EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW


1. My iBook has been in the shop. By “shop” I mean the Apple Store and by “iBook” I mean my Air Supply. I am a Computorholic, addicted to Computorhol. While it was being repaired, I pretended I was imprisoned on a Reality Show where you live like a Pilgrim without running water or Diet Coke with Lime. Damn you Spinning Wheel! I was forced to resort to other means of entertainment. What is this “so-called” magazine? From whence has it sprung? Why doesn’t pressing words on the pages link me to more information? Eventually, my spirit crushed, I resorted to reading books.

2. In 3 days, I read 3 books. I’m a fast reader due partially to practice but mostly because of my lifetime of impatience, the childhood need to know Why and What Happens. Stat!

The Da Vinci Code - I have rarely heard a book discussed so much that was so disappointing. Easy read : four hours. B Movie staples (dashingly handsome Professor/Old Things Expert investigates Ancient Mystery w/ Voluptuous Intellectual Babe) entwined with quasi-interesting moral questions. Questions which I apparently don’t find as Earth shattering as Everyone Else. Jesus Christ a mortal? No! You don’t say! Sceptical that this information would lead to the End of Life as We Know It, I decide to never turn Catholic.

Wicked - Brilliant retelling of The Wizard of Oz via The Wicked Witch of The West’s viewpoint and currently the basis for critically lauded Broadway Musical Wicked. Leaves TDVCode wandering in the literary desert. Also mucks around in Important Themes such as Good vs. Evil, Fate, blah blah blah. Plus the origin of the Ruby Slippers is revealed. (Spoiler - Not Payless) Follow this road.

Middlesex - Last but far from least. Funny, moving, not nearly as odd as you’d think a story about a hermaphrodite would be. In fact I suspect many will (if not should) be surprised at how universal certain yearnings and questions remain. Where does attraction begin? What does it even mean? Where is our idea of “self” conceived? I can not recommend it enough.

A thematic thread began as a lone string with TDVC and ended in the tapestry of Middlesex. Perhaps reading all of them in quick succession illuminated the connection. My departed friend Gary was an expert on American Indians (and once a curator at The Museum of The American Indian in NYC) and near the end of Middlesex is a section about what were called the berdash, crossdressing members of tribes who were regarded as magical shaman. He dictated many Journal Papers about the berdash to me as he lay dying and so I’m unnaturally educated about the berdash.

When I came to that section in Middlesex, I stopped and felt the thread through all 3 books tighten until it gently pulled my past across the open pages.

3. Alien. In thirty seconds. Re-enacted by bunnies.

4. I had car troubles Friday. They told me my Starter (?) was broken. (Tell me about it.) Saturday morning they declared my brakes were on the verge of failing and I was potentially in danger of plummeting to a dramatic and perhaps fiery death off the edge off a cliff due to my inability to stop. No kidding? Naturally it will cost zillions of dollars I barely have and I’m without transportation all weekend. Saturday afternoon, in a burst of unfortunate timing, Apple calls and says my computer has been repaired and ready for pickup.

I walk around the corner to my restaurant in hopes of throwing myself on the kindness of acquaintances to finagle a ride to the Apple Store. The Waiter I Hate (see last post) immediately volunteers. Obviously a) he doesn’t know I hate him and b) I can't hate him any longer which takes all the fun out of it. Judgements, I decide, are way overrated especially when I need something. I would have gladly performed several illegal acts to repay him but instead I treat him with unwavering interest in his Rock Star Ambitions.

5. I’ve become enamoured with Poker. Not in any kind of “real” way but in a It Looks Cool and involves Chips and Money kind of way. Actually I’ve never even sat at a table yet but any game where they not only encourage cocktails but bring them to you for free can not be bad. My Poker Obsession is the butchest and most faddish preoccupation I currently admit.

6. I missed you. Really. I thought about what you were doing and what you were reading and worried you might worry about this tiny little piece of Me called SRO. Pretty vain, I know, but that’s what separates the Men Poker Players from the Boy Poker Players. You may not appear to hold the best hand but you go All In. Some people call it arrogance, some call it Faith. I bet all my chips on You.

12:20:22 PM    sro home /