merry christmas

oh god, y'all. this made my day. a gay couple plays santa. "you don't think about it, you just give. that's always been your way and i just love that about you."

i've been absent. partly because all the writing i do, i try to do for someone not myself. i'm not sure if that's okay with me but i haven't had much time to start reconsidering my judgment calls. actually, as i write that, it feels good just to fucking get it out. i think it's because i've always used this place as a journal. an, honest to god, old-skool fucking online diary. the kind that people make fun of. those losers who think people care where they're at or what they're doing. but even going back to my archives, not even a year ago, i see write ups of things that already i'd forgotten i'd done. this is to preserve the facts of my life because i don't think my memory could be any worse, truly.

also, i've never (and this is a maybe a mistake) really proof read this, cared about the prose, even spellchecked. i don't write here. i log. anyway, not so sure what to do with this place.

but now i am writing and this is what i have to show for it. 5 years worth of cute animal videos, recalled memories of parties with my gays and gals (or squirrels, as we call ourselves) and random new york moments with a political rant tossed in for good measure. le sigh.

i wrote an essay about mixed race women in america that was published in this here book. and if you want to keep better track of what and where i'm writing, twitter is where it's at. hairpin. awl. esquire. huffpo. (i'll note that i made it a whole month, on a single backpack with room for me to bring back gifts for everybody, all as a carry-on).

then i went to thailand and while on the beach, decided that i didn't fly to the other side of the planet to stay for two weeks and head home. to stayed another two more and wished i'd stayed 10. from bangkok to phuket to ko phi phi (which was paradise, at a resort called "relax"), back to bangkok where i pieced together my next two weeks. i'd tried to head to burma but US citizens are getting huge delays on their visas because obama (appropriately) spoke poorly of their most recent election. so burma was out. i chose siem reap to see angkor wat and all the other wats and then to hanoi and then chaingmai. i have a whole moleskine full of notes and observations and not sure where i'll end up writing about it all but the thought of getting it down and arranging it into pitchable stories is daunting. hanoi was my favorite. i fell in love with vietnam for its food. and its people. i was in heaven there, eating and snacking basically all day, delicious food for pennies, on little plastic stools on the street. my version of heaven. 

i'm also going to start writing up restaurants for a few places (contracts haven't been signed but i've been given approval) and, AND, i went back to lawyering. which, well, it's overwhelming. 

but now i'm home with kate and ant. the baby has lots of funny faces and plays with you and it's awesome. but the whole day revolves around her schedule. am doing some cooking, watching tv (because i never watch tv) and loving when people sass bobby flay on his throwdown. 

anyway, merry christmas! hopefully your last few months have been as satisfying and exciting and full of surprises as mine.