02.12.10
Packing heat
As Jeff Said, “You have room for a friend in there!” Yes I do, thankyouverymuch. Two years of traveling for work should have had some positive impact, I’d think.
02.06.10
Swimsuit Packing List
Based on this exercise, these are the current swimming suits and ‘funderwear’ being packed for the Big Gay Cruise DownUnder:
02.04.10
Bathrooms, Vanity, and iPhones
Inexplicably, I take a LOT of self-pics while in the bathrooms at restaurants and hotels. Something about the decor and really, really good lighting. Kind of Guyswithiphones but with less junk hanging out.
01.27.10
Final Countdown
We’re in our final weeks before the Big Gay Cruise 2: Going Down(under). Our closets have been emptied of all possible clothes and we’ve started the second culling, trying to be more realistic about what we’ll really wear and what can honestly fit in the suitcases. For example, I pulled out every one of my Green Lantern “Blackest Night” t-shirts, one of every color of the rainbow, but honestly, I know the likelihood of wearing more than the rage, fear, and death shirts is slim. Not exactly themes for the cruise but the shirts work.
Of course the clothes also depend on what we consider our final weight and so for me, after the modified diet, seven months of weight training with Trainer Ryan in New Hampshire, and a few 1/2 marathons, I’m almost where I want to be to fit into completely gay and inappropriate swimming suits. Skinny jeans are out of storage, finally.
01.10.10
Best Thing I Ever Ate
FoodNetwork’s newest show and now one of my favorite? The Best Thing I Ever Ate. It’s the network’s hosts and other well-known chefs talking about their favorite foods in various categories like breakfast, BBQ, and desserts. Whether or not these are actually their favorites is beside the point because it is an introduction to decadent, amazing foods around the US. I’m busy trying to track down recipes (especially for that Stuffed French Toast recipe, stuffed with banana’s and peanut butter) and making reminders for the cities that appear on the show in case I end up getting client work and have a reason to travel there.
All of this after we get back from the Big Gay Cruise 2: Beau and Jeff Go Down (Under)
12.19.09
Tim Burton Exhibition at MoMA
With my schedule full of decidedly non-NYC things to do over the next few weeks, I seized the opportunity to go see the Tim Burton exhibition now featured at the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown, NYC. The special showing is sponsored by the SyFy channel and is a collection of Tim Burton’s art including drawings, sketches, paintings, sculptures, and other related items from his movies and animated shorts he’s directed and produced over the course of several decades.
08.17.09
I ran all night and day, I couldn’t get away
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.
08.05.09
From the files of “remember when…”
Now that it’s hot and humid and the dog days of August have set in….remember when I was back in Ohio in April this past year during some freak-ass snow storm? Yeah.
Also, apparently I had facial hair (and I’m assuming chest hair) which Jeff has since required I keep shorn.
