1978

Dear Bruce, Darkness on the Edge of Town made me fall in love with you. That album set me off on a binge of dark-haired boys with serious cases of chronic malcontent and pretty eyes that has yet to abate. Sigh. 

Pretty. Badass.

There's a 1,000 year-old Indian Mound in my neighborhood that historians say the Tocabaga Indians spent a few hundred years building from discarded clam and oyster shells. The mound is 20-feet high and rests on the waterfront. It's shaded by sighing oaks whose arms are draped with showers of Spanish moss festooned with tiny air plants. From a distance the plants look like bows decorating a girl's long hair.

A park has risen around the neighborhood mound and it's protected as sacred land. It's only inhabitants are a gang of peacocks who apparently feel completely entitled to hassle whomever they choose, including some pretty testy tom cats. The peacocks also sometimes strut out into the road and nonchalantly hold traffic in both directions hostage until they grow bored and wander back over to the park. In all the years I have lived here, I have never heard of a peacock being hit by a car. And I have never seen a cat or dog prevail in a stare-down contest. As you can see in this picture, the peas get mighty peeved when one of their homies is affronted by a flea-bitten four-legger and they are quick to assemble their bad selves in an impressive show of force.

Things I did at work today:

Sat through a mind-numbingly tedious meeting with my clueless bumbling boss
Confirmed for the millionth time that my boss is indeed a douche
Requested official transcripts from both my colleges
Printed receipts of those transactions
Ladies room
Balanced both my checkbooks
Logged onto Facebook a few times
Read my work e-mail (boring)
Read my personal e-mail (not so boring)
Read my friend's blog and got caught up on the last few weeks of her saga du jour
Talked to my brother twice
Exchanged texts with my daughter
Went to Evos for lunch with a co-worker
Rearranged my desk
Rearranged my messenger bag
Updated my status on Facebook
Drafted my letter of resignation
:)

I don't have oceans of money in which to roll

But some of my friends do which means they have real estate that they don't occupy full time. So when my friends with money/real estate to spare offer to give me the keys to the shack in the mountains, I'm all hell yeah. Seven days in the mountains, just me and Miss Daisy -- very positive. Just what I needed.

We loaded up a minivan’s worth of nieces this past Saturday and trucked it up to Weekie Wacheee to hang out with the mermaids. Much to my delight, it was “Mermaids of Yesteryear” weekend, so we were treated to an extra special matinee show of mermaids who swam the springs back in the 1940s and up through the decades of the last century(!) – the youngest of the bunch hung up her tail (temporarily) in the late 1970s.

The three coolest parts about the show were these: (1) one of the mermaids reminisced about the day she swam for Elvis back in the 1950s and she still blushed when she talked about how dreamy he was as a soft-spoken 22-year-old. She is 70, by the way. (2) the turtles who live in the spring seemed to be totally into the music because whenever the mermaids “danced,” turtles splashed down into the lagoon and merrily dove and dipped and paddled with the mermaids who were forced to give them gentle nudges and send them back the opposite direction when the little guys interfered with their choreography. (3) The senior citizen mermaids were vivacious and sure of themselves and this made their performances more enjoyable than that of the firm, nubile 20-something cast of “The Little Mermaid” whom we saw earlier in the day.

the cold snap we had for nearly two weeks has finally receded. I enjoyed the change at first but after two days it was getting old and I missed the sun and quickly grew sick to death of all the belly-aching on the local news, in the supermarket, at work, etc. about how COLD it was and everyone kept whining: "But this is Flooooorida...."

I packed away all the extra quilts yesterday and hung the winter coats back in the hall closet, carefully winding the scarfs around the necks of each coat just in case the cold comes back for another quick visit before March when we can repack in earnest, tucking flowery dryer sheets between seldom-worn sweaters and fleece sweatshirts and such. Then I spent most of Sunday wandering around the yard oh-shitting over the melted plants in the butterfly garden. They look like someone took a flamethrower to them -- the pentas are black and incinerated and pitched to one side or the other, the bougainvilleas are falling over in drunken heaps, their fuchsia petals dissolving into puddles of primordial ooze on the brown (dead) grass. The lizards are back lounging on the deck but the rabbits that live underneath have yet to reappear. And I'm afraid to look too hard for the dragonflies and butterflies, which used to hover in cloudy swarms of yellow and pink and violet, dropping kisses on their favorite blossoms, strafing the gardenia tree, then coming back for more. Winter sucks.

happy new year! you're fired!

So we had yet another hideous round of layoffs at my workplace this week. The worst part about being half-assedly in management (I am sometimes in the know but am not invited to the pow-wows or really give a crap about being in on all the executive strategy meetings because they bore me to death and I cannot conceal this. Just tell me what you've decided, and I'll go from there) is knowing about shit like this ahead of time. The last round of lay-offs was in April and went down while I was in Paris. So the folks who lost their jobs then were suspicious that I knew ahead of time and went to Paris anyway, and was lounging around some outdoor cafe overlooking the Seine when the anvil was dropped on their heads. As a matter of fact, I did not know for certain ahead of time. I knew there was a chance but in the current economy there's always the chance right? The second day I was in France I stupidly checked my e-mail and read the series of frantic messages from my boss to call him ASAP. Thinking there was no way in the world there could be any such thing as an actual editorial emergency I called him from a glass cube phone booth overlooking the Seine and Notre Dam. It was a much longer (and more expensive) call than I anticipated. As I stood there absorbing the news that most of my longtime co-workers were about to be fired I felt very detached because it all seemed so far away (it was, and also it was 8 p.m. Paris-time and I had been drinking, which helps with the distance thing). The call cost me $127 because I charged it, not thinking it would be smart to buy an international calling card just in case I needed to return an urgent emergency call from the editorial dept. while I was away.

Anyway, when I returned from the April trip some of my newly unemployed former co-workers asked me specifically if I knew about the lay off before I left on my trip. And why that point was such an issue, I still can't understand. Would I have gone on the trip anyway had I known? Yes. The tickets were nonrefundable and our CEO is intractable. There is no talking him out of anything, everyone who knows him even a little bit knows this to be true.

Flash-forward nine months. It's a week before Christmas. My boss tells me that a layoff is in the offing, probably a week or two after the holidays. I am torn. Do I give one or two of my closer work friends a heads up and ruin the holidays for them or do I sit by silently while they party ($$$) and shop ($$$) as if they have jobs after January 2010? I said nothing. It sucked knowing, I wish I hadn't known, it made a rather dark holiday even darker. In short, it blew. And of course, I threw myself into the exercise in futility of trying to advocate for a few of my colleagues who we really need and who did not deserve to be let go. The boss was willing to discuss saving anyone I suggested as long as I had another employee I would rather see go (I guess he's seen Sophie's Choice). Nice, huh?

The most painful cut was a co-worker who has been out of state for 10 days or so dealing with the impending death of a critically ill family member. The co-worker saw the torrent of e-mails that went 'round following Monday's layoffs and assumed the coast was clear -- no phone calls or e-mails had come in summoning the co-worker to return to the office ASAP so imagine the shock when the co-worker returned to work yesterday just in time for a staff meeting only to be pulled aside and let go. Part of the layoff, yes, but we figured it would be unkind to do it long distance over the phone while you sit in a hospital room. So we're glad you're back and that your relative seems to be hanging in there for now. By the way, your position has been eliminated.

Being in the next room when this went down and watching my devastated co-worker stagger out the door sucked. It was way better to be in a glass phone booth in Paris, looking at Notre Dam and drawing stick figures in the patches of fog that I breathed on the glass as my boss rambled about "restructuring" and "going forward."

I dreaded the first Thanksgiving without my mom so much that I ditched the extended family ritual and ran away to Europe for the second time in 2009. Thanksgiving does not exist in Europe and it was a relief to walk down a street and see no hint whatever of turkeys or pilgrims or doors festooned with raffia-bundled ears of Indian corn.

I spent the 25th eating Thai food and washing it down with icy pints of 1664 with the coolest teenager ever. We spent days walking and pausing to look closer at some things and to take pictures of others. We threw caution to the wind and actually ate the beans and salty slabs of pork that came with our eggs at breakfast and enjoyed the ambiance of the basement breakfast room of the B&B that included the loud arguments of the Bulgarian cooks, which were always broken up (much to our disappointment) by the big Greek man who owns the B&B. We visited with some of my students who are in the study abroad program this semester and I made up my mind once and for all to put my name on the list to start teaching one semester in London each year starting in 2011 when my sweet schmoopie leaves for college.

I carried some of my mom's ashes with me throughout the trip. I had intended to scatter them from the Eiffel Tower the night before we returned home, which is what my dad wanted, but when the moment came I couldn't do it. I can't explain why, I just couldn't. So the ashes came home with me. The day after we got back my dad called me up and said "You brought Mom's ashes back with you, didn't you?" I have no idea how he knew. It wasn't like I had protested scattering her remains in Paris in the first place -- I thought it was a fine thing to do. But I couldn't let them go and he knew it before I did.

one of my youthful co-workers made this new avatar for me for our oh-so-annoyingly-distracting interoffice IM app. I hate the whole IM thing. Our boss thinks it keeps us connected and therefore much more engaged with one another and team-oriented. Yay team. Go team go. I don't want to be on IM all damn day long (I'm WORKING for chrissake), I don't care what music my colleagues are listening to, nor do I care when they log on and off, but I am notified of this whether I want to be or not which is really obnoxious and the fault of our hyper-paranoid head of IT dood who set everyone's PCs to time out after 10 minutes of idleness so goddess-forbid you get into a meaningful conversation with an actual human being who is standing in the same room with you, or go grab a cup of joe in the next room -- everyone knows you were slacking off because the damnable IM thingie sets off little bells and whistles every time one logs back on. So basically it looks like all I do all day long is log back on. I resorted to setting my status to "busy"in order to avoid pop-ups from my chatty co-workers and to dodge my boss who sends me dumbass IMs such as "you there?" That's worked for about two weeks. No one seems to have noticed. My strategy is to work my way down the list of status options as needed. Next radio button on the list is "on a call" and the way I see it, no one is going to challenge me on that one, because, you know, I'm on a call. It would be uncool to interrupt.

And what of my absence of low these 7 months or so? Several reasons. One is the fact that a creepy stalker who resides in Tampa hits my blog pretty much every 24 hours which is beyond sad for that person and just plain annoying to me. To that Tampon (and you know who you are): Get a fucking life. The other explanations for my absence: too unpleasant to discuss.

Day 2: Amok in Par-ee

Oh, hello, I'm back. Sorry about that. Where were we?

Ah, yes -- day 2.

Grace and I sat up half the night talking and drinking red wine until we finally collapsed. She left for work early the next morning -- she bravely cycles 45 minutes or so to her job at the International Herald Tribune -- and I wandered around the apartment trying to get organized. I finally made it out the door in time for the rain to start which was fine, the blue-grey canopy over the city was a welcome contrast to the blinding brightness of home.

I followed Grace's directions and made it onto the Metro without incident. What I noticed right off is that the people of Paris truly dress -- as in they wear real clothing. There was not a t-shirt, nor a pair of sweats, sneakers or flip-flops on a single soul, and I really looked. Even the guys who looked to me like they might be more blue-collar workers wore closed-toe leather shoes and nice shirts or light sweaters and nearly everyone sported a scarf in some form or fashion -- men and women alike. Another unexpected detail: The Metro is very quiet. People really don't interact; there's very little eye contact and any chatting is whispered or completely inaudible. It made people-watching a little more challenging, but nonetheless I watched and took note and I'm glad I did because I noticed that people exiting the train stood with their fingers looped around a metal latch that had to be flipped up in order to open the doors. I certainly didn't want to call attention to myself by an outburst of undignified wrestling with the door latch, so the intrusive people-watching paid off. When we stopped at the the Palais Royal-Musee de Louvre I was able to disembark and not look like a complete moron. Which is always nice.

I had planned to spend my first full day in Paris in the Louvre but I was so taken by the exterior that I actually spent the entire day wandering around the courtyards and gardens. My pace was leisurely to the point that I really did completely lose track of time. I stared at the statues that line the main courtyard of men who participated in the design and construction of the palace and particularly became enamored by this astronomer hottie, Cassini. After ogling him for a bit I wandered beyond the grounds of the Louvre and visited the carousel, had some coffee and a croissant, and sat in the grass with a statue of Venus for a while as I breathed in the quiet and the smell of the blossoming trees mixed with the soft, misty rain. I eventually strolled all the way up to the Arch de Triomphe and back and realized I needed to head back to the apartment to meet Grace for dinner. I planned to go back to the Louvre the next day and actually go inside this time. But first, an evening in Paris awaited.

Paris, day 1

After dragging my suitcase off the narrow wooden tube of a lift, I dragged it down three steps of primeval oak stairs covered with a red Persian runner, then around a corner, up a few more stairs to a hairpin turn and yet another flight of spiraling stairs. I could hear Grace’s kitty, Mystic, mewing as I trudged and huffed and bumped up the last few steps, fumbled interminably with the keys, then spilled into the foyer in a burst when the lock finally turned. Mystic skittered around a corner and I followed, dropping my gear and stepping out of my shoes without stopping as I headed for where the toilet must be. I found the kitchen, living room, bedroom and the place I assumed I would be able to pee, the room through the bedroom where I could see a sink and a tub. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled into the room, my zipper already down, to find no toilet. I turned around at least three times to make sure. Nope. No toilet. Back through the apartment I went with Mystic following, mewing and threading himself between my feet as I looked for the elusive porcelain throne upon which I desperately needed to perch.

I opened every closet door in the apartment with increasing panic and finally, there it was, the most beautiful toilet ever in its own little peach-colored closet with triangular walls and ceiling. I have no idea what the deal is with the French locating their toilets in a separate room and often on the opposite side of the house from the rest of the plumbing, but it’s a little weird and annoying, especially since I really do like to wash my hands after using the toilet. I felt like Frankenstein walking around the apartment with my arms out in front of me as I hurried back to the other side to wash my hands since using the kitchen sink would be gross.

Afterwards I drank a beer and collapsed on the bed and when I woke a few hours later, Mystic was settled in next to me, his body curled around my arm, his tail on my cheek.

Grace burst through the door about an hour later and after screams and hugs and a lot of laughing she said she had just gotten a call on her cell from her doctor whose office is right around the comer, offering to reschedule Grace’s earlier appointment which she had canceled. We flew around the apartment and grabbed jackets and wallets then down the stairs and out onto the street, my first evening in Paris. Grace’s doctor’s office was indeed just a short walk from the apartment and I was happy to tag along, curious to see what French medicine looks like. The fact that her doctor would see her at 6:30 in the evening impressed me. The office was tiny and very utilitarian but decorated in warm, sunny melon tones with lots of stainless steel. There was no receptionist or nurse, just the doctor, who greeted Grace warmly and went right to working on the fitting of the orthotics she made for Grace’s shoes.

As I sat and looked around the room, Grace launched into a torrent of French to which the doctor responded. I sat there with my mouth hanging open. The fitting/conversation went on for 15 minutes or so with Grace carrying on not like a girl from Queens at all. Who was this creature? She got on a plane not so long ago armed with just her ballsiness that I so admire, her cat carrier in one hand, her heart in the other. She spoke no French. Now she’s speaking it with a Parisian accent, albeit with a bit of New York thrown in. Wow.

After the meeting with the doctor, we strolled to a café and sat at a table on the sidewalk and ordered ice cold pints of 1664 blonde ale and I smoked one of her Dunhills. The waiter, Pasqual, was a delightful little bald guy with an impressive beard and quick wit but body odor that about knocked me out. But no matter. As I leaned back and looked around Grace reached across the tiny round table and clinked my glass and said “We’re in fucking PARIS!!!”

What a long strange (wonderful!!) trip

The first few days I was in Paris are sort of a blur.

I do remember the ride to the airport and standing in line to check my one bag packed with just a few changes of clothes for two weeks and lots of items from home that Grace was craving -- jars of Tiger Balm, bags of raw cashews and dried blueberries, which she can easily get in Paris, but they are very expensive. I also toted a jar of jalapeno jelly which my mom cans each year from peppers in her garden, a fancy bottle of Tupelo honey with a long elegant neck that was as large as a wine bottle, an edible honeycomb, and a wine bottle opener shaped like a hopping toad. I waited behind two brothers who were returning to Nigeria with 14 suitcases between them. I was curious about what was in all those bags, surely two guys wouldn't be hauling over a dozen bags filled with clothes (or an entire suitcase devoted to shoes and boots as one of my fashion-conscious girlfriend's routinely checks). The bags were filled with items requested from their friends and family members at home, mostly small electronics like MP3 players and toiletries, the men told me. They had pretty much cleared out a few Wal-Marts, they said. I asked how long it would take before they actually walked through the door of their homes. About 36 hours of solid traveling using a variety of modes, the final leg utilizing a cart drawn by cattle, they told me proudly. Wow. My solo jaunt to visit Grace seemed pretty pansy-ish after hearing that.

I sat on the plane next to a pair of very sweet and young newlyweds from Utah. They did not have physical contact with each other once that I noticed during the 10-or so hours in the air. Again I say wow. The ride to Grace's apartment was interesting because the cab driver did not really speak English and my French sucks. He did glean that I was American and beamed at me as he said haltingly: "Obama -- America!!!! George Bush-- NOT America!!!!" I got what he was saying and we smiled and nodded at each other a lot and when he let me out in front of Grace's building he kissed my hand and bowed. It was sweet. Grace had sent me very specific and detailed instructions on how to get into her place which made me feel like a secret agent:

"The zip code is important, because it tells them I live in the 15th arrondisement; all Paris zip codes are 750, then the last two numbers are the particular section, or arrondisement. Mine is the 15th.

I will probably have left for work before you arrive, unfortunately. But the van will drop you off at my door (take a print out of this email and the email I forwarded on van service with the reservation number).

At my building (a corner building; there's a bakery directly across the street from the front of the building; if your facing my door, to your right across a smaller street will be a motorcycle repair shop), there's a numeric code to open the outside door (a black grill door w/glass plating). The external code is: 19-A-68.

Enter the building, and you'll see rows of mailboxes to your right. My mailbox, with my family name on in, is on the first row closest to the door, second or third from the top. Open the box, and I will have keys for you inside.

There's a black oval key -- totally black, it's more like a black oval plastic thing than a key -- will get you in the second, internal door. There's a keypad just beyond the mailboxes on the same wall; it has all the names of the apartment's occupants on it, and just below a black circular pad. Touch the black oval key lightly to the black circular pad, and you'll get a green light (if you get a red light, try again). The green light means the inner door is open.

Walk through the inner door, and you'll see a little elevator in front of you (it's a real french-style elevator, with an iron grate door to open, and small). Stuff your luggage inside and take it the top 5th floor. Exit on the fifth floor and walk about 3 steps down, then jog left, and walk up two flights to the top and 7th floor, dragging your luggage with you (unfortunately). My door is the first door you get to at the top of the stairs on the 7th floor. The name on the doorbell is Isabelle LaClaire. (yes, my french alter-ego; otherwise known as the woman who owns the apartment).

Use the silver key with black spots on it to open my apartment door. Go in and make yourself comfortable. The bed is yours; I'll have put fresh sheets on it and left towels for you to take a shower or whatever you wish. Wine will be chilling in the fridge (along with some beer). They'll be some cheese and sausage to snack on. And, of course, there's the bakery just across the street, which makes excellent croissants, pain du chocolate, and whatever else you need..."

Thus began my Parisian adventure. More later but I leave you with a photo of the infamous elevator in Grace's 100+ year-old building. It's gorgeous, tiny, and it works beautifully. But I often thought as I rode up and down in it that if it were to stop between floors and break down, there would really be no way to get out of it because it truly is like an iron cage the size of a casket. Creepy but pretty.

oui

Paris is everything I dreamed and more. So much more.

Crude, angry, politically incorrect, chain-smoking and sophomoric = dreamy. I am counting the days until Rescue Me returns to FX. Yes, yes, I know, I am a sad excuse for a feminist.

My trip to Paris is a month away and I cannot wait. I have done plenty of solo traveling but Tampa to Paris is a new one for me. My efforts to acclimate myself to the French language have been limited to changing the setting on my ipod to French. But of course, when looking for particular tracks they are all spelled in English so it's kind of not all that effective. But listening to Piaf sing La Vie en Rose every night as I walk the dog is really getting me in the mood. Grace and I are planning a tour of the Burgundy region and my travel editor wants me to do a night bike tour of Paris so there will be fun that is also subsidized. Who said a liberal arts education is worthless?

My spouse is going through what all my girlfriends are gleefully referring to as male menopause.

The signs and symptoms? He’s driving a new black Mustang convertible and has joined the gym. What can I say? Could we be any more clichéd if we tried? Probably not. He works hard and he deserves to embrace whatever makes him happy as far as I’m concerned, so what the hell, right? The only thing that truly mystifies and sort of bothers me about any of it is that he seems to be dragging my dad along for the ride, literally.

My dad is a die-hard type-A as is the Guy in the Boxers. So they have had more of an arms-length relationship with one another over the past 17 years rather than a warm fuzzy one. Dad is a retired career officer of the Army genus and the GITB was enlisted swine in the Navy. Strike one. Dad was raised Catholic and converted to Buddhism after one too many tours in Southeast Asia. The GITB is a non-practicing Jew. Strike two. There really is no strike three. All that they have in common has always far outweighed the things that they don’t, but still, there’s always been a bit of antler-ramming and intellectual sparring over the years. Just enough to keep my mom and me entertained. But they have of late become gym buddies, working out together several times a week and hiring a trainer together. Which is weird for me. Dad has even taken to calling the GITB “son.” I’m sure this meets some need for the GITB who grew up without a dad but for him to suddenly bond with mine now is just kind of unexpected. It’s nice. Just weird.

Maybe part of this coming together has to do with the small but steady steps our kid is taking toward full-out adulthood. She is sailing through high school at alarming speed and with great academic success, so much so that she has been invited to transfer to the local college for her junior and senior year of high school, graduating with a high school diploma and an associate’s degree. She’s learning to drive and the old family sedan has been spruced up and is in dry-dock in the neighbor’s extra garage, patiently tapping its toes awaiting her 16th birthday. Her trajectory is making us talk about what we’ll do in two years when she launches from the nest. The possibilities sit whispering in the corner of my writing room and I try to tune them out but they sneak up and tap my elbow and say “Hey! what about…”

Maybe I’ll go get a doctoral degree. Or I could join my friends who do merchandising for Broadway tours and go out on the road for six months. Maybe I’ll tell my bosses to shove it once and for all and totally go out on my own as a consultant. Or maybe school is it. I start teaching at a local small liberal arts college this summer and the idea of settling into academia for the rest of my working career is more appealing now than ever, especially with the fabulous schedule and freedom it affords.

In the meantime, it’s watching the gym rats do their thing and trying not to freak out over the demise of newspapers and the fucked up economy and all the for sale signs in my neighborhood. And the surreal awareness I have as I drive in relative safety and security to pick my kid up at school marveling at the serene blueness of the cloudless sky and the warm sun that it is disrupted by Coast Guard helicopters searching for a group of friends who went out on the water Saturday for a day of fishing and camaraderie and never made it home.

mistress of my domain

We just got home from a lovely trip to North Carolina, where I spent a final week hanging out with my fellow MFA pursuers and contemplating post-grad school life.

The Guy in the Boxers (spouse/consort)and our sweet little schmoopie (almost sweet 16)drove up on the weekend with the dog in tow in time for my graduation and tearful fare-thee-wells to my classmates.Then we high-tailed it to the Smokies for a few days of snowman-making and hot-toddie sipping and getting reacquainted. Our trip home was delayed by snow, which was a beautiful wonder to behold, most especially for my kid who has never seen it before. So there was a lot of perfunctory snow-eating, snowball flinging and angel-making.

One thing I know for certain is that education -- good education -- is well worth the money spent and the time devoted, which is usually precious and diverted from other needy areas of one's life and so it can be a sacrifice not only for the person in grad school, but that person's near and dear ones. So I feel fortunate to have had the resources to do this and the support of my tribe to go off for weeks at a time to work on my MFA. This was something I thought about a lot while in my final week of grad school, especially when engaging in conversation with my fellow grads. One woman told me that her husband had grudgingly supported her pursuit of an MFA, grudgingly because he had been teased relentlessly by his friends and family -- all techies and engineer types, she said -- for allowing her to selfishly indulge in a "useless" degree that was the basic equivalent of paying someone $20,000 to lock you in a room for two years while you write poems about dandelions (she got her MFA in poetry last week). As a writer of nonfiction, I feel a little less defensive about it, but still, I bristled when I heard her story.

So here I am, fresh MFA in hand. What's next? Who knows. But the possibilities seem limitless. And I have a publisher interested in my thesis. :)

one more

I have no narrative caption for this one.

Except to say that unlike some of us, I kept my pants on whenever I was out in public.

more photographic dispatches from last month's trip

Ricky didn't know that drinking with a straw made him look gay.
I chose to not point it out.
Which didn't really matter because he insisted on wearing
the scarf he bought at H&M.
In the junior department.
Also, the "doesn't my butt look sweet in these jeans?" question
was getting really annoying after the fifth time. So there's that.

Two thumbs up: The Cowgirl Hall of Fame.
Best damn strawberry margaritas in New York.
And Patsy Cline portraits in the john.

When people leave their mattresses out on the sidewalk
in the middle of the Village is there anything to do other than
jumping up and down on them?

Scariest. Damn. Bingo game hostess on the planet. Ever.
I knew I was in trouble when she asked me how long I claim to have been
a woman. Oh, and she called my friends Kathy and Lisa "Cagney and Lacy"
or "Streetwalker Barbie and Midge" all night which I sort of preferred
and continue to address them as such.
It couldn't have been all that bad.
We got there at 10 p.m.-ish and starting lurching toward the door at 3 a.m.-ish.
I think. No. Yeah. Um. Yeah.

Best damn cupcakes on the planet.
Especially the red velvet.
Even though I saw them twice.
Once in the bakery and again splattered near my feet
when Ricky leaned over and said "Oy. Yeah, I'm gonna puke,"
as I hailed a cab. Good times.