a lesbian christmas

I moved to Denver in 2005. I met and hired a great engineer named J.

It turns out J was a lesbian. She and her partner had struggled along with the whole family thing (getting them to accept that she was gay) and the Colorado thing (people aren't as open minded as you might expect given that fact that Boulder exists in this state).

Anyway, having no plans for christmas that year, I got an invite to J's house. She and her partner promised an extravaganza of Italian food the likes of which I would never experience anywhere else. The catch - J's partner, M, had invited her parents to dinner. M's parents were in total denial of the whole lesbian situation. It promised to be a night of arguments and anger.

But, I was hungry. I said yes.

I should mention here that I usually take the last two weeks of the year off and had decided, in my time off, to repaint my house since I wasn't too pleased with the grey colors the previous owner left behind. So I painted and painted, for 10 days straight, 18 hours a day. It was grueling. At 4 oclock in the morning of the day I was due to have dinner at J's I took a 14 foot fall in my stairwell when one of the bricks I was edging on crumbled as I was trying to touch up the ceiling. My bad knee was broadcasting some serious pain.

So I arrived for dinner with a cartoonish limp, my hands curled and shaking from tendonitis due to all that painting. I was probably also high from the paint fumes and had a fair bit of paint in my hair. I showed M and J my bruises from the fall which were pretty impressive. M's parents looked me up and down like "where the fuck did they find this...thing?"

Dinner was served at a rather frosty table. M's parents were astutely in denial, as if Jen and M were room mates or something. The conversation was forced and was mostly about the weather. I was trying to pick up and hold a fork in my hand without making a spectacle of myself, which was hard. I couldn't use my knife at all because my hands were so worked I couldn't keep a grip on anything. J had to cut up my food.

I had been warned beforehand not to bring up the "L" word. But, after an hour of tense conversation, when M's dad asked me, "So, are you dating anyone?" I responded "Are you asking me because you care about my love life, or are you trying to figure out if I'm a lesbian too?" There was dead silence at the table, during which Jen shot me a look that said "I am so going to kick you in the cunt" and then M's parents started laughing. Within minutes lesbian jokes were abounding. It was a nice way to spend the holiday.

And later, M's parents didn't even blink an eye when J kissed me on New Year's, when I met up with them at a party after driving 18 hours from my parents' house. Though the neighbors whose party we were attending were probably like "WTF?"

Later, someone in the neighborhood kicked in the back window of J and M's car and filled the back with broken beer bottles. There were other things done to them that would easily classify as hate crimes. They moved to Washington DC in the hopes of finding a better environment to live in.

This year J decided she was sick of being a lesbian and she is now dating a guy. M is with someone else. And I'll never have such good italian wedding soup again.

do these pants go with this wine?

Tonight I met my dear friend Jeffy out for drinks and dinner at this new wine bar that opened near his house (http://www.indulgewinebar.com/). Jeffy knows more about wine than anyone I've met and also has connections for procuring amazing wines. I sometimes fantasize about running amok in his wine cellar with a glass and bottle opener, and I think he knows this because he showed me pictures of his latest wine acquisitions which he keeps on his iPhone. He likes to torture me. The best bottle of wine I had last year was a gift he handed me while we were sitting in his hotel room at the FJ rally in Ouray. I swear that angels came out of that bottle when it was opened.

Jeffy has the life. He's a high level muck at a company that won't be named, and he's running a major satellite program for them. He hired a kick ass woman engineer (well, goes without saying, we're all kick ass) to do most of his work so he only has to work about 8 hours a week, and he spends the rest of his time biking and skiing. He's going to Ouray to ice climb for new year's (but I'm not jealous - I bet he's bringing wine from his cellar - okay, I'm a little jealous).

He showed up for dinner tonight in a fabulous outfit, including grey cashmere sweater that was probably made by a virgin who was then sacrificed so she would never make the same sweater again. He ordered a great glass of red wine for me and a glass of white for himself (I never order for myself when I'm with him). He said that red wine causes him to wake up every couple of hours while he's sleeping (that could be my problem?) so he's switched to white. Then we had heated hummus with goat cheese and red pepper and talked about Jeffy's book, which is about how he lost 50 pounds in 3 months (he looks fantastic). It's going to be called the lap dance diet. He unfortunately has a ghost writer and didn't ask me to help because he thought I was writing a book already ~:(

And then, the bad thing happened. We ordered flatbread with caramelized onions and figs and the waitress brought it out on this wood tray thing with a handle. The table was on the small size so the handle was hanging over the edge. Seconds later the hostess, a woman in her 50s, walked by our table and somehow caught the handle with her leg, causing the wood tray to slam into Jeffy's wine glass, causing it to shatter and spill wine all over Jeffy because the glass was full.

Jeffy is a big guy. A big, BIG guy. Could be a villain in a James Bond movie. You DO NOT spill wine on Jeffy's clothes.

Pandemonium ensued. There were pieces of the wine glass stem on our flat bread. Jeffy had a lap full of wine and was like "my PANTS!" and I was thinking to myself "your SWEATER!" People ran over. Jeffy has been to this place a lot since it opened (almost all the staff greeted him by name) so the waitresses tried to clean him up the best they could. Jeffy was like "fuck! Fuck! FUCK!" (he was a marine, after all, and speaks the language) and then said to our waitress "That woman is a fucking IDIOT! Look how much ROOM she had to walk by our table! How could she have done that???? She should be FIRED!" at which point our waitress was like "Um, that's my mother."

It really was her mother.

Jeffy and I laughed about that for the next two hours. What are the chances?

The mom then proceeded, an hour later, to dump a glass of wine all over the back and jacket of a girl sitting parallel to us who was at some kind of batchelorette party (bet she wishes she had ordered white instead of red). She was even more fun to watch than Jeffy, who, after everything was cleaned, said "I'm glad I didn't lose my temper." Uh huh.

The best part of the story is that, due to the accident, Jeffy talked the bartender into giving us a cherry liqueur from the bar (they make their own liqueurs). It seriously was like biting into a piece of cherry pie, even though it was a liquid. I can think of very few things that have ever been as wonderful to put in my mouth as that liqueur. It's made locally, with organic cherries, and what ever other shit they put in liqueurs. It's the kind of thing that, after you take a sip of it, you grin like an idiot for at least five minutes and wonder "did that really happen?" Next time we go there we're going to sit at the bar and sample a bunch of the liqueurs. Hopefully nothing will get spilled.

Then I'm going to stumble over to Jeffy's and crash in his wine cellar.

new year's resolution progress

I like to be ahead of schedule so after posting my resolutions I got right to work on them. Here's my progress so far:

• I haven't stolen any straws from Starbucks. Though, I haven't been to Starbucks. But when I fly out on Sunday I'm going to try to not steal any when I walk by Starbucks on my way to the gate.
• I procured DVDs of a course in astronomy taught by a professor at Berkley. The DVDs are hopefully on their way as I write this (www.teach12.com - check it out, the Chaos course is great and I got a copy of that too).
• I have a rough draft of one book proposal and will be working on my other proposal this weekend.
• I'm working on getting my friends to set me up with their single friends. I have one victim lined up for a meeting, though, other than being an ice climber he doesn't meet any of my qualifications. With any luck he will have some good looking friends.
• My dear friend Neil gave me a quick tutorial on painting when I spoke to him on Tuesday night. We are planning a painting weekend where I will go to his house and he will teach me how to paint. I might try to buy some painting stuff tomorrow. I already thought of two things that I want to paint.
• I haven't been untying my shoes, but they are all broken anyway. At some point, maybe next week, I will try to go to a store and buy a new pair of shoes, which I will untie.

Jake - home and healthy for the holidays

So, back in September, I was hit by an uninsured motorist while sitting at a red light. The stupid bitch gave me an insurance card, but it turned out it had been cancelled.

So after numerous wranglings with my insurance company, during which time I was traveling and consulting with a client so things were hard, I eventually found out the bitch who hit me had hired a lawyer and was going to pay for the damages to my car.

I took Jakey in to Body Works, located in Denver, on Monday. They are seriously the best body shop ever. They got my car done early (wasn't supposed to be fixed until Friday), did a great job on the repairs (though I was sad to lose my Mountaineer and Johns Hopkin stickers off the bumper), did the repairs for less than the estimate, and even cleaned my car. They vacuumed him, cleaned his windows, and cleaned off the dashboard and the driver's console. And the guy who fixed my car said if I ever wanted to go on a date with him I should give him a call. Though, the woman at the front desk whispered to me after he left "you might want to wait until he breaks up with his girlfriend".

I am so so so happy to have Jake back and fixed. And keeping my fingers crossed that I get my money back.

tuxedo

I had a very vivid dream about you last night.

In the dream we had just gotten married. It was in the spring. You were wearing a black tuxedo. I think I was wearing a long dress that was pale yellow but I'm not sure. You sent me a picture of yourself in a black tux once though it was more like a passport photo and not like a full length picture.

Then we were walking along this dirt path that was on a cliff overlooking a beach. We were somewhere in Russia although I've never been there. I don't know how I knew that's where we were. Anyway, we were walking along in silence and then you started speaking to me, only you were speaking in German and I couldn't understand what you were saying. I started to worry that I had married someone I couldn't talk to. But then, as we walked along and I was listening to you, I started understanding what you were saying, at first just understanding words and then finally whole sentences, and I was relieved and happy.

Then we came to this lake and at the far end we could see a boat house. You said it would be nice to rent a boat and go out on the lake. So we walked through some woods to get to the boat house and I realized none of the trees had leaves on them. I also looked over at you and saw that you were not wearing your tux anymore and that you instead had on a black wool sweater.

We ran into an old man who was pulling a boat out of the water and I told him we were going to rent a boat to go on the lake. He said "You can't rent a boat anymore. It's fall and the boat house is closed." Then I started to worry because I was only supposed to be gone on our honeymoon for a week and now it was already fall because we had somehow lost track of time and I was sure that I was going to get fired from my job. And then you said "Well, it's too late to go back now, we might as well keep walking." So we turned into the woods and started walking into the sun which was going down because it was late afternoon and I couldn't really see where we were going anymore and then I woke up.

shoe obsession management plan

I've decided that I can't just go out and buy shoes, because I buy too many, but I can't not buy shoes, which is what I've been doing for the past two years, unless I really needed shoes and I had adult supervision, because now I don't really have any shoes to wear.

So today I came up with a brilliant plan, which will go into effect 1 Jan 2009, that will require I document my plan for buying a shoe. I've included a sample plan here in case anyone else out there wants to use it.

Pink Sandal Shoe Purchase Plan

Business Justification

I don't have any pink sandals, and every time I open a fashion magazine, I can't help but think I need a pair. If I were to purchase pink sandals they would fill the following requirements:

1. I would be able to get through airport security faster since sandals are easy to take off, meaning I have more time to work in the airport, increasing productivity
2. My feet would be healthier as it's not great to enclose a poor foot in a shoe all day meaning less sick days
3. If my customer put an important document up on a high shelf I could still reach it, making my consulting engagements more successful
4. No one really steals pink sandals so I would never have to worry that I might be at a client site and not have shoes because someone stole them.

Proposed Solution

I have determined after doing thorough research for two hours on the internet that the following shoe is the one that should be purchased (Manolo's, $1,900). It meets safety requirements, height requirements, and the bow provides a useful engineering feature.

Alternative Solutions

This Christian Louboutin sandal ($900) might have worked, except that all those feathers might make my feet itch, thereby distracting me from working. Also, I might get attacked by a cat who thinks my foot is one of those play things from Pet Smart. The injuries I would likely sustain would cause me to miss at least a week of work.

This Christian Dior sandal ($800) is okay, but I'm worried that the wood used to make the sole of this shoe might have come from an endangered forest. I would rather not be responsible for a tree getting cut down just so I could have a shoe.

Next Steps

Someone needs to send me a check for $1,900 or those Manolo's. Size 8. The goal would be to have completion of this task before close of 4th quarter 2008.

my new year's resolutions

In preparation for the new year I'm making a list of my resolutions:

• Stop smoking, or, stop being friends with people who nag me about smoking, which might be easier.
• Stop going into Starbucks at the airport and stealing their straws, which are the best straws ever, because I never buy anything there. I just steal straws.
• Stop eating lemon ginger cookies for lunch instead of having real food, even though I normally have to do this because my customer building is locked down and I have no way to get out to get food. But that's no excuse. I could bring carrots and apples and eat those. Though, I really like lemon ginger cookies better.
• Stop making weird faces when my customer is saying something insane to me, and then pretending I didn't know I was making a face.
• Stop singing M.I.A. songs in my head when someone is talking to me, so I don't really know what the person said, because even though the conversation might have started out boring the person might have said something interesting when I was thinking "I got more records than the KGB".
• Watch more shark movies, especially when I'm feeling depressed.
• Spend more time looking at the pictures from the Hubble telescope and learning about stars.
• Plan a trip to Israel this year.
• Put together a proposal for the book I'm going to write, and then DO IT.
• Untie my shoes instead of sliding my feet into them, causing the back of the shoe to get jacked, and then causing my shoes to make a weird squeaking noise when I walk.
• Buy some painting stuff and paint at least one picture. Maybe check on You Tube to see if there is a tutorial out there on how to paint.
• Stop obsessing that I have parasites which are causing my stomach to hurt when I know that the reason my stomach hurts is because I'm stressed out.
• Reduce stress by not worrying about people anymore, and giving up friendships that aren't positive, and by not letting people move into my house, except my cousin Andrea if she decided to move here.
• Tell my clients "No, I'm not going to sit in your office for 12 hours a day to get your shit done. You should have paid for more consulting days". But, say it nicer.
• Flirt more and try to find a guy to date that actually has time for me and who isn't an asshole. And who will be happy to see me at the airport, and then we'll get home and he will cook dinner, which will be something I really like such as pancakes or fish tacos. He will also have gone to the grocery so I have snacks to eat like edamame and lemon ginger cookies.
• Practice shopping in a store and buying something as opposed to driving to the store and then panicking that I'm in a mall and then driving home and thinking "fuck it, I'll just wear something I already have" even if the whole purpose of the trip was to get a cute outfit to wear because I have a date and know the guy is going to be like "hmmm" when I show up in jeans and my running shoes and a t-shirt since that's the only thing I have to wear after I took almost all of my clothes to good will, because I probably will also decide to not wash my hair, and then I'm going to wonder why he never called me after our date.