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.
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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!
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06.06.09
Posted in Home Life, The Blog at 8:13 am by Beau
I was accused last night of faking my way into marching with the gay blogger group for gay pride in a few weeks.
“A video of a bear in your yard doesn’t really qualify as blogging,” I was told.
As I thought about it, he was sort of right but also getting his drunk on so I dismissed it out of hand. But with the wisdom of sleep, I understand and agree.
What the hell am I doing around here?
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05.22.09
Posted in Fun, Home Life, Movies, The Blog, The days, The garden at 2:59 pm by Beau
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”.
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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.
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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.
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03.14.09
Posted in Fun, Killing Time, Movies, The Blog at 5:57 am by Beau
I actually believe I emailed Shel when he was ringing the bell for Twitter before just about anyone else to ask, “what is the point?”
Who knew that was the point?
I’m still Twittering, though, am I not? Yes, yes I am. Anyone can know more useless and uninteresting things about me than could have ever been mined out of my blog.
My latest obsession that I just discovered last night (thanks guys from 619 Bearcast) and to which I fully acknowledge that I’m again, late to the party, is the Photoswap app for the iPhone. The basic idea is take a picture and send it out randomly to the universe. It goes out to a random person and you get one back from another random person. You can reply to a received picture or choose not too but unless the person has a small profile with contact information or posts a picture with their information, there is no way to get a hold of them. It’s so weirdly random and almost unnerving at how temporary and fleeting the images are. No way to save them and once you choose to not reply to someone, they’re gone forever.
It’s so fascinating I wasted an entire battery charge playing with it last night. I walked around the house shooting dust bunnies, trays of drying paint, and my feet along with various angles, corners and reflected surfaces that didn’t make me look fat. I got back shots of pets, shelves of books, a large breast, a French military officer, a cock shot, and a few grinning bear cubs…so all in all, a pretty good evening. As those tricksy hipster smarties with too much time on their hands tend to do, someone actually came up with a game for it and developed a scavenger hunt where they take a picture of a list items/body parts looked for and received and you can choose to play along if you have something they’re looking for. My two item requests from two separate games last night were a flexed bicep and a jock. The Gays, apparently, have adapted and made this our own.
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11.12.08
Posted in The Blog at 10:28 am by Beau
Who can say why one cycles on and off from the blog. I read an interesting article a few weeks ago that actually said blogging in the old form is dead and replaced by microblogging through sites like Twitter. That does make some sense to me; I’ve been Twittering pretty regularly every day and my first thoughts are to Twitter rather than blog, but I also rail against the notion of our sound-byte culture. There is room for both, I just have to pay a little more attention.
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07.07.08
Posted in The Blog, Uncategorized at 10:07 pm by Beau
Yeah…I’m not sure why the page isn’t loading correctly. It’s obviously nothing I’VE done so point the wagging fingers elsewhere. And I’m back in OmaHaHa so do the math.
UPDATE: Yeah…still not sure what it is except I truncated the tagline from “Bladerunner” and that seems to have mostly fixed the problem. Lucky ducky, no doubt.
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05.19.08
Posted in Being Better, The Blog at 2:40 pm by Beau
Michael looks exactly like Lee Pace (from “The Fall” and “Pushing Daisies“). That is all.
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05.12.08
Posted in Being Better, The Blog at 6:48 am by Beau
Thanks to Justin and a few others I respect more than I could ever say, I’ve been re-ignited back to blogging. Several things have kept my posting down to unacceptable limits but mostly, it was just my inability to get MovableType to work for me any longer. My comments system was fucked and what is the point in blogging when I can’t get feedback from the less then tens of readers.
But I’m back with a vengence. I know very little about WordPress so I’m going to be poking around and whatnot but I know I can post and I know the comments system works. The rest of the functionality and neat tricks will be coming as soon as possible.
Yay me! I love blogging.
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