Despondent day

Today is a despondent day. I don’t really understand why, but feel myself to be teetering on some sort of edge. I tried eating it away with bad Chinese buffet at lunch, which only made things worse. It’s funny, though… I’m bringing home the bacon with two huge orders, and still can’t muster the energy to feel better than a shit-house rat. I just want to crawl under the covers, stop bathing, and give up. Too bad about that entire debt thing, and a pestilential need for physical/emotional contact with other human beings. Also, my niggling need to eat more than twice a day. Whatever.

Did you happen to see where I left my head?

Have you ever just had one of those days where you can’t seem to keep your head on straight? I mean, that would have to be about every day for the President, and possibly every other work day or so for most other people in government (let alone the average executive: golf or luncheon?), but for me? To be frank, I’m not exactly Mr. Precision himself, but one could consider me rather more on than off, most of the time… Which is why today is such a flubbing flop of a flummox.

I’ve called several contacts by the wrong name, done things any right-minded salesperson would cringe at, asked inappropriate questions at inopportune times. In short, I appear a total boob, and would be doing myself less damage were I elsewhere (A.K.A., not servicing my customers). The one upside to all this bru-ha-ha is that I’m supposed to be going to see Persepolis tonight with Terra Firma as kind of a roomie-night thing. Orpheus is getting his well-deserved night off, and I think I’ll be laying off the damned booze. Lately, there’s always alcohol in my hand and in my gullet post-workday, which is a pattern all too familiar to me through long experience at home with my parents the band directors. Last night, I just drank with dinner, and it was only white wine. Sweet white wine. Hooray for pork, which doesn’t go with anything else!!!

Interestingly, Sister visited last night, and was helping Terra Firma with dinner while I was attempting to finish up my effort at the same. She finally has a job, which is just tops. She’ll be working part-time as a unit coordinator in a cardiac intermediary unit, with its’ own small attached ICU. She can do this in addition to school and volunteering as an EMS once a month. I admire her work ethic. Also, she’ll soon be able to afford to take Terra’s old car off her hands (Ms. Firma got a brand new Ford Focus, leaving her poor little old Volkswagen orphaned – the perfect vehichle for Sister). This means she’ll be able to drive out under her own power to join us for roommate nights in the future, and not have to worry so much about making ends meet while going to school.

Anyway, I’m about out of steam. At least the post fairly well reflects my scatter-brained-ness, if nothing else. Have a lovely day.

OK, so I owe Orpheus an apology...

So, literally minutes after I posted, O. made it totally ok, got me a drink, and paid attention. Consider this my mea culpa. I'm stupid, and also slightly drunk.

The Gay Super Bowl sucks almost as much as the real Super Bowl.

You know, I realize that this makes me a bad fag, but I fucking hate the Oscars. I hate Orpheus just a little, because he's live-blogging about them, and therefore is paying no attention to me whatsoever, while I make him entirely homemade ratatouille (yes, even the tomato base I use is just a blanched/peeled/cored puree). Next year, I'm totally going to deposit his ass at home, and he can watch the damned thing by himself. This sucks royally. It's luck we fucked before-hand, 'cause he has zero chance of sex right now.

Wallowing in my own Crapulence...

I can’t wait for the weekend to start. I’m tired, dispirited, and hungry for something… Different. I want a vacation and some excellent food. I want something exhausting to make me sleep all the way through the night, something that didn’t ever really used to be a problem for me. I want not to be sick. I want limitless amounts of sex and attention from Orpheus. I want permission to be unremittingly selfish, just once. I want heaps of money, adoration, the best of the best of the best of enameled cookware, and a kitchen that would make Epicurious blush. I want, I want, I want, now, now, now. Most of all, I want not to be here, working, tired and cranky.

Sexual HEALING!!!

We have a new note system at work, and I’m here to tell you that it sucks rocks. Since this travesty is a product that is currently being tailored for us, it doesn’t yet actually interface with our old background system… Rather, it simply has our customer records loaded up to a certain point, and thus any changes happening in the now need to be made in both systems, until such time as updates are real-time. It’s like pulling my own teeth if anything needs to be updated! Furthermore, this new contact management system, as it’s called, is web-based, so sometimes looking up a new record, or at least a different aspect of one, is as slow as weather.com loading in the era of 28-baud modems. Overall? FAILURE!!! The worst part about it is that the folks who are responsible for implementation on our end have been down here all day the last two days, and are being SO kind and receptive! It’s hard not to cry.
Last night, while ferrying my love back downtown to his subterranean abode, I blew out one of my near-bald tires in a pothole as deep as my undercarriage. Even though we only had one bloody wrench and very little experience, Orpheus stayed with me outside in the rapidly dropping temperatures as moral support while I changed my tire. He even called around and got an extra jack for me when the cheap piece of @#$% that came in my car broke, and walked with me to get it. Plus, he was really kind last night. He rubbed my back, and snuggled his butt off. Tonight, I’m picking up my car from the shop down the street from work, picking him up, and going home to brood. Then I’m going to doink O. into my mattress. Well, probably not. But it’s nice to pretend. $400.00 for new tires on a finicky car is bad enough for one day. Sexual healing ueber alles!!!

Retard-love

Valentines’ Day was sweeter this year than last. Orpheus wasn’t disappointed with dinner, and we did have a nice time… And despite the fact that he’s rather sick right now, I wasn’t disappointed when we ended up not having sex. God knows I love making the two-backed beast rather a lot, and I’ve definitely thrown tantrums if I didn’t get enough of “it” in the past. Part of that is my history with the ex, LaGrippe (so called due to her stormy temperament, ability to make one pay for attempting to live normally, and how tired she made me feel all the time), who more or less stopped sleeping with me as soon as we were married. I can’t stomach a lack of physical intimacy, and associate such a state with a general lack of ardor. Fortunately, neither can O stomach physical isolation. Even though he’s been sick, we’ve been sleeping together and snuggling quite a bit. It seems to help him sleep, even if the extra heat generated by his brick-oven-like feverish form is driving me slowly back toward sleep deprivation. And it helps me feel like I’m helping, getting him better, while allaying my natural fears because he can’t perform up to standard (nor, honestly, do I want his snot slowly dribbling down onto me while we fuck half-heartedly).

I remember, once, a friend of mine at Summer Camp used his rather pathetic tarot skills to predict that I’d have an average love. At the time, in the blush of youth, nothing sounded more horrifying to me than such a thing. How could something so banal make me happy? My marriage and subsequent divorce taught me that passionate love alone couldn’t drive a relationship. Rather, it tends to fray the bonds between individuals quite easily with the slightest stress. And the slow stops and starts and halts and gos with Orpheus seem to be teaching me that abiding friendship and love can grow out of something weird, sometimes frustrating, and even a little shy like the connection we have shared this past year. Even passion, that delicate, toothsome, flickering nastiness in the night, can sprout… And how! Furthermore, the more I love, the more things I realize I can love at once. It’s hackneyed-sounding, but it’s just the way things have turned out for me. I’m content. I hope that O. and I last, but we’ll take it slowly, and both learn to be patient with one another in fits and starts. It’s the most beautifully frustrating process I’ve been involved in, ever.

While Away the Hours…

It has become increasingly apparent to me that my work environment is not just hostile to non-executive workforce, but also actively stressful in the extreme. I’ve worked my fingers to the bone today, and have nothing to show for it except a lingering sense of dread that I. Am. Next. To. Go. Ah, well. I’ll enjoy it while I can. Tomorrow, Orpheus and I are going to a place with “local flavor” for V-Day. Literally. Their menu items are named after famous Wisconsinites, and despite this rather gimmick-y menu, I have it on excellent authority that the food is tops. Plus, dinner probably won’t cost $200.00 at minimum. Therefore am I happy? We’ll see. I promise to be more sure about shit some other time.

Really, really, really good things...

This weekend was lovely. Aside from a bit of much-needed sex and Dungeons and Dragons (thankfully unconcurrent activities), I finally ended up having Orpheus’ sister over for dinner on Saturday to thank her for buying me Mac OS 10.5 at the student price. It was pretty damned good, if rather disjointed. We started with a beautiful salad composed of green pepper, tomato, fig, fresh mozzarella, pistachios, fresh-cracked pepper, salt, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a splash of white wine. The second course was my special, Ratatouille (the Movie) inspired take on Ratatouille (pronounced delicious by all), which involves mandolin-thickness slices of a couple extra veggies (potato amongst them), and fennel bulb minced fine in the base tomato/garlic/wine/olive oil sauce right along with the Herbs de Provence (please excuse for the lack of appropriate accents… My computer doesn’t speak any more Frog than I). The last course that I contributed was a lazy-man’s marinated tuna, sautéed in butter and white wine. O. made lovely cranberry scones for dessert, as I lack the baking gene.

People continue to, against all odds, get worse at driving as the winter stretches on. Orpheus will, no doubt, want me dead by the time the trees are budding, if only due to his lack of imagination or any sense of fun where vehicular homicide is concerned. Sadly, that’s about it for interest points for this weekend. Just so you know, though, the sex was really, really, really good. More later!

Meh.

The drive home last night was oddly pleasant. There were few people on the road, so it didn’t really matter that conditions scared the living crud out of me, as there was no one to hit if I screwed up (I didn’t, though). I even stopped at the store to pick up some food, just in case the snow ended up burying me in. Fortunately, I had a hankering for beer, and caved to my baser impulses. This would prove vital later. Also, due to road conditions, Orpheus and I decided together that it would be better if we didn’t see one another last night. This decision was made (as he informed me,) because he loves me, and didn’t want my possible death by traffic on his conscience. Sadly, I agreed.

So, as covered before, everything went swimmingly up through the supermarket. The cashier in the booze section even offered to check out my big order of sku-intensive veggies, something that almost never happens. It was like the sky was smiling at me, through the copious amounts of god-dandruff piling up in the roads. Then, I tried driving home from the store… The road had not been plowed. Cars were stuck here and there, and on a two-way street, there was at most one lane of travel space, with a few duck-holes here and there in the form of side-streets. The first time I tried to go up the hill, I couldn’t do it because of a guy who pulled out in front of me, forcing me to brake. I lost traction, backed up to a turn-off, and tried again in a lower gear. This time, some freak in a minivan, hell-bent for election, sent me sliding backwards into a snowbank to avoid a collision. I had to lug my groceries up to the apartment, then spend the next hour digging out the car, which I couldn’t put in the parking lot behind the building, because the driveway was full of snow to the depth of a good foot and a half. Basically, I carved a parking spot out of the pile of white stuff into which I had regressed.

I dragged my sorry, aching, mucous-y, asthmatic ass back to the apartment, stripped down to my underwear, and parboiled some Italian sausages in beer and spices, transferring to the grill. I drank a good few beers. I watched some Avatar: The Last Airbender (because, despite the alcohol, I’m still less serious than I tended to be at age five). I tried to relax, and think thoughts not in the vein of ritualistic murder of executives, followed by gourmet prep-work, and finally consumption of that too-tainted flesh… Then, I gave Terra Firma a ride to her car, which she’d parked about a 20 minute walk away, as her rainbow-besotted VW has even less ground clearance than my somber champagne Grandpa sled. Since the plows had just been through, this involved another 15-minute session of digging, again a one-man show, as there was only one shovel. Thank god I’m stronger than I look.

I helped another poor sap get his van un-stuck from a plow-drift, incidentally the same asshole who’d gotten me stuck in the first place, so I totally feel morally superior today. I then found my way to the video rental place, where I nabbed a copy of ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ in widescreen, and fell asleep to the soothing strains of the death of Sirrius Black… Only to be woken by Maggie (the cat… Ha!) having the worst spate of the pukes ever. Anyway, despite my overtiredness, I’m actually having a pretty good day. Wish me luck with that. Please.

Executive Kibbeh

Corporate cruelty, stupidity, and downright obstinacy today have reached a new peak (at least, here at work). The deal is, we are having the winter blizzard to beat all blizzards. At first, we were supposed to get about nine inches of snow. When the deluge had started, around nine, they downgraded to six inches. By noon, the weather service was saying 11, and now it’s 14-15 inches. The latest posting by the County Mounties reads that roads in Madison, WI are completely impassable. And management won’t let us go early. Basically, we’re f@#$ed. If I have to stay here tonight, I’m going to kill at least one executive to eat. It’ll be very Lord of the Flies, only I won’t call the bastard anything quite so nice as pig, even though it’s harder to rhyme appropriate epithets with “bash it in”.

Last night, I made the rest of my sexy kibbeh substitute into a meatloaf after frying about a burger’s portion-worth and serving with homemade potato wedges. We’ll see how the sexy shit holds up as ‘loaf tomorrow for lunch, if I’m eating anything other than microwaved exec by that time. Hmm… Makes me think. I wish to god I had my Vietnamese Cassia cinnamon with me. It might help make middle-aged, gamey, stringy, over-marbled meat more palatable. The stuff certainly works with hamburger!

I don't have pneumonia, but I'm overdosing on Jesus...

OK, here's the deal. Last weekend, I started feeling a little down in the dumps. My true one-year anniversary (measured from the time that Orpheus and I started dating officially), was spent partially apart, and partially at a friend's house over a bad dinner. I was sick yesterday, and went to the doctor, as I had started to feel like my lungs were clouding, just like the time I came down with walking pneumonia. Turns out, it's just a horrible, horrible cold. O. was kind of sick of me by the time I dropped him off yesterday, which made me a little testy today. Now I'm watching 'Jesus Camp', which is just the most horribly depressing movie ever. I want to go to bed, wake up rich, jobless, yet still insured, and never have to worry about anything fiscal ever again. Also, I want to shut every single evangelical wrong-head up in the center of the country, walled off, and let them eat each other instead of me. I'm so sick with other people's mental illness right now I could vomit, and I can barely breathe because of my own more real afflictions. And there's a red-faced freak on my TV screen talking about how all the answers are in the bible. Fine. Go shit outside the city walls, assholes. I'm going to the bathroom INSIDE my apartment, and flushing my bile on the internet.

Today's nugget of wisdom...

Today is beautiful. Tomorrow will be beauty-fuller. The day after more beautiful, still, and so on for one more day. The day after that, though, is Monday, and it’s gonna SUCK!!!

Hacking up a lung...

Terra Firma was sick yesterday. Not even just sick, but mega-sick. She stayed home from work, and comprised little more than a sullen, slightly odorous lump on the couch when I walked through the door after a rather punishing day, yesterday. To made matters worse, she wanted half the music off my computer (she’s not a Mac-head, and so had a very hard time figuring out how to get it for herself), and after I showed her how to use the directories and transfer stuff onto her jump drive, hacked her way through several gigs of music transfer by USB… In my bedroom… The place where my asthmatic ass sleeps. I just know I’m gonna come down with Pneumonia. To add icing to the cake, she hacked SO LOUDLY last night, all night long, that my cat Maggie was afraid, and kept hiding behind my head with each Terra-shaking cough. Normally, one has to be at a fever-pitch of sexual excitement to be heard through the walls between our bedrooms. Just lets you know how sick she is, and, by extension, how screwed I am to be.

(Mis)State of the Union

Alright, so, I’ve had a little more time to think about it, and I’m still pretty pissed off by the things that came out of the mouth of our pathetic, Reganite fruitcake of a President last night. My anger, which in retrospective should’ve been simmering for the last year, as none of the things he said are new in the least, is directed in a few very specific directions (which, really, include all sub-categories of possible rant, anyway).

1) Blurring the separation between Church and State.
2) Announcing policies equivalent to administrative autocracy.
3) War-machine overuse without adequate support.
4) Transparency, transparency, transparency!!!

Point one is the true multi-faceted, scary aspect of the reign of GB the Second. In addition to furthering his plan of full privatization of public services, this blurring pushes the idea of moral right in government, and hopelessly entwines the principals of evangelical Christianity with the ideals of American Nationalism. These changes are dangerous, at best. They move us away from inclusiveness no matter race, creed, identity, what-have-you, toward a system that can deny services, actively persecute based on differences, and may one day threaten everyone with mandatory faith. Snow-flake babies and the absurdity of “preserving the sanctity of life” aside, the bru-ha-ha’s in Afghanistan and Iraq seem to point out that this “religious” culture that’s being instigated against the will of most Americans is actually one of death… After all, you have to be the right kind of religious for your life to be protected. Most definitely NOTHING LIKE what the founding fathers envisioned, Christian or no.
Moving on, it seems that, though the President was fine with Pork-barrel spending while it was his Neo-Con cronies doing the write-ons, he simply won’t stand for responsible social measures as are being forced through by Democrats. In a no-holds-barred statement sounding much like a five-year-old going “Nya-nya-nya-nya-nya, Nyaaaaaah!” President Bush said he’d exercise his heretofore limpid veto rights with abandon to stop pork-barrel spending. Remember how many times he did that before Nancy Pelosi put on pants on Capitol Hill? I sure as hell don’t. Furthermore, the fact that he could keep a straight face while indignantly demanding a ‘straight up-and-down vote’ for his gun-toting whack-job judicial nominees was more than I can stomach. It takes more than eight years to turn a more-or-less viable, economically successful Constitutional Democracy into Margaret Atwood’s Gillead. Who told you otherwise, Mr. President?
Regardless of what many people have said, will say, and want to say on this point, I think it’s been covered MORE than sufficiently. Lest anyone forget, most of the contractors brought on by our shoddy executive war-effort are slowly moving headquarters overseas, to nations all good Americans should hate in their deepest Christian hearts… It’s a wonderful, Randyan (ha!) story, really, except nobody exceptional seems to be shrugging.
Finally, back to the the judicial nominations to start… Mind picking somebody with an adequate portfolio to question for the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? Do you mind actually listening when people complain about your unwarranted, ill-advised wire taps? It’s not like there’s any difficulty in getting a free warrant in less than 24 hours. Mind telling us what is ACTUALLY being reported by the CIA, or any of the rest of the alphabet soup of intelligence agencies that report to the administration? Do you mind being transparent about the smallest of your dirty little secrets, Mr. President? Mind not lying?
That’s about it. This has taken all day to pare down, to make a little less offensive. But it’s an honest reaction to the bullshit that came out of that man’s mouth. I’m so glad this is the last year we have to deal with Bush and his White House. They are poison, and they are almost expunged.

George W. Bush is a Stupid #$%^er

President Bush is a hose-beast. I say this with the absolute certainty of a fundamentalist... A sense of moral right completely un-respective of the views of others. I give not a rat's ass what anybody else says at this moment. Someday, all will see this rampant evil for what it is: anti-populist. Anti-freedom. Anti-peace. Anti-religious, even! Who amongst the faithful could EVER think this man thought a whit of god or god's people? Are they stupid, or just blind? Are they so focused on the political equivalent of jazz-hands and “ravening” (read: desperate,) Muslims that they are capable of listening to that damned drunk piece of shit? Don't even get me started on faith-based initiatives. Anyone who thinks that a service which can push something down the throats of its' users or deny usage rights is alright should be dragged out of their homes, into the streets amongst people who don't believe as they do, and forced to fend for themselves for a day. That'd do them good, maybe reveal a new perspective to the fuckers. I can't think anymore. I can't argue anymore. I cannot hear or listen or bitch or even be angry anymore. This man is the most potent force of evil alive on the planet today. Our President is attempting to DRIVE us into Jihad. He is a force for hate and stupidity and ignorance and poverty. I am ashamed, not for the first time in this sad era, to be a citizen of the greatest country. Just remember this: I DIDN'T VOTE FOR HIM!!! It's not my goddamn fault, and I hope to god that everybody whose fault it is regrets it to their core someday. Otherwise, there really is no justice in the world.
Note: It is now 8:58 PM CST. I can't watch anymore. I'm so sad. Nothing will get done. President Asshole has made that clear. And that smug, rich, smiling corpse behind him didn't make it any better. Orpheus has put 'Laugh In' on DVD into the player. I can't even smile.

Happy @#$%ing Monday!

Weekends can suck. This weekend was pretty OK, tending toward suckage at the beginning, but veering back towards pretty cool later on. Friday night, I went to the Fitchburg Great Dane (a ‘brew-pub’ with several locations in Madison… As local chains go, tops,) to cheer a work colleague who left the company suddenly two weeks ago, and starts her new job, incidentally, today. M. is doing fine, and had a wonderful interlude to spend with her son. However, after a lovely bitch-fest with folks from work, I left for downtown and Orpheus’ place. We had difficulty deciding where to go for dinner, finally settling on a gourmet pizza place on the other side of town from my apartment. Now, the roads weren’t exactly good on Friday. In fact, they were downright awful, dangerous, terrifying, and any number of other, nastier adjectives that I hesitate to record here. Not a good idea to do this, I thought, but O. hasn’t been there yet, so… When it came time to pay, I discovered that my debit card had gone missing. No problem, really. Orpheus paid, and I started going nuts.
The feeling of nuttiness only grew as we slowly crawled the icy roads back to my domicile, this exercise in transportation feeling almost Doctor Zhivago-like in both its’ pacing and snow-encrusted vistas. When we got back, I immediately looked up the lost/stolen number for my card, and had it shut down. This was the least stressful part of the evening, as it used to be something that I did for a living, so I knew procedure. Fortunately, everything was more or less OK. No unexpected charges came up, so the card was likely lost to the elements at some point, and has cracked under-tire in extreme temperatures or some-such. Saturday, I went to the Credit Union, got out a fat wad of cash, paid O. back for dinner, and cooked to vent my stress. I made a meatloaf which, honestly, was a little off, two beautiful quiches, hummus with a roasted red pepper added for flavor and color, and, essentially, a babaganoosh with roasted peppers for flavor. We tried to go dancing Saturday night, but they were charging a cover for a crappy DJ at the club, so we said “no thanks!” and got to, umm, “sleep” instead.
On Sunday, I went to an informal gathering of my role-playing group. Because more than one member was away, we did a game day. I brought one of the quiches I baked, and got a bunch of requests for the recipe. Orpheus and I also did a little shopping, buying some slightly exotic spices, and oils we want to experiment with while cooking. I also bought a copy of the big boxed set of Apples to Apples, which I’ve been coveting for a long time, but which was not played at game day (more’s the pity). I made a hearty dinner of baked chicken strips (tarted-up Bisquick-chic), spiced potato wedges, and salad. We had some pretty satisfying sex, then slept all crappy, and here I am. Happy effing’ Monday!

A whore for cold, hard steel...

I bought another knife, yesterday. It is shameful. I’m a Wuesthof whore. A WHORE, I TELL YOU!!! But I couldn’t say no to 25% off a bread knife nicer than the piece of supposedly metallic flotsam currently darkening my knife drawer. There were also several other purchases made, including a sharpening steel for Orpheus, whose little Santoku has, recently, been in need of TLC. I also bought the very coarse grater Terra Firma has been harping on me about, with a handy little attachment so that using my graters isn’t an exercise in self-mutilation management. And speaking of T.F…
We try, once a month or so (it’s supposed to be every week, but that never works out with my sexual schedule), to do a roommate night, Terra and I. This week was the monthly Drag King show at our local, crappy gay bar, Club 5. Terra and I decided to go and have a racy evening with the dames. I made her favorite dish in my repertoire, we got a little liquored up, dolled up, and went to see the packin’ ladies. (To be particularly alluring to the lesbians, I’d not shaved in two days. I had fantastic second day scruff.) To my great surprise, a couple of them had some really kickin’ boy energy, which was a touch confusing at times. The best bitch on the block, though, was one of the femmes dancing circles around the wee-willie-synthskins. Her stage name was bubbles, and during one of the songs, she dropped a broken, well-used C-cell vibrator into my lap. Needless to say, I held it aloft, and proudly let loose the cry of the hunter triumphant! Of course, she took it away while dancing by on the next number, but I got my cheap thrill. It was a fun night, and we’re planning on going next month, and bringing along Sister, as well. Three queer foodies, all drooling into their drinks, in a row. Bloody fantastic.
That pretty much brings you up to speed, except that, during lunch today, I went to the new cutlery store to have my older knives sharpened. None of them held and edge terribly well anymore, and hadn’t been regularly steeled early in their operating lifetimes, so I felt it was a good enough excuse. Unfortunately, thought the conversation was stimulating, and the edge on my 6” chef’s knife is once again freakishly sharp, he wasn’t very careful on my paring knives, and I may even have to replace the 3.5” blade, as the tip is now uneven, with a metallic dingleberry hanging off. Don’t think I’ll be going back for sharpening, but there will be some purchases when I’m finally ready to work with Japanese knives. He stocks MAC at very fair prices, and we had a nice bitching session regarding Global knives, and how popular they are for no good reason. He also told me that they don’t stand behind their product, so I’m sticking with good, heavy GERMAN steel where my working knives are concerned, thanks. But, damn… I’m gonna miss my paring knife.

Me no sleepy so good

Last night, when it came time to sleep, I made all the wrong decisions where getting a healthy entry into dreamland was concerned. After staying up too late, I decided to pig out on evil, evil foods like ramen and potato chips. Then, I just started shoving shredded cheese into my craw for no apparent reason. I chased all this with about a quart of 2% milk, and then continued watching TV shows on my computer until I passed out. Approximately three hours later, I woke up, couldn’t get a piece of music I’d listened to earlier on iTunes out of my head, and proceeded to stare at the blank white ceiling for a couple hours, willing my mind to be as void. Finally, I grabbed my cat, forced her into prime hot-water bottle position (which she didn’t have to be forced into for long… ten seconds, and she was purring like some sort of deranged muscle car revving at a stoplight), and got, like, an hour and a half more sleep. I be zombie at the moment. Wish me luck not getting fired.

*Sentences redolent of Amy Tan titles...

Orpheus has had a blog, in one form or another, since he was in high-school. Due to some unpleasantness in our relationship after I first found said message-board on the world-wide-weberverse, I’ve promised never again to read it. This hasn’t been easy at times, but gets a little simpler the longer the policy survives. To help, I’ve replaced reading O’s blog with that of his ‘blogvater,’ Dr. Faustus (http://www.joelderfner.com/blog/)... This Faust is a fascinating specimen, indeed. He’s a gay, all-singing, all-dancing liberal arts genius. He’s super-cute, super-fit, teaches courses on Musical Theatre, a red-head, a bottom, writes musicals and books, and has a penchant for history and languages to boot. Add in the fact that he’s soon publishing a book of personal essays, and you have a guy who would, under normal circumstances, induce the vapors in little odd (not an editing mistake,) moi. However, *out of respect for his writing, his fiancee, and my lover, I hold myself in check. Really, though, if you haven’t before read ‘The Search for Love in Manhattan,’ get going. Joel is fucking funny.
The reason this all comes up today is mostly just coincidence. There was a note of extreme helplessness in Faustus’ post, today, preceded by an incendiary bout of frustration on topics political yesterday. The fact that he normally wields beautifully such a strong voice, but feels helpless to write in praise of Martin Luther King due to modern breakdowns in our political process was literally heartbreaking... I thought, when I saw the posts, that I hadn’t really felt this bad about someone else’s desperation in a long time. This got me thinking about Orpheus’ blog, as ‘The Search for Love...’ comprises my physical replacement for reading O. online... And I realized, the last time I sympathized so much with someone else’s feelings of frustration was when I read those heartbreaking words posted by my boyfriend so many months ago.
Aside from the humiliation that I felt, he was so alone back then, and scared. I was, for a good part of his period of unemployment after graduating, one of the only people that he hung out with. His best friend was studying abroad in Prague, and only the unreliable college-kids were left in town to take care of him. I couldn’t help feeling that I was dirty, horrible, and deserved what he’d written. I felt responsible, and that made me feel worse. When I confronted him on it, he apologized, but then it happened again. Now, I just don’t have the strength to read the blog, anymore. He still doesn’t hang out with his friends enough, and doesn’t like too many of the people I call friends. I just have to pretend that some small part of him isn’t still resentful of me, because he doesn’t have anybody to confide his frustrations to. And, really, if one’s not part of the solution, one’s part of the problem (thank you, Sartre), so I can’t help feeling a little responsible for the breakdowns that are making Faustus so down, too. I’ve got political acumen in spades, but very little drive to deal with people that have a will to power, who are almost to a one despicable human beings.
I did my part to attempt to cheer the dear Doktor, though I doubt that I really made an impact. As to O., I just have to stick to not reading him, and hope that he can sort things out. I love him so much. I hope he’s not still writing things like he used to write about me. But then, I vent here, too, so maybe it’s not all so bad. Here’s hoping I keep getting to worry about him for a long time... Just not like this. And here’s hoping you, Faustus, can see the hope coming at us all in the distance. You’re too damned fabulous to be upset over the near-expired presidency of an increasingly marginal idiot and the ineffectual flounderings of the congress currently his political prisoner!