i am so tired... promise to say something witty and insightful tomorrow....

must

rip

more

cdsbeforesleeping....

Holy Jellied Christ on a Cracker!!! All praise the mighty Apple for the amazing fucking invention that is the iPod. Could this device be easier to use??

although... I have enormous bags under my eyes from all the CD ripping i've been doing in the last 18 or so hours...

My DSL line still isn't active so that sucks, but dial-up is about 5 times faster on this computer than the old one, so I'll survive in the meantime.

I feel like I've been set free. I'm seeing the Internet how it's supposed to be seen for the first time in years. Wowzers...

Updating to a new computer after so many years has left me a bit perplexed as to how I can transfer data and files off of my old one to the new one. So, I've decided to make a clean break. Which means I have to build up my bookmarks and email addresses and such all over again.

so... Anyone and everyone that I even slightly know or might wanna know... drop me an email so I can put you back into my Address Book.

This post brought to you by an Apple iMac g4...

*dances wildly about the room*

Thanks to the kindness of a friend, I watched all of the episodes of the Osbournes that have aired so far earlier this evening. I'm SOOO hooked. What an unexpectedly fun show to watch. Now I understand why everyone has been talking about it.

The thing that stands out to me the most on the show is how much this odd foul-mouthed, nouveaux riche rockstar family all love one another. Kinda cool.

an hour spent walking the dog...

I step outside to a crescent moon and a scattering of bright stars against a deep indigo sky. Walking down my street, I pass houses a century old, some barely holding back against the years with their rotted gutters and uneven balconies, others brought back to the lustre of their younger days... apartments for rent for a couple hundred dollars, others a couple thousand.

Reaching St Charles Avenue, I pass a nightclub, seemingly out of place, a strange building supposedly built from disgarded parts of the Eiffel Tower. It's just beginning to fill with young noisy people, bass thumps out each time the door opens, strobe lights flash through the windows high above the street.

Turning on the Avenue, I pass hotels, some old and grand, others new and overly bright and shiny. Then there are restaurants and bars, people sitting drinking chatting loudly and happily at wrought iron tables right at the edge of the street.

Streetcars rumble down the neutral ground in both directions, adding a distinctive burnt scent to the damp night air. I see the occassional cute face staring out a window and wonder who they are, where they're going.

After a few blocks, I turn back into the Garden District. Immediately, the houses grow large and bold. I walk down brick sidewalks, careful to watch my step as many a brick is long gone and roots of trees protrude in the spaces between others.

There are fences all along the street. Wrought iron with finials of all shapes and sizes.. fleur de lis, spikes, cones; white picket wood; chicken wire and large concrete walls with foreboding metal doors.

The air is full of the sickly sweet funereal smell of lugustrum blooms. Soon this will fade, replaced by the sickly sweet smell of magnolia blossoms. Plants are everywhere and are of every type. Large stately oak and magnolia trees, hibiscus, palms, banana trees, lantana, roses, irises. They reach up and out and over everywhere, through the fences, up trellises. Once I'm not looking the right direction and a rose branch snaking its way through a wrought iron fence digs into my neck and my dog drags me onward, the thorn digging through my skin until it releases pulled back to the branch.

I reach Magazine Street and turn again. The mansions grow fewer. I pass a dilipadated funeral home, a Western Union office with cracked plate glass windows, faded carpet behind them. The next block turns into shops and stores of varying wares. Behind large glass windows meshed in steel coverings is pottery, paintings, fossils, flowers, chairs that came from faraway countries decades past. I pass the plastic tables outside Juans Flying Burrito, more drunk happy people cheeks flushed sipping on margaritas.

Back into my neighborhood, more of the strange mixture of gentrification and dilipation.

Home.

God, I love New Orleans...

We live in a culture in which we're so saturated with media and hype that it's a really rare moment to discover something truly unexpected, especially if you're talking about a film.

Tonight, I watched a movie that I knew nothing about, a movie that I'd never heard of before, I just thought it looked neat at the video store.

And I'm sitting here just totally blown away by it right now. Instantly one of my five favorite movies ever. I'm gonna buy it on DVD because I know I'll watch it again and again.

I'm not gonna tell you anything about it. It's called Donnie Darko. Go rent it.

If you like it, you're someone I'd like to know...

Yorkshire pudding is made from beef??????

(the perils of looking through your cookbooks)

Mono & Esthero...

Where the fuck are you??? I want fucking new albums by both the fuck of you fucking NOW.

(the perils of looking through your CD collection)

FYI... the order is placed, I just have to call tomorrow morning, once my paycheck has posted to my checking account, and supply my credit card number.

Then one iMac G4 Combo Drive (with half a gig of memory) and one iPod will arrive at my place of business on Saturday morning.

So, Saturday nite, instead of drinking myself into oblivion in the French Quarter, I will be in supergeek computer heaven, setting up my new system.

Hmmm... now may be the time to start borrowing ÇDs that I don't own from all of my friends...

It's a lovely sunny day outside, so I decided a bit ago that reading on a blanket in the backyard would be a great idea. So, a book, a blanket, the dog and I head for the yard. The dog is happy, she can run around. I'm happy, getting sun and enjoying a great book. I doze off for a second in the warm drowsy sun.

I wake up hearing the dog digging in the flowerbed. I'm about to call out to her when I realize she's chewing something. I go to investigate. As I cross the yard, she digs a little more and snuffles up something from the ground beneath the mulch. I arrive at the flowerbed. I see that my beloved sweetheart of a dog is eating.... catshit.

If she comes within ten feet of me for the rest of the day, I'm gonna scream.

Stupid Toys R Us doesn't have it yet... Stupid Toys R Us...

Oh my god.. Oh my god... there's a new ToysRUs exclusive 4 pack of animated Batman action figures!!! And it's got Ra's al Ghul in a suit in it!!!!!! And Talia!!!!!!!

Oh my god... Oh my god... *door slams* *sound of tires squeeling in street as blogger exits to nearest Toys R Us store*

Am I the only person on this planet who hasn't seen an episode of The Osbournes??? It's starting to feel that way...

"needs to smile more"

the (hidden) things you find when you start viewing the Page Source on other people's webpages...

Okey doke, Mr Jonno, I promise to make an effort...

I don't think I ever posted this link. It's a couple months ago. I hate it. But it's me. Just in case anyone was wondering...

Um... for the record... I have no personal firsthand knowledge of the New Orleans bar and/or gay scene in the 1970s!!!!

Book alert... there may be another great New Orleans novel out there now... Jim Grimsley has just published BOULEVARD. I've only read the first twelve pages of it, but it seems to capture the texture of 1970s New Orleans quite well from the first page.

Grimsley has several previous books, most all of them quite good. My favorite of them is DREAM BOY, a novel that has one the most indescribably beautiful but disturbing endings I've ever read. It stayed with me for days the first time I read it.

I'll be starting BOULEVARD shortly and have a report on it soon.

Also in bookstores yesterday, the latest novel from Dennis Cooper, first one in a while. And!!!!! the rerelease of one of Jonathan Carroll's out of print novels. That's the second one in the last year, on top of the trade paperback release of THE WOODEN SEA.

BONES OF THE MOON is a story about dreams. It's not Carroll's best book, IMO, but that's like saying a painting is a minor Picasso. Any Jonathan Carroll book is a delight that will have you stumbling through the world for days after looking at everything around you and every facet of your life wondering what lies behind it all.

I highly recommend any and all of his books. Every single person that I've ever suggested his books to has come back and thanked me later. Every one.

Ok... I'm not gonna start any more posts with "okay"...

Ok... person who attends Augustana College... introduce yourself... :)

Okay... now how the FUCK do I get the files that I wanna keep off of my old Power PC6500 and onto my new iMac once I get it???? The old one only has a floppy drive, the new one CD-RW and DVD.

There's some damned good porn on here that I don't wanna lose...

I must confess to the fact that I don't read many other blogs, outside of a few assorted other New Orleanians and one California boy. So, today, I jumped on a couple of the gay boy blog webrings.

And I found a couple of blogs I decided I had to bookmark. I really liked this one a lot.

It's kinda scary out there, the same guys seem to have all the other same guys bookmarked over and over again... this being a supposedly exploding hot new thing to do... where are all the other cute interesting boy bloggers??

My traffic has been relatively steady lately and I'm noticing lots of new ISP's passing through. And it seems that some of you are staying around and actually reading quite a bit... so...

why don't some of you introduce yourselves to me? email or the guestbook would do...

c'mon... i'm SOOO curious...

oh, and did I mention that the day I buy my iMac, I'm also buying an iPod... patience.. patience...

Yippee ki oh... UPS brought my DSL modem today and on Friday, i get the check that enables me to turn around and spend it all on my new iMac g4...

I will be patient... I will be patient... I will be patient...

Saturday night, I made JonJon go back to see Helle's Belles with me again. The good review in the Times Picayune's Lagniappe section coupled with word of mouth must've resulted in a lot more interest because the show was completely packed.

And the SRO crowd seemed to feed the energy of the cast and give them something more to play off of than they had at the previous show that I saw. The timing was a bit better and the cast obviously enjoyed playing off of the enthusiasm of the crowd. The result was that a funny show became much funnier. I laughed much harder the second time around.

New Orleans being the odd incestuous city that it is, I knew that fellow bloggers TJ and James were supposed to be there as well as my friend, Jinger. Jinger was going with her long-time friend Tiffany, who this past year discovered that Richard, the director of the play, was her long lost half-brother. Whew! Got all that??

Anyways, James didn't make it so I didn't meet him, and I had no clue what TJ looked like. I did see Jonno, who I discovered hasn't even glanced in my blog in so long that he has no clue of the changes I've made. *pout*

After the play, we stopped at the John, in the Marigny, for another drink. Ridiculously simple bar with gold painted toilets in the main room. Cheap drinks served in mason jars. Right down home... sort of...

Then we hit a couple of the gay bars, Lafitte's and Good Friends, as well as 735. Nothing too exciting happened. Oh yeah, and then I drug JonJon into the Phoenix on the way back to the car. *snort*

Whoo hoo....!! Angel's new tonight!!!

So, last night I had extremely vivid dreams. I don't usually remember my dreams, so this is a pretty rare moment.

I had what I term an 'epic dream', one of those that seemingly goes on for great length and involves a great adventure.

So, um... I dreamed that I was in an apocalyptic future. One in which man shared the remains of the ruined landscape with, um... intelligent dinosaurs. Don't ask me how the intelligent dinosaurs got into the future...

I was some great human leader who was trying to bring peace to the human and dinosaur communities. And I had finally achieved, along with a dinosaur leader, a community where dinosaur and man lived together in tenuous peace. And then a rogue human drove an Amtrak train through it and killed most everyone. And then I woke up.

I haven't a clue... I do remember the memorable line that one dinosaur said to another, "Your feet stink of humans!"

Like I said... not a clue...

Okay... blogging reaches a whole new level of cool when the author of a book that you read and really liked emails you and asks you for a further critique of it...

Neato keeno...

So, yesterday I watched Mulholland Drive on DVD. What a mindfuck. I love David Lynch movies. It was probably one of the best representations I've ever seen on film of dream logic. It's flow was entirely dreamlike throughout, at least what I remember of the dreams I have.

And I *think* I have some idea of what was going on... or at least what *I* think was going on...

Went to Lola's for dinner last night with my friend, Beau. Beau and I have been saying we were going for paella some nite for months on end. And we finally did it. And, my god, is Lola's amazing. I had meriscos, a seafood soup, tomato basil salad and seafood paella, and I had part of Beau's gazpacho. Amazng amazing amazing meal. I can't wait to go back. Although, I still smelled like garlic at work this morning.

Tonight, I may go see Y Mama... oh I forget.. that Mexican road film...

it means the spirit of the stairway, sort of... it's a French expression, and a very cool one, which refers to those clever comments you think of much too late for them to be of use to you.

L'esprit d'escalier...

To the person who came here by imploring Google "I want lil bow wow to be my boyfriend help me get to him", um... sorry, I'm afraid that I can't be of much help with that.

Ok... I promise to stop with the Google hits after this one. My last Google hit was for these keywords (and I swear to god I'm not making this up):

I + want + lil + bow + wow + to + be + my + boyfriend + help + me + get + to + him

FYI... i just went back and fixed a problem with an earlier post from today that you may have noticed not making sense... the one about Hell's Belles...

Spent a lovely day today... got up at 9:30ish for a 10:30 haircut at Stardust on Magazine. Followed it with a Chicken House Special Spinach Quesadilla at Juan's Flying Burrito. YUMMM.

Then i took a nice bikeride up to More Fun Comics on Oak Street and bought this week's new comics. Then my comics and I went to Audubon Park, where I sat on a bench and read them. Then back home on our oh so bumpy uptown streets. Stopped and picked up a DVD of Mulholland Drive for watching later.

After getting home, I cleaned my apartment from top to bottom, while listening to White Stripes, Timo Maas & Pete Yorn. Now me tired, but I have to work from 9 pm until... while painters stain wood in our store.

Feh. Nice day tho...

hmm... who is Jonathan Lewis... and why does he hate me???

(no, i'm not serious)

More Google hits! how odd...

jonathan + lewis + hates + drew
grapefruit + martini (oh the horrible memories...)

I'm SOO behind on reporting my life...

This past Sunday, I went with JonJon to see Hell's Belles at Cowpokes Bar in the Marigny.

I ran into Beau/Lance there as well as Charly, aka Blogstalker. Poor Charly evidently has no internet access currently, which explains the lack of updates in 4 months. I finally asked Beau/Lance whether he preferred to be a Beau or a Lance and exactly why some people call him Beau and some Lance. I'm keeping him as a Beau. It's what the people who've known him the longest call him and I like it best.

Hell's Belles is the newest Running With Scissors production. These are the guys who previously brought New Orleans productions of Hedwig, The Scooby Witch Project, Camille and Grenadine McGunkle's Doublewide Christmas. All of which were damned funny and extremely well done shows.

Belles is loosely based on the Clint Eastwood movie, The Beguiled, which has always held a special place in my heart. I wasn't terribly surprised to find out a year or so ago that Flynn had a similar love for it.

I liked Belles a lot, but I didn't find it to be as funny overall as the previous shows. But, that's not really a criticism. All of Running With Scissors shows have been amazingly good. Grenadine was about the funniest damned show I've ever seen in my life. So, that's a high mark to have to hit every time. Belles has some terrificly funny moments but I felt it just sort of dragged at moments. Brian Peterson was really great as the school's headmistress and Roy Haylock aka Bianca del Rio ate up the stage everytime he was on it.

I imagine that I'll go see the show again later in its run and I have a feeling that it'll have tightened up a bit.

Now I have to go feel guilty about not absolutely raving about it...

Wow. I got my first search engine hit today. Someone was looking on Google for Alastair Reynolds as a keyword. Neato.

Oops. On second view, it's quite a weird hit. It was from Google UK and the person searching spelled Alastair wrong and so had I once upon a time. LOL.

I mention my ex, Dave, a lot. It's sad that I call him 'my ex' still cuz we broke up like over 4 years ago.

Anyway... I just put Dave's mass emails from his first few days in the Peace Corps onto a blog, totally without his permission, natch.

Go read them, they're VERY funny.

Okay... that was really annoying... that Muppet Quiz html was totally fucked up... but the gratifying part of the annoyance is that I managed to clean it up myself.

I am SOOO smart sometimes.

And I suppose I should be glad that I'm not Miss Piggy...

*sigh* I don't wanna be Goooonzzoo.... *cry*

	You are Gonzo! You're a bit loopy, and many people have trouble figuring out exactly what you're supposed to be. You take pride in your eccentricity and originality.
Take the What Muppet Are You? Quiz!

just an fyi...

my favorite song title of all time...

mmmm, skyskraper i love you by Underworld

I have to rant about something for a second.

I work retail. Retail Management. And I hear people bitch a lot about how hard it is to get good service. Well, guess what. It's hard to find a customer who delivers on their side of the deal as well.

I'm a smart guy. I work in a bookstore. Most of my employees are pretty smart people. People that want to work in bookstores tend to be a bit intelligent.

And 90% of the people who walk through the door of our stores treat us like we're either completely stupid or as if we're some sort of second class citizen. We try to walk people to books and put the book into their hands. And half the time you get no thanks or acknowledgement of any kind. You're left standing there finally having to ask, "um, did you need anything else?"

We encourage people to browse and spend time reading books, it's the culture of our store. That translates for many customers that they should remove 50 books from the shelf and them leave them in disorganized heaps on the floor for us to reshelve. If they do decide to reshelve them, it's usually on a wrong shelf, if not a completely wrong section. But then this same customer will get angry with us when we can't find a book that we're supposed to have on the shelf.

They also seem to think we use Cray supercomputers to do searches for books. "Um, hey dude... I'm looking for a book titled THE SHIP... i dunno who wrote it." "Gosh, sir, that's going to be really hard for me to find, do you have any more information?" "Just do the damned search on your computer" This happens fifty times a day.

The worst offenders are the passive/aggressive late shoppers. People who come into your store near the closing hour and think that because they got in the door before the closing announcement that they can shop as late as they want. They make huge piles of books and refuse to let you reshelve any of them early, despite you politely asking them. They don't start to even think about leaving until well after the third closing announcement that you make. And that's when they realize a pressing need to use the restroom, before they purchase 2 magazines. And, oh yeah, they also need fifty $5 gift cards. I'm not making this stuff up.

There's one woman who is pretty much the last person out the door every night. And every night she makes a big scene, after being the last person to check out and after leaving at least 20-40 books for us to reshelve, because she can't find her car keys. And then five minutes later she finds them in her purse. Sick fuck.

There are about ten people who are consinsently the last people out of our store almost every night. We hate them. We hate them with a passion. But we're nice to them. Because we have to be.

So, do me a favor. The next time you go to the grocery store, Walmart, the Gap or a bookstore, be extremely nice to the person helping you. Go out of your way to be clear in what you want or need, thank them and be sincere about it all. I can't even tell you how much it helps when a really nice person steps in front of you. It can change the whole day. Just remember that. Thanks.

I think I need to start planning a vacation....

Currently on rotation through my CD player:

Beth Orton - Central Reservation
N*E*R*D - In Search of...
Blade 2 Soundtrack (mostly for Eve & Fatboy Slim)
Kylie Minogue - Fever
A Camp - A Camp (Nina Perssons from Cardigans)
Robbie Williams - Swing When You're Winning
Chemical Brothers - Come with Me
Timo Maas - Loud
Zero 7- Simple Things
Pete Yorn - musicfothemorningafter
The Hives - Your New Favorite Band (absolutely my new favorite band)
White Stripes - White Blood Cells
rinocerose - music kills me

After a couple weeks of not being able to do this, it's sort of hard to get back into the groove.

I owe quite a few people email, this I know. Especially Dave, the ex, who has been writing me some extremely amusing tales of his first month or so of being a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. If you're reading this, Dave, know that you have no clue how much I (and the rest of your friends) miss you. I've wanted to pick up the phone about five kajillion times since you left to call you about some inconsequentially stupid thing that only you and I would think was funny. Grrrr. I promise ya to email you later today.

I've also been doing a bit of catching up on other people's blogs. And I was delighted to see that in my absence I picked up a link or two from other people's pages. Whoo hoo.

Let's see... the personal life... the older guy I was going on dates with, as promised to me by a mutual friend, lost interest in me. Evidently he has a history of this behavior. *shrug* I ran into another old momentary interest a couple weeks ago and did the whole "you stopped calling me, no YOU stopped calling me" dance. And this was while his date for the evening stood by watching. So, we've been talking again. But, our work schedules are virtually opposite. So, i dunno... He's also going through some personal crap. So, i dunno...

I totally owe MASSIVE EMAIL THANKS to the people who bought me birthday presents from Amazon. My computer monitor chose to die the day the boxes from Amazon came. I was gifted with a couple of Edward Gorey books, a Moulin Rouge DVD and the Zero 7 CD. All of it was completely fabulous. Major hugs to JonJon, Doug and George.

Okay... back to cleaning the apartment/pig sty....

oh my fucking god... finally... i'm back online!!!! the monitor, as promised, totally died on me, but thanks to the kindness of a friend, I have a loaner until I buy a whole new computer.

I have 634 email messages to deal with and a lot of webpages and newsgroups to read... back later with much commentary.... promise!

Tomorrow is the Irish Channel St Patricks Day parade. If you're around Magazine and Jackson, look for me. I'll be there.

Eek... do I own a green shirt????

Crisis alert time...

This morning for the second time in a month, my monitor wouldn't come on at all. After about an hour of unhooking and rehooking cables and turning devices on and off in varying combinations, it finally came back into use. But... it could happen again at any time, and perhaps permanently.

I'm on the waiting list for a new iMac G4, but I can't afford it until 3 weeks from today and I'm not sure how soon one will become available.

So, if I happen to go silent at some point. Don't totally forsake me. I should reappear the first or second week of April.

In case you were wondering... it's misused English. Tenterhooks are small hooks used to stretch canvas on a device called a tenter. So... tense with anticipation as though you were stretched on tenterhooks... somewhere along the way, it became "on tender hooks."

Very appropriate for me. An eccenctric New Orleanian said it in a book I read. I'm really quite a tense person at times. I was initially quite tense about the reception of this blog. As you may have noticed, I delight in mangling the English language in every way I can possibly imagine. And "tender hooks" is such a delighful contradiction of terms that just really fits my personality...

now playing on the stereo... Robbie Williams "Swing When You're Winning"...

The Oscars are in a week and I really only have two wishes for it. That either Moulin Rouge or Fellowship of the Ring win best picture. And that Halle Berry win best actress.

Yes, Halle Berry. Monsters Ball was one of the most emotionally harrowing movies I've ever seen. And she gave an incandescent performance. Who woulda thunk it?

Beautiful Mind will probably win best picture, haven't seen it, so no comment. But, I think Halle has a shot. Go Halle, go Halle...

Oh me, oh my... the post-birthday blues are over...

The UPS man done come and left me presents today. Thanks SOOO much to Jon Jon, Doug and George!! I got a groovy cd, two Edward Gorey books and a Moulin Rouge DVD for my birthday! Whoo hoo.

More in a bit... i just got home with last night's Buffy on tape...

I haven't much to say tonight, because I'm currently reading Preacher from start to finish. And I got some Avengers videotapes today... Emma Peel rules.

a preposition was in order...

I've been dissatisfied with 'basic Drew ramblings' as a title for a while. It was boring. And it didn't always fit. And it didn't really fit me well as a descriptive term.

So... tender hooks...

Explanation... it began this morning. After a meeting at work, a promotional copy of the book IGNATIUS RISING came into my possession. It's a biography of John Kennedy Toole, the author of CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES. I brought it home and started reading it. Three and a half hours later, I closed the back cover, quite satisfied. It was a damned good read.

It should almost more accurately described as the biography of both Toole and his mother, Thelma Ducoing Toole. Anyone even somewhat familiar with CONFEDERACY should know that his mother is an integral piece of the existence of the published novel. She was a grand character, as big as life as Ignatius Reilly, the eccentric main character of the novel. It was only her persistence after Toole's death that led to the eventual publication of a Pulitzer prize winning novel. But, you have to read the bio to really get a feeling of just what her motives were.

Regardless, there was a passage in the book that delighted me. The authors recount the first time that the director and managing editor of LSU Press drove to New Orleans to meet Mrs Toole to discuss the publication of the novel. I quote now:

"Neither visitor had ever been so deep into downtown New Orleans. It was a hot spring day, and coming up the concrete steps, Hall and Phillabaum could see through the screen door into the living room. Leaning on her walker, Thelma welcomed them into the warm, stuffy house wearing a pink snap-front cotton coffee coat, a veiled straw hat, and white gloves. Her greeting to them was carefully ennunciated, 'I have been waiting for you on tender hooks.'"

Pure New Orleans.

So, each time you come here to read about my mundane life... know that I wait for you... on tender hooks.

I think I may have come upon a new name for this page... but I need to think on this some...

Since a couple of people have actually used my Guestbook... a couple of replies:

1) yes, James, I read you :P now quit
bitching about your job so much, i can tell you really like it :P

2) Philip in Hattiesburg... thanks :)

3) Nick... i can only talk about restaurants as I eat at them. I wrote about
Marisol earlier today. Eat there!

Some places I enjoy: Miyako, Martinique Bistro, Juan's Flying Burrito

the birthday report...

So, I worked from 7-4 yesterday. Stupid of me, boring as hell.

Around 7, my friends Jonathan and Steve met me at my apartment to go to dinner. We drove to the Marigny and parked. Since we were a bit early, we stopped at The Spotted Cat for a drink. I've heard good things from several people about the infused vodkas they have there. So, I got a grapefruit martini (tacky sounding, I know). The grapefruit flavor was nice, but the inexpensive price should have clued me in to the quality of the vodka. The Spotted Cat is a nice little dive and I wouldn't mind hanging out there again sometime. We left for dinner just as the evening's band was starting to play. It was sort of embarrassing and we all felt like we needed to somehow explain our dinner reservation to the crowd. Um, but we didn't...

Anyways, on to dinner at Marisol. The entire dinner was a complete treat. From the little caviar thingies they give you to whet your appetite through to dessert. On recommendation from an acquaintance, I got the porcini bruschetta as an appetizer. And, oy vey, was it good... roasted garlic, basil, slices of porcini...

My friends both got a peanut soup that had crusted shrimp floating on it. Tried it. Loved it. Especially the shrimp.

My main course was roasted lamb osso bucco served with an oven roasted tomato, arugula and goatcheese pizza. It was to die for. The lamb was perfectly soft and fell right off the bone. And I'm a sucker for arugula, roasted tomatos and goatcheese all, so it's sort of like this dish was on the menu just for me. I only managed to eat a little over half the dish because the serving was extremely generous. (And for anyone from the larger metropolitan areas reading this and sneering because you think roasted tomatos and arugula are tacky 80s LA food and completely over... fuck you... good food should not be a trend, if something is tasty, it should stay around)

I had a white wine which I absolutely don't remember the name of with dinner. It was pleasant but not too exciting. The only slight criticism I might have of Marisol is that the winelist isn't too exciting. The waitress brought me a third glass of wine as a birthday present. Sweet of her. I only drank half of it thought, didn't wanna get all winedrunk. Silly me.

Dinner ended with a shared hot chocolate cake, which of course arrived with a burning candle. Grrr.

Throughout the evening, we were all utterly fascinated with the hostess at Marisol. She was an extreme ennunciator (sp?). It was a good fascination though, we found her very charming.

After dinner, we decided to get one more drink at The Spotted Cat before Steve went home and Jonathan and I went dancing. This time I decided to try the melon infused vodka. Mistake. I could only drink about three sips of it. It tasted *wrong*. Very wrong.

We left there and Steve dropped Jonathan and I off in front of Good Friends. I started feeling a bit funny. Jonathan ordered a drink. I abstained. After a bit of chatting, we headed to Oz and danced a bit. I started to feel even more odd but kept my mouth shut about it. Jonathan got a drink, I got water. We head to Lafittes.

At Lafittes, my friend Flynn called and said he was getting off work and heading over to meet us. At this point, I started feeling really terrible. Like, totally nauseated terrible. And I NEVER get nauseated, especially not on three and half drinks over 3 hours and a big meal.

By the time Flynn got to Lafitte's, all i wanted to do was go home. On my birthday. My birthday on which I was supposed to dance the night away. My birthday on which Jonathan planned to get me plastered. My birthday on which I was supposed to be utterly charming and gracious all night as I was repeatedly wished "happy birthday" by people I had just informed that it was my birthday.

Instead, I was home and in bed by midnight. Feh.

And, for the record, it had nothing to do with Marisol. It had everything to do with that melon infused vodka. Stupid canteloupes. A pox on the canteloupe and the cheap vodka it was soaked in.

Regardless, dinner was fun...

what the hell was I thinking, saying I wanted to work on my birthday????

Scary but true recent moment... a while back I bought a Barbie. It's a boy Barbie. His name is Blaine. He's part of a set called Generation Girl. So, technically his name is Generation Girl Blaine.

He's very gay. He has a silver jacket, a necklace of the sort that the boys like these days, some cool shades and a collection of house records. I kid you not. He comes with a stand that you can stand him on. The stand says Generation Girl on it.

He's very gay.

That's not the really scary part. The other day I stopped at Toys R Us to look at Batman action figures. Before I left TRU, I found myself browsing the Barbie clothes looking for Ken clothes. Part of me seemed to think Blaine might like a change of clothes. I snapped out of it before I spent money.

But... still... that was the scary part.

a relatively boring day at work... not much to report.

I'm SOO ready for tomorrow night. I want nice dinner. I want expensive wine. I want fancy cocktails. I want to look great and feel even better. I want to dance. I want cute boys to smile at my while I'm dancing. And it being my birthday, this all BETTER happen.

tomorrow's my birthday... tomorrow's my birthday... whoo hoo... feel free to help me celebrate..

Okay, that's the last time I do that, promise...

I'm Scott Summers
What X-Men Character are You?

I can live with being Cyclops...

Incidentally, here's WHO i've been reading lately... or, in some cases, attempting to read:

James
TJ
Jonno
Robbie
Exoteric
Everlasting Blogstalker
a hottie from Australia
Satyr

It appears as though I've never mentioned the fact that my ex-boyfriend, Dave, joined the Peace Corps. Or at least that's what he claims.

So... my ex, Dave, joined the Peace Corps. He's currently training in the Dominican Republic and I got my first email from him today.

And he sounds happy. And that makes me happy.

Dave walked away from a job that payed him a really decent salary to be an unpaid volunteer in an extremely backward country. He didn't like his career, so he changed things. Part of me thinks he was sort of stupid, but a larger part of me greatly admires him for having the cojones to change the life he didn't like.

The hard part is that Dave and I were extremely good friends, the type of friendship that being in a relationship for 7 years can forge. We talked frequently. And now I can't just pick up the phone and call him when I see a stupid commercial. But, as long as I keep getting email from him that sounds like he's in a good place mentally, I'll be okay with that.

I do miss ya though, Dave...

First things first. Felix da Housecat is currently rocking my fucking world. Take the sensibility of Thrill Kill Kult, thee syntax of Psychic TV, a big helping of 80s Detroit techno (e.g. Model 500, Juan Atkins), a spoonful of Chicago house, a bit of the cheekiness of Bran Van 3000 and blend well. The result might be something like the album, Kittenz and Thee Glitz.

As you may deduce, I went to the Virgin MegaStore today. Oh the simple pleasure of simply being in that store. I spent well over an hour listening and browsing. The final tally was 6, yes SIX, CDs purchased. And that's on top of the two I bought last night. In case you had no clue how schizophrenic my tastes are, here's all eight:

Kylie Minogue - Fever
Avalanches - Since I Left You
Felix da Housecat - Kittenz and Thee Glitz
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
South - From Here on In
The Hives - Your New Favourite Band
LostProphets - The Fake Sound of Progress
rinocerose - Music Kills Me

Criticize me as you will for my music tastes... :P

Heh. So, I was rereading my last post and it's really sad when you don't understand your own blog. I was just all "butcher music?, what the hell is butcher music... music to kill cows to?... oh... BUTCHer...".

senility?

I just finished another novel. PICOVERSE by Robert Metzger. Science fiction. Very very good.

I'm always sort of sad when I finish a good book. I'm sorta sad now. I miss the characters. I miss the other reality I've left behind.

Feh. I'm going to the French Quarter. It's a beautiful day and I'm not working. Now I just need to find a good book to take with me.

Details to follow...

This is for the chick upstairs... you know who you are, the one who was walking around very loudly until 2 am last nite. Gosh, I'm terribly sorry if my new Kylie Minogue and Avalanches CDs are playing a bit loudly at the moment.

Hmmm... I need to go buy some butcher music this afternoon...

*bashes head against desk in utter aggravation*

Ok... so... I haven't talked to THAT GUY since the weekend when we aborted our plans. And I haven't seen him in almost 2 weeks. He's going away for the weekend.

Is he not calling me? Am I not calling him? Why am I angsting over this? Am I angsting over this? I like him. Why haven't *I* called him?

*sigh*

Could Buffy have been more depressing this week??? Geez. I'm gonna go pout in bed now...

A little research reveals a few things about my day of birth, March 9th...

In 1996, George Burns died on my birthday. In 1997, the Notorious B.I.G. became D.E.A.D.

Both Rodney King and Mark Furman testified in the respective trials they were involved in on my birthday. Make of that what you will.

Famous people, dead or alive, who share my birthday (with age of celebration this year in parantheses):

Juliette Binoche (38)
Mickey Gilley (66)
Mickey Spillane (84)
Marty Ingels (66) -- hmmm, not a very good birthday for him, I imagine
Bobby Fischer (59)
Emmanuelle Lewis (31) -- i find this to be an omen of ill portent
Lil Bow Wow (15)
Yuri Gargarin (dead)
Gustav Stickley (also dead)
Samuel Barber (yep... dead dead dead)

To celebrate I intend to dine with a couple of friends at Marisol on the evening of my birthday. Lil Bow Wow will probably not be in attendance. The Notorious B.I.G. will certainly not be there.

3 days (and counting) to the birthday... is this a good thing or a bad?

So, yesterday, I read something absolutely horrifying in the newspaper. The two years are coming to an end.

That's right... Celine Dion's temporary retirement is nearly over. The comeback single is due to be released at any moment. God help us all.

I *almost* hate her more than raisins. Almost.

Okay... there's a guestbook now... somebody use it...

I promise that soon I'll stop blogging about my blog. Promise.

The counter is creeping me out. In less than 12 hours, over 40 people have read my blog. Eek.

I was thinking about changing the name of my blog to Pixel Juice, but I have to admit that I totally stole that name from a UK short story collection. So, I guess I won't.

I find it to be a rather scary fact that Amazon knows me better than my friends do. It's sort of disconcerting to load their webpages (US or UK) and suddenly have 15 things that I really would like to have pop up on screen.

We live in dangerous times.

Tangentially, I simply must have the song "Addicted to Bass" by Puretone. I wonder if Virgin has it as an import single? I must visit there on Thursday...

So, dating is something I really suck at for the most part. And I'm sort of trying to sort of do it right now, I guess. Not DATING DATING as in just me and him seeing only me and him and no one else. Just dating, written once no capitals, as in me and him and either of us can see other people and we only do something once a week or so.

But, I still suck at it.

It's the guy from Mardi Gras day. And I really think he's a sweet charming together fellow. He likes the right music, boy does he like the right music. He's older than me. He has a good job. A good life. He's smart. He's handsome. He's witty.

And I haven't seen him in over a week. And probably won't for another one. Grrr. We were supposed to do something yesterday, but the weather was blah. And I was hungover. And we didn't. do. anything.

So, we were supposed to do something tonight. Perhaps see a movie. But, he forgot about a charity board meeting that he had to attend. So, once more, no dice. I work nights the next two days. And then he's out of town for a long weekend.

Stupid hangover. Stupid grey day. Stupid me for wondering if he's just putting me off cuz he's not really wanting to see me, even though I have a bit of evidence that says otherwise.

The scary part is that two different guys that I happen to think are quite sexy fellas have suddenly been out and out asking me to sleep with them over the last couple weeks. And I keep saying no or putting them off.

Hmmm. I suck at dating.

I am Drew, mighty master of HTML! Okay, so all I've been doing the last day or so has been really really simple basic stuff, but I feel good about it! I'm learning something new. And it's addictive. If anyone had made multiple visits to this page yesterday, they would've seen about 15 different versions of it over the course of the day. I *think* I may be done for a bit now tho.

But... I'm ready for a namechange. This will take much thought and time though.

Adding a counter to my page is REALLY scary. Now I'll know just how little my page is read. I may slide into depression over this. Save me by sending all your friends my way posthaste.

I was about to post that I hate wasted Sundays, but I guess I did do one productive thing today... I learned more about HTML and how to manipulate my blog. I like the changes. Do you?

Thanks to Doug for the pointers.

Spiffy, huh?

Fridays... blah...

I'm just up and not very inspired by the weather outside. It's grey, cool and misty rainy. And I have to be at work at noon.

Work should be sort of interesting late in the day. Chris Rice is going to be doing a reading and signing for his new novel, The Snow Garden tonight at 7. So, hopefully, a bunch of cute boys will come to see him. *smirk* Just to be safe, I'm making sure I look killer today.

I've been terribly uninspired of late to do much reading, which sucks. I've been trying to read some Storm Constantine or to finally finish The Naked God, the last book in Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy.

I went to see Queen of the Damned yesterday. Boy, and I always thought that book was bad. The novel is an absolute masterwork compared to that dreadful lifeless film. And I have to say it. No one else will. She may be dead now, but Aaliyah was without a doubt one of the worst things about the movie. She was dreadfully miscast, but then so was most of the cast.

On a final note, you may want to trot over to here if I'm boring you. It's the new ultra-exciting hub of New Orleans blog activity. There are some much more dedicated bloggers hanging about there. Just not cuter ones... *smirk*

*clears throat*

um, by the way... my birthday is in exactly 13 days (March 9th), in case you were wondering. Feel free to buy me a present or drop me a birthday greeting. I won't mind at all!! (especially if it's the $175 Japanese Larry Clark book)

It's a Saturday, so I will, of course, be out and about town that night. Drinkies are also appreciated. Or, hey, offer to take me to dinner... just not to Cobalt...

Grrr... can anyone out there please explain to me how the hell the whole archiving thing works??? I really wanna publish mine, but I'm SOOO htmilliterate.

*sigh*

Ok... so... did I ever mention Mardi Gras day and the days since?

Mardi Gras day I went to the Quarter to hang out with my ex and a couple of other friends. (Goal #2 for 2002: stop calling Dave "the ex") Met them at Jackson Square at Tanner's temporary tattoo kiosk. (I like the word kiosk, so I used it... say it... KEE osk...) Tanner painted our faces, putting a zipper on mine... you had to see it.

Then we starting walking the fruit loop. Our first stop was at Good Friends. I immediately ran into a couple friends... peter-metairie from gay.com, Dave from the Pizza Kitchen and Eric, from a former date.

Short version... i spent the entire day, mostly, with Eric. He asked me to go with him to grab some chicken at the home of some of his friends'. I went. Lovely hidden away French Quarter home. Tennessee Williams used to live in the house. We get reaquainted. We stroll around the not as full as usual on Mardi Gras day gay part of the Quarter. It's a nice day.

We walk to his office in the Bank One building (great view!) and then, since he has prior plans, pick up his car from the garage. Cute green jaguar. Yums. I love jaguars.

He drops me back in the Quarter where I meet back up with my friends, hours having passed.

The next day I get to work at 3pm and a card is waiting for me. A very sweet card from Eric.

We've had a couple of dates since then. Another later today.

I think I *may* know who Craig is...

no more badly edited drunken rantings about restaurants, i promise... altho, thanks to the three people who wrote and said they won't eat there :)

My goal for the year is to get much better and more prolific in blogging. But, it probably won't happen to April or later. That's when I'm finally going to retire this 6 year old, extremely slow and low on memory Mac. April is annual bonus time for me. April is probably gonna be iMac G4 time for me. Whoo hoo. I actually touched and played with one of them at CompUSA the other day. Oh my god. I want!

That monitor! That operating system (i'm still on 8.5)! It's like the computer of the future today! Patience is a virtue. Patience is a virtue. Patience is a virtue.

Or maybe I'll just get one of the G3s that have gotten so much cheaper. But, I think I'm gonna have to have the G4. Computer of the future... today...

Once I have the computer, I swear that I'll learn to archive my blogs. I swear. Although, I think that someone may have to help me in that area.

Ok... i just took a quick break from blogging to soak in a warm bath. I come back to you now clean and smelling of Dr Bonner's Lemon soap, Barbasol (i love that word/name), and Bedhead and Clarins products. While I was soaking, someone left a message on my cellphone. His name is Craig. He was just calling to see what I was up to.

I have no clue who Craig is. When, oh when, did I give Craig my phone number?

A restaurant review of sorts...

Tonight, I went to dinner at Cobalt. 333 St Charles Street. The latest restaurant opened by New Orleans resident celebrity chef, Susan Spicer.

It was thoroughly mediocre. Throughout.

I should've taken our greeting at the door as a sign of the evening to come. The hostess seemed put out that we didn't have a reservation. Never mind the empty table, one of several, that we were instantly seated at.

We ordered cocktails to start. My friend had what he claimed to be a nice Grey Goose dirty martini. I had a rather unexciting Grey Goose cosmopolitan. What restaurant or bar can't make a decent cosmo in these post-Sex in the City days???

For starters, I ordered the oysters pan roast, while my friend got the Duck Confit "debris" Biscuit. Mine was incredibly bland, his quite tasty. The wines we ordered to accompany were quite nice.

Bread and butter??? We finally got some about an hour and a half after being seated. Well, after our starters.

Entrees? I had the venison in an ancho-berry sauce with a masa tamale. Extreme yawns. An incredibly boring and quite tasteless entree all around. Venison is supposed to be gamey, not lacking in taste. My friend had the lamb chops with shepherd's pie. He seemed moderately satisfied, but not overly excited.

The cabernet we ordered with the meal at the waiter's suggestion seemed to have a single note and absolutely no complexity at all. And over the course of a three hour meal, my water glass wasn't refilled once. Not a single time.

For dessert, we decided to split the Chocolate Bread Pudding. After fifteen minutes of waiting for its arrival, we each took one bite and asked the waiter to take it away. Dry, stale tasting, stuck to it's container.

$180 later... we were underwhelmed.

Our next meals are at either Marisol or Christians. We know they'll do better.

Currently in or near the CD player...

Basement Jaxx - Rooty
Curve - Gift
Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R
Abandoned Pools - Humanistic
Pink - Misundaztood
Starsailor - Love is Here
Chemical Brothers - Come With Us
No Doubt - Rock Steady
Pete Yorn -musicforthemorningafter
Saint Etienne - Interlude
BRMC - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Air - 10,000 HZ
Beth Orton - Trailer Park
New Order - Get Ready

Mardi Gras has begun.

Last night (Friday), was day one for me. Or night one. After work, I came home, had a glass of red wine and waited around for a bit for parade time.

Around six, I wandered down St Charles to meet a couple of my friends. The destination... one of Anne Rice's houses. She evidently owns a house on St Charles just to use as a hangout for her family, staff, friends and whoever else (that would be the category into which I fall) during Mardi Gras. A friend of mine got me onto the guest list this year (thanks, Brian!).

So, we had a base to watch parades from that came with clean accessible bathrooms, kingcake and all the wine, beer, water and soft drinks we cared to consume. And it was pretty decently stocked with cute gay guys thanks to her son, Chris.

We watched Hermes and Krewe D'Etat roll down St Charles in weather that grew colder and colder with each passing float. The beer and wine helped there. By the end of the evening, I outgrew my natural standaloneishness and was pretty darn chatty with all the cute rich gay boys/men.

After the parades ended, we got invited to the real Rice house (mansion?estate?complex?) to hang out for a bit. I must say that the Rices have an extremely nice living room. And a hell of a lot of security. We managed to not wake them up, as far as I know. Although, I did wind up sitting in a camelia bush in the front yard a bit later in the evening... Grrrr...

Today, I woke up early to go watch Iris. Iris is the all female Mardi Gras krewe and their parade is one of my favorites. Guys get lots of beads at Iris! I got lots of beads at Iris. Then Tucks rolled right behind it. After a few hours of this, I came home and crashed.

Now, I'm off to the Quarter in a bit... Let the madness ensue...

So... let's see... the Superbowl has come and gone. I got a new tattoo. I've been having scads of fun going out to the Quarter. And Mardi Gras is upon us. Whoo hoo.

ramble ramble ramble...

Superbowl weekend was a lot more fun than I ever expected. I worked at Bookstar in the French Quarter on the Saturday for an Emeril booksigning. Which was a lot more fun than you could imagine. Or I could have imagined. Overall, the Superbowl tourists were a lot more well behaved than I would've imagined. I also went out in the Quarter that night. The alternative/gay part of the Quarter was actually pretty sedate, the bars not as crowded as a usual Saturday night. I had much fun and stayed out until 4 am. At which point, one of my friends who manages a club asked me to ride home with him. And it took us over an hour to get from the Quarter to the Lower Garden district. Ye gads.

The previous Sunday, I spent a nice day in the Quarter. I started my day with brunch at Old Dog New Trick in the Marigny and then headed into the Quarter for Barkus, the dog parade. Barkus is always a lot of fun. Lots of cute dog costumes. And cute guys. After Barkus, I went back to the Marigny to Electric Ladyland and spent two excruciating hours getting a black octopus tattooed on my upper left forearm. It's SOO cool looking. The healing has been a bitch. It's big, so it's scabbed up a bit. And it was sore as fuck for days afterwards. And I got this nasty rash on it. All that's gone or going now though. It's pretty damned freaky.

Music lately... the new Chemical Brothers CD is rocking my world. It's possibly their best CD ever. And it's absolutely gonna be on my year end top 10 favorite CDs. I'm looking forward to Air's new remix EP later this month. The one song I've heard from it is my current favorite song. *wildlife*

Ok, I'm done for now...

If anyone cares... my favorite CD at this moment is No Doubt's Rock Steady. Interestingly enuff (at least to me)... a band I used to hate...

Lately, I'm feeling a bit lost. I'm all akimbo. And I don't quite know where I want to go.

An aftereffect of the great head-hitting incident is that I decided to go Sober for a bit. That's right. I've stopped drinking. A very scary thing. I'm not 12-stepping or anything. I've just decided to go on the wagon for an indeterminate period of time. And boy, I have to say, going out to the bars in New Orleans and not drinking is VERY interesting. Wowzers.

One rather irritating thing that keeps happening lately is that I keep running into either guys who've been not so kind to me or guys that I've not been so kind to. Both of these situations arising in the dating arena, natch. The former situation pretty much ruined my little excursion into the French Quarter on Sunday. I immediately, while perusing sweaters at Banana, ran into a boy who just stopped calling me with no warning. Really cute, sweet guy too. I guess even cute sweet guys can be a dick sometimes. I do really regret not letting have his way the night he tried to molest me though. Feh.

Anyways, that just set the tone for a dismal afternoon. I wound up browsing CDs, getting coffee and reading a bit and then catching a bus back home. And the end of my perfect afternoon came when the city bus hit a car and nearly crashed at the corner of Poydras & Magazine. Well, at least it was a bit of excitement.

I'm off work for five straight days later in the week, over the weekend, so that should make for a bit of relaxation and fun. And I have both the extremelyex-boyfriend back in town and an old friend who'll be visiting to hang out with. Hopefully, I can curtail my anti-social tendencies enough to have some fun with them.

I much need to catch up on movies. I intend over those days to see The Royal Tennenbaums, Gosford Park and perhaps Amelie.

Ok, I'm done grousing for now...

Life has been full of work lately. The whole post Christmas slowdown has taken a while to happen this year for our store.

Blogging has gotten more complicated as it goes. I'm sometimes stuck in a bit of a moral quandry when I know that someone that I would be mentioning in the blog may be reading it. So, I wind up not blogging.

Anyways, I was briefly sort of dating someone, for like all of two or three dates. But he got real serious real fast and it freaked the hell out of me. Do not use the boyfriend word on a second date. In the end, I wound up not calling him back for a bit. Which now officially makes me the asshole. *sigh*

I went out to the Quarter with my friend Jon Jon last nite. It was SUPER boring. We went to Oz, not my favorite bar to begin with, but I was actually in the mood to dance. But... ugh... how can you dance to the crap they play there. I'm pretty sure you absolutely have to be on drugs. Yep, pretty sure. Pretty darn sure.

The gay 'scene' in the Quarter was pretty boring overall, with the possible exception of Rawhide. But, Jon Jon pretty much looked terrified from the moment we stepped into there, so that wasn't an option for hanging out. The trials and tribulations of having twink friends... Heh, sorry Jon Jon, but... um... if you're gonna still go by "Jon Jon", you qualify as twink...

Today, I'm gonna go do lunch with some friends and then hang out/stroll around in the Quarter. Have some coffee. Browse some CDs. Get out of the house, basically...

Since I've not done it in a while, I shall now simply ramble...

Books I've read recently... CHASM CITY by Alastair Reynolds, absolutely my favorite science fiction writer now. His imagination is SOO excellent. I like him so much, I just paid $42 to have a limited edition short novel by him shipped to me from England. Can't wait for it to get here. THE ALCHEMIST by Donna Boyd, remember when Anne Rice wrote halfway decent books? Well, this is on the par with those. Even if it obviously, like Rice, sets up for a sequel. Good book about an immortal alchemist.

The newest issue of New X-Men came out today. It's official now, IMO. It's the best comic book series currently being published. Bloody fucking brilliant.

*sigh* Back on November 9th, I mentioned a couple of guys that I had interest in. I've been thinking about the one I referred to as Guy #1 a lot. A whole lot. In the midst of the dating I've been doing lately, I've realized that I'm a bit of an odd fellow, unique at least. And it's hard for me to find a compatible soul. Guy #1 strikes me as someone I have a lot in common with. So, I called him a couple weeks ago. He never called me back. Then this past Sunday, I went out to the Quarter. Saw him out. He stopped to say hi and said something to the effect of, 'let me get to the bar to buy drinks.' Drinks. One of them for a very cute fellow he seemed to be with. Argh. I'm still sort of depressed about this.

Stupid stupid me.

Feh.

Christmas night, back from the parents. Sitting around in a quiet house, the night's soundtrack provided by Amel Larrieux, the Verve, Beth Orton, Bjork and Kruder & Dorfmeister. The dog, nearby, happy with a big pork bone sent home by my mother.

Another insane retail season is over and, once more, I survived. And enjoyed it, mostly.

Things are in flux a bit. I've entered dating mode, somewhere along the way. Probably shortly after getting hit in the head. It's a two way thing. I seem to have a couple people pursuing me, one quite hard. And there's a person or two I think I may wanna pursue. Person equals male person, natch.

One of them invited me to his Christmas party last nite. We've been on two dates and he invites me to his family's Christmas Eve party at his house. And I went, quite bravely. And, I had fun.

The trip to the parents today was nice also. Got the usual Gap gift certificates. And a bag of my favorite sundried tomatoes which are sold only in Baton Rouge. Grrrr, can't anyone in New Orleans sell a decent sundried tomato??? Anyone? At least arugula is cheaper in NO...

Anyways, a Merry Christmas to all... and to all Good Nite!

Gee. I was just browsing a few other pages and I ran across this picture which I took using Jonno's digital camera. Jonno made a diary entry on Dec 15th explaining the significance of the picture.

I remember that being a really great day. One of those perfect summer days you spend doing absolutely nothing in the company of good people. And doing it well.

And it was the last good day for a long time.

So, it's been almost a month since I've blogged. *sigh* Life has been complicated. And busy.

First things first. I'll get the drama out of the way. About three weeks ago, I went out with my friend Jonathan on a Saturday nite. The night started well. We had drinks at a couple bars in the Quarter, starting upstairs at Lafittes. We went out late, because I worked till midnite. So, I think we got out around 1 am. After Lafittes, we stopped in at 735 to say hi to my friends that work there. Got comped another drink. Ran into someone who mentioned that he had a bottle of absinthe. I've never had absinthe, always wondered about it.

So I tried it.

I had to go outside to drink it at his car. Came back to the bar. Didn't feel much of anything. Jonathan goes to dance.

And that's all I remember. Until...

I wake up on a bed in the emergency room of Charity Hospital a couple of hours later. The back of my head is split wide open, I'm lying on a blood soaked bed and I have no idea what happened.

They scan my head to make sure it's okay. Staple, that's right STAPLE as in metal staples from some sort of staple gun, my wound shut. And send me on my way.

Trauma. In more ways than one.

My friends all seem amazed that I didn't make up a lie about what happened. "I got mugged." "I fell off a ladder." The whole unvarnished truth is that I got blitzed on a 140 proof liquor.

All I can do is learn from stupid mistakes.

I'm not drinking for a while. If ever again.

Feh.

So, then I start recovering from this ordeal. And, I get bronchitis.

As in 36 hours of 105 degree fever feeling like I want to die bronchitis. But, good medicine and the care of good friends got me through that pretty quickly.

And now I'm working every day through Christmas. Long hard days. Such is retail.

I'm looking forward to January. Big time.

And two weeks later, he finally gets back to his blog...

So, I'm still sort of hanging out with the guy I probably shouldn't be hanging out with. And he still has a boyfriend... *sigh* Someone rescue me...

Not much has really been going on in my life. Such is the life of a retail manager in the weeks prior to Christmas. It's all about work.

I was quite happy to receive a copy of WRONG THINGS in the mail today. It's a new book by Poppy Z. Brite and Caitlin Kiernan. Two short stories and one long one. Looks good. I should also be receiving a copy of Alatair Reynolds' CHASM CITY soon. Whoo hoo, new books to read. Now I need to finish the one I'm already reading...

I saw HARRY POTTER and thought it was okay. I still am not part of the great Harry Potter fan experience. I dunno, it just doesn't excite me that much. Sorry, Flynn...

More later...

I shall now ramble...

Currently reading : THRESHOLD by Caitlin R. Kiernan. She's sort of like the mad love child of Neil Gaiman and Poppy Z. Brite. I'm about halfway through it and I love the characters. Not sure exactly where it's heading, but I'm gonna enjoy the ride.

Listening to at this moment: New Order GET READY. How Old School is that? It's actually a perfect Fall album though. Me like.

So, the guy I was hanging out with almost constantly has completely disappeared. No appearrances, no phone calls, etc. It's been almost a week since I talked to him. I left one message. And that's it. I'm done. And I don't really care nearly as much as I should.

Meanwhile, danger lurks in the foreground. I seem to have become slightly enmeshed with someone else. Someone who's supposed to just be a friend. Someone who has a boyfriend. Someone whose bed I slept in last nite. We've promised to put an immediate stop to it though.

Also, in the past couple of days, I've run into two different faces from the recent past. Both of whom are people that I've promised I would call and never have. Both of whom I really should call. Both of whom I'd like to call. Why haven't I?

Guy #1 is someone I met and had an extremely brief fling with back around Mardi Gras just after his relationship of some time had ended. Then another brief fling about 6 weeks ago. He's someone who's sweet as can be. Used to be a cutie. Has been practically living in the gym the past few months and is now an absolute hottie. Extremely sweet guy. And everytime we run into each other he gives me a look that indicates a lot of interest. Hmmm.

Guy #2 is someone else I met a few months ago. Had a really nice time hanging out one night. Lives very close to me. Have run into each other a few times. Never have gotten around to doing anything else. Also gives me those beckoning looks. He has a good job, a nice house and is a Latino cutie. Why haven't I called?

Which one should I call??? *sigh* Both would make excellent friends. Both have potential beyond friends...

Well, guy #2 is going out tomorrow nite and promised me a cocktail if we run into each other...

Is there anything else as great as the rush you get when you finish the last page of a really great novel??? I think not.

I just closed the back spine of FALLEN DRAGON by Peter F. Hamilton. And I am SO happy that I didn't wait for it to come out in the US in March.

Where are the science fiction movies that are as good as the current literature??? Where... grrr...

I think I shall go roam the streets of New Orleans for the rest of the afternoon...

Feh. I feel like I have nothing interesting to relate.

Hung out with Lance a lot through Saturday. But haven't heard back from him in the last 3 days. I'm working a lot, dunno bout him. Hmmm.

One of the great quandries of my life is deciding whether I wanna have a relationship or if I just wanna be a complete slut. The fact is that I like sex a lot. And I'm not sure if I wanna just have sex with one person.

I know myself well enuff to know that I'm not capable of having a relationship that is not monogamous. I'm much too jealous of a person to share someone I love with anyone else. Even if I'm in the bed with them.

And I really really really like sex. Did I mention that? And I like variety in sex. Dunno about just having sex with one person anymore... I did it before for over six years, but I was a lot less experienced a lot less 'good at it' then. And a lot less adventuresome.

Sometimes I'm very very adventuresome now.

Anyways, I went back to work from my vacation on Sunday. Was a pretty quiet day back. Had to listen to a bit of griping about the week I was gone. But it's always good when people say, "thank god you're back!" Yesterday, I worked 12 1/2 hours. I had a morning meeting at 7 am, which turned into a 4 1/2 hour meeting. Then I had to go back to work from 3 to midnite. It was actually a very good and very productive day.

Tonight, I'm working at the 'soft opening' of our new Westbank store. The soft opening is a three hour opening that the company always does the night before the first full day of business. Friends, family and pretty much anyone else can come. Should be sort of fun, I guess.

But, I have to find someone to tape the musical episode of Buffy for me.... Grrr...

It's been a few days...

Saturday night, Lance didn't feel like going out at all, so we rented a couple movies, BLOWDRY and CATS AND DOGS and watched them at my apartment. He fell asleep on the futon during CATS AND DOGS and I had no choice but to fall asleep on top of him. At some point, we managed to stumble to my bed.

He was working Sunday, so we didn't sleep very late. I did discover that he likes to bite. I like that.

Sunday afternoon, I went to the Quarter with my friend Brian. Spent the afternoon and early evening listening to Susan Moribita spin very happy music for circuit boys. Wound up chatting up a nice couple from San Francisco for quite a while. I think the clothes they were wearing probably cost more than I made last month though. Also wound up dancing with a cute blond circuit boy for a brief time. Until his boyfriend showed up.

Monday was a terrible hangover day, but Lance called midday and forced me off the sofa to go watch K-PAX at the Palace. Not a movie I would have chosen to go see, but I quite liked it.

Tuesday, Lance and I finally got around to watching CATS & DOGS. But, we had to pause it as it was starting because someone decided that we had to have corndogs. Very endearing. Shortly after the movie ended, Lance went home b/c he wasn't feeling well.

Wednesday, I bought new comic books early in the day (New X-Men is out!), went shopping and then went to see THIRTEEN GHOSTS at the Westbank Palace. *yawn* An absolutely dreadfully boring movie. Grabbed some groceries at Super Walmart.

So, a little after 8, I headed to Flynn's house for an Edward Gorey themed cocktail party. I went early b/c I picked stuff up for him at the Super Walmart. A nice halloween early party. Saw Richard, Jonno, Gerald, Beau, his beau Grey and a bunch of other people. After the party, off to the Quarter to wander about. Ran into Dennis, which was great. Need to do more with him. Saw various and sundry people in and out of costume. Wandered about for a bit with Tom from 735. Don't get to spend time with him much. Twas nice.

Then I had a bit of an ugly scene when someone's paranoid delusions about me came spilling out in the street. Very depressing. Very bothersome. Wouldn't even think about entering into a rational discussion. *sigh*

Wandered about a bit more and then ran into Tanner, my ex's ex. He'd been out with Trent Reznor and company, but evidently ole Trent went home early. Heh. So, I gave him a ride home and chatted a bit.

Today, I've done not a damned thing. Started to sort of get depressed since I hadn't talked to Lance in almost 2 days. Dave, the ex, came by on his way out of town to drop some stuff off here. Dave's joining the Peace Corps in February and is gonna be travelling the country in the meantime. I'm gonna miss him a lot.

So, a bit ago, Lance called. Which made me happy. Except he has some potentially bad things happening in his life all of a sudden. Things that could and probably should freak me out a bit too. But, I don't feel that a bit right now. I just wanna keep seeing him as much as possible. And I'm gonna later tonight probably.

It just hit me though, that the one person I instantly wanted to call and talk a bit of this through with is Dave. And he's gone.

I live in interesting times...