Boyfriend's Lament

As a Dionysusesque patron of Thursday Dinner, I am tempted to draw a complex analogy to the Imperivm Romanvm's Bacchinalia, but that would be worse than pretentious, and while par for the course in a sense, not how I would like to express my love of the phenomenon and my regret at its untimely demise.

The massive bowel movement I experienced at work today was a much more fitting tribute.

While you, dear reader, were not there to witness this grandiose turd's magnitude and awe-inspiring odor, it encapsulated all that was great about Thursday Dinner. This poop was a tangible symbol of excess, and the ramifications of that excess. It was a reminder of how my generally brown life, could, for a night at a time, transcend all expectation. Afterward I am drained but fulfilled.

I must extend my most sincere thanks to the Yotor cabal, for if it weren't for you I would not have been afforded the opportunity to wax poetic, and indeed come to this epiphany on the greater symbolism of my gastrointestinal process.

You are forever in my thoughts and colon.

Mr. D's guestblog

Sometimes I try to describe dinner to other people there are several mistakes people make. I don't know really why I'm bothering at this point but let me clear things up.

I can't cook. Don't expect me to know how to make pasta without directions or eggs that can be described as "over easy" or "scrambled"or something fancy like that. Just "now I guess it's cooked" is good enough for me. I also don't want to learn to cook. My people don't cook.

I'm also not really all that interested in how food tastes. That probably explains a lot of the above.

Listen, I know calling your house an acronym for Year Of The OctoberRevolution is pretentious but is there anyway to name your house unpretentiously? It could have been worse; the house where I grew upwas named Strawberry Hill Farm; my mother spent a decade getting people to stop calling it that when she realized it was actually a trademarked flavor of a malt beverage favored by teenage girls.

The glimmer in our eyes that could be confused with the happiness about the weekend is one of the better things about Thursday night. I suppose it did make me less productive on Fridays but seriously, what does "productive" even mean? Plus, like 60% of my office "works from home" on Fridays. Don't worry, the spreadsheet will be done by thetime you actually check your email. Once you finish shopping or painting the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom or whatever the hell you people do "at home" on Fridays.

10 PM is not late dinner. I have breakfast at 10:30 in the morning and lunch at 3. My schedule works better. Please adopt it.

OK, maybe I kind of do like to clean. But when I clean up I really prefer that you don't help me and, indeed, leave the kitchen altogether during this process.

Maybe I'm in denial but I think hangovers are good. That which does not kill you… I'm like he-man at this point.

We'll try to keep doing it in New York. I rather like Justin's "if one spice is good surely four would be better" philosophy. The 2nd floor apartment with no balcony means less smoking, too, which is better for everyone.

I hope this clears up the questions you had about Thursday dinner.Thank you for coming to me with your concern.

Please let me know ifyou have any further questions.

Sincerely,
Daniel

I left when the wine was gone.

I don't think I am ready to write this.

But when are you ever ready to do anything, especially when it involves change? Dinner is done. Yotor is over. It is The End for that book. I would call it a chapter of "life" like so many great graduation speakers have done in the past, but Thursday Dinner has enough stories and characters that it qualifies as a book. No fucking chapters here.

I'll explain.

Yotor is a house. It is located on 9 and a half street. It's name hails from its address 1917, which is the Year Of The October Revolution. The mix of quirkiness, creativity, and pretnetiousness of the name is a good start at describing the men who have lived there.

The men who lived at Yotor are quirky, creative, and pretentious. There were four that I knew, and more before my time. Justin, Sir Jeffy, Joshua, and Mr. D. Describing them is something for another time (their funerals), and they aren't dead. Just leaving. They are all more and they are all less than whatever you like to think they are. They are like jello. Not solids and not liquids, and there's no point thinking any harder about it.

But more than anything they liked to cook, and then receive compliments on their cooking. Well, the J's did, but Mr. D, he likes to clean. And through the invention of Dinner everyone got what they were looking for, hungry people and a mess. The creation of Dinner was simple. They had to eat, and to make that happen they had to cook. So they invited more to come. And we came.

A beautiful combination of people suffering. Oh yeah, I am sorry, I forgot to mention, they are heros. They saved us, from the drudgery of our gray lives (and their gray lives too). They gave us a day, well a night, Thursday. And we took it fully. We enjoyed it until the last drop. We squeezed and wrung and twisted every bit of Thursday until it was Friday.

And then we went home. And went to bed. And woke up and went to work. But on Fridays, something was different. There was a glimmer in our eyes that could be confused with the happiness about the weekend. But it was actually a tremedous hang over from the night before.

Thursday Dinner was tradition and it was significant. If you missed it, I am sorry, because you really fucking missed it.

A Dramatic Monologue

Hey, hey you. How are you? There's something I wanted to talk to you about real quick.
BEAT
You aren't going to leave me, are you?
BEAT
Everyone is leaving me. I don't know what I did wrong. Sacha is leaving, Daniel is leaving, Jeffy, Joshua wants to leave. WHAT DID I DO?! WHAT DID I DO?! I CAN CHANGE.
BEAT
No. No, I am strong. You all can leave. Just leave, I don't need you. I can do this on my own. I will stay here in Washington, DC. I will start anew on my own. I will build up a new family of friends, that is stronger and bigger than this one could ever be. What do I need you all for besides trust and humor and friendship and dinner and, and..
(Breaking down crying.)
PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAASE. PLEASE, don't go. Please, promise me, promise right now that you will never leave me. That we will be here together, forever. I can't do it. I can't stand the thought of one more person leaving this city... leaving me.
BEAT
(Wiping the tears away)
So, that's my proposition. That you never leave me. Promise me.
BEAT
Well, they are kind of just going to New York. It's not that far. And actually I think I may move soon. So, I don't know why I got so panicky. I must be getting my period. Sorry about ruining your sweater. I think that mascara will wash out. It never has come out of my towels, but maybe on your shirt it will. Sorry about that.

"Don't trip"

As I was walking to work this morning I was texting someone. (Sir Jeffy to see if he wants to play tennis after work. Do you?) And someone yelled out of their car at me "Don't trip!" And then I heard a good amount of laughter. It wasn't bombastic laughter, but it was a solid decent amount of laughter especially at a joke that isn't all that clever. I mean I wasn't tripping or about to trip, but I suppose someone texting while walking could trip.

And at first I was kind of pissed. Like "Don't you be yelling out of your car at me I could walk on a tight rope while texting and not trip. Boo ya." (It's not great comeback, but it's concise and gets the point across). But then anger quickly turned into jealousy. If that simple "joke" made someone that happy then they have so much fodder in this city. Everyone is constantly texting while they walk. That person (my guess, Asian girl) could spend all day driving around and yelling "don't trip" out her window and laughing. Good for her, right? I don't think I get that much joy out of something I see everyone do all the time, and slapping a semi-funny, uh barely clever saying to it, and laugh. I just don't think I could.

Although, there was a point when my friends and I first got our drivers lisences and we would pull up to cars and ask where the Scotch Tape store was...

But, "don't trip." Seriously.

Therefor, thusly, in conclusion, that girl had a good laugh on the way to work and I did not. BUT the cafeteria lady under-charged me for my oatmeal and I bet that car yelling Asian girl didn't get that. (But what if she did? And this car yelling Asian girl is always one-upping me. I must find her. I must find her a destroy her.)

Dead

Hi,
So, I was dead for a while. That's why I haven't been writing. It was pretty weird, especially because being dead felt a lot like being at my job and then going home and watching TV and going to bed. It was just like my normal life, but no blogging. So, if any of you are concerned about dying, unless you truly love to blog, I wouldn't worry about it. Or I guess unless you hate your job, and then death seems like eternal hell.

Wouldn't that suck? If hell was just your boring office job? Good lord, that would be so fucking miserable.

Anyways, I am back from the dead. I am not really sure how I came back. I think it was after John from Cinncinati last night and I had a funny idea and I was thinking "I should write that down on my blog." Clearly, by now, I have totally forgotten that idea. But I couldn't leave that post about Chris Singel as the last thing I had written.

I actually see hell as waiting in line at a CVS. And you are just getting something small which you have exact change for. And the line is so slow, and the employees keep talking on their cell phones and yelling at each other. And everyone in line has an expired coupon that they are ready to argue for. And you have exact fucking change. And you keep debating about just cutting the line and throwing your money on the counter and walking out. But you don't have that kind of guts. So you are stuck in an eternal line at CVS.

There is no sense of urgency in employees at CVS. It's like the Kinkos of drug stores.

I miss Walgreens. Walgreens doesn't exist in Washington, DC. There's really only CVS and Rite Aid every now and again.

So, there it it. The blog that brought me back to life.

I am typing this with my eyes half open because I am tired.