Dinner with Rebecca, made a nice porcini tomato sauce for our pasta (she's a veggie) and a salad, and garlic bread. Not my most triumphant Porcini sauce, but a good one nonetheless. She brought me over a bottle of Absolut, replacing the bottle of Belvedere I've recently finished. That's Schuman, always there when I need someone to bring me a fresh bottle of booze. Todays word of the day comes from the movie Friday: The word is "B'Dussy." As in, when you come home and your house smells of sex and you haven't had any, and that scent of Booty, Dick and Pussy hangs thick in the air. It's the post-coital scent that makes men stare at women and think they're actually glowin. B'Dussy. Schuman and I are going to start a fragrance company and name it B'Dussy. We'll probably spell it Beaudusé, but you'll know what we're talking about. We chatted for awhile about scent - she smelled the same as she did when we were seeing eachother, and I was immediately thrown back into that relationship. They say that the nose is the doorway to memory. I won't disagree. The smell of Betsy's perfume brought my high school crashing back in a visceral way I never thought possible. I can never smell CKOne without thinking of a woman I had an enormous crush on but never pursued and the scent of Lubriderm evokes one of my Exes. It's odd to be sitting on the subway, smell lubriderm, and suddenly be thrown back into a relationship of long ago. Or smelling CkOne and being a scared college senior, desparate to tell this girl that all you want is to kiss her, but you can't, because you're too much of a coward, or something. The nose is definately the doorway to very personal histories. I actually asked Rebecca to wear a different scent next time I see her, so I don't make any false moves, lest I think we are back at Vassar and still dating. I escaped Vassar, a Vassar Casualty, as Dori likes to refer to us (not far from the truth) and I don't need to go back there. Vassar was fun, but generally speaking, for everyone else. The women were eye blisteringly beautiful, and I had no idea how to talk to them. It's something one must grow into, I think. I may see the crush again some time. I wonder if she'll be wearing CKOne. I also always wonder if she knew all along. But I digress.

Always fun when Rebecca comes over. One of those people where dating didn't ruin our friendship. It's nice. She even did the dishes, which was the nicest. It's rare, in my life, that someone else will do the dishes when I cook.

I've gained five pounds in the last month. Don't laugh. It's hard for me to gain any weight at all. Especially since I've got %5.5 bodyfat. But I'm now at 125, the heaviest I've ever been. At this rate, someday I'll break 130, and shock the hell out of myself. I was at %7.5 bodyfat when I started at the gym. I'm unworried. I'm just so happy that I've put on all this muscle and burned off most of the tiny amound of fat that I used to have. I looked in the mirror this morning and the first thing that crossed my mind was "What the fuck are those things on my back... deltoids?" I'm no Lou Ferrigno, but I'm happy to see that my body is not as hopeless as I always thought it was. My abs are now my favorite toy. There's a certain confidence that I've gained being able to stand straight up, being able to know that my body isn't hopeless, that under my clothing there's actually something more than bone. Not much, but I'm a patient boy, it'll come. I've got to thank my trainer for that. Trainer Jay, over at crunch. He's kicked my ass from here to Tennessee and back, and I thank him for it. I'll get a castpage of him up sooner or later. I don't want to be as big as he is, per se, but I'd like to put on another 20-30 pounds of straight muscle. That'd be ideal. Gimme 6 months, just in time for bathing suit season.

The reason that that's relevant is that I'm a recent convert to the world of physical fitness. My old attitude was "Lift weights? But they're heavy! Leave 'em on the ground and nobody gets hurt." I just didn't understand. I keep it in perspective, it's only 5 pounds, but it's 5 pounds that I fought and fought for and it's mine, and I've earned it. I've had weight problems my whole life, and I've started (started, only) to lick them. And it feels great. Jay suggests I feel great because my seratonin levels are rising from working out. I'll buy that.

I've been in a good enough mood lately that giving a presentation in front of my company (DDB) was like water off a ducks back. After all, there were only like 20 or 30 people htere. Brecker threatened to heckle, as did Whang and the rest of the producers, and instead he asked intelligent questions. I'm not sure if he actually wanted to know the answers or it just looked like I was fumbling, but either way. I stood up there like an idiot, trying to explain to account execs and marketing and media buying types what DHTML means. I showed them some sites and they were happy with what they saw. Hal helped me through it, prodding me with questions about things that I'd never have thought of, but he had, because he'd demoed my presentation before.

In Other News:

The T-Shirts are now being designed by Maria. And produced by her. I should have mockups/demo models by Monday. I'm cobbling together an order form for anyone who wants one. I'd prefer you get 'em running small, so I think that sizes will be S/M/L w/no XL. I'll special order XXL for people who really need it (I've got some friends who actually NEED that stuff) but otherwise, please, buy 'em small and wear 'em tight. It's the look.

I need new music. Send me CDs. I'll start a CD exchange: you send me one, I'll send you one. Works best when a bunch of people do it, that way there's a large pile of music going around, and you don't have to stick to the various CDs that I've been able to buy for myself.