I think I just got permission from the universe to not even pretend I’m actually “feminine,” in the sense of nurturing and homemaking and all that kind of stuff.

In preparation for the return of M., I grocery shopped (a rarity) and planned on cooking in addition to doing a bit of cleaning (key word “bit,” since in truth my apartment needs a flame-thrower to ever truly be clean). My goal to be welcoming and attentive, as though I really were a nurturing, caring human being.

Failure Number 1: I monitor his flight on the Internet hours before arrival. At what I think is a good 40 minutes before the plane is due, they update the website, I have ten minutes to get to the airport. I’m late.

Failure Number 2: Proudly, I bought fresh French Roast coffee beans from a gourmet establishment for his morning java fix. Then, post-purchase, I couldn’t find my grinder (put away during Christmas cleaning to make room for the Kitchen-Aid mixer. When, incidentally, I also completely emptied the refrigerator and told him on the phone. The state of the ‘fridge becomes relevant later (cue dramatic foreshadowing). After screwing around with a food chopper and pretty much only making a mess, I revert to Plan B, “gourmet coffee” from Johnny’s Foodmaster (the wonderfully ghetto-esque grocery story on the Cambridge/Somerville border that as of late has tried to capture some upscale yuppity markets). Of course, after all of this bruhaha, I find my grinder in one of the kitchen cabinets. D’Oh.

Failure 3 (and this one is really what the post is all about): I buy half and half. Knowing he’s a cream drinker and the low-fat or no-fat milk I favor is a pale substitute, I splurge and buy a quart of half and half. Repeatedly, I brown nose and brag, pointing out my wonderful supportive purchase. See, I’m a nurturer damnit. I fucking care! Cream, miles and miles of cream.

So, then I call home yesterday. Did he find everything? Was the coffee OK? He’s uncharacteristically brief on the phone. He mentions he has been in the bathroom not feeling well. He asks about the cream. It didn’t dissolve right, just sort of floated on the top. I claim it was brand new, and ask about the seal. “Seal? What seal? It was already open.”

Hmmmm. Was the precious cream a victim of tampering? Will he survive the day?

Later on, I am cooking dinner (OK, I’m not a total jackass, I can cook the occasional dinner). He mentions the cream, but he is feeling better. We look in the refrigerator, and he shows me the cream of taint. He looks at the date (for the first time that day). January 9, 2004. A solid month old at least. In truth, it’s the cream I bought and opened for his last week with me before moving West. That would be around December 17, 2003. Jesus Christ. I’m surprised it poured and didn’t just ooze from the container.

Did I mention I cleaned the refrigerator?

For me, as I am racist, the best part is his third world culture imperative. Unlike me, a wonton and wasteful westerner from the first world, who throws away anything even vaguely off, he drank the sucker down. A full cup of coffee with spoiled yogurt swirling on the top. Since he was trying to tell me last night he could have been a goat herder, I guess compared to a C.A.R.E. package from UNICEF, that’s good to the last drop.

Moral of the story: Good housekeepers do not send their lovers to the toilet.

Corollary to the story: I am not a good housekeeper.

In the back of my head, I’ve been trying to figure out the comic possibilities of California versus Massachusetts. Of course, the hack potential of “them versus us” is gi-normous. But, nonetheless, it’s on my mind as I think whether or not I should move there. So, the hack risk may be mitigated by the truth of it.

Basically it boils down to nice/happy – rude/neurotic/happily miserable. These elements are also the defining points of my relationship with M. Guess which one of us is neurotic.

As I worry about losing my “edge” to happiness, I do note one thing. It is much fucking better to be late meeting someone at the airport (not very late, his bag hadn’t come out yet), who is on the take it easy, be happy don’t worry, Cali side of things. M. may very well be the first man I have ever dated in which the 20 minute drive from the airport was NOT dominated by the unanswerable “How could you be late?” Failure to berate is not a bad edge to lose.

I just found out that Spalding Gray is missing and presumed to have killed himself.

I stumbled upon it by reading about it on another ‘blog on Boston online.

No doubt, Swimming to Cambodia was a major point in my learning about the power of a monologue. Just a guy in a room with a notebook, and you could feel a whole story.

I guess suicide is what happens when you can’t find the story any more.

I think the modern reason for the instinct to pair off, find a mate, dance a pas de deux, date is all rooted in one phenomenon. You gots to have some one who will pick you up at the airport.

It’s official M. day. He’ll be in Cambridge tonight for a couple of weeks. I still haven’t finished cleaning this place up. Alas, the man will discover just how insane I am. I had been trying for so long to hide it.

There was a Netscape news type of link about the origins of names. According to them, my mother’s maiden name is “From O’Dobhailein (Gaelic), “descendant of the valorous and boisterous one.”

VALOROUS and BOISTEROUS. Yeah, that’s somebody you don’t want to be next to you when you’re sneaking up on the enemy. “Will you keep it down, Seamus. They’ll fucking here you. Ya, Ya, you’re a brave cunt, now shut your pie hole.”

Sometimes I get so focused on finishing something, I stay up insanely late. I have shitloads of stuff I want to do tomorrow, which will be negatively impacted by my lack of Zs. I’m a shithead.

Anyway, I did succeed in getting some videos moved around a bit and put in an out of the way place. Now, they should be easier to access and view without messing up the loading of other pages.

The newest is my performance last night. I’ll probably throw this on a DVD for the Boston Comedy Festival competition.

Here it is, me having fun Jimbo’s Braintree-style: Feb. 5, 2004

You can also go HERE to see a few other videos.

Today, I make no references to breastages, chemically enhanced love rockets or pop stardom, as the collective national attention drifts elsewhere (and, of course, it does not focus fucked up state of the world, because that is, well, icky and kind of boring and grim).

By the way, “chemically enhanced love rockets” might be a good name for a fakely packaged non-product, as purveyed by maintainers of the pop culture, such as these folks.

I really don’t have much to write today (or arguably most days). But, I was thinking that I wished the Internet was around when I was a kid. Aspiring to be a writer, especially in the sense of the written word being the one constant source of passion in my pathetic little existence (OK, maybe that and the occasional sex toy), yet being too shy and insecure to actually show my writing to anyone or think that I had anything of interest to say, was a joyously impotent way to mispend my youth.

Having a weblog has to be the least risky, most incredibly passive way of getting something out into the world. Unlike, of course, the suicide course of doing stand-up comedy, which I embarked on despite total stage fright. Yeah, that was a fucking great idea. Let’s see, I already think I’m unworthy of your attention, and I’m apt to stiffen woodenly whilst speaking to you the audience, so why not have us all bask in the sheer masochism of the moment and watch me stifle the nauseous belch? Who doesn’t enjoy going to a bar and swimming in self-induced angst?

Oh, by the way, if anyone sees this ‘blog and thinks they might like to see me live and in person, I should clarify I am MUCH better now in public. From my early stilted yearnings, I now can smile and react normally and tend to remember what I meant to say, including the funny parts. And, in truth, it was always much worse in my head. For example, I never actually peed on my shoes publicly and ended up electrocuting myself with a faulty mike cord, as I feared would be my undoing.

Of course, never say “never,” since now I am soon to be 40 and facing the inevitable incontinence of middle age (as magazines and ads would make me believe).

Speaking of that phantom of middle age, I hope any one of my friends who read this bullshit will nudge me when it comes time for me, because of life’s inevitable withering, to never mention sex in public again.

My stand-up comedy has a very carnal base (actually, I don’t think it’s that bad, but apparently nice girls don’t refer to there possession of a vagina, even in context, yada yada, so I’ve been told I’m “edgy.”) Since I can think of at least three women who I have seen the audience visibly cringe at the image of their being half of the beast with two backs (accent on beast), I suspect my time will come. As I neglect the appearance of a beard and let myself slide into my dotage, or however it all manifests itself, the day will come when only a loved one, or a creepy wrinkle fetishist, could conceptualize mounting me. Right now, I believe, I still appear to the world as fuckable. But, how long, how long?

Anyone, send me a brief (out of kindness) email apprising me of the situation, if I fail to notice it myself.

Oh and by the way, from checking my stats and looking at comments, I want to acknowledge and say hello to anyone who (a) stumbles across this vapid wasteland and (b) returns.

Hey, there and thanks!

By the way, there’s one reader in particular who needs to know that the little things count, and he gets a special thanks. If you don’t know if it’s you, then you probably aren’t quite deep as I thought…