06.09.08
Posted in City Life, The days, Uncategorized, traveling for work at 7:32 am by Beau
My time in Philadelphia is drawing to a close. After six weeks and two engagement extensions, we’re wrapping up the project and bugging out. My weeks have gone from reasonable hours to excessive, excessive to the point where my performance mentor has called twice to let me know I’m working at about 136% utilization. Supposedly there is some point when utilization hits a certain point and an email, I’m guessing, is generated so that the people who care are notified and can “reach out” as we say in consultant land. I appreciated the gesture, both times really, but honestly, you don’t think I don’t know that I’m working the kind of hours that equate into 136% utilization? I’m just saying.
But Philadelphia has been good. It’s a city I hadn’t spent much time in though honestly, I guess I could still say that since I haven’t hardly left the gayborhood except for a martini run at the Continental diner that one time. So for me, Philadelphia is the gayborhood and that’s OK. Good food, good architecture, good-looking menz, and street cruising. I’m even a regular at a bar and I haven’t ever had that, anywhere, not even (or, especially) in New York, where I’ve lived since 1996.
So I’m departing Philadelphia this week with another engagement under my belt, this one challenging and difficult in ways that I hadn’t expected, but better for it…always better for new experiences, pleasant or not. I’m NYC bound next week and slipping in a short 5K corporate run next Thursday then it’s off to my next assignment the week after which will carry me through until the end of July. I understand jealousy can greet me, even from the best of friends, because of my cosmopolitan consultanty life-style, getting to jet off to strange and exotic places, seeing and meeting new people. This of course is always the “one-after” engagement meaning the one after this next one coming up, which for me just happens to be in Omaha, Nebraska. I mean, Omaha, Nebraska in July…all of July. And me with my whole humidity issues and East Coast mentality; a recipe for disaster, I’d think. In preparation, I’ve shaved my head down to my buzz cut so I don’t have to deal with hair product and the perfect zshuzz of curls styled ever so carefully to look like they effortlessly fell that way out of the shower. As far as the East Coast mentality, I’m not sure you can even get a 136% utilization rate west of the Mississippi, even if you find that elusive 25th hour in the day. But I understand Omaha does have some gentlemanly pubs of a certain caliber and I was raised in farm country, after all, so I’m sure I’ll be able to slip in, under the radar, and figure it out.
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05.28.08
Posted in City Life, The days at 10:35 am by Beau
I found the local gentleman’s hang out in the gayborhood here in Philly early on in this engagement and now manage to head down for a late evening cocktail a few evenings each week. Though shy, I’ve managed to engage the bartenders so I know know their names and they know mine and know that I like my Sapphire gin and tonic with extra limes. It’s all rather sedate but it’s a nice end to long days and it beats watching reruns of shows I could give a fig about in a lonely, sterile hotel room and pretend that somehow that is considered living.
Now that I have a regular presence, some of the locals are becoming familiar to me and I can watch them pass through, sit at their regular seats, drink their drinks and then head home, much the way I do. I get some stares and I’m never sure if it’s disdain for being an outsider or hunger for the smell of new meat. I smile through it all and engage in friendly conversation when the occasion strikes which suits me just fine. Nothing too heavy and my ring usually ends any conversations of indelicate offers before they begin.
Last night, a gentleman sat down next to me and I could smell his stale cigarette breath a mile off. He was sort of mussed about all over and I took it to mean he was probably on his regular bender. We chit-chatted a bit and he reference my ring and asked how long I’d been with my partner. After I told him thirteen years, I asked him whether he was with anyone to which he paused, smiled, and then told me it was complicated.
I was of two minds about this answer. Of course anything can be complicated but really, the question is pretty simple. I didn’t want to know any details about open relationships or crumbling circumstances or any of the drama that can liein between. I just wanted a frame of reference. But he sort of left it at ‘complicated’ and we talked a bit about the historic Philadelphia neighborhoods and blue-bloods and how New York is different but sometimes the same. We filled up minutes where I tickled the ice cubes in my empty glass until he finally circled back to his ‘complicated’ relationship. The ‘complicated’ part is apparently a wife and three kids at home in the Philadelphia suburbs who don’t know that when he’s out at a ‘meeting’ for work, it usually hooking up with guys who don’t care that he’s unavailable to them for a long-term or emotional relationship because he’s in love with his wife.
I guess I’m never too surprised about these things and while the justifications of his bisexuality really just cloud the deceit, I’m also not one to get militant or indignant about how stupid the whole thing is. I live by the “who am I to judge” motto, especially after a 12-hour day and a gin and tonic. So he prattled on and on, looking for some kind of something from me and really, all I could muster is a, “wow, that must be challenging” which is Grade A consultant speak for “Mary, pleeeeease.” Then he got it and left and I got back to my quiet chilling out with my empty, uncomplicated glass and thankful for it.
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05.23.08
Posted in City Life, traveling for work at 3:53 pm by Beau
The interesting thing I’ve noticed about Philadelphia, and maybe it’s true about any bigger city where more time is spent then just a day or short weekend, is that the guys around where I’m working are completely hot. Of course I’m situated in the gayborhood so that might have something to do with it, but overall, even my straight, female peers are noticing.
“These boys have their fashion on,” said my favorite one.
So eye-candy is a great, unrealized perk of this job. I have to say that getting cruised repeated is a nice ego stroke and something I’m not used to. Even today in line at Cosi for lunch, this hot cub was standing beside me and gave me the look over and smiled, to which I smiled back because I’m making a conscious effort to bury the shy, low self-esteem dorkus deep and far away. It’s even more remarkable because I, against my better judgement, shaved off my continuing attempt at facial hair before the client thing at Yankee Stadium a few days back. Without that slight shading along my jaw line, I feel like I have a Hutt waddle and a triple chin. I actually might but I still got cruised so yay me.
So luckily, our project is going to stretch into mid-June so I have a few more weeks to enjoy the city. I’m currently facinated with Matthew Izzo’s designer boutique which has some great stuff as well as a progressive hair salon in the back which gave me a great cut yesterday. He’s a total snack so it’s nice to go in and browse low cut jeans that I can’t get my fat ass into and see him hanging out in his own shop. The team is also currently working our way through some pretty great restraunts around Center City and Old City. I’m telling you, Philadelphia has it happening right now.
Of course my belief in the balance of all things leads me to believe that I’ll be cast out to some remote subburb of some no-name place for the next six months and all the good vibes from Philadelphia will dry up. But it’s only a short train ride from NYC so I can always find my way back.
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05.15.08
Posted in City Life, Uncategorized, traveling for work at 8:08 am by Beau
I’ve been traveling quite a bit for work lately…ranging from Michigan to San Francisco but have really been in Philadelphia for the most part. Strange that all the time we’ve been in New York, I’ve spent so little time in Philly but I’m finding the city fantastic. Of course I’m only seeing about a 12 square block part of the city and it just happens to be the gayborhood, but still, fantastic. Great restaurants, great buildings, and a great city just to walk around in. Even though my work hours are stretching into the ridiculous range each day, I’ve managed to end up at the local neighborhood waterhole for gentleman for a night-cap and meeting really nice people. Definitely a keeper city.
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