08.03.09
Posted in Being Better, Home Life, The garden at 2:08 pm by Beau
My garden is dying. It is true, even in the first of what I assume will be the dog-days of August when the fruits of gardening labor should be apparent, mine are not. The garden suffers thusly:
The cucumbers have refused to grow and vine up the trellises I’ve so carefully built and strung for them. While we’ve gotten a few cukes off of them, the yield versus the number of plants I put out is a pittance. There will be no 2009 Aunt Kitty Pickles this year, I’m afraid.
The tomatoes are limp-wristed, pale, spindly, and wither at the slightest glance. Even if I walk past them and try to look from the corner of my eye, they droop and will drop a leaf as if to say, “ooooooooh” and throw the back of a hand up to their forehead in some pre-fainting theater. It should have been obvious that so few blooms equal even less fruit.
The only other vegetable of note are the peppers which I say using the word “stunted” would be aggressive. They are almost knee high when they should be at my waist and while they appear to be a robust verdant shade, I’m wondering if there is even enough juice coursing through their leaves to hold them up against gravity. No worries about needing support cages for these poor things.
My theories about what has happened to my sad, pale plot of dirt comes down to several plausible and probably somewhat connected reasons:
The cold, wet summer of our discontent. This year in upstate New York, zones 4A-5, has been one of the coolest and wettest won record. As a human being of a certain make up and constitution, I’ve found having no 90-degree days and a moderate and tolerable level of humidity to be a surprising delight. Am am not of a beach constitution, do not like to sweat, and cannot find it in my brain (nor my Ohio-born and raised genes) to entertain an afternoon siesta, languishing through the heat and humidity of the day. I find it perfectly hellish and it flattens me into a whiny, complainer that I hate to be around. Also, I’m driven inside and usually end up baking something which heats up the kitchen and provides food which I’m now paying a lot of money to a very nice trainer to tell me not to eat. All that being said, I believe the heat and humidity is exactly what a garden is used too. Sure it might like a good steady rain throughout the week and especially through July and August but there needs to be some sun and heat and this year, there hasn’t been a lot of it.
Have I expended the very limits of my soil’s nutrients? Every year, I enrich the soil of my raised plots with aged compost. I do have limited areas for rotation which I’ve worried somewhat about but there is little I can do with limited space. That being said, adding hundreds of pounds of rich compost to each individual bed should more than make up for heavy feeders…or so the though goes around in my head. But now I’m not sure and will spend most of August research soil refurbishing techniques to try and figure out what I need to do this fall and next spring to zap the beds back to life.
Bees. They’re dying…I send a little money to different places to find out why and hope to turn it around but I can’t say that a dearth of bees in my back yard isn’t distressing me. Even the Lamb’s Ear are typically covered like an undulating carpet of pollen-brushed little buggers but this year, it goes untended.
A Loss of Vision and a self-fulfilling prophecy. Unlike previous years, my heart just wasn’t in the right place for the garden this year. There was no obsessing over seed catalogues and laying awake at night to dream of a dense, moist garden that kindly wound it’s vines around my ankles as I walked through whispering, “This is good, this is good.” There was only desperation as the early spring became late spring and I realized I was going to be working through all summer and fall and would only have short weekends to care and love my garden. Can anything grow without attention? I hurriedly put out a few things but nothing that really made my heart sing or want to spend afternoons weeding and turning over leaves to pick off bugs and whatnot. And now the cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini, and tomatoes are all dying of powdery mildew and fungus that is rotting them from the inside out.
So I stand on the outside of the fence looking inwards to the neglected beds and think better thoughts for next year. Perhaps a planting of winter wheat to help the soil and the addition of some other natural concoctions that will amend and give back what things might need. And more importantly, I’m going to find the vision again I had for the garden and do a little more and better planning next go around to keep it fresh and alive.
Permalink
06.28.09
Posted in Being Better, City Life, Fun, The Blog at 8:50 am by Beau
It was Gay Pride in NYC this whole past week and as part of the festivities, I opted to skip going up to the house to lounge around the deck and weed through my burgeoning garden and flowerbeds for staying in the city to have some fun. I participated in the 5-mile Pride Run through Central Park on Saturday morning with about 3000 other runners through the sunny, warm morning. We wound our way from the Upper East Side over and down the West Side, cresting at the bottom of the park where the Essex House and the Plaza rear up into the New York skyline and then back up the East side.
I’ve mentioned before that I find the run in Central Park to be a particularly difficult one though I can’t figure out the reason. The hills aren’t close to what I’m running back at home and I’ve conquered the distance some time ago but never the less, I’m really working to finish a circuit through the park and yesterday was no different. I managed to almost live up to my stated pace that placed me in the first third of the running heat and finished with an overall pace of 8:30 per mile. I was trying to be in high geek fashion by running in my all cotton “Rage of the Red Lanterns” t-shirt rather than my usual running gear of wicking this and moisture barrier that but as a novice, I am quickly learning fashion doesn’t really fly and it’s all about comfort. I was thoroughly drenched by the end of the run and almost over-heated. More importantly though completely unsurprising, not a single person noticed or commented on the shirt and so I am now that much smarter in leaving my Geek at home and sticking with the routine…unless Nike starts making comic-inspired running gear. And then I’m all over it.
Today I’m marching in the Pride Parade, having been invited by some pretty esteemed bloggers to join their blogging group. Even though I’ve inadvertently evolved over to micro-blogging through Twitter more than actual blogging these days, it’s still great to be invited into a group who I’ve respected and been reading for years so I’m pretty excited. We’re in section 8 behind Club Atlantis (so I’m assuming lots of loud music and go-go boys on a float which will be fun), carrying a huge sign of the New York City Gay Bloggers & Digital Activists with the logo above and all wearing similar white t-shirts with logo and our names on them. I’ve only ever attended the parade and never marched after all these years so I think this is going to be a fun day though I can imagine after hauling our asses down from 54th street to the Village, there are going to be some tired dogs. But then that is what the Pier Dance after is for, to dance some life back into them so I might pop up there.
And to think that all this came out of a bunch of pissed off, abused, and feed up queens who took to the streets 40 years ago this month at the Stonewall Riots and ushered in the Gay Rights movement. Sometimes I think 40 years seems such a short time ago and then I think about it and realize there has been so much work done to provide rights and protections and we’re still not there yet. Closer, for sure, but not there yet. So we march and we stay visible and we hopefully change one mind at a time by being our authentic selves, taking pride that as a group, the GLBT community is a diverse mix of great individuals that doesnt’ have to go mainstream or gentrify to fit in if we don’t want to. We were born out of a sexual variation that created and followed it’s own organic growth to where we are today and the colors and people and attitudes and life styles on display at the parade testify to that. So I’m taking pride today and reminding myself that these are all my brothers and sisters and we’re people of the world that count and make a difference, in big and little ways alike.
Happy Pride!
Permalink
05.03.09
Posted in Being Better, Fun, Home Life, The garden at 9:07 pm by Beau
I’ve been gardening just about every year since Jeff and I bought the house upstate eight years ago. When we first bought the house, the garden was actually already established by the previous owners and was some huge thing full of rows and rows as well as just about every cast-off piece of everything on God’s green earth. Additionally, there was a barrel of something that was foul and evil which I later came to find out was monkey poo which he had been getting from some research lab in New Jersey and using as manure. I’m pretty sure simian dookie isn’t supposed to be used as compost. I got rid of it right away.
When we enlarged our property footprint and, serendipitously, the above ground pool in the back yard collapsed, we moved the garden to the back yard, fencing in a nice plot that was a perfectly manageable size for me. It was at that time I discovered the Square Foot Gardening method which I’ve embraced whole-heartedly and had great success with.
I was out composting and mulching everything around the house this weekend, including the garden and really have it set up to start taking the plants next weekend. Cucumbers and tomatoes seem to be my two main priorities though I’m throwing in some beans, peppers, peas, lettuces, and try a few root veggies like beets, onions, and carrots.
But then again, I never really know. I’ve been known to stick in various extra flowers and just a bit of whatever I have laying around left over. There is some kind of vine with berries that has sprung up in the corner which I’ve let go these last few years and it adds a nice touch. Also, the 14-foot anaconda garter snake living somewhere in the rock pile in one of the corners let me know it was around while I was cleaning up debris left over from the winter on Saturday. Jeff and I are still debating whether I screamed like a girl or yelled like a startled, terrified man.
But it’s coming along and I’m all excited to have the season start.
Permalink
04.22.09
Posted in Being Better, Health and well-being, Home Life, Killing Time, The days, Vanity at 11:23 am by Beau
Dookie
As I’ve beaten this horse to death weeks ago to anyone who will give me three seconds, I’ve was easily arm-twisted into putting my name in the lottery for running the NYC Marathon this coming November. I’ve been running on and off now for just a year and had no desire to run a marathon at all…not with all the stories of scabbed over nipples, lost toe-nails, and the very real-not-an-urban-legend about marathoners pooping themselves during the actual race. I am clear that having to pull off to the side to puke is one thing I can accept but making a dookie mid-stride for me is a big ol’ un-un. Just sayin.
Anywho, I’m in full force training, gleaning tips and advice from better men than myself and trying to figure out how this is actually going to happen and how I’m going to divert/trick/talk myself through those miles when I want to quit which right now is about mile one, three, and five.
Additionally, because it was such a hit last year, I’ve taken out my new video cam with me on a run this morning. Nice to see nothing has changed…I’m still running the same hills and still so out of breath you’d think I had emphysema and an impending heart attack. On the other hand, I have some new running threads that I think work for me.
Please do enjoy: Early Morning April Run..with hills! (Quicktime, 15.5MB / 3.5 min / music: “Running Up That Hill (Street 45 edit)” by Levy 9)
Permalink
03.18.09
Posted in Being Better, Home Life, The Blog, The days, Vanity at 5:24 am by Beau
- Beau and Jeff, San Francisco – September 2008
Today is our anniversary. It is our tradition, about the only one we have, really, that we start our day together by reciting The Meeting and it goes something like this:
Jeff: “On this day, [insert number of years], there I was, attending Ms. Stephen Hayes’ pre-Black Party Party when in you walked, all fresh chicken. I walked over to Stephen and asked, ‘who’s that‘ to which he replied, ‘Oh her? She’s such a mess.”
“When we got to the Black Party, we spent the evening dancing together and every time one of my friends started getting up onto you, I tapped them on the shoulder and wagged my finger at them, letting them know you were mine.”
“When we got up to the backroom, it was dark and I was scared so I walked behind you and that’s when you put your hand on my crotch and had your way with me and we’ve been together ever since.”
Beau: “On this day, [insert number of years], I had just moved from St. Louis as a traveling nurse. I dropped my clothes off in Morristown that very day and drove into New York City to stay with a friend’s cousin who invited me to go to the Black Party as an welcome to NYC. He mentioned we’d be going to a friend’s pre-party so I was all nervous. I was so fresh and green I wore jeans and a blue-button up shirt because I had no style. We got to the pre-Black Party Party and as soon as I walked into the tiny apartment, some crazy, scary Filipino dressed in a pair of tight black silk underwear and wearing a long black overcoat came running over to me, flapping his coat like huge bat wings. I peed my pants right there. ”
Later on in the evening, I got stuck in a conversation with Michael Mitchell who was describing how he likes to spit on a trick’s chest during sex. I’d still not been able to speak a word since I arrived. ”
After we all cabbed over to the Black Party, we spent the evening dancing and all the men I’d met at the pre-Party were dancing around me being friendly. You finally asked if I wanted to go upstairs ‘to see what was going on‘. Upstairs it was very dark and I was scared so you stood behind me and pushed me forward into the masses of sweaty, undulating people. Then you reached around and grabbed my crotch. We’ve been together ever since.”
Basically the truth of the story lies somewhere in between, depending on who you talk to. I had just moved to NYC that very day and Jeff and I did meet at Ms. Stephen Hayes’ pre-Black Party Party and Stephen did call me a mess to Jeff although he’d never met me before and I’d never been to New York to be able to establish that kind of reputation (although that was the point and purpose of me coming to New York in the first place). Jorge, the animated Filipino, was wearing nothing but underwear and a big black overcoat and he did scare the piss out of me when I first walked into the pre-Party. We went to the Black Party as described and then details get foggy…Jeff and I have come to an agreement that he was standing behind me but who ever made the first move on the other is lost forever in the clammy, gropy, sweaty memory of whatever was happening in the dark, upper room that night.
When we finally walked out into the sunlight the following Sunday morning, Jeff, against his better judgment actually gave me his phone number to call sometime. I, being completely introverted and phone-phobic, had no intention of calling him but later that day, I thought that the least I could do after a fizzy night of dancing and hand-jobs would be to give him a call. My plan was to call while he was out on a date he’d said he’d be on that evening, thereby doing my friendly duty but avoid having to actually talk to him. Best made plans diverted! He was home when I called and put up with me hemming-n-hawing about how I’d just wanted to leave him a message about meeting him last night. Eventually we somehow made a date and then that was that.
Even though I was only in the area temporarily for work, we ended up dating (even while he was dating someone else for the first eight weeks we were seeing one another…I eventually found out I had the M, W, Saturday fuck schedule while Robert, the crucifix-loving other guy who Jeff’s friends liked better had T and Th.). When I re-upped my nursing contract for another three months to stick around, things got a little more serious, or at least they did to Jeff because I still had no intention of staying or settling down. I flirted with a long-term nursing engagement in Nowhere Alaska, keeping Jeff in the dark as to whether I was staying or going up until the last minute and ultimately ended up staying. We moved in together at six months as a way to save money since my housing stipend would pay his rent and soon enough, the months together turned into years.
We’re fourteen years in now. As I described it to friends on vacation a while back, “…very difficult years” which came out wrong in how it initially sounds but which is true, never the less. What I was trying to say is, relationships are difficult; personalities are personalities and compromise can be hard. Jeff and I never had one of those rocket-ship, exploding super-nova relationships, one with fire and so much incendiary inclinations when we’re together…it has always been a slow, steady climb that puts a better day ahead of the next one. Trust me when I say the ache when we’re apart, physically, emotionally, and mentally is very real and very deep. Each year, our anniversary cards read something to the effect of, “…another year together, each year better than the last” and that is true and that is the hallmark of our days together…we are together because each day is better than he last. We continue to grow and find our way with one another. Of course we know each other’s buttons and know how and when to press them but that’s all just noise, really. We make our way each day, trying to be kind and be better to one another, loving each other in the small ways that are significant to us and we’ve built a life on that very simple thing.
This past fall we went to California and got married. Not because either of us felt any overwhelming need or desire to be married; neither of us actually believe in it. We got married because we felt it was important to stand and be counted so that others, to whom marriage is important, might have the opportunity to do it some day. For us, it was a great weekend together with our friends and I got a little Folsom eye candy in the mix…it has also confused the whole ‘what is our anniversary’ question. While I’m more apt to remember our wedding date more so than our Domestic Registration date, for me The Anniversary will always be March 18th, 1995 when I walked into a stranger’s party where no one knew me and I didn’t know them and met Jeff, my lover, my friend, my partner, and now my husband all these many years later.
Happy Anniversary, babe. (See, it’s funny ’cause he doesn’t read the blog. 
)
UPDATE: Even though ivory is the traditional gift for 14 years together, Jeff decided to fully embrace our old, boring marriage schtick and bought us matching Snuggies® of which, I’m loathe to admit, we will actually use frequently and in good health….just not to some fuck-ass sports outing with other people like on the commercials. We have standards.
Permalink
03.12.09
Posted in Being Better, Home Life, art at 10:17 pm by Beau
I’m in such an surge of what I’d consider creative fire I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m not an artist at all but I like to experiment and dabble with stuff and I’ve been hitting it hard these last few weeks. I think things like this come in cycles but it’s never been this intense before and I’ve never followed up with it like I’m doing now. The house looks like a bomb went off with all the paint and stuff all over the place.
But I like it..I like where I am right now. Things are good.
Permalink
02.06.09
Posted in Being Better, City Life, Fun, art at 2:22 pm by Beau
I have an unwritten list of things that I would like to do or should like to do in New York City before the end of my days here and I marked one off last night, finally.
Whenever you talk to people who live here, most have common NYC things that we all take for granted that we’ve never done, even though we’ve lived here for years and years. I don’t even remember how many years it was before Jeff and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and that should be one of those requisite events that every New Yorker does when they get to the city…it’s free and the view is stunning.
Section of Maxfield Parrish's "Old King Cole"
So on my unwritten list of which things seemingly pop out of nowhere was having drinks at the King Cole Bar in the St. Regis Hotel. It wasn’t so much about having expensive cocktails in a dark-paneled, up scale location where supposedly the Bloody Mary was introduced to the US, but rather the famous Maxfield Parrish mural backing the entire length of the bar.
Maxfield Parrish is a favorite artist and illustrator of mine. I’ve collected replicas of his work and always try to have at least a post-card hanging in my cube or office. Years ago Jeff and I took the day and drove down to a retrospective of his at the Philadelphia Museum of Art which was amazing.
So Jeff was a trooper and met me on 55th and 5th last night for a quick after-work drink. The bar is as dark and dark-paneled as you could hope for which seemed to be the perfect setting for the mural which is 8ft tall and spans 30 feet across behind the bar. The beauty and hallmark of Parrish’s work was his use of a glazing technique rather than just outright painting. In this, the light seems to pass through the layers of glaze and then reflect back out, causing the painting to glow from an internal light. The darkness of the bar framed this effect beautifully. The colors Parrish used, also specific to him and his art, were perfect and warm and inviting.
I spent most of my glass of red wine staring at the mural realizing other than Parrish painting it, I didn’t know much about it so I googled it up when we got home. What I’m most disappointed about was learning the legend of the wry smile on King Cole’s face, thought to have been modeled after John Jacob Astor who originally commissioned the mural for his Knickerbocker hotel bar. As the tale goes, there was an unwritten competition among illustrators of the day to see who could sneak the act of flatulence into one of their public works. Supposedly Parrish won this contest with Old King Cole. Not only is the King smiling a secret smile but the reactions of his flanking knights give it away.
It’s not the DiVinci Code, but I’ll take it because its funny and seems to be appropriate for early-American illustration.
When I was reading up on the mural I also found this article in the NYTimes article about its restoration a few years ago that also relates the secret farting tale.
Anyone coming to NYC with some time to kill, it would be worthwhile to sneak into the King Cole bar and check out this work of art. I’m glad I finally did.
Permalink
01.16.09
Posted in Being Better, Fun, Home Life, art at 7:29 pm by Beau
wash draft of a current sketch
It only took six weeks of “The Shining”-like isolation upstate to not only get me off my ass and start running and eating right again but actually getting over myself and picking up a pencil and watercolors again. I have a whole drawer of supplies that have been languishing and only being slightly molested at various times. I’d finger the paints and stroke the brushes and then “a-hmm” myself and slide the drawer shut again. What finally did it for me this time was the sheer volume of pictures I’ve been cutting out, downloading, and organizing. I can only tell myself “oh, I should paint that” so many times before it is time to shit or get off the pot.
These options are never the ones I’m aggressive towards.
And yet, for whatever reason, I’ve done it. I’ve worked on two pretty solid sketches and started putting on washes. Neither of which I think are anything other than just nice pieces of practice for me to learn the tools and try to understand how the medium works. Anything that is even remotely recognizable is nothing more than a happy accident.
True to my nature, I like neither of them. I like the idea of them and I like that I’ve actually shat as it were, but I see so much wrong and so much left to do which is typically discouraging for me. But I’m still moving forward with them and then I’ll move onto others and keep the dull roar of all that I have yet to learn to myself. And yet…I do like the idea of them. It makes me feel…attached.
Permalink
11.17.08
Posted in Being Better, City Life, The days, other stuff at 12:42 pm by Beau
Jeff and I were in the city this weekend so we were able to attend the Gays Rallying on Saturday afternoon. Good crowd, unexpected sunny skies, stood in front of these dreamy guys and got all melty, and finally got to meet Father Tony (dreamy and got all melty again). It was a good rally though honestly, Gays, can we come up with some new chants and rallying cries other than “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!”. I felt like I was back in 1993 and was going to pull out my Freedom Rings.
Permalink
10.07.08
Posted in Being Better, Vanity at 4:07 pm by Beau
Permalink
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »
