Miss Davis if you're nasty

I have this idea in my head where I am too cool for school, but then I remember school - both high school and college - and my dreams are dashed.

It goes without saying, I was never cool in high school.
Who knew everyone felt insecure then though? Is that one of the things Facebook is teaching us? One, just when the page starts to look familiar, they will move it around arbitrarily. And Two, the cool kids in high school were just as shitty to each other as they were to everyone else.

I was cool for two months in 1991.
In said two months, I was older than all of my roommates and could buy beer without making some fairly inappropriate comments to men in parking lots with Anita and Eileen on look out for cops?

Soon enough, Chris Vail was 21 and I knew I had had my time in the sun.

But I digress.

Hands down, my coolest friend is Jamie Davis.

When Jamie calls, he starts talking like we saw each other 2 hours earlier in Peter's kitchen. Sometimes he says "Oh, hello, Heather...it's your younger and prettier sister calling."

Sorry, quick tangent -
Jamie was one of Lucio's groomsmen.
He made the toast at the wedding.
After our big choreographed dance (me and Lucio) all guests were invited to join us on the dance floor.
Jamie and Peter slow danced.
Peter is Jamie's partner. Oh, and Peter looks like Richard Gere - whenever my mother sees him, she touchs him randomly and inexplicably.

Shortly after the whole group dancing thing, my 80 year old Aunt went up to my father and whispered to the table at large, "Tommy, there were two men dancing together!"

To which my father said, "Well, they are partners."

Auntie retorted smuggly, "In business?"

My mother, well into her third Jack Daniels, chimed, "Yes, dear, in a sense. Peter takes very good care of Jamie."

Mom then went to dance with all five of the gay men - including Peter and Jamie - who were tearing up the dance floor.

Back to Jamie.
He called today.

"Heather Finneran (I mentioned he was at our wedding, right?) I had a sex dream about you last night. We were at Peter's house, and we were in bed and I asked you if Lucio was here, and you didn't seem at all concerned that he was downstairs. And I had a total chubby. And you were glorious in your curves and I was so into kissing you. It was amazing!"

Normally, when anyone has any dream about me, my elitism shoots through the roof.
But an actual sex dream?
Too much to hope for.
Especially Jamie Davis.

You see, Jamie Davis is the pied piper.
Everyone wants to be near him.
He's like oxygen. And really, what isn't better with air?

He has his fair share of heterosexual women who've wanted nothing more than for him to tumble off the gay train - even a slip fall - and to be there to catch him.

At one point, there was this new woman friend in his life.
I didn't like her then. I don't like her now.
She believed Jamie Davis could be hers.
She was rigorous in her pursuit of our man.

She managed to get him to make out with her once when he was drunk.
And tired. This is my memory of the story. There are other details that don't leave this woman I don't like looking as bad, but hell, it's my blog, right?
Then she got all girlie nuts when he told her he was still gay.
Um, Hello?
Idiot.

When Leslie, Mel and I heard this news, Leslie announced, "Listen, honey, there's a line of women waiting for Jamie Davis to not be gay, so take a fucking number and go to the end of the line."

With all this said, when Jamie told me he'd had this dream about me, I didn't have the reaction I was sure for the past decade I would have.

I was annoyed.

And you know why.

Glorious in my curves.

Indeed.

Uh, yes, I am still exercising and trying to be better. I am down 10 pounds since new years.

10 pounds is not what it used to be.

That, what they just said, does not exist

I have seen all kinds of weather.
Lived one both coasts.
A few years in sunny California.
With it's sun and it's more sun and it's sometimes wind.
Santa Ana's are rough. Like a coyote cartoon.

Raised mostly in the mid-atlantic, which has sun and rain and snow and sleet. Something for everyone.

Now in the middle of the country.
The middle has the wind. Like whoosh - WIND!!!
I used to be nervous going out in wind.
Now, if it's under 30 miles per hour, we'll still walk the dog.

I have seen a lot of weather.

I made it through Hurricane Isabel in 2003, in the ghet-to, when Lucio had to regularly go out and clear the sewer drains of used diapers and chicken bones so our house wouldn't flood. The only time our lights went off the whole two days? When he was trying to unstick a tire from the sewer. He heard me scream from three houses down. Swear to God. Ask him.

I survived the Blizzard of '96 with only MaryAnn for company and barely two packs of cigarettes between us. For three days. It's interesting to me now that quitting smoking was never a consideration. Hmmm. It's a puzzler.

While we were going to nicotein withdrawl, Vivian was trapped alone in her apartment near AU.

It was in this apartment where just a month earlier Vivian had frozen the pipes to the whole building because she left the window in her kitchen and bedroom open whilst she went home for Christmas.
For two weeks.
To Long Island.

Because...
wait for it...
She was convinced the cockroaches wouldn't enter her apartment if it was too cold.

Like a little chill can scare off a distict roach?

During the 96'r, MaryAnn and I ventured outside while it was still coming down..hoping the 7-11 was still open.
It wasn't.
I am sure we considered robbing one of the old bitties living in our building for her smokes, but none of them smoked Marlboro Ultra Lights.

During our fruitless search for smokes, we sat down in the middle Montrose Road, just off Rockville Pike. Not a car in sight.

Because of 96, I was totally prepared for the big storm in 2001 when Lucio and I lived MacArthur Boulevard in the pre-burbs. While everyone was at the soviet, the social and the unsafeway grabbing milk, we prepared by leaving time for a a trip to the liquor store for Grand Marnier, the bakery for bread, the Italian Store for cheese and the video store for The Godfather, parts I, II, and III. And we got milk and bread too. And plenty of cigarettes.

I also learned how to make lasagna during that one. Jamie and Steve had no idea that I had no idea what I was doing.

Hell, Becca and I trained for the Marine Corps Marathon in 2002, one of the hottest summers on record in our nation's capitol. Running our fat asses from SW DC to Bethesda (and back). Hello? Crossing boarders. In this story, Becca is the real amazing one, as she was three months pregnant with Theo at the time and didn't know it. That's my godchild...the litle Advil baby that could.

I have weathered wind in Illinois that literally knocked Jack off his 18 month old feet walking into Schnucks a few years ago.

Isn't that a ridiculous name for a grocery store? I spent the first two months we lived here thinking it was called Schmucks.

But this is too much.

The forecast for the past few days continues to include FREEZING FOG WARNINGS.

That is made up! There is no such thing as freezing fog!

Like you're driving down the road, and BAM!! Smack right into a sheet of ice just hanging out in mid air?

Fog is what? Really wet air right? I am going to check...

Like I thought. Basically just really wet air.

And here we sit. Day after day. Night after night. The same forecast.
Freezing Fog.

Maybe the people on the news are just making this up.
Is Doug Quick going to hit us with "Gotcha! Fog can't Freeze! Suckers!!!"

When he does, I can say I knew it all along.