30 December 2003

I had a lazy or productive day yesterday; I can’t decide. I paid the bills, washed the dishes, did many loads of laundry, and read Jeffery Eugenides’ Middlesex, all 529 pages. I started at five in the evening, and I couldn’t put it down. It took about eight hours. I went to the gym for a little break when I got about halfway. It’s light and fun and very entertaining.

I realized when I went to bed that I hadn’t spoken to anyone all day except a brief chatter with someone at the gym in the evening. That’s it. No phone calls. Nothing. I needed the time alone to recharge my energy after the weekend. I enjoy being around other people, but it’s always draining.

I got up early this morning to look for office space downtown with my boss. We saw six places and thought that one was a real possibility. The location is great, the layout will work for us, and it has a view of the Bay Bridge and the Ferry Building. Since the former tenant was a Japanese firm, the boss’s office is on a corner, with big low windows on either side that allowed him to look out in both directions from his desk and see who’s working and who’s not. My boss was thrilled to think she could do the same. I also found out that the project won’t really start until February, not next week. It was supposed to start in September, so this is not unexpected.

I made two big batches of beurre blanc tonight at my other job; I had never made it before but didn’t let on. I’ve seen it done so many times that I just faked my way through it. The emulsion held. These things are easier in big batches. I have a hard time making a one-egg mayonnaise at home, but I’ve never broken a nine-egg batch or even a four-egg batch.  Somehow this seems metaphorical, but I can't quite put my fingers on it. Readers?

28 December 2003

It has been so cold that I can’t get more than one room at a time in my apartment above 60 degrees. Cold enough to see your breath inside. No insulation: another lovely feature of overpriced San Francisco apartments.

We had the third of our family Christmas dinners tonight, and we finally opened presents. I got the new Paul Bertolli cookbook that I’ve been longing for. My mother and I kept the menu simple this time (ravioli with my her special sauce, then kale, roasted parsnips, creamed black trumpet mushrooms, and a pork loin roast that I grilled outside on the Weber, then a salad with pecans and apples, and then cream puffs.)  My baby nephew was there again, of course, and was better tempered than on Christmas. He fell asleep in my arms while I was trying to eat my salad. He just curled up like a little puppy and snuffled. When my mother is with him, she murmurs little things to him that I remember (how?) from when I was young—little soothing comments and sounds. I don’t know how I could remember them, but I do.

I had dinner last night with B., who was pressing me to tell him my New Year’s resolutions. I couldn't come up with anything, but he pointed out that my finances and my relationship phobias clearly need to be addressed. After dinner, I cleaned up my apartment (nesting behavior), found some extra-strength gel for my hair (I’m working my way one day at a time through a bad haircut), and went to Sugar last night by myself (so much easier to pick someone up when you go alone). In two minutes I ran into a friend of an ex and then I saw J., a pale Canadian. I see him at Sugar almost every time I go; he has been working out. I went home with him a few years ago. He was single then, but he has had a tall boyfriend for years. The boyfriend was sick at home with the flu. J. hung out next to me at the bar; we didn’t really talk. When Ellen started to spin, he asked me to dance. The friend of my ex gave us a significant look when he saw us dancing. (Of course, my ex called this afternoon to ask as innocently as he could, “So... did you go out last night?”) One thing led to another, and then J. and I were making out in a dark corner, and then he was at my apartment. The passage of time or his boyfriend has opened him up to more of life’s possibilities; I remembered from our trick years ago that he would do one thing but not the other and was adamant about it. Last night he was versatile, very versatile. Open your ass and your mind will follow.

On the way home tonight I realized that one of my resolutions for 2004 has to be: no more other people’s boyfriends. I had a great time with J., but it meant that once again I didn’t put any energy into finding someone of my own.

25 December 2003

Though not everyone celebrates Christmas, everybody can celebrate Elizabeth David’s Birthday, and thus I usually send out cards for the latter event. Here’s one for you, dear readers:

My passport? Replaceable.

Pictures of my sister’s wedding? Replaceable.

My Jerome Caja painting?  It would be a loss (considering that I have by far the best of his Miss Piggy series).

Pictures of Steve and me? I have them in my heart.

Steve's and my rings? They're for something deep in my heart, and he’s dead.

But this card? How many of them are there in the world?

If you know what this is from and what it represents, you’d know why I almost peed my pants when J. gave it to me tonight.

We had a lovely dinner at J.’s. Three people, three bottles of wine. With the chicken sauté, braised Chinese mustard greens (choi sam?), fried cardoons, and green garlic aioli, a 2002 Neyers grenache. With the walnuts and homemade membrillo, an Amador County barbera, and as the meditative wine, an Italian barbera. We talked about Philip Guston, Elizabeth David*, William Wurster, gossip, tricks (“it was big and thick and soft, like a baby’s arm”), crushes, and our trip tomorrow to the wharf to get fish for Christmas Eve dinner.

4:03 PM. I’ve spent the day alternately cleaning my apartment (it’s a new moon) and e-mailing and phoning my boss about the contract negotiations we’re involved in. I dust while waiting for a phone call. In response, I then draft a memo, send it off, and vacuum. Another phone call. I re-do a bit of a spreadsheet, send it off, and clean the stove. And so forth. Not a bad way to spend a rainy day indoors.

And a whole article on the front page of today's Wall Street Journal about the disappearance of red and green from Christmas decor schemes this year. Style mavens are finally catching up to me.

______________

*OK, I couldn’t find a worthy link to Elizabeth David — most of them seemed to be written by ignoramuses, so I’ll keep looking. She’s the goddess, by the way, and is half the reason I’m a professional cook (the other half is Richard Olney). More on them later.

Winter solstice. Still crabby.

Lovely day, though, with my sisters for shopping, cocktails, and dinner at Zuni (salt cod chowder with squash and cabbage). Half of Market Street was still in a blackout when we rode the streetcar home at 6 PM, twenty-four hours after it started.  It was deliciously quiet at my place last night. All of the buildings around me were dark except one apartment across the street, which was lit by candles for a party. Very Persuasion (the movie). Since your Cunégonde is a Big Queen, she was able to enter her apartment in the dark at midnight, take a few steps and lay her hands, without any fumbling, on matches and candles and settle in for a lovely candlelit shower and bedtime reading.  

18 December 2003

I’ve finally been working enough that I can afford again to take my laundry to the wash-and-fold place on the corner. This is fortunate, since I have almost nothing clean to wear tomorrow, and no time to wash anything myself. I started out today in a coat and tie for an all-morning meeting with the client at my first job and then spent the rest of the day (and evening) in a white chef’s jacket  at my other job (I grilled quail). I left at 8:30 AM and didn't get home at 12:30 AM.

The other good news is that I've finally finished my trade school applications. I have to keep my fingers firmly crossed for the next few months (until about mid-May) in hopes of getting in somewhere good. I went back and forth about feeling confident about my chances, feeling that my letters of recommendation, academic record, personal statement, and work experience would be exceptional enough to get me in to a good school, or feeling that they were all trivial and marked me as a shameless dilettante. Writing my personal statement also forced me to confront more memories of Steve; I'm hoping that finishing the applications gives me another bit of closure on his death. His getting sick was the main reason I didn't apply to trade schools ten years ago. It has been a long detour. I've had more than one episode of early-morning awakening, which for me has been a sign of Steve-related mental turbulence.

And Tall & Frecked has a boyfriend. I saw them together yesterday at the gym. It was who I thought it was. He's cute enough, but too pale, perhaps, to be alluring for a three-way. It also occurred to me that T&F is reading this, so hello, honey.

12 December 2003

Three years today since the Supreme Court decided the election and appointed Our Leader to the office he currently holds. Aren’t you grateful?

And today our Canadian readers are celebrating their new prime minister in a typically measured and modest Canadian way by baking cookies together.

I met with my boss this morning in her office on the beautiful Lucas Valley Road in Marin.  We’ll see how long that lasts. It’s semi-rural, though only 35 minutes from San Francisco, and my boss says that she keeps losing members of her flock of chickens to coyotes (who leave a bloody mess) and red-tailed hawks (who leave no trace).

10 December 2003

Catering tonight at the home of a very wealthy couple. Five-story house, high on a hill, with a view to the Bay and to the island home of the Crybaby beyond. The butler answered the door and suggested that it would be best if I went around and used the tradesmen’s entrance at the side of the building. Down a long hallway to the main kitchen (one of three); it’s bigger than the restaurant kitchen I work in. Very Gosford Park, with uniformed maids (black dress, white apron and collar) bustling along the corridor, tradesmen coming by every few minutes with another delivery of beef or flowers or vegetables, housemaids rushing up and down the back stairs, and long discussions between the head cook and the head housekeeper about which plates were to be used. Mr. X stopped by for a moment. I never saw anything but the servants' quarters. Most of our work was done on a very, very long wooden table, the kind of work table you see in illustrations of old kitchens. One of the things I like about cooking is that much of it is relatively unchanged since the beginning of the 19th century: the knives and ovens are better, but the techniques are the same: I tied up and seasoned the tenderloins the same way that they would have been prepped 200 years ago. We made the sauce from the beef scraps the same way our predecessors did (brown the meat, deglaze the pans with wine, add vegetables, herbs, and stock, skim carefully when it comes to a boil, strain when it’s done, reduce, skimming assiduously again). Wild mushrooms garnished the meat just as they’ve always done this time of year. We wear a uniform—the white double-breasted jacket and white apron—that Carême would have worn.

It's raining, and the project at my old job, the one I've been waiting for since September, is about to begin. I got the call this morning. A new chapter in my life is about to start. I'll managing more people (30+) than I ever have. This promotion looks very good on my trade school applications. Fortunately, if all goes well, I'll be quitting on Wednesday, June 30 and be on the beach Rio by 1 PM the next day.

7 December 2003

I saw 21 Grams tonight. Good, if histrionic. It was my first visit to a motion picture screening in about six months. The last one was Charlie’s Angels II, so it’s understandable why I haven’t been back sooner. The best part, as always, was the trailers. A whole movie in three minutes! When I switch careers the next time, I’ll be a flim editor. It will be the era of 45-minute movies. Most directors don’t have 90 minutes of something to show you. Imagine: in and out in an hour. Attendance will skyrocket.

Other news: tall & freckled has a boyfriend, which is why he’s been a bit coy lately. He started a flirtation with me and has to backpedal now that I’m interested. I hope my pain and grief teaches him not to toy with his elders.

I made it over 4,000 at some point this afternoon. Thanks, dear readers!

5 December 2003

The restaurant was taken over tonight by a special party, so the guests wandered through the kitchen with their aperitifs before dinner. I didn’t pay much attention, since they generally looked like women who work in the corporate offices of high-end retailers, or like residents of Walnut Creek, or both.  I looked up and saw a very handsome former trick just before he saw me, so I had time to glaciate my expression. He was shocked to see me there; we usually run into each other at the gym or the beach; he had no idea what I do for work and had never seen me in my chef’s whites; I had never seen him in a suit. I occasionally see people I know at work, but seeing me out of context left him speechless for a moment. We chatted a bit, and he moved on through the kitchen. The cook standing to my left, a horndog (straight), was shaking with laughter. He saw the exchange and divined instantly that (1) I had slept with the guy, (2) I didn’t remember the guy’s name, and (3) the guy wasn’t exactly single. Sure enough, the boyfriend appeared with him the next time they passed through the kitchen and we all chatted some more. It turns out that the boyfriend loves to cook and was impressed to see me there. Hmmh.

Exposed as a slut by a co-woker. That was my day.

Y. and I went to dinner last night at Kung Pao Kitty in Hollywood with G., who has just moved to LA (hence the house-warming present). Cross that place off your list, too. The food wasn't very good and the service was the overly-solicitous-but-useless LA style. Yes, you're pretty, but please bring us a serving spoon, and don't make us ask twice. I miss G. more than I thought. He's another reason to consider moving down there.

Five hours and fifteen minutes to come home today. Fewer amateur drivers. Everyone seemed to know that slower traffic keeps to the right. I had a delicious In-and-Out burger and was glad to see that the Porsche Cayenne in the parking lot did not belong to the three bratty-looking rich kids inside (USC students, no doubt).

I spent the night on Y.’s couch and didn’t get much sleep. I woke before the rosy-fingered dawn and read more of Jeremy Thane (by Kate Christensen). I’m in the mood for a novel larded with literary allusions about a thirty-something fuck-up. I’m not the only one who turns to the Norton Anthology when I need something apposite.

Over breakfast Y. and I plotted a way to get me to Brazil later this month. Nothing I can afford, yet.

I visited USC and didn’t care for it. Too many undergraduates in USC-branded apparel. Too bad they didn't get into the University of California. I forgot that it was a Methodist school until some earnest person tried to press a bible leaflet into my hand.

I had a passable fish taco at Señor Fish downtown at First and Alameda. I worked off my disappointment by taking a little walk over the First Street bridge to see the Los Angeles River shimmer in its cement culvert.

I never saw so many poorly dressed adult women in my life as I did on Robertson this afternoon. Think14-year-old girls let loose on their own for the first time in a shopping mall with their mothers’ credit cards. There is no chic in L.A.

1 December 2003

From my place to parking structure #2 on the UCLA campus: 371 miles. Five hours, ten minutes. One tank of gas. No stops. Excellent bladder control. I didn’t go over 100 MPH, not even once.

It's tee-shirt weather here. I was in sandals all day. Heaven.

Everyone is very, very short at UCLA. They must have replaced the racial quota system with affirmative action for the wee. I felt like Gulliver. I realized that the last time I was at UCLA was in ’84 or ’85, about the time these kids were born. I went to a gay-themed event at the trade school and saw a few more age-appropriate hotties. What is it about tall, brown-eyed dirty blonds with scruffy beards? Where did I get that fixation? I’ve never had a boyfriend like that. I’ve never even had a blue-eyed boyfriend.  Too scary.

Yes, it’s World AIDS Day. I’ve given myself an exemption from these kinds of exertions. I just write whopping big checks when friends go on the SF-LA AIDS Life Cycle.