Monthly Archives: July 2003

July 23, 2003

The quality of mercy is not strain’d;
It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.

My God, how glorious would my life be if I could find a way to believe that?

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 4 Comments

July 22, 2003

I have returned to New York. Somehow, magically, I seem only to have gained two pounds in my weekend of Caligulan feasting.

However, I seem to have lost the ability to be interesting. I’ve tried all day to come up with something worth posting, and I have failed.

I’m choosing to see this as a marshalling of inner forces in preparation for this Saturday’s blogathon rather than the incipient evaporation of anything of value I might have to say.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 1 Comment

July 20, 2003

I am at a writers’ retreat in a small town in Delaware. Since arriving here on Friday evening, I have done nothing but eat ice cream and, presumably, get fat. I say “presumably” because my hosts, a lesbian couple in their sixties, have no scale in their house, so I have no way of knowing. Luckily, the ice cream is good enough that I don’t mind.

But I suspect most of upper Manhattan will be able to hear my screams of despair once I step on my own scale when I return tomorrow night.

And thank you to everybody who has been sponsoring me in the blogathon. Keep it coming. I have a lot of free sex to deliver, but I have faith that I’ll be up to the challenge.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 5 Comments

July 17, 2003

If my sitemeter statistics are to be trusted—and I am inclined to believe they are, especially as they never told me we had to attack Iraq because of the weapons of mass destruction apparently spilling out of every kitchen cupboard in that country—271 people have visited my blog today, and exactly one of them pledged to sponsor me in the blogathon.

I can think of three possible explanations for this:

1. The idea of sex with me is not as appealing as I imagined it would be. If this is the case, I will have to reevaluate what I’m doing here, because I don’t think I’m capable of being any wittier or more charming.

2. I wasn’t clear enough about the process. I do not see a dime of the money you pledge. It all goes to the Generator Theatre, a nascent not-for-profit theater company dedicated to developing and producing new and exciting musicals. It’s a good cause—perhaps not as profound as Doctors Without Borders or Amnesty International, but still worth your 25 bucks.

3. People don’t think I mean it.

I mean it.

Seriously—whether you’ve been a reader of my blog for a long time or have just tuned in recently, if you enjoy what I write I’d very much appreciate your making a pledge to sponsor me. I’d hate to think that the labor of sleeplessness I’ll be going through July 26-7 would be for $25. Plus I have a fabulous theme for my posts.

You can make a pledge here [link no longer active].

In the meantime, I hope he enjoys his free sex.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 13 Comments

July 16, 2003

After yesterday’s cheerfiasco, I spent much of today trying to decide whether to swallow arsenic in the manner of Madame Bovary or to become a recluse and devote myself to a life of service to the deserving poor.

Then I remembered how messy and unpleasant Madame Bovary’s death was, and that made my choice much easier.

Then I remembered how messy and unpleasant lives of service to the deserving poor tend to be, so I figured, what the hell, I’ll just do the blogathon instead.

The general idea here is that participating bloggers post every half hour for 24 hours, in return for donations from sponsors to the charities of the bloggers’ choice.

This means that, starting at 9:00 a.m. next Saturday, July 26, I will blog every half hour for 24 hours. No cheating. No entries set to post automatically. In return, I want you to pledge money to the Generator Theatre, which is a writers’ collaborative theater some friends of mine and I are forming to foster the creation, development, and production of exciting and meaningful musical theater. You can read more about Generator here.

What I need from you, aside from continual assurances of your love, is money. Go here to figure out how to sponsor me. In return, you get not only the pleasure of reading my insomnious ramblings but also the joy of knowing you have helped a worthy cause.

Also if you’re a cute boy you get free sex.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 8 Comments

July 15, 2003

The captain of the cheerleading squad told me last night that there are a lot of really small flyers (see this post for an explanation of the positions on the squad) trying out—enough to give us more flyers than bases next season—and that I’m therefore not going to be a flyer.

And they’re eliminating the position of mid base flyer.

Which means I’m going to be a base. And a more or less useless base, since I’m too small to throw anybody up in the air.

After having felt how glorious it is to fly, even in my limited capacity as mid base flyer, I’m now going to be permanently earthbound.

I don’t know that I can bear it.

I have at least a passing familiarity with eight languages, and I don’t know a word in any of them that describes how bad I feel.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 12 Comments

July 14, 2003

Saturday, after the cheerleading squad cheered at the New York Sharks game, one of the flyers revealed that, because of other things going on in her life, she’s going to be taking time off from the squad.

I hugged her goodbye and told her I’d miss her but secretly I spent the entire subway ride home—a long one, as the game was in Queens—trying not to let my nearly uncontainable glee show on my face, because naturally I am the obvious choice to replace her.

Then I remembered that there are tryouts for the squad next Thursday, and since then I have been consumed with fear that people smaller than me will show up and make the squad and that I’ll get passed over for flyer status.

The solution, of course, is that I’ll have to go to the tryouts, get the names and addresses of all the people smaller than me, and arrange for them to meet with unfortunate accidents.

Because I’m going to be a flyer if it kills me.

Or, more accurately, if it kills others.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 9 Comments

July 13, 2003

So the anaerobic physicist has returned from his trip overseas. (For those of you who are joining us in medias res, I am referring to my step aerobics instructor who also has a Ph.D. in physics and is fluent in Italian and is my soul mate, though he doesn’t know about the last part.)

Due to poor planning on my part, I was unable to go to his Friday night step class. Since I’m going to be out of town next Friday, this meant that it would be weeks before I saw him, and he would think I had stopped coming to his step class because I am in love with him and can’t deal with the fact that he has a boyfriend, and I would then never be able to go to his step class again because then I would have to see him and be utterly humiliated. I was about to go mad with frustration until I checked his web site and saw that he was going to be subbing for another instructor’s class this morning.

So instead of sleeping in, I woke up early and went to Union Square. When he saw me, he seemed pleasantly surprised; I of course pretended to have had no idea he was going to be there, and claimed (lying through my teeth) that I had a meeting in the neighborhood and figured I’d just stop by the gym beforehand. I’d practiced several amusing things to say off-hand in Italian once he mentioned that he spoke Italian (my knowledge of his skill in that area having come from stalking him rather than from his ever having said anything about it), but by the time I realized he wasn’t going to mention that he spoke Italian I’d already said all the amusing things in English, and my Italian is rusty enough that I didn’t trust myself to improvise, so I pretended to have to get a drink of water and fled the scene.

When I came back, there were still a few minutes before class started, and he was entangled in a conversation with a woman taking the class. She had evidently been a regular at one of his classes some years ago and was catching up. She asked some question too quietly for me to hear, and he answered, with a laugh, “No, not yet. I think it’ll be quite some time.” I couldn’t decide whether she’d asked him if he’d gotten tenure yet, in which case I could go on with my life, or if he’d settled down with somebody yet, in which case I would have to kill myself, because of course if he was dismissive about the idea of settling down with somebody, then that means he’s not serious about his boyfriend and yet he still doesn’t want to date me, which means he doesn’t love me and never will.

Such was the state in which I started step class. It actually went quite well, and I managed to keep the semblance of a smile plastered on my face for most of the time, though this was made more difficult by my constant uncertainty about whether my staring at him would come across as appropriately watching the teacher or pathetic and undisguised doomed love.

At one point the tape ran out, and he went over to change it, muttering rhetorically, “What’s next?” I said, “Chocolate!”, which was about the level of humor of which my brain was capable at the moment. He stared at me, baffled, and said, “What?” Thinking that I must have spoken too quietly, which I often do, I croaked “Chocolate!” with more volume and projection. He said, “What?” again. “CHOCOLATE!” I screamed. He continued to stare at me, and the woman he’d been talking to before class said, “Abs!” and he turned to her and said, “No, abs is later.” Then he put in a new tape and I committed seppuku.

Unfortunately, he didn’t notice my ritual suicide, so I had to finish the class.

After class was over, a thin ray of hope entered my life. We were doing abs and had gotten to a part where our legs were supposed to be up in the air. This being a position with which I am quite familiar, I figured I had it down pat, but as he walked by, he adjusted my feet.

He touched me.

I mean, he touched my shoes, but still. I almost fainted right then and there.

Then I went and had lunch with a cute (but unfortunately unavailable) guy who also takes his step class regularly, and I told him about the momentous event, and he said, “Oh, yeah, he adjusts my feet all the time.”

It’s too bad I’ve already committed seppuku today, because I don’t know what else I can do to put myself out of my misery.

I’d throw myself out my window, but I’m only on the second floor, so I’d probably just break my hand again.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 5 Comments

July 10, 2003

I thought I was gay as I could possibly get. I mean, what with the orgies, the knitting, the cucumber and mud masks, and the general super-homosexuality—I would provide links to various posts detailing these and other illustrations of my entertaining if occasionally excessive fagginess, but I can’t work the new Blogger interface—I figured I’d gone as far as I could go.

I figured wrong.

On August 17, I will reach the zenith of my queerness; I will achieve, if you will, my gaypotheosis.

I’m taking the test to be certified as an aerobics instructor.

No need to crowd to kiss my hand or touch the hem of my robe; there’s enough of me for everybody to share.

I know this from experience.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 14 Comments

July 9, 2003

Last night I decided to make banana bread (from scratch, naturally) for the first time in my life.

So I got some overripe bananas, mashed them up, toasted some walnuts, etc., etc., and ended up with an appropriately curdled-looking batter, which I poured into two loaf pans and put in to bake, after which I busied myself with various other activities for the 55 minutes called for by the recipe.

Then I went to take the bread out and found I’d forgotten to turn the oven on.

The bread I eventually ended up with tasted delicious, but maybe next time I’ll skip the extra step.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 4 Comments