floorpie

Pics to Peruse

Went to The City today to have lunch with a friend of mine, and stopped by my favorite junk-yard (as also seen in an earlier episode). It was a beautiful day.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A while ago, Ariel set up a somewhat facetious DAK fan club (not to mention the DAK store). To help out the cause, I took some pictures of me falling from grace (which is fairly shocking if you know me, personally). While viewing, keep in mind that I took them by myself, and every person you see in the pics is me. Enjoy!

Honesty is the best policy

I have this creedo: always try and be open and honest at all times about what you’re feeling about a situation with those people you care about.

I have this behaviour: make a lot of jokes and be witty and sarcastic often

You’ve mixed acids and bases? oil and water? know the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf? The incredulity I get, sometimes, at my refreshingly factual account of myself is reminiscent of each of those aforementioned things. I find this interesting.

Also, eric describes putting another man’s urine in his pocket. So there’s that…

A few more paragraphs from this earlier thing:

Twenty minutes later, he tiptoes past his still sleeping wife, brown penny loafers in one hand, and a blown kiss slipping off the other. Fred�s daily routine then carries him to the brink of his children�s room, still young enough (thank God) to share just the one. Sticking his peppered and receding-haired scalp into the scant space afforded by the door before the telltale squeak, Fred gazes benevolently on what, for him, was the product of the best three years of his life, and, for his wife, was the end result of three tortured years of constant trips to the doctor, countless obscure methods, a multitude of unpronounceable medications, timed ovulations, and sex by God, nearly every day! Fred blows each of his tow-headed children a well-aimed kiss that brushes lightly off of their foreheads, uttering the same silent prayer (please don�t die today) that he does everyday, �God bless you and keep you.� The repetitious statement is a carryover from his childhood, when his mom would think she was sneaking into his room at night, leaving only the light in the hallway on to guide her way. She would stealthily slip into the room, dexterously navigate around and over his toys, and then slowly lean over his bed, kissing his forehead and whispering her incantation (please don�t die tomorrow), �God bless you and keep you.� She would then do the whole ritual in reverse, clicking the door behind her in near silence. Fred never really knew what �God keep you� meant, but, he knew that his mom never knew that he was awake every night, and, he knew that lightly breathed words always made him feel safe. Shaking the memory from his head, Fred pulls his head out of the gap in the door with a smile and tiptoes down the hall, too late to notice his two children secretly look to each other out of one cautiously opened eye each and smile silently.

A slice of toast and the bottom half of a diet shake, the top of which was claimed by the kitchen sink (disgusting fucking swill), later Fred pulls out of his driveway to face the long commute to work. Half way down the block, Fred slams to a halt and retraces his steps in reverse, intent on putting out the (garbage cans, damnit!) garbage like he promised his wife he would. (catch Hell if I forget. Won�t never ever see Monday Night Football if I keep fucking this up). His task completed Fred resumes his journey, swearing at himself over his lost five minutes, and, calculating the number of cars that must already be swarming into his vacated space on the freeway like so many vultures.

*beep* You. Have…One. Message:

“Hi, this is Jack Daniels calling from Trick The Elderly, Inc.

You may recall receiving and approval letter stating that you’ve been approved to consolidate your credit card down to as low as 1.5%. Umm, I’m really surprised you haven’t called…because this is not a new loan, and, you’ve already been pre-approved by a non-profit angency. In order to lower your rates before your next billing cycle, I do need to find out what your balances are presently. So, if you could please have your statements available when you call, that would be great.

Again, this is Jack Daniels, and my toll free number is: 1.800.FUC.KYOU I can be reached until 10 PM EST, Monday through Friday. Thanks and have a great day!”

Mon-day…four…fourty-one…P…M…*beep*

And he’s called at least a half-a-dozen times over the last few months. Some day, I shall catch him, try out my old-man voice, and slowly waste his time to my own glee…

Guy Secret #1

OK ladeez, I know how you all depend on me for the real dirt, the harsh truth, the real McCoy, etc etc. So, don’t tell your boyfriends, but I’m going to reveal a little known guy-fact to you:

We play the Mrs. X game too.

“The wha?” you ask. You know, where you put your name next to that cute guy’s from Social Studies to see if he’s marriage material? You would look at him dreamily and think “Mrs. Mary Stevens…hmmm…Mrs. Mary Johnson” etc. Well, sad but true, guys used to do that, too; and, like you, probably still absently do so out of habit, though it doesn’t carry the same amount of weight that it used to.

I had a problem, though: My last name never went with anything, no matter how hard I tried to make it.

My main crush at the time was Kate Bartells. She was beautiful and smart, being both a cheerleader and in all the nerd classes (where I would sit next to her with my sweet glasses and braces). We were close friends, which as you know, is the kiss of death for anything more than that…not that that dissuaded me from trying. After a while, though, I was crushed to realize that we would never make it, for one simple reason: Mrs. Kate Kleeman.

yuck

“Well,” I thought, “maybe there’s some derivation that would sound cool.” Kathryn Kleeman? Kat Kleeman? Katie Kleeman? Kathryn Elizabeth Bartells-Kleeman? no. no. NO. NO! Each one always reminded me of something heinous like the KKK, or of choking on a chicken bone while trying to get out all those “K” sounds. It wasn’t pretty.

The same basic format continued for anyone else I happened to fall madly in love with, sit next to, see walking by, or *gasp* actually go out with. In fact, the only name that ever seemed to go with Kleeman, was my mom’s, and that’s just wrong.

So, here I am in present day with the same problem. Luckily, I’m a liberal young man, and now don’t see the importance of the wife or sigoth even considering taking my name. Besides, if I’m still solo at age 30, I plan to change David Kleeman to Dirk Steele anyway…and you know that guy get’s the ladeez.

There aren’t a lot of things that can trump a guy who can cook. I mean, sure, there are the obvious ones: rock star, pro-athelete, cruise director. But, for the most part, a guy who can cook is always a winner.

In other news, I went mountain biking today in an effort to both get out of the house and test the ankle. It failed me a bit, but seems to be coming along slowly but surely. ADG let out an audible “ewww” when she saw it, so it is apparently at least swollen enough to ellicit that response; though I doubt it would be intersting to those who saw it in it’s glory days. But I digress…

One thing I like about mountain biking, or riding in general actually, is the automatic-bro’ness. If you’re riding down one side of the street, and a comrade in arms is riding down the other, you are guaranteed a wave or a head nod. Cars whiz by impersonally, but you have a friend in the bike rider. This general rule of course doesn’t apply to the biker punks on their way to vandalize 7-Elevens, joggers, or old couples; but, in your small niche, you have a kindred spirit.

So…you remember the airport girl (to now be referred to as “ADG”)? Well, as seen on my increasingly funny fan club, people (read: two) are clamoring for details.

Tangent: Again, color me shocked that 22 of you (well 21 if you don’t count me) were interested in actually joining said club. I can promise you that the creator will keep you entertained. Further, if you want to help her take the joke to its hilarious zenith, you should definitely get some gear for SXSW. I unfortunately won’t be going; but, if you send me a picture of you there wearing a floorpie shirt, I will definitely catapult you into deserving fame and fortune, as well as send you some manner of reward. But I digress…

To continue, I hesitate to write too much about ADG, for a couple of reasons:

(1) she doesn’t know about this page, yet…although tonight I laughingly suggested she Google-search me for felonies. Consequently, umm, hi.

(2) I don’t want to screw it up

It’s interesting, really: how I try to balance the the guilt of not dishing the dirt, with the respect of not talking about someone I like without there knowing it. I intend to take care of the “there not knowing it” part when next we meet (tomorrow night…just a little something for the gossip hounds). So, until that gets rectified, I remain mostly mum.

*later that night*

OK, just this once…it’s mostly OK when it’s all good comments, right?

Friday night, ADG picked me up looking absolutely gorgeous. She was taking me to Berkeley to see Rhinocerous, a play by Eugene Ionesco. This gave us a good hour and a half of talking in traffic, which I found awesome. A few mis-starts in the form of a 45 minute wait for Italian, and a general disinterest in Indian, found us eating sushi, and having a good time. So far so great.

Follow this with a few hours of sitting in the dark with someone who was becoming more attractive (likes sushi and theatre? excellent) as the night continued. The play was actually very good. Slightly long (2.5 hours), but not frustratinginly so. It was an interesting poke at railing against conformity, in which the hero tries desperately to resist turning into a rhinocerous like the rest of the town. Funny. Inexplicably, the program had pictures of elephants on the cover, but we attributed this to the scripted mention of “paciderms”.

After this, we drove around the Berkeley/Oakland hills for a bit, admiring the view, and learning more about each other.

Drive back down to Silicon Valley, stop at Krispy Kreme, stay up until 3:30 talking in my apartment. Fin.

So, she’s great, and that’s all you get for now.

and then I saw her the next day and very briefly the next, but that’s another story…

As if further proof was necessary of my overwhelming studitude, here’s a picture of THE Ariel Meadow Stallings.

In MY apartment.

On MY couch.

Errr, asleep.

That’s a man, baby!

What can I add that hasn’t already been said?

Dinner with Cami was both surreal and fascinating. It’s interesting discovering the things that don’t translate digitally…like what a great laugh Cami has. Not to mention how odd it is getting to know someone while seamlessly integrating personal details from their life culled from their blog. “Oh, so you’re originally from Nebraska? Interesting. Yeah, you shouldn’t call that guy you broke up with on Tuesday… if he doesn’t realize how cool you are, it’s his loss.” etc etc.

After slightly awkward Thai food, we took a less slightly awkward ride up to see the Galaxy Girls at the Larkspur Cafe Theatre. From what I could tell, Larkspur is a painfully quaint town a la Pleasantville that apparently houses it’s drag shows in surrendered church meeting halls. The dichotomy was delicious. So much so, that we looked at each other with a “Wait, what?” expression when first peeking into the theatre.

After greeting the stunning Rula with a kiss hello, I laughed out loud when she said sexily, “I’m a member of your fan club, you know.”

A few more moments of now-not-at-all-unpleasant conversation and observation later, Jish, Kristen, Ev, and Bill showed and added to the growing numbers of self-conscious bloggers.

-Time passes-

Ariel, Ernie, and Min Jung explode on the scene.

-Show starts…excellent performances…Ariel is called on stage to describe her site as a collection of effluvia…there is much rejoicing-

Afterwards, bloggers commiserated at Mel’s, lamenting the pressures of relative stardom, or lack thereof. Driving back now-completely-comfortably with Cami (aka Worst Navigator Ever [but a sweetheart all the same]), we reflected on our similar view of humanity, and how this night had been so counter to it. Perhaps there is hope for you seething masses, after all.

Details of this nasty rumor to come later.

On the horizon, though, is Sunday. Ariel + Cami + Ernie + Rula + me = drag show extraordinaire