right thumb nail

I finally figured out why the skin under my right thumbnail is often irritated.

when i peel oranges, I often use the right thumb to dig in and puncture that skin the first time.

In fact, I'm proud of my opposable thumb overuse. I'm feeling very capable, in primate terms, tonight.

really?

really? it's been a week?

really? I just my mom a homemade birthday card for her 60th birthday?

really? One of my brothers wants us to present my mom with a $900 check so she can buy a sofa for her birthday that i'm sure she won't be happy with. And besides, she now has two grandbabies who come to grandmas house and want to jump all over the furniture. Is this the time for a new sofa?

Can you tell that I'm partial to the industrial dorm style furniture that has been in my parents' living room since (almost) as long as I can remember? I still remember when the brown plaid dude was the main sofa...if we could get new inner cushions for that, it would be all the rage in a retro thrift shop.

RSS Really (and finally)

Kelly has been extoling the benefits of RSS for years, but this week I finally converted. I'm working on a mega reader for work that tracks the activity off all the top university press offices, tech bloggers and major and niche media outlets. It's gonna kick some serious ass and save some serious time while keeping me seriously updated. can you tell i'm seriously stoked? seriously.

of course, I'm also setting up one for personal blogs.

i have to pee

when I was little, I had to "urinate"

when I got a little older, I had to "piss"

after a year or two of college, I had to "pee"

Ten years after college, I still have to pee

in fact, I have to pee right now.

Or do I have to piss?

am I butch enough to piss right now?

am I sensitive enough to pee?

am I sharp enough to know the difference?

rather than deliberate
I better just urinate.

sigur ros is coming to san diego

sigur ross is coming to san diego, and I want to go.

btw, I just finished teaching my yoga class this week, and I played sigur ros. true, we did shoulder stand before backbends (I done forgot). I also managed to steal the yoga mat of one of the students. he was in the bathroom and I stood on his mat and started the class. without saying a word, he just went to my matt...and 10 minutes later, I was like, "Jim, did I steal your yoga mat" and he was like "yeah" and everyone started laughing.

by the way, I'm still pissed at my high school...and I'm scheming...I'm going to figure out a way (I hope) to embarass Gonzaga High School in Washington DC. I gave them some money and sent in a class update in which i mentioned moving to san diego with italian bf. they cashed my check and proceeded NOT to publish my life update. the homophobic bastards. I haven't figured out what I'm going to do...but I think it involves throwing a huge bash in which people who are pissed at their homophobic high schools will all get together and have a big old party and raise a big ruckus and stir up some bad publicity for all the schools...but this is just a rough sketch...i don't know exactly what the plan is yet...

true, you could say that this kind of event could also make gonzaga look good in the eyes of the rich conservatives, the Pat Buchanons of the world who write big fat checks to their religiously oriented high school alma maters. but I think there is a way to make sure it's not all roses for the homophobpic bastards...yes, that's the second time I'm called them homophobic bastards, and this is the third (and fourth) time I said homophobic bastards. Why? because, in fact they are (fifth reference) homophobic bastards.

book

it has been one of those evenings when I actually feel like trying to squeeze out that book that intermittently percolates in my brain. but insead of jerking myself off with literary lallygagging, let's talk chicken. really. chicken dinner. The chicken dinner we had on saturday night.

it was no Stove Top selection, though it was all cooked on the stove top. Italian bf's friend who is in her mid 50s, Italian, and the mother of three boys (now aged 26, 22 and 18) cooked for us on saturday night as if she were cooking for her boys and husband. She visited us from Boston for a long weekend, no husband or sons in tow.

"I don't know how to cook for less than five!" she admitted as she transferred an entire cooked chicken from the blue enamel roasting pan to a glass casserole dish. She then poured the lemon/water/veggie bullion/garlic/rosemary/chicken juice onto the chicken meat in the glass pan. She truly was a mother hen feeding us like she feeds her babies. It felt really good. Moms are awesome!

cool music i've heard on KCRW.com

Your new twin sized bed, by Death Cab for Cutie

song: sour milk by Wild Sweet Orange

song: Crayola doesn't make a color for your eyes by Kristin Andreassen

Before It Gets Better by Earlimart...unfortunately, I can't find this track streaming on the Web...it's from the new Hymn and Her album. I scribbled down a haunting line from this song: "You can count all the friends who still really know you on just one hand"

album: Lost Blues and other Songs by Palace Music

tag chores

blue like the ocean water

marilyn, billy w., george and laura

marilyn monroe was here

some like it hot

george bush is not

is laura looking for a divorced former first lady spot? (I know this is super old speculation, but the Italian newspaper La Repubblica ran another story today...so I wonder if there is new dirt...)

la dolce vita

so these are the blueberries I already posed with here,

and complained about their non-east-coastness here.

And the reason I titled this blueberry post as "Blueberries for Sal" is that I was fondly remembering this book from my childhood. Maybe this book is why I love blueberries so much.

Sarah, do you know this book??? anybody else know this book?

are we tourists?

"Are you all tourists?" a straight young latino dude with a stud ear ring in the shape of a five point star asked us as we made for the door to leave a North Park club last Saturday night.

"No," I said. "We're celebrating. She just got a job in Paris."

The latino dude gave my red-dressed Parisian-bound friend a high five and we left.

I love chatty str8 latino dudes...except when they are trying to sell me a car.

BTW, I like how the flash picked up the reflector on my shoes hanging in the shoe rack and the towel rack in the bathroom that you can barely see. And that's a damn hot side view of our (fake?) brushed metal Ikea clock.

and our smoke detector? lookin good. I wonder if that clock is a tourist. If so, is it always jet lagged?

indy show post script

I, in fact, did part take in fake texting before and during the show in order to fit in with the kids. Douglas had not yet read about my fake texting plan, so his resoponse to my "this is a fake text, check blog" was "huh???"

indy show pretext

and when I say "pretext" I really mean "pre-text" in that I am pasting the text conversation I had with a Web friend about the indy show tonight...thus "indy pretext":

Me: i'm going to an indy rock show tonight...people who used to be roomates with a college friend of mine...
Me: http://www.myspace.com/officialtillyandthewall
Me: what are u doing?
web_buddy: im at work, sorry
web_buddy: oh i love live music
web_buddy: ive got a date
web_buddy: : )
Me: a date! fun!
Me: where is the date?
web_buddy: to a dinner. we didnt decide yet.
web_buddy: someplace ethnic
web_buddy: : )
Me: cool. have fun. I'll be busy hanging out with teenagers at an all ages show in mira mesa.
Me: if they are 16 and I'm 32...then I could realistically be their dad...
Me: funny
Me: maybe i'll buy some cigarettes for my "kids"
web_buddy: omg. should be fun though. where is it? epicenter?
Me: yolp
Me: never been
web_buddy: its a good venue
web_buddy: id bring earplugs ol geezer
Me: good idea
Me: i want to be able to hear the kids telling me what kind of smokes they want
web_buddy: teeeheeh
web_buddy: you guys are going to love it
web_buddy: going with the BF?
Me: don't know if he is going or not
Me: i might be the old guy lurking by himself
Me: i better do some fake text messaging while i'm there so I look hip

lemon. totally.

I typed "lemon" into my email search box, and found an email from the big k, from which I have exerpted below:

Then we got the hottie blonde college girls from
Sarah Lawrence, dressed up in their aint-I-growed-up
tweed blazers and standard-issue 160 dollar jeans
with just enough make-up on to convince the average
dude that they'll put-out, but not enough to be
mistaken for a girl on the FAFSA doles. They're
probably taking about Kant but too ashamed to admit
that, in the privacy of the dorm shower, they touch
their own.

blueberries for sal

If you pay enough, you can buy local blueberries in socal.

song to write by

If you are wondering what I am listening to right now, follow the link to this Omaha band and then click on the song on the right called "The Freest Man CSS." I am currently trying to figure out if the Neely who is in this band is the same Neely that was in a band with my friend Jenn.

UPDATE: (THANKS JENN!!!!!!!!!!!) yup...it's the same Neely!!! and Jamie too, I think. Italian bf and i are going to the show...and we're dragging two other san diego transplants with us...now if I can only figure out what time they go on...doors open at 7...

venue: epicentre

mom's email as poetry

Dear Daniel,
I just took out the trash and admired our hydrangia and bee balm.
True to the name, the bees are enjoying the flowers.
It is hot and humid, but not terrible.
A good swimming pool day and snack bar day.

You may have heard the news,
Jaqueline and Patrick are having a baby.
I was surprised. I guess she feels quite nauseated.

They are excited.
Now I have a whole new set of worries and joys.

cantakerous can-canker-ous can-Kanka-us post

Sorry for being so gross, but I am so excited that my canker sore is healing that I had to share. I bit my lip while eating salad about 10 days ago, and the tiny cut inside my mouth ballooned into a big ole sore. And this one landed in a particularly tricky location, just external enough that when I close my lips, I hit the sore, which means every morning when I wake up, I have to peel my lips apart and the healing skin rips off the sore and we have to start all over again. But two days ago, I decided to cover the outer edge in a bit of neosporin, while still covering the inner part with Kanka as always. The combo seems to be working. I've been getting these my whole life, but ever since I started chewing with my mouth closed on a more regular basis (about 12 years ago), the frequency has dropped by at least half. (my working hypothesis being that chewing with my mouth open increases the frequency with which I bite my lip while eating.) I still remember sitting outside the main library at UNL with Matt and Chesley 12 years ago. We were eating pizza and Chesley was like, "why don't you chew with your mouth closed?" She wasn't being mean. She was really just wondering (or at least she was nice enough to make me believe that). And I was like "I didn't realize I was chewing with my mouth open."

...can you tell that I didn't date in high school????

On Saturday night, a friend suggested I stay away from cows b/c he says foot and mouth diseases is related to what I got. thanks. I always wanted to be a communicable threat to livestock.

Christmas in July

Christmas in July. Literally. I just got a Christmas scarf from Douglas in the mail. Grazie mille!!!

blueberries

would somebody please eat some damn good blueberries for me? Maybe mixed with some bursting with summer flavor local peaches? SoCal just doesn't have the blueberries you find in other parts of the country. How can you make a super cheesy red white and blue cool whip laden sheet cake art project to chase away the post July 4 blues without amazing blueberries???

La Prima Fava

La prima fava del nostra balcone era molto saporita.

4th of July

The Fourth of July. Yay! One of my most memorable fourths? Vomiting my brains out in the upstairs hallway of my parents' house on Glenville Road. Why? Because I ate the wrong part of the Chesapeake Bay blue crabs at the annual neighborhood crab fest. I still remember sitting there munching away on the whitish, longitudinal, flavorless soft parts of the belly of the crabs. I was 7 or 8, but my cognitive processes haven't changed much since then. I munched away...with a vague sense that something was not quite right, but that notion didn't stop me.

And boy did I pay the price. Although whoever(my mom, I'm sure) had to clean the crab puke off the wooden floor in the upstairs hallway paid more than I. Sorry mom.

school is cool

1.5 Marg-ur-itas

1.5 marguritas to send off a coworker to greener pastures (still irrigated by imported water from a non-sustainable source)...but greener pastures none-the-less.

and now I have Bruce Springsteen's My Hometown on repeat. But right now, it's not REALLY on repeat in that it is still on the first play. So the mantra has only started. My hometown has not yet obsessed me. But I did talk to two DC-area transplants today, one of whom still owns a 2BR place in capitol hill that has more than quadrupled in value since she bought it in the late 1990s. You go girl!

but talking about money and real estate is so boring and predictable, especially with regard to DC. The song just started it's second spin. My hometown. My hometown.

i went to a rainbow flag raising yesterday on campus. it was a sweet ceremony meant to mark some relevant flag/fag anniversary, but I am not sure which one. But it was not your average flag raising. The flag raising was performed by a hunky hot guy in a hard hat and jeans tight in all the right places. Why? Because the flag poles are supposedly drunk-asshole protected in that the place where you "do the mashed potato" with your hands in order to raise or lower the flag is 20 feet above the ground. That's the drunk-asshole-protected part (drunk-asshole-pole-jumpers not withstanding). And that means that when the fags want to raise the rainbow flag, they have to enlist the help of a hot hunky guy from the tree cutting crew who rides in a big white cherry picker. (Insert sex-related cherry joke here. Insert rides-something-big-and-white jokes here.)

the event was very nice, but also bizzare. From tremendous wedgies, to pleated pants from hell, to linen that should be forbidden, this was no Queer Eye back-up cast. I rode my bike to the event, and stood straddling my bike throughout the event, quietly reveling in the gentle tickle of my scrotum brushing past the bike's horizontal bar as my balls waved in the wind, seemingly synchronized with the waving rainbow flag overhead.

who needs a title?

i'm going to be in DC over labor day weekend!!!! i hope douglas can make it back from yale...but I don't know if that will be possible or not.