Seeing Is Belying

Whenever I head out to the West Coast there are always too many people for me to see. I used to live there for 15 years and over time, I have accumulated a massive number of friends and family. Now gone almost a decade, the friends and family have only grown, making short visits back even more taxing. I want to see everyone and it is just physically impossible.

Some years ago, I sent an email to all of my friends with carved out time slots and asked them to pick a time that worked for them. This annoyed them to all end. I was just trying to be efficient but it struck them all as typical self-centered Derek behavior. The blow back was so intense that I hardly bother telling anyone I am coming to town anymore. If it is someone I really want to see, I make a big effort to make a connection happen. If not, and they run into me accidentally on a sidewalk in West Hollywood, oh well.

Aside from my family, there were only two old friends I really, really wanted to see. Ben Patrick, who I don't think I have seen in person since we were at the Gay Games together in Chicago in 2006 and David, who I have been trying to convince for months to get out of his townhouse and move to New York City. On the newer friend front, I did want to see Jason, as well as Jeremy and Ross. Jeremy and Ross both planned to be guests on the radio show when we did our live remote from the House of Blues during Gay Days, but work interfered and we pushed it off to Sunday.

As it happens, Jason and Jeremy ended up being sluggish homebodies and suddenly lacked the power to leave their couches and one assumes open bottles of wine. Ben Patrick was sick and wanted to meet up on Monday when he was feeling better but I was already back in New York by then. But Ross agreed to join me out for an early drink, so even though my batting average was terrible, I did make at least a couple of hits.

I dropped my tiny backpack off at David's picture-perfect townhouse. He marvelled at my ability to travel light and immediately suggested we backpack across Europe together. Maybe after my new hip. We walked down the hill to Eleven which used to be a Bell Telephone switching station and is now the kind of fancy gay bar with bottle service, velvet banquettes and the shelf life of fresh milk. It seemed to be packed entirely with men entering a fictional big arm contest, all of them knew David, whose own arms were definitely in contention.

Ross joined us midway through our first drink and I have to tell you: that boy is famous! He couldn't move through that bar without someone saying what a fan they were. Such an opportunity for him to be a whore and sleep his way through the steroidal mountains of the west side, but instead he was just polite and smiley and quickly moved on.

I noticed adult star Blake Riley dancing on one of the bars. As he scanned the bar with a come hither look designed to elicit tips, his demeanor changed suddenly to shy embarrassment when he realized he was coming on to me. I ran over and gave him a quick hug and carried on the kind of conversation one has when one runs into a friend who is dressed only in dollar stuffed briefs. Just like the stripper stereotype, he is working his way through school and I have to say I was genuinely impressed with his planned post-porn career path.

Even though later I saw Jerell from this current season of Project Runway quite literally twirling through Here Bar, the highlight sighting of the night was when I spotted Thomas Roberts across the bar at Eleven. I have had a major crush on him since his earliest days on CNN. I love his shy snaggletooth smile and gently hunky way. Now off TV, I was dying to have him back on the radio show, if not my lap, so I ran over to give him my card. He was quite drunk, celebrating his birthday, but he politely remembered our interview almost three years ago. He even held my hand while talking, which was the kind of personal touch that sent me over the edge, even as he used his other hand to point out his insanely hot boyfriend across the way in between tequila shots.

Later Ross headed back home and David and I went to dinner at my old haunt Tango Grill. The owner Gene was there and hardly recognized me with my short shorn hair and one assumes the intervening years. Darin and my old LA roommate Eric surprised us at dinner and then coaxed us to drive up the hill to their fabulous new penthouse high above Fountain. David and I zipped up in my rented convertible to check it out. The view was spectacular and the apartment massive, but it seemed as though they were living with an entire cast of reality show characters, as if the original Real World LA camera crew left in 1992 and the participants just stayed behind waiting to grow into the VH-1 generation. They both seemed really happy there and I hate to begrudge their decision, but it was a Penthouse of Horrors for me. The last place I want to be as I am dragged screaming into the ever-widening abyss of middle age is in a rented apartment with five roommates. That is the stuff of recent college grads and gold digging hussies in classic Hollywood gems like How To Marry A Millionaire.

All too soon, I was headed off to the airport in the pre-dawn hours to fly back to New York. I would love to convince David to abandon his rut and move to the glamour and excitement of Manhattan, but with winter around the corner and the economy in free fall, now hardly seems the time for a bold gesture. I know my suburban life works for me, but maybe it isn't right for him. Seeing Darin and Eric's place, I know they have moved in other directions. I suppose there is no right way to do anything. All you can do is your best. And choosing where to live and being able to see the people you want to see is always more about timing and luck than it is about desire. Maybe someday I will live in perpetual summer again, if the timing is right, but for now, it's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.

All At Sea

I have a lot of very trashy loves. For instance, I am obsessed with RV living. I love the idea of a house on wheels that can go anywhere. It must be the gypsy in me. Houseboats have a similar appeal. My soul is restless and on the move, so it makes sense that I desire a home that moves with me. Last year I bought a house. And not just a house but too much house for one person. It came with a piano, perfect to match my increasingly unwieldy furniture. I think psychologically I am trying to force myself to stay put, tether myself to the earth with heavy objects so I can’t float away. Be that as it may, I had plenty of time to muse on my personal psychology as I left my piano and house and unfinished patio behind and headed to the Norwegian Dawn for a seven day sailing up the coast of New England to Canada.

Five weeks ago, Rosie O’Donnell came on the radio show to promote the True Colors Tour. While on the air she spontaneously invited us to go on the R Family Vacations cruise in July. It was all so sudden! And it conflicted with my planned trip to Southern California for San Diego Pride and to visit my family. But how do you say no to Rosie? “I’ll be standing on the dock waiting for you. You better be there!” she told us. It didn’t sound like the kind of invitation you turn down unless you like looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life. So, off we went to Canada.

First I had to get a new passport. My old passport that had taken me to Europe and Japan expired last year and since then had been sitting in my “to-do” pile. Suddenly, I had a very urgent need to get a new one. The old photo I had made me look like a terrorist, albeit a young one. So I was concerned about how much older I would look in a photo that was nearly identical except for the intervening eleven years. I promise that there is no easier way to see how you have aged that to put two passport photos side by side. Disheartening to say the least. Having just come off of weeks of pride events, the biggest non-age change was that for the next decade I will be tan.

We set sail on Sunday on the Norwegian Dawn, a beautiful ship. Fortunately, my cabin was way down on the 5th floor, seven decks below and on the opposite side of the ship from the all-you-can-eat buffet. My last cruise in 2006, my cabin was one short staircase away from the buffet and seven days later I had gained fifteen pounds. This time I followed my new friend Ross Mathews’ advice and took the stairs. The few pounds I gained by the end were gone a few days later when my eating habits returned to normal back on dry land. I think I was also helped by the fact that the soft serve ice cream machine was broken. I cursed it at first but in retrospect, I realize now it was a waistband blessing in disguise.

The ship landed in several ports of call but I skipped a few. I missed our first stop in Canada but made a point of disembarking on the second (and last) Canadian port because I had never been to Canada before. After all I went through to get that new passport I was determined to get a new stamp on it. Back stateside, I wandered aimlessly through Bar Harbor (got a blueberry soft serve cone there) and made a brief return to Provincetown that was just long enough to prove to myself that nothing much had changed there in the past seven years. The boat docked finally in Newport, but not even more stately mansions could wrest me from my stateroom where an umpteenth airing of Space Cowboys on TBS and room service happily occupied my lazy afternoon.

Finally I returned back to New York on Sunday. I was the fifth person off the boat, working every angle I could to get out of there as quickly as possible and avoid the crush of strollers and wheelchairs. I loved life on the high seas. The endless food in a floating city is a dream come true, even if it was probably not the best place to be mere days after watching Wall-E. But in a recurring theme in this blog, I need to return to reality in the end. Someday I will just sail away and never come back. But for now, I have made a rooted life for myself and it is sailing its own course, a journey into the unknown, even though the gypsy in me feels as though I am forever in the same place.

VIDEO: Ross Mathews' Blog with Derek on NBC.com, Ross on the banister on Facebook.com
PHOTOS: Click here to see pictures from my R Family Vacations cruise on Facebook.com.