I stepped out onto the street and the air hit me like wet cotton, hot and sticky. The second day of summer and already the air is so thick you can taste it. This is the reason that New Yorkers have for decades abandoned the city during the summer. But like that poor guy in The Seven Year Itch, I have to work, so I am not going anywhere. And neither is the humidity.
Showing posts with label Clay Lee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clay Lee. Show all posts
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
The Nearest Thing To Heaven
(This is an unfinished blog entry. Explanation at the end. But, as fate would have it, I was about to write about my adventures tonight inside an existing document I write in on my laptop before I post it all online and I didn't think I had put it up. Turns out that I hadn't. And it seemed too good to me to just throw away, even if it is half-thought, unedited, and incomplete. See what you think.)
Sunday, June 28, 2009 2:31am
Sure, I had heard of gay billionaires before. After all, I used to live in Los Angeles. There were always stories of someone or other throwing an amazing party with hot guys twirling around a swimming pool in the highest altitudes of the “swish alps,” the gentle mountain range that separates West Hollywood from the dreaded Valley. I was even invited to one such party in the late 1990s and sure enough boys in tiny bathing suits danced around a kidney pool, swilling cocktails and enjoying the largesse of an unseen benefactor. I am pretty sure a certain MTV personality dragged a friend of mine into the bathroom with him, did an enormous amount of coke next to the sink and then whisked him off to a wild night out in Hollywood which ended with them getting thrown out of the after-hours party at the Coconut Teaser on Sunset for sneaking in a beer. I thought I had left such shenanigans behind on the left coast. But then I was invited to a party in the sky in the apartment of a gay billionaire in Manhattan and my life was changed forever.
At the risk of lobbing another cannon shot into the battle of class warfare in America, I will just say this: rich people live better than you. Much, much better. Years ago in the Egyptian Theatre at the OutFest premiere of “Get Bruce” the terrific documentary on Bruce Vilanch, a much vaunted and moneyed Hollywood figure with an equal love of hot young men and plastic surgery occupied the row right behind me. He had not one but two insanely beautiful men with him, flanking him on either side, one of them infused with such fragile, farm-fresh dewiness that I wanted to slip him a bus ticket back to Kansas before it was all too late and the L.A. machine consumed him. Maybe I was fueled by jealousy or the inherent wastefulness of having two whores when clearly one would have been more then sufficient.
But as reclusive billionaire John Hurt assured us in “Contact,” why have one when you can have two at twice the price? I suppose at a certain point, “money is no object” isn’t just a casual expression it represents an actual mental omission. Price tags and receipts fall into a gentle grey area of the wealthy brain inaccessible at all times, rendering them a financial amensiac with no interest in remembering what reality is for other people. And thus the billionaire journeys through life unfettered by what things cost, buying jets in every color they come in. Laughing annoyingly, as Louise Brooks once wrote of her own mother, like one with a happily corrected blind spot.
This is conjecture on my part. I don’t know what kind of lives billionaires really have. After all, I live like a squatter in an abandoned downtown warehouse. If it wasn’t for my roommate Mike’s constant stares of blank disapproval, I would devolve into full-tilt Grey Gardens in a matter of hours. From the outside looking in (like Stella Dallas longing for a life filled with problems never to be had) there seem to be two kinds of billionaires. I suppose if you are someone like, say, Oprah, who grew up desperately poor with an outhouse and earned your billions the hard way, you know where every penny is at all times. But if you invest Daddy’s money and it hits like the lottery, you may not have the same sense about dollars and cents that someone else might have.
The billionaire apartment I went to seemed to fall more in the category of the latter. Famous works of art abounded askew from a thousand drunken love taps from the partygoers, a tiny Cartier clock sat helpless and unprotected in a shelf in the guest bathroom. The library was filled with boxes of the same book, no doubt a favorite, soon-to-be thoughtful gift to everyone from the doorman to a liked, though not well-liked uncle. The paroramic views from every window, including the bathroom, seemed merely to be a natural extension of the already lavish embarassment of riches strewn careful amount the penthouse.
It was pride weekend. The 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Naturally, I was at the IMAX Theater near Lincoln Center watching the Transformers sequel with my friend Clayton. I knew that my other friend Clay was in town for the weekend, in from Texas, and Jeff and Bond had driven down from Boston. That’s the nice thing about pride weekend. Everyone is there. The only real question is where to go to party. Plenty of people have parties but you want to go to THE party. I only know a handful of important and/or connected people so for me, this time of year is a delicate dance.
Clay told me that he had been invited to a party on the East side, in the Bloomberg building. The sexy party promoter Michael Warner had invited him and he offered that Clayton and I could join him on the list. Once I heard that Warner was working that party, I knew that Jeff and Bond would be there too. And I suspected some of the rest of my usual NYC people would be there too, like Matty Kelleher.
(This is the end of the unfinished entry, and there it stayed forgotten for nearly six months, although I explained why it was unfinished in an entry titled "The End" back in August, which includes more details about the party for the deeply curious.)
Sunday, June 28, 2009 2:31am
Sure, I had heard of gay billionaires before. After all, I used to live in Los Angeles. There were always stories of someone or other throwing an amazing party with hot guys twirling around a swimming pool in the highest altitudes of the “swish alps,” the gentle mountain range that separates West Hollywood from the dreaded Valley. I was even invited to one such party in the late 1990s and sure enough boys in tiny bathing suits danced around a kidney pool, swilling cocktails and enjoying the largesse of an unseen benefactor. I am pretty sure a certain MTV personality dragged a friend of mine into the bathroom with him, did an enormous amount of coke next to the sink and then whisked him off to a wild night out in Hollywood which ended with them getting thrown out of the after-hours party at the Coconut Teaser on Sunset for sneaking in a beer. I thought I had left such shenanigans behind on the left coast. But then I was invited to a party in the sky in the apartment of a gay billionaire in Manhattan and my life was changed forever.
At the risk of lobbing another cannon shot into the battle of class warfare in America, I will just say this: rich people live better than you. Much, much better. Years ago in the Egyptian Theatre at the OutFest premiere of “Get Bruce” the terrific documentary on Bruce Vilanch, a much vaunted and moneyed Hollywood figure with an equal love of hot young men and plastic surgery occupied the row right behind me. He had not one but two insanely beautiful men with him, flanking him on either side, one of them infused with such fragile, farm-fresh dewiness that I wanted to slip him a bus ticket back to Kansas before it was all too late and the L.A. machine consumed him. Maybe I was fueled by jealousy or the inherent wastefulness of having two whores when clearly one would have been more then sufficient.
But as reclusive billionaire John Hurt assured us in “Contact,” why have one when you can have two at twice the price? I suppose at a certain point, “money is no object” isn’t just a casual expression it represents an actual mental omission. Price tags and receipts fall into a gentle grey area of the wealthy brain inaccessible at all times, rendering them a financial amensiac with no interest in remembering what reality is for other people. And thus the billionaire journeys through life unfettered by what things cost, buying jets in every color they come in. Laughing annoyingly, as Louise Brooks once wrote of her own mother, like one with a happily corrected blind spot.
This is conjecture on my part. I don’t know what kind of lives billionaires really have. After all, I live like a squatter in an abandoned downtown warehouse. If it wasn’t for my roommate Mike’s constant stares of blank disapproval, I would devolve into full-tilt Grey Gardens in a matter of hours. From the outside looking in (like Stella Dallas longing for a life filled with problems never to be had) there seem to be two kinds of billionaires. I suppose if you are someone like, say, Oprah, who grew up desperately poor with an outhouse and earned your billions the hard way, you know where every penny is at all times. But if you invest Daddy’s money and it hits like the lottery, you may not have the same sense about dollars and cents that someone else might have.
The billionaire apartment I went to seemed to fall more in the category of the latter. Famous works of art abounded askew from a thousand drunken love taps from the partygoers, a tiny Cartier clock sat helpless and unprotected in a shelf in the guest bathroom. The library was filled with boxes of the same book, no doubt a favorite, soon-to-be thoughtful gift to everyone from the doorman to a liked, though not well-liked uncle. The paroramic views from every window, including the bathroom, seemed merely to be a natural extension of the already lavish embarassment of riches strewn careful amount the penthouse.
It was pride weekend. The 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Naturally, I was at the IMAX Theater near Lincoln Center watching the Transformers sequel with my friend Clayton. I knew that my other friend Clay was in town for the weekend, in from Texas, and Jeff and Bond had driven down from Boston. That’s the nice thing about pride weekend. Everyone is there. The only real question is where to go to party. Plenty of people have parties but you want to go to THE party. I only know a handful of important and/or connected people so for me, this time of year is a delicate dance.
Clay told me that he had been invited to a party on the East side, in the Bloomberg building. The sexy party promoter Michael Warner had invited him and he offered that Clayton and I could join him on the list. Once I heard that Warner was working that party, I knew that Jeff and Bond would be there too. And I suspected some of the rest of my usual NYC people would be there too, like Matty Kelleher.
(This is the end of the unfinished entry, and there it stayed forgotten for nearly six months, although I explained why it was unfinished in an entry titled "The End" back in August, which includes more details about the party for the deeply curious.)
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The End
This has been coming for a while and I suppose it isn’t a surprise now that the day has arrived. I’ve been writing about my adventures out on the town for a few years now, so long in fact that I started with links to the Friendster.com profiles of total strangers. In the process, I have annoyed good friends and created near-enemies out of casual acquaintances. That isn’t to say that some people haven't enjoyed what I have written, it’s just that at a certain point the vehicle in any adventure simply runs out of steam. 
But it has been two months and pertinent names have already faded into the distance. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why I hadn't written it all up. At first I told myself that I didn’t want to annoy the billionaire apartment owner upon whose largess I would hope to impose further in the future. Then, I told myself in between repeated viewings of Mad Men that I was just too busy. In reality I am just tired. Tired of facing down the inevitable ire of people I genuinely care about and fighting with doormen to hold onto a nightlife that has been on life support for some time. And for what? So I have something to write on the internet? Enough.
I went to an amazing party in an apartment in the sky back in June. My friend Bobby who invited me has been impatiently waiting for me to write it up for months. And there was so much grist too. I flirted with an extremely drunk guy who no doubt has no recollection of either said flirting, nor my Herculean efforts buttoning his tiny cutoff shorts back up for him. There were friends in from out of town (Clay Lee!), adorable Matty K and party doll Will Wikle. It even had Lance Bass and party-crashing paparazzi, and Lance’s boyfriend mistaking me for a bartender and trying to order drinks from me. This is an important detail since the bartenders at the party were as hot as the panoramic city views and if anything, the way I am dressed, I am usually mistaken for a bike messenger.
But it has been two months and pertinent names have already faded into the distance. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why I hadn't written it all up. At first I told myself that I didn’t want to annoy the billionaire apartment owner upon whose largess I would hope to impose further in the future. Then, I told myself in between repeated viewings of Mad Men that I was just too busy. In reality I am just tired. Tired of facing down the inevitable ire of people I genuinely care about and fighting with doormen to hold onto a nightlife that has been on life support for some time. And for what? So I have something to write on the internet? Enough. So this will be my final posting in this form, at least for a while. Maybe if the spirit really moves me, I will post another epic long story. In the meantime, my blog will take a different tack, closer to daily and in a pop culture form, and the reluctant personal life I am so reluctant to reveal will slip once again behind the veil.
Fitting then that there was an ending of another sort tonight as Jonathan held his goodbye party at Vintage in Hell’s Kitchen. He is moving to Los Angeles for his own exciting adventures out west. Maybe he will write a blog about it and you can follow that for a while. I was the first to arrive and we sat for a few moments in the back of the bar on paired red velvet sofas like talk show guests forced to interview each other. While he told me about his recent work off in Nevada, I tried to remember the last time I was at Vintage. I think it was with Terry, who showed up a few minutes later with his boyfriend Doug. The place looked so familiar even though I think then it was wintertime and I feel like John Tartaglia was there but I don’t remember how many years ago it was (2004?) or why I was there.
Normally I wear a blue polo when heading out to a gay bar, letting my icy eyes blend like camouflage into the color creating a matching accessory. But Jonathan also has blue eyes and since we can often be found dressing alike, among other alike things, I figured I would play it safe and wear a yellow Otter polo, a color I never wear and I suspect he wouldn’t wear either. After all, it is his party. No need to pull focus.
The other guests started to trickle in and I settled down on the couch with Terry, who has been my friend for 14 years. Like always, he overestimated the years, this time to a whopping seventeen. He always does that! I guess he just goes by how long it feels. “The years stretch as you get older,” Margo Channing warned us in All About Eve and she wasn’t kidding. Since both Terry and I lived in LA once (we met there), we both took turns torturing Jonathan with stories of West Hollywood life. Naturally, all of them revolved around sex.
Being in your mid-twenties and gay in West Hollywood is a bit like locking a kid in a candy store, only the store doesn’t open again until you are thirty-something, bloated and filled with regret. Jonathan had considered moving into an apartment on Palm Avenue, which coincidentally was the first street I lived on in West Hollywood. This set us off on a war of remembrances of tricks past, most residing in the notorious Mediterranean apartment complex at the foot of that hill.
“It’s a labyrinth,” I warned Jonathan. “You won’t even know you are in it until you are already inside. You are guaranteed to sleep with at least one person who lives there.” Terry nodded vigorously behind me.
After Jonathan went off to attend to the other guests and escape our dusty war stories, Terry turned to me with sudden seriousness. “That was a whole lifetime ago.” I am going through my old writing preparing a book to go out this fall that chronicles my life then so I know exactly what he means. Reading again what I wrote then and it feels like it all happened to someone else. A long time ago, in a sunny sex galaxy far, far away… filled with cheap food at Baja Buds, smoothies at Jamba Juice and late night noshing first at Canter’s and then when we had more money, the Jerry’s Famous across from Cedars.
Terry and his boyfriend Doug left and I tried talking to some new people. And they were nice enough. But my heart wasn’t in it. I hate saying good bye to Jonathan but I know that LA is the right place at the right time for him. And what’s next for me is right here in New York. His other friends didn’t see the finality in his jump to the left coast but I do. I know what it is like to be 27 and in West Hollywood with the whole wide world in front of you. Why would you want to carry groceries eight blocks in the snow or wait endlessly on a sweltering subway platform when there’s paradise in a beat up convertible sailing up the Pacific Coast Highway at sunset?
So off to LA for Jonathan. And for me here, something new. Maybe I will write about people I don’t know for a change. Matty has a boyfriend and I don’t see him so much anymore. Kugie is off in Chicago visiting and while he is a good sport about the blog, we can’t just hang out for the sake of entertainment. We gave at the office. And even though I am not going anywhere, I am ready for a change too. This blog has been like an infection in Manhattan: raised temperatures, broke out in a rash, and then ran its course. And now that the center of gravity is shifting to Brooklyn, with all its expanding waistlines and hipster edginess, I feel as arcane as Carrie Bradshaw. Even I don't live in Manhattan anymore. The time has come everybody. Hang up the Manolos already.
On my way to the train, and the inevitable final blog written on the Hudson line north heading off to my Don and Betsy Draper dream world, I dropped by the terrible Starbucks near my office. The guy behind the counter kind of flirted a bit and charged me an iced coffee instead of my iced venti soy chai. I left the two dollar difference in the tip jar, smiled and waited for my drink. That attention felt good, in a color I don’t like to wear and under such harsh lighting. But maybe he was just being nice, one New Yorker to another. It’s like that when you live here. Maybe that is something Jonathan will miss. No one who has ever lived here likes feeling like an outsider when they come back. Or worse, a tourist. NYC gets in your blood and it never leaves. For a while I had switched to vanilla lattes and even dropped soy altogether from my diet, but now I am firmly back in the old routine. I guess it’s true what they say: the more things change, the more they stay the same.
So even though I am saying goodbye, maybe you should stay tuned. Life has a funny way of surprising you. You never know what might be waiting next.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Live Blogging Hurricane Gustav
For years, I have been trying to convince my friends in gay media to join my call for all gay people to go to New Orleans and support the local economy. Gays do one thing well: travel and spend lots of money. It's just what a down on its heels tourist destination needs. And each year over Labor Day weekend, there is Southern Decadence (sort of gay Mardi Gras), which was blamed by certain bloated TV preachers for Hurricane Katrina. Never mind that very un-gay friendly Mississippi got much worse out of that storm. So each year since then I have traveled down to New Orleans for Southern Decadence to show my support and this year has been no different.
Wednesday, August 27th
8:40pm Tropical storm Gustav begins to appear to be strengthening and heading for New Orleans. Expected landfall: Labor Day. Mike and I decide to see how things are shaping up before deciding to cancel our trip.
Thursday, August 28th
9:10pm Gustav looks headed for hurricane status. I dine with Cyd and Dan and Mike at Rocking Horse in Chelsea. Mike is still firm on going to New Orleans. I decide to see if they announce an evacuation on Friday morning.
Friday, August 29th
8:31am Travel companion Clayton backs out of the trip, even though Jet Blue steadfastly refuses to refund or change the ticket without a fee.
10:00am Clay Lee decides he isn't flying in from Texas after all. "If I come, we will be evacuated. If I stay home, the weather will be great and nothing will happen."
10:45am Mike and I decide to make a go of it (along with the other Mike who is meeting us at the airport) and continue packing for our 2:50pm flight. I go online to the airport's official website to see if there is any info. It's url flymsy.com (flimsy?) doesn't instill much confidence.
2:45pm "This is the Captain speaking. Welcome to flight 119 to New Orleans. The weather is beautiful there now. I can't say it will stay that way. Why are all of you going to New Orleans today? Shouldn't you be headed the other way?"
5:30pm Deplaning, I notice that the guy in my row is wearing a Red Cross name badge. The guy in the row in front of me is wearing a Weather Channel baseball cap and carrying a television camera. As I watch the Red Cross organizers meet in a huddle outside our gate upon landing, I start thinking this might be a short trip.
7:05pm I arrive at the Decadent Ducks cocktail party, for which I have been made a guest of honor. I forget that I am still wearing the red v-neck shirt that says "OTTER" on it as I wander into a room filled with hundreds of bears. I am a big hit for all the wrong reasons.
9:18pm Mike and Mike and I wrap up dinner at the my favorite New Orleans restaurant, The Gumbo Shop. I tell the waitress that we come back each year to support New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina. She hugs us. We leave her a big tip.
11:37pm The Bourbon Pub is so packed you would hardly know there was a hurricane coming. The rest of the French Quarter is even quieter than usual, but the gay part is in full swing. David my favorite bartender watches as a dozen or so listener ask him where I am and then come up to take pictures with me. "I guess a few people know you are here" he smiles as he gives us a mind eraser to share. I am coy. "One or two."
Saturday, August 30th
3:23am A long day of flying and drinking has caught up with me. I want to go to bed and I am worried about a possible early morning evacuation. Listeners Josh and Nick assure me at the Bourbon Pub that no mandatory evacuation will happen.
4:30am I arrive at my hotel to find notices posted everywhere and under my door announcing a voluntary evacuation starting at 8am, and directing people to buses at the Sheraton to get to the airport. I call Jet Blue to change my canceled flight. I am rebooked for the 5:45pm flight on Sunday, meaning I could spend as much as 36 hours at the airport before leaving. I set my alarm for 9:30am and try to get some sleep.
9:27am Banging at my door by a hotel employee. She demands I leave the hotel by 10am. I argue with her and slam the door. I hate being woken up in the morning but especially moments before my alarm is set to go off.
9:56am A phone call from Dave, the hotel manager at the Hilton Garden Inn. I tell him my flight has been changed to Sunday evening. There is no mandatory evacuation yet. I can stay until there is one. Fine. He gives me his cell phone so I can reach him if I need anything. I go back to sleep. I have a nightmare about a large drag queen maid trying to get into my room to clean up.
1:00pm Automated phone call from Jet Blue. My flight on Sunday has also been canceled. I am connected immediately to an agent who books me on the just created red eye flight out that night at 11:50pm. Mike and Mike are on that flight too. We plan to head off to the Praline Connection for lunch and fried pickles.
2:32pm Praline Connection is closed so we go to Port Of Call for a sensational cheeseburger and a baked potato drenched in the works. Thought about going to the Chartres House but they were boarding up the windows with the patrons still inside. Scary!
3:45pm Walk down Bourbon Street. The Quarter is largely quiet and boarded up. The gay area is still in full swing. Gays are pouring into the streets with to-go cups in hand. My old friend Allen is working the bar at Bourbon. I say good bye and head for the hotel to pack up, watch some TV and get on the shuttle bus to the airport.
4:48pm Ray Nagin urges the tourists to get out of town now while they still can. I try to call down to the desk at my hotel but there is no answer. I go down in person and there is one guy there hanging out watching the hurricane coverage on the news. It is Dave the hotel manager. "You must be in 1621." I am the last hotel guest, though four journalists are staying in the hotel through the storm. He and one other woman are the only staff left. "We can open the bar for you if you want one last drink before you go" he offers. I check out of the hotel and head for the city shuttles from the Sheraton.
5:23pm Mike and Mike are already waiting at the Sheraton. The city shuttle buses spontaneously stopped running an hour earlier much to the anguish of the few tourists left and trying to leave. Mike secures a taxi to take us to the airport. Traffic being a concern we leave 3 hours for the trip since it was reportedly taking that long in the morning. Cab driver knows all sorts of short cuts. There are lots of hot National Guardsmen lingering next to Humvees along the way. We get there in 35 minutes.
7:07pm Sitting on the floor in the middle of the terminal, eating my supplies of beef jerky and nutter butters that I secured at the corner market before I left in case the airport didn't have anything open. Everyone in the city is in surprisingly good spirits given that a potential Category 5 hurricane is headed straight for them. I had a fun adventure though I am sad the weekend is ending early. Should be home at the crack of dawn to start another adventure, preferably aside Clayton's pool.
Wednesday, August 27th
8:40pm Tropical storm Gustav begins to appear to be strengthening and heading for New Orleans. Expected landfall: Labor Day. Mike and I decide to see how things are shaping up before deciding to cancel our trip.
Thursday, August 28th
9:10pm Gustav looks headed for hurricane status. I dine with Cyd and Dan and Mike at Rocking Horse in Chelsea. Mike is still firm on going to New Orleans. I decide to see if they announce an evacuation on Friday morning.
Friday, August 29th
8:31am Travel companion Clayton backs out of the trip, even though Jet Blue steadfastly refuses to refund or change the ticket without a fee.
10:00am Clay Lee decides he isn't flying in from Texas after all. "If I come, we will be evacuated. If I stay home, the weather will be great and nothing will happen."
10:45am Mike and I decide to make a go of it (along with the other Mike who is meeting us at the airport) and continue packing for our 2:50pm flight. I go online to the airport's official website to see if there is any info. It's url flymsy.com (flimsy?) doesn't instill much confidence.
2:45pm "This is the Captain speaking. Welcome to flight 119 to New Orleans. The weather is beautiful there now. I can't say it will stay that way. Why are all of you going to New Orleans today? Shouldn't you be headed the other way?"
5:30pm Deplaning, I notice that the guy in my row is wearing a Red Cross name badge. The guy in the row in front of me is wearing a Weather Channel baseball cap and carrying a television camera. As I watch the Red Cross organizers meet in a huddle outside our gate upon landing, I start thinking this might be a short trip.
7:05pm I arrive at the Decadent Ducks cocktail party, for which I have been made a guest of honor. I forget that I am still wearing the red v-neck shirt that says "OTTER" on it as I wander into a room filled with hundreds of bears. I am a big hit for all the wrong reasons.
9:18pm Mike and Mike and I wrap up dinner at the my favorite New Orleans restaurant, The Gumbo Shop. I tell the waitress that we come back each year to support New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina. She hugs us. We leave her a big tip.
11:37pm The Bourbon Pub is so packed you would hardly know there was a hurricane coming. The rest of the French Quarter is even quieter than usual, but the gay part is in full swing. David my favorite bartender watches as a dozen or so listener ask him where I am and then come up to take pictures with me. "I guess a few people know you are here" he smiles as he gives us a mind eraser to share. I am coy. "One or two."
Saturday, August 30th
3:23am A long day of flying and drinking has caught up with me. I want to go to bed and I am worried about a possible early morning evacuation. Listeners Josh and Nick assure me at the Bourbon Pub that no mandatory evacuation will happen.
4:30am I arrive at my hotel to find notices posted everywhere and under my door announcing a voluntary evacuation starting at 8am, and directing people to buses at the Sheraton to get to the airport. I call Jet Blue to change my canceled flight. I am rebooked for the 5:45pm flight on Sunday, meaning I could spend as much as 36 hours at the airport before leaving. I set my alarm for 9:30am and try to get some sleep.
9:27am Banging at my door by a hotel employee. She demands I leave the hotel by 10am. I argue with her and slam the door. I hate being woken up in the morning but especially moments before my alarm is set to go off.
9:56am A phone call from Dave, the hotel manager at the Hilton Garden Inn. I tell him my flight has been changed to Sunday evening. There is no mandatory evacuation yet. I can stay until there is one. Fine. He gives me his cell phone so I can reach him if I need anything. I go back to sleep. I have a nightmare about a large drag queen maid trying to get into my room to clean up.
1:00pm Automated phone call from Jet Blue. My flight on Sunday has also been canceled. I am connected immediately to an agent who books me on the just created red eye flight out that night at 11:50pm. Mike and Mike are on that flight too. We plan to head off to the Praline Connection for lunch and fried pickles.
2:32pm Praline Connection is closed so we go to Port Of Call for a sensational cheeseburger and a baked potato drenched in the works. Thought about going to the Chartres House but they were boarding up the windows with the patrons still inside. Scary!
3:45pm Walk down Bourbon Street. The Quarter is largely quiet and boarded up. The gay area is still in full swing. Gays are pouring into the streets with to-go cups in hand. My old friend Allen is working the bar at Bourbon. I say good bye and head for the hotel to pack up, watch some TV and get on the shuttle bus to the airport.
4:48pm Ray Nagin urges the tourists to get out of town now while they still can. I try to call down to the desk at my hotel but there is no answer. I go down in person and there is one guy there hanging out watching the hurricane coverage on the news. It is Dave the hotel manager. "You must be in 1621." I am the last hotel guest, though four journalists are staying in the hotel through the storm. He and one other woman are the only staff left. "We can open the bar for you if you want one last drink before you go" he offers. I check out of the hotel and head for the city shuttles from the Sheraton.
5:23pm Mike and Mike are already waiting at the Sheraton. The city shuttle buses spontaneously stopped running an hour earlier much to the anguish of the few tourists left and trying to leave. Mike secures a taxi to take us to the airport. Traffic being a concern we leave 3 hours for the trip since it was reportedly taking that long in the morning. Cab driver knows all sorts of short cuts. There are lots of hot National Guardsmen lingering next to Humvees along the way. We get there in 35 minutes.
7:07pm Sitting on the floor in the middle of the terminal, eating my supplies of beef jerky and nutter butters that I secured at the corner market before I left in case the airport didn't have anything open. Everyone in the city is in surprisingly good spirits given that a potential Category 5 hurricane is headed straight for them. I had a fun adventure though I am sad the weekend is ending early. Should be home at the crack of dawn to start another adventure, preferably aside Clayton's pool.
Monday, June 30, 2008
This Is The Life!
“There seem to be more of them than usual.”
Many years before OverheardInNewYork, I overheard in New York a woman talking to her husband about all the gay men on the subway train. She was right of course. It was June 1994 and my boyfriend of the time and I were there for the 25th anniversary of Stonewall. The Gay Games were also happening and we were on the subway going to Yankee Stadium for the closing ceremonies. A year earlier we had flown to DC for the March On Washington where we thrilled to the sight of RuPaul in a red white and blue outfit spinning her heart out, our very own Barbie come to life and dressed as Wonder Woman. It was a great time to be gay.
We didn’t know at the time that the AIDS crisis was at its zenith, but there was feeling in the air that everything was changing. The Act Up protesters at the March On Washington slowed down the parade with their chalk outline demonstration in front of the White House, so the massive California contingent, annoyed and relegated to the back of the line, ditched the parade route altogether and beat everyone to the mall to get good seats at the show. There we all were. A sea of white Don’t Panic t-shirts and denim shorts as far as the eye could see. A year later in New York, not much had changed. We felt a real momentum going, like the first twenty five years were good but the next twenty five would alter the whole world.
I live in New York now. Thanks to the AIDS cocktails, the crisis as we once knew it, on the streets and in films like the devastating “Silverlake Life: The View From Here” is a distant memory. At the parade today, a massive section near Rockefeller Center was set out for the protesters, but only four people showed up, including one very cross old lady holding a very expressive cross. I joked with Jack Mackenroth that next year we should come as protesters so we can get a good seat and really spread out with some lawn chairs and maybe an ice chest.
Jack and I were invited by Clay to the parade viewing party thrown by In The Life, the long running PBS documentary series. How fitting that my mind should wander to the early heady days of the Clinton administration, when gays felt a real visibility and force and In The Life was born. Their offices overlook Fifth Avenue, just across from the stoic yet lovably quirky Flatiron Building, a perfect place to view the parade. Personally I think the parade is too long. At this point, as the gay community reaches middle age, it is time to step it up people. Inclusion is a nice buzzword but it makes for one exceedingly long and boring parade. When the name of your organization is too long to fit on a single line on the side of a float, you are just overreaching. And maybe it is time to rethink your mission statement. And those shoes.
At this point, I think the gay pride parade in New York should be like the Rose Parade in Pasadena. Narrow the number of entries down to less than fifty and make people submit their float concepts or audition, and only the best get in. Our parade should be a show piece. The Lion King performed with anti-gravity! Grand, spectacular, and televised nationally to awe Middle America with the wonders and ingenuity of the gay community. Instead it is just like any other boring parade but with what seems like endless supplies of both welcome and unnecessary nudity (some people are so hot they should be barred from ever wearing clothes while some women of a certain age and size just should NOT be in only tassels).
Steven and Marty were also there, although I learned that most people call him Martin and somehow I accidentally nicknamed him all on my own. That has not deterred me. This is Marty’s first summer in New York and Steven is visiting from Kansas City, so the parade was new to them, although it would seem they shared my lack of enthusiasm. Later Jack’s friend Chris joined us too and for the longest time I couldn’t figure out where I knew him from. After an hour of conversation, Jack mentioned that his sister found him on my blog in an entry about fisting, and suddenly all of the pieces fell into place. “I am the cute blond guy who never fucked Michael Lucas,” Chris declared, his initial irritation at having his Connexion page linked to having long since subsided.
It was a charming gathering but after three days of partying and what seems like non-stop blogging, I was just worn out. The weather had been alternating humid heat and torrential downpour, so I used a brief break in the bad weather to make my exit when everyone else decided to abandon the party and head out among the people. For most of them, the Pier Dance awaits, but for me, I am on gay overload. Time to pack up my gayness, condense it into blog form and head home. And along the way, my mind drifted back to the whole reason we gathered together today in the first place.
Like me and a few others I know, Jack is a 1969 baby. We were born the same year as the Stonewall riots that launched the modern gay movement. And in a way, it is approaching middle age in the same way we are. It was a happy go lucky childhood filled with promise, and then just before puberty, AIDS struck, leaving those of us in the Stonewall Generation with the prospect that as soon as we lost our virginity, certain death awaited us. It was an awkward adolescence, raised suddenly by the lesbians who took charge of everything when the gay men died, and we had to find our own identities as men after the generation before us was decimated. But once we got into our twenties, things really smoothed out. We came out and became accepted and went on with our lives.
Next year, we and Stonewall will be forty. Maybe the gay community is waiting for fifty to make another big splash but let’s face it. In the gay world, forty is the new fifty. The gay community is facing an identity crisis. Our institutions we relied on as our backbone (GLAAD, HRC, etc) have lost their élan and we have questioned their current purpose. And maybe it is our midlife crisis that has us abandoning the Clintons (our first loves) in droves for that fresh young thing Obama. It’s all botox and biceps now in our struggle to remain relevant, and we seem as generationally disconnected from the gay teens coming up now as we were from our own parents so many years ago.
So let’s ditch the overly long parade, the vodka cranberry and the worn out circuit party. It’s time for something new. As the gay community marches into middle age, it is time for an extreme makeover: homo edition. Let’s bring together our best and brightest reality show contestants to whip up something really amazing for 2009. It’s time to show the world that we can still be cool, still be bold. After all, being seen in something you shouldn't be wearing is not cutting edge anymore, it's how the rest of America goes to the mall. But let’s just make it one reasonably short day and have plenty of comfortable seats in the shade. Because let’s face it, we aren’t as young as we used to be.
Many years before OverheardInNewYork, I overheard in New York a woman talking to her husband about all the gay men on the subway train. She was right of course. It was June 1994 and my boyfriend of the time and I were there for the 25th anniversary of Stonewall. The Gay Games were also happening and we were on the subway going to Yankee Stadium for the closing ceremonies. A year earlier we had flown to DC for the March On Washington where we thrilled to the sight of RuPaul in a red white and blue outfit spinning her heart out, our very own Barbie come to life and dressed as Wonder Woman. It was a great time to be gay.
We didn’t know at the time that the AIDS crisis was at its zenith, but there was feeling in the air that everything was changing. The Act Up protesters at the March On Washington slowed down the parade with their chalk outline demonstration in front of the White House, so the massive California contingent, annoyed and relegated to the back of the line, ditched the parade route altogether and beat everyone to the mall to get good seats at the show. There we all were. A sea of white Don’t Panic t-shirts and denim shorts as far as the eye could see. A year later in New York, not much had changed. We felt a real momentum going, like the first twenty five years were good but the next twenty five would alter the whole world.
I live in New York now. Thanks to the AIDS cocktails, the crisis as we once knew it, on the streets and in films like the devastating “Silverlake Life: The View From Here” is a distant memory. At the parade today, a massive section near Rockefeller Center was set out for the protesters, but only four people showed up, including one very cross old lady holding a very expressive cross. I joked with Jack Mackenroth that next year we should come as protesters so we can get a good seat and really spread out with some lawn chairs and maybe an ice chest.
Jack and I were invited by Clay to the parade viewing party thrown by In The Life, the long running PBS documentary series. How fitting that my mind should wander to the early heady days of the Clinton administration, when gays felt a real visibility and force and In The Life was born. Their offices overlook Fifth Avenue, just across from the stoic yet lovably quirky Flatiron Building, a perfect place to view the parade. Personally I think the parade is too long. At this point, as the gay community reaches middle age, it is time to step it up people. Inclusion is a nice buzzword but it makes for one exceedingly long and boring parade. When the name of your organization is too long to fit on a single line on the side of a float, you are just overreaching. And maybe it is time to rethink your mission statement. And those shoes.
At this point, I think the gay pride parade in New York should be like the Rose Parade in Pasadena. Narrow the number of entries down to less than fifty and make people submit their float concepts or audition, and only the best get in. Our parade should be a show piece. The Lion King performed with anti-gravity! Grand, spectacular, and televised nationally to awe Middle America with the wonders and ingenuity of the gay community. Instead it is just like any other boring parade but with what seems like endless supplies of both welcome and unnecessary nudity (some people are so hot they should be barred from ever wearing clothes while some women of a certain age and size just should NOT be in only tassels).
Steven and Marty were also there, although I learned that most people call him Martin and somehow I accidentally nicknamed him all on my own. That has not deterred me. This is Marty’s first summer in New York and Steven is visiting from Kansas City, so the parade was new to them, although it would seem they shared my lack of enthusiasm. Later Jack’s friend Chris joined us too and for the longest time I couldn’t figure out where I knew him from. After an hour of conversation, Jack mentioned that his sister found him on my blog in an entry about fisting, and suddenly all of the pieces fell into place. “I am the cute blond guy who never fucked Michael Lucas,” Chris declared, his initial irritation at having his Connexion page linked to having long since subsided.
It was a charming gathering but after three days of partying and what seems like non-stop blogging, I was just worn out. The weather had been alternating humid heat and torrential downpour, so I used a brief break in the bad weather to make my exit when everyone else decided to abandon the party and head out among the people. For most of them, the Pier Dance awaits, but for me, I am on gay overload. Time to pack up my gayness, condense it into blog form and head home. And along the way, my mind drifted back to the whole reason we gathered together today in the first place.
Like me and a few others I know, Jack is a 1969 baby. We were born the same year as the Stonewall riots that launched the modern gay movement. And in a way, it is approaching middle age in the same way we are. It was a happy go lucky childhood filled with promise, and then just before puberty, AIDS struck, leaving those of us in the Stonewall Generation with the prospect that as soon as we lost our virginity, certain death awaited us. It was an awkward adolescence, raised suddenly by the lesbians who took charge of everything when the gay men died, and we had to find our own identities as men after the generation before us was decimated. But once we got into our twenties, things really smoothed out. We came out and became accepted and went on with our lives.
Next year, we and Stonewall will be forty. Maybe the gay community is waiting for fifty to make another big splash but let’s face it. In the gay world, forty is the new fifty. The gay community is facing an identity crisis. Our institutions we relied on as our backbone (GLAAD, HRC, etc) have lost their élan and we have questioned their current purpose. And maybe it is our midlife crisis that has us abandoning the Clintons (our first loves) in droves for that fresh young thing Obama. It’s all botox and biceps now in our struggle to remain relevant, and we seem as generationally disconnected from the gay teens coming up now as we were from our own parents so many years ago.
So let’s ditch the overly long parade, the vodka cranberry and the worn out circuit party. It’s time for something new. As the gay community marches into middle age, it is time for an extreme makeover: homo edition. Let’s bring together our best and brightest reality show contestants to whip up something really amazing for 2009. It’s time to show the world that we can still be cool, still be bold. After all, being seen in something you shouldn't be wearing is not cutting edge anymore, it's how the rest of America goes to the mall. But let’s just make it one reasonably short day and have plenty of comfortable seats in the shade. Because let’s face it, we aren’t as young as we used to be.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Messcapade
As gay as I am, there are some things I am just not gay enough for. For instance, this underwear I have on. It’s a pair of Ginch Gonch boxer briefs. I wear them when I am at the end of the line with clean underwear. They have a blue floral pattern on them with white detailing and I would bet the farm that I got them in a gift bag at some gay event somewhere. In fact, I have an additional four pair of extra small Ginch Gonch briefs which have HereTV stamped on them so I know exactly where they came from should I ever lose forty pounds and my nut sack and decide to wear them someday.
My favorite price point for clothing? Free. The cute purple shirt that Otter Fashion sent me, that I wear all the time, was a big hit tonight at David Coleman’s party. But the same could not be said for these damn boxer briefs. They have some kind of stitch nexus point right underneath my right ball that chafes my thigh like it hates me and my whole family. It bugged me all day in the city and it was a not so gentle reminder that even though I am gay, I am not always a full time player in the gay community. It seemed appropriate to wear them though because it is pride weekend. I should wear my gayest underwear on the gayest weekend of the year. And since it is day two of three days of parties, I figured I should keep escalating the gay until it reaches some kind of bizarre crescendo around 4pm on Sunday.
I was really on a roll earlier today working on the house, and if Clay hadn’t been in town for the weekend, I would have skipped the city altogether. After all, the gutters aren’t going to clean and cover themselves, and Roommate is right, they are so overgrown with foliage they look like a small planter box surrounding the eaves. Even though the gutter guards are basically worthless, I got up on my death trap of a ladder, scooped them out with my hands and then jammed the guards in as best I could. I did this shirtless since I will be in a bathing suit on the 4th and I don’t want to blind strangers with my iridescent paleness. “Really?” my roommate chided me as I climbed high enough for the entire street to see my back fat, “Shirtless?” I guess I am plenty gay after all.
Later at David’s party, surrounded by a sea of worked out torsos, I returned to feeling not gay enough. It was a bit of a welcome back party for the adorable Josh, who moved to Los Angeles four months ago to pursue a new dream in a new city. I was looking forward to going because I knew it was a crowd Clay’s own massive arms would like and I have been looking for a reason to spar, Hepburn/Tracy-style with the dashing Barton Brooks. It was Mr. Brooks himself who came up with the catchphrase of the night “messcapade” to describe my last appearance there, making out in the most shameless fashion with Gary, a perky blond college boy. That night, Gary, who I brought with me, replaced the party iPod with his iPod and proceeded to entertain everyone with the entire Britney canon, of which he was dutifully obsessed. Eerily, Jonathan, one of the people I invited to the party this time, replaced the party iPod with his iPhone and entertained everyone with the entire Madonna canon, of which he is dutifully obsessed. I fear my party invites, rare as they are, might quickly dry up.
Then again, the parties themselves may dry up, oh but that is a story for later. First, you need to hear about the other parade of hot men at the party. Clay chatted up Josh whom he met before he met me, and even expressed surprise at how many people they both knew in common, though independently. “When you have big arms, Manhattan is a very small town,” I assured him, an instantly classic truism met enthusiastically by Josh. As if to prove my point, Conor arrived on cue, muscles bulging yet looking as soulfully wistful as ever. Even Erik Bottcher was there, taller than I would have expected, and second only to Shawn Hollenbach as my most frequently spotted one-degree-away internet connection.
Later I got cornered quite happily in the kitchen by the endlessly handsome Henry who was downing Absolut New Orleans and club soda like he had somewhere to be in a hurry and he wanted to make sure he couldn’t make it. His sweet boyfriend Dan made frequent circles around checking up on the whereabouts of my hands and later when I insisted I was coming back to their apartment for New Year’s Eve whether they were having a party again this year or not, he smiled at me like he had already filed for a restraining order.
Eventually I settled on the couch with Barton for some classic sparring. We talked about his pending good will trip around the world, helping people in more than thirty countries over a one year period. I compared it to a cross between the Amazing Race and Oprah’s Big Give, though obviously without the Ugly American racism of one and the massive ego of the other. Barton is a good person with good arms who makes me feel bad about myself because I am not such a good person, as opposed to just a person with not such good arms. Meanwhile, Steven and his nice arms arrived to encircle Clay in his charms but mostly I saw him across the room having a good time.
The giant arms continued to pour in and the party swelled to dangerous proportions, prompting me to ask one of the guests “how soon until the floor collapses?” It didn’t. On the other hand, I did continue to collapse my underdeveloped carcass on the couch, waiting with Barton for the occasional a/c breezes that would waft over the sea of tight t-shirts and blue plastic cups filled with vodka. Soon, adorable Mark, the massage therapist I met at a previous party joined me on the couch and we had a grand time discussing the crowd and his own obsession: the musical version of The Visit with Chita Rivera.
Even though the party was supposed to end at eleven, it was still in full swing as the clock across Union Square threatened to strike twelve. Suddenly, as if Cinderella herself were running the show and didn’t want to lose a good shoe, the lights went on full, the iPod stopped and David announced, like Ingrid Bergman in Notorious, that the party was over. The gays were slow to leave, most of them unfamiliar with the concept of a to-go cup, so some polite shoving began after about ten minutes. I was going to stick around and help Mark clean up, but Clay and Steven got ushered out and I didn’t want to get separated from my charges.
The hallway was filled with gays waiting for the elevators, and only one of the cars seemed to be working. Some, like Clay, opted to take the stairs, but most chose to remain behind to wait for the next car. I got into one car, but Steven got left behind. Stopping on the tenth floor, Clay got on with a gaggle of gays who couldn’t make it all the way to the lobby until their own power. Clay and I waited in the lobby with Taylor, who was hot to trot in his City Boy t-shirt and didn’t care who he went home with as long as it was Clay or Steven. Eventually, Steven arrived, though when he did, the elevator stopped about six inches below the floor. Not a good sign.
We decamped to Therapy, which had a huge line. So we all peed at Bamboo 52 and then started over for Vlada. Along the way we ran into three gays who recognized us from the party. “We just got out!” they told us, “The elevator got stuck and firemen had to open it and pull us all out. It was crazy!” Poor David. What a messcapade! And what a way for fourteen gay men to learn a valuable physics lesson that muscle really is heavier than fat. There was a line at Vlada too but it was much shorter and faster than Therapy, so I left the boys there and headed for the train home.
On my walk to the train, I passed a woman slumped down on the corner of a building, blind drunk, trying with no luck to send a text message. I asked her if she needed any help but she just waved me on. At Grand Central, a guy was throwing up outside while his friends looked on. “Better here than on the train,” I told his female friend as she looked on annoyed. Inside, Grand Central quite literally smelled like vomit, something I had never experienced before. I didn’t relish the heterosexual disaster the train would be but I did welcome the journey home. As much as I need the gays for regular sex, fun parties, and laughter at their expense, the only messcapade I am interested in these days is the one awaiting me in my gutters at home.
My favorite price point for clothing? Free. The cute purple shirt that Otter Fashion sent me, that I wear all the time, was a big hit tonight at David Coleman’s party. But the same could not be said for these damn boxer briefs. They have some kind of stitch nexus point right underneath my right ball that chafes my thigh like it hates me and my whole family. It bugged me all day in the city and it was a not so gentle reminder that even though I am gay, I am not always a full time player in the gay community. It seemed appropriate to wear them though because it is pride weekend. I should wear my gayest underwear on the gayest weekend of the year. And since it is day two of three days of parties, I figured I should keep escalating the gay until it reaches some kind of bizarre crescendo around 4pm on Sunday.
I was really on a roll earlier today working on the house, and if Clay hadn’t been in town for the weekend, I would have skipped the city altogether. After all, the gutters aren’t going to clean and cover themselves, and Roommate is right, they are so overgrown with foliage they look like a small planter box surrounding the eaves. Even though the gutter guards are basically worthless, I got up on my death trap of a ladder, scooped them out with my hands and then jammed the guards in as best I could. I did this shirtless since I will be in a bathing suit on the 4th and I don’t want to blind strangers with my iridescent paleness. “Really?” my roommate chided me as I climbed high enough for the entire street to see my back fat, “Shirtless?” I guess I am plenty gay after all.
Later at David’s party, surrounded by a sea of worked out torsos, I returned to feeling not gay enough. It was a bit of a welcome back party for the adorable Josh, who moved to Los Angeles four months ago to pursue a new dream in a new city. I was looking forward to going because I knew it was a crowd Clay’s own massive arms would like and I have been looking for a reason to spar, Hepburn/Tracy-style with the dashing Barton Brooks. It was Mr. Brooks himself who came up with the catchphrase of the night “messcapade” to describe my last appearance there, making out in the most shameless fashion with Gary, a perky blond college boy. That night, Gary, who I brought with me, replaced the party iPod with his iPod and proceeded to entertain everyone with the entire Britney canon, of which he was dutifully obsessed. Eerily, Jonathan, one of the people I invited to the party this time, replaced the party iPod with his iPhone and entertained everyone with the entire Madonna canon, of which he is dutifully obsessed. I fear my party invites, rare as they are, might quickly dry up.
Then again, the parties themselves may dry up, oh but that is a story for later. First, you need to hear about the other parade of hot men at the party. Clay chatted up Josh whom he met before he met me, and even expressed surprise at how many people they both knew in common, though independently. “When you have big arms, Manhattan is a very small town,” I assured him, an instantly classic truism met enthusiastically by Josh. As if to prove my point, Conor arrived on cue, muscles bulging yet looking as soulfully wistful as ever. Even Erik Bottcher was there, taller than I would have expected, and second only to Shawn Hollenbach as my most frequently spotted one-degree-away internet connection.
Later I got cornered quite happily in the kitchen by the endlessly handsome Henry who was downing Absolut New Orleans and club soda like he had somewhere to be in a hurry and he wanted to make sure he couldn’t make it. His sweet boyfriend Dan made frequent circles around checking up on the whereabouts of my hands and later when I insisted I was coming back to their apartment for New Year’s Eve whether they were having a party again this year or not, he smiled at me like he had already filed for a restraining order.
Eventually I settled on the couch with Barton for some classic sparring. We talked about his pending good will trip around the world, helping people in more than thirty countries over a one year period. I compared it to a cross between the Amazing Race and Oprah’s Big Give, though obviously without the Ugly American racism of one and the massive ego of the other. Barton is a good person with good arms who makes me feel bad about myself because I am not such a good person, as opposed to just a person with not such good arms. Meanwhile, Steven and his nice arms arrived to encircle Clay in his charms but mostly I saw him across the room having a good time.
The giant arms continued to pour in and the party swelled to dangerous proportions, prompting me to ask one of the guests “how soon until the floor collapses?” It didn’t. On the other hand, I did continue to collapse my underdeveloped carcass on the couch, waiting with Barton for the occasional a/c breezes that would waft over the sea of tight t-shirts and blue plastic cups filled with vodka. Soon, adorable Mark, the massage therapist I met at a previous party joined me on the couch and we had a grand time discussing the crowd and his own obsession: the musical version of The Visit with Chita Rivera.
Even though the party was supposed to end at eleven, it was still in full swing as the clock across Union Square threatened to strike twelve. Suddenly, as if Cinderella herself were running the show and didn’t want to lose a good shoe, the lights went on full, the iPod stopped and David announced, like Ingrid Bergman in Notorious, that the party was over. The gays were slow to leave, most of them unfamiliar with the concept of a to-go cup, so some polite shoving began after about ten minutes. I was going to stick around and help Mark clean up, but Clay and Steven got ushered out and I didn’t want to get separated from my charges.
The hallway was filled with gays waiting for the elevators, and only one of the cars seemed to be working. Some, like Clay, opted to take the stairs, but most chose to remain behind to wait for the next car. I got into one car, but Steven got left behind. Stopping on the tenth floor, Clay got on with a gaggle of gays who couldn’t make it all the way to the lobby until their own power. Clay and I waited in the lobby with Taylor, who was hot to trot in his City Boy t-shirt and didn’t care who he went home with as long as it was Clay or Steven. Eventually, Steven arrived, though when he did, the elevator stopped about six inches below the floor. Not a good sign.
We decamped to Therapy, which had a huge line. So we all peed at Bamboo 52 and then started over for Vlada. Along the way we ran into three gays who recognized us from the party. “We just got out!” they told us, “The elevator got stuck and firemen had to open it and pull us all out. It was crazy!” Poor David. What a messcapade! And what a way for fourteen gay men to learn a valuable physics lesson that muscle really is heavier than fat. There was a line at Vlada too but it was much shorter and faster than Therapy, so I left the boys there and headed for the train home.
On my walk to the train, I passed a woman slumped down on the corner of a building, blind drunk, trying with no luck to send a text message. I asked her if she needed any help but she just waved me on. At Grand Central, a guy was throwing up outside while his friends looked on. “Better here than on the train,” I told his female friend as she looked on annoyed. Inside, Grand Central quite literally smelled like vomit, something I had never experienced before. I didn’t relish the heterosexual disaster the train would be but I did welcome the journey home. As much as I need the gays for regular sex, fun parties, and laughter at their expense, the only messcapade I am interested in these days is the one awaiting me in my gutters at home.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Transitions
New York City is in a constant state of flux. O Henry once aptly predicted that “It will be a great place if they ever finish it.” Living here, it is the kind of thing you get used to. Buildings get torn down. People move away. Even the seasons, when they end, do so with such a brutal finality it borders on intolerable cruelty. The most frequent NYC transition involves a change of address. Even though it seems like a lease (like any bad relationship) will never end, eventually it does and people move up, on, down, or out. Ben Harvey decided to use his last weekend in his old Chelsea apartment to celebrate the end of an era for himself and, since it was Dave Rubin’s birthday yesterday, the end of a year for Dave as well.
Ben’s apartment was a cozy L-shaped studio in a modern building with modern furnishings. It is the kind of apartment tower that has flourished in the city over the past decade like dandelions, at once adorable and annoyingly ubiquitous. Since he is moments from moving out, the place is pretty cleaned out, save for a few leftover pieces of furniture and (thanks largely to the guests) a refrigerator chock full of liquor. It felt like the endless parade of hot twenty-somethings all arrived carrying a bottle of vodka with them. Maybe they do that so that their bicep is flexed and huge as they walk through the door, or maybe they are just being thoughtful guests. Worried about neither the size of my upper arms or being nice, I came empty-handed.
Some of the usual suspects were there (like Jonathan and Ben’s rascally cousin Christian), but mostly it was filled with people I don’t know. This is my least favorite kind of party since I hate meeting new people. However, one of the first people I met was the delightful Anne (aka Lesbi-Anne), a stand-up comedian with surprisingly nice taste in clothes for a comic and/or lesbian. Ben’s friend Zach, anxious for a blog mention apparently, was also there, and much calmer than my first encounter with him at Ben’s new apartment three months ago. Unfortunately, he was so calm, nothing much happened between us and I have nothing really to say about him other than he was there and he was tall.
My friend Clay joined the party too. He came in town for pride weekend and was instantly dejected by the fashion at the party. The locals were all dressed in various shades of blue, Manhattan’s summer version of basic black. Upbeat and chipper in a bright green shirt, Clay stuck out in a good way in a sea of drab. “What is wrong with everyone? It’s Spring!” he declared, less than a week into Summer. But point taken. New York gays love a man in uniform, even if the uniform is expensive denim jeans and a blue, grey or black t-shirt.
Bucking the drab shirt trend was new arrival Steven, in town from Kansas City, where everything’s up to date. Steven was visiting his friend Marty and joined in the fun in Ben’s apartment, in a clingy white t-shirt that left little to the imagination. Fortunately gay men don’t like to use their imaginations, so he was a big hit. For me, the big excitement was finally meeting the notorious Shawn Hollenbach. I have never met him in person, but his photo has haunted me from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook and beyond. We probably have the most friends in common of two people who had, before tonight, never met. It this regard, the party felt like mission accomplished.
The party moved from inside Ben’s apartment to the roof deck and back, as guests refilled their glasses and then returned to the breathtaking view and perfectly cool summer night. The south view off the roof was really something to see, and there is just something great about the canyons of high rises in Manhattan. They are majestic from every angle, though nothing beats the view from on high. Eventually, building security (as Ben had predicted they would) kicked everyone out of the roof deck and the drunks poured back into the apartment like wet cement, chunky slow and in fear of drying out too quickly. A bunch of us settled onto the couch for a series of photos I am certain to never see again, outside of a tagging frenzy on Facebook. This is fine since I generally hate all photos of myself, so I am happy to see the vast majority of them vanish into thin air.
As always happens, the drunk train was calling so I had to dash while everything was still in full swing. Clay offered for me to stay with him at the W since they upgraded him to a massive suite. “Who needs three walk in closets in a hotel room?” he asked from inside an apartment roughly the size of three walk in closets. Maybe tomorrow night, Clay. Christian, who wasn’t wearing any underwear (no surprise) and kept showing off his tramp stamp tattoo, which looked something like a folded out Rubik’s cube if you made one with origami, also offered me to stay with him. “You don’t mind cats do you?” That wasn’t the pussy I had in mind, so I figured I best stick with the train.
On the walk to Grand Central, I spied another New York landmark. It is almost impossible not to see at least one of them and I purposefully walked up Fifth Avenue just to catch a glimpse. And suddenly there it was, the nearest thing to heaven we have in New York City: the Empire State Building. The lights were off because it was after midnight, with just a UFO-like ring of lights around the top of the tower, but even in the dark, it is as beautiful as ever. The city around it can change all that it wants, but that building always stays the same. Elegant and cool, it is living proof in the heart of Manhattan that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Ben’s apartment was a cozy L-shaped studio in a modern building with modern furnishings. It is the kind of apartment tower that has flourished in the city over the past decade like dandelions, at once adorable and annoyingly ubiquitous. Since he is moments from moving out, the place is pretty cleaned out, save for a few leftover pieces of furniture and (thanks largely to the guests) a refrigerator chock full of liquor. It felt like the endless parade of hot twenty-somethings all arrived carrying a bottle of vodka with them. Maybe they do that so that their bicep is flexed and huge as they walk through the door, or maybe they are just being thoughtful guests. Worried about neither the size of my upper arms or being nice, I came empty-handed.
Some of the usual suspects were there (like Jonathan and Ben’s rascally cousin Christian), but mostly it was filled with people I don’t know. This is my least favorite kind of party since I hate meeting new people. However, one of the first people I met was the delightful Anne (aka Lesbi-Anne), a stand-up comedian with surprisingly nice taste in clothes for a comic and/or lesbian. Ben’s friend Zach, anxious for a blog mention apparently, was also there, and much calmer than my first encounter with him at Ben’s new apartment three months ago. Unfortunately, he was so calm, nothing much happened between us and I have nothing really to say about him other than he was there and he was tall.
My friend Clay joined the party too. He came in town for pride weekend and was instantly dejected by the fashion at the party. The locals were all dressed in various shades of blue, Manhattan’s summer version of basic black. Upbeat and chipper in a bright green shirt, Clay stuck out in a good way in a sea of drab. “What is wrong with everyone? It’s Spring!” he declared, less than a week into Summer. But point taken. New York gays love a man in uniform, even if the uniform is expensive denim jeans and a blue, grey or black t-shirt.
Bucking the drab shirt trend was new arrival Steven, in town from Kansas City, where everything’s up to date. Steven was visiting his friend Marty and joined in the fun in Ben’s apartment, in a clingy white t-shirt that left little to the imagination. Fortunately gay men don’t like to use their imaginations, so he was a big hit. For me, the big excitement was finally meeting the notorious Shawn Hollenbach. I have never met him in person, but his photo has haunted me from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook and beyond. We probably have the most friends in common of two people who had, before tonight, never met. It this regard, the party felt like mission accomplished.
The party moved from inside Ben’s apartment to the roof deck and back, as guests refilled their glasses and then returned to the breathtaking view and perfectly cool summer night. The south view off the roof was really something to see, and there is just something great about the canyons of high rises in Manhattan. They are majestic from every angle, though nothing beats the view from on high. Eventually, building security (as Ben had predicted they would) kicked everyone out of the roof deck and the drunks poured back into the apartment like wet cement, chunky slow and in fear of drying out too quickly. A bunch of us settled onto the couch for a series of photos I am certain to never see again, outside of a tagging frenzy on Facebook. This is fine since I generally hate all photos of myself, so I am happy to see the vast majority of them vanish into thin air.
As always happens, the drunk train was calling so I had to dash while everything was still in full swing. Clay offered for me to stay with him at the W since they upgraded him to a massive suite. “Who needs three walk in closets in a hotel room?” he asked from inside an apartment roughly the size of three walk in closets. Maybe tomorrow night, Clay. Christian, who wasn’t wearing any underwear (no surprise) and kept showing off his tramp stamp tattoo, which looked something like a folded out Rubik’s cube if you made one with origami, also offered me to stay with him. “You don’t mind cats do you?” That wasn’t the pussy I had in mind, so I figured I best stick with the train.
On the walk to Grand Central, I spied another New York landmark. It is almost impossible not to see at least one of them and I purposefully walked up Fifth Avenue just to catch a glimpse. And suddenly there it was, the nearest thing to heaven we have in New York City: the Empire State Building. The lights were off because it was after midnight, with just a UFO-like ring of lights around the top of the tower, but even in the dark, it is as beautiful as ever. The city around it can change all that it wants, but that building always stays the same. Elegant and cool, it is living proof in the heart of Manhattan that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Claymation
As I write this, it is Clay’s birthday. It was at my suggestion that he came to New York this weekend. I hope he is enjoying himself. At least I know he is making money. I am an extremely lucky person, and the people who are around me tend to have even better luck when they keep me close. What can I say? I make things happen just by being. Some people get scared by this kind of personal magic, but men like Clay relish in it. Every time Clay flies off to see me, he makes money. Unlike Broadway, where I am the kiss of death, elsewhere I am just what it takes to close the deal. So even though Clay’s flight was horribly delayed coming in last night, he did have the satisfaction of knowing that once again, a visit with Derek means a property sold.
I guess there are worse ways to spend your birthday than making money. I spent today covering my dining room and kitchen with primer, in day one of a three day painting process that will soon spin shimmery gold into Sandstone and Windsor Gaze. The bulk of the day was spent putting masking tape in places that hadn’t even been cleaned in the seventeen years preceding when I bought the place. When I say we found a 1968 Swedish quarter under the fridge when we moved it, you should express the same lack of surprise Roommate and I did when it appeared in the dustpan.
I gave myself a Silkwood shower before I left the house but my hands were still doused in white flecks as if I had been soaking it in at the cruel behest of Madge the manicurist. I hate painting for this reason. It is virtually impossible for me to get paint off my hands and it always makes me look unclean in public. I may not wear more than twenty bucks worth of clothing at a time, but I do like to be clean, at the very least. This is especially true when heading off to gay places because our community can be very mean spirited. It is bad enough that I don’t live on the island of Manhattan. One or two other “problems” and one might be banned permanently!
I dropped my hideous free Gay.com backpack at the office and headed off to meet the original Jonathan at Vlada. I had thought about not even bringing a backpack to the city since it is usually such a drag to drag around, but my train ride home is always the best time to blog the night’s adventures. Without my laptop, a perfectly sensational evening could be lost forever. So in compromise, I just ditched the bag at my office. At Vlada, the doorman asked for my ID which caused me to laugh a fake hearty laugh, but secretly I was desperately flattered, especially as I saw him later wave other, younger people in without checking.
Initially, I was alone at the bar which I can’t stand. I feel so self-conscious standing in a lounge like Vlada without anyone with me. As I always do in these situations, I immediately panicked and started running through the bar like Liza Minnelli finishing a box of Girl Scout cookies, desperately picking through the crowd hoping to find a familiar face. Of course my friend Corey Craig was there DJing, as he had been last night at the Chelsea Hotel. We had a nice conversation and then I left him to see if Jonathan or perhaps Clay had arrived yet.
Jonathan finally arrived with his very drunk but still cute friend Will. Will was as buttoned-down and Type A as the last time I saw him at Therapy. In our previous encounter he dodged me because he thought I might be looking for representation, but this time he was too drunk to run. His focus was much dedicated to a cute guy in a red polo shirt standing in the eye of a cluster of equally preppy friends. Will thought he looked familiar but it might have been the five dollar Stoli cocktails that were jogging his memory.
As usual, I was far more courageous in the service of a stranger than I ever am in myself. I walked over to the stranger and told him that my friend Will and I thought he looked familiar but couldn’t quite place him. As soon as I went over to talk to the handsome stranger, Will turned his back and struck up as intense a discussion with Jonathan as anyone has ever seen.
It turns out the stranger was named Kevin, he works at the United Nations and even though it isn’t a requirement of his job, he speaks French. And, since he mentioned it six times, he also lives in New Jersey. Apparently he is quite sensitive about the cruel rejection he gets from picky Manhattan gays. “Well I am sorry I don’t remember you from before,” he told me, “but tell your friend my name is Kevin and I say hi.” A very clear good bye to me and hello to Will, which I promptly delivered to him. Even after that opening he was reluctant to talk to him, but after I had abandoned my cocktail to make small talk with this guy I told Will I was going to kick him in the leg that instant if he didn’t walk over and talk to him. They talked.
Clay had arrived by this point and was having a good time at Vlada. Still hoping to resurrect the planned triumvirate from the previous night that had gone bust, I sent a txt message to Matt to get him to join us at Vlada. He was at G for a split second with Brian, but then headed over to Andy Towle’s apartment, when he was currently trying to get us to go. This intrigued me. I think Andy is awesome and I read his blog every single weekday without fail. He is my primary gay news source. Plus, I saw him the night before in line at the Chelsea Hotel. If I managed to see him twice in one weekend, it would be double the number of times I saw him in 2007. And I was still anxious to at least make out with Brian after being thwarted the night before.
I dragged Clay out of the promising and vibrant scene of Vlada and piled him into a cab to Andy’s apartment. Once we arrived there, it became clear that Matt had created an impromptu party. There I discovered a pair of tall, built, generically attractive gays headed out as we walked in. They had the gentle, easy gaze and gait of giraffes. I only heard one name, promptly forgotten, and off they went like something delicately animalistic from a National Geographic Special, undoubtedly headed two by two to gay Noah’s ark or some happy gay hunting grounds in the Serengeti. Clay also didn’t stay long, wanting to return quickly to Vlada in hopes of recapturing the earlier magic of the evening.
Matt was all kinds of sweet and apologetic which I assumed was based on what he had read in my blog from the previous night. When I presented him with the news that he (and Brian, and Andy for that matter) were already committed to the internet, he exploded into a manic panic. “We’ve already been blogged!” he yelled, tugging on Brian’s sleeve. An ocean of calm, Andy offered me a drink and we settled into a polite conversation in the living room, while Matt and Brian searched the web.
Andy asked me about my blog, which he hadn’t read before, and we talked about moderating comments and what happens to gay men when they turn forty. It was a lovely chat and I wanted to tell Andy that I had recommended him to go on Bill O’Reilly when FOX called our office looking for a guest to discuss Jay Leno and Ryan Phillippe’s gayest look. But that conversation was not to be as Brian settled down next to me, iPhone in hand, to read aloud from my previous blog entry.
I can honestly say that no one is more bored by my writing than I am, and having it read aloud is a special kind of hell. About ten minutes in, Andy pulled out his own iPhone to skip down to the part he was mentioned in. “It’s an epic!” he declared but not in the happy way that a film reviewer might gush about an Oscar contender. Matt was tickled by the whole recounting of events, though Brian was quick to agree with Matt that “no one who doesn’t know us will care about any of this.” Oh contraire!
Everyone seemed to approve of how they were represented in the blog, which didn’t surprise me, though Matt was anxious for a more favorable mention tonight. I like to think that I fairly accurately depict people and events, especially since I usually write it within minutes of it actually happening. Brian was mildly irritated by the word “promise” being associated with him, but I really meant the promise of something between us, forever interrupted by late trains home to the suburbs, not some kind of sunny upbeat demeanor I have yet to see him display. He asked me if I really thought he looked like he might eat someone. Yes! Funny, he didn’t question my description of his former paramour Dallas as “statistically handsome.” I guess that didn’t bother him as much as the prospect of being perceived as a cannibal. Don’t worry, Brian, no one reads this anyway.
I wanted to stick around all night at Andy’s place. I loved the low key vibe and as an ardent fan of his blog, nothing would thrill me more than talking about his work. I wish he would come on my show. I ask him all the time, but there is no reason for him to come. His blog is immensely popular and he hardly needs the publicity. Still, when I like something, I do like to shamelessly promote it on my show. After all, what is the point of having a radio show if you can’t boost your friends a little? I guess I will just have to settle for a semi-annual visit in person instead.
On my way out, the topic turned to my long train ride home. Andy was familiar with the trip, having made it many times, much further up than where I live. He did not have fond memories but I enjoy the ride along the river, especially since it gives me a chance to collect my thoughts from the evening and commit them to the permanent record of my epic (sorry! I am a terrible editor!) blog.
After the door closed to Andy’s apartment, I heard Brian’s booming voice chanting the names of some of my stops along the way. But it didn’t bother me as I raced down the stairs and out into the street in search of a cab. After all, I love my little life in the suburbs. Kevin may be sensitive about living in New Jersey but I adored my day today eating slices of pizza in the Adirondack chairs and watching deer grazing in my backyard. I don’t live my life for anyone else. Even though peer pressure may work on some people with no self-esteem who like to iron things, it doesn’t work on me. And as always, I get the last word. So while Brian may do his best to define me in the moment inside Andy’s apartment, I get to define him for all time right here.
I wonder what it will be like when he finally does eat me. It might be pretty good. You know how people around me tend to get lucky.
I guess there are worse ways to spend your birthday than making money. I spent today covering my dining room and kitchen with primer, in day one of a three day painting process that will soon spin shimmery gold into Sandstone and Windsor Gaze. The bulk of the day was spent putting masking tape in places that hadn’t even been cleaned in the seventeen years preceding when I bought the place. When I say we found a 1968 Swedish quarter under the fridge when we moved it, you should express the same lack of surprise Roommate and I did when it appeared in the dustpan.
I gave myself a Silkwood shower before I left the house but my hands were still doused in white flecks as if I had been soaking it in at the cruel behest of Madge the manicurist. I hate painting for this reason. It is virtually impossible for me to get paint off my hands and it always makes me look unclean in public. I may not wear more than twenty bucks worth of clothing at a time, but I do like to be clean, at the very least. This is especially true when heading off to gay places because our community can be very mean spirited. It is bad enough that I don’t live on the island of Manhattan. One or two other “problems” and one might be banned permanently!
I dropped my hideous free Gay.com backpack at the office and headed off to meet the original Jonathan at Vlada. I had thought about not even bringing a backpack to the city since it is usually such a drag to drag around, but my train ride home is always the best time to blog the night’s adventures. Without my laptop, a perfectly sensational evening could be lost forever. So in compromise, I just ditched the bag at my office. At Vlada, the doorman asked for my ID which caused me to laugh a fake hearty laugh, but secretly I was desperately flattered, especially as I saw him later wave other, younger people in without checking.
Initially, I was alone at the bar which I can’t stand. I feel so self-conscious standing in a lounge like Vlada without anyone with me. As I always do in these situations, I immediately panicked and started running through the bar like Liza Minnelli finishing a box of Girl Scout cookies, desperately picking through the crowd hoping to find a familiar face. Of course my friend Corey Craig was there DJing, as he had been last night at the Chelsea Hotel. We had a nice conversation and then I left him to see if Jonathan or perhaps Clay had arrived yet.
Jonathan finally arrived with his very drunk but still cute friend Will. Will was as buttoned-down and Type A as the last time I saw him at Therapy. In our previous encounter he dodged me because he thought I might be looking for representation, but this time he was too drunk to run. His focus was much dedicated to a cute guy in a red polo shirt standing in the eye of a cluster of equally preppy friends. Will thought he looked familiar but it might have been the five dollar Stoli cocktails that were jogging his memory.
As usual, I was far more courageous in the service of a stranger than I ever am in myself. I walked over to the stranger and told him that my friend Will and I thought he looked familiar but couldn’t quite place him. As soon as I went over to talk to the handsome stranger, Will turned his back and struck up as intense a discussion with Jonathan as anyone has ever seen.
It turns out the stranger was named Kevin, he works at the United Nations and even though it isn’t a requirement of his job, he speaks French. And, since he mentioned it six times, he also lives in New Jersey. Apparently he is quite sensitive about the cruel rejection he gets from picky Manhattan gays. “Well I am sorry I don’t remember you from before,” he told me, “but tell your friend my name is Kevin and I say hi.” A very clear good bye to me and hello to Will, which I promptly delivered to him. Even after that opening he was reluctant to talk to him, but after I had abandoned my cocktail to make small talk with this guy I told Will I was going to kick him in the leg that instant if he didn’t walk over and talk to him. They talked.
Clay had arrived by this point and was having a good time at Vlada. Still hoping to resurrect the planned triumvirate from the previous night that had gone bust, I sent a txt message to Matt to get him to join us at Vlada. He was at G for a split second with Brian, but then headed over to Andy Towle’s apartment, when he was currently trying to get us to go. This intrigued me. I think Andy is awesome and I read his blog every single weekday without fail. He is my primary gay news source. Plus, I saw him the night before in line at the Chelsea Hotel. If I managed to see him twice in one weekend, it would be double the number of times I saw him in 2007. And I was still anxious to at least make out with Brian after being thwarted the night before.
I dragged Clay out of the promising and vibrant scene of Vlada and piled him into a cab to Andy’s apartment. Once we arrived there, it became clear that Matt had created an impromptu party. There I discovered a pair of tall, built, generically attractive gays headed out as we walked in. They had the gentle, easy gaze and gait of giraffes. I only heard one name, promptly forgotten, and off they went like something delicately animalistic from a National Geographic Special, undoubtedly headed two by two to gay Noah’s ark or some happy gay hunting grounds in the Serengeti. Clay also didn’t stay long, wanting to return quickly to Vlada in hopes of recapturing the earlier magic of the evening.
Matt was all kinds of sweet and apologetic which I assumed was based on what he had read in my blog from the previous night. When I presented him with the news that he (and Brian, and Andy for that matter) were already committed to the internet, he exploded into a manic panic. “We’ve already been blogged!” he yelled, tugging on Brian’s sleeve. An ocean of calm, Andy offered me a drink and we settled into a polite conversation in the living room, while Matt and Brian searched the web.
Andy asked me about my blog, which he hadn’t read before, and we talked about moderating comments and what happens to gay men when they turn forty. It was a lovely chat and I wanted to tell Andy that I had recommended him to go on Bill O’Reilly when FOX called our office looking for a guest to discuss Jay Leno and Ryan Phillippe’s gayest look. But that conversation was not to be as Brian settled down next to me, iPhone in hand, to read aloud from my previous blog entry.
I can honestly say that no one is more bored by my writing than I am, and having it read aloud is a special kind of hell. About ten minutes in, Andy pulled out his own iPhone to skip down to the part he was mentioned in. “It’s an epic!” he declared but not in the happy way that a film reviewer might gush about an Oscar contender. Matt was tickled by the whole recounting of events, though Brian was quick to agree with Matt that “no one who doesn’t know us will care about any of this.” Oh contraire!
Everyone seemed to approve of how they were represented in the blog, which didn’t surprise me, though Matt was anxious for a more favorable mention tonight. I like to think that I fairly accurately depict people and events, especially since I usually write it within minutes of it actually happening. Brian was mildly irritated by the word “promise” being associated with him, but I really meant the promise of something between us, forever interrupted by late trains home to the suburbs, not some kind of sunny upbeat demeanor I have yet to see him display. He asked me if I really thought he looked like he might eat someone. Yes! Funny, he didn’t question my description of his former paramour Dallas as “statistically handsome.” I guess that didn’t bother him as much as the prospect of being perceived as a cannibal. Don’t worry, Brian, no one reads this anyway.
I wanted to stick around all night at Andy’s place. I loved the low key vibe and as an ardent fan of his blog, nothing would thrill me more than talking about his work. I wish he would come on my show. I ask him all the time, but there is no reason for him to come. His blog is immensely popular and he hardly needs the publicity. Still, when I like something, I do like to shamelessly promote it on my show. After all, what is the point of having a radio show if you can’t boost your friends a little? I guess I will just have to settle for a semi-annual visit in person instead.
On my way out, the topic turned to my long train ride home. Andy was familiar with the trip, having made it many times, much further up than where I live. He did not have fond memories but I enjoy the ride along the river, especially since it gives me a chance to collect my thoughts from the evening and commit them to the permanent record of my epic (sorry! I am a terrible editor!) blog.
After the door closed to Andy’s apartment, I heard Brian’s booming voice chanting the names of some of my stops along the way. But it didn’t bother me as I raced down the stairs and out into the street in search of a cab. After all, I love my little life in the suburbs. Kevin may be sensitive about living in New Jersey but I adored my day today eating slices of pizza in the Adirondack chairs and watching deer grazing in my backyard. I don’t live my life for anyone else. Even though peer pressure may work on some people with no self-esteem who like to iron things, it doesn’t work on me. And as always, I get the last word. So while Brian may do his best to define me in the moment inside Andy’s apartment, I get to define him for all time right here.
I wonder what it will be like when he finally does eat me. It might be pretty good. You know how people around me tend to get lucky.
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