The Secret Lives of Shoes

So, those who know me understand that I am not the world’s most tidy person.  My parents often referred to my room as a “dungeon with hidden trap doors underneath all the clothes” until I reached the age of 12, at which point, they realized that no amount of verbal cajoling and  weekly stipend could motivate me to actually clean my room.  Not much has changed in the 18 years since, other than I now pay a pretty penny for the floor upon which my clothes and shoes rest.

At my office, however, I don’t generally throw clothes willy-nilly around (papers, pens, highlighted, and curse words, yes; clothes, no).  I do, however, have a pile of work shoes in the corner, wedged between the end of my desk unit and the air conditioning/heating unit.  As I walk to work, I often opt for comfort over couture, pairing my preppy barrister slacks with athletic shoes until I get to my office, whereupon I slip into a pair from my shoe pile.  The other day, I happened to look at my shoe pile and notice a shoe that I had not previously seen…a black sandal pump that looked like something that I would actually buy, but did not think that I actually had.  I look at it quizzically for a few minutes, because it kind of looked like a heel that I used to have (assuming that the sparklies on my front of old shoe had fallen off, and well, that I hadn’t thrown out those old shoes).  I then pick it up and match it against my foot and figured out that it was at least two sizes too small for my foot.  I searched in vain for the interloping shoe’s soul-mate, but alas, there was just the single, lonely shoe that had somehow wandered into my shoe pile from unknown origins.  I have only one thing to say — “What the fuck?”

Even possibly more disturbing, I explained the appearance of a random Naturalizer shoe in my shoe pile to the fashionable, blond co-worker who sits next door to me, and her response was, “Oh, could it be mine?  I have lots of shoes.”  She did not seem particularly disturbed that a SINGLE, RANDOM AS ALL FUCK shoe ended up residing in my office, only that one of her shoes had perhaps gotten waylaid.  Evidently, if you are willing to pay a few hundred dollars for a pair of shoes, they come with little shoe-residing grasshoppers who have high heel drag races in the middle of the night while you’re sleeping.  C’mon!

The Secret Link Between Female Chest Hair and Vegas

Why is it exactly that I have 362 messages in my Gmail Spam folder, a good third of which promise to enhance my lackluster manhood?  Are small penises really that big of an epidemic, that I need 20 e-mail messages a day reminding me to pump, shoot, massage, and orally imbibe a variety of penis-enlarging concoctions?  And how do I break it to my spam stalkers that their various snake oil creams and pills will have little effect on me, a member of the Va-J-J crowd?  I might get hair on my nipples, but that would be about it.  I have yet to see spam addressing the underserved population of those who relish female chest hair (“Amaze the Girls with Your Bountiful Chest Bush!” perhaps, or “Nipple Hair Really Does Matter!  Get Short and Curlies Everywhere Will Nipple-Gro!”). 

But I digress…the point of this post is Vegas, not my penile-enhancement-friendly spam.  You know the adage, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…well, I think that’s bunk.  I mean, my money already stayed in Vegas, so I feel that I can share the rest of it here.  This obviously means that I stayed sober enough the entire trip to actually remember the details.  Some of you will view this as proof that I did not truly enjoy Vegas, but I beg to differ.  Although, if the alcohol could selectively erase my memories of Vegas-ostitutes (sprinkled along the strip, or found en masse in the nightclub Tao in the Venetian, a common species in Nevada noted for its lack of bra support and covering, insufficient leg cover, curious orange coloring, and odd four-inch heel shuffle), the Treasure Island Siren show (aka a bunch of lip-synching Vegas-ostitutes using their curiously orange-colored goods to engage in battle with a bunch of skeevy-looking Vegas himbos dressed in pirate drag in a spectacle that seems designed to set the women’s movement back to the days of Christopher Columbus), and the moment when I went all-in at a poker tournament at Caesar’s with a full house and LOST!  (Insert much Yosemite Sam-like cursing here), then I would say, bring on the blackberry mojitos and bloody marys!

Now that we’ve addressed some of the trip’s low points, let’s get to the goods.  First, T. Rex and I stayed at the Wynn, and I have to say that it fucking rocked (indeed, our mode of transportation to the Wynn was decidedly Vegas-like — we had a rather corpulent cab driver attempt to ingratiate himself to us by offering to take us to male strip clubs for free, or even better, to drive a private male dancer named “Jordan” to our hotel room in 20 minutes or less).  Perhaps I’ve been living on the East Coast too long and have suffered the evils of New York hotel rooms (aka a full-sized bed precariously perched between two brick walls with an afterthought of a bathroom for $300+ a night), but the Wynn did not seem like a bad deal at all for the price we paid.  The room was huge, had floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the strip, and had a separate bathtub and shower, both big enough to fit me plus a sumo wrestler (alas, one of the few things I did not see in Vegas).  Better yet, the Wynn prohibited smoking and strollers in almost all areas of the hotel, which meant that my lungs and my shins were safe!  T. Rex and I hit the Wynn’s buffet on Sunday morning, and engaged in the time-honored sin of gluttony.  We paid roughly $35 a piece, but at morning’s end, she had managed to snarf down four plates of food along with constantly refilled mimosas and ice tea, and I came in second with three plates of food, ½ of a candy apple, and a fair number of mimosas, myself.  Needless to say, we spent most of the rest of Sunday laying flat on the bed in our hotel room, processing our gluttonous repast while watching football-themed movies on TNT.  (And here is one of the many moments in which I knew that I was beyond old — the scene where Ali Larter attempts to seduce James van der Beek in her whipped cream bikini came on while we were watching “Varsity Blues,” and all I could think is, “Eww…she looks so young, go put some clothes on!”  Oh, middle age, here I come!)  Alas, we never did invite “Jordan” over.  Funny that.

The best food we tried in Vegas was “Alex,”an elegant restaurant in the Wynn that had a delightful, well-traveled sommelier, and scrumptious food.  T. Rex and I parted ways from the birthday girl (my home slice, DC) and her girl gang for the night (alas, they headed out to Toby Keith’s restaurant in Harrah’s…yeah, not so unhappy that I missed that excursion).  Décor-wise, Alex was probably the fanciest restaurant I’ve been to (yes, it’s even more fancily-decorated than “French Laundry;” after all, there were freakin’ silk roses sewn onto the drapes).  The wine list was, however, eminently accessible, with bottles from pretty much everywhere in the world and reasonably-priced ones to boot.  And the food?  Well, it was spot-on.  Not as good as French Laundry, but on par with Le Bernardin in New York (though I prefer Alex’s wine list).  You could choose between a 3-course tasting menu and a 7-course tasting menu; given our buffet gluttony earlier in the day, we opted for the 3-course tasting menu, which was quite divine.  I chose a butternut squash risotto, roasted wild turbot (which is evidently pronounced turb-o, not turb-ot, silly me), and a selection of cheeses, all of which was paired with a delightful syrah from Santa Barbara, California.  T. Rex went with a butter-poached lobster (served with actual black truffles, which p.s. by the way, taste kind of like earthy rubber), venison chop with a pomegranate sauce (if Bambi’s mom tasted this good, I can’t really blame the hunter), and the cheeses as well.  Only possible complaint?  The wait staff kind of looked like they had brooms implanted up their arse on their first day of work.  Lighten up…good food doesn’t have to be so damn serious!

Still, the wait staff at Alex was a dream compared to the waiter at Bouchon, where the whole gang dined on Saturday night.  Being an ardent fan of French Laundry, I convinced the birthday girl to give Thomas Keller’s lower-priced fare a try.  It was, well, disappointing.  Don’t get me wrong…the food is good, it’s just that it’s horribly French, and by “horribly French,” I mean that it’s thoroughly unimaginative and heavily saturated in both butter and cream.  Whereas French Laundry was a delight of the senses, where I could taste every fresh ingredient used in the dishes, Bouchon’s ingredients had drowned in so much butter and cream that the it was hard to taste the ingredients for what they were.  My day boat scallops (a whopping $48) were cooked well, but their taste was blunted by the sauce (even though I opted for what I thought would be a lighter olive oil sauce, the taste was still all sauce and no scallop).  Alas, the oysters we ordered as appetizers did not have any cream, but they were thoroughly uninteresting.  And the waiter…oh my god.  First, he took a good 15-20 minutes to even come to our table.  If I’m paying $48 for scallops, your ass should be at my table to tell me either (a) that you’re super busy and will have to come back or (b) take my drink order within the first 10 minutes.  Second, if we ate everything on our plates, he kept saying, “Oh, I take it you didn’t like it very much?”  He did this five separate times to us throughout the course of the meal.  I desperately wanted to inform him, “Well, to tell you the truth, the food is perfectly average, but I ate light all day to prepare myself for something really good, so I’m damn hungry and this is what’s in front of me, so I ate it,” but he never actually stayed long enough at the table for me to get that whole sentence out.  The wine list was decent, however, and T. Rex and I split a delightful selection of ports for dessert.  All’s well that ends well, but the honest truth about Bouchon (in Vegas, anyway) is that plenty of cheaper restaurants are better.

For example, Mario Batali’s new Enoteca in the Venetian was a definite high point.  A complete contrast from Bouchon, Batali’s Enoteca San Marco is a wine-centric restaurant that offers small plates (pizzas, salads, and pastas) in a delightful setting inside the Venetian that makes you feel as if you’re in a Piazza in Venice.  The wine was excellent, and if you weren’t sure what you wanted, the staff was happy to give you a pour of everything for you to try.  The food was very yummy (T. Rex had a pasta that was little more than pasta and cheese, but which was seasoned so well that it melted in my mouth in a fit of orgasmic pleasure), the service was friendly, and the price was eminently reasonable.  Definitely a must if you’re in Vegas.

One thing I will probably not do on my next trip is to scarf down another Eiffel-tower sized strawberry margarita.  DC thought it would be simply delightful to have our picture taken with each of us drinking out of an Eiffel Tower-sized drink (procured at the Paris Hotel, of course).  The drink is roughly equivalent to 5 or 6 actual drinks.  T. Rex and I decided to split our strawberry margarita, despite the rest of the crew labeling us “pussies” for our share-and-share-alike attitude.  About two hours later, however, when sugar shock had grasped those who consumed the Eiffel tower on their own, we were upgraded to “smart pussies.”  I can live with that…

And I can also die happier having seen Cirque du Soleil’s “Love” at the Mirage (my 11th Cirque show!).  Although I am not what you would call a big Beatles’ fan (indeed, I am more of the “why the hell were the Beatles exactly so important?” camp), the show was masterful.  The set design and costuming were the best I have ever seen at a Cirque show and the music was actually pretty good (though I’m convinced that many, many drugs were involved in creating that music – “I’d like to be under the sea in an octopus’ garden with you?”  C’mon!)

Speaking of lyrics that were created under the influence, we managed to create the first line of a few new songs while on our trip…

BP — “I want a pink one!”  (sure to be heard in a Victoria’s Secret near you soon)

MC — “I have a very flexible mouth, it’s one of my attributes.” (could be either Jim Carrey or Jenna Jamison’s personal anthem)

Snarky — (in reference to an ad on one of the hotels) “Diet Pepsi sponsors Toni Braxton’s twat!” (‘nuff said)

Sketchy Cab Driver — “I have the catalog to the Bunny Ranch…” (a new version of Old McDonald had a farm?)

Okay…so that wasn’t everything that happened in Vegas, but then again…some things that happen in Vegas stay there 🙂

Take This Pinta and Shove It

My personal quest of passion and justice to have the national holiday of “Columbus Day” renamed to “Rape & Pillage Celebration Day” has just received further ammunition — a new genetic study indicates that Columbus was not only responsible for introducing the time-honored traditions of raping indigenous infidels and pillaging foreign land to the New World, but can also lay claim to the New World’s introduction to syphilis as well.  I hereby call on the powers-that-be to rename “Columbus Day” to “Rape, Pillage, and Spread a Venereal Disease Day” and to mark such occasion by flying an American flag at half-mast, slightly charred, and hosting a large red rash in the center.  (Of course, there is always the option of jettisoning a holiday in honor of a person whose exploits should have earned him the title of Satan’s butt monkey for all of eternity in favor of a more festive celebration of American discovery and invention.  I’m just saying.)

Take This Pinta and Shove It

My personal quest of passion and justice to have the national holiday of “Columbus Day” renamed to “Rape & Pillage Celebration Day” has just received further ammunition — a new genetic study indicates that Columbus was not only responsible for introducing the time-honored traditions of raping indigenous infidels and pillaging foreign land to the New World, but can also lay claim to the New World’s introduction to syphilis as well.  I hereby call on the powers-that-be to rename “Columbus Day” to “Rape, Pillage, and Spread a Venereal Disease Day” and to mark such occasion by flying an American flag at half-mast, slightly charred, and hosting a large red rash in the center.  (Of course, there is always the option of jettisoning a holiday in honor of a person whose exploits should have earned him the title of Satan’s butt monkey for all of eternity in favor of a more festive celebration of American discovery and invention.  I’m just saying.)

Motel Hotel Economics

So…let’s talk about how I’m holed up inside a motel in Newark, Delaware that smells faintly of “I used to smell like cigarette smoke back in the 80s when smoking in hotel rooms was the shiznet but I have been sprayed repeatedly with an ozone-like substance in order to eradicate the film of carcinogenic smoke that has layered my walls and carpet” the day after Christmas watching “The World’s Strongest Man” on ESPN, shall we?  It all started off innocently enough — after spending a delightful pre-holiday weekend and Christmas Eve with my mom, I headed up to the all-American town of Middletown, Delaware on Christmas Day to celebrate Santa’s burgeoning stomach, rosy red cheeks, and frostbite-repelling white beard with T. Rex and her family.  Numerous portions of ham, scalloped apples, vegetables, flaky biscuits, baklava, grandma’s cookies, wine, and caramel apples later, I was fit to be Santa’s replacement.  Lacking the proper equipment to strap down my breasts, augment my chiny chin chin with some delightful white hair, or learn how to fly reindeer on short notice, T. Rex and I took our protuberant bellies to the only hotel in all of Christendom (okay, well, all of Middletown) — the Hampton Inn. 

The Hampton Inn was a perfectly delightful place to spend the night — what better way to aid the body in digestion than some free Internet access, Mountain Dew from the vending machine, and a Paranormal State marathon on A&E, which taught me that 3 a.m. is the optimal time to contact evil spirits, since it is the inverse of the time of Jesus’ death (which apparently happened at 3 p.m.).  Evidently, the man not only died from our sins, but he founded the first wireless spirit network.  Yet, despite my crash-course in paranormal communications, I found $120 to be a bit steep for a King-size bed in the middle of sleepy and sparsely populated suburbia.  Methinks that the Hampton Inn Middletown is profiting from being the only game in town as well as the fortuitous location across from the WaWa gas station , which was the only place in all of Middletown open, nay, practically spilling First State residents out of every glass door pore on its edifice, on Christmas Eve.  Seriously, I haven’t seen a place that busy since I watched live footage of a Black Friday stampede at Wal-Mart.

Yet, I must admit that the Hampton Inn is to the Bellagio as the Sleep Inn in whose ozone-scented room I am currently residing in typing this lengthy blog entry is to the El Cortez Hotel and Casino — one left turn down the road to Sketchville.  Sketchville was not my intended destination for tonight.  No, indeed, after spending a day lounging, relaxing, and doing abso-fucking-lutely nothing, me and 9 pounds of holiday ham were set to travel back down I-95 to D.C. tonight.  Yet, the second that I hit the highway, I was awash in a rainstorm and 30-mph traffic.  It seems that everyone and their brother, sister, niece, and nephew was heading back from the New York area in separate cars, descending upon the beltway in a wash of steel, headlights, and rubbernecking.  I forsaw a 2 1/2 hour drive turning into a 5 to 6 hour nightmare of road rage and high blood pressure, and turned tail back to Delaware in search of cheap lodgings.  And so here I sit in the $69 Sleep Inn.  It ain’t all bad.  The vending machine has diet Dr. Pepper, and the floor and bedspread have the good decency to have enough color and pattern that if I toss my ham and cookies when I wake up to head back to D.C. at 4 or 5 in the morning, it’ll blend in.  Still, it’s not exactly the best establishment for a romantic, post-holiday tryst.  Unless I’m picking up one of the Lube Express proprieters; in that case, it’s just right.

Motel Hotel Economics

So…let’s talk about how I’m holed up inside a motel in Newark, Delaware that smells faintly of “I used to smell like cigarette smoke back in the 80s when smoking in hotel rooms was the shiznet but I have been sprayed repeatedly with an ozone-like substance in order to eradicate the film of carcinogenic smoke that has layered my walls and carpet” the day after Christmas watching “The World’s Strongest Man” on ESPN, shall we?  It all started off innocently enough — after spending a delightful pre-holiday weekend and Christmas Eve with my mom, I headed up to the all-American town of Middletown, Delaware on Christmas Day to celebrate Santa’s burgeoning stomach, rosy red cheeks, and frostbite-repelling white beard with T. Rex and her family.  Numerous portions of ham, scalloped apples, vegetables, flaky biscuits, baklava, grandma’s cookies, wine, and caramel apples later, I was fit to be Santa’s replacement.  Lacking the proper equipment to strap down my breasts, augment my chiny chin chin with some delightful white hair, or learn how to fly reindeer on short notice, T. Rex and I took our protuberant bellies to the only hotel in all of Christendom (okay, well, all of Middletown) — the Hampton Inn. 

The Hampton Inn was a perfectly delightful place to spend the night — what better way to aid the body in digestion than some free Internet access, Mountain Dew from the vending machine, and a Paranormal State marathon on A&E, which taught me that 3 a.m. is the optimal time to contact evil spirits, since it is the inverse of the time of Jesus’ death (which apparently happened at 3 p.m.).  Evidently, the man not only died from our sins, but he founded the first wireless spirit network.  Yet, despite my crash-course in paranormal communications, I found $120 to be a bit steep for a King-size bed in the middle of sleepy and sparsely populated suburbia.  Methinks that the Hampton Inn Middletown is profiting from being the only game in town as well as the fortuitous location across from the WaWa gas station , which was the only place in all of Middletown open, nay, practically spilling First State residents out of every glass door pore on its edifice, on Christmas Eve.  Seriously, I haven’t seen a place that busy since I watched live footage of a Black Friday stampede at Wal-Mart.

Yet, I must admit that the Hampton Inn is to the Bellagio as the Sleep Inn in whose ozone-scented room I am currently residing in typing this lengthy blog entry is to the El Cortez Hotel and Casino — one left turn down the road to Sketchville.  Sketchville was not my intended destination for tonight.  No, indeed, after spending a day lounging, relaxing, and doing abso-fucking-lutely nothing, me and 9 pounds of holiday ham were set to travel back down I-95 to D.C. tonight.  Yet, the second that I hit the highway, I was awash in a rainstorm and 30-mph traffic.  It seems that everyone and their brother, sister, niece, and nephew was heading back from the New York area in separate cars, descending upon the beltway in a wash of steel, headlights, and rubbernecking.  I forsaw a 2 1/2 hour drive turning into a 5 to 6 hour nightmare of road rage and high blood pressure, and turned tail back to Delaware in search of cheap lodgings.  And so here I sit in the $69 Sleep Inn.  It ain’t all bad.  The vending machine has diet Dr. Pepper, and the floor and bedspread have the good decency to have enough color and pattern that if I toss my ham and cookies when I wake up to head back to D.C. at 4 or 5 in the morning, it’ll blend in.  Still, it’s not exactly the best establishment for a romantic, post-holiday tryst.  Unless I’m picking up one of the Lube Express proprieters; in that case, it’s just right.

The Wine Ho “Comes Out”

I’ve been told that admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery.  I’m more than happy to admit that I have a dastardly addiction problem (well, two, actually), but I have no desire to recover from either addiction.  You see, I’m a ho.  Not the kind that trades her bodily wares on the corner of 12th and M NW at Sunday morning at 4 a.m. (Though I was once mistaken for a prostitute at 5 a.m. as I sat on the stoop of the stairs outside my front door waiting for T.Rex to get off work, despite me being dressed in athletic shorts and a baggy puma t-shirt; this leads me to believe that tomboy fantasies are being underserved by the active prostitution population), but a (1) wine and (2) bath and body products ho. 

Now, the bath and body products ho-dom has been a lifestyle pattern since college.  Many a person has been forced to restrain me as I pass by lotions and potions stores in the mall, lest I buy my tenth bottle of body wash or lotion.  (Let’s see…a current review of my body washes alone reveals Oil of Olay, Korres Fig, Body Shop Olive, H2O Natural Spring Body Polish, The Thymes Ginger Milk, some Honey and Fig concoction I brought back from New Zealand, and Molton Brown’s Wild Indigo — and that’s not even counting what I might have squirreled away in shame underneath my bathroom sink.  My repository of body lotions is a subject for another day.) 

The wine ho thing is a new phenomena, however, spurned into existence by (a) a sudden doubling of my old government hack salary and (b) recent wine trips to New Zealand and Sonoma, wherein I discovered that Greeks were onto something with wine-infused Bacchanalia.  I started 2007 being a big believer in the $5-9 specials at Trader Joe’s, with the occasional splurge into $15-20 wineland, and I finish it with a wine fridge stocked with 53 bottles of wine, champagne, and port ranging in price from a mere $9.99 all the way to $100.  How in holly green hell did this happen?  What started out a novel interest in having wines shipped back to myself from New Zealand and California has turned into full-fledged maniacal passion, complete with a Wine Spectator membership, a notebook of tasting notes, and strange Saturday phone calls with the wine expert of an Oregon wine shop about the virtues of Oregon versus New Zealand pinot and California versus Washington State Cabernet. 

 So, since I have decided to jump off the bridge ‘o crazy into a flowing river of wine, I have decided that the best way to get company in Crazy Town is by sharing my love of fermented grapes and oak barrels.  (I could certainly also share my love of all things smelly and lotion-y, but something tells me that y’all would prefer to hear about food and wine over, say, the foam ratio of different body washes I’ve tried or how how soft and supple different lotions make my skin.)

So, we begin this foray with Thursday night’s dinner.  I whipped up a grilled sirloin with caramelized shallots and blue cheese, grilled asparagus, and sourdough bread topped with fig jam and more blue cheese and paired that with a 2005 Mayo Family Russian River Zinfindel($30/bottle) that T.Rex and I bought in Healdsburg, California (the Mayo Family has a delightful tasting room outpost in Healdsburg, which is about 30 minutes north of Sonoma, where they pair their wines with delightful niblets like peanut butter and jam and left-over Chinese food — a delightful sensory experience not to be missed).  The Zinfindel was good, but unremarkable on its own; paired with the blue cheese and steak, however, it was the picture perfect definition of “orgasm in my mouth.”  Just a touch of spice and blackberry jam to accentuate the boldness of the blue cheese and the texture of the steak.  Damn, if I ate like that every night, I’d be a very happy, 300-pound woman.  Yum yum.

If you’re the type who only spends $30 on a bottle of wine either (a) at a restaurant when that’s the cheapest bottle you can find or (b) when you’re trying to get into someone’s pants, then I recommend pairing your steak with a 2004 Naouoaia Red from the Naoussa region of Greece, which can be obtained for a bargain $9.99 at Whole Foods (just look for the label that’s entirely in the Greek alphabet!)  Not as fruity or jammy as a good Zinfindel, but it has hints of nuts and spice and is eminently drinkable with a a good cut of cow (I paired it with some free-range, grass-fed New York strip) or on its own.  I went back and bought two more bottles of the Naouoaia after trying it a month or so ago (one more for me and one for a Christmas gift).  53 bottles and counting…y’all need to get your arses out to DC to help me drink this damn wine!

The Wine Ho "Comes Out"

I’ve been told that admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery.  I’m more than happy to admit that I have a dastardly addiction problem (well, two, actually), but I have no desire to recover from either addiction.  You see, I’m a ho.  Not the kind that trades her bodily wares on the corner of 12th and M NW at Sunday morning at 4 a.m. (Though I was once mistaken for a prostitute at 5 a.m. as I sat on the stoop of the stairs outside my front door waiting for T.Rex to get off work, despite me being dressed in athletic shorts and a baggy puma t-shirt; this leads me to believe that tomboy fantasies are being underserved by the active prostitution population), but a (1) wine and (2) bath and body products ho. 

Now, the bath and body products ho-dom has been a lifestyle pattern since college.  Many a person has been forced to restrain me as I pass by lotions and potions stores in the mall, lest I buy my tenth bottle of body wash or lotion.  (Let’s see…a current review of my body washes alone reveals Oil of Olay, Korres Fig, Body Shop Olive, H2O Natural Spring Body Polish, The Thymes Ginger Milk, some Honey and Fig concoction I brought back from New Zealand, and Molton Brown’s Wild Indigo — and that’s not even counting what I might have squirreled away in shame underneath my bathroom sink.  My repository of body lotions is a subject for another day.) 

The wine ho thing is a new phenomena, however, spurned into existence by (a) a sudden doubling of my old government hack salary and (b) recent wine trips to New Zealand and Sonoma, wherein I discovered that Greeks were onto something with wine-infused Bacchanalia.  I started 2007 being a big believer in the $5-9 specials at Trader Joe’s, with the occasional splurge into $15-20 wineland, and I finish it with a wine fridge stocked with 53 bottles of wine, champagne, and port ranging in price from a mere $9.99 all the way to $100.  How in holly green hell did this happen?  What started out a novel interest in having wines shipped back to myself from New Zealand and California has turned into full-fledged maniacal passion, complete with a Wine Spectator membership, a notebook of tasting notes, and strange Saturday phone calls with the wine expert of an Oregon wine shop about the virtues of Oregon versus New Zealand pinot and California versus Washington State Cabernet. 

 So, since I have decided to jump off the bridge ‘o crazy into a flowing river of wine, I have decided that the best way to get company in Crazy Town is by sharing my love of fermented grapes and oak barrels.  (I could certainly also share my love of all things smelly and lotion-y, but something tells me that y’all would prefer to hear about food and wine over, say, the foam ratio of different body washes I’ve tried or how how soft and supple different lotions make my skin.)

So, we begin this foray with Thursday night’s dinner.  I whipped up a grilled sirloin with caramelized shallots and blue cheese, grilled asparagus, and sourdough bread topped with fig jam and more blue cheese and paired that with a 2005 Mayo Family Russian River Zinfindel($30/bottle) that T.Rex and I bought in Healdsburg, California (the Mayo Family has a delightful tasting room outpost in Healdsburg, which is about 30 minutes north of Sonoma, where they pair their wines with delightful niblets like peanut butter and jam and left-over Chinese food — a delightful sensory experience not to be missed).  The Zinfindel was good, but unremarkable on its own; paired with the blue cheese and steak, however, it was the picture perfect definition of “orgasm in my mouth.”  Just a touch of spice and blackberry jam to accentuate the boldness of the blue cheese and the texture of the steak.  Damn, if I ate like that every night, I’d be a very happy, 300-pound woman.  Yum yum.

If you’re the type who only spends $30 on a bottle of wine either (a) at a restaurant when that’s the cheapest bottle you can find or (b) when you’re trying to get into someone’s pants, then I recommend pairing your steak with a 2004 Naouoaia Red from the Naoussa region of Greece, which can be obtained for a bargain $9.99 at Whole Foods (just look for the label that’s entirely in the Greek alphabet!)  Not as fruity or jammy as a good Zinfindel, but it has hints of nuts and spice and is eminently drinkable with a a good cut of cow (I paired it with some free-range, grass-fed New York strip) or on its own.  I went back and bought two more bottles of the Naouoaia after trying it a month or so ago (one more for me and one for a Christmas gift).  53 bottles and counting…y’all need to get your arses out to DC to help me drink this damn wine!

The Holiday Hook Up

There are two things more perfect for each other than peanut butter and chocolate — the holiday season and the Internet.  Not only do I have J. Crew stalking my e-mail inbox on a daily basis, promising me free shipping and discounted outerwear if I will only give them free access to my credit card (which, admittedly, I do on a somewhat regular basis, curse you J. Crew and your preppy lures!), but I have Amazon.com sending me personalized discount offers, such as today’s 30% discount on the movie Personal Best (for those of you who didn’t try to watch every lesbian ever made when you came out in college, that would be an early 1980s movie with Mariel Hemingway about a lesbian relationship between two Olympic track athletes).  Evidently, something about my purchasing habits at Amazon screams lesbian.  Funnily, I had also thought that my purchasing history screamed “good taste,” but evidently I’m going to have to work on that if I want Amazon.com to offer me a discount on a friggin’ decent lesbian flick next year.  At this point, it’s looking like next year’s Amazon coupon might be a fantastic deal on Vampire Lesbian Kickboxers.

The Holiday Hook Up

There are two things more perfect for each other than peanut butter and chocolate — the holiday season and the Internet.  Not only do I have J. Crew stalking my e-mail inbox on a daily basis, promising me free shipping and discounted outerwear if I will only give them free access to my credit card (which, admittedly, I do on a somewhat regular basis, curse you J. Crew and your preppy lures!), but I have Amazon.com sending me personalized discount offers, such as today’s 30% discount on the movie Personal Best (for those of you who didn’t try to watch every lesbian ever made when you came out in college, that would be an early 1980s movie with Mariel Hemingway about a lesbian relationship between two Olympic track athletes).  Evidently, something about my purchasing habits at Amazon screams lesbian.  Funnily, I had also thought that my purchasing history screamed “good taste,” but evidently I’m going to have to work on that if I want Amazon.com to offer me a discount on a friggin’ decent lesbian flick next year.  At this point, it’s looking like next year’s Amazon coupon might be a fantastic deal on Vampire Lesbian Kickboxers.

One of Those Days

Have you ever had one of those days?  Those days where you can’t manage to get your ass out of bed until an hour after your alarm goes off; where everything in your closet seems like it fit better one-year and ten pounds ago; where you yell at your cat because he has the audacity to require a little attention after you’ve been gone a whole evening?  Alas, half-coherent morning ramblings at a feline about the fact that no one is around to pick up my clothes, do my laundry, or play plushie toy games with me is probably not the best outlet for my frustration.  I think me and the kitty both need a Wii.

If only a day on Earth lasted about as long as a day on Mercury (that would be about 176 Earth days), I might be able to accomplish everything that I needed done in any given day.  And I’d have time for that thermonuclear tan, too.  Now that winter has firmly set in here on the Eastern seaboard, my chances of fighting the luminous whiteness of my Eastern European heritage are slim to none.  I suppose there is always that “self-apply” tan lotion, but ever since that stuff turned an ex of mine’s belly button into a burnt sienna wonder, I stay firmly away from such products.  Having a tan is sexy; looking like a six-foot Oompa Loompa is not.

Alas, not even the 15 pounds of gourmet Kookaburra red licorice sitting here in my office are enough to brighten my day.  Yes, 15 pounds.  This is what happens when (a) a deep and unyielding love for red licorice; (b) a passion for sale pricing; (c) a lack of time to shop in person; and (d) an exorbitant paycheck combine.  BOOM — you order 15 pounds of licorice in bulk pricing because you’re tired of paying Au Bon Pain $1.99 per ounce for the sweet manna when you could pay that per pound if only you would purchase 15 pounds at once and who cares that it’s an obscene amount of money to spend on licorice when you know that you’ll eat it eventually, unlike the pile ‘o carrots that are sitting in your refrigerator and wilting, while yet simultaneously growing fur.  I don’t know why, but I just had an image in my head of a Wii boxing game where a licorice niblet takes on a furry carrot (my bet is on the niblet); Nintendo could call it “Food Fight.”  On the other hand, perhaps I shouldn’t quit my day job just yet…

One of Those Days

Have you ever had one of those days?  Those days where you can’t manage to get your ass out of bed until an hour after your alarm goes off; where everything in your closet seems like it fit better one-year and ten pounds ago; where you yell at your cat because he has the audacity to require a little attention after you’ve been gone a whole evening?  Alas, half-coherent morning ramblings at a feline about the fact that no one is around to pick up my clothes, do my laundry, or play plushie toy games with me is probably not the best outlet for my frustration.  I think me and the kitty both need a Wii.

If only a day on Earth lasted about as long as a day on Mercury (that would be about 176 Earth days), I might be able to accomplish everything that I needed done in any given day.  And I’d have time for that thermonuclear tan, too.  Now that winter has firmly set in here on the Eastern seaboard, my chances of fighting the luminous whiteness of my Eastern European heritage are slim to none.  I suppose there is always that “self-apply” tan lotion, but ever since that stuff turned an ex of mine’s belly button into a burnt sienna wonder, I stay firmly away from such products.  Having a tan is sexy; looking like a six-foot Oompa Loompa is not.

Alas, not even the 15 pounds of gourmet Kookaburra red licorice sitting here in my office are enough to brighten my day.  Yes, 15 pounds.  This is what happens when (a) a deep and unyielding love for red licorice; (b) a passion for sale pricing; (c) a lack of time to shop in person; and (d) an exorbitant paycheck combine.  BOOM — you order 15 pounds of licorice in bulk pricing because you’re tired of paying Au Bon Pain $1.99 per ounce for the sweet manna when you could pay that per pound if only you would purchase 15 pounds at once and who cares that it’s an obscene amount of money to spend on licorice when you know that you’ll eat it eventually, unlike the pile ‘o carrots that are sitting in your refrigerator and wilting, while yet simultaneously growing fur.  I don’t know why, but I just had an image in my head of a Wii boxing game where a licorice niblet takes on a furry carrot (my bet is on the niblet); Nintendo could call it “Food Fight.”  On the other hand, perhaps I shouldn’t quit my day job just yet…

Mea Culpa

The holidays seem like a perfect time to beg everyone’s forgiveness for vanishing from the face of the blogosphere for a while.  And because it’s the charitable “It’s-so-much-easier-to-forgive-me-than-to-stomach-giving-money-to-those-annoying-people-ringing-bells-especially-when-you-have-a-burning-desire-to-steal-one-of-those-bells-and-run-up-and-down-the-aisles-of-Macy’s-screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs-that-the-mumus-are-on-sale-for-a-reason” thing to do, I feel confident that y’all (and more importantly Santa) will look favorably on my mea culpa.

Now that we have that out of the way, I must say that I had a fabulous Turkey Day.  It was a small, diverse affair.  Four people, one lesbian, one gay man, an Asian woman, and a white girl with a penchant for getting her knitting needles on.  If one more person had shown up, we could have had a modern day Village People band audition.  It was a Turkey Day of firsts — my first experience at carving the turkey (of course the lesbian gets to carve — thanks to Z.R. for letting me go to town with an electronic carver!); my first bit of green bean casserole (and I swear it will not be my last); and the first time I have ever broken into song while playing Trivial Pursuit (and received backup support, no less — everybody loves me some “Island in the Stream”).  But the best part of Turkey Day was definitely the friendly banter (both before and after consumption of the spiced apple butter rum):

Me:  “You’re supposed to stick the herbs up it’s ass before you cook it.”
M.C.:  “That’s not it’s ass, that’s it’s neck.”
Me:  “No, it’s most definitely it’s ass, though sometimes they stick its neck up it’s ass.  You’re sodomizing the poor thing with herbs.”
M.C.: “Well, if you were empty inside, you’d want to be sodomized with fresh herbs, too.”

M.C.:  “I’m going to take a lover.”
Me and Z.R.:  “Awesome.”
M.C.:  “Who should I pick?”
Me:  “Someone who’s good in bed.  Life is too short for a poor lover.”
M.C.:  “I want someone to take me out to dinner and buy me presents.”
Me:  “Lovers don’t take you out to dinner and they don’t give you presents, except for maybe lingerie or jewelry.”
M.C.:  “Oh, okay, forget it then.”

Other highlights of Thanksgiving Day weekend included the Tegan and Sara concert, which pretty much rocked my pinky toes.  Definitely one of the top five concerts I have been to, save for the relative age of the audience (late teens/early 20s).  I literally had a girl behind me (she looked to be a freshman in college) say, “I wish this concert would start so my life could begin.”  I may have been a lot of things at the young age of 18, but an obsessed idgit was not one of them.  If you love iTunes as much as I do, check out Tegan and Sara’s “Call It Off” and “My Number” for an introduction.  I also highly recommend checking out Amy Winehouse’s “F**k me Pumps.”  The funniest song that I’ve heard in a while.  It makes you almost forgive Winehouse for that horrid beehive on top of her skullcap…almost. 

Well, I have a bit of catching up to do, including discussing my lovely trip to Sonoma with T. Rex, complete with a fabulous dinner at The French Laundry.  But, alas, I am off to bill more hours before taking the evening off with some dirty-talking puppets on Avenue Q.  Dirty talking puppets are absolutely the best kind.  I would have enjoyed the Muppets ever so much more if Kermit told Miss Piggy, “Damnit piggy, get in that house and make me a chicken pot pie!  Know your role!” or perhaps a little star-crossed Swedish Chef-Beaker love story?  Meep meep bork bork bork!

Mea Culpa

The holidays seem like a perfect time to beg everyone’s forgiveness for vanishing from the face of the blogosphere for a while.  And because it’s the charitable “It’s-so-much-easier-to-forgive-me-than-to-stomach-giving-money-to-those-annoying-people-ringing-bells-especially-when-you-have-a-burning-desire-to-steal-one-of-those-bells-and-run-up-and-down-the-aisles-of-Macy’s-screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs-that-the-mumus-are-on-sale-for-a-reason” thing to do, I feel confident that y’all (and more importantly Santa) will look favorably on my mea culpa.

Now that we have that out of the way, I must say that I had a fabulous Turkey Day.  It was a small, diverse affair.  Four people, one lesbian, one gay man, an Asian woman, and a white girl with a penchant for getting her knitting needles on.  If one more person had shown up, we could have had a modern day Village People band audition.  It was a Turkey Day of firsts — my first experience at carving the turkey (of course the lesbian gets to carve — thanks to Z.R. for letting me go to town with an electronic carver!); my first bit of green bean casserole (and I swear it will not be my last); and the first time I have ever broken into song while playing Trivial Pursuit (and received backup support, no less — everybody loves me some “Island in the Stream”).  But the best part of Turkey Day was definitely the friendly banter (both before and after consumption of the spiced apple butter rum):

Me:  “You’re supposed to stick the herbs up it’s ass before you cook it.”
M.C.:  “That’s not it’s ass, that’s it’s neck.”
Me:  “No, it’s most definitely it’s ass, though sometimes they stick its neck up it’s ass.  You’re sodomizing the poor thing with herbs.”
M.C.: “Well, if you were empty inside, you’d want to be sodomized with fresh herbs, too.”

M.C.:  “I’m going to take a lover.”
Me and Z.R.:  “Awesome.”
M.C.:  “Who should I pick?”
Me:  “Someone who’s good in bed.  Life is too short for a poor lover.”
M.C.:  “I want someone to take me out to dinner and buy me presents.”
Me:  “Lovers don’t take you out to dinner and they don’t give you presents, except for maybe lingerie or jewelry.”
M.C.:  “Oh, okay, forget it then.”

Other highlights of Thanksgiving Day weekend included the Tegan and Sara concert, which pretty much rocked my pinky toes.  Definitely one of the top five concerts I have been to, save for the relative age of the audience (late teens/early 20s).  I literally had a girl behind me (she looked to be a freshman in college) say, “I wish this concert would start so my life could begin.”  I may have been a lot of things at the young age of 18, but an obsessed idgit was not one of them.  If you love iTunes as much as I do, check out Tegan and Sara’s “Call It Off” and “My Number” for an introduction.  I also highly recommend checking out Amy Winehouse’s “F**k me Pumps.”  The funniest song that I’ve heard in a while.  It makes you almost forgive Winehouse for that horrid beehive on top of her skullcap…almost. 

Well, I have a bit of catching up to do, including discussing my lovely trip to Sonoma with T. Rex, complete with a fabulous dinner at The French Laundry.  But, alas, I am off to bill more hours before taking the evening off with some dirty-talking puppets on Avenue Q.  Dirty talking puppets are absolutely the best kind.  I would have enjoyed the Muppets ever so much more if Kermit told Miss Piggy, “Damnit piggy, get in that house and make me a chicken pot pie!  Know your role!” or perhaps a little star-crossed Swedish Chef-Beaker love story?  Meep meep bork bork bork!

Naked Surfing in Ocean City

So, it has been quite the little while since I’ve updated this thing.  Alas…billable hours, dating, and car buying happens.  That’s right…after almost three years of pounding pavement, I decided to be an All-American Guppie (that’s Gay Yuppie to those of you not in the know) and buy a BMW (2003 BMW 330xi for those of you interested in such matters) the weekend before last.  Now, I’d like to say that I thoroughly thought through (say that 3 times fast) all of the angles when making this purchase, but really, what happened was that during my journey into purchasing a dependable and reasonable vehicle (1990s Toyota 4-Runner or the like), I happened to test drive a manual transmission BMW.  Alas, the 4-Runner, sporty though it may be, is no match for the zoom-zoom exhilaration of a BMW cornering around a curve at 35mph in 3rd gear on a test drive.  I was hooked.  After that, it was just a matter of finding everything I wanted in one car (black, manual transmission, 4-door, low mileage, decent price), and convincing myself that spending more then $3,500 on a car was justifiable (ahh…Spanky Truck…how I miss thee and your sun-dappled grey paint coat).  I must say that the new car (as yet to be named, but I’ll take suggestions) is a sexy motherfucker.  It looked particularly hot this past weekend with surfboards strapped to the top of it for its inaugural road trip adventure – transporting T. Rex and I to Ocean City and Assateague Island, Maryland for some surfing, (and when I say surfing, I actually mean “sitting on a surfboard watching tiny little waves that are the ocean’s sinister form of premature ejaculation pass by without much fanfare”), sun, and fun.  Assateague Island, despite its lack of wave action, was pretty darn nifty – not only were we able to grab ourselves a semi-secluded stretch of beach, but we got a bit closer to wildlife, thanks to the Island’s indigenous wild pony population.  Word of advice, though – if you ever go to Assateague, watch out for the wild pony poop…it is pretty much everywhere. 

The BMW made it there and back in fine form, though it’s a bit more sandy from the experience (I feel it’s pain – surfing without a wetsuit somehow manages to get sand in bits and places that one didn’t even know existed.)  As for me, I’m a little more tan, and a little wiser – I’ve learned that I need to buy a bikini that’s not so prone to “wardrobe malfunctions” when I eat it and flop off the surfboard.  Just one of life’s many lessons…

Naked Surfing in Ocean City

So, it has been quite the little while since I’ve updated this thing.  Alas…billable hours, dating, and car buying happens.  That’s right…after almost three years of pounding pavement, I decided to be an All-American Guppie (that’s Gay Yuppie to those of you not in the know) and buy a BMW (2003 BMW 330xi for those of you interested in such matters) the weekend before last.  Now, I’d like to say that I thoroughly thought through (say that 3 times fast) all of the angles when making this purchase, but really, what happened was that during my journey into purchasing a dependable and reasonable vehicle (1990s Toyota 4-Runner or the like), I happened to test drive a manual transmission BMW.  Alas, the 4-Runner, sporty though it may be, is no match for the zoom-zoom exhilaration of a BMW cornering around a curve at 35mph in 3rd gear on a test drive.  I was hooked.  After that, it was just a matter of finding everything I wanted in one car (black, manual transmission, 4-door, low mileage, decent price), and convincing myself that spending more then $3,500 on a car was justifiable (ahh…Spanky Truck…how I miss thee and your sun-dappled grey paint coat).  I must say that the new car (as yet to be named, but I’ll take suggestions) is a sexy motherfucker.  It looked particularly hot this past weekend with surfboards strapped to the top of it for its inaugural road trip adventure – transporting T. Rex and I to Ocean City and Assateague Island, Maryland for some surfing, (and when I say surfing, I actually mean “sitting on a surfboard watching tiny little waves that are the ocean’s sinister form of premature ejaculation pass by without much fanfare”), sun, and fun.  Assateague Island, despite its lack of wave action, was pretty darn nifty – not only were we able to grab ourselves a semi-secluded stretch of beach, but we got a bit closer to wildlife, thanks to the Island’s indigenous wild pony population.  Word of advice, though – if you ever go to Assateague, watch out for the wild pony poop…it is pretty much everywhere. 

The BMW made it there and back in fine form, though it’s a bit more sandy from the experience (I feel it’s pain – surfing without a wetsuit somehow manages to get sand in bits and places that one didn’t even know existed.)  As for me, I’m a little more tan, and a little wiser – I’ve learned that I need to buy a bikini that’s not so prone to “wardrobe malfunctions” when I eat it and flop off the surfboard.  Just one of life’s many lessons…

Gay Dogs and Good Vibrations

Every day in D.C. is simply another opportunity to take in the vast array of wildlife that inhabits this city.  For example, on my way home yesterday, I passed a woman who was carrying a ratty shopping bag in one hand, a business briefcase in the other, and muttering to herself that she went to church the other day and discovered that her dog was gay.  (No sure where doggie-on-doggie love fits into the modern ministry, but…)  Then, further up on the street, I was assaulated with a fairly loud rendition of a bootylicious (i.e. the lyrics were sexual) R&B song that sounded like it was song by an 18-year-old girl.  I looked around for the source of this scourge and found it sitting in a Volkswagon convertible.  It was a late-30s to early 40s very white, balding man.  Dude, get your freak on in enclosed spaces and stick to the Beach Boys on your convertible days, mmkay?

Gay Dogs and Good Vibrations

Every day in D.C. is simply another opportunity to take in the vast array of wildlife that inhabits this city.  For example, on my way home yesterday, I passed a woman who was carrying a ratty shopping bag in one hand, a business briefcase in the other, and muttering to herself that she went to church the other day and discovered that her dog was gay.  (No sure where doggie-on-doggie love fits into the modern ministry, but…)  Then, further up on the street, I was assaulated with a fairly loud rendition of a bootylicious (i.e. the lyrics were sexual) R&B song that sounded like it was song by an 18-year-old girl.  I looked around for the source of this scourge and found it sitting in a Volkswagon convertible.  It was a late-30s to early 40s very white, balding man.  Dude, get your freak on in enclosed spaces and stick to the Beach Boys on your convertible days, mmkay?

Women Deserve Better Than Pro-Lifers

As I was reading this article on abortion foes’ new tact in the “war on abortion,” I was interested to read the slogan for Feminists for Life, the anti-abortion group supported by Justice Roberts’ wife – “Women Deserve Better Than Abortion.”  Well, absolutely, Feminists for Life!  Women deserve unfettered access to contraception and birth control, sex education, and RU-486, right?  Because we can all agree that abortion is one of those things that you never want to have to do, and having access to contraception, sex education, and RU-486 will help to eradicate the need for abortion, right?  And after all, it is the modern woman’s ability to control when birth happens (to a certain extent, anyway…) that has allowed women, en masse, to move from the legal equivalent of a piece of livestock (“chattal,” anyone?) to persons that are able to break the constraints of biology long enough to get educated, get a job, and make the informed choice as to whether the pitter-patter of little feet is a good idea for them (because, let’s be honest, not everyone should be a parent, and the earth would probably be a wee bit better off if we stopped sprouting like rabbits).  Strangely, though, there was nothing, zilch, nil on the Feminists for Life website about contraception, sex education, or RU-486.  Hell, Margaret Sanger, the mother of birth control, didn’t even make their “feminist history” entry.  Tsk tsk.  While I personally don’t label myself a feminist (because, honestly, folks, equality should just be the fucking standard and I shouldn’t have to label myself to say that I stand for equality), I certainly wouldn’t consider those who would deny women the education and resources necessary to make an informed decision about whether to be a mother “feminists.”  Aburdists would be a better characterization.

If abortion foes can agree that a woman should be well-informed of the mental and physical risks of having an abortion, then why shouldn’t a woman be well-informed about how she can save herself from finding herself in what we can all agree is a shitty and unfair predicament?  Yet, abortion foes tend to be the biggest detractors from expanding sex education and unfettered access to birth control.  Why?  Why does the “sanctity of life” have to go hand-in-hand with women staying home, barefoot and pregnant, without any real choice about the matter?  It doesn’t.  It shouldn’t.  And abortion foes who oppose expanded sex education and access to birth control (President Bush is a good example) are partly to blame for why women have abortions in the first place – because they weren’t given the tools and resources to choose a life on their own terms.

A Friend to Look Down On

It should be noted that President Bush fully stands by and supports the much-maligned Attorney General, Alberto “What me, Worry?” Gonzales.  If I had a 34% approval rating, I’d stand next to the shortest man in the room, too.

Harvard Does Not Heart Alberto

Looks like Alberto Gonzales is going to have to bring Secret Service detail to his law school reunion…I mean, you know what happens after lawyers take out a full page advertisement in the Washington Post, don’t you?  That’s right…they’ll force him to run around Harvard Square with only a copy of the Constitution to keep him decent. 

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Let’s see, first Attorney General Gonzales blamed the U.S. Attorney firings on his Cheif of Staff, Kyle D. Sampson.  Clever, considering Mr. Sampson has already quit.  As that failed to quell the cries from Congress, Gonzales is now blaming former Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty for the decisions to remove the U.S. Attorneys.  I can only describe this as the “Don’t Let the Door Smack Your Ass On the Way Out” defense.  Mr. Gonzales is a one-man “Wizard of Oz” clusterfu*k – he manages to combine the brain-lacking skills of the Scarecrow with the courage-lacking abilities of the Lion, yet somehow manages to whine the entire time like Dorothy.  Does the fact that the leading law enforcement official in the entire country wholly lack the ability to take responsibility for anything bother anyone but me?  Anyone?

I Think I Preferred The Last Monica in Town

I very rarely use the “c” word.  It can lead to yelling and bruising, or possibly a fist thrown high in the air from a passing feminist cheering on linguistic reclamation of all words referring to the hoo-ha.  Either way, it just leads to trouble.  But today, I just cannot resist my urge to call Monica Goodling a cunt.  A sanctimonious, partisan, fourth-tier law school attending, lacking in the actual work experience of the common house fly, ethically-devoid, doesn’t have any damn respect for the law, cunt.  It is people like her who erode the foundations of justice and government like a fucking virus that necrotizes flesh.  I’d call her flesh-eating bacteria, but I happen to have a very cute one of those in my office, and I wouldn’t want to offend its delicate sensibilities.

The Vast Silence

You know that silence that has been emanating from my blog since I returned home from New Zealand?  Well, if you’re like Elmer Fudd, and you’re reawy reawy quiet, you can actually hear the ka-ching, ka-ching sounds of a little cash register counting up billable time in the background.  So, I dearly apologize for my absence from the Internet, but I honestly had no idea how hard it was to count up to 8 hours every day, or well, to count up to 8 hours of productive time every day.  To quote 1994 Teen Talk Barbie, “Math is Hard.”

Granted, I can’t complain about the pay or the perks of my new employment . . . my entry-level swag bag included an umbrella that not even the Big Bad Wolf could blow down and a fleece blankie with my firm’s name emblazoned on one corner.  For company or cuddling?  I still can’t decide. I’m also getting to do the kind of work that once upon a time as a government lackey, I wished for.  Yeah, you know that adage about being careful what you wish for, lest it find you and then throw up many binders filled with reams of paper with binder clips and yellow highlighter all over you?  (Certainly, Aesop addressed this scenario?)  Turns out it’s true.  But, other than the mountain of piling papers, the firm is great, the people are great, and I finally have a freakin’ window, so now I can actually multi-task and process some Vitamin D while studying Table 6 of the Blue Book (Oh, Table 6, how I heart thee…let me count the ways…).  So, though y’all might have to survive on fewer and shorter posts, a whole new world of snarkiness is just waiting for me to exploit it.

The Vast Silence

You know that silence that has been emanating from my blog since I returned home from New Zealand?  Well, if you’re like Elmer Fudd, and you’re reawy reawy quiet, you can actually hear the ka-ching, ka-ching sounds of a little cash register counting up billable time in the background.  So, I dearly apologize for my absence from the Internet, but I honestly had no idea how hard it was to count up to 8 hours every day, or well, to count up to 8 hours of productive time every day.  To quote 1994 Teen Talk Barbie, “Math is Hard.”

Granted, I can’t complain about the pay or the perks of my new employment . . . my entry-level swag bag included an umbrella that not even the Big Bad Wolf could blow down and a fleece blankie with my firm’s name emblazoned on one corner.  For company or cuddling?  I still can’t decide. I’m also getting to do the kind of work that once upon a time as a government lackey, I wished for.  Yeah, you know that adage about being careful what you wish for, lest it find you and then throw up many binders filled with reams of paper with binder clips and yellow highlighter all over you?  (Certainly, Aesop addressed this scenario?)  Turns out it’s true.  But, other than the mountain of piling papers, the firm is great, the people are great, and I finally have a freakin’ window, so now I can actually multi-task and process some Vitamin D while studying Table 6 of the Blue Book (Oh, Table 6, how I heart thee…let me count the ways…).  So, though y’all might have to survive on fewer and shorter posts, a whole new world of snarkiness is just waiting for me to exploit it.

New Ways to Taunt Our Youth

P.E.  classes around the country are turning the craze once reserved for only ultimate Frisbee hippie parties – Dance Dance Revolution (“DDR”) – into a well-attended gym event for American’s youth.  DDR’s proponents praise this “revolution” as a way to move physical education from the “competitive” atmosphere of team sports to encouraging “lifetime fitness.”  Horsefeather, I say!  Getting picked last in gym class is simply a rite of passage that every pre-adolescent must face the horror of in order to grow into a well-adjusted human being.  (Wedgies and playground taunts are just an added character-building bonus.)  Besides, I personally cannot think of anything more terrifying than getting my white girl groove on in front of my would-be tormentors. 

New Ways to Taunt Our Youth

P.E.  classes around the country are turning the craze once reserved for only ultimate Frisbee hippie parties – Dance Dance Revolution (“DDR”) – into a well-attended gym event for American’s youth.  DDR’s proponents praise this “revolution” as a way to move physical education from the “competitive” atmosphere of team sports to encouraging “lifetime fitness.”  Horsefeather, I say!  Getting picked last in gym class is simply a rite of passage that every pre-adolescent must face the horror of in order to grow into a well-adjusted human being.  (Wedgies and playground taunts are just an added character-building bonus.)  Besides, I personally cannot think of anything more terrifying than getting my white girl groove on in front of my would-be tormentors. 

The Christmas Present Every Child Must Have

In a rather momentous decision, the Mexico City legislature legalized abortion yesterday, which prompted “thousands of protesters” to hoist coffins and waive “plastic fetuses.”  They make plastic fetuses???  Do they make them in different colors and sizes?  How about the endometrium and umbilical cord expansion pack?  For pity’s sake, people.

The Off-Roading, Lesbian Snuffleupagus

My last day in Queenstown ended up being quite the little adventure.  I kicked off the day with a little deep tissue massage, a pleasure that I have indulged in before – an experience that had me believing that sex could be forgone forever, so long as I could get me a massage every couple of weeks (and ever so much cheaper than courting a woman).  Alas, just like sex, the relative pleasure seems to depend on whom you let touch you.  My Queenstown massage artist was an aromatherapy freak who insisted that I pick out a scent dependant on my relative mood and then made me sniff it for five minutes.  After she was done with that, she got to work massaging my body with the aromatherapy oil that I had selected, an experience that was slick and alternated between somewhat relaxing and outright painful.  She neglected to actually massage my chest (the massage therapists over here are a little freaky about nudity and touching the bum or the chest), gave a half-hearted rub to my feet and hands, and actually made me feel more in pain afterward than I had before (though she did say I had very strong shoulders, but still!).  And to top it all off, I came out of there slippery and smelling like a walking incense candle oil – an interesting combo with my big, puffy jacket and raincoat.  I must have looked and smelled like a big red, hippie, snuffleupagus.

After that lovely experience, I ended up going off-roading in my rented Toyota Corolla.  Now, I didn’t intend to go off-roading…I intended to drive through Glenorchy and Paradise on my way to Lake Sylvan (the lake in Isengard in the LOTR trilogy) in order to get some more scenic photos.  I even plotted out my course on my New Zealand driving atlas, which showed that there was indeed a road all the way to Lake Sylvan, though the road was colored white, instead of yellow, but at the time, that meant nothing to me.  Evidently, white means putatively paved with a few four-wheel vehicle tracks, criss-crossed by streams, and cut through a forest (and I’m not talking about where they cut down a section of forest to make a road, I’m talking about making a skinny-ass, one car can only possibly fit though it’s a two way road, which winds through the forest trees haphazardly road).  I made it across about 40 minutes of gravel, forest, six streams, and the odd cow sitting in the middle of the road before I ran into an actual fucking RIVER crossing the road.  It was at this point that I gave up on my quest for Lake Sylvan.  I did get some great snapshots on the way to and fro, though.  The drive, though it was bumpy, vibrating, and fraught with my constant wondering about the rental car inspection when I turn it back in was just like driving through a gorgeous oil painting. 

After getting back from the fringes of Middle Earth, I decided to grab a couple of beers and some grub at the Lone Star restaurant – a local, Texas-themed pub and grub place.  It was here that I managed to charm my way into the middle of a lesbian Internet date between a rural Brit and a city-fied Kiwi.  I just started chatting up the ladies at the bar in an attempt to understand the game of cricket (the world championships were on the TV), and soon enough, the conversation evolved into politics and the joys of Mexican beer.  After a bit, the ladies invited me to sit down to dinner with them, and I soon discovered that I was in the midst of “family.”  In America, lesbians usually stay the hell away from Texas, but in New Zealand, evidently, the Texan bar is where it’s at.  They were very nice and gracious and ended up buying me wine and dessert, so all in all, it was a great way to cap off my vacation (and I didn’t even have to put out – bonus).

Alright…I’m off to return my car and pray they don’t look underneath the damn thing.  I should be back in the States tonight, when I gain back the day I lost on my way out.  I’m excited to see what exactly that does to my biological clock 🙂

The Off-Roading, Lesbian Snuffleupagus

My last day in Queenstown ended up being quite the little adventure.  I kicked off the day with a little deep tissue massage, a pleasure that I have indulged in before – an experience that had me believing that sex could be forgone forever, so long as I could get me a massage every couple of weeks (and ever so much cheaper than courting a woman).  Alas, just like sex, the relative pleasure seems to depend on whom you let touch you.  My Queenstown massage artist was an aromatherapy freak who insisted that I pick out a scent dependant on my relative mood and then made me sniff it for five minutes.  After she was done with that, she got to work massaging my body with the aromatherapy oil that I had selected, an experience that was slick and alternated between somewhat relaxing and outright painful.  She neglected to actually massage my chest (the massage therapists over here are a little freaky about nudity and touching the bum or the chest), gave a half-hearted rub to my feet and hands, and actually made me feel more in pain afterward than I had before (though she did say I had very strong shoulders, but still!).  And to top it all off, I came out of there slippery and smelling like a walking incense candle oil – an interesting combo with my big, puffy jacket and raincoat.  I must have looked and smelled like a big red, hippie, snuffleupagus.

After that lovely experience, I ended up going off-roading in my rented Toyota Corolla.  Now, I didn’t intend to go off-roading…I intended to drive through Glenorchy and Paradise on my way to Lake Sylvan (the lake in Isengard in the LOTR trilogy) in order to get some more scenic photos.  I even plotted out my course on my New Zealand driving atlas, which showed that there was indeed a road all the way to Lake Sylvan, though the road was colored white, instead of yellow, but at the time, that meant nothing to me.  Evidently, white means putatively paved with a few four-wheel vehicle tracks, criss-crossed by streams, and cut through a forest (and I’m not talking about where they cut down a section of forest to make a road, I’m talking about making a skinny-ass, one car can only possibly fit though it’s a two way road, which winds through the forest trees haphazardly road).  I made it across about 40 minutes of gravel, forest, six streams, and the odd cow sitting in the middle of the road before I ran into an actual fucking RIVER crossing the road.  It was at this point that I gave up on my quest for Lake Sylvan.  I did get some great snapshots on the way to and fro, though.  The drive, though it was bumpy, vibrating, and fraught with my constant wondering about the rental car inspection when I turn it back in was just like driving through a gorgeous oil painting. 

After getting back from the fringes of Middle Earth, I decided to grab a couple of beers and some grub at the Lone Star restaurant – a local, Texas-themed pub and grub place.  It was here that I managed to charm my way into the middle of a lesbian Internet date between a rural Brit and a city-fied Kiwi.  I just started chatting up the ladies at the bar in an attempt to understand the game of cricket (the world championships were on the TV), and soon enough, the conversation evolved into politics and the joys of Mexican beer.  After a bit, the ladies invited me to sit down to dinner with them, and I soon discovered that I was in the midst of “family.”  In America, lesbians usually stay the hell away from Texas, but in New Zealand, evidently, the Texan bar is where it’s at.  They were very nice and gracious and ended up buying me wine and dessert, so all in all, it was a great way to cap off my vacation (and I didn’t even have to put out – bonus).

Alright…I’m off to return my car and pray they don’t look underneath the damn thing.  I should be back in the States tonight, when I gain back the day I lost on my way out.  I’m excited to see what exactly that does to my biological clock 🙂