How was your day, Dan?

ADDICTION

My name is Dan and I'm a kitchenwares addict.

I am obsessed with buying bowls and plates.  Coffee mugs with the perfect handles are my passion.  I will creep through endless stalls in antique malls in the hopes of finding a rusty cast iron skillet that I can strip clean and re-season, slowly and with tender loving care.

My mother is faithful to Fiestware, and I do share her enthusiasm for the colors and the colors and oh my the colors. But I don't tell her I cheat on my Fiesta with other brands. I even (gasp!) keep them in the same cabinet. Although I do keep them on separate shelves.  There's no need to flaunt such indiscretions and make everyone nervous by allowing different ceramic gene pools to mix with each other and touch.

I should point out the fact that my love for all things kitchen is ridiculous.  I am not a good cook, despite my best efforts to prove otherwise.  Other than my few specialties, I can't seem to get the knack for finding recipes that my skills will do justice.  I scorch instead of sauté, my baked goods are baked but not good, and I have yet to make a chicken with white wine sauce that doesn't make my tongue crawl to the back of my throat as if it's running away in fear.  I'm not dead yet, so I'm not poisoning myself, but my cooking is merely sustenance, not cuisine.  

But who cares? Cooking is fun.  Try, try again.

Also, my kitchen is small enough that I can stand in one place and just spin around, and I reach all counter surfaces.  I have no space for all this junk.  I don't have my gas turned on, so instead of using my lovely stove/oven, I use a toaster oven and electric burners (the burners placed on top of the stove, of course).  But never mind that.  I can accomplish anything a real stove/oven can produce, as I have kitchen gadgets lined up along the span of my counters, tools of every purpose and some of purpose that I know not.  The Breadman Pro does make good egg bread, I will say that.  But anyway--in terms of cups and plates, I literally have so many dishes that I can't put them all away.  Some dishes must always live in the dish rack next to my sink.  I can put them into a cabinet when I take something else out from somewhere.  I blame the wine glasses, which take up so much space.  And I don't even drink wine. (They were a gift! Don't judge me.)

Alas, to the  real reason behind this post: we lost a member of our family recently.  A Signature Housewares mini-crock jumped from my soapy hands and cracked into pieces, never to hold anything within its perfectly glazed confines again.  Seriously, I bought four of these little pots--

--this is one of the surviving siblings--and they are the greatest little guys in my kitchen.  I start a big pot of Beef Bourgingnon in my enameled cast iron, but then I divide it up into the four little Signature crocks to bake, and 90 minutes later it's PERFECT.  If I use anything else, it cooks and cooks and cooks and it's just good.  But these things, I don't know the magic they work beneath their concentric-circled lids, they make everything better. And considering the fact that most of the food I make is barely edible at best, I need to keep running with what works.  These pots work for me. I love them as much as any person can love a piece of ceramic cookware.

So imagine my horror at my broken pot. I have searched everywhere for a replacement--the pot I killed was a lovely aqua/turquoise color--and I even went to the corporate web site, but no.  Nothing.  Can't find them anywhere.

It's an obsession, I admit.  But there's a void in my display cabinet, and it keeps me awake at night.  I know there's a replacement pot out there somewhere, ready to jump into action and make my sauces and stews.

 

JUMPY HOUSE

It was a lovely party, a large gala affair outdoors on a beautiful Spring day, and I was simply walking along enjoying the sun.  Places to go?  None.  Things to do later?  Nada.  It was just me walking with my friends, my iced tea, and the breeze tickling the back of my neck.  I wasn't thinking about much.

Hello, what's that sound?  People laughing! I'll wander over there.

I walked around the corner, and there it was: a collection of inflatable slides, romper rooms, and a jumpy house, all of them infested with little kids scampering about, as their parents watched and cheered them on. 

We stood outside of the jumpy house, watching through the netting as various bodies flung themselves across the inflated floor, which bounced each other into the air.  And they laughed.  Ha ha ha, what fun.  I asked the woman next to me if her children were inside, and she pointed to to two of them as she explained they were her daughters.

Why don't adults ever get into these things?, I wondered, as I looked around the entry for size regulations.  There wasn't anything posted about how many people could be inside, or the maximum size or weight...hmm.

I mentioned casually it looked like fun, and I "wanted" to try it.  I didn't actually have visions of myself joining a group of elementary school-age children in jumping around an inflatable house; it was just something I put out there.  It looked like fun.  My friend, equally casual in tone said, "Why not?"

For what transpired next, I blame him.

Perhaps I wasn't prepared for the vague challenge, or maybe I just wasn't interested in acting my age that day.  Whatever the case, I asked the mother next to me if she thought it would be alright, since her daughters were inside, and she shrugged and smiled, making a gesture with her hands towards the entry.  So I looked around for a Jumpy House Technician of some sort, a person who was in charge of the area who I could ask...there was no one.  So I kicked off my shoes, and I climbed up.

I don't know what came over me. Maybe the sunny day gave me energy; maybe there was too much sugar in my tea. Before stepping through the door, I was a calm, rational adult who was merely enjoying the sunny day; but upon entering, like a small inflatable Thunderdome, I became consumed by the jumpy house, and  I took one step inside the entry, took a deep breath, and screamed "EVERYBODY LOOK OOOOOOOOOOUT!!!"...as I took a flying leap to the middle of the floor.

BOOM.

Gather 'round, dear readers, for now is a good time for a lesson in physics.  The sheer mass of my 6'3" frame hitting the surface of the apparatus instigated what is known as a "displacement vector," as the force of my body moved the gas beneath the plastic down and to the side, causing an equal-yet-opposite reaction of gas traveling up at an angle.  This traveling gas encountered the other people inside the house with me, standing in a random arrangement. As the instantaneous displacement of that force encountered them, the kinetic energy of that displacement overcame the pull of gravity on their mass.  And the kids LAUNCHED into the air.

Jump, jump, jump, I bounded around the little house, as little bodies wailed in terror, cowering in corners and scrambling for the exit. One brave little girl giggled and tried to bounce me, but due to those aforementioned laws of physics, her efforts were futile.  I'll show her.  BOING.  I bounced one little boy--a gangly collection of knees and elbows and freckles--so high into the air, he latched onto my chest like a marmoset holding onto a tree limb.  Except I don't think marmosets don't scream like that.

Alas, I don't need to get into too many of the details about next few minutes.  Each series of jumps corresponded to a significant reduction in the amount of kids in the jumpy house.   Watch the movie "Aliens," and note the scenes in which the little girl Newt cowers beneath the floor grates, hiding from the giant alien queen.

It was at this point I noticed my jumping was becoming more labored.  Was I tired already?  And why is the side of the house not fully-inflated anymore?...oh, we're losing air pressure.

I stopped jumping.  Wait, is this thing deflating? OH.

Quick, everybody out!

My friends, shaking their heads collectively, handed me my shoes without saying a word.  That mother from before, who so happily invited me in to jump around with her daughters, merely gave me an icy glare as she led away her brood, the mood somber.  And that jumpy house, once filled with energy and laughter, simply sagged to the side, listlessly giving up the the will to live from the fans that had once kept it strong.

What does one say in a moment like this?  My friend tried to change the subject.  "Do you want to go get a funnel cake?" he asked.

I rubbed the roundness of my belly. "I don't think I need to eat anything for a while."

 

 

I AM SO GAY

I would just you to know that if you Google the term flaming gay men, my weblog comes up as the #10 hit.

Yep, NUMBER TEN.

That's #10 in all of the English-based internet on Earth, I'll have you know. I tried it on the UK and Australian versions too, and there it was. My flamingness is universal.

Thank you very much.

The H.I.M.

I'm still working and I don't have time to be blogging right now.

It's a huge distraction.

But I just have to come on here for a little bit, I can't stay away.

I have gone out a few times with a cerain gentleman, a.k.a., H.I.M.*, and all is well.

The other day I went and bought lunch. I got a bunch of stuff from the gourmet grocery store, chicken and sides and whatnot. One of the little tubs had peas. I love peas. I brought it home, and he politely said "I don't like peas." And I thought Oh my God I don't know what he likes it's over.

Peas.

I have been alive for 32 years, yet I'm still just a giggly nervous little girl. I can see myself: I have a white dress with pink flowers that rises just above my knobby knees. And I twiddle my fingers and chew on my lip a lot. Because I do that in real-life. Not the dress, but the rest of it, yes. Okay the dress too.

I get on the phone and I practice what I'm going to say, and then I say something completely different. And whatever I do say is obviously the worst thing I could have said, which I obsess over for the rest of the day until I get a headache, which only goes away if he calls me and I get to speak impromptu, thereby not disappointing myself with all the things I was "going to say" but didn't. But then, I can't just sit around and wait for him to call me, that's rude. And there, the torture starts. I feel like a geisha, tip-toeing around with a pot of tea, trying not to do or say the wrong thing. H.I.M. does nothing to encourage this, he's been nothing but delightful and suppportive and gracious. It's all me.

It will go away eventually I realize.

But I think anyone would probably prefer going out to dinner with an adult, instead of a whimpering nervous mess. The latter just isn't very good company.

FYI:

* H.I.M. = Homosexual Intended Mate: The beginning stages of the courtship process. Fingers are crossed.

Or should it be

H.I.M. = Hopefully Inamorato Male? ("Inamorato" is another word for "boyfriend") This one is more universal, but a bit obscure. Hmm.

I shant blog about H.I.M. on here as I fear someone, somewhere, will read it and tell him about what I say. Such is the downfall of putting your name and face on your blog. And if this is YOU reading this, then...well...hi. Welcome to the inner workings of my brain. Lucky for you, I'm an open book and what you see is what you get anyway so there will be no secrets here. Nor will I ever talk about you. If you want that to happen, get your own blog, mister.

OOPS

My friend had his birthday party the other day, at a swanky bar on the beach with bottle service and neat little cabanas.

He was very nervous--it was the first time his professional and his personal worlds would meet. Correction: collide. "The people I work with don't know I'm gay," he said, as we drove to the party.

I nodded in understanding. "Okay."

"There's still some people who don't know, but I wanted everyone to be invited to the party."

"Okay."

"And the people who don't know I'm gay can't find out."

"Okay."

"So be careful who you are talking to people."

Translation: Dan, keep your mouth shut. Got it. "Okay."

I was going to ask how I would know who knew what. But then the conversation turned to the search for parking, which proved to be difficult.

Cut to an hour later--when we were the only people at the party. Turns out our bad luck with parking was plaguing everyone, and they were panickedly calling my friend and pleading for help while looping the block. So as he shouted into his cell phone, it gave me plenty of time to partake in the bottle of vodka all by myself.

It was some delicious stuff.

I was good and liquored-up when the party attendees started to arrive, first an ex-boyfriend from years ago, then another ex he dated just a few months ago. And then a few minutes later, a young woman walked in. "This is my ex-girlfriend," my friend said.

Does he have any regular friends? I thought.

"It's nice to meet you," I said. "You're the third ex of his I've met. And the first one without a penis!"

She just looked at me.

Yeah, she didn't know.

She does now.

youmakemefeelbadaboutmyself.com

I am the #9 Google hit for "I'm a dork."

Seriously.

Google it yourself.

~~~

~~~

That's me. There I am.

I'm even beating web sites with the word "dork" in the URL! Wow. That's hard to do.

...and I wonder why I'm ranked so high, as I type sentences like I'M EVEN BEATING WEB SITES WITH THE WORD "DORK" IN THE URL! Hmm. Maybe that has something to do with it.

I'm never going to get married.

Please excuse me, I have to go put my head in the oven and roast myself.

You know when you start singing a song, and everyone around you starts to laugh?...

...but you weren't trying to be funny?

Yeah.

The Things We Do For Love

So I have a funny story.

Several days ago I visited a special someone on his birthday. He requested that no one give presents; instead, we should make donations to his favorite charity. But of course close friends are still going to buy something, little knick-knacks of thoughtfulness filled with inside jokes. So the night of his birthday party his house was filled with ridiculour dollar-store finds, piled on his couch, his kitchen table, everywhere.

As he showed me all his new toys, he reached behind a table, and pulled out a thick cardboard tube. On the side it said Do-It-Yourself Stripper Pole Kit. And he handed it to me. "This is for you." And he smiled.

Embarrassing myself once again

Here's a conversation I had recently, when I bumped into someone on the street. I'll only recount my side of what was said, you'll be able to figure out the rest. It's quite possibly the worst conversation ever.