This Just In:

Who knew marmots could incite such passion? Comments in the previous post revealed sordid vaudeville acts, bizarre publications and the fact that MJ was preparing to give birth to a Canadian marmot (which she’s looking to unload, if you’re interested.) My, my, the things a simple blog brings to light.

But you guys, wait, there’s a better way to discover the dirty little secrets of possible psychotics. The Magic Nine ball answers all. Sure, the skeptics can jeer, but just this evening, I asked it “Did that muscley Thai rent boy/masseur give me the clap?”

and it answered “Bet everything on it.” OHMYGOSH, isn’t that eerie? It’s obviously in touch with the Higher Plane; insights like that don’t just roll off a marmot’s back you know.

Baroque News

I was jamming with the Baroque Choral music station on Pandora radio earlier cause that's the kind of wild dog I am, when I ran across this description:

“Georg Philipp Telemann was born in Magdeburg, the son of a Lutheran deacon who died in 1685, leaving the mother to raise their three children alone. The youth showed remarkable talent in music, but was temporarily discouraged in his chosen pursuit by Puritan Lutherans, who told Telemann's mother that he would turn out no better than ‘a clown, a tightrope walker or a marmot-trainer.’”

It seems like they’re saying that as a bad thing. A tightrope walker? Who wouldn’t want their fatherless kid to turn out as an aerialist? That’s so cool. You know if he was around now he'd have a dynamite little number featuring a soundtrack by Erasure and be the hit of Cirque du Whatever. And don’t get me started about them hating on marmot trainers. When I consider the danger untrained marmots present to our community, why I just have to say “Forget you, Puritan Lutherans.”

We Fail an Energy Audit

The energy audit came delivered by not one, but two cute, cute guys. Having your life veer into the set-up for a porn video is just part of living in San Francisco. They were here for two hours, shooting laser tape measures and climbing into the attic and furnace room and other places into which I have never set foot in twelve years of living here. The big finale was a large vinyl tent thing athwart the front door with a huge fan in it to suck all the air out of the house so they could measure where the air leaks are. The verdict: we have lots of leaks. Leaks in the furnace return, leaks in the walls, leaks in the vents. Ryan, the earnest, cuter one did compliment us on our fireplace damper. Oh boy. There is no insulation and the furnace is working four times as hard as it needs to, but we have a dynamite damper.

I'm glad Ryan was so cute, his boyish charm gave me something to think about at the very end of the review when we got to chat about the asbestos in the ductwork. Ay. So our options are to hold our breath the entire time we're in the house or replace all the ducts, in addition to a new furnace and lots and lots of insulation. When I lined this audit up, I already knew we were going to be in for a chunk of change, I just hadn't thought the words "environmental hazard" were gong to play a part. At least the guys were cute.

No Thanks

My boss Mike announced today that he is leaving the agency to take a job with a United Nations agency in Switzerland. I explained to him that was impossible, that only the heroes of Barbara Cartland novels have jobs for the United Nations in Switzerland, but he seemed unconvinced. So now I need to start planning his farewell luncheon.

I need also to stave off my co-workers’ merry assumptions that I will be taking up his role. These are understandable assumptions, we haven’t had a new hire in our office since 1995. That’s fourteen years for the mathematically challenged among us. In that time we have shrunk from about 60 employees to 22, almost all of whom are deadwood waiting for retirement to sweep them away. To say I’m the best suited is not necessarily flattering; it’s more like recognizing that I'm the last one standing.

Here’s the sticking point: I Don’t Want the Fucking Job. I do not want to take on 250 per cent more work for 15 percent more pay. I do not want to supervise the dolts I already resent working next to. Mostly, I love my current job and do not want any more responsibility, which would only serve to expose my lack of business acumen.

Have I mentioned that when I meet people they frequently assume I am a big shot business whiz? I have a title, I have business cards and I’m tall. Apparently that’s all you need. I figure it’s like some kind of test. If you can finish a conversation with me without deducing that I am just a schmoe wearing a tie, than you should not be in business for yourself. God help you.

What am I good at? I’m very capable at organizing our training program and I’m wonderful at going to parties. I know everyone in town and have a talent for connecting people. “You need to talk to Gwen,” I say, knowing Gwen will straighten your ass out and save me from doing so. I know who will give you free legal advice and who you should stay away from when you want to get some marketing tips. I am the yenta of the entrepreneurial community. It is a talent I never expected and would hate to waste.

The Home Front

Before I expose yet another degree of my dorkiness, let us revel in some boy booty, shall we?There. Don't we all feel better now? I thought so.

Back to my dorkitude: my closet organizing spree led to a run to Goodwill this afternoon. Total whee. We packed so much crap in our car, Urban Street Pirate riding in the back seat barely fit; it looked like the Clampetts on the move. We unloaded all of it, busted lamps, unflattering jackets and personal electronics so old they belonged in museum instead of a thrift store. Everything except the collection of curtain rods in various sizes. The guy on the truck eyed them and announced, very firmly, he was obviously accustomed to donors not wanting the crap denied, "Are those curtain rods? We don't take curtain rods." I immediately considered denying they were curtain rods, except, you know it's hard to pass them off as anything else. Plus I thought about all the curtain rods I've seen in Goodwill Stores over the years. Barrels of them. Where do those come from? Is there some kind of drapery hardware genesis going on I don't know about?

I refused to argue and just dragged them back home to shove them in a corner of the garage. And having hauled off a gross ton of household goods and debris, shouldn't my garage look swept clean? Nope. It looks just the same as it did before I crippled my self digging all this stuff out. I think my neighbors are sneaking castoffs in here behind my back. Bastards.

So the point of digging through our garage is in preparation of our Energy Audit on Tuesday. That is the real level of what a dork I am. Not only are we getting our insulation checked, but I am looking forward to it. I love having someone who nominally knows what they're talking about examine my house and tell me what to do to keep it from falling down around my ears. If they're cute, even better, but as long as they have a clip board, I'm all on it.

The nice lady scheduling this warned that it's so thorough, it would take a couple of hours. Ooh, daddy. Talk to me about my dirty furnace, my clogged ducts, my shameless lack of insulation. And then fix it. No more drafty living room, no more chilly bathrooms, heaven.

Out of the Closet

How sobering it is to realize that, for me, the highlight of our recent redecorating spree was emptying and then tidying up the freshly painted linen closets. I truly am Martha Stewart in a gay man’s body. I make no excuses, I find it immensely gratifying to throw crap away; to haul off mounds of no longer wanted possession to the Goodwill thrills me. I took eight giant garbage bags of old sheets and blankets to Animal Care and Control, aka The Cat Jail. Even as I type this, homeless kitties are snuggling into high thread count flannel, thanks to me. I am a hero.

You know that home redecorating show Clean House, where they barge into homes that are awash in mountains of junk and then shovel all that junk into a yard sale and redecorate for the schmucks who were previously buried there? I am just the opposite of those schmucks: whereas they cannot let go of their stuff, I cannot get rid of it fast enough. Whatever their sickness is, I have none of it. Maybe I could sell a vaccine.

Just to prove I am not totally lost to sentimentality, though, part of this most recent round of closet and drawer ransacking turned up the remains of my favorite Mardi Gras costume. I made it by removing the arms from a baby doll and wiring them to wear as a kind of headpiece so they looked like devil horns. Some people were quire disturbed by them which thrilled me no end. Those will NEVER go to Goodwill. I think I’d like to be buried in them, please.

Sex Cancels Good Sense. And Taste.

I had been vaguely aware of the scandale surrounding some guy named something or the other at some sports channel, also named something or the other (when I say “vaguely” I mean it in the most literal way.) The whole thing had only bumped into the dim outer reaches of my consciousness because the photos showed him to be such a silver haired hottie, even if he did look very much like someone who would come in your mouth and then loudly deny being gay. This just in: research reveals his name is Steve. Steve Something or the Other.

Anyway, the eagle-eyed TJB has discovered a photo of the little homewrecker Stevie boy threw over his career and life for. Here you go:

Let us not be coy here: this is not the face that launched a thousand anythings. Mr Something or the Other looks like he could snag some pretty hot pussy and this is the best he can scrape up?

It just goes to prove a truism, one that explains why the word “Necrophilia” had to be invented, why both sheep and watermelons are regarded as sex toys in various parts of the world and why Robin Rogers, one of the ugliest girls in my high school was able to get knocked up when we were 17. The truth is, men will fuck anything. Apparently the phrase “Oh, what the hell….” does not regularly enter the calculus of desire of women. I wouldn’t know. I am a guy and just as capable of launching myself into the throes of rut based on “How bad can it be?” as any of my brethren. Oh, like you've never woken with regret as your first emotion and the need to bleach the part of your brain holding memories of the previous night.

I gotta go. I'm certain there are nude photos of Steve somewhere on the web (isn't that what it's for?) and I am determined to find them.