It's all fun and games until...

Yeah, I'm in a funk. It happens every once in awhile, you know. Okay, so usually it is hormonally related but still. That doesn't mean the alleged cause of it isn't relevant.

This time, I could blame its onset on my dear friend Elan. You see, the rat bastard went to Maui with his buddy Rick for a week, which is all fine and good... really. Just DON'T SEND THE PHOTOS (top, bottom). For fuck's sake.

ASshole.

But that's fine. I WANT him to have a good time. On Maui. In the sun. And the warm, crystal-clear blue water. Actually, I'm quite hoping he gets, um, lei'd (there's only so many instances you can use that gag, people, and I'm just bitter enough to do it). Meanwhile, I have been having a very good time with Thespian.

We have been spending quite a lot of time together lately, Thespian and I, even before Elan bailed for Heineken Island. And it's been quite lovely. There was the beautiful and amazing Afro-Peruvian Susana Baca show at the Brava Theatre, followed by a dimly lit, late-night supper at the stylishly haute Slow Club in SF. Mmm...

Then there was a fabulous steak-and-oysters dinner in Marin at the slightly stuffy-esque but very good Buckeye Roadhouse, which we were supposed to follow up with a cool "History of New Orleans Jazz" thing at the Boyer Theatre in Mill Valley, but we were so enjoying a 2003 bottle of Donati Meritage--and each other's company, I think (okay, don't puke now--I deserve to have these moments, fuckers), that we missed the show entirely. Ahh...

AND also, my first feature cover story for The Pacific Sun came out last week. "Yesterday's Papers" (or, "Life During Wartime," as it appears on the website photo) is a Q&A I had with media critic and political activist Norman Solomon. I found Norman to be engaging and inspiring, and I actually learned a lot from him. So I was happy--but anxious, as I always am before a big story comes out--to have written about him.

So yeah, life is good.

But...

Home, home on the räcka...

And naturally, because he has money and needed to decorate his fabulous new pad, Elan needed to be introduced to the world of Ikea...

Ikea, for those of you who do not know, is an experience. It's sort of like the Disneyland of Swedish interior decorating and design. And it's cheap. Or, at least, each item is affordable-- the trick is to make it out of Ikea's two massive floors of bed, bath and beyond without a cartload of shit you didn't know you needed, and will have to assemble later.

Check out this Yelp-er dude Tony V.'s review (which, by the look on Elan's face at the end of our three-hour stint, is shared by many males):

"Have you ever had an ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend that you broke up with a long time ago, but continue to have the hate sex because you don't have anything better or you don't know any better? That's exactly what Ikea is to me. Shopping there is a tension headache inducing swift kick in the balls but I go there every couple of year anyway. Why? I guess I don't know any better. Or I think I can't do any better for the amount of effort and money I'm willing to invest. Just like hate sex with an ex-girlfriend."

Oh! And the CNB's...

So... I don't know if I might've mentioned this before but Elan moved into a new apartment, shortly before I landed my studio a mere half-mile away. And his place is sort of like a male Melrose Place. He lives in a cozy gated compound with another apartment building housing four very cute, single, young dudes. Needless to say, they LOVE Elan (most people do) and come over to hang at his pad seemingly more than they hang at their own. But they are very nice. A little too young for me but still. And anyway, Elan and his Cute Neighbor Boys (i call them "the CNB's") share a big courtyard, where they've set up a firepit and a large screen projector for "movie nights." Here's our first of many...

... and the this and that...

Yep. He's also been taking me to random bars (top, can't remember the name--there have been many) and this great--and I mean GREAT (believe me, I was skeptical, coming from Hawaii) neighborhood sushi joint called Koryo in North Oakland...

The settlin' in...

Right. So living in the East Bay has been kinda rad. And Elan's been pretty awesome about showing me around. Like, to the flea markets... where I find hidden treasures, such as this vintage vibrator (top) and this handy female urinal (bottom)...

...Red hot addendum...

By the way, I just found out that van belongs to our awesome art director, Beth Allen, who heads up this fantastic cool-van website called, Don't Come Knockin'. She let me check out her "Red Hot" shaggin' wagon's interior and it's all floor-to-ceiling black and red shag with a faux leopard fur dashboard and hanging dice. She's rad... the van, yes--but Beth, too. And, of course, she plays electric 'uke in a band called, Pineapple Princess (that's her on the right in the site's photo).

I feel so lame all of a sudden.

Red hot, baby...

Sex on the brain is making work today very difficult...

My lovely friend Krista has a term she made up--"vagina eyes"--for when her eyes are all puffy after crying or not getting any sleep. However, I believe my own personal definition of "vagina eyes" is when, like today, I am so overcome by ambiguous sexual desires that I see everything lustfully...

Like this van--isn't it hot??