THE GREAT GADFLY:

You Connect The Dots. You Pick Up The Pieces.

In absolutely no order of importance whatsoever:

1. Bruce LaBruce wrote a few years back that the place of homosexuals in mainstream popular culture was at its "Look Who's Coming To Dinner" moment. I think now, five or so years after Mr. LaBruce's statement, we're at least at our "Good Times"/"The Jeffersons" stage of development. Which, hey, it's not for nothin' - after all, beans don't burn in the kitchen, so ain't we lucky we got 'em?

2. I took four days off work starting last Friday, and today is my first day back on the chain gang. It was sunny and beautiful while I was off on my mini-vacation. Summer jumped out of the box during this time. Now that I am back at work, it is dark and rainy. Mother Nature gets it, for once.

3. Hey, look! Someone in my neighborhood who has a ranty and delicious diary-type-thing! I feel so much less like an old Charleton Heston movie now, though I know the damn dirty apes with their bamboo specimen cages are still just right around the corner, so I won't let this little coup get me too cocky. There are more local discoveries scattered into my "Abuse Them With Love" section, over there to the right somewhere. I'm simply overwhelmed at this latest chain of discoveries. Wowee-wow.

4. I feel like Ann-Margret in "Tommy" today. Yes, I think that '03 is going to be a good year. I'm all go-go dances and diamonds, hoorah!!! Oh, who am I kidding - by the end of the day I'll be sloppy drunk and writhing in a pool of beans.

5. TAKE HEED: People who accidentally speed-dial me on their cell phones and leave me five-minute long voice mails of conversations which sound like Charlie Brown's parents doing a readthrough of "The Bald Soprano" need to know that they are guilty of grave crimes against All Things Sexy. This might even be more heinous than wearing flip-flops to work. (I said MIGHT BE.)

6. My personal Lollapallooza of the day would feature Free Design, Happy Flowers, Tragic Mulatto, The Great Kat and a special appearance by Bijou Phillips with special guest Spinderella.

7. Product names in search of products: Mouth Spackle, Lemon Scented Morning Wank, Special Ass Raisins, Pleasure Crunch, Phlegm Phriends (cinnamon or mint).

8. I want to get a speakerphone for home use because I'm afraid people don't think I'm quite creepy or disembodied-sounding enough. Plus I think it would be quite bling to order a pizza by way of barking at my phone from across the room.

9. Actual quote from obligatory queeny fashion commentator guy during this week's BET Music Awards, upon entrance of hip-hop starlet clad in white stretchy-pants w/ airbrushed cartoon image on the thigh: "Well, she knows people like Spongebob, so she rocked it."

10. I have a copy of Punch Drunk Love that I haven't watched yet, though I feel like I've already seen it. I have no idea even what it's about, though I feel like I've sat through it several times already. I don't know what that's about. I want to watch it. I think it's some kind of hypnotherapy aversion therapy sabotage action, to be honest.