The New England Society for Tea Fetishism

I'm back at the chateau on the canal. It's cold, my clothes still smell like cigarette smoke, but at least I went grocery shopping yesterday. Food is good. I'm trying to limit my purchases to the essentials, like food and toothpaste and possibly socks. My socks are a mess. But I went to Best Buy yesterday and found the entire first season of Due South for $21.99 and I had to get it. I'll be back for seasons two and three (equally cheap) when I start bringing in the money again.

I'm reading The Time Traveler's Wife right now, which is a deceptively heavy book. Weight-wise, I mean. You could really clock someone with it. It's also very good. When I got to it I had to stop and read George the paragraph where the Time Traveler, Henry, admits that he's had sex with himself. But he's not gay or anything. Before that I read Bel Canto by Anne Patchett, which was so beautifully written that I didn't even notice how thin the plot was (Birthday party in a poor South American country thrown for a major Japanese industrialist that turns into a months long hostage crisis when revolutionaries burst through the windows). I don't know, it may have been the alcohol - I read the last twenty pages or so after coming home from the Tidewater - but there were tears, which pretty much never happens to me with books. Except The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. By the way, has anyone read that yet? I told you there was going to be a test later, didn't I?

So, I'm just waiting for my wash to finish so I can put it in the dryer and then head up to my room to get some writing done. Tomorrow I'm getting together with Matt and wouldn't you know it, my face just exploded. Goddamn hormones.

Labels: Books

The other evening, Tracy picked me up and told me that we were going to the porn store. Her boyfriend's younger brother's girlfriend, Helena, came with us. And the weird thing is that once we got going she forgot that she'd already told me our destination, so when I asked "Where are we going?" as in, "What purveyor of explicit adult toys and videos will we be visiting this evening and where is its location?" she kept shushing Helena. It was on route 1, in the same building as a Japanese restaurant and a billard room. And after being treated to a story about how the last time they'd gone there Helena's driver's seat was pushed forward as if someone had climbed into the back and gotten cozy for a bit, we parked all the way at the end of the lot, next to the woods, and just about as far from the entrance to Amazing Adult Video (or something like that) as possible. It was a learning experience. Some of it was intriguing (where do you put that?) some of it was comical (tiny penis paperclips) and some of it was downright frightening (huge black dildo shaped like a billy-club) Don't even get me started on the videos. All in all, it would have been a good experience were it not for the middle-aged gentleman stalking the porn section and looking at us over the shelves. That felt . . . wrong.

Of course, after that we had to go bowling. But not before we stopped at Kelly's and got me some fast food because it was bordering on 9pm and I forgot to eat dinner before I left. I also forgot how much I love bowling. Candle pin bowling, that is. Regular bowling makes me feel like my fingers are going to slip and I'm going to maim someone. Maybe myself. The pathetic thing is that the next day my legs were sore, the hamstrings especially. Bowling, the sport of old, fat, Polacks (hi George!) made it hard for me to walk down stairs. The good news is that lunges seem to work some great muscle groups.

Yesterday was our bi-annual trip to the Weathervane in Kittery. Tracy and I left at 11:30 and made it to the restaurant by 12:15. It makes me glad that during the whole trip my gaze never fell on the speedometer because she must have been booking it. There, we gorged ourselves on golden fried seafood. Our waitress was strangely chatty. She asked us if we "do this often," and then said that she had "seen us out in the parking lot." What do you say to that? Umm . . . thanks for noticing? And there was a little too much approval about our orders - "Good choice!" The exclamation point was totally there. She was a bit perplexed when we got excited over the amount of squid bodies we got with our calimari (you know, the little bunches of legs?). I guess she's not a fan of the majestic squid.

After we rolled out of the Weathervane (and a quick trip to the bathroom where Tracy had to let me know that according to the stall graffitti, someone hates Joan. I can't concentrate on peeing when I'm laughing) we went down the road to Yummies, where they supposedly have 10,000 lbs of candy out on display (any locals watch Phantom Gourmet? You know that commercial) and even though I was stuffed to the gills (whoops, fish pun) with seafood, I had to buy some maple sugar candy. And chocolate Necco Wafers. And some molasses puffs. And some fried peas. And pop rocks. And a chocolate lollipop for Tracy. I wanted to buy the set of little chocolate bottles filled with liquor (they called it liqeur, and I'll give them the Grand Marnier and the Kalua, but Jack Daniels and all varieties of Stoli are straight up hard liquor) but I didn't want to spend that much money.

Back at the Maison du Tracy we tried to feed the dog pop rocks by putting them on a biscuit but he ate the damn thing so fast he really didn't have time to notice. Then we made a pudding-filled white cake with her Betty Crocker cake set that she got for Christmas. It was a perfect little dome covered in chocolate icing. Fairly simple to make, although it still took us about four hours to get everything cooked and assembled. Fried seafood for lunch and cake for dinner. It was a good day.

I must also note that Tracy is my hero, for going by the mint basket (wrapped starbrights, mind you, not loose buttermints with fecal matter) and grabbing a giant handful with the hostess standing right in front of it. Huevos, I tell you.

Labels: Out and About With Tracy

No, really, I swear. Last night Tracy and I went to the Friendly's on 114 and got ice cream sundaes for ourselves and the three beef-jerky eating boys in Jeff's basement who were watching the Pats/Jaguars game and probably giving each other Dutch ovens while we were out. When we got back to Jeff's house they were all sitting on one couch, each with their own blanky. The ice cream was great, especially since I forgot to eat dinner. See what happens when your mother goes out of town? (Incidentally, there is a big strike going on with Verizon employees in New York and . . . other places - I wasn't paying that much attention during that conversation - and my mother is now working strike duty on Long Island for three weeks, not an hour away from my apartment. Of course, she asked to be placed there before she knew I'd be home for a long and indefinite amount of time. Some luck, huh?) After we were done we were all dealing with the dairy aftertaste and asked Tracy for some gum. She handed out what little she had along with some Ninja Turtle gum that was hiding somewhere. Jeff was very keen on the Leonardo piece for some reason. Dave asked for more gum, explaining that the Ninja Turtle tasted like candy, so he swallowed it. Well, there was no more gum to be had, so Tracy gave him two squirts of her Listerine breath spray. For reasons I can't remember, Dave did another five squirts and ended up drooling all over himself, his blanket, and the couch. From there it escalated into a contest to see who could do the most squirts, which ended with everyone in the room (except me - I ate a honey roasted cricket once, isn't that enough for you people?) taking a squirt up the nose. I have no idea what Jeff's parents were thinking, what with all the cries of "Do it!" and "You have to inhale," and "My nose is burning, but it's cold, too," rising up out of the basement and into the living room. After the Listerine madness subsided there was a lot of talk about the chemical properties of mouthwash and how it's perfectly fine to force it into your nasal cavity, right? Because your throat and your mouth and your nose are all connected, so it's really just like putting it in your mouth. Of course.

Is anyone familiar with Victoria's Secret underwear? (or panties, as Nicole Bonenberger would hate to read. Remember her issues with that word?) Do they go up higher in the back specifically so they'll peek out the top of your pants, or is it just me? I got medium bikinis, but there just seems to be a little too much material and I refuse to believe that Vicki's thinks my ass is actually a small. They must fiddle with their sizes to make people feel better about themselves, like that time I tried on pants at The Limited in the Montgomery Mall and found that even the 4 was a little loose. That is some rather impressive size adjustment, believe you me. I was a medium at La Senza and those fit fine. God, I wish I knew they were going out of business. I would have sent Tracy some cash and had her stockpile for me.

Labels: Out and About With Tracy, Shopping

I came home on the 24th, had Christmas the next day with my mother and Brian, and went over my cousin Tara's house with my dad in the evening, which was good because I hadn't seen her since her now three-year-old son was born. On the morning of the 27th, my mom got the call that my Nana died. She'd been at the end of Alzheimer's for a while and we knew for about three or four days that this was it. At first no one who was out of state was going to come to the funeral, which really upset me, but by Thursday my two aunts from Arizona and my two aunts from Florida had flown up. It was a very simple ceremony. There was no wake. She was cremated and buried in the same plot as her husband. It was incredibly tough, but we were all together and we had each other to hang on to and cry. We went to a restaurant afterward and had a chance to catch up with cousins and aunts and uncles we hadn't seen in years and we left an empty seat at the table for Nana.