So, What's the Story, Jerry - Part 1

Now it's, like, what? 4-5 weeks? OK, buddy....

The birthday I acknowledged this year, below, has kept dishing out presents beyond my capacity to open them fast enough and appreciate them (for good or ill) at leisure. But here's a stab at it.

10/28, I have lunch with one of my oldest friends - the kind you can miss being face-to-face with for 10 years and it's still like you saw one another just last week. An illusion, of course, but enormously satisfying. So, he says over lunch, "I don't know what your politics are [he could make a good guess, so he's being polite..], but I can't figure out why anyone voted for this dumb fuck [meaning W]." Understand, the speaker here has made a fortune in financial management and has certainly benefitted from current tax policies, at the very least, and he's still appalled. We have a lot more to run over, so I shrug and say, "Beats the shit outta me," which is quite true, and we move on to his parents (who are like my second family) and his wife (who we will meet later in the afternoon), and his kids.

It's a fine lunch - Jeff taunts the waiter to feed me big (it was always his contention that I could outeat anyone in a sitting - god, I'm glad I haven't made that a habit!). I am, even now, thinking about how I want to attempt the polenta with mascarpone and roasted fennel and red peppers - yum. And it was a beautiful fall day here to walk a fair amount of that off. We did, with a lot of quizzing about how our various aging parents were doing, and pointing out Portland sights, and what it was like to lose my gay pussy. My own family would never ask such a question (not that there's anything wrong with it...), but that's why I needed a second.

We stroll on to a rendezvous with Susan, an art dealer (and she'll have other roles to play, just wait) and Jeff's wife. Last time I saw her was in LA after Thanksgiving at her brother's house, saying goodnight as I took my bike for a walk down the boardwalk, totally shitfaced from her brother's weed-laced stuffing. A very elegant dinner that was, and I think she was wise enough to stay a qualified designated driver, or else I wouldn't be writing this.

They had a dinner engagement with a Nike exec friend, so we had to say goodbye, but I was buoyed by the continuities, on the same day the Libby indictments came down.

Big stuff the Next Day - and next installment, or I'll never get anything posted.

[Just an aside, but my readership should be ashamed to flee from ballet posts - philistines! :-)]