| There was this blond guy, see... |
[Oct. 3rd, 2006|01:15 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | "The Girl Can't Help It" Little Richard | ] |
Okay. One of my weaknesses is blond men (they're my peeps), and there was this blond guy on the bus, and who then got on the subway, this morning who looked exactly, EXACTLY, like I always wanted to look, right down to the herringbone jacket he was wearing: not-very-tall (about my height), medium build, shortish blond hair that catches the light as he moves his head, full-but-trim blond beard, blue eyes, long eyelashes, wire-frame glasses, unostentatious clothes (khaki pants, Rockport shoes, nondescript shirt). He dressed exactly like I do, I was thrilled to my very marrow. And he was a low-key sort of babe, totally. You know, not really aware of how sexy he was, just a well-behaved guy going to work. And wearing a wedding band.
Husbear, who's also blond, and I were both beside ourselves with lust at his mere presence on the subway, both us us angling to look at him, speculating as to how he looked naked, et cetera. Husbear sat down next to him, I sat across so I got the actual view. Our eyes met for a second, but his expression had the blank incomprehension of a straight guy who didn't care if he was cruised or not, totally unaware that a gay man might find him attractive. There I've said it.
He was one of those rare people who was so startlingly like what I find attractive that I had to comment on it. There aren't many blond men around, even fewer who have facial hair. I think in my life I specifically remember six in the last ten years, blond guys usually go brown at adolescence, so the look is rare in adults. I'm one of the few natural blonds who has stayed that way, even my brother's hair turned brown after high school.
Anyway, so, well, that's about it. Nothing much else. Just that guy: YUHHHHMMMM. |
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| Dancing in western Massachusetts |
[Oct. 2nd, 2006|01:02 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  nostalgic | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Hommage a Edmond Parizeau/Viva le West Side | ] |
My friend LeBear and I drove out to Montague for a gender role free contra dance there at the Grange hall in the center of town. Montague is a pretty little New England town, actually: a nice little green, church town hall, cozy little Grange hall, white houses with black shutters lining the street, huge trees, green lawns.
The band was the Flying Garbanzos, the caller was Linda Leslie, and I knew almost everyone there who was dancing. There were a few unfamiliar faces, including some straight kids from UMass who don't get all freaked out by role-free dancing. The music was great, the whole vibe was awesome and friendly. There was an advanced dance in the afternoon, a pot luck supper, and an evening dance. The hall was packed, everyone was in a great mood, the music was almost perfect. That's always the hard thing to come down from: a whole day of dance-related joy on a cool, early fall, evening in rural Massachusetts, the leaves just beginning to change. I had to sit out a dance, went on the sidewalk out front and could hear the fiddle playing a soft, melody that drifted out into the cool evening air with the aching sweetness of a childhood memory and, through the windows, watched the couples waltzing inside. There's just nothing like it anywhere. Even as I write these words, I'm listening to the CD I bought and the whole thing is washing over me.
It was a nice night. |
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| Talk Like a Pirate |
[Sep. 19th, 2006|01:58 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | "I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper" | ] |
I just wanted as many people as possible to know that today is "International Talk Like a Pirate" day. I found out while nuking my lunch when a guy told me. I've always wanted to celebrate it on the day but usually heard about a month later that I'd missed it.
Avast, ye swabs! Keel haul the mizzen mast an' batten doon the 'atches! Et cetera. |
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| My Odometer runneth over |
[Sep. 18th, 2006|01:23 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Marcel Martin/Handsome Young Maids | ] |
This past Friday, on the way down to dance camp in New York State, my odometer hit 250,000. I was ready for it, I had Husbear waiting with the camera so that I actually have photographic proof that it happened. He clicked off three shots, a stunning artistic achievement overall. I was beside myself. We had a guest/passenger in the back seat who was sort of wondering what was going on; apparently, non-drivers just don't understand the excitement caused by a pristine row of zeroes.
Anyway, dance camp was a really good example of a total commitment to fun that was made by all the participants. The band and caller were excellent, the dancing was top of the line. The advanced dance hit new highs. The weather was perfect. The place where we stayed actually had bottled water and itty-bitty chocolates for us in our rooms, and the food was really good. Especially when compared with that of camp locations past. I was thrilled, exhilarated, and in a state of happy exhaustion when it was all over. And feeling that post-camp, it's-all-over-but-the-driving, letdown.
Our guest was our German friend, Markus, who agreed that the whole weekend was without peer in his life. They have such things in Deutschland, but not with the level of dancing and musical wildness that Americans can create almost without effort. I turned 46 on Sunday the 17th, the whole room sang "Happy Birthday" at breakfast to me while I blushed furiously.
We got home in time to take a QUICK shower, and then rushed out to dinner at the home of the head Chorus Bear, who had a surprise birthday cake waiting for me, and champagne for Markus' departure which was/is today.
A nice weekend. |
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| Up Early This Morning |
[Aug. 24th, 2006|09:03 am] |
I was out of the house at 7AM today so I could get my car in to the shop for a check-up and still be early to work so get a project out.
As soon as I opened the front door, I could feel that late-summer dampness, the dew on the grass, the clear sky, and I could smell the first hint that the season is changing. The air had that lush quality that it gets in September around the first day of school. It reminded me of walking with my brother to school in my new back-to-school clothes; holding a lunch bag; a new pencil box with Peanuts characters on it and a fresh, sweet-scented gum eraser with all the edges still sharp. I always had a nickel for a waxed box of milk and a dime for a Hershey bar to buy on my way home. The New England air in early September has a quality I've never encountered anywhere else and it always heightened that sense of newness and possibility that the start of the school year always created. I always looked forward to school, I liked learning and I went to a school system that was excellent and focused on education, sports got short shrift and were not valued. I experienced very little of the sports jock culture that I always hear about from people who grew up in other parts of the country. They had little prestige where I went to school. But of course, that was about 40 years ago. Times do change.
When I drive through my comfortable middle class hometown, taking a shortcut on my way home from work, I always marvel at how much more lavish middle class life is now, in comparison with my childhood. |
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| My Mini Sports Rant |
[Aug. 22nd, 2006|08:48 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  aggravated | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Thank Heaven For Little Girls" | ] |
Back story: The Sox blew a five game series against the Yankees yesterday afternoon by finishing up with a 2-1 loss. They lost every farking game! Every one of them. I couldn't believe it. My boss was at the game yesterday and sometime in the fifth inning he phoned me. Behind him I could hear screaming, I asked excitedly, "What's going on?" He must've glanced over at the field, "oh, some guy's on first." And then he went back to discussing business.
Anyway, this morning on the radio Bob Oates says that the Yankees "topped" the Sox yesterday. I would NOT say "topped" which implies that it was consensual. Nor would I say, for instance, "boned" which implies that it's at least to the bottom's enjoyment. No, I'd say that "the Sox felt the rough, strong, hands of the Yankees as they ripped down the Sox pants, pushed them onto a table, and then proceeded to serially rape them, and, when the Sox were at their most vulnerable, turned them over and the whole team jizzed all over them, finally leaving them there to dry off in front of Fenway Park's crowd." That's what I'D say.
Jiminy Cricket! This was a rout. Arrgh. The whole Johnny Damon trade looks really, really, stupid and Coco Crisp will NEVER, live up to the hype. But enough of this.
Hey, how 'bout that deev who claims he iced Jon Benet, huh? What d'y'say? Innocent but nuts? Right? No way he could've done it, right, since he was with his ex-wife that night. So... what? Twisted perv "in love" with a little girl. What d'you think, living in Thailand so that he can have sex with underage prosititutes for cheap, right? The whole story just REEKS if you ask me. Ick. |
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| Chorus Bears RULE |
[Aug. 17th, 2006|08:41 am] |
Well. We went out last night with a group of fellow chorines that we loosely call "The Chorus Bears" and a swell time was had by all. The Head Chorus Bear (chosen by acclimation because of his beard, his forthright decency, and his low-key personality) put the whole thing together, made the reservations and sent out the evites.
Anyway, while I'm not specifically "into" bears (Husbear aside, otters might be a good description of what I like to look at), but I sure do the hang with a lot of them. There were ten well-facial-haired guys at Maggiano's downtown last night, and we had a blast. I've not seen several of them since the end of rehearsals last June and there was a lot of catching up to do, and on the table we had and drank five bottles of wine. I can't get over the amount of food I ate, that we all ate, and the staff kept bringing out more. Maggiano's is a moderately priced, middling quality, family style chain restaurant, and the food was perfectly adequate for our needs last night. I went home stuffed, through a snafu with the waiters Husbear got all the left-overs. After we settled up inside, we stood on the sidewalk chatting and hugging before we all left each other's company.
It was a great evening, a nice way to end a day filled with anxiety for me. Tonight I'm going out for sushi with a friend who lives in Pepperell, I had to drive in to work for that; it'll be an hour-long drive.
The contra dance season starts up next Saturday, it's the first day of my vacation and I'm unsure at yet about going dancing that night, or what our plans will end up being. |
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| It's a beautiful day... |
[Aug. 16th, 2006|01:21 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | in the office | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  distressed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | all Joni Mitchell all day | ] |
...and I'm in the office feeling a nameless dread that I often feel on says like this. I know it's neurotic and all but 11 September 2001 was equally perfect. The sky was the same absurd blue, and the clouds that finally appeared late that day were the same sharp-edge fluffies that we have right now. I'm sitting here just sort of sublimating instead of going outside for lnch. like the rest of the office has.
Of course, because of recent acid reflux problems, I'm not going out for my afternoon snack, which I do every afternoon so I can get out of the office and take a break. So I won't be going outside because, also, there's no place to go in this neighborhood but the supermarket down the street, or the convenience store directly across. So I stay inside. I also don't like going out in direct sunlight due to my near-total lack of melanin and my high risk of sunburns, a lesson that was very hard learned indeed.
So I'm inside at my computer, feeling nameless dread, keeping out of direct sunlight, minding my own as kids say these days.
I wouldn't mind going to another baseball game. Nothing gets troubles off one's mind quite like sitting at Fenway Park, eating a hot dog, and singing "Sweet Caroline." |
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| Baseball at Fenway Park |
[Aug. 15th, 2006|01:05 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cranky | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" | ] |
Verily, Fenway Park is one of the great baseball venues in all the world, and last night I went to a game with Husbear and a couple of friends. We all had a swell time, it was Sox vs Detroit Tigers. The Sox played pretty crappily, the Tigers got three runs in the first inning, I was astounded that no sooner had we all got comfy than the ball went up over the park and Detroit was on its way to winning; one sort of sat back and thought, wow, this is going to be a rout, and it was. Every time the Sox even got a base hit the crowd went nuts, lots of fun all round. It was like watching the old Sox of years past, when they choked every single time, but you didn't care. Anyway, I can't really talk all that much about baseball because, really, I'm only into certain players, but the four of us loved it. It turned out that one of us was a sportswriter when he lived in Dallas years ago so he was in the know about a lot of the basics.
But in the end, the Sox lost. Big deal, they do that all the time, but it was fun. Going to ball parks is a perfect summertime thing to do, like going to a cookout in a friend's backyard, or going to the beach and smelling like coconut oil all day (even after you shower). I like to go just to experience the whole Fenway gestalt. My company is responsible for lots of the current renovation work going on there, I've not worked on any of it, but I see the work getting done.
Anyway, that's all I can think of: Fenway kicks butt, the Sox stink but we love them, Jason didn't play (which made me cranky), but I got over it by eating a Fenway Frank with loads of fancy mustard. As good a balm as any for a troubled soul. |
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| Movies and Health |
[Aug. 11th, 2006|03:04 pm] |
Tuesday the Husbear and I took the day off from work and went to Mount Auburn Hospital so that I could have an upper GI done, which involves swallowing a camera and watching it go down one's throat to reveal any unhealthy signs. I'd been suffering from acid reflux of late and my doctor wanted to make sure that there was nothing more serious than that going on. I was put into conscious sedation and wheeled into the operating room. I told the doctor I wanted my glasses so that I could watch the procedure while lying on my side. The next thing I knew, it was two hours later and I was recovering. Alas. If I was conscious during the procedure, I have no memory of it (amnesia is a frequent side effect of the sedation). So I missed the cool visuals.
Husbear drove me home, which is a good thing because I kept trying to bear left while walking down the hall to the car. He got me home and I flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling for three hours wide awake, but reluctant to move. After I'd tired of that he suggested that we go to the cheap show of a movie.
We chose Talladega Nights. A good choice it turned out. We'd heard that Southerners hated it because it presents an elaborate parody of redneck culture. It was just jam-packed with stereotypes of ignorant trailer trash eating junk food and watching the junk sport of car racing. We howled in parts, there were great moments of ad-lib stuff going on throughout. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone but it really appealed to us. The next movie we want to see is "World Trade Center" which every reviewer says isn't as good as "United 93" of a few months back, but I'm still interested in seeing it.
This weekend we're going to a cookout at the home of a friend who's famous for his carnivorous cooking. We're both wicked psyched as his all-meat cookouts are always incredible, you're just sort of in awe of all the meat that there is to choose from. Never a bad thing to have a really good cook doing the grilling as well. |
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