the big day

it is here - without much warning, suddenly, a dinne with ewa, my dad, and me suddenly had another special guest - ewa's dad, who everyone affectionately calls 'tato', except me, who will call him mr. trojanowski sir!

so here's the deal, ewa has pretty met everyone in my family, and i mean everyone - that's what happens when your mom and her six siblings and their kids all live within a three hour radius. . . .she's met both my sister's (even the one hiding in dallas. . .), my dad (who came and met us in nyc a few weeks ago), and was even invited by the patriarch of the jackson clan to christmas brunch. to this date, i haven't met any of the ewa clan. i figure it's because she is embaressed by me, but she says that's not the case. . .she thinks. . .

her mom is in poland, her brother in colorado (in law school - they get no reprieves), and her father all over the place as an airline pilot. tonight, in about forty minutes, he comes here, and not only do i meet him, but my dad meets him . . .does this mean things are getting serious?

ok - my dad should be here any minute - time to pour myself a cocktail, do some breathing exercises, and wait for ewa's tato. . .

. . . .a merry christmass to all, and to all, a good night. . . .

'tis the season . . .

i have been absent from the blog scene for a while. mostly due to work and work, and oh, a little bit of work. seems my absence has not gone unnoticed – especially from the kentucky contigent - gene et al. part of the 'et al' even sent me an email to get off my ass and write a blog (i'll give you a hint, his name rhymes with priss). so here i am, one day removed from christmas eve - 30 minutes away from picking up ewa at the aiport, the cable out, and me resigned to surfing the web and writing a blog.

instead of trying to recap what has happened in the past two weeks since i have last regaled you with my magical tales, i will simply say that all is well. . . .actually, all is great. things with ewa are great, things with work are great, my roommate moved out and i have my own place. . .great. went on a trip to new york a few weeks ago . . .great. . .all is good with the world. there - you are all caught up.

now it's time to rant for a while. my boss brought up a good point today when i mentioned that my estranged sister was coming into town for the holidays today. i was telling him how tough it was going to be on certain members of the family, and he brought up the point that the holidays in in of themselves are not stressful, it is the act of trying to throw everyone in a room and making them smile. instead of sitting around in a room where people are not well lubed with booze and sated with food and getting everything out in the open, we keep it all inside, grit out teeth, grin, sigh, and pour our collective conscious a double of whatever is in site.

even the utmost mention of anything not happy happy joy joy brings the always popular remand, 'why do you need to bring that up now, it's the holidays?!" the funny thing is, this is the only time everyone will be together until. . . .next year. . . hmmm.

so here is my suggesgtion, this year, instead of a gift for everyone, hand out cards to everyone (and include yourself in this) with their most glaring problem (stealing, drinking, cheating - you know, the good stuff), and at dinner, make them all open them and read the contents. for example, "I am uncle joe and i cheated on aunt sally six times this year." of course everyone will act shocked - "Oh my GOD! How could you!!", etc. when in reality, everyone already knew and is secretly heaving a sigh of relief that it is out in the open and they don't have to walk on eggshells around poor aunt sally, especially her sister jane, who is one of the six sluts uncle joe slept with. continue with this until everyone has read their card, all the issues are out on table, and you are satisfied. now everyone is happy, their conscious is free, the stress is gone, and you saved christmas - your a god damn hero! plus think of all the money you saved. . . .the holidays have never been so easy.

what i was thinking - only better

once again, our fearless chronicle writer mark moford had laid it on the line in an open letter of sorts to the new mayor - he says what we are all thinking, only he writes better and finds much more interesting ways to refer to lube and leather and herb caen than i would. you can check out the full article here, but if you don't have the time, these few paragraphs that i poached sum it up niceley:

"So, above all, Mr. Mayor, whatever else you may think your job entails, your real gig is to polish and hone our fine and tarnished bubble every damn day. To make it stronger, bolder, funkier, shinier, a goddamn gleaming astrodome of bookstores and hot sex and gourmet chocolates and intelligent political discussion and organic vegetables. Let's get this straight, right now, from Day One.

Your job is to make our glorious gemlike screwed-up bubble more able to deflect the slings and arrows of outrageous homophobic conservatism, while still remaining pliable enough to allow a kaleidoscope of viewpoints and ideologies and dog parks and sexual positions and gay rights legislation and sake-tasting shops.

This is the real question, Mr. Mayor. Not merely how are you going to fix the troubling array of standard-issue socioeconomic and political woes of this fine city. Not merely how are you going to improve public transit and expand housing and pick up the garbage and plant more trees and get the homeless off the streets and create more parking spaces in the neighborhoods of certain columnists. Oh no.

But much more important, how will you enhance, and promote, and buff, and proudly represent this crazy whack amazing progressive hippie burned-out coffee-shopped idiosyncratic proudly atypical spiritually incendiary American bubble? You must ask yourself this question right now, and from every day hence. Now, get to work. "

so funny .. .

Ewa said to me today,” you are not lazy, you are just very good at convincing yourself that you don't need to do what you don't feel like doing :-)”

Part 2

well, with out much fanfare, part 2 of my 3 part series on how people are ruining the indie rock scene had been posted at skinnymusic. you are all now required to go check it out. . .

whats walmart?

where to begin. . . first off, i had a chance to catch 'the simple life' last night with paris hilton (of internet sex tape fame) and nichole richie (of being lionel richie's daughter fame). . . hmmm. . . what can i say. . .brilliant!! i'm not sure what the fascination is, it must be the idea that paris has more money than god, but i'm mich smarter than her. nichole richie actually seems to have some brains, but paris, poor, stupid, stupid paris. after hearing her ask, "what's a well?" and "what is wal-mart? does they sell wall stuff their?", i was shaking my head at the ludicrous nature of it all, but unable to take my eyes away from the impending train wreck that will be this show - i couldn't get enough - luckily it's on again tonight! As Tim Goodman said in his Chronicle review this past monday, "Shouldn't you have access to great education if you're rich?"
you will all be happy to know i have recovered from my thanksgiving ailments - i missed all the thanksgiving festivities, but did recover just in time to drag my ass back into work on monday. i'm taking it veeery slow this week - don't want to push it. as my mom so thoughtfully pointed out to me the other day when i was complaining about not recovering quick enough, 'you know, you're not 18 anymore.' thanks mom. . . the end of the week is where the fun is to be had - ewa comes back friday after a 3 week absence, and i missed her terribly, so i can't wait for that. we are going to her company christmass party saturday which is black tie (went out and bought new tux yesterday - every man should own one) and is being held at the new asian art museum, which has quickly become my favorite museum in the city. also that night is my friend kathyrn's annual christmass party - kathyrn is famous for throwing the best party, regardless of theme or season - bottom line, saturday night will be full 'o drunk adventure. . . of course, that's how most nights are. . .

i can't wait to watch

the simple life