I’m serious. Don’t make me come up there. I’ve dealt with 2007 and a schitzo 1999 Saturn. You don’t scare me.

I will work only eight hours today. Tonight is the full moon. Tonight, I will have an Esbat in my prayer room. The full moon is the sign of the Mother – the pregnant woman. This cannot be a coincidence.

Jennifer "Kid Manilow" Layton

Third morning of running three miles, which means I’ve run nine miles in three days. I couldn’t help thinking, as I got to the 2.5 mile mark and started seeing fluorescent penguins dancing across the road and hearing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” before realizing to my horror that I was singing it out loud in perfect 12-part harmony even though I only have one set of vocal chords so the penguins must have been singing along with me, that I had totally lost my train of thought on where the heck I was going with this sentence.

Oh! Got it! I was thinking about the fact that I took up jogging about a year ago, and at that time, I couldn’t run six blocks. Now I can run three miles. And I look forward to it. Every morning I jump out of bed, lace up the shoes, and go out to meet the penguins. Mark my words, if the Bush Administration ever finds out how high endorphins can make you, they’ll make everything else legal and throw all Olympic athletes in the slammer.

My body is toning up. I may have hit a few junk food stumbles over the past few weeks, but by stubbornly refusing to give up on the jogging, my body is fighting back. I felt it last night when I was relaxing in a bubble bath (one part eucalyptus muscle-relaxing powder and one part Oil of Olay Violet and Lavender Body Wash – the combined fumes alone will relax you into a coma). I started shaving my legs and thought, Dear God, is that muscle tone?

It was. My thighs are now less flab and more muscle. They have shape. I still have a long way to go, especially since I’m not ready for shorts and have no intention of inviting you all into my bathtub to feel my legs, but I am getting strong. The results are subtle right now, but they are there.

Something else is happening, too. I’m starting to wake up. I’m feeling feistier. I was surfing around YouTube and found a regular feature called What The Buck. And I thought, my God, what happened to the old Jennifer Layton?

What the Buck?! is a popular show on YouTube featuring a guy around my age named Michael Buckley, one of the most delicious gay boys I’ve ever seen and heard. Kinda nerdy looking (love the glasses), great big smile, sharp wit, and fabulously snarky. He comments on everything to do with pop culture – Dancing with the Stars, Britney, Paris, The View, etc., in a wonderfully hyper, sly, vicious, hysterically funny barrage of insults/gossip/nothing but love.

And speaking of love, I fell in it. And it felt excitingly warm and familiar. Because back before I became a spiritually wandering workaholic, back when I was drinking way too much, I was always falling in love with gay boys. I wanted to marry a gay boy. In fact, a little over ten years ago, I found myself in the entourage of one of the Miss Gay USA contestants, following him/her on a road trip to a mind-blowing club in Washington DC and being his/her backstage assistant at a pageant in Durham, North Carolina. I carried the duct tape. I did not apply the duct tape. He/she was on his/her own for that part. He/she must have done a good job, because he/she won the crown.

I spiraled pretty hard those days, drinking way too much, and when I finally pulled myself together, I left everything about that crazy life behind. I stopped holding down three part-time jobs and got one full-timer, moved to a more family-oriented town, quit drinking and smoking, and became a Responsible Adult.

But maybe throwing everything from that old life away wasn’t such a good idea. When I saw Michael Buckley in his crazy, fun, Tyra-fearing glory, that old feeling slammed me back against the wall like a tsunami. I was filled with that giddy delight I used to feel when I sat in the middle of a gaggle of gay boys in someone’s living room, the safest and happiest I’ve ever felt in the company of men.

Those boys, whether crazy and fun like Michael Buckley, or moody and dark like gothic drama queens, or vampy and dangerous like Faye Dunaway wishes she were in Mommie Dearest, inspired me. I dared to do things. I tagged along on road trips on a whim. I made sure the air conditioning in a cheap hotel room was lowered to arctic temperatures so Miss Vanessa wouldn’t sweat when she applied her makeup in preparation for hitting the clubs. I danced with anyone and everyone. In regular life, I mother-henned the boys, but in the clubs, they mothered and protected me.

I miss that. The one gay man I sort-of know is very pompous and probably never even heard of RuPaul. I miss the crazy fun, real love, wild music and dancing, and yes, I’m probably romanticizing it a bit. There were times when the party went on way too long, but someone else was my ride, so I couldn’t leave yet. There were drugs stored in my apartment that would have landed me in jail if cops had found them, even though they weren’t mine. The drag queen I followed up and down the east coast eventually died of AIDS. He just disappeared from society when he found out he was in the final throes, and I didn’t get to say goodbye. That may be the biggest reason I left it all behind.

So I’m still struggling with all that as it awakens, as I scroll through the archives at Mr. Buckley’s YouTube site and revel in his ribaldry.

And I was revisiting my idea to marry a gay boy, and then Jimmy Smits happened.

There’s a new show on CBS called Cane, starring Jimmy Smits, an actor I’d never really paid much attention to before last week. I never caught an episode of L.A. Law or the West Wing. I remember him from one of the Star Wars prequels, but I was too busy howling over the horrible dialogue to think, “Oh, that’s that actor from L.A. Law and West Wing that I never saw.” (Favorite quote from comedian Patton Oswalt: “If I had a time machine, I would go back to find George Lucas right before he made the prequels, and kill him with a shovel.”)

When I did see pictures of him from the 80s and 90s, he looked a bit odd. Tall but very thin, very intense, and kinda bug-eyed. Then last week I started seeing previews for Cane, which looked interesting, and I didn’t already have anything to watch on Tuesday night, so I watched it.

Dear God. He’s aging very, very well. He’s put on weight in a good way – in a way that rounds out his face more and doesn’t make him look so angular and tense, like he’s about to lunge out of the television and strangle you to death. He’s downright steamy now. And it’s a steamy show. And he’s a bit of a bad boy. And suddenly I’m in love again. And I’m having rather high-impact aerobic activity-oriented dreams about him, which now just makes me confused.

If there were ever the opposite of gay, it’s Jimmy Smits. And I want to marry a gay boy, but I also want to marry Jimmy Smits. I thought girls were supposed to have a “type.” I suppose I could marry the gay boy and keep Jimmy Smits on the side, but I’d always worry that my husband would try to steal Jimmy Smits from me, and my husband would start sabotaging my dates with Jimmy Smits just so I’d look bad and he/she could swoop in and go on dates with Jimmy Smits in my place after pushing me down a flight of stairs, and well, just try explaining something like that to your marriage counselor.

So that’s where three days of jogging have led me. Aren’t you glad you asked? I know you didn’t, but this is my blog, I’m feeling feisty, and all I want now is a huge glass of Crystal Light.

What the Buck.

Our apartment complex's yard sale was yesterday. I got up at 5am to help set up. It was probably the hardest work I've done in a long time, but my neighbors and I got everything set up and ready to sell by the 8am start time. In fact, we beat the clock and were ready for any early birds.

Problem was, there weren't any. We hardly had any customers because our apartment management, who organized this whole thing, didn't do much in the way of advertising. They put a sign up at the entrance of the apartment complex that you could only see if you were driving one way up the parkway. The people from outside the complex who did stop in said that they were at another yard sale in the neighborhood and stumbled across us by accident. Of course, they had spent most of their money.

But it was a beautiful day, and I got to sit out in the sun and meet all my neighbors who I never get to see. I did have to shake my head at the reaction to the books. My neighbors and I were selling a lot of books, and you never realize how television-oriented people are today until you see the way they react to books. They glanced over them with the same bored, dismissive attitude you'd give a box full of rusty can openers. Towards the end, I put a sign that said FREE next to the book boxes, and customers who were trying to bargain me down on everything else STILL wouldn't even LOOK at the books to see if there was something they MIGHT be interested in even though they were FREE. Nobody reads anymore. Reading is dead.

It did get kind of fun in the end when it was time to pack everything up. My neighbors and I basically put out our boxes of books and had a big book swap. It was comforting to see people take interest in books I had enjoyed, and we could recommend different books to each other.

A few items I was selling were donated by a friend of a friend. He is moving to London for a couple of years to study literature (he reads too) and gave me a few wall hangings and blankets. I kept a couple of the wall hangings because they make me think of my little niece my sister adopted from China. They are Chinese designs – one is a geisha, and the other is a Chinese word painted on a white cloth. Actually, it says MADE IN JAPAN on the back, so it's probably Japanese. (See, I read, so that's how I know that.) I have no idea what the word is, but the character is painted with dramatic strokes and looks pretty. For all I know, it could mean “Death to All Who Live Here or Enter this Home or Even Glance at it While Driving Past.” But it looks nice on the wall.

I ate well this weekend and took care of myself. Tomorrow, I am back to jogging. I weighed myself this morning – somehow, even with all the overeating last week, I managed to lose half a pound. I’ll bet I lost it in sweat lugging stuff for the yard sale. I have bruises on my arms that look like clumsy attempts at intravenous drug use.

Tonight, I had some quiet time in my prayer room. I have a couple of small, black ritual candles from my pagan studies. I lit the God candle and the little candle representing me. The black candle represents everything I want to let go of. In this case, it’s the overeating. I lit the candle with the flames from the God candle and the Jennifer candle, because we are working on this together.

I sat quietly while I watched the candles burn. All three sat in bowls of sand and shells I collected from Litchfield Beach. The most sacred place from my childhood.

I wasn’t in a very prayerful mood. I’m still tired and sore from the yard sale. But it was nice to sit quietly with God for a while and ask for his help. I reviewed my food plan and asked Him to help me. I think He heard me.

I am ready to sleep now.

Letters from Phred.

One of the family members I lost this year was my maternal grandfather, Ernie. I got to stay with him and Grandma in Florida for a week when I was a child – just me and them, going to the beach every day, watching fireworks, going to the rides, and just basically letting them spoil me for an entire week without my brother and sister around.

On the first morning of that week, I woke up and found a letter taped to my door. It was from a character named Fred, but he got his “f's” and “ph's” mixed up. He wrote “I am your new phriend, and my name is Phred.”

Every night, I would write back to Phred and tape the letter to my door. In the morning, it would be gone, and I'd have an answer from Phred.

He had a brother named Fillip who liked to play phrisbee. Fillip liked to jump out and yell BOO, which gave Phred a bit of a phright. Phred could be very filosophical. And phunny. He liked eating phrench phries and going phishing. (So funny that now, in the computer age, “phishing” is actually a word for a type of spamming. And in Doonesbury a few years ago, G.B. Trudeau introduced a Vietnamese character named Phred.)

Of course, my grandphather – I mean, grandfather, was the one writing those letters. I kept them for a long time, but in the process of moving several times after college, I lost them. I felt sad when I couldn't find them. But I'll never forget them.

When Grandpa Ernie died in May, I stood up at his funeral and told everyone about Phred. I hope Grandpa, who I know was watching over us, was touched and happy that I remembered. He and I kind of drifted apart as I grew older, and I wanted him to know how much he touched my childhood. I think the letters from Phred are a big reason I started my writing career as a humor columnist for a group called the Net Wits. Phunny how childhood events can change your life.

I would be a priestess in the religion of Remerdre. Remerdreism would rule for several reasons.

Every day would be casual day, except for Tuesday. Tuesday is Goth Day.

Free snacks in the Temple break room.

Playground with one of those adventure-bounce thingies in the Temple's back yard.

In-temple theater with stadium seating and the complete Harry Potter library. Film discussion groups would meet every night.

Once a week, all Remerdreites get together and perform a random act of kindness for someone or some group in the community. After helping them, we'll run off giggling before they can find out who we are and how we found out about them.

Thursday night is “The Office.” We watch it in the theater with the stadium seating. Afterwards, no one leaves until we act out the entire episode we just watched. Drinking is encouraged.

Anyone, everyone, all people are welcome, anytime.

Bonus points for anyone who can shout out an authentic, dead-on “Well hello Mister Kott-air!”