01.29.10
A body in motion tends to stay in motion
NYC 1/2 Marathon, Jan 24, 2010
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.
06.28.09
Parading Around
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!
05.22.09
Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My
I’m on a conference call this morning and Jeff rushes in and is pointing outside. I get up, head still connected to my douchy headset and see Jeff pointing out the window at the bear who has lumbered out of the woods and over to our tree that has a bird-feeder in it. I’m wildly throwing things at Jeff like: the CAMERA and the VIDEO CAMERA. I believe, however, that Jeff is actually wanting me to “take care of it”.
It doesn’t take long for the bear to realize it’s being gawked at so it kind of lumbers on around our workshop and then Jeff hollers that it’s going for our trash we keep in there. He runs back into the kitchen and comes out banging two pots together which is about all the bear-instruction we’ve ever gotten living out here (other than ‘don’t approach it…it won’t be a friendly bear’) and I’m running after him, screaming “NOT THE CALPHALON POTS!!! DON’T BANG THOSE TOGETHER, YOU’LL SCRATCH THEM”.
So you know…it’s about priorities and safety at our place. Eventually the bear dropped the bag of trash it was going to start mauling and lumbered off into the woods. And now I have to order new Calphalon pots.
That's a bear
05.03.09
Gardening by the square-foot
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.
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