Author: Jeff Tabaco

WASHINGTON, D.C.–Brr! I’m back in D.C., and it’s cold!

Okay, weekend update. On Saturday, my parents and I drove across the bay to Concord, and spent a nice afternoon with my aunt and her family. We went to the mall, and I was reminded what I don’t like about shopping: the crowds. My M.O. is to do shopping research online, then go into stores knowing exactly what I want, but since I was there without a plan and didn’t feel like just browsing, it wasn’t all that fun. The next day, we went to The Good Guys to get my parents a new TV. On the way back, I got a huge cheeseburger at In-N-Out. Mmm.

On Monday, Mom and I went grocery shopping. I make note of this, only because after getting used to the tiny (and as I’ve heard nicknamed “Soviet”) Safeway near my apartment, being back at warehouse-like Pak’N Save was supermarket heaven. In the afternoon, Subarna and I took BART into San Francisco, and spent a few hours in the Mission District. We found a big thrift store, one of many in the area, with tons of good stuff. Sub made away with a couple of wine glasses and a quilt, all for a few bucks. Afterwards we tried to find Tartine, a bakery on Guerrero, but it’s closed on Mondays (as is Citizen Cake, another place we considered before setting out). Instead we found a coffeeshop on Valencia, and I had a much-needed coffee and toasted bagel, while Sub and I talked about this, that, and the other thing.

I went back home and found out from my mom that one of our grocery bags from that morning’s supermarket trip was missing. It had only a few small items in it, and she and I surmised we must’ve left it in the shopping cart in the parking lot. I was ready to shrug my shoulders and go, oh well, but my mom was not about to let go of $13 worth of goods, including a sizeable jar of Ponds cream. Somewhat on a lark, she called the store, and I couldn’t believe it: an employee had turned in the bag, and it was waiting at the customer service desk. What a nice little ending to the weekend.

DALY CITY, CALIF.–Tonight I fly back to the East Coast. Hopefully this return trip will be better than the flight debacle from last week. I should have invoked Sarah Vowell’s mantra in times of despair, annoyance, etc., however trivial, which is: “Could be worse.” Heh.

Up, up, and away!

DALY CITY, CALIF.—Will & Grace‘s Jack, on what Thanksgiving means to him: “What am I thankful for? So many things, really. The smell of jasmine, a kitten’s purr, InStyle magazine, Telemundo…” I’m so tempted to work these into a parody of “My Favorite Things.”

So today my parents and I had planned to see Die Another Day, but we underestimated to day-after-Thanksgiving movie-going public. Apparently the whole city was in the mood for a movie, and converged at the Century Theatres. The showtime we wanted was sold out, so instead we saw The Emperor’s Club. I think this is another case of good actors taking on bad writing. I do like Kevin Kline and Emile Hirsch–they play the inspirational teacher and clever but underachieving student, respectively–but as I watched, I felt a little restless, knowing that these actors are capable of more. The script is uneven: it starts out rather flat and methodical, and only in the latter half of the movie do the characters take on some depth. Any crisis they encounter is conveyed just superficially enough that I couldn’t feel for them. Ah, well. I wanted to like it, but I give the movie a hearty “so-so.”

Speaking of movies, a couple I’m adding to my to-see list: Far from Heaven, with Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid; and Pedro Almodóvar’s latest, Talk to Her.

In Will & Grace news, it looks like Leo (Harry Connick, Jr.) will be sticking around for a while. NBC is planning to make him a regular character. Hm. Again I say, what about Will?

At the moment I’m filling out my application for the Gap casting call. There are two seemingly simple questions requiring a description of what you like about Gap, and your personal style, but each is limited to a twenty-five-word response. I feel like I’m writing ad copy–which I suppose, it is (or will be)–or given the brevity, poetry, even. I’m spending way too much time on this. (By the way, I really like Gap’s “Love Train” commercial. I do a little dance whenever it comes on TV.)

DALY CITY, CALIF.–Home at last. Thank god almighty, I’m home at last. Despite (or perhaps, given) last night’s flight debacle, this flight seemed rather pleasant. On the plane I sat next to this friendly lady with her seven-month-old son, who was quite well behaved for a baby on a five-hour flight. “He’s flown to Asia twice, so this is nothing,” the proud mother said. Ah, not even a year old, and already the little tyke’s a frequent flyer. As the plane approached SFO, the woman and I chatted a bit and waxed nostalgic about the Bay Area, how scenic and lovely and lively it is.

By the way, the inflight movies were Scooby Doo again–has someone told Freddie Prinze, Jr. that he makes neither a convincing nor an attractive blond?–and Insomnia, which I’d already seen. And the flight was long enough to show some TV programming after the movies. Frasier? No, I wasn’t so lucky. It was America’s Funniest Home Videos, from the Bob Saget era. Yikes. Now if that isn’t enough to make you locate the nearest emergency exit (which may be behind you), and take hold of your seat cushion (which also acts as a flotation device). So I read a big chunk of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

I arrived at SFO around 9:30 a.m. I walked out of the airport terminal and waited at the departures curb for my parents to pick me up. Ah, fresh air. The current weather here is tropical compared to the East Coast. Definitely a far cry from Newark, where my gloves, scarf, and wool cap were straining to keep out the cold. So we got home in time to catch some of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade coverage on TV. (Speaking of TV, last night I watched The Amazing Race at the hotel. Ooh, it’s getting good.) This Thanksgiving my parents and I had planned to have big lunch out at a restaurant, but after some deliberation, we just headed to Safeway and put together a meal of both store-bought and homemade dishes. So many dishes, in fact, that we’re set for days. We even decided to forgo the pumpkin pie for now, and save it for tonight after dinner. Mmm, good. Time for a nap.

NEWARK, N.J.–I played roulette with the airline system, and boy, she chewed me up and spit me out. Okay, so it’s not as malicious as that, and I had known connecting in Newark was just asking for trouble, but still. So, I get to National Airport early today, to see if I can get on an earlier flight out west. The best they do is get me an earlier flight to Newark, but I’ll still be on the same connection onward to San Francisco, which means a longer layover. Okay, I say. Then it began.

Due to some emergency at Newark, the airspace was being restricted, flights were being delayed, and we sit in the plane on the tarmac in D.C., and wait. And wait. For two freakin’ hours. It’ll be okay, I think, since I have that huge time window. Well, the minutes tick by as the window narrows to nothing. Finally I arrive, and have missed the last connecting flight to San Francisco. The customer service agent who helps me in the terminal is a trooper, though; she tries every possible combination of flights, even first to LAX then SFO, but everything has already left or is sold out. She books me on the next available non-stop tomorrow morning, which gets me into SFO at about 10 a.m.

So here I am in the tiny business center at the Hilton Newark Airport, where I’ve taken up lodging for the night. (I’ve slept inside Newark Airport before, and wasn’t going to put myself through that again.)

Okay, the consolation is I’ll be home in time for Thanksgiving lunch. I’m a-comin’, Ma!

And the sky is gray. They really are. I scuffled through a big pile of crunchy leaves yesterday morning. Good times. Well, I’m off to the left coast once again, for Thanksgiving. Just doing my part to add to the busiest travel day of the year, you know. Updates from California forthcoming.

With their treasures…

Jeff: I went to Pottery Barn today. It made me, like, truly happy. Am I a whore to commercialism?
Rajani: Let me put my therapist hat on. [pauses] Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a whore. It’s an ancient profession.
Jeff: I see. A viable career choice, you’re saying?

Heh. Last night on my way to Hold Everything to see about a new bookcase–I’m obsessed; I will not stop until an entire wall of my apartment is lined with shelves–I stopped at Pottery Barn. The retro-swing Christmas music was playing (Ella Fitzgerald’s rendition of “Winter Wonderland” is heavenly), and everything was so red and festive. I stopped short of giggling, but I definitely couldn’t stop smiling. So there.

Necessity is a mother. From Ken, “Ideas that would make me rich, but that I don’t really have the inclination to carry out”:

The Simon™ alarm clock, for just those people (like me) who have developed the super-ninja technique of deactivating their alarm clocks in their sleep, would require the user to memorize and re-enter a series of increasingly difficult sequential button presses, like the eponymous sound-and-light memory game from the 80s.

I so need one of those. What I don’t need, at least for now: a Segway. You can pre-order the intelligent scooter at Amazon.com for $4,950. Jeebus. And lest the intentional misspelling throw off future generations of spelling-bee champions, the word meaning “transition” or “to proceed without pause” (especially as a musical direction) is correctly spelled segue.

Another bit from blogworld: “Ernie’s God-Awful, Low-Quality Gay Film Festival” reminds me that I’ve been meaning to sign up for Netflix. Maybe come January. Ah, then I’d never leave the house owing to the steady stream of DVDs. Or, I’d just carry my laptop and watch movies wherever I go. Now there’s a thought.

Only the truth is funny. Any resemblance to certain rebel princes is purely coincidental: “Modern-Day Proust E-mails Friend Six Times A Day.” Let’s give thanks for The Onion.

An officer and a gentleman. Natey, my silly Canadian goose, the epic poem you wrote on my GuestMap deserves to be here up front:

In the Rockies, I played, dodged and darted
Sat down on a glacier and then it just parted
My own body heat induced the big thaw
My hair got quite wet, but there was much more…

The deluge flushed me across the wide States
I rode on a surf board, no need for the skates
Devoid of all clothes and with uncovered modesty
I thought of a flaneur, our own Jeffrey S. T.
With extensive drobe of duds fine and fair
He’d surely dress me and dry my wet hair
I roamed and roamed the vast southern climes
I searched and searched for the Capitol’s chimes

His bachelor pad was so hard to find
I looked for chintz curtains, but there were just blinds
I wondered and wondered, should I ring the bell?
How would he receive me? I just could not tell

The door was ajar, so in I did rush
I was stark bollock naked, except for a blush
My throat was too dry, I could almost not speak
I opened my mouth and murmured quite weak,

“So here I am, Jeff, a fair Northern bounty!”
Then I fainted with shock… Jeff was dressed as a Mountie!

That is fabulous. I lub it.

“A promising trend.” Well, this is encouraging: “‘Out’ is in on campus: Colleges tailor recruiting materials to include gays,” as reported in Saturday’s Chron.

On an unrelated note (but also from the Chron), this is pretty cool: “A screen of their own: For 7 enterprising Petaluma girls, cinema paradiso means a movie theater in town.” If you build it, they will come.

Mind and machines. From an excellent essay on the nostalgia of technology, “Memoria ex machina” by Marshall Jon Fisher, reprinted in the December issue of Harper’s:

I am typing this on a Macintosh G4 PowerBook. Will the thought of this laptop someday conjure up such piquant memories? As much as the recollection of my first computer, a 1985 Kaypro I received for my college graduation? […] The green glow of the characters on-screen, the five-and-a-half-inch floppy disks that had to be inserted in order to boot up or run WordStar, even the control-K commands that brought up various menus — they all seem like the markings of a bygone era, even as they retain an intimate immediacy.

Dude. My company still uses WordStar! How’s that for antiquated? To be fair, they’re finally going to replace it with some proprietary software that will be infinitely easier to use, but still. It’s all control-this and shift-alt-that. So very 1980s.

Word watch. I’m heartened to see a bit of Tagalog in The Atlantic‘s “Word Fugitives.” Readers were asked for words to describe the relation between a couple’s parents, i.e., in-law to in-law, so to speak:

Over the centuries English has assimilated words from dozens of languages, a number of which do have words for this relationship — but English has yet to borrow or invent any such term. […] Ernie Joaquin, of DeKalb, Ill., wrote, “In the Philippines the Tagalog term for the relationship between parents of bride and groom is magbalae. They call one another, or they are called, balae.” Admittedly, no more than other readers’ suggestions do these terms seem poised to enter the American English mainstream — though Tagalog has brought us such words as ylang-ylang and boondocks.

I’ve never heard ylang-ylang used in English. Apparently, it is “(1) a tree (Cananga odorata syn. Canangium odoratum) of the custard-apple family of the Malay Archipelago, the Philippines, and adjacent areas that has very fragrant greenish yellow flowers” and “(2) a perfume distilled from the flowers of the ylang-ylang tree” (Merriam-Webster).

Goin’ to the chapel. Did we all attend Grace’s wedding on W&G? Is this the “jump the shark” moment? And is Will ever going to have a multi-episode relationship? (The closeted sportscaster played by Patrick Dempsey doesn’t count.)

Speaking of weddings, I find this kind of fun: at the website for premier stationers Crane’s & Co., you can personalize and preview not only stationery, but wedding invitations as well. I’ve created and filed one away for Rupert Everett and me. It’s only a matter of time.