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I have so much I could write about that it has actually kept me from writing anything at all. Well, that and I have the flu.
- Can you imagine how much Cher Thursday I have to catch up on?!? Cher in a musical with Christina (thanks greg.. and what!what!squared!) Chastity now Chaz! This is some big news and all of it quite exciting.
- I saw Marcus for the first time in 8 months a few nights ago. He is easy to pick out being tailless, and he is bigger and fluffier than ever. It made my heart swell to see him so healthy and as happy as a raccoon can present himself. He strut (is ’strut’ the past tense for ’strut’? Strutted? Strought? This fever is getting me) through our back yard at dusk like a man on a mission, huffing like a big ol’ tough guy. It was great to see. He even stopped to pee on his (and now the Seal’s) favorite tree to pee on.
- Fraidy has 5 new fish friends that Violet paid way too much for at a charity auction. I will get some photos up soon and see if you all have any name suggestions. So far there is Goldy and Lox but three no names and I could use some help with that.
- Zoe’s mom passed away about a week ago and I have no idea what to say about that yet, if ever. Not sure I will say anything but that it has been hard. Really hard. For a lot of people.
- I was in MiddleofNowhere California last week and after a few drinks at a motel bar I ended up on stage singing happy birhday to a woman that I had known for all of 5 hours. Her speaking voice sounded just like Dolly Parton and I just couldn’t get enough of her. (Yes, I kicked in a little of my best Cher towards the end). That was a good time… until the next day.
- It is pride weekend and Violet has never been to one before. She asked me what I was going to dress up as and I replied, “Um, me.” She then asked how to register to be a dyke on a bike. I explained that the bike in this situation is not actually the kind of bike she has but that motorcycle doesn’t rhyme with dyke, hence the slogan’s usage of the word ‘bike’. She was fairly disappointed but went right back to the ‘well then, what costumes should we wear?’ conversation. Um, seriously. No.
- Last night I met a woman that is a veterinarian… for elephants. ELEPHANTS. Ummmm yes, what you just read is correct. I am totally infatuated with this woman’s career at present and am scheming up ways to try and make her think I am half as cool as she so that maybe we can hang out again. My two very favorite animals on earth ever (besides the Seal) are elephants and octopi. I could go on and on… and on about this, like I did last night with the rad elephant vet lady, but I wont here. Right now at least.
- At present, like I mentioned, I have the flu (ah! that is why this post is so flat and without personality, you say? Yes. That is why.) and I am hoping to find enough energy to participate in the gay weekend with mild flare at least, sans costume. I will let you know.
The catch-up-with-my-blog-list goes on and on, but as this flu has zapped my ability to sound even remotely interesting, I will leave it like this for now.
Happy gay Friday.
I went to bed last night with this nagging feeling that I might die. Not that I would die, but that I might.
I know I’ll die, of course I do. Of course I will. But minus a few exciting moments in my life I don’t regularly consider this as an impending situation for myself. Last night, as I lay next to Violet, who was sound asleep by hours already, I battled a few different philosophies around the idea of dying and somehow fell fast asleep.
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I am allergic to bees. Very allergic. If the allergist who discovered this for me read my blog he might have said I was ‘allergic-squared’ because I am. But instead he said I was ‘off the charts’ allergic. I have only known this for less than two years now and so my relationship with bees, which has always been a bit odd anyway, has shifted.
I am a gardener by trade and by passion and so I spend quite a bit of time with bees. I still love them and find them more fascinating and beautiful than most animals (octopi and elephants also making the list of top-animal-awe). I understand that bees do more good for the world than I could ever thank them for – but there is this new twist to it now. If one of them, just one, just any ol’ bee, for whatever reason, was to sting me – who knows- and that scares me in the same way that all of those things that could, but haven’t, and probably won’t, but could, things scare me. It ’s peripheral, but it’s there.
Most days I have a pocket full of Benadryl and an Epi Pen in my bag, just in case. And when they are buzzing around I am still not afraid of them really, they’re just doing their thing and I know that, but I’m obviously more on guard than I use to be. But we still get on together as a pretty strong team: I weed, sculpt, tend to and water the earth around their flowers, plants and berries while they pollinate and flourish the colors and fruits and buds into their fullest, illuminated ability. Not a bad team, right?
But I do, and have always had, this odd relationship with bees, that for the most part I think would be too hard to explain. But quite simply, I’ll be, or the bee will be, in the strangest of places for a bee to be – and still somehow, there will be me and a bee.
I have been on an 60 story elevator ride alone with a bee. I recently found a dead bee in the bag I took to work each day. A bee and I once drove through 4 different states together without my knowing (until it left me at a rest stop in Tennessee). I once walked an entire block, covered in a foot of snow, with a bee buzzing at my feet like an obedient pet the whole way. Maybe these don’t sound that odd, but my strange bee moments have been frequent and always notable and make room for pause, like, ‘hey there little bee, what are you doing here?’ And now that I am knowingly quite allergic, I ask this with a bit more concern tucked into my wonder.
- – - – - – - -
So, yesterday (ah, the point to all of this!) Violet went to take a quick mid-day nap when all of a sudden I heard, “jeeeeeessseeeee!” in a sleepy-sweet and mildly alarmed tone. I went upstairs assuming I would be removing a spider or something and I walked in to our bedroom to find this not-so-little bee sleeping oh so soundly right in the middle of my pillow.
I went downstairs to get a jar to catch it and put it outside but when I got back upstairs the bee was gone. We both timidly looked for the bee for a while. I checked behind picture frames and drawers while Violet combed the bed. No bee.
What bothered me the most was how the bee got in the house – in our bedroom. No windows have been open in quite some time and we just couldn’t figure it out.
As soon as we gave up looking and I had already decided that I would sleep on the couch that night, there, two steps in front of me was the not-so-little bee, sitting as properly as the Seal does when she wants something, just staring at me. We caught it, put it out side and got on with our day.
It wasn’t until I went to bed last night that I started to wonder again, how in the world that bee got inside. And why was it on my pillow? All of a sudden I was overwhelmed with this fear that the bee on my pillow was a prelude or foreshadowing to something and I really scared myself. What if I had just lay my head on that bee sleeping on my pillow? What if there were more bees in the room, even just one more – and I fell asleep and was stung? Would it wake me up? Would I sleep right through? It was amazing really, to think, to all of a sudden realize, how fragile it all is. One little bee, me and a sting. Done. I think it eventually all felt too easy, too unbelievable that I exhausted myself and somehow fell asleep.
I woke up, obviously, and am just a little more aware of myself today than yesterday. Violet is almost annoyed with all of the kisses but happy to have come home to her favorite dinner and dessert, all home made. My grandma, my mom, my dad, my brother, an old friend and Ruth were all happy to hear from me, but curious.
No catch, just glad to be here.
3 a.m.
my brain: “Can’t sleep, can’t sleep. Must sleep, must sleep… What to do? Hmm, Violet is lookin’ mighty pretty…”
5 minutes later
my brain: “Fail. Oh well, just try to sleep.”
6:45 a.m.
Alarm goes off. I roll over to cuddle with Violet.
Violet: “Were you seriously trying to seduce me at 3 in the morning?!?”
Me: “Baby, I have neeeeeeeeeeds.”
Violet: “Well, you neeeeeeeed to get your neeeeeeeeeds to neeeeeeeeed at a reasonable hour!”
(As Cher has Vegas Throat and has cancelled 6 shows, I too am letting her off the hook for her Cherthursday slot on jljj this week. Rest up Cher, we love you. )
———-
Together, Violet and I are in a double-drama relationship. We, the king and queen of our own personal Dramaland are most definitely drama-squared. I have seen different combos of drama and non-drama in relationships and my preference has always been at least one drama king/queen but never none and sometimes two is fun… dramatic, but fun, none the less. We are both completely aware of our dramatic nature and will gladly admit to these titles (except for when we won’t, but that is just us being dramatic).
For the most part I find it entertaining, except for when it’s not. Like last night when we both got all comfy in our bed and Violet wouldn’t stop shivering while I contended that we were going to die in our sleep of hypothermia if we didn’t put another blanket on the bed and close the windows.
But here is where double-drama doesn’t work, or maybe this is where it is working at its dramatic best: both of us refused to get up and do anything about it. Why? Because we both competitively claimed that we were the most comfortable we had ever been in our lives and if we got up right then we would be ruining the best moment of comfort ever felt by a human being in the history of the whole world.
Finally, Violet’s shivering, now accompanied by teeth chattering and irregular breathing, irritated me enough to give in and get up. I threw the covers off of me like I was in battle with them, heavily stomped down the stairs, banging and clanging things that had nothing to do with finding a blanket, stomped back up the stairs, flipped on the bedroom light (admittedly over-the-top rude), tossed the blanket on the bed with these caveman grunts, like putting this blanket on the bed was incredibly taxing and pushing my physical capability over the top, flopped back into bed like a scuba diver flops into the ocean off the boat, tossed around fluffing pillows and such until I was sure Violet was annoyed and then said, “Well, thanks to me we’re not going to die in our sleep.” And Violet said, “Of hypothermia, anyway. You really drive me nuts. And I love you. ”
And then I put my arm around her and off to dreamland we went.
Dear, sweet jljj readers,
Due to a few comments and emails I think I unintentionally confused (worried?) a few of you, which was not my intention.
To clarify: The unidentified smokin’ hot girl mentioned in my last post was in fact Violet.
I don’t mean to squash the mystery here either, but, rest assured that I would not and will not be accepting undergarments from any other.
-jj-
I’m a few hours away from leaving for my vacation with Ruth. I have made the bold choice to go on this vacation sans computer. I want to see what time away from staring at this screen may or may not do for my soul (is it really sucking it out or does it just feel that way? We shall see). Not to say I won’t jump at the chance if there happens to be free internet somewhere along the way. But, in case there isn’t, and I am internet-sober for this entire trip, you may not hear anything from me for a week or so.
This also means that the staff here at jljj is off the hook for a bit too. Violet, Fraidy, Marcus and the Seal can all rest assured that any and all follies, cute gesture, slip ups, and pooping of clothing will go undocumented for a brief bit of time. Is this to their relief or less reason to get up in the morning? They will have to figure that out and let me know. Regardless, I will be back soon and will promptly begin to overly observe and document my little family… and then, I’ll blog about it all… like I do.
And just remember, although Thursday may come and go a few times, Cher loves you.
Violet is on the east coast. They needed the big boss over in Boston for business, and so off she went. I’m following her tonight, on a red eye, for pleasure. No, we’re not sneaking away to get married. We wouldn’t do that. I want the center stage of it all and she wants the gifts. Eloping offers neither. A little shallow? A little showy? Maybe. The point is, unlike my parents’ sneaking suspicion for this random get away together, we’re not off to get hitch. Not.
Violet called this morning, while i was still sound asleep, or should I say, while I was still thinking with my eyes closed:
me: Hello?
V: jesse.
me: Ya?.
V: You are my girlfriend.
me: I know.
V: Ok then, little sleepy shrimp mushroom jessaronie bologna man, talk to you later.
::click::
I got caught looking at cleavage. And I mean caught. So caught. Caught squared. And (here’s where you throw up your hands and stop listening) I didn’t mean to. Jerry Seinfeld taught me years ago that “looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun.” YOU NEVER LOOK DIRECTLY AT IT. You look a little to the side and then away. Repeat as necessary.
Violet and I were at a bakery. While sipping coffee, enjoying pastries and each other’s company, I took a bite of my croissant, turned my head right as this woman was walking by our table. I was sitting, she was standing. There was no escape, really. My direct line of vision was totally bombarded by boobs. And as my line of vision did start somewhere in the midsection, as it proceeded to work its way up to the eyes, it got a little tripped up by this dangly, wrap around shirt thing that was barely, barely hanging on. And so I got stuck there for a second. A mere second. But by the time I made it all the way up to the eyes, fully prepared to offer that friendly ‘oh, hello’ grin, she shot this look like, ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ Followed by this, ‘I am so disappointed in you’ head shake.
And seriously, I’ve been avoiding direct cleavage glances for decades now. And I’m usually pretty stealth. I should have known better. I could have done better. But I didn’t. So, all I could offer was a tucked tail as I made my last attempt at redemption and tried to pretend like I was actually just looking at the bin of dirty dishes next to her. Um, fail.
So then, just to keep myself in a downward spiral of white-tall-femme-is-wrong-with-you-dude, I waited for the woman to leave and then immediately told Violet what had just happened. (Some of you are probably pulling your hair out, yes?) Sometimes that line of girlfriend and best friend gets a little foggy… or something. But basically I ended up with two women shaking their heads at me in total disapproval within minutes of each other.
And as I continued to try and explain myself to Violet I suddenly realized that I was doing that thing where you’re leaving a voicemail and something goes wrong so you try to fix it by over-explaining, only to work yourself deeper into that dark hole of why-haven’t-you-shut-the-fuck-up-yet? So, mid-sentence I just stopped. We both continued to sip coffee and chit chat. And then, I leaned in and quietly said, “I love yours the most though.”
Dude. Seriously. Shut up.
Dear Violet,
3 years ago today, in a few hours exactly, I met you. And the only reason we met is because your friends dragged you out to a bar while you were in town for the weekend and I was there, randomly, from out of town too. I saw you walk in. Without the ability to avoid clichés or mush here, all of a sudden all of the space in between us felt empty. I had to meet you. Had. To. You were the prettiest girl in the room.
Eventually, I found my nerve at the bottom of a beer bottle and asked you to dance. And we danced. Twice. I caught your name, touched your tummy briefly (score!) and then your grumpy, grouchy, scowl-faced, party pooper friend made you leave. I (very seriously) considered locking my arms around your ankles to make you stay, but the floor was sticky and that grossed me out. Also, that would have been creepy and not cute (there is such a fine line between romantic and totally creepy sometimes, but not here).
I asked for your number and you gave me a funny look. You had never done that before. With a bit of reluctance you scratched around on an empty matchbook. You gave it back with some stuff scratched out and some numbers scratched in. I dialed the numbers the next day and it turned out to be a real phone number. I wanted to hang out with you before you left town. You didn’t want to. Whatever.
I called you again a few weeks later on your birthday and we talked. You called me the next day and we talked some more. I called you the day after that and we talked. All of a sudden we were talking every evening, usually for hours, a few states apart, until one of our phone batteries died or one or both of us fell asleep.
It quickly came to be that talking to you was what I looked forward to most in my days. Somewhere in most of our conversations you’d to insist that we wouldn’t know each other for very long. You’d say, “jesse, let’s just be real about this for a second. We’re not even going to know each other a month from now.” I continued to insist that I felt differently but regardless, “I’ll’ take the time we have now and never complain.” And then we’d move on. Again and again… and again.
3 months later you came to visit me. We spent a few weeks together and it was kind of like a two week long first date. It was magic. The whole thing. The whole time. You were, again without the possibility to avoid mush, the single most unbelievably amazing human being I had ever run into… ever. The fact that I was falling in love with you was unstoppable, undeniable and it was something I tried really hard to keep down while you were around. Full knowing that after our two week date ended you’d be catching a flight to France – for a year… at least. And you did.
You called me when you got to Paris and told me that the hickey I had left on your neck was not cool. This is true. Hickies can be pretty gross. Sorry about that. Good that it was cold and that you love to wear scarves. I called you the next day. And the next. And all of a sudden we were tens of thousands of miles apart and I was still spending more time with you than with anyone else. We emailed, wrote letters and talked on the phone – a lot.
I came to visit you a few months later. And when I very awkwardly asked you, late one night, in that tiny little French kitchen, if you wanted to be my girlfriend you giggled and said, ‘ok.’ Just like that. Ok then.
After I got back I spent my summer running around trying to get a scholarship to study in your little French town. I got the scholarship and then I got sick. It was a devastating roadblock, but that’s all it was, a block.
I flew to see you again 4 months later for a few weeks. We overbooked and overextended ourselves into a foggy exhaustion – and then I flew home. It was a whirlwind trip and it tested our relationship immensely. And we passed. Beautifully.
Two Novembers ago you flew into Seattle to maybe possibly live here, maybe. We agreed that we would have our own places but that you would stay with me until you settled in. You settled in alright. Eventually we found a place for all of your stuff in my place and that place became our place.
This winter we found a little bigger place to move into, together, and we did. And now you, the Seal, Fraidy, (sometimes Marcus) and I have a home. Together. And I know you think we don’t have a very good shot of getting into the New York Times Wedding Page, but it’s not a bad story, Violet. And this is only year three. Today. Right now. That’s not bad, baby. Not bad at all.
Happy anniversary. And thanks… for, you know, everything.
My intention to spend most of my weekend with the fish happened… for 15 minutes on Friday. The rest of the weekend was a creative combination of total chaos and dreamy moments of lazily lying around with Violet and the Seal on warm, sunny beaches. The moments of complete chaos were short lived and far enough between that the recovery time of lying around in the sun with Violet tucked into me while I threw the ball over and over… and over, for the Seal to swim to and fetch feels like the majority of my moments. But the majority of the reason for feeling so utterly exhausted still come from the several fleeting moments of White-Tall-Femme-is-going-on-here?, all of which the Seal hand delivered.
We were house sitting for some friends this weekend. Friends with chickens and goats and a cat. And due to the extent in which detail would be exhaustingly necessary I really don’t have the energy to try and recreate the whole weekend. Let’s just say that the Seal’s new nickname is chicken-chasing- cat-licking-goat teasing-couch pissing- bread-stealing-deadly-killer-Seal-pup.
You could fill in your own interpretation [here] and no matter what order or exact scenario you come up with, if it involves a lot of desperate squawking, a few rolls of paper towels, goats refusing to milk, and having to go out to breakfast due to the slobbery in house options, you are very, very close, if not right on.
As we were driving home late Sunday evening Violet said, “You know, maybe we need to drive by the pound every once in a while. Slowly. Just to remind her.”
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