Random Esquire

1. I ate a pastrami sandwich today with salt and vinegar potato chips and some bread and butter pickles. This means that by the end of the day, I’ll have either dehydrated all together or …have gout.

2. My new computer is up and running. Unfortunately, it won’t make me a better writer or any less of an unintentional a-hole.

3. I’m debating if, while in Paris, I’ll try Tour d’Argent and order its famous le canard a la presse. It is one of those things that sounds like a good idea…until you see pictures of some guy in a tux wringing out a duck to get all of its blood. Then,…not so much.

4. New camera arrives tomorrow. Canon G9. Just think, in ten years, I may be able to take pictures half as well as LynchSeattle.

5. The weather today is chilly and rainy and I admit that I like it. It is the perfect weather to crack the windows and nap in bed.

6. Monday came too quickly, entered too loudly and did not wear enough make-up. I am unimpressed.

Someone I greatly respect is doing something I greatly respect. Her name is Heather and she is participating in the American Cancer Society’s Dogwalk Against Cancer at Riverside Park in New York with her pug, Greta (4th year she’s done this!). Heather lost her aunt to cancer and, as she puts it, “I’m still mad as hell.” My mother lost her best friend (and my second mother growing up) to cancer. I’m fairly sure most of us have been touched by this disease.

I’d really like to see Heather reach her goal and there’s some added incentive. The largest donor gets a music video. Specifically, Heather says, “He or she can choose any song, and Greta and I will deliver an impassioned, interpretive performance to said song.” This is no bluff. Check out a picture of Heather dressed like a zombie spider hanging upside down - taken from her performance after taking a trapeze class. Who the hell does stuff like this? Heather. So I’m pretty convinced that this music video would be nothing less than spectacular.

Here is her impassioned plea. And here is Greta’s impassioned plea, complete with little pug noises:

Here is her Donation Page where you can submit your donation. Anything, anything is accepted and appreciated. Your company may match your donation and ACS will send you an e-mail with info for tax time.

Another incentive: If you donate $10 or more, I’ll put your name in a hat and do a drawing. Winner gets a $50 dollar gift certificate from Amazon.com. If Heather hits her $5,000, I’ll give two winners each $50. Let’s do this, people! Let’s make it happen.

and….Thank you.

Last night was filled with excellent food and drink at One SixtyBlue. I had been invited as a guest to celebrate the restaurant’s tenth anniversary and the very good food of Martial Noeguier. The restaurant (former best restaurant of Chicago 2006) was filled with women in cocktail dresses and men with suits. I had the signature ‘bluetini’ made with blueberry syrup, vodka, champagne…and something else I can not recall. The food was incredible. My date and I enjoyed an excellent amuse bouche or two and dined on a rare lamb with rosemary sauce and an excellent beef tenderloin, along with a variety of seasonal baby vegetables, all expertly prepared.

We sat next to two women (Nancy and Josephine) who were around the age of 70-75 or so, both wearing hats. We’d met them earlier when I noticed Josephine holding two drinks, her own and Nancy’s. I teased her gently about having two drinks at a time. They both belong to a hat club in Chicago. Josephine told me tales of her five weeks in Italy and how, now that she’s back, she’s been having to work out much more - including weights and cardio. Get down with your bad self, Josephine.

At one point, I glanced at my phone and saw that my sister had left me a voice mail and a text message. Her text said, “Hope u aren’t angry with me.”

I honestly can not remember the last time I was angry with my sister and we speak a few times a week, and more or less daily since her baby was born. I don’t think we’ve exchanged a harsh word in….years. I sent her a text back and said, “Did you mean this for someone else?”

She responded, “No, I am a paranoid hormone wreck. Just was afraid that you hated me. Realized that you are at your dinner party.”

Did I mention that my sister just had a baby? It some ways, it made me laugh because she must really be upside down to ever think I could hate her but it also almost made me mist up just a little to think she spent more than half a second feeling that way. I gave her a call as soon as I left the party and spoke with her briefly before she tried get some valuable sleep time.

Here’s the party favor from last night. Mmmm,…Illy espresso.

1. I’m having t-shirts made. They say, “MILF Hunter” on the front.  Operators are standing by.

2. I stopped for a bottle of wine on my way home from work. The young woman behind the counter took the bottle from me and then looked at my money on the counter…then back at me. I looked back. She grinned. I was confused. She said slowly, “I’m going to need to see some ID.” What the hell, people?

3. Work has been a pressure cooker the past two weeks. Tonight, however, shall make up for it. I was invited to attend a little soirée of sorts to celebrate a chef who studied under Alain Ducasse - so the food and wine should be excellent. My date and I will be dressed and ready to mingle by 6:30. Bring on the cocktails.

4. Boss and I spoke tonight. She said, “There are too many emotions involved with dating. When we were together, there were only two. Either I wanted to choke you or… you know, I loved you.” With this kind of flattery, I hardly know where to begin.

5. What do these things have in common? Cats. Bread. Tiger. Stairs. Exasperation. Exhaustion. Oh yes, all ways in which women have tried to kill me.

Well, I suppose all of this new traffic warrants some sort of response, huh?

I’ll start by saying that I like and respect SingleMomSeeking (SMS) and Ms. Single Mama (MSM). I think they and their blogs do a great job exploring and discussing the many issues surrounding being a single parent. No doubt, it comes with a host of issues and concerns about which I am ignorant. And I daresay that even their entry about me may foster some great discussion. Having said all that, I don’t think I can really contribute in any meaningful way.

It’s somewhat fun to be thought of as someone who has no difficulty finding a way to spend a Friday night, someone who has no loneliness issues or even someone who can charm a woman with no effort. But the reality is that I struggle with being single, like most people. Long time readers of my blog know that I wrote for years about one woman - Boss, with whom I was very much in love. When we split, I did not write about the months of staying in with Little Filthy and the very difficult realization that my family unit was no longer. It isn’t what I write about. And, as I said in a comment to SingleMomSeeking not very long ago, I made many entries that I wrote about Boss private - not because I wrote about having a broken heart in them but because those entries reminded me that I had one.

Blogs are interesting because they are but a fraction of a person’s life. Mine is no different. And if anything, I’ve now learned that people draw very big assumptions about a person on a whole from that small fraction (and perhaps it would be unfair or even ignorant of me to ask people not to do so with my blog). If I write about the two nights I went out, it may appear that I go out every night…but that wouldn’t be the case. I’ve written about three women: Boss, Plush, and my Neighbor - and I hope I have spoken about those people with the respect and honor they deserve. Some readers have commented about my “phone-date” with Mamaphunk. She and I just spoke on the phone and had a good laugh about this. She is my friend…recently married to a really great guy. We have been missing each other’s phone calls for weeks and so we decided to set a date so we could catch up with each other. That’s it. Not so exciting, huh?

After an evening to sleep on it, I guess I just have to laugh at being thought of as the quintessential bachelor. I’ve no doubt that someone who fits that description would, if he were able to speak comfortably and express himself in a respectful manner, contribute to a really good dialog between readers of MSM’s and SMS’s blog. But at heart,…I’m just not that kid. And yes, you’re probably not going to see that in my blog because I’m not too inclined to wear my heart on my blog lately.

Do I like to write about women? Good God, yes. Women are fantastic. I love everything about them. Am I admittedly sometimes piggish? Yes. I’m just…normal? I guess? I’m learning. I’ve no doubt that part of that learning comes from reading blogs like that of SingleMomSeeking and Ms. Single Mama, which I will continue to do.

So, if you found my blog…that makes me happy.

I hope you stay and read.

I hope you enjoy.

And I hope you laugh.

The Italian and I talked today and…naturally, the conversation turned to boobs. I declared that touching boobs outside a bra was the biggest sham going because bras do not tell the truth. It’s like judging a book by its cover.

He confessed that he has difficulty removing bras. I said, “I can unsnap a bra one handed in two seconds, man!” He said, “It’s those hooks in the middle…”

“You have to sort of pinch the sides of the clasp together and rub your fingers with a quick twist and it’s off.”

“I’m no good at it.”

I yelled, “What’s wrong with you, man?”

I told The Italian that people were finding my blog by looking up “Italian Sex.” He said, “I look up Latin Sex because I want to know where that’s happening.”

I said, “Latin sex happens in the butt.”

He said, “That’s Greek sex.”

Yes. We’re idiots.

There is something to be said for taking things on face value. My blog is this way. I like having readers and comments a lot. It’s satisfying. If I could, though, I ask that you just take my blog as it is, gaps and all, and not representative of anything other than what it is - one person’s random observations. It’s fair to say that I do not feel comfortable representing bachelors, single people, dating people, etc. Just me and my dog and my blog. Besides, I am sometimes horribly offensive and I wouldn’t want you to think that any one group could hope to muster up my all around offensiveness. So! For what that’s worth…

-Random Me.

My neighbor came over for a cappuccino today. Neighbor tried to teach me cappuccino art and we found that I am not particularly skilled at it. Here’s my attempt at an over-mixed, three-leaf design:

We sat down on the couch with our drinks and then paused to stand at the window as a collection of fire trucks had appeared. I turned around to see Little Filthy lean back from Neighbor’s cappuccino and he looked like a foamy mouthed, rabies infested, mad animal. I sighed and nudged Neighbor as Little Filthy licked most of it off. The evidence:

Let me blow that up so you can properly appreciate what was left of Neighbor’s milk foam:

This is not the first time (a disgusting learning experience) or even the second time Little Filthy has stuck his mug in my mug. I vow to not leave coffee on the coffee table.

1.   Easter is low-key at the Random household.  I explained it all to Little Filthy. “Jesus, cave, blah blah, third day, blah, stone rolled away, blah blah, if he sees his shadow, there are six more weeks of winter.”

2.  Someone, please talk me out of trying to make duck confit.  I really don’t need to do that.  Last week, a law school buddy asked me, “Hey, remember when you made your own sausage?” Let me recommend against that right now.  Fortunately, I now live in downtown Chicago and can get fresh, good sausage at many locations.  I dig cooking and every so often, I will get it in my head that I need to make something from scratch.  I made falafel once.  Spare yourself the garlicky trouble.

3. The next few months will put me in NYC, DC, France, Switzerland and Italy. Go, go, travel Random.

4. Are the Italians having different sex than the rest of us? I ask because every day, multiple people find my blog by doing a Google search on “Italian sex.”  Well, I guess I will be in Italy shortly enough.  I’ll report back on the situation.

5.  Talk about your single kid Easters…I’m going to stuff a pepper with whatever is leftover in my fridge.

1. You may recall that I fell down a flight of stairs recently. I have a sizable knot (which is oddly numb) just below my knee that turned a sick shade of blue and yellow. The bruise somehow migrated south and the full front of my calf is now this sickly shade. I was not too bothered by this until I went to the gym and decided to jog. When my right foot hit the treadmill, I could actually feel the bruise pull like a weight on the front of my leg. I scrapped the jogging.

2. I am anti-no-noun-short-sentences. Like, “love you” or “be there shortly” or “will do.”

3. On my walk to work, I often see a gentleman in front of one of the television stations here in Chicago. He is often on the Channel 5 (NBC) news in the morning as he stands outside the window. The news team will often close the show by pointing the camera at him (I think they call him Vincent) and he will immediately stick his arms straight out and spin around. What makes it more interesting is that he wears a zoot suit every day and I’ve never seen the same suit twice (that I can recall). I saw him outside the Channel 7 news studio, staring through the glass at an anchor woman. He has a very small telescope of sorts that he holds up to his eye so he can see the newscasters up close. The anchor woman waved at him and he spun around. Pictures:

Anyone from Chicago know this guy’s story?