Lunching With My Gay Crush

There's this outrageously hot gay subtenant at work who I have a crush on. I kid you not, I have giggled at things he's said. Giggled. He's just so prettttttty. And smart. And funny. I don't remember how it went down, but the Turkey said something to me, I made a face, and Gay Crush mumbled something that let me know he knew Turkey was ... well, a turkey. My love for him was cemented.

Luckily I don't twirl around in my chair while giggling all day long, though that does sound fun. Gay Crush and I chat throughout the day. Not so much when Turkey's around, or when GC is busy, but enough that we know some basics about each other's lives. For example, I know GC has an equally pretty boyfriend who he lives with. GC knows if Turkey's not around and I'm not busy, he can chat with me about the Bravo shows.

About two weeks ago GC and I went to lunch. How we came to have a lunch date really took me by surprise. I was reading a review of a nearby restaurant and happened to ask GC if he'd gone there. He hadn't and when I said I hadn't either but was intrigued by it, GC asked, "Wanna go?" I replied, "With you? OH MY GOD YES!" Okay, no I didn't, but that's totally what happened in my head. In actuality, I shrugged and said sure.

It took us forever to actually go. CG travels a lot, so he's out of the office at least one week each month. I wanted to go on a day when Turkey was out of the office, so I wouldn't have to worry about getting back in exactly 60 minutes. Then I was sick for about a month and wanted to wait to go until I was better, so I'd be able to taste food. Then GC got busy with work and wasn't taking lunches.

Finally though, all the stars aligned and CG asked me one Monday, "Hey, are we doing our lunch this week? How about tomorrow?" So it was tomorrow. I picked out my least ugly outfit. I dug out my Clinique Bonus Time free lipstick. I took the advice my cousin's husband gave me over a decade ago and read the newspaper, stockpiling topics we could talk about. I even double-checked the menu online to make sure there were still things on there that I like. I was prepared.

We walked over and got seated. Immediately, there was an awkward happening. Gay Crush is a bit of a lush. Not at work of course, but he totally goes home and boozes it up with his partner while they have dinner each night. He asked if I'd be getting something to drink. The thing is, I only ever drink water in restaurants. GC seemed to want to get a glass of wine or something. I told him I didn't mind if he got wine. "Oh, you'll get one too?" It felt awkward telling him, "Oh, no, I just meant it's not an alcoholic thing with my not drinking - you should totally feel free to drink if you want to." Yeah. He had water. Apparently people feel weird boozing it up if the person they're with isn't also boozing it up.

Luckily, we managed to get past this, and Gay Crush asked if I wanted to share a side dish with him. Sharing food? How intimate, of course! Then we ordered our food, and Gay Crush decided it was the perfect time to tell me the history of his quest to keep from going bald. Yes, you read that correctly. I had to sit there and listen to GC talk all about balding medications. For the record, he has perfectly nice hair. No power alleys or comb-overs or anything.

GC then pointed out how he dressed up for our lunch, by wearing jeans and a button-down shirt instead of his usual jeans and a polo. I confessed to wearing mascara as my effort to dress up. We laughed. We shared a side of fancy mac & cheese. I arrived at the lunch prepared to pay, but GC insisted he'd pay. He didn't look at his Crackberry once throughout the entire meal. He made gay jokes. Told me about his experiences as a child of having his parents deal with all injuries by getting antibiotics cheaply from Mexico (he's from CA, near the border).

I was worried it'd be weird when we got back to the office, but it wasn't. I'm not sure exactly how that was avoided, but ... it was so normal that it almost made me wonder why I even worried it'd be weird in the first place. I bet it was thanks to the mascara.

The Wasp Talks About Farting

In church. That's right you guys. I may not go out to parties and date tons of hot guys, but I can get a WASPy woman who wears low ponytails and turtlenecks to tell me a story about farting in a church. With how good I am at getting people to open up, I should be interviewing famous people!

Let's start with Chris Brown. Chris, why do you think you deserve to not have to complete your community service? Chris, if you had a daughter, how would you feel to know she'd tweeted that she'd be happy to have a boy beat her? Chris, what do you think is wrong with you that you're not embarrassed to show your face in public?

Anywayyyy. It turns out the WASP has a great sense of humor and although she's pretty conservative in lifestyle, she can joke about wacky things with the rest of them.

So she was telling me about how over the weekend, she went to church with her two elementary-aged kids. Apparently one was supposed to go sit with another bunch of kids, but refused to go without the WASP. Good, supportive mom that the WASP is, she went to sit in the pews with the kids.

Wasp Son was sitting next to a little girl, and on his other side, was WASP. During the service, the little girl farted. Loudly. More than once. Apparently Wasp Son knew he wasn't supposed to laugh, but couldn't help it. WASP reported to me that his entire body was shaking with laughter as he tried to hold it in, which caused her to start. She had tears rolling down her eyes, and finally just grabbed Wasp Son and hauled him out of the chapel (church?). The second they got away he burst out with, "Mommy, I'm so sorry for laughing at the farting and making you laugh at it too!"

I'm having a really hard time at work lately. This story was recounted to me at the start of the day, and was the only funny part of the day today.

Madonna Has Zero Body Fat

I watched her halftime show and was not a fan of the hat or her hair. It was a relief when the hat came off. Even though there's now a thing called hairography I'm still not a fan of extensions.

I hear you call my name, and it feels like home.

I was twelve years old when Like a Prayer came out. Madonna had a big Pepsi endorsement then, and Pepsi including the song in their commercials. My dad used to pick me up from hebrew school twice a week, and I remember talking with him about Pepsi yanking their contract with Madonna because of her Like a Prayer video, because she kissed a black Jesus on the lips. At least that's what I understood as a Jewish 12 year-old girl. Now that I've looked it up, the guy is supposed to be a saint.

While I was able to recognize that french kissing was inappropriate in any religious setting, I sided with Madonna at the time. It was clear to me even then that she was doing it to be controversial, that that's what she was all about.

You know what I was thinking while watching that halftime show?

1. If you looked solely at the choreography and costumes, you could have picked up this show and placed it in 1989 and it'd have worked just fine. Like ballet flats, it's nice to see concepts cross decades. (You'll note Madonna wears black ballet flats in the Like a Prayer video.)

2. Madonna didn't lie. She said in interviews leading up to the Superbowl that there would be no wardrobe malfunctions and there weren't any. In fact, if you looked at what she was wearing, it provided a lot more coverage than the Madonna costumes of yore. Gone are the weird cone boobs. For the Superbowl, she was practically wearing a dress that'd be appropriate in a church. Madonna's dancing is a little provocative , but her outfits certainly weren't.

Who's First?

One of my responsibilities at work is to open the mail. I date-stamp it in the upper-right corner. Sometimes, Turkey gives the mail back to me with instructions.

Turkey makes lots of mistakes. He's late all the time. Today he shat his pants and then sprayed his entire body with at least half a can of Lysol. I could smell him from ten feet away. But you know, Turkey isn't the only person who makes mistakes. Read that first paragraph carefully. Somebody surely got fired for that one, right? Right?!

Where Are You?

Assistant is only two years younger than I am, and I'm not at all mature, but she makes me look like a downright upstanding citizen with how immature she is. She's like a sixteen year old. Hey here's a little tip for those of you new to office-life: when you're in the office, don't start doing yoga stretches, especially while talking to people you work with.

Personal Assistant is very passive-aggressive, which I consider to be a somewhat immature trait. She has an erratic schedule. There's a communal calendar where she's forever writing in that she'll be in the office, but never follows that. It's gotten to the point where if someone asks me when PA will be in the office, the only answer I can give is, "She'll be here when she shows up." I don't say it to be a wise-ass, or to be difficult, but because it is the only truth I can count on.

I have had to speak with both Turkey and PA to tell them to stop putting me in the middle of their power struggles via email. At least once a week Turkey tells me to contact PA to find out if she'll be in today or what time she'll be in. She is forever sick and on vacation and taking a day off.

She will email instructing me to tell Turkey that since she doesn't have anything to go over with him, she won't be in. He will tell me that he has things to go over with her, that she doesn't know about. Once I relay this, PA will write back saying she is at an appointment and will be busy the rest of the afternoon. I am then forced to tell Turkey this, and stand there watching his right cheek twitch in anger.

It's a very awkward position to be in - to have someone who's your equal using you to avoid your boss and to have your boss instructing you to pressure your equal to do things she's making clear she doesn't want to do. That's why I told both of them they needed to leave me out of it and communicate directly with each other.