Caipirinha

So cute story... One of my friends, who is an ASL major, was at the bar with us one night and he was showing us all basic words (our names and such) in sign language when our waiter, who also happens to be a personal friend of mine, stopped by the table to see how we were doing. So he sees my friend signing to us and he goes "Oh wait, I have one!" And he waved his little hand around and did Lord only knows with it and ended it with a snap out to the side. When he was finished my friend burst out laughing, so of course we all want to know what he said. Apparently at some point in time our waiter had dated a deaf man who used to address his friends with "What's up, dog?" And also completely off topic; Another friend of mine has a degenerative eye disease in which her iris isn't fully formed so she had some sight but she is legally blind. He mother also happens to be completely blind. Well, since she is legally blind she can't drive, so one semester I volunteered to drive her. Her school was about half an hour away from where she lived and on one trip we spent the entire time talking about blind culture, of which apparently there is quiet a lot of.

You know that would have only been half as embarrassing if I hadn't actually read the story... (And liked it, mind you.)

You could always just have him start drinking tequila and call him Jose... P.S. Take it from a licensed professional bartender and an amateur alcoholic, add a splash of Creme de Cacao to your pomegranate martini. Make sure it's white; dark Creme de Cacao will ruin the color. Otherwise, sit back, relax, and sip your way to chocolate pomegranate oblivion.

Dry: A Memoir. By Augusten Burroughs. Amazing doesn't even begin to describe...

I don't know. I guess it depends on what type of romantic mood it is. Like if we were at your sister's wedding and you asked me to dance I would want to hear something like "At Last" by Etta James. And conversely if it was playful, let's go to a carnival and kiss at the top of the ferris wheel, romance I think I'd like to hear something like "Fantasy" by Mariah Carey.

Lots and lots of tequila. :-)

Personally I would start by freaking out. I would say all sorts of inappropriate things and make inappropriate jokes and generally not know how to act/behave around the person. Then eventually I would come to my senses. Truth is, it's not my life it's theirs. If this is what that person wants, if this will make that person happy, they should do it regardless of any objection I might have. Everyone deserves the chance to be happy. As for whether I could stay with the person or not, it gets tricky. I have a female friend who I am completely, utterly in love with. If every person only has one soul mate waiting for them, then I am so SOL it's pathetic because she is clearly it. The only thing standing in our way is sexual attraction. She completely agrees that we would be a perfect couple and that we are in fact soul mates. Except we're not attracted to each other. The point of that tirade is to say that I know within myself there is the capability to fall in love with a woman. I guess saying that I would have to end the relationship because she is no longer a man would be too easy of an answer, because despite the fact that the plumbing is different this is still the same person I initially fell in love. Don't get me wrong, I'm not pretending to be some kind of a saint. I do think that ultimately the relationship wouldn't work because I really like boys, but I think that if I honestly, truly, loved the person I'd owe it to myself, and to them, to at very least give it a shot. </ my two cents>

Um yeah I know what you mean. When I was in High School the gay population consisted of me and one of my friends who happened to be a lesbian. Fast forward to four years after we graduated and seriously like 40% of the female and 10% of the male population at our old school is suddenly fashionably gay or "experimentational." And don't even get me started on pregnancies...

Culture and location obviously play a big part in what is consider normal and even delicacy. One of the dishes I'm most familiar with is a southern Italian dish known as "Suffrito" In it's most basic form it's the heart of a cow boiled in a tomato sauce. In it's most delicious forms it also includes the liver, lungs, and kidneys. Italians are also big consumers of Tripa (cow's stomach), Cotena (pig's skin and the fatty layer underneath), Turchinello (sheep's intestines), and Chicuori (essentially Lard/Grizzle that is used to make a bread known as pizza con chicuori). Say what you will about Italians and their...interesting...eating habits, but at the very least you can't call us wasteful. I was in Italy once visiting my grandparents around the customary time to slaughter pigs. My parents had told me for years that they don't waste anything, but seeing it for yourself is a whole different experience. The only things they discarded were it's teeth and it's hair. It was pretty amazing.

Mmmmm, I can't wait for the conversation to turn to organs...

There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures...right next to the mashed potatoes. In all seriousness though, Humans were designed to be omnivores. I'd going to go ahead and assume that wasn't an accident...

It's not exactly a music recommendation but if you check out Last.fm and make a profile, you enter music you like and they recommend other music like it. It's a pretty wonderful website. I've found a lot of really good music from it. You can also choose an artist's radio station which is once again a "radio station" of nothing but music similar to the original artist. Hope that helps. :-)

Hahahahahaha, my brother and I both speak Italian fluently, so we used to speak to each other in Italian Pig Latin when we were in school together. Because obviously Italian in and of itself wasn't foreign enough to keep secrets from the rest of the student body, faculty, and staff, minus one teacher who spoke Italian as well.

I voted for "I'd love it!" I love dressing up. I'll do anything from an actual costume to drag to wild clothes. So long as I can get a laugh out of it, I'm up for anything. Going in drag is probably my favorite though. God gave me the gift of being able to walk in heels, I may as well throw on the wig and booty shorts and make use of my gifts. ;-) I wish I could pin point the craziest thing I've ever done, but I've done a lot of crazy things. One year around Halloween time a group of us went out to a Hooters. Well I decided to dress like a Hooters girl. So we walk in and the waitresses are all in stitches because of my costume and one of them says "Honey if you're going to wear the uniform, you better start serving tables." So I got up and started serving tables with them. The waitresses thought it was hysterical, but I'm pretty sure the guy who had ordered chicken wings from a blonde with double d's wasn't exactly thrilled to see me bouncing up to his table with his order. ;-) I did make some pretty good tips though.

I read somewhere once about a specific author who would spend days just people watching. And as he saw interesting people walk past, he would create entire lives for them. I've always had a supremely over-active imagination so as soon as I read that I immediately started doing it just for fun. That's where the majority of my characters come from. Right before I go to sleep, I'll think about the characters and dialogue will just happen. And in much the same way that I can make up an entire life for a person just by watching then get a coffee at Starbucks, I'll figure out an entire plot line from just one conversation.

I guess I'm one of those people who has always known. Actually for the better part of my child hood I was convinced that I was actually supposed to have been born a girl and that God had made a mistake somewhere along the line when I popped out as a boy. I remember the little things. Like when we would go shopping for Christmas presents with my uncle, my brother and him would go look at some ridiculous macho kill everything video games and I would sneak into the Barbie aisle. And even then it takes a special kind of 4 year old boy to stand in the Barbie aisle, holding two boxes, having a crisis because he wanted a doll wearing that dress with those shoes. I never had a problem being different, because to me it wasn't different. To me it was just being who I was. So when I really learned the meaning of the word gay and the connotation that it has I was a lot less "OH MY GOD! That's what I am!" and a lot more "Well I'll be damned, they have a word for it!"

I've never really had the urge to have children, and I don't think I particularly want them but, from what I've been told, I'm spectacular with kids. Plus I'm young. I think my mother was completely insane to have children at 21 and 25. However I'm absolutely positive that I will be raising kids. My brother is a hopeless geek, every girl he has ever dated, including his current girl friend, is a hopeless nerd. No my brother's already told me that it's my responsibility to raise them with an awareness of things other than video games, comic books, and dungeons and dragons. He wants me to help raise them so they share my love of art and wold culture. He wants me to help them become well rounded, cultured, individuals. I want to help raise them so they don't get beat up every school day of their lives for being hopeless dorks. ;-) Now, if I ever did decide to have children, it kills me to say it because I believe in adoption, but I would probably use a surrogate. Mostly because I live in a fairy tale world where the rivers are made of Vitamin Water, Twizzlers fall from the sky, and some day a spectacularly handsome, genetically well, prince charming will fall madly in love with me for no reason and father our children. Genetically speaking I'm a mess so I don't ever see myself fathering children. If I were in a committed relationship with someone who wanted children and was willing to father them, I would love them like my own. And If I stay single forever (which is most likely what will happen) I will either never have kids outside my nephews/nieces or not end up adopting children but rather fostering older kids, the ones that harder to place.

In High School I was on the Foreign Language Honor Society and a Broadway show was always our big spring field trip. Sophomore year we saw Aida on tour in Hartford, CT. Junior year we saw Man of La Mancha on Broadway. But by far the best of the trips was my Senior when we saw Aida again, except this time on Broadway. We were lucky enough to see it before it closed (We went in May, it closed that same September, 2004) on Broadway. When we went Deborah Cox was playing the part of Aida which was spectacular enough in and of itself, but I almost burst into tears when I found out that Adam Pascal (who I'm hopelessly in love with) was resurrecting Radames a month after out show. So Aida is by far my favorite, unfortunately it closed (to the best of my knowledge, I never actually checked to see if it really did close I just took their word for it) :-( Man of La Mancha was good too. I don't know if it is still on Broadway, but the set they used on Broadway when I saw it was seriously genius. And as a side note my mother and I are the biggest ABBA dorks ever, in the history of the world, so we try to make it a point to see Mama Mia every time it comes around Connecticut.

I voted Yes if it's somebody I'm close with. However in my case it has far less to do with me being gay than it does with me being Italian. It's very customary in Italian culture to kiss someone on the cheek when saying hello or goodbye, male or female. In fact it's actually a bit rude not to. (As an aside my generation of Italian-Americans tend to make a lot of jokes about making 'The Rounds' at family parties. When you go to an Italian family party the better part of your first half hour there is spent going around the room making sure to say hello to everyone, which includes kisses for damn near everyone.) Obviously we are in America and not Italy, but it's one custom that seems to have integrated fairly easily in my circle of friends. I grew up in a very affectionate family where hugging, touching, hanging on each other is completely normal and for whatever reason that just seemed to spill over into how I interact with my friends and my friends seemed to just take it in stride. Now granted it definitely isn't a blanket system. I have certain friends who are to a degree uncomfortable with it, and obviously I respect that. A lot of straight male friends will hug but get weirded out by a kiss. For some even a hug is a lot, so a hand shake is as physical as it ever gets. Even certain female friends I have, mostly those who are in relationships with less-than-understanding boyfriends, tend to shy away from hello/goodbye kisses (sometimes even hugs) even if they are completely harmless and platonic. And conversely some of my female friends damn near make out with me when I see them and my best friend's boy friend, who is as heterosexual as I have ever met, actually pouts if I kiss her goodbye and not him. I really think it just boils down to being close enough to the person to know how comfortable they are with physical affection. If it's something your not comfortable with I'm not going to force it on you or force it out of you. As for myself I'm just as comfortable shaking your hand as I am full on kissing you.

Nick Pitera singing I may or may not have fallen in love with him at 1:01.

I read somewhere that all plots can be boiled down to 6 basic out lines. I can't remember what they are or where to find them. I do remember it was some anciet Greek Philosopher who wrote it. Anyway, assuming that's true, I'd have to say that finding an original plot is damn near impossible. It seems like when you boil it all down everything anyone is writing about has been done a million times before. That leaves me to think that it's not about finding a unique spin on a plot but a unique voice with which to tell it. I just watched Sydney White last night. It was a ridiculously blatant rip off of Snow White, but the way in which it was told was absolutely brilliant. It's a completely off the wall interpretation that was incredibly funny in its own right despite being just another re-told story. So yeah I guess I do believe that plots now-a-days are the same old candy in a different wrapper.

Aside from English I'm fluent in a trashy southern dialect of spoken Italian and I can stagger my way through spoken French and spoken Spanish. I say spoken because I'm functionally illiterate in all three languages. I can read most Italian but not write it, and I can read and write very, very, basic French. That having been said, I don't exactly see myself using an international forum.

Best books I've read in a long while: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk Giraffe: A Novel by J. M. Ledgard Life of Pi by Yaan Martel

Um Amen to that one.

Start a diet at the same time. In the past five days I've been so focused on what I've been eating (and not f**king that up) that I haven't even missed the cigarettes. Yes it's only been five days, but the first couple are the hardest...or so I've been told. Or you know whatever. Everyone seems to be giving you conflicting advice which just proves you need to figure out whatever works for you and go for it. The diet thing (as f**king annoying as it is) really helped me keep my mind completely off the fact that I'm not smoking anymore. It also lead me to start screaming "I just want some f**king real food" in my car and led me to being jealous of my dog who eats like a pig and weighs in at a perfect 55 pounds (The doggie equivalent of a size 0). f**king bitch. (It's also led me to say f**K a real f**king lot.) So you know. Trade off. Anyway I'm rambling. Good luck.