The Special People Club

So I see the headline about Martha buying Emeril, and I think, "Hey! That's so cool that's downright sexy!" And I click on the CNN link and they have this picture with the story. Looks like Emeril's heard about Martha's management style. Or perhaps he's a vampire and reacting to all that garlic they put in the pot.

and dancing and eating and cocktailing and possibly even looking down from the Empire State Building. After a long week at work to clear my desk of all projects and loose ends (36 hours in as of Wednesday night, even,) I am now set to pack and hop a jet plane to Manhattan for the weekend. Fares between JFK and LHR are scandalously low if you keep an eye out, and the women from my MBA and I got lucky and found one. We're all heading to NYC to celebrate finishing the degree. VERY exciting. We're staying at the Ameritania, which is right next door to The Late Show with David Letterman. We've gotten directions to a secret fake purse shop and lots of restaurant recommendations and plans for cocktails with other alumni who live in New York and dancing at the Pyramid Club on Friday with CP and PG and I even get to have dinner and watch the Oscars and stay the night with my boys, as well. It's been a shitty week, and I can hardly wait.

Loafers are grand-dad shoes. I know you're not that bright, but surely you can tie a shoelace.

I think I've entered a new phase in life. 50-something guys seem to be drawn to me. It's been a joke for some time at work that we're sure to get the sale if they take me to present to a middle aged male client, but lately they've been pursuing me at social occasions, as well. I actually had one stroking my cheek and trying to get me drunk at a work function earlier this week. (He failed. I quickly found a handsome male friend and made him stick with me until the other guy got tired and went away.) This is very odd.

I don't know if this is real or imaginary. Perhaps it is a subversive video created by GOP operatives attempting to usurp the democratic process by making Democrats look foolish. Perhaps someone has decided that synchronized nodding and Deadhead spinny dancers and buck-toothed girls in baseball caps will bring out the soccer moms. Or perhaps someone is trying to demonstrate that the only black man in the US still in the Clinton camp is the one who can't dance. But this is pretty funny.

Those of you who are new to this blog might not know that on Valentine's Day I post poems and lyrics that make me think of love. Here is the first post, and here is the second. And here's this year's. [somewhere i have never travelled] somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose or if your wish be to close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility: whose texture compels me with the color of its countries, rendering death and forever with each brea...

I talk to my mom on the phone every Sunday night. We just hung up, and she told me my favourite story ever. First the backstory....My folks went on a driving honeymoon - they took my dad's old pontiac or chevy or whatever it was and drove to the Grand Canyon and the southwest US for a few weeks. They started a little ritual of kissing on each state line, and this stayed with me and my family to this day. My whole life, every time I drive across a state line I blow kisses to the other people in the car, to my family, or anyone else that I fancy kissing. Tom and I have even adapted our own bit that involves kissing and tapping the roof of the car. It's tradition. So now the story...my mom had to run to LaCrosse last week, a trip she'd been putting off. Partly because of all the snow and bone-chilling cold, and partly because she doesn't like driving alone on the open road, and partly because my dad got all of his cancer treatment in LaCrosse and they'd driven that...

You're a 27 year old drunk with no ambition and the IQ of a sandwich. It's not surprising that you don't find me sexy. And frankly, a blessing.

She's a spastic freakazoid. Seriously, she's not funny, she's insane. That girl ain't right, I tell you. Molly Shannon it is! FYI, that Mary Catherine Gallagher character? She's not acting.

I love Saturdays now. For two years, Saturdays involved either a) getting up way too early after way to little sleep (and occasionally way too much drink) to sit through 6-8 hours of lectures, or b) getting up slightly less early and spending the day at my dining room table reading, writing and trying desperately to absorb as much info as possible so that I wasn't burdened by deadlines all week. Saturday was seldom my favourite day of the week. But now, boy howdy, what a difference! Saturdays ROCK! I know the novelty should be wearing off, but it's still a thrill to wake up at 10 - no alarm clock necessary - and have a whole day ahead of me to do whatever I please. Today I watched Saturday Kitchen. I checked email and responded to Facebook and LinkedIn invitations that had been sitting there for weeks. I'm spending some idle internet time, and then heading to the gym. I have a few job hunt tasks to do. But that's it. I think I might go to the asian market to pick ...

He's short and stubby and he gets his penis out in every movie ever. Of course this is Harvey Keitel. Though I like the wishful thinking with Ewan MG, ML. And a big shout out to Bramley Apple Pies, with his equally correct guess of Ron Jeremy.

I can't help it. I like Hillary fine and all, but I prefer Barack Obama. He makes me hope. He makes me see possibility. I like feeling happy about my country again. And I think there are a lot more like me out there, and I think he's gonna hold on, and I think it's a long, long way to that convention. In fact, I think this might end up being the first year ever that Puerto Rico's primary matters. They may not be a state, but they have 63 delegates. Go Puerto Rico!

Clue: She has a talk show and she puts a lot of sluts on it. Answer: It's Oprah....this is an infamous clue in a CP family game.

I'd love to use one of those cool polling widgets, but this survey requires comments/explanations. When I was filling out my list of fours, I was listing the cool places I'd been and then I felt like I needed to throw in something bland to keep me humble. So I thought and thought, and came up with Kansas. Not that there's anything wrong with Kansas. Sure, it's flat, but Manhattan KS is nice, and my cool-mo-D glasses are styled by a company in Kansas. So Kansas is fine by me, and I have been there, so it was really just saying. But this got me thinking. If you were trying to come up with the most boring state in the US, which would it be? And why? I mean, surely even wild, unruly Alaska and whacked-out CA are boring to SOMEONE. So, what do you think?

Obesity is the root of all evil. Just ask the media. Soon, I believe they'll be blaming fatties for global warming. All that friction from thighs rubbing together and all. Update: A quick google shows they have already started: read this !

Today I got up and made coffee and toast and decided to watch BBC Breakfast to wake up. One of their reporters was a nice man who was obviously a Thalidomide Baby (arms), and who had one eye that was mostly shut. We didn't see him doing the slow power walk so common in the news media, but he did everything else. He even picked things up and showed them to the camera. Can you imagine this on Good Morning, America ? Way to go, Britain!

CP emailed me this, but I don't actually fill these out and then clog my friend's in boxes with them. Instead, I blog them as a tag and infect the blogosphere , where people like to share these sorts of intimate details with complete strangers. So here goes. Various sets of four things about me that you may or may not know in no particular order Four jobs I have had in my life 1. Radio DJ 2. Receptionist at Fishing and Hunting News 3. Telemarketer 4. Designer/layout specialist for the Cato Institute (I was a contractor who couldn't say no) Four movies I would watch over and over: 1. Dirty Dancing 2. Annie Hall 3. Hairspray 4. Little Miss Sunshine Four places I have lived: 1. Decorah IA 2. St. Paul MN 3. Seattle WA 4. Milton Keynes UK Four TV Shows that I watch: 1. Torchwood 2. Friday Night with Jonathan Ross 3. Psych 4. Crossing Jordan Four Places I have been: 1. Oman 2. Zambia 3. Wales 4. Kansas Four of my favorite foods: (how cruel that I only...

Clue (from about 1994): "She has a TV show, she dresses like a man, and she thinks she's funny but she's not. And she sounds like she lisps."

Clue: "She's like Aunt Jemima. Except she's white." ANSWER: Mrs. Butterworth - although the brown bottle sometimes confuses people into thinking she's one of those offensive "mammy-doll" things, she is rumored to be a matronly, anglo grandmother type. In reality, I'd say the clue may not be true, but that's not the point. It was said in a game, and we got it on the first guess.

Shortly after registering for the Great North Run, I found out that a planned trip to Zambia with some friends conflicted with the run. So instead of doing a half marathon the first week of October, I'm now doing 10 miles the last week - the Great South Run. And I'm training with my co-coach from the SOM, and, since we've effectively motivated each other through the MBA, I think we'll be a good match to go from lardass to distance runner together. (Not that he's a lardass. But he does smoke.)