A TALE OF TWO TITTIES

With absolutely no apologies to Charles Dickens*


I had promised my girlfriend Lori a night on the town in honor of her birthday. So I took her to the Double Wide Grill on the South Side for "Trailer Park Trivia." Thanks to my encyclopedic (and creepy) knowledge of Andy Kaufman (he was an absurdist, people, not a comedian) and George Michael (marijuana makes him happy, OK?), we took home the bronze and won third place as the trailer-park-trash-team of "Sylvia and Gladys." (Lori chose the names, and I chose to be Gladys, because I thought I looked more like a Gladys than a Sylvia. I dunno. You tell me. I'm the blond, blurry one to the left of Steve Swanson, our sexy-geeky, gracious host. One of my colleagues will tell you I have to smudge because of all the stalkers. He includes, of course, himself among them. But back to the photo: Lori is on the right, holding the $10 gift card we won, and used immediately to buy another drink.)

We were expecting a lot of Britney Spears questions, but much to our delight, Steve mixed it up nicely and posed some real brainteasers -- including one about why the doomsday clock is set to go off five minutes before midnight. (Thanks to the Carbolic Smoke Ball, I am also totally in-the-know about "all things doomsday clock.")

After checking out a few other spots, and embarrassing Lori as much as I could by announcing it was her birthday (to me, the birthday of someone I care about is the most important day in the world and should be celebrated accordingly, for it is the day that the world brought you here, and along the way, I was somehow fortunate enough to have you become a part of my life, blah blah blah Bette Davis eyes and tears and estrogen, etc.) we decided to call it a night.

And, at 11:30 p.m., I had realized that I had gone the entire day without anything to eat. And that there is no where to eat in Pittsburgh at that time. So we indulged in a guilty pleasure -- McDonald's French fries.

This caps off a week of much merriment, including my clandestine coffee shop meeting with Sue Kerr of Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents and Ledcat. I hope I didn't scare them too much. I'm six feet tall and I tend to dance my way in the door, even when there's no music playing. Well, not really, but you'd swear I was. On both accounts.

I had realized that on that evening, at 7 p.m., I had not eaten all day, so I ordered a grilled cheese. Naturally, since I am insufferable, the conversation with my server went something like this:

Me: "Do you have sweet pickles?"

Server: "No."

Me: "You know, those bread and butter pickles."

Server: "Ah, no."

Me: "Do you have any pickles?"

Server: "No, sorry, we don't have any."

Me: "Do you have anything pickled?"

Server: "Well, we have [my brain tuned this part out because I didn't hear the word pickle]."

Me: "OK. Do you have any Heinz products?"

Server: "We have ketchup."

Poor guy.

Later that night, I decided to pick a fake fight with John McIntire and I ended up calling him a conniving rapscallion. He retorted by calling me a sniveling guttersnipe. That was fun. By the way, he and Gab Bonesso will be at the Club Cafe January 25. Word is there's word that something's brewing for both of them. Word.

Last week, I actually had a very nice conversation with Mary Robb Jackson from KDKA, who wasn't happy about something I had written about her in my annual local TV news predictions for the new year column in the City Paper. She was so diplomatic and lovely and just oozed genuine-osity -- but I still don't feel guilty and told her I can't wait to write about her again. She had me at hello. She rocks. (And how the hell did your phone work all the way through that tunnel?)

Anyway, back to the coffee shop with my favorite Lesbian Correspondents -- after our top-secret, super-on-the-sly girly-girl bonding, I apologized to Sue and Ledcat if I squeezed the life out of them when I hugged them goodbye. (I swear I only made someone cough up their lunch one time. OK. Three.)

I made a point to stop at a coffee shop in my 'wood Wednesday night in between drop-offs and pick-ups to assorted kid sporting practices to pick up a City Paper and in no time had coffee coming out of my nose and ears when I saw the cover -- it was a fantabulous illustration of a Pittsburgh I Spy. The one that did it? Find Dee Thompson's hat. You have to pick up a copy.

I completely behaved myself there, minding my own business (even though it's so much more fun to mind other's business), and only threatened to steal a man's pen when his friend was razzing him for worrying that if he left his reading glasses on the table and his papers and stuff that someone was going to steal them. So I had to ask what the prescription was because I just so happened to be in the market for a new pair of glasses. They were too strong, so I told him how much I admired his pen.

Suffice it to say, I wrote my to-do list with it last night.

Fast-forward to this morning, when, after a keeping a week's worth of promises and social obligations and tending to general kid needs (winter formal -- daughter had to have Eva Longoria hair, dress alterations for her and a friend -- please, don't tell anyone else I sew; pinewood derby -- second-grader is now two-time champ and going to the finals -- and watching my other son kick some serious butt at his 8th grade basketball games) I discovered this lovely sight after I sent the kiddos off to school this morning:

Apparently, someone in my house is bleeding to death and I'm completely unaware. I think I'm just going to go with a diagnosis of Lupus and call it a week.

*But with definite (or should I write absolute?) apologies to Mr. Fasson (because there were actually four breasts on my team), my Algebra II teacher who tried his damnedest to get me to pursue a career in math because I went the entire year with a perfect problem-solving record on every test. I know, I can't believe it either.

And that concludes this morning's bedroom dispatch. Have a great weekend.