wait, what's a...?

Dearest Rachael,

I know what a "Stoup" is. You explain it on-air every time you make a "stoup." We KNOW that it's thicker than a soup, thinner than a stew. We know how cute a concept you think it is. So, please, for the sake of myself and George Lam, stop already.

Love,
Robert

artsy fartsy

this and other very cool zings on consumerism here. (via queerty)

preaching to the choir

i just got off the phone with this afternoon's particpant's school. i'd only called them to make sure that they'd release the kid from school on time so that he could make it to his appointment. because they never do, and we're always here late because either the kid hasn't wandered into the cab or the cab never came or the school wouldn't let him out or he's gone out the wrong entrance or he's gone home or he's gone to basketball or...you get the idea. so the lady at the school tells me that they haven't gotten any notes releasing the kid from school, so now i'm trying to track down the mom so that she can send in a note. and suddenly i feel like i'm begging these people to take care of their asthma. like literally tracking them down so that they don't wheeze to death.

i know i've said this before, but i often compare asthma care with my crohn's care. you take your medicine or you possibly die. or, in the case of crohn's, shit yourself to death. yet i digress. basically you do what you have to do to take care of your body. and you better believe, if i were getting completely free care for my crohn's for a full year, i wouldn't make the secretary at the doctor's office track me down. well, really, they just wouldn't. they'd be like, "you missed your appointment? oops, sorry. the doctor can see you in four months."

ok, i'm getting down off this soapbox because it looks awfully rickety.

taxman

robert: do you know how much we got paid for kaffee kantate
hilary: 200!
robert: WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT
robert: that means that my paycheck's going to be over 500 bucks this month
hilary: YES
robert: holy crapola
robert: mama's savings account will be so happy
hilary: hahah
robert: i can see it smiling from here
hilary: hahaa
hilary: indeed
robert: "feeeed meeeee" it screams
robert: every time i put money in it i have visions of the chrysler building
robert: now watch it'll be that we got paid 50 bucks
hilary: ya
hilary: after taxes

a whole new kind of scary

even though i was in a pretty good mood this morning (good mood, considering the fact that i hate hate hate hate hate. hate hate. hate. getting up early every day) i decided to listen to with teeth (by nine inch nails. if you haven't bought this album, do it.). as i was getting ready to walk into the same entrance i walk into every morning, the same one i've walked in since i started this job, trent started to sing "every day is exactly the same." i was like, yeah, duh. then i noticed a guy across the street. i saw this same guy yesterday at exactly the same time. ok, so i always notice this guy because he's got one of the nicest asses i've ever seen on a white guy. white guys just aren't supposed to have asses like this. damn. anyway. "every day is exactly the same," indeed.

unlike previous posts, though, i don't write this to complain. i seem to have fallen into a groove, not a rut. i get up, go to work, go to the gym, practice, cook dinner, then watch tv. i mean clean up my place and contribute to mankind. that's it. mankind. and i don't mind it. it's comfortable, for now, knowing exactly how each day is going to play out.

in other news, hilary went to nyc yesterday to audition for ohio light opera. when i picked her up from the travel plaza (which, by the way, hilary informed us was a "whole new kind of scary, totally different than east monument street") she told me that i really should've auditioned because there were only 4 men on the roster to audition that day, three of whom were tenors. damn. it's the first time this season that i've regretted my decision to take a year off from the young artist audition circuit. then again, i reminded myself, this time next year i'll be able to go audition on my lunch hour. it won't mean a whole day off from work and a $160 train ticket. and that's a beautiful thing.

turkey daze

after a whirlwind trip to connecticut, i'm back home, safe and sound. i had the pleasure of sitting on a four-and-a-half-hour train (that was running 30 minutes late) next to a man who committed two horrendous train-rider crimes against humanity. i present to the tribunal:

1. bringing BAGS of revolting-smelling hot deli items, all in separate plastic containers, onto the train and then eating them with his mouth open. as if it weren't bad enough that i had to smell his food, i also had to hear it. it wasn't a gentle every-few-bite smacking, either. oh no. it was full-on open-mouthed chomping.
2. talking on his cellphone headset at maximum volume for 2 hours. he wasn't content to just quietly, shortly check up on people. i had to hear about his uncle (who apparently is suffering from dementia) and his whole goddamned thanksgiving visit. i actually had visions of myself ripping the headset out of his ear and kicking his bags of food leftovers into the aisle. if i were a drag queen, i would've done just that.

horrible train companions aside, it was a wonderful trip. i slept 9 hours every single night i was at amanda's and met her boyfriend, who's both goofy and totally smitten with her. and is hinting at the big M. i swear to god, if amanda gets married before me the earth will open up and satan himself will reach his his hairy red arm through the crack and drag me down into hell. seeing as she's in a committed relationship and i'm decidedly single i better watch out for cracks in the pavement.

in other news, i bought my first christmas tree at target yesterday. it's not any 2-foot-tall pre-assembled, pre-lit job, either. it's a 6-foot fake tree. it cost me 17 dollars, which in my current situation is a fairly major investment. i bought big, multi-colored lights for it (the hipper of my friends detest multicolored lights. so tacky, they say. i grew up with 'em and that's what i'm a-buyin'!) and sparkly ribbon. i put scented pinecones and twelve ornaments on it, because that's how many came in the pack that was on sale at michael's. i wasn't raised in a barn, so i know that any good fake tree needs a christmas tree skirt. i put my sort-of christmas-colored afghan around the bottom of the tree, put out the absurdly-expensive embroidered christmas throw pillows my mom gave me, and poof: my apartment is beginning to look a lot like christmas. see for yourself.

black friday.

the slavedrivers over at amanda's job decided that she, unlike most of the world, shouldn't get the day after thanksgiving off. people have to do all kinds of extremely important business transactions, after all, as they sling themselves from mall after mall, so the bank has to be open. and amanda has to be there.

so far i've spent today hiding in the guest bedroom; amanda's mom also had to go to work today, so it's just me and amanda's brother and father in the house. of course as soon as i woke up and went downstairs to get some coffee i walked in on them having a big heart-to-heart discussion. "good morning," i quietly said to them as i sidled by them to get to the coffee pot. obviously mooching some breakfast was out of the question. it just set the stage for the awkward day ahead. ah well, amanda's coming home for lunch; then it's just another three awkward hours before she gets home for the day. good times.

just in time for black friday, here's this week's column, courtesy of the gentlemen over at baltimore gay life. and, hilary, you're a STAH!

The Practice

“I’m going to hot yoga tonight at Midtown. Do you want to go with me?” Hilary asked me at work on Tuesday. I thought for a while before answering. I hadn’t done yoga since college, and even then it wasn’t as if I was going to some patchouli-smelling yoga studio three times a week. I dabbled in yoga with my roommate Alyson, agreeing to follow along with a yoga video every night before bed. Our every-night agreement dwindled to a few nights a week until it fizzled out completely, both of us too busy drinking and hanging out with our boyfriends to care much about the downward-facing dog.

Then again, I thought to myself, I always stretch when I get up in the morning, so how ill-prepared can I be? “Ok, sure,” I told Hilary.

We got to the yoga studio early to make sure that we had time to pay our walk-in visitor’s fee and get a spot where we could see the instructor. I had visions of myself trying to duplicate the instructor’s poses without actually being able to see her: I’d be crouched with one leg shot out awkwardly to the left, the other somehow folded below me as I struggled to support myself with my right elbow. Panting, I’d look around the room to find that the rest of the class was sitting there relaxed and cross-legged. The instructor would be gawking at me from the front of the room, wondering who I thought I was coming into her class and making a mockery of it. Wanting to avoid this scene at any cost, Hilary and I parked ourselves next to the instructor’s mat. I could’ve reached out and touched her ropy, muscled arm.

I turned to Hilary. “I had no idea that my hair could sweat,” I said to her. She was pallid. I found out later that we were both silently considering the easiest way to get of the room should our feelings of nausea become too much to bear. Why in the world did I put my mat so far away from the door? I thought. If I actually have to puke I’m going to have to negotiate my way through this sea of mats and twisted, sweating bodies.

“Focus your mind completely on your breathing,” the instructor told us. “Every time your mind starts to wander, bring it back to the practice. Let your breath guide you.” I breathed in, breathed out. A droplet of sweat fell from my nose onto the mat. I wonder if anyone has noticed how much I’m sweating, I thought to myself. Hilary doesn’t seem to be sweating this much. Maybe there’s something wrong with me. Maybe I’m going to overheat or something. I looked at the girl on my other side, the girl who had been doing sit-ups before class even started. She was sweating, sure, but not like I was.

“Allow all of your problems or thoughts of your job to disappear. Focus on your breathing. Focus on the practice,” the instructor reminded us. That’s when it occurred to me: I was trying, but focusing on the practice was not going to happen. I’d paid fourteen dollars to screw myself up into poses and wonder what the stranger next to me thought. I was trying not to let my mind wander, but it seemed that clearing my mind wasn’t an option. I’m just not good at turning off my brain.

There’s always a thread of consciousness, a monologue, churning below the surface. When I’m out with friends or watching TV or reading, it’s there. It’s the voice that says, Don’t forget you need to buy maple syrup or Don’t forget that you have to move your car so it doesn’t get towed.

It’s also the voice that says, You’re 25 years old now. Behind you are three failed, serious relationships, and if you want to know your grandchildren you’ve got maybe ten years to have kids of your own. And you know, Robert, before you have children you have to settle down and have a job that pays something. But you just had to be a musician, didn’t you? It’s a voice that nags, questions, the one I’m trying to silence when I’m laying in bed or sweating in yoga.

“Did you have a hard time focusing on ‘the practice’?” I asked Hilary as we left.

“I always do,” she said. “The entire time I kept thinking about what I was going to make for dinner.”

“Me too,” I told her. “And I felt like such a putz because everybody else seemed to get it.”

“Well,” she said shrugging, “we’re high-strung people.”

It’s true, I am high-strung. I suppose that it made me feel better to know that I wasn’t the only one struggling to turn off my inner monologue, but I still wonder: will I ever find peace? Will I ever be able to silence that self-critical voice, or will it always be there just behind my eyes? All I can do, really, is try to ignore it, to focus on my breathing; focus on the practice.

Focus more on what’s in front of me than what’s inside.

UHHHH

someone in greer, south carolina got to my blog by googling "ratfaced jew." RATFACED JEW! i'm both scared and insulted.

gobble. gobble gobble.

happy thanksgiving, dearest readers, from sunny fairfield, connecticut. did i say sunny? i meant rainy with a threat of snow. but you know what? it's late november and i'm in new england, basking in the smell of brined-to-perfection-stuffed-with-seared-vegetables-and-rosemary turkey roasting in the oven (it never hurts to go to a professional caterer's house for thanksgiving), so a little cold weather is just fine by me.

i told amanda yesterday when we were on our way to the bakery to pick up pies for today's dinner (gasp, barbara bought pies this year) that it's funny how where i live changes my sense of place. when i first came to fairfield, i was 18 years old and had only been on the east coast once before; i'd never been to new york. connecticut seemed very metropolitan and east-coast-ish, very busy. threatening, even.

now, six and a half years and 700 miles east later, i live in baltimore, and coming to connecticut feels like a trip to the country. it's silent and pitch-black in the sidebottom's guest bedroom; not many cars drive past their house. the nice thing is that nyc is an hour away.

what hasn't changed, wonderfully, is the sidebottom family dynamic: unlike my family, who tends to get angry at each other then seethe quietly for upwards of 6 months (my sister once didn't speak to me from thanksgiving to christmas), the sidebottoms get it all out there in the open--they're screaming at each other, arguing about the cleanliness of the bathroom. but then at the end of the day, the argument's over. it must be because half of them are italian. i don't know.

terry called me last night when he was on his way to his parents' house. it accentuated for me how quickly time seems to pass, yet how much can change. a year ago today, terry and i were in the car together, fighting traffic up I-95 and he was about to meet the whole crazy sidebottom clan. and even though it seems like yesterday, a lot has happened. terry is with his family in illinois and i'm here with my surrogate one in connecticut. and that's ok.

what a jerk

now this is the kind of study i'm TALKIN ABOUT! (via towleroad)

asjf;lksajdf;lkjsadlfk

al;skjf;lsakjfl;kasj;flksadjlfksda!

vincero!

this morning as i was getting ready (15 minutes later than usual because i allowed myself to be 15 minutes late to work. bosslady, if you're reading this, i'll stay fifteen minutes late. surriously.) i was flipping through my itunes, deciding what to listen to to pump me up for the day. most days i listen to morning edition, but somehow i really wasn't in the mood to hear about corrupt fucking dick cheney calling OTHER PEOPLE corrupt (give me a break) or girls and boys dying in iraq. or the aftereffects of hurricanes katrina and rita, or how dirty the potomac is. this morning i wanted music.

i thought about andrew bird, a good quiet, focusing album. no, i thought, i'm taking the train to connecticut tomorrow and need something i can listen to all the way through. better save it. i was running short on time, so i had to make a quick decision: aretha franklin it is.

before i knew what was happening, there i was in my apartment, standing in my towel, witnessing to the lord and to the power of aretha's voice. i've written a blog before about the fact that listening to aretha instantly turns me into a wannabe drag queen. no other artist has this power. when aretha's on the stereo i'm standing there beating on my chest like patti labelle. i made it through her classics, "i ain't never loved a man (the way that i love you)," "natural woman" (a personal drag favorite), and "respect." then, thanks to the miracle of itunes shuffle, one of aretha's more controversial covers: "nessun dorma" from turandot. i don't know the exact story behind this widely-reviled live recording, but what i've heard is that pavarotti pulled one of his extraordinarily-usual last-minute freakouts and she had to step into sing it.

it's sung half in awful italian (but she does valliantly roll all of her r's), half in english. it's terrible. it's something puccini never intended. and i. absolutely. love. it. love love. love it. love. it captures something in aretha's singing that's been lacking since the early 70's, when, in my opinion, she made the best albums of her career: an urgency, a vulnerability. it's not slick and smooth and polished. aretha's pushing the bounds of her musical ability; her italian is shaky. but she goes at it with such aplomb, fearless, unapologetically adding gospel-style melismas to the ends of phrases, breathing in the middle of words, just like her gospel upbringing taught her. by the time she goes for the final high note--it's a high b-natural in the original, but i'm sure this has been transposed down--i get chills every single time. it's not opera, mind you. it's a song that aretha has taken and made her own.

i've never met another singer that could stand aretha singing "nessun dorma." not a single one. amanda, hilary, everyone. they hate it. they don't just dislike it--they get angry when they hear it. they see it as a mockery and bastardization of puccini. i suppose this should tell me where my loyalties really lie, as opposed to those of most other classical singers. i'm a classical singer, yes, but first and foremost i'm a homo with a penchant for big black lady singers.

singers named laquonda.

the n word

after seeing falstaff at peabody on friday night, i went to brewer's art with hilary, cory, jessica, dan, john, and a good friend we'll call laquonda. it was a lot like the "old times" that andrea and i have been reminiscing about so much on the phone these days--fighting for spots on the worn out beige couches, drinking really strong, spicy homemade beer, and gossiping. i tried to explain to cory, who'd never been to brewer's before, that it wasn't always a haven for univeristy of baltimore law students and their slut girlfriends. i tried to explain that when we started going it was a bunch of indie rockers and queer kids. he wasn't buying it.

i'd love to say that we do more than gossip and badmouth, but i'd be lying. anytime you have to say "peabody curse!" and look around you to make sure that the person you're talking about isn't listening more than three times in a conversation, you're a gossip. (for those of you non-peabsters, the peabody curse is that, inevitably, whoever you're badmouthing will appear within 30 seconds. i'm not kidding. it happens all the time.)

the quote of the weekend, however, wasn't gossip or hearsay. it was provided by laquonda, as we had a conversation about elizabethtown, specificially the hotness of orlando bloom:

robert: yeah, he really is hot.
laquonda: i think he's the hottest man in hollywood right now.
robert: yeah?
laquonda: i'm telling you, girl, i think he's so hot that he could call me "dumb bitch n****r" and i would still be on my knees sucking his dick.
robert: -hand over mouth, trying to suppress an unladylike scream-
laquonda: he's so hot that he could say that and i'd be down there doing my job sayin' "oh, yes, massa! yes, massa!"

this, dear readers, is what separates my friends from all the other struggling singers out there: we are a bunch of sick fucks.

ink part the second

wiltzius, aka the cheese ambassador, got some hot-ass new ink this weekend. she's so hard-kore. for those of you who don't speak gaelic (idiots!), it means "suffer or tolerate and
be patient"

ratface

this morning i wore (out in public) the first creation from ashli's le rat line of clothing. sure, i've tried on many of her creations before: who could forget the strange white jacket-shirt that not only exacerbated the worst aspects of my body but was also made of the most unforgiving, constricting material i've ever seen? or the matching cropped pants/vest set, made from a similar shiny blue fabric and included a matching tie? i know that i certainly won't. some priceless, priceless pictures of me have been taken in those clothes, and then hopefully burned.

besides our "rock out with your bach out" t-shirts, which will be made as soon as american apparel puts our blank t-shirts into a pack on the side of a camel and entices it across the country by dangling a carrot in front of it (do camels eat carrots? do they have carrots in the desert? more importantly, do we have camels in america?), the other le rat creation i now own is a pair of black fingerless gloves. these are no ordinary fingerless gloves, mind you. they're fingerless gloves with skeleton appliques on the fingers. i only wish that my punk-rock knitting project, which is currently progressing at the rate of about 2 inches a week, were complete. then i'd be too hard-rock to even come to work. i'd have to just lay in an expensive hotel in a puddle of my own vomit.

so i wore the fingerless skeleton gloves to work today, because it is suddenly ten degrees in baltimore. sure, by the time i got to work the tips of my fingers were blue and starting to crack, but it's all worth it for fashion. ok, so maybe not fashion. but it's definitely worth it for le rat.

you're welcome, part the fourth

good morning.

hot-hairstyles

in attempting to find a new hairstyle, at emily's advice i googled "hot hair." i landed on a website called, no joke, hot-hairstyles.com. i clicked on "mens' hairstyes," only to find:

"Men's hairstyles are too easy!

Have you heard this one about men's hairstyles? A man walks into a hair salon and gets the same hair cut he's had since he was two. Sorry, ladies, this isn't a joke, but the funny part is that this is true and the man walks out as happy as when he walked in.

So, how come men can keep the same hairstyles for decades and not care? We're not sure, although it's probably a gene they have (just like the one that causes them to leave wet towels on the floor). Still, why do they get away both of these things while ladies don't?

Men's hairstyles aren't as sexy

Let's face it, when it comes to men's hairstyles they simply aren't as sexy. Women take the time and the effort pays off. Men's hairstyles could be bought at a discount store and they wouldn't care!

Well, we've compiled a list of reasons why men just don't care about their hairstyles. Then, to be fair, we've compiled a list of why men should care more about hairstyles! (please note, if you are male, these lists probably don't relate to you since you're actually interested in men's hairstyles enough to surf a website about it--but please, feel free to forward this on to your other male friends)."

apparently the creators of this webpage are sad-sack 44-year-old women living in eastern montana and have never known a faggot in their live-long lives. our hairstyles might not be as "sexy" as your ash-blonde, feathered, layered, permed, frizzhair that's tied at the base of your neck with a ribbon you found laying at the bottom of your sewing supply cabinet, but we're trying. so lay off us.

raging hard on

thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, queerty.com for the following quote:

"You couldn’t drag us into the Log Cabin if you told us Abe Lincoln was inside with a raging hard-on and that Mary Todd was there with a camcorder to capture his first gay sexual experience."

find the post here.

donald trump

robert: but i'm not having it
robert: i'm switzerland
robert: because in the end i am on MY side. goddamn this is like the apprentice
hilary: hahahahah
robert: the apprentice: johns hopkins
hilary: hahaha

i just realized that this post makes hilary look like the ed mcmahon to my johnny carson. hahaha.

a slow news day?

"ok, so we need to think of things for you guys to do while i'm out next week," my boss told me this morning when she came in. i looked at her blankly. if my boss is out we can't do a single study visit. now that the study's up and running, now that all the kids are in, all there really is to do is study visits and sample-shipping. (you know, shipping things like bags of air or vials of frozen piss.) if there aren't any visits there aren't any samples. on those days i blog. ok, so every day i blog. but on those days i blog a lot.

i had this moment where i thought, as i've been thinking a lot lately, i hope that my boss doesn't think that i'm totally superfluous. it's not going to happen; my boss is someone who looks out for her staff. if you see a post in two months that's me crying onto the keyboard because i've been fired, please disregard that last statement.

in other news, i'm having a hard time figuring out what this week's column is going to be about. it's not that life is perfect (is it ever?) or that there aren't plenty of things rolling around in my head. it's just that i don't know if some of those things are ready for semi-mass-media. it's always been a strange line, this backing away from the personal life, soft-pedaling what i'll let readers see. when i started this blog, as those of you reading from the beginning will remember, it was just my organs and blood and guts on the table. but back then, that was how i felt, how i was all the time. nowadays i've sewn myself back up, and i'm not quite as willing to reopen that hurt and self-doubt.

but it makes for much better columns.

her madge-esty

i don't care if you're gay or straight, boy or girl, top or bottom. go buy the new madonna cd. now. hell, i don't even care if you like madonna otherwise, this might happen.

OLD. I AM OLD.

i discovered via friendster today that two of my high school friends now have babies. oh. my. god. my orchestra dork friends have started to spawn.

truth, part the third

kel: ANNNNNDDDD, thats why i love ya
robert: haha
robert: cuz i am, deep down, a filthy mother fucker
kel: deep down? shit bitch, thats right onthe surface
robert: true

shalom

the real reason my sister converted to judaism? it's the mens.

HUT yoga

ha ha, i thought to myself yesterday, hot yoga. how hard can it actually be? i mean, i stretch out every morning and then after the gym every day. it'll suck because it's a little warm in there, but i've sweated before. i know what that's like.

dearest readers, oh, dear readers, let me tell you. i have never come so close dying in my life. well, that's not exactly true. there have been plenty of times i've been walking around by myself in baltimore that i thought i was going to die. let's say i have never come so close to paying fourteen dollars to stretch and sweat myself to death.

hilary and i walked up the stairs to the midtown yoga studio, chortling at each other's little witticisms, opened the door, and were met by a blast of warmth. this isn't so bad, i thought. really it was just like an overheated apartment--and it was a little brisk outside so the warmth felt really good. we gave our money to the friendly, obviously yoga'd-out girl working behind the counter, took off our sweatshirts and shoes, put them in their little gray cubbies. since i'm constantly on the lookout for my future husband--something that hilary and i have in common, though she'd never admit it--i immediately noticed a cute guy, dark, tall, obviously fucking 22 years old. hilary made some joke within earshot of him; he smiled. ding.

hilary opened the door to the yoga studio proper and i wasn't prepared for the wave of heat that wafted out of the room. oh. fuck. i'm not kidding you when i say that this room was heated to feel like a hot summer day in baltimore. it smelled better, but still. we laid our mats down toward the front of the room and laid down. i started sweating. laying there. for fifteen minutes before the class started. by the time class started, and we started pretzeling ourselves into what would become the "easy" downward-facing dog, i was already dripping sweat off my nose. "i didn't know my hair could sweat," i told hilary.

30 minutes into the class i was contemplating several options:

1. die
2. allow myself to vomit, trying desperately to get out of the room, navigating through the winding path of space between other masochistic yogis' mats, before i blew chunks everywhere. that's right, i said blow chunks.
3. try to find a comfortable position in which to rest, because neither laying down or sitting down made me feel any better
4. drink some water and continue with my yogic breathing

so i chose option 1. ok, not really. i chose option 4. luckily the yoga instructor eased up on us about 45 minutes into the workout. she was a nice lady, i have to admit, smiling at me as i tried to do these ridiculous poses--headstands and some thing where i was supposed to fold my legs under me then lean my knees onto one elbow and support myself on one arm. i go to the gym, people. i'm not (extremely) weak. but this was just laughable. of course it didn't help that i was sweating so much that my hands and feet were sliding around the mat like i was lube wrestling at grand central station.

by the end of the routine, though, i'd already decided to go back. for an hour and a half i had no choice but to concentrate on my body, my breathing, my sweating. and, as those of you who know me or have fought with me recently can attest, me letting myself out of my hundred-mile-an-hour mind is no easy task.

"we're just high strung people," hilary said on the way home.

"yeah. you think?" i said.

dig it

for hilary. ok, so it's for all of us.

new slogan

george: Balitmore
robert: haha
Noiler: the city that spells

and

george: do i really want a high powered ruthless corporate lawyer for a husband?
robert: yes
robert: yes you do
Noiler: why yes. yes i do.

the skier

i'm doing hot yoga with hilary tonight. that's right, HUT YOGA. three years after a trend hits LA and new york it hits baltimore. so we're going. hilary loves it; i haven't done yoga in years. cory was like, "are you flexible?" and i said, "well, i stretch out every morning..." we'll see just how successful this whole yoga-while-sweating business is. reports tomorrow.

about hut yoga:

robert: so if i feel too poopy by 630 i can't push myself
hilary: ya..wear a wife beater and shorts or pants
robert: because it's hot yoga.
robert: what if i just wear some panties
hilary: ok..although you do get energized as you do it
hilary: panties will work
hilary: that's what i wear
robert: you mean they pass out crack
hilary: yes
hilary: you do bong hits
hilary: before
robert: or put lines of coke under your nose while you're sweating and doing poses
hilary: hahahahah
hilary: yes
robert: or they have mirrors attached to the end of the mats
robert: and one of the goals is to bend over far enough to do a bump
hilary: yes..that's called "the skier"
robert: ah yes, a pose i know well
hilary: hahah

scccchmick's

some days even i have to admit that my job totally rocks. ok, so it's not like i'm singing for a living or even doing anything that remotely uses the degree(s) i have. and even my boss knows that if i was offered a job in music tomorrow that i'd quit this job and never look back. does she know that? i think so...that was kind of what she told me after she saw my recital.

why does my job rock today, you ask? because at 1145 the whole study staff is off to a free lunch at mccormick and schmick's. that's right, fancy fancy. i momentarily thought about dressing up again today but then came to my senses. at 8:10 when i looked around my room and realized that i'd have to iron something, tie a tie, then be on the shuttle in 20 minutes i decided my good ol' standby gray sweater would have to do. i've never been to mccormick and sccccccchhhhhmick's. if i could afford to eat there i'd probably choose to eat somewhere else--charleston, say, or petit louie. but when the big head doctor's pickin' up the bill? i'll have the lobster.

i thought i'd share with you something i have to do before we leave for lunch: fill bags with air and ship them to tucson. no one in the office believes me when i tell them that that's seriously exactly what i have to do. ship bags of air, via fedex, across the country. it involves hooking this crazy sciencebag (and i'm not talking about t-dog) up to a gas tank, filling it with air while i count to three, then sealing it off. i have to write the tank number, the date i collected it, the serial number, all of this bidness. then i start to flush the gas line thusly: open valve one, open valve two, count to three. close valve one, close valve two. open valve one, open valve two, count to three. close valve one, close valve two. repeat repeat repeat. repeat. and repeat. it's the most ridiculous thing. then i come upstairs and put these plastic bags of air in a big box and ship it--very expensively overnight--to tucson, where i don't know what happens to it. either they evaluate the air samples or suck out the nitric oxide and get high or entertain each other with their funny voices. yes, scientists, i know that nitric oxide is different than nitrus (if i've even spelled that right). it's a joke.

so off i go, to fill bags with air. then to fill my stomach with some free lobster.

shirtless, shiftless

what do i do when it's a slow day at the office? besides talk on instant messenger and blog, i mean. that's right, i cruise myspace and friendster. i go through all my friends' pages to see their new pictures, go through their friends, clicking on all the pictures of shirtless men, and waste a few hours. did i say hours? i mean minutes. (phew, have to make sure i'm not gonna get fired if my boss reads this.) i mean seconds. that's it, i don't go to friendster at all. never. friendster? what's that?

anyway, i got to thinking about the pictures and profiles that people put up on friendster; how they choose to represent themselves. also the difference between myspace and friendster. for some reason i haven't put up any really goofy pictures on friendster. you know, any pictures in which i look tremendously ugly. and, as you know from my photo album, those exist. on myspace, though, i've put up several silly ones. me fake-playing the drums, for instance.

what are people thinking when they put a shirtless picture--or, gasp, a NAKED picture as i've seen a few times--up on friendster? do they get a lot of random emails? are these random emails from hot people? these questions remain unanswered. i guess it's time to get out the digital camera. oh, who am i kidding? i'm a faggot. i have shirtless pictures of myself.

the district

i went to dc on saturday with cory because i wanted to go shopping in georgetown and he wanted to go sightseeing. i've seen the monuments before (and was pretty bored even then), so trying to act excited--or at least not unexcited compared to cory's hand-clapping enthusiasm--to see the washington monument again wasn't easy. my mother called me before nine o'clock on saturday morning, after i'd gone out with kel on friday night and stayed up til after 2. you know the too-early-hungover-saturday-morning feeling? where you know something's happening and you try to peel just one eye open and your mouth tastes really bad even though you brushed your teeth, flossed, and drunkenly used mouthwash the night before? yeah. that was my saturday morning.

i answered the phone like this: "mother, it is before 9am on a saturday morning. my only day off." i think i dropped the f-bomb, too. i'm such a good son. after talking to my mom at such a delectably early hour, going back to sleep wasn't an option. so i stayed up, tired, hungover, until we left for dc. i was such a bitch all day long. those of you who know me know that it's just no fun to be with me at such times.

the day in dc turned out to be really fun, though. i got a new sweater, tried on 12329839 pairs of jeans, none of which i bought and all of which caused me to have a temper tantrum, had a good, cheap lunch, and saw some big rocks in the shape of dead presidents.

photographs here.

dirty laaaaaaaaaaoundreh

for richer or poorer, for better or worse, a new dirty laundry came out in today's baltimore gay life. it's called...

Fern.
by Robert


"I went out on a date," Adam said during one of his weekly telephone calls. We'd broken up, he'd moved away, yet we still talked on the phone at least once a week. Adam would call to tell me that something funny was on television or to ask computer advice. I'd sometimes call just to hear his voice again. "Are you there?" he asked. "Yeah, of course," I said, my eyes darting around the room and finally landing, glazed, on the window. I brought my hand to my forehead, a habit I'd seemed to have picked up since Adam left, and rubbed my temple. "So you went on a date. That's great."

"Yeah," he said, "his name's Fern. He's really nice. You can see a picture of him on my webpage. I posted one."

My first reaction wasn't what Adam wanted to hear, I'm sure, but I couldn't help myself. "Fern?" I asked. "And this is a guy?" Give me a break, I could hear Adam thinking.

"Of course it's a guy," he said.

"Oh, right. Of course," I said. "You know, that's my grandma's name. Fern."

"He's a nice guy so far," Adam said, plowing ahead. "We had a good time. I think that we're going to go out again."

"Good," I said, trying to make it sound as final as possible. "Good." Period. That's where the conversation ends. "Good." What did he expect me to say? "Oh, that's wonderful, Adam. Gosh, I'm happy that you've moved on. I hope that you guys have totally incredible sex. What's that you say? He's hung like a bear? And he makes 100k a year? Wow. Congrats." Instead, I gritted my teeth and stared out the window, waiting for this bit of the conversation to end, waiting until I didn't have to hold my tongue or pretend like I was cool with everything. Waiting until we were back on level ground, back to safe topics: work, friends, the apartment.

After I hung up the phone I went to Adam's webpage. There they were together. Happy. And Fern looked like a really nice guy, the kind who's effortlessly good-looking but not prepossessed. He probably wakes up in the morning and runs his fingers through his hair, barely glancing in the mirror, completely sure of his good looks but not distracted by them. Fern looked really likable, and for this I had no choice but to hate him.

Why was this bothering me, after all of these months? Then again, why did Adam feel like it was acceptable to tell me about his love life? I had to wonder: is it ever possible for exes to actually be friends?

It seems like a very Queer as Folk-hippie-lesbian concept to me, being friends with an ex. I've never done it successfully, though Adam and I have come the closest. There's always a different dynamic—Is it competition? Blame?—between two people who have dated. No matter how long it's been since you broke up or how many relationships you've been in since, the fact is that one of you dumped the other.

When you date someone, they see a side of you that you don't let anyone else see. I don't just mean that they see you at your most vulnerable--after sex, or in the bathroom, or just waking up in the morning--but they know the real you. Even though you break up, that person is still someone who knows you for what you are. Even after you've moved on, that intimacy is still there. It's not easy to switch from romantic to platonic love, and although hearing "I went out on a date with someone else" seems like it should make it easier, it doesn't.

So is it possible to be friends with an ex, to achieve the same kind of friendship you'd have had if you didn't date? Or will there always be that spark of emotion, no matter how many months or years or other boyfriends pass?

It's a strange experiment, seeing if two guys who used to love each other can actually be friends again. But if anyone's worth the effort, Adam is. I just better not have to be his best man when he marries Fern.

uh-oh

i just had to deal with the most difficult patient. talking to him was literally like talking to a brick wall; getting him to go to different treatment rooms was like dragging around a 150-pound sack of wet, angry potatoes. i didn't know what the deal was--i tried my usual difficult-kid schtick: goofy, amiable, whatever. he wasn't having it. it was as if he was doing me a big fucking favor just being there (mind you, 30 minutes late of course), and he certainly wasn't going to make my life any easier.

i just talked about it to my coworker who said, "well maybe he just doesn't like gay guys." i was taken aback. "what?" i asked. "well when i went in there i asked if he was tired, and he said no. and then i said, 'what? do you just not like gay guys?' and that was it."

so, great. that's just great. of course it's already in the back of my mind that i'm the only fucking faggot around this whole goddamned place. now i've got my coworker telling me that my patients just don't like gay guys. as if in this day and age it's acceptable to "just not like gay guys." like it's no big deal. she told me that it's just a fact of life, that it's something that i should just accept and forget about. but i won't. it fucking pisses me off. here i am, busting my ass in the clinic, doing this job, and i'm supposed to just accept that FUCKING CHILDREN get to treat me like shit because they don't like faggots.

well, i'm sorry, kids. i fucking grew up in okla-fucking-homa. i got the fuck out and i'm not about to start accepting homophobia now.

sorry.

what comes between you and your fake bvd's

i wanted to post two quick little things before i spent the day, literally, in the clinic. sometimes things occur to me, when i'm sitting around the house (ok, so sitting around the house wasted) and i think to myself, oh my god i have to put that on the blog. and then i pass out. well, i think i pass out. i certainly black out, so there's no telling what happens. i wake up bruised to find three immigrant workers laying in bed next to me, so...

anyway, i had a very nice, quiet night to myself. i snuggled up on the couch under an afghan (the blanket kind, not like osama) and watched some queer as folk, which i'm still watching obsessively but am nearly done with. i picked up my knitting (i've been jokingly calling it punk rock knitting, but who am i kidding? it's knitting.) and then it hit me:

I AM SUCH A HOMO.

i'm sitting here on a couch under an afghan knitting and watching queer as folk until the apprentice: martha stewart comes on television. oh. my. god.

that's one.

this morning i was watching the today show and matt lauer (who's on his where on earth could matt lauer possibly be tour and is currently in shanghai) was interviewing a guy who's an expert on chinese consumerism. the guy was explaining why victoria's secret, or vicki c's, as hilary and i call it, was a failure in china. "well, the chinese are all about showing off," he said. "when it comes to things they can show off, they'll spend lots of money. but when it comes to things no one's going to see, they're very very cheap." he actually said the word cheap. "so, you can imagine, when it comes to something as private as underwear, they're not going to spend a lot of money."

i thought, where is george when i need him!? i always give george shit for being "a bigger jew than i am," because he's literally among the cheapest people i've ever met. i love you, george, but seriously. now i know, thanks to matt lauer, that it's cultural. george can't help that his people wear cheap underwear.

mastery of the english language

hilary: ah!
hilary: some guy in the lab
hilary: just said
hilary: "nice haircut. You look a lot prettier"
hilary: HAHAH
robert: WHAT!?
hilary: HAHAHHHH
robert: ASSHOLES!
hilary: i was like
hilary: uhhhh
robert: hahahahaha
hilary: well he's foriegn
hilary: hahhah
robert: ah, of course.
hilary: hahahahaha
hilary: i think it's hilarious
robert: it's hilaryarious
hilary: you're disGUSTIng!
hilary: oooo and your nasty!
hilary: you're
hilary: rather
robert: you make me feel so nasty
robert: no no
robert: it's MY nasty
hilary: hhahahahahaha

marsales

in response to "indian summer," terry just wrote me an email:

"i never would have proved you wrong on this one - i've never heard the term. i grew up with the term jewish winter - you get a glimpse of winter with the first frost and all, then it's "jewed" away from you."

and the sad thing, folks? he was totally making it up. damn that dry sense of humor; it tricked me again. i wouldn't put anything past those folks in marseilles.

harm city

terry sent me this little newssnippet today, about our dear charm city looking for an image makeover. the article states,

"The perception of Baltimore is "The Wire," "The Corner," "Homicide (Life on the Street)" ... a hopeless, depressed, unemployed, crack-addicted city," the report states."

ding.

indian EAT IT

listen, everybody. i don't care what indian summer means. and let's be honest. the only reason i don't care what it means is that i was wrong about what it means.

i had arguments with both cory and george about the exact definition of indian summer--they were both right and i was absolutely wrong. but you know me---i don't really like to admit that i'm wrong. that i don't know what i'm talking about. which i usually don't. so cory's over for dinner last night and, while i'm making us a delicious gourmet meal, goes to wikipedia.com and looks up the definition of "indian summer." he reads it. i deliver my classic line (you'll remember this well, terry.): "great. well that's great. thank you so much for proving me wrong. i'm wrong. congratulations."

i'm such a cunt.

i just went to george's blog, where he'd actually written a blog about indian summer, and wrote:

"By the way Robert, check out the wiki-pedia definition of Indian Summer. (We had a little discussion on what it means exactly.)"

please, please notice the LINK that he provided to the wikipedia definition of "indian summer." just in case i didn't believe him and had to go see it for myself.

well that's great. thank you so much for proving me wrong. i'm wrong. congratulations.

don't scratch it

part of the study i'm doing involves skin testing participants to see what they're allergic to. in order to do this, i have to be "certified" to do it--meaning i have to do some practice skintests on people to make sure that i'm not going to totally fuck things up. i know it sounds like it might be easy, and it is. yet i keep failing the certification. and every time i try to redo it, it involves sticking myself with histamine--something that makes everyone itch whether they're allergic or not--and recording the results.

that's right, i've had to stick myself with itchy stuff twice now. and it better be the last time. it's 15 minutes of pure, unadulterated torture: imagine four bites from mosquitos-on-steroids. mosquitos like they had in the jurassic period, or in the mesosoic period, or...i don't know. i'm not a dinosaur specialist. what are those people called? i tried spell paleintologist now and decided i don't know. the point is, the bumps itch like hell. and you're not allowed to scratch them, lest you spread the histamine. or get it under your fingernails and then rub your eyes.

so i've just sprayed myself down with benedryl AGAIN and am going to go measure my results. it better work. oh, science.

m'lynn

i've just spent the last ten minutes pissing my pants with laughter. my friend scott has teamed up with three of his bitch-ass friends in nyc and started a new blog. it reminds me of pink but isn't so...vh1-ish. and it's a whole lot bitchier.

and, it's called

READ YOUR BLOG, SHELBY.

bitches better not be funnier than me, that's all i have to say.

encouragement

remember that thing in the last post (scroll down) where i said that one of the first things i do in the morning is talk to hilary on IM? yeah, well, it's true. first, here's a funny exchange we just had:

hilary: gah!
robert: what baby
hilary: runing to tell people they have phone calls
hilary: i'm like
robert: get their intercom #'s!
hilary: hellooooo! i'm trying to listen to Wilco
hilary: and IM

it's so true.

also, we have this bach gig coming up on sunday. (shameless plug: st david's of roland park, roland ave, in baltimore, at 6pm.) we're singing the coffee cantata and it's, um, extremely fucking difficult. like absurdly difficult. george lam-ly difficult, but in a very different way. it's two arias a piece with recits between each one. and since i had a recital last week i've had about 6 days to learn it before yesterday's rehearsal with the orchestra. right.

so of course i was nervous. the rehearsal actually went pretty smoothly and i got most of my notes. most of, that is. hilary just told me, though, that my coloratura sounded really good. mind you, she's a coloratura soprano, one of the best i've ever heard in real life (and i'm not just kissing ass because she's my friend), so it's nice to have that lil' pat on the back. yay.

a new beginning

something about waiting in the shuttle line turns me into a complete asshole. i know, i know, there are those of you out there thinking but robert, you're a complete asshole all the time. how can you tell? well, dear readers who are thinking that, fuck you. see? i'm an asshole. but seriously, something chemical happens in my brain as soon as i step out the door and look down the street to see a shuttle line stretching around the corner. like an x-man or superman or something else out of another comic book i don't read, i morph into a complete and utter cocksucking motherfucking asshole.

by the time i've actually gotten onto the shuttle there's practically steam coming out of my ears. i blow past cracketta, the woman whose driving it's always exciting to survive, and am then smushed between an asian girl chattering on her cellphone and a school of public health student that keeps hitting me with his publichealth reading material.

as soon as i get to my office, however, the episode's over. i sit down to my desk, say hello to my usually-chirpy boss, and begin to blog. then i say hello to hilary and order the taxicabs for the day. i take another sip of my coffee and answer the phone: "good morning, childrens' asthma studies."

and another day begins.

massachusetts

good morning, dear readers!

find out the truth about gay marriage here. (via towleroad and crooks and liars)

myspace sluts

i just got a message on myspace that i thought was spam. judging by the slutty-looking little lady whose picture is attached to it, it very well might be. but what bizarrely-detailed spam:

"Hi there, my name is Jen. You don't know me (yet) but I hope to change that in the very near future :) I recently moved to Baltimore and I thought this would be a great way to meet new people. Outside of my work and my neighbor I don't know anyone around here. I've done a couple of touristy things but I haven't really been "out" yet and I'm hoping joining here will change that. So tell me more about yourself? What brings you to world of online personals? To be honest I liked your ad and thought your pic was cute and according to the site we live pretty close by each other. We should meet up for coffee or cocktails, it'd give us a chance to really get to know each other. LOL, sorry I have a tendency to ramble on sometimes, tell you what if you're interested just drop me a line and we can get the ball rolling. I rarely have time to check this mail but you can always get a message to me at [legalities]@hotmail.com I hope to hear from you soon.
Jen"

apparently "jen" didn't read my profile very closely. you know, that bit where it says that I LIKE DUDES.

oh, george.

george: i did little yesterday. but i upgraded my computer a WHOLE LOT
robert: nice! how
robert: did you get a powerbook
george: my friend paul just got the new G5, so he gave me all his hardware
george: i now have 1.25 gigs of RAM, maybe like 340 gigs of combined space in three harddrives, and a new video card
george: and everything seems to be working
robert: whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat
robert: i HATE YOU
george: you know what this means
robert: the cray supercomputer of porn
george: yes
robert: perfect
george: i can now even make porn and score music to it
george: (he gave me cakewalk too)
robert: you know what that's called. bread and butter.
george: HA HA
george: bread-cum-butter
george: ew, cum-butter

shining

consider this my monday morning present to you. (ok so it's actually cory that found it.)

dork alert

i spent 30 minutes today playing with GOOGLE MAPS. that's right, these things happen when you're forced to sit at a desk for 8 hours a day and you don't always have a lot of things to do. and by "don't always" i mean "never." the specific game i was playing with google maps is something i like to call "where does this road go?" ok, so i don't really call it that because you, dear readers, are the first people i've ever said it to. yet i digress.

"where does this road go?" consists of me starting a location in baltimore on google maps and scrolling along a certain road until it ends. apparently, york road ends somewhere north of york, after it turns into the "susquehanna trail." falls road turns into a dirt road somewhere around gunpowder falls state park. very interesting. not.

i used to always tell terry that someday i wanted to get on the york road down near our neighborhood, where it's called greenmount ave and even though michael would frown on me for saying this i refuse to get out of the car. then i'd keep driving north, past the senator, past towson, then into pennsylvania.

"i wonder if the york road goes to york," i'd always tell terry. he'd just give me a look, like, a), why do you care and b) i'm sure as heck not gonna be there in the car when you find out and c) of course it does. he's coming back in december. i'll gas up the car and tempt him into it with promises of panera bread or chipotle. he'll wonder why we drive right by them, as i maniacally steer the car into pennsylvania.

but seriously, folks. i'm not really sure how to write about the NIN show last night without sounding like a gushing 15 year old girl with orange-dyed manic panic hair and jnco's. is that how you spell jnco's? like the really baggy pants that girls with orange-dyed manic panic hair wear? who cares because the NIN show was completely amazing.

everything about it--the light show, the set, the projections they showed in the middle of the set, the videos themselves (that interspersed horrific scenes of war, starvation, and murder with tableaus of happy, smiling white people--AND george fucking w. himself slow dancing with his idiot wife). the band sounded amazing, really full and heavy but not so loud that it was distorted. trent reznor sounded exactly like he does on his recordings, but it was obvious that he wasn't pulling a britney spears because he switched things up enough.

hilary and i (michael was a little less vocal about it) left the venue with the same reaction: goddammit trent reznor is sexy in person. like, sure, he's a sexy guy on video and all, so brooding. but in concert he just OOZES sex. he's an amazing performer--he's all over the fucking stage, sometimes literally skipping around. (i take this opportunity to interject: when he sang the lyric "26 years on my way to hell," i turned to michael and said "26 plus 11 maybe.") what's so sexy about trent reznor is that while he's playing alpha male, screaming "i want to fuck you like an animal," or "don't you fucking know what you are?" there's also this hint of vulnerability. the way he uses falsetto or lets his voice break--it seems to hint at i don't know who's going to fuck who here but someone's going to get fucked. let me see if i can put that in some not-quite-so-homo-language.

no, i can't.

bottom line: much like beth ditto from the gossip, trent reznor makes me wish that i was a rock star. he makes me wish that i could get up in front of that many people and fuck with gender and sexuality and filth and anger. and make literally millions of dollars doing it.

the truth

dear mom, dad, robin, and any straight girls or ex-boyfriends:

don't click on this link.

dirty pics

the rest of the halloween pictures are now, finally, posted.

yeehaw

how did i miss this?

seriously we're best friends (again)

oh, my (i'm lying) best friend anna ditkoff, you're so funny.

"Between sets, our hosts did a tutorial on tipping drag performers. It’s a skill that drag queen fans have down. You can’t do much of anything in a gay bar without someone handing you a dollar, but king fans are still learning."

read the article here.

nine inches

i'm going to see nine inch nails tonight. yes. the object of my 15-year-old lust, the man who proved to me that you could wear burgundy lace-up leather pants and fishnets and still kick ass, the man whose music has provided an outlet for my anger and frustration for the last ten years, the first singer that i ever heard fuck with gender and sexuality on a record album, is in washington dc. and i'm going to see him.

i'm trying to convince michael and hilary that they need to wear all-black outfits. i'd like to see hilary in her shiny black halloween wig and maybe some thigh-high boots; michael always wears all black anyway, so that's an easy battle. hilary's refused. this morning i realized that i don't wear that much black, nor do i own anything that could even be mistaken for "goth." so i'll wear my sleater-kinney t-shirt, the old standby.

in the shower this morning i thought to myself, i wonder what the crowd is going to be like at this show. is it going to be a bunch of 15 year olds? is it going to be people like me, people who've been around since downward spiral or even before? will there be 35-year-olds there, rocking out and reliving their college years? i hope so.

it's going to be the first mainly straight show i've been to in quite a while. thinking back on all of the shows i've been to recently, namely s-k and tori amos, i'm almost always surrounded by all queer people. sure, there are 16 year old boys that go to a tori show, but they're not the kind that'll kick a faggot's ass. they're the kind that wear eyeshadow and tori amos necklaces over their tori amos t-shirts (trust me, i speak from experience on that one. don't ask for pictures.). i imagine the crowd at a nin show is going to be more like the crowd at a kid rock concert. luckily, i'll have hilary and michael with me. and they can kick some ASS.

shh, kids,

daddy's really hungover. i need you to blow into the machine really quietly today. how many days of symptoms have you had? god, you don't need to yell, i'm sitting right here. i'm sorry, what was that? you see, my temples are pounding and i think that i can actually see my pulse in my eyeballs. i don't know if that's medically possible, you little smart ass. i'm not a doctor.

a million amazing pictures posted here. and more to follow.