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)
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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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03.10.09
Posted in Fun, Geeky Heroes, Villians, & Comics, Home Life, The days, Vanity at 2:39 pm by Beau
I’m nothing if not a sucker. I can’t help it. Specifically, I’ve been lured into ridiculous comic story arcs through DC and Marvel for the last two years. I’m such a glutton for punishment and so desperate to know whats happening that I suffer through months and months of shitty story-telling and bad art just to keep up. At $3.99 a comic, that is a commitment. I just can’t give them up (for the most part…some titles were just TOO stinky even for me and I painfully dropped them, apparently no worse for wear).
So when DC announced that it was going to start the penultimate Green Lantern story (a title I didn’t even follow, by the way) called “Blackest Night”, some kind of a ping went off in my head and I decided I needed to start following it. I started buying the Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corp. titles to get some background and now we’re into the full launch of the story line. Most people know something about Green Lantern so the idea behind this arc is that there are Lanterns of all different colors, all the colors of the rainbow in fact. The Reds, Oranges, and Yellows (which has been around through Sinestro, GL’s arch enemy) are all baddies and then the other colors are probably mostly good. This story then develops what I think are going to be called the Black Lanterns and they seem to be dead superheros brought back to life, so….zombie Lanterns.
From what I can tell, there hasn’t been this kind of subversive gay intrusion into the mainstream collective since Magic Earring Ken back in the 80′s. I mean, who was the genius that decided to expand the Lantern Corps into all the colors of the big, gay rainbow flag? Homo geniuses, I’m assuming. Comics by their nature are erotic and homo-erotic; idealized versions of impossibly muscled and chiseled men and women so thin-waisted and top heavy that no amount of double-sided tape could keep them from spilling out of their bustiers and toppling over…and of course they’re in heels (and if they’re not, they should be. I have standards I need met in my heroines and tall heels is most definitely one of them.) So we’re getting the Rainbow Lantern Corps out of all this…and I’m getting a new wardrobe.
None of this is totally essential to know and quite honestly, Jeff stopped listening to the explanation after the first sentence. All he wanted to know was whether there were more comics he was going to have to pick up for me in the city (“yes, for sure,” I smiled). But then a good friend got me turned on to Graphetti Graphics, a merchandising place that carries official DC t-shirts. A quick look around and all the sudden I’ve got a big box of Lantern t-shirts coming my way, one for each colored Lantern with their distinct insignias emblazoned on the front.
True confession: I love insignias…I love their symbolism and what they are suppose to represent. I hate the fucking Nazis but I recognize the fear and strength that was conveyed by the swastika and why it was on everything. One of the best parts of comics is the idea that everyone has their own insignia….the Batman’s bat silhouette, Superman’s big “S”, Wonder Woman’s stylized “W’s” over her rack…every hero and villain has one. I mourn my days that I don’t have a nickname and I don’t have an insignia to wear around and put on everything, including my clothing, dishes, car, cats, and stationary. Hell, even Martha Stewart has her own insignia that she uses with her branding machine.
So I made and received my order within the week, unannounced to Jeff until it arrived and I got a call saying, “What the HELL are these???” I was bummed to find out that in my rush to order, I’d neglected the Purple Lanterns shirt which might have been unconscious on my part. I hate their insignia and find them rather annoying. They fly around the universe promoting love in thick pinkish curtains of light and are also all women…women with tremendous comic bazooms all tethered together in two tea-bags and a piece of floss, but still. No man looks good in purple, I’m afraid. But I’m ordering the shirt none the less, just because I have to have the complete set.
I have to have the complete set because for no other reason, I am a Gemini which was pointed out to me today. I seek and must have symmetry in all things. If it’s a series of anything, I want it. I buy whole series of books that I never read because I can’t have just half a series on my shelves (hello, Wheel of Time). If I had more friends who would put up with it, I’d have us dressed in all sorts of sets for Halloween, like the four suits of a deck of cards, the twenty-one Major Arcana of the Tarot, The first five books of the Bible, the four seasons, the four elements, the seven colors of the rainbow, the four winds, the seven deadly sins, the seven heavenly virtues, and so forth and so on. Hell, I’d even get a group of us dressed up as Prime Numbers if I could figure out why they’re important and how to graphically represent them with more than just sticking big white numbers on black t-shirts. It’s almost obsessive/compulsive sickness, really. That fact that I’ve been able to keep it under wraps and under control for so long says a lot about my ability to suppress and deny my true nature. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that I was destined for these t-shirts. Now whether the actual story line blows or not, who can say. These days, I can’t keep all the story continuities straight without having Wikipedia opened beside me while I read the comics. Also, I bitch a lot about not understanding or actually following whats going on. Does everyone know that the original Flash, Barry Allen, has been dead since 1985? Of course he’s back now with some new Flash title but I can’t get into that….I have to give up somewhere and this is it. I’m spent…unless they come out with a bunch of rainbow-colored flashes and then I’m totally on board…and buying the t-shirts
Please to enjoy:
Rage of the Red Lanterns
The Avarice of the Orange Lanterns
The Yellow Lantern Insignal of the Sinestro Corps
The Green Lanterns, Powered by Will
Blue Lanterns powered by Hope
Indigo Lanterns powered by Compassion
Black Lanterns, The Rise of the Dead Heroes
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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.
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09.06.08
Posted in The days at 4:46 am by Beau
Gad Zukes…I didn’t realize such important things like Wordscrapper, Flickr, blogs, CNN, MSNBC, YouTube, XTube, and three postings to the Catskills Craigslist would be so, um, diverting. I have my own blog? What the Buck? Srsly?
Don’t even mention the Hobbies as they seem to be growing proportionally out of control. I’m in the Big Ideas phase where I see and think of great projects and start buying supplies…of which I end up using none. I know I might be liked and supported, but did I need that $9 butterfly-shaped M.Stewart crafting paper punch? Srsly?
Comics fucking laying around everywhere and no clear love for any of them right now but I’m reading more titles than ever before.
More and more books ordered for the Amazon Kindle but I’m still struggling through one or two pages at night of Edgar Sawtelle and now I’m starting to think things like, “I’m bored” which can never, ever be good when I’m only halfway through the thing.
A new Wii that I was finally able to get my hands on after a year and a half of walking into every electronics store only to be scoffed at by tired, bitter sales people, leaving empty handed and broke-down. And then I fucking get motion sick the first two minutes playing Monkey Ball. Srsly?
It’s the classic conuundrum: too many things I want to do and too much time on my hands and I end up in a srsly fucked up time-wasting mode.
On the plus side, I have Twitter to bitch, moan, and do constant, unimportant updates. So there is that, srsly.
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07.27.08
Posted in Fun, Home Life, The days at 8:41 pm by Beau
We had the 2nd annual “Divas Down the Delaware” rafting trip this past weekend and it was bigger and better than ever. The first rafting trip last year was an effort to get friends together up in our little neck of the woods and have a great day together rather than just another weekend dinner party. Last year was a great success and we started planning this year’s get together right away.
So after months and months of Jeff’s almost-scary organization, the weekend was upon us. We’d been fretting for weeks as the lack of rain was drying up the river, normally shallow anyway, and we weren’t sure if it would be a float or a carry. But then major rains earlier in the week swelled the river up to spring-like levels and Saturday turned out to be a gorgeous day: sunny and warm but not humid and hot with a nice breeze blowing. We finished the river in a few hours and then went back to our house for a pot luck and some burgers and dogs. Our group was about 15 people more than last year, new friends we hope and I think the picture shows how much fun we had.
We’re already planning for next year, to make it bigger and better and can’t wait. We’ve put our order in for the weather next year and started the guest list. Who’s coming?
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06.30.08
Posted in The days, traveling for work at 11:59 pm by Beau
It comes as a sad and shocking revelation about the poor quality of my current standards of knowledge. Case in point, while in Omaha last week, a city poised on a river that separates it from Iowa, I paused to reflect on the lack of anything remotely resembling flooding. Sure the banks of the river were muddy and silted but wasn’t the Mississippi River suppose to be surging it’s banks well past historical cresting levels?
Well, yes it is…two states away, separating Missouri from Illinois. I just happened to be standing at the banks of the Missouri River as I was contemplating the flooding while in Omaha, eyeing the very close casinos perched on the banks of the river on the Iowa side. Of course the thing that makes this even worse, as if that’s possible (and not only is it possible but more embarrassing) is that I actually lived in St. Louis on the banks of the actual Mississippi River for a year after college….so I know, or evidently knew, exactly where the Mississippi River was/is and it is not, contrary to my initial survey, the river between Nebraska and Iowa. Sigh.
To be fair, my teammate, Rob, correctly identified the river this morning when I asked, albeit as a complete guess, “ummm…maybe the Missouri?” which I then validated the answer via Google. Thank Jeebus, I didn’t pick up the magazine at the airport this morning with the lead article “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?” or I’d never have been able to google the answer on my Blackberry.
And then, just now, feeling somewhat better about actually knowing what river I’m going to be running next to and/or gambling next to while we’re in OmaHaHa, I was reading through Newsweek which had a map of the US with some states highlighted and while I went right to Nebraska, I had to start some mental gymnastics to start naming the other states….specifically all the states in the South, which has always confused me. The conversation started off as “Nebraska…so the one ot the right is Iowa and below that is….hmmm….well, to the right of Iowa right there at the split would be Missouri so right below Iowa is Kansas….then…Wow, Oklahoma is soooooo close to Kansas and then there is Texas. Now, hmmm, that’s the boot so its Louisiana and right above it is….mmmm…I’ll come back to that one….to the right of Louisiana is, now is that Mississippi or Alabama…well, Max lived in Alabama and he used to drive two hours to Atlanta for CD’s so that must mean he was right next to Georgia which is there so I’m going with Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, then Alabama, then Georgia. HA! Arkansas is above Louisiana!…so Georgia there and well, that’s Ohio up there which makes that West Virginia so Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina Georgia….” And on and on and on.
I mean, for Zod’s sake, was that three minutes of ridiculous mental association to figure out the Southeastern US? if I’d had a CNN camera and mic stuck in my face for some expose on declining educational standards, would I be that douche in a suit they show, hemming and hawing, notable to point out our nation on a globe? Unfortunately, probably yes. Also, I cannot spell so the televised national spelling be gives me hives.
This is all to say, I’m in one of my knowledge upswings that starts happening around this time of year. The upcoming election starts internal conversations where I ask myself “how did we get here?” and I start re-reading “1776″, hoping to not only finish it this time but move into biographies of Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin in a vain attempt to actually work my way up to the Civil War. I am not so hopeful as to believe this time will be much different, especially with the competing affections of DC’s “Final Crisis” and Marvel’s “Invasion” series. I do however, give myself credit that I can recognize the concern and lack of knowing and want to be better for it.
Perhaps on my next flight, I’ll actually start tackling the states to the north and west of Nebraska. But then again, there are those four damn states that come together at their corners and I can NEVER keep those straight. So there is that.
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06.29.08
Posted in The days at 8:27 pm by Beau
I just got the invitation for my 20th High School Reunion. Of course I’m going back to Ohio for it but its being held in something called a party barn. I simply have no idea what I’m going to wear to such a thing being held in a party barn. The mind reels though a gingham dress and sparkly, red platform heels come to mind. I do have a repuation to live up to coming from New York.
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06.27.08
Posted in The days, traveling for work at 11:13 am by Beau
So the thing is, anyone who has the misfortune of following me on Twitter already knows the travel drama I’m having. But because I’m Trapped! In Omaha! and have a viable Internet connection, I’m going to bitch and complain about it again:
I’m Trapped! In Omaha! which is the follow up to the earlier Rainbow Tour that started the week off. The Rainbow Tour was suppose to come to a stunning conclusion yesterday evening with my direct departure to EWR however weather, somewhere in the continental US but not actually in or around Nebraska cancelled the flight a full 10 hours before it was scheduled to leave. That bit of precognition left all my more travel-experienced team perplexed. I had been automatically rebooked to a 7am flight this morning. So I booked a room, went across the river into Iowa and played a little black jack and won some cash. Score! So really I was feeling fine and even picked up a little of the local flavor when the pit boss asked me if I’d been to the Playhouse yet. Why no, I hadn’t been to any theater in Omaha yet but if there was something he was recommending, I’d be sure to check it out.
Um, yeah. According to the pit boss, the Playhouse has the hottest, totally-nude bitches around these here parts. So that’s kinda nice to file away whenever that opportunity presents itself. I LOVE hot, totally-nude bitches. I AM one, for God’s sake.
So I’m up at 4am this morning to take the one available shuttle back out to the airport with a flight crew staying at the hotel, and get to the airport JUST as they cancel my flight this morning, finding myself rebooked on the next direct to NYC…at 7pm tonight. I did manage to fanaggle myself onto the standby list for an 12noon flight but that one is now on its second delay so, right, I’m thinking that one isn’t happening either.
On the plus side, I’m set up at Starbucks with a good, strong connection and Twittering the hell out of my encampment, giving running color commentary on the weirdness of the downtown coffee clutch crowd (mounted Omaha Police in big, black boots are hotness). Feel free to hook into and follow me on Twitter. It’s not always as much fun today, but I do try.
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