In the Past 31 Days...

...I've had one cigarette, but that was within the first ten days of the month, and I've had one puff at two different times during the month. Is the ashtray licked? At least for the moment. I'll take one day at a time and start a new countdown tomorrow.

...I've seen Dreamgirls and Smokin' Aces. Dreamgirls was infinitely more fun, more attractive and less bloody. Plus the Dreamgirls soundtrack lends itself to a full month's worth of drag moments. You try singing "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" and not breaking into a rendition worthy of the best drag queen you've ever seen.

...I've had two dates with two different guys. I saw Smokin' Aces with one, and went to Tunica with the other. One date was two years in the making, if you can believe that, and it was a gamble that paid off.

...the Pink Lady found out she is a candidate to be contestant on a certain reality show, and we helped her shoot her second application video and inappropriately destroy another German chocolate cake. The final cast will be selected by mid-February and we're hoping that she's a "loser."

...I've helped the Artist and the Chef begin their move back to Memphis, by helping move their Mardi Gras float of a bed and paint the bedroom Parisian taupe.

...I've helped Sweet Wade and assorted company fend off Bridezillas at a bridal show. Sweet Wade has started his own catering business, and catering to the whims of indecisive brides is part of the job. And serving up pomegranate fizz and macerated strawberries in balsamic vinegar with creme fraiche on a Sunday afternoon is part of my job as friend.

...I'm learning to dislike my job more and more with each passing day.

...I've decided to start yoga. In February.

2006: The Year In Review

I figure I've got a small window of opportunity to discuss the year that was before it's passe.

So what was 2006 for me? Well, after all of my thinking and wishing and contemplating, I still don't know. Perhaps 2006 can go down as the Year of Uncertainty. It was a year of big changes. There was a new job. A new place to live. The splintering of the Gaggle, which was a lot more traumatic than you might expect.

In moments, it was an emotional year. I think I found myself crying more than the Chef ever did. I tried to laugh a lot but at the same time, there were several moments that the need to cry completely overtook me. Like the morning that HotAss and I had breakfast at Brother Juniper's, and somewhere in the middle of a San Diegan omelet, I cracked up for no good reason.

I cried a lot in 2006, and I felt sad a lot more often than I cried. Hotass could probably describe me as a perfect horror to live with because I cried or felt sad too much. Maybe I cried because they were gossiping. Maybe I cried because the elastic was shot in my pantyhose. Who knows? I cried at the drop of a hat in 2006.

But on a personal level, I can confess that most of the year was a time of a midlife crisis for me, although I'm too young for a midlife crisis and I'm too old for a quarter-life crisis. At any rate, it's a crisis of age that has not quite run its course.

For me,thirty-four is that age where you realize it's time you get your shit together (referred to as "fecal cohesion") but you're still drawn to the stupidity and the carefree times of your youth. There is an overwhelming part of me that longs for the La Vie Boheme - waiting tables at a non-chain restaurant (even though I would grow tired of working for tips in less than a day) and renting a house in Midtown, sparsely decorated with roadside sofas and Che Guevara prints (although I couldn't tell you what Che did, but they seem like they're the thing to have if you're a bohemian). But there is a part of me that wishes I had a carefree life. A big part of me.

Instead, I drive a Honda to my very respectable job that requires me to keep regular haircuts and a sensible wardrobe.

So if anything, 2006 might be the year of trying to find myself (again), and when 2007 rolled around, I realized I might still be missing. Only my face isn't on milk cartons.

So in 2006, I did NOT find myself. Nor did I lose myself anymore than I already was. In fact, I think I was probably right where I had been all along. Sitting here. Waiting. Wishing and still trying to figure out what the next step was.

Here's hoping that 2007 will be better.

It's Not About the Size; It's About the Fit.

It's not normal to be this excited about underwear. Especially not underwear obviously designed for someone 15 years younger with a broomstick waist. But I'm here to tell you...I couldn't be more thrilled about my new GinchGonch pretty panties.

At first, I wasn't so sure I could be sold on the grown-up Underoos. After all, the first salesperson told Hotass, Artist and I that he has "a 28-inch waist and wears a medium." It was difficult for the three of us not to roll our eyes and call him a "bitch" under our breath. If this little waif of a boy wore a medium, there was certainly no chance for more...um...robust men, like myself.

But, Artist purchased a pair for his beloved. Hotass got a pair, and since they're just so darn fun (and since everyone else had some), I had to get mine. After much deliberation and consultation, and knowing that there is a strict policy about not returning underwear to the store, I opted for a large. Merry Christmas to me.

New Year's Eve found the three of us with our pants down, showing off our new special-occasion underwear.

And just for the record...I had to wash my delicates in hot water and dry on high heat twice to take up some of the slack.

Tell that bitch with the 28-inch waist to eat a freakin' biscuit and that a medium would have worked just fine.

Cold Turkey

I am a smoker.

I have been for many, many years, and it is a label I have resisted just as long. But like the millions of other Americans who will be raving bitches by this weekend because they have sworn off nicotene on January 1, I too am quitting.

I started smoking when I was 18. It was the summer I was home between my freshman and sophomore years in college, and I was working a crappy job in my hometown. Just after school let out for the summer, some rednecks broke into the high school and tried to set fire to it. The library was mostly destroyed and the rest of the school had smoke and water damage. So my summer job was working on the clean-up crew, sponging down the walls and wiping soot off books and desks.

This was not a hard job. It was monotonous, spending a full 8 hours meticulously wiping down cinder block walls floor to ceiling. And one afternoon when I was leaving work, I was struck by an overwhelming craving for a cigarette. So I stopped at the QuikSak that afternoon and bought my very own pack. Marker Ultra Light 100s. Generic brand.

It must have been working around the smell of smoke and charred wood all day, because up to that point in my life, I had barely smoked. I had only experimented.

My father smoked. Salems. And I remember the comforting mix of cigarette smoke, coffee and aftershave. And I remember smoking butts from the ashtray just to know what it was like.

My cousin and I played a game that could be likened to hillbilly Ker-Plunk! He covered the mouth of a Mason jar with a couple of layers of paper towels and secured them to the jar with a rubber band. And then we placed a stack of quarters on the paper towels. We passed a Vantage cigarette back and forth, taking turns burning holes in the paper towels. Whoever caused the coins to fall through, lost. It was usually me, and I usually made him inhale for me since it made me hack.

The Christmas before I bought that pack of cigarettes, I was drinking fuzzy navels, and a high school girlfriend offered me one of her Virginia Slim menthols. And to this day, I still think a menthol cigarette tastes like you've lit up a stick of Doublemint gum.

Ever since that day in 1991, I've been a closet smoker. Admittedly, I've never been a heavy smoker. I can only remember a couple of times - in college - that I was a pack a day smoker. Usually I could make a pack last three or four days, especially the past couple of years.

Actually for the past several years, I've been like one of those politicians, publicly decrying homosexuality but sucking dick in every rest area along Interstate 40. I worked for one of the nation's largest opponents of smoking, but giving Big Tobacco my share of their fortune every three or four days. My excuse was "I've spent all day fighting cancer. Right now, I just want to make friends with it."

And I had probably been smoking in denial for several years. I didn't consider myself a smoker because I had rules. I didn't smoke at work. I didn't smoke in the house. I didn't smoke in my car. I rarely smoked before work. I didn't light up in restaurants unless I was with another smoker. I didn't really smoke around people who didn't smoke. Even in Memphis' bars, where the smoke is so thick you smell like a filthy ashtray when you leave, I tried to step outside when possible.

And most of the time I was okay with all that. I didn't go out of my mind with nicotene cravings. For most of the past eight or nine years, I had no problems with finishing a pack of cigarettes and going for a week or more (once I went six months) without smoking another. I could just quit.

But eventually the craving would return. And rather than resist the craving, I bargained with myself. "Hey, you finished that pack four days ago and you're just now wanting one? Treat yourself. It's the weekend."

Honestly, I enjoyed smoking. It was sort of relaxing, and it was a good excuse to step outside and collect your thoughts for a minute. But there are the obvious unfortunate side effects. I need to only think of my father who has emphysema and is permanently attached to an oxygen tank to remind me that smoking is not a good idea.

So I smoked my last cigarette shortly after midnight on January 1, 2007. And two days later, I'm still okay with it. I'll still have to contend with the real challenge which is a Saturday night at The Pumping Station with a cocktail in hand. That's when the urge hits hot and heavy, and my will power is the weakest.

Twenty-eight days is the magic number. Two down. Twenty-six to go.

I'm Coming Out - Part Deux

Yeah. It was too good to last. So I've decided to come out of retirement. Or maybe it was a sabbatical. Or hiatus. Or whatever the fuck you wish to call it, but at any rate, I'm coming out. I want the world to know. Got to let it show.

I'm coming back. I have this funny feeling that there will be lots of things to talk about in coming months. It's a new year and I'm determined to make 2007 one of the best ever. This is the year I turn 35. I want to be a much more pleasant and contented person who makes use of the gifts and talents I've been given and who appreciates the many blessings in my life. I want to be happier. I want to be whole, and it's been a very long time since I've felt that way. But that is my new year's resolution.

To feel whole again.

So I'm going to write more. And paint more. And squeeze the good stuff out of life more. And laugh more, and live more. Who knew that it would be so much work to just be and then so much more work to just be happy?

In a moment of joking last week, Hotass, the Artist and I started rewriting the Bible, and I believe there is a verse (that's the new Memphis James Revised Edition in case you're wondering) that says, "You have been given a great and powerful gift. Don't fuck it up."

That's probably one of the lmost important lessons we're put here on earth to learn.