is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Booze Luge, Scone-Egg Sighting, Mouth-Stuffing Good-Bye Goat Roast.
I'm in San Francisco right now, and have been since Wednesday night. I arrived late that evening, and Mr. Perrone was kind enough to pick me up at the airport even though he is a working man who has to get up in the morning. Have you noticed how handsome he is? I thought I was tired when I arrived but I was also so happy that I couldn't sleep. San Francisco! Mr. Perrone!
On Thursday I shopped until I dropped, but could find nothing I wanted. I did, however, manage to find gifts for my Dad and for Liz, both of whom have birthdays this week. Dad got a hipster guitar strap and Liz got a cute bracelet and a doggy bank. She had forgotten that I was going to be in town so was extra surprised when I showed up for drinks after her expensive dinner with Ivan. That was fun.
Caroleen and I saw I Heart Huckabees on Friday afternoon. It was good. Absurd, yes. At times too silly or self-indulgent, indeed. But funny, and sometimes even a bit smart. I have to love a movie that (if it succeeds) simultaneously makes us: laugh at the solipsism and craziness of the continuous inner anxiety-narrative we all have AND wonder about those who have never had an existential crisis�what kind of inner life does such a person have? I kind of want to see the movie again so I can watch the funny parts when I'm not trying to figure out what the $#&% is going on with the rest of it.
When I was at the christening of August, son of Adam, afterwards, during the face-stuffing portion of the day, I was standing around eating and talking to Kelsey (Kate's sister) and Marc (my cousin/Adam's brother), when all of a sudden someone dropped a scone. It landed right between Kelsey's feet, and it looked like she had just laid it, as if she were a chicken and it was her egg-baby. She and I seemed to be the only people who saw this, but to us it was extremely funny, like face-contortion-laughing funny. In fact I have laughed about it intermittently ever since.
Last night Mr. Perrone and I went to a party thrown by some friends of his. It was called a luge party, because the party-throwers had constructed a large booze-luge for the imbibing of liquors. Basically, it was a huge block of ice (approx 4' long x 2 wide x 1' deep) with channels drilled into it. The block was set an angle so that when the bartendress poured your drink of choice into one of the channels at the top, the drink would make its way down the ice toward your mouth waiting at the bottom, all the while becoming chilled by its luge-path. As an activity this seemed awkward, and a bit germtastic to me. But I am nothing if not a good sport, so I tried it. Twice. The first time was funny, but I think most of my raspberry vodka ended up on the floor. (There was no bourbon.) The second time I got more of the liquor (plain old Grey Goose) into my mouth, but it felt as if it were trying to go to the wrong stomach. Mr. Perrone and I were doing this luge-thing at the same time, and when we finished a bunch of people cheered. That's the kind of scene it was, and I appreciated that. As you probably know I have a deep appreciation for big drunken parties, especially when they have themes or gimmicks to which all are expected to adhere. I had fun. But I also switched to beer after round 2 at the booze-luge.
At the booze-luge party a friend of Mr. Perrone's introduced us to his new wife, and then turned and said to Mr. Perrone, "Look how pretty my wife is." His wife was indeed pretty, but it was a funny thing to say, because it asks for a response but leaves open a space where no response is quite right. So after absorbing those moments of awkwardness I ate a bunch of marshmallows and thought about how handsome Mr. Perrone is. And I used that line all day today at the goat roast I was attending. Anyone who walked up to me when Mr. Perrone was around would hear me say, "Have you noticed how handsome Steve is?" Ha.
It's true. I was at a goat roast. Seth and Julianna are moving to Portland, Oregon, so Seth roasted a whole goat in Jeff and Caroleen's backyard and had a big mouth-stuffing to-do all day as a good-bye kind of party. I spent a large portion of the day talking to Leisa's 10-year-old son Cash about whether it is or is not creepy to have fish touch you when you are swimming in water. That was fun. I also ate a lot of dessert, and some non-dessert, but no goat.
For the Mouth-Stuffing Good-Bye Goat Roast I made a pumpkin pie with a chocolate crust. I had never made this particular item before, so it was a test run. Basically the crust was a huge chocolate cookie I baked into pie shape for about 15 minutes. Then I melted some bittersweet chocolate onto the base of the hot pie crust. Then I filled the shell with pumpkin pie filling (made with heavy cream instead of evaporated milk. It works. And it's tasty) and baked it for about an hour. Then I let it cool, melted down some more bittersweet chocolate in a double boiler, and drizzled it in lines across the top of the pie. It was GOOD. Next time I'll need to make more than one, because everyone was sad when it was gone. I had promised to save a slice for Evany, but by the time there was only one slice left, Seth advised me not to touch it because he had been instructed to save it for Mr. Perrone. It was already a very tiny slice, so what could I do?
Evany was not left without sugar, however. Caroleen made the yummy yellow cake with the caramel frosting, and brought it forth to us in cupcake form. I ate three of them. After Seth ate like his 8th goat taco, in addition to various pies, cupcakes, and some roasted pork, he said he had made an error in judgment with the amount of food he had eaten. But about five minutes later everyone in the room seemed to notice at once that Seth was now smearing whipped cream on top of one of the caramel cupcakes and stuffing it in his mouth. This made Evany declare that before that moment she hadn't thought she could love him more than she already did, but, oh, whipped cream on caramel on cupcake on top of a declaration of overeating. Oh Seth.
And Sunny was there! I thought I would not overlap with her at all, but she just got home last night from playing with PJ Harvey in NYC. It was so good to see her! San Francisco!
10:24 p.m. - October 10, 2004
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