A Palace and Men Galore

Ok I had the craziest dream last night.

I remember it beginning in the theatre. I’m not sure if I was watching a movie or if it was some kind of awards presentation or concert or what, but it was in a theatre and I was wearing a nice black sweater. There was a kind of handsome early 40s man sitting next to me (kind of light hair and not SO much my type, but very warm and nice chiseled face) who started talking to me and, to my surprise, kind of grabbed my arm while we were talking – like to see if I’d pull away.

The dream is really scattered so you have to try to follow.

So I’m not sure what kind of community this is that I was living in … like maybe some kind of academy or something (I remember feeling like we were all professional students, or at least a lot of us were) and I lived in this huge old building that was, rightly called, the “palace.” You know when you are in a dream and you realize that an element has been recurring? Well that’s the palace for me. I went “home” and discovered that my room had been moved and saw the guy from the theatre down the hall…like if I was standing in my room with the door open then I could look down a long hallway and see his room, and I remember that we kept stealing looks. I was really disoriented that everything had moved, probably to make room for him, and I remember thinking how silly it was that I felt lost in my own house just because my bed had moved one room over (and as it turns out it hadn’t, but that’s not an important detail). When I was walking on the grounds one of the administrators/attendants (like someone who worked there and who treated me with respect but was himself middle-aged and also obviously a character of some weight in the community) asked me if “Robert _____” (don’t remember the last name) had moved into the palace where I was living, and I remember thinking that I knew the answer was “yes,” because I’d seen him in his room, but calling where I was living “the palace” really threw me off. When he walked away, the history of the building came back to me (it used to be a palace) and that’s when I realized that building had occurred in other dreams.

The dream (unfortunately) moves away from what could have been a pretty hot romance lol, because we were all assembled in the palace and it was announced that there would be a competition akin to one of those dinner party mystery games. Robert was looking VERY handsome in his tuxedo, and we had this kind of silent flirtation like “this would happen but right now we are competitors” going on, and of course everyone had growing suspicions about the role everyone else was to play in the game. The dream lost a bit of coherence in this part because I just remember going up in a very modern elevator, after our roles were announced, with the game master (who himself was playing), and he was given a clue about me to the effect of “don’t trust him because he has knowledge things that other people don’t and has done all of this before” or something like that, but, true to his warning, I knew that he had received that clue about me and could kind of read the situation. We had this sort of odd conversation in this long elevator ride that would be fitting for some kind of experimentalist French play or something where I was trying to figure out my own clue, and where I should get off the elevator, and he was trying to feel me out to see exactly what his clue meant – like saying to me that I must already know the solution to the mystery, and me saying that I didn’t know what the solution was, yet, but I knew what it wasn’t. It was very weird. The elevator stopped, and I thought for a minute it was broken, but then it was clear that I had to climb out of the elevator through a false passage into one of the chambers of the palace where there was this smokey room full of black dancers dressed as 1920s flappers. I had some kind of test with them that I don’t remember, but I do remember sort of grinning, at that point, because it was clearly going to be a very interesting game, and it was fun to see them a bit dazzled by my sudden appearance from a secret passage.

The dream totally changed gears, I’m not sure how, when I made some kind of emergency visit to my mother, who I was shocked to find out had remarried. Not only had she remarried, but she became the third wife of an Iranian man living in Dubai (like I said, the beginning part of the dream with Robert was the best lol). I entered into this setting of domestic chaos, as one of the children of the second wife was getting married and there was a huge celebration that my mother wasn’t invited to (being sort of the black sheep who was resented and looked down upon by the first two wives who were better in rank and because they were Muslim). I was totally puzzled as to why she would enter into that situation, because I thought she was fine single, and being married hadn’t even changed her life substantively. She kept her place in California and he occasionally visited her. She was only in Dubai for this celebration that she wasn’t allowed to officially be part of. When the party guests returned to the house, and in my mind I was thinking of how to make her husband answer for making her a pariah and treating her like some secret mistress, and while I was also trying to figure out why my mother had made such an awful decision, they wanted her to perform some kind of ceremonial dance with the daughter who was getting married (which was mysteriously like a pairs figure skating spin, so I’m clearly watching too much Olympics!) and my mother caused a huge scene by refusing. The problem was that she was so emotional and this huge drama was caused, but she wasn’t interrogating her husband in a productive way, and I intervened to really grill him on how things turned out this way. I remember telling her: “You still have your place in California…we can just go home and forget about this.” I also gave her a funny speech about how unjust it was that if they were going to exclude her from the ceremonies, then he could at least send her on an all-day shoe shopping trip to compensate. I’m not sure exactly how the dream ended, but I think I persuaded her to come back to California with me.

OH! I almost forgot – when I was in Duba,i someone from the palace called (Robert?) and I remember saying: “This will sound crazy, but my mother became the third wife of an Iranian man but she doesn’t even live here, here being Dubai….” and I said I’d have to call him back. I also almost forgot about another kind of interesting part – during the whole scandal about my mother refusing to perform the dance, she was SLOWLY claiming her place in the house and insisting upon mingling with the guests (awkward but bold) and we were sitting at this bar when I heard two guys (kind of hot brothers) speaking Dari to each other (and of course since it’s a dream, I could understand it). I immediately knew that they were Tajiks from Afghanistan and was waiting for them to make their way closer to my mother and I so I could introduce them, surprise them with my knowledge of Afghanistan and my Tajik friends, and finally have SOMEONE (my mother) get to see how hot Afghan guys are. I remember they both had really, like, almost blond hair, and were young (like my age) but muscled in that way that you might not notice at first but then when you realize what their bodies are like you’re like “wow, he is BUILT!” The hotter of the two brothers, interestingly, when he saw me (before I even had a chance to approach) said to me in Dari: “You are Tajik!” and I told him no, but that I knew what he was saying and that I’d predicted that he and his brother were from Kabul, which they were. He told us that they had just moved to France two years ago, and I woke up when I was asking him why France, as he spoke such good English (his brother did not).

That’s my dream!

VC

Gross Olympic Update

Ok I know you all want to hear about Istanbul and my 24th birthday, but guess what? I feel like blogging about my favourite German biathlete and then I might even blog about belting divas and the already-long-passed Grammy awards. SO THERE!

(all my photos of Istanbul are on my phone, and I can't load them onto my PC until I get back to Cairo, so you can wait until then for me to give you the WHOLE picture, literally, of my Turkey trip)

Just wanted to say the while it might SEEM as though Gross is not having a very successful Olympics, as the first two races were one by Germans and neither of those Germans was my Ricco, but I'd like to point something out to his doubters (who totally don't read my blog, in fact I've never read negative press about him, so he might not even *have* doubters, but LISTEN UP anyway!!):

In the first race, he finished 11th, while the German who would win the second race finished a pathetic 17th, and missed THREE targets (to Gross's one), and in the pursuit race today missed FOUR targets (the winner only missed two, although I should qualify my bashing of this guy -- Fischer is his name -- that he is skiing with INCREDIBLE pace, as he still won bronze, today, missing four targets and finished less than 16 seconds out of gold, so he skated A LOT faster than the gold medal winner...BUT THIS IS BIATHLON -- if you want to ski fast then go to cross-country...this is about skills...like...for hunting bears and stuff...and Gross can totally hunt bears and Fischer can't -- he can just ski really fast AWAY from the bears!). As for the German who won the first race, he didn't even compete in the second one (or didn't place in the top 30, which are the only results I have).

When I spoke to Ricco on the phone (I came to Istanbul, rather than spending my birthday with him in Italy, because he has to stay with the German team and they don't like me very much because some of the things I've said about Gross's teammate-competitors on my blog...) I told him just to focus on the 7.5km relay, since I think he can win another gold there, and the 15km mass start is just bonus, and if his back hurts just don't even bother with it.

So that's it for my update about Ricco! Take if from me: the man is a consistent performer who knows how to use a rifle :)

VC

Growing Up and Moving On

Edit: Ok I’ve written this entry and it’s SO all over the place that I want to diagram it for you – Account of three people I was jealous of in college and why, broken up by a discussion of how I used to feel about myself and why, the fact that I got over it (with a recent anecdote to prove it), and then a return to the main point of the blog, which is me chuckling at the expense of one of my former objects of jealousy (no offense to him intended!).

I was sitting here, between quite impressive pairs short programs from Torino, thinking about college and a few of the people of whom I was TRULY envious (there were only like three). One of them, an American guy (French father) from Beverly Hills ended up, oddly enough, becoming a friend of mine. He was a cyclist/track frat boy who appeared in GQ (it was a really boring article about Ivy League frat boys) who I was absolutely awful to our first two years of college. He was loud, show-offy, and I found him totally despicable and quite jealously-worthy. I remember my girlfriend sort of trying to coach me through my moments when I'd, like, seize-up if he got in the elevator or otherwise flaunted his "better in every way-ness" (she was EXTREMELY tolerant of all of my mental issues...most of which I am thankfully over!).

Two VERY bad moments related to him:

I was on my way to econ class (when you see how many of my bad memories relate to economics you'll probably understand why I sought solace in art history and ditched so many econ classes!) and I saw him in the distance. To contextualize, between the ages of, say, 16 and 22 I wasted a good portion of every day finding things to hate about the way I looked (from body, to skin, to body and skin, to hair…) and THANK GOD I managed, I think really with the help of a really supportive ex of mine, around December 2003 to just WAKE UP and stop losing my life to wishing I didn’t have one. I think about SIX YEARS of sometimes grave misery and how pointless it was and it’s just really sad…there were times when I had to have a no mirrors policy, because that was the only way to let myself forget about how I looked.

To contrast that with my current relative stability (and I didn’t think I would blog about this, but it’s relevant here as a positive point, rather than a description of something negative), a week ago today Shakira and I had brunch with someone who I don’t think either of us will be seeing again, who showed up to meet us at the Four Seasons totally plastered (to the point that he was spilling wine, falling down stairs grabbing onto people, etc.) and swinging wildly in mood between feeling like it was ok to sexually harass me (I’m talking physically grabbing me in front of people in the restaurant and making EXTREMELY inappropriate comments about the ONE time a LONG time ago that he got so lucky…) and being extremely mean and diminishing. Imagine someone wiping his drunk hand down your face, telling you that you are sexy and beautiful, and then following that up with something like: “I don’t know why I think you’re so sexy when you’re actually sort of ugly.” That is NOT an exaggeration. It was a literal laundry list of my faults, and Shakira sat there in shock while I was basically dismantled. Now, to be clear (since I totally have a backbone and quite a lot of ‘tude), if it had been just the two of us, me and the Ass, I’d have thrown a drink on him and walked off after one nasty comment. The problem, though, being in a group three is that the perfect 10/10 model for social gracefulness and class kind of undergoes a paradigm shift – when you’re one and one, you should be boldly confident and storm off…when you’re there with a guest, you need to keep it under control, be placating but firm, and basically demonstrate that you are impervious to the other person’s nonsense for the duration of the encounter (rise above it) because what does your friend do when you storm out? Storm out, too? He made an ass of himself and, in his drunkness (and his insistence to pay even when I gave the waiter my card) cost him almost $400 at brunch, so too bad for him! Anyway, a little over two years ago my OWN obsessive self-condemnations would have done me in, let alone someone making a laundry list of all the worst things I tell myself, but that day, I handled myself PERFECTLY. I wasn’t even upset after the brunch (although I was a bit surprised someone could be so ugly…and I’m referring to him, of course). I admit that later in the evening my defenses wore down a bit and I maybe did some snickers binging for comfort, but I wasn’t about to walk in front of a bus, and I can still look in the mirror and at reality without having to blink or feel bad about it (I am what I am! The end!), so that is HUGE progress.

Anyway, that’s not the point. I’m not physically perfect; I’m great in a lot of ways. Less great in others. Sometimes I’m confident. Sometimes I’m less so. Usually, though, I’m as balanced as I should be and that’s FINE at almost-24.

Back to the story : ) So I’m walking to econ class, and I see him in the distance. Trying to avoid a self-hate trigger (but I’m sure staring madly from afar), I tried to dash up the stairs in front of me so I could turn the corner to class before him and have him out of my sight-line (and also in 2nd place in some kind of neurotic car race to class I’d subconsciously constructed between us…that’s healthy: “You’re hot and oblivious to my jealously, but I’m the winner because I can walk faster!”). Unfortunately, I wasn’t paying attention to my feet, and SOMEHOW my impeccable balance abandoned me and I fell into such a heap on the stairs (which is weird because it’s only like 4 stairs!) that I remember three people rushing over to me to see if I was ok. My leg was bleeding THOUGH my pants and this funny (and very typical, if you know Columbia’s Registrar’s office) sort of big black woman just said to her friend, amazed that I was still ambulatory: “If that had been me, I’d have stayed down.” I was DETERMINED to go to econ that day. I remember that I’d spilled something on myself at lunch and it was the perfect reason to ditch class (I can’t go LIKE THIS!) but I’d told myself that no matter what I was going…well I guess obviously after my fall I didn’t go.

For the second awful moment related to him, he and his friend (who, oddly enough, is one of the characters in my Arabic book! HOW WEIRD IS THAT!? -- they did a new DVD edition last year with new actors and HE is one of them!) were sitting outside the steps to the International Affairs building where we had econ class, and being "elevator peeps" (a phrase coined by another friend to refer to the people we've seen in the elevators in the dorms hundreds of times and seem to shadow but who we don't know) when I walked past him and his friend, anticipating in my head some kind of humiliating and jerkish comment (even though he had NEVER interacted with me before, nor had I ever seen him insult anyone...this was just my insecurity demonizing him and inflicting senseless dread upon myself), and he said: "Going into class already?" What I would later find out was kind of an insecurity -> eagerness on his part I interpreted to mean "You ugly nerd are you going into class 20 minutes EARLY? HOW LAME!" and so I looked at him and said, in a snotty voice that did not at all reply in turn to his rather civil tone: "Yeah. I am. If that's alright with YOU." Sort of taken aback, he just said: "Um. Yeah." (Poor thing, he must have been totally confused by my attitude!). I then proceeded to give him the DOUBLE bird (the finger with both hands) and said "THANKS!"

Luckily for me, he didn’t see my fall on the steps, and he didn’t really remember that I was the guy who was such a bitch to him outside class, when, two years later, we had accounting and finance together and, for whatever reason (read: His gaydar subconsciously beeping when he was around me, even though I didn’t even know I was gay, and him doing, and it is subconscious – poor guys – the “I am uncertain of my sexuality and don’t know it yet, so I’m oddly drawn to someone gay, even if he doesn’t know it yet, because I internally crave exit from the closet I don’t yet know I’m in and might never be able to leave” that I now have seen SO MANY TIMES…especially in Cairo!) he always wanted to sit next to me. He decided that our distant French ancestry, and the fact that the region his family name is from and my family name is from are next to each other in Central-South France that we were “brothers” and we became decent friends. It was an awkward dynamic, in that I was always confused and skeptical of his being friends with me, self-defensively condescending (although less and less so as time went on), jealous, and not wanting to grudgingly admit that we were total opposites but could be really good friends. I remember filing daily reports with friends who I expected to be equally stunned at the odd phenomenon: “And today, he actually TOUCHED MY CHEST and said that I had impressive pecs! I mean WHAT IS THAT? He’s gay, right?” Someone should have told me *I* was lol. In the end, he called me a few times while I was working at my law firm and he was working at a real estate firm, but we were bother really busy and I ended up not calling him back. Still hope he’s well, though, and wouldn’t mind catching up with him sometime (although I do hope, if he is gay, that he doesn’t struggle with the closet his whole life, as I suspect he may).

He’s #1. #2 and #3 insecurity people from college were an inter-related pair, because they comprised what I’ll call the “gorgeous European haute-bourgeoisie library-dwellers who are all econ majors and smoke outside the library while talking on their cell phones and planning trips to each others country villas and Ibiza.” Ok so anyway, there was a GORGEOUS (in the “sometimes gorgeous model and sometimes sort of brutish” way) Italian guy and his differently-but-equally gorgeous “roommate” (I now look back with skepticism), a French guy who, for all the Italian was the kind of six-foot beefy, was more of a slight super-defined but facially PERFECT (like picture the head of one of the Roman senators in the Met Museum) French guy. The Italian lived on my floor Freshman year, and I’m trying to remember why, exactly, I’d ever had discussions with the French guy. It’s really odd that I can’t remember in what context we’d spoken… my girlfriend’s best friend had slept with him…and of course I was made uncomfortable by rumors of his four hour marathon “only stop to get a drink of water and keep going” abilities [Ewww! Yuck!]…and I knew another girl who used to go and flirt with BOTH of them and come back to tell me about hanging out with them in their dorm room with them both only wearing boxer-briefs!...but why I ever spoke to the French guy and in what context really escapes me. Anyway, I do remember exactly HOW he spoke, and I do remember being invited, through a mutual friend (WHO? This memory gap is so weird!) to go clubbing with him, and I also remember that he was doing XTC…and I didn’t go…I also remember that what I hated MORE than the fact that he got to be French, and have really tan and freckless skin and REALLY blue eyes, was that he was one of those people with such defined triceps that they ALWAYS looked flexed (mine are now quite nice, for the record ;p).

Well anyway, the whole point of this blog entry WAS going to be that I googled French guy, just to see what he was up to, and I found something that TOTALLY made me laugh. I mean, let’s be clear: when we really grow up and gain confidence in ourselves, we don’t need to look down on others to get over our demons. If I’d googled him and he’d become a French youth ambassador or Olympic biathlete or something (speaking of: my Ricco didn’t win today but we are wishing him luck for later in the Games!), then I’d probably think “Wow, good for him!” but this did make me laugh…a lot…because it’s EXACTLY how I remember him. I guess what you should take from this blog entry is that you now know a LOT more about my “down” times in my late teens/early 20s, and you also will get to read a hilarious idiotic comment (although I make no profession of an ability to judge his OVERAL intelligence) by someone who (used to be) gorgeous and who I (used to be) really jealous of. Follow this link, and look for the quote by someone from France (do a cntrl+F search for “France”) and look for the guy with the initials J.F. (don’t want to say his name, because it feels kinda mean).

VC

Kwan's Health Uncertain

Blog readers, we need to send our collective strength to Michelle Kwan, who might have to drop out of the Olympics (NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and is, I hate to break it to you, suffering from "YET LAG."

VC

PS: It occured to me that yahoo might fix the typo really soon, so just in case you think I can't spell (well actually, I can't, but that's not the point) yahoo news described Michelle Kwan as having "yet lag."

Strange Dream

I just remembered a dream I had last night. Very odd.

I was going to Shakira's flat, and while it's true that her flat is in the area that is next to AUC but quickly becomes VERY lower middle class housing within a few blocks, in my dream it was like it turned into an informal housing slum. I remember that the streets were sort of like cobblestone and totally dark and I was almost slipping on the pavement as I walked, thinking about how pitch black it was and how surprising it was that I'd never noticed how close she lived to the brick boxes with no water or electricity that you see so much of on Cairo's margins. I then realized that I'd somehow missed the turnoff to her house and had walked past it into this area, and when I turned around I also realized that I'd been walking in and out of the gutter (which was just a shallow depression along the side of the street -- and not how Cairo is in real life). It wasn't traumatizing or anything, but I did have mounting anxiety about how dark and late it was and how unfamiliar I was with the area.

I went upstairs to her flat and here is where the dream really changes. I visited with someone in real life who does not exist, an African-American guy whose relationship to Shakira I don't really recall. They sat me down at a table (almost like a botth at a diner) and introduced me to someone who I recognized (after a few minutes) as American rapper Dr. Dre (I think that was him). We were all playing it cool and not saying anything about Dre, until for some reason we decided to go to another location and the guy who sat me down and introduced me to Dre sort of asked: "Do you know who he is?" and we laughed about how I'd recognized him but was not making a big deal out of the situation or asking questions, and he and Dre said they appreciated that. It wasn't clear to me if they were lovers or something, but I remember that we were all just sort of happy and easy-going and it was like they were relieved to find another friend (like Shakira) who could be really down to earth and know the secret. It was funny, too, because they told me that when Dre first met up with this guy, they would pretend, when in public in the US, that it was this other guy who was famous (just to distract people) and Dre was his personal assistant, and so he would like shout orders at Dre in public, like: "And I told you I wanted that NOW!" so that people would never think to really look who Dre -- a servant, basically, in the lie -- was, but then he'd have to run up to Dre and whisper: "Wait, what is it that I want?" and Dre would give him direction about how to manage the public and this fake celebrity lifestyle.

A friend of mine from college who, in real life, I'm not in touch with was also there, and we decided to go back to my flat that I was sharing with her. I remember there being some scary moments leaving Shakira's flat in the elevator (which IS true to real life) and that it started rocketing from the top floor to the ground level without stoping and I actually jumped out into the shaft (it's one of these open-shaft elevators, like the old-style wooden ones, so you aren't really trapped at the bottom -- you just open the door to the metal cage and get out), and counted my blessings that I'd escaped that elevator, again (this was totally triggered by my odd experience with it yesterday...I swear to God one day that thing is going to kill someone).

It gets weirder. When I left the flat I was aware that they were watching from the balcony and sort of, like, smiling and commenting about their new friend, and I started doing this thing, which I can only describe as half flying half walking, running (it's like skipping or bounding, but I get more height and distance and can REALLY jump like 20 or 30 meters at a time), and when I realized I was doing it in the dream, to get back to my flat, there was such a familiarity in the movement (like I could control it well and it was just a very familiar way of moving) that I realized that it's something I've done in OTHER dreams! It was also weird because I passed through all kinds of terrain getting back to my flat, including snow.

At some point when I was bounding along back home, Shakira and this college friend appeared in seperate cars and told me that we should drive back and try to pick up cute guys in THEIR cars on the way back. I said ok (!), and got in the car with Shakira, while I remember this college friend sped off in her piece of junk can and Shakira and I sort of laughed and rolled our eyes. There were NO hot people ANYWHERE, and then as soon as I said that comment (and of course in the dream I said it loud enouh or telepathically enough that my college friend could participate in the discussion even though she was in a seperate car off in the distance), this car with two REALLY hot guys appeared, we made contact, and basically did the "follow us" thing and they were all coming back to our flat to hang out.

The dream ended when I got back to the flat and I saw that Shakira and the college friend had left a huge mess with old pizza boxes and things lying around (I remember that the mess wasn't mine, because I'd just cleaned in the morning for the maid to come), and I was like scrambling along with them to try to make the place look presentable while one of the guys was using the bathroom.

That's all I remember!!

Weird, huh?

VC

Quranic Gardens

No Comment.

Hingis: Yay, Gaydar: Nay

Amazing news! Hingis DESTROYED Maria Sharapova in Japan this morning in the semis of the Toray Pan Pacific Open (or something like that). You can read this article for more info, but basically she crushed one of the most dominating players on tour, and it's like this child prodigy is making an equally prodigious return to tennis. Talk about a learning curve! -- Every week it's like she's 20 times better than the last week. She surprising even me (and I'm like her biggest fan other than her mom).

I was a little concerned that Sharapova might pummel her (she's one strong girl), and I was worried that it might be doubly humiliating for Martina because of a comment she made when she announced her return like 4 weeks ago about how she wanted to play Maria more than any other player on tour because she didn't see what all the hype was about (she said something like: "Watching on TV I can't see what's so special about her game, so I want to play her and find out"). Martina has never been one to shy away from controversy, so everyone who hates her (which is a LOT of people) jumped on the chance to say she'd put her foot in her mouth, but I think she was just being frank: Sharapova doesn't have great volleys, forward-backward movement, or variety of shot, and she has basically no strategy other than "hit it really hard to wherever my opponent isn't standing." Anyway, Hingis killed her!! :) [you can check out this article for a cute photo of Hingis, a reference to her controversial Sharapova comments, and a funny description of her win over Sharapova as a physical and mental "beat-down" lol]

In totally unrelated news, I've deleted my gaydar profile. There are a lot of reasons, but I gues the most important one is functional: I am not interested in sex; I don't want a relationship with anyone but Pookie; and I already have too many friends (although not in Cairo) to properly stay in contact with right now, so "networking" is not really a reason to be online. I've found myself checking the site less and less frequently, and totally disinterested in the people who contact me, so the site has no purpose for me at this point. I think if I were to say "I'm so proud of myself" or "I feel like this is a new phase" or something then it would mean that I was investing a lot in the site in terms of what I was hoping to get out of it that I wasn't...this is hardly a watershed moment...but I did feel like it was worth blogging about just in this little paragraph, because I think that it does kind if point towards my imminent return to NYC (that for a while seemed impossibly far away), and my final decision that there is really nothing worth me exploring in Egypt as far as any kind of gay community is concerned (and "meeting people through friends" is not really an alternative entry point to online networking as it would be in other places)...which is fine :)

Still chunking on and plugging away!

VC

PS: (just to be controversial) --> Any thoughts on burning of embassies as a form of free speech?

My New Lover

Provocative blog title but I totally do not have a lover (especially not a NEW one...ewww).

I do want to say, though, that the only good thing about this whole defamation of the Prophet cartoon scandal THING (since it's clear that no productive dialogue is going to come about, or even articulate monologues, for that matter) are CONSTANT images of the Danish Prime Minister super hottie Anders Fogh Rasmussen in the media.

Why no one is talking about his hotness in their news reports is beyond me! He's definitely the hottest state head at the moment by far.

I'm thinking that if Pookie and I don't have a puppy by the year 2010 (HEY! I'm giving him FOUR YEARS to work it out!) then I'm buying a one-way ticket to Copenhagen. I can tell Foggy is a dog lover ;)

VC

Edit: I forgot to say (related to the topic of the cartoon scandal) that I think Jack Straw has NO spine. He's worse than Blair. I cannot stand the kind of egg-shell walking he engages in and think that his speech about how inapprioriate the reprints were and how the UK tastefully decided not to do that is ridiculous. I can't stand the US government for its irrationality and lack of diplomacy, but I can't stand the UK even more because it's BOTH the scared puppet of the US and the spinless uber-diplomat. Basically, both countries really disappoint me in terms of their highest levels of government at the moment.