Met Jess & Carrie for brunch this morning @ Norma’s, my favorite new spot. Everything there costs way too much but shit, where else is somebody gonna serve me shots of pineapple-mago smoothie and bring me stacks of chocolate french toast? Yes, fresh baked warm chocolate bread slices layered with strawberries and pistachios in between the stacks, and drenched in rich Valhrona chocolate sauce —- sauce, not syrup. It’s AMAZING like an decadent orgasm in your mouth. Costs $19 but shit, I think I’d sell my dog for a lifetime of that mess if it were delivered to my house every morning. Totally sell him and not even miss him that much.

Mike met us @ Tower later, showed up with “One” by Mary J. Blige blasting from his ipod — he walked up to me, hugged me, and popped the headphones directly into my ears cuz he knows I don’t waste time worshipping @ the altar. I’m about 6 months late to the game but I fucking LOVE that song. That last minute of it, where Mary just wails the shit out of the chorus, why does Bono even sing on the song at all? Let Mary take it already. Did you see the way she stole poor Elliot’s moment in the spotlight when she performed with him on the American Idol finale? That’s why I like her, she doesn’t care.

Anyway, we poked around for awhile, I bought Jess her belated bday gifts, and we wandered to Ricky’s so Mike could get blue dye. I learned my lessons long ago with blue dye (still have the bathtub stains) but more power to him. When you’re a Mexican living in Washington Heights you’ve gotta do something to keep things interesting. Headed to Chipotle afterward and then I came home. P came over after work and we watched Nip/Tuck Season 2 on DVD, delicious as always. Another decadent orgasm and then bed with my sexy partner in crime. It was a good day.

Metup afterwork today with Another Chris I Know who’s pretty as fuck and chill as hell but will never be as cool as me — ahem. Just wanted to make that clear. Anway, we went to lunch @ Silver Spurs in Union Square (I always get the Rajun Cajun’) and caught up on a ton of stuff, wandered through Soho looking for yellow-tinted aviators and found them at the street fair on Grand Street, then parted ways @ Canal Street. It was a brief afternoon but a nice one. We see each other around here and there but haven’t hung out one on one in like, 6 months so it was good to reconnect and hear about what’s going on in his life. He’s the new server @ Cafeteria and I expect to never have to wait for a table there as long as I live.

Came uptown and met P @ the Starbucks on 181st (yes, the island goes up that far and YEAH Starbucks is up here too). GOOD NEWS: he just got a new apartment in the hood, that’s right around the corner from the A train, down the street from a Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, Dominos, and McDonald’s, and just a 12 minute walk from my apartment. The smile and glow on his face was just too adorable, with his new keys clutched in his hand. It’s a great place, great deal, dog-friendly, washer&dryer in the kitchen, elevator building, and did I mention that it’s walking distance from my place? Yeah, this was pretty much our idea. 6 months and going strong, for shizzy, but still just a bit too soon to dive into “domestic bliss” (we’re not lesbians, shit). So living closer to each other is a step in the right direction, at least it’s what feels right and makes us both happy. He moves uptown in just a few weeks. I’m taking him to dinner tomorrow night to celebrate, it’s kind of a step forward for us both.

Life is good. That vacation time I wanted got approved! I’ve been enjoying 3 day weekends all month and will have them through the beginning of September, it’s AWESOME. Exactly what I wanted and I didn’t have to throw down to get it, they just said Yes. Ahhh. 4 day work weeks are the only way to go.

Do you wanna throw up a little in your mouth? I can make you vomit. Read on.

A few weeks ago, July 10th to be exact, marked a 6month mark in mine and P’s relationship. 6 months already and he still likes me! It’s been amazing and exciting and he’s just so important to me, I just really wanted to do something special for him and let him know I noticed. Take him by total suprise and make him cry like a little girl, basically. I don’t have the best luck suprising him, it never seems to work out. He’ll either figure out what’s going on or something will just keep my plan from working. Like the time I sent him flowers to him @ work — a new job he was nervous about, I wanted all his coworkers to be jealous and impressed — and they just sat at the security entrance all damn day, he didn’t get them till he was on his way out. Stuff like that.

So, I decided to go big and got us a room @ Le Parker Merdien, which for the non-New Yorkers, is a fantastic modern high-rise hotel on 57th Street just 3 blocks south of Central Park. They gave me a beautiful room on the 37th floor with amazing views and I checked in early to pimp the shit out. I pulled out every trick in my Concierge head, every cute thing I’ve ever begrudgingly done for a hotel guest while wishing it was for me, and went to work. I ran all over midtown getting things ready. I got about 4 dozen red/white rose petals and spread them all over the bed in a giant heart, then made a smaller heart inside of it, and filled it in with hershey’s kisses. I filled the bathroom sink with rose petals, had them trailing everywhere, and took the leftover candy and spelled out our names out on the bed. I spread about 40 helium balloons in his favorite colors all over the room, and made sure the ribbons were really long and curly so they’d hang and drape across the bed like a forest of streamers. I hooked up my ipod to the stereo and had “Hide & Seek” by Imogen Heap playing on loop (which never gets old, by the way), cuz I know how much he loves it. I’d secretly packed a bag of his stuff, brought the Strangers With Candy DVD set that we’d been dying to just sit and watch, and had my secret weapon hidden in the bathroom: our dogs.

I did all this secretly while he was at work, told him to meet me @ Columbus Circle around 5pm and we’d get dinner. In all my plotting, I’d lost track of time and noticed it was 5:25pm. I checked my phone and P had called me twice already, so I ran like hell (didn’t even have time to get cute) to meet him @ the Time Warner Center. When I got there he was even more irritated than I was prepared for cuz I guess he’d arrived early, so I apologized and tried to change the subject — “Hey, let’s get Jamba Juice!” — but he was not having it. Exhausted after spending all day trying to do something nice for him and still anxious to spring my big suprise, I opened my mouth to explain and suddenly found a whole lotta smack popping out. The gloves came off and I went off, just pissed as fuck that he was making such an issue out of it: “I’m late, I GOT it, ok? I’m sorry you had to wait an extra 20 minutes. Who told you to get here early? You know I’m getting sick to death of this shit!” and it just got ugly. This was our first real fight. We sat @ Jamba Juice in silence for about 10 minutes, walls up, before I just started crying and venting. All kinds of stuff just started coming out of my mouth, I was opening up about things I hadn’t even known were bothering me. His defenses came down immediately and so did the tears and he apologized. But a lot of raw stuff got looked at and I think it was an important moment for us, I’m glad it happened.

A few minutes later I handed him the card I’d been waiting to give him. When he saw the room key he just looked confused. It was adorable. I told him our friend was watching the dogs and that I’d packed his bag and gotten us a room. He was smiling ear to ear, “You DID?!” We ran to the hotel and I made him stop and take a look out the window near the elevators, overlooking the Park. When we walked into the room and saw what I’d done to it, he leaned against the wall and started to cry. That’s when I went in for the kill: I let the dogs out. They came running out of the bathroom, jumping all over him, and he just lost his shit. I’d never seen him cry like that before, it was… I dunno. I’d never done anything like this for anyone before and he just couldn’t believe I’d sprung all this on him, he pulled me in and just kept kissing me and telling me he loved me, and it was perfect. This was exactly what I’d wanted to give him, it felt so good to show him how special he is to me.

The rest of our mini-getaway was wonderful I took him to dinner @ Suba, my favorite restaurant, and they sat us in the Grotto (where you’re served on a cage floor that hangs over a glowing pool of water) and there was live Flamenco. The next morning we slept in and went to breakfast @ Norma’s, where I seriously ordered 4 entrees b/c I couldn’t believe how good they all looked. We took our boys to Columbus Circle and let them splash around in the fountains and then spent the rest of the morning and afternoon walking them through Central Park, and pretty much just being the cutest couple in New York that day.

Proceed with your upchucking. I’ll wait here.

There’s a moment in this awful movie where the fat man (I refuse to even look his name up) swims to the Wet Bitch’s cave and starts blatantly going through her shit. Just poking around underwater, going through her little stolen treasures and trinkets — forks, whistles, candesticks — and I couldn’t stop singing, “Look at this stuff, isn’t it neat? Wouldn’t ya think my collection’s complete?” It was pretty much the only time I smiled or enjoyed myself till the credits rolled.

I officially am joining the ranks of M. Night Shyamalan’s Haters. It’s not that he put himself in his own movie again, it’s that he cast himself in a lead role with a pivotal storyline… and he can’t act. Even the fat man, who sat there looking pathetic and unmotivated the whole time, was better. I want Mr. Shyamalan’s toys taken away, I want him put him in time out and not let out come out to play anymore.

My hair is sort of my thing. I don’t really work out. I’m not blue eyed and golden skinned. I’m not tall. There’s a whole list of things I’m not. So I work with hair, it’s what I rock since my options are limited. I’m just explaining all this to set the premise here.

I stopped off to see my boy Haim @ Lifestyle Salon this afternoon for a quick trim, since I send him clients by the truckload he never charges me. We like free. I’d just gotten my hi/lowlights freshened up last week and have been working to grow it out properly so I didn’t want to do anything too drastic, which is normally never a problem. Well, for some reason I didn’t wear contacts today and I ended up taking off my glasses while he starting trimming me up — bad idea. When I looked in the mirror at the end of our quick session, I saw something I swore to myself 4yrs ago that I’d never see again: a fauxhawk mullet. on. my. head . In 2002 there was an ugly Mullet/Mohawk incident at Warren Tricomi Salon that left me emotionally scared and asthetically ruined for weeks, and I sledgehammered a chunk out of 5th avenue, ripped a carrot from the earth below, and decreed into the sunset that as God is my witness I would never get my haircut like that again. Scripts got flipped today cuz, being too aware of how I need to keep that professional relationship with Haim going strong, I walked outta that salon with Sonic the Hedgehog hair.

Supercuts was my only option. It’s where I took sanctuary last time this happened and it’s where I went this time, not b/c I wanted to and certainly not b/c they’re any good — I just had to get it evened out. There, some Russian woman squirted my head with a water bottle, held it down, ran a number 2 bladed clipper acoss the back of my head, charged me $12, and sent me on my way (head hung low). Not only do I now have a haircut I hate (that removed most of the $130 color I just got last week!) but now I was at a chain chopshop getting clipped by battery operated blades; it was a low point in my self-esteem.

The Sonic Hedgehog hair is gone and now I have a Supercut. I’m not sure which is worse. From wild and textured to buzzed and square. May the Lord and cool kids of Manhattan have mercy on my soul.

Alright how excited are ya’ll about the new Project Runway? I watched the rerun marathons all weekend just counting down. I’d never seen any of Season 1 before, just the Reunion Special and then Season 2 — but even then I had them all saved and didn’t really watch the show with the rest of the world til towards the end. Now I’m finally on real time with everyone else and loving it, but it’s just my luck that no one I work with watches this show, dammit, not even the homos. I work with some boring homos, btw, the kind who have never heard of Kathy Griffin, don’t think Chelsea is at all stereotypical, and think the Roxy is still cool. I’ve tried to connect on several levels but it’s futile, so I’ve given up trying to make the Project Runway talk. So I’ll blog about instead. Hell, this site should go to SOME use right?

Ok so I love the show already. Don’t roll your eyes and click the little X box on the top right of your screen(like I did 2yrs ago when every goddamn blog was posting about the show I didn’t watch), just indulge me. Firstoff, it’s all about Malan Breton. That laugh, that accent, that hair, that arrogance — he has classic reality tv villian written all over him. I actually know Malan really well from when we worked together @ HUDSON. Malan was hired to be the Lobby Host, basically stand at the entrance and greet guests, make chitchat while they waited in line. This was funny b/c they normally only ever hire women for this position, but obsiouvly Malan has a style about him that made them change that. I don’t know if anyone’s ever been to the HUDSON hotel in New York City but just imagine riding up those electric yellow escalators up to the lobby and seeing Malan’s mug standing above you, under all the glass and ivy, with that wicked smile. “Hello, welcome to HUDSON.” Creepy and terrifying.

I actually remember him getting offered Season 2 and turning it down, but I was suprised they adressed it on the show (they didn’t say it was b/c their contracts are bullshit, that once a designer sings it Bravo pretty much owns them for life). What I did love was the comment the judges made about his accent being fake. Funny cuz everyone we worked with used to say the same thing, that it was total bullshit and that’s probably just from Pittsburgh. I’m not sure I’d agree but it’s kinda like, well….

Patrick: “Auntie Mame, is your friend British?”
Mame: “No, darling, she’s from Pittsburgh.”
Patrick: “But she sounded British.”
Mame: “Yes well, when you’re from Pittsburgh you have to do something.”

But whatever, I love Malan and his awkward mannerisms and his diabolical laugh. He’s like Stewie Griffin all grown up. Malan’s been working in fashion for 600yrs and always has a ton of prjects going on, he doesn’t really need to win the compeition at all but I can’t wait to watch him on TV every week. Watch out for him (and check out his blog!), I think he’s gonna be everyone’s favorite one to hate! I think some ppl mind end up hating Keith Michael, but I won’t be one of them. I’ll be waiting for the shots of him standing around in a towel. Is it just me or does he kinda have a sexy Justin Kirk/Jude Law thing going?

Anyway, yes. Project Runway 3 all night long don’t stop till you get enough.