Finding Maria
July 31st, 2003I wish I had a maid… Maria Tortilla-Valdez, I’d call her, and I’d cherish her with all my heart.
Maria, Maria… please come put my laundry away for me. I’ll give you a muffin!
METROSEXUALITY
July 31st, 2003Alright, so I’ve been observing all the hype and heat around the whole “Metrosexual Craze” that is taking the world by storm. I’ve read the articles (I love it that you all FWD them to me), seen the press blurbs, and caught the countless shout-outs on all the blogs. It’s all been pretty amusing, I have to say.
A lot of you have been asking me about how I feel about the fact that most of the media definitions of a metrosexual male specify that he’s straight, and also how I feel I fit into this new media-friendly definition. And some of you just really don’t even understand what I mean when I use the term at all. Great questions, btw, and thanks for even being curious! While I pretty much touch on it all in my smirky declaration here, and I know I have a tendancy to leave things a bit elusively phrased (it’s part of my bit, ok?), let me clarify and preach some of my shit for all you winners who have way too much free time on your hands.
Firstoff, I can hardly take credit for being anything of a pioneer for this kickass idea. It was really this tongue-in-cheek article by Mark Simpson that began gathering so much attention to the term “metrosexual”, and it was b/c of the humor, witty, and depth of this innovative interpretation that I even grabbed onto the term in the first place. My friends started to use it more, basically b/c they found it a perfect label for an otherwise unable-to-be-labelled boy of sprite like me. Bam! It stuck.
I never have and still don’t percieve the idea of Metrosexuality to pertain to one’s actual sexual orientation. As a good buddy of mine griped to me in a recent e, most of the articles keep defining it all as a “new way of life” for STRAIGHT men because if he were bi or gay, the point would be moot — b/c, you know, all gay/bi men live that way and it’s not really that exciting or interesting otherwise. Heh. This presumption just amuses me to no end. I guess it’s up to you to decide what it means or how it pertains to you. For me, it always just seemed like more of an upbeat outlook — a modern, fresher attitude on self and life in general for a young man in an urban metroworld. A boy like myself, perhaps a bit of a narcissist, and that’s how I see it pertaining to me. The sexual identity of the boy in question is irrelevant b/c when it all comes down, he chooses to sexualize himself over anyone else. It’s not about gender or sexual preferences, really. The REAL object of a young metrosexual’s affections are his surroundings and little happies: clothes, toys, music collection, income, his network, etc. You know, FUN STUFF!
“The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis — because that’s where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are. He might be officially gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial because he has clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference.”
So if METROsexuality is all really just about attitude and swagger and citylife, then what about the sex part? Where do the labels fit in? Where does a sexual identity come into play? What about those boundries that I love to push? What about the whole joy I take in blurring lines and doing exactly what I feel like doing with whomever I choose? What exactly is Spriteboy’s sexual preference, you ask? The ladies or the laddies? Or both? Is he a switch-hitter? Hah. Well if I gave you a direct answer, that’d just destroy this whole lovely mystique I’ve been building, wouldn’t it?
Alright, enough of this manifesto bullshit. I am Spriteboy, hear me roar. What’s on TV?
B & T
July 30th, 2003It has come to my attention that the residents of the uber-indie Williamsburg (Brooklyn) have been referring to visiting Manhattanites as Bridge&Tunnel trash. Um, this vexes me. Do I even need to go into a diatribe about this? Ahem — Times Sq, Greenwich Village, Tribeca, Wall Street, Harlem: can any of these world-famous neighborhoods be found in, oh lets say, Brooklyn? No? How about the Bronx? Queens? What about Staten Island? Ohhh wait, that’s right… they’re all in MANHATTAN. Please, bitches. Don’t even play. 
The outer-bourough elitists can suck it, man.
I spent the better part of my evening kicking it with J along the Upper West Side enjoying smoothies and some goodass munchies from Popcorn, Indiana. Where did that place come from?! How long has it been there? It’s fucking awesome! (I highly recommend the BBQ popcorn).
Snapple Fact #62: The lifespan of a tastebud is 10 days.
It’s official!!! My lovely east-ender pal UK Matt will be making a trip to NYC this fall and he’s staying with me! Woo-hoo! I must be sure to stock up on lots of tea and crumpets and marmalade. Oh, and watercrest (you know, for sandwiches). Matt keeps insisting that none of it is necessary and that all he wants is to go to the Village and eat @ Wendy’s, but I know how improper those British like to think we Americans are, and I’ll be damned if I’m not the perfect host to this limey bastard during his stay. Nobody’s gonna shine Spriteboy down, dammit. Gonna be nothing but high tea @ noon, games of cricket, and lots of “Pip pip” and “cheerio” up in this mother, innit!
They need to kick that fat guy off of Road Rules already. This is just getting ridiculous. Yes, I know we’re all making a statement by keeping this heavy guy on the team, and we’re sending a message that an overweight person can do just as much as somebody who’s in say, better shape. Case made, point taken, action recieved. Fine. Now send him home. He’s fucking lost 2 missions for everyone already and it’s time to do this shit and start winning stuff. Just do it, already.
Spriteboy Fact #237: I truly enjoy a warm Pop-Tart @ odd hours of the night.
Caught the end of Boy Meets Boy tonight. Hmmm…. I dunno about this shit. While I think it’s cool that there’s a gay dating show, I find the whole “secret twist” to be something of a cruel joke. Like, “Ohhh, look at the homo! He’s falling for another guy but he doesn’t know he’s actually STRAIGHT! Isn’t that funny?!” Then again, they did the same kind of thing to the women from Who Wants To Marry A Millionare? so I guess this is nothing especially different in this case. The whole thing just seems a bit wrong. At the same time, I have a hard time sympathizing with anybody who would go on a reality TV show hoping to find a soulmate. Ahh, I’ll still watch.
“Um, hi? I don’t really know you. And I don’t really want to get Starbucks with you. But thanks for asking anyway. Goodbye.”
— a voicemail response to a text message that I’d sent out to my buddy P, suggesting we get together for coffee this week. The message was um, not from P. Yeah, apparently I’d sent it to the wrong number. Color me humiliated.
A Night With the Fellas
July 29th, 2003Last night was fun! I’d spent my entire day off just chillin’… ok, well I’d actually spent a good portion of the later part of the afternoon tearing my apartment apart, looking for my debit card. It’s like, the worst feeling when you think you’ve lost that shit and your checking account is just at the mercy of some random schmo. I couldn’t find it anywhere, so I swallowed my pride and headed into work on my fucking day off to see if maybe I’d left it there someplace. Sure enough, I found it exactly where I thought I’d left it and the world was 10 times brighter again. I was on my way out when one of the guys in Accounting stopped me to let me know that I’d forgotten to get a bunch of traveller’s checks signed by a guest, and therefore, we may have “a uh, situation that’ll need to get addressed”. 
Oh hell. I didn’t have the energy to even deal with it so I just apologized and said I’d be back on Wednesday and would stop by the cashier’s office then. Besides, I’d already made plans with Randyboy and Bravo and it was my day off, dammit, and I wasn’t about to get bogged down with work-related shit.
So, I metup with my dawgs in the east village for some Starbucks and some strollin’. There’s something very fun about spending the evening with two gorgeous ppl who can stop traffic with their looks, I felt like such a little stud. I kept walking in between the two of them, just a few steps ahead, b/c I liked the visual of my little badass self being flanked by the two pretty blond guys. Hee. We voyaged across St. Mark’s Place for a bite @ Stingy Lulu’s, where our cuteass waitress was transfixed by the sexiness of Bonzai (who I’d just purchased @ Petco). The boys had salads, I opted for breakfast instead b/c I can just never say no to scrambled eggs & bacon with french fries. After the grubbin’, we zipped over to Joe’s Pub and listened to the lesbianic sounds of Melissa Ferrick, who fucking rocked the house. I was a little nervous about going, but Randy insisted that the lesbians would not actually beat us up or inflict any physical harm as long as we stayed away from their powertools and flannel coats. I liked the show. She was funny and I truly appreciated what she had to share on the topics of lesbian sex with vibrators (knowledge is power, you guys). The show was just great, she’s playing Tuesday night too so if anybody is feeling all dykey, you gotta see this girl.
We wandered for a bit afterwards. I made an actual CD purchase @ TOWER (yeah, the “Camp” soundtrack) and then Randyboy made his exit for the night. Poor 9-to-5 guy! He and Bravo got on really well, though, which was cool and made things extra perky.
Laughing boys
I was still kind of wired from the show and so was Bravo, so we hit Johnny Rockets, where we were scandalized by a naked man out for NUDE MIDNIGHT JOG. No, for real. We’re sitting there and this random middleaged guy just sprints past the window we’re seated at, butt-nekked, just running like the free-est man on Earth. And he kept running. Like, he’d run to the end of the street and then come back and then run back. It was insane. The staff didn’t seem the least bit jarred by this (“Oh yeah, he does that all the time.”) and actually encouraged us to ask him if he’d mind stopping to pose for a picture. Bravo wasn’t really brushed-up on his Approaching A Streaker Ettiquette, nor was I — what the hell do you say to a naked person? “Hi, I’m sorry to bother you but I noticed you were naked…”) — so we just let the whole thing go. It was pretty clear that the whole thing was God’s special way of telling us that the evening could not be ended on a lovlier note, so we both hugged, said our goodbyes, and made our journeys home… where we just stayed up for a few more hours, chatting on AIM. Fun fun fun.
Deadbeat Bloggers
The trainride home was pleasant, express, and peaceful. I slept almost as soundly as this guy:
Zzzz…
A lovely night.
A Gay Old Time
July 28th, 2003
I went to the movies tonight and saw this hysterical indie called “Camp” about a bunch of musical theater misfits at theater camp all summer, and oh god. Where do I even begin? I fucking LOVED this movie. Although I was never a musical theater kid, I know this “community of actors” just as well. We all know these ppl, and this movie was like looking back into the past at my community theater days, my college days, and every open-call for The Donkey Show I’ve ever been to. I’d love to tlak about how tender and real and poignant the movie is, and say that it’s for those reasons that I loved it, but the real truth is that the musical numbers are just the best part of the movie. The cast is all made up of actual real-life musical theater hopefulls (one of them — the lead, straight boy, in fact! — is an old classmate of mine from college) and you can just feel all the energy coming through, that green energy that only bursts from the performances of young musical theater dorks.
Ugh, what a fucking great movie. It’s just campy and cute and really really funny. That little scary girl who poisons the evil diva so she can go onstage in her place? MY fucking HERO! I laughed my ass off, too, at the white girl in the afro wig doing that “And I’m Tell You I’m Not Going” number from the pretty much all-black musical Dreamgirls. The little bitchy gayboy was hysterical too, why didn’t they use MORE of him?. And yes, I cried like bitch not ONCE but TWICE during the movie. The first time was when they were all sitting in that barn singing that down-home, group sing-a-long song about that Factory Plant and they all just got louder and louder and more and more into it — shit, man I lost it. I won’t even front about it. And the other time was when *emotional sigh* the fat girl stands up and sings that incredible “Here’s Who I am” song (mp3) and everyone’s behind her backing her up and her parents are out in the audience finally realizing their daughter for the first time and she’s just belting the shit out of the song and crying. Oh god, I was bawling like a bitch right along with her. We’re talking tears streaming down my face and my lips getting swollen in that way that happens when you REALLY start crying. It was just all kinds of ridiculous, man. I will most definately be rushing my ass out to Tower tomorrow to buy the soundtrack. Hell.
Go see this movie. It’s like Waiting for Guffman for the Gen-Y set. Go. Go now.
Bonzai!
July 28th, 2003Ladies & Gentleman, allow me to introduce to you the newest and coolest mothertrucker up in these parts: my new pet fish! He’s a betta and that means he’s a kickass little spitfire — a siamese fighting fish, to be exact. They’re not allowed to share an aquarium with other fish b/c they will bite them to death! I fucking love it! And look — he’s blue!
And he shall be called BONZAI.
Bonzai is a true rockstar. I dragged him all over the east village with me tonight — Starbucks, Joe’s Pub, Tower Records, Johnny Rockets, and even Penn Station before nearly forgetting him altogether on the A train tonight. And the the whole night, I was just spilling his water all over the damn place and pushing him closer and closer to death by dehydration…. but yknow what? the little tuffy didnt even give a fuck. I made it up to him by buying him that awesome little V-shaped fishbowl, as well as a whole bottle of Dasani to provide a cleaner atmosphere for him to live in. I think he likes it.
UPDATE: Bonzai has been watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and informed me that he wanted to spruce up his bachelor pad a little bit, so we added some little clear rocks to the aquarium for a sleek, modern look. Is he not the coolest fish in all the land?
He’s a bit of a Metrosexual too, I think.
Weekend
July 27th, 2003So, it’s been a really long time since I heard anything from the Pavement kids. It’s a little bit worrisome, b/c their website has been down for awhile now and I don’t really know what’s going on with the Zombie movie anymore. We were supposed to begin shooting at the end of August or somerthing, I hardly remember anymore. I’m beginning to wonder about all of this, and I don’t like when I start to WONDER about stuff… They were wrapping up another film a few months ago, maybe they’re still tied up in post-production or something. I dunno. I guess I could just as easily give them a call to find out how everything is going… part of me would rather just be filled in once we have actual NEWS about the shooting schedule and whatnot. I’d hate to have to back out of this project b/c of something like a scheduling conflict, especially after I wanted to get cast so bad. At the same time, I like living by myself and I don’t plan on losing the job that affords me to do so simply b/c of a movie that wasn’t coordinated properly. Ugh, we’ll see.
This was a great weekend, actually. Got to play with some friends, had some goodass mexican brunch yesterday morning, and I had an especially smooth run @ work the past few days. There was a big going-away party for Adolph this afternoon when I got in (he uh, actually threw it for himself which is kind of brazen and assuming, really, but whatever) and it indluded champagne, cokes, donuts, deli wraps, doritos, strawberry cheesecake, and lots of picture taking. It was actually really fun. We sent Adolph off with a smile on his face and a lot of warm goodbyes, despite the fact that he was at the top of our collective shit list just a few days ago. Ironically enough, Dhalimu popped in this evening to say hi to everyone. This was the first time any of us had seen or heard from him since he got the boot a few months back, and damn what a perfect time for him to drop in for a visit! *lol* He’s doing fucking fantasic now, working @ Chambers and loving every damn second of it. It was great to see him so happy and in his groove, made me glad to see that there are bigger and better things waiting for everyone. Ohhh, and I spoke with some of the kids @ Concierge tonight and the general response towards The Maritime? is that it’s kind of trashy and factory-run. Kind of makes me glad I chose to stick with Hudson. I guess style always wins out over substance in the end.
I am currently loving it that the A train has been running express at all times. Even when I board the car @ 1am, we just zip right along and BAM! I’m home in like, 20 minutes. Woo-hoo!
Ended up sliding out of work a good 2.5 hrs early this evening b/c it was just so dead. It was pretty early still and I didn’t wanna go home, but I was too tired to go out, so i took myself to a movie (see my new Rave for more on this). I hadn’t done that in a long time and man, I forgot how much I enjoy doing it. When you’re all by yourself @ a movie, you can just let loose and focus entirely on what’s oging on. You’re not thinking about the expression on your face, or whether or not you’re breathing too loud. You can do one of those things where you laugh hysterically for like, a second too long and then just STOP immediately, and you don’t feel self-conscious about it afterwards or anything b/c you’re all by yourself. It’s great when you can find somebody special who lets you be a big dork around them, but sometimes it’s just great to go off and be a big dork all by yourself.
Speaking of being a big dork, I was about to post this big tirade on how stupid I find it that so many young webloggers out there feel the need to get caught up in competition with each other over such silly shit. But I decided not to get into it afterall b/c the whole thing is just lame and childish. Ok, ok, ok, lemme just say this: How the hell does anyone in this “community” have the balls to get all elitist and I’m-more-fabulous-than-you, when the truth is we’re all a bunch of cybernerds with a DSL connection and too much free time on our hands. It’s just a journal, kids. Let’s not get too impressed with each other or with ourselves, ok? Of course, when I say that I totally don’t mean ME. You are all free to be as impressed by me as you’d like. 
Big big love to my American Lost In London buddy BamBam for sending me this lovely little link. You saved my ass, man.
Alright, peeps. It’s damn near Monday morning but it’s actually my weekend now, and I’ve got 3 days off this week to do not a damn thing. Ahhhh. Have fun in your various cubicles, boardrooms, and school libraries! Try not to hate me too much for wandering around outside in the park with my Starbucks mochafrappacinno while you sit inside wishin you were not.
Occupational Clarity
July 27th, 2003So I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this tentative job opportunity with The Maritime. Should I look into it? Is it worth it to uproot from Hudson and just move it on out to (supposedly) greener, newer pastures? Does it even make sense to question any of it when I’ve spent so much time venting about how insane my work environment is?
Just the other day I was coming down to the main level after having walked a tourist through a showroom tour, and I walked into the lobby and just was taken aback. Wow, I thought to myself, this place is gorgeous. The hotel really likens itself to one of those old, Hollywood sets on a studio backlot somewhere. On the face surface it just looks so amazing and beautiful, but behind the scenes it’s just a crumbling mess of shoddy construction and rickety support, and we’re all like the chorus of ppl dancing and bursting into song along the set, trying to make it lively and amazing and fantasitc for the cameras… when we’re all really just afraid that the whole thing is gonna collapse and crush us beneath it. And it just makes me SAD b/c I really think that the place could be FABULOUS (*cringe at my own usage of that word*) if only it was just organized the right way. And then it makes me think about all te OTHER opportunities out there, places that run smoothly and have great management and really care about making good business.
I’ve really thought about it, just poured over all the pro’s and con’s, and even prayed about it. I don’t like making decisions like this flippantly. What I’ve decided is that I’m going to stay where I am. At Hudson. I’ve been there for nearly 11 months now and have managed to build up something of a reputation and good name for myself amongst the ever-changing management and staff (we just lost our Head of HR the other day, too, btw); that’s not something to be tossed off so quickly. I’m familiar with the hotel, I understand the way it functions and breathes, I’ve learned how to do my job there and have my life outside of it. I’ve managed to accquire health insurance for the first time in my life, and I’m getting paid nicely enough to afford me my own apartment. I’ve been able to meet and interact with a lot of really cool people, been in situations that I might never really have found myself in otherwise. These are things I appreciate.
More than anything, I’ve learned a lot about myself through this job, and done some changing in the process. Maybe even some (dare I say it?) growing up. Part of the reason I took such a front-and-center, high-stressing position like this one is b/c I knew I was not essentially cut out for it. At the time I interviewed for the job, I was a buck-passing, comfort zone-loving office temp who did nothing but surf the web @ a desk all day long and mooch off the company’s endless Snapple supply. I had zero experience with high-maintenance ppl, I was not good at OWNING a problem, I was terrible under pressure, and if somebody did so much as LOOK at me funny? (much less raise their voice at me) it pretty much just ruined the rest of my week. And here I am now, months later, and I can handle a crowd of screaming europeans, juggle numerous phone calls, appease an irate drunk from the bar, have it out with my manager over scheduling issues, check 400 ppl into their rooms for the night, and do it all without dropping a sweat or breaking my smile. That’s some progress for this little man.
This job has all kinds of stress, but so would any other job I go to. I could leave this hotel and shrug off all of its problems… only to find myself clawing my way through a whole different pile of shit at the NEW place I go to. I feel like I started something here @ Hudson, and I want to stick around to see where things go.
