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(In order to preserve and maintain the high level of faggy queerness that I have very intentionally injected into this series, please click on the video below and count to fifteen before reading the final credits – it is just so gay and perfect that way, trust me.)
. . . . .
…And like every adventure that ever was, eventually there is – The End -
. . . . .
Tour of Fabulous: Final Credits (in order of appearance):
The oh so amazing and lovely, long time leading lady: Violet
My four legged shadow: the Seal
The reason I didn’t miss my flight: The SeaTac TSA lady that kind of hated me
Red backpack: As itself
Best hair product in the world: Not telling
Sexy smooth dude/ Ol’ school best buddy: Sinclair Sexsmith
Sweet girl that put up with Sin and me all week: Kristen
Partner in many a late night crimes, one of my very favorites, Park Slope pool survivor: Mikey
Crowd of fabulous on Friday night: Everyone that did not try to beat me up
Pool shark: Barb
Pool shark’s drunk friend: Suz
Very cool dude who threw an awesome party: JessHeIs
Lady who hypnotized me with her eyes and then fed me breakfast: Tina-cous
Snazziest dressed (by a long shot) at Jess’ party: Dr. Leo MacCool
Wonderful, sweet new friend willing to talk with me all night long: Freedomgirl
Doppelganger-Shane from the L-word: the DJ at Jess’ party
Lovely girl behind those green eyes: greg
greg’s dress: As itself
New long distance bff: greg’s girlfriend
. . . . .
TOF Director: Sinclair Sexsmith
TOF Producer: jesse james
TOF Executive Producer: the Seal
TOF Editor: Fraidy Phat the Fish
TOF Fact Verifier: Marcus the Raccoon
“Tour of Fabulous” Title Credit and Most Missed Blogger: Lady Brett
Onset Chef and Makeup Artist: Kristen
Windsor Tie Knot Maker and Hair Validator to jesse james: Sinclair Sexsmith
Cherday Sponsor: Thursday
(endless) Support Crew: Violet
Best Boy Grip: That’s what she said
*A special thanks to Sinclair Sexsmith, one of my very favorite people on earth, for putting me up and putting up with me for a week. You are a host with the most and one of my favorite ways to spend my time. And to all of you along this amazing vacation adventure, thank you for being so kind and wonderful and welcoming. I am very lucky to have met you and to have you all in my world. And thank you all for getting through all four parts with no one screaming “LIAR! I can’t believe you just said that about me!”
I very much look forward to TOF: The Sequel.
with love, of course,
jesse james
Last weekend Violet, the Seal, a good friend and I went for a lovely hike in the woods. It was a perfect day, perfect temperature and with perfect company.
I have wanted to learn/do parkour for some time, which I have practiced a bit and to which Violet very much disapproves. Our agreement to date is that if and when I have really good insurance I can do “this parkour thing”. I do not have really great insurance as of now and therefor have not done any parkouring… except for that one little moment at the bottom of the hike.
There was this big slanted bolder thing about 100 feet from the trail head and on the way up my brain was screaming “Run up that thing like spider-man! Do it do it do it!!” But I didn’t. Because I, like oh so many, am presently uninsured (different post!).
On the way down from the hike, as we passed that perfectly steep and slanted bolder again and maybe for the last time in my whole entire life my brain was screaming, “Now! Now! Now! Go! Go! Go!” and all of a sudden I was running and crawling up this huge steep bolder thing like a fucking superhero! I stood at the top, grandly bowing at the applause going wild in my head. Our friend was totally impressed and I am not sure what Violet would say now, but I saw that look, at the time I’m pretty sure she thought it was cool.
Our friend tried a few times but wasn’t quite getting it so I decided to climb down and show her how-its-done.
I got to the last bit of the rock that I could actually stand on and took a bit of a jump down. I landed… oh so totally unparkourly… and landed myself a very serious ankle injury. For the last few days I have been calling it a sprain but as I still can’t walk I am starting to wonder/worry a bit that something might be broken (the insurance should come through any day now! *insecure laugh with fingers crossed*).
Violet has bit her tongue and has been nothing but a sexy sweet angel nurse who has been so incredibly caring and kind to her now mostly useless, fleeting-moment-now-turned-ex superhero partner.
All of this is to say I have been spending a lot of time on the couch staring at books, magazines, blogs and youtube. So, besides knowing everything there is to know about African elephants (seriously, ask me anything) my favorite find so far is this short little video. I can’t stop watching it.
If there was a 100% guarantee that I would have this kid exactly I would happily sit on this couch for another 9 months. And seriously, I am a convert at this point- take Violet’s advice on this one – “No insurance, well then, don’t act dumb… you can’t afford it.”
Violetta,
As I tuck in the newest netflix under my arm, ready to watch a two hour documentary on African elephants. As I grab my glass of wine and the Seal’s favorite toy. As the Seal rushes ahead of me on the stairwell, spilling most of my wine, almost knocking me down. As I make my way up the stairs and on to our couch, where you are already camped out, without complaint at yet another documentary about African elephants. As I sit there with a tummy full of food that you and I have grown together, watered together, tended together, picked together and cooked together. As I sit there already wishing for dessert, right when you say, “Hey, what if I made some hot fudge for that bit of ice cream we have left?” As I put the movie on pause and watch you sail down the stairs like a sugarplum fairy, hair flying behind you, and that smile of yours that only a dessert can create. As I sit there sipping what is left of the wine that the Seal just made me spill, while she circles around and around and around on the couch making her fake little nest, as she plops down and grunts, like she does, and rests her heavy head on my lap. As I sit there and stare at the map of the world on our wall. As I am in awe again, like I am each time I look at the amount of ocean that use to sit between us. As I stare at that ocean and hear you clink and clank pots and pans in the kitchen, not even 40 feet away. As you holler up to me, “Almost ready! Do you want me to make you one or do you want to do it?” As I realize how wonderful and fun everything is right now, as it tends to be these days, more than not. As I say back, “You do it. I’ll love it… and promise to keep it to myself if I don’t.” As you run back up the stairs with two bowls of ice cream covered in freshly made hot fudge and that oh so proud smile. As I go to take a bite. As the damn dog takes a big lick of the corner of my spoon. As you wince and I say, “You know I’ll still eat off of this.” As you remind me, once again, of all the gross things that the Seal has licked that is now most likely on the spoon I am about to use.
As I sit here and eat ice cream with the hot fudge you just made, with a spoon that has just been licked by our dog , while I push play and we watch a sunrise in Africa and the narrator begins to talk. As you tuck into my arm, covering the half of me and my lap that the Seal hasn’t claimed. As I sit here right now, with you, and now the Seal too, I want to say thank you for the last four years. You make everything worth it.
love,
jesse
How to make something for your girlfriend that includes: getting to be outside, playing in the dirt, getting to dig holes, requiring no more help than a Seal or misc. domestic animal can offer, hammering (you really don’t need to do this, but it can be worked in if you really want to) and ending up with something green, growing and tasty.
This is the herb garden I built for Violet while she was out of town a few weeks ago:
First, I followed where the sun hit our yard for a day and found this little section to be the sunniest.
You can’t really tell, but I dug down and turned the dirt (soil, if you will) about a foot and a half deep.
Found some scrap wood and built a simple frame (do not use pressurized wood for food garden beds- the chemicals in the wood will leach and you don’t want to eat that stuff). I also bought a bag of chicken poop to amend the soil a bit. Food loves to grow in chicken poop and chicken poop loves to help food grow. The Seal is totally bored.
Added herbs, watered em’ and voila.
About a month later:
(Want to build one or something similar and have questions? Just email me and I’ll help you out where I can.)
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.
- – - – - – -
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.
For over a week now I haven’t been able to find that little cord that connects my ipod to the computer. I have some new music that I am really excited about and a dead ipod and this disconnect has been driving me crazy. I have spent several hours looking in the same 10 places and each time – disappointment. It’s turned into that fridge scenario: When you’re hungry and you just keep opening the refrigerator door as if ‘poof’ a steaming plate of spaghetti will magically appear.
This morning in our mad dash to get ready for our respective jobs I busted into the bathroom, where Violet was, and said,”Sorry, Violet! But I just had a vision! I think that the connector thingy might be in this cabnit here…”
I shuffled through a few things on the top shelf and voila, there it was! (Why was it there? Don’t know and not the point!). I held it up, like the sword that had just been removed from the stone, and made applause noises for myself as I bowed.
“See, I told you Violet! I had a VISION.”
Looking a bit unimpressed she says, “Um, I think that is called a memory, but whatever, good for you. Now, get out of here, please.
Ah, sweet victory. Sweet victory indeed.
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-
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