Nothing really stays the same. And this is frustrating, though hardly a surprise in a city like NYC. Manhattan is changing constantly, sometimes right before your very eyes. I really hate change. I like life to be a long stretch of moments frozen in time, like tiny raindrops caught in one of those cool moments in the Matrix where the camera is moving but the action is still.
In 2003, Sean and I joined Scollay and Mickey in Florence and one day we were sailing through the Uffizi museum. It was near closing time and Sean and I happened upon Venus on the half shell, as she is more casually known. And there was a small bench for the oldsters to sit and gaze up. So we just sat there and in the last few minutes the museum was open, we just sat somewhat quietly and beheld the Venus, unobstructed by other tourists and writ large on the facing wall. The experience lasted for just a few moments but in the endless loop of my mind, I am forever there, witnessing the birth of Venus.
Tom was on the show tonight and he is so handsome and brilliant and marvelous, it always puts me in an introspective, just-what-am-I-doing-with-my-life kind of mood. For me, Tom is like Geena Davis at the end of Thelma & Louise. “Let’s just keep going,” he seems to call out to me and just spending a few minutes with him makes me want to slam the gas pedal down in that Thunderbird and take flight.
After the show, we met up with Erik and the three of us trudged downtown to The Park. Erik was with me there last week, but Tom had never been before. He loved the space, but thought the whole thing was too dimly lit. “How are you supposed to see who you want to go home with?” he asked, perplexed, and then more seriously, “How are they supposed to see if they want to go home with you?” I had to agree with Tom that the lighting was especially dim, though punctuated frequently by the sudden glow of ultra bright iPhone screens as text messages were checked and sent. I suggested that anyone using a new iPad in there would have the unpleasant effect of switching on a searchlight.
Erik, who last week was dressed like a Dockers ad for some kind of casual Friday celebration that never seems to end, heeded my advice and went more relaxed this time with a nice polo shirt. Why anyone would take fashion advice from me is a mystery but he was so buttoned-down last week, it made me nervous, like at any moment we might be audited or asked to give a PowerPoint presentation. Erik told me that he too felt better dressing more casually, so at least in this instance, it wasn’t a total disaster.
I like to spend a fair amount of my time out at gay bars inspecting what everyone else is wearing. This is a good way to spot trends and check to see if people are still wearing any of the same things you own. I am slow to retire items from my wardrobe and it helps to decide what to toss when I look around a room of attractive gay men and see that none of them own anything like what I have in my closet. But tonight, the crowd was strange, and I don’t just mean the two guys with the Flock of Seagulls hair and what appeared to be homemade capes and caftans fashioned hastily from bed linens.
There just wasn’t anything even approaching a fashion through line to hang your spring wardrobe on. Tattoo muscle arms in a 2xist tank top, scrawny hippie in a simple wife beater, polo shirts and jeans, button down shirts tucked into pressed shorts, even some guys huddled together in the back in suits. Maybe this is finally the fashion trickle down of the bad economy. Without money left for new things, they are just throwing together whatever is left, like when you are hungry and you make dinner out of whatever the last three cans are in the pantry. This makes life for a fashion victim like me completely without hope.
Perhaps we can all learn a bit from Venus. When you have the clams, you buy whatever you want. But when you are down to your last clam, just come as you are. My mind wanders back to the Uffizi. It was drizzling there in Florence, just as it is now in Manhattan. But the Hudson is a poor substitute for the charms of the reflected glory of the Arno. Erik agreed with me that the crowd was not as attractive tonight as it had been last week at The Park. Oh well. I guess nothing is perfect even in its moment nearest to perfection and nothing lasts forever. We can keep the memories we cherish the most suspended in time, but the rest of life swirls away from the wheels of time into a dusty cloud of eternity.
And the Thunderbird just keeps going.
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