The Great Date Debate

The Dood and I are having a good-natured debate about something.
See, I have many male friends, with whom I share completely platonic relationships. I don't want to sleep with them, and presumably, given the length of some of these friendships (I can come up with one that goes back to 1988 and one that goes back to 1992), they don't want to sleep with me.
Every now and then, I'll get together with these male friends for cocktails or dinner, and a few laughs. Most of the time, we go Dutch, unless I am so dirt-po' that I announce, "I'm broke, you're payin'," and then I choose an appropriately divey joint with $4 draft beers and cheap bar snacks (One memorable drunken night at the Oyster Bar excepted).
Tonight, for instance, I'm having dinner with my friend Michael.
We met in 2002, when I worked for the enviro-printing company that was owned by the recycled paper company. Michael and I became friends almost immediately, because we had similar taste in music and the same slightly askew sense of humor, only his delivery is much better. Acerbic, witty. He never broadcasts a joke, he assumes you'll get it. Michael is one of a very few people who can walk down the street with me and in an instant have me doubled over with laughter, screaming "Stop! Please! You're gonna make me wet my pants!" Trust me, this is a gift. (He once also, to great comic effect, called me on my birthday and played the birthday song -- on a trombone. Maybe you had to be there, but it was comedy gold.)
So Michael moved way the hell upstate, and only gets into the city occasionally on business. Now and then we'll hang out and have a cocktail or two. I've been upstate to visit him and his wife, whom I adore. They are one of those clearly in-love couples you want to emulate one minute and throw old food at the next. They're that cute.
So anyway, I'm on my way over to Alphabet City to meet Michael for burgers and beers at Royale. Got me a hankerin' for a Bacon Royale with blue cheese and some onion rings. Yum.
Dood keeps referring to this as a "date."
Feeling like Schwarzenegger, I keep saying, "It's not a date!"
So we're on the phone earlier and Dood's brother is in the room, and he opens the question to the floor: Is Aileen going on a date?
(NO)
Well, Brother of Dood weighs in: where he comes from, that's a date.
Now it's two against one, and I know it's not a date, Michael knows it's not a date, but two Southern boys think it's a date (which leads me to ask, in an aside, you guys make your dates pay for their own meals? Y'all must not be gettin' laid much, or if y'are, Southern girls are big sluts. Subject for a different debate...)
Dood holds the WHMS opinion that all men, no matter what, "pretty much want to nail" any woman they're friends with. He is quick to recuse himself from the category of "all men." His brother backed him up in this claim, which of course he would do, hello, he's his BROTHER, and he was talking to me. Duh. That's a Mafia vouch if ever I heard one, "yeah, he's a friend of ours."
I disagree. To reiterate, I'm friends with lots of men, and all of them platonically.
So I ask you, my bloggy friends, is this a date?
(There are no wrong answers, but I'm interested in knowing what you all think.)

Wordless Wednesday

Next Year On My Birthday

Next year on my birthday remind me to tell you
about the time I picked up
the Daily News and the headline read
No Bad News Today.

Next year on my birthday remind me to tell you
how I found a painting signed "Vincent" in the attic
and sold it to a passing junk dealer
for the price of a meal.

Next year on my birthday remind me to tell you
about the 2am I stood on a street corner
and watched an elephant appear from a hole in the river,
give me the wisdom in one sad eye,
then lift me onto her back.

How I waved at the gaping crowd
as we paraded west,
disappearing into a garden.

Next year on my birthday remind me to tell you
about the time I spent the last dollar in my wallet
and bought the winning lottery ticket,
and on my way to collect the winnings
the wind snatched it from my hands.

I watched it blow away and laughed
with the taste of ashes in my mouth
and didn't chase it.

Parable, Allegory, Metaphor for Life, Whatever...

So I get into the office early today, and as I walk down the hall toward my office, I smell the really good smells of French toast and home fries.

My coworker, who always gets in at about 7:30, is sitting at her desk, eating a country breakfast.

I pop in, to do the usual "how was your weekend" rundown, but the entire time, she's sitting there eating this delicious-smelling challah French toast.

In my hand, I've got my little plastic bag from the fruit man on 59th and Park, with its virtuous bananas, granny Smiths, and a bag of baby carrots, which I eat mainly for the chewing sensation than anything else.

"Well," I finally say, "I'm going to go and resentfully eat oatmeal for breakfast."

We all laughed then, but I will admit to being resentful about eating healthy, good-for-your-heart oatmeal, while she sat there plugging wads of egg-fried bread into her piehole.

Sometimes I get tired of eating the things that are "good for me" all the fucking time. You know what? I want to stuff my face with challah French toast on a Monday morning, too!

I'm generally full of resentment right now, so much so that I can barely speak, in fact, knowing that if I do start to speak what will come out will be a howl of fury and rage, and I have to remind myself that yes, my coworker eats French toast for breakfast and Ranch 1 for lunch whenever she wants, but she's also (literally) 100 pounds overweight, is plagued by chronic ailments and pain, and gets "I have to leave early" sick at least twice a month, and would I trade places with her?

Not in one second, not for a million dollars.

But I still wonder sometimes what must it be like to wake up and think, yeah, today, like yesterday, and the day before, I'm gonna eat French toast and Ranch 1.

Ready to Roll

In complete avoidance of doing something I needed to do immediately (find my passport, do my laundry, cut my own bangs in a fit of self-mutilation, minister tenderly to my own crouched-under-the-you-know-what self), I instead ministered tenderly to my neglected bicycle last night.

I rolled little Loki out of the corner, carefully wiped her down with a damp cloth moistened with a gentle, organic cleanser (no, you don't wipe down a bike with paper towels, of course not! You'll scratch the paint!), including every spoke on both wheels.

I carefully inflated her long-flat tires, to see if she could take a full 110lbs of air pressure, which she did -- though we'll see how those old tires hold up once I park my fat ass on her on the trainer, which is also standing patiently by. I'll probably switch out her tubes, as I'm sure the old ones are all dried out and flimsy.

Turned her over onto the handlebars and seat, and carefully picked the wads of dust and cat hair out of the gearset. Ran her through all of her gears, 3 front, 9 back, with careful drops of White Lightning.

Smiled at the happy "zzzzzzzzz" of the wheel spinning when I stopped turning the cranks, though I know that back wheel needs to go into the shop to be trued.  It's never been the same since that day I chased my molester off the Williamsburg Bridge, heedless of those plate covers banging the back end of the bike around. I still hold out hope that he rode his bike into traffic and got creamed by a truck or something.

Tonight -- adjusting the clips on my new Diadoras and seeing if the elastic is completely dead on all my bike shorts.

Putting her on the trainer, and pretending to go really, really fast down that big stretch of 9W going into Nyack.

Who wants to ride with me next spring? I need quads of steel and a really great glove tan.

Saturday Oldies

I started the day watching "It Might Get Loud," on DVD. I know, you're probably asking yourself, "Really? She's talking about that fucking movie AGAIN?" What can I say? It gave me a genuine appreciation for Jack White, not to mention the DVD has some truly great "Deleted Scenes" (Jimmy Page playing acoustic! JP, Edge and Jack White jamming on "Kashmir!") I'm totally in love with Jimmy Page -- he's a total rock god who's retained all of his hotness and then some. Wowsa. Hubba hubba.

I then started a bile-filled post about 25-year-old shitheads, then realized that perhaps my worldview was temporarily tainted by riding the L train out of and into Williamsburg on a Saturday, so I've shelved those thousand words for the time being -- until the next time some 25-year-old shithead pisses me off by whining about how he showed up on time for work three whole days this week and not one person threw a parade.

Instead, I want to talk about what a nice afternoon I had going to see "Raging Bull" at the Film Forum with my friend Judy, then we strolled over to Sixth Avenue on this unseasonably balmy night because neither of us had eaten all day and we were dying of hunger. As luck would have it, we got to Da Silvano just before the mad dinner rush and were seated immediately. We had to run a small gauntlet of paparazzi (that's twice this week for me, the first being outside my office, where some Jim Carrey movie is being filmed), but that was okay, I didn't care, as long as they sat us and dropped a plate of bread in front of me before I started chewing on my own fingertips for sustenance. I just wanted a plate of pasta.

We shared an artichoke (YUM) and had arugula con parmeggiano salads, so we both picked at our tagliatelle when it arrived. Somehow we managed to find room for the panna cotta, which as far as I can see, is a far superior desert than tiramisu. (I'm a complete snot when it comes to tiramisu, most you find is just terrible).

One of the things I like about Da Silvano is that their menu says, in big bold letters, "No cheese served on seafood, at any time." They might as well put a sign out front that says, "We are not the Olive Garden, you American rubes."

It's also about food. The service is fast, brusque, and efficient. None of this, "I'm Trevor and I'll be your server tonight," crap. They move ya in, and move ya out. Romantic it's not. Delicious, it is.

Plus, since Judy and I ordered the same thing, then picked at our entrees, I have enough leftover for two meals.

Now I'm home, early on a Saturday night, drinking a Guinness, and listening to 80's music.

How can I possibly end such a day on any kind of sour note when I've got Scritti Politti singing "Perfect Way," with Real Life's "Send Me An Angel," right behind it!

I mean, honestly. What's to complain about?

My Tired Old Eyes

Guys, even I couldn't read my own bloggy putrescence, so I changed my font to something that resembles actual letters, formed into words, formed into sentences, formed into paragraphs.

Occasionally, a thought will show up, too.

Randomalia: 11/11/10

It's 11/11, make a wish!

1) Milano is a go! Yay! Now, to find mia pasaporte (Ok. That may not actually be Italian, but it sounds good when you say it out loud.) Honestly, what I'm most excited about is not the shopping but the eating. I hear those Italians do know how to eat. Buon viaggio!

2) I'm reading a book called "New York," by Edward Rutherfurd. Eight hundred-some pages of fiction, moderately larded with the history of my town.

You know the style -- you have your main characters, fictional, of course, and as the author tells their story, Very Large Historical Figures appear on the sidelines to have some effect on moving the story along. It's a cheap plot device when used badly, but some authors do it better than others. I'm thinking of E.L. Doctorow in "Billy Bathgate," or James Michener in his epic period. It's a way to get your history spoon-fed to you without having to lie back and think of England.

This book is moderately engaging. I say "moderately" because I picked it up at JFK in early October when I needed something to occupy me on one of my flights to LA, then made it about ten pages in before sacking out for the rest of the trip. Ever since then, I've been half-heartedly reading it, a few pages here, a few pages there, sort of "feh" about the whole thing.

It's okay. (Talk about damned with faint praise. That's a "she has a great personality" book review if ever I heard one) It's not the worst book I've ever read, but it's not great, either, not by a long shot. There's nothing about it that makes me long for it, nothing that makes me wake up as if I'd been in a dream, having passed my subway stop, nothing that makes me stay up all night reading until I'm bleary-eyed, then fall asleep with my cheek on its open pages and reach for it in the morning like a new lover.

It's just "feh."

A month and a half down the line and I'm only 300 pages into this monster. And now the new Jonathan Franzen is sitting on my kitchen table, all hardcovered and alluring and giving me a wolf-whistle every time I walk by.

Someone told me this morning to look at the Franzen like dessert, and the Rutherfurd as the pile of Brussels sprouts I have to eat before I can eat my cake and ice cream. Really? Can't I just point at the Brussels sprouts and say, "But I'm full -- of THIS," then gesture at the cake and say, "I have plenty of room -- for THIS?"

What in the world is a girl supposed to do? I'm a grown-up, I can eat dessert first if I want, can't I?

3) I have no idea what is going on in a single television show that's on right now. This makes me a social liability in those ten minutes that get wasted at the beginning and end of every meeting talking about things like Justin Bieber's hair, those damned "Twilight" books and what happened on "Glee."

4) I know, I know, I've railed against white hosiery, but I just saw a tiny Asian girl wearing them and it worked. Two things -- no, four -- made it work for her. First, her Cyd Charisse stems. Most of the girls you usually see wearing white stockings have legs like eggplants turned on end. Second, she was wearing the most adorable pair of taupe suede shoes with a just-so chunky four-inch heel. Third, her cream-colored tam was tilted at just the right perky angle. And fourth, her very affectionate boyfriend was togged out in a fantastic Andre 3000-preppie getup, right up to his plaid newsboy cap. So the lesson here is, you *can* get away with a Glamour Don't if a) you're an adorable Asian girl with b) great gams, c) super-cute footwear, and d) an equally super-cute Romany Malco-looking boyfriend wearing an outfit as cute as yours. See how simple it is to have style? You can do it in four easy steps!

5) I've got the GC arriving next Sunday! Super-hooray with a stag leap and a triple axel-triple loop combination! I'm busy making shopping lists and plans, and appointments for secret girl stuff before he arrives. I'm not sure yet what we will do for the ten days of his visit, but I think it may be imperative for us to partake of some herbal enjoyment on Thanksgiving morning and go see 50-foot Bart Simpson skateboard down Broadway.

6) I went to see my pals at SUNY Optometric this week for an eye exam and to use up some more of my Flexible Spending Account ("We hold your money hostage, and if you don't use it, we get to keep it!"), of which I had spent a whopping 44 bucks so far this year (couple of prescriptions, I think for that uveitis thing with my eyeball). Well, it's official now -- I'm old. My new lenses for my glasses -- and this is just the lenses, folks, being put into my existing frames (which cost a pretty penny themselves) -- ended up being PROGRESSIVES (those are fancy reading glasses, crapola) and costing 350 dollars! Yipes! So glad I love my frames, because that about wiped out my FSA, leaving me with 67-some dollars to spend by the end of the year. I think a prescription for Xanax to help me get over the shock of spending nearly four hundred bucks on EYEGLASS LENSES might be in order with that last bit of money.

Well, I'm home now, my pasta is done al dente, and I've got on my eatin' shorts, so I'll stop here.

Ciao, y'all!

Wordless Wednesday

Ciao, Bello!

I am going to Italy in December -- Milano during Christmas week. For work. Sounds like a dream job, right?

So why am I so not very excited?

1) I don't know where my expired passport is. I remember finding it, and my birth certificate a couple of years ago, and putting both in a "safe" place. Apparently, they are now both safe from me.

2) Why is my passport expired, you ask? Because I've never really traveled out of the country, other than vacations to Bermuda, Puerto Rico (doesn't count as leaving the country -- it barely counts as leaving New York) and Canada (again, doesn't really count if you don't leave the land mass you were born on). I've always approached international travel from an "I've been to New York City, why would I want to go anywhere else?" perspective, and I'm vaguely ashamed that I am 46 years old and I haven't BEEN anywhere. Not even England or Ireland, where they speak a reasonable facsimile of English as I know it. Hey, I've fucked people from England and Ireland, does that count?

3) I'm so fucking broke all the time, that big travel is just not in my budget now or in the forseeable future. And the prospect of a free trip to Italy should excite me, but the idea that I will be in Milan without possessing an American Express card just leaves me ineffably glum.

4) I don't speak Italian, and I will be expected to communicate important information regarding my job, to Italians. Here's the sum total of what I know how to say in Italian besides "ciao!"

"Chi e quel ragazzo?"

This is a cute party trick when hanging out with my gay Italian friend from Bensonhurst, or if I happened to be single, but for navigating my way through an airport or taxi queue, or checking into a hotel, it's no great shakes and may in fact cause me no end of agita. Wait, there's another Italian word that I know! Agita!

5) I'm secretly terrified that al Qaeda will choose Christmas week to make a statement and blow up an international transoceanic flight, and that the only thing that will be recovered of my earthly remains will be a one-quart Ziploc bag full of hotel-sized Aveda shampoo bottles.

6) Christmas? I gotta travel overseas at Christmas? Then I sort of shrug my shoulders and tell myself, "Oh, well, it's not like I have anything special planned for Christmas," and that makes me sad, like I'm some spinster with a cat and a family who makes her crazy and no parents to call on Christmas Day anymore.

* * * * * * * * * *

And in the meantime, I'm struggling, my bloggy pals, to navigate the unfamiliar shoreline of "being in a relationship," and I swear to God I am having a really hard time with it. Am I just too set in my ways?

I am having boundary issues, as I believe there should be some boundaries, and places that we don't need to go, but this seems to be counter to a commitment made to "openness and honesty and truth."

See, I feel that beyond OH&T, there's this weird no-man's land called, "More Information Than I Wanted or Needed." That boundary is porous, I know, which means it needs to be navigated with extreme care and delicacy. When I express any discomfort with a breach of that emotional DMZ, I then start to feel like a) a huge prude, b) a huge bitch, or worst of all c) some kind pf crazy person when I openly, and honestly, and truthfully say what is on my mind, which may entail some awful Bad Thought, which I immediately assume must mean I'm a Bad Person, and really, people, how could anyone possibly love anyone as awful as me?

Look, I'm a handful, I know, and I've reached a point in my life where I have no interest in playing games, and I really don't have time to be bullshit, but Christ Alfuckingmighty, sometimes the "not bullshit" Aileen is someone even I can't stand to be around.

Plus, someone told me today, in words said out loud, to "shut up," and it hurt my feelings, and now I'm looking around in the shed for a crowbar or a Hurst Tool because as soon as I heard it, something inside me slammed shut with a nearly audible "clang" and I'm turtling a little bit.

Jesus, how do people do this? I'm smart, and yet I can't seem to stop fucking up or holding on the tiller of this boat while navigating it straight onto the rocks.

Because I Loves Me Some Catholic Humor

Random Note Found on My Blackberry

Jotted in the Notes on 6/18/10, after awakening from a nap:

Dream Nap 6/18

I am in CA on business and someone whom I know, but don't know, is there as well (you know how that is in dreams. In the dream you know the person, but in real life you don't know him).

I am checked into a hotel I don't recognize. One of those older hotels that has been remodeled and expanded. I am in the older, lower more motel-like part, the kind with outdoor entrances. Room 202. He has a room in the newer wing, room 502. I can see the new wing from the door of my room, it is in the style of California Spanish. Adobe with a tiled roof.

I need to leave my room for something, and when I return I realize that I have left the door wide open with all of my belongings exposed. My handbag is open on the bed, laptop on a table. Strangely, nothing is touched. The room is exactly as I left it.

The red message light on the phone is blinking, and when I retrieve my voice mail there is just one message. A male voice, and I know it is the voice of the man I know is there. "I am here. I can see into your room from mine." I don't feel afraid or threatened because I recognize his voice. And I already knew what room he was in.

Dream shift and I am sitting in a chair. I know I am still somewhere in this hotel. There is a man standing behind me. It is the man from room 502. His hands are on my shoulders and tangled in my hair and occasionally, around my neck. Again, I am not afraid. Though I try to turn around to look at him, his hands stop me.

"Wait." he says. "Wait. Not yet."

I settle back in the chair, bow my head, and let him rub my neck.

Wordless Wednesday

Tired to Death, Tired of Death, Day of the Dead

Maybe what I need isn't Noble Silence but a couple of days under the porch. Or a night on the jar with some friends.

I know, I know, it's the Day of the Dead, All Saints' Day, blah, blah, blah. I'm supposed to reckon with the dead and tell 'em what's going on, and leave cookies and milk by the Christmas tree for them, oh wait, am I getting my holidays mixed up? Or is this the day when those guys roll back the stone in front of the tomb after three days and yank out a disgruntled rodent? Maybe it's the one where we celebrate those people fleeing religious persecution in England because they brought smallpox-riddled blankets to wipe out indigenous peoples...

Can't seem to keep my bank holidays straight...

Even though today's supposed to be el dia de los muertos, honestly, I'm tired of death. Really, really tired of it.

Just got off a the phone with my sister, who was hysterical because she had to have another one of her cats put to sleep today. This one was really hard for her because he was her late husband's cat, and really her last tie to him. Okay, he was probably the most evil cat you've ever met (his name was Chaos), but still.

All these deaths -- pets, parents, relationships...it just makes me tired. I think if I went home tonight and found one of my plants dead I'd probably kill myself.

All I can say, and I'll say this again, if I'm ever at the point where I'm blind, deaf, and incontinent, make sure there's a needle for me.  NO EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES. There, it's in writing, these are my words, and that's the fact, Jack.

So here's my Day of the Dead shout-out to my Dads:

Dear Dad:


Hope you're doing okay wherever you are, and that there is lots of cold beer and good sprint car racing there. Were you able to take up smoking again? I know you really missed your Pall Malls, even after you had the quintuple bypass and had to quit.


I still miss our phone calls on Sunday morning after all the talk shows. Just in case you don't have cable wherever you are, we did dodge a huge bullet with that moron from Alaska. And don't get me started on the Teabaggers.


Things are pretty good for me right now. Got promoted at work, thought you'd like to hear about that. And oh, I met a guy, and didn't have to go halfway around the globe to do it, like some other sisters of mine I won't mention.  You'd like him. I sure do. A whole lot.


Well, that's all I have for ya, Dad. Hope Mum found you, I know she was always asking where you were after you left. She would even make me turn on the outside lights for you so you would be able to find your way up the driveway. "Where's my danna-san?" she would ask. "He should be home by now."


I'll bet you guys are sitting in some 70's fake-wood paneled room together right now, and she just made you one of those little plates of pepperoni and cheese for a snack, just like you used to like. Am I right?


Hey, Dad? If you're still anywhere around, knock something over or slam a door or something, okay? Your baby girl really misses you.


Love,
AiAi