It's a social visit. My neurologist and me. An annual tradition. This man who has known me since early adolescence, I go and see him ever twelve months. I take an afternoon off work, pay an insane amount for metered parking by the hospital (Twice as much as anywhere else in the city? These people should be shot.). I sit in his waiting room - perhaps five minutes, perhaps forty-five. He collects me and we head to his examination room, where, every year, a new resident doctor waits, anxious to see such a rare, nameless case. They're always quite lovely, a sharp contrast to him. Tall, wiry, sort of hideous, from a colonial nation - I'm convinced his entire family line did horrible things. He's brilliant, if a horrible human being. Cold, removed, occasionally droning on about hospital bureaucracy or making vague political remarks that are completely inappropriate coming from an MD. I don't care. I'm not here for any real reason.

He pokes. He prods. He pricks me with safety pins and touches a vibrating mechanism to my skin to see if I can feel it. Sometimes he attempts to fool me by making the sound of hitting the vibration device but stopping it before it reaches my skin. I always look away as though to show that I'm being a good sport, but I can tell. It sounds different when he stops the vibration.

He speak to the resident, using medical jargon he doesn't bother to explain to me. It doesn't matter. He tells the intern I'm a musician. They ask me how the deterioration affects my profession. He then takes the opportunity to prattle on about his childhood relationship to the recorder or how much his wife hates the bassoon.

He concludes by saying he has nothing more to say. He has other patients in far worse shape. He tells us one or two stories about them. He states that my numbers are good, commenting on my broad shoulders (lol), though in a rare moment of humanity he does acknowledge that good numbers in no way negates the functional deterioration I report. He then asks if I wish to see him again next year. This is a farcically meaningless question because we both know I have to. Not for him, of course. He's completely useless to me. But my insurer will have too many questions if I stop this annual pilgrimage, so I agree. He'll get to share me with his latest resident, and, in turn, I won't lose my livelihood. Not a bad trade, actually.

Maybe next year I'll bring a picnic,

 I loved the Bon Appetite YouTube...you know, before the whole we're-racist-pieces-of-shit thing.

One of my favourite contributors was Carla. Jews and Italians, you know? We just kind of get each other. Connection to family, connection to food, connection to feeling like the world is out to get us...very sympatico. And when she starts her own channel, the algorithm is all in. It's not fancy. Mostly weeknight recipes, nothing complex, but usually food I wouldn't make on my own. Fine. I barely watch, but it's nice to see the thumbnails.

And then the beans. Crispy tofu and green beans, no less (I'm a vegetarian now. Mostly.). Sounds incredible. Asian inspired. Mirin, soy, black vinegar. As if I've ever seen black vinegar. For weeks I think about making it, but the fucking black vinegar. Sure, there are specialty stores, but I'm just not going to make a special trip.

Tonight. A little toke. A little (lot) of vodka. So I order from a local dim sum place because one of the side effects of pandemic depression is that despite years honing culinary skills, delivery is more commonplace. To add insult to my injured Jewish guilt are four shrimp spring rolls. MSG, fuck me slowly, sideways, and upside down. They are incredible. The black vinegar they come with, not so much.

Black vinegar. I've been thinking of it for weeks, and though the spring rolls doused in chili sauce are long gone, I am left with a couple tablespoons of the stuff, enough to make this recipe.

Joy is not an easily found commodity these days. I think the last time I was happy was 2008. But I get the teensiest serotonin rush at the idea of cooking with this serendipitous liquid currently inhabiting a a plastic thimble. I carry my dish to the sink, reach for the lid and lift the container to put it on.

A soundless thud as it hits the counter, black gold spilling everywhere. My fingers, numb, hang in mid-air. 

It has been nearly four years since my body began decaying. It's never been great (see Not-So-Tiny Tim tag), but the overnight symptoms on April 7, 2008 and subsequent decline have ravaged a once joyful soul. I have fought. For security, for longevity, for companionship. I have won many of these battles (not the companionship), having a developed a sense of self-advocacy rarely seen apart from certain Family Ties alumni. I complain about snow in handicap parking spaces. I go on local radio to talk about discrimination faced at a neighbourhood establishment. I order wicked fuckin' cool canes on amazon dot com. In short, I take care of my shit.

And then a tiny container of black vinegar spills. It pools towards the sink, almost reaching but not quite, so small is its quantity. It forecasts my future, swirling on the granite like mist in a crystal ball. This is the best you will ever have it. Prepare to run, tumble, fall downhill towards...what? I have no idea. But the fingers are worse each month. Then each week. I've planned so much, fought so hard, but the reality slaps me in the mouth. This is the best you will ever have it. You can give up things you love. You can fight corporations. You can order shrimp spring rolls every night of the week without significant impact to your resources. But the one resource that is depleting exponentially faster before your very eyes is you. This is the best you will ever have it.

Hello, old friends.

Years ago, I thrilled the internet with tales of the hot guy who watered the plants at the temp job I had when I was 24. It was...a whirlwind. This was a time of confusion, high-waisted jeans and a plethora of innuendo using the word 'spout'.

Now, years later, my penchant for men in the service industry has not waned. No, no. If anything it has grown even larger. Is it due to nearly another decade of unsuccessful online dating apps? Or perhaps the fact I have more conversations with my paid personal trainer than any friend still on my Facebook list? Who's to say...

Loneliness. Loneliness is to say. Anxiety and Isolation also have some keen words.

Most recently, I went in hard on a young gentleman working at the service desk of a local auto mechanic shop. Now, I know what you're thinking:

"But of course! A car mechanic! It was in front of him all along!"

To be clear, that's stupid. The guy wasn't actually a mechanic, but rather a young, sensitive soul, probably just out of university, who was killing time until his songwriting career takes off. How do I know that he has music industry ambitions? WELL, when the company Christmas card came complete with all their employees' signatures on it, I found his full name, Googled the shit out of it, and came upon a Canadian Idol audition tape from 2010.

So that's pretty much where I'm at these days.

Not even a close friends pity-filled eyes when I showed her his Instagram account and his bio line said "taken" could deter me from my lust. Not actually, that was a pretty big boner killer. Also, her suggestion that I could make an electronic advance anyway was swiftly rebuffed, because here's the things with these fantasies: they stop being fun the second any sort of reality creeps in.

Writing pervy blog posts about strangers? Aww yiss. Actually talking to them in real life? Full-body hives.

And fuck that guy anyway, with his 2,000 Instagram followers, dreamy eyes, and Aryan Nation lookin' boyfriend. I have moved on to an emotionally distant burrito assembler at my local taqueria. His has the beginnings of a unibrow, a slight limp, makes possibly the most shittily-assembled burrito I have certainly ever experienced... and he's perfect.

Airbud meets Metropolis

Life is hard right now. Not like Syrian refugee hard. Not being held in detention for 30 hours at JFK hard. Just, like, I don't think I'm living the life I was meant to hard. And also I'm 3-fucking-2 and there are complications that come with that number that didn't exist when I first started this ten years ago.

Guys, I have a fucking dog. Do you know how restricted I am as a person because of a dog? Like, ruff rough stuff. I also have a mortgage. And a car. And a job that allows me to have these things. And I'm fucking lucky to have all that, as well as my white male privilege. I mean, I've got the queer gimp Jew thing, but still. These are complications as much as they are joys. Or what should be joys.

I am fucking miserable. Not just tonight but generally. Was I miserable ten years ago? Probably. Was I trying to do hot yoga via radiator heat in my first apartment and then blogging about it? Yes. But being miserable is okay when you still have the whimsy and naivety of youth that allows for such misadventure. Now I'm wise and miserable. And it licks taint.

Maybe I'm just a miserable person. And were I just a miserable person writing about their life and throwing it into the void of internet communications circa 2006 then that would be unremarkable, as we were all doing this shit in 2006. But maybe it isn't just that. Maybe this is an attempt to reclaim the fervour I had then, part of a journey to analyse what interested me enough in observing people on the bus or fabricating love affairs between me and the guy who watered the plans at work. And illustrate it all in Microsoft Paint. At least if you're miserable and passionate then shit can get accomplished. Or maybe I'll just write this one post and that will be it.

So I don't know. Don't hold me to anything. But I know it can't stay like this.

Dinner

Tonight I made dinner.

I made salmon with white wine and dill, roasted yams, and a caesar salad.

I made dinner.

I have not made dinner for a long time. About a year and a half. Not since I moved back from Toronto.

A year and a half ago, I was slightly defeated from three years of attempts to crawl out of solitude, but optimistic about what I was going towards. I had been working out three times a week with a trainer. My health had never been so good and my body reflected it. I saw the trainer, made shakes, cut the carbs after 6pm, drank seldomly, and did not engage in anything beyond alcohol. I made dinner a lot.

So then I moved back. I entered a profession. Got busy, got stressed. I stopped making dinner. I stopped training. I did, however, find something beyond alcohol, something that I largely control but occasionally gets the better of me, like an eighteen year-old in a bar fight. And when I lose that fight, I hate it. Not the first few hours, but those that follow, and the day or two afterwards. You can do the math - the benefits by no means outweigh the costs.

I was scared at first that this was addiction. It is not. I never choose it above anyone or anything I love. It's only there when I'm bored and lonely, popping up anywhere from once a week to once every 3 months. No, I won't be on Intervention anytime soon. But it takes something from me, even so. And my job takes something - a lot of somethings, actually - from me. My family gets a little bit, my friends get some too, when they're around.

And by the end, I'm so tired of lending out little bits, for both good and bad, that there's not a lot left. Not for the gym a mere four floors down. Not seeking new people or communities. Not for making dinner.

It's silly for an adult to wait on being rescued.

"I don't know why I can't be cooler about things. It's not something I remotely get off on; it's crippling at times. Shitty feelings just fester and I can't really resolve them or let it slide either. All this to say, I wish I could have been less dickish about things not going how I wanted them to. I can't rightfully say I can tell why it mattered so much at the time. But I feel that maybe I expected more of you than I do of most people, which is not fair, and I apologise for that. I still feel pretty icky about the way things wound up, but I'm acknowledging that it wasn't a one-sided transgression. We both have the ability to be awesome and terrible friends at the same time. I guess I lost sight of that.

"There's no real end game in writing this. I'm just sorry for reacting harshly (maybe a bit cruelly) to your last communication. Hope things are going well."


...is what I wrote a few nights ago when chemically altered but didn't send once sobered up. So it's here instead.

I need friends

I live in a neighbourhood that was recently named one of the most desirable in Canada. It's one of the more vibrant in Winnipeg, hosting not just wealthy artsy/academic types but also several low income housing units. My building is a five-storey yuppie haven with newly reno'ed hardwood floors, large windows, AC, and a bathroom with one of those bathtub shells that fits over the old one, with lots of shelves and stuff. I've only seen one tenant over thirty-five. His name is Daniel and he is a suspected alcoholic who sits on the front stairs in a stained tank top and fisherman's hat, smoking until even his eyes grow wrinkles. But enough on Daniel.

The building next to ours is a mere three storeys and, while not low-income housing, is certainly at a lower price point than my overpriced pad. It's a sunny day here. Warm without being hot, and the first time in weeks that the humidity has lifted and the sunlight comes down pure, as though swerving through and around water particles had somehow tainted it before now. Against my lease's regulations, I have removed my window screens to feel the sun and look out on the neighbourhood from above.

Below, in the shadow of our building, I see a woman. 30's, 40's. Hard to tell. She is dressed in a striped tank top and shorts, a cigarette in one hand, a tote bag in the other, with two more tote bags on each shoulder. She lays them down by the dirt beneath what I assume to be her window. From the three bags, she begins to remove rocks, varying in size from about that of an apple to a spaghetti squash. She lays them carefully, one by one, in an arch from one end of her window to the other, the tangent just touching the edge of the dirt where it touches the grass.

After ten minutes, she steps back, same cigarette in hand, to admire her work. I want to yell down to her, "Hey! You won't be able to grow anything there! There's no sunlight."

But I think maybe she knows that already. She's clearly a functional person, one who can afford nice-ish clothes, cigarettes, and means of transporting three bags of rocks. I feel like she knows something I don't. Maybe something philosophical about how in a world without flowers, rocks become things of beauty. Or some shit like that. I don't know. But it makes me sad. Not for her, but for my own lack of understanding.

They'll never love me

I know that no one reads this anymore. Hell, I don't even narcissisticly go and read backlogged posts anymore either. But I just can't have one more slutty tale to tell my friends that winds up being mostly me pseudo-apologising for being slutty in the first place. So hello Floygn my old friend, I've come to talk to you again.

A boy came over last night. 20 years old may fall into 'guy' territory but the entire experience felt very 'boy' so just go with it and stop interrupting me. He is from a small, extremely religious town a little over an hour outside my city. We'd been chatting via Grindr since the previous weekend. He appeared precocious, enthusiastic and far too complimentary to not throw up about a dozen red flags, none of which I saw.

We were chatting last night and the conversation veered into, shall we say, erotic make-believe.

"I'll come over. Right now. I'll do it lol"

We discussed it, I myself rationaling that I was less interested in a late-night hook up than meeting in daylight and just letting things unfold. But no, he was determined, and as exhausted as I was, it was pretty exciting.

He arrived and presented pretty much how I'd imagined. Tall, slender, an oversized hoodie over his gangly frame.

Clothes disappeared quick. Inhibitions soon followed. He responded to every touch like a man quenching his thirst after a month in the desert. The enthusiasm was...appreciate, but probably a bit telling.

After about an hour he came. As the last wave of his orgasm left him, it was replaced by a tidal of guilt and shame that gushed forth, tears spilling down his face.

This was so wrong. I shouldn't be here. They'll all hate me. I can't be gay. I can't. It's so unfair. I'm so alone.

No amount of soothing, physical nor verbal, helped at all. He cried himself to sleep before awaking suddenly, lying stiff as a board in my bed, not wanting to be touched, not wanting to talk. I tried curling around him, respecting his space but trying like an asshole to show that should he just roll over onto his side a wee bit, I was ready to be the all-comforting big spoon.

This did not happen. Instead at 3:30am he got out of bed, got dressed, whispered, "I'm sorry, David," into the darkness and left.

I sent him this message: I know we'll probably never speak again, but if at some point in the future you would let me know that you're alright, I would appreciate it.

But we and the internet know that isn't going to happen.

My neighbour/friend/nebulous fun buddy is going to a drug-fueled orgy tonight.

I wanna hit something.

Friends currently on FB chat...

...listed as I call them in my head.

-Funny girl I've never talked to that 'likes' errthang I do
-Super cool cousin I've met twice and want to be like/steal boyfriend from
-Former trainer/dykiest straight chick ever
-Good friend who's profile photo is still that of his dead dog. Sympathy...but take it down, yo
-Kid I met at a fake modeling gig whose beej-virginity I took
-Kinda needy boring would-look-good-minus-15-lbs chat guy
-Chick I met once through friends who thought I was funny so we like her
-Saskatoon friend with amazing hair and a huge ass I will never get all up in
-High school choir friend whose pubes I saw that one time
-Obese suburban friend with whom I have tons in common, obesity not withstanding
-High school best friend WHO NEEDS TO FUCKING TELL ME WHAT SONG SHE WANTS ME TO SING AT HER WEDDING IN 3 WEEKS
-Jew Gay with big ears
-Morbidly obese cousin
-Mother of the husband of the sister of a good friend who posts stupid shit about bunnies and breast cancer (sorry)
-Cantor who gave me a handy-j in Israel
-Guy who might sell me drugs if the first 5 people I call are not answering
-Aw, she was fun!
-Cousin with undisclosed mental retardation (legit)
-Hot South African that stole the role of Tevye from me by playing him with a Jamaican accent
-Macedonian friend of a friend who is so good-looking I want to bone then kill him
-Brazilian kid from Manhunt I have never talked to
-Demi-midget
-Bird girl that had a kid at 21


Sorry. Twitter has taken all the singular funny things I think about that normally become blog posts and turned them instant 140-character gratification. So just follow me on Twitter. Plus, I've accrued almost twice the followers there in two months than I have here in 7 years...so, ya know, suck on that.

Know what's ridiculous?

Keeping your shoes on just in case the guy you had coffee with a few hours ago spontaneously calls up and wants to hang out.

Know who's ridiculous? This guy.

ESL adventures on Grindr

Holy Shit Balls: Hey

Illustrious D: Hiya

HSB: Love? Big? Love

ID: Pardon?

HSB: Looking for love. What kind of love

ID: Platonic or romantic, long term for both

HSB: Ok

ID: You?

HSB: R u hung? Platonically speaking I'm hung

ID: You're platonically hung?

HSB: Looking for big love Yep .))

ID: What...does that mean?

HSB: And platonically HOTT

*sends me picture of his cock*

Too :))

ID: K thanks

HSB: U going?

ID: Not looking for that kind of love.

HSB: But that was platonic Platonic is not physical Ur def need to be clear.

5 Little Known Facts About This Kid

1. I know I gotta eat lettuce and stuff, but I feel that it subverts the pleasure of eating so rather than make a salad I like to just cut off a big chunk and eat it like a carrot. No dressing. Like a fucking man.

2. I have 2 out of 4 DVDs of the third season of Will & Grace because the "friend" that gave it to me thought it would be "cute" if we "shared" them. I think she's a "cheap-ass bitch." These ain't no travelin' pants.

3. People are always really, really surprised when they find out I've never been to Europe, which I've started to interpret as everyone thinking I'm a abnormally stuck up. Well, congrats on having been to London for 5 days on your grade 11 history trip. You still have a unibrow and no money.

4. I don't like getting frisky before bed or first thing in the morning. I'm tired. Fuck off. Plus, neither a Xanax or morning breath are particularly aphrodisialical. Or something. Come see me, like, before lunch or after the gym and than we'll talk nipple tweaking.

5. I'm on Twitter @theillustriousd. This one isn't funny, just fucking true. So get on that shit. I talk about black bus drivers always being late and why I'll die alone. Probably cause of the racism.

Pimp my kid

Yesterday, my father offered to fund an eHarmony premium profile on my behalf.

Ignoring the fact that eHarmony is a secretly Christian site that doesn't offer same-sex matchmaking, this was a sweet if horrifically inappropriate offer. Dad essentially wants to be my pimp. He just can't understand why I'm single (as stated many times before here). I love (LOOOOOOOOOVE) the fact that he thinks so highly of his kid that he can't imagine why this would be. It's ricockulously adorable. He also said that he knows I've kinda pulled myself outta the game (true) and that it's time to get back in (perhaps also true).

So taking this under consideration, I decided to redouble my efforts, or because I'd been putting in no effort, simply double my efforts. I bought and paid for a three-month membership at mypartner.com, a site specifically geared to the Gs, Ls, Bs and even Ts looking for something lasting.

My rationale in actually paying for it is this: I invest in school to make me smarter, a trainer to make me healthier, high quality food to keep my body running as best as it can, plane tickets home to see my friends and family to nourish my 'soul'... why not throw a hundred bucks into the ring for the chance at finding something long term?

I read recently that over two-thirds of lgbt couples now meet online. Staggering, isn't it? Seeing as the stigma around it has pretty much come down, alongside the facts that I don't meet a lot of new people and my friends are zero help in this arena (evidently friend-to-friend matchmaking only occurs in Jennifer Lopez movies), this seems like a good shot.

But no more Manhunt, Grindr, even Plenty of Fish. F-in' wastes of time. If I'm making an investment (only $100, I know, but sha!) I damn well want someone who's going to invest in me too. So I'm sending a template message to any and all that seem remotely compatible, casting that wide net, and seeing what happens. This doesn't discredit any of my previous notions of being happy alone regardless. I'm gonna be a fuckin' treat. But might as well see if there's a chance, right?

GRRRRRR SUPERSTAR!

And I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart

So many tags worked for this one

"I'm scared that I'm going to end up alone. I'm scared that I'm always going to be somebody's friend, or brother, or confidant, never quite somebody's everything. Mostly I'm scared I'm never going to find a guy that I love as much as I love you."

Okay, this is a quote from Dawson's Creek, so first off, fuck you for judging me. Secondly, just shut up and keep reading.

I don't deal all that well with male friendships. I know this is a huge gay stereotype, but as much as I hate having to identify with anything gay (self-loathing homo much?), it's the truth. They make me anxious. Despite having a few close male friends, they're sort of outliers, as though women are my own species and I have a few extraterrestrial buddies on top of that. Whenever I'm with a guy friend, I am keenly aware that I am indeed with a guy friend.

This brings us to the opening quotation. I have a male friend that I am not in love with. This is not remarkable, or shouldn't be at least. I do, however, love him very dearly and in the absence of someone to be in love with, this can muddle the brain at times. This is usually pretty innocuous, little jealousies here and there, an odd dream from time to time. I have these with most of my friends actually, but for some reason when they happen with him...I dunno, they just cut deeper.

I am not attracted to straight men. Not. Ever. This single fact is likely the reason why we were able to become friends and remain that way. Sometimes I think that despite all the various facets of our relationship, if this one fact were suddenly called into question then the entire friendship would be at risk, like the most architecturally sound house being build atop a single brick that you didn't know was holding up the whole thing and one day it crumbles and the entire structure comes crashing down. We can only be friends because I don't believe this brick exists. Still, the house exists and it is on the closest friendship-property I own next to adding the word 'in' before love. If you understand the metaphor I'm going for here then bravo, 'cause frankly it's 1:30 in the morning and I'm struggling to get it.

It terrifies me that I could spend the rest of my life (because this friend is a lifer) putting heavy, inappropriate, misguided internal pressure on this person because, for no other than being wonderful, he has been cast as my occasional closest-thing-to. I've stated before that I believe a person - or, more specifically, I - can be happy being alone during their life and I still believe this is true. However, as someone who is capable of romantic love and has experienced in short yet epic bursts, I think certain elements need to manifest in other, only slightly torturous ways, such as not being in love with your friend but on occasion thinking as if you were. All of it boils down to this: I am capable of loving another person so much, as witness to how deeply I care for this friend, that as great as it is, if this was still only the closest I could ever get and I never found someone I loved more than him, I would look back on my life not with regret but with such sadness.



A couple enders:

1. I've been incredibly scared lately of my social disinterest in love. I've been thinking that I grew out of it, along with the other passions that ruled my early adulthood, from falling deeply into the hearts of virtual strangers to practically destroying my house in decorating for a party. But my heart has been beating so fast as I've been writing this post, and I turned off the lights and told myself to go to bed twice before deciding to just get up and pour this out. So maybe I haven't outgrown my irrational passions. They're heartbreaking but I want them around forever.

2, I've been spending a lot of time recently talking with a friend about their problems and I suspect because of this mentor-mentee relationship that they might have started having certain feelings of one-sidedness about the sharing of their traumas, that because of the advice I've offered that I am above emotional upheaval. If you are reading this, I hope this proves that I am just as weak and scared, and that we're just two people talking.

Bath + Photography = Natural Fit

This photo is way too narcissistic for Instagram, but this is MY effing blog, so I'm posting it here.

Flipper the bird

Oooooh! I'm on Plenty of Fish! Look at my profile! I'm so whimsical and lighthearted! I have shirtless pictures of me doing a handstand! The only thing I want on a date is to laugh! I have a really good orthodontist! I'm one of the 95% of people that count rock climbing as a pastime!

Anyway...

That was cynical, so let's turn this ship around, shall we?!

*turns ship around*

*accidentally mows down herd of dolphin*

*contemplates if a group of dolphins is actually called a herd*

*is too lazy to wiki that shit*

*ewwww dolphin guts everywhere!*

*ok, that last one wasn't even an action*

*Damnit!*


Phew, ship turned around! Anyway, I was on the bus yesterday and saw some dude with a plastic bag and immediately thought, "What a dick. Everybody knows to carry reusable bags with them these days!"

Then I thought to myself, "Hey, do YOU carry around a bag ALL the time? What if this guy does it, like, 364 days a year and this was the ONE day he forgot?"

Then I realized that I'd made the choice to think the worst of him. Oh, it was judgey. E'er so judgey. So I've made the decision that from now on whenever I see a stranger or anyone for that matter in a potentially negative way that I will assume better of them unless proven otherwise.

I feel we should all try this together as a social experiment. It doesn't mean bad things won't happen or that the positivity theorem won't ever be disproved. Still, it might help. As an example, imagine if a person who suspects their partner is cheating decides to not be a psycho bitch and instead just goes, "Hey, babe. I have this suspicion. Is it right?" He might be cheating, in which case, ya know, freak the fuck out. If he hasn't been though you've just saved yourself a lot of crazy bitch internal stress. Ya welcome.

Or another example, imagine if I have, like, three THOUSAND people that read this blog but only 17 follow it cause the rest are too intimidated by the awesomeness of my tag labels.

Anyway, try this in earnest. Report back and tell me how you felt doing it.

Of llamas and wontons

Life Tip: Don't be ugly and fat. Just try at least.

Been in Montreal for a couple days. It's been fun. Very chill. Lots of walking, which is great cause I'm only eating about twice a day and it invariably involves maple syrup and some kind of pork. Life really would have been so different and obese had I chosen to move here.

The dear friend I am staying with has a lovely live-in German boyfriend whose friend is also staying here. I sleep in the living room and wake up each morning to the two men speaking in German and so keep thinking I'm in the Magic Flute. I'm all, "Get yer hands off Pamina, you koksaugers!" and they're all *blank stare*.

I make friends awesome.

I went to see a concert with a couple of friends yesterday as their good buddy was playing viola in the orchestra. I was told he is 25, Israeli, gorgeous and plays the viola. They talked about him as though Jesus Christ was just the Putzie and that this fellow was the real Danny Zuko. Afterward, we all went out with a bunch of his friends - perhaps 8 of us total - to a Chinese restaurant he recommended, and I gotta say...additional life tip: Do not hype up your friends if they look like slightly attractive but slightly judgey Israeli llamas. This is not a great plan.

I've discussed "shiny people" in the past; those folks that most everyone is just drawn to like an everyday celebrity, and when you're one of the few that are not so into them...it's real awkward timez, which makes me awkward timez.* However, after about a half an hour, I just thought, "Hey, shiny asshole (He's not an asshole; I'm just being dramatic)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You're pretty eff-ing smudged," so then I regained my power of speech so oft lost around The Shinies and just continued on with the evening. Weirdly enough I had a nice moment with pretty much everyone at the table but him so the big final third life tip here is don't get weird around hyped people cause they're probably not that great and if they are that great then they will find you equally amazing and shiny instead of giving you pursed llama lips all night.

*Everything makes me awkward timez.