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:
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.
03.18.09
It’s ivory this year
- 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.
07.22.08
He was the leader of the band
And I was. I also designed my costume (based off the Star Trek: The Movie uniforms so suck it, gay geeks..I win) and picked out the gold lamė which was piped along the edges, the cumberbund, AND lined the whole inside of the detachable, full-length cape. Not too bad for someone who couldn’t play an instrument.
06.17.08
The Face of 38
I turned 38 this past Sunday and though wishful thinking because of the potential hot twin boffing we could do and video for x-tube, I am not his twin. Though in general, I’d regard 38 as one of those birthdays that is a blurry slide into 40, this one is interesting to me for several reasons. First and foremost, my father, when he was this age, had a debilitating brain aneurysm that quite literally shattered and change irrevocably the lives of many, many people. I’m certainly not pointing this out because I’m all doom and gloom about the task of actually trying to live through 38 unscathed but rather, the stangeness of now being the age of my father and being able to see for the first time how much of his life he had in front of him.
At the time of his aneurysm, I was 14 and he was my parent so what did I know about it? Now I have a much different perspective. I’m just starting my life and finding it’s groove. The home life, the home, the man, the work, the friends…all things are really, really good and I can only see better days ahead and I’m sure that is how my Dad must have been too. His masonary business was taking off and he was venturing out into investing into finanicial partnerships that were going to make him even more successful than he had been. He was known for the quality of his work and the integrity of his work ethic. All this ended the moment he blacked out and came crashing down to the sidewalk where a stranger found him. And so there is some heaviness about being 38 that I didn’t quite grasp so fully before. I often think about all the things my Mom I and would talk about now if she was still alive and I think she’d be shocked and pleased at the understanding I’ve come into. I completely get how young they felt and how young at heart they were.
Related, but much more Me!Me!Me! is that idea that at 38, my parents had four sons, 19, 14, 10, and 9. I can’t even begin to fathom having kids and what it means at this age, let alone to have four, two of which were adolesents. Jeff and I are spoiled and rotten and if I don’t get my weekly comics, I’m grumpy and distressed so what did my parents give up so that we could be taken care of? The mind reels. I told Aunt Pam, who spent so much time with my parents along with all the cousins at that time, that the big secret I think I figured out is that not one of them had any clue about parenting and were really no different then I am now at this age…they just had to fake it and make it look like they knew what they were doing. They did a good job, by the way, in that we’re all still alive and kicking and generally happy and most of my cousins and brothers and their families are having their own babies and whatnot so what’s old is new again. Still, my mind reels.
And so 38! I actually had a hard time believing I wasn’t going to be 40 this year and a little disappointed too. I have a total hard-on for the 40+ crowd and don’t even get me started on the hotness of salt-n-pepper hair so to think I still have two years to go is just something else. I’m not the most patient of people but nothing I can do about it other than just continue to enjoy the good days and work on being better.
The whole sha-bang though, was clarified for me this morning, as I was running a practice 5K in the Central Park this morning, getting ready for the real deal NYC Corporate Challange coming up on Thursday. I’m in no way the hotness of him, or him, or him, or her, or the others who continually inspire and push me to pass on the bread at dinner and get up at 5:30 to go running but it’s a good first step for me to run the 5K. I’ve been on the treadmill for months but there isn’t anything like actually running outside and this morning was SPECTACULAR. Cool and low humidity, the sun was out, and I was reminded the very best of NYC is being able to run through Central Park, looking at the museums, and the Dakota, and the Bethesda Fountain and the Jackie O Resevoir, or finding a statue of a crouching panther hidden in the blossoming hydrangeas along the east side of the Met that I hadn’t ever seen before. I was just banging out a fantastic run when I totally got cruised by a hot bearded guy running the opposite direction. My gaydar pinged so hard I just HAD to turn and glance over my shoulder at him one more time and totally caught him doing the same thing! I’m 38 and I still get cruised. I mean, please. How much better could today have been? Perfection or endorphins, it totally doesn’t matter cause I’ll take the cloud I’m rocking on right now.