Sitting in Alexander was like that feeling when you were a kid and
you had a loose baby tooth, you know what I mean? It hurt but pushing
on it was kinda addictive, so you kept pushing and pulling on the tooth
until it bled? Well that was how that three-hour long sprawling mess
played itself out.

Still, the non-sex homo love scenes between
Colin Farrell and Jerod Leto were kinda hot. Alexander’s homo (or bi)
sexuality was really something they WEREN’T afraid to address in this
movie. Jared and Colin staring at one another, talking about their love
for one another, having sex (off camera but STRONGLY hinted). It all
became a bit much, even for me.

Beyond that Portland is cold.
Like 34 degrees cold. I’ve forgotten, after only 11 months in the Bay
area, how cold it gets in the Northwest.

Spending time in the
town you went to high school in is always strange. Everywhere I go
memories, and not always good ones, lurk. Every corner, road, street,
highway and building mean something and usually it’s me remembering how
much I hated this town when I lived here.

Beyond the
miserable weather in this place, and the claustrophobia such a small
town inspires in me, is the fact that this is where I spent a lot of
unhappy times. Maybe everyone feels that way coming home for the
holidays but for me it seems particularly accute.

I leave tomorrow morning for San Jose and from there directly from that airport to work. Not a moment too soon.

I’m in Portland right now, staying at this
hotel. I was going to check in tomorrow but after three days at my
sister’s house, sleeping in a child-size bed and listening to
children’s video after video I decided to beg the hotel to let me come
a day early. They obliged.

So Monday will be my first day at
work in over a month. I mean, I HAVE been working but it’s the first
day to actually physically be IN my office since I left for India. I’m
going to have a hellish three weeks ahead of me before we leave for
Curacao. My company just launched a major new product, I’ve got
European partners to satisfy as well as a report to write on my three
weeks in India.

When they have a wine tasting at a hotel
someone needs to inform the participants that it’s a wine TASTING and
not an excuse to plop your big fat ass down in the lobby, blabbering
away about your lame Thanksgiving meal while boring me half to death. Tasting is the opportune word in the whole deal. You sip, you leave…

Wonderful
deposed European royalty - stories about Studio 54 and Xenon included.
She knew everyone, Carmine D’Alessio, Sterling St. Jacques, Bianca and
all the rest. Those 32 months of drug soaked hedonism were as fresh in
her mind as yesterday. She told me how much coke she used to snort and
who she used to sleep with. Parties at Halston’s… She’s an amazing
women with a stud of an Italian boyfriend half her age. We spoke mostly
in French with a little English thrown in.

We’ve got a major ant infestation in our kitchen now, and that blows
because the Good Doc is leaving tomorrow to see his family for
Thanksgiving and I’m leaving Wednesday. So there will be no one here to
meet the exterminator, who visited last month but it’s obviously now
time for another.

In place of an official visit from Orkin I’ve placed little plastic ant
traps in strategic areas of the kitchen and the ants seem to love them.
I mean they’re literally swarming these things yet strangely I’ve yet
to see a diminishment in their numbers…. It would be just our luck to
have been invaded by the new super insecticide-resistant species of ant.

Again I’m jet-lagged, blogging at almost 3:00 AM. Lame.

Yes kids, I’m back.

Having landed yesterday back in San Francisco I’ve spent today running around doing all the things one does to make up for the fact that they’ve been gone for over three weeks. Bank, cleaner, grocery store and then filing expense reports, always a wonderfully fun job.

India was great, as usual. I spent my last two days in Goa and had an amazing time hanging out on the beach with deposed European royalty (aka “Eurotrash”) but they’ve all got good hearts, and beautiful homes in both Europe and India, so it was all good. In addition several were old enough to remember Studio 54 and I had a great time hearing their stories and asking all kinds of questions.

Some pics for you now, more to come. The hand is mine, covered in henna and the beach is India’s, covered in beautiful sand and with no one but myself and the Contessa for miles.

This is the first step in the long fight to reclaim America. Gotta read it!