12.02.10
Posted in Being Better, Writing at 4:41 pm by Beau
100 Words Entry – Day 2
Mr. Gunn, who always lived at Number 20 Porro Lane for as long as we could remember, was the most well-known herbalists around. His garden, small, well-kept and maintained, hosted more plants and herbs than anyone else in the district. He treated most maladies which made him indispensable to our tired, run-down community of aging spinsters and the damaged, life-long working class.
He kept mostly to himself, preferring to keep company with the few books and journals we were able to circulate through our shops. He was also, quite surprisingly, an accomplished and resourceful abortionist.
Permalink
Posted in Being Better, Writing at 4:38 pm by Beau
100 Words is a simple concept: for one month, write 100 words, no more or less, each day and post it. It’s apparently been around for years and admits to coining the term “social tasking” rather than just a social network.
I like it and the idea. I have to tip my hat to Barnes and Jodi for getting me pointed in the right direction. I fail miserably every year at the 2,500-words a day for a month in NaNoWriMo, so much so that this year, I didn’t even pretend that I was going to participate. But 100 words every day for a month? Even I can manage that.
Day One:
It is agonizing for me to see it. I am confused and afraid of what I think I should do as opposed to what I want to do which is ignore it and hope it just goes away.
If I even had a gun, would I go out and put that poor, young deer out of it’s misery, with it’s front, mangled leg dangling, twisted, and infected; the result of some careless hunter on the first day of hunting season.
How can compassion be so gray and so heart-wrenching? How can I stand to do something or do nothing?
Permalink
11.21.10
Posted in Being Better, Crafting, Fun, Home Life, Killing Time, art at 9:48 pm by Beau
Frozen Rooster
Permalink
04.06.10
Posted in Being Better, City Life, Fun, traveling for work at 6:56 pm by Beau
If you never turn the other direction out of the hotel, then you could be missing the Dunkin’ Donuts, a coffee shop, the comic book store, and a sushi place that serves a dish called Ride the Wild Donkey Roll.
Permalink
03.18.10
Posted in Being Better, Home Life at 8:38 am by Beau
Today Jeff and I celebrate our 15th Anniversary together today. Even though we were actually married two years ago in San Francisco, we still consider March 18th, the day we actually met and started dating as our anniversary. Since I wrote about our yearly anniversary tradition of reciting how we met last year, I’ll spare everyone the repeat but rest assured, the Recitation has occurred already.
I was greeted this morning with two cards, one seriously romantic and heartfelt and the other, funny and heart-felt. Then I was treated to one of Jeff’s poems of which he has become famous for, which ended with something about “tossing my salad”. Jeff’s reputation as the Funny One stays intact for another year.
While it’s a work day and we’ve gone our separate ways, we’re reconvening tonight for dinner and a B’way show. Nothing flashy for us, just some good time spent with one another, enjoying each other’s company, watching the world spin by. It has been the hallmark of our years together and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Permalink
01.29.10
Posted in Being Better, City Life, Fun, Health and well-being at 9:40 am by Beau
NYC 1/2 Marathon, Jan 24, 2010
Permalink
12.04.09
Posted in Being Better, The Blog, The days at 6:29 am by Beau
Quite unexpectedly this summer, I was asked by Father Tony of the Farmboyz if I wanted to participate in a NYC-focused version of the Bilerico website and whatever it would entail. I was blown-away by the vision he had for it and all the various people he was collecting to help participate. There was no small amount of head-scratching on my part about what I could actually contribute, especially since my blogging had moved decidedly off kilter and just all around less. Never the less, I whole-heartedly agreed and thanked him profusely figuring I’d figure out those pesky details about what I’d actually contribute some other time.
Then two things happened: I actually started blogging less which seems almost impossible without actually shutting down the blog and I took a large project at work that would have me in New Hampshire during the week and upstate at home during the weekends. Again, pesky details of how I would write about NYC when I actually wasn’t even here/there be damned…we’d figure it out.
Well, the Bilerico-NYC project hasn’t launched but Father Tony has put together Queer New York, a substitute blog place holder until the other comes to fruition. The invitation again to participate appeared via email this week and so that old cool blogging vibe has once again raised its head and put me into a spin. So I can be found around here, of course for the decidedly non-NYC types of things but I can also be found participating with some pretty amazing people over at Queer New York, singing the praises of the Hub of the Universe and all the weirdness it leaves in its wake.
Permalink
08.20.09
Posted in Being Better, City Life, Fun, Vanity at 11:21 am by Beau
Running through Times Square. 2009 NYC Half Marathon
Permalink
08.17.09
Posted in Being Better, City Life, Fun at 6:06 pm by Beau
NYC Half Marathon 2009 Start
I competed in my first big competitive race yesterday morning, running and finishing the NYC 1/2 Marathon. The fact that I can say and not be lying that I finished the race while still actually running is something. I’d planned on finishing it that way and felt I’d finish it that way up until about mile 9 when my thoughts started to betray me and the idea of just stopping and walking it piped up. By mile 11, I’d had it and it was only the voice of a good friend who coached and mentored me in the ways of running that put me through. But I finished in 2:10 or just over 10 minutes a mile with each successive mile actually improving in time or what I now know as a negative split. The heat and humidity wasn’t anything I was used to running in and it beat me down brutally until there wasn’t much left to drag across the finish line.
The course itself was something pretty spectacular. It was 13.1 miles that looped around Central Park and then spit us out on 7th Avenue where we ran down to Times Square, the entire avenue blocked and lined with spectators, bands, the gay cheerleaders, cops and firemen. That was a shining moment where you can’t help but get a huge kick of adrenaline and I did…but then we turned the corner and ran down 42nd Street through Disneyland and out onto the West Side Highway. To look down that sun-spotted stretch and know that there were four looming miles knocked the wind out of me but I pressed on as did the 14,000 people running along with me.
My email to people who’ve asked today how the race went included two milestone events that were paramount to me in this race: “I finished” and “I didn’t poop myself”. The second one seems to take people by surprise and I’ve thrown off more then a few people from ever running by explaining that shitting oneself during a race isn’t unheard of. Jubilee Chris, Voice of the Lord, Hand of Light, and Power Tool of the Good Carpenter, also ran with me and regaled me with tales of how the front-runners in the race, those of whom each second in the run matters, often wait until just before the start and then pee, having deferred to their mental conditioning being the priority rather than a potty break. I would like to have said I scoped out said puddles of urine when I finally got up to the starting line but by that time I was already at the 5:00 minute mark and I wanted to make sure my fancy-schmancy shoe timer RFID thingy made as close as contact to the starting mat so my times would register so I missed the pools of urine.
Overall, I’m happy to say I ran it, clapped for and whistled at the cute gay cheerleaders, got to run through Times Square like a returning champion, and finished the race. I can’t imagine feeling the way I did and knowing that I was only half-way through if this had been the full marathon so it got me re-thinking that whole idea. I imagine I’ll do it again next year and know for sure I’m going to keep up training and working out and that’s the win for me: not letting how absolutely brutalized and beat down I felt at the end ruin the feel I get from running.
Permalink
« Previous entries Next Page » Next Page »