How was your day, Dan?

THE NEWEST FOSTERS

Crappy cell phone pics--I have a new camera, I will take better pics later.

Pup #1:

 

Pup #2:

Shh, she is sleeping...

WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER LET YOUR CHILDREN VISIT SOUTH BEACH

The other night, my friend J and I had a hankerin' for ice cream cones, so we ventured over to the McDonald's by my apartment.  Other than outrageous tourist traps selling cones for $7, McDonald's is the only choice, and it's a dollar.  Plus it is soft-serve, which is apparently lower in fat.  It may be all chemicals, but it tastes pretty good.  I don't know why I'm justifying our choice like this, I need to move on with my typing here.

So we're in McDonald's, in line, and there are two ladies standing in front of us, feverishly analyzing the cost-effectiveness of the various choices before them.  Apparently they only had a couple of dollars. I am guessing, but their gaunt appearance and pasty complexion, they spent the bulk of their cash on meth but needed some fuel before going out to turn tricks.  But I'm not one to make snap judgements.

As we were staring at them, J pointed out the taller woman's bag, a deep red plasticy-alligator skin print monstrosity with a silver disc bearing the name "Versace" glued on. 

"I think that's a Versace," J said, pronouncing it Showgirls-style, as ver-SAYce.  I snickered, not because I cared about the bag either way, but because I love anything Showgirls-related.

And they turned around as we were looking.  We seemed rude.  Honestly not wanting to offend them, I came up with the quickest story I could.

"This is the color red I want to paint my living room," I said, as I pointed to the bag.  Never mind the fact I don't live in a space with a living room, but she didn't know that.

And her friend, the meth-ier of the two, perked up, and launched into an in-depth explanation of the design element known as the "accent wall," painting one wall a bold color to liven up a space.  She explained why that shade of red creates depth and warmth, but using it for the entire room would be overpowering.

They then asked for two orders of fries and paid for it in coins.

It was a most educational interaction.  As we ate our cones, we saw them pass by the window a few times; I hoped they would come in again, as I needed to ask them what color I should paint my kitchen.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Today is my birthday. 

I am 35.

I am currently sitting on my bed, in my tiny apartment, watching The Golden Girls like I always do before I go to bed.

I was at a party at a local bar--it was their anniversary party, a delicious affair that drew out all the hoodlums and hooligans of the night life, but I couldn't stay.  I had to come home and attend to the new batch of foster puppies currently in my care.

That's one of them.  They're bloodhound mix puppies, too young to be away from Mom but I'm mixing milk formula into their food, they'll be alright.

My paramour, T.L., is off in a faraway land, working on gaining re-entry to this country.  So I went to the party to fend off the effects of his absence; and now I have been well-wished by a smattering of Facebook friends who have tossed "Happy Birthday!" greetings as they whooshed past. But mostly, I just sat and watched people walk by.

I was standing in the party, thinking about what I want to do for the next 35 years, and I honestly had no idea.  I have had such an odd life, filled with unexpected surprised, nothing has worked out the way I planned.  And it's been interesting...lots of flops, lots of pleasantries, I remember a few zingers—times I fell flat on my face, and I had to get picked up by the people around me...and the occasional phenom that tempt me to rest on my laurels like the star quarterback in high school.  But that would be boring.

I don't have any photos in my apartment; I don't ponder the past, I'm always looking toward the future.  The only photos I do have--in a box, in my closet--are a collection of black and whites taken from my grandmother's house, all of people I don't know.  They are really cool.  I also have a box of frames, ready to go up on the wall, but I've never gotten around to marrying the two.

I've done a bunch of stuff, I guess.  It hasn't been "significant" as much as it has been "fun," which is what you want, isn't it?  One concept is satisfying other people, the other is satisfying yourself. In the end, one is important and one is not; you figure out which is which. 

And what have I done?...there was that time I was in East Germany, eating goulash...college was fun, I learned a lot...when I was in 5th grade I was on the local PBS doing a news report about my school.  I loved that.  And there have been a few hours here and there spent volunteering at homeless shelters and for HIV clinics and stuff.  Make the world a better place, etc etc etc.  (I know what I just said about satisfying yourself, but I do that stuff for me, it makes me feel better.)

And what will come next now?  I have no idea.  The economy is tanking, things are out of my hands, but I can fight the good fight and make do with what I have.   But then things march on. And they will again.  I guess.

So today, I celebrate the past 35 years.  It's okay to be happy with what you've done, isn't it?  People will continue to go by, they may see me and they may not.  Maybe I'll get a drive-by greeting, maybe they'll just go on and not pause.  I can say that's what I've learned: you're at peace only when you worry about seeing yourself.

What am I going to do next?  35 years is a long time.

Hmm.

$

I am owed well over $1,500 by people I know.  I had no idea how much money I've loaned out, neglected to collect, not worried about...until now, when I overdrafted my bank account and racked up $200 in overdraft charges because I tried to use my check card to pay $5 for parking and $1.75 for lip balm.  But we'll talk about THAT another day, it's still not resolved.

I generally get paid back when I loan people money, so I don't worry about doing it; but in these times it seems everyone has a problem.  Meanwhile, these people have the same jobs they had before, so I don't understand where the money is going.  But it's not my place to question.

So I'm spending the day making calls, sending emails, asking politely but directly for what people need to give me; it's a terrible feeling, listening to the stuttering and the apologies, perhaps twinged with the regret that I didn't forget to ask for the money like they hoped.  Or I could be making that up in my head, but sometimes it must be true.

Suze Orman would kill me.

So creepy and sad: when asked about Michael's death, his dad Joe Jackson says it's "it's been really tough, remember we just lost the biggest star in the world"--but nothing about him being his son.

And of course he promotes his new record label. No wonder Michael was addicted to pills.  I feel bad for his kids, who now must live with this guy--and will undoubtedly get whored out as much as possible.  How long until the first photos of the kids are sold to People Magazine?

QUESTION

I am not going to type much because it hurts to move my fingers.  The reason?  My fingers are connected to my body, which is currently healing after my first session of Muay Thai kickboxing.  Holy smerge, we didn't lift a single weight and EVERYTHING on me is screaming.  Gravity is a formidable foe, yo.

In the absence of my significant other, who is currently away in the hopes of falling into the good graces of the United States once again someday so he may return, I have taken to righting the wrongs inevitably adopted during time in a relationship: calling forgotten/ignored friends, cleaning out closets, and losing that "nesting weight" that has congealed 'round my center core area.

So I bought cool new boxing gloves, yellow with red knuckle wraps, and I whaled on the bag for a while.  The most exciting part of kickboxing?  Whe you are the chunkiest tallest person in the class, the instructor uses you as a target to demonstrate.  He also takes great pleasure out of using you for target practice if you compare his class to Tae Bo, which apparently is a dirty word.

Although I will admit, some of my bruises are from when I tried to step out of the ring, and my foot caught the springy rope.  Splat.  My cool quotient went down considerably after that.

ANYWAY-

I need a good SLR camera.  Where do I buy one for cheap?  I don't have a thousand dollars.

(pronounced with a soft g, like "smurj.")

OMG

I forgot to deposit a check into my account, so when I used my check card I overdrew (is that a word) money.  I have six overdraft charges because I used my card for $1.75 at a parking meter, and $5 to pay for parking at the airport. 

But why did the bank continue to let me use the card when I was already overdrawn?  How do I get these charges removed?  It's seriously about $200 in fines.

GREENVILLE

I am stuck for the time being in Greenville, SC, due to weather delays at the home base.  Curses!  If only I still had that rental car in my grasp!   Me and the Ford Focus could have been zipping 'round this mighty metropolis, scooping up knicknacks from the various antique malls I spotted during my drive back.  Oh well.

Instead, I am at the airport cafe'.  And I am eating this:

OMG, people, this peach cobbler gives cause to just burst into tears.  It is so good.  SO good.  The crust is a little coconut-ish, and the vanilla bean ice cream was slow-melty deliciousness.  There were three scoops but in this pic there are only 1.5.  GET IN MY BELLY.

(sigh)

There's nothing else to do here.

EIGHT

The squares in the cement at the airport terminal entrance are in rows of eight.

I counted them while I was standing outside the door.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

T.L. had just walked away, 'round the corner to the security screening.  He didn't turn around, he walked pretty quickly; when he walks, he wiggles a little side to side.  Lugging his overstuffed backpack dampened the wiggle a little, but it was still there.

We had said our goodbyes outside the door, away from everyone else in the terminal.  Sometimes I don't care if people see me hug and kiss; sometimes my skin isn't thick enough.  This was a thin-skin day.  So we took it outside. 

He had packed a few days early, and left his giant suitcases sitting in the middle of the floor.  I didn't mind them, I expected seeing the suitcases.  We just walked around them.  I even bought a scale so we could weigh them to see if he packed them under the limit for the airline. (He didn't.)  But then later on that first day I went into the bathroom, and his shelf was clear, totally empty.  That shocked me.  It was a clamp right on my guts, ouch.

T.L.'s visa was up; he could have applied once again as a tourist, but there's no work here, in Florida or most places for that matter. I can support him, but I can't pay all his other bills he has to pay, sending money home to family and such.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.  One, two, three, four, five six seven eight.

We went to the airport early, and had an elegant breakfast of donuts and coffee.  We bought $28 worth of magazines for him to read.  And we sat on the chairs for about 30 minutes, not saying much of anything but with much in our heads.  "You always thinking thinking," he'd say.  Thinking thinking, too much thinking.

So the time came, and standing outside, with the big hug-and-kiss, and we just stood there for a moment.  And we said our byes and he left, and I just stood there for a while.  Walk back to the car alone?  Go home to the empty apartment?  No. So I stood there, blocking the door, and looked down.  And I counted the squares, over and over, it was interesting.  Eight.  I think I have some form of compulsion, counting things calms me down.  Light poles while I am driving, concrete squares on the ground when I am upset at the airport.

The luggage guys were very nice, they just walked around me and didn't ask me to move.  It never occurred to me I was in the way.  But then it was really tough, taking those first few steps down the sidewalk, towards my car.  I knew where I was parked but I wandered around for a little while.

It's not like I didn't know this was coming.  Months ago, I made peace with what would come. And I'm fine.  He'll come back someday, these things have a way of working out.  But it's going to be a long time.  There's not much to ease waiting the months, and months.

I have been in Palm Beach all weekend; Gorgeous is being cared for.  But I can't sleep in my bed.  Instead I went home, grabbed some clothes, and headed north.  Can't go home, yet. 

I woke up at 4 in the morning today because Gorgeous was laying on me and I was hot so I pushed her off and she got freaked out so she swiped at me and scratched my face but she didn't mean it she was just scared so I felt bad but it kept me awake and then I dozed off right before I was supposed to get out of bed so when I finally opened my eyes I was late so I had to rush around and I didn't get to eat my breakfast which left me spacey and confused and then when I was halfway to work I realized I left without those super-important papers that I was supposed to bring to work today but I was too late to turn around and go get them so I just kept driving and then when I got to work I missed my meeting so instead I went to eat eggs and a bagel down the street but the lady at the cash register short-changed me but I was irrationally upset over her keeping my 50 cents so instead of yelling at her and making a scene I just left and now I can't ever go back to that evil place because it is tinged with bad memories and when I was walking back to my office I looked down and realized my pants don't match my shirt.

What a crap day.

GIMME SUGAR

I wrote this article about Gimme Sugar, the new season of Logo's reality show about a group of hard-partying lesbians.

I haven't read this final incarnation—I get the heebie-jeebies when I read my own stuff—but I think it's pretty close to what I turned in. I had fun writing this one.

SAND IN MY SHOES

I had a couple hours to kill before going to an event—and I was bored after seeing "Up" by myself—and I remembered, Oh yeah, I live in Florida...so I pointed my car towards the east and drove until I saw ocean.

There is a sretch of tacky little motels along the beach in a town called Hollywood--between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, they named it "Hollywood" to envoke some of the glitz and glamour of its namesake in California.  But like its west coast brethren, the actual product is a crappy little strip of downtrodden-ness and despair.  Not glamorous. I lived in Hollywood when I was in LA, I loved the tragedy of it all, and I love it here too.

At the Hollywood beach, humble little motels line the oceanfront which I have always seen completely vacant but someone must stay in them.  They are painted orange and green, and other bright bright colors that bump up against the blue of the water, feigning a festive atmosphere even though the beds are probably lumpy and the walls are undoubtedly infested with mold.  Little shops line the road, selling the typical beach fare of sunblock and beers and soft serve ice cream.  The only major hotel is a Ramada.  How chic.  But all the people outside are smiling, just locals who know the sand here has less trash than where the tourists converge.

So I parked my car, no need to feed the meter as I've never seen them checked; and I walked along the sand, watching kids run around licking their lips with ice cream dribbled down their hands.  The tide was gentle, the waves were small and flopped onto the shore in short little bursts.  And I just wandered around, looking at people as they looked at me wondering why I was on the beach in jeans.  I ate an ice cream cone, very rapidly in the melting sun, and then meandered back to my car.  

I got sand in my shoes.  I didn't empty them out, I walked around the rest of the day with the sand in them to remind me of where I had been.  It was like walking on the beach all day.

NEW JERSEY

I need to discuss The Real Housewives of New Jersey.  Hopefully, dear reader, you watch the show, or you may be out of the loop here.

• First, this show is starting to drive me crazy—I can't figure out how much is staged and how much is legit.  With the New York cast, it was obvious the latest season finale was all scripted; when Jill started screaming at Bethenney about not being her friend because they didn't communicate on the merchandising display behind the bar at the party blabbity blabbity blah, clearly the producers said "We need a fight for our season finale, can you think of something?" and they cooked up this stupid scenario where no one's feelings would actually get hurt.  Fake.  Show's over.  Doesn't matter.

Buuuuuut, now we have Danielle coming on the show, and she is in a book written by a organized crime spy who tells a story about how she  (oopsie!) was arrested for KIDNAPPING and other blips of general lawlessness, yet she's claiming she was "in the wrong place at the wrong time" and she was roped into it.  And as she's telling her side of the story, claiming she had no idea what was going on with her then-boyfriend, obviously she's lying.  You can see it in her eyes.

The more she talks, and cries to her gay friend with no actual tears coming out of her eyes, she's making me wonder what the hell happened.  Does anyone out there know the story?  And did Dina really spread it around, or did the producers of the show decide to bring it in?  I need to read this book.  But I refuse to buy it, I feel like it's all a publicity stunt to sell some copies of the thing.

• I went to college in New Jersey, and half the girls in my dorm were just like Teresa: big smiling sticks of eyeliner on legs.  Totally fun.  Although I (extortion!) question how she got (husband's extortion!) an entire house filled with (husband is threatening people with extortion!) onyx floors. 

• If Caroline talks about "the family" one more time, which she obviously will, I'm putting her on mute. 

• On the subject of books: has anyone read this???

I have writing to do today, but I can't concentrate.  The office suite directly beneath me is installing exterior windows, and today they are cutting holes into the walls.  Apparently the office downstairs was too dark.

The floor is vibrating from the jigsaws sawing through the various bits and parts of the wall that presumably aid in holding up the floor upon which I sit.  So we are all walking verrrrrrry gently, lest we shake things up too much and cause an avalanche.

I do commend the construction workers on their innate sense of rhythm; each burst of sawing is the exact same length of time, followed by an identically-timed pause.  Yesterday, the hammers also fell in rhythm; two people whammedon different places, sometimes together and sometimes on alternating beats, but always in rhythm.

Can you tell I'm going nuts?  I am writing at length about the rhythms of the construction beneath my feet.  It is so loud.

I can't get anything done.  I think I'll surf the web for posts about the new Kathy Griffin D-List that started last night.  I had to watch it twice, to decide how I felt about Bette Midler—the first time 'round, I thought she was disappointingly rude and uptight, but after a second viewing she warmed me up a bit. 

Ugh.  I can't even type here.  Time for donuts.

Clarification

There seems to be some lingering questions about the relationship between myself and my (now former! yea!) neighbor.  An explanation, if I may:

About two years ago, after politely listening to his noise all and night for about a year—I hadn't even seen him in person, so I didn't really know who he was—I walked over to his place and gently knocked on the door.  Was he home?  Was his radio on in his absence?  I knew not.  Either way, there was no answer.  So I slipped a note under the door:

Hi.  I am your neighbor next door.  The music from your radio is coming into my apartment and it is pretty loud—I know we have not met yet, but could you do me a favor and turn it down?  I promise I will try to keep my noise down as well.  Thanks! 

Dan

Keep in mind that I barely make a sound.  No loud music, no loud TV, when I am home I am oh so quiet.  I walk without my shoes so my footsteps don't bang on the floor.

No response.  Weeks go by—noise gets worse.

So then I bumped in to him by his front door.  We just looked at each other for a moment.  I smiled, said hi, he said hi, and I said "I'm the guy who lives right there—" I pointed at my window, "and your radio is coming right through my wall."

His response: "Okay."  Did he understand what I said in English?  Perhaps not.  But if I try to speak in Spanish, people get offended because they think I am insinuating they are too stupid to understand me in English.  It's a wicked paradox, you can't win.  Whatever, this guy was so loud.

So that's when I pulled out my vacumn, and kept my corners VERY VERY clean.  The battle of wills began.  He can suck it, I have great rent and ample parking available, I am not going anywhere.