Bait and Switch

I got a phone call from Mr. Date tonight.

"LET'S FUCK AND 69! LET'S FUCK AND 69" and then laughing hysterically he started babeling about 6-2.

My initial reaction was, "I didn't know he had a drug problem."

Once Mr. Date was able to make himself coherent, he proceeded to tell me that some schmoe in Portsmouth NH is using my picture on his Manhunt profile. Aside from claiming to be me, he also avers that he is 6 foot 2. I will say this, he is claiming to be 32, so either I look better than I think or he, more likely, needs a new prescription for his lenses. The only thing he got right was claiming to be French Canadian.

For those of you who have come to know the Ganome, you know that he stands proudly at 5'3" and he shall never see 50 again. 32 is but a dim memory.

What to do, what to do? If I had more than 10 people reading this thing, I would publish this guys screen name and then leave you to your own devices. I am quite sure that people could come up with some fairly interesting propositions for our friend.

At the same time, I am sort of horrified to think that someone is so desperate, that they are using my picture to try and lure people for hook-ups. I can speak from experience, that photo was not exactly causing a line to form at the front door of the Ganome lair.

I am still trying to decide whether I am more irritated or amused. I did send him a little message. Keeping it short and sweet I simply wrote, "My goodness, we must have been separated at birth. Asshat!" I think I showed a great deal of restraint.

I will check back in a couple of days and see if he takes my picture down. If not, the gloves come off and I will publish his screen name and his profile. After that I leave it to you, gentle readers.

The Pie of Doom

“Okay, you can have broccoli, green beans, cauliflower, cabbage and brussel sprouts.”

It’s my trainer and we are negotiating my diet.

“How do we feel about sweet potatoes?”, I ask.

“Okay, you can have one big one, but that’s your carbs for the day. Now, fish oil, olive oil or flaxseed oil… and oh, yeah, nuts. Walnuts, almonds or cashews.”

We are having this discussion because I had my flab measured. 18.2% body fat. I am aiming for 12%.

This has me thinking about my rather neurotic relationship with food. I realize coming from a man who is currently subsisting on protein shakes, boneless, skinless chicken breasts, brown rice and green vegetables this may seem a little odd. What one must bear in mind is that I came to this state due to my love of food.

I think back on wonderful meals as old friends, gone but not forgotten. One of the ultimate eating experiences of recent years was going out to dinner with C. at James's Gate, in J.P. and ordering fried oysters as an appetizer. Always a risky proposition. More often than not what you get when you order fried oysters is hot pencil erasers in greasy batter. What we got on this memorable occasion was a basket of light crunchy heaven in the form of fried batter with sweet juicy oysters hiding inside, waiting to surprise and delight anyone with tastebuds. I do remember that the rest of the meal was equally as well prepared and delicious, but C. and I have only to remind one another of the oysters to assume a far away look as though we are recalling some long ago love.

Several years ago, when the mommy state decided to ban unpasteurized cheese for our own good, Wahz and I headed out to the Star Market to buy the last of that bizarre concoction of Borden's, Liederkrantz. For any who do not remember, or never tried it, it was a cousin of Limbourg cheese on steroids. It, quite frankly, stank of cow barn and composting silage. It was heaven! We stood side by side at the dairy counter, looking sadly at our friend who was to be condemned and Wahz pulled out a box of it and said, "We have to eat it on saltines. That's really the only way."

I reached in and grabbed my own box. "I have no intention of sharing." I stated flatly. We stopped and picked up some beer on the way back to Chez Wahz, and then tucked in. We slowly ate an drank our way through a half pound each of incredibly lively cheese, and talked about smelly cheese we had known and loved. I have no doubt Wahz house smelled as though a herd of cows had been lifting their tales in there by the time we were done.

Catherine's Chocolates, is a tool of Satan. I do not share. On the rare occasions that I buy a pound of hand made chocolaty mortal sin, I dole it out in a way that allows me to savor the box in a way that is probably sexual to the point of perversity.

I have been trying to put behind me all that is good and fattening, but I am being sabotaged in my efforts by Italian women. They are a curse. I work with some lovely people and 2 of them are a mother and daughter team from the North End. Last week being Holy Week, Mom was cooking up a storm in preparation for the big family dinner on Easter. She likes me. She brought in some pizzagaina for me. For those not familiar with this holiday treat, to the uninitiated it is a brick of pure cholesterol. In fact it is a custard base with fromaggio fresca, provolone, parmesan and romano, and richotta cheeses, studded with mortadella capicola, prosciutto, pepperoni and sopressato. You gain 10 pounds if you stand in the same room as this stuff, and it is every bit as good as it sounds. Possibly better if you are lucky enough to have office Mom make it for you. I also found out from her daughter, the office Babe, that Mom has to really like you in order for you to rate a piece. I felt honored, I justified it by telling myself it was a holiday and no one keeps to a diet over holidays and I managed to make 3 meals out of the “little” piece she gave me. It was worth it. Okay. It was just worth every ounce I gained looking at it. Shut up.

A couple of days later, one of our grad students came in. She is a very nice young woman from a city just south and west of Rome on the Mediterranean. I had done her a favor so to say thank you she brought in a strawberry tart she had made. It was made with fresh strawberries. It involved pastry cream. It had a crisp, perfect crust that had more to do with a light toothy shortbread, than shortcrust. I am pretty certain it had enough butter in it to cause cardiac arrest in an elephant. It went down the hatch. When someone has baked for you, you have to say thank you and eat at least one small piece. I must have been unusually polite. I had 2 honking pieces.

The next day Mom strikes again, this time with ricotta pie. I won’t even start. Saying it was good would be damning it with faint praise. I did, in a combination of self interest and, I must admit, saintly generousity share the ricotta pie with my faithful student worker, the Montrealer.

And the end is not in sight. I was talking to the Office Babe about the fact that Italian women seem to have it in for my waistline. Her response was, “Hm! Well that’s too bad because I’m making goodies over the long weekend, so I’ll be bringing stuff in on Tuesday.”

I’m doomed. Got a napkin?

Morning walk to the gym

Play ball!

It was opening day at Fenway Park today, and over 2 hours after the game has ended "The Greatest Fans in the World" are still staggering around my neighborhood in a cloud of alcohol.

I have never been a fan of baseball, but after putting up with these yutzes for 14 years I have grown to loathe baseball in general and the Red Sox in particular. It is duller than watching paint dry, but I think drying paint would probably present too great an intellectual challenge to the average Sox fan.

I am hard pressed to put my finger on what gets under my skin the most. Watching fat suburbanites dressed up in oversized baseball shirts carrying baseball gloves is pretty annoying. Having happy intoxicated fans scream "FAGGOT" out of the windows of yellow school buses is not up there with snow flakes and kittens either.

Perhaps most bothersome is the smug satisfaction that radiates off of them. Somehow, lining the pockets of a group of drug addicted, serial sex offenders qualifies as a worth while activity up there with curing cancer.

They have no reason to doubt their noble cause either. The media, the Red Sox organization and the pudgy little jerk in the mayors office will all tell you if you are in any doubt that they are "The Greatest Fans in the World!" and that the Red Sox are "The Greatest Team in the World". Never mind that it seems they have only won the World Series twice in the course of a century.

Among the privileges of this club are permission to vomit and urinate where ever you choose, pick fights with residents of the city, terrorize elderly people and smash in car windows, and on occasion overturn or set fire to cars with plates from the state the team is playing against. I don't even want to go into the whole New York thing.

You would think that these happy souls would be satisfied with this, but you would be wrong. Like most bullys, they have an Achilles heel. They are all terrified of the city. Put them within sight of the stadium and they are as bombastic as can be. Suggest they use public transit and the blench and quail. So they squeeze their bloated alcoholic bodies into their oversized SUV's and drive into town, snarling traffic for hours. This is where they go wrong. Many are willing to pay the obscene prices charged for parking, but there are always a few who are slow to learn and the little dears park in resident only spaces. That is when my little black and evil ganomish heart sings. Because there is a fleet of tow trucks in the pay of the city just waiting to tow these jerks cars.

Of an evening I like to occasionally sit on my front steps and watch the ballet that is the dance of the tow trucks. Once in a while, the baseball oafs will decide to be clever and park in the alleys. These are all paid parking spaces. An old pal Bunny had one such spot that he rented so friends would be able to park if they drove in to visit. On game nights he sat by the window with the phone. If some halfwit pulled in and staggered off in the direction of the stadium, he would call the tow company. Then if he was home when the game ended he would resume his station at his window for a little quiet entertainment when the one of the greatest fans in the world came back looking for his car and wondering if he had gotten so shit hammered he couldn't remember where he'd parked the family car.

It's going to be a long six months, but it is one of the prices that must be paid for living in a relatively cheap apartment. It is making me wonder once again about moving. Not just out of this neighborhood but out of this city and leaving it to the ball fans.

Change of plans

Late last night the phone went off. The niece called to tell me, unfortunately, that my sister-in-law's father was taken to the hospital. Needless to say, Easter festivities have been called off. I do not know the gentleman very well, but the time I have spent around him, he has always struck me as a very nice guy. I feel bad for my sister-in-law.

As an atheist I don't say prayers, but I will be thinking about my brothers family today. As for me, I will try and do some of the chores that I put off yesterday.