at least, at the bar.
I know that we left the bar and went to the parking lot. We took one look at his car, and I said, "Dude, there's no way we're sober enough to drive." He agreed with me, so we went back into the bar and asked them to call us a taxi. They did - and even paid for it to take us back to campus. (Which makes sense - if we'd have driven and had an accident, at least in Texas law, the bar can be held liable.)
When we got back to campus we were drunk enough that we almost had sex. We were close. I think I even felt his dick through his khakis. But he left and went to his dorm room before anything good happened.
Yes, I remember most of one of my drunkest nights ever. I know, that's pathetic, but deal with it.
I decided that I want to tell you a story from my childhood.
Until I went to college, my name was Jonathon, not Jon. And I was adamant about that.
One day, when I was maybe three years old, my mother took me into a store at the mall. There were a lot of fragile things in the store. Remember, I was three.
So my mother was saying things like, "Jonathon, don't touch that" or "Jonathon, stay over hear by me" or "Let's get ready to go, Jonathon."
At which point the saleslady said, "See you later, Jonny."
Well, I never. So proud little gay three year old me looked her straight in the eye and announced:
"My name's Jonathon, you son of a bitch."
Obviously, things haven't gotten any better.