"I've canceled that in my area."

Ms. K keeps asking when I'm going to "convert for love" and become Jewish. At first I thought she was making a funny joke, but now it seems clear that she's trying to get me into a mikvah. I pointed out to her that I would be the worst Jew ever, first because my Catholic childhood made me deeply suspicious of organized religion, and second because I'm a huge fan of pork. She countered with the (highly biased) observation that reform Judaism is the best of all religions (points for being gay friendly, I'll grant you) and that I wouldn't have to keep kashrut. Hmmm. I'm running out of excuses beyond my burning desire to not swear allegiance to any one God team -- maybe because my ancestry is Irish Protestant and English Catholic. No wonder I'm neurotic.

But -- and this is a huge but -- if I was shopping around for an organized religion and wavering between Judaism and something else, it wouldn't be Scientology. Holy crap, has anyone seen the Tom Cruise big upping of Scientology video floating around the internets?? For an indoctrination video it's both scary . . . and boring. Way to sell it, Tom.

"Hammer down."

Poor New York City. Always getting beat up in the movies and in real life. What's with the recent obsession of tearing the city down in CGI? I haven't seen I Am Legend, but boy oh boy did I have the great misfortune of seeing Cloverfield last night.

For those who have never heard of Cloverfield, the premise is simple: monster attacks Manhattan, hipsters catch it on film. It could have been called Blair Witch Monster Project. Honestly I had no desire to see it -- the previews alone were unnerving enough. When my roommate Libby asked me to go with her, I told her that I didn't want to pay to relive the emotions of 9/11.

Then she called me a pussy.

Okay, fine. I'll see Cloverfield. See how easy it is to get me to do something? But I had my reservations. When the movie started I jabbed a finger accusingly at her and said, "If I get scared, you're so in trouble."

Right. Who knew the movie was . . . hilarious . . . . Hilarious in that sort of cynical way that New Yorkers have long perfected. People in the theater laughed at moments meant to be poignant and I think there came a point when the audience just wanted the monster to eat everyone so it would end faster. Oof.

A list of gripes:

* There was something vaguely Californian about the movie -- as if it was a Los Angelean fantasy of what New York should be, especially during its darkest moment.

* That bogus looking Spring Street subway station.

* That bogus looking Spring Street subway station where apparently you can get a cell phone signal.

* I felt no emotional connection to any of the characters except maybe the stupid fucker holding the video camera the whole time.

* Speaking of which, what sort of stupid fucker holds a video camera during a time when any other sane person would have dropped it and ran?

* From a loft party in the Lower East Side to an apartment in the Time Warner building high above Columbus Circle, the characters came off as elitist trust funders with very poor survival skills.

* What sort of stupid bitch wears gold lamé heels during a time of disaster? Yeah you were at a party when all hell broke loose, but while your buddy was looting an electronics store on Broadway for a cell phone battery, your stupid ass could have been busting open a Duane Reade for a pair of flip flops. But no, you decide to walk 70 blocks over subway tracks in those heels.

Manohla Dargis said it best with, "Rarely have I rooted for a monster with such enthusiasm." But my friend N had a better summary. "Here's my three word review. Fuck this movie!"

"Damnit, I guess this makes me an adult now."

Didn't I say that 2008 was all about more sex and less financial ruin? Here's an update on my progress.

Sex

Please avert your eyes or nervously skim if you think some things are better left unknown. Okay? Okay.

I really -- and I mean REALLY -- love the harness that Ms. K and I purchased before the New Year, which we have been using in tandem with this guy. She loves it too, but for different reasons. I've never used a strap on in a relationship before. Scratch that -- I did with my Crazy Ex, but that was eons ago and it was only for a short period of time before we broke up and she stole it to use with her new girlfriend (now wife). Unpleasant memories aside, I suggested to Ms. K that we try it after frustrated attempts with the Feeldoe. She was skeptical at first, but later changed her tune when I made her body shake from a series of orgasms.

Holy crap.

Pardon my language but fucking a woman and watching the look on her face as she comes for the second time has to be the greatest gift in all the world. Thank you, God. I guess this makes me a "Femme Top."

Money

I went to debt counseling back on January 8th, strangely the same day I came down with my viral infection. Hoping to take advantage of the new year, sun/new moon in Capricorn, I gathered my shame and my bank statements and took my show to a non-profit counseling company in Midtown. I'll spare you the details, but what I'm really trying to say is that I want 2008 to be about healthy changes in my life. I want it to be about overcoming my fears, from my relationship with money to my relationship with my mother. Maybe it's my impending Saturn Return that's prompting me towards getting my shit together, but better now than never.

"Your cats need to stop being so dramatic."

This weekend Ms. K and I took an important step in our relationship. I met her golden retriever, Harley. Harley in turn met my cats, Jasper and Theo.

Er . . . um . . . let's just say the meeting didn't go over too well.

I mean not like Ms. K and I are planning to go all lesbian-tastic and move in together after six months of dating, but we've wondered for some time what would happen if a cat person and a dog person were to cohabitate. Would it be a fucking disaster? Would her dog eat my cats? Would my cats tear up the house in retaliation?

On Sunday we tried a little experiment. Ms. K brought her dog from Pennsylvania to see what would happen. As expected my cats hid under the bed. As expected her dog expressed mucho curiosity over my cats. The experiment made me tense and while I was gathering something in another room, I heard all holy hell break loose.

Back in my bedroom, my cat Theo had darted out from under the bed, sensing a path of escape. Harley went after Theo thinking it was a game of chase. Jasper then went apeshit and shot out of his hiding space and started climbing the curtains. All of this took ten seconds, but upon coming into the room all I saw were flying cats and a dog struggling under the pull from his leash. The amount of energy my cats were exerting you'd think they were on fire as they darted off walls, curtains, and even lamps.

Ooof.

I found my cats hiding behind the recycle bin in the kitchen. They were stacked on top of each other, shaking, and Theo looking like he was about to cry. Oh man, perhaps Ms. K and I should have tried a different tactic? The interweb seems to think so. Tips here and here.

"But I'm really popular in the Balkans!"

I saw that someone (cough) nominated me for the Lesbian Lifestyle Blog of the Year. While I think I swear far too much to be palatable to the general lesbian population, I did see that my good friend Sinclair's blog was also nominated and her language is far dirtier than mine. Hmm. Maybe you should definitely nominate her.

But on the off chance you like this blog and think that my tiny corner of cyberspace deserves more traffic, please go to this link (Warning: Extreme pinkness awaits you!) and mention this blog in the comments area.

In case you're unsure of my merits, here's a shameless list of (self) accolades and/or pity:

* My girlfriend thinks I'm pretty
* I'm deeply insecure and I have the need to be recognized by my peers
* I always got picked last for team sports in middle school
* I'm friends with last year's winner
* I inspire strangers to write
* Croatia thinks I'm awesome

You decide.

"More sex, less financial ruin . . . let's make that our motto, shall we?"

I had this New Year's resolution to blog more, like in 2005 when I prolifically blogged 189 times. However the difference then was that I hated my job and didn't have enough to do. This year my attempts for January were thwarted by the flu.

But what of the rest of my resolutions?

My body going into total breakdown last week reminded me that I need to take better care of myself. Now that I've got the sleep part down, I can focus on other areas of my health. More meditation, more exercise, more water, more groundedness, more fearlessness, more peace.

And I can't forget what Dennise said to me not too long ago. "More sex, less financial ruin . . . let's make that our motto, shall we?"

Yes. Let's.

"Nurse!"

Funny thing happened on Wednesday. I went to the emergency room and ended up staying overnight for a Manhattan sleepover at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital. Ha ha. Oh. Not so funny.

It all started on Tuesday evening with a temperature of 102 plus degrees and violent shivering, which then led to zero appetite and abdominal pains, which then led to a visit to my doctor, which then led to a trip to the nearby emergency room. All over some tiny fear that I might have had appendicitis.

Nineteen hours, many phone calls, a pelvic exam, CT scan, blood work, chest x-ray, antibiotics, IV, and a belly rub by a jolly old Jewish grandfather type of a surgeon it was determined that I didn't have the appendicitis. Although relieved, they made me stay overnight and unfortunately they were out of beds so guess who got to camp out in the emergency room?

Since emergency rooms are not known for their quiet, serene, sleep inducing qualities, I spent the night waking up off and on. At 4 am it was to beg someone for some Tylenol. At 6 am it was for blood work as some strange man leered at me from the bed across. "Sir, you need to leave," I remember the nurse telling him sternly. "You've already been discharged!"

At some point in the morning I had the fuzzy yet distinct feeling of a person close to me. When I opened my eyes there was a doctor leaning over a woman who was then occupying the bed next to me. (Apparently sketch guy finally did leave.) From what the doctor was saying I could tell that he was using an instrument to shine a light into the woman's ear canal.

"I need to see if it's still moving," I heard him say.

The woman whimpered in pain.

What?! Was WHAT still moving?? IN HER EAR??? I couldn't see! The doctor was blocking my view. And in my fevered state I had unpleasant memories of watching Star Trek II: The Wrath on Khan as a child and that alien thing that would crawl into people's ears while scaring the bejeesus out of my little self.

Somehow I managed to fall back asleep even though I was still trying to figure out what on earth was moving in that lady's ear. When I woke up for realsies in the morning, I was hungry for the first time in two days. The nurse hooked me up with a styrofoam tray of hospital delights -- juice, cold coffee, wheat roll, jam, margarine, milk, and Cheerios. Never had I been so happy to see genetically modified grains and factory farm produced, hormone laden 1% milk. And the Smucker's strawberry jam practically tasted like the nectar of the gods. It's funny what hunger will do to you.

As I feasted on my meal of processed foods, the doctor in the cubical next to me told a man that they would get him his methadone. And the nurse then asked if he had any good veins left. At that point I suddenly began to long for some privacy. Or maybe it was just the comforts of my own home.

I was discharged late Thursday morning after the attending physician told me it was a viral infection -- probably a variant of the flu. Tired and feeling gross, I went home to Brooklyn where Ms. K made me some Jewish penicillin -- aka chicken soup. What an improvement over hospital food! Got to love a girl who can make soup for an invalid. She's a keeper.

"I'm surprised you held onto all these things"

As the new year approaches, I like to take the opportunity to give my home a thorough cleaning. This means both a physical cleaning -- getting the dust from under the bed, the cat hair out of the far reaching corners, tossing old food in the fridge, organizing closets, donating old clothes that I haven't worn -- and spiritual cleanings -- burning sage and the clearing of negative energy. I want to go fresh into the new year and since I have a really keen feeling about 2008, I wanted to doubly make sure I was ready for all the prosperity and bounty I have a sense will be coming my way.

But some things escape my purges. Take, for example, the plates that I still had that my Crazy Ex and I bought at the end of 1998 to start our life together post-college. Well the relationships broke up long before graduation and I ended up with the plates. Until this past Sunday, I still had them and was using them. That's 9 years of use. What the hell was I thinking? That girl was bad news! So why did I keep the plates?

"For someone who's all into energy, I'm surprised you held onto all these things," Ms. K pointed out.

Oh snap! Seriously the thought had never occurred to me until Ms. K pointed it out.

On New Year's Day, slightly drunk from too many margaritas at Enduro, we staggered into my kitchen and began the process of opening all the cabinets. Out came the plates, the martini glasses from another ex-girlfriend, and a whole host of items that I should have long realized had too much psychic baggage. I also added two crystal perfume bottles that the Crazy Ex gave me when we lived in England. Into a cardboard box they went along with the kitchen items and I wrote FREE in black marker on one of the flaps before placing an ad online to get rid of them. When I handed the box off to its new owner yesterday I was glad to see it go.

"So u coming to the wedding in 2009?"

While we're looking back at 2007, some of you may have wondered what happened to Laura, aka Fake Girlfriend. I regret that she was such a source of ridiculously misplaced dating energy, but maybe it made for good blog reading? No?

After it became clear that Laura was not the girl for me, we became close friends despite the fact that she's been on and off my shit list of late. Anyway, Laura began dating my friend Miss B shortly after I began dating Ms. K. I had known Miss B for over a year and had no qualms about the match, especially since I thought she gave Laura the sort of relationship stability that was missing from Laura's last relationship. That said, things moved fast as Lesbians are apt to do. By the autumn they were spending nearly every night together. By November there was talk about buying a condo together in Park Slope. By December they were living together. By New Years Day they were engaged.

The news came while Ms. K was staying with me for the New Year. "They've only been dating a month less than we have! What is up with Lesbians?!" she exclaimed with a wide eye look of shock when she did the math. "I hope you're not expecting me to propose too."

"Getting you to move to Brooklyn would be a higher priority. I'd even settle for one of the other four boroughs. Wait. Maybe not Staten Island. I don't want to have to get on a ferry to come see you. But I love you enough to visit you in Queens."

"I'm not moving to Queens. But good thing you didn't really date Laura. At the rate she moves the two of you would already be expecting twins."

Word.

The general reaction to Laura's news amongst my Lesbian cabal has been similar to Ms. K's. Personally I don't care so much as long as I don't see a train wreck in their future. But as the Grand Poobah of Gayness I feel that it is my duty to provide some sort of public service announcement for the rest of you out there:

Ahem.

Please don't propose marriage to your girlfriend that you've known all of four months. It gives the Lesbians a bad name. And really you should wait and take the time to get to know someone and feel confident that not only are you an emotionally solid person, but so is your lady friend and the both of you are not actually poster children for co-dependency.

Blah blah blah. Yes, you're in love. Mazel tov! But marriage is not a race. Hell, moving in together is not a race. So put away the U-haul! Let's try and start a trend in 2008 -- a positive fucking community trend that shows the straights that we can do marriage better than they can.

There. I've said it.

"I can't believe that you didn't want to show up to our party about love."

In my dream it was my wedding day. The family had arrived and were all staying at the Ritz Carlton on Central Park and I remember being shocked that my mom wasn't being her normal cheap self and was paying to put up the family at such an extremely expensive hotel. My mom was also calm and supportive of my gay nuptials and my 89 year old grandmother was there to provide me with an old piece of sapphire jewelry for the "something borrowed, something blue" tradition. I'm fairly certain I was marrying Ms. K because I remember seeing her at the beginning of the dream and she looked amazingly lovely.

I got in my dress, a dress of flowing white silk that I could have never pulled off in real life, and I looked stunning as I walked across an Italian looking plaza on my way to somewhere in the city. The problem was that there were all these errands that had to be done before the wedding. So I ended up running all over New York trying to get them done, at one point going back to the hotel and forgetting which floor my room was on. I stood in the elevator just staring at the buttons not knowing which one to push. Suddenly the elevator jerked up the sixtieth floor just as I remembered that I was staying on the third, the movement triggering a fear of heights and a wave of nausea. Then I was in a cab riding through New York. Then I was helping my friend Meegs package up some sausage for the reception. Meanwhile my silk dress had become wrinkled, the train mushed, and I seriously doubted that sausage grease + white wedding dress was a good idea owing to the fact that I always spill food on myself. Also I was acutely aware that I had a wedding to get to and feeling anxious with that panicked feeling that you get when you know you have to be somewhere important but obstacles are in the way.

Meanwhile Ms. K dreamt the same night that had broken up with her, forcing her to walk back to Brooklyn because the Manhattan Bridge was broken. Trying to cross it she was met with a line of people corralled by a cop. Unable to cross, the cop warned that only one person a time was allowed over the bridge for safety concerns.

Talk about very two different dreams.

"I'm looking for something a little less 'leather daddy'."

2007 is over. Slam dunk. No mas. Done. And boy and I'm happy to see it go.

While the year ended on a cathartic high, 2007 was not an easy year. I started the year off with the worst food poisoning/travel experience of my life, later Operation Find A Girlfriend came to an end after a long run, I turned my focus inward, survived a tornado, and felt like I was on the long and painful run up to a major shift in my life. But there were good things -- I met Ms. K, got linked in the New York Times, rediscovered my love of astrology while getting paid for it, got crushed on by Dorothy Snarker, learned how to drive a stick shift, and re-came out to my parents.

Thankfully I didn't spend New Years Eve like last year. Instead I spent it in the quiet company of Ms. K, having copious amounts of hot lesbian sex whilst trying out a new harness, later cooking dinner, and drinking fizzy booze. Really, could there be any better way to ring in the new year?

And while we're looking back, here's the soundtrack that was (soft?) rocking my Oh-Seven.

* Armchair Apocrypha by Andrew Bird
* Emerald City by John Vanderslice
* In Rainbows by Radiohead
* Back to Black by Amy Winehouse
* The Broken String by Bishop Allen
* In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel
* Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie
* Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga by Spoon
* The Reminder by Feist