key west!

i owe y'all a post on key west which was, in a word, fantastic. i mean, the town is cheezy as hell and it's pretty much disneyland for alcoholics. everywhere you go, there is alcohol being sold and there are no open container laws so when you get a frozen mojito somewhere, you take it to go with you and wander the streets while also killing your liver. it's easier than walking and chewing gum at the same time. all the food at the places we went to didn't have to be good (because really, drunk people don't care about taste) but it was. the weather was perfect, except for the last day which was just oppressively humid. sunsets were pretty though there were low lying clouds each night which kind of obscured what could have been bigger and more orangey/reddish/purpley! so, highlights:

 

we went to hear porsche, who is the gays favorite drag queen. she's special because instead of lip syncing, bitch actually sings. and though she'd be better if she didn't smoke 3 packs a day, she's really not half bad. video here though i haven't seen it and have no idea what it looks like. so while we were there (she does a MEAN janis joplin impression) brian grabs my arm and points to a woman sitting in a booth against the wall. "is that woman's hair on fire?" which seems like kind of a dumb question because looking over at her there was, indeed, a one foot tall flame coming out of the back of her head. on the other hand, woman was looking straight ahead and had no idea and we could see the flame clearly in the reflection of the mirror behind her which made it all seem a bit fake and optical illusiony. also, you don't really expect to see people on fire. so i run over to her start pointing to the back of my head and say, "your hair!" before i run off to find something to toss on her head. i had a beer in my hand which might have done the trick but, you know, beer has alcohol in it and i didn't want to take my chances on finding out that beer actually IS flammable. i grab a rag and by the time i'm back over to her, she and her girlfriend had batted the flames out. and then the entire room filled with smoke and the smell of burning hair. porsche was like, "who's hair is on fire! it's not mine, mine is synthetic!" and the burnt hair woman is mortified, obviously, but is staring straight ahead pretending like nothing happened. and while everyone is looking around to see what the source was, nobody knew the culprit. burnt hair woman never thanked me for notifying her she was on fire but her girlfriend mouthed a very emphatic, "thank you SO much!" to me right afterwards. random. also, what are the chances that you're at a drag show and the thing that catches on fire ISN'T a wig?!

  

my favorite bar on the island was the green parrot which is where the locals go. it was comfy and not pretentious and there were no drunk white trash types there. i also met a lovely boy from mississippi there whose accent i wanted to bathe in. a slow drawl with which he apologized for his language after saying the word "damn."

 

the best meal we had all week was here. absolutely amazing.

 

brunch at blue heaven was awesome. all outdoors with a treetop canopy and a cute woman playing music with her guitar. roosters walking around between tables. it was airy and welcoming and the brunch was awesome.

 

though we had several delays on our way home all was mostly forgiven because our pilot was one of the hottest people i'd ever seen in person, in my life. it made me feel like we were on a television show. a remake of wings or something.

 

at the sunset festival along the water we stopped to get drinks from a man who was called "mr. mojito" and the mojitos were amazing. and then we sat to watch the cat man show which was one of the craziest things i'd ever seen. and coming from a girl who lives in new york, that's saying something...dude is crazy. also, very weird to see trained house cats doing tricks.

 

so it was great. and the company couldn't have been beat. our house was soooo charming and we all got along swimmingly in it so i couldn't have asked for a nicer weekend.

 

 

EYW to MIA

Key west sunset III

Cat man!

Key west sunset part II

Fanny pack! Cowboy hat.

Sloppy joes

Key west sunset

Henna!

Frozen mojito

Pool in the backyard of our charming pink house!

Arrived!

vacay, cheyenne, cuomo, taking the piss, sugar waxing, zappos again, entrecote, matt taibbi

i'm leaving for key west super early tomorrow and it could NOT come sooner. i need more than one day off in a row. this working weekends thing totally gets me down. i'm going to go parasailing (!) and do lots of laying in the sun and hopefully not drink toooo toooo much as i keep reading articles about just how bad for you drinking is and how counter-active it is to all the working out i'm trying to do. BAD ALCOHOL! i thought you were my friend...

 

and tonight i'm seeing a final dress of finian's rainbow which is a show i've heard about several times, but never seen and know nothing about actually. my mom used to mention it all the time, i think it was her first play. which probably means that gary sinise was in it with her because she went to school wit him her freshman year. well cheyenne jackson is in this one and i'm pretty sure he's going to think i'm stalking him but i swear i'm not! he just does some good stuff and i happen to come into free tickets for said stuff on a regular basis...

 

can i say quickly how proud i am that andrew cuomo has been such a ballsy AG? i'm proud to have been one of 15 people working on that campaign to get him elected. and i'm waiting patiently for his gubernatorial run.

 

and speaking of being ballsy, this is going to sound dickish but it's true, cute girls get away with a lot of things they shouldn't. i was at a bar (it should really be "the bar" since i pretty much only go to one) and saw a guy drinking smirnoff ice. smirnoff ice!! and, sober, i walk right up to him and ask if he had to turn his balls into the bartender in order to get that drink. now, depending on who said it to him, he might have gotten fairly angry. but not these fellas! they laughed and laughed. they were english. so i started just railing on them using my expertise on all things british. these guys did nothing to me and i interrupted their night just to make fun of them pretty much just because i could. and they ATE THAT SHIT UP. had i been a guy, that never would have played. just sayin.

 

this will go in the TMI file but it's also a public service announcement of sorts for women who wax. ages ago a bought this sugar wax kit. those were my student days when i couldn't spend $60 for someone to throw hot wax and rip all the hair out of my chachi. now, i can afford such a, ahem, luxury. what i DON'T have, unfortunately is the luxury of time which meant i had to give myself a bikini wax from the comfort of my own home last night. so i dug out said sugar wax and wouldn't you know, it heated up just as it should and was loads less painful than the ones i usually pay for (the ones from bliss that are supposed to be less painful than the rest). the sugar isn't as sticky as wax and thus barely sticks to your skin which is where most the pain comes from to begin with. you re-use the cloth strip and all the ingredients are natural and rinse out of the strip quickly and easily, and rinse off your body even easier. so anyways, i recommend sugar waxes! i don't necessarily recommend doing them yourself but if push comes to shove, i've been through much worse.

 

got a check yesterday for $40 from an airborne class action lawsuit. something i applied for way over a year ago it seems. but it was a nice surprise nonetheless.

 

someone at zappos.com picked up my last post doting on the company. i've had a few dozen hits from a couple zappos offices. everybody wave hi to the zappos people! *waves* keep rocking guys! i love you! as much as i'm capable of loving a corporate entity. also, i really like shoes. feel free to send some freebies my way, eh? i'm a 6.5 with a YSL addiction ;)

 

and holy shit! that place in paris with the all you can eat steak and the super good fries and that sauce which probably has crack in it that they pour all over your steak and fries...is coming to new york! HOLLA! why is life so awesome?! gah!!!!

 

and last, but not least, the latest from matt taibbi. i kind of love that man. what i wouldn't give to make out with him real hard for a few minutes...and maybe grope him a little. you know, nothing that couldn't be done in public while people yell "get a room!" in your general direction.

happy blogiversary to me!

so i guess i've officially been blogging for 4 years now. that feels like an awful long time.

 

i have a lot of great friends because of this blog so i guess when i look back, that is what i'm most thankful of.

 

and again, huge props to andy who is the reason i started blogging in the first place.

 

 

 

 

 

raids, leading the blind

a fairly good review from ben brantley of west side story, starring matt cavenaugh who is a friend of mine from college. he's so pretty.

 

so i'm at my favorite dive bar. we're there for katie's birthday. and because we're regulars, garry the bartender sees fit to shut down the jukebox and give a little speech about her that entails her going home with an irish guy one night and implying that she'd go home with anybody as long as they were irish. about 5 mintes later, 10 cops bust in and pretty much take over the bar. they stand throughout, doing what appears to be a routine check. they're all up behind the bar, have some computer with them and they're doing data entry. i kind of lean in to hear what a few of them are saying, to guage whether their presence means trouble for my favorite bar. my friend jason is doing the same thing. there's this pudgy cop standing with the cops on whom i'm eavesdropping. he looks me up and down, looks jason up and down and then shakes his head like he's disgusted with us.

 

i'm not even drunk at this point. i'd had all of two bud lights and an irish car bomb. i look at jason and say, loudly, "did you see that guy, he just looked us both up and down and got all judgy on us!" and the cop turns to me and starts full-on yelling, "THAT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT MINDING YOUR BUSINESS. YOU NEED TO MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS, THAT'S WHY!" and for a split second i thought to be shocked but it passed so quickly and the whole thing was so, i don't know, crazy that i burst out laughing. and then everyone around me started laughing. and the guy looked like he wanted to hit me. and while still laughing i'm trying to remember from crim law what cops can and can't do to a civilian without cause. and also thinking that i should be ready to yell, "i'm an attorney, touch me the wrong way and i'll fucking sue the city and you'll lose your job so fast...." but then he retreated to the front of the bar. i'm assuming the dude was just having a really bad day. but, like, i can't remember when the last time i was that i was yelled at. and i've never been yelled at by a complete stranger, at least not that i can remember. so weird.

 

i was waiting for the bus and i heard a soft voice. i turned and saw a woman asking me if i was waiting for the bus. i said i was and she said she was too. all of this was a bit off and then i realized a walking stick and that she was blind. so now i have the job of making sure she got on the bus, a job that i did just fine. but she stayed at the front, i walked towards the back and when she went to get off a few stops later she slipped down the stairs. it was kind of a backwards slide that left her sitting on the stairs of the bus. nobody went to help her and by the time i'd gotten up and halfway to the front of the bus she was up and safely on the sidewalk. but then she was walking soooo sooo slowly. the bus was sitting there for some reason so i had plenty of time to watch her make her way to the far side of the sidewalk, nestled just along the row of madison avenue stores. one store jutted out and she walked right up to it until her stick hit the marble slab and that's when the bus pulled off.

 

i wanted to jump off the bus and grab her by the arm and walk her to her destination. hell, i wanted to keep an eye on her all damn day to make sure she would get home safe. it tore me up inside thinking about how difficult her life must be and how cold and cruel this city can be for some people. and to think of it, this city is better than most for getting around with a handicap but it's all still so sad. it took everything in me to remind myself that i had to go to work today. and that i couldn't be with that lady every day and that she wasn't my responsibility. she was not my responsibility. i can't take care of everybody. i'm not sure why i always want to...

 

had a fantastic brunch at blue smoke. then a dress fitting for a custom made frock to wear in emily's wedding! then a crazy workout with dani (the one dating a personal trainer who has trained a-rod and madonna, no joke). then lots of drinking and playing board games at ted's which is probably my favoritest place to be and thing to do in the whole whole world.

Board games and French martinis!

Bocce ball: yes we are 70 year old Italian men

Emily's wedding dress fitting!

snow, tattoo, sufjan, zappos

i got hit in the face with something this morning. i was sleepy, not paying much attention but it was then i decided to look up from the sidewalk and i noticed it everywhere: snow. my first thought, "what is this? ithaca?" mostly because when it snows as early as october 15th and as late as may 15th somewhere, that place is likely in the snow belt.

 

i've always wanted a tattoo but for some reason the urge is becoming too hard to bear. i don't even know what i'd get which is reason number 1 for not getting one. it could also be reasons 2-25 as well. i think it want it on my upper back, just below my neck. don't ask why. i will likely NOT do this but right now i can't stop thinking about it.

 

oy, twitterpated people are everywhere. got an e-mail, completely out of the blue, from an old crush who lives in london, asking if i'd come to visit. WHA?! then, THEN i find out he's actually coming to new york in april with a huge group of students but is on "teacher/babysitting" duty around the clock. and when i begged to let him sneak in on some museum tours with them (he teaches art history) he said no! that does not make jasmine happy. especially since i'm so short and would blend in with his 14 year olds...as long as i wore a baggy enough sweater.

 

 have pretty much every minute of my weekend planned already. i hate this. also, key west is next weekend! that means drunkennes, sun, sleeping in, para sailing, booze cruises, and NOT WORKING. hallelujah!

 

bought tickets to this, mostly on the hopes that sufjan stevens comes to play. that is how obsessed and stalky about him i am. it's soooo sad. also, i bought an extra pair that i can scalp for lots of money because the concert is pretty amazing and will sell out, orchestra seats, etc.

 

 i have the honor of being a VIP. in life generally, but most importantly at zappos.com. i think they need to start paying me as i pretty much walk around all day talking about how much i love them. case in point, because of my vip status i get free next day shipping on all my shoes now. and if i may, i want to remind y'all that return shipping is also free! it may be the best thing that's ever happened to me. i'm mostly serious. i'm a happy zappos cheerleader, and proud of it.

 

tomorrow night i'm going to a birthday party at a bar that's closed. but, apparently, secretly open one night a week. i don't ask questions any more in this town. i just show up and hope things work out. is it healthy to be this blasé about everything?

spam, dresses, birthdays, twitterpated

all of my friend colin's e-mail lately has been going straight into my spam folder. even though he's on my contacts list and i e-mail him half a dozen times a day. this sucks for him because it's happening with other people besides me so nobody is getting his messages. it sucks for me because now i'm having to spend the time sorting through my damn spam to find messages from him. grrrrrr...

 

another bridesmaid in emily's wedding works in fashion, making clothes. she's making emily's wedding dress and now has offered to make our bridesmaid dresses. this will, i think, be a good thing. mostly because emily couldn't make up her mind about what she wanted and was going to make us all go shopping with her one on one so we could pick out a black dress. so now at least we get to design what we want (i'm thinking a v-neck in the front and back with an a-line skirt to the knees) and it should fit us like a glove. i'll report back on the success of all this.

 

what is up with march birthdays?! why are there 400 birthday parties every weekend night this month? it's making me feel like i should eliminate (or, as we say in the restaurant business, 86) some friends.

 

i'm following martha stewart on twitter. best. decision. EVAH. for example: twitter allows only 140 characters in a "tweet" as you know, including punctuation-if i don't use "proper" punctuation that is why

 

what's not to love about martha explaining what may, in the future, be lack of proper punctuation? also her pugs are blogging now. or are they french bulldogs? i can't remember. some cute thing with a smooshed face.

 

also, spring is definitely near. peter mentioned it first but he's right, everyone is getting flirty and randy. i prefer the term twitterpated. everything is more exciting than it should be. i wake up in good moods for NO REASON AT ALL. and pretty soon the sun will be rising in the sky at a place that lands right in my bedroom window and i'll be waking up with the sun instead of my churchbell alarm on my phone. wheeeeee!!

pulling muscles, search terms, p&g,

emily's fiance antti decided he wanted to work out with us yesterday. antti is pretty muscular. and finnish. so working out with antti means watching him place all the machines about 50lbs heavier than you usually do them and listening to him bark orders at you in his finnish accent about how we need to do 20 more reps! it's not that hard! come on ladies! and i do it because maybe all the weight training will make me strong enough so that when i break down and hit him in the face someday it stands a chance of hurting.

 

i mean, i know he means well. but i can't help but feel that he does it for vanity purposes. he feels better being seen with emily and i if we're thinner. you may think i'm crazy but if you ever meet this man i think you'll see what i mean. but bless his heart, i adore him anyhow but HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT I CAN'T REALLY BENCHPRESS SIXTY POUNDS! YOU'RE HURTING ME! i came close to throwing out my back i think yesterday. now i walk with a hand on my lower back in some form of a waddle that makes me look like a pregnant woman. from behind, at least.

 

statcounter says that most people are finding my blog through these search terms: what do i look like as a simpson, uti, and cheyenne jackson. those are all random things to be the "go to" source on. or even to be that first page that someone lands on when looking for the above... 

 

i may or may not have a friend that works at proctor and gamble. that friend may or may not be able to get me, for free, numerous things in their product line. i may or may not have a gigantic obsession with TIDE PENS. ZOMG. I NEED MORE! it's bad. i pretty much need to have one with me at all times. and if were were making a list of things to bring with us to an undiscovered island, that might be it. because if i were to run into any indigenous people there i'd be able to hold it up and say, "see! my people make miraculous things! behold the wonder that is this thing that looks like a marker but actually gets red wine out of clothes!" and who cares if they dont know what a marker is, or red wine, or that they probably don't wear clothes...the beauty of the pen will overcome! where was i? oh, right, P&G. yay, i get free stuff! i pretty much never need to go to a drug store ever again.

 

free-range fetuses! and that studmuffin john oliver?! be still my beating heart...

 

and why the hell haven't i seen this before?! my adoration of seth rogan mixed with the ever-amazing muppets?!

 

EEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

 

and this made the round days ago which means everyone has seen it but i'm posting it anyhow. i love it so much. i've watched it like 5 times. and sorry for not just imbedding all this stuff. have been e-mailing my posts in lately and curse you gmail since you can't email html!

 

also, anybody been to managua nicaragua? just asking...

hi, i'm a mac!

so my friend david is a mac fiend. he's one of the "every time apple comes out with ANYTHING new he has to buy it immediately" type of guys. so needless to say, he needed one of the new aluminum ones with the illuminated keyboard, etc. and i had planned to buy the same thing (they're so pretty!) when i got my tax refund.
 
then david is all talking about how some film was peeling off his white macbook and how he'd dropped it and the headphone jack had broken. but he had applecare so he took it in, they gave him a brand new exterior and also a whole new motherboard because that was the only solution for fixing the headphone jack. basically he had a brand new computer but it had software and added hard drive
 
and because this is a recession and buying a $1700 computer just cause it's pretty when i don't do much more than check e-mail, download music and do light photo stuff and skype occasionally....well this is a recession you know! i told him i might want to buy it. he offered it to me for $800 (after he said he thought he could sell it for 1,000) so i took it.

 

i'm the proud mama of a new: White Macbook
2.0 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB DDR2 Memory
200GB hard drive
Programs installed:
- Leopard (newest operating system)
- iLife '09
- MS Office '08 (latest office software)
 
so it's a second-hand one but that's okay. i just don't know how to use it. where did the right-click go?! so confusing. where do multiple windows go? there's no task bar! am going to go to one of the classes at the apple store. they have "transitioning from a pc" classes on the weekends so i'll do that next weekend. very exciting!! and scary!! i'll also have them transfer all my info over but that means i need to go and pull any and all naked photos of myself off my laptop and onto an external hard drive. and i suppose if some apple genius wants to go and restore the dell to two weeks ago and can get around the password protected folders, well then he deserves a peek of whatever old HNTs lie within.

 

so now i'm justin long instead of john hodgman. which is actually quite sad as john hodgman is totally one of my favorite people and my favorite twitterer next to ana marie cox. but all this is besides the point. my shitty ass dell with the chipped case and the external wireless card whose CTRL and ENTER buttons don't work...peace out!

 

on a related topic, any suggestions for where to donate said shitty dell? someone might want it for something, yes?

internet, you've disappointed me.

so i was e-mailing with cousin who was nice enough to forward his bracket over. i was bragging about my friend jim who stumped the schwab and i see his name is absent from the "winners list" on wikipedia! it's like seeing a huge crack in the foundation of human knowledge.

 

then...THEN...in response to my last post where i called most of michael ian black's blog readers morons, i expected some hate mail. i was prepared for it. but what do i get? a well-reasoned, well-intentioned comment:

 

"The comments from Michaels fans who were not in on the age joke are obviously NOT his biggest fans, or his long time readers from the blog. The names were unfamiliar to this long time reader, I can tell you that much.

 

More than likely, those comments came from fans who found him via twitter."

 

how nice is that? how informative?! see how he doesn't get upset at me? or judge me? or talk about my ladybits? or even say that i'm wrong? see how he mostly even seems to agree with me? good lord!

 

when i e-mailed jon to express my utter disbelief, he summed it up best: "I'm just confused. I thought the Internet was all about anonymous hate? This is not the Internet I grew up with."

 

such ideas re-affirmed here with david pogue's story.

 

on the other hand...i do think the internet impresses me more than upsets me. i suppose it varies depending on how good the information is on LOST and how many screencaps there are of very small print on things blown up on HD the next day. but generally, the internet has done me plenty of favors...

 

ted once talked about writing a thank you note to the internet after he found a really good "special" brownie recipe.

 

i should also thank it for that time that i missed that episode of will and grace based on "sound of music" and wags did the most awesome thing EVER and put it on a dvd for me and put it in the mail.

 

and for every good roommate i've ever found through craigslist. and for that dude who worked at comedy central who bought my beat up purple chevy cavalier from me for way more than it was worth the first year i moved from new york, also from craigslist.

 

i mean, okay. fine. internet i lurve you. a lot. and i'm sorry i ever doubted you. bisous!

gossip girl, brackets, MIB

so i have that gossip girl themed party this weekend. thinking a simple plaid skirt, some knee highs, a white button down and a plaid tie will do the trick. not exactly sure where to get all that, however.

 

hey people who pay attention to basketball! i need to do my bracket. send some informed suggestions my way por favor! leave them in the comments or e-mail your bracket over: jazzinstrangeplaces at gmail.

 

katie's dad is in town for the big east tournament (he went to syracuse) and we have so much fun hanging out with her dad and his friends. they just get WASTED. and frankly, it's nice to just hang out with men who aren't trying to take you home.

 

the michael ian black thing was endless entertainment on an otherwise boring friday. i had a friend sending me the comments from his post. his fans are retarded. he's a comedian, he wrote a fairly funny post. made a joke about how he was 26 and more than half the commenters DID NOT GET THE JOKE. told him that 26 wasn't old, that they couldn't believe he was 26, and "are you kidding? you're 26?!" ad infinitum. these were not "i'm being clever by making jokes that extend from your jokes" comments. they were all impossibly earnest and that makes me sad. i'd be so depressed if my biggest fans just didn't get my sense of humor, at all. his whole post was in jest and there are these random people who think he's angry, and are getting angry on his behalf. it was just such a sorry display. he made a joke about how i was older than him and then all his commenters are making LAME jokes about how old i am. how i have a "withered corn husk" as my ladybits. it all would have been so funny had i not just felt so BAD for michael ian black that 90% of his readers are so soooo soooooooo stupid.

 

my friend lacey was at a political event and she sent me a text "i'm at X event and i think the magician is here." the magician is jewish boy genius who may have written a magic book at the tender age of 14. so at this event, a guy walks up to her and says "hello" and then they have a normal conversation. and then he asks for her number. and then the next day he calls and asks to get a drink next week. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! there exists in new york a nice, straightforward guy who doesn't play games. i'm still in shock over the whole thing.

 

also, my good friend from law school, jill is blogging her new life with her new baby in luxembourg where they just moved because her husband got a job there. she's new to the blogging thing but she's taking lots of pictures and giving lots of local color and has cute, funny stories. if you want to take a trip to france from your desk, her blog is a good place to start. she says i write the way i talk and i don't think about it much but i suppose it's true. mostly because i don't take time to craft sentences, never read over what i've written and literally DO just type what i'd say out loud if you were sitting in front of me.

 

maybe someday i'll try to really write here. but that takes more time. so, i'll do it the next time i'm unemployed, how's that?

explaining mysef part XII: in which i qualify a twitter about michael ian black

so i discovered michael ian black on twitter.

 

michael ian black (for some reason all three names always come out, it feels so wrong to cut it down to just one) brings back memories for me of a very specific time period, namely 1994, though the show spanned a few months on either side of that year as well. and i've always had a thing for skinny, dark-haired, dorky yet very funny dudes. and boy, did i LUST after michael in black.

 

now, i know he's done stuff since then. i am not going to wiki him but i remember him being on ed and i've seen him a bit here in the periphery and there but becoming a new follower made me give michael ian black some direct attention. and i notice he's showing some gray in his profile picture.

 

and by noticing his own aging, i'm also accepting mine. i'm no longer of the age where i lust so heartily after celebrities (even C-list). and if i were to spend time lusting they'd now be ones younger than me. hot, dopey, simple men (i'm looking at YOU chase crawford!). having sex with older dudes is old hat. i'm a cougar now.

 

an aside: i used to lust after tom cruise and BOY are those days long gone. HOWEVER, i would still get naked and crazy with robert redford and michael ian black is doing mr. redford a dire disservice in comparing himself to the ever-beautiful robert. michael ian black you are NO robert redford, i'm sorry...

 

so i'm a cougar. though a cougar that's still 9 years junior to michael ian black. something i'm pointing out to myself just because i think it's fun to be 28 and referred to as a "miserable old bitch"

 

and this probably gets filed in the TMI folder but it's been months since i've been laid and if given the chance i'd most definitely still have sex with michael ian black but maybe only if i were a bit tipsy and he was there and willing. i wouldn't fight a girl to get michael ian black. i wouldn't stalk him. i wouldn't even pay for it.

 

so there. that's my clarification. i would still have sex with michael ian black because i'm oldish too, i just wouldn't be proactive about it. and i'm not sure how much bragging i'd do to my friends about it. and isn't that the true test of how desirable a celebrity is? i think it is.

TOB, craig, mario, surprises flight changes

it's the tournament of books time at the morning news. it's the literary version of march madness. see here for what the game looks like.

 

last year the TOB's winner happened to also win a pulitzer prize. so it's a tourney to keep your eyes on, for sure.

 

my friend craig is cooking some absolute gorgeous stuff, peek at it here.

 

i kind of loved this.

 

and oh my god is this college humor shit CRAZY.

 

my friend erika's birthday dinner was last night. we went to otto, which is one of my favorite places in the city for the pure cheapness of it all. and by cheap i don't mean kitschy. i mean, literally, entrees are $10. it's the best bang for your buck as far as italian goes, bar none. one of erika's close friends is mario's assistant. which basically means anyone who is anyone in the restaurant industry knows her. restaurant staff came over to greet us all evening. most the meal was comped. we went to spotted pig (another mario-owned venture) and had mor free alcohol brought to us. the only thing better than being mario's assistant is getting to eat out with mario's assistant.

 

at the pig were anne burrell and also dan abrams and dave zinczenko.

 

am cooking up a bit of a surprise party for justy's 30th birthday. can't give details here in case he stops by (he never does) but just in case, i don't want to ruin it.

 

let me re-iterate what a fan i am of the tenet: you'll never get what you want unless you ask.

 

not only was that how i got my lovely iphone, but american airlines just cut a leg out of a three-leg trip back from a wedding in turks and caicos that i have to be at in may. i'd bought the ticket with miles so you're pretty much stuck with whatever they give you as far as redeeming points goes. i got a direct flight there but was stuck with a crazy PLS-MIA-DFW-JFK trip back. FAIL. then i got a "change in your reservation" e-mail. SCORE! that means i can call, be dissatisfied with the change (which gets me in 1.5 hours later) and then toss in a "is there any way you can just cut out that MIA to DFW leg?" while i'm at it. and TA-DA! worked like a charm. "even though you got it with miles and there are no remaining award seats on the MIA to LGA flight, i put in a request and it was approved so you'll get a new confirmation by e-mail in an hour or so" fucking brilliant. life is good.

 

there's a bunch of other write-upable stuff over the last week but i'm literally too tired to recall it right now. or at least describe it. i went to this. emily had a birthday party. i met a new gay best friend. i confirmed a booze cruise ticket for key west at the end of march. The end. 

Deep thoughts from the W train

dceiver, cheyenne jackson

dceiver is twittering. and he's hilarious. during the non-SOTU we were gifted with these:

 

"Cut to Roland Burris. He will have 'Attended That Obama Speech, That One Time' on his Mausoleum of Accomplishments"

 

"Most people inflate their resumes. Roland Burris is the only person I know who has INFLATED HIS MAUSOLEUM ETCHINGS"

 

"Dick Durban on teevee, kneecapping Burris. Waiting for punk Bobby Rush to appear at attribute all of this to TEH RACISMS"

 

 

this, also insanely charming

 

saw cheyenne jackson at feinstein's last night and if you're in town and have a chance to go to his march 8th cabaret, i'd recommend it. the show had to be under an hour so it felt a bit fleeting but cheyenne was charming, funny, just-the-right-amount of self-depreciating and the guy has the voice of an angel. also, he's very very pretty. i went with brian which meant we got to sit at cheyenne's "family table" alongside his nearest and dearest. cheyenne ran through some of his "new york moments". "new york moments" come mostly to those who love the shit out of this city and still find themselves amazed that they're here! they're really here! and OMG life is amazing! i have my own new york moments though they're on much smaller scales. he has one when he's dancing on stage in front of jerry orbach (cheyenne's first neighbor here, also: new york city icon). i have mine when i'm sitting at a table with cheyenne's boyfriend listening to cheyenne talk about dancing on stage in front of jerry orbach. also, being at the "family table" means we got to meet mr. michael feinstein himself. something my grandma will just about have a heart attack over if i tell her (i like my grandma so i may not break the news at all, at 75 she'd never live through it). we'd go to ravinia to hear him while i was growing up.

 

his song choices were faultless, my favorite among them was his encore for which he promised (and due to the sheer panic on the face of his accompanist, i believed) he hadn't had anything planned or arranged. (also lending to the credibility was cheyenne's singing directive of "cut here!" in the middle of the song as instruction for the man playing piano.) i've met cheyenne several times but never spent much time speaking with him and so i don't know whether he is, on a day to day basis, hilarious all the time or whether the hilarity was the result of some careful story-crafting. regardless, he was hysterical. telling stories that, at first blush, you almost didn't believe and then i'd turn to see his boyfriend monte (monty?) nod at me and say, "it's true! that really happened!"

 

speaking of monte, cheyenne's tribute to him was lovely. if a bit unfair. monte isn't nearly as "socially retarded" as cheyenne makes him out to be. it's justs physically impossible for him to be fake/dishonest about something. he won't agree with you if he doesn't actually agree with you. he won't just smile and nod the way a more charming person would do if working a crowd. he's brilliant with a dry sense of humor and hates the spotlight. all this serves to make them a bit of an odd couple but i adore them together. if i were a gay guy i'd be ALL OVER monte. he's smart, trustworthy, good-looking, fairly shy, with a hearty dose of NERD thrown in for good measure. oh, how i DO loves me a geek.

 

anyway, lovely evening. reminds me why i heart new york so damn much.