Giving Thanks

Today is Thanksgiving. It's the holiday that we all consider "the food holiday." I would agree with that, There seems to always be a gathering and a feast. But it's also a day to give thanks.

I'm thankful for my health. We certainly don't know what tomorrow may bring but today I woke up and my back didn't hurt and my sinuses were clear. While this isn't the case every day, that's pretty much the worst of my chronic ailments.

I'm thankful for my family. My immediate family is really small. My sister lives nearby, she's got a son. I see them often and we all get along. My mom lives with me. She's elderly and doesn't get around very well so holidays are held in my house. We gather here and cook and have a good time. Then we sit around and eat and enjoy a nice conversation.

I'm thankful for my fantastic group of friends. Dan and Luis, Denise, Tina, Polo. When we're all together it's magical. We laugh constantly and we're there for one another through thick and thin. I love them so much, they are like my family. There are a lot of other friends, too many to mention, but all are special to me for their own reason.

I'm thankful to have someone new in my life, Anthony. When we are together time flies because it's so much fun. When we're apart, it feels as if time is standing still because I can't wait to see him again. We can make each other laugh, we offer each other a fresh perspective on thing when either one has a decision to make or a problem to solve. I learn something new about him each day and it excites me. I hope I do the same for him. It's fun, as opposed to past relationships where I spent more time feeling uneasy about things.

I'm thankful that I have a job that challenges me, that frustrates me, and keeps me intersted. Some days are more challenging than others but often there's a sense of satistaction when I'm presented with a daunting task and by the end of the day I've completed it and everybody's happy.

What is it you are thankful for on this day?

Time Flies...

One lonely evening last August, I was sitting quietly, staring at my iPod. It's one of the fancy ones that allows me to download apps and do things online. It functions somewhat like an iPhone but I need to connect to a wifi network to make it work. Anyway, that's not the point of this blog. The point is, I logged on to a *ahem* "social networking" app. As I often did, I would click on the pictures, read the profiles, initiate a chat and never hear back from the person to whom I reached out. That evening, I clicked on the picture that amused me. Some guy with neon wings. I think I said "Hi. I love your picture." Then I logged off.

The following morning, I was sitting at Starbucks and I logged on. The guy with neon wings was on and replied "Hey cutie, how are you this morning?"

All this began on August 15.

Flash forward 3 months and Anthony and I are still dating. I was at Starbucks Monday morning (the 15th) and I sent him a text about the events three months prior and he said "well imagine my surprise when I got your note. The cute ones never said hi to me." Had I not been sitting in a crowded room, I'd have probably started blubbering like a girl. As it was, my eyes welled up a bit. We had a brief but sweet conversation, then I left to go to work.

I feel infinitely lucky. I count my blessings every day. And I marvel at the fact that three months feel like they flew by. Time really does fly when you're having fun.

Pretty song

The singer is Landon Pigg. (yes, that's his name) And yes, I first heard part of the song playing during a commercial. Today I looked up the lyrics. Sweet. :)

Falling In Love At A Coffee Shop

I think that possibly
Maybe I've fallen for you
Yes there's a chance
That I've fallen quite hard over you

I've seen the paths that your eyes wander down
I wanna come too-

I think that possibly
Maybe I've fallen for you
,
No one understands me
Quite like you do
Through all of the shadowy corners of me

I never knew just what it was
About the same coffee shop I love so much
All of the while I never knew-

I never knew just what it was
About this old coffee shop I love so much
All of the while I never knew-

I think that possibly
Maybe I've fallen for you
Yes, there's a chance
That I've fallen quite hard over you

I've seen the waters that make your eyes shine
Now I'm shining too-

Because, oh because
I've fallen quite hard over you

If I didn't know you, I'd rather not know
If I couldn't have you, I'd rather be alone

I never knew just what it was
About the same coffee shop I love so much
All of the while I never knew-

I never knew just what it was
About this old coffee shop I love so much
All of the while I never knew-

All of the while
All of the while, it was you
You-
You-
You-

Random Thoughts

Well gosh, just when I planned on blogging a bit more, I realized I didn't have much to say. I went from blogging about every little thing to realizing that I don't really have that much to say. So rather than bore everybody with minutiae every day, I've collected those thoughts and gathered them in one (hopefully not so) big blog post.

In no particular order...

Autumn is upon us and generally this is the time of year when I start to feel a bit blue, just because the "social" season has ended. By social, I mean steet festivals, outdoor parties, etc. Luckily there will still be some social happening through the end of the year. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are always enjoyable.

Tonight at dinner we decided that our Halloween theme will be vampires. Each year we pick a theme for all of us who will be celebrating it at Dan and Luis' house. Dan and Luis will be out of town that weekend, we're basically the house sitters who make sure we hand out lots of candy to all the kids, thus preventing the house from being covered in eggs and all of the trees and bushes from being wrapped in toilet paper. Last year we handed out close to 1000 pieces of candie. We were Witches (I was a Warlock). This year we will be vampires. What kind of vampires is yet to be determined. I'm thinking classic vampire (red cape, brocade vest, white shirt, black pants, and of course fangs). I'm not really feeling all Twilight-like, I don't have the body for it. Whatever I decide, it'll be fun. We have a blast at the house.

Tonight we celebrated Polo's birthday. His actual birthday was last Thursday; tonight we went to dinner and had a great time. I love our get togethers. We're all busy and they don't happen as often as they once did (at one time we were all together on a weekly basis), but when we do, it's as if we haven't missed a minute. We've got a couple more birthdays coming up before Christmas, and I'm sure we'll gather a few times before the year ends.

So, a funny thing happened on the way to the dentist. Back in mid-August I was clicking around on a social networking site and found a picture of a guy that made me laugh. I clicked it, liked what I read in his profile and sent a quick note. I think it said 'Hi. Love your picture." I hit SEND and then I logged off.

The next morning I was scheduled to go into work late because I needed to take my mom to the dentist. I was awake at my usual time and had time to kill so I went to Starbucks, and I logged back on to the same site and he was on. I got a reply that said "Hi cutie, how are you this morning?" We chatted a while. He was getting ready for work, I was killing time while waiting until it was time to go get my mom. We exchanged numbers and continued our conversation via text messages during the day. That evening, we met at Starbucks and chatted. It was perfect. From that point forward, we've been seeing each other regularly. It's nice, relaxed and fun. At the same time, it's exciting. We share a lot of likes, but we each bring new things to the table. It's different than previous experiences with dating, I feel comfortable around him because he's happy, and he makes me happy.

I'm definitely putting it out for all to see, including him. He knows that I have a blog, I'll post on Facebook that I've updated this. I don't think I've disclosed anyting new. I've been pretty forthcoming with him about how he makes me feel. This whole process makes me nervous, given my past history, but I'm hopeful, and excited. Wish me luck with this one. :)

Last weekend I was in Miami for a wedding. The daughter of a good family friend got married. I've known the bride from practically the day she was born. The wedding was beyond gorgeous. Every bit of it was perfection. I invited my dear friend Denise to join me. Denise and I travel well together, we shared a room when we all went to Puerto Rico. Denise is fun and easy going. She puts up with my neurotic ways and my assorted quirks. We spend more time laughing than talking. The theme of this trip was friends and booze. We arrived Thursday evening and by 11, we were checked into our hotel and had found a restaurant to have a light snack and 3 drinks. the trend continued through Friday, when our dear friend Steve met us and we all sat down for the first round. By the time the evening was finished, we lost count. Neither Denise or I were completely wasted, but we had a happy buzz going.

Saturday was the wedding so the drinking was light. We sipped champagne and wine at the wedding but decided to save ourselves for Sunday.

We started Sunday with Bloody Marys (2 each). We met up with my Aunt and visited with her for a while. Afterwards we found ourselves making a brief stop at a tea dance (there was neither tea or dancing taking place) before finding The Clevelander Hotel. What we found once we were there was a sea of young, fun, drunk boys, bimbo women wearing giant heels and tiny bikinis, fembots, 60-year-olds pretending to be 25, and random freaks. We decided we had walked into the real life Jersey Shore. We even had names for a lot of our favorites. We learned a lesson too. If you're in a similar crowd and want to talk to someone, yell out "Duuude!" Someone will answer and they'll think they've found their oldest friend in the world. Each time I did this, someone else greeted me and Denise and I would laugh. Oh, maybe the humor was in the half dozen rum runner drinks we consumed. Eventually, it began to get dark and the cute boys all went to take naps (must have been a curfew thing) and the crowd shifted to people our age or older. This was our signal to leave.

Monday we awoke surprisingly chipper and ready to face the reality of coming home. We got our breakfast, packed our bags, gassed up the rental car and said goodbye to South Beach. But we didn't leave Florida without first having one last drink...margaritas at the airport. OLE!

Florida was by far one of the best trips I've ever taken. So much fun!

There you have it! We're now all caught up.

Dancing With the Stars - Season 11 "Stars" Announced

Dancing With the Stars returns to television on September 20. This will be their 11th season, and they're really stretching the term "Stars." Here's the list. (Thanks, USA Today!) The comments that follow are mine.


Singer Michael Bolton, 57 - zzzzz hope his dancing is more exciting than his catalog of music.

Actress/singer Brandy, 31 - I hope her dancing is better than her driving skills.

Actress/comedian Margaret Cho, 41 - OK, I like Margaret Cho. She should be fun to watch.

Actor/retired L.A. Laker Rick Fox, 41 - Sports person. Sorry...don't know him.

Actress Jennifer Grey, 50 - Baby is 50? How old is her nose?

Actor/singer David Hasselhoff, 58 - His professional partner can motivate him with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a cheeseburger.

Actress Florence Henderson, 76 - Mrs. Brady! Aww...she's the senior in this season's cast. Hope she sticks around for a while.

Actor Kyle Massey, 19 - No clue.

Bristol Palin, daughter of Sarah Palin, 19 - Seriously? HELLO...in what realm is she a STAR???

Reality TV's Audrina Patridge, 25 - No clue.

Reality TV's Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino, 27 - Wow...he's 27. I would have thought he was in his early 20's. I hope he and Bristol hit it off. If you know what I mean. ;-)

Retired NFL quarterback Kurt Warner, 38 - quarterback...that's football. Still no clue who he is though.

Not a very exciting cast. I'll watch though. I always do. Will you?

Speaking of The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck (see post below)

There is now a theme song for The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. It was written by the lovely, gracious and extremely talented Jane Wiedlin. Doug is a good friend of hers. I feel very priviledged that I can also call her a friend and because of this, I will now shamelessly promote her song. It can be downloaded for a mere 99 cents on iTunes. You'd be a fool not to add this happy little song to your music collection. After all, how many pop songs can you name that have the sentence "All of New York is swallowing" in the lyrics?

I'll even make it easy for you...here's a link right to the song on iTunes!

The Great Food Truck Race

As you all know, my friend Doug (The Big Gay Ice Cream Man) has a food truck in NYC called "The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck." Doug's truck is part of a long list of trucks included in the voting for season 2 of "The Great Food Truck Race," a show on The Food Network. Through September 10, you can visit the site, simply by following this link, and cast your vote (actually 10 votes per day!!) for The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. Winners receive $10,000 and a chance to appear on season 2 of the show. There's something in it for the voters, too...a chance to win a trip to The Food Network NYC Wine and Food Festival. How bad can that be?

Vote early and vote often for The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. I appreciate it and so does Doug.