Last Night I Dreamt I Had A Job

It's 7:43 a.m. and I'm wide awake. Surprising since I tottered off to bed at 2:15 last night.

But a short while ago, I woke up, bright eyed and bushy-tailed. Not because I'm excited about putting my peach trifle together and heading to JPZapper's and DogTopper's party, although I am, but because of this wonderful dream I had.

In the dream, I had a job.

I was back working for Boss Sunshine.

I worked for him from October, 2002 through May, 2003, and it was a nightmare. As a rule, I don't discuss my job here in my weblog, other than obliquely, but I sure did then, since Boss Sunshine made my life miserable.

But last night in my dream, there I was, happy, thriving, being the way I am at work. Motivated and motivating the people I work with, engaged, creative, solving problems, enthusiastic. And having a great time of it. And in the dream, Boss Sunshine was a benevolent presence, much as he was when i worked for him Way Back When, the first time around. In the dream, the work day concluded with a meeting, and the meeting was catered, and there was food left over. So we were divvying it up to take it home so it wouldn't be wasted. I took my portion of lunchmeat between two paper plates and said, "Okay, now where did I park my car?"

I couldn't remember.

Huh. Think back.

Nothing.

How did I get into NYC this morning? Did I drive or take the train?

Then I figured it out as I woke up.

Oh that's right. I didn't drive to work this morning. Because I don't have a job.

For a few minutes, lying there not quite awake and not quite asleep, this didn't make sense. I was having so much fun at my dream job that I didn't want to let it go. Not have a job? That couldn't be right!

But, of course, that is right. I don't have a job.

Now, I was awake.

"I have got to get a job. Get back to work," I thought.

I recently sent in my resumé to a place down in Philadelphia--I know, I know--and I'm surprised that I didn't hear anything from them. If I were them, I would have at least interviewed me. I had an idea: I'll give a call to the woman who was my predecessor at the Previous Place of emPloyment, who now works for another non-profit, ask if she knows anybody at this place and see if she would give a call over there and put in a good word for me. Running over what I'd say to her in my head, the explanation, "Maybe I was a little bit too assertive in my cover letter, and although that would work in New York, this is Philadelphia. And philadelphians hate assertiveness."

So that's when it all came to me: I'm going to start looking for a job in NYC.

Thousands of people from this area work up in "the City." They take the train in from Princeton Junction or Trenton or catch a bus from Frenchtown and commute. The graduate programs I'm looking at are at NYU and Stevens in Hoboken, so that would be a snatch to work and go to school.

But what about your father?

You may well ask.

I've thought of that.

A few months ago, I stopped in on this local in-home eldercare place. And they were great. Since my father is an inveterate cigar smoker, no live-in eldercare facility in the country will take him. They all have "smoking outside only" policies. And at this point, my father doesn't do "outside." But he can get anything done in-home. From bathing to housekeeping to having meals prepared for him to companionship. (All the things I do now. Except for the bathing. There I draw the line.)

I came away from my meeting with the in-home eldercare folks enthusiastic, but that quickly dimmed when I wondered to myself, "Now how do I make that transition? How do I get buy-in from my father."

After all, I know just what he'd say: "I don't need that. That's why you're here."

Ah! Getting where I'm going?

But if I had a job, a demanding--and hopefully well-paying--job in New York City, I'd have an answer to that: "But Dad, I'll won't be able to be here as much as I used to be."

I could begin the transition out of here.

After about a week, my father would adjust. And there'd be no problem. A month or so down the road, if I were to find a room to rent in NYC, just so I could stay over if I had to work late, he'd be okay with that, too.

And I could get back to work. Have a great job that I loved again. That would just be so tonic.

Okay. I'm gonna check out NYC jobs on craigslist and Idealist.org now.

Wish me luck.

Naked In The Garden

So it could be that 2007 might not be The Year Without Sex after all.

I've been spending time on Manhunt, and I've had a few offers, and not from men who live in Arizona either, but actually a lot closer to where I live. The other night on Manhunt, this guy flags me down. He lived not so far away from me, but he was interested in shooting me, rather than screwing me. Shooting me, that is, with a camera. (There are people out there who would like to see me felled by a bullet through the blue smoke from the barrel of their Colt .45, but happily they're few and far between. Okay. There's only one that I know of, and he lives in New Mexico.)

Anyway.

He said that he had "looked for" me at Pride this year, but hadn't seen me. While I was explaining that I got there pretty late in the day (grrrrr...), I thought, "Wait a minute... He looked for me... Who is this guy?"

This guy is a photographer. Not for money, just for fun. He referrred me to a website that featured some of his work, www.radicalfaeries.net

*gasp!*

Am I being stalked by a faerie?

Cool!

And indeed, River (his faerie name) is a Radical Faerie. And of course he knows Kokoe, my favorite Radical Faerie. And he had some amazing photographs he took at Faerie gatherings.

And he wanted to shoot me.

I made arrangements to head down to his farm outside of New Hope so we could make that happen.

He suggested I bring some leather and a cigar. I was happy to bring both. And I suggested I bring some chain, since I kinda like chain, and thought that it would work well in terms of composition with my ink. The day was overcast and on the cool side, but it wasn't raining. And, overcast days are the best for photography, with even diffuse bright light that doesn't cast a shadow.

River was all about "whatever you feel comfortable with" and "if you're not comfortable we don't have to" and "so how would you like me to photograph you?".

"Listen," I said, "You don't need to worry about my comfort levels. And you're the artist, so you're in charge. You just bark the orders and I'll comply.

"Y'see," I explained, "I'm a total exhibitionist."

"That's great," he replied, "because I'm a total voyeur."

We started out with me lying on his brick patio, and him clicking away from the second story windows upstairs. Then, he and his partner dragged a kalim out onto the patio, and I sprawled out on that. I lit a cigar, and he tood a few shots with me smoking it. When it seemed we had exhausted the possibilities on the patio, we headed out to the barn. And took some more.

Eventually, River got comfortable with the barking of the orders: "feet closer together! turn your head more this way!" And, dishearteningly, "suck in your gut! More! More!" Followed usually by, "Relax your face." And he was so appreciative! "Look at your beautiful face! Omigod those eyes!

*sigh*

Tell me more about my eyes...

Here's a sample of some of the photos that he took...







Oh. And here's one I asked to be taken with 'bastian in mind. 'Cause he wanted a picture of my ass.



So River and his partner had this great 18th Century farmhouse, and a beautiful old barn. But what I really enjoyed was the gardens.

I think there's a thing called "A Bucks County Garden."

I remember when I was little, and I'd go to parties with my sister, parties given by her hippie friends. They'd be living in this 18th Century farmhouse with a great barn. Or, on one memorable occasion, in a great barn that had been renovated. And outside there would be a lawn of sorts, strewn with blankets and deck chairs. And at the edges of the lawn would be patches of high grass, with daisies and cornflowers and black eyed susans and queen anne's lace. And here and there a planting, hosta or day lilies or whatever. But the plantings and the wild plants blended seemlessly. Unless you knew, you couldn't tell which was which. And that stand of black eyed susans might just look as spectacular as anything that had come from the nursery.

So great, that blending of the natural and the intentional. And this year, since I've had the time and interest in paying attention to this property here at 4853 Tollgate Road, that's what I've been shooting for without being aware of it. I've mowed the lawn, but I've been careful to leave it just grow wild at the edges. I love when the mown grass and the tall grass meet. And what we euphemistically call "the back yard" I've just let grow. It's shaded by oaks, so it doesn't get very tall back there. It's mostly sourgrass and clover and patches of moss. In the evening and the early morning, back there under the trees, it's this beautiful irridescent chartreuse.

And even the stuff I've planted looks kind of crazy. At the edge of the front porch, there's a big planter at the base of the chimney. A few years ago, I planted a couple of french lavender plants, hoping they'd grow.

Man. Did they ever grow.

This summer, the planter is a riot of long, spindly lavender.

The door of the garage is almost half covered by this vine. I think it grows wild around here, since I see it along the roadsides. And, in days of yore, my father had a trellis with roses back in that area of the garage. The nameless vine gets these amazing bunches of orange trumpet flowers on them. They've been blooming for weeks now and show no signs of stopping.

And in a patch of grass I've left unmown in the middle of the front yard at the curve in the driveway, there are all of these cornflowers.

I love cornflowers. They're so nutty. They're the most beautiful shade of blue--cornflower blue--that I've ever seen. They tend to grow in garbage strewn lots down in Philadelphia. And they're considered to be weeds. This designation probably comes from the fact that the flowers grow along the stem, but not at the very top, where you'd expect a flower to be. Presenting your sweetie with a bouquet of cornflowers would probably not win you the gracious response you're hoping for.

But that amazing shade of blue...

I love cornflowers.

So the Bucks County Garden. It's all about What Comes Up. And working with nature. Just tweaking it here and there. No formality whatsoever. The word "riot" comes to mind. Nothing overdone. Nothing too showy. Mostly what you see are banks of green. Whatever the deer didn't eat.

A Bucks County Garden is where you keep an eye out for box turtles. And where you can see the lightning bugs fill the air. And where you feel you're miles and miles away from the city. And where right there, in the middle of a patch of pansies and violets that bloomed back in the Spring you'll find a few tomato plants. Or squash vines that will totally take over everything by the second week in August. In a Bucks County Garden, dogs can piss anywhere they want to. It'll grow back after the next rain. And in a Bucks County Garden, don't wear your nice clothes. Just wear jeans or whatever.

Or, of course, nothing at all. After all, out by the road, the forsythia is so overgrown that cars can't see too well just what goes on here.

Quest For Peaches

Yesterday, I headed out in search of Good Peaches to use in my ginger peach trifle. I headed to the Giant in Plumsteadville, which of the supermarkets around here tends to offer the best produce. They had peaches, and I did my best to pick some good ones, but cutting them up last night, it seemed they... Just Wouldn't Do. An odd combination of under-ripe around the pit and over-ripe and mealy at the skin. I chopped them up and put them in a bowl overnight, and this morning I had a bowl of unusable peaches.

Drat!

So I headed out again today, setting my sites on the nearest Whole Foods Market.

Alpha in San Diego was the man who turned me onto Whole Foods. And who better? Alpha worked as a meat cutter in the original Whole Foods Market in Austin, Texas. According to Alpha, it was such a great place to work. People who worked there were encouraged to make the most of their jobs, and interaction with the customers--without necessarily trying to sell them something--was encouraged. Alpha worked on Friday nights, when supermarkets are pretty dead. He decided to help the time pass by starting a program he called Meat Department True Confessions. He would get on the PA and announce that for the next half an hour, he would be hearing true confessions in the Meat Department. At the end of a half an hour, the person who had the most Shocking confession would get a free cut of the meat of their choice. Then he would sit back and wait as one-by-one, Whole Foods Market shoppers would approach and confess to him. Each time this happened, he'd get back on the PA and announce, "Shocking! Shocking!!! But is it shocking enough?" When the half hour was up, he'd decide who had the most shocking confession and award the person their meat, at no time divulging just what that person or anyone else had confessed. Adultery, of course, was the most common confession, but only the most creative--with my mother-in-law!!!--merited the meat.

While visiting Alpha a few years ago, we stopped by the Whole Foods in San Diego in search of a nice watermelon. There followed a graduate seminar in watermelon for me and Alpha courtesy of the produce guys at Whole Foods Market. We learned everything about how watermelons are grown and harvested and, most important, how to pick a good one. The watermelon we walked out with was one of the best watermelons I've ever had in my life.

So I headed over to Whole Foods Market south of Montgomeryville to find me some good peaches.

Oh man.

Whole Foods Market so rocks.

I found some great peaches, and was about to pay for them and head for home when I saw the olive bar.

Hmmm... I bet they have pitted french green olives (of course they did). My favorite olives. I used to eat them by the fistful when I did my weekly grocery shopping at Sahadi's on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. And from the olive bar, I could see the fish department.

Ooh!

I decided to splurge on dinner. I got myself two dozen cherry stone clams ("throw in six extra in case some don't survive the trip home," said the helpful Whole Foods fishmonger), some salmon sausage with jalapeños, and some shrimp for my dad. My dad loves shrimp. So much that perhaps I'll be able to trick him into eating shrimp prepared a way he'll doubtless be dubious of: my vietnames-inspired cucumber shrimp salad. The recipe for which I will now divulge.

First, skin and seed two medium sized cucumbers. (You can get the seeds out pretty easy with a teaspoon.) Cut them in half lengthwise, and slice them so they're in little crescent moon shapes.

In a big bowl, start with some sesame oil or flax seed oil or canola oil or peanut oil or whatever. About as much as you'd use if you were making salad dressing, 'cause that's what you're doing. To this, add the juice from two limes and a little bit of honey. Then, combine the zest from the limes, some basil, cilantro, and peppermint, chopped fine. Add just a smidgen of rice wine vinegar, and combine it all really good. (Shaking it up in a bottle works well.) Pour over the cucumbers and set aside so the flavors marry and marinate the cucumbers.

Now for the shrimp. Have the shrimp peeled and de-veined. Put them in a bowl and add some of that there oil you were using, and then add tons and tons and tons of Tabasco sauce. Lots of it. So the shrimp are more or less sitting in a pool of Tabasco Sauce.

I cook the shrimp on the grill, but you can do it in a hot (500°) oven, too. I put the shrimp in the Tabasco sauce in an aluminum pie plate and put it on the grill, close the lid, and give it a minute or two, checking it often. Remember, it doesn't take too long at all for shrimp to cook, and you don't want to overcook them or else you can just take them and throw them right in the garbage cause that's where they belong. 'Kay? When they're cooked, fish them out of the Tabasco and add them to the cucumbers. Mix lightly, but not too much.

The idea is to have these fiery hot shrimp in this cool, green, flavorful salad. It's sooooooooo good. Great summertime appetizer for folks to enjoy while you grill the steaks.

But anyway, I've got some peaches to slice up. I'm debating whether or not to skin the peaches. I love peaches for the skins, but I believe I've heard tell of some poor benighted folks who don't like peaches because of the skins, and I wouldn't want anyone to miss out on the sublime delights of my ginger-peach-vanilla trifle because of a little peach skin. On the other hand, skinning peaches is a huge pain in the ass.

So we'll see.

Weber Uberalles

Although I can scarce afford it, I couldn't hold out any longer. So I went out and bought myself a Weber grill. I managed to find their 18 1/2 inch tabletop model for fifty-five bucks.

Mind you, we are not talking about a gas grill. I don't believe in gas grills. I grill over charcoal.

White hot coals give you a temperature of about 1600 ° F. A gas grill, at best, will give you half of that heat. And with a gas grill you don't get to do fun things like soak hickory chips in water and spread them over the coals to impart a hickory-smoked flavor on your meat.

With a charcoal grill, I am the Master of Steak. My grilled steaks can make a strong man weep. I make a sort of paste out of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, ground green peppercorns, and fresh rosemary. I marinate the steaks in this, and then when the grill is at its hottest, I put them on, turning them frequently after the initial sear so the heat moves up through the meat consistently. I like my steak grilled black on the outside (and the sugar in the balsamic carmelizes wonderfully well) and bloody on the inside.

And what better accompaniment than a warm salad of grilled vegetables, finished with olive oil, balsamic, and some nice goat cheese.

A gas grill just doesn't measure up. Imparting no flavor whatsoever, it takes longer and it's harder to judge what kind of action your getting. When forced to use a gas grill, I usually end up having to close the cover so that you're actually roasting. And that's much easier to do in an oven.

Not to mention barbecue, which you can't really do effectively on a gas grill. At all.

And now, I'm off to fix some Fourth Of July steaks for my dad. My hickory chips are soaking now.

Promises You Make To Yourself With Your Fingers Crossed

A fascinating concept, no?

I was introduced to it over the weekend by my buddy the Real Estate Mogul Of Doylestown.

We were driving through some beautiful Bucks County farmland that somehow hasn't grown a crop of McMansions and REMOD mentioned that he once promised himself that he'd have a farm and raise sheep, and at the same time prayed that he'd never have a farm and raise sheep. Y'know? One of those things that works great on a conceptual level, but the image of yourself shoveling sheep dung in August gives you pause.

Here are some examples of some Promises I've Made To Myself With My Fingers Crossed...

• Learn to skateboard!

• Be on a Reality show!

• Compete in MAL!

• Be a hustler!

• Have a motorcycle as my primary means of transportation! (What? No cup holder? I'll keep my iced quad venti two pump vanilla light ice latté where exactly?)

• Seduce a straight guy!

• Meet anyone whom I idolize! (Way too stressful. And then they go and disappoint you by being merely human.)

• Live in Moscow!

• Enter a monastery!

• Learn vietnamese!

• Attend Burning Man!

• Open my own restaurant!

• Be a Law Enforcement Officer! (I'm way to old at this point. And what do you mean I'd have to shave my moustache? I'm not thinking of T.J. Hooker so much as I am Goldblum on Hill Street Blues.)

• Become a wine connoisseur!

• Jump off the high dive!

• Throw pottery on the wheel!

• Go on an archaeological dig! (I'm still enthralled by this idea, but a Real Live Archaeologist I met explained to me that it's several weeks of you, eighty-one square feet of dirt, a teaspoon, and a collander.)

• Join the Merchant Marines!

• Enter a Jesuit novitiate!

• Father a child!

• Take voice lessons!

• ...and so many more.

What are some of yours?

Howdy, Fellers!

(Fellers of Trees, that is.)

Today promises to be a good day. The arborists finally showed up to take down two dead trees threatening the house--way too big for me to tackle alone--and a few dead limbs over the cable wire. And they are a lot to look at. One big blond guy in particular definitely works for me.

I hope I get a well paying job, because a plan is suddenly taking shape with me to spend my dotage hiring well-formed tradesmen to "do work" for me while I set up a lawn chair, pour a glass of ice tea, fire up a cigar, and dream.

I'm also pretty excited about the prospect of all that firewood to split. I'll easily have three cords, and these boys will cut to eighteen inches and stack all the trees they cut down. Woo hoo! With what we have on hand, we should be good for two years. Not to mention all the autumn afternoons I'll get to spend meditatively splitting and stacking, Robert Frost's poetry drifting through my head, getting my head straight.

* * * * *

Huh.

That's interesting.

When they came out to bid on the job, it was a woman who I spoke with. And now there seems to be another woman checking in with the guys. I think I've hired a lesbian owned-and-operated small business to help me with my dead tree problems.

Ginger Peach Trifle

I am wildly excited about the dessert I'm bringing to DogTopper and JPZapper's annual dungeon party next Saturday. At the risk of spoiling the Shock and Awe experience for anyone reading who might be attending--treachery akin to revealing who dies in the Harry Potter book--here's what I have planned.

I'm making a Trifle! It's a classic english dessert. Only I'm doing it up not-so-classic. Jury is still out on whether I'll make it in a big glass bowl (the traditional presentation), or have a bunch of little individual servings in plastic cups.

First off, I'm gonna get me some good peaches. That might be difficult, so I want to take care of that on Wednesday, just in case I have to scour all the frutivendoli in a fifty mile radius to find some really nice ones. I'm gonna slice them up in a bowl, add a little sugar to draw their juices out, and add some fresh ginger. Then that's gonna sit and get all sweet and soupy till I'm ready for it.

Thursday night, I'm baking a batch of gingersnap cookies. Then, on Saturday morning, I'll have to make some vanilla syrup (simple enough: just water, sugar, a pinch of salt, and vanilla extract, bring to a boil and reduce), and a batch of crème anglaise. The crème anglaise is a custard, made with cream and egg yolks and sugar. I'm probably going to add more cream than the recipe calls for, because I want it to be creamy rather than custardy.

And finally, I'll put it all together, layering the peach-ginger mixture, the créme anglaise, and the crumbled ginger snap cookies, now and then giving it a shot of the vanilla syrup. The top layer will be the crème anglaise, and I'll decorate it with some peach slices and gingersnap cookies and a swirl of the vanilla syrup.

As my sister the chef used to say, "They'll scream. They'll cry. They'll live others' lives."

Get Your Salad On

A nice summer salad recipe.

Buy one of those clear plastic caskets of grape tomatoes, slice them all in half, and put them in a bowl. To the bowl, add a generous amount of olive oil, a splash of balsamic vinegar, generous amount of fresh ground black pepper, and some salt. Mix it all up and let it sit for a while.

Then add:

• Mozzarella cut up into cubes;
• Some cubed italian bread (not the kind that comes sliced in a bag, and it helps if it's a day or so passed good-to-eat but not yet totally hard and stale;
• Fresh basil, cut up frisée (to do this, hold the leaves of basil in a tight bunch in your hand, then chop with a chef's knife as think as you can).

Mix it all up and again, let it sit for a bit.

Note that the "letting it sit for a bit" is optional. I made it last night and ate half of it right out of the mixing bowl and it was yum. But when I polished off the balance today, it was even better.

And one more thing: it's best enjoyed at room temperature. If you're impatient like me, then Room Temperature = 15 Seconds in the microwave.

Enjoy!

Remember Back When We Used To Have "Safe Words"?

Those days are gone.

A new day is dawned.

Despite my D+ on the 8th Grade Science Quiz, I'm a genius!

So I was talking to this guy on line. Big, hot, beefy bodybuilder guy. From his profile, he's pretty much a Top, and not much into SM.

I complimented him on his back. (And he has a beautiful back. Rhomboids like loaves of bread.) He came back with something like, "My back? Are you into giving massages or something?"

"Well, yeah," I answered, "But mostly I'd like to whip you."

"Whip me? Kidding me? What did I ever do to you?"

"Not about that," I explained, "It's just that I'd have a good time whipping you. See what happens first: my arm gets tired, or you tap out."

Case you're not up on Ultimate Fighting, "Tapping Out" is when the match is over. One of the fighters will slap the canvas with his palm three times, as a way of saying, "Okay, I give in. I've had enough." Sort of the hyper-masculine equivalent of saying "Uncle."

There was a pause. Then came his reply: "I never tap out."

And all of a sudden he was totally into it. It didn't take much coaxing from me ("I bet you can take a lot"), and now this Not-Into-SM Top guy wants me to whip him.

Alas, he lives on the West Coast, so it's not gonna happen any time soon.

But still, what a great strategy for seduction: We'll just go till you tap out.

It's like Johnny Knoxville and Ultimate Fighting and John Cena and Backyard Wrestling have all conspired to bring about the circumstances where men are forming a line so that I can chain them up and whip them. Till my arm gets tired or until they tap out. Whichever comes first.

So remember, the next time you're at a play event and you hear someone talking about "Tapping Out," the idea was original with SingleTails.

I'm gonna go practice with my bullwhips.

Not Looking Forward To Report Card Day

And you think I'm such a smart guy, huh?

Free Online Dating

I got a D+

But I have to admit, I didn't study. I thought I could just coast by.

I remember in 5th Grade, we had a "Science Bee" in my class. All the other kids were eliminated, and it was a showdown between me and... Linda Partridge or Maggie Nathans, I think. One of those Smart Girls. The Smart Girl missed her question, and so I had to answer correctly to win. Mrs. Stern, the teacher, gave me the cinchiest of all cinchy questions: "What are the three types of rocks?"

That's so easy!

"Igneous, Sedimentary, and..."

I drew a blank.

"Igneous, Sedimentary, and..."

I know this! This is so easy!

Igneous rocks are formed by minerals exposed to heat close to the earth's core or by magma coming close to the earth's surface. They're formed by heat. Sedimentary rocks are when minerals get mushed together by being buried by other stuff. Fossils are sedimentary rocks. And then there's the third kind... Formed by...

"Igneous, Sedimentary, and..."

"Igneous, Sedimentary, and..."






"Igneous, Sedimentary, and..."

I didn't get it.

After what seemed an eternity, while I stood up there in front of the whole class repeating "Igneous, Sedimentary, and... Igneous, Sedimentary, and... Igneous, Sedimentary, and..." like some geologic mantra, I finally timed out, and Mrs. Stern, without even looking at me, said, "Metamorphic."

Agggggghhh! How could I forget Metamorphic!

The Smart Girl got her next question right, and I went down to defeat.

Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic.

Quarts, Shale, Diamonds.

C'est N'est Pas Rien, C'est Une Couche Mal

Oh. My. God.

I could not be happier.

Turner Classic Movies is showing Sidney Lumet's Murder On The Orient Express.

Such an amazing movie. I saw it when it first came out with my brother and my father. It's incredible film making. Every frame is absolutely perfect. And the cast: Albert Finney, Lauren Becall, Ingrid Bergman, Wendy Hiller, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Sean Connery, Michael York, Jacqeline Bisset, John Gielgud, Richard Widmark, Tony Perkins... How the hell did they get the greatest actors of the 20th Century in the same movie?

Nine year old me emerged from the theater with a fascination for train travel, Agatha Christie, and a desire to learn foreign languages. Among other things. (Hercule Poirot and I share a certain pride in our extraordinary moustaches.)

I wish I had known. I would have make myself a nice pot of tea.

This is delightful.

Baseball, Cigars, And Grace

[Note: This was written last night. Thankfully, internet access was restored this afternoon.]

It’s been a hard week for me. A very hard week.

On Monday, I had trouble sleeping. There I was at 4:30 in the morning, plagued by awful dark despair. Bleak and hopeless. It all started when I was brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed. Maybe it was just the bad lighting in the bathroom, but looking in the mirror it seemed that one of my front teeth was stained with brown.

And me without a dental plan. Or a job. Or a significant relationship. Or a date on Saturday night. Or a future.

I once read that dreaming about losing teeth is dreaming about death. Not just death, but the disappation and loss you suffer leading up to death. And for the next few hours, lying in bed, walking through the still, dark house, sitting out on the porch while dawn broke, that was certainly where my thoughts turned.

Usually when this happens—it’s a rare thing with me, but it does come upon me every once in a while—I manage to find some way to talk myself in off the proverbial ledge. Well I didn’t that night. I finally got to sleep, thinking morbid, self-pitying thoughts about whether it would be more fitting to sit in my jeep closed up in the garage with the engine running, listening to one last playlist on my iPod, or to just hang myself from one of the hooks in the high ceilings of the garage. (Just me being dramatic, I swear! Don’t get all nervous. Like you haven’t been there ever.)

And to be sure, part of this internal monolog centered on hatred of my father. The reason that I’m here, stuck in the Howling Wilderness.

And why am I here? How did I get here?

Simple.

I’ve known the answer to that question for a while now.

I want my father to love me. And I was so sure that such a profound gesture, giving up my adult life in New York City to move back here and take care of him would win his love.

Well that didn’t happen.

He’s a selfish man. Every train of thought he has starts out with “What about me?” And those thoughts about offing myself out in the garage were all about my rage: “See what you did, Dad? Who’s going to make you dinner and launder your shitty underwear now?”

As I said, the feeling didn’t go away. I just finally drifted off to sleep, at about 8 a.m.
The next day, up at the crack of noon (I hate sleeping late), those phantoms from the night before were much paler, but they hadn’t vanished altogether. This whole week I’ve just felt as though the rug had been pulled out from under me. I was just going through the motions. At Starbucks yesterday, enjoying a cigar and the wonderful hazy-hot-humid afternoon, I tried to read but couldn’t keep my mind on the book, fascinating though it is.

No job. No man. No life.

Tonight at the gym, my workout was a huge effort. After just about every set, I’d ask myself, “What’s the point of this exactly?”

Usually, I’m not working out so late. But there was a thunderstorm brewing, and when I was heading out, my father begged/forbade me to go: “What if the lights go out while you’re not here.”

Power failures are my father’s great obsessive fear.

The obvious answer to that question is, “The same thing that would happen if I was here. You light candles and wait for the power to come back on.”

Whaddya want from me? Climb a ladder and see if everything looks “okay” with the transformer on the utility pole out front?

So I made an early dinner, waited until after Action News decided that the threat was passed, and then went to the gym.

Among the late gym goers is a guy named Ken. Ken looks so good naked. He’s also a homo. Or at least, semi-homo. We’ve talked some, and still nod hello to each other, but our brief conversations made clear to both of us that preferring hims to hers is all we have in common.

But tonight, uncharacteristically, Ken asked me, “How’s softball going?”

My reply was immediate: “Softball is going great! My team leads the division and we’re on a twelve game winning streak.”

And after that, when I managed to squeeze out a set of dumbbell shoulder presses, when the question rose in my mind, “What was the point of this exactly?”, I had an answer: Softball!

Softball is the thing that I still have going for me.

And is it perhaps a coincidence that this Existential Crisis hit me just when I haven’t played for ten whole days and I won’t play again until July 14th? That’s a long time to go without softball.

Truly, softball has sustained me this year, when so many of my other pillars (SM, romance, leather) have failed.

I’ve still got softball.

After my workout, I stopped at Starbucks, then headed home. The night air was cool and fresh from the shower. I gave Faithful Companion a walk, then sat down at the trusty old laptop to check email.

Outside I heard a crack, almost like a rifle shot, or a bullwhip. Then a creaking sound. An error message appeared on the screen: your internet connection has been lost.

“Hey! What happened?” my father called out from the former spare bedroom where he now spends his days and nights smoking cigars and watching television.

Before I even grabbed a flashlight and went to investigate, I knew immediately what happened.

I noticed a few weeks ago that over the wires coming in from the street that bring us our cable television and my internet connection, there were a couple of very large dead limbs of a very big tree. Both of the limbs extended out almost parallel to the ground, right over the juice from our friends at Comcast. I called an arborist to come out and take care of it, since they were both way too high up for me to tackle. The arborist has made a habit of making appointments to come and do the work and then not showing up.

In the front yard is a huge limb—that’ll make great firewood this winter—lying on top of a tangle of cables.

I came back in and gave a report to my father, who was distraught. For him, it’s all about watching television.

Ask the Baron.

Back in May, he came up to have dinner on the night of my father’s birthday. I roasted a chicken, and it was one of my best. (Which is saying a lot. My roast chicken is great.) When dinner was ready, my father came out to the table and after some preliminaries (opening the card, looking at the plate I had prepared for him and asking, “what is this?”), he wanted to turn on the television because that goddamn game show with Howie Mandel and the briefcases was on.

And yes, I’ll admit it gladdened my cold, black heart hugely a little that my father was to be deprived of whatever the hell he was watching. Which in this instance was a Phillies game.

I called Comcast, and they said they’d send out a technician tomorrow afternoon.

“What the hell am I supposed to do until then?” my father demanded to know.

“Read a book,” I said

Not the answer he was hoping for, so he trudged back to the spare bedroom.

Well, I thought, I could read a book. Or watch a movie. I have a nice but small selection of DVDs.

Huh.

“Dad,” I called back, “Want to watch a movie?”

He came back out to the livingroom, and I explained to him that wonderful modern innovation that is a DVD player.

“What movies do you have?” he asked.

I had already decided what we were going to watch.

A few years ago, I bought my father the deluxe box set of Ken Burns’ documentary, Baseball. I had also bought the collection for myself. My dad got VCR tapes, possibly the last Christmas that video cassettes were sold by Barnes & Noble, and I got DVDs.

Per usual, my father had opened up my gift, asked “What the hell is this?”, listened with half an ear while I explained, set it aside, and promptly forgotten about it.

He settled himself in his chair in the living room and I selected the DVD covering baseball in the 1940s, which was a banner decade for my father. I hit play and we started to take it in.

In one of the introductory segments, a man my father’s age describes how when he was stationed in the South Pacific during World War II, feeling forlorn and homesick, he was listening to a baseball game on the radio. A sergeant came in and joined him, and the sergeant lit up a cigar. When the guy got a whiff of the cigar smoke, he said, “And then and there, I was transported to the Polo Grounds (home of the New York Giants).”

That got my father’s attention.

“Uh… Do me a favor,” he said, “Run back and get me a cigar.”

Now, that’s actually a pretty big deal.

My stepmother hated my father’s cigar smoking. That’s why he’s consigned to the spare bedroom. I can still hear her, calling from the living room, “Howard! Shut the door! I can smell the stink from your goddamn cigar!”

Clearly, by smoking a cigar in the living room, my father knew he was risking having her ghost rise from the grave and come and carry him off to eternal torment.

“And get one for yourself,” he called to me. (At least he wouldn’t be dragged down to Hell alone.)

When I heard this, something long dormant inside me awakened.

I brought my dad his cigar, and ran out to my car to get one of mine from the portable humidor in my shoulder bag. My father, you see, doesn’t smoke maduros, and I only smoke maduros.

We lit our cigars, and sat watching Ken Burns’ documentary. Joe DiMaggio gets a hit and gets on base in an astonishing 56 straight games. Ted Williams hits .406 for the season.

Before I made that fateful decision in 2003 that brought me back here, when I was just contemplating the possibility, this was the image that arose in my mind: me and my dad, smoking cigars, and watching Ken Burns’ documentary about baseball together.

Way back when I was in college, home one summer, PBS showed a documentary of Bill Moyers interviewing Joseph Campbell. My dad and I watched it together. The whole thing. Side by side, in the same chairs we sat in tonight.

My dad and I were very much father and son, sitting there, listening to Joseph Campbell. We didn’t look at each other. Because we each knew the other one was moved to tears, now and then giving out a sob stifling sigh. If you’ve ever sat next to me and watched a movie, any movie, you know exactly what I mean. Not, of course, because I’m/we’re sad, just because what I’m/we’re watching is deeply effecting, and there’s that emotional reaction thing that we Kramer men don’t handle so well.

And cigars.

Back when we were dating, Special Guy described to me how he and his dad would sit out in their backyard in Queens smoking cigars and drinking wine together. I was struck at the time by how foreign that was given my own relationship with my father. But why should that be so? I smoke cigars, my father smokes cigars. Just, not in the same room together.

So that’s how my father and I spent this cable- and internet-free evening. Sitting watching Ken Burns’ Baseball and smoking cigars.

Not saying much to each other.

“I bet when Ted Williams didn’t get a hit he breathed a sigh of relief. Can you imagine that pressure?”

“Good old Brooklyn. I lived three blocks from where Ebbet’s Field stood. It’s apartment houses now.”

Or just, “Wow.”

“Hey! There’s Connie Mack.”

“I thought it was so great how this year, on April 15th, a lot of players all wore Number 42 to commemorate the anniversary of Jackie Robinson taking the field the first time. What a great man he was.”

I will remember this night until the day I die.

They Want You!

More than a decade before the Don't Ask Don't Tell fiasco, the United States Navy bankrolled the filming of this video with the hopes that it would bolster enlistment.

I kid you not.

The date on the video is 1979, so I'm guessing that would be after the infamous Saturday Night Live skit that blew the lid off the all of the homosexual innuendo and double entendres in the Village People's oeuvre.

And that begs the question: was the Navy out of their minds, or were they really and truly hoping that young American homos would rush to enlist? I'm forced to believe it was the latter.

(As we all know, this had no effect on bottoms. Bottoms enlist in the Marines. Always. Without exception. Trust me on that.)

Music Hunt!

I hate when I want to own a song and it's not to be found on iTunes. iTunes should have some way of taking requests, right?

In days of yore, when I was huge into music piracy (Arrrrgh!), I relied on Limewire and Napster and similar shareware sites. But, much like Diane Keaton in Looking For Mr. Goodbar when she was dating the guy who left his stash at her apartment, my head just got filled up with too many images of the FBI agents breaking down my door.

And so I turn to all of you.

Can anyone out there direct me to a website where I can obtain--for cash money!--MP3s of the following tracks?

• You're Beautiful by Madagascar
• The Whistle Song by Frankie Knuckles
• Don't Tell Me by Blancmange

I will, of course, be wildly appreciative.

Pride NYC 2007

Okay.

(Touching fingertips to tongue and running them over eyebrows; smoothing pleats on apron; gently clearing throat.)

There. I've composed myself.

Let me try again.

My hopes and expectations for heading up to NYC for Pride with the Baron were two-fold: I wanted to shake off the rollicking, rainbow-festooned mob and enter the beautiful sanctuary of the Church of Saint Luke In The Fields to attend Gay Pride Evensong. Then, later, I wanted to stand on the sidewalk of West Street, preferably in front of one of the Richard Meier towers and watch the fireworks display.

It was my expectation that the Baron would come up on Saturday night, stay over, I'd roll him out of slumber Sunday morning around 10 a.m., and around 10:30--eleven o'clock at the latest--we'd be on the road heading up to NYC. When we spoke to confirm on Friday, the Baron trumped these plans: he'd agreed to watch his sister's ailing cats, so he wouldn't be able to leave leafy Chestnut Hill until Sunday morning. He said he'd make it up there by 11:30.

So okay.

That would work.

Just before eleven, as I was getting into the shower, the Baron called. He was occupied "taking care of two households" or something, and so he'd be there around 12:30.

(Grrrrr.)

I took a shower, shaved, and got dressed. The night before, I had made a nice fool with some peaches I picked up while grocery shopping, and thought that the Baron and I could enjoy them before heading off.

To make a long story short, the Baron turned into the driveway at 2:15. I decided to Just Let Go. We ate our fool (quotha the Baron: "Oh. Dairy. I hope that doesn't disagree with me"), bid adieu to my father, and set off.

Naturally, as I feared, at that time of day traffic was horrendous. And we caught a lot of it. Even taking the back way through my old neighborhood in Jersey City, we didn't manage to make it through the Holland Tunnel until 5:30. Now, according to the notice I saw posted outside St. Lukes' a week or so ago, Gay Pride Evensong was at 6 p.m. To my mind, that meant getting there aroudn 5:45 to get a good seat, get settled in the pew, quiet the mind. We finally managed to find parking on West 20th Street and 10th Avenue and started walking towards the fray. The Baron mentioned St. Luke's, and I said, "Yeah, well I think that train has already left the station. But they'll be having it again next year." At this point, it was about five minutes before six. "Oh, so we'll be a little late. We got stuck in traffic."

One of my little pecadillos: I don't walk into church late. I turn around and go home and come back next week. Church is not a lecture or a meeting or a concert. Church is church. It's sacred and holy. Time spent in the presence of the Almighty.

As we worked our way south on 8th Avenue, the "conversation" went something like this:

The Baron: All these people in the way! I'll need to stop at the Starbucks at 10th and Hudson to use the bathroom.

Me: We're late. So late that the service will be over by the time we get there.

The Baron: So we'll just stand at the back or something.

Me: I'm not going to go in late.

At 6:30, we were standing on the northeast corner of Christopher and Hudson. The tail end of the Pride March was still coming down Christopher Street. (Yay Fuze Water! Yay!) The vision in my head was St. Lukes, full of people listening to the choir sing Phos Hilarion, when suddenly the big doors at the back creak open to reveal me and the Baron, every head turns...

"Let's just head to the Dugout," I said. But the Baron would hear none of it. He explained to a handome young police officer that we were trying to get to church, and the guy took pity on us, allowing us to crawl under the barricades and cross Christopher Street. We scrambled up the steps, opened the doors, and saw the procession, in clouds of incense, banners waving, at the back of the church. The usher welcomed us and handed us leaflets, and after the procession headed towards the altar, another usher helped us find seats.

Okay. So there I was, in the pew, and all that we had missed was singing the processsional hymn ("Lift High The Cross," of course, a favorite at St. Luke's.)

Okay. Let it go. Let it all go.

Besides being Gay Pride Sunday in New York City, yesterday was also, liturgically speaking, the Feast of the Birth of St. John The Baptist.

That helped. I tried to subsume my anger at the Baron in the pew next to me by considering how he was like John the Baptist. First, there's the wardrobe issues. Not quite camel skins, but the Baron prides himself on not being fashion forward. And there's the prophetic quality...

Years ago, when the Baron and I were working to get ACT UP/Philadelphia off the ground in the late Eighties, we were wheatpasting posters for an upcoming demonstration outside of the 12th Street Gym in the heart of Philadelphia's so-called "Gayborhood." A kid came out of the 12th Street Gym and said, "Uh... Guys? I ummm... totally support what you're doing, but uh... my boss, the guy who runs the gym, he's just gonna tell me to come out here and take down your posters as soon as he sees them. So could you do me a big favor and not do it out here in front of the gym?"

(A little background. The 12th Street Gym was and is the gay gym in Philadelphia. Interestingly, the owner of that gym was fairly notorious for working against the interests of the gay community. In years to come, he revoked the memberships of people who had "the AIDS" because he didn't want them in "his gym," and just recently was forced to sell his majority interest in the place to his longtime and long-suffering general manager when it was revealed that he was pumping the fortune he made from all those gay dollars into the coffers of the re-election committee of arch-homophobe Rick Santorum. No shit. You can look any of this up. Only in Philadelphia, but that's another rant.)

So, back on the street with a bucket of wheatpaste, the Baron turns to the kid from the gym and says, in pleasant, measured tones, "Huh. Really. Interesting. Well thanks for your support, and I hope to see you at the demonstration. Now, when your boss tells you to take down these posters, please tell him that psychotic self-hating closet case that if they're removed, I'm going to wheatpaste posters with his picture on every lamppost in this great city of ours telling the world that he's a big slimy cock sucking butt fucking fag. Okay?"

The kid from the gym thought a minute, then gave a little smile, and went back inside.

Long after all the other posters for that ACT UP demonstration had been carted away by the Department of Sanitation, that poster still hung on the lamppost outside of the 12th Street Gym until it was erased by the wind and weather.

See what I mean about that prophetic quality of the Baron's?

The music was beautiful, the preaching was great, and the Parish Social Life Committee put out a delightful spread in the garden afterwards. The Baron and I filled our plates and sat in the playground talking to a parishoner while the raucous mob swirled about the gates.

It turned out that the the actual time of Evensong was 6:30. No idea what the 6:00 notice I saw came from. Perhaps St. Luke's was giving an indulgent nod to "gay time."

The light faded, and I suggested that we head over to the river to get a good position for fireworks. And whaddya know! There, right outside of the Richard Meier towers on Perry Street was a great place to sit. We asked another helpful officer who told us that the fireworks were scheduled for 9:30. Woo-hoo! I enjoyed watching the passing crowd and making eyes at the occasional cute boy. And one or two made eyes at me. Too bad for them! Not this year! Maybe next year. Maybe.

I reflected on Prides of Yore.

Gay Pride used to mean so much to me. It was my Christmas, Easter, and Fourth of July. I would take the next day off work. I never watched the March. I was always marching. First with the Anti-Violence Project, then with ACT UP, and once with Hillary Clinton. And Pride Day was, in my experience, the worst day of the year to have a boyfriend. I generally would end the day by going to the dance on the piers and falling in love. You haven't lived till you've been part of an ACT UP contingent several thousand strong, chanting, fists in the air, but slowing down as the March turned off 5th Avenue at Washington Square to wave and blow kisses and wish "Happy Birthday" to Larry Kramer who would be watching from his balcony.

But now, Pride is for the kids.

Well that's not quite it. I am my own Pride Parade. Although I'm hard pressed to imagine what extremes I would have to go to to be In Your Face enough to get something like a rise out of someone, even in quiet little Doylestown, Pennsylvania. We're here, we're queer, and they, of course, are used to it.

So the time was now 9:45, and there had been no fireworks.

The Baron grew impatient. Impatient for what exactly, I'm not sure. He asked another cop when they were scheduled for and heard 10:30.

10:30? Are you sure? I don't remember the fireworks being that late. But it's only forty-five minutes, and it's a beautiful night.

But the Baron wanted to walk around.

I had a sinking feeling, but I fought it. I could do with a latté.

We left our perch and headed back to Hudson, where I stopped into Starbucks. Then, we headed up Hudson to 8th Avenue.

Crossing 14th Street was like going to a different city.

Much has been made of the cancelation of PrideFest. In years past, at the end of the March, there were vendors selling kabobs and smoothies and such along Greenwich Street as well as port-o-johns set up. This year, the organizers decided that instead of the Village, which isn't really gay any more, the place to have it would be in Chelsea. All the relevant community boards and local politicos were down with the idea, including out lesbian and Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who represents Chelsea and the West Village in the City Council. And Mayor Mike Bloomberg didn't give permission for it to happen.

Well guess what. I think this has everything to do with race.

Folks are fond of saying that the West Village is no longer gay, that gay has moved up to Chelsea, and that now, Chelsea is the gay neighborhood in NYC.

On Friday and Saturday nights, however, Christopher Street is teeming with the gays. Many more gays, in fact, than you're likely to see percentage-wise fifteen blocks north in Chelsea. But the gays on Christopher Street, of course, are Black and Latino/a teenagers. And those are the folks that Pride is for. Even back in my personal heyday of I Love Pride, the majority of out loud proud gays I knew viewed it at best as an opportunity to get laid and at worst as reason to flee the city for Fire Island or Upstate like aristocrats stuffed into carriages leaving Paris after the storming of the Bastille.

And those were the gays that PrideFest was "for," too. It was all the lone kabob vendor at 10th and Hudson could do to keep up with demand, and at the normally sedate lesbian owned and operated restaurant Hudson Street, a crowd quickly gathered around the music being pumped out onto the street.

So what caused the fair-minded Mayor Mike "Does Nothing Wrong Ever" Bloomberg to slight the gays by denying their request to move PrideFest up to Chelsea? I think he saw the move for what it was.

Alas, this resulted in no PrideFest this year. And that meant, among other things, no port-o-johns. So I don't doubt that the highways and by-ways of the West Village were drenched in gallons of Official Pride Urine.

So the Baron and I walked up 8th Avenue, surrounded by... basically white people. Gay white people, with jobs and such, most of whom had eschewed their shares in the Pines because they thought, "I bet I'll get laid!"

A crowd was gathered outside of Pinkberry. This mystifies me. What the hell? I remember years ago when a similar crowd was gathered outside Tasty-Di-Lite, also on 8th Avenue. I happened in and got myself a dish. Eeeeeeesh! It was about as satisfying as packing peanuts. Only less so. Because it's served with all the trappings of ice cream, so you're sort of expecting ice cream. I'm guessing only in Chelsea, a place on the planet where a double digit percentage of the inhabitants have not had a single gram of fat pass their lips in a decade or more, would that pass as "a treat." And I bet there's much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth at Tasty-Di-Lite. "Oh the injustice of it all! Pinkberry's crappy flavorless disappointing fat free dessert is clearly inferior to our crappy flavorless disappointing fat free dessert! Why have our customers abandoned us in favor of Pinkberry! Thou art cruel and fickle, New York City!"

But who am I to judge trendy frozen desserts? I'm an old guy. I was older than the oldest of the throng outside Pinkberry by probably a decade. And that's how it is with popular culture. The fact that I was addicted to Haagen-Daz's Honey ice cream before I was old enough to drive and had to ride my ten-speed down to the Lumberville Store to get my fix YEARS BEFORE YOU EVEN HEARD OF HAAGEN-DAZ doesn't matter. Ditto for the fact that I did a backflip off the stage when Henry Rollins and Black Flag played at an (then) abandoned bank on South Street in 1984 or so. Ditto the fact that Madonna herself once told me I was a great dancer when I met her at the Limelight way back when. Ditto the fact that I was getting my clothes out of thriftshops back when my only competition were the poor and downtrodden and members of the Talking Heads.

That's how it is with Popular Culture. You have no laurels to rest on. It doesn't matter that my deciding to emulate clothes worn by Steve Austin and Starsky & Hutch this summer pre-dated the announcement that Xanadu on Broadway has brought rollerdisco-esque fashions onto the runway. I can still participate in popular culture. I just don't get a vote. To you, it's just another birthday--and it's debatable exactly how many candles are on your cake at that birthday--but after you blow out those candles, you'll never be a taste maker again, only a taster. And if you try to make the case to some kid about why that shouldn't be the case and trot out your credentials, they'll look at you indulgently and tune you out and then hustle down to Pinkberry for a crappy flavorless disappointing fat free dessert.

My plan was that we would walk north until 10:15, then start to head south and west, which should have us at the water by the time the fireworks were reportedly scheduled to start at 10:30. At 10 20, we heard the show start. We were at 8th and 16th. I headed west, going as fast as I could manage. The buildings were tall enough to block my view until I got to 10th Avenue. At that point, the Highline blocked the view.

"Damn that Highline anyway! Why don't they tear that thing down?"

I emerged from underneath the Highline and there it was: the Pride Day Fireworks Display.

But my initial "Oooooooh" had barely left my lips when the ghostly smoke hung in the sky not supplanted by another explosive display and an eerie silence hung in the air.

"That's it? That's all we get?"

I looked at my watch. It was 10:30.

Somehow I remember the display going on longer than ten minutes. And, of course, I would rather have been able to see and enjoy it, rather than hustling down sixteenth street... say, perched outside of the Richard Meier Towers at Perry Street, looking over my shoulder to see the reflections of the fireworks play off the glass cladding.

"Well," offered the Baron, "I hear they have a great fireworks display in Doylestown."

Much to my credit, I didn't slug the Baron. Instead, I turned to him and said, "We're going home now."

And so we did.

Yeah.

No regrets. It was a good day. Not the good day I envisioned, but a good day nonetheless. And there will be more fun to be had a year from now. When I'll be getting An Early Start on the day.

And sometime soon, the Baron and I will sit down and have a little talk. Although knowing the Baron and I, it will be a seemingly endless verbal marathon.

Pride NYC 2007

Let me get this off my chest. In this world, it doesn't pay to be a nice guy. Unfortunately, I seem to believe that's the way to be. And it never fails to get my goat when my good nature is taken advantage of.


So there.

Will Somebody Please Buy This For Me?

Holy crap!

Among the dozens of palm cards with which I was proferred at Folsom Street East last week was an invite to Baña. Which looks amazing. Like, NYC Nightlife meets Moscow's Sandunovsky Banya.

Alas, I seem to have missed the June 22nd party advertised on the website and the palm card I received, but I sent them email and I hope to be able to make the next one. I love the idea of the "D-List Hunk" attending to my every need in the lockerroom. (Come to think of it, I just like the idea of a D-List Hunk period.

By no small coincidence, at Folsom Street East, I managed to assemble something to wear that was both water friendly and fetish-y, so I won't even have to think about what to wear. Whenever the next Baña rolls around, I'm ready.

Annual July Dessert/SM Extravaganza!

It's upon us again!

In two weeks, I'll be enjoying DogTopper and JPZapper's barbeque and dungeoun party.

And I'm obsessing about making the Ultimate Dessert again this year.

Last year, it was all about my tarts with lemon-cream filling topped with lemon curd.

This year, the flavors I'm thinking of combining are peach, ginger, and vanilla.

(Heh heh. Vanilla at a dungeon party. Cool.)

Man of Discipline may or may not be my guest this year. He'll be up at the Gay Campground In Northeastern Pennsylvania that weekend (not that gay campground, the other one), and might be able to shoot down for the festivities.

And I'll get to whip him! Yay! JPZapper and DogTopper have a gi-normous dungeon space, so possibly I'll be able to break out my long whips. Man of Discipline is so beyond training wheels.

So what do you all think about peaches-vanilla-ginger? Am I making any mouths water out there?

Red Is The Color Of Me

Yesterday, the first full day of summer, I met up with UnFortunate at the New Jersey Transit Train Station in Long Branch and we headed up the coast to Sandy Hook, looking forward to a day of nudidity at Gunnison Beach, apparently the largest nude beach on the Atlantic Seabord.

The last time UnFortunate and I had a beach day at Gunnison, it was like a four hour stay at a Soviet Gulag. When we arrived in the morning, it was a beautiful day for the beach. Then the sun went in. Then the temperature dropped twenty degrees. Then the wind came up, so that every gust was literally sandblasting us. Cold and shivering and smarting from the stinging sand-storm, we headed for my car and called it a day.

Yesterday again started out as a beautiful beach day. But largely stayed that way, sunny and warm. The weather report said "breezy," and that should have been a warning, but there we were, again getting an unexpected dermabrasion treatment, punctuating our conversation with "Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Oh! Ow. Ow." now and then.

The beach was fairly sparse. And it seems that the piping plover have decided to do their nesting on the part of Gunnison that was always the "gay part" of the nude beach. Thus, a high school student in a lawn chair was posted at the southeast end of the beach letting none of the naked people trespass where they might disturb the piping plover. ("So Meghan, do you have a job lined up for the summer before you go to college?" "Uhh... Yeah I do, Uncle Al. I'm... um... working doing wildlife conservation?")

Except for a trio of callow youths, UnFortunate and I were the only homos on the beach. That we spotted everywhere. And everyone else seemed to have those windscreen things, and I am officially In The Market for one. Hopefully I can find an orange one.

The water was perfect! It was cold, but not freezing. Just really invigorating. And because the Atlantic isn't warm yet, I didn't have to worry about jellyfish.

We spent a good four hours at Gunnison before we decided we couldn't take the dermabrasion anymore ("I bet I lost two pounds in epidermis!") and headed down the coast, stopping for burgers and dogs and fudge. I dropped UnFortunate off at the Long Branch train station and headed for home.

It was during the drive home that I noticed that Something Was Wrong. My butt was feeling especially tender.

Now, when someone commented to me recently that I'm something of an anachronism in that I still smoke, I replied that what really made me feel anachronistic was eschewing sunblock. Never touch the stuff. I still harbor quaint notions that a "healthy" tan is fetching, and try for one every summer. I usually tan well. In the past, I've stopped by a tanning place a few times during the winter to keep a base coat going, but due to my dire financial straits, I haven't this past winter.

By the time I got home, I was definitely feeling the chills. I stripped int he bathroom and immediately saw the problem. My arms, back, chest, shoulders, back, and face got some nice color. As did my thighs. But the area between my belly button and my knees is lobster red. It's been many months since they've seen sunlight, and don't seem to have taken to it well. My butt, in particular, looks like I bottomed in a pretty heavy spanking scene. And it feels that way, too. Only moreso.

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow! Ow. Ow! Ow! Ow.

A good night's sleep has me feeling a lot better, but my but is still pretty sting-y and tender.

If anyone gives me a playful swat on the fanny tomorrow when I'm up in NYC enjoying Pride with the Baron, I may retaliate with a left hook.

The Future Is Bright

I am SO going to Grad School.

Today, I headed out at noon to check out some grad schools. I visited Stevens Institute of Technology in Beautiful Downtown Hoboken then went across--actually under--the Hudson to drop in on an Open House hosted by NYU's School of Continuing and Professional Studies. My interest, of course, are their respective Construction Management programs. A while ago, I went down and spent a morning at Drexel University in Philadelphia. (In fact, my application to go there is pending.) I had also hoped to stop in on the New Jersey Institute of Technology, but I ran out of time.

(And I'm out of patience with dropping in links to the websites of all those schools. What's up with that? Like you couldn't find them in the unlikely event that you wanted to go there? Just mindlessly following blogging protocol, I guess.)

First off, there is no substitute for being there.

I went to the wee little Catholic liberal arts institution of higher learning in Reading, Pennsylvania for my undergrad (I can call it that now since I'm getting geared up for grad, right?) because going up the drive when my father and I visited all those years ago I just got a kind of frisson. And that gut feeling was proven by the experience of going there.

First stop was Stevens.

Up River Road, crossing the Delaware at Frenchtown, 513 to I-78 to the NJ Turnpike Extension to Exit 15C. I wound my wending way through Jersey City, going right through the old neighborhood, and waving to cubby j. sherwood when I went right by the condo de cubby. Jersey Avenue took me to the Fair City of Hoboken, which shares the distinction with Wilton Manners and West Hollywood of being a city completely surrounded by another city.

So, Hoboken is a rip! Why didn't I live there?

(Oh. Right. I couldn't afford it.)

You make a left onto Frank Sinatra Street and then a right onto Frank Sinatra Avenue and a left onto Frank Sinatra Boulevard and Stevens Institute of Technology is right there by Frank Sinatra Waterfront Park. There was a parking place waiting for me right out front of where I wanted to be! Does that always happen in Hoboken?

I met with the guy who's the head of the department and we had a decent back and forth. I definitely saw and heard nothing to dissuade me. Because CM is run out of their engineering school, the emphasis is on materials, technology, cost estimation... verrrrry nuts-and-boltsy. And I eat that stuff up with a spoon.

After I finished up my meeting, I walked down to the Frank Sinatra Memorial Little League Field to get a hamburger for lunch from the concession stand. A commemorative plaque informed me that everybody on the City Council and all the folks in charge of the Hoboken Little League seem to be of italian descent. What's more, they all seem to have those really nasty sounding italian names, like "Sfoggliagazze." (That probably happened when their forbears went through Ellis Island. The helpful folks who worked there would amuse themselves by giving made-up names to the huddled masses. My friend Lou's grandmother's family name was "Bevelaqua," but those scamps at Ellis Island decided that "Scaffitti" would be more fun, and Scaffitti was what went on the immigration papers. "Bevelaqua" means "Drink-Water" in italian. "Scaffitti" means nothing in italian.)

One of the most impressive things about Stevens is the location, looking across the Hudson to Manhattan. Pretty breathtaking.

I found my way to the Holland Tunnel and after about twenty minutes, found a place to park in the West Village. Heading up Eighth Avenue, I passed this... this... this man. One of those They Walk Among Us guys. Amazing body, beautiful gut, deep dark tan, his body and face covered with a pelt of golden blond hair. Apparently, he was taking his dog for a walk. (I didn't look at the dog. It might have been a cat. Or a capaybara. Or a juvenile yetti.) He was shirtless, wearing mirrored sunglasses, cargo shorts, and boots. Spectacular. I gave him an appreciative smile, and he gave me a nod of acknowledgement. Thanks for that, God! After a stop at Starbucks, I hopped on the subway, taking the C train up to Times Square.

Wow.

I have been away a long time.

Riding the subway, something I used to do every day of my life, had such the feeling of novelty about it. Like a Nile cruise. Y'know what I miss? Subway babies! You see them all the time. These bright, attentive, fascinated-by-the-whole-thing babies, sitting on their mothers' laps, smiling and laughing. Why is it that all babies here in the Howling Wilderness of Pennsylvania spend their time in public screaming, crying, shrieking, running around heedlessly, whining, throwing whatever they can get their sticky little fingers on, and demanding high sugar treats? Every baby I see here in the Howling Wilderness leaves me grateful that being a homo has probably meant that I dodged that bullet. But with subway babies, there I am making faces and playing peek-a-boo and gushing to mom about how precious her little one is.

I got off the train at 42nd Street, and decided to walk through the tunnel connecting the 8th Avenue line with the 7th Avenue line. Many years ago, I christened this passage "The Corridor of Sorrows." Not only is it a seemingly endless subterranean tract, but way back when (at least longer than I've been in NYC), there's this art installation: these signs attached to the girders in the ceiling. You only see them as you're walking east. They read like a Burma Shave ad, spaced every twenty or thirty feet or so.

To with:

SO TIRED


IF LATE,


GET FIRED


WHY THE PAIN?


JUST GO HOME


DO IT AGAIN.

When I first moved to NYC and was working in Midtown, I started out taking the L Train to 8th Ave, then the A to 42nd Street, then I'd walk through that very passage way on my way to my soul-crushing office job. I had to change my route, walking all the way to Astor Place to catch the N or the R. It was just too much.

So NYU had their Open House at the fabulous Marriott Marquis hotel! The Marriott Marquis sports a revolving cocktail lounge on the top floors. Make sure you go there before you die. It's... well... it's a revolving cocktail lounge! It's a big round room , and the outside twenty feet or so slowly turn. After about an hour, you've taken in a 360° view of Manhattan without changing your seat. When I was last up there, it hadn't been renovated since the 1970s, so it was verrrrry Hart To Hart. Sadly, the interior wasn't landmarked before it was updated. The Open House, however, was only on the fourth floor.

Okay.

You gotta hand it to NYU. They know how to market. My experiences with the rival schools of Drexel and Stevens compare to NYU are like a 4 a.m. infomercial going up against Spiderman. NYU put on a show. They dazzled! They wowed!

Their program has some significant differences from the other schools. You get the technical stuff, though perhaps with not quite the depth. Possibly, it prepares you to supervise cost estimating rather than estimating costs. It seems to be akin to an MBA with a concentration in Construction Management, with courses in Accounting, Law, Real Estate, and Negotiation that the other schools don't offer. Construction Management at NYU is part of their Real Estate Institute. It's so NYC. And I mean that in a good way.

Did you know that over the next ten years, there are $ 58 Billion in construction projects planned? From the Atlantic Yards to the Far West Side to various stadia going up. Construction Managers will have exactly no problem whatsoever finding work. And real estate development in New York City is already rife with NYU grads, apparently eager to give a helping hand to fellow alum. And get this? Have you ever seen the big fat NYU catalog of non-credit courses that NYU puts out? Well if I were enrolled in NYU's Construction Management program, I could take any of them for free. (Well, not exactly "for free," since I'd be paying $1,260-a-credit.

Another NYU Fun Fact is that as part of the application, they require a "Personal Statement." As explained, this is our "opportunity to speak directly to the admissions committee." And, they'll be checking up on our writing skills.

Get that? It's like writing college admissions essays!!!

How quaint!

Heh. Checking up on our "writing skills." Six months ago, I wrote a grant proposal that brought in $ 400,000. I think I might not have a lot to worry about then.

Anyway, despite the impressive show that NYU put on, it's not clinched that I'm going there. I liked Drexel, and I liked Stevens. I'll apply to all of them, see what each school is willing to do in terms of financial aid, and factor in things like location and the commute it would involve,

*sigh*

"Hi. I'm a Construction Manager. I have a Master's Degree."

I am SO going to grad school.