Friday, March 14, 2008

La Vie en Rose Jonquille


Wednesday was daffodil day at our office. Apparently, in Australia, Daffodil Day is a fundraising event for cancer research, but in Bethesda, daffodil day is a day about midway through tax season when the managing partner walks around the office distributing bunches of daffodils to all of us. On Wednesday, the daffodils were all still closed; yesterday, they were opening up nicely; and today, they're in full bloom. I took a few pictures with my cell phone, but -- for reasons that I can't begin to comprehend but that I'm sure make a lot of sense to Motorola and/or Cingular/AT&T -- I can't just email myself the pictures. I have software at home that allows me to move pictures off my cell phone and onto my PC, but I haven't installed the software on the Dell I bought a couple of months ago, so the pictures are trapped. The pic above appears to be the same variety of the ones on my desk, except that I have a bunch, instead of just one. I was going to write a dozen, but then I went and checked, and there are, in fact, only ten. Ten? Is this some sort of cost cutting measure? Are layoffs imminent? You were meaning to cheer me up, but all you did was create panic!

Or not. This has been a relatively mild tax season, which may mean that we're overstaffed, but I have a pretty good idea as to who's most likely to get laid off, and it's not me.

The daffodils really are very pretty arranged, as they are, in a Starbucks venti cup. If you could see the picture, you'd see that I'd ordered a triple. It was also a non-whip mocha, but that part's covered by the sleeve, which, admittedly, the daffodils do not require.

Despite the pistils and/or stamens in the center, the daffodils are somehow vaginal in a mildly disturbing way. Which reminds me of this twenty-three-year-old FTM transsexual who responded to my craigslist ad from a week or so ago. We've been emailing back and forth. The emails are pretty short, but that's hard to avoid with anyone whose e-mail address includes the term "cumrag." There are only so many ways you can say "soak up." Anyway, he tells me that he's all male, with razor stubble, and a testosterone-enhanced, three-inch cock. His first pic showed his (very nice) ass and lower body, so I asked him for a ventral view. He does have nice pecs and abs, but unless the camera really lies, that's only three gay.com inches. Still, I guess if you're interested in a guy who says he's packing three, you can hardly be terribly disappointed with one and three-quarters. And maybe he's a grower instead of a show-er.

I'm keeping him in mind for the next time b&c is out of town, but his boasting about having "an extra hole" for my use might be more than I can handle. It saddens me, sometimes, to think about how limited my range of sexual experience and expression is.

Speaking of putting out, I'm a bit put out with b&c. After last fall, when he took a trip to Munich but ended up in Mykonos, I expected a side trip. But I just don't see why he can't go some place that I'm not all that interested in. This time around, he got bored in Munich, so he spent five days in...


Barcelona. Yep. And then he has the nerve to be all gushy about it. "Oh, you wouldn't believe how great the architecture is there. It's such a beautiful city." And I'm all, "Yeah, everyone who's been there loves it. I know. Now shut up." The small amount of schadenfreude associated with knowing that while he was there the dollar hit several record lows against the Euro really falls short in making me feel better about working sixty-five hours a week while he's off tromping around Barcelona.

But not, apparently, tramping around. He met a guy in a bar there, and the guy didn't speak English, and b&c doesn't speak Spanish. So they tried to converse in French. B&c's French is, well, rudimentary, let's say. But he said they managed to have a two-hour, very pleasant conversation, at the end of which they agreed to meet in the same place the next night. B&c wasn't sure the guy would follow through, but he did. So the next night, they had another two-hour conversation in a language that neither of them was particularly fluent in. B&c wanted to invite the guy back to his hotel room, but he wasn't sure how to say it, so he didn't.

TED: Wait a second. You had two two-hour conversations with this guy?
B&c: Yeah.
TED: And you couldn't figure out how to invite him back to the hotel room?
B&c: No.
TED: Wow. If there's one conversation that you really don't need words for, it's to ask a guy to fuck you.
B&c: I guess. But I wasn't sure exactly what he was into.
TED: Well, what was he like?
B&c: Tall, fit, late-forties. He was a fireman.
TED: HELLO!!

Anyway, at least Captain Clueless apparently got one moderately successful encounter when he was in Munich. B&c said that one of the reasons he left Munich was that the architecture is boring, but I reckon he just wasn't looking in the right places.



Not that it matters. I can't go back to Europe until the dollar's stronger. But EFU's probably spending the fall in Guadalajara, so maybe I'll visit her there.

I was this close to being the happiest man on earth yesterday. My music director had asked me for suggestions for something to sing on a service about forgiveness, and I'd floated the idea of "Folsom Prison Blues," in part because if you can sing, "But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die," in church, then you are definitely in a position to say, "Suck it, you pretentious, Unitarian-hating, high-church loving, neo-Papist wannabes!" And the choir director was all for it, but last night at choir practice, she pulled me aside, and said, "You'll have to do 'Folsom Prison Blues' another time. It turns out the sermon isn't about forgiveness after all."

So I was momentarily crushed, but then she said, "It's actually about death." And I was, "Death! I LOVE DEATH!" And she was all, "Yeah, I figured I'd just give you the whole service. When he told me that was the topic, I just wrote 'Death -- TED' in my notebook. I felt a little bad about that, but I figured you'd take it the right way." And then I was the happiest man on Earth once more because that means I get to sing four (count 'em: four!) songs about death. There's really no better subject for a bass.

B&c, of course, was no help at all when he heard about this.

TED: So, do you know any bass or bass baritone arias for someone who's about to die?
B&c: Hmmmmm, well not arias, but you know, in Carousel...
TED: NO! I am NOT singing "You'll Never Walk Alone"! Nobody can make me.
B&c: How about "Poor Judd Is Dead" from Oklahoma?
TED: You're so cute when you attempt to have a sense of humor.
B&c: Well, surely something from Sweeney Todd will work.
TED: Oh, hey, now you're talking. The music director did say she wanted to do a duet with me some time. Maybe we can sing "A Little Priest." Death and religion all tied up together!

Anyway, if any of you has better sources for sheet music than I do, I'd love to hear about them. I can't find a piano and vocal version of "Far Side Banks of Jordan" anywhere.


I wonder if this is what lesbian bed death is like. When b&c got back from Munich, he was five hours ahead in his schedule, and it was Tuesday, so I worked until 10 pm, and when I got home, he was asleep in the other bedroom. Then last night, YFU was over, and we were both really tired, but b&c watched most of Top Chef with me, and then he went to sleep in the other bedroom. And I had to be up at 6am to get YFU to school on time, so there wasn't time (or wakefulness) enough anyway.

But then last night, I got home at ten again, and I was exhausted, but I figured that I'd be really, really ready to go in the morning, and b&c slept in our bed with me, and he was still there around 3 or 4, but then at 5:30, when I woke up with serious morning wood, he was gone. I thought about going to the other room to molest him, but, well, sleep is a precious commodity these days. If I could have turned on my other side and molested him, I definitely would have, but when the choice was between actually getting out of bed and going to another bedroom or sleeping for another hour, I took the hour. I blame Benjamin Franklin.

On the plus side, I'm really too tired to be horny any time other than when I wake up and when I'm at work (which, okay, is most of the time), so I don't miss the sex as much as I normally would. We're going to see the National Symphony Orchestra play tonight, and I'll be fighting off sleep for sure. He'd better watch out tomorrow morning, though.

6 comments:

A Lewis said...

Funny you mention the cancer research thing with regard to the flowers -- they used to sell them every single March in my office building during the 1980s to raise money for cancer. But I haven't seen, nor heard, of it since. And growing up, there was always the discussion of whether they were jonquilles or daffodils.

TED said...

I believe you can call them either jonquils or daffodils in America. Either way, they're all members of the narcissus family. But I believe that "jonquille" is the correct word in French.

Anonymous said...

*gasp*

You mean an inveterate show queen like b&c didn't realize it's actually "Pore Jud Is Daid"? I am aghast, truly aghast.

Maybe something from "The Bells" by Rachmaninov or "Mors stupebit" from the Verdi Requiem? Those always send me humming happily on my way!

TED said...

I feel that it's incumbent upon me to stand by my man here, john. I'm sure that b&c knew the correct orthography. The error is due, no doubt, to a transcription error on my part. I, after all, had no idea what the correct title was, and it didn't occur to me to ask or do any research. My bad.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I was suspecting that b&c was perhaps mildly mangling the title as evidence that he wasn't, in fact, the show queen that he insists he isn't. Or something.

Anonymous said...

Make solo out of this choral piece by Samuel Barber (lyric by Emily Dickenson)....

Let down the bars, O Death!
The tired flocks come in
Whose bleating ceases to repeat,
Whose wandering is done.

Thine is the stillest night,
Thine the securest fold;
Too near thou art for seeking thee,
Too tender to be told.


Yeah yeah yeah, I get all the humorous ideas, so please pardon my seriousness for a moment.