Back. Back on the Block.

Last Day in Europe

It's our last day in Europe and we've spent it in Geneva. We rode the train for over six hours to get here and to tell you the truth I'm pretty wiped out.

Jon and I have taken about 600 pictures on our trip.

The best ones are probably from our day trip to two small towns in Alsace - Kaysersberg and Riquewihr.

Jon went out while I was sleeping and took pictures of Geneva. I walked with him earlier but to tell you the truth my heart wasn't in it until my aunt called me about 4:30pm from France to tell me that my grandmother's operation was a success. Does it really matter what kind?

And after I post this, we'll be looking for some place inexpensive to grab a bite to eat.

Happy Birthday To Me!

Today is my 40th birthday. I'm writing this post from Brussels on a keyboard that is not qwerty. Yes. The mystery is over. We are in Europe. First in Belgium, then to France.

We spent one fun day in Brussells. It's a lovely town. The most exciting thing for me was seeing a painting by Hironymous Bosch - The Temptation of Saint Anthony.

Today we're headed for Bruges.

Smelly Man

Back at the cybercafe for a change of pace -- not.

My stalker is nowhere to be seen, but the man next to me smells soooo bad. But I'm using the best computer in the cafe so I don't want to move.

It seems the only times I like to write now are those moments I find myself with nothing else to do between shows. When I'm at home, I find myself working on writing clues for our online trivia club - or cleaning.

Cleaning is no longer the compulsion it was a few weeks ago. But, I still find myself at times, wondering what else I can clean with the magic of salt, vinegar and baking soda. Yesterday I engaged in a major cleaning push inspired by an upcoming trip. There is nothing better than coming home to a clean house after travelling.

Yes. We're taking another trip. I'll tell you about when we get back. Until then, you'll just have to wonder what we're doing.

Cyber Cafe

It's mid-day Wednesday so you know what that means. I'm celebrating my break between shows at my favorite mid-town internet cafe. One thing I like to do when I sit down at my station is to see what other websites have been visited previously by people who used the computer before me. Today I find for the first time a need to share where the previous patron has been. The website, My Foreign Bride.com is a website for "foreign ladies seeking marriage". I was looking through the ads. It's pretty eye opening. I can't imagine ever having done this to find a husband.

But didn't I, in a way when I had an ad on match.com, years before I met Jon. Isn't that kind of the same thing? I guess it was different in the sense that on a dating website you have to pretend for the most part that you don't want to get married so you can date decent guys who have to pretend like they do want to get married so they can get into women's pants.

At least on Foreign Bride.com everybody is on the same page in terms of what they want. The women want to get married and presumably the men want to marry foreign women.

Now I am insanely curious about who was using this computer before me. Other websites visited include a banking site for an Australian bank. And Gaydar.com.za. What does the za stand for? They also visited a website called Rentboy which is completely dirty.

Here is the scenario I've imagined. A gay Austrlian man vacationing in NYC was updating his friend's ad on the foreign bride page and then he went searching for his soul mate on two websites of questionable taste.

What scenario can you imagine?

Could This Be the Elusive Chupacabra

Phylis Canion claims to have found the mythical Chupacabra (pictured right) - as road kill - outside her ranch in Texas. Canion and three of her neighbors found three forty pound bodies of the legendary beast. She shaved one of the heads so she can test the DNA and trace the animal's ancestry. Canion claims that a chupacabra has killed 26 of her chickens over the last couple of years.

I would be more worried if it had killed her goats. Chupacabra literally means Goat Sucker in Spanish. So already I'm suspicious of this woman who is already selling T-shirts that say "2007, The Summer of the Chupacabra, Cuero, Texas" for $5 a pop.

Her local veteranian suspects that Canion found an unusual breed of dog.

That Woman

I saw that woman again today. She came to see the afternoon performance of the Drowsy Chaperone. As far as I could tell she was by herself, which is not a judgement, just an observation. I felt a little bad because during the walk-in, there were two or three times when she just seemed to be hovering in my general area and I ignored her. I acted like I didn't recognize her. That does definitely make me a mean person. But isn't that a strange coincidence? I wonder if she found my website. I wonder if she's stalking me. Now that's ridiculous right? That's the kind of thinking that could drive someone crazy. Of course I don't believe she's stalking me. It's a coincidence. That's all.

1 hour later
She's just arrived at the internet cafe. She just went behind my little table to get gum from the "never been changed or cleaned" gum ball machine. But it's a coincidence. . . right?

Loud Music Eminating From Cars

Have you ever noticed that people NEVER blast classical music or show tunes on their super neato sound systems? You never hear Vivaldi's Four Seasons or the cast recording of Oklahoma pouring out of a slick looking SUV with all its windows rolled down.

Sometimes, I fantasize that I'm driving slowly through Astoria while Patti Lupone and Michael Cerveris sing a duet from last year's production of Sweeney Todd so loud that the vibrations from the music set off car alarms as I roll down the street.