Alarm Cat

I rarely remember my dreams. I have to be awoken suddenly from one in order to have it stick in my mind - and that happened this morning. In my dream I was watching my youngest sister being interviewed by James Lipton on an episode of "Inside the Actors Studio" (ITAS). I was thrilled that she was on nationwide television as a movie star after having her Detroit Home featured on HGTV. And James Lipton was excited because he's from Detroit. I wanted to watch until the end, but the show wasn't over until 7pm and that's when I had a therapy session. For those of you who watch ITAS, you know that it's important to see the whole show because at the end, each celebrity guest must answer the inteview questions invented by Bernard Pivot. My parents said that they would drive me to therapy if I wanted to stay and watch until the end - so I did.

And I was glad that I did in that when James Lipton asked baby sis "what sound or noise do you hate?" She said, "the sound of George Bush talking" and I was so proud of her (interesting that, in my awake state the night before, I had actually watched Kyra Sedgwick say the same thing when she was being interviewed on ITAS!).

So when the show was over, mom and dad drove me to therapy. On the way, I tried to call my therapist to tell her I'd be late but for some reason, the number that I dialed rang at one of my old supervisor's houses. I talked to him for a while and then we finally got to my therapist's office. I ran in, huffing and puffing, and my therapist of course was all sympathetic because she knows how stressed out I get when I'm late. So she assured me that it was okay and that I could just sit down and that we would have a full hour-long session. As soon as I sat down on the comfy head-shrinking sofa, a cat came into her office and started meowing really loudly.

So that's when I woke up - at exactly 5:08am - with Maddie the cat meowing into my ear. I guess that loud noise is good for something - it got me out of bed on time to get myself to the gym.

Oh, and when I got to the gym at 5:30am, one of the trainers said "hey, I've been meaning to tell you that I saw you last week talking to some guy on the street corner - it looked like you were having a very animated conversation". Guess he saw me chatting with the drunk guy...

Flirting?

Isn't the arbor looking great! Now it has a seat in it! Okay, enough about the arbor. Anyone who wants to see the finished product has to come visit in person. We'll have a glass wine ready for you so come on over :)


Now to the real blog post:

Who says MARTA buses and trains are the only places where men will hit on you without shame? I don't even have to swipe my federally subsidized public transportation card to be on the receiving end of some major sweet talkin'. Just this past Thursday I was walking home from a really good therapy session and had made it about half way home when I heard whistles coming from a passing vehicle. Perhaps it was the confident smile on my face; perhaps it was that I had my hair down; or perhaps it was that the passing vehicle was being driven by one of my favorite gay-boy co-workers (yes, there are several, so I have to specify that it was one of my "favorites"). Okay, that didn't really count as being "sweet talked".

But it didn't end there. As I rounded the corner onto my street, I was motioned to by a man who was glistening with sweat, squinting his bloodshot eyes and smiling like he'd just smoked a Cheech and Chong sized "cigarette". I removed my iPod ear buds so that he could ask me "how come you're so much better looking than me?" I really didn't know what to say, mainly because I was overwhelmed by the aroma of booze that was clinging to him like Pig Pen's dust cloud. I'm going to guess the bouquet contained a hint of Wild Irish Rose, but could very well have included a lovely Pinot Noir from the West Coast. My taste buds do better than my nose, so I couldn't have been certain without tasting his poison. I doubt he would have been keen on sharing.

Then he asked if he could guess how old I was and I figured there was no harm. He was sober enough to know to guess low and when I revealed my true age, he looked obligatorily shocked. Then he asked me to guess his age. I too guessed low and said "not a day over 49". He pulled back his shoulders and proudly confirmed that he was 66. Then he asked if I knew what his secret to longevity was. I said, "well, I bet it includes alcohol?" He confirmed that "drink" was indeed on his list and that women were too. I told him he was crazy, in a humorous way of course, and he took it as such. He said his sister Elaine is always telling him he's crazy. I decided,obviously not soon enough, that he could probably keep talking all night so I finally told him I needed to be moving along.

So then I get to our house and as I'm walking up the front steps, our flirty neighbor shouts out to me that it looks like I've gotten a tan. I replied that in the summer I tend to get that way. And then he said that with the tan and my hair down, I looked Polynesian. Again, I was at a loss for words so I just smiled and went into the house. I don't know if he was flirting or if he was just making an observation like the time he told me I had a lot of moles. I was extremely flattered by the mole comment as you might imagine.

Just another day in the hood...