You know how sometimes on game shows like “The Newlywed Game” (get-to-know-you sort of shows) people are often asked, “If you were an animal, what sort of animal would you be?” Well, normally I’m totally confused by such questions. I mean, I’m pretty easygoing, which maybe you could call “monkey-like” (and I am a monkey in Chinese astrology), but I can also be really stubborn, much like the proverbial mule. How do you choose?

If I were asked that question right now, though, I’d know: I would be a baby harp seal.

That’s how I feel as I’m walking down the street and the scorching July sun is beating down on me like a starving Inuit. Really. It’s painful. That heat’s just unChristian.

Which reminds me of a very short story involving my friend Zod….

A couple of years back, Zod was having a late night/early morning breakfast at Shoney’s when a fousome of churchgoing women slid into the next booth. About five minutes into their conversation, Zoddie overheard one of them say, “…so I told her that I was doing the work of the Lord, and if that bitch didn’t like it, well FUCK her.”

(It was the “Christian” part that triggered it.)

Hee hee. I miss you Zoddie.

[Ed. note: Zoddie now informs me that it was, in fact, the infamous Bianca del Rio who overheard the conversation, and that she was in the waiting room at Charity Hospital, not at Shoney’s. Frankly, it’s beginning to sound a lot like an urban myth, but, well, you know, it’s still funny.]

To anyone using Netscape for Mac, I wholeheartedly (well, how ’bout halfheartedly?) apologize for my uninformed usage of css and a troublesome background gif. If you’re seeing this after a day or so of not being able to read my tiny, tiny type, you know what I mean.

Many thanks to Casey for pointing out the error of my ways. Now if he’d only write a few more of those seedy little tales….

So it’s reductive. Okay, really reductive. Still, it’s a start. I mean, you can’t know the players without a program.

Hee hee hee.

I just signed up as a member of this online community so I could throw a little early morning shade at some very humorless people who have little better to do than call Brad Pitt by his first name and critique hexafunny websites that seem to impugn Monsieur Pitt’s questionable dignity.

Anyway, since I was kinda posting a flame, I wanted a username that was a bit aggressive.

I found one.

And the confirmation email looked like this:

Hello fudgepacker,

Thank you for registering for a Global account. You may use this account to access any public community. To login,go to our homepage and enter your account information.

Tee hee. They called me “fudgepacker.”

Six Absolut/rocks/dirty + 80-degree nighttime temperatures + an evening of slumming in drag queen/hustler bars a la John Rechy = complete, utter exhaustion. Can someone please make me a refreshing mint julep on the fly?

It would appear that Moesha is up to something.

Six Unrelated Things

In Glorious Technicolor

1. I had a Proustian moment on my walk to work this morning–all because of architecture. The buildings in our neighborhood are old, you see; most date back a century or more. They were built in the European style, abutting the sidewalk (no front yards, only courtyards). So when you traipse down the street, you can’t avoid hearing the sounds of your neighbors’ domestic life: you’re pressed against their bedroom walls every step of the way.

I passed beneath a bathroom window, and I heard water running in the shower and caught a whiff of shampoo. It only lasted a second, but it brought back a shock of ambiguous memories. I don’t know where I was or how old I was when the memories formed, but the combination of that sound and that smell made me really happy. Bathtime fun with someone I loved.

2. A syllogism:

a. Artists are incurably weird;

b. The people with whom I work are artists;

c. Therefore, the people with whom I work are incurably weird (and must be punished).

3. Syllogisms aside, I really enjoy politics–particularly office politics. It’s such a big facilty here, with everyone divided into factions, that scheming to get what you want is always an amusing challenge. Kind of like Dangerous Liaisons without the sex.

4. My fratboy

quotient remains steady for today. I get points for breakfasting on cold, left-over pizza (my favorite, favorite delicacy), but those points are negated by the significant amount of left-over ratatouille (read: prissy food) I also consumed. Normally the empty beer bottles lying around would swing things back toward the fratrat side, but, well, they’re Beck’s.

5. Someone forwarded me an email today which I’m sure most of you have already gotten and deleted: “The 15 Telltale Signs That You’re Being Stalked by Martha Stewart.” I did, however, find one of the points amusing:

13. On her show she makes a gingerbread house that looks exactly like your split-level, right down to the fallen-over licorice downspout and the stuck half-open graham cracker garage door.

Don’t hate me. Well, okay, if you must.

6. My friend Zoddie feels a little down. Won’t one of you Atlanta ho’s drop him a line and take him out for a drinkie-poo?

7. I use Internet Explorer. When I surf, especially when I’m browsing links, I like to open links in a new window, just ’cause I sometimes find it difficult getting back to the page I started from. But after doing this a certain number of times, IE goes a little cukoo–like, my windows lose everything but the address bar and the right-click menus stop working and I can’t open any new programs. Is anyone else having this problem? Does it have anything to do with zapping javascript-opened windows? Is there anyway to fix it without holding the entire population of Redmond, Washington hostage?

Ha! (Although, with a little work it could be more like “Hahaheeheehoho!”)

California dip left to ferment in the back of the refrigerator for four months (give or take a week) is not edible. Interestingly enough, the same rule applies to spicy bean dip. In fact, based on careful observation, it’s my theory that this holds true for all dips. Somebody notify Scientific American ASAP.

(Which is my way of explaining that I’ve just spent the last bit of my holiday cleaning up the kitchen. As Homer Simpson might say when contemplating Patty and Selma in an oilwrestling match, “Uhhhhhhhhh… [shiver]”.)

Holiday pro: Once you’re an adult, there’s no more playing dress-up with mom and dad and/or attending silly events at the First Baptist Church Family Life Center.

Holiday con: Your friends’ holidays parties often invoke themes, which require elaborate costumes, theme-specific potluck offerings, or both.

Holiday pro: Rare free time spent with friends makes you realize how silly it is that you can only make time for one another on special occasions.

Holiday con: Holidays give you a chance to see the many personalities your friends possess as their alcohol tolerance ebbs away over the course of the day.

Holiday pro: Holidays give you a great chance to spend the day with your dog.

Holiday con: Spending an afternoon with your dog shows you how desperately in need of a bath she is.

Holiday pro: Time away from work gives you time to catch up on things around the house (e.g. reading, cleaning, sleeping).

Holiday con: Spending too much time in your own house makes you realize how you and your boyfriend have the same domestic hygiene habits as frat boys, including the week-old beer bottles (but not the hot sorority babes).

Holiday pro: Holidays give you plenty of time to go to the fagbars and not worry about waking up early for work the next day.

Holiday con: Every other homo within 300 miles has the same idea.

Holiday con: And the music sucks ass.