Post-Christmas, Pre-Newyears' Rush...

OK, so I lied. I knew I’d be busier than a shit-house rat last week, and was still stupid enough to promise daily posts. Let’s just say that the Christmas holiday was most interesting! I stayed with my little sister and her husband, drank a great deal with my parents, friends, and a few people I don’t like so much. I visited so many folks, and had a great time. Unfortunately, I also spent a huge sum of money on presents and such, but that wasn’t so terribly important this time through. I’m happier, and once more giddy at the touch of O., who did something so nice to me last night that I’m flushed thinking about it, now.
The driving was, as expected, atrocious. However, I timed it better this year, and didn’t have to do anything behind the wheel after the hour of 11 PM, EST. That was nice, for a change. I cooked up a storm, and got to show Mom the virtues of using the right knife for the right job. Also, in getting to know my German big-bellied monster of a knife, I once more fell in love. If they weren’t so sharp, I’d consider a tryst… Fortunately for Orpheus, cold steel makes a rather indifferently painful lover. I’m working today, mostly just to get my paycheck, and then it’s four more days off, this time with no calls on my time that don’t involve nudity with O. I like it better that way.
It was so nice to see him again when I came home last night. It was, in fact, a major relief. I never realized the level of my addiction to something so stupid as his smell, not to mention his touch, his heat, being able to hear his heartbeat. Last night was wonderful, and I get him to myself this weekend, too. Huzzah for me! I get to cook, f@#$, and snuggle all weekend long!!! Damn, that’s decadent. Anyway, I’m back now, so start screaming if you don’t hear from me enough. I could use the goosing.

Happy Holidays, Beyotches....

Merry Fucking Christmas!!!
I know that I promised daily updates, but home, as always, has proven more than adequate at distracting me from various important things. Today was wondrous. It all started with Mom making a lovely egg-ey breakfast... A breakfast that began with bacon and coffee, and ended with yum. My little sister, her husband and I went shopping, where I found both of them presents... Of course, I called them from the back of Barnes and Noble, told them to vacate the register area, then called them from the parking lot and said that I was absconding with their presents. Rather fun, all told. Then, I went to see a great old friend from HS, and visited with his mother, sister, and family for a few hours. After 3, I went home, got dressed up, and we went to the supper club for dinner. I dearly love fillet. Note to foodies... When you have a steak with a hollandaise sauce, you needn't get a white wine to match... Rather, go with a fruity, young Zin. You'll be happy that you did.
We opened our presents this evening, as the “youths” (my sister and her husband,) must leave tomorrow morning for Detroit. Everyone loved the gifts I gave them, and I came away with a lovely haul... The santoku knife I mentioned after Thanksgiving (which I brought back with me so I wouldn't have to deal with Mom's dull-ass knives), and an 8” Wusthof Classic Ikon Chef's knife, which is freakishly beautiful. It makes me very, very horny. I was also given a beautiful single-serving double-walled Bodum press. One that I can dump hot water and grounds into before I leave in the morning, and get hot coffee out of by the time I get to work. You know, the kind of coffee a human being would actually want to drink... A.K.A, not the kind of coffee that's already available at work.
This year, I received only tools. Things that inspire, things that can help to make me a better cook, a better musical thinker (A Hesperion XXI CD... It could also be used to make me a less bored cook... You decide which appellation you like better), a better person. For the first time in a long while, I think that I get Christmas. I gave good gifts, which made me happy. I did it to make others happy, and happiness came back... Maybe I'm trying to suck the joy out of the Solstice, but that's something. And, really, given the Germanized Paganism that Christmas (which, incidentally, SHOULDN'T be any more important than Hanukkah religiously speaking,) represents, that's quite a lot to learn. When are the fucking Fundies going to realize that Easter's where it's really at?
Where's the stinkin' war on the Goddamn Easter Bunny? Ignorant shits...

Orpheo

Last night, Orpheus sent me an e-card, seemingly from the underworld… It was a plea to come see him early, as he was feeling down in the dumps, and wanted our last night together before going home to be special. Naturally, I dropped everything… Well, not really, but I did accelerate my plans a good deal. Upon my arrival, I let him know we’d be going out to dinner, my treat, and gave him a nice rub-down to banish the ache from his legs. When he, suffering from a malaise born of “big-boy hours,” couldn’t settle on what he wanted for dinner and then kept shooting down my suggestions as to venue, I got a little cross but held my tongue. Eventually, O. suggested that we just hit the pavement, and simply end up somewhere. Fortunately, I talked him into the Tornado Room, which is a grown-up bar we frequent, and that is attached to a delightful steakhouse offering some of the only truly great eats in town. I lured him in, promising we could eat on the cheap on the bar side. He’s kind of uncomfortable with expensive, fancy cuisine unless I’m cooking it… Fortunately, they don’t serve the late-night, bar-food burger menu until after ten, though I did make a concession, and we took dinner in the bar.
We each had a beautiful dish, plenty to drink, and oysters to help the mood. It was a wonderful time, kind of an impromptu and early Christmas present. When we went back to O’s place, and he gave me the gift I’ve been waiting for so long. He finally told me that he loves me. I cried a little, and then things proceeded in the natural manner. I don’t get to see him for a week, but he’s promised to call me tonight when he gets home. Tomorrow, I’ll call him when I get to Michigan, and we’ll talk. My head is so full, right now, and my heart is content. I love him, and I can’t think of a better thing to take home with me for Christmas than the knowledge that he loves me, too. I’m such an emotional schoolgirl at the moment! Anyway, I very much hope that your holiday is as wonderful as mine is shaping up to be. I’ll write again, soon, regarding the virtues of a great kitchen knife, amongst other things.

Orpheus is SO dreamy...

Today, I woke up a little early. I just laid still in the darkness, and listened to Orpheus breathe (damn late-night coffee binges). Eventually, he woke as well, and took the pillow out from between us. Since he succumbs to unconsciousness far later than I ever could on weekdays, he’ll usually watch movies on his laptop whilst I snore away for a couple hours. This sometimes makes it necessary to employ novel strategies to keep my unconscious form from latching on with all claws and pirating his body heat while he attempts to watch ‘The Bourne…’ well, the Bourne-whatever we’re up to at this point, for instance. When he took the pillow away, O. was the one to snuggle up to me. I heard his heart beat slow and steady. I smelled his awful morning breath, and just felt inexplicably good. We napped for a bit, in each others’ arms. After the alarm rang, after my shower, I came back to kiss him goodbye and wish him a good day, and saw something I hadn’t before seen reflected back at me in his eyes, accompanied by a tired little smile. He makes me feel so… Satisfied. Just full enough, so to speak. Motivated to please, and search out things that will satisfy him. He’s a special guy, and I’m a lucky one. Now, watch him dump me over Christmas! It’s the only possible outcome after such blatant (literary?) mooning. ;-)

Ding Dong Merrily On High…

Somewhere, bells are ringing. Elsewhere, people singing. Last night, at O’s company holiday party, things were more or less OK. First off, he works for a well-funded non-profit with an employment roll chock-full of low-paid liberal arts grads. This means that his co-workers are, to a one, well-dressed, pretty hot, excellent conversationalists, and destitute. When put in the mix, as low-level functionaries amongst board members and a large number of local luminaries in the arts, they mostly feel out of place… Orpheus himself was uncomfortable at the party until a few of his direct colleagues showed up. I, on the other hand, am not part of that organizational hierarchy, so got to mix as I pleased. The director has excellent taste in beer, and the food was to die for. There was excellent brisket (I’m very glad that O. didn’t tell me that we had the option to bring something… I’ve been really into pork, lately, and the party was thrown in a pork-hostile household. Talk about an embarrassing situation averted), and even better desserts. I ended up speaking to a couple older local artists who probably would’ve invited me out back to smoke something funny if we hadn’t been at this particular function. After they left to drive home (a farm over an hour north of Madison), I joined in conversation with O.
We had a lot of fun just kibitzing! Aside from the normal fun banter, one of his co-workers is an unbelievably hot blonde, who is married to an equally drool-inducing carpenter. They like quirky watches. Orpheus and I joked for a good hour after we left about how I could have her if he could have the husband… I said I wanted them both, he countered regarding the unfairness of that situation, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera… Good verbal foreplay, apparently. After O’s day, spent at my place (Monday is his organization’s Sunday… They don’t open,) in the company of lesbians, I’m surprised that he wanted to do anything along those lines at all. Terra Firma and her GF got noisy in the living room over lunch, according to Orpheus. It left him quivering under the covers, clutching my all-too-willing cat, the shameless little feline slut. When I got home from work and proceeded to getis eyes still looked a bit glazed, as is appropriate for a trauma victim, when I got home to clean up for the party… It was cute. Either way, yesterday was pretty cool.
Hopefully, tonight will be nice, too. We’re going out to say goodbye to A., who I’ve posted about a couple times. She’s done with all her exams, and is graduating. Therefore, she’s moving home to Chicago while job searching. It makes me a little sad that she’ll be leaving, but that’s the way these things go. It’s not like I haven’t been through it before. I’m just rather older, now.
So, that’s about all there is to say today. Nothing new at work. Oh! The color scheme for S.’s wedding won’t be cream and maroon, thank god… Rather it’s to be navy and pink. At least I’m fey enough to wear the color of the leisure classes, and am rather tan in the summer.

Jingle Bells, Batman smells...

Last week was a nightmare. I had training (read: unnecessary reiteration) for the whole week. I had no time to get anything work-related done and, worse yet, no time to blog. To make a long story short, the way we’re being driven is little better than a form of chattel slavery. Dangling a sign reading “Arbeit Macht (FINANCIALLY) Frei” just brings up a bunch of historical stink as far as I’m concerned, both inter- and extra-company. Hell, even intra- is an issue. We just don’t currently do the kind of business that they’re switching us to, historically, and are also caught with our pants down systemically… The technology to support this model isn’t in place, yet. But enough harping, already. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I am not working here much longer. There’s no bloody way. Pray for me, or some such.
On more pleasant notes, Orpheus and I had a fairly good (albeit exhausting,) week, and not involving nearly as much nookie as I’d like. We’re both stressing a bit over what to get for everyone we know for Christmas, and recovering from my awful company holiday party last weekend. I’m getting more and more excited about heading to Michigan on Saturday, where I have a brief respite with my sister and her husband in St. Joseph before proceeding home, and picking up Dad’s Christmas Present for Mom (it’s a complicated, comfy desk chair that can’t exactly be hidden anywhere except my occupied bedroom. Due to accumulated bad vibes from interactions during my teen years, Mom simply won’t enter said space while I’m in residence). I’m planning on doing some serious job searching, experimenting with a few culinary ideas, including a rip-off of the ratatouille from the movie of the same name, and in general relaxing with old friends. I got the news this Sunday that one of my best friends in the world is getting married in July, and I’m to be one of her brides’ men… Well, I’m to be her only brides’ man, really, and that should prove most interesting. I just hope to god I don’t have to wear cream with a maroon vest, like my friend C. did in the same situation a few years ago. I’d never forgive S. for that. Never, ever… So I get to lecture her on this point come Dec. 26th in person.
For his part, Orpheus is actually going home for the first time in a year over Christmas. He doesn’t have a room there, anymore, and it’s unlikely he’ll have much privacy. I hope he doesn’t have a difficult time. This will also be the longest we’ve ever been apart. Good for both of us, I’m sure. There’s been so much ambivalence where he and I are concerned, lately. I love him dearly, and some time to think about us without him clouding my head first-hand, naked and hard will probably be a “good thing,” Martha Stuart style (though not as fascistic). Plus, I’m sure he’ll come home as horned as a rhinoceros, which can’t possibly hurt anyone’s feelings, even if it can wear away at one’s corn hole. I’ll try to weigh in more this week than last, and will DEFINITELY be giving dailies while at home… I won't really have much else to do.

Roasted Pork Loin, Polar Bear Smackdown, Jingle Bells, ETC…

This weekend was long. Wicked-long, even. Not bad in most of its’ parts albeit quite taxing. Orpheus and I hung around his place on Friday, attending BF’s Hanukkah party. Almost everyone there was a pretentious wanna-be politico. I spent much of the evening in the kitchen with O., keeping company with Aphrodite while she cooked… And cooked… And kept on cooking. She made blintzes, potato pancakes, hummus, babaganoush (sp?), and the most LOVELY salmon dip with dill. She also made one of my recipes, a beautiful roasted red pepper dip. Oh, yes, while keeping her company, we also got blitzed. It was a good thing that A., from my post last Tuesday, showed up. Otherwise, we all would’ve been in a right state, Aphrodite included. Orpheus and I left before midnight, and were happier for it. The sleep on Friday night was exemplary.
Saturday, I just couldn’t get out of bed, except to move my car from a metered spot to a safe one. I even went back to bed when O. went to work, only getting up to meet him out for lunch. I then had to move my car AGAIN, as the tire was marked by the hellspawn we call metermaids, which took a highly distressing half-hour. It’s snowed quite a lot here this past week, and since parking is bad even when the white stuff isn’t making a mess of everything, spots one can get into and out of without a trail-rated utility vehicle of some sort are currently at a premium. I then succumbed once more to sleep. I was awake in time for Orpheus’ homecoming, and even washing dishes when he arrived. However, we soon went back in to take another nap and make out a touch. Then it was back to my place to get ready for the annual Christmas party at my place of employment, for which we got a little dolled up, bundled up, and rolled out to Middleton, where the party was being held.
From the start, it was awful. I hadn’t prepared Orpheus for the average age of my coworkers, nor had I informed most of said folks that I have been dating a man. If asked, I was honest, and I told a few people at work without being prompted, but for the most part my department is quite religious and rather conservative (though not rabidly so). I was out to more people in Customer Services, as said department is festooned with really awesome butch lesbians. Unfortunately, only one of these made it on Saturday with her partner, and they sat at another table. I was stuck between two Christian conservative pairs, who nonetheless are Bush-haters, thank God, and who warmed up to O. pretty quickly. Across the table, however, sat one of my favorite coworkers, who is apparently the girlfriend of Satan. He said the most hurtful, hateful things, proving himself a political pariah in the conservative sense. It even got one of our Admin. Accountants John mad, as he started railing on AIDS in Africa. John’s wife is Kenyan, and was right at the table, and was very classy about things, all told… But it was fairly tense for a little while.
After the dueling piano act (one with which I’ve had far too much experience in town already,) got started, everything just slipped downhill. Nobody was drunk, because everyone had to drive, and these guys are NOT good. I mean, they’re ok for dueling piano shows, but that’s not exactly a standard most professionals would try to live up to. Really, for musicians, it’s more of a “could I get drunk enough to say what’s coming out of their mouths comfortably, and still get away with playing that badly?” kind of thing. They were bawdy, far too nasty by far for the audience, and there was a stunned, tense silence while they did their biggest crowd-pleasing numbers. Orpheus and I just got the heck out fairly early, and went to see ‘The Golden Compass.’ It was pretty bad, but only in that Hollywood ruins everything kind of way. Plus, O. absolutely went ape-shit over what he called “POLAR BEAR SMACKDOWN!!!” It was pretty kickin.
Finally, Sunday was pretty cool. I got to do Dungeons and Dragons with my roleplaying group for the first time since just before Thanksgiving. It was nice to get my fix, and it gave Orpheus and I a few hours off to breathe. Then, I proceeded to make the most delicious citrus-marinated pork roast last night. And today, we’re beginning the training process for the new employees here at work, which I’m in on. All in all, I think I’ll be able to be more positive about work today when asked how my day was. Especially since I’m making pork tacos for dinner tonight… Yummy! Hope you all had a pleasant weekend, and please comment! I’m lonely… :-(

'Tis the Season...

A coworker of mine just draws the worst lot, continuously… By worst lot, I mean, WOW (World of Warcraft,) first level bad. She has an extensive family, all very religious, who are heavily prone to accidental deaths, dramatic depression, and suicide, usually while she is on vacation or at crucially important work functions. She is a single mom (admittedly, for a stupid reason, but M. was told that she was as barren as the Gobi by every doctor she’d ever seen up until getting knocked up), and her one (accidental, but sharp as a tack,) son has quite a few health issues. She is the anchor for her crazy family, and through it all, she just keeps going. And going. And going… Like the Energizer Bunny of Religious Forbearance. And now, after rushing her kid, gone cold and blue, to the emergency room yesterday and finding out he has pneumonia, she’s back at work worrying her hind-end off. J., her son, is only 21 months old and has already spent 2 months of that time under 24-hour medical supervision.
To make a long story short, I figured that it would be nice to offer some support. So I e-mailed her this morning, and offered to make a dish that would keep in the fridge and reheat well, or baby sit for one night after Josh gets a little better (I did, wisely, ask for a diaper-changing tutorial first… Mamma didn’t raise no fool). This made me feel an odd sensation that I hadn’t felt in quite some time. I continued the trend upon finding out that another co-worker, L., whose husband is a deadbeat per Echo (another co-worker, so named due to her propensity for liberally spreading around the most obscenely detailed gossip), lives near me. This is pertinent, as she doesn’t drive herself, and is sometimes left without a ride, waiting out in front of the building after her shift for the aforementioned deadbeat. Since we’ll be getting off at the same time every night, I may occasionally be giving her a ride, as it’s really not an extra burden taking her home. All this do-gooding, though, is making an odd sensation start in my chest. Perhaps the beating of my long-dormant heart, bursting in love for my fellowman? Doubtful, but fun to think of that way.
Finally, there is a seasonal kindness I’ve yet to attend tonight, all for the benefit of poor Aphrodite, who is slaving in the kitchen as I write over BF’s big public Hanukkah party. I’ll be sporting her kind gift of last week and its’ accessory, and may even be helping her knock out the last of the cooking she’s been doing all day today to prepare. My work as benefactor is never done… Fortunately, I’ve practically got a promise that O. and I can be each others’ sex slaves after the party is done, ‘cause we haven’t gotten to doink in an entire week. I’ll spare you the details, but it’s likely to be quite messy in a good way. Have a lovely weekend, pets! And please… I was totally being serious asking for gift suggestions. I will love you all so much more if you give me some!

Orpheus is…

My baby is wonderful. He takes care of me as much as he can, and I try hard to give him what he needs. Though I’m better off now than I have been in years, I am still in no position to spoil Orpheus rotten, but he does his best to spoil me in very sweet, free ways. He gets me books at the library that he thinks I’ll like, and recommends reads, as well as discussing books we’ve both read (which isn’t always fun for him… My background is in policy analysis, so I see the world as a sick social machine that rejects the weak by default. He’s patient, deity bless him). The neatest example of what he’s picked up for me of late is an old CD-ROM based off Julia Child’s PBS series where she cooks with a new chef each episode, as a guest in their kitchen. It’s awesome, as it has recommendations for kitchen tools she couldn’t do without, recommendations for basic knife sets, etc. It’s hot. It makes me wet. Thus, Orpheus has made me hot and wet, and should be rewarded… ;-)
Because of his constant sweet, thoughtful attentions, I’m having a hard time figuring out what to get him for Christmas. I know what he likes, but he seems to take care of getting new music and movies before I have a chance to, and doesn’t like to own any but “important” books. He very rarely re-reads anything, so I guess that makes sense. He has more or less everything he needs, and I just can’t afford most of the stuff he “wants,” more’s the pity. He has given me some ideas, but I’d like to do something special for him that isn’t cooking, or giving him Bluetooth earphones so he can watch movies on his computer while I sleep. I mean, for his birthday I gave him a gig of RAM and did the install… He needed it, and is far happier with his computer than he’s ever been before, but it wasn’t really a “WOW!” gift situation. I want to give O. something that shows that I care for him deeply, like cooking, but less delicious. He does “need” a couple things, but I already gave him his stocking stuffer (decent paring knives… Henckles International with a molded grip. He didn’t have any small task blades that could cut a tomato without half-crushing it), and I don’t want to give him another boring household something.
So, I guess that means I’m soliciting comments, ‘cause I’m lost. Please help me with gift ideas! It should be obvious to you all that I’m a horrible gift-giver by now. Impart your wisdom, I beg of you! Otherwise all will be lost, and I’ll just have to give O. his Bluetooth headset, then cover him in chocolate as the fun part of the gift. Wait…

Short post OR The Taming of my Shrew

Two major changes at work today… First, the new salespeople that were hired on from Customer Service moved their desks this morning, meaning I have to be extra careful when playing on the computer during calls. You’d be surprised how much more effective a salesperson I am when I let my mind wander, and just let these buyers talk. They tip their cards quite quickly, if one lets them. Secondly, we’ve shifted what used to be the start-of-day meeting to 11 AM, so my schedule went all topsy-turvey, what with the information I’m used to having first thing disappearing. Therefore, today has something of a hazy quality, and I keep hearing a cartoon-ish voice in the back of my head, saying “Think but this, and all is mended…” Sadly, I do manage to slumber here quite alot, lately, as we’ve gone from having a set number of hours per week distributed as you like, to a strict 8-5 schedule with a mandatory lunch break. One hour isn’t really enough to drive home and back during rush hour, so I’m either using the tiny, pathetic employee gym, or sleeping in the “recovery room” with the alarm set on my phone. Given my early roust to deal with clearing off the car after ANOTHER five inches of snow, three guesses which it’ll be today? Have a good one, and try yesterday’s recipes… I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Food-based excitement...

Last night, Orpheus and I made dinner for a friend of his whose 22nd birthday fell on last Wednesday. We made her a fish dish that, upon its’ description to her at the bar, had her salivating drunkenly upon the table. One that, incidentally, I’d only come up with in the midst of putting together dinner upon realizing that I had only mahi-mahi to work with, and not tuna. Of O’s friends, she’s probably my favorite. A. is very, very tall, modelesquely skinny, quite pretty, from a good family, and is quite demure (albeit in the calculated sense, which is half the fun). She has all the benefits of good breeding and money with none of the usual social indecencies associated with those happy conditions. A. is lovely dinner company, and loves to cook as well, so I got plenty of compliments and questions on what is to follow: Mahi-Mahi Citroen with Sweet Peppers…

Mahi-Mahi Citroen
Serves 2
• 2 fillets mahi-mahi, skin removed, fresh or thawed
• ½ small sweet onion, sliced very thin
• 1 dry ancho chili pepper, very finely minced
• 1 large clove garlic, finely minced
• Multi-color Peppercorns, fresh ground, to taste
• Juice of 1 small fresh lime
• ½ orange, sliced thin
• 1½ -2 Tbsp. Soy sauce
• 1½ -2 tsp. toasted sesame oil
• (Optional: a thin sliver of fresh ginger, peeled, crushed, and minced)
• ½ Tbsp. butter
• 1-2 oz. Voignier or very dry Gewurztraminer

Directions: Combine all non-fishy ingredients in a gallon-size freezer bag, reserving the butter and wine for later… Use a bag with a good seal, so it doesn’t leak all over creation. Mash up oranges so juice and pulp incorporate. Add fish, and give about 30 minutes to marinate, turning occasionally so juices distribute, at room temperature. When ready, melt butter in pan at medium heat. Throw your whole bag full of goo into hot pan, cook for five minutes uncovered. Flip fillets, add wine to sauce, cook five more minutes. Plate fish. If sauce is still too thin, turn up heat and thicken just slightly. Pour sauce over fish and serve. It’s easy to double the recipe… Just add a touch more of everything, and you’re set.

An excellent side dish for this recipe is my avocado salad, which is just a diced roma tomato, a thickly sliced avocado, half of a very small sweet onion, thinly sliced, with a hint of sesame oil, and about ½ a lime’s worth of juice, with a small sweet pepper sliced thin to garnish. Salt and pepper to taste. It’s like butter. Especially when followed up with a boozy mango-banana shake (rum or vodka, couldn’t be drunker). Hell, I suppose you could even do a couple starter-courses first, and make it a really easy “fancy” meal. Miso soup, followed by a simple lettuce salad w/thin-sliced onion and sweet pepper and Japanese steak-house ginger dressing… Everything is easy to prep before hand, except the avocado salad, which you can compound while cooking the fish, and the miso, which kind of needs to be done just before serving. I didn’t have time for the pre-courses yesterday, nor the inclination, as Aphroditie brought me a lovely present that necessitated a little shopping before I cooked. Most of the time, I’d be pissed with a gift that required accessories, but I was most grateful for this one. It helped things a bit, as I’m still rather mad at her for going back to BF. Overall, it was just a lovely night, and kept getting better after the dishes were done… Hope I can be all smiley-blushy tomorrow when writing, too… For now, try the recipes, and have fun!

Note: I made quite an error yesterday, supposing that Minotaur by Benjamin Tammuz was an inspiration to Phillip Roth in writing his book Operation: Shylock. Though Tammuz did set down his pen and publish in 1989, the language of the original text was Hebrew, a language that I’m pretty sure PR doesn’t actually read for fun (or profit, even). The first English edition didn’t appear until 2005. Please accept my apologies for the mistake!

Winter "Wonderland"

It was a lovely weekend, even when littered liberally with my insecurities. I guessed one of my Christmas presents from Orpheus, and was so touched I nearly cried… Still don’t get it early, though, even for being the biggest bottom in the world (three times in 36 hours. Unheard of for me). Madison had a “winter weather alert,” and so O. and I laid low at my place all weekend. Terra Firma and Sister were also both around, though Sister HAS her own apartment, now (just signed the papers on Friday). This is great news for Orpheus, as he has been more irritated since she moved in with TF and I, but he likes Sister quite a bit more than he likes Terra, so really, the blessing is mixed. S. will continue to co-habitate with us for another week or so, until she takes delivery of her new furniture, poor thing.
So, that’s the generic miscellany of the weekend. The other items to discuss are as follows: 1) Sister, out of curiosity born of freezing to death in the apartment, checked our windows, and found that they open down as well as up, and we had been existing with quarter-inch gaps between the top of the window frame and our upper sashes for several of the cold months. We closed said gaps. Consequently, we’ll be saving a great deal on heat in the future, especially since we ghetto-sealed our windows with plastic on Saturday. 2) The thing that I wouldn’t discuss last week has been cleared by Orpheus for treatment… Before the snow really started coming down on Saturday, we had two prospective three-way auditions which we’d set up last week. Neither went terribly swimmingly, though the second was significantly better than the first. However, the second guy was so physically unattractive (that pic was ARTFULLY photoshopped, let me tell you,) that no amount of mental acrobatics could actually justify sleeping with the poor guy. 3) We took a trip to the grocery store on Sunday, and that was absolutely it. The roads weren’t THAT bad, but people were driving like chickens with their heads cut off. This morning, though, with all the snow half-melting and going to ice, I was stuck in my parking spot, and had to get O. out of bed to help me out. After dumping all of my kitty litter into the wheel-wells created by rocking the car, I was still 30 minutes late for work. After being sick last week, that doesn’t bode terribly well for my future here.
To mop up a couple things I didn’t talk about last week, I finished Operation: Shylock by Phillip Roth, and couldn’t help but get the impression that House of Leaves owed a lot to Roth… At least as a source of ideas that the author of said book just wasn’t good enough to implement in a more outré manner than good ‘ol P.R… In House of Leaves, one of the worst books I’ve ever read, I can now draw a line of literary inspirations from Greek Myths through bad German ‘Tales of the Witching Hour’, with a short stop at Benjamin Tammuz’s Minotaur, doubtless one of Roth’s inspirations, and finally through trashy ‘80’s serial SciFi and nasty drugs to that unmentionable, over-wrought, under-achieving cult “classic” of a novel. That’s all for today, folks. Please leave comments if you like or dislike what you read here. I don’t have stats tools yet, so am anxious to know how everybody likes the page, and even if it’s being read at all.
Many Thanks, ~Aeffchen.

The Fascinating Sleeping Patterns of a Madisonian Faggot…

Let’s just say that, in the last month, I’ve not been sleeping as much or as well as I need to in order to carry on life function. By way of explanation, I should relate that when it starts to get cold out, I begin to require quite a bit more sleep than the average bear. By bear I mean not the hairy/fat/queer variety, as I more closely resemble an otter in that parlance, but a grizzly. I simply bury myself in goose down, sometimes using my cat as a living hot water bottle, and effectively die for a period of time not to exceed 10 hours at a stretch. This sleep is blessedly dream-free, and generally restorative, even if one tends to wake up a tad cranky and less than willing to vacate the feline-fired cocoon of timed oblivion.
With Orpheus around, this all just becomes more difficult. He still has a job where he doesn’t have to get up early every day, and so stays up rather too late. No matter how considerate he may be, I’m always a little put out by his late-night movie watching antics. Plus, as we’re not actually falling asleep at the same time, we’re not on precisely the same circadian rhythm, either. This means that we’re both getting hot and cold at turns, and thus rather negatively interfering with each others’ sleeping patterns. Furthermore, when I’m over at his place, the situation has become quite sticky, indeed. They turned on the heat in his building, over which individual residents have no control. If it’s too hot, moreover, one cannot open the window for relief without risking a fine from management. So, beyond any nocturnal activities which tend to produce copious sweat, O’s room is like a sauna every night. We’re both cold sleepers. This is BAD!
Really, I can’t think of a way to fix things, but have not yet consulted the internets, so we’ll just have to wait and see what else can be dug up for me to worry about next week. Either way, I find the prospect of not spending so much time sharing a bed with O. to be disturbing at least. As odious as his breath becomes in the morning, it’s the sweetest morning breath to my nostrils, to date… This counts for a lot. By the by, wish us luck! I won’t tell you for what without getting his permission to write about it first, but it’s pretty exciting/fun, anyway. Take my word for it, I dare you.

One (or two,) thing(s) I didn’t tell you about...

Yesterday, I gave (an admittedly less than full,) synopsis of my Thanksgiving vacation, with copious notes on Grandma-based musings. What I didn’t tell you about was the flurry of activity which occurred on Sunday night, after Orpheus came home from work. He was called by his father regarding groceries, as the family was in town, dropping Chemie back off at school. When asked if he wanted to go out to dinner, he said no, as he didn’t want to leave me alone at his place with nothing to eat, which garnered me an invite. Now, the reason this was so surprising was that Orpheus’ Father had absolutely no desire to meet me before this point. He’s rather disappointed, you see, that his son is a fine performer on the skin flute, much like my Dad is disappointed in me for being rather an artisan on the same instrument.
Of course, the dinner invite threw me into a tizzy… I ran out to my car to get something more appropriate to wear (in this case, a red sweater. If I were to be martyred, I figured that the only way to go was dramatically, much like Mary, Queen of Scotts), ran back up six flights of stairs to O’s apartment, and ensconced myself firmly in the room of rest. I won’t tell you what I went through to make myself presentable, but it more or less worked. We went out, and had an OK, meal, despite the mariachi duet going on in the background with no audience. Orpheus was checked out pretty blatantly by our waitress’ trainer, which was uncomfortable for him. Our waitress herself sucked donkey parts, and was wearing a simple band-style mood ring, which I at first took to be a stone ring… It was green (nervous,) each and every time she came to the table, which gave me a private chuckle. As for O’s Dad, he was rather… conversationally impenetrable, with a poker face one should expect from a person who audits Credit Unions professionally. He did say it was a pleasure to meet me afterward, though I got the distinct impression he wished I had breasts. Que sera, I say to you, Mr. Proto-Orpheus! Que sera…
LAST night was interesting. I got my payout check for the retirement plan at my last job, which I optioned into a one-time early payout that was taxed to heck and back to pay down some debts. I finally bought a special, expandable in-drawer knife rack so I don’t have to keep my nice knives (I now have around $300.00 worth of cutlery,) sheathed, loose in a drawer. I also bought a honing steel. I did all of this after prepping dinner, and, as an exercise in kitchen mayhem, leaving Orpheus in charge of tending the pot while I went check depositing/shopping. It was, perhaps, a cruel thing to do, but the only way to swim is to just plain swim, and he has no confidence in the kitchen skills he’s built acting as my Sou Chef for the last few months. He did very, very well, incidentally, and I think he’s getting the hang of cooking, though he still prefers that I do it. I just wish he’d actually live up to our agreements and do the dishes when I cook. Grr…

Thanksgiving, thankfully... Ramble, ramble.

Thanksgiving, per the usual formula, was alcohol-doused this year, but decidedly more pleasurable than its’ last iteration. This was the second Thanksgiving without *Grandma N., Dad’s Mom, and that meant several things… 1) Less horrific gas passing around the table, though Dad is trying to pick up the slack. 2) No mumbling of meaning-loaded phrases, such as “I wish I was dead” under the breath while my little sister says grace, or someone attempts to freshen *an unwilling party’s wine. 3) No more really big hugs, because *a certain person isn’t sure she’s ever going to see you again. 4) No more oral family histories, spun out over coffee laced with a near-deadly amount of Chambord and melted dark chocolate (or just whisky… Take it as a granted that these became more interesting as I got older, and more could be revealed to my supposedly tender ears about the fantastic perverts in my family line).
Last year, the first Thanksgiving after Grandma N.’s death, was hosted by my little sister Frog (so named because she’s a French Horn player,) and her husband Komponist (German for composer, as that’s what he is). They took the bull by the horns, as Mom was still sick and in a lot of pain last year around the holidays, and Dad was down about losing his Mother. I had to drive from Madison to Grand Rapids, MI late at night the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and then Dad ferried me over the next morning to Detroit, while I dozed. He tried to tell me a lot of things in the car, and I listened where I could, and responded while I wasn’t sleeping. In any case, it was cathartic for him, but it just made me feel odd. Because I live pretty far away, it just seems like I’ve become the family’s father confessor, sometimes. All of them ended up using me for just that purpose while I was in Michigan last year. This sucked, as it was also a relatively alcohol-free weekend, and I had to sleep on the couch that night.
Holiday-wise, though, this year pretty much rocked. The only bad thing was leaving Orpheus behind in Madison, as Dad doesn’t really want to meet him, yet. He couldn’t go home, because he had to work on Friday, doesn’t have a car, and couldn’t count on a ride from his family. He had a great time, as they don’t really do Thanksgiving dinner at his house, anyway, and he got to have Indian buffet for lunch, and watch movies all day. I was basically on “suicide watch” every couple hours by IM, as I thought he’d get depressed… It was only at the end of the night that I realized that he wasn’t just burying his feelings, and probably thought I was a bit weird for getting all touchy-feely online like that. By that time, I was drunk as a skunk along with everybody else, variously anesthetized by favorite alcohols brown, red, yellow and crystal clear. We watched ‘Ratatouille’, which Dad pretended not to like at first, but drew quite a large number of giggles by the end. Everyone went to bed happy.
The day after, Mom and I went Christmas shopping with Frog, so that we could list our wants/needs/kitchen fetishes on the list. Frog ended up needing a suit, and Mom said that, since she needed it for mid-December, we should get it now. Frog is very body self-conscious, and kept trying on things that looked like they came from either the men’s section at Pimpercrombie and Bitch, or, worse yet, the women’s section… She’s a little bigger now than she used to be, and while she’s not fat, and doesn’t have back-rolls or anything, it’s very distressing to see her in a classic black suit that gives her camel-toe, and bunches under her arms. Mom and I both got rather sick of hearing her bitch, and were kind of cruel by the end of hour three in the supposedly nice mall in GR, which doesn’t even have a bloody Williams-Sonoma. Fortunately, she went home after our disastrous trip, and I got to drink more while making stuffed peppers cubano for Mutti and Vatti.
Finally, the last day I was in town, Saturday, I started off with a trip to the supposedly crappy mall in town (which nonetheless HAS a Williams-Sonoma, thank god), and walked out with one of my Christmas presents, a 17cm. Wuesthof Ikon Classic hollow-ground Santoku that cuts veggies like they’re not even there, and makes large cloves of garlic into microscopic bits about small enough to fall through the gaps between cells in your tongue. This, I convinced the parental units, was absolutely necessary to my cooking RIGHT NOW, and thus as been ensconced in my TERRA FIRMA: DO NOT TOUCH area of the kitchen, so sharp it might just fall through the knife block. I got home at about 9:30 that night after visiting my sister and Komponist at their charming new home in St. Joseph, MI for a few hours. It was the longest Orpheus and I had been apart yet since starting to date almost a year ago. Necessary, perhaps, but it was good to feel his skin against mine again, which happened almost immediately after walking through the door. We spent all of yesterday hanging out, as I had no role-playing. Terra Firma and Sister took excellent care of Maggie, my precious slut-cat. Apparently, Maggie got very lesbi-licious with Sister each and every night I was gone. Odd, considering that she doesn’t generally like the ladies. In any case, she snuggled right up to me last night, and I had Orpheus on the other side, so it was absolutely wonderful. All was right in the world, and I was warm enough… And now I’m at work. Blah. More tomorrow!

Words that Fire Loins...

I’ve been moved at work. It’s only one cubicle over, but it’s smaller, and has to do with the new ownership trying to make us feel like un-special sardines whose only function is to make corporate fat cats money. Overall, I hate it. However, this is work, so I’m bound to. Really, I just want to be someone’s trophy husband. Let’s hope that Orpheus starts writing the kind of poetry he wrote in school, again. It’s one of the many reasons I kept sleeping with him despite the long maturation process of our sex life early in the relationship. Alternately, lotto, ho!

Why is Aphrodite such a slut?!?

Exasperation. Angst. Feelings of helplessness. All of these states of emotional turmoil are constantly in the air when Aphrodite pulls a fast one, bf-wise. I’ve talked a little about Orpheus’ roommate before, even making y’all aware of certain switches she’s made in terms of the particular board she’s waxing of late. Well, said ditzy-do has settled on dumping the gorgeous, chiseled from marble, Greek Kourus of a med student for good ‘ol dumpy, hairy, annoying BF... Again.
I say ‘again’ because this is the third time she’s pulled such a switcheroo on Kourus, who is the sweetest of Midwestern guys. If he’s not brilliant, then at least he knows his talents, sticks by them, and treats others (including A.) with respect… Kourus contrasts starkly with BF, who is a hyped-up Momma’s boy from NYC. He’s fat, furry in a horribly unattractive way, absurd, a burgeoning politico (danger, Will Robinson!), and uses his religion not as a personal aid, but to prop up his credentials in politics. This puts BF only one step ahead of Dobson and his ilk in my book, as at least the schmuck is a Dem. Plus, he constantly attempts to cheat on Aphrodite, and she really can’t trust him anymore.
To put everything in perspective, A. and BF have been dating, on and off, for three years. In that time, according to Aphrodite herself, they haven’t grown much (except sexually,) as a couple. That is, they don’t really fight, and then fix issues. Instead, they get ready to fight, become frustrated with each others’ preliminary arguments, give up, break up, and get back together after a lot of co-dependent whining on both of their parts, or when A. gets sick of double clicking her own mouse. During these lulls in their unworkable romance, Aphrodite samples the available males, sometimes playing a short but sweet dating game. For some time last year, before studying abroad in Prague during Spring semester, she was involved with both BF and Kourus at the same time, without telling either about it. This state was maintained whilst she was overseas, and upon her triumphant return to the Americas, she continued to juggle them sexually for a couple weeks before dumping K. for the second time. This was shortly after I met her. Shortly thereafter, she got sick of negotiating with BF yet again, and entered breakup #8 with the god-forsaken politico.
She’s been back through one more cycle with BF since then, swore it was OVER, and hunted Kourus down the night of his birthday with Orpheus in tow as wingman. They caught him, Aphrodite bagged him, and everybody’s been happy, except for BF, who was texting/calling A. and all her friends (including Orpheus… God, three times a night sometimes,) about how miserable he was, blah, blah, blah. Then, she went over for a serious talk about boundaries with him on Thursday, and I guess he must’ve just tripped and fallen into her or something, because suddenly she’s “going to make it work, and he’s changed and ooh, the sex was so-o good.” Blah. If she’d give Mr. Kourus half a chance, the sex there would doubtless be better. And when are dumb little girls going to grow up and realize that what they term “boring” probably means stable and caring, and that maybe, if they took a little more initiative into finding out what made these “boring” guys tick, they’d find an individual who could keep them happy for their entire lives? But, no. They’re too self-absorbed, and keep going back to the bad ones.
Good luck, little girls. You (Aphrodite especially,) need it.

In the Untimely Event of my Death...

Today, I finalized my choices for health benefits at work. I've calmed down a little since last post, and am ready to admit that, for the price, the coverage is pretty darned good. Still, I'd much rather be paying the government to give me medical care. That aside, one of the more interesting bits of information I've had to ask for was the social security numbers of my parents, for entry on my life insurance beneficiary form. This is a first, me asking for their SSNs, as if they're my dependents or some such. In the past, it was always the other way around. Only on my 18th birthday did Dad give me my Social Security card along with my newly arrived draft card and said, "Put these in your wallet until you figure out a better place for 'em. The future's your problem, now."

In this case, I sent an e-mail to Dad. It explained the level of benefits in the event of my untimely death, the differing levels if said death occurred due to an accident, and a brief sketch of the way I wanted things taken care of with said money. The last couple lines went like this: 'I'm going to put together a living will soon, but my wishes are that you should first use any death benefit to pay any of my outstanding bills (including anything I may still owe to Grandma Super-Stern), for my funeral arrangements, and attempt to enjoy whatever is left by way of a European vacation. ;-) Please be assured that I don't intend to die anytime soon, and would rather that nobody, repeat, but nobody, ever gets to vacation on my death-dime.'

Sometimes, it's kind of fun to get to be an adult. One gets to say the most absurd crap, and have it backed up with cash.

America, you EEEDIOT!!!

Today, I had my benefits meeting with our overworked HR person, who I shall herein call Person(elle), as she is female, (heroic,) and does the job of 10 all by herself. Person(elle) manages to be, somehow, calm, polite, and bright-eyed at all times, despite the fact that she’s constantly hounded by others. I was hired on over two weeks ago, and this was the first chance she got to go over benefits with me, just to give you an idea of how booked the poor dear usually is. My head is still swimming that I somehow have to make ends meet, and still pay for these damned benefits, whether they do come out pre or post tax! The scary part is, according to her, my place of employment is paying upwards of 80% of the true cost of the plans. If this is the case, and I’m paying about $90/month for insurance, which is WAY better than the plan at my last job, they’re floating me here for about $400/month of true cost, as a single individual. That doesn’t include what they’re kicking back into my “retirement” plan, which, admittedly, is a far less generous figure.

It’s little wonder that nobody pays pop squat in salary, anymore. With large employers forced to provide expensive health plans (which still don’t cover some very basic crap, mind you), they can’t afford to give ground-level workers a real salary, even when forcing folks who live hand to mouth in the first place to pony up for (said) crappy coverage. We’ll leave out, for the moment, that this is the fault of money-grubbing moral misfits who couldn’t adequately manage anything other than balance sheets being at the top of the corporate pile... After all, who wants to fault the people RUNNING companies for draining millions from the coffers while running business into the ground. No, entry level workers, whose willingness to cry nightly over bills while staring at zero balances in their bank accounts are clearly the ones who must suffer. And now Hillary wants everybody to buy into PRIVATIZED healthcare, ostensibly because it will make things cheaper for all? Ignoring the fact that it’s just going to provide an excuse for even more outlandish corporate excesses in the insurance industry, I have one thing to say.

@#$% that shit. It’s time for this country to take care of its’ people adequately. That means several things, the first of which is that we have to dispel the American misconception that government = evil automatically. Worse yet, linked to that particular feat of historically impossible legerdemain, we have to convince them that BIG businesses are, intrinsically, not to be trusted. Don’t get me wrong here… I’m not talking the chairman of the board lunching with Satan, batshit-crazy-evil or anything. No. It’s more like, if a company is so large that it doesn’t have to give a fig about, say, losing 100,000 customers because its’ services stink, then it’s not a people-friendly company, AND YOU SHOULDN’T DO BUSINESS WITH IT. Some insurance companies already look like this… Imagine the bloat with all those extra subscribers! Imagine the fat piles of cash the piggy executives will be rutting in, and all because the government attempted to make all the idiots happy by abrogating the responsibilities of good government. These people are getting elected for ABROGATING THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES. Unfortunately, despite the last eight years, we do still have one of the better open and fair election systems anywhere, so the real onus is on the American people. Wake up you ignorant dumb-asses.

It took most of my restraint not to leap over Person(elle)’s desk and throttle her to death… And this is one of the nicest, calmest, best co-workers I have, mind you… Just because corporate America is winning the war with the consumer, and making us like it. I hate the Protestant Work Ethic. It’s almost as stupid a ruse as “The Purfuit of Happineff” (‘cause all the s-es look like f-s). We’re living in a society based on the idea of the pursuit of PROPERTY ueber alles, children. Watch out. We’re about to get steam-rolled.

Madonna was a virgin in the land that made me me...

So, last night my father, a man with a PhD who should know better, sent me a stupid, retro-philic piece of @#$% forward in bad verse called "The Land That Made Me Me." It begins:

> Long ago and far away, In a land that time forgot, Before the days of
> Dylan, Or the dawn of Camelot.
>
> There lived a race of innocents, And they were you and me, Long ago and
> far away In the Land That Made Me Me.

Pathetic imagery, to be sure, but wait for it... Tales such as these can only spiral downward. Crinolines laid out to dry upon lawns, crap about Frankie Avalon and Annette F. being dreamy, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera… Just throw a slide in of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing on the backs of a hundred buck-toothed, long finger-nailed, braid-headed "Asiatics" in straw hats, and you'd have the willfully ignorant imagery down pat. And then:

> For youth was still eternal, And life was yet to be, And Elvis was forever
> In the Land That Made Me Me.

So, we're talking pre-war Elvis, right? 'Cause the guy who came back post-binge, Brittany Spears-like in the '70's wasn't exactly a catch, nor did he smell of anything but peanut butter (much less forever). And eternal youth? Have you ever SEEN what people looked like in the '50's? Butterballs, one and all. Good skin, yes, but look at 'em now. Further down:

> We'd never heard of microwaves, Or telephones in cars, And babies might be
> bottle-fed, But they weren't grown in jars.

Wrong decade, dumbasses. Jar babies first happen (to my knowledge,) in a novel from the '30's. Brave New World, indeed. And microwaves existed in the '40's under the marketing name of 'radar ranges.'

> And pumping iron got wrinkles out, And "gay" meant fancy-free, And dorms
> were never coed In the Land That Made Me Me.

That 'gay' bit really did it for me. I sent Dad the most acerbic one-lined e-mail ever, then thought better of it and sent an apology with a reasoned argument about why I thought this was the most appalling thing ever coming from a man who certainly has his own personal prejudices, but never lets them show in his dealings with others. I love my father because, though he is hot-headed, he is a very public person, with very much in the way of restraint and TOLERANCE where it's necessary. You couldn't ask any more from a person, especially one who I know, privately, to be most uncomfortable with certain ideas. He wrote back that he had taken no offence, and was sorry if he'd made me mad. I think that's the most positive, telling interaction I've ever had with Dad as an adult. Weird.

Sorority Girls + Booze = Gibbering @#$% Machines

So, my fears were completely unfounded. Dinner on Tuesday was absolutely wonderful, Terra Firma, Sister and I had a lovely time that involved the consumption of a great deal of alcohol, and all was well with the world. It was good to have some time to talk to them without Orpheus present. He means very well, and is indignant on my behalf regarding the roommate situation, but I’m starting to pick up and run with his resentments where they are concerned, which isn’t fair to anybody. It was nice to talk to the two of them about how they are doing, too. All told, I actually saw a bit more of Terra before we moved in together… Now that we live in the same place, it actually seems harder to coordinate schedules in any sort of meaningful way. But Tuesday was helpful in the extreme. Roomie therapy. Added to those positives was my invention of a new drink, known as a Frankencider. It’s two parts dark rum and one part apple cider with a splash of dry vermouth shaken over ice and served in chilled cocktail glasses. Tastes like somebody tried to put the granny smith back in the cider, but not like it contains enough alcohol to turn a sorority girl into a gibbering @#$% machine.

Yesterday was totally fun, too. I begged off work early, as Orpheus’ little sister (a chemistry major, thus her name shall here be:) Chemie offered to get me Mac OS 10.5 at a special student price. While we were obtaining said Wunder-software, we did a little convivial talking. Since O wasn’t there, it was the first time I’d really gotten to see Chemie out of the family context, and just converse. I believe that both of us left the encounter feeling a little bit better about the other. I’m supposed to take her out to dinner next week to thank her, as she saved me a great deal of money. It took about an hour to verify the DVD and install, and other than the little things, Leopard is hotter than a box of liquid magma. The only problem I’m having thus far has to do with the latest QuickTime update taking like 30 seconds to open my porn. Otherwise, Leopard seems meaner, leaner, and far better at memory allocation, amongst other things. The look is more uniform (good AND bad, as they’ve done away with brushed steel), and more slick/3D at once. They’ve got a maddening little feature in the dock called ‘stacks,’ which looks cool but can be difficult to manage. Either way, I am going to need a little time to get to know my white plastic baby again. She’s sexier than ever, though, so that helps.

After installing Leopard, I went downtown to see Orpheus. Parking took thirty minutes, made me freakishly cranky, and probably lost me the election where doing things in bed was concerned. He had gotten a $20 in the mail from his parents, though, and took me out to dinner. In another real turn of generosity, we got some time in this morning before seven to make up for my cranky pants last night. Usually, he’s morally offended if I come near him ‘that way’ before 9 or 10 in the AM, but there was something in the air before dawn this morning, I guess. Hopefully, it doesn’t ruin my chances tonight. ;-)

Research, call... Repeat, ad nauseum

Research, call… Research, call… Research, call… I wish I could say that it were as interesting as I make each call sound. Crass vocal manipulation has been my job before, and it is to be again. Time to find a new job. Know anybody hiring for the position of Muse in Madison, WI? Give them this web address, and hopefully they’ll love what they see, not be able to do without me, and shower my general vicinity with riches. In all likelihood, however, that is simply not to be. Moving on.

Orpheus was dreadfully ill last night, so I made him some “sick tea.” Said concoction is not for the faint of heart. What I usually do is make burgers (basically, the half-pork, half-beef and breadcrumb proprietary formula for my better-than-Mom’s meatloaf,) with frozen spinach added into the mix. I thaw the spinach, pressing the water out and reserving. I mince up a clove or two of garlic (very fine), then drop it into the spinach-water, add a bag of green tea, then zap it all for a couple minutes. When it’s piping hot, I add lemon juice and honey, then drink it all quite quickly. O is not up to such shenanigans. Therefore, I just used some awful tea called ‘throat-coat,’ a single, small clove of garlic, and massive, dribbling quantities of honey. Insultingly, he still had to dig out the rendered garlic before he could drink it. Imagine! All that love in a glass, and still he spurns me… ;-) Oh, well. He was really clingy when I got out of bed this morning, which means he’s still needy. Too bad we won’t be hanging out tonight, and that he’s not feeling terribly ‘able.”

Tonight, I’m hanging out with Terra Firma and her sister (henceforth to be known as Sister,) at home. Since the two don’t really like seafood, we’re having chicken paella. I’m a little scared, but will be doing the alcohol, so white Rioja e Cervesa it is… Keeping the taste buds occupado with a stiff white and/or a mello lager may be just what the doctor ordered. Or, perhaps, Terra’s half-boxed wonder will, again, amaze, as they have the last few times. Any way you look at it, though, I’m gonna be drunk.

More tomorrow, hopefully. Unless I die of boredom at work.

Monday, Monday...

My poor baby has a cold, so I haven’t made much progress on the last post. We did, however, do a very neat thing that turned me on a lot this weekend, though it didn’t get me any closer to actually fulfilling my desires due to a modicum of overexcitement regarding the situation… I found it hot, but slightly unfulfilling. Practice makes perfect. Orpheus and I had a positive conversation or two on the topic, so I’ll take that as a good sign, and repress my inner Horse (Chinese hour/”secret” sign)/Cancer (Western Moon sign, or negative personality aspect,) for the moment. Moving on…

We had a wonderful weekend, despite several big changes in the Way Things Are. First off, my roommate Terra Firma’s (she is not actually named thusly, but her real nom is derived from the word for Earth, and she happens to be quite large,) sister has broken off her engagement, and seems to be living with us for the time being. This makes me nervous, Terra Firma edgy but willing to please, and Orpheus downright indignant on my behalf. It helps that he doesn’t like TF at all, and isn’t overly enamored of her sister, either. He has, however, been ok about being over despite their presence in the apartment, and hasn’t been unpleasant. Therefore am I happy. Another circumstance impacting enjoyment of the weekend was the fact that I had O flip my mattress after a lube-based incident necessitating a sheet change awhile ago. Now, the mattress feels like rocks, and neither of us got much sleep all weekend, despite the time change. However, we still enjoyed our time together. I had the day off from Dungeons and Dragons yesterday (Sunday), so we went to an environmental film festival (selectively!) downtown. Orpheus loves anime, and I’d never seen ‘Nausica,’ so we saw that… We also attended a screening of Disney’s ‘The Three Caballeros’ that went on just afterward, and was paired with a Canadian film from the ‘30’s on the subject of the migratory patterns of North American birds. Given the intertwined subject matter, rather apropos (if weird sounding on paper).

I’m left on Monday with a testy, sick Dragon in my bed, waiting for my return from work with baited breath and a nose full of snot. At work, I have another internal interview to brave, and am, as ever, horny as a monkey can possibly be. If all else fails, I may be forced to sleep with my brand new boss for brownie points, thus fixing most of my concurrent situations, though complicating the one I currently find to be most important. More later!

For Shame, Stone/Parker!

Sex is a most distressing, most delicate, much-maligned and abused part of life. It’s also, like it or not, one of the most sublime expressions of love between individuals… This is why I’m mad at South Park, and a little miffed at Orpheus lately.

South Park, as you may or may not know, just finished a trilogy of episodes set in ‘our imagination.’ The whole mess started with Cartman senselessly delaying a leprechaun (who could’ve just done his job when fatty first saw him,) from warning the denizens of imagination land that terrorists were set to attack. Kyle, though, had a bet with Mr. 4x4 that if leprechauns turned out to be real, he’d suck Eric’s change purse. Needless to say, the Lilliputian envoy is proved ‘real’ through video and other devious means in court, and an (hilarious) subplot ensues whereby Eric goes on a bounty-hunting-like rampage in order to get Kyle to follow through on their deal. It doesn’t end well for Kyle. Though he confronts Cartman in the end, telling him that he’s never going to jingle the fat kid’s change, Eric simply imagines the episode graphically, thus bringing it to life in imagination land, and everybody gets on Kyle’s case about it, anyway.

Lately, it seems like I’m the Cartman in my relationship with Orpheus. We’ve had issues from the beginning dealing with my libido, a.k.a., I have one, and he’s almost strictly a once-a-day guy. Unless he’s been operating under a refectory period (not masturbation free, but me free,) of at least 48 hours, it’s almost impossible to satiate myself with his man-parts to a degree that pleases me. What’s more, he’s kinda lazy in that department. He’ll put out a great deal of energy to do what interests him in bed, which can be more than fine depending on my mood… But when it comes to pleasing me there just doesn’t seem to be overly much commitment on his part, unless he’s also in a very specific mood. Overall, this is most discouraging. I like sex to be hot and intense, yes, but I also like to make it a process, a ritual of renewal. Cuddling, stroking, taking time and care are parts of my approach to a good doink, but Orpheus usually just wants to get to it.

He calls my ministrations ‘clingy,’ and I call his cold and noncommittal. Lately, I’ve been thinking quite a lot about what I want from him, and the tri-partite South Park episode that finally finished last night made me think uncomfortably of Orpheus actually taking the time to go down on me without being asked first. I felt bad thinking of him that way, because he really tries hard to make the sex that he wants enjoyable for me, too… But we’re at an impasse. I’m far better at grinning and bearing it when he needs something, and he doesn’t even think to do the same for me. He’s trying to get used to what I want (which is very similar to what he wants from me, really), but he won’t throw himself at the problem the way I did. Nor does he want to discuss the process, or try to improve the way he’s approaching this problem. I figure, if I’ve lasted through most of a year this way, and there is some headway, I should keep going, but for how long? He hasn’t used the ‘L’ word yet, and acts like he doesn’t care when it comes time for the ritual that makes me feel like there’s something to us.

Boo, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, boo! I already feel bad enough about myself and the world.

Pumpkin Carving: The Art of Creating Terry

I promised you yesterday that I'd update you on pumpkin carving, then got distracted by my imminent death by AIDS... So, as promised, here we go. After actually buying pumpkins for myself and Orpheus (Aphrodite actually had two of her own, and they were warty), I dropped off the pumkins with 'O and parked. By the time I got back, he'd left the apartment to get suitable pumpkin carving knives. I hung out with Aphrodite for a bit, then O came back. I popped a bottle of Cabernet, and we went to work scooping, and seperating out the seeds. While Orpheus finished my pumpkin cleaning, I washed the seeds, oiled and delicately spiced them, and set them to roasting. By the time I was done with said enterprise, O and A had finished their marginal though soumewhat clever Creations. Orpheus turned out a pinched-faced average pumpkin with a twist... Super-cute dimples. Aphrodite made a tiny kitten on a huge warty pumpkin, making it look a tad... slow. After they were done, drunk, and watching The Simpsons, I set to work for five minutes creating my pumpkin (pictured above)! Terry the 'Tard (see the prefrontal labotomy scar at the left temple,) is the cutest, dumbest pumpkin you're ever going to meet. Know him. Love him. Just don't let him think that he's got a chance with you. Ever.

Lions and Tigers and Retrovirii, Oh My!

First off, all hail Latin, the ancient world’s (or, at least, ancient Europe’s,) lingua franca… Virus is a most interesting word. Its’ original meaning comes out to something like poison when rendered properly (thank you, Wikipedia). Virus is uncountable, a so-called ‘mass noun,’ for which there is no evidence of an historical plural. It is neutral, of the second declension, and there’s a great deal of contention over whether an ending could have been used for it at all in its given form. Due, however, to our cultural adherence to classical education’s obsession with the Mother Tongue, we insist on tarting up something that should just be given an English ending with something that LOOKS Latin, then telling people who use the English that they’re ignorant. In fact, doctors DO refer to ‘viruses,’ and the term ‘virii’ is to be found almost exclusively online, used by half-fact-touting retards who want to feel cooler than others.

Today, a community health nurse came in to work, and injected all comers with flu vaccine, fortunately with separate and distinct syringes, as I’ve been hit on online by at least one coworker. He looks rather sickly most of the time, was in the same injection group as I, and kept staring at my package lasciviously. I was uncomfortable. This doubly so after filling out the form divesting my workplace and community health from any liability in the event, say, of my untimely death due to contaminated goo used to grow the viral soup; mercury poisoning deriving from the preservative used to fix said goo, or, really, anything else having to do with injections on this particular day, blue moons, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera… (Note in daily life the over-use of tarted-up Latin by members of the legal community. It’ll make you feel better, I promise.) In any case, this got me nervous, so it was off to the home of the Neuveau-hypochondriac, the World-Wide-Weberverse!!!

In my playful, procrastinatory online romp, I came across a very helpful listing of possible side-effects by the CDC, which greatly reduced the weight of my fear. However, in the tradition of an information-starved addict, a second opinion was sought, this time from a far less encouraging albeit far rantier website. This source linked certain vaccines with pooled homosexual serums used for the then-experimental vaccine against hepatitis in the late ‘70’s and thus AIDS. The general thrust of this article was that viruses similar to aids were to be found in many of the cultures upon which vaccines are based, or in which they are nurtured. In terms of the hepatitis booster, infection of the anti-hep soup by HIV was specifically mentioned. Furthermore, CONSTANT VIGILANCE is obviously needed to make sure biological warfare isn’t used to infect us all with H to the IV!!! Man, were the mental 'virii' flying! To my great chagrin, the whole deal turned out to be somewhat true. Apparently, calf fetal goo is used to culture some vaccines, and an HIV-like virus is sometimes found therein. Some of the leading theories regarding the original source of AIDS involve use of secretions from animals in which, due to the nature of vaccines, full sterilization is impossible. So, if a particular body had ‘caught a ride”… Well, you get the picture. (http://heartspring.net/flu_shot_side_effects.html, www.cdc.gov)

Anyway, the long (I don’t kid myself… This isn’t short,) of it is this. Due to the jitters and generic vaccination reactions, I’m feeling like somebody pooped in my cornflakes. Obviously, all the dreck online is true, so I’m going to test positive for AIDS in six months and die, all because I wanted to prevent an annual, puke-flavored bout with influenza. I have the very worst of pretentious virii stuck in my head, while dead viruses float around my bloodstream, hopefully doing something marginally more useful. The point, friends, is this… God damn the internets.

Man, is Chris Thiele skinny!

Halloween in Madison was quite interesting this year in its’ complete and utter lack of any sort of luster. Granted, it wasn’t ACTUALLY the holiday itself, and any event co-opted by Mountain Dew is bound to suffer from commercial malaise. Also, the lack of originality exhibited by the student body was inexcusable given their past shenanigans… Last Halloween, I saw a 9’ penis walk half a block down State Street, stop, bounce up and down for a good 30 seconds, then erupt with whitish water, repeating the exercise along the full length of the pedestrian mall. I saw Bert and Ernie in perfect clothes and breathtaking paper mache heads, complete with awesome little four-fingered fabric gloves. I saw the SLUTTIEST cops, maids, race-car drivers, hobos, octopi, what-have-yous that I’ve ever seen outside a bedroom. This year, the best costume I saw was a gentleman in an Army dress uniform holding a sign that read “Conserve Your Precious Water!” While this was fun and clever, it certainly wasn’t slutty in the least. Even my costume, which devolved from Sinead O’Connor to Tranny hooker, lacked that certain ‘joi’ I have in past years associated with a romp downtown with the kiddies. Having said this, however, to the call of “How much?” from a drunken frat boy, I responded, in my very best Harvey Fierstein impression to date, “If you have to ask, hon, you can’t afford me.” I think his girlfriend peed herself laughing, but I couldn’t see, ‘cause her skirt was covering her panties entirely.

The weekend itself started off inauspiciously, as Orpheus and I were planning on donning costumes and going out on Friday. Since he didn’t feel like it, and didn’t want to call his friends, we ended up doing nothing on Friday night, not even doinking. Saturday, though he stretched himself to please me by dropping trou in the morning, Orpheus said something quite hurtful after breakfast, for which he apologized half-way through his shift at work by telephone. Finally, after some napping and a great deal of eating (I made mojito chicken burritos with black beans and rice for dinner, and we didn’t exactly eat light), and another doink, we donned our costumes, and went over to his roommate Aphrodite’s BF’s apartment for awkward social interaction. This turned out to be far less awkward than I’d feared, despite the fact that I nearly lost fingers cutting limes for gin with BF's dull-ass kitchen knives. He had friends over, and one of them was the most delightfully bawdy bitch. She was a dirty pirate. From Ohio. Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of Lake Erie. We ended up all going and walking up State Street, though I swore I wouldn’t, and it was… Sedate. The cops were raging assholes, and nervous as heck, but it seems like all the extra drinking due to the game earlier in the day helped anesthetize the kids some, so there was no real reason for over-authoritative tension. A great time was had at the capital bars, which were quite accepting of my tartly attire.

Sunday, I made my normal pilgrimage to DM’s place, with the added bonus that he’d already installed the new OS 10.5, and therefore I got to play with it while listening to his enthusiastic critique for a good half-hour before game play started. However, I’d had so much to drink out on Saturday, I had a low-grade headache when I returned to Orpheus before the concert we attended last night. We went to one of our favorite cheap joints for rabbit food before-hand, and I popped an Excedrin or three, but still wasn’t feeling the love… Then Nickel Creek’s opening act got going, and everything just got better. The energy built all through the show, which was probably one of the three best concerts I’ve ever seen involving modern music. Afterwards, I was crashing, but we still had to bring Orpheus’ printer to his sister, who is a transfer student to the UW Madison this year. As he forgot to bring the driver CD with the first time, he had to leave me at his place and go back with all appropriate software in tow. I was home alone at his place, getting ready to go to bed, when Aphrodite came home crying about BF. I fixed her a drink, let her talk for about fifteen minutes, then lay me down. The next thing I remember is Orpheus slipping under the covers with me, and giving me a good hug. At least there was no sex. I don’t think I could’ve taken it.

Today has been, more or less, a waste. After work, though, I go to Orpheus' place to carve pumpkins with he and Aphrodite. I'll update you on that enterprise, to be sure...

Werewolf bar mitzvah, spooky, scary...

The calm before the storm has officially past. For those of you who don’t know, Madison has played host to several puny, pathetic student “riots” each Halloween for the last few years. In that time period, the City of Madison and the UW have learned to control the students with some aplomb, much as happened back in East Lansing at good ‘ol MSU (my Alma Mater,) in the course of that particular four-year tourist-driven riot craze. This year, they’re corralling off State Street, site of the annual festivities, and cattle-prodding the traditionally half-naked attendees into staging areas where several mediocre national bands will be playing, likely competing for bored audience members. Last year, it was still just a giant fenced-in meat market, where everybody was free-ranging within the pen, and checking each other out. It was a lot of fun, though not quite as cool as the year before. As it’s likely to be colder this year than last, perhaps the enforced press around stages will at least be good for the ladies, preventing colds and such… However, there is one complicating factor.

THIS IS HOMECOMING WEEKEND!!! How could the Administration of the UW have possibly been so stupid? I mean its one thing to be a member of the Big 10 conference and thus be forced into scheduling negotiations to get a sneeze in edgewise, let alone a game rescheduled. It’s entirely another to let history whack you over the head with a double-whammy like, oh, an historically riot-prone weekend and the biggest game of the year all at once. As an aside, the same thing happened two years ago, which was when this annual bloodbath was first recognized as an actual problem by the city. Madison, already widely known for its’ acute alcoholism, will be awash in liquor for the next 48-odd hours, and ready to blow like a powder keg… Especially if the damned Badgers don’t win tomorrow. Add to that the traditional freak-show progression of out-of-towners who come for some “riot action” and the normal sprinkling of drunken lout football fans, and wow. I have half a mind to buy some crappy tickets, but don’t know if I really feel like being trampled, especially if I have to pay for the privilege.

No. Orpheus and I have alternate plans. I’m going to don my tired, third-year drag. I haven’t decided if the short silver sequined number and four inch hells… excuse me, HEELS are going on ‘Sinead O’Conner’ or an unfortunate ‘Natalie Portman’ from ‘V is for Vendetta’ as yet, but either way it works out well. My hair is buzzed close to the scalp, and I can get rid of the goatee easily enough. In said getup, my beau and I shall trip the light fantastic on the capitol square at the slightly more upscale bars. Hopefully, we won’t be able to smell the teargas when the riot police are called out in force, but I figure that the screams will still be more than audible. Ahh, the wonder that is an undergraduate education… How glad I am that my liver survived thee. I'll post again on Monday, if still extant.

Random, bitter-sweet musings

Today, the United States Government finally put sanctions on Iran. I was wondering how long it would take, with president ‘Imadinnerjacket’ spouting off various types of racio-sexual intolerance every time that he opens his mouth in public. Funny to muse upon, however, is the frequency with which similar crap comes out of the mouth of our own fearless leader, the fear-mongering, trustafarian, born-again, alcoholic freak. Just some food for thought. At least the fiasco with Blackwater seems to be going well, leaning toward better oversight or outright contract cancellation. I’m slathering over the soon-to-come public hearings.

I’m having a disjointed day. Last night there was much consumption of alcohol at Orpheus’ place concurrent with the viewing of South Park and other mindless programming. Thus, sleep was a dreamless joy quite fierce in its’ black, death-like totality. I’ll have to remember to chase poor-man’s Cosmos with Cabernet Sauvignon again in the future. Oh, yes… Spike TV’s show ‘Manswers’ is the scariest load of dreck I’ve ever seen. In fact, I popped the cork on the Cabernet because I feared I’d have bad dreams about the “how tiny does a bikini have to get before it becomes illegal’ contest they had at a local “club” in some run-down, blue-collar hellhole. Also, the redneck hot tub fashioned with garbage-bag liners in the back of one’s pickup truck was most distressing. Especially considering that the bubbles were caused by vented exhaust. Necessary for operation: a friend revving your engine and no doubt checking you and your honey out while ‘ya neck in a veritable soup of CO emissions.

Add to this my horrible new job description, which involves making telephone calls all day long, and you have: Mush mental, otherwise known by the Brits as Brain porridge. Seriously, these calls are getting in the way of my daily review of the NYT while addressing multiple customer issues. If I’m on the phone all day instead of doing e-mail duty, there’s no way in h-e-double hockey sticks I’ll be able to keep up on current events! Que serra… I’ll just have to get used to mouth breathing. At least the cat will be happy. With an IQ approaching normal in this country, I’m sure to become a cat @!#$er (or the president,) by default!

Woah, boy...

I AM TERRIBLY EXCITED, as the new Mac OS 10.5 Leopard is coming out in two days. This is, in essence, merely a whiff of disappointment to come, as I don’t currently have the funds to invest in said wonder-upgrade, and won’t until Christmas… However, that doesn’t mean that I am not absolutely beside myself with anticipation. I have a 24” 2.33 GHz Core2Duo iMac with a fairly nice graphics setup and 2 gigs of RAM, which puts me directly in the sweet spot as far as an upgrade is concerned. I’m convinced that I will install the new operating system, and it will instantly solve all of my problems, world hunger, war, strife, and Orpheus’ annoying propensity for holding back those three simple words. Leopard will instantly make my life Better. I am convinced. It must, after all… Otherwise, why would it excite me so?

To be fair, as an ardent hardware-enthusiast, I still prove a most disappointing technologist. This is, of course, rather unfortunate, as the vast preponderance of my friends are actually quite tech-savvy program-wise. These are people who breathe numbers, and literally laugh when I can tell them exactly what is “under the hood” of their latest desktop by sight, but am confused by the simplest command prompts or software snafus. For example, on the occasion that I came to Sunday role-playing (Dungeons and Dragons, you saucy prudes,) and loudly proclaimed that I’d successfully reformatted my two-year-old Windows craptop WITHOUT LOSING ANY DATA, my Dungeon Master gazed me down levelly and said, “Do you assume that this is some sort of accomplishment to be bragged about? You didn’t even install a new operating system!” The guys were cruel in their ceaseless taunting after that one, let me tell you. Furthermore, DM (Dungeon Master, his once and future name herein) is a Mac-head himself, and has helped me through several problems I’ve had with my desktop, smirking the entire time.

Any way you look at it, though, my Mac is my favorite computer to date. It is, perhaps, not quite as versatile as my Compaq laptop, the first Turing machine I bought after the divorce. MegaMac, as Orpheus has dubbed it, was procured for entirely different reasons. Whereas Muschi (the craptop,) was picked up for her affordability, 64-bit processor, solid configuration and versatility, my decision to acquire the iMac was based purely on “fahrvergnügen,” to misappropriate the German. I have greatly enjoyed getting to know my precious, 24”-screened wonder, and have had more fun and frustration getting used to the excellent Mac OS 10.4 than I ever thought possible. If it’s even 1/10th true that installing Leopard will, in fact, add “a whole new Mac to [my] Mac,” $130.00 is more than worth it. Either way, le-sigh.

'What is the weight of your fear'

By way of introduction, I am 27, 5'10", brown of (receding) hair and (near-blind) eye, 175 pounds, with a 32" waist... Not perfectly svelte, but certainly not a hideous blob, by any means. My smile makes me look both diabolical and more than a little hot. I am dark of mien in summer when tanned, but winter sees me soften to an unhealthy-looking yellow, as if jaundiced, damn florescent lighting. No matter the season, I look best when more of me is covered. There is an art and depth in such mysteries as hidden flesh which gives me confidence. I was born in 1980, the year of the Monkey, and am a Taurus on the cusp of Aries. Though gifted of the throat and voice, most people assume the worst: A fag in sheep's clothing... I am in fact bisexual, and resent what people always assume before asking, or waiting to be told. I am a divorcé. I have a beautiful, stupid, fat cat with all her claws (My wisdom teeth went missing surgically, and I could never put another creature through the removal of something that is supposed to be with one until the moment of, and possibly causing, death). She is a calico, and I am in love with her, though not in the way she would seem to prefer (I say philos, she says eros... Why can't we just settle on agape?). I have a wonderful boyfriend with bushy eyebrows that are as unruly as they are moody, an enigmatic smile, and deep green eyes. He hasn't yet said "I love you," though we've been dating for 9 months. He is 23, and an aspiring poet. He makes me want to sing.

I used to have a blog on another site, but found it too... Exposed. At the time it enjoyed some popularity, I was going through a divorce, and left out too much of my dirty laundry in far too public a form. I said things I shouldn't have said, and was contacted by people from my past that I didn't really care to hear from again, and who now know quite a lot about my private dealings, my sexuality, my financial status, what have you. So, here I take refuge behind my astrological sign, my second language, and a Tori lyric... Squire to the great astrological Monkey, indeed. Here, I hope to be comfortable (and anonymous,) enough to write bravely, if not well.

Today's post is titled 'What is the weight of your fear,' which is a question that came to me earlier while I was writing my bio for this very blog. To ask a question like this, one must first answer it for oneself, so... For the past seven months, my fear has, for the most part, been less than it was in the previous eight. And now, brilliantly, it is further reduced. Last year was difficult. It was my first year alone after my divorce was completed in December of '05. Following the breakdown of my car and a bout with pneumonia, I was laid off from my previous job of three and a half years after several stays of execution in December of '06. I met a wonderful man who I shall here call Orpheus in January. We have been dating officially since February. I finally got a temporary job in March, just as I was running out of money and contemplating the humiliating move back to my parents' basement. Today, my fear is less weighty because I was finally hired on by the company I have been temping for all this time.

As for the second part of the equation, which doesn't show up in titular form, 'and how do you plan to bear it?' I'd have to say with patience. My fear, like anyone's, is a multifaceted beast. I fear the enigmatic Orpheus will prove too young and passionate, too unfixed to love me. I fear this job really isn't a good fit for me in the long term. I fear bankruptcy and lack of medical insurance and beatings by jocks and pestilence... In short, I fear just about anything marginally bigger than myself, which is alright. I'm terribly nearsighted, and if the glasses are off, threats remain unseen. With all the good luck and good wishes in the past odd-year, coming out to my parents, learning to love Orpheus, adapting to a roommate situation, et. al... I am stronger, wiser, and a little more financially able. I cook much better (as O's wasitline will attest), look much better, am not an alcoholic, and can see a future for myself for the first time in quite awhile. I can smile again. Any way you look at it, that's a good start.