jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

It’s the weekend, and to that I say “Yes please!”

I just ate a piece of cake. I’m sitting on the couch watching the first season of ‘Friends’ on DVD. I win I win I win.

Damon comes home on Monday. I win again.

Jeff and I are going to IKEA and to see The Gates this weekend. Yet another win.

While I’m at IKEA I hope to find a big piece of art to go over the sofa. Or maybe something for over the bed. I’ll have to pick, since whatever I take goes home with me on the subway. Jeff is warning me that he can really dig in at IKEA, which makes me laugh. Like he can out-browse me. It would be nice to have something pretty when Damon gets here, a nice surprise.

I finished watching ‘Like Water for Chocolate’ earlier this evening. What a beautiful movie. I love our remodeled kitchen. But having a big old kitchen with things like grinding stones and huge kettles and open fires — I might never leave it.

I don’t often talk about work in this space other than to say “Crazy!” or whatever. But one of my areas is Health, and I read the most intersting thing today. A new 10-year study of marriage and health reveals:
— Women who hold their tongues to keep the peace are four times more likely to die than women who speak their minds.
— Men whose wives hate their jobs and frequently come home complaining about them have a 2.7 times higher incidence of heart disease than men whose wives are happy at work.

Maybe I’ll start throwing in other interesting nuggets. Here’s a mini: sports drinks and commercial lemonade are worse for your teeth than soda — they’re corrosive.

I wonder if what I need after my piece of cake is a bowl of spaghetti. They were just eating spaghetti on TV, which is pretty much all it takes to get me started. I wish I had some milk. I was greedy and drank it all right away.

And here’s an interesting news item. Yesterday my train was late and I was wondering what the deal was. I read in the paper this morning: Severed legs on the track. That will definitely slow down the line. No body in sight, mind you. Just the legs.

Steakums’ new avatar is very pretty 🙂

FLINTSTONES ARE ‘WAY TOO GAY’
Group Seeks Ban on Cartoon, Cereal, Vitamins
The ongoing campaign against alleged gay icons in animated cartoons continued today as a newly formed conservative group demanded that television stations stop broadcasting “The Flintstones” at once.

Harland Devane, leader of the group Focus on the Flintstones, said at a press conference in Washington, D.C. today that his organization was issuing the demand because, “Quite simply, everything about ‘The Flintstones’ is way too gay.”

The conservative activist distributed a memo itemizing over fifty ways in which the self-styled “modern Stone Age family” series promotes homosexuality, but left little doubt that most of his concerns centered on the relationship between the two main characters, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble.

“Their relationship is more flagrantly homosexual than anything in Oliver Stone’s ‘Alexander,’” Mr. Devane said.

He pointed out that Fred and Barney are virtually inseparable, are never seen wearing pants, and live together in the suggestively named town of Bedrock.

Noting that the show’s theme song exhorts viewers to have “a gay old time,” he added that the two men wear hard hats and construction garb while at work, an oblique reference to the construction worker in the classic disco band “The Village People.”

“Do I believe they are gay icons?” Mr. Devane said. “I abba-dabba-do.”

He added that Focus on the Flintstones’ efforts will not stop at banning the cartoon series from TV, telling reporters that the group is also “taking a close look” at Flintstone-related consumer products such as Flintstone vitamins and cereal.

“We are very uncomfortable with Fruity Pebbles,” he said.

Elsewhere, President Bush announced a budget of $2.57 trillion, most of which will go to paying for last month’s inauguration.

http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=1063&srch=

I’m streched out on my hotel bed. I need to remember to bring my own cable cord, as the hotels always give you these teeny, short cords that force me to make desks out of chairs. Now maybe I am not the most diligent worker among business travelers, but why would Marriott set up their room so that you can’t get your computer off the desk and you can’t see the tv if you’re sitting there.

So now I’m struggling to stay awake because Damon is coming after his show. I could nap, but then I’d be awake all freaking night and nodding out like a dope addict tomorrow. I could use dinner, but last time I didn’t wait for him. He didn’t complain, but I felt a little bit badly about it.

I was having one of those days today where I wonder if my coworkers will ever discover that I am a total imposter. I was wheeling and dealing about what programming was going to be served up to millions of members, and then later I was walking across the tarmac to our little plane that we fly back and forth in. And they even roll out a little carpet! (it’s blue). The truth is that it’s not all so important or impressive, but I still don’t feel like the kind of person who should be flitting around on this little private plane. But — we get cheese cubes and cookies and muffins and whatever else random thing on the flight. So I like that. I usually start thinking about the cheese as soon as we get to the airport. Tonight was string cheese. It’s usually cubed.

So now I’m trying to think of what restaurant will deliver out here so that Damon and I don’t have to leave once he gets here. But I really want spaghetti, and that’s going to be tough to find. The room service here is noooo good and I’ve already eaten everything good (not much) out of the mini bar.

It’s occurring to me how incoherent/boring this entry must be. I’ll stop now.

I’ve found a few interesting folks doing random searches on LJ. Today I found a startling teenager. I’m not sure if it’s a boy or a girl. The tone was very girl-ish. But also referenced sex with Tiffany and Amy. So either it’s a gay girl or a girly boy. But the weird thing was that just about every entry, and there were plenty, was either a detailed list of food consumed that day (addressed with a lot of enthusiasm) or a rant against addiction and/or pot smokers. Teenagers are just so bizarre. I guess I was too then.

In my recovery from this hellish week I’ve tried to cover all my entertainment bases. Stacked on my coffee table are:
— Run Lola Run
— 25th Hour
— To Kill a Mockingbird
— The Thorn Birds
— Angels in America
— the first seasons of both The Gilmore Girls and The A-Team
— The Miracle of Life
— Wide Sargasso Sea
I really can’t imagine any eventuality this doesn’t cover

Here’s one fun vignette from my week that Tsalino found funny, so I’ll share it here.
We flew back into NY on the AOL shuttle on Thursday night. It was a flight so rough that at some points I would look out my window and only see ground since we were banking so hard. No good. So I take the shuttle to Teterboro, the little bus to Columbus Circle and then the subway to Chelsea. I finally got to Deanna’s apartment to dogsit and after many attempts to figure out the doors and locks, beginning with the fact that there are no numbers on the apartment doors so I’ve got to try the key in random doors (just waiting for someone to point a gun in my face for trying to break in). Anyway, Deanna’s apartment is over this swank restaurant called Suenos. So I get inside and a 100-pound dog is leaping all over me and I’m carrying bags and a suitcase and I’m tired and queasy from the flight and my sweater itches. So I walk into Deanna’s bedroom, throw down all my stuff and peel off my itchy sweater. I spend the next 15 minutes throwing the ball for the dog, brushing my hair, setting the alarm clock, etc, etc. I’m pacing around the bedroom and then I stop and look out the window, only to see that the restaurant extends way farther back than the apartments, and is glass-walled. So I’m looking down at a distance of about 25 feet right into the dining room. And the diners along the window are all looking back up at me — the topless girl playing with a big dog. We all stared at each other for a long second, and then I just slipped into the bathroom and laughed and laughed. I can’t begin to guess who was more surprised. And how that must have affected their dinner, especially since I must have been visible sometimes but not others, depending on where I was in relation to the two windows.

This is exactly the kind of thing that I do.