highway lights scroll by
spread wide open like blistering buds
behind the sockets of eyes: the scalpel
cry: what is dry is barren
blink the smoke of these sleepless dreams away
blink your gaseous instrument and heroic veins away
blink your virtue and your blame away
and all other passing static
it is gone
it is all gone
it is all gone
So, if you are my parent or relative, you should probably turn away and close your eyes now and not read the rest of this post.
Another reason not to read the rest of this post would be if the word DILDO, specifically in connection with me, bothers you in any way.
If you are neither related to me, nor does the thought of me having a vagina with needs bother you at all, well, … read on… but consider yourself amply warned.
This story actually starts sometime last year, when I had a nervous breakdown. At that time, when some days just getting out of my car in the evening took a telephone call for help, it seemed like getting a cleaning lady would be a good idea. Sure enough, if you’re a secret-A-type-personality (this is officially defined as: high-maintenance emotionally while low maintenance in all other ways) like me , having a cleaning lady is a godsend. Coming home and finding your shoes lined up and all your dishes clean and put away is the equivalent of letting the steam out of your pressure cooker when it’s at the exploding point.
Our cleaning lady is this tiny Asian woman who the first day arrived, looked around and shook her head like she had stumbled into a crack den, then informed me that it would take minimum one day to get our apartment respectable. That’s after we cleaned it up the night before in anticipation of her arrival. Needless to say, I quickly acquiesced and within no more than ten seconds she was up on a chair, cleaning my ceiling. I didn’t realize until that moment that my ceiling had become a public housing tenement for invisible insects. I also didn’t realize that four-foot-tall Asian ladies could move that fast. Anyway, apparently, some people (people like my mother and the cleaning lady) notice whether or not your ceiling has been bleached lately, so it’s fine by me to have it all clean… especially if my dishes get done and my shoes get lined up in the intermission.
For a variety of reasons, our cleaning lady has not been here in a few months. So when she rolled in this morning we got the crack den head shake again, and had to promise to dole out some extra Euros so she could set it right.
Thus, when I walked into my apartment this evening, I experienced the complete bliss of somebody whose rugs are vacuumed, whose pillows are fluffed, dishes done, and shoes lined up. Even the dog looked cleaner. Seriously, I couldn’t have been happier if I were Monica Gellar. So, I headed over to the fridge to see what I could make for dinner.
Hmmm, I thought to myself, what frozen veggies can I throw in the soup?
And I opened my freezer.
Ahhh, I thought to myself, look how neatly everything in there is lined up! That’s so cool… it just feels nice to have all my frozen stuff… wait…what is THAT…??
oh… oh …OH SHIT!!! OH CRAP!!! OH SHIT!!!
Because, you see, EVERYTHING in my freezer was neatly lined up. And that frosted (literally!) bluish glass thingy in the upper right-side corner? That’s a dildo. Okay, okay … it’s MY dildo. Which came in a box that described (along with noting it as “blown glass”, I kid you not) how it would be “fun to freeze”. Which is what I did. Which is why it WAS hiding behind the big bag of frozen vegetables on the SECOND shelf. Which it now is not. [Frankly, I think the 'meat & ice cream' shelf would have been more appropriate.]
Now, this is the kind of lifestyle comedy that I find really funny on a show like Sex in the City. But in my own life, it will probably require me washing a lot of dishes… and lining up a lot of shoes… and polishing my own fucking ceiling. Etc.
The irony of the fact that I am mortified that my cleaning lady saw my dildo but am totally okay with posting photos and blabbing about it all over the internet does not escape me. As a matter of fact, it pretty much sums me up.
Welcome to topotales.
Tags: embarrassment, nervous breakdown, sex
Little red herring,
stop swimming in my inkpot-
blue’s not your color!
Some thoughts I had last night at TGI Fridays in Athens, Greece. (Yes, I am slightly ashamed of myself.) I’ll update on my awesome day today once I have pictures uploaded!
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Sitting in a TGI Friday’s in Athens, Greece. This is not as strange as McDonalds in Mumbai (Bombay), but I am still finding it fairly surreal. And annoying. That people think this stuff is great. That they … That they I take it all back. I think I’m jealous. That other countries and cultures can take the worst of US consumerism and treat it properly like what it is, not warp it out of proportion. Here, it remains as an interesting bit of AmeriKana - a treat. I suppose there was a day when it wa like this in the US, but it is long gone. Now we have to have the biggest and the most before we’re (n)ever satisfied. Quantity over quality. An ass-backwards approach. Two major differences (TGI Greekies): 1. Everyone smoking everywhere (theme?) 2. Soccerballs where there would be baseballs.
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Like other places I love in the Mediterranean, people here seem to enjoy being out and about, talking in a loud, smokey bar, making merry without being on a schedule - letting the night take them where it may. Or is is it that I cannot see more subtle signals between parties?
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Dad would be pleased to see Newcastle Brown and Sam Adams in the bar fridge.
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The women here feel happier, more sure of themselves, stronger emotionally than women I’ve seen elsewhere. They feel warm but balanced. Not insecure enough to need gaudy baubles like the French or Italians, but not cold and unfriendly like the Northerners nor fake like the Americans.
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Female volleyball players have the best asses ever. Or is it the shorts? Doesn’t matter, I like volleyball. And why don’t they show women’s volleyball more often, anyway?
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Strange to think of Greek Orthodoxy, traditional religious life, old women in black nylon. Then remember that this is the country that had had gay rights BC.
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I keep remembering two things: 1. The stories my violinist friend told me about “Her Greek”, most of which revolved around his small penis being convenient for buttsex. 2. My Big Fat Greek Wedding… “What do you mean, you don’t eat no MEAT!? … … It’s okay, I make you lamb”.
I’ve been in Athens on business for the last couple of days. Shuttling between the hotel and the office, I haven’t really seen enough of Greece to make any detailed observations yet. But it feels like a wonderful country.
It is always an emotional relief for me to be back in the Mediterranean - people are brown (I simply feel more at home surrounded by brown people), warm, friendly and helpful. There is a frail, floating wisp of sea-air sniffable in this city, just every now and then - enough to tempt you into taking your socks off, but not enough to drug you into lassitude. When I stepped out of the taxi at my hotel, after chatting all the way here with the driver, he carried my bags right up to the reception desk. Then he took my hand in both of his huge hands and said “I am Theopolous. I welcome you to Greece and hope you enjoy each moment of your stay very much”. And he was one hundred percent sincere. There is plenty of noise in the street. Everybody is smoking everywhere (except me, sigh). The sun is shining.
Now the work portion of my trip is over, and I will have all day tomorrow to explore the city. I can’t NOT see the Acropolis, and Plaka seems to be the other must-do. Normally I’d save the touristy tidbits for after I’ve made a bunch of friends, but I’m short on time.
I miss my love, but there’s something inside of my soul that quietly (ok, sometimes not so quietly) pines and waits for times like this- when I am alone in an unknown place, the outsider - to come alive. It swells and dervishes in the joy I experience simply being and observing everything in a new place, my energy standing at full attention, busy searching out and finding the subtle nuances in behavior that I love so much to analyse.
So, I have been running this beautiful Fleet Foxes song, Mykonos, through my head over and over in anticipation of tomorrow- I can’t wait to walk all across this city holding the hands of ghosts and trying not to smoke!
A note about the Fleet Foxes: this one of a few bands that writes lyrics and music for the soul. If you like Mykonos, you should definitely listen to this song too.
Desperation strikes.
Can she continue this show,
or is she damned?
I saw this menu posted outside of a restaurant in Belgium and it immediately forced me to re-think my entire “Belgium Food” post. …I think I’ll have (2)!
Fille Mignon, for the non-French speakers, means “Hot chick”. Whereas what they were probably going for was Fillet Mignon, or …steak. Either way, sounds better than frogs and snails!
Temple is in sight,
its warm light candles beckon:
yet we must suffer.
I’ll scratch on your door
until the wood fills my nails.
Won’t you let me in?
