Thanks.

Toby

I know I'm letting certain things get the best of me, but there are two things I don't write about on this blog - work and relationships - because having problems with either of these things doesn't make me special.

I'm picking up my new suit tomorrow after work. It is black-ish and pinstriped. It was the first suit I tried on in the store, which means that fate ordained my purchase or that I wasn't looking hard enough. Either way, it looks fantastic. I'll post a picture later this week.

On a side note, I needed a new suit because I outgrew the others. In just a few months, I went from a size 38R to a size 43R. All muscle, I'm sure.

My boyfriend had a volleyball game in the early afternoon, and on the way to the court he dropped me off at the gym. I don't usually work out at Washington Sports Club, and as expected the place was grimy, the people were disgusting, and the staff looked like they've never made it past the front desk of a gym in their lives. So I was the biggest one there, which is all that matters.

Walking back to my boyfriend's apartment, I took the long way down P Street and ran into my friend Scott, who made fun of me for wearing only shorts and a tank top. In my defense, it was 51 degrees Fahrenheit, and what is the point of working out your arms if you're going to walk home in a sweatshirt? Correct, there is no point.

Currently, I am staring at the cover model on April's issue of "Muscle & Fitness" - the impossibly handsome, muscular and heterosexual Brian Wiefering, who is shown posing with an egg. This cracks me up, no pun intended.

After leaving Best Buy, we walked to Target, where I bought a mop. I literally spent more time choosing this mop than I did choosing a suit at Men's Warehouse earlier in the day. When it comes to groceries and packaged consumer goods, I am obsessed with getting the best value for my money, ergo my agonizing in the aisles of Target over the Clorox mop versus the Quickie mop. (I chose the Clorox mop based on aesthetics, practicality, and ease-of-use.) Then we tried on some $24.99 jeans - just for fun - and I was surprised at how well they fit. Still, we both preferred the jeans we wear wearing, which cost 10 times as much, thanks.

I also tried on a white button-down shirt that was on sale for $14.99, and it was nice if not a little snug. Upon walking out of his fitting room and seeing me in my discount retailer outfit, my boyfriend told me to stand up straight and "suck in" my stomach. I was already doing both. The funny thing is that, according to our body mass indexes, I am overweight and my boyfriend is obese. I remind myself of this whenever he tells me to suck in my stomach, which is increasingly frequent.

I am currently working on a new Wordpress-powered layout, which will enable you all to read my blog entries from as early as 2000. I'm sorry for the lack of posting, but new and exciting things are on the way.

Just like I did in 2007. And 2006. And 2004.

Nutrex Vitargo Fruit Punch = $34.99
Cytosport Cytogainer Chocolate (2) = $57.98 at $28.99 each
Optimum Nutrition 100% Gold Whey Protein Vanilla = $19.45
Optimum Nutrition 100% Casein Vanilla = $20.49

Subtotal = $132.01

Discount = $5 (Coupon code DPS1 knocks off $5 for orders over $125)

Shipping = $6.55

Total = $134.46

And they threw in a free DPS Nutrition T-shirt. I'm going to look so hardcore.

Many of you have asked what kinds of supplements I use, so there you go. (Creatine is included in the Cytogainer, which is why I don't buy that supplement separately.)

Really? Fuck you. It's 10:30 in the morning on a Saturday. Hillary gets my vote by virtue of the fact that she doesn't approach neighborhood outreach with the crassness of a Puerto Rican Day Parade.

Here's a video of the motorcade, captured from my bedroom window. Please ignore my faggy, groggy, hungover groans in the background. Feel free to Digg it, baby.

If anything, the conversation I had in a New York City gay bar on Sunday night has only fueled my desire to go to Claire's this weekend for a free piercing (with the purchase of earrings and ear care antiseptic).

Guy: [Unprovoked] "What the hell are you wearing? You're in New York."

Me: "Er, what do you mean?"

Guy: "You are one silver chain away from Staten Island, dude."

Me: "Um, I was born in Staten Island. My entire family lives there."

Guy: "Yea. I can see that."

I'm sorry that my dark Italian features are complimented so well by a black V-neck muscle T and three ounces of hair gel. Now pop off, son!

When I first heard that "The Little Mermaid" was coming to Broadway, a burst of sea foam shot straight out of my ass.

God, I love "The Little Mermaid." I remember seeing it in the theater and crying when Ursula takes away Ariel's voice. But I also remember identifying perhaps a bit too strongly with Vanessa, the wickedly bitchy embodiment of Ariel's voice who, in my opinion, is hands-down the best female villain in all of Disney history. (I was able to find a brief clip of "Vanessa's Song," but everything else on YouTube is a weird fan-generated mash-up - proving I'm not the only one obsessed with her!)

Anyway, my only real disappointment in the Broadway production of "The Little Mermaid" was the absence of Vanessa. I was hoping the actress who played Ariel would emerge during the wedding finale in a smoldering scarlet wig and behave like a raging bitch, but it never happened. In fact I couldn't really tell you what happened during the finale because it didn't make any sense.

To that degree, the critics were right: The plot lacked coherence of any kind. Something involving a shell. A powerful, radioactive shell. I have no idea. The important thing is that the entire cast was outfitted with Heelys. Heelys, people. HEELYS. How can you ever go wrong with Heelys? That's right, you can't.

In a clamshell, the musical was simply breathtaking. As to which my boyfriend can attest, I cried multiple times throughout the performance, and the ensemble inspired a well-deserved standing ovation that lasted for the closing reprise of "Under The Sea." Everyone left the Lunt-Fontanne with a smile - except, of course, for the Dina Lohan look-alike in the front row who surely would have smiled had it not been for the 3,000 units of Botox rendering her facial muscles as devoid of life as, admittedly, the bizarre fishtails attached to the rear ends of Ariel and her school of multi-culti sisters.

To quote my late former landlady's mentally unbalanced sister, "I just flew in from New York" - and let me tell you, there is a ton of shit to blog about. But before I get into Kathy Griffin's performance at MSG and "The Little Mermaid" and the guy at Therapy who read my Staten Island roots like a book, I need to tell you about my brief run-in with no one's favorite porn industry cliche, Erik Rhodes.

For those who aren't familiar with Erik (i.e. everyone), he is a former (?) porn actor who writes about his Sexual Compulsives Anonymous meetings on his blog - of which the "About" section is a studio photo of his ass. And that is pretty much all you need to know about Erik Rhodes.

Long story mercifully short, I ran into him at Therapy while getting drinks for my boyfriend and myself, and I thought nothing of approaching him to say hi. I said that I read his blog and and he looked at me like I was crazy. Actually, he didn't really look at me like I was crazy - he kind of just looked at me, blankly. To say his response was, "Oh, thanks," would be generous paraphrasing.

For some reason, when I spotted him, I imagined us having a brief but gratifying conversation about body image and working out and blogging, and I would scamper back upstairs to my boyfriend and say, "I just met Erik Rhodes, and it turns out that not all steroid-addled porn stars are brain-dead tools!" Instead, I felt like an idiot for even bothering him, even though you and I both know I am superior to him in nearly every way by virtue of the facts that I don't put a price on personal boundaries ($1,000 per scene, apparently), I don't have a crippling addiction to steroids and recreational party drugs, and I don't wear a stupid chimney-sweep hat when I go out to a bar.

Of course, it makes no sense to criticize Erik's faults when they are the only interesting things about him. Think about it: Erik is proud to get fucked in the ass in front of a camera for money but is ashamed to seek sex for personal pleasure - ironic that he was at a bar named "Therapy." He is truly a fascinating individual, but if there is one overly muscled drug-abusing prostitute in New York, there are a million, and to approach him in a bar for anything but a hurried exchange of bodily fluids is a waste of both your time and his.

Addendum: Rocco has been writing about Erik for the past several days. I mentioned Rocco to Erik, and he acted like he had no idea what I was talking about. Anyway, check out Rocco's coverage here, here, here, here and here.

Visit my Twitter page and click "Follow." (If you're not already a Twitter member, you'll need to sign up first. It's fast, it's easy, and the gold kit is free!)

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Feel free to reply to my updates because I'll be able to view them on my phone. Have fun!

[H/T: TMZ]

I dream that I will gain 60 pounds of muscle and John Cena will move to D.C. and we will become best friends and my boyfriend will learn to like the man despite his disproportionately aged face and we'll all help each other groom and apply self-tanner to those hard-to-shave places and I'll finally be happy with myself.