He'd seen love get so expensive but he'd never seen love so dear

New month, new blog banner, new... something.

Looking back over last week, I was clearly and unaccountably depressed. No one thing made me so bleak, I just had a general malaise. Churlita and Michael both zeroed in on the no-hugging talk which bothered me, but that was more a symptom than a cause. It's just genetic. My father is extremely polar and depressive.

I've never liked endings. All my life I've been that way. Whenever I have fun for an extended time I feel great, but when it ends, I feel like the loneliest, saddest creature on earth. That's why I don't care too much for short-term relationships and flirtations. Hell, it's probably why I got married when I shouldn't have.

Anyway, despite Michael enjoying the entertainment value of my negativity, it may be time to chart new attitudes and altitudes. This blog can only take so much depression, self-pity and cringingly emo poetry before it will implode into a black hole of angst.

So for March, I'm going to try --- try, mind you --- to look on the bright side. It will be Merry March Month. Boy, I love alliteration. Hallelujah, I love alluring alliteration.

Heh.

***

So, Friday night I went to dinner with 74 and Zaftig and Friar and Palfrey and their respective kids. That was nice.

This morning, I met two very old friends of the family who were in town for one day and staying at Aunt's house. We had delicious sandwiches and talked about law, crime, schools, kids, and bad parents. (Mister Old Friend is a criminal defense attorney, Mrs is a teacher, Aunt's a guidance counselor in a high school, and I'm a teacher. That's the way the talk flowed.) There were also some great old stories about back when they and Aunt and my grandparents and my father and mother all lived in Paris, before I or my brother were born. They had a bohemian kind of open house lifestyle, and the booze flowed freely. A different era, and Paris was a different kind of city than it is now.

The moral of one of the stories: do not buy an ocelot for a house pet. The moral of another of the stories: if you have too much to drink in a Paris cafe and destroy a decorative glass display with your inebriated reeling, the waiters will run after you for a very long time. It is helpful if the largest person in your party picks up the smallest and runs while carrying him.

***

I never thought I'd find a Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor I enjoy more than Chubby Hubby, but Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream is even better. Diabetically delicious!

***

So, tonight was the big Prestigious (Prestigius? I enjoyed Michaels faux-Latin spelling) auction. The theme was Country and Western, so I wore jeans, work boots and a checkered shirt. Sounds rather grunge, actually, but it was the closest thing to Western apparel in my wardrobe. (What is it about checkered shirts that implies the attire of a ranch hand? I don't know, but it seems to be the archetype in the suburban mind.)

T-Bone and his wife were there, of course, and having them there, being very nice to me, took a bit of the edge off. As T-Bone remarked, wandering around in a crowd of strangers making pleasantries is not exactly my favorite thing.

As expected, some items in the auction went for truly obscene amounts. Almost everything went well over the posted value (a $7,000 trip for ten to New Mexico, for example, went for over $25,000). The open bar spurred on the impulsiveness and there was at least a little bit of "pull out your checkbook and let's see which one is bigger" competitive spirit going on.

The crown jewel of the auction prizes was the School Sleepover. Fifteen kids are granted the privilege of spending one night, all night, at Prestigius. The administration supervises them, and there are fun activities (like pizza, maybe a hired entertainer) and keepsakes. The posted value for this slumber party was $1,200.

It sold for over $30,000.

Now, that's not very much per parent if there's a consortium of parents pooling together --- only two grand per kid --- but still. These people live in a more rarefied tax bracket than you and I. Hell, they live in a more rarefied country than you and I.

***

After the auction, I took a cab to Hangout, where I drank and talked with a whole lot of familiar acquaintances --- defense lawyers, DAs, and bail bondsmen I know through Friar, and various local rock personalities I also know through Friar.

If I didn't know Friar, I wouldn't know a lot of people. As it is, I'm lucky that I get to go to most local shows free, and have a crack legal team on my side if I ever commit a crime.