I'm Not Dead Yet

I haven't died or had anything really bad happen to me.

I just had had a tiny little piece of my heart carved out a few minutes ago after ten wonderful days of vacation and I will be back at work today.

Hopefully I'll be blogging full-speed-ahead again soon.

Right now, I need to pry the Mad Kitty from my lap, as she saw suitcases being packed this morning and went into full-on panicky clinging mode with all its attendant meowing and running from room to room and huge black accusatory eyes. She seems calmer now that she's realized it wasn't my luggage being packed, but she has planted herself on my lap as if she's about to sprout roots.

Right now, having watched my person get into a car that took him away from me to LaGuardia, where the good people at United Airlines will carry him even farther away, I'm too sad to cry.

I did my crying on and off yesterday as I watched our last hours trickle away, then felt the last precious ones were stolen from me, which made me jump up and down shouting, "Unfair! Unfair! Unfair!"

As the good Mr. Vonnegut said, so it goes.

More often than not, tears are futile and pointless anyway. And you can stand there jumping up and down all you want, and it doesn't make any difference in the end.

And sometimes you just have to realize that even though something is clearly huge and important to you at the moment, someone else will see something else as huger and more important in the same moment. And you just have to live with that. It's people, right? No one is going to see everything exactly as you do, and they are going to make the choices that seem right for them at the time. Agree to disagree.

I realize I'm sounding cryptic here, so I'm just gonna go hop in the shower where I can cry and pretend my tears are just more water from the tap.

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.