30 September 2003

I voted today (“No” on everything.)

I went to a great lunch Sunday afternoon to mark the retirement of my mentor. Sixty of us ate at one long table in the garden at the restaurant owner’s house. Former co-workers made the food, little foxy J. waited tables, and we drank a young Bandol rosé and the ’90, ’91, and ’92 Howell Mountain cabernets that the staff used to pick, ferment, and bottle themselves. Two of our newest co-workers brought their spouses, neither of whom had been to one of our “family” events. The tops of their little heads were still blown open two days later. Good, simple food (shell beans, roasted peppers, grilled sausage, aioli, salad picked from that very garden; peach tart with walnut ice cream and nocino), good wine, convivial company, fall sunshine — I am a lucky bitch. It had more elegance and comfort (and sophistication) than the pretentious grandeur at the Crybaby’s house, with his ballroom, hand-blown balloon glasses, decanters, candles, and silk placemats.

28 September 2003

I think I might be turning into an ex-gay. I’ve missed or will miss all of the big events this year: Dore Alley, the Film Festival, the Parade, Folsom Street,  the Castro Street Faire, all of the mega-parties, many of the small ones, and I don’t regret it. I haven’t really dated anyone at all this year. If it weren't for the sex, I wouldn't even want to be a fag anymore.

25 September 2003

Folsom Street Faire: it’s time for a moustache. I’ve been trying for years to bring them back into fashion. Years now. Until recently, I disappeared for most guys when I had one: the guys I can usually cruise successfully ignore the moustached me. That’s changing little by little. Having a moustache is the only time I wish I were blond—it's so much more nuanced than my dark caterpillar.

A few hints for those of you who haven’t grown one before: think wide, and fight the urge to trim the furthest edges. Keep it trimmed above the vermilion border of the lip. To avoid the peach fuzz look at first, don’t shave at all for a few days, let your beard grow in, and then clear off everything but the moustache. A final hint: don’t grow a moustache if you’re in a new relationship you want to keep…

You can call me Fry Daddy. I worked all weekend on a lunch for 460 people in Sonoma County, just over the Napa county line. 100 degrees in the shade. At a Slow Food benefit for the Sonoma Land Trust, I fried 600 chicken wings in about two hours beside the big barn. Picture your Cunégonde in white chef’s jacket, mirrored aviator sunglasses, a Dr. Pepper (the caterer’s secret weapon) in one hand, and the chicken in the other. “The best fried chicken I’ve ever had,” said the guests. What I liked was the other cooks asking me how. Crispy, crackling crust, no grease, lotsa finger-lickin’. I switched to rosé once the frying was done. Sonoma is proof that god created California last, when he’d figured out how to do it right. Warm breezes, oaks, scrub, dry grass, a little poison oak, a few conifers for punctuation, blue, blue sky, and the ocean not far off.

I had a crisis on Thursday afternoon when I looked in my closet and realized I had nothing vindictive enough to wear to my 20^th high school reunion. I called my former gay lover, d., who happily took me shopping downtown. The reunion was a trip. Bourbon made it possible for me maintain conversations with people I hoped I wouldn’t have to notice. If you didn’t like them twenty years ago, you won’t like them now; how sad to have peaked at age eighteen. People either looked good or they looked like their parents. I’m glad I dressed up; the fancy striped shirt (thank you, little d.) and slim pants sent the fuck-you message I was hoping they would.

Out of the 200 who attended, only three were out, which says a lot about where I grew up. My biggest crush of all four years now looks like a doofus with a little pot belly and a very tragique haircut. His best friend, however, is now a total fox—hot, muscley, dirty blond, sexier than he ever was then.

I spent the night at my parents’ house, and got up early (and hungover) to go back up to Sonoma to cook at  the picnic. My father sweetly came into my room at 6AM to ask me what time I wanted to be woken up. “How about 7:15, Dad?”

I gave notice to the Crybaby on Monday, after lunch. They were noticeably more polite and respectful at dinner. I think I surprised them. I may make them a fried chicken dinner on my last night.

A good way to end the summer. I’m ready for autumn.

19 September 2003

Well, I haven’t officially quit working for the Crybaby. Lots of drama today about candles and flowers on the table. I usually light about a dozen in the dining room alone. Tonight (“Since it’s Friday”) I had to light at least two dozen more and bestrew the tabletop with flowers. It must be nice to be nouveau riche! How fun to drink a first-growth Bordeaux warm at room temperature!

15 September 2003

Easy corn cakes. So good they’ll get you laid.

Grate two ears of corn on the big holes of a box grater. Scrape the cobs on the side of the bowl to release the rest of the juices. Add a pinch of salt, a big spoonful of chopped chives, an egg, and a quarter-cup of crème fraîche. Mix well. Add about two tablespoons of flour and mix again. Drop by  teaspoonfuls into a buttered nonstick or well-seasoned cast-iron frying pan. Turn only once (they’re fragile). Eat while hot. I served them with salmon and green beans, after a buffalo mozzarella and dry-farmed tomato salad. Late summer. It doesn’t get any better.

13 September 2003

Straight women and gay men: is there a more natural friendship?

To A.: happy birthday! We met exactly half our lives ago — I helped you move in to the house we shared in college on your 19^th birthday. You were the second person I came out to, and the first person who wasn’t freaked out by it. You are still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. We’ve been there for each other: boyfriend mistakes, starter husbands, career dilemmas, your lost shoe, and our first and only fight (about the proper use of a microwave oven). I wish you didn’t live in Paris, or that we could see each other more often. I love you.

In other good news today: my mother is home from the hospital, I decided to quit cooking for the Crybaby at the end of the month, it was hot enough to go to Black Sands Beach and take someone else’s boyfriend for the pony ride, and I got carded trying to buy beer. Those readers so inclined may wish deduce my age from the paragraph above.

11 September 2003

What gets you is not seeing your mother stretched out on a gurney, bristling with tubes and wires, so still so groggy from the anesthesia that she can only squeeze your hand to communicate – that was expected – it’s when you have to help her brush her teeth and wipe her face.

10 September 2003

I’m at a loss for words. Distracted. Unable to concentrate except on simple tasks with built-in closure, like the laundry or the recycling. Working on my personal statement or studying for the exam are out of the question.  My mother is out of the ICU, but still healing slowly. She’s more upset by her weaknesses than we are. I’ve been visiting twice a day, which means that I keep losing track of where I’ve parked the car. She’s had a few gay nurses, one of whom was very much like what Steve would have been — same age, same size, same mannerisms. Steve’s birthday is not for another six weeks or so (it’s almost the due date of my first nephew), but warm sunshine and dry offshore breezes this time of year remind me of what it was like when we met. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a boyfriend whose hand I wanted to hold as we walked down the street.

Spaces around em dashes are best, no?

After two trips a day, I now know the shortcuts in and out of the ICU. We’ve met most of my mother’s nurses. Slow progress. One of my sisters and her girlfriend spent the weekend with me, which was a comfort.

I even went on a date tonight – lots of talking. He likes to eat, which is a good sign. He has a job, a loft, and a colt (an animal, not a revolver). The buzzer on the front door downstairs lists two last names, his and someone else’s, but I think he lives alone. There’s a story there.

1 September 2003

Working for the labile client is giving me an ulcer. Yesterday, I spent all afternoon on a dinner for him and guests only to receive a call at 5:15PM from his personal assistant, who said that Mr. X wouldn’t be coming home for dinner. The chief of the security staff was pissed because his day had also been ruined. I couldn’t go to the Russian River this weekend because of it.

And I don’t like it when someone I’m cooking for makes a face like a spoiled little boy when I tell him what I’ve made and he doesn’t like the idea of it. I need the money, but I don’t need the anxiety. Cooking for the grand friends of Our Leader was much more pleasant, in retrospect. At least they were polite.