I Told You Kids to Knock Off That Noise!

And after that, Freddy went home to get a change of underpants.

What Did I Tell You?

Did you think I was kidding?

A Great American

What's not to like about Henry Rollins?

Realization of the Day

Most days I get home and feel as if I've spent the day standing on Varick Street setting 20-dollar bills on fire. But --

Today, I spent a total of 85 cents.

That's it.

Didn't need to buy cigs, the MetroCard is unlimited for the week, and my boss bought lunch for everyone today.

85 fucking cents. For my morning coffee cart visit.

When was the last time you spent less than a dollar over the course of a day? In New York City, no less.

Who Makes Up Your Dream Cabinet?

The tradition of the Cabinet dates back to the beginnings of the Presidency itself. One of the principal purposes of the Cabinet (drawn from Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution) is to advise the President on any subject he may require relating to the duties of their respective offices.

The Cabinet includes the Vice President and the heads of 15 executive departments-the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, and the Attorney General. Under President George W. Bush, Cabinet-level rank also has been accorded to the Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency; Director, Office of Management and Budget; the Director, National Drug Control Policy; and the U.S. Trade Representative.

Here are My Picks (Alternates in Parentheses):

President of the United States: Oprah Winfrey

Cabinet-Rank Officers:

Vice-President: Hillary Rodham Clinton (William Jefferson Clinton)
Environmental Protection Agency - Administrator: Robert Kennedy, Jr. (Al Gore)
Office and Management and Budget - Director: George Soros
National Drug Control Policy - Director: Bill Maher
U.S. Trade Representative: Steve Jobs

Executive Departments:

Attorney General of the United States: Eliot Spitzer
Secretary of Agriculture: stumped
Secretary of Commerce: Bill Gates
Secretary of Defense: General Wesley C. Clark
Secretary of Education: Barack Obama
Secretary of Energy: Henry Waxman
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Dr. Howard Dean
Secretary of Homeland Security: Joseph C. Wilson (Raymond W. Kelly)
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Charles Rangel
Secretary of the Interior: Al Gore (Robert Kennedy)
Secretary of Labor: Barbara Boxer
Secretary of State: William Jefferson Clinton
Secretary of Transportation: stumped
Secretary of the Treasury: Michael Bloomberg
Secretary of Veterans Affairs: John Kerry

And last but not least, for White House Press Secretary: Al Franken

Streamlining

So what I've been doing lately is streamlining and redesigning my life -- getting rid of real weight, getting rid of dead weight. Pruning branches back to foster new growth in areas that have been stunted. Adding in some new plantings to fill in the holes, hoping they grow into beautiful perennials. Giving extra special care and feeding to things that have begun to wither from neglect. And ruthlessly digging up and discarding the ones that suck essential nutrients and vitamins from the soil of my existence.

I don't garden.

But I am stepping into the sunshine and basking in its light.

Of course, there are moments when I step back into the shadows and start to act like a fungus instead of a flower. But I'm trying my hardest to stay aware of those moments and not beat myself for them, but instead move gently and inexorably, back into the sunlight.

I am and always have been a light-seeker. My name (my real, given name) is translated from Gaelic as "bearer of light." Broken down as a derivation of my mother's Japanese name (my mummy, for whom I was named after spending four days as, simply, "Baby Girl ______ "), my name means "love." My second name means "A Pearl." How lovely. Born from an imperfection, formed by layers of protection, and its luster caused by a reflection from within. Now that I think about it, I am so lucky that my parents so thoughtfully chose my names. Whether they knew the meanings of the names, I can't speculate, but I can do my best to live up to them.

So I am trying to choose the things that move me into the light.

The first thing was stepping away from F. A relationship in which I gave away my light, and didn't know I was sending it into a black hole.

Lately, I'm choosing simply to slow down. I found myself night after night, in 'Salem's Lot (remember, that's the East Village), bouncing between one of two bars. Sin or Fish. Fish or Sin. And there I was, speaking disdainfully of all the sad drunks who have populated the Fish Bar for the past decade, it seems.

You see them as soon as you walk in. They are The Regulars, clinging to some long-ago past, or burying some present sadness, in their pint-sized cocktails and frequent visits to the john, from which they emerge, sniffing and rubbing their noses. It appears the 80's have come back in more than just fashion!

One evening, I decided to drink nothing but club soda while I was there. And I looked around, sober, at all these sad people, drinking their sad drinks, living their sad, stuck-somewhere-in-the-past lives, and realized -- I was becoming one of them.

In the corner, there's the EVG. This is his castle. He rules absolutely here, in a world of don't ask, don't tell, and most certainly, don't stand too close. The bartenders watched us sit together, watched him flirt with me openly, with carefully expressionless faces. Part of me wants to walk in sometime and just have a conversation with one of the regulars, "Of course I fucked him," and dispel the notion that he has been domesticated. He slouches in his corner, glowering like a lion in a cage at the circus. When he rises to his feet, all six-feet-six of him, it's like watching a time-lapse film of a redwood growing, or Godzilla emerging from the sea. Something dangerous and slightly menacing comes off him that makes other men step back and give him clearance. For some reason he took a shine to me. And for a very short time, I believe, took the shine from me. Or rather, should I say, I gave it away. Now that I think about it, not only was he a completely unreliable booty call, he was an unreliable source of pot AND he's a carpenter who built a shelf that FELL DOWN. Pretty much the only thing he had going for him was his purty face and um, other things.

I was at the eye doctor again today, and I remembered something my friend Jayne once said to me -- that if something goes wrong with your body, it's a manifestation of something going on with you. Meaning, that persistent cough? You've got to get something off your chest. For me, I guess, it was this eye thing (a whole separate essay, I promise) AND the persistent cough. There are things I need to see, I wasn't seeing, and dammit, my body was going to make me pay attention and SEE. (The cough? Well, that's just from smoking. Probably.) When something damages your eye, endangers your vision, you suddenly get real interested in seeing, not just looking at.

I am really trying to see.

Remember, I tell myself: Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

So, I'm not really hanging out in 'Salem's Lot anymore.

Sit Back, Enjoy the Show

There's more to Illinois than just Barack Obama.

Sometimes, you just gotta sit back and see what happens, or as the nutbags say in 12-Step Land, more will be revealed.

Booty, Interrupted

Okay, so EVG is the most unreliable booty-call I've ever had. He calls, he cancels, he calls, he cancels, he calls he cancels -- you get the picture. I guess if you're messin' with Girlfriend Guy, or Married Guy, you get used to these gametime decisions. Still, it's frustrating to think you're getting laid and then you don't.

So yesterday afternoon, as I was leaving the office, he cancels, AGAIN.

At nearly the same moment, my IM pinger pings. Guess who? Humorously, it's my old friend "F." Yes, the married guy. The transcript follows:

F: u there, its F
Jane: HI! what's up?
F: what u doin
Jane: quoting....
F: wanna play naked cribbage
Jane: You have no idea how tempting that offer is
F: I've already started
Jane: oooooookay, that's a little creepy
F: the cribbage part, not the naked part
Jane: i won't be leaving here until 5:30 and i could use some kissing, that's for sure
F: can u be here at 5:30 then
Jane: just for kissin
F: i think u and i need and want more
F: i think u and I need more
Jane: nope, just for kissin and even that's a slippery slope
F: sorry...I think it's all for the best if we don't do anything
Jane: i just wanted some kissin but i guess you are in "all or nothing at all" mode
F: I can't take the tease
Jane: hmph
Jane: well, now my feelings are hurt
F: call me please
Jane: i'm leaving now

There followed a "meeting" in which F spent 15 minutes trying to sell me on the idea of having (to use his words) "mutually satisfying, consequence-free sex." Consequence-free for who?

I did have to chuckle all the way home, thwarted in the booty call I wanted to have and then turning around and shooting down the booty call I could have had.

You know, sometimes life is funny.

Hot-Tay

Roni loves American Idol. She loves American Idol so much that she schedules her social life around it. We went out for sushi one night and she got very twitchy and nervous because Idol-time was drawing near. I mocked her all the way across 14th street, doing my best Dustin Hoffman imitation, "Almost time for Wapner! Five minutes to Wapner!"

She told me to shut up, but didn't halt her junkie-search for a bar with a TV where we could watch. She honestly believed that a sports bar would turn off sports to tune in Idol.

So, last week, she couldn't get home for Idol, and she gave me a chore. (When a friend is spending every free moment in a hospital tending to her comatose boyfriend and asks you, "Can you do me a favor?" there is only one answer: "YES.") I had to watch American Idol and text-message her the name of the eliminated contestant.

So I sat through the cheese-fest, painful as it was, and while I wasn't sucked into the drama (cough! cough!) of the show, there was a delectable piece of Colorado eye-candy to enjoy for a little while.

What a piece of ass.

Lefty-Liberal Reading List

What's The Matter With Kansas? by Thomas Frank.

Succinctly explains how MILLIONS of Americans came to vote against their own best economic interests through neocon sleight-of-hand, chicanery and general skullduggery.

My favorite musical is "1776," and here is a quote from that show, uttered by Pennsylvania businessman John Dickinson: "Mr. Adams, most men would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich, than face the reality of being poor, and that is why they will follow us to the Right, ever to the Right, never to the Left, forever to the Right!"

Read the book. It kept me up last night like a Stephen King horrorbook.

Can't They Revoke Your Gayness for That?

Overheard in deli, fuh-laming 30-ish gay man, to his female cohort: "No, I DON'T own any Madonna CD's!"

10 of Life's Simple Pleasures

Well, I've been tagged. That's never happened. I don't even think I know what it means.

But -- I love these little surveys, I think they satisfy the egomaniac in all of us. I know they satisfy the egomaniac in me. (In fact, I've been planning to post my own version of the Proust Questionnaire.) Until then -- my list of 10 of Life's Simple Pleasures, in no particular order....

1. Sleeping until I wake up. No alarm to set, no place to be, no appointments to keep. It's one of the reasons I looooooooove being single. That and the fact that the WHOLE bed is my side (well, except for Mambo's spot.)

2. The aroma of garlic and onions sauteeing in olive oil. If that isn't the most welcoming, comforting aroma out there, I don't know what is.

3. Walking my city. Finding the only Sullivan building in New York, at sunset, gleaming like a freshly-iced wedding cake. It takes me by surprise and lights my heart every single time I see it.

4. Turning off my cell phone. Go ahead, get as mad as you want. It's my phone, I get to decide when and to whom I will speak. So, too bad if you can't reach me.

5. The Staten Island Ferry at sunset. It's free, and it's one of the best views of Manhattan.

6. Pork. Yes, you dirty-minded fools, I mean the meat. The other white meat. Pork in all its glorious forms. Roast, ham, rinds, butt, but most of all, bacon. (but... never ever ever ever ever ever feet. bleeeccch)

7. Flirting without consummation.

8. A hot summer night, an icy cold Budweiser, the first bite of a Nathan's hot dog, and the sound of jet engines overhead. It could only be one thing: an evening in any one of the NY Metro area's four ballparks.

9. Trapped inside on a rainy weekend with nothing but Godfather, Godfather, Godfather on the tube. (this past weekend obviously influencing the list.)

10. That moment on payday after the money hits your direct deposit and before you do the math and realize it's all been allocated for necessities...

And since I am a person who threw out every chain letter I ever got, refused to forward that cute little angel made up completely of the number "8" painstakingly arranged by someone, and for some reason couldn't believe that Bill Gates wanted to give me a G for doing something, but mainly, because I just don't have that many friends in the blogosphere (um, I got tagged by one of the three), I tag no one. Okay, maybe the Principessa Laia -- you know who you are.

So, this clearly was nothing but an exercise in ego-massage and navel gazing. And occasionally, who doesn't like that?

My Future Ex-boyfriend (And He Doesn't Even Know It)

After a half-dozen Sweaty Betty Wheat Beers last night, Auntie Mame is too hung to string together anything resembling a coherent sentence. So I'm reduced to mindless links and drivel.

I love this man.

I've loved his column since the days when he was Captain X. He's got that snark factor that I like. And there's that wise-ass smirk. And his nice big nose (I like big noses). And how can you not love a man who loves Husker Du?

The only other important question: Is he tall? Tall is good.

Dean (John, Not Howard) Says It Better Than I Ever Could

Say it like this, people: Shaw-den-froid-uh

In Case You Were Wondering

We have been scarily unbusy for the past three weeks or so. I've barely billed enough to cover my nut, which always makes me nervous.

Which is why I've been so, um, prolific.

I had way too much time on my hands and clearly it is making me more dyspeptic than usual. I can't believe there are folks who actually like having jobs that require them to do a minimum of work and still get paid. As long as they show up on time, get their morning and afternoon breaks and their lunch hour, collect their paycheck and go home at the dot of 5:00. Oh wait, I think they're called "government office workers."

I LIKE being really busy.

Well, be careful what you wish for. I was twiddling my thumbs yesterday, when suddenly, like a summer storm out of nowhere, the shit. hit. the. fan.

There's big news to tell, too. 'nother post.

In the meantime, if someone doesn't get laid soon, someone may have to go postal or back to F for some gratification.

Just kidding.

I think.

Why I Ride a Bike

At first, it was the crappy Raleigh M20 that I used to tool around the city. I was floored that anyone would spend TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS for a bicycle. It felt like the most extravagant purchase in the world, and the first time I took it out and rode a lap around Central Park, I thought I was a hero. Cat Hill, just past the Boathouse, nearly killed me. The big downhill at the top of the park just looked too scary, and those first few times, I cut across the 92nd Street Transverse, peering into the bushes on either side of the path, wondering just where the Central Park Jogger had been dragged, beaten, raped, and left for dead. There were blue police cars (at the time, they were still blue!) stationed throughout the park.

Matt and I took occasional rides together. He is much taller than I, and was a much better natural rider. With him, I had the courage to ride the entire loop of the park. He always left me behind on the Great Hill at the top of the park. I would find him waiting for me at the top.

Once, he said to me, I don't think I want to ride with you anymore. It's not enjoyable because you are too slow. Slow? I'll show you slow. Slow burn.

We broke up. My friend Heather and I signed up to ride in the Five-Borough Bike Tour. On Staten Island, before we got on the ferry, we saw Matt with his friends.

You have to go and say hello, said Heather. He is looking at you and he looks so sad.

Fuck him, I said and rode off with my broken, self-righteous heart to get on the Ferry.

But a seed was planted.

I will ride a bicycle cross-country. I vowed to myself. I will show him. I started to do research on the internet while I was at work. This was in the spring of 1998.

I found a cross-country bike tour. But it would take two months to make the trip. I file it away in "Things to Do Before I'm Dead," and look for something else.

On a whim, one June day, I go into the Boston-New York AIDS Ride Office and register. Three days, 275 miles, how hard could it be? I ask myself. My walk back to the subway takes me past Luma, where Matt is the maitre'd. He is inside the door, and I stop on the sidewalk outside. We just look at each other through the doors. His eyes light up, and I feel that everything in my heart is written on my face. I walk on to the subway to go home.

I don't know a soul in the AIDS Ride community. I have the paperwork they gave me, and one of their recommended bike shops is Sid's on 34th Street. I enter with trepidation -- a rank beginner who knows nothing about bikes.

I purchase a Cannondale M500. Matte black with gold lettering. It costs FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS! I was floored that a bicycle can possibly cost so much money!

On my first official training ride with other AIDS Riders, I am scared and alone. I don't know anyone else there. Everyone looks so much more prepared and spiffy with their skinny-wheeled racing bikes and lycra gear. Uh-oh. I introduce myself to the "sweep." The sweep is the designated last rider -- he is kind of the good shepherd of the flock. His job is to make sure that no one gets left behind. His name is Elliott. By the end of the day he will be my hero, my savior, and my first friend in the AIDS Ride community. He escorts me gently up the hills, as I am the slowest rider of the bunch, save for an older gentleman named Bobby.

I am young and healthy and the undisputed worst rider ever. But if I don't have bicycling chops, I do have something else, and that's grit and determination and heart. I ride every mile of that ride and take my seriously sore ass home with pride and tell my roommates, "I rode 60 miles today!" I consider that ride, with Elliott on my wheel, encouraging me and telling me "you can do this," the beginning of my journey.

As well, that ride marked the change in why I ride. I started riding because I was mad at Matt. I was eating my lunch in Nyack, and something Elliott said to me pierced my heart. "I'm a fifty-year-old gay man. There aren't many of us left, honey." And the truth of that hit me, so hard, that it was as if I had been punched in the chest. An entire generation had been practically wiped out by this disease. I tried to imagine spending the previous decade going to funeral after funeral after funeral. It was beyond my ken.

On one of the training rides, the riders get very spread out. I spin around a bend and come upon another rider who has crashed on gravel. His first words to me as I approach him are, "Don't touch my blood, I'm HIV positive." I try to imagine what it must be like to have an accident and your first words to the person who is coming to help you have to be a warning. It is beyond my ken.

I challenge any AIDS denier to walk up to a gay man in his 50's and say, "You know, AIDS doesn't really exist." I equate them with the Holocaust deniers. My friend J, who is not only a gay man in his 50's, but is also Jewish, taught me that. If the Holocaust didn't happen, then where is my family? If AIDS isn't real, then what happend to all of my friends?

Three months later, I am on 8th Avenue, riding in from the most grueling experience of my life, having completed my first AIDS Ride. I am sobbing from exhaustion and joy. I have ridden every mile from Boston to New York over 3 days. I have suffered on an 8-mile hill at the end of the first day. It has been terrible and wonderful. But I have completely forgotten that I signed up to do this ride with the fire of "I'll show HIM!" in my belly. And along the way, it became, "I'll show me. I can do this."

The next year, 1999, I decide that I want to be a training ride leader. Elliott and so many others showed me that kindness and commitment are the most powerful forces on earth. I want to help other scared, slow beginners find that place inside themselves that says, "yes, I can do this." And know that if they can do this, they can do anything. I stumble into a ride leader partnership with Nancy. A gentle, kind, loving woman, who is a much better rider than I, who agrees to ride with me for god knows what reason. She is witty and sharp and looks better in her lycra than I do. We have fun and become friends, leading and sweeping many rides together.

I hear about someone selling a Cannondale R300 compact frame road bike. It is just my size, and the guy is selling it for THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS. Feels like a bargain to me.

I feel overtrained and tired, though, from riding all the time, so I decide to take two weeks off the bike to rest. Our first ride together after my recuperation, we decide to scout a ride in Staten Island. It's an ugly, traffic-clogged course, up through Manhattan, across the GW Bridge, through Hoboken and Bayonne and across the Bayonne Bridge onto Staten Island. Once on Staten Island, we loop around to the south, then hook back through the middle and over Todt Hill. We chose the route specifically for its traffic challenges, knowing that the riders need to be used to riding with cars brushing by their left shoulders. But because it's just us, and we don't have to watch out for two dozen riders of varying skill levels, we are out having fun, and pushing ourselves and each other. We are riding hard and fast and feel extremely studly.

We stop at a grocery store to buy lunch. Sitting outside, sweaty and dirty, I feel a twinge at the back of my right knee. Better cowboy up, like all the best riders do. I take four Advils and say, "I'll ride through it." And I do. Four more advils when I get home and an ice pack on the back of my leg should take care of that little twinge. But the little twinge bothers me all week.

Wake up on Saturday, and it is hot. Steamy. There are heat warnings on all the local news channels. We decide to ride anyway.

Early morning. 7:00 am. Our group meets at the statue of Eleanor Roosevelt at 72nd & Riverside. My leg is still feeling a little, well, twingey, and I'm glad that I am the sweep. It's a large group of riders, 20 or so, and we get spread out quickly. At the back of the pack, I'm rolling easily along, chatting with my friend Sam. Just past Riverside Church, we decide to pop into the lavatory in the park, since we know it's the last one we will see before Hoboken. I hand my bike to Sam and take one step to cross Riverside Drive.

What I feel isn't exactly pain. Just a completely alien sensation. An unzipping, only it's under my skin.

"What the--" I find that I am on all fours in the middle of Riverside Drive and don't know how I fell down. Sam laughs at first, and so do I. We both think I must have stumbled somehow. I get to my feet and take another step. And fall down again.

I stand again and just freeze in place, in the middle of the northbound lane of Riverside Drive, looking around at Sam, who finally realizes that something is really, really wrong. He dumps both of our bikes by the road and runs out to me.

"Ummmm, something bad just happened, Sam."

Can you walk?

Interestingly enough, I can, but I can't lift the heel of my right foot. My leg clumps along like Frankenstein as I try to walk. It hardly hurts. I just can't walk. I think I need to go home.

Sam flags a cab and loads my bike into the trunk. I climb into the back seat and mutter to myself in disgust. At my apartment on 52nd Street, I

One of My Favorite Words

Schadenfreude.

Roll it around on your tongue. Feel the "r" hawk in the back of your throat.

Listening to NPR as I wake up each day, scanning the BBC headlines, I hum a happy little tune every time the Republicans step in their own poo, which they seem to be unable to avoid doing these days. See, they flung so much of it in the last five years and didn't clean up after themselves, they just won't be able to NOT step in it.

It just makes me happy.

Why I Love Anne Lamott

"...I had so many variations on the theme of low self-esteem, with conceitedness marbled in, the classic egomaniac with an inferiority complex. Or...the piece of shit around which the world revolves."

and

"Every time I say yes when I mean no, I am abandoning myself, and I end up feeling used or resentful or frantic. But when i say no when I mean no, it's so sane and healthy that it creates a little glade around me in which I can get the nourishment I need. Then I help and serve people from a place of real abundance and health, instead of from this martyred mentally ill position, this open space in a forest about a mile north of Chernobyl."

and, finally:

"I have had a lot of men do stuff to me over the years, and I sanctioned it, but I did not want it. I have listened so attentively to the most boring, narcissistic men so they would like me or need me. I'd sit there with my head cocked sweetly like the puppy on the RCA logo... It was like these men held me hostage. I'd think about chewing my arm off to get out of the trap so I could rush home and hang myself, but at the same time I'd need them to think well of me. Now I all but say, Oh, I'm so sorry, but I'm on this new shit-free diet."

from Operating Instructions, 1993

I think, the next bullshitty guy I meet in a bar who spends six hours trying to get me to take him home with me, maybe I'll try that line on him. "Gosh, I would love to take you home with me, but I'm on this new shit-free diet, so it's just not possible."

Prognosis: So-So, Maybe Improving

Michael is still unconscious, but we are all convinced he's in there. On Sunday, he responded to some stimuli -- Roni would roll his eyelid back and he would move his eyes toward the sound of her voice. At one point his sister Annie walked in and saw him tapping his foot in time to the music on the radio. He squeezed my hand on request, with real strength.

Yesterday he gave two big yawns, which Roni told me is a good sign. She also told me that the brain scan looked good.

I believe he is in there and he will come back when he is ready.

My Baby

It's the one place I am 100% positive that I am objectively, empirically beautiful. The one place where anyone would look at me and say, "Look at that beautiful woman." Not, "Look at that quirky and somewhat exotic woman with the Roman nose." Not, "Look at that dynamic brunette." (That was Matt's favorite expression.) Not, "Look at that unusual Eurasian woman with the killer quads"

But, "Look at that beautiful woman."

How to Cure a Crush

Utter this to me:

"Music just isn't that important to me."

Wave buh-bye to my hard on.

Send you back to your girlfriend.

Feh.

Well, Hello Again.

Getting dressed this morning. Standing naked in front of my full-length mirror, which gets less scary with each passing week, and run into an old friend.

Hello, waist!

Am inspired to try the blue pants. They have survived the purge, if only because I loved them so much and they used to make my ass look less like a flounder's cousin and more like a, well, booty.

Keeping in mind the mantra, "no expectations, no expectations, no expectations," remembering the last time I tried them on a couple months ago, I COULDN'T PULL THE TWO SIDES OF THE ZIPPER TOGETHER, and there! They go on easily. Not a pinch at the waist. The zipper glides up without a hitch. I turn to the side, sucking in. Two months ago, the sucking in only resulted in a less-prominent blub of belly fat. Now, the suck-in results in -- holy successful diet, batman! -- a flat profile.

I walk around for the first part of the day feeling all, "I'm so hot!" I admire myself in every window I pass. I think I look FINE.

Then I sit down at the freelancers computer, where someone has left the PhotoBooth utility up. I am faced with myself in all of my un-retouched glory.

You know, it doesn't pay to think too well of oneself. There is always a camera to remind you that you aren't as cute as you think you are.

And that, I believe, is what is called Instant Karmic Retribution.

No, I take that back. Fuck that. I worked damn hard to get into those frickin' blue pants.

Next goal, the same pair of pants, in camel, size 8.

Hours Later, Everything Changed

I was in bed early for a Friday, exhausted from the week it had been, wanting to get up for a planned early-morning assignation with EVG, who wanted to pop by before he went to work on Saturday. Figured I had to do all those booty-call prep things -- make sure the legs are shaved, carefully apply my makeup for that no-makeup makeup look, arrange the hair to look sleep-tousled and sexy, change out of the flannel jim-jams and into that sexy little black thing, as if to demonstrate, "What? Little ole? I always look like this when I wake up in the morning!" instead of like Grace Poole's first cousin.

At 1:30 I was jolted awake... who the hell calls me at 1:30 in the morning? I keep my phone next to my head for one reason and one reason only -- to wait for the call that something has happened to my mother -- that she has fallen down, is back in the hospital, is dead.

First sleepy thought: Well, mom must have died. Yes, it was that clinical.

As I'm fumbling for the phone, the theme from "Halloween" ends as the call is kicked into my voice mail. I see that it was my friend Roni. The phone begins to ring immediately again. Roni.

"Hey."

"Janey, I need to tell you what happened." I'm listening closely to her voice to see if I can detect slurring. She and I have a history of DnD-ing each other. Usually the calls come MUCH later in the evening, and there is always loud music in the background, and the overall theme of these calls is "Oh, my god, this song came on the jukebox and it made me think of youuuu, I had to call youuuuu..." This time. But. No slurring. Only a strange tense urgency. Her voice, normally deep and resonant, sexy, has a stringy tautness to it, as if it's coming from the top of her throat. There's no breath behind it. Suddenly, I'm awake, and I know it has something to do with her boyfriend, Michael.

He had an accident on his motorcycle. Now, this is not a new occurrence. I guess if you live the biker lifestyle, have breathed motorcycles since you could drive one, you're going to drop one occasionally. It happens. Once, Michael totalled a Harley Davidson on First Avenue and walked away with nothing more than bruises. God watches over small children and drunks, I've heard.

But the past couple of years have been different for Roni and Mike -- seven of their friends have died in motorcycle accidents. Some guardian angel was looking out for them, I guess, that is, until Thursday morning, at 10:30. Michael's guardian angel must have gotten distracted. He was outside Greenwood Cemetery. Roni wasn't with him. Maybe the guardian angel thought there were enough angels around the cemetery that she could take a coffee break. She should have stayed at her desk. God dammit, I wish she would have stayed at her desk.

Something happened. No one is really sure. No other car was involved. The road surface there is bad to begin with. The guy at the gas station who phoned 911 said that they saw Michael drive by, passed behind the pumps and the next thing they saw was the bike on the ground, sliding along on its side.

When the EMT's got there, Michael wasn't really breathing so great. The ambulance took him to Lutheran Medical Center, where some smart-ass ER doctor made this diagnosis: another drunk biker, let him sleep it off. I guess he became agitated, so they sedated him.

He is in a coma with a brain contusion.

They are doing another brain wave scan or something today.

My Beautiful Wolf Killer

Lestat

Well, I wondered to myself, "It was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, how bad could it be?"

Ummmmmm.

Bad. Bad beyond words. Not "so bad it's good" (think "Showgirls"), but BAAAAAAD. Walk-out-after-20-minutes bad. Now, usually, we are ready to call things we don't like "bad." Generally, what we really mean is, "I don't like it."

J's friend, who gave us the tickets had advised, "smoke a joint before you go." Never was advice more appropriate.

I couldn't help it. Usually I am able to maintain decorum in public situations like this. When something is this bad, usually I can maintain a merely horrified silence. But this time, oh my lord.

Stifling our guffaws with our hands over our mouths, we bolted for the door at about the same time as Lestat's "conversion" to vampire, when the other character whispered, complete with silent-movie vamping and eye-rolling, the line that you see as the title of this post.

"My beautiful wolf killer."

In the back of my mind, I then heard Meatloaf say, "On a hot summer night, would you give your throat to the wolf with the red roses?"

"yesss."

We burst onto Broadway where our rude laughter was lost in the general bedlam of Times Square on a Friday night.

More Proof of the Suburbanization of NYC

Hideous accessories.

I am seeing these dowdy Grandma bags all over the place, being carried by otherwise-stylish women.

Now, in my mountain town, I worked part-time at a ladies clothing store, and these bags were very, very popular with the Texas matrons and their female spawn. (Think women in color-coordinated ski gear, going out on the mountain in FULL MAKEUP with every hair in place. There's a name for them, we called them "bunnies." So ladies, when someone calls you a "ski-bunny" -- take note, it is NOT a compliment.)

It's that whole Preppy Handbook thing that's been coming back (THANK you, Chelsea boys, for bringing back the Izod shirt with upturned collar. Now cut it the fuck out. Can't you see what you've wrought?) Capri pants (NO ONE LOOKS GOOD IN THEM, PEOPLE! They make you look like you have two inch legs!). LEGGINGS (oh, jesus, there's a whole separate entry about THAT). What's next, Bermuda bags? God help us all.

When you think of WASP contributions to culture, fashion and high style doesn't come readily to mind, does it? Shouldn't they stick to the things they know, like golf, banking and closet alcoholism?

I am mystified. Perhaps it is directly linked to the unexplainable popularity of knitting? I think I'm going to take up a dowdy Grandma hobby, I need a dowdy Grandma bag to tote my shit around! (I can't really knock knitting, since my mother was never without some sort of fine handwork at her side -- knitting, crocheting, embroidering, etc.)

It's as if there's some sort of cultural backflow happening, something got turned around, and the things that should stay in the suburbs are leaking into New York. IT SHOULD BE THE OTHER WAY AROUND! Or, as I have suspected for awhile, is New York City over?

Can someone please explain? Can someone please reassure me?

Janey's Got A Bike....

Completely forgot to note the highlight of the week occurred on Sunday.

First time out on the bike.

26.35 easy miles, including a couple of loops of the park on a brilliant Sunday.

Skies were High-Country blue, and it was warm enough to strip off the gaiters after the first loop. Came upon two FDNY companies enjoying their lunch on top of a rock at 102nd Street. I felt like a seagull at low tide, called out as I rode by, "God, I LOVE this city!" They waved and hollered back.

Here's Janey on a bike, circa summer 2000.

Thank Goodness for Friends and Freebies

Well, like the white-hatted hero riding out of the hills to rescue the maiden from the tracks comes J with an offer to cook me dinner AND take me to see "Lestat" in previews.

Not a huge fan of Anne Rice, but I can't pass up the opportunity to see a musical written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

Breathe, Breathe, Breathe

I've picked myself up off the floor, where I was twitching and hyperventilating for awhile after opening the dentists' bill for that porcelain crown.

TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS? TWO? THOUSAND? DOLLARS?

Jimmeny Christmas.

Stuff like this makes me consider blowjobs for money a lucrative side occupation.

You Know Your Diet Is Working...

When your gay husband calls out as you walk away from him,

"Oh, wow, honey, your ass IS getting smaller! Your jeans are so BAGGY!"

Kiss, kiss, sweetie.

Love ya!

Mean it!

I swear this is the final post of the day.

With Apologies to Troy, Irene, YiShun and Anyone Else

Clicked on one of Blogger's random links and found this: My New Favorite Blog

I think I'm in love.

When Do We Stop Running?

There I was on the phone with EVG last night.

I think I would like to have a scheduled call with him a couple of times a week, just to hear THAT VOICE.

The last big and tall guy I dated, though handsome in a traditional American sort of way (well, he was a traditional American sort of boy, after all -- Naval Academy grad, etc), had a voice like an adenoidal teenager. And frankly, a tiny penis. There's nothing more disappointing to a girl than getting a guy naked only to find he's hung like a light switch. That one didn't last long.

Anyway, as I was saying.

The voice. It's not Barry White. It's not James Earl Jones. It's not just espresso-colored. It's the sludge left over in the espresso machine. If the face of Half Dome fell into the Yosemite Valley, his voice would be the sound of the rocks dropping.

So I mentioned how tired I was from the previous night and that I was going directly to bed. So, apparently, was he. One of the great things about being a grown-up is going to bed whenever you feel like it, even if the sun is still up. Remember being a little kid, and fighting to stay up until 10:00? Now, a grown-up, sometimes I want to go to bed at 7:00. AND I CAN. I love that.

He reminisced about being one of those little kids running around the streets until all hours.

I reminisced about being one of those little kids always running. In fact, little kids are always running, anyway. I asked, when do we stop running? Kids run for the sheer joy of the movement, it seems. I have a photo that I took of my niece, probably at 3 or 4, at the park at the Statue of Liberty. She is running across the grass toward the camera, and her face is alight with excitement and joy and vitality, her hair caught mid-bounce. When I look at that photo, it says one thing to me: Childhood.

You know what? I said. I think I'm going to start running again. Just like a little kid. He laughed.

I'd like to see that, he said.

He complained about how cold it is. I protested, saying, not cold. It's just like the weather in the mountains. I was looking out my kitchen window towards the west when I said it. The sun was setting, and the clouds had that same rolling Rocky Mountain look they used to have when I would drive out of Denver.

You're a freak, he said with affection. (He once told me he likes me because I'm odd. I told him I was the most normal-looking weirdo he would ever meet. My freak-flag just doesn't fly out in the open.)

Not a freak, I said. I just really miss the mountains. A lot.

It was a nice conversation. He attempted to make a tentative plan for the weekend.

If I don't have to work on Saturday, I'd like to come and spend some time with you, he said.

Well, let's just play that by ear, I said. This time if I feel disappointed, I'll be sure to let you know I'm disappointed. Since it seems to have hurt your feelings the last time I didn't seem disappointed enough.

And if I have to work on Saturday, he said, laughing, we'll do something next week.

I started to laugh, too.

I'd love that, I said, and hung up.

Today, I am going to run somewhere. Even if it is just across the street. Just to run like a little kid. For the hell of it.

Pay attention!

Sat with a lot of stuff last night and tried to just pay attention, as Cheri advises.

Came to the realization that I am still really, really angry with someone and I need to just stay away from him for awhile until I'm finished being angry. Because I run the risk of creating an action or behaving from the anger (fear) rather than from a compassionate, centered place. Because I was transferring my anger to someone else who really doesn't matter in my life and who really doesn't merit that particular attention. Out of that anger I became defensive, which only fed the fuel of self-righteousness which I projected on to her. Out of that anger, I was feeling, as I sometimes do, backed into a corner and ready to come out with all of my claws flying.

When I'm in that state, I'm certainly impressive. Not likeable or harmonious. But certainly awesome and terrifying to behold. I think the term "vengeful goddess" may have been coined to describe me in that active angry state.

I bring my attention to one of the precepts: "Actualize harmony. Do not be angry."

Now. What most people would think about this is that you should paste a beatific smile on your face and pretend that everything is just okay. This is how most would interpret "do not be angry." But, the precept doesn't say "Do not GET angry." I interpret it to mean, don't act from an angry place. I allow myself to feel the anger as it passes through me, and pay attention to the sensations that arise with the anger. Notice: I'm feeling angry, but also, fearful, small, judged, less-than. Asking myself -- what am I afraid of? Who is making me feel small? Who is judging me? Whom do I feel less than? Noticing, as I've been taught, whose mind those thoughts formed in and whose mouth they came out of.

Noticing the angry thoughts with interest, "Oh, that's just a thought." Just another emotion. Like everything, it passes.

You know what? I don't know what someone else thinks of me. I only project what I think I know she thinks.

It sounds more convoluted than it is. Cheri calls it the double-reverse projection.

Well, If you're going to do something, even projection, at least do it with style. No simple projection for me, no sirree bob. Let me do the double-reverse projection. Maybe with a full twist thrown in.

Yikes.

To Be Socially Acceptable or Not? THAT is the Question

Actually, it doesn't really need an answer.

Friday night, I popped over to the EV to have a drink with Z. Actually, things with him are feeling a little tied together with bread twisties and Elmer's Glue right now, and a good nor'easter will probably uproot the whole thing. (I think I may actually have to follow the advice of Thubten Chodron after all. I was actually meeting my old friend Steve later on that night to go to a concert at Crash Mansion.

Sound system was abysmal at Sin, so we packed up our kit bags and headed across the street. Walked into Fish Bar and there he is in his corner, like a glowering Cerberus, EVG.

I swear to you, I can HEAR the gates and doors slamming and closing inside my head. I need to pay attention to that. We take seats at the bar, Z placing himself between EVG & me like the East Village's own Guardian of Morality.

I mentioned that I was going to see a band; that the invitation contained my four favorite words in the English language: "No Cover. Open Bar."

His response? "My four favorite words are, 'Take me home now.'"

Love his brazenness.

We went outside to smoke, and there were a couple of folks out there, one of who gave us a sniffy look complete with eyeroll and then she brushed past us to go inside.

"Well, she doesn't like me at all," said EVG.

"Don't worry about it," I replied. "She doesn't like me, either."

"How come she doesn't like you?"

"Ummmmmm ... Maybe she suspects that there is something going on between us? Maybe because I am many things that she is not?" I replied evasively.

"Oh, because you're open and free and you don't have big old stick up your butt?"

Ahem. *smirk*

Which brings me to the subject at hand. I'm done - absolutely DONE - trying to be "socially acceptable" in the EV. You know what? If anyone gives a shit who I am fucking, well, I'm glad you find it interesting. Are you so seriously worried about whom someone is sleeping with that you feel it threatens your way of life or your family's? What business is it of yours? Well, judge away if it makes ya feel better.

Searching to be "socially acceptable" feels too much like a sacrifice of basic humanity in exchange for some sort of political expediency. And frankly, life it too, too short for me to waste time politicking during the times I've stepped away from my "approved" work persona. Holy crap, I want to unwind and be myself when I'm out with my friends, not be reminded that "so-and-so may be able to help you in your career." When I'm out with my friends (and the reasons they love me, I hope) is precisely because I am boisterous and blue-collar and wrong side of the tracks and have a loud unladylike laugh. What I hope people remember about me most is that I laughed without reservation and that I was kind. My friends cross all levels of society and I'm not going to play that "Well, I can't invite so-and-so because someone else might not like him/her." Throw em all into the pot and call it jambalaya. Life tastes better that way.

I realized as I went home in the cab that night that I was actually expending valuable energy trying to get someone to APPROVE of me. Then I realized something else. Something important.

I just don't give a shit if she approves of me or not. As someone once said to me during the 90-day experiment, "What anyone else thinks about me is none of my business." Meaning -- people are going to hold whatever opinion they want, and I can't do anything about it.

I could be Mother Theresa working the charity circuit and performing miracles of healing, I could have a silhouette of Jesus on the old bacon in my refrigerator, and she would still see me as "The Woman Who Slept With the Married Guy and Is Fooling Around With That Tall Guy Who Has a Girlfriend."

And that's okay. People will do what they need to do in order to be comfortable in the world. If that includes pigeonholing me, that's okay, too.

But I don't have to be around it. Let's see, I'm going to willingly put myself into situations where there is a person looking down on me or thinking I am "less than." Wow, I don't think so. I realize that the situation brings up so many of my old, old issues going all the way back to grade school and high school -- that there are the Popular Kids, and the Outsiders, and I am an Outsider. The old me sometimes tried to find a way to get the Popular Kids' approval, but ultimately that dog just didn't hunt. All it did was make me feel weird and uncomfortable, and I realized that this situation was bringing up the same discomfort and weirdness in me.

Besides, I don't really enjoy spending people who take themselves soooooo damn seriously. Jesus Christ in a sidecar, isn't life grim enough? We'd better fucking laugh our asses off every chance we get, and that means at ourselves, too.

As Kudra said: "ERLEICHDA!"

However, there is one thing I need to put out there into the universe, to all the other "Dear Janes" out there, who might hear a whisper about "Janeys" like me.

NEWSFLASH: Just because I slept with a married man, or with someone else's boyfriend, that does not mean that I want YOUR husband or boyfriend. In general, they just aren't good looking or interesting enough to fuck.

F vs. EVG

Interesting.

If you stood the two next to each other, from the standpoint of sheer physical attractiveness or even handiness, EVG has a much more outward sexiness and beauty than F. Come on, a chubby Jewish guy from New Jersey versus the smoldering Brooklyn Bad Boy? Should be a shoo-in for EVG to win, right? You'd never look at F and think to yourself, "Hmm. I'll bet he's a really hot lay."

But F was, hands down, the

BEST.
SEX.
EVER.

Just needed to record it for posterity.

Jury's still out on EVG, there hasn't been enough of it to really be able to tell yet. It is certainly, um, plentiful and very, very physical. Let's just say, things are in proportion. Which is a good thing. And he did express to me last week, "I hope you didn't mean it when you said that was just one for the road," so I suppose we'll be doing nekkid explorations again eventually.

"Another Sterling Example of Republican Morality"

Hoisted by their own petard

Just couldn't resist.

What a bunch of fucking hypocrites. All o'yiz.

Snow in April

Could only mean one thing, right?

I've decided to become a Catholic again.

I've decided to get married.

I've decided that George Bush is a good president.

I've decided that Tom DeLay was unfairly hounded out of Congress.

In other words, is hell freezing over?

No Good Quiet Evening At Home Goes Unpunished

Spent a good part of last night at St. Vincent's with J. The knucklehead tried to remove the stone from an avocado with a paring knife. The one I gave him for Christmas, incidentally. He loves it because it is so sharp.

Ummmmm.... I guess a spoon is the right way to get an avocado pit out.

Many hours, a lot of blood lost, a pair of ruined Levi's, one fainting spell (J's, not mine), and 6 stitches later, I got into a taxi with him to take him home.

Me? I got home after 1:00am and I am simply exhausted.

Good thing we are quiet here. Maybe I can catch a snooze midday. Haha.

The Song is Over but the Malady Lingers On

Over the weekend, I found myself thinking about F. No particular thought, just randomly thinking about him -- seeing the Cream ticket still fastened to my refrigerator, as well as the stub from that Yankee game we went to in the fall, remembering the bolt over the bridge in the Corvette. Sort of like looking through a box of old pictures and smiling at the memories. Monday morning as I came out of the subway, we spotted each other from a half block away, and I felt a huge smile spread across my face, and saw his answering smile in return. It was as if I had never said those terrible things to him and there was never any friction between us.

Last night, at the start of this particularly slow-starting week, I was marking time to 6:00. (You know, it occurs to me, out of my circle of friends, I may be the only one who has actually marked time, in a marching sense of the word.) At about 5:05 my IM pinger pings.

"Janey? U Still There? It's F. Can u come down and talk?"

Now, back in the old days, that would have meant, "Hey, come on down, let's have sex!" But that's so 2005, isn't it?

He really must have wanted to just talk.

So I head on down there at 5:30 -- the gates are down, and I get a little nervous. Am I going to have to fend off advances? But I forge on in anyway.

We start to talk.

And it is good.

Seems he's confused because after the shit I wrote about him in that last, blistering email, I've started thawing out, and have been nice. This is confusing to him. Apparently he needs to classify people as "good" or "bad" -- and because I said mean things, I needed to be "bad." Then I was nice again and he started to feel I was "good." He was highly confused.

After apologizing -- telling him I was deeply sorry for saying mean things to him in the email -- I tried to explain that the world isn't black and white. That in fact, I am not black and white. I'm every shade and gradation of gray, plus CMYK in between. It's what makes me me.

At any rate, it was a really nice conversation, fences were mended. We talked about the nature of love. He doesn't believe that it exists. I do, but not in the same sense that most people do. I am working on the big project of the year. Love Without Attachment.

He tells me that when we were together, it didn't feel as if he was cheating.

I have to give him credit. When someone like me takes a few more steps down the path, it's not such a big deal. When a cripple gets up and walks just one step, it's nothing short of a miracle. For him to be mad at someone (me), but still reach out and want to discuss the situation like an adult, it is a miracle. And you know what? I'm going to pat myself on the back for being the person around whom he feels it is safe enough to make that gesture.

He started reminiscing about "us." Together. And....

It was inevitable. He had to ask. Actually, it was more of a suggestion. As in, "We should...."

All I could do was shake my head and say, "No. It won't happen. Ever again." I did thank him for asking.

He was giving me that look. Not the hot, lustful, wanting look. But the lurrrve look, all soft eyes and sweet smiles.

I figured I'd better get the hell out while my virtue was still intact. I stood up.

"Hug?" I said. And we hugged. And then we kissed for a long time. When we broke apart, he buried his face in my neck and said, "No one kisses like you."

As we walked out the door, he turned to me and said, "That was the best kiss I've had since the last time you kissed me."

And that statement, my friends, is what defines a tragic life.

Did I Save Any Daylight?

Well, I don't know, but it was the first time all year the weather has been fair enough for me to ride my bike.

Got myself up to the park and did a couple of loops on a beautiful, beautiful Sunday.

26.35 miles. My legs actually felt like they had another 20 miles in them, but I need to get my Spidey-senses back first so I don't get creamed by some road-rage idiot in a car who thinks it's humorous to drive as close to the white line as possible when they see a cyclist.

Generally, these people are in SUVs.

Is there a direct correlation between the size of the SUV and the size of the Road Rage? Maybe the size of the SUV and the size of the Road Rage are INversely proportional to the size of the penis.