Unpredictably Fabulous

Iowa and 2008

I don't know how many people are into politics, but even if you aren't I'm sure the campaign ad saturated media has at least brought today's caucus in Iowa to your attention. Today's NYT is full of articles explaining the insanity that leads to the selection of a presidential candidate (and more than enough political commentary - speaking of which is anyone else annoyed about the amount of press coverage dedicated to interpreting the hidden meaning of the pronouns used by the candidates? Not to mention all the coverage of John Edwards haircut? Seriously, and we wonder why problems never get solved...).

I am personally routing for Hillary to win, and not just because I love Billy. I think Obama is not ready to be President, he lacks the knowledge, experience, and he is just not cutthroat enough politically. John Edwards is just angry all the time. But more than that I feel that Obama wants to use the government to reinvent the country, and given his lackluster support of gay rights and other economic and liberal social causes I hold dear, I am terrified of how he might reinvent the country. I like John Edwards populism, but he seems to lack the leadership necessary to put his populist ideas into practical, working policies. Hillary, on the other hand, is both brilliant, tough, has been better on gay rights (while she has made a few gaffes, I think those were more public statements so she doesn't get killed in an election - afterall most of the country doesn't think highly of us, so I can't blame her), better on social causes, better on woman's issues, would pick better Supremes, and uses targeted ecnomic policies that affect actual people's lives. Plus, Billy would be back in the White House. Come on, you can't deny it wouldn't be a riot to have Billy has the first First Husband :-)

Anyway, I have to run off to start training the new people. But make sure to check the news tonight for the results! (Though, to prevent any IQ point less, please stick to the results only and ignore all the political commentary...on the off chance someone actually discusses the candidates different views on economic policies, healthcare, social security, etc. then by all means listen, but I find that kind of coverage doubtful tonight) New Hampshire will follow-up in just a few days!

2008

It’s the first official work day of the new year and I’m soooo happy that it falls on hump day – halfway through the work week!

New years this year was pretty great. Nick got back to Bostonlast Sunday after visiting his family for awhile. We had some much needed QT and began prepping for the new years celebrations as I had to work the Eve day. For new years eve my Boston straight couple, Chris and Maureen, stopped by the apartment, along with Nick’s best friend and one of the Roommate’s friends. I made my stuffed bread to serve as an app along with cheese & crackers and the veggie platter Nick made. Of course this was served with a nice side of vodka/beer/wine, guest choice. Dinner was Chicken Parm and dessert was apple pie brought by the straight couple. It was really great to spend some lowkey time with Chris and Maureen. Maureen does not live in Boston so I don’t get to see anywhere near as often as I would like, so being able to spend time just hanging out enjoying drinks and catching up on life is always a welcome treat. Plus, I love hearing about their wedding plans (soooo excited for their wedding!).

Anyway, we left the apartment around 11 to head out to Bob & Co.’s party. It was great to see everyone there and it’s always great to go to a good party, with lots of ‘mos, that is entirely drama free. Smiles has been with his boyfriend for a couple of months now and they are incredibly cute together. I couldn’t be happier for him, he’s such a sweet guy and I’m so happy he found another good guy to be with. Nick’s and my favorite gay married couple were there, along with all of our other really good friends. It made for a very fun night with an incredible midnight kiss.

New Years Day was the perfect post-party day. Nick and I sat in sweats all day on the couch eating our way through leftovers, watching movies, and reading/lowkey research. We ended the day around a Christmas tree with glasses of wine, Home Alone, and gingerbread house construction. The Roommate was ever so kind as to mime vomiting throughout the day at our antics. A year ago I would have been right alongside him enacting the same “its so cute I’m ill” – how things have changed, for the better (like I’ve said, I really lucked out with this guy).

Anyway, I’m dreading hitting the gym tonight because I know it is going to be crowded with dozens of people full of new year resolutions. And while I find it admirable and an excellent choice to start making healthy lifestyle changes…it drives me nuts because no one knows what they’re doing, they take forever, and 90% of them won’t be there in a month. Here’s to hoping they all manage to learn quickly and can stick with their resolutions! And hopefully none of them get out of work before 5:30 ;-p I am starting my new lifting schedule today in the hopes that it cuts back on the amount of time I’m in the gym while not affecting any gains. So hopefully that goes as smoothly as I am willing it to go.

Speaking of resolutions…I have yet to make mine. I thought of making a resolution to eat more fruit, but Nick will be more than enough of a nagger (in a good way) to force me to eat them. So I’ll try to work on that. Anyhow – watch for the Iowa Caucus tomorrow and keep your fingers crossed for Hillary!

Happy New Year!

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy and drunken new year's eve! And to dwell on the superb performance of the Giants against the Pats on Saturday. Sure they didn't win, but they put up quite the enexpected fight. Well done! And, of course, BC won it's eighth straight bowl game! Did I mention that it was the longest bowl streak in the nation? GO EAGLES!

Happy New Year!

You wouldn't believe it's illegal

The holidays have dramatically affected my blogging time, I promise the new year will bring about many more posts. With an election year starting next week I thought it would be fun to examine the idiotic laws our representatives spend their time passing. And no, it's no coincidence that I focus on the South. Happy New Year all!

Alabama

1. Bear wrestling matches are prohibited.
2. It is illegal to impersonate a person of the clergy.
3. Dominoes may not be played on Sunday.
4. Putting salt on a railroad track may be punishable by death.
5. It is illegal to wear a fake moustache that causes laughter in church.
6. Boogers may not be flicked into the wind.
7. It is legal to drive the wrong way down a one-way street if you have a lantern attached to the front of your automobile.

Kansas

1. Rabbits may not be shot from motorboats.
2. Pedestrians crossing the highways at night must wear tail lights.
3. No one may catch fish with his bare hands.
4. The state game rule prohibits the use of mules to hunt ducks.
5. If two trains meet on the same track, neither shall proceed until the other has passed.

Oklahoma

1. One may not promote a "horse tripping event".
2. It is illegal for the owner of a bar to allow anyone inside to pretend to have sex with a buffalo.
3. Females are forbidden from doing their own hair without being licensed by the state.
4. Dogs must have a permit signed by the mayor in order to congregate in groups of three or more on private property.
5. Whaling is illegal. (are there any whales in oklahoma???)
6. It is illegal to have the hind legs of farm animals in your boots.
7. People who make "ugly faces" at dogs may be fined and/or jailed.
8. Cars must be tethered outside of public buildings.
9. Oral sex is a misdemeanor and is punisable by one year in jail and a $2,500 fine. (could our prison system actually handle that one???)
10. Fish may not be contained in fishbowls while on a public bus.

Texas

1. One must acknowledge a supreme being before being able to hold public office.
2. A program has been created in the state that attempts to control the weather.
3. It is illegal to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing
4. Up to a felony charge can be levied for promoting the use of, or owning more than six dildos.
5. It is illegal for one to shoot a buffalo from the second story of a hotel.
6. It is illegal to milk another person's cow.
7. A recently passed anticrime law requires criminals to give their victims 24 hours notice, either orally or in writing, and to explain the nature of the crime to be committed.
8. The entire Encyclopedia Britannica is banned in Texas because it contains a formula for making beer at home. (That explains so much about our President)

Georgia

1. The term "sadomasochistic abuse" is defined so broadly, that it could possibly be applied to a person handcuffing another in a clown suit.
2. All sex toys are banned.
3. It is illegal to use profanity in front of a dead body which lies in a funeral home or in a coroners office.
4. Members of the state assembly cannot be ticketed for speeding while the state assembly is in session.
5. Donkeys may not be kept in bathtubs.
6. No one may carry an ice cream cone in their back pocket if it is Sunday.

Kentucky

1. One may not dye a duckling blue and offer it for sale unless more than six are for sale at once.
2. Throwing eggs at a public speaker could result in up to one year in prison.

Tennessee

1. You can't shoot any game other than whales from a moving automobile. (again with the whales)
2. Hollow logs may not be sold.
3. "Crimes against nature" are prohibited
4. Ministers are to be dedicated to God and therefore are not eligible to hold a seat in either House of the Legislature.
5. Any person who participates in a duel may not hold any public office in the state.
6. Giving and receiving oral sex is still prohibited by law.
7. Stealing a horse is punishible by hanging.
8. No Christian parent may require their children to pick up trash from the highway on Easter day.
9. It is legal to gather and consume roadkill.
10. The definition of "dumb animal" includes every living creature.
11. Interracial marriages are illegal.
12. Tattooing a minor is a misdemeanor.
13. Skunks may not be carried into the state.

Thanks www.dumblaws.com

Merry Christmas!!!

Catching up

In what has been a continuing and annoying theme in my recent blog posts…work has been crazy. So I’m just going to gloss over it and be thankful professional school is right around the corner. Anyhow…last weekend was the annual celebration of the escape from the womb. Though, at 26, with 10 years of school ahead of me, I was less in the mood to celebrate this year compared to past birthdays (not that I’ve ever been a fan of the bday). Not too sure why, but I think the whole wanting to move forward with life, career, stop renting, getting rid of student loans (instead of taking out 200K more), etc. has been weighing unexpectantly heavily on my mind lately. Ah well, I’ll live.

So Greysday last Thursday was altered a bit to include my bday. And then Friday, Nick surprised me with an excellent night out. We stopped at Vox for some amazing appetizers (coconut grilled  scallops – a favorite) and fantastic white cranberry martinis (seasonal and highly recommended if anyone can get to Vox). From there we trekked through the leftover snow to get to Turner’s Fisheries, one of my favorite seafood restaurants in

Boston

. We had the best waiter, though his pressured speech indicated a number of psychiatric disorders, but he was fun, attentive, and best of all, gave us free samples of chowder :-) We had one of the best dirty martinis with bleu cheese stuffed olives I’ve ever had. Overall one of the best bday nights I’ve had. Oh yea, can’t forget to mention how Nick used this opportunity in his continuing effort to reform my wardrobe…and I’m actually starting to like it ;-p

Saturday the family drove up and bought me some much needed groceries. We then hung out around my apartment with some Christmas music, wine, and cheese. I couldn’t help but notice that my parents got me a gift card to Banana…perhaps they have gone over to the dark side and joined Nick in his reform effort. Nick and the roommate joined in the wine and cheese bday/Christmas celebration (Jared’s rule #1 for his bday – Christmas spirit must be expressed). The fam, Nick, the roommate, and I then grabbed a few cabs for Sibling Rivalry, which I knew my chef brother would love, for dinner. We stopped at the bar while waiting for our table and enjoyed the many varied seasonal martinis they offered (Apple cider, etc.). We split some great apps and the meals were amazing. Def worth a trip. We then stopped back at my apartment where mom had made a khalua chocolate birthday cake (which I proceed to finish all day on Sunday).

Overall exactly the kind of bday I wanted this year.

And now we’re on the road to Christmas! Yesterday was the work Christmas dinner, tonight is the nutcracker with Nick, and tomorrow night Nick and I are doing our own Christmas night since he is leaving on Friday for 10 days (way too long) to see his family (can’t really blame him for that).

6 Days!!!

Friday Overheard

Some Overheardinnewyork to help pass this snowy Friday afternoon.

Happy Friday Everyone!

Man #1: It seems my first wife put my name down on a job application as a reference.

Man #2: Oh, yeah? How do you know?

Man #1: Somebody called me yesterday and asked, 'Can you tell us something about her?'

Man #2: What did you say?

Man #1: I said, 'She can't cook and she's lousy in bed! As long as the job don't require that, I guess she'd be good.'

Man #2: What an idiot!

Conductor: You know what stop this is?

Alabaster college prep:

Harlem

?

Conductor: Mmm-hm... Hope you find what you're looking for, son.

Queer: So he showed up at the store in a t-shirt and towel and asked for Butt Paste!

Queer to approaching fag hag: Hi! Oh my god, you really do look like a suicide victim!

Teen queer to friends: Hey! Tell pickle-juice-titties to come on! We gettin' up out this faggot function.

Little boy shaking his hips: Tryin' make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no! [Later, to woman behind register] Do you have Rugrats Gone Wild?

Skinny girl: Okay, just because I only eat every two days doesn't mean I'm anorexic.

Junkie: Hey. Hey. What's with all the ones? Are you a stripper? [Busy guy on phone doesn't reply.] Hey, I'm talking to you! [Busy guy is oblivious, so junkie addresses bar] You know what? Nothing is worse than being ignored! You know what?! I used to fuck guys like him in prison!

Girlfriend: I don't know what's wrong with me lately. I just keep falling asleep at the oddest times. I think I may be suffering from necrophilia.

Boyfriend: I sure hope you mean narcolepsy.

Girlfriend: Oh, yeah. I always get those confused.

Boyfriend: Well, as long as it's only the definitions that you confuse and not the symptoms...

Thin woman: I'm on a hundred and eighty milligrams of meth right now!

Portly man: Oh, man, if only I knew what I was on.

Chick #1: So I came home last weekend, and I saw that my dad had organized my vibrators.

Chick #2: By color or shape?

Chick #1: Color.

Wife, playing Uno: Skip, skip, skip, skip, wild card, draw four, blue, draw two, uno, I win.

Husband: Wow. I'm bleeding.

Wife: I hope it's from the ass, because that's where I just raped you.

Husband: God, I love you.

BTW

The most amazing online find - hilarious! - courtesy of fitnessnerd

SNOW! :-)

6-10 inches of snow tonight! SOOOO excited!!!

Without a doubt tonight is a night to make dinner, sit by the lit tree, consider testing out my apartment's fire place, grab a glass of wine, and watch Home Alone.

Weather like this around Christmas makes me feel like a little kid again and I'm going to eat up every minute of it...especially with the bday coming up this weekend, I'm very much in the mood to embrace my childhood. And nothing makes me feel carefree and happy like Christmas :-)

Sadly for me, while many businesses let their employees out early when there is a snow emergency, hospitals are not a business. Even more unfortunately for me, none of my patients are going to venture out in weather like this, cutting out 70% of my job responsibilities...I guess I"ll just have to work on my Facebook Scrabble skills so I won't lose by like 150 points the next time Nick and I play...damn him...;-p

Long overdue update

Alright, I’m going to try to cover the last two weeks-ish without writing a post that takes an hour to read. So let’s start in and around the 30^th of November…yea, way back.

So that Friday night was a long overdue dinner night in the north end (yep, excellent chicken pesto, cannolis, and tiramisu – total fat kid food but ohhhh so amazing) with Nick and the BFL. Button and Marie picked up a cat since I last saw them, snowflake, who, like all cats, is an evil spawn of satan, but does seem to have finally put their mouse/rat problem to rest…literally. I briefly debated getting over my hatred of the furry animals in the hope that they might eliminate my mouse problem as well, but alas Nick is allergic so I am free to continue with my unjustified distaste of felines. We ended the night with a cappuccino stop at Café Vitoria to visit his roommate. Italian nights like this make me really miss my old-fashioned Italian grandmother’s cooking. Yum.

Saturday The roommate, Nick, and I stopped by our old neighbor’s new condo to celebrate K’s birthday. Our old neighbors are universally agreed to be the most fun gay couple living in Boston, and their wine and cheese party would put Martha Stewart to shame. They had the most amazing inexpensive Riesling I’ve had to date and some amazing munchies. Their new condo is amazing, perfectly decorated, and really just a great move for them. Nick and I then left the party a little early to meet up with one of his friends I hadn’t yet met to celebrate his birthday. We missed the pre-bar party and met them out at Club Cafe where Nick and I realized we had consumed far more wine than we realized and limited ourselves to only one drink at CC. Nick’s friends were very cool, and, as always, I love meeting people important to him in his life.

I wasn't going to mention BC's lost in the ACC championship to the brats at VTech...but it def was a downer earlier in the day on Saturday. So let's leave it at that.

Last work week was…well…ridiculous. Yep, that’s it. Our internet went out and because I’m the person who is stupid enough to always try and pitch in and problem solve things, this became my problem. Lucky me. So I sat on the phone with technician after technician all week, about 4 hours a day (thank God for speakerphone), they kept saying a tech was on his way to our clinic to fix the problem, tech never showed up, I yelled, new tech was sent, never showed up, I bitched out a manager, tech showed up. Problem solved. And this did not at all help me complete or catch up on any admin work and very much complicated my patient visits. Alas, such is life when you work with a group of patients that no one else cares about except those treating them because there’s no money to be made in doing it. Sad really.

That leads us up to one of my favorite events of the year – our annual wine and cheese party. What started out as a small gathering of 5 or so friends has grown to number about 40+ friends. The roommate made his famous cookies, I made my famous stuffed breads, homemade truffles, 7 layer cookies, and brownies. Sadly, the need to get the cooking done on Friday so the truffles could be refrigerated overnight precluded me from enjoying a Friday night out (and Nick was in the midst of studying for finals), so that left me home alone, cooking, with a bottle of Riesling, Mariah Carey, and Christmas movies. Which sounds sad, but was actually rather fun…if only because I love the wine and cheese event so much. Saturday the roommate and I crawled out of bed early to hit the gym before trekking out to Trader Joe’s to buy the remainder of the food (veggies, hummus, crackers, cheese, etc) and then getting ourselves a Christmas Tree. In what was a stunning display of organization and time management, we had the tree up and decorated by 1pm, remaining food cooked, the apartment cleaned, showered, clothes picked out and ironed, vodka and wine chilled, playlist ready to go, and it was only 6pm. Two hours before anyone would show up. So we watched Home Alone :-) Everyone started showing up at 8 and I believe the last person left around 1. Nick and I found ourselves in accidentally matching outfits, which led to numerous Doublemint twin jokes and cute photos (to be uploaded). The music was great, everyone loved the food, there was plenty of booze, a healthy dose of inappropriateness (as always when you mix ~35 some odd gays with only a taken handful or two of straights), we got to meet Smiles’ new boyfriend (who seems really great), and everyone basically had a great time. I then proceeded to wake up around 12:30 the next day in the most pain I have been in since my freshman year of college. Nick was an incredible boyfriend and helped my roommate clean up while I lay half-dead (and the roommate was pretty great in not complaining once) and even ran out to pick up some Gatorade and Advil. I then spent the rest of the day on the couch, eating leftover cheese and fruit, while watching the West Wing. Damn I love Christmas :-)

And last night I went out with my boss and the new co-workers for dinner and drinks for Christmas. We actually all had a really great time. Though as always Jazzy (my old co-worker who is as much a Christmas addict as me), it's not like Christmas at all, Cuz I remember when you were here, And all the fun we had last year.