It's a new day for you

Well, yeah, but there's lots of good things, too! Oh, never mind. If you're like me, here's what you can expect today:

Today's Full Moon is opposite your Sun, overwhelming you with your feelings. You are being pulled beyond your normal boundaries and must stretch into a new shape. But this isn't about physical form; it's all about your attitude. Rather than fearfully returning to a previous mindset, consciously allow the pressure to mold the emotional changes necessary for your growth.
Thursday, May 31, 2007

I had a Cardiac Risk Profile done a few weeks ago and got the results on Friday. As has been mentioned in these pages before, my diet and exercise regime are darn near impeccable (what’s true is true), so it came as no surprise that my bloodwork reflected that. My total cholesterol wasn’t anything to write home about, until you see the HDL/LDL ratio. My “good” cholesterol (the kind that keeps the fats from gumming up arteries) was MAD good. Once concern that did crop up was blood pressure. Mine’s never been great, but usually hovered around normal (and “normal” is really more of a “median”). Til now. Though not into the range where I’m hypertensive, it’s creeping up to that. I do feel like I know what’s going on there, and it was borne out in the lifestyle questionnaire that accompanied the examination. I totally lied on all those questions because I couldn’t bear to see the look I’d get from the physiologist if I gave her the true answers. Close social contacts? Not so much. Feelings of isolation? You bet! Generally optimistic? Errrrmmmm. Of course I know what I have to do. What I’ve had to do. With that in mind, I called a realtor yesterday.

On another positive health note, I’m running a half-marathon (the DxA2) this weekend with my lovely friend Allison. It’s the same one I’d planned to run last year, but a combination of weather, injury, illness and general lethargy between the two of us made that a no-go. We’re both feeling well (as I type this anyway), so it should be good for this year. They hold the Taste of Ann Arbor that day as well. What sounds better than following a 13.1 mile run with nibbling on some of the best food in the tri-state area? Maybe a shower followed by a vigorous massage from a burly Eastern European emigre, but some good deli will have to suffice.

Speaking of food, for whatever reason I’ve been craving one of these ALL DAMN WEEK.Soft shell crab po' boy. Can you say SILF? What is it about fried seafood in a sandwich format? I need to road trip because they don’t do good po’ boy in the north and I don’t think it’d fare well via Fed Ex.

Finally, I hesitate to go all Queer Eye on your asses, but people, clean your toes! It's an early summer, there's a heat wave going on, and I understand the urge to doff the shoes, but if you are gonna wear sandals you must make at least a cursory effort to make your feet presentable. No exceptions. I'm not saying you have to pay for a spa pedicure. Can we agree that a thick layer of dust is not acceptable, though? Asking that you swiffer those dirty dogs is not setting the bar too high, I trust.

Promises are made to be broken

Today, I broke a longstanding vow not to be that old man in the neighborhood who does yard work without a shirt on. I know, I know, nobody needs to see that, but it's frigging HOT and I have dozens of trees and shrubs to trim, OK? One consolation is that I live on a cul-de-sac, so the scope of the visual affront was mostly limited to resident traffic. And it's not like Abby hasn't seen ol' Sumner naked, so she should be relatively inured, but it's Valene I worry about. Hasn't she been through enough?

Ooh, baby, do you know what that's worth?

I've never had a particular urge to visit Jerusalem. Before. So maybe this (alleged) tourism ad campaign targeting the gays is pretty effective. The only way this picture makes me happier is if one of those Jews is me. And the other is a dermatologist.

A key to a room of your own and a mind without end

It's mornings like this one that make me wish I was a writer, holed up in my room alone. Of course, given my current mental state, I'd probably be Virginia Woolf. Fine! I'd have a place in London, a summer place in the country, and some serious mood swings. Not so very different from what I have now, except, you know, TWO PLACES, both in ENGLAND. And of course actual talent and acclaim.

Contrast my current situation where room number ONE harbors a man who smells like the garbage. Not just the regular garbage, but the stuff you forgot to put out, so it ruminated for a week. That stuff. Nice enough guy, but why? One reason is he's obviously not washed his hair for weeks. Let me amend that. He's obviously not washed his combover for weeks. Oh, and he's got long, matted back hair.

In room TWO resides an evangelical preacher, impeccably coiffured and dressed to the nines. He's been speaking excitedly for months now about the jet he's buying.

I don't know which I loathe more.

It's your duty to be beautiful

Sad boy? What sad boy? Look at the pretty flowers! Absent an appropriate vase, a tall pilsner will do just fine for arranging your early summer bouquet of iris and peony, ladies.

The love phase is emerging, signs show harmonic converging

My horoscope this week is full of quotes from fellow Gemini, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Banality or profundity? You decide.

FIRST: All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

SECOND: What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

THIRD: He who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

FOURTH: Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

ADDED: Apropos of my recent bent (but not of this post specifically), I was thinking about Oprah just now (as one does). She had celebrities on talking about depression this week. PS? Celebrity does not confer intelligence or insight. I know. News flash. Anyway, one common thread weaved through the discussion was that withdrawal was a common sign of depression. Now I don't think I'm clinical or anything, but I just realized that since work ended Saturday morning, I haven't spoken to a single person outside of the service industry. Huh. Oh wait, I forgot. A woman from my office called on Saturday afternoon. To fix me up with her sister.

FURTHERMORE: You know those CarePages that update you on the condition of a sick person? Well, I'm subscribed to one that tells me how a young child with leukemia is doing. She is the daughter of an old college friend who I haven't spoken with in almost 20 years. Initially I linked to the page at the e-urging of another mutual college friend. Anyway, I get email updates all the time now. Today I tried to unsubscribe. It's just too much for me right now. Only the unsubscribing was so many steps that I couldn't be bothered. Yay me, huh?

FINALLY: OK, that was all a little "poor me" and "cry for help" there at the end. Mea culpa. I'm fine, actually. Thanks. Still, I'd take a hug.

Open the door, get on the floor, everbody walk the dinosaur

What excites me personally is how the discovery of Dark Energy illustrates that science is not a set of beliefs that one constructs. Instead, scientists observe nature, then develop theories that describe their observations. Science is driven by nature itself, and nature gives us no choice. It is what it is.
Professor Meg Urry, Chair of the Department of Physics at Yale

We’ll begin the Museum experience by showing that “facts” don’t speak for themselves. There aren’t separate sets of “evidences” for evolution and creation—we all deal with the same evidence (we all live on the same earth, have the same fossils, observe the same animals, etc.). The difference lies in how we interpret what we study. We’ll then explore why the Bible—the “history book of the universe”—provides a reliable, eye-witness account of the beginning of all things.
from creationmuseum.org

Chain, chain, chain!

You are The Devil

Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession

The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.

Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

You're gonna be a big star

One of the things I'm enjoying most about re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the beginning (besides the obvious....seminal tv for its introduction of Buffy-speak/Slayer Slang into the national lexicon, for one thing) is that almost every week there's a BEFORE THEY WERE FAMOUS moment. Who knew that the tortured poltergeist from "I Only Have Eyes For You" was Christopher Gorham, now better know as Henry Grubstick on Ugly Betty.And in the very next episode when an eviscerating demon is stalking the swim team at Sunnydale High in "Go Fish", who's in a Speedo and in a steam room? Mmmmm, Prison Break's Wentworth Miller. And he's sporting a buzzcut.His sweater gives me a happy.

We're a possibility when you make it hard for me, baby

She's gamine (legs for miles!), she wears the hell out of a green minidress, her dance moves are appealingly gawky, and she's singing your new favorite song, pet.

To paraphrase my dance music mentor, Sophie Ellis-Bextor is fanfuckingdiscotastic!

Nants ingonyama bagithi baba

I saw this over at Towleroad, but had to post it up here for folks who may have missed it otherwise. It's an amateur wildlife video with lions, water buffalo, and crocodiles in a full-on Thunderdome. So incredible, you really should check it out when you have a few minutes.

Make it easy on me

Yesterday George W. Bush (GWB) declassified intelligence information from 2005 suggesting that Osama Bin Laden (OBL) planned to use Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks on the US. So wait. GWB decided to make it easier for OBL to do just that?

On a lighter note, if you wanna make it easier on ME, you'll give me this apartment (click on "multimedia" and prepare to shiver with the delight). OK, OK, I'll admit that closet is over the top, so I don't need that, but I do need it to be in Milan.
ADDED: As long as I'm making a wishlist, I'd like to break me off a piece of this.He's Maroon 5 frontman, Adam Levine. Their music is like ironing or kissing girls, I neither love it nor loathe it, but he is the snackable.

Money can't buy it

I had some din-din and drinky-poos with the Professor on Friday night. We went to Coco's. It seems like a place to take someone you're sweet on, and certainly not a place to dine alone (often my default mode), therefore I'd never been. Here's a picture from the street, courtesy of one of my new blog haunts.This guy takes pictures of the starkly nondescript streets of Dayton, OH. He finds some interesting shots, though. Prototypical stuff and he's seriously funny with the captions sometimes. Let's take a scroll down Wyoming Avenue, shall we? And some images so common they could be seen any time of day on any street corner of our quaint little corner of the Midwest. Go Browns! Or whatever. How about this one of a hooker on Xenia Avenue? You mean to tell me dudes will actually pay for this? I'd pay her to get a better haircut and color, maybe. I know, I know, I'm being heartless. I'm sure there's a sad tale of misfortune here, but still, if you're gonna sell it, then sell it, I say. A better cut jean, maybe a flirty sandal with a wedge heel. Check me out. I could so be the Clinton Kelly of meth whores.

Oh, and dinner was nice. But is it too much to ask for sparks? Give me sparks, and I promise that it will be reflected in the tip. Lovely man. Smart man. Successful man. All sentences that could apply to my Dad as well.

My hair dude is wanting to set me up with a friend of a friend (i.e. a stranger). "No! I've seen him on the treadmill at the Y. Seems nice," says Alan. I'm not gonna front. At this point "was seen on exercise equipment and wasn't obviously mean" fits the bill. PS? He's a corrections officer. Me likes the sound of that.

To understand her, you gotta know her deep inside

Bill stands up for his woman. I have a few quibbles with Hillary, but I'm getting more excited about her candidacy all the time. And I may be late to the party, but I'm really starting to believe she can win. (via)

We don't need no education

This was spotted after our Mother's Day brunch (by my mother!). Makes me wonder. Is there anything robots can't do?

Loving is the ocean, kissing is the wet sand

MY OWN revolutionary costume for today? I think it was in a Seinfeld episode where they decided that if you go out in gym clothes, then you've given up. Well, be that as it may, I'm in mad love with the lululemon yoga/track pants that I picked up over Easter. Casual, sure, but they are tres-Vancouver...tres-Dustin/Kandice greeting Phil at the Pit Stop. For now, I live in them. Check me giving you blue steel.

Thanks to La Yani for turning me on to the Meez.

ADDED: Oh, and remember that mini-wearing 61 y.o. from the other day? It's been killing me who she reminds me of. I was stuck on "pint-sized Bea Arthur" for days, when it hit me. She's Madame, in face and voice. Crap, does that make me Wayland Flowers? So not sticking my fist up her skirt. Wait, she's a marionette. Whew.

If fingertips were relationships

I ran 10 miles this morning, and I'm hungry for some meat. At first I was thinking of baby back ribs, but then I decided I'd rather have something that didn't fall off the bone.
This guy is the cover boy from this month's GENRE magazine. One of the things I love about GENRE is that you can easily go 10-20 pages without any photographic evidence that men wear shirts. Or pants for that matter. Lots of swimwear and undergarments, and there's not a thing wrong with that.
Let the haters hate (as is your wont), but I think this fella is damn near perfection. Is it the Routh-ian quality of the eyebrow? The suggestion of Middle Eastern descent? We're talking purely aesthetics of course. I'd have to age him twenty years to be my boyfriend.

That's the revolutionary costume for today

Since I bitched about WHAT NOT TO WEAR, I feel I should offer some positive suggestions. Since I'm no expert, I'll defer to Little Edie Beale. In her own words:

This is the best thing to wear for today, you understand. Because I don't like women in skirts and the best thing is to wear pantyhose or some pants under a short skirt, I think. Then you have the pants under the skirt and then you can pull the stockings up over the pants underneath the skirt. And you can always take off the skirt and use it as a cape. So I think this is the best costume for today.

You got that, ladies? People don't wear capes enough, can we all agree on that? My obsession with Grey Gardens continues. The original film, the recently released follow-up The Beales of Grey Gardens, the Broadway play, the Rufus Wainwright song...it's just all so delicious and satisfying, and yet somehow my appetite persists unsated. Oh the outfits.

And no, I don't feel like my enjoyment of the ladies Beale is in any way cruel. I love these women. Their celebrity is largely posthumous, but I can't help but imagine how they'd be feted in this world of instant fame. They were such stars in their own minds already, would it have changed them much? I don't think so. Maybe a tighter weave bath towel/head scarf.

There is a season (turn, turn, turn)

1. To the woman who came into my office this morning wearing a red knit miniskirt: I'm sure there are 61 year olds who can pull that look off, but darlin', your 5'1" varicosed fireplug of a bad self ain't her. Hmmm. Maybe if you ditched the flip-flops for a kicky wedge it could work.
2. At the bar mitzvah, I ran into a few friends that I haven't seen in over a year. Apparently long layers are in then? I'm not feeling it.
3. Yeah, I'm bitchy today. I have to fast for this blood work and I'm fucking hungry, OK?
4. Bye-bye, Crocs!
   

I bet you look good on the dance floor

• The other day I got home from the gym and I stripped to my shorts and then checked my look in the mirror. I fleetingly thought, "Yeah, I'd do me." Think straight guys do that? Not that I think I'm all that, mind you, but I would. Do me. OMG. Does that mean I finally love myself? Nah, more like I've had a long dry spell that needs moistening and I'm not that choosy right now.
• I have a huge crush on this girl at my salon. She has a great name. She is just as cute as a button. She's got great style; kind of understated boho chic. She was over the moon when I mentioned the new "The Beales of Grey Gardens" DVD, and when I shared it with her, she glowed upon hearing that they interview the present day Jerry, and he drives a cab in NYC. Oh, and she asked how I was liking Barak Obama's book, and as I leafed through the pages while responding, she noticed my Frank Lloyd Wright inspired bookmark and asked me if I'd seen his Westcott House in Springfield. Ummm, yeah! Finally, and possibly best of all, her grandparents were in the theater. So adorable. Love her. (Jen, she was our waitress that night)
  
• Like my dear Andrew, I have blood work scheduled this week. Do you think a six martini, three cupcake weekend can ruin my numbers? I'm actually having a heart profile done. I think it'll be bloodwork, some dietary and lifestyle analysis, EKG and I'm not sure what else. I sometimes imagine that I'm the guy who will be found blue and cold on some running path and they'll say, "He always seemed so healthy!". And then they'll shrug and go about their business. Maybe a clean bill of heart health will quell at least this one of my recurrent fears, cuz lord knows they are legion.
  

We'll have drinks and talk about things, any excuse to stay awake with you

I suppose that I should start this by explaining my long absence, but let's just shorthand it and assume the post would say something about being a bit down and distracted and blah-dee-blah-blah. Oh, and it would have been titled "Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'". Or something.

Remember my vacation over Easter? I'm madly in love with Vancouver, y'all. I'm thinking of moving there. Or at least being Vancouver for Halloween. Whilst there, I skied here: I hiked here (up the back side, not up the sheer granite-y front side): I ran here (like jogging into your dreams!): I shopped here: And here: Then there was lots of eating and drinking. No, LOTS of both. It was a Fuck My Diet Fiesta. When I wasn't doing all that, I read and relaxed and had conversations both serious and profane with some of my favorite people in the world. Could a queer boy from the Midwest ask for more from a vacation? I think not.

Back to now, I'm heading up to Michigan for my nephew's bar mitzvah this weekend. Should be a good time. I might stop at this Mega Porn Shop on the way up, maybe pick up a dildo because I've been toying with the idea of becoming a big ol' nelly bottom. Just a thought. I've never had one before. A dildo, I mean. I've had lots of thoughts. One assumes serious bottoming is a skillset, requiring some practice if one is serious and not just dabbling as in the past. Some boning up, as it were. Any suggestions? Vibrating? Suction cup base?