I hope that ’05 is suiting all of y’all. I’m in favor of calling this “Ought Five” but that’s just me. Still, if you agree, spread the word. Also, according to two calendars on my wall, it’s the year of the Rooster (that’s me!) so please consider, if not calling this “ought five” then perhaps, “Year of the big cock.”

First dance class in a few weeks and Boogie introduced me to another Drew or, as she put it, her two favorite Drews got to meet. He’s taller than me, around the same age, and did something in his life that involved building upper arm strength (which I, clearly, have not) but the key is that he’s about 4 inches taller than me. This means that when we are in class together, I can be identified as “little Drew”. How cool is that?

Between classes (not working today I attended the 6 pm class although next week I’ll be attending the 7:30 class obliging a Big Drew/Little Drew situation) I thanked Boogie for introducing the other Drew to me and asked, “he doesn’t play on my team, does he?” He has some “yes”es…he is taking a goddamn dance class, for instance, and he is wearing one of those earrings that look like a “U” with metal spheres on the ends but in his upper ear (left) and he seems to be chummy with a 30-something black woman who is also taking the class. On the other hand, he looks like a football dude and I’m inclined to think no.

Regardless, when I asked Boogie she pointed at my hand and said, “it doesn’t matter! You’re married!!!”

I am not, even in Canada, married even though two fellows can do that there if they are so inclined. We are calling this state “Novio” which is (Mexican) Spanish slang for “boyfriend” and, more literally “engagement”. The example I always use is Spanish-Language internet browsers…if you have a problem with the modem the message will say that you’ve lost your novio.

Marriage? Well, I’m inclined towards “yes” but that means we would have to be living, you know, in the same city and everything. So this doesn’t mean “engagement” as in “pre-wedding” but rather Novio-ness is, in and of itself, a respected state. I took some plastic rings, one blue and one red to Toronto for Xmas along with a poem (about red and blue making purple) but Alex managed to go to an actual jewelry store and buy some actual rings. Classy, stainless steel, with a tiny diamond (not vulgar but enough to know that I didn’t just disassemble a machine and stick it on my finger.) So married? No. But engaged, committed, intent of the give and take between these two points? Oh yes, yes indeed I am.

We spent the past 10 or so days together, and I was left wanting a lot more which seems encouraging. I mean I could have wanted him to get the hell out and let me get back to my things. However, I feel as though I have crossed two important thresholds of intimacy.

1) My CDs have been re-arranged
First of all, we should say that I was asking for it. My CDs overflow their shelves, they are organized not so much by genre or by alphabetization but by my internal whim. I know where things are, not because an outsider could ever figure it out, but because I know where every CD is in relation to everything else.
Alex has sorted them into logical categories (Spoken Word/Comedy, Xmas, weird CDs based on cartoon programs, etc.) and everything else alphabetized, sort of.
This drives me crazy way out of proportion. Partly because I disagree with the discs that have been suddenly elevated to “heavy rotation” (such as Fountains of Wayne which had been languishing in the “sort of rock based, don’t want to sell it just yet,” along with Husker Du and U2.) And partly because I don’t want the Alt. Country mixed in next to the Prince and, oh forget it. If I have to explain, there’s no use. So the old jazz, the country, the guitar based stuff, the R&B…oh dear.

2) I have received a major note about my wardrobe. I should say, in his defense, that Alex did this in the most gracious way imaginable, so gracious, in fact, that I didn’t even recognize that it was a correction until it was well underway.

The “well underway” part was when Alex mentioned that I seemed to have picked up a bit of Plumber’s Butt, that I didn’t have said butt before so this must be a recent change and that I should, perhaps, consider wearing my pants higher than I have grown accustomed to wearing them.

Here is where pants go—up, up up. The back of the pants goes well above the butt, the front goes under the bellybutton but not under the spare tire itself. The pants go *around* the spare tire, above the hipbones, the belt is tight enough to keep the whole shebang elevated, not so tight as to make it impossible to sit.

This is not bad, actually, and I wasn’t crazy about my butt crack being on display.

I wouldn’t want to call this the definition of intimacy but I do think it’s a killer manifestation of it. He’s already on board with being with me (what with the ring and all), and he thinks I could look even cooler. He said it and I heard it (and moved past the part of being secretly hurt that he doesn’t think I’m actually, you know, entirely flawless)

Eventually there we were, in the Gap Outlet, looking at some brown flares that went unpurchased but I got a tutorial in wearing flattering pants and he got a boyfriend who doesn’t inadvertently display his bootie cleavage.

Listening to “Rio Baille Funk: Favela Booty Beats,” which is amazing. Alex got it for me for Xmas and I listen to it a lot. It sounds sort of like Florida booty rap but with samples that have lots of accordion. It’s all in Portuguese which I don’t speak. But the liner notes say that this is party music. Anyway, I gave a copy to Boogie with these notes from her class.

-Be big, it’s easier to make it small than to do the opposite.

-It’s already perfect. Even that part. All. Ready. Perfect.

-Make eye contact with those you dance with. Endeavor to give good face.

Good face to all of y’all in Ought Five.