We had a nice dinner party tonight with three friends. I made an excellent lasagna layered with basil, fresh buffalo-milk mozzarella and hot Italian sausage for my niece’s last night here. Afterwards we packed all her clothes and toys and then I put her to bed. She asked me if our plane was going to crash tomorrow and I told her “no Cheyenne, it’s definitely not going to crash.” I hope I’m right.

Tomorrow I’m taking my niece to my mom’s house in AZ, and I’ll be staying there until Friday August 4th. I’ll have that weekend in San Francisco, then the next will be in New York finishing the last of my admissions tests. After that it’s less than two weeks until I move to New York. I’m so scared.

“Fucking Jews, the Jews started all the wars in the world, are you a Jew?
“You motherfucker, I’m going to fuck you, I own Malibu!”
“I’ll spend all my money to get even with you”
“What do you think you’re looking at sugar tits?”
“My life is fucked”

Yes, more sweet nothings from our most famous raving anti-semite and snuff film director, Mel Gibson.

The Republican party in the US House of Representatives passed a millionaire wage increase bill late Friday that was designed to give minimum-wage earners an increase of $2,000 per year, from $10,000 to $12,000. In return minimum wage earners in the United States would be required to increase a millionaire family’s inheritance wages from $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 per year.

This year the US House has voted to allow itself more than $30,000 in cost-of-living wage increases, while the federal minimum wage hasn’t been increased since 1997.

As always the disgusting Republican party is looking out for the hardest working amongst us. If someone wonders why there is so much rage and anger at the Republican party in this country just look at their record. These people honestly believe it’s possible to raise a family of 3 on $10,000 a year. The Democrats are spot-on in their attempts to tie Congressional wage increases to the minimum wage.

If it’s so easy for poor people to live on $10,000 a year then why don’t the bloated Republican assholes in Congress attempt to do so? Start with that fat douche-bag James Sensenbrenner. The Sensenbrenner-twat looks like he’s been consuming two or three pounds of cheese fries for the past twenty years. Let’s see how many baby loaves of cheddar cheese this fat prick can buy on $10,000 a year while living in DC.

Poor Lindsay Lohan. She seems to have a problem with showing up to the set on time. A friend of mine worked on Herbie, Fully Loaded with Lohan and she said Lindsay was repeatedly so coked-up that she wouldn’t appear for days on the set. And now we hear the production company on her latest film has told her they’re going to start suing if she can’t make it to the set on-time.

Hilarious. Let’s look over the stated and publicized reason for certain star’s maladies and then put the REAL reason next to it:

“Exhaustion” - nervous breakdown, too much coke/e/meth the night before while at Aer. Anorexia.
“Heat Exhaustion” - too coked-up on the set. Cocaine + 100 degree temps = bad idea!
“Not feeling well” - hung over. Can’t handle the booze and/or the coke, either together or apart.
“Virus” - uh huh, on your pussy. Had an outbreak down below - gives a whole new meaning to “fire crotch.”
“Caught a cold” - yeah, the Columbian kind. Snorted way too much coke the night before at Bungalow 8, nose is collapsing.

Because I’m currently the temporary parent of a 10-year old girl I’m pretty sensitive to those who are trying to protect their children, but the parents of kids who have allergies to nuts have gone insane, and it’s time a stop was put to their outrageous behavior.

Recently I was shopping for lunch food for my niece. We decided to bake cookies together and being the post-modern gay dad I am I headed to the cheese/eggs/milk aisle where the ready-made cookies are kept. Arriving there my niece and I perused the selection of Toll House cookies, but were disappointed to find there were no longer any cookies available with either nuts (Chocolate Chip Walnut) or nut residue (Peanut Butter.)

Concerned, I asked a sales clerk and he told me they had had “complaints” from parents with nut-sensitive children so they’d removed all ready-to-bake cookies w/nuts from the store. I looked at him to see if he was serious, and seeing that he was my eyes drifted over the bakery aisle, which was alarmingly full of astoundlingly (peanuts, almonds, sesame) dangerous ingredients, and then I allowed myself to linger on the aisle with peanut butter. I asked him “So what about ready-baked goods, or peanut butter in a jar?” and he told me they hadn’t “reached a decision” on those threats yet.

Excuse me? So because a tiny, infintisimal majority of kids are allergic to nuts we’re ALL now required to not eat them? Have these parents heard of an Epi-pen? It contains epinephrine, an ingredient designed to halt an allergic reaction in those with severe allergies. I know, I carried one as a kid because I had severe asthma combined with an allergy to bees.

This is shocking. All kinds of people are allergic to all kinds of ingredients, strawberries, eggs, wheat etc. So are we supposed to remove all of those from all stores because your kid is allergic to them? Since when did the allergies of children become the deciding factor in grocery stores carrying products. The estimate of children with severe allergies to nuts is less than 1/2 of 1%, yet their health concerns now trump my right, or the right of any other shopper, to buy a product containing nuts, or even nut residue?

Nuts are one of the healthiest snacks for kids, full of good fats, fiber and vitamins. Yet because some parents are overly-hyper about their child’s allergies we’re all now supposed to stop eating them, or use soy nuts instead? As Dr. Hugh Sampson said in a 2001 New York Times article on this issue “Hypochondria is a big problem in this area.” There are less than 150 deaths a year from food allergies!

I’m sorry your kid can’t eat nuts but there’s an easy way around this issue. Don’t buy them for your kid, don’t take your daughter/son in areas where nuts are available and carry an anti-allergic reaction device, like the Epi-pen, at all times. Don’t try and enforce your restrictions on me or my family.

This is an example of political correctness gone amok. You don’t have a RIGHT to be protected from nuts, neither does your kid. Be a responsible parent and take charge of your child’s health, and quit expecting me, my niece or anyone else to do it for you.

I agree 100% with president Bush, for the first time since he became President. There will be no ceasefire in Lebanon until either Hezbollah is destroyed or there is a permanent peace agreement on the Lebanese border monitored by an international force acceptable to both Israel and Lebanon and which is given a mandate not simply to observe the peace, but to enforce it as well.

Most UN “peacekeeping” missions aren’t allowed to carry out offensive actions to actually keep the peace they’re charged with maintaining. This has resulted in grotesque violations of human rights, as in Kosovo, and in actual genocide, as in Bosnia and Rwanda. Any armed force in Lebanon must be ready to enforce the peace through military, and not just diplomatic, force. Anything less is just a repetition of the same tired status-quo, of Hezbollah being allowed to kidnap Israeli soldiers and fire missiles on Israeli cities.

I don’t give a rat’s ass what Europe or Asia or the UN says either. Since when did Jews get anything from depending on anyone else for their protection? The Israeli offensive must and will continue until Hezbollah is either militarily spent or the pain is too great for the Lebanese to take and they end the illegal and immoral Iranian-by-proxy occupation of the south of their country.

I did Pilates today with my friend (and Pilates instructor) Kyle. That shit is hard, I thought it was supposed to be all relaxing, but it’s not, it’s very difficult, especially all those intense core exercises where you’re sucking your ribcage in to the floor, trying to concave your stomach.

After I left the studio I drove to Berkeley to pick up my niece from camp and on the way there I stopped at a used bookstore. I love used bookstores, that smell of old books when you walk in is so comforting. Anyway - as I walked down the street to the bookstore my stomach was already spasming and aching. I’m going to be sore tomorrow, I can tell right now.

It’s a little over a month from now until I move to New York to attend NYU. Yipes! I sure hope I get that apartment I’ve been talking about. My broker told me he can’t ‘fathom’ me being turned down by the condo board, and in return I told him I can ‘fathom’ anything happening, because in my experience it usually does.

I’m a big believer in swaying the outcome of a scenario by closing off all avenues for anything other than my desired outcome to occur. That’s why I paid the year’s rent in advance, because by doing so there’s almost 0% chance I’ll be rejected by the condo board, but I’m still uneasy, because .5% isn’t 0%, and I don’t like anything other than overwhelming, tremendous, impossible-to-overcome odds in my favor.

In what other localized regional conflict in the world does there exist as many state and non-state actors as exist in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?

The short and long answer: none.

Today I found myself asking just why the following countries need to be involved in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians:

1. Iraq
2. Saudi Arabia
3. Jordan
4. Egypt
5. Syria
6. Lebanon

Do you see the issue here? None of these countries, not a single one, is Palestine! It would be similiar to the United States government discussing tribal affairs with the Mississippi Choctaw Indians and having the following parties at the talks:

1. Cuba
2. Mexico
3. Netherlands Antilles
4. Venezuela
5. Bahamas
6. Canada

See my point?

What, exactly, does Saudi Arabia have involved in the Israel-Palestine issue beyond deep loathing for the Jewish people and hatred of their state, Israel? Saudi Arabia and Iraq don’t even have a land border with Israel!

Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq all maintain a state of war with Israel and have linked any recension of that state of war to an agreement with the Palestinians. This linkage allows them a veto of any agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, which they’ve freely exercised over nearly 60 years of non-stop hostility towards Israel!

It’s absurd and wrong and if the Palestinian people had any sense in their heads they’d de-link the issue of peace between the Arab states and Israel from the larger issue of Palestinian sovereignty. After all, all they need to do is look at the last 60 years of Arab intransigence and military defeats to see they’ve hitched their wagon to the wrong horse.

I first looked at my New York apartment on June 17th.
I made a verbal offer on June 22.
On June 29th the owner made a counter-offer.
On June 30th I rejected that offer.
On July 5th my broker contacted me and told me the owner accepted my original offer.
On July 6th I faxed back a signed copy of the lease agreement and attached riders.
July 7th I sent a check for three months of rent to my broker.
On July 14th I Fed-Exed to my broker 15 pages of financial and personal documentation, including authorization for a credit check and criminal background check, bank, mortgage and brokerage statements for three months, a standard rental application, three personal references, acceptance of terms, a pet rider and three separate checks for a move-in fee, a “processing fee” and an “application fee.”
This week I sent in three additional references, on letterhead, my NYU financial aid application and a note from my boyfriend.

Please Lord, tell me this is it.