Auto Massage: It's a New World

This is so not me

I have fairly bad scoliosis.  That is not a form of bad breath; it’s when your backbone is curved rather than the normal straight.  As an over-achiever, my backbone not only swerves in an S shape, it also spirals slightly.  That means two things: 1) the figure from classic literature I most closely resemble is not Heathcliff, but Quasimodo and 2) my neck and shoulder often hurt.  It’s why trips to the Kabuki spa for massages and my genius chiropractor Greg Gorman show up in this blog so much.

 

It’s also why our trips to Walgreens lately have included me being totally enthralled by a Shiatsu Massage Cushion they’ve been demonstrating.  I was initially skeptical, but once I shoved the old lady who was hogging it out of the way and tired it for myself, I was sold.

 It’s a cushion that sits in an office chair and has a pair of revolving roller balls that move up and down pummeling your back muscles into beautiful submission.  I announced several times to R Man “I’m going to buy this,” which meant he should buy it for me, but since he never fell for it, I finally sprang for it myself and got one yesterday.

I’m using it right now as I type this; truly, it has improved my life.  For the last half hour, I’ve been making moaning noises one normally doesn’t hear outside the backrooms of certain bars that don’t invite ladies.

The only drawback is that I’m so tall, the area the cushion considers my whole back misses by a couple of inches on each end, so I have to readjust myself occasionally to allow it to hit those spots it would otherwise miss.  It’s small price to pay for robotic ecstasy.  I may be in love.

I have none of these muscles.

More Garden

I would like to imply I have spent the morning cutting flowers for the parlour, like some well-bred Edwardian Lady, but in fact, I was out pulling weeds until I just got so sick of grubbing, I decided that harvesting freesia and taking pictures would seem like I was accomplishing something instead of just slacking off from the fucking nut-grass and dandelions, which are just going to win anyway.

Herewith, mrpeenee's salute to spring:

Lotsa flowers for the house. Freesia, ranunculus, roses, jasmine, cornflowers, you name it.


I love the color of cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus, and thanks to Pansy Bastard for helping me with the name)

The perfect yellow rose.

Jasmine from the trellis below my window and which on the rare warm day here perfume my bedroom all night. I know that sounds terribly poetic and delicate and I might feel that way if I hadn't just finished pruning them back with the tender attention of Sherman's March to the Sea.


The last rhododendron of the season. God love it, this poor plant hung on for years after I planted it in a variety of wrong spots until it finally wound up here where it's thriving. Right on girl.


This is an odd little edging plant called Gobu. The leaves look like strawberry plants, but it has lots of these charming orange blossoms that stand way above the plant on stiff stems. I think they're cool.

Designer's Ho-hum-case

Each year the local Designer Showcase takes an overpriced mansion in some toney San Francisco neighborhood and allows a coterie of decorators to spew their insanity over the insides, each designer bitch getting an individual room. It is always one of my favorite justifications for my slogan “Eat the Rich.” Amazing how the lack of a budget limit or client disapproval forces these aces to display their addiction to bad color schemes, proportions that wildly miss and whimsy that absolutely grates.

The last few years the rooms all displayed colors that looked like designers who had been swapping their psycho meds with each other had picked them in a very, very dark room. A green taffeta sofa, some unlikely place between sea foam and lime, still haunts my nightmares.

This year, as seen  here,   if you’re bold enough to go look, they’ve all jumped on the tastefully restrained taupe-and-beige bandwagon. Any more monochromatic and snow blindness sets in, I’m sure. I know calling a place that features a shark skeleton as an accessory “restrained” is unlikely, but I’m not talking about the knick-knacks, that is, after all, how designers pay for their rent and rentboys. It’s the color palette throughout that seems astonishingly soporific.I can’t wait to go. I love to drift from room to room, my lips pursed, exchanging wordless glances with my cohorts.  Glances that say so eloquently "What the fuck were they thinking?" I always like to include at least one gesture I’m particularly fond of where I enter a room, stop abruptly and gasp “Oh. My.” And not in enthusiastic tones, I assure you. It’s the high point of the tour for me.

I Forgot I Had a Blog

Did you miss me darlings? Don’t bother to rush in answering, I know you did, but I was so busy with the stupid Small Business Week, which is finally, thank you jeebus, dead and in the ground. My last act of the week was to participate on a panel. Of course, there was a crazy lady in the audience who took the opportunity to rail, at length, about some problem she had, or thought she had, with some program totally unrelated to any of us speaking. You could have cut the “What the fuck?” atmosphere with a knife. I finally stepped in and babbled something about how terribly sorry I was to hear about her difficulties with alien anal probes or shipping tariffs or this spring’s hats or WHATEVER she was talking about. I got three compliments later on how well I had handled it, which was particularly gratifying since I still have no idea what I actually said.  I am so good.

Once that was behind us, we had a lovely Memorial Day weekend doing nothing. I extended the holiday with an extra day off on Tuesday when I never got out of my jammies, just sat around reading and eating Ho-ho’s. Completely, absolutely, totally fabulous.

Tuesday was so successful, in fact, I decide to repeat it today with another day-cation and so I here I sit, catching up on the world of my blog sisters.  Happy Anniversary Muscato!  And Happy Anniversary Miss Janey!  Lookin’ swell, soignée and sweet TJB!  Congratulations on your dead rat Jason!  Get back on your meds Thombeau!  And hi hello to all you other darling, miscreant losers, you!

In between exhaustive bouts of doing nothing, I have been productive. Amazing, I know. The garden calls, forcing me to notice the freesia bulbs I planted in a burst of uncharacteristic optimism have come up and are so beautiful. I’ve been unhappy for more than a decade that freesia sold in florists are lacking in the delicate, heady scent they used to have, when I was young and the world a better place. So I hunted down bulbs specifically advertised as producing scented blossoms, and lord honey, they are. So fragile and sweet. I love them.

So does Saki.

And what would a round-up report from me be without Houseboy news?


Gerberus Maxera reports his Interpretive Danse salute to Female Trouble is coming along nicely. I still have not had the heart to tell him the film is not a documentary.

Antonias Firallus still cannot locate his panties. The good ones, with the days of the week embroidered on them.

Marellus Pastelus denies having anything to do with them.

Because Crumbs Are Not Enough

As a bitter old queen, I was plenty realistic enough not to expect a new president to wave a magic wand and fix all the ills of a homophobic society. But as state after state has made marriage equality possible and Obama has remained absolutely silent on the matter, I have become more annoyed with the Democrats cowardly stance. By not even offering a "way to go guys" let alone any kind of active support, they are showing how little they value gay and lesbian efforts that help them win in 2008.

And then I ran across this from Cleve Jones over on I Should be Laughing which articulates much better than I can what I’ve been thinking and also serves as a call that I think is not just a good idea, but necessary. Let’s go.

Cleve Jones, who conceived of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and worked as an intern in Harvey Milk's office in the 70s, responds to David Mixner's call for a National March on Washington for LGBT Rights:

"Over the past six months I have been contacted by many of the emerging new leaders of the grassroots movement created in the wake of Proposition 8, some eager to organize a march on Washington. Up until now, I have discouraged plans for a march, based mostly on my memories of the cost and difficulties of previous marches. I also had high hopes for our new President and the Democratic majority in Congress.As I write this, we in California are still waiting for the State Supreme Court's decision on Proposition 8. Today is the 30th anniversary of the White Night Riots and tomorrow is Harvey Milk's birthday. Next month we will observe the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion and the birth of the modern LGBT Movement.

Across the country, a new generation of LGBT leaders is rising up, learning how to organize, speak out and fight back. These young activists reject compromise and delay; “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism,” described so aptly by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They are demanding nothing less than full equality under the law for LGBT people in all fifty states.


In my travels throughout California and around the country, I have been stunned and inspired by the determination and fearlessness of our young people. This is the generation that is going to win. This is the time to unite and push - as we have never pushed before - to achieve victory.

Sadly, at the very moment we are poised to reach our greatest goals, President Obama and the Democratic leaders of Congress have turned their backs, forgotten their promises and betrayed our trust. In recent weeks House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has stated that repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act is “not a priority.” President Obama has ignored the appeals of brave young people serving in our military as they are drummed out of the services for being gay or lesbian. Indeed, Lt. Daniel Choi who recently “came out” publicly, was dismissed from the army, even though he is a highly valued fluent Arabic speaker and a veteran of the Iraq war.

Apologists for the Democrats counsel caution and patience. They speak of “political reality.” The time has come to change that reality.

I applaud and endorse David Mixner's call for a national march with the following four suggestions:

• Schedule the march for the weekend of October 10 - 11, 2009. This is National Coming Out Day and the 30th anniversary of the first national march.....The Columbus Day holiday provides a three-day weekend for many and the weather is generally favorable.
  
  Have one demand only: “Full Equality Now - full and equal protection under the law for LGBT people in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states.” Let's stop settling for fractions of equality. Every compromise undermines our humanity. We must declare our equality.
  
  Organize the march from the grassroots with a decentralized internet-based campaign. Keep it simple; avoid bloated budgets and cumbersome structures. The primary objective must be to turn out the largest possible crowd. We don't need elaborate and expensive staging or fabulous dinner parties....we need a million or more people in the street demanding equality now.
  
  Encourage and enlist our allies in the broader progressive movement to build the march. Involve the labor movement, racial, ethnic and immigrant communities, progressive faith leaders, peace and social justice advocates and other supporters. LGBT people of all ages and races recognize the challenges facing our nation and our planet. We are eager to stand, as equals, with our fellow citizens in meeting these challenges.
  
  We are on the verge of a new chapter in the history of our country and our movement. There is a bold new spirit and a powerful new resolve within our communities. Now is the time. We are equal."

Almost Through

I’d just like to point out two things:

1) The picture in the "mrpeenee's Annual Crazy Week Begins" post of the rather podgy guy with unattractive glasses IS NOT ME. The very idea. I Googled “pictures of crazy guys” and found him and never dreamed anyone would confuse us. I am, after all, still the top model on the East Coast. Although the kitty does rather resemble Saki, especially when I dress him up in his tin foil hat.

Also, I notice no one has ever conused me with one of the houseboy pictures.Hmm.

2) This morning represents a very short reprieve in the madness of our festive week. I have organized, run around and charmed, charmed, charmed. The flow of small talk continues unabated, in between bouts of rearranging the furniture in our training room. Nineteen tables and 46 chairs and I have moved each and every one of them at least three times in the last two days, plus dragging in scores of extra seating from all over the floor. The last thing I did Monday evening before rushing off to the City Hall gala was to move 16 chairs in there. Walking in the next morning I was confronted with all of them having been neatly returned to the conference room by our slightly retarded receptionist because “They were in the wrong place,” much like his brains.

Anyway. The good thing is that all the events except one have been huge hits, standing room only, rave reviews. The one exception was a seminar that had almost 70 people registered and only 10 showed up. The technical term for that is “bomb” and I need to turn my attention to spinning how it’s really, really a good thing for the sponsors who paid for it, but right now I need to go move chairs. The end is in sight, thank the goddess.

Editor's note: Before I could actually get this posted, I had to stop and run fix the PowerPoint show for the panicky banker presenting the 9:00 class, proving the end is in sight, but not here yet.

mrpeenee's Annual Crazy Week Begins

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Tag. Honest. Honest Tag. Whatever

Ray Ray over at the Messy American has tagged me with the Honest Blogger meme.  The point is to write 10 honest things about yourself.  Considering that in previous posts on this blog I have discussed a rough estimate of how many men I’ve had sex with and how eating asparagus makes my pee smell, I can’t imagine I could be accused of being less than forthcoming.  Still, I love tags so here we go with even more TMI from mrpeenee.

 

1)    Although I’m very fond of showtunes AND I’m gay (imagine,) I can’t stand Stephen Sondheim.  I think I would rather be chopped up into meatpies than listen to Sweeny Todd.  I do like his lyrics for Gypsy, of course.  After all, he rhymed “Schleppah” with “Miss Mazeppa.”  Respect must be paid for that, but I draw the line at Sunday in the Park with Whatever.

 

2)    I missed my mother’s funeral.  R Man and I were in Paris, I got a call from my sister-in-law the night before we were scheduled to leave and she told me my mother had died and my father had scheduled the funeral for the next day, in the morning. Frantic calls to several airlines were useless, I couldn’t get to Houston in time. Fifteen years later do I still resent it, that they couldn’t wait one day until I could get home?  Yes, oddly enough, I do.  I also still resent what hostile, sourpuss old trouts the ticket agents at De Gaulle airport were, but you have to sort of expect that.  It’s Paris.

 

3)    I am a very picky eater, something I didn’t even realize about myself until my late 20’s.  Love cooked onions, but hate them raw; I only eat nuts by themselves, not as an ingredient in something.  And yet, I love odd foods like liver, sweetbreads, kidneys (Mmm, offal!) and beets and lentils.

 

4)    I’m still embarrassed that I got kicked out of the University of Texas for being such a slacker.  It’s goes to show you, there is such a thing as too much of a good time.

 

5)    I had to stop drinking liquor because I couldn’t do it in anything like moderation.  I would start and not stop until I was unable to hit my mouth with the glass.  So I just stopped.  Boom.  No more for me, I’ll pass.

 

6)    I get bored making lists like this.

 

7)    My passion for porn and thrift stores continues unabated, even as I run out of room for more smut and more crap.

 

8)    I have two older brothers about whom I almost never write in this blog.  We’re fond enough of one other, but not really important in each other’s lives.

 

9)    I was wild about playing with my friend Stephanie’s vast collection of Barbie dolls when I was 10 years old.

 

10) I have very large, very pretty feet.  I know this because a number of people interested in things like that have assured me so.

 I'm supposed to pass this meme along, of course, like some social disease.  I choose Jason, Muscato, TJB and Miss Janey

 

I Love My Job

My agency is having our fabulous, fantastic annual celebration next week. Twenty-seven seminars and luncheons and dinners and networking events and tea parties. Okay, not tea parties, but still…. I’m coming in early and working late every day. Even as I am scrambling madly trying to get the last details nailed down, everyone I work with has decided the best way to help is to drop by my desk and badger me about details:

“What should I wear to the big kick-off event in City Hall?”
Kilts

“Will we have name badges?”
Yes. They will all say Leroy.

“All the seminars say Registration Is Required. Do people really, really have to sign up?”
I’m going to kill you now, with my bare hands and teeth.

Muscato wrote recently about his glam workaday life of embassy balls and Barbara Pym-like rummage sales. I, on the other hand, am trapped in a road show version of The Office, as staged by Our Lady for Prompt Succor School for the Mentally Defective. It’s so unfair.

Houseboys are worried. It's possible Mummy might just be a tiny bit too distracted to address my blog duties. Bear with me.

Bowls of Our Lives

Perhaps you remember the slattern in our office I mentioned earlier who kept leaving her dirty oatmeal bowl and spoon in the sink here. One evening working late, I took matters into my capable hands and threw the nasty things away. What? You thought I was going to wash them for the slut? Not likely.

It’s been a great relief to me that she hasn’t returned to her unpalatable ways. Either she got the message or she’s too cheap to replace them. I figure they must have set her back two, three bucks at one of the finer 7-11s.

I hope we have all learned an important lesson from this.

Houseboy Gunter Gladdeus hopes so, too.

Guys

One of the glories of living in San Francisco is the abundance of cute, cute guys wandering around here. Especially when the “here” is the Financial District where they’re cute, well-dressed, and very serious. At lunch yesterday, I sat next to two prime examples of humpy suits. I couldn’t help but hear the conversation (I was not eavesdropping, I was listening. The tables are that close to each other, I couldn’t help it. Shut up) and I could never tell if they were new office buddies getting to know each other or if they had hooked up online and this was their blind date. Lunch at Rico’s seems like an odd choice for the latter, but they do have good enchiladas, so maybe.

It’s striking how similar the two conversations would be. Where’d you grow up, go to school, what movies do you like, that kind of thing. If only they had just gone ahead and gotten around to “so are you a bottom or versatile?” it would have cleared up everything. But then, the one in the blue stripe shirt was so obviously a catcher, I suppose the point was moot.

Louise Gets Down

With thanks to Muscato, from whom I swiped this.

One of the rewards of having arrived at a certain age is that I can actually remember people looking like this. When I was a mere child, most of the ladies I was exposed to had nailed this look down flat. Of course, as the perceptive Muscato points out, “Louise Wallis” sounds an awful lot like an anagram of "Walter A. Lewis," and it seems possible that Louise is, in fact, Walter. Give either of us a chance and we will unerringly head for the trannny connection.

Still, the cats-eyes, the slightly wilted bouffant, the insipidly understated accessories; all of it could have been any of my aunts, Sunday school teachers, or cashiers at the Piggly Wiggly that I knew so well. To the best of my knowledge, none of them could jam on an organ and a piano simultaneously, but then, I led a rather sheltered life.

Mother peenee

R Man seems to be doing better, yay. No doubt it's because of my nursing skills. And in honor of Mother's Day, I went out in the yard and cut a bunch of flowers.


I forget what this charming blue flower is, it's one of the wildflowers I scattered in the fall. I know it's common name is Bachelor Button, so here's to all the bachelor's out there looking for a button.

Oh, Not Much. How About You?

Oh, the thrilling life of two middle-aged civil servants. R Man woke up this morning sick, I think with the flu. Spiking fever, shaking with chills so hard the bed vibrated, and felling yucky. I made tea and toast, fussed over him all morning, held him while he shook, and then went out to lunch with John and Dan. See ya sweetie, try not to die. In my defense, R Man insisted I go. Besides, we were going to Foreign Cinema and I didn't want to miss out on that.

Lunch, errands, back home to find the sick boy downstairs lounging on the couch, which was fine until he tried to stand up and collapsed. I think it was a combination of his blood pressure meds and the flu, but I heard a big thud and came down to find him on the floor, slumped against the wall. He was unconscious and unresponsive, even when I shook him and called his name. I finally slapped him (not hard, don't be silly) and he sort of woke up. I felt just like Bette Davis in some early Warner Brothers weepie. He doesn't remember getting up or falling down, but now he's back on the couch with very firm orders not to get up without me.

Plus, tonight is the big fireworks show down on the bay that KFOG, a local radio station, puts on every year.The far side of the canyon blocks our view, but we can hear all the explosions, as can all the dogs in the canyon who are howling like mad and Saki, our cat, who is completely freaked out. I'm putting Saki and R Man to bed and then I'm going to go pull the covers over my head.

Life in the Cat House

Last week was the anniversary of our bringing Saki home from the cat jail / pound. I try not to write about him too much because it's such a cheap, easy way to unleash a flood of "Ooh he's so adorable" comments, but come to think of it, I never said I wasn't cheap and easy, so what the hell?

And he IS adorable. Feisty and trouble, too, and I bear the scars to prove it, but during those times when he's sweet, ooh he's adorable. Every evening when we come home I pick him up, turn him on his back and process around the house with him like he's the fucking Baby Infant Jesus of Prague. Adorable. And when he's happy, he doesn't just purr, he makes these grunting, guttural noises that obviously signal cat ecstasy. Adorable. And the last Sunday of each month we take him down to the SPCA to have his razor sharp claws trimmed; the week preceding that is filled with playful slashes that leave my hands in bleeding ribbons. Okay, Not Adorable, but still.

Are we glad we sprang him from Cat Jail? Oh yeah.

Mark Me

Miscreants keep rearranging the tables in the training room I oversee, so I needed a big ass marker to mark the spots where their little feet are supposed to go to make putting them back easier. I trotted over to the office supply store across the street and naively asked for one of those markers with an extra wide nib. I love the word “nib,” its ludicrous sound makes it a real favorite of mine. Regardless of how odd it may sound, it would seem that the one place that would be familiar with the term would be an office supply store. Nope. Un uh. Ixnay. I worked my way through “point” “tip” and “thing at the end” and finally wound up pointing.

Once we had finally nailed down that little negotiation, the clerk’s beady eyes lit up with suspicion. Why would I want that kind of marker? What was I planning to do with it? Let me point out that I am only slightly less respectable looking than the late Queen Mother, and yet, there I was trying to assure some gibbering shop lady that I was not rushing out to join up with my posse on a tagging spree.

Finally, she reluctantly unlocked a cabinet behind the cash register (where they probably also store the crack, judging from how hard she prevented me from seeing what else was in there) and handed it over. I assume I am now on some SFPD list as a likely gang member. Word.

Chez peenee

Of course, I could always post bitter, bitter news flashes about the morons I work with, but who wants to hear about that? I'm sure you all have your own moron stories and while I'm sure they're all fascinating, we need to remember this blog is about me, right?

So instead of caviling about the pig who leaves her oatmeal-incrusted bowl and spoon in the sink all day, every fucking day (or she did until I threw them away behind her back on Friday) I've decided to concentrate on happy thoughts. And since my happy thoughts tend to comprise R Man, naked guys and decorating and since the first two seem to be pretty thoroughly covered here, I've decided to start a new feature called Chez peenee of the things I like about the decorating I've done around the old homestead here.

And what better place to begin than the toilet? The downstairs powder room, to be both precise and delicate. I've already documented my passion for thrift stores and over the years of hunting and gathering there, I began collecting the aluminum serving pieces that were so popular in the 50's and 60's. Eventually I wound up with several hundred of them. Regardless of what R Man says, it was not a sickness, they were just cheap and I could usually count on finding one or two in pretty much any junk store, no matter how slender the pickings were otherwise. Still, several hundred trays and dishes tend to clog the living space. The solution? Paint the bathroom purple and velcro them to the walls. All of them.

First-time guests to our house always come out of the potty with the most astonished look on their faces. It's very amusing.

One of my faves is the little ferris wheel our dear friends Cow Queen and Kebbin sent. My dream is to fill the little cars with those fancy guest soaps and then never use them, just like my granny.

John's boyfriend Dan claims being exposed to that much aluminum while peeing can cause Alzheimers, but he worries too much.

Get Down Funky Moldovans

Have you ever wondered "What would a Bollywood salute to techno Eastern European funk folk dancers with a guest appearance by the Tiajuana Brass be like?"

Well, wonder no more!

SCORE!

I was stumbling into work today through the plaza next to our building when I noticed the gardeners were replacing the cyclamen that have been blooming in big pots there since Christmas with geraniums. More importantly, I saw they were THROWING THEM AWAY. Eeeks. Cyclamen are perennials that bloom year after year and cost about $5 a pop at the nursery. Trashing them is a crazy waste.

I asked the head plant guy (who could have been establishing a notable career in gay porn instead of potting geraniums, but whatever) if I could have the cyclamen. He said sure so readily, I considered asking about a blowjob as well, but I didn't want to push my luck.

Scurrying back to the my desk I snatched up some grocery bags and am now the possessor of a couple dozen big ol' cyclamen, yay. I have, of course, no place in the yard for them, but I'll figure that out later.