Royals

Did you guys know one of the English princes (not the redhead, the other one) is getting married on Friday?

I will cop to being apparently the only gay man in America not wet over the royal wedding, but it all seems so, so bloated. A fairy tale? No. A fairy tale is when a naked Daniel Craig brings over an equally naked brazilian soccer team to my house with drugs and Lil Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls. This is just a couple of really rich people getting married.

They seem like blandly inoffensive (if not terribly bright) people, but so what? Kate whatshername is so standard issue lovely she could be from an open casting call for "Princess (white)" and Prince William may have been fairly cute early on,

but he went to seed way too early.

Of course, there is Prince Harry

and you know how fond I am of gingers, plus he seems to sensibly be following the classic royal route of dressing up in fancy uniforms and getting loaded as much as possible, so, right on Harry.

And Diana.... Girl blows the sweetest gig EVER: just show up and wear fancy clothes and the blingest bling possible, pop a couple of puppies out and be set for life, but no, she wanted us to feel her pain. Here's your pain: you're an idiot. Also, I didn't like her wedding dress. All fussy and overblown and vaguely Victorian, she might as well have been wearing a tea cart.

So as a protest gesture, I plan on ignoring the whole thing tomorrow and watching porn. I'm going to try to tune into British smut, but you know, much like British snacks, that seems pretty unlikely.

Mirrors and Redheads

I mentioned awhile ago that I had bought a lovely new mirror for our front hall. Bow down before it, bitches.

I need to remember to refer to the hall as the "foyer." The mirror seems to demand it.

Also crying out for attention is this photo from Jason's tumblr site, Goldenfleecing.

I'm shocked the poor, misguided thing would leave something like this lying around, knowing how vulnerable I am to gingers and that this kind of pulchritude could give a delicate creature such as myself palpitations. I'm not as young as I used to be, you know. I love the heroic backdrop as well as his lovely plump bits.

All Night Long

I try not to post too much music here; is there anything less likely and more annoying than a friend tugging on your sleeve and hectoring you to listen to some song he's struck by? And yet, here's another one in less than a week. Suck it up, wieners.

And this particular outing is more than just one song, it's kind of a mashup salute by a grooveoisie band (complete with attractive lead singer) and one of my all time favorite soul songs from back in the day "He Called Me Baby" by Candi Staton. Even at its most popular, it was fairly obscure, so I never ran across it without stopping to pay attention. This new version just popped up and I'm wild for it.

Lunch With the Girls

Part of my devotion to my new life as retiree/slacker/fuckoff is to study the even more rarefied climes of Ladies Who Lunch. To that end, my friend John and I went off to Nieman's in Union Square today for lunch. It was very entertaining and quite tasty. They always start you off with a tiny cup of bullion and a popover, which seems like an odd combination to me. I suppose the bullion is to buck up the Ladies after a trying morning in the Oscar de la Renta room, struggling with uncooperative shopgirls.

I have no idea what's with the popovers.

John has long asserted the point of these bacchanalia is to finish with the same amount of food on your plate as the kitchen sent out. Ideally, one just stirs the glop around while smoking and knocking back gimlets. Since I neither smoke nor drink, I couldn't rise to that level of virtuoso performance (it must take years of practice, don't you think?) but I did have chicken salad. It was perfectly fine.

The room was totally in synch with our fantasies. All the diners were either gay boys or old dears with good handbags. Fabulously enough, the woman at the table next to us was studying a brochure that seemed to focus on either botox or some other kind of decorative surgery.

Neiman's here sits on the site of an earlier upscale department store called City of Paris. I understand it was a Beaux Arte palace, but the only remains of it are it original atrium and the stained glass rotunda; that's where the restaurant is.

The renowned minimalist architect Philip Johnson whored himself out to design the palace's replacement. He's since called his work "an embarrassment" and who am I to argue with him? Plus, I think that's pretty much on the money. It went up in the early 80's when Johnson was wandering out of his sleek, glass boxes and into some very odd, sad choices influenced by the Memphis style and boy band hair-do's. The whole place is sheathed in big granite tiles on an angle, sort of harlequin-esque. In case you're wondering, that is not a good thing.

Still, at least local outrage forced them to keep the skylight. That kind of shotgun marriage of styles rarely works, and probably wouldn't here, except the new parts of the building are so blandly bad, the fussy gilded columns and stained glass are really all it has going for it.

That and popovers.

Self Pity and Cyndi Lauper

I know R Man has just sort of disappeared from my exciting blog reporting. I haven't gotten used to his absence, I don't think that will never happen. But I've sort of gotten resigned to it. Sort of. There are tedious forms about his death demanding my attention, and a very big house that is very, very quiet, and things like this song.

We were both so fond of it, I remember I was surprised how much he liked it. Naturally, its melancholy, minor key bad self will pop up on my I Tunes shuffle and take me unawares and suddenly, I am a little less resigned.

I'm writing this at 3:00 AM. I will probably regret it tomorrow, but a lot of this blog has turned out to be a note to myself, so I'm asking not to delete this post.

Here:

Cast Off, Comcast

I finally realized I have, for years, spent more time scrolling through the program listings on our cable than actually watching any of the shows because the shows are geared towards moronic cowboys. I would keep hoping something interesting would slip in there, but no, just non-stop Friends reruns and sports, sport, sports. So I canceled my cable. Let me tell you, if you ever are starved for attention, just cancel your cable. Ever since I bailed out on them Comcacst has called and emailed like a stalker on speed. I keep telling them "It's not me, it's you," but they won't listen.

Super Agent Fred and I had very amusing time returning the cable box to their offices. Naturally they had a television mounted prominently and I discovered the remote that went with the box worked it, so I kept changing channels and commenting loudly about the sucky quality of the offerings. The people in line behind us were digging it.

Also, attaching the cable directly to the my TV without the box allows me to see about twenty channels for free, including Discovery, which is good because that's where Cash Cab is.

Do you know Cash Cab? I love it. It's a game show set in a cab in New York. The driver asks passengers trivia questions and if they answer them correctly they win bucks. It's thrilling how stupid the riders are. I've been reduced to screaming at the television by people missing things like "Indigenous Peoples day is substituted for what federal holiday in October?' Please tell me you knew the answer is "Columbus Day" and not "Halloween," the way the clue-free fat heads in the cab answered. Hello? the only federal holiday in October? Indigenous Peoples/Columbus? Hello?

Also I have a crush on the host, Ben Bailey

He's totally charming, plus Wikipedia assures us he is six feet, six inches, which causes us to think "Mmm, Big Ben." Yeah, baby. Ask me that question.

Shopping as Blood Sport

This spring has been terribly rainy here in San Francisco, consequently, the pollen has soared to almost unbearable levels, consequently, mrpeenee's sinuses have been flowing like Victoria Falls set on high, consequently, mrpeenee has been wiping and dabbing his nose (always with my handkerchief, I am a lady, I do lady things) like crazy mad, consequently, the side of said nose is chafed raw.

Not attractive, I know, but consider the scene set.

Super Agent Fred and I found the most ravishing mirror for my newly painted front hall last month in a joint called, charmingly, "Stuff." It was love at first sight. Baroque gilded extravagance, it calls out to my inner fussy old lady and runs completely contrary to my faltering policy of decorating my contemporary house with contemporary touches. It's also much too big for the space. Of course I had to have it.

We went back to the store today and were both struck once again by its beauty, as well as that of the salestwink working there. Why is flaxen hair, limpid blue eyes and a skinny ass such a darned fetching combination, anyway? I was so thrilled to find the mirror marked down 30 per cent (YAY) I absentmindedly rubbed the side of my nose, which promptly burst into a torrent of blood. Blood, blood, blood, lots of blood.

Of course the cute little sales guy was standing right there, managing to look both blank and horrified. He was obviously thinking "Queen. Do not bleed on my Good Stuff." All he said was "Do you need a paper towel?" I said yes, muffled through my handkerchief, and that I would take the mirror. He was impressed enough to bring me three paper towels. My plan to so electrify him with my big spending ways that he would be interested in putting out did not seem to overcome his horror of the hematoma, however.

Anyway, now I have the most gorgeous mirror in captivity. And a bandaid on the side of my nose. So very attractive.

Our salesbitch did not look this humpalicious, but then who does? Nevertheless, since Blogger feels compelled to label my blog as "adult," I feel the need to include attractive, scantily clad young men. I may be doing this for a while. Let me know if you get tired of it.

Blogless

Some of you may have noticed there was some weird blog outage around here yesterday when Blogger took mrpeenee down. Dickless bastards. I had just posted my deathless prose about my New Orleans trip and when I came back from looking at porn (for clinical research purposes ONLY) I discovered a curt little message announcing I had violated their standards. Someone complained about little me? Do I complain about fat christian ladies blogging about their fat husbands and adorable spawn? Actually, I do, so that's not a good example.

Anyway, Blogger is supposed to be a free exchange of ideas and if anyone is offended by my postings of humpy young men (none of which is particularly more racy than Abercrombie and Fitch's catamitelogue or whatever the kids are calling it these days) they are welcome to take themselves off, off to the fat christian ladies for all I care. When this happened to MJ over at infomaniac, she warned us we were just as vulnerable. OK, I'm convinced now, but still too lazy to consider converting to Wordpress. Besides, I just don't care for Blogger deciding what I can and cannot write about.

Is this all because I mocked Tim Teblow a few posts ago? If so, just let me reiterate; when it comes to hot guys, I have stepped over better than him and not looked back.

In honor of my new "adult content warning" (which only appears sporadically, much like Tim Tebow's mangina,) I'm happy to present something worth looking at.

You're welcome.

I'm Back

the author, amidst the iris beds in lovely, lovely City Park

It was a very amusing time. Stinky hot the first couple of days, but then a huge storm blew through on Monday night so it was lovely and cool on my birthday and the next day and then I left just as it was starting to heat back up. Perfect.

The view from my slightly shabby room. At least the windows opened.

My dear friend Magda took Monday and Tuesday off from work so we could just wander around, which was all I wanted to do.

Turquoise skies above the French Quarter.

The old place didn't look that different from before Katrina, maybe just a little cleaner. The most shocking thing was all the big trees along St. Charles Avenue that been toppled by the storm. That beautiful arching green roof over the street, gone.

Also, lots and lots of dirty street kids hanging around the French Quarter. Ick. And I speak as someone who was both poor and young and lived in the French Quarter at one time.

Where did mrpeenee live, back in the day?

Barracks Street (seen here considerably tarted up since my time)

And Chartres Street, with R Man. A balcony, a patio, cheap rent and a sweet boyfriend. The definitive French Quarter life.

On the other hand, everywhere we went for lunch or dinner was fabulous. Shrimp, red beans, gumbo, beignets, po-boys - all the greatest hits, and they really were great. The only misstep was at the fancy, fancy Commander's Palace, where the semi-snooty captain informed me the gumbo did not come with rice since the Chef considered it to be filler. Well, you know the filling in Oreos is filler, too, but you got to have it. I considered suggesting he trot out to Popeye's Fried Chicken and get some damn rice but I didn't. A lady never makes a scene, unless she really, really feels like it.

I kept seeing all these charming shabby houses in Magda's neighborhood, just crying out for my loving touch. I thought I would move back there, restore one of them and plant a lavish, Southern garden, but then I got back here and realized I had, once again, briefly lost my mind. Leave San Francisco? I'm pretty sure that's simply not possible.

Also, I got to spend some time with Jason, blogger extraordinaire from over at Night is Half Gone and it was most amusing.

He is as sweet as he seems in his writings and he took me out for shrimp po-boys at a place I've always heard of, but never been to and was deeeelish. I had planned to gossip about all of you, but I was too busy prying details about Jason's private life out of him. Select morsels of which are available for a nominal fee from mrpeenee, Inc. For an additional $5 I will add in sordid details that I make up randomly.

A good time was had by me.