Martial Law

At Slammers last week, a grinning fireplug (coarse red hair and freckles) urged me on.

I grabbed his shoulders and moved him back to arm’s length, saying

Cum dicis ‘Propero, fac si facis,’ Hedyle, languet
Protinus et cessat debilitata Venus.
Expectare iube: velocius ibo retentus.
Hedyle, si properas, dic mihi, ne properem.

I like the James Michie translation.

When you say, ‘Quick, I’m going to come,’
Hedylus, I go limp and numb.
But ask me to hold back my fire,
And the brake accelerates desire.
Dear boy, if you’re in such a hurry,
Tell me to slow up, not to worry.

Homoeroticism in early '80s music videos

These two guys are likable and totally incapable of being "fierce". In fact, they are rather bland and homely in a really sexy/hot way. I have taken in a few of their vlog presentations. This most recent at Bilerico is the best. Like having a chat with a gay couple over (not coffee) herbal tea. You will find their blog here. Doably cute.

A Simple Pleasure

I am watching C make one of his inventive salads.

The components:
baby spinach leaves
mixed field greens
blueberries
raspberries
cashews
soy nuts
chunks of fresh pineapple, honey dew and cantaloupe
dried mixed berries including cranberries and cherries
Black Castello cheese
Saint Augur cheese
mango and ginger Stilton cheese
ground pepper
powdered ginger

The dressing devised on the spot:
black currant nectar
sunflower oil left over from marinated artichokes
hot pepper balsamic vinegar




Like a mouthful of summer.

(I think my favorite food pornographer and both cuisinartists would approve.)

Fort Lauderdale Morning. Waiting for the taxi.

Every time I go away, I swear it evaporates until I get back. This is true of all places by the sea.

in the funnies

Saw this in the paper today. Tomorrow I fly back north. C and I have been away from each other for almost one month which is the longest time we have spent apart. Sure hope he recognizes me at the airport. Sure hope he's at the airport.

TK

Only in America can one go from self-destructive scoundrel to respected elder statesman in less than a lifetime. Alexis de Tocqueville talked about the sloughing off of "skin" that America does, forever renewing itself from old to young, in contrast to what other cultures do.

What private energies and what public yearnings produce a creature like this and a national appetite for him? We are a people obsessed with such transformations and are always eager to be watching when such heros revert to type. It's as if we want to teach ourselves trite lessons derived from our own silly preoccupation with the rise and fall of humans, and from our need for reaffirmation of the fallibility of all and any.

I think the funniest thing I ever read about his appearance (and I wish I could recall whose words they were) was that "He doesn't have a head. He has a container for a head." Now my question is how does anyone end up with forehead furrows that go in both directions. Like plaid. Extraordinary.



photo: AFP/Getty Images

The rather unsettling bottom line

If Barack Obama were 100% white would we be interested in him, and would he have gotten as far as he has politically?
If Hillary Clinton were a male would we be interested in her, and would she have gotten as far as she has politically?
Unfortunately, the answer to both questions is "no". Our hankering after these two is based in disturbingly large measure on the fact that one identifies as black and the other as female. At a time when we should be examining their intelligence, ability and accomplishments, we are fascinated with and fawning over accidental qualities rather than substance. That is the elephant in the ring with them.
Not to worry. Either will be a tremendous improvement.

Slightly less of a Luddite

With his help, I finally managed to add a song to this post. This isn't the first time he's helped me and I am envious of the ease with which he handles this medium and wish I were more skilled at it considering the amount of time I spend doing this.

Next challenge: using the books C gave me for Christmas, I'm going to attempt a redesign of the look of this place. The whole blog may crash, but in time, "the Rockies may crumble, Gibraltor may tumble, they're only made of clay, but.."

New Kitchen

UPDATE: for the folks having troubling viewing this, let me know if this newer upload is visible, thanks)


I spent the whole day working up this design using Adobe Illustrator, a program I have barely touched (From New York, C, who knows it like the back of his hand, walked me through some of its wonderful mysteries). You may notice the absence of refrigerator. It's being moved to what is now adjacent storage space that houses the hot water tank and the A/C unit. I found all the needed tiny appliances (they are costly because they are tiny - go figure) on a site called "Compact appliances". We will also be replacing the hot water tank with a wonderful new gizmo that is no larger than a camera and instantly heats the water that passes through it. I'm getting a Lieber refrigerator (expensive) and granite counters, but I think I can save money by getting the cabinetry through IKEA. We will also remove the wall separating the kitchen from the dining area allowing me to view the ocean while mincing garlic. We will also replace the indestructible but quaint white ceramic tile floor with something more dazzling. Something like those shimmery old New York sidewalks loaded with mica. Haven't quite found it yet. I met with a reputable contractor whose work I admire and who charges a set fee for labor only. Meanwhile, in New York, our ill-fated renovation is now in the hands of a lawyer who will get our deposit back from the despicable and non-performing company we hired almost two years ago. These projects can be great fun when they involve the right people, and cheaper when you do the design and the shopping yourself. It's now 2AM on a Friday night and I'm still home thinking about cabinetry. Somebody slap me.

O les Beaux jours

Not all there.

Regarding the commented interest in a t shirt featured in this post, I have been gently reminded by my patient husband, who has grown accustomed to my faded memory and total blurring of reality, that the "nsfw" was indeed his idea and that he guided me through the lettering and kerning etc. All I did was work the paint. I did choose the color and the ironing board cover that ended up stuck to the letters! (Even the sweetest of designers can be tempermental...)

PART time

I've received email from a few friends expressing their disappointment over my going back to work (referenced in a previous post). It seems that my eschewing the workplace has been enviable to many. Here is my assurance that my soon-to-commence return will be part-time.

The delightful aspect of this is that my new employer found me via this little boutique of a blog. An anonymous reader invited me to consider a possible affiliation with a New York City based, well established, rather prominent and private foundation. They were seeking someone to write their web content, and also to act as "writing coach" for their staff. I came close to not responding to his message, suspicious that it was not on the level. When he suggested lunch, I talked it over with C and came to a "why not/nothing to lose" conclusion. I was worried that the guy might be a stalker or might have some ulterior motive for meeting. These concerns evaporated when I met him in person, over lunch, and during the subsequent interviews with the foundation's president and staff. All charming, friendly and intelligent. And what a luxury to join a team that already knows the basic details of one's personal life. No need to reassume the veil I wore constantly for the past twenty-five years. Also, appreciative of my Floridian inclinations, they have tailored my presence among them to allow for ample time down here in Braindeadlia.

I won't be detailing this venture herein. Contrary to what some of you presume, this blog is not a drawerfull of total disclosure. I do have secrets, and besides, I have always given the words that walk out of me license to compose their own realities and opinions. You'd never be sure about what's real or Memorex. I am simply looking forward to flying north for a week of this and am not at all thinking of it as work.

Skinni Papi

(more readable via clicking)

Suzanne Pleshette

The entertaining Suzanne Pleshette has died.

As a youngster, I envied her having Troy Donahue as a husband and wished I had been walking by when she put him out with the trash after eight months.



I always thought she should have had her own line of bedding at Bed Bath & Beyond, hawked as "Pillow Case-Suzanned Plush Sheets!"

More on the possibility of a monastery .

To live in healthy community.
To live together, under one roof, with men (and women – why not?) who find and build “home”.
To establish a refuge in which all the nonsense and the madness of the world is rectified through frequent sharing, thinking and discipline.
To be bound to the pursuit of what is really valuable and lasting.
To support each other without binding each other.
To grow together.
To age together.
To love together.
To die not alone.

Is it so far-fetched?
Imagine coming home to the monastery from a day’s work (and I don’t see why those of us with gainful employment outside the walls might not keep it), knowing that there will be food and relaxation and discussion and laughter and commiseration and rest and safety and love.

The house would have a pervasive peacefulness about it even when the “monks” were engaged in spirited conversation and celebration.

There would be no need for robes. We are not talking about “mouseketeers” or Shriners. There might be ceremony and ritual and music and art and writing of all sorts. There would be some rules, but only those that facilitated the common good.

Monks could be coupled or single or polyamorous. Contemplative or chatty. Industrious or reflective.

Each couple or single or polyamorous unit would have his/her/their own room. There would have to be plenty of bathrooms. One giant kitchen. One giant dining room for communal meals. Several gathering rooms. Some kind of central hall that would handle the convening of the entire community. I hesitate to call it a chapel because I don’t want to exclude those who while wrestling with the concept of God are not inclined to common prayer, but I would not exclude that possibility. And oh let there be a beautiful garden.

And let there be frequent visitors for we are folks who love the good company of lively people.

Sounds irresistible, and, some would say, impractical, but think of the community that already exists through this mechanism that we already share. Would this not be the next step?

I need to think more about this.

Look. Behind that door. That's where they live.

The author of the blog HT always makes his point in a thought provoking way. In his review of a travel book, The Way of the World by Nicholas Bouvier, he says the following:

I for one, in my travels, have missed the time when the world was still exotic. Everywhere I have been – Thai beaches, Himalayan foothills, Qinghai, Istambul – I seemed to arrive too late, in the wake of developers, cinder blocks, mass tourism, and the Coca-Cola Company...The world is becoming a less varied place, homogenized and less interesting.

This process starts at home (Think mainstreaming of gay culture/excavation of the underground. Think the exposure of privacies of any kind via the net.) and ends on those farthest flung beaches where we will always find the comfortable service of an ATM machine and the logos of our familiarity.

Heaventree, if all your energy goes into devouring the miles before you, into seeing all that can be seen, into learning the nuances of yet another dialect, into yearning to wear the feathers of some exotic creature not yet photographed, either death and infirmity will arrest you (unless, like a vampire, you are doomed unhappily to roam the streets of many centuries), or you will reach the end of all roads and find yourself back at your starting-line.

Instead, I will go to that one place for which there is no guide book and no translation. The one place for which I carry no currency. A place where the provocations buzz with static. Where transactions are still difficult. Where daily plans are upset by the eruption of the sudden coup breaking thin walls. I will turn and walk into my own head where the vistas are endless and the landmarks curious. I'll be leaving the door open behind me, but only a fool...

So this is what it means to seek the monastic. I think I have finally reached that point. I can think of nothing more satisfying than to establish a monastery in which men might live in common and in pursuit of all that is wonderfully unknown within them. Not the silly and caricatured monastery twisted with rules of celibacy and poverty and various worried controls, but one in which the communal life supports those interior journeys that only the luckiest among us ever finally make. First, I suppose I'd need a building. I wonder who'd be the first through the door with a suitcase?

We could have told them that.

Are scientists just realizing that it's chemical? A few of us were talking about this just last week. How, on some nights, you can walk through the crowds at the bars/clubs/baths/beach and be invisible, but on other nights, they're all over you, and you literally run to the mirror to see what special coalition of features you are presenting that makes you irresistible that night. Of course you see nothing different. On some nights, a man emits a cocktail of tastables and smellables that draw other men to him. This may follow a lunar cycle. Let the charting begin. Last Friday night, I was successfully "off the charts". Let's see, that was Jan 11th. Between the new moon and the first quarter. Hmmm. The moon will be in that position again during the week I start my new job in Manhattan...Then again, it might have been the garlic.

Sonny and Cher and Letterman

I don't know why this is important to me, but it is. Can twenty years really have gone by since then? TV doesn't get much better. It's in 2 parts.

And, I will go to the beach.

Hardly what I would have thought

I saw this over at Manhattanchowder. I'd rather Dayton.

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions. You're the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl... or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

What European City Do You Belong In?