Just Sayin

Merry Christmas

The 12 Gays of Christmas

Thanks to Fitz for this. Pretty damn funny.

A Jones Family Christmas

So years ago a group of my friends decided calling itself the Jones Family. I'm not exactly sure what it refers to other than the proverbial 'Keeping up with the Joneses." Regardless it's a group of very important people in my life who have been there with me for a pretty wild ride. We have been good friends for almost 10 years now and have been there for each other during the crazy times, the sad times and the great times and it's been wonderful having them along for the ride. Certain people have fallen by the wayside and other people have joined somewhere along the way. But I find the closer you get to your group of friends it has the natural tendency to attract similar minded people and that's always a good thing.

At the center of this group is my friend Jamie. Jamie is just an amazing human being. He is one of the most generous and centered people I have ever met in my life. The thing that has always impressed me most about him is his knowledge of who he really is. We live in a pretty vapid culture and when you encounter someone who is built with the right gifts to be the friend you know you'll have for the rest of your life, you feel really lucky. Jamie and I both come from Italian families that are beyond full of drama and wacky characters and often we just laugh until we cry about how much our experience is shared.

Anyway, this past Sunday Jamie hosted a Jones Family Xmas. I was really looking forward to this because it was an opportunity for me to introduce Giuseppe to a few people he hadn't met yet and even better it was a chance for me to finally meet Nancy and Chris's baby boy Brody who had been born in July. Here are a few pictures from the afternoon.

In this picture are friends Chris, Anton and Jamie. Anton lives on the second floor of Jamie's house with my friend Louis and he is a recent addition to the Jones family. He is wonderfully fun and always has a smile on his face and has one of those laughs that you can't help but smiling along with even if you didn't even hear what the conversation was that made him laugh in the first place.

Chris is perhaps the person in the Jones family that I am closest to. He is arguably the funniest person I have ever met in my life and there are times where he has made me laugh to the point of where I feel like my appendix is bursting. We've traveled to Greece and Brazil together and despite being very different people have an amazing ability to travel very well together. I can't wait for our return trip to Brazil next New Years for Chris's birthday. It will almost certainly be an event for the books.

This picture of matching sweater is Tony and Josh. They have been together now for almost 10 years if I'm not mistaken and are both really fun. More so than anyone Tony can probably take credit for the group forming in the first place as he worked with, knew or was friends with most of us beforehand and somehow pulled us all together. I don't know what it is about the connection that I have with Josh but we just totally get each other's humor and often a glance or a one liner from one of us will send the other reeling. It's a lot of fun being with these guys even if they do sometimes wear matching apparel.

In this picture we have Nicole and AnnMarie. Nicole was brough into the group through a connection with Jamie and his old work environment and has proved to a fantastic addition to the group. She's totally sassy and who doesn't love that? You can totally tell that AnnMarie comes from a close family because she's always the first one to ask how you're doing, how's your family...etc. She has one the biggest heart of anyone I've ever met and is the kind of person who constantly reminds you of what's real and really important vs. what a fad or something transient. She's a great moral compass but also has no problem just completely taking you out at the knees when you're bullshitting yourself because she can smell a phony a mile away.

In this picture we have Giuseppe and the Grand Dame herself Ms. Mary Lee Hood. Mary is arguably one of the best gifts a friend could give to themselves. She is the very definition of the modern woman. She is so well read and in all of my life I have never met someone who instantly puts a stranger at such ease as Mary does. She is genuine in her curiosity to know you better and infinitely deft in her ability to carry a conversation. Every time I get to spend with Mary and hear about the world through her eyes I find myself just wanting to spend more time speaking with her. She is classy and smart and wonderful and gracious all at the same time. She's like a fabulous Geisha who is the very definition of the word Lady.

And here he is. The newest member of the Jones family. Mr Brody William Jordan with his mom Nancy. Look at how beautiful he is. I literally couldn't stand it. When Giuseppe and I walked in we had all kind of arrived at the same time and I'm sure quite a few people wanted to hold the baby so he was a little hungry and more than likely a bit overwhelmed with all of these people wanting to hold him but eventually he calmed down. I would be remiss if I didn't mention how amazing his mom is. Nancy is just that person that everyone should have as a friend in their life. She knows how to rip it up and have a ball but knows when it's time to settle down and enough is enough. She remembers when everyone's birthday is and can tell a joke with the best of them. She's the perfect combination of beautiful woman from a fashion spread and tomboy who can make you feel right at home. I was psyched that she and Chris were going to show up with Brody.

This is Chris in the background opening up some present that Josh and Tony were kind enough to get for Brody. Chris is the perfect match for Nancy. He has that awesome fun loving spirit of the guys in college that you loved to hang out with, but none of the jock-bullshit that makes you worried about whether they'd date rape someone. He's just all around fun and laughs that kind of laugh that's really throaty and comes form his toes and takes over his whole face. He's the kind of guy that we were all psyched to see Nancy pick because instantly you knew it was right.

Nancy grabbed this picture of me and Brody after he had settled down a bit and was fed. I turned to Giuseppe who was in the background talking with Mary and I said "I want one of these"...he was nice enough to say "Later." But then Nancy grabbed this shot which was the total desktop keeper of me and Brody. Ok, sorry but this kid is going to break all hearts.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH HOW CUTE THIS BABY IS???!!!!!

You can Louis in the background of this picture but it's not a great picture. Louis is the real gentleman of our group. He always reminds us when we get too crass or undignified and yet at the same time will get absurdly raunchy or ridiculous if the situation calls for it. He's been with us since the beginning and I can honestly say that because of his intelligence some of the funniest moment have been with Louis when he's acting wild and zany.

NOT PICTURED:
Kao and Karen - I had put my camera away at this point. Karen and Kao are this fantastic couple who have come into the group in the last few years and are just awesome. They are the epitome of what I mentioned earlier about how after a while your group tends to attract certain people of the same caliber. They are just wonderful women who are fun loving and smart and real and just a blast to hang out with. Every time I'm with them I really feel like I wish I saw them more often.

Kelli Grey - God I miss Kelli. She moved to NYC a while back and to be honest I haven't been great about keeping in touch with her. She's just an unbelievable woman. Strong in the way that's not in your face but strong in character. A total diva beauty gorgeous knockout. And yet has the  sharp tongue to call you out in a heartbeat. She's is one of those people you just feel lucky to know and laugh with.

Josh Legg - I can't remember the last time I saw Josh. Josh is the earth mother of our group. He's very spiritual and connected in a way that's different than what we're all used to in our daily lives. He reminds me sometimes that there's more to what's going on around me that getting caught up in it all. He strikes me as having a different sense of understanding and peace with the world and admittedly sometimes I'm envious of this because I covet the degree to which he seems calm and not as flustered as I can be with my world around me.

In true Jamie fashion, nothing is worth doing that's not worth over-doing. Instead of having just a regular Yankee Swap, Jamie had a Diva Yankee Swap that I understand he collaborated with Kelli on. In essence we had to wear name tags of famous divas and their stature as a real diva determined the picking order. I was Diana Ross and I ended up being the number 1 diva. CLEARLY.  But in between the holiday songs in his play list Jamie had interspersed himself singing HO HO HO for bonus round. I mean the whole thing was hysterical and absurd and wonderful in the way that you can only feel when you're with the kind of people you know you'll know for your lifetime.

Thanks to all Joneses new and old for making it one for the books.

Happy Holidays

Thanks to Matthew for this total gem.

Nightmare of the Traveling Pants

So the last 24 hours of my life has been a living nightmare and since I have blog I'm going to share it with you.

We had an important meeting in Cleveland that due to scheduling conflicts could only be held on Friday morning. This royally sucked because my company's annual holiday party was Thursday night which I had to miss in order to go. Note my other option was a 6AM flight on Friday morning. My boss opted for this since he had a late meeting on Thursday.

Cleveland was getting a "wintry mix" on Friday morning. This is term that must be abolished. It sounds like it's a recipe for wonderful Xmas cookies of something that meteorologists on Prozac try to convince you is the silver lining of shitty winter weather. Anyway, my boss got up at 4:00 and called the airline to find there were delays so he stayed in Boston to make sure he could still participate in the meeting.

The meeting goes well and then I head back to the airport for my return flight. I had some trepidation about this flight because of the Winter Storm that was going to hit Boston but I kept checking my flight status and they said it was cleared so I figured if they're letting us take off, we'll likely make it. Oh no.

We begin our approach into Logan airport at around 5:15 after circling the airport for 30 minutes. Then the Captain comes on and says they've closed the airport and because of our fuel situation we're diverting to Bangor, ME. BANGOR???? This is your back up airport? For those of you not familiar with Bangor, there isn't a lot going on there. It's pretty much Appalachia with a runway. There's no rental cars. There's one small hotel adjacent to the airport, but by and large if you get there on an airplane then the only way out is an airplane.

So we land at Bangor and we sit on the runway.......and we sit.......and we sit. The Captain periodically comes on to let us know that the Boston airport is open....and then it's closed again. After a while the passengers started to get really frustrated because the way we were being talked to, you just felt like you weren't being told everything. The flight attendants passed out pretzels and more soft drinks. Some people opted to get off in Bangor at that point. Maybe they were from Maine or maybe they knew intuitively what we were all going to go through over the next 12 hours.

We sat there for 3 and a half hours until finally the flight crew became ineligible for flying because they exceeded their alloted daily flying time and they had to cancel the flight. Everyone was totally pissed off at this point. As we departed the plane there was some airport person handing out blue passes which granted us admission back on to the plane in the morning. The elderly lady in front of me who was clearly a novice flyer and a bit overwhelmed asked the lady "What are we to do about staying overnight." The lady sounding like a corporate automaton bleeped out "Because it's a weather related condition the airline is not responsible for securing you lodging for the evening." As I took my pass I said to her "You know after 6 hours on a plane, that's not exactly the right answer." She looked at me and dismissively said said "I don't even even work for the airline." "I don't care" I spat back and walked away.

There wasn't a single person instructing anyone as to what time the flight would be leaving the next day. All the passengers were just standing in the gate area waiting for someone to tell them what to do. I walked down to the baggage area and saw some man who clearly worked at the airport. I went up to him and said "Everyone is wondering what time we should be ready to go tomorrow." To no surprise I got the typical minimum wage, not-my-job response..."I work in baggage claim" he said through teeth that looked like the 10-7 split on a bowling lane.

Thankfully there was an adjoining Sheraton hotel and they took care of us. She asked if I wanted two double beds or a King. I said a King. I got to the room and of course it had two doubles because customer service was on hold across every industry apparently on Thursday. But I didn't care enough to complain and so I ordered room service (because we hadn't been given anything other than pretzels) and called Continental to find out what time the morning flight was. Turns out it was 7:20 the next day which is a pretty early flight to not have had someone communicating that as we were leaving the plane. Needless to say I ordered and drank an entire bottle of wine.

I woke up this morning at 6:15 and got down to the gate. It was a complete Shit Show. Security wanted people to have boarding passes, but they hadn't issued any - just the blue passes from the night before. The flight crew got the plane ready but they weren't allowed to let people board until the airport staff had the manifest right. It was a disaster. Everyone just standing around waiting for people to get it right. We finally board around 8:15 this morning

We get on the plane and the pilot tells us we need to de-ice. So we head over there and we can all see the de-icing truck just sitting there with the driver talking on his cell phone and laughing and we're all like WTF? Why isn't he doing it? Then the Captain comes over the loud speaker at 9:00 and says Boston is closed again and we're going to have to wait. The flight attendants come around with more pretzels and then offer to put on a movie to give people something to focus on. They put on Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 which was just icing on the cake because what could be worse than THAT piece of shit?

We sit and we sit and we sit and then finally at about 10:15 we leave. It was a terribly bumpy ride in and there were a few jolts that had people screaming. I'm not a religious person but I found myself praying to God and my mom to help the plane land safely. We ended up touching down at around 11:15.

I have never had a worse flying experience in my life. I understand that airlines have to make money and that canceling flights means that they're on the hook for finding people rooms and stuff, but it really felt like the whole experience could have been avoided if they had just canceled the flight from Cleveland. No one would have liked it, but it would have been much better than the disaster then ensued. And businesses have to realize that if you're putting customer service people on the front line, they better have a better answer than "Not my job." Good customer service is everyone's job if you're working in a service industry. And lastly, these flight crews need to come up with a better way of handling waiting. Letting people off of the plane into the airport would have been far better then keeping people penned up in the seats for all those hours. And Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants needs to be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom.

Oh Christmas Tree...

So my roommate Joe and I have talked about getting a tree for years now. When we first lived together we lived with our friend Scott who owned the place and had a very specific vision for how he wanted his home so we couldn't do one for the first 3 years. Then for the past 4 years we've talked about it but just been lazy. But this year we both said we we're going to get a tree so on Friday night we went to a local place and bought an 8 ft. tree. Here it is in the living room.

We needed to give it a little time for the branches to relax. Joe had to work on Saturday but I had some time so I decided to start putting the lights on. I happened to be talking to my friend Matthew that morning and I was describing how I intended on putting the light around the tree in a spiral pattern. He told me that if I wanted to do it the "right" way I had to wrap the individual branches as I proceeded from the bottom of the tree to the top. So after the first hour I was this far.

After 2 hours I was this far

Three hours I was here...

and after 4 and a half hours I was at the top.

Then I took a break and decided to wait for Sunday for Joe and I to put the rest of the ornaments on. We woke up late and Joe made some mulled cider with rum and we built a fire in the fireplace.

Here's Joe assessing where to begin with the ornaments.

And here are some of the ornaments we put up.

Of course no tree would be complete without something distinct at the top. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw this at Christmas Tree shop so I grabbed it and we put it on the top of the tree.

And here's the finished product...

Overall a lot of work, but I'm pretty happy with the results when all's said and done. Merry Xmas.

New Year's Resolutions

Curious to hear what people's resolutions are for this year. I know already what mine is. I have got to get back into shape. Whether because of the hours of my job or staying at Giuseppe's or being in a relationship, I have REALLY let this slide and it's to the point where I'm not psyched about it. It of course doens't help that I'm dating someone who goes to the gym every day and looks like you could grate cheese off his stomach. Needless to say, this needs to be an '09 priority.

What are all of your '09 resolutions?

Vacation's all I ever wanted

So I have to say I'm pretty psyched at the way Xmas and New Years are falling this year. My company has been extra generous and given us Wed-Fri off the first week and Thursday and Friday off the following week so I'm going to take Mon-Wed off the week of New Years and basically get a 12 day vacation. Pretty sweet. And I'm heading to the Cape for New Years with my Summer house gang and Giuseppe. So it should be a blast.

Pretty Damn Psyched with '08

So this time of year is usually filled with people taking stock of what they've accomplished in the past 12 months. I have to say I'm pretty happy with my 2008. It's been another year of terrific times spent with great friends - for any of you readin this I love you all and you continue to make me feel so blessed to be surrounded by great people. I had an awesome year with Giuseppe - we celebrated a year a few months back and unlike other relationships I've been in where you feel it sort of plateauing in a way that makes you start to question if you're really into it, this one feels completely different. Every day I'm psyched to spend more time with him and that feels terrific. And I had a really good year at work too. Early on this year we came up with the Superstore campaign for my Client Progressive Insurance and it's been a great success. The campaign is getting a lot of attention and their business is doing very well. Overall they are super happy with us and the relationship with them has never been in a better place. I also recently found out that I was getting promoted to Account Director which was great news. If you're in the business this is one of those goals you work towards for many years. I can honestly say I worked really hard for this and feel really good about it. So yeah, pretty thrilled about my '08 and things are really looking bright for '09.

Amazing Story

This is really an amazing story about one woman's experience and how it led her to have a very different outlook on the world and her place in it. She shares it at the TED conference. It's inspiring. Thanks Will for sharing.