A little Friday Night Potpourri for y'all:

I'm off to California tomorrow morning for a seven day business trek, starting south and moving north. I have the pleasure of traveling with Jewels which should guarantee a steady stream of impromptu interpretative dance, sing-a-longs and a few margaritas slung back over a dinner of authentic Mexican food. I can't wait to throw my head back and in drink in the brilliant, wide California sky. I can smell the fresh air already.

I learned last night at the gym that submissive grappling is a misnomer. There is plenty of grappling, but it is in no way submissive. Oh, and you don't actually yell "Uncle" when someone is laying on your chest, their chin wedged into your shoulder, your lower body encased in a leg lock and your neck is a vise grip. Yeah, the sensai told me it's not cool to screech out--you should lightly tap your tormenter to release you. And that did seem to work.

On a related point, the boxing gloves I ordered (which are required equipment for my boxing class) arrived today at work. I was so excited to get them, that I had to try them on in my office at the very moment our new wet-behind-the-ears sales assistant walked in. It wasn't even worth explaining. She probably feared she would be part of some dreadful hazing ritual.

I have been obsessing over the description of a dinner that Hollaback Girl had with a friend in Chicago this week. Given Hollaback Girl's brilliant writing ability, she described this meal in such artful detail, it was like food porn. The clincher (and the object of my specific food lust) was a dish of succulent short ribs on a bed of cheese grits. God DAMN. She had me at grits!! The elements alone are inspiring, but it was Hollaback Girl's gift for description that really sold it. She's such a solid and charming writer--she should be writing reviews for The New York Times.

The Japanese deli where I pick up my daily breakfast is shut up tighter than Rikers. There are fluorescent orange signs splayed across the sealed and padlocked entry. On closer examination today, the signs read: "SEIZED! The assets of this establishment have been confiscated due to non payment of real estate taxes and penalties". There goes the morning banter with the eggman with the foot fetish. In hindsight, I guess it's better that the place was closed for failure to pay back taxes and not for health violations.

There was a very tall African American man standing on the platform at 96th Street tonight. When the doors of the train opened, he poked his head into the open doors and said, with a voice as loud and resonant as Paul Robeson had in his heyday, one single word: "HONKIES!!" Satisfied, he leaned back onto the platform and waited for the next train to arrive.

I am still fascinated that the item about waxing etiquette generated as many comments as the discussion on red velvet cake. Are there parallels here I'm not seeing? Personally, I'd rather have cake over a wax any day, but that's just me. Now if I had mentioned Bill Clinton, that would most certainly garner me a virtual bitchslap from MaryCatherineFullofGrace. That whole fuckability topic skeeved my oldest and dearest friend out and for that, my dear, I am truly sorry.

It's 74 degrees today which is a record high temperature for Manhattan (and ironic, considering the snowstorms badgering our poor friends in the Midwest). Yet, the owners of the office building that I work in still have the heat blasting in the office. I had to go out to the Gap at lunch and buy a tank top to put on after I drenched the blouse I was wearing. Something is so wrong with this. A mass uprising is bound to take place, say, around late January.

Have a great weekend.