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Remember syllogisms from college? For those who didn’t have the pleasure of taking Philosophy 101 (and I hope there are at least a few of you), syllogisms are exercises in deductive reasoning. As in:

1. Men play football.

2. Richard is a man.

3. Therefore, Richard plays football.

As you can see, syllogisms can lead you to draw a lot of crazy conclusions. Some, however, can be very accurate:

1. Dogs are messy.

2. I have four dogs.

3. Therefore, my house is a wreck.

Now, why don’t you try your hand at it?

1. Jonno organizes trips to the supermarket.

2. Jonno has been gone for two-and-a-half weeks.

3. Therefore, _____________________________.

There are, of course, any number of valid responses, but if you said something along the lines of, “Therefore, Richard hasn’t had a fridge that looked this desolate since that semester in college when he discovered [name illicit substance here],” you’re correct.

Seriously people, I’ve just taken an inventory of the fridge, and I’ve been able to divide it into three basic food groups:

1. Beverages

2. Condiments

3. Spinach

You don’t believe me? Check it:

I guess it’s cool and all, being able to survive on Saltines and Sweet and Low for days on end, but I’ll be very happy to see Jonno home again.

While I’m camped out in the City That FEMA Forgot, the boyfriend is kicking up his heels at every queer clambake along the western seaboard–including, most recently, the shockingly tame, tastefully dressed gay porn awards. The good news is, he’s taken pictures. The bad news is, they’re tragically demure and totally safe for work. Like, grandma safe. I’m as disappointed as you are….

For anyone who was curious about the concert: yes, it was kickin’. I even jumped up and down to the beat–but of couse, I kinda had to if I wanted to see over the fat, fat girl who decided to climb up on the go-go box directly in front of me. (I was angry at first, but several bourbon-and-waters later, I mellowed.)

Here are a couple of pics, courtesy of my friend, Robert:

Nina Hagen performing on her 52nd birthday.

Richard, strangely oblivious to Cutie McSweetcheeks, the go-go boy.
(Who, as fate would have it, is a friend of the boyfriend.)

Not pictured: shots from the insane wedding reception held at the club the following night, featuring Japanese anime/punk icons Peelander-Z in a free concert to honor the newlyweds. Also not pictured: mom and dad of the bride rocking out onstage at same.

Call me naive, but I had no idea that New Orleans’ newly arrived population of migrant workers was so thoroughly industrious.

Sure, sights like the one above have become commonplace now: gas stations teeming with groups of men, all waiting for work. Contractors come by in dualies and Suburbans, select a couple of go-getters, and drive them off to parts unknown.

(Side note: growing up, I received daily assurances from an uncommonly paranoid mother that I would be dismembered, shoved in Mason jars, and found under the footbridge at the municipal park if I were ever so foolhardy as to accept a ride from a stranger, so to me, this fly-by-night system of employment seems eerily unsafe. Sketchy at best. But then, I’ve got a 9-to-5 job and a roof over my head, so who am I to criticize anyone else’s methods of getting work? And hey, compared to Anna Nicole Smith’s shameless forays into self-promotion, these folks are pretty harmless.)

Today, however, as I was filling up my tank, one of these guys took a different approach. Instead of the usual, “You looking for help?” and such, this man–and he was, in fact, a man of at least middle age–asked, “You working today?” I nodded and smiled and looked back down at the gas pump, trying to bring the conversation to an abrupt conclusion. Then the guy dropped his voice a bit and asked, “You want to relax?” I looked up and found him sporting the single-most lecherous grin I’ve ever seen on a human being–and believe me, I’ve seen some lecherous looks. Despite the sizeable language barrier that separated us, the dude’s intention was perfectly clear: he wanted to go back to my place, or a deserted alley, or a Port-O-Let, and exchange a little boot-knocking for cold, hard cash.

I passed.

The guy who drove up 15 seconds later, however, didn’t. Before he had even switched off his car, my new friend dumped me like a bad check, sidled over to the new arrival, and boom: done deal. Here’s a shot of them getting into the guy’s Mercedes:

All of which makes things even more vexing and complicated for my poor lil’ ol’ peabrain. Like, in addition to being treated like dirt by hordes of shifty contractors, now these guys have to worry about Jeffrey Dahmer types, too?

Of course, the Sebastian Venables of New Orleans aren’t entirely safe, either….

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s true: after 20+ years of adulation, I’m finally getting my chance to see Nina Hagen perform live.

Nina, in case I don’t get to meet you backstage tonight–although my friend who’s producing the damn thing has more or less assured me that he’ll introduce us if I, you know, perform a, um, favor for him–let me just say that I’m a huge fan. And all that stuff I said about your penchant for clairvoyant space aliens? I take it back. Well, kinda. I mean, it’s a little kooky–and not in the healthy, eccentric, Diana Vreeland way. But whatever: if you wanna run your own psychic UFO hotline, that’s your freaking Geschäft, I suppose. Boogie on down to the beat of your own drum machine, that’s what I say.

On a related note, your web designer must be shot. Or perhaps defenestrated? Drawn and quartered? Tarred and feathered? Well, you’re German–I’m sure you’ll think of something….

In response to yesterday’s lament about being the only dick in the office, I got this from a close personal friend, who, as fate would have it, is also a homosexual among women. He, too, is tired of being asked to change lightbulbs and empty garbage cans and deal with rude customers, because, as he says…

I’m a big ol’ FAGGITY-FAG-FAG-FAG!! Aggressive people make me all trembly and a-twitter! I don’t want to go tell those Junior Latin Kings to get their aggressive, ready-to-kick-my-faggity-face-in feet off the table! If the 200-pound, big, stinky crazy man drops off to sleep in the Reference Room and is drooling on the almanac he’s using as a pillow, then I say let sleeping whack-jobs lie! Don’t expect me to move ’em, sistah! I’m busy touching up my mascara, and cutting out feltboard bears for storytime.

And another thing — ALL MEN IN THE PUBLIC LIBRARY PROFESSION ARE FAGS! ALL OF US!! EVERY LAST LITTLE POKE-BONNETED, SAUSAGE-CURLED, NELLY-OLSEN ONE OF US!! Sure, we shave our heads and grow goatees, but that’s just to appear like wise, monk-like functionaries of a dusty, papery deity with three searching eyes and the head of an owl. We’re eunuchs, people! And any man in the library profession who takes issue with me and tells me that he’s all man and that I’m all wet has only forced himself to forget the day he gave ’em up to the man with the cord and the scalpel. Me, I keep mine in an olive jar in the freezer. How about you, Mr. Vin Diesel in Cataloguing? Top drawer of the nightstand, sugah? In a sequined sachet? Next to your dog-eared paperback copy of Valley of the Dolls?

What’s my point in this diatribe? To have it acknowledged at last that I am not a man. Not a taciturn, burly unit of muscle and dominance, willing to do security duty, tote boxes up and down stairs, climb up on a ladder to change a fluorescent light rod, nor haul away stacks of sooty newspapers. Nor yet am I a woman. As a gay librarian, I want it understood at last that I AM A LADY!!

All said in the manner of Lady Emily Howard, of course.

And yes, like all librarians, he drinks a lot of coffee. Does it show?

I am officially tired of getting stuck with all the P-jobs.

Several years ago, one of my co-workers made a list of all the little jobs around the office–jobs that aren’t assigned to anyone in particular but which have to get done nonetheless: watering the plants, fixing the Xerox machine, setting up booze for special events, and so on. The miscellaneous stuff no one thinks about.

On one side of this list were the V-jobs (i.e. Vagina-jobs), and on the other side were–you guessed it–the P-jobs. We’re a pretty laid back bunch, and we’re none-too-PC, so we all thought it was kinda funny. Every so often, as an onerous task reared its head, someone would invoke his or her biological privilege (e.g. “Don’t look at me! That’s clearly a P-job!”), and we’d all have a good laugh.

Unfortunately, it is no longer a laughing matter.

Today, as I sat at my desk attempting to respond to a dozen emails and craft half a dozen grant applications–all of which are due in, like, a week–and going grayer every passing second, I heard a co-worker down the hall. She was moaning and cursing and sighing (not in the good way). Then I heard her all-too-familiar plaintive cry: “Richard! My mouse won’t work!”

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s 2006: who the hell doesn’t know how to fix a goddamn mouse? Or open a bottle of wine? Or any number of things that involve crouching, lifting, and potentially getting schmutzed? I don’t care that I’m the only guy in our five-person office; if I weren’t here, surely one of them would figure out how to change the toner cartridges in the laser printer.

Of course, I know I’m partially to blame. I was raised in the Deep South by very traditional parents, and I’m a total softie to boot, so when someone asks me to do something–especially a woman–I’m usually more than happy to lend a hand. Now, however, I’m beginning to feel a bit used.

Maybe I should feign a dislocated shoulder for a couple of months. Anyone got a sling (not the fun kind)?

So, the boyfriend’s away for a month. We’re thinking of it as a pseudo-vacation, although he’ll be working the whole time he’s gone. If there were a word comparable to “summering” and “wintering” to describe taking up temporary residence in spring (“springing” obviously doesn’t cut it), that would be what he’s doing.

You see, life in New Orleans requires a good bit of patience even in the best of times, and these, alas, are not the best of times. That’s fine for me–I grew up in moderately large, moderately loud family, so I learned to play the waiting game–but the boyfriend…. Well, it’s probably good for him to be somewhere with fully funcioning banks and bookstores and supermarkets and not so many FEMA workers who, six months later, still haven’t mastered the concept of one-way streets.

As I drove Jonno to the airport on Friday afternoon, he cracked his window a bit, reached over and pushed in the cigarette lighter, pulled out a smoke, waited for the lighter to pop, and lit up. It was a perfect Proustian moment. Watching and hearing and smelling the whole process, I was zapped back to my childhood, piled into a maroon Oldsmobile diesel station wagon (this was before vans and, subsequently, SUVs became de rigeur) with mom, dad, my brothers, and dozens of paperbacks (I was an insatiable reader before college and grad school made books seem tedious), driving toward Disneyworld or Savannah or Gatlinburg or Dallas or wherever the parental units decided we ought to go on our family vacation. In the passenger’s seat, mom would crack her window and pull out a Virginia Slim. Dad–a devout nonsmoker–would instinctively roll down his own a bit and sigh. Mom would push in the lighter and fiddle with the 8-track, then there’d be the pop and the scent of seared tobacco, sometimes accompanied by a little crackle as the cigarette lit. For reasons unknown to any of us, her nicotine cravings peaked when we were stuck in traffic on a blacktop road that was bubbling from the 95+ degree heat. The effect was stifling, but somehow comforting, too. I’m an avid secondhand smoker to this day.

That has nothing to do with anything, by the way–least of all Jonno leaving–but it’s Sunday and nothing’s happened yet except that one of the dogs puked in the kitchen, but I didn’t think anyone would want to hear about that.

Maybe I’m partial ’cause we’re related and stuff, but my sister’s new video seriously rocks!

Fo’ sho, fo’ shiggity.

For the three of you who expressed interest in my other thoughts on Brokeback Mountain, here ya go.

[NOTE: that linky-poo is, like, so totally Not Safe For Work. Not that you look like the sort of person who cares about such things. I’m just sayin’, you know.]