Vibrant.(Still) Unrepentant. Badass. Old. Queer

 Hello, Beautiful Kittens.  I hope you had a wonderful December.  Apparently, there was a holiday or something recently.  I was in North Carolina for the aforementioned holiday.  My mother forced us all to wear elf hats as we opened presents (on Xmas Eve, because I flew back home on Xmas morning). I had a good Xmas.  I received some very nice gifts.  My parents helped to pay for my new spectacles and for another session of pottery class.  My brother and his GF gifted me with lots of colorful socks and a cookie press.  Plus some other things.  And, once I got back to DC, I had a fantastic XXXmas with M.  In addition to copious amounts of teh hot buttsecks,we watched a lot of streaming movies on the Netflix, including The Hobbit, White Christmas, and Blackfish. Yeah.  It seems like we are in it for the long haul.  He gave me Apples to Apples (which, he reminded me, we played at a game night with Mike (Who Makes Cakes...

Good Evening, Kittens! Let's play catch-up!  Two weekends ago, I flew to North Carolina.  It was my Dad's 75th Birthday.  So, after work (and after a couple of martinis), I caught a plane to my brother's place in Greensboro.  Then, the next morning, we drove the 3.5 hours to my parents' town.  There we had a lovely lunch with about 10 of my parents' friends in the beautiful (if somewhat stinky) town of Canton.  Canton's Paper Mill  After lunch, we just chilled at the parents' house and eventually had dinner at a Thai restaurant.  It was not that great.  It started snowing.  "The snow's supposed to stop around 6PM," Dad said.  It snowed all night.  The View from My Parents' Deck Because it was (a) snowy and (2) 24 degrees F outside, I decided to wait to do my 11 mile run until I got to Greensboro.  Which is what I did ... And, then, I had an early dinner and several cocktails with my brother, his gf, and the...

Good Afternoon, Kittens. I am back at work (yay) after an exciting day off yesterday. How exciting was it? Let's see ... I woke up yesterday morning feeling a little out of sorts. And that's when the explosive liquid poo started. Plus vomit. Joy. Needless to say, I called out sick. And, this was my day: 1. sleep in bed. 2. bathroom. 3. sleep on sofa. 4. repeat. Sometimes, just to mix it up, I'd reverse the order: Sofa, bathroom, bed. Around 4PM, I decided to have some veggie broth. Tasty. Later that evening, my parents called with sad news. My 39-year-old cousin had a stroke and died. Pretty shocking. And he leaves behind a 13-year-old son. Poor kid. I can't say I'm all that torn up about it because (1) I'm not close with that side of the family and (2) I'm an insensitive, unfeeling bastard. This morning, I felt better (not 100%, but well enough to come to work). As I was getting ready for work, I had a shocking realizat...

Good Morning, Kittens. I hope you are recovering from your weekend activities. I know I am going through the complete Family Detox. Whew. Love my family, but -srsly- 2.5 days of them all together in one place is just about right. So, anyway, on Xmas Morning, I awoke, really really early to bus and metro to the airport. I felt like total crap. Stupid cold. DC National Airport (DCA) was pretty dead and going through security was a breeze. Lots of cute boys apparently travel on Xmas Morning. Yayz. I arrived in Greensboro. My brother and father picked me up. We went back to the house. I wrapped presents and drank lots and lots of coffee. Then, we opened presents. From the brother, I got a Barnes and Noble Gift Card (yay!). From the parents, I got an argyle sweater , a shirt and tie, a Target Gift Card, some moneyz, and several pieces of pottery. I know it probably seems weird to give *me* more pottery, but I have several blue and white serving dishes from a NC potter. That ...

Happy Boxing Day, Kittens! Like, OMG, wireless internet is a beautiful thing. I'm at a Panera Bread somewhere in Greensboro. And, ooooh, I can access my computer ... and I *should* be completing and emailing some job applications, but, well, I am blogging. Sosume. Christmas with the family was good. As much as I totally *heart* my parents, good lord!, can they start to wear on my nerves after a couple of days. And there was No Alcohol to help! GAH! I could jes' die. Here's a funny little story about how to tell if you are in North Carolina ... My brother and I were watching the news on Tuesday evening, and the reporter was interviewing a man about his community's group dinner and, he said, and I kid you not!, "It provides a good opportunity to conversate against each other." Um. What? My brother actually hit rewind on the DVR so we could verify what we had just heard. Conversate. Against Each Other. W.T.F? And, then, my brother said, "And this wasn't...

Look! It's my SuperCute First-Cuzin-Once-Removed wearing the t-shirt I gave him: OMG. So cute. Thanks for the photo, M! My family, we have teh Cuteness Gene . Srsly.

An anonymous commenter asked: What does 1st cousin once removed mean anyways??!! Luckily for all of you, I used to have to explain this sort of thing when I was teaching genetics to my biology students (many, many moons ago). So, using the StickSteven Family Tree , let's learn about cuzins! *w00t* This is my family tree: (dashed lines mean future/imaginary relationships) (you may need to click to embiggen) As you can see, StickSteven has StickGrandparents , StickParents , and a StickUncle and StickAunt . The children of StickSteven's StickUncle and StickAunt are StickSteven's StickCuzins ( StickFirstCuzins , if you will). The children of StickSteven's StickFirstCuzins are his StickFirstCuzinsOnceRemoved . The children of StickSteven's StickFirstCuzinsOnceRemoved are his StickFirstCuzinsTwiceRemoved . Do you see how that works? Now, it gets fun. Since StickSteven is a genetic deadend . Let's pretend that his StickBrother gets bizzay with his StickGirlfrie...