confession 1.5

i can remember being a kid and my dad doing his damnedest to sing along to an old country song playing on the radio called "i've been everywhere." the song goes pretty fast, singing about all the cities he'd visited, and my dad, who was usually three-sheets to the wind, couldn't remember the order of the places in the song or the speed at which they were sang. we used to get so tickled at him. he'd get so pissed at us for getting tickled at him.

and although the orangepaperbike is well traveled, i'm not even close to having been everywhere. i have, however been to a great many places in the hopes of finding true love. although i have no problems when it comes to meeting people, meeting my one true love has thus far remained elusive. i've pretty much given up hope that my mister right lives in dallas. and perhaps not even in texas. so i am completely open to the idea that he lives elsewhere, and open to the idea that he and i could meet each other online

to date i've been to austin, houston, fort smith, arkansas [don't ask!], chicago, montreal, florida [twice], washington, dc, california [four times], new york, even to england, to meet a man, or to spend time with a man ive previously met, all in hopes that the spark, the lust, the attraction [granted it's all virtual until the first face-to-face] leads down the path to the long haul, the big R. relationship. and to date, i've returned home without having met my fella, and quite often, more than a little disappointed and deflated.

most recently i went in miami. R, the designer, originally chatted me up on one of the various phone apps over july 4th. the more we chatted the more we had in common. so after 2 months of chatting, skype-ing and calling, i hopped a plane to miami to meet R, the designer. i cannot say it was a horrible time at all. i'd forgotten how gorgeous miami is, and so is this rock-hard hunk of a man who i was staying with. of course after the initial lust and release things settled down and we both sort of realized it wasn't the match we'd both hoped it was. still, all in all, it was an incredible weekend.

fast forward a couple weeks... R, the designer and i were skype-ing and he seemed so low down. we chatted about it and then we texted about it afterward as well. he apologized for not being the one i'd hoped. i apologized too then confessed that i need to learn my lesson and not travel so far for something that is against all adds. he then wrote back and said we had to meet, we had too many things in common and that it's still a great match on paper!

what the fuck? a good match on paper?! who says that? and more importantly who means it and what exactly does that mean?! i think from now on, my traveling to meet men trips are over. they can come to me. and for the rock-hard bodied R, the designer, in miami, paper beats rock in the rock-paper-scissors game of life. thanks for playing.

in the background::kenny rogers:lookin' for love [in all the wrong places]

dallas dating v1.0

one of the many reasons trying to date in dallas sucks...

what i really wanted to say was, "you are extremely safe and only date neg guys because you have 3 kids? why do you fuck your kids, too?"

but i didn't. it's not the kids' fault their dad is a douchebag.

in the background::cee-lo green:fuck you!

from the mouth of boyfriends...

a few weeks back i asked mean momma if she would be interested in seeing the ten commandments with me at the angelika, which typically shows a classic movie on tuesday nights. a few nights before our movie date i offered up that she could bring her boyfriend if she felt like it. after all, they had met in sunday school, and i figured he was as religious as she was and might enjoy seeing it on the big screen. 

my interest in seeing it was very unreligious to say the least, but for the theatrical experience alone: it's four hours long, has a prelude, an intermission and an entr'acte. i know this because there were graphics within the movie that literally said, "entr'acte." complete with ominous sounding music. nobody does an entr'acte anymore, which saddens me. and let's not forget that cecil b demille actually comes out from behind a curtain and introduces the movie to the audience. first class all the way, but i digress.

up to this point no one in my family had been introduced to mean momma's boyfriend. frankly i had actually doubted his existence. think jan brady and george glass! physically i'd say he is definitely mean momma's "type:" on the stocky side, with a belly, grey hair, which is expected at their age, talks slow with a native texan twang. nice enough and even nicer if he makes her happy.

during the aforementioned intermission, mean momma excused herself so i started to chat up mean boyfriend. he is younger than my mom, he drives a corvette and a suburban [brand loyalty and mid-life crisis side-by-side!] and is a city councilman in their small west suburban hamlet. all of which i knew prior to our meeting. he told me that my mom described herself as non-political when they "first got together," whatever the fuck that means, but that he has slowly changed that and now she helps with his correspondence. then he straight out said,  "and i've even made her a convert to watching fox news, too."

i could not believe that i just heard him say he had converted mean momma into his tea-party press secretary!  obviously she has not had the conversation with him that her youngest is a handsome, talented, gay, positive social-democrat architect and pastry artist?! but i'm sure it'll eventually come up...


in the background::erasure:say what

i am busy ! ! !

packing, loading, moving, unloading, packing, interviewing, and working.

i am busy! but updates to follow very soon.

in the background::culture club:move away

confession 1.4

i saw a documentary a few years ago on pbs about men hula dancers.

i loved the documentary and the music so much, i bought it. i watch it all the time.
i think it is so sexy to watch them dance.
confession: i secretly want to move to hawai'i and become a male hula dancer.
i bet it pays even less than pastry does.
in the background::brothers cazimero:mai hai la ha'i

reject

the orange.paper.bike received two emails yesterday, one for each open position of architect that the g.s.a. was hiring for here in chicago. according to the emails, each identical, my résumé and follow-up questions gave me a score of ninety – ninety-five percent. i was downgraded for not being a veteran and not being a minority. two factors that have nothing to do with the job of architect, yet two more reasons why our government is bloated, inefficient and broken at each level and in every department.in the background::depeche mode:policy of truth

confession 1.3

in college i once accepted fifty dollars to let a older gentleman in a mercedes give me head.

twice.

don't judge! i was young and needed the money.

and he offered the money. i didn't ask.

does that make me a prostitute? or did i just look like one?

i prefer the term 'hustler,' for the record.

it sounds sexier.

in the background::birdman, lil wayne & drake:money to blow (street version)

nevermind...

I had hoped you'd see my face, 

And that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over, 

Nevermind, I'll find someone like you, 

I wish nothing but the best for you, too, 

Don't forget me, I beg, 

I remember you said, 

"Sometimes it lasts in love, 

but sometimes it hurts instead."

in the background::adele:someone like you

it's a dog-beat-dog world

orange.paper.bike thinks it's tremendous that the courtesy van for a hotel for the pooches and of the pooches, is actually also driven by the pooches. those golden retrievers are going to one day take over the world. forget planet of the apes, let's go for planet of the canines.

in the background::florence + the machine:dog days are over

confession: i am undate-able

in spring before last, that is, the spring of two thousand ten, i had been in an accident that totaled my car [thank you miss illegal alien in your mammoth ford expedition!], i had just lost my job, cashed out my four-oh-one-kay, finished the renovation on my house, put it on the market, and was slowly moving all of my things into a storage compartment as i would be moving to chicago in june...

one afternoon, E, the realtor who was listing my house, and i were chatting and he told me, point blank, "you know by dallas standards, you are undate-able: you have no car, no job, your house is on the market and you are moving. un-date-able!"

"yes," i said, "but i'm still fuckable. very, very!"

and so now here i am once again, this time living in chicago, and my self-imposed deadline of september first to have a job as an architect is fast approaching. the job market is brutal, it's hard to get contacts here without an inside track, and the economy certainly isn't promoting building construction right now. i have an empty house in dallas that has a mortgage to be paid, my lease is ending in chicago, i am jobless and near penniless. by dallas and chicago standards i am undate-able.

but, fellas, i am only going to say this once: i am still fuckable. very, very!

in the background::pink:fuckin' perfect

confessional 1.0

being as how it is sunday, granted it is late sunday, and most of the world is already into monday., but i digress, it is sunday right here, right this moment, and since orange.paper.bike is most pious and reverent, i figured i'd start a new habit of making confessionals on sunday. every sunday.

as many of you know, and when i say "many," i mean the only known reader of my musings and ramblings, i attended a very prestigious and famous pastry school last year. i'd always loved baking and pastry, and since i'd been looking for a change, AND since i was also unemployed, i decided why not?! so i packed up and moved to chicago to go to the Very Prestigious and Famous Pastry School. it was a short six-month program, but it was intense and we learned incredible things in it's kitchens. one of the incredible things i learned, which i never imagined i'd learn is how to make chocolates. i'm talking honest-to-goodness french faw-faw chocolates: truffles, rochers, bonbons... you get the idea:

i said they were faw-faw didn't i?! okay, those were rejects, but stay with me...

fast forward to february, two-thousand eleven: orange.paper.bike met a fella. he was nice, funny, sexy, a texas-transplant, and my age-ish. his name is was S, the marketer. our first date was on a cold, snowy friday night. being as how it was two days before valentine's day, and it had been years since i had had a valentine of my own, i decided to make him some chocolates. not many, because you really don't need much of anything french: a little goes a long way.

we decided to meet for a few drinks at a trendy bar then head over to a tony little italian place in the swedish quarter. i was thrilled that the chocolates i'd made, tucked discretely inside my jacket pocket, were going to a very sexy guy. we sipped on moscow mules and made small talk. he was charming and had a little smirk when he smiled. when it was time to leave, we paid our tab and wandered down the street in the cold to make our dinner reservation.

once inside the restaurant i excused myself and went to the washroom to relieve myself of the moscow mules. when i reached down to lift the seat of the toilet, those chocolates fell out of the lapel pocket of my jacket, and in slow-motion, [just like that movie christmas story where the kid was helping his dad change a flat tire alongside a dark road and accidentally hits the hubcap and all the lug-nuts go flying], the package of chocolates tumbled down slowly, slowly... into the toilet. "ooooohhh, fffuuuuuuddddgggggge!" only i didn't say "fudge."

i quickly reached in and grabbed the plastic sleeve that held the chocolates, hoping i was quick enough before any of the water seeped in. if it's any consolation, the toilet water was clean! i took each chocolate out and inspected it closely. a few of them had drops of water on them, so i dried them off, re-packaged the chocolates and slipped them back into my lapel pocket, and went out to find our table.

at a moment just after we finished dinner, S, the marketer, excused himself to go to the washroom, and i slipped the chocolates out and put them on the table in front of his seat. when he got back and saw the chocolates he lit up and gushed that it was the sweetest thing anybody had ever done for him. thanks to the moscow mules and the two bottles of wine at dinner, i didn't feel one bit of guilt.

when it was time to close out the tab, S, the marketer, asked if i'd like to have a nightcap at his place. i accepted the invite and off we went. of course, dear reader, i'm sure i'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but "a nightcap" is a euphemism for "making out, and possibly, getting naked." which we did. and we did.

in the end, when i was searching in the dark for my socks and shoes [and the rest of my clothing] i noticed part of the plastic sleeve from the chocolates i'd given him lying on the floor. i asked him where he'd placed them and he said they were in his jacket. he looked under the bed and found the other half of the package still being chewed by J, the miniature schnauzer. he'd already eaten all the chocolates and was starting in on the plastic.

i freaked out that the dog had just consumed seven chocolate bonbons; he was pissed the dog had just consumed seven chocolate bonbons and didn't get to try even one of them. so in the end, J, the miniature schnauzer was fine and S, the marketer didn't eat any of the eau de toilette bonbons.

i now know that the chocolates falling into the toilet was very symbolic and a foreshadowing of how suddenly, unexpectedly our relationship would fall into the toilet. only when that happened, i didn't reach in to save it. i flushed.

in the background::freedy johnston:gone like the water