la la la WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY also a belated thanks

I could forgive my movers almost anything. I have, in fact. I've stopped fighting them at every turn. I don't have the energy. They've screwed me upside down and sideways and frankly, I'm done resisting. They can take my money. They can empty the PayPal account I was hoping would go toward more than one cause.* They can tell me lies and more lies. But this is the last straw.

I'm missing Krissa's birthday drinks.

While I sit at home and wait for a phone call - something I didn't even do in high school; this is the level they've had me sink to - the birthday girl is opening presents and looking gorgeous. People are cheering and laughing and singing hippo birdie to ewe to her. I expect the group's been through four pitchers of sangria by now, at least.

I love sangria.

"We'll be there between three and nine," the driver said. If my phone hasn't rung by nine, you can bet there will be about nine stiff drinks in my immediate future. I don't like stuff that stands between me and a good bar with my favorite people inside.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Fuck this, I'm getting a corkscrew. I wish I had company.

* I owe a huge and wholehearted thanks to everyone who contributed to my PayPal fund. I held off on expressing it until I knew how exactly it would help me, as I said, make the transition from San Diego to New York alive. Turns out it will completely absorb the impact of a surprise charge the movers have slapped on me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Every donation, without exception, was helpful. Thanks, also, for putting up with my total blogging incompetence, or rather, for helping me in spite of it. I am humbled and grateful beyond words. Thank you.

coming out

If there's any question I find difficult to answer, it's How did you meet your roommate? There are a lot of variations on this theme, the How did you meet so-and-so who lives far away? theme. I've had to account for a whole range of long-distance relationships - everything from the kind you forge over just a couple meetings over coffee or drinks while in town, to the kind you hold so close to your heart that it hurts not to talk for a day.

Nearly a year ago, when I was visiting New York with a close friend of mine, I said we should meet up with my friend Krissa. We were half an hour ahead of that meeting when I said, "By the way, I've never actually met her."

By now, to my good friends, the ones who are used to that, who know about my blog, it's simple to say, "Oh, you know - through the blog." I don't know if they've become fully accustomed to how powerful an influence it's been, but if they haven't they don't show it.

When I'm with other people, though, family and less-close friends and acquaintances, it can be trickier. Because there's no five-second way to tell someone who's never heard the word "blog" that that's the reason I know so many of the people I know in New York and in London, the explanation becomes a vague, "She's a friend of a friend, sort of," or the real cop-out, "It's a long story."

As a result of my equivocating (and, I should add, my family's spotty ability to retain information past the duration of a conversation), my mother, father, sisters and brothers have only a misty impression, if any at all, that I have a blog.

Except that yesterday, my little brother asked for some pictures that I happened to have uploaded to thekate.net recently, and I gave him the URL to the appropriate images page. And he's smart. And internetty. And I have to assume he knows how to delete everything after /blog/ and find this site. So:

David, if you're reading this? Hello! I love you. But if you deliberately show this to Mom or Dad, I will have my revenge.

one more pint

I think it was when I found myself on the subway at 1:30 a.m. eating leftovers with my fingers that I realized I should have quit when I was ahead.

more simple maths

[click for the big picture]

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Special Ingredient #1
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YUM
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Special Ingredient #2
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if I ever complain, cut my face off with a butter knife.

the spendy spendy and the sexy sexy

A good way to go broke is to shop for underwear and bras when you have a tan. Cloistered in the fitting room, you will look at the mirror and marvel at the flush of your skin under the white, or lilac, or black of different garments. And price tags will mean nothing to you.

kill the dalai lama

"Marry, Fuck or Kill" is one of the most innovative games of mental gymnastics I've played. How it escaped me for twenty-two years, I don't know. Well, I guess I can understand not playing it when I was, like, four. But since then? No excuse.

The game, as I learned from Jen last night while sitting in the park on the river watching the lights come on in Manhattan, involves thinking up three people and deciding which - marry, fuck or kill - you'd do to whom.

This is no simple matter. It can pit friend against friend. When I said I'd kill Colin Firth so I could have two other men for the fucking and the marrying, respectively, Krissa looked at me like she was beginning to regret we'd ever met. And it forces you to make tough choices. We could all agree to fuck Peter Pan (duh, the live version), but who should we marry, if the other must be killed - Harry Potter or Ron Weasley?

Over one threesome there was no argument, though. Fuck Mahatma Ghandi, kill the Dalai Lama, and marry Abraham Lincoln.

We are such freaking nerds.

can't be arsed at the moment, plus i could never live up to...

Sunday: le version hiboux.

these are my feet

I'm not kidding. Would I kid about this?

These shoes found me way back when, but I didn't get them at the time. Now, though, thanks to my sweetheartdarlingloveypieface roommate, we're together again. Thank you, sweetheartdarlingloveypieface!

life's mysteries

I thought of a question I cannot answer.

If I were, say, drinking coffee in the city, and if I were to learn that Luke Wilson was in the same neighborhood as me, but also that Owen Wilson was in a neighborhood some distance away, say, twenty blocks downtown, what would I do?

night in pictures, redux

Welcome to the party. I am cute and friendly on the outside but totally dark and sinister on the inside.

These be my girls, yo.

These be happy people!

You have to keep an eye on this one. Here he is one moment...

...and here, the next!

Smiles were smiled.

Laughs were laughed.

Tattoos looked HOT in action.

Mike sucked the life force out of Jason's chest, to everyone's blithe amusement.

And then the next night, Krissa and I found out that there's an evil company headquartered on Broadway that uses a toy corporation as a front organization.

Back in five? At midnight? Yeah fucking right.

That's also the evil company responsible for the art at 28th Street that makes you want to put your head in a hole, in case anyone was wondering.

a night out in pictures

A gay man and a straight woman never - ever - made a more handsome couple.

Hot damn, I have pretty friends.

Coke babies!

And of course -

- the le troika (please see advisory).