venting. my apologies.

let's talk about what i've spent the afternoon doing, shall we?

i've been on a conference call with our data management person because the database we use to recruit folks for our asthma study isn't working. it's still not working, but we're working around it. what does that mean? it means that as i write this i should actually be continuing stamping the 100 postcards i have to stuff into the 100 envelopes that i'll then lick one hundred times. ok so i don't actually lick the envelopes.

as i was trying to solve all these problems, i kept thinking to myself, "but i don't care about these problems. i just. don't. care."

it's days like today, and tasks like these, that make me wonder why i bothered getting a masters' degree if i was just going to end up a secretary. that's right, i said it. secretary.

NicALERT!

you can't be a part of the asthma study i work on if you're a smoker. we used to have to get through the entire harrowing four-and-a-half-hour visit, only to find out two weeks later that their urine test came up positive for cigarettes and that all of our work was for naught. we now have an immediate test, though, called the "nicalert." it's like a pregnancy test: fifteen minutes into the visit i know whether or not you're a waste of my time.

before i quit smoking again, three weeks ago tomorrow, i used to feel like such a hypocrite frowning on all these people for smoking, when i'd just come back from a cigarette break myself. "don't smoke!" -puff- "it's terrible for your asthma!" -puff- i was essentially conducting a study that i couldn't be a part of myself, even if i was a severe enough asthmatic.

the girl i saw this afternoon swore up and down that she wasn't a smoker, even though her nicotine test indicated that she'd smoked as recently as yesterday. my boss karen really got out her mom voice and tried to get her to fess, but she was obstinant. i can't help but feel bad for this girl, because whether or not she's a smoker she needs the medicine and education that our program offers. i just wish that she'd be concerned enough about her own health to give up the smokes and get on some medicine.

this job has really made me grow a heart. i'm not sure how i feel about that.

grotesque

the new site for tim nelson and adam pearl's fledgling early opera company, ignoti dei opera, went up today. my friend kel designed it, and it looks great. i was less than happy, however, to see this flattering little blurb about la calisto, the opera i sang with them last fall:

"We cast Linfea as a tenor. We did not, however, make this tenor appear to be a women whatsoever, but instead a rather grotesque drag-role. She/He was paired with the lewd Satterino (phallic tail and all)."

a rather grotesque drag-role!? who you callin' grotesque, bitch! this shit is fierce.

(ok so it was a little grotesque.)

laziness

i got really upset last night while we continued to paint the apartment. we have a fairly large place--this is baltimore, after all, and when terry and i signed the lease we were a little "household" with a "household income" over well over 60k. that doesn't sound like much, but two people can live a lot better on 60k than one can on 25. yet i digress. let's just say it's a nice apartment...a nice apartment that i can no longer afford.

and so, we've begun painting over the brown (or chocolate and country club) stripes that took us ten hours to paint a year ago. i found myself getting really frustrated while trying to get it done. something about it felt so oppressive and frustrating and huge and impossible.

i'd like to say that these feelings stemmed from me being sad about moving, sad about all the people who are leaving baltimore on saturday. and of course that's a big part of it. but let's face it: deep down i really don't dig manual labor and my arms were tired from painting. they don't call me princess robert for nothing. oh wait, no one calls me that.

bein' broke

hilary: oh! my cousin told me that we HAVE to go to helen's garden on a tuesday night because you get a salad, soup, entree, and 3 glasses of wine for $15!!!!!
robert: WHAT
robert: i love that the price includes "3 glasses of wine"
robert: it's called "the poor drunk's special"
hilary: yes
hilary: and the food there is good
hilary: so we have to go
robert: "the hobo platter"
hilary: works for me!

str8

someone reached my blog today by googling "hot straight dudes." sorry, but you've come to the wrong blog.

ouch

a woman in my office (no, not you, steph) said to me this morning, "i just cannot get used to you with no hair."

"yeah, well, get used to it," i told her.

this is the same woman who said "chil', i mean to tell you i was coughing profuciously yesterday!"

i don't talk about your grammar, so don't talk about my hair.

photographic evidence

whose stars are these? find out.

gettin' church

there are certain bands/singers that, when i listen to them, i can't help but shake my booty. i don't even have a booty, really, so that means it's really rockin' music. it happens a lot of the time, this active body-response. i don't mean like, you hear gwen stefani on the radio in your car and you're tapping your fingers on the steering wheel, oh no. i mean all-out stomping.

the two worst culprits for me are the gossip and aretha franklin. if you've never heard the gossip, do yourself a favor and go buy thats not what i heard. you'll understand what i mean. they make my booty shake.

much more dangerous, though, is my response to aretha: it doesn't matter what she's singing, she always inspires me to do a drag-style lipsynch of every word she sings. i'm talking pained-face-chest-beating-bent-over-all-out lipsynching. ask any roommate i've ever had and they'll tell you: my lip-synching skillz are sick. luckily i was able to restrain myself on the shuttle this morning. don't get me wrong, i was listening to aretha and getting church. except for a few sunday-morning headshakes (you know--"preach it, brother. preach it!"), though, i didn't let myself get too involved.

hilary and i talk about the fact that when we're walking along, listening to our ipods, we like to pretend that the music is the soundtrack to our lives. which it is, in a way. it's just that no one else can hear it.

i'd like to point something out to you: there's the fags, perfectly posed and smiling, and there's the straights, not even looking at the camera. no wonder there are more gay supermodels.

bing

i think that we all need to see this again.

sluttery

a typical workaday conversation:

hilary: med student!!!!!!!
hilary: GAHHHHHHHHHHHHH
robert: GAH HE'S SO HOT
hilary: i KNOW
hilary: he just said hi to me and i nearly fell off my chair
robert: hahaha
hilary: or should i say, slid right out of my chair
hilary: harhar
hilary: he just winked at me
robert: WHAT
hilary: *is now puddle on ground*
robert: that's it
robert: go suck him off in the bathroom
hilary: HAHAHAH
hilary: i'll run after him down the hall, screaming 'wait!! you forgot your blowjob!'
robert: HAHHAAAAAAAAAA
hilary: 'come baaaaaaaaaack!!'
robert: oh my god do it
hilary: hahahhaahah
hilary: if this was my last day here, i would
hilary: totally
robert: well then i know what you're doing in march
robert: although we never did our hopkins gym plan
hilary: that's true
hilary: but in march
hilary: wait for it

crazity

hilary talking about her job:

"sol gets all these crazy letters from crazy people ALL over the world and this one woman has been sending stuff regularly now. and she just sent something saying "dont hate me because i'm the twin of jesus christ." she also does anagrams, and claims to have found the cure for AIDS through her anagrams--anagrams of julia louis-dreyfus's name."

i should've known julia louis-dreyfuss would have a hand in the cure for aids!

bristly

i shaved my head on saturday. well, i didn't actually shave it because there was no razor, shaving cream, or isaac hayes music involved. i buzzed it down to 1/3 inch. as soon as i started i realized it was a lil' shorter than i intended...but once you start at a length you can't really switch it up. i mean, you can, it just won't look very good.

it's been funny to see peoples' reactions at the office. i wasn't really worried about my friends--they've seen me with a shorn head before. but it's a little too punk rock for these people, i worried. most people have just been like, "ooh, rad hair!" or whatever. zach, the new fellow, said, "nice hair, robert. looks like you're ready to deal with the heat!" he gets points for creativity, especially for an asthma doctor.

the best, though, is the several people who have walked by me like 6 times without noticing, then the seventh time they pass me go "oh my god, your hair!" and stagger backward all shocked-like. i want to say, "yes. i shaved it since last time you saw me. 12 minutes ago."

it's bedtime

a particularly wonderful more than donuts today...

"Working in a bar is a hard and an annoying job. I know because I've done it before. In my case I was required to wear tiny, inappropriate clothing and pretend I liked people. It wasn't a good fit for me on many levels. First of all, anyone that knows me knows I get grouchy and tired after 9PM. My nickname in college was 'It's bedtime'. (You think I'm kidding) My 3am shifts were killing me. There were times my boss would find me leaning against a wall like a horse - asleep while standing."

click here to read the whole entry.

butterfingers

michael: ...with chammomile, catnip, peppermint, scullcap, strawberry learf an dvalerian
robert: nice
robert: learf
robert: hahaa
michael: hahaha
michael: my typos are getting a bit better though
robert: oh totally
robert: now they're just entertaining
michael: cxyhfvujfyv
michael: i mean thanks

what comes between you and your calvins?

i don't go out on schoolnights, as i'm sure you're aware by now. tonight, however, i'm making an exception. in the words of tom, "my last act as a baltimoron will be just as it should be: watching a wet underwear contest at grand central station." it's terry (chicago) and tom's (DC) last opportunity to partake in something so quintessentially baltimore. sure, other towns have wet underwear contests, but there's a sense of irony at ours that just can't be replicated. for the most part, the contestants are not sexy, nor do we expect them to be. we watch for the same reason we watch surgery on tv: you don't wanna look, but you can't not.

terry's threatening to join the competition. i can't blame him--he'd win. i like to support all of my friends' dreams, but i told terry, "you just can't compete, terry." "why not?" he asked. "it's just not something gentlemen do," i replied.

the scary thing is, i was serious. when, dear readers, did i become a genteel old southern woman?

an idea

i was talking to george, who's at his new home in north carolina, and he was telling me about the new people he's met from duke. "it's good you're getting out there and meeting people," i told him.

i also told him to sum up each person using one adjective. this may strike you as either:

• snobby
• judgmental
• dismissive

...but i think it's a great way to quickly and accurately sum up an evening with a group of people without having to use too many words.

freetime

terry teaches the cat to fetch.
more new pictures here.

sack o' what!?

you're not going to believe this.

at long last

my new column came out today, but the online version of baltimore gay life is down for some reason. so, without further ado, i here cut and paste this week's column for gay life:


Super-you

I was really into him. He had a tattoo and Sonic Youth posters on his wall. He played classical violin and made me a mixed tape the second time we hung out. He’d gone to the trouble of deciding which songs to include, transferring them one by one from CD to cassette. He’d typed out each song and who it was by, and which album it was from in case I liked it and wanted to go buy it. What it meant to me was that he’d been thinking about me in the four days since I’d last seen him; thinking about me as much as I’d been thinking about him. On our third date we went to a Chinese restaurant and sat in awkward silence, avoiding eye contact while chewing our egg rolls and drinking green tea. I’d never had green tea before and I didn’t want to seem like I didn’t know what was going on. I grasped the little cup and sipped the tea, pretending that I hadn’t just burned my tongue.

“It’s funny,” he finally said. “It seems like the longer I know you, the queenier you get.” His proclamation didn’t piss me off as much as you may think. I knew exactly what he was talking about. When I’m around my friends I let myself go; I never consider what I look or sound like to them. But when confronted with someone I’m interested in, either romantically or sexually, I clam up. It’s a bizarre phenomenon: I imagine how I’m looking when I make a certain face or how I sound when I talk. When the guy I was dating informed me that I got queenier the longer I knew him, it made perfect sense. It meant that I was getting a little too comfortable, letting my guard down a little too quickly. It meant that the person I really was, the guy who doesn’t have stiff wrists, the one who has a faintly effeminate lilt to his voice, was showing through. And he’d noticed. It wasn’t the guy with the excitable, high-pitched voice for whom he’d made the Sleater-Kinney mixed tape. This moment has stuck with me—the moment it was pointed out to me that I have a date-face. It made an impression on me that I can’t let go of, and I can’t even remember this guy’s name.

“I’m talking to my friend Dave,” Michael, the guy I’m dating, said to me last week, “and it seems like he’s really into the guy that he’s dating. He told me he’s worried, though, because he knows that he’s too much of a queen for this guy, so he tries act butch whenever he’s around him.”

My God, I thought. I’m not the only one who does this in relationships. It made me wonder, how much do we all change ourselves to fit the wants or desires of the person we’re interested in? Sure, there are plenty of people who would claim that they never do—that they’re always themselves, no matter what. Be honest, though, admit it: when you’re first starting a relationship you don’t want the other person to see all the flaws (or what you perceive to be the flaws) you have. You do your best to present them with a sexy, funny, well-dressed, easy-going super-you. It’s only after you’ve dated them a while that you let them see the real you: the person who leaves the toilet seat up or drinks out of a three-day-old glass or cuts their toenails. Or the person who sometimes screams when he sees a bug or makes kissy-faces into the mirror. The person that you let your friends see, the one you’re afraid is too queeny for guys to be attracted to.

“I’m writing about how we try to present a better version of ourselves to people when we first start dating them,” I told my friends over dinner at Dionysus on Friday. “For me, it’s usually that I try to butch it up around someone I’m trying to impress.” “I don’t think you’ve done that with me,” said Michael. I looked at him and caught myself: Great. Now I’ve pointed it out. I’m neurotic and “gay-acting” and I just HAD to bring it up in front of someone I’m dating. “Well,” I said, “you made it very clear when we met that you don’t have a problem with non-traditional gender expression.” “Way to use the big words,” Tom said. “He means I like queens,” said Michael.

So maybe I’ve taken the first step towards presenting me as myself—funny, awkward, flawed, neurotic, and kind—instead of the me I think someone would rather see. If I want the person I’m dating to really like me for who I am, I have to at least give them a chance to see who that is. I’m working on it.

i'm too old for this

michael, ashley (or as i like to call her, ashli), and i went to a lil' punk show last night at a place called "the girl house." michael calls it the "lesbian collective" but don't tell anyone because being called a co-op might bristle their leg hairs.

i promise, i'm not going to turn into one of those nasty lesbian-hating faggots. i swear.

so we went to this house up in charles village last night and i met some of michael's antioch friends. they're all perfectly antioch: they've been free-thinkers for so long now that conforming just isn't an option anymore. they're the kind of people that make me want to be like, "depauw? who? where? me?" luckily, they're also the kind of people who could give a shit where i did my masters', much less that i went to an uber-preppy college and they went to the most bohemian college in the midwest.

the bands were supposed to start playing at 9 (riiiiiiiiiiiight), and at about 9:30 ashli said, "it's getting to be my bedtime." fifteen minutes later michael said the same thing. i hate to admit it, but it's totally true--i'm sorry, but i go to bed at 10:30. i don't sit in steamy-hot living rooms with a bunch of tattooed and pierced people until all hours of the night waiting for some punk band from san francisco to start playing. the first band finished their set and we made our exit, complaining how late it was and how exhausted we were even though it was before midnight.

god, when did we get old?

along the same lines, ashli keeps trying to get us to go out with her on weeknights. her latest crusade is to get us to go to the talking head on monday. i respond to an invitation to go out and get drunk on a weeknight like someone was asking me to drink their blood while peeing on them and gutting a baby. (ew, was that too graphic for 10am?) i indignantly reply, "no, i'm sorry. i don't go out on weeknights. i'm too old for that."

dirty readers!

ew, people keep getting to my site by googling "receptionist blojob." ew.

what should that say about my site, though?

cleanliness is next to...

we can all thank my friend ron for alerting me to this horrifying little nugget.

hey, i think he was making a crack about my crohn's disease.

the d list

wow! thanks, pink, for alerting us to this interview.

pretense

a certain homo we know just moved to new york. his friendster profile now reads:

location: new york
hometown: washington, dc

honey, you're from jessup. jessup ain't no washington, dc. that'd be like me claiming to be from oklahoma city or wichita...oh wait, those aren't as cool.

new love

hilary: so i'm having coffee with that guy tonight
robert: awesome!
robert: haha
hilary: he lives in catonsville...
hilary: so i don't think i have to worry about running into him if things are dull
robert: perfect
robert: hello of course he lives in catonsville
robert: he's posing with his car
hilary: haha
robert: POSING
robert: WITH HIS
robert: CAR
robert: hilary
hilary: in case you haven't noticed, i don't exactly have men knocking down my door!
hilary: he's cute
hilary: and maybe he's nice
hilary: and it's just coffee...so if i don't like him, i never have to see him again
robert: true
robert: and if you do he can stick it in
hilary: exactly!
hilary: he cant be worse than the gutter punk
robert: good point
robert: and you let him stick it in

an addendum: for the record, that was a joke. hilary isn't getting poked by a gutter punk (anymore).

the panic

i'm not freaking out about moving. maybe, by not freaking out, i'm also postponing the inevitiable: moving to an apartment that is an obvious step down from where i'm living, and living there alone. whatever the reason, i'm just not that concerned even though i move a week from saturday.

for those of you who don't know, my current roommate (and dearly departed ex-boyfriend) is pursuing his phd (i think those scientists call their doctoral degrees phd's. i don't know, honestly.) in chicago and moving there a week from tomorrow. he's handling it really well, i think. then again, i'd probably handle it well if i were moving to a newly-rehabbed condo i'd just bought in a sweet neighborhood in chicago to get paid for being a student.

not that i'm jealous. ok, so i'm spittin' jealous. the last time i heard about a school paying a singer to get her DMA it was in kentucky. and they ended up screwing her royally.

the point is, my, shall we say, lax attitude towards moving combined with t's stress has created a lil' situation in the apartment. t remembers all too well what it looked like the last time i moved apartments (think john artz and his husband throwing shit into garbage bags and stuffing them into the back of a buick riviera) and he's concerned that it's going to be the same situation. i know myself fairly well by now, and i can admit, he's right to be concerned.

that's why, dear readers, i've decided to turn over a new leaf: i'm going to clean the apartment (what!?) and get the place ready to be painted by tomorrow. that's right, i said tomorrow.

now i'm going to take my newly-found good attitude and go cure some pediatric asthma. ta!

toughguy

ok, so two things:

• i decided the tattoo(s) that i'm getting. they're hot. one of them is going to be this:

just kidding.

• my sister sent me the most hysterical link. you must go here.
  

ew times infinity

the way to have fun for free in baltimore!

breathe in. good. now breathe out.

in the study i work on, we send cabs to peoples' homes to pick them up for their clinic visits. the cab is free for them, as are the medications we give them and their doctor visits. sounds like a fairly sweet deal, right? i mean, compared to the studies that terry has subjected himself to (like a pain study where he allowed pepper spray to be put on his hand then have his body monitored for its reaction to pain. WHAT!? or the study where he had to like eat nothing then run 9892 miles to test the efficacy of a sports drink) this is like a walk in the park. you come, blow in a tube, see a doctor, get some free medication and lunch, then you get sent a check for $90. no pepper spray or marathon running involved.

there seems to be some sort of disconnect between my line of thinking, though, and the study participants'. i say this because out of the last 8 screening visits we've scheduled, 7 haven't shown up. i mean, i talk to them the day before. "oh, yes, mr. robert, we're planning on coming tomorrow," they all say. eighteen hours later, though, it's a different story. they've had to go to the market or their grandmother's not home from work yet or their child can't be located or...or...or...there's just a myriad of reasons they can't come. i deal with it better, though, when the family bothers calling to tell me they're not coming. lately they've just not been getting in the cab we pay to have sent to their house and then not answering their phone.

gah!

i think that maybe i should try being on the schedule some of our study's families are on: i have to be at work at 8:30? eh, i think i'll roll in around 10. i mean, i was hungry; had to go to the market to get a sandwich. when's my next clinic visit? 1? you know, i really don't feel like doing it. it's raining.

last night michael told me that he's going to work on helping me learn to calm myself down. it has something to do with deep breathing. i think i'll try that now.

old skool

terry before i got to him.

zoinks

for those of us with a slight (or not so slight) underwear fetish....

blogtiad

blogging seems to spread like some sort of wildfire or venereal disease. one friend kind of gives it to another, who gives it to another. let me clarify:

• i became enthralled by ben's blog, and finally ben convinced me that i do, in fact, have enough to say that i could start a blog of my own. my first post is about how little i have to write about; that was seven months ago and i now have a column in baltimore gay life. thanks, ben.
• hilary, george, and amanda started reading my blog. they were both convinced that they, too, had nothing worth writing about, but i finally strongarmed them into blogging. their writings are always hysterical, touching, real...
• ashley (hilary's sister and crust-core gutter punk extraordinaire) got to my blog from hilary's blog and has now started her own.
• today, michael started a blog.

the other day i was comparing our little blog-circle to a schubertiad. for those of you not up on your romantic-period music history, schubert and his friends used to sit around schubert's house, singing his songs for fun. it was basically making art for the purpose of entertaining your friends. much like our friends and their blogs. i know (most of) the people who read my blog on a regular basis; it's funny to watch the way that our blogs interconnect. we're pretty much writing for each others' entertainment. so, it's a schubertiad in the form of blogs. a blogtiad, if you will. actually, let's forget i just said that.

air conditioning, baltimore-style.

spulled

i went out to dinner on saturday night with tom, john, frank, and michael. it was an evening of malbec (the red wine i'm currently addicted to. ok, maybe i shouldn't joke about being addicted to alcohol. maybe i should just come out and admit that i like red wine just a bit too much lately.), friends, and a lot of the dirty talk that only a table of five faggots could eat dinner during.

after frank dropped michael and i off at my apartment, i said to him, "i know what this sounds like, but this is kind of how i'd always imagined my adult life would be." do you know what i mean? i think that when we're younger we have this fantasy--at least i know i did--of meeting friends for dinner at some nice restaurant and just having lots of intimate and funny conversations, eating good food, shocking the waitress. ok so that sounds like the gayest thing ever. but you need to understand, growing up in ponca, where my friends' hangout was the perkins (which is now burned to the GROUND, go here to see it), it feels extremely urbane to be unable to decide just which awesome restaurant we should go to. "no, i hate the service at XS and it's totally not worth the money"/"we go to copra all the time and there's that obnoxious waitress there"/"ixia's been getting on my nerves." we're so spoiled.

seriously, though, this weekend was everything that i thought growing up and being gay in a city would be: going out to dinner, waking up the next morning and going to the farmers' market, having a cookout with friends. the weekend felt long and full, and now it's monday. ew.

i'm too sexy for this blog

hey, everybody! wanna see the weirdest pictures of me and michael EVER?

dirty, dirty kitty

the cat decides she wants to know what wearing a speedo feels like.

ranting/raving

hilary forwarded me this "rant" that she came across on Craigslist.

it's funny and kind of heartbreaking. and makes me happy, once and for all, that i'm moving to new york instead of chicago. enjoy.

"Alas, I languish in Chicago missing what I must say (without a hint a nostalgic amnesia) is the best city on Earth. I know it was hot yesterday, I know it was aggravating. And for all of you who had to walk home to Brooklyn from midtown, I remember 9/11 all too well and I feel for you. But the next time you feel like ranting about how rotten the city is and how it's losing its former glory, think about this:

- I miss being able to drop off my laundry
- I miss buses that come more often than every 35 minutes
- I miss people who put some thought into their personal style (not matter how self-conscious or outrageous) instead of buying whatever's in the window display at GAP
- I miss my corner deli, my god do I ever...I miss ALL corner delis!
- I miss people who walk across the street when it makes sense to regardless of what the light says
- I miss people who say "I don't know" when you ask them for directions and they don't have an answer, instead of stopping in the middle of the sidewalk for 3 minutes to say "Well....it's kinda that way near the Marshall Field's kinda, but on this side of the river and sorta near Wabash...or maybe Rush Street"
- I miss cheap manicures
- I miss subway systems that have more than 6 lines, and allow you to transfer in more than one location
- I miss people who don't stare at strangers speaking foreign languages
- I miss Century 21
- I miss clubs that play music NOT written, performed or co-produced by Eminem, Snoop or Diddy
- I miss bars that are open past 2AM
- Heaven help me, but I miss bankers. My friend told a chick the other day that he worked for a hedge fund and she said, "Hedgehog?!!"
- I miss being able to walk down the street for a full 15 minutes without seeing a white Abercrombie hat
- I miss summer in Central Park
- I miss brownstones
- I miss those guys in the yellow vests handing out flyers for "Flashdancers" on the corner as though strip clubs were just another form of entertainment (which they are) and not some horrible, shocking den of sin
- I miss seeing corny carriage rides confined to the Park where they belong instead of clogging up city traffic
- I miss unabashedly gay men being unabashedly gay in every corner of the city instead of the one, weird little Disney-gay neighborhood that was "set aside" for them
- I miss people who no longer care whether their college football team wins
- I miss restaurants that don't have chains in the suburbs
- I miss doing my banking at the corner ATM
- I miss being less than 2 hours from the next closest city (and no, Milwaukee doesn't count)
- I hate the Yankees. But I miss baseball teams that occasionally win a penant.
- I miss sample sales
- I miss random celebrity sightings that you never admit to being excited about while inside your heart is racing like a 13 year-old at your first concert
- I miss New York Magazine
- I miss good Chinese take-out
- I miss seeing people of every possible race, ethnicity, religion, nationality and persuasion waiting on the same corner for the light to change
- I miss mixed race people
- I miss busy streets at 4AM
- I miss people who say "fuck you" when they mean it and only smile when it's sincere
- I miss jokes about New Jersey
- I miss women who know how to walk in their impossibly high heels
- I miss my New York slice!
- I miss people who know that you don't have to speak louder when you're on a cell phone
- I miss people who occasionally drink something other than beer
- I miss being able to get around without a car
- I miss Buttercup Bakery and non-franchise coffee shops
- I miss subway performers
- I miss those oh-so-New-York moments where you feel like you haven't had human contact for weeks and suddenly you make eye contact with someone on the downtown 4 train and you both know that you're secretly laughing at the person asleep with their mouth open
- I miss people who actually get excited for the opening of an indie film or documentary
- I miss hotel lobby bars
- And I really really truly miss being able to talk about how much I love New York without some paunchy ex-Notre Dame frat boy in Dockers and a Cubs hat slurring into his plastic cup of Old Style that New Yorkers are all freaks and snobs."

ninmania

i hate ticketmaster. there, i've said it. i know that it's not a stance that's going to win me any friends or make me very popular, because most people just love ticketmaster. but someone has to take a stand, and that someone's going to be me.

i just bought tickets to nine inch nails--yes, i'm that dork who sets his alarm so that he can start hitting the "refresh" button as soon as the tickets go on sale--at a hefty $45 a piece. on top of THAT, ticketmaster (in their infinite generosity and goodness) charged $12 FOR EACH TICKET IN SERVICE CHARGES.

that brought the grand total to $175. ouch. that ol' trent reznor better be worth it!

eek!

need some fuel for a nightmare?

advice from the family

a conversation with my sister concerning tattoos:

robin: what does hilary have?
robin: how do you pick?
robert: she has a seraphim and cherubim on her lower back
robin: oh that's right.
robin: hmm. well. stay away from "RIP" and shamrocks and hearts.
robin: these seem to be definite hot button issues.
robert: hahahaha
robert: thanks for the advice
robin: no prob. that's what im here for.
robin: since i don't even have my ears pierced i think i offer a very legitimate view of tattoos.
robin: you know. very distanced from the situation if you will.
robert: ha...yes. very.

de plane boss de plane

i've decided that before the summer is over i will have gotten a tattoo. whenever i hang around with hilary, ashley, or michael i have major tattoo-jealousy, so i'm just going to bite the bullet and do it. i just have to decide what meaningful symbol/phrase i want to have on my body for the rest of my life. hence the following conversation with hilary:

robert: a guy on friendster has a tattoo that reads "my faith in love is still devout" on his arm
hilary: hmm
robert: it's awesome
robert: mine's going to say
robert: "i believe the children are our future" on one arm
robert: and "show them love and let them lead the way" on the other
hilary: why doesn't he just put a big bleeding heart next to it
robert: haha
robert: well it's there i just didn't mention it
hilary: haha

just plain mean

a lady who works in my office has been on vacation for two weeks. everytime her line (the one that i stopped answering because it was literally only personal calls) rings, my phone says "1676 is vacant."

and every time it rings i think to myself, you have no idea.

snappy

when terry moves, my gay life by-line has to change from "robert lives in baltimore with his ex-boyfriend and his cat." it's now going to be "robert is a classical singer, writer, and secretary who's proud to live in baltimore, the gem of the bay." it was going to be something like, "robert is proud to live in baltimore, where he has to park his car in an underground garage so that he can leave his apartment after dark," but that just didn't have the same ring to it.

don't ASK me how i missed this one, but apparently i'm in one more pic from sonar that night...and this time i'm in the background making a face i should probably consider never making again. 

stardom

michael just alerted me to the fact that we're famous--or at least net-famous. there are pictures of us on the sonar website, even though i was completely unware that i was being photographed. i wish i could say that it's the first time pictures of me have shown up on the net...just kidding. ok so i'm not kidding. or am i?
...a strange picture that looks like ashley and i are making out. we weren't, i swear. then again, i could be lying like i am about having pics of me on the 'net...

and a picture of michael and jaime. yeah, we were drunk.

libel

oh, look! it's hilary mocking all of us that have office jobs where our bosses don't buy us free crabs for lunch and then pay for our on-campus parking. "look at me with my crab!" she's saying. "don't you wish you had a crab like this one in my hand? well you don't! and i do!"

ok, so she's not that vindictive. i just love this picture.

hott and new

i strongly recommend that you pop over to NIN.com and watch the video for "only."

a hundred dollars well spent

in case you haven't heard me brag yet, i just found out yesterday that the tickets i got for the pier 6 tori concert in baltimore next month are actually pretty good--row L on the left side, first section from the stage. that's right, i'm gonna be 12 rows from the faerie herself! as pink is the new blog would say, "woot!"

semantics

did you notice that i just said pop in that post instead of soda? did it bother you?

bitchnmoan

the head doctor in my office has promised us a "pizza party" if we recruit a certain number of people from the new list we've been given. we way surpassed that number yesterday, but i'm not holding my breath for the party. there's something condescending about offering us a "pizza party." what are we, fourth-graders? why doesn't he just offer us each a king-size candy bar and a pop? maybe a plastic hello kitty knapsack? i sure hope that mrs. robinson doesn't get mad at us for being so loud in class today.

karen suggested in today's meeting that peyton treat us all to a spa day. being the good faggot that i am, my ears perk up the instant i hear the word "spa." as you may have read, i just had my first massage about a month ago; since then i've been itching for another one. other words that make me tingle are "facial" (not that kind, filthy!), "pedicure," and "aromatherapy treatment." i don't think, however, that a spa day is in the cards for my office anytime soon.

hilary's office is having a "crab feast" today, an event that apparently replaced what they used to call "pigout day." the way she tells it, they combined "pigout day," a day when everyone brought in six million desserts, with "crab feast" day. so (i'm guessing) their boss brings in a billion crabs, everyone else brings in a dessert, and they sit around in the casual clothes and eat.

the fact that i might be having a "pizza party" only makes me more jealous of hilary's crab feast. we won't be feasting on crabs in t-shirts. i'll be getting a piece of pizza out of the conference room and bringing it back to my desk, trying to shove it down my throat before i have to be back in the clinic.

listen to me complain--you'd think i wasn't even being paid to be a musician! oh, wait...

the arab vs. the jew

from my father:

A fleeing Taliban, desperate for water, was plodding through the Afghanistan desert when he
saw something far off in the distance. Hoping to find water, he walked toward the object,
only to find a little old Jewish man sitting at a card table with neckties laid out on it.

The Arab said, "My thirst is killing me. Please, do you have water?"

The Jew replied, "I have no water. Would you like to buy a tie? They are only $150. This
one goes very nicely with your robes.

"The Arab shouted, "Idiot! I do not need your overpriced tie. I need water!"

"OK," said the old Jew, "it does not matter that you do not want to buy a tie. I will show
you that you have not offended me. If you walk over that hill to the east for about four
miles, you will find a lovely restaurant. Go! Walk that way! The restaurant has all the
water you need!"

The Arab staggered away toward the hill and disappeared.

Eight hours later the Arab came crawling back to the Jewish man's table.

The Jew said, "I told you, the restaurant with the water is about four miles over that hill.
Could you not find it?"

"I found it," rasped the Arab. "But your brother wouldn't let me in without a tie."

adventures in scientology

thank you, pink, for alerting us to this website. tomkat, indeed.

sneaking away

i've started doing this thing at work where i come in on time, work through lunch, then leave at like 4.15 for the gym. i think that i'm putting in a full work day by doing this. then again, i don't really want to find out that i'm not putting in a full work day so i've never actually sat down and caluculated it. literally, i stop my brain from doing the math.

the way i see it, don't take an hour lunch, leave an hour early.

so why do i feel so guilty? damn this protestant upbringing!

mmm donuts

a particularly wonderful more than donuts today...give it a read.

drunk? who? where? no. 

is this baby a model!? no, it's farrar's and lisa's baby. i want a baby. 

courtesy of michael bare. 

horror

according to snopes.com, the urban legend about people discovering corpses stashed in the box springs of hotel beds isn't just a legend.

"Here's a change of pace -- not a murder, but a death by misadventure. In Rosedale, Maryland in 1987, an unidentified man died of a drug overdose after one of the thirty-four balloons of heroin he'd swallowed burst. His partner stashed the corpse under their motel bed, then split. Three days later, the family the room was next rented to complained about the odor, and this led to the body's discovery."

that's just one of MANY stories like this. ack!

summerville

i stayed up well past midnight last night, after having a good cry about george's leaving and playing with my new computer for an hour. i just didn't want to admit that the weekend was over. it felt long and busy. i slept late and did exactly what i wanted to do, drank when i wanted to, ate when i felt like it. this weekend was filled with flip-flops and sun and dancing and boys and stubble because i refused to shave.

it was good.

i'm having a hard time dealing with my friends going their separate ways. when all's said and done, the only people who will remain from the original group of people i hung out with in baltimore, the little family i've come to know and love over the last three years, are me and hilary. two of us. it was awkward saying goodbye to george last night; i'll see him in a month so it felt very strange. it was kinda like, "well, i'll see you, but things will be different when i do. this is marking the end of something, even though you're acting nonchalant."

i got home from dropping michael off at his apartment and the flood gates opened. i stood in the bathroom doorway, leaning on the doorjamb, head down. terry got up from his spot on the couch and put his arms around me; he let me cry onto his shoulder. it was one of the few times we've touched since we broke up, and it didn't even feel that strange.

"times of transition are hard," michael told me last night after george left. he's right; and i get the feeling that the transition has just started.

pump it

on my way to the elevator downstairs, i just saw some scary-looking medical machine laying on a gurney. it was labeled "breast milk only."

ah, the joys of working in a hospital.

Karma

Last night I dreamed that terry and my ex- Brian were sleeping together. Lest you think that this dream was anywhere near realistic, I also dreamed that Brian lived next door to us and was a painter who painted huge, wall-sized, very mid-90's-looking paintings of suns and moons. I found out that he and terry were sleeping together because paintings of brian's kept showing up in the apartment.

when I found out, I was furious. like, screaming/punching the wall mad. I just felt so betrayed, two of my ex's getting together. I woke up and was so relieved to find that it was a dream.

then I remembered, I did the same thing to ed. no wonder he doesn't talk to me anymore.

as terry makes eggs, the only thing to eat in our house.

i'm not the kind of person who can stay out until 3.45 am anymore. i don't know if i ever was, really, but now it's crystal clear to me: i'm becoming an in-bed-by-1 kind of queer.

i went to sonar last night with michael, ashley, and some of michael's friends, my favorite of which was jamie, a self-described bear who had a bear boyfriend in a bear hat. they were like, young punky bears. when michael told me, "my friend jamie's coming with us; he's a bear!" i was totally expecting to walk up to jamie's car and find this leering, gray-haired man in a leather cap and chaps, his "boy" tied to the front seat by his harness. the truth is that jamie and his boyfriend are bears because they're fat and hairy--and they own it, believe me. i've never seen a 6'4" 300 pound man dance like that before, i'll say that much.

today i am hungover. i woke up making plans for what i'll do tonight: maybe rent a movie, go to the store, and sit in my house. yes, that sounds nice. maybe that will make my headache go away. terry's going to go a going-away party thrown by his boss at her house. how is it possible that hopkins found a gaggle of the best bosses ever and then gave them to all my friends?

very opinionated

oh, yeah...the new column came out today!!

click here.

blogworthy

thanks, dad:

A hip young man goes out and buys the best car on the market, a brand new Ferrari GTO. It is also the most expensive car in the world, and it costs him $500,000. He takes it out for a spin and stops at a red light. An old man on a Moped, looking about 100 years old, pulls up next to him. The old man looks over at the sleek, shiny car and asks, "What kind of car ya' got there sonny?"

The young man replies, "A Ferrari GTO. It cost half a million dollars!"

"That's a lot of money," says the old man. "Why does it cost so much?"

"Because this car can do up to 320 miles an hour!" states the young dude proudly. The Moped driver asks, "Mind if I take a look inside?"

"No problem," replies the owner. So the old man pokes his head in the window and looks around.

Then, sitting back on his Moped, the old man says, "That's a pretty nice car, all right...but I"ll stick with my Moped!"

Just then the light changes, so the guy decides to show the old man just what his car can do. He floors it, and within 30 seconds, the speedometer reads 160 mph. Suddenly, he notices a dot in his rear view mirror. It seems to be getting closer! He slows down to see what it could be and suddenly WHHHOOOOOOSSSSSHHH! Something whips by him going much faster! "What on earth could be going faster than my Ferrari?" the young man asks himself. He floors the accelerator and takes the Ferrari up to 250 mph. Then, up ahead of him, he sees that it's the old man on the Moped! Amazed that the Moped could pass his Ferrari, he gives it more gas and passes the moped at 275 mph. WHOOOOOOOSHHHHH! He's feeling pretty good until he looks in his mirror and sees the old man gaining on him AGAIN! Astounded by the speed of this old guy, he floors the gas pedal and takes the Ferrari all the way up to 320 mph. Not ten seconds later, he sees the Moped bearing down on him again! The Ferrari is flat out, and there's
nothing he can do! Suddenly, the Moped plows into the back of his Ferrari, demolishing the rear end. The young man stops and jumps out and unbelievably the old man is still alive.

He runs up to the mangled old man and says, "Oh My God! Is there anything I can do for you?"

The old man whispers... "Unhook...my...suspenders...from...your...side view....mirror''

plucky

craigslist M4M never fails to be entertaining, at least...

"Reply to:[suppressed]
Date: 2005-07-06, 6:06PM EDT


I'm looking for someone to pull out my eyebrows, mustache, and beard with tweezers while I masturbate.

This is a fantasy that I've had since I was a boy growing up in Dundalk.

If you wanna pluck, not fuck, then get back.

Me: VGL, 25, 6'2, 180, worked-out."

talent

this is an illustration done by my friend from high school bri hermanson. she's done a set of "updated tarot cards (based on [her] socio-political philosophies)." damn, i love being friends with artists.

perversion

robert: i just told michael that i'm broke
robert: so he can take me to charleston, his treat
hilary: haha
hilary: pocket change
hilary: although maybe if dan's working, and you offer to blow him, you could get a free meal!
robert: very true
robert: i've sucked limp dick before

th'onion

shameful. absolutely shameful!

hame

twelve hours ago i was on a long flight back to baltimore from oklahoma, listening to screaming babies, avoiding eye contact with the DC queen to my right, watching a woody harrellson movie, and enjoying the combination of hydrocodone and white wine pulsing through my veins. (when you're scared of flying but can't get your hands on any downers, you do what you can.) now, i've just gotten out of a harrowing lab meeting, the kind where my boss sits us down and gives us a talking-to. luckily i've got the greatest boss ever (i'm not just saying this so that i don't get fired; look for a picture of her dancing with a stranger in the RR archives), so her sit-downs always end with a motivational speech.

being in oklahoma this weekend was great. it's funny, i never thought i'd type that. honestly, though, home really felt like home. my family is crazy. crazier than ever, in my opinion, because my sister has finally developed some kind of strong-woman power. i mean, it's about time. but for the first time i really saw that she'd become an adult. oh, and we went to our first gay bar together. it's no wonder, then, that she and my mother are at each others' throats. my mother gets all of her opinions from the national review, a fact i tried to convince robin of. my sister, a jewish womens' studies major who plans on going into civil law, doesn't often agree with my mom. a disagreement starts, and my mom starts throwing out these ridiculous statistics about silly things we shouldn't even be arguing about. for instance:

robin: "well, that's because most of our military is comprised of the lower-class and minorities."
me: "well, it's been that way for hundreds of years. because once you have a college degree or a masters or higher, you're not really going to want to enlist and risk your life. when you've got a lot less to lose, the guaranteed salary seems a lot more appealing."
mom, overhearing this while walking by: "actually, robin, if you'll look at the data, that's not true. our armed forces aren't made up of minorities and the lower-class. it's all mixed, and the data that's telling you otherwise is wrong."
robin glances at me.
me: "buh?"

the weekend was filled with my sister and i rebuffing my mom's republican rhetoric. another example, this time at a restaurant in oklahoma:

mom: "look, robert, do you recognize who that picture's of? it's anita bryant! isn't she pretty? she's a miss america who went to OCU and is from oklahoma!"
me: "we don't say the name anita bryant, mom."
robin: "why?"
mom: "well, we all knew her as the florida orange juice woman. but she got famous for saying some things that weren't really very nice about some people."
me: "actually, robin, she went on a crusade in the late 70's, trying to convince people that homosexuals were immoral perverts who were out to do nothing but recruit their children into the homosexual lifestyle. she said a lot of really horrible, ignorant things, and did a lot of damage to a lot of people."
mom: "oh, i thought it was the 80's."
me: "buh?"

don't get me wrong, i love my mother, and to say that we weren't cut from the very same cloth would be a big, fat lie. (see slave labor.)

all arguments aside, i appreciated going home, and wish that the weeks i'd gotten to spend there when i was younger weren't wasted on such a bratty little shit.

that's me, the bratty little shit.

home.

i've just walked in the door of my parents home. it was absolutely surreal driving down hartford road with my sister, the same road that i've driven down, homeward, as long as i can remember. it's a sweltering day in oklahoma; as much as i bitch about the heat in baltimore, this shit is for real. fo' real, even.

first, let's talk about my flight from baltimore to oklahoma. since, deep down, i was embarrassed to ask my crohn's specialist for a prescription for valium, i put it off until the day before i flew home, then didn't have any when it was time to leave for the airport. driving back from towson with michael on thursday i started talking to him about my fear of flying; predictably, i got a little choked up. lately i've been more scared of flying than of a redneck wearing a grand dragon robe carrying a rope and burning a gay pride flag while quoting the bible. then again, i haven't seen one of those in a while.

the point is, i'm terrified of flying and didn't have any tranquilizers. i combated this by getting to the airport with plenty of time to sit in the "budweiser brewpub" and pound three six-dollar beers. by the time i got on the plane, i'd drunk dialed hilary, michael, and terry. after a nice little drunken nap, i ordered a glass of wine and struck up a conversation with two hysterical women, a mother and daughter, both of whom live in the baltimore suburbs and were sporting inch-long lavender manicures. i heard all about their gay nephew's one-toothed life partner and how johnny one-tooth and his boyfriend ride around the baltimore ghetto on a moped.

good times.

i've spent the last two days at my grandparents house, dodging questions about girlfriends and who i'm moving to new york with--if they found out that i was moving in with my friend amanda, the same girl that my mother told them i dated through college, their heads might explode. i'd have to explain why i wasn't wearing an engagement ring. add to that the fact that i'm not only moving in with amanda but also with hilary, and we've got some kind of jack tripper three's company situation on our hands. the difference is that i didn't have to pretend to be gay to get them to live with me; i had to pretend to be straight, luring them in with my powers of seduction. (god, could i stop lying?)

now i'm home in ponca city, where i'll chill with my parents and sister until tuesday. this is the part of the trip i've been looking forward to most: time to be in the house i grew up in, with the part of my family i don't have to make up stories for. i've taken lots of pictures of the sweeping, open beauty of oklahoma. all you bitches who don't believe that the plains can be pretty are a-gonna get a lesson.

oh, and in the span of two days my accent's come back. that's all for now, y'all.