before we start packing the truck...

A Farewell to Arms

I’m leaving Baltimore this weekend. I don’t mean that I’m going to the mall or spending the weekend in Philly. I mean that I’m leaving leaving. And because I spend so much time defending Baltimore—it has so much potential, and I’ve met so many wonderful people and had so many opportunities here—I can’t help but feel like I’m running out on it.

Every time I tell someone that I’m moving they say one of two things to me, if not both: “Congratulations!” or “You’re so lucky to be getting out.” Every time I’m met with these reactions I find myself responding, “But you know, I really like Baltimore.” I keep defending my city to her residents, assuring them—just as John Waters and Mayor O’Malley and all those contractors building multi-million-dollar condos do—that Baltimore is a great place to live. And I truly believe it. Baltimore hasn’t been taken over by the Us magazine trust fund set. It’s easy to find a scene you like, easy to get into the best clubs. It’s easy to know the right people, to make connections, to make friends. That’s something that Baltimore, even if it is a down-at-the-heels, blue-collar city, has going for it. It’s not New York or L.A., and that’s why I like it. Baltimore’s real.

On the other hand, Baltimore’s real. Real as in a murder a day, as in I don’t feel safe walking around my own neighborhood after 11. For all the reasons I like Baltimore, for all my friends and my neighborhood and the pride I feel knowing that Baltimore’s making a comeback faster than anyone expected, I can’t stick around waiting for its rebirth. I have no doubt that in fifteen years Baltimore’s going to be a wonderful place to live; not just in Mt. Vernon or that four-block-wide strip of land that flanks Charles Street, but everywhere. In fifteen years, Baltimore City’s going to be a bustling metropolis and people won’t say “Why?” when you tell them you live there. But in fifteen years I’ll be 41. And so I feel like I’m jumping ship just when things are starting to get good: like I was one of the people who were helping bring Baltimore back to life and now I’m just one of the people who used it as a stepping stone to get somewhere else.
As I get closer to leaving, it gets harder to remember why I’m going. It’s the same as a relationship, I guess: when you’re in a bad relationship all you can think about are fights and blame and worry; when you’re out of it all you can remember are happy Sunday mornings at the farmer’s market. Suddenly, I see Baltimore through the rose-colored lens of someone who’s “getting out.”

I’m hardly the first of my friends to leave the fold: there was a mass exodus at the end of last summer that left just a few of us here. As people left for Chicago, San Francisco, Alabama, or Minnesota, my friend Andrea kept saying that it was “the end of an era.” Every time she said it, we’d all break down like sniveling idiots, bemoaning the end of our grad school career, the end of things as we knew them. I was certain at the time that our happiness could never be replicated—that the friends I’d made could never be replaced; that things would never be quite as good again. Then, true to form, life went on. I made new friends, forged new relationships. And they didn’t replace the old, they just moved in next to them.

So I have faith, I guess, that I can do this again. It’s the end of an era, another one. It’s the end of my life in Baltimore and the beginning of my life in New York; I’m excited and nervous and scared. And I’m ready.

cap yo ass

i just did what i do every week since i started this job: read this section of the citypaper online. and, while reading it, i thought to myself i don't have to worry about this any more. i'm going to miss a lot of things about baltimore, but crime ain't one of them.

all she wrote

apparently some people at work (namely the head of the floor) thought that yesterday was my last day. when, in fact, today is my last day. it made for a strange little meeting this morning, as i turned around to hear "what are you doing here!?" i was like, well, doctor, it's my last day here. actually what i said was, "oh, i'm not really leaving. thanks for the luncheon! oh, and the money. thanks!"

last night some of us office girls went out for a final after-work happy hour. i could tell that everyone was tired and totally not into it before we left, but my coworkers are troopers: we started drinking at slainte (pronounced slange-uh, apparently, because gaelic is a totally weird language. sorry, sinead!) around 530 and ended up rolling outta there at 930. i ate, um, let's see: fries, hot wings, a reuben sandwich, two gin and tonics, and five beers. yeah. phong met up with us, so my coworkers got to meet him. and, true to form, when the bill came they refused to let me pay a dime, even though i tried.

was it just a little difficult to pack up my kitchen when we got home at 10pm (drunk)? did i wake up at 230 and spend a good portion of the night in the bathroom because, apparently, crohns doesn't like two gin and tonics, five beers, and lots of spicy food? no bother. it was worth it.

arcos is tacos spelled backwards

my going away luncheon at work is today. it's very surreal knowing that, after going to luncheon after luncheon, this one is for me. because i am, finally, going away. at these things i usually tend to try not to be the center of attention (even when we're drinking). and, those of you who know me know that i usually love to be the center of attention. but at work it's different. today, though, i'm all up in the limelight. this is my luncheon. and i'm probably going to have to give some sort of speech. and i'm going to try not to cry. seriously. we're going to arcos, a great mexican restaurant in fell's point. and hopefully we're going to have a margarita or seven. then maybe, just maybe, some of us will go out for happy hour after work. which means, obviously, that i'll be skipping the gym again, even though i'm in full-power moving-to-new-york-must-have-six-pack mode. hilary: "why does it matter that you go to the gym so much before you move? it's not like you're going to be walking around with your shirt off right after we move there." me: "oh. um, right. i don't know. shh."

in other news, i have my first job interview on monday at two pm. i've sent out probably two hundred resumes. and i've gotten one job interview. oh, there was the lady who called and then proceeded to tell me that "there was no flexibility in the schedule and they offered no comp time." that didn't go very far. so i'm interviewing for an office assistant job at mannes school of music. maybe, just maybe, they'll hire me to answer their phones since they wouldn't let me into their masters program. keep your fingers crossed.

it's insane to think about: today is wednesday. on monday i will have moved into a new apartment in a new city and be on my way to a job interview.

i need a drink. preferably a margarita.

una furtiva...do you want that with meatballs?

my mother's a tricky one. tricky yet undyingly helpful. the subject of the email is "singing in new york with janet [last name suppressed so she can't google this entry]." the body of the email?

"Robert,
Janet has been waiting for you to move to NYC so you can sing at her restaurant with her. I gave her your cell number, and she'll be calling. They sing opera, but I know no details. I wanted to warn you so that if you miss her call you'll call back. She's very interested in helping you when you get there. At least talk to her once."

so my first singing gig in new york could be as a singing waiter. and you know what? i have no pride. i'll do it. i just hope they don't expect their food to be hot or served well.

countdown to new york: four days

it may be strange, and it may just be me overanalyzing everything (as always), but i decided last night while packing (and talking to terry about his hysterical trip to brazil) that wednesday night would be the night that i pack up my kitchen. that'll be the last night i have to cook before the move because phong has generously offered to take me to pazo for a "birthday dinner" even though my birthday isn't until saturday. i just imagined him driving us straight into highlandtown and parking his car, and then me saying "i thought we were going to pazo." and then phong would say, "oh, pazo? i thought you said pazal, this cheap, greasy greek restaurant!" not that there's anywhere named that. c'mon, cut me some slack here; i took a muscle relaxer last night to help me sleep. and damn, did i sleep.

anyway, i'll be packing up my kitchen wednesday night, and there's something that seems very final about it. like i can pack up all the useless shit i keep strewn around the apartment (sadly, my apartment hasn't looked this clean in months and it's got boxes everywhere), but once i pack up the kitchen, since i love to cook and feed people, it's like, that's it. you're actually going. maybe i'm being ridiculous; maybe george is the only person that's going to relate to this. or, maybe not even him. maybe i'm the only big enough dork to care.

so terry regaled me last night with stories of his trip to brazil. apparently they went to some bar called "le boy" every night they were there. every time he'd say "le boy" i'd find myself repeating the words "le boy" back to him in a ridiculous french accent. it was like i couldn't help myself. something about "le boy" is so ridiculous to me that it has to be spoken in a funny accent. yep, i'm losing my hair and my mind.

countdown to new york: five days

today is monday. on friday i pack up my apartment and hilary's apartment and put it all into a budget truck (assuming that, unlike uhaul, they actually have a truck for us when we drive out to highlandtown to pick it up.), which we'll park in ridgely's delight, tightly padlocked, and then sleep at phong's house. and then saturday morning we'll have some coffee, have a shower, put on our sweats and jeans and tennis shoes, and drive off to become residents of the empire state.

things are all under control, i feel like. granted, i don't have a job yet, nor have i had a single interview. whatever, i'll temp. and i have a couple months' rent handled. i'm packing my apartment little by little, avoiding a scene like i experienced when i moved from 1010 to the waterloo (i won't tell the whole story, but imagine john artz and his huuuusband coming into my apartment to find a huge bonfire-looking pile of shit in the middle of the room and my many belongings stuffed into blue plastic grocery store bags. yep, let's try not to pull that one again.). i've set little goals for myself--pack books, pack the kitchen, call in a refill of pentasa--and am trying to reach them one at a time.

so i don't feel terribly stressed. in theory, at least. apparently, though, my body feels stressed. because i haven't slept through the night for about a week; last night i went to bed at 11, woke up at 3, then at 4, then stayed awake until 530, at which point i actually called my office to check in and make sure that our participant was coming (what is WRONG with me!), then laid there til 745. that's stress. oh, and. AND, at my haircut on friday my hairdresser, this crazy man from dundalk who always tells me about his heroin addict family, goes, "have you always had this scar here?" "what scar?" "this one." and he pulls my hair back and shows me an area the size of a nickel on the top of my head that is bald. BALD. not going bald, not thin. bald like a baby head. "oh, well," he tells me, "it's probably just stress. it happens."

i know it happens. my sister once lost her hair in clumps because of stress, and my mother said it's happened to her, too. and phong's had it. i, however, have never lost clumps of hair, and i find this disconcerting.

and, just in time to move to new york, the prednisone--which i now take every morning even though long term prednisone is NOT cute--has made me have acne like a 15 year old. so let's review: i'm losing hair in clumps and i have what looks like another head popping out of the side of my neck. i'm going to be a hot ticket by the time i get to nyc!

you bastards

hearkening back to amanda's amazing post, "fan club," i've got to write a little about spam. not the kind that you eat, that delicious, mixed-meat canned thing that hawaiians love so much. the kind that you get in your email. why do they call it spam? i don't know. probably because no one likes it. except hawaiians. which is why in hawaii they call bad email "mahalo." oh wait that means thank you. anyway, i've been lucky with gmail as far as spam goes--i've had the account for over a year and literally never get spam. then again, i'm very careful where i put my email address. free porn sites? nope. dating websites (does manhunt.net count?)? no again.

lately, however, i've been getting more and more spam in my email. i actually had to abandon--and i do mean abandon, because i literally just like left it out there for the inter-wolves--the email that i started in high school, "mrburtreynolds@yahoo.com." i loved that email. it was a joke with my friend mandy, the one who carried around a plastic grocery bag and called it "her purse" (as in, "have you seen my purse?" "you mean that plastic bag with your keys in it?" "um, yeah. my purse."). my friend anne still uses "missraquelwelch," another joke from the same era. anyway, i got upwards of 400 spam emails a day on that account. i wouldn't check it for a few days, and i'd have 6000 spam emails. finally it was just like, i give up. you win, spammers, you bastards. you win.

so now the slippery slope has started with my gmail account. i just got an email whose subject line is "sad to have short d1cck, bigger 2-inc now at low price seven!" i can't even begin to explain why this sentence is wrong. besides the fact that it makes no sense--bigger 2-inc now at low price seven, for instance--why is all spam about viagra? or straight guys getting laid? because clearly there are gads of straight men out there, desperately checking their spam email folders for 2-inc longer d1ccks or their key to the land of milk and pussy.

b-i-n-g-o

last night i had the pleasure of taking part in something that, if it's not only possible in baltimore, is definitely not going to happen in manhattan: gay bingo at the hippo. i severely underestimated how serious these people would take their game. we walk into the place, having eaten a good yet extremely slow dinner at b bistro in bolton hill, and it's dead quiet. i'm always shocked by the wall of cigarette smoke i'm hit with when i walk into a gay bar, and last night the hippo looked like a smoky, catholic girls' school gymnasium, people poised intently above their paper bingo cards, scanning for numbers, purple and green bingo markers at the ready. the only difference is that it's a bunch of homos and hags playing. strange crowd.

so we're sitting there in the back room playing bingo, and i look around: there's people obviously from d.n.e. (dundalk 'n' essex, hon), hopkins homos, drag queens, and aging transwomen, all sitting around together, gambling, smoking, drinking. there's no way this is gonna happen when i move to new york, where the gay bar pasttime is standing around in a big circle, self-consciously looking confident in tight designer jeans and tight t-shirts drinking cocktails. i like cocktails, sure, but i also really like drinking beer. something tells me that chelsea bars aren't really big on miller lite draft.

in my burgeoning since of queens pride (up with astoria!), i've decided that i'm going to go out in my own 'hood a lot. because, you know, queens is "realer" than manhattan. my recent joke about baltimore is that it's "really real." like, "what's baltimore like?" "it's, um, real." and, though it's a joke, it's true: baltimore's dangerous, drug-riddled, down-at-the-heels. but, goddamn, it's not fake. i probably just feel like this because i'm moving to new york city in 8 days and i've finally, finally started to get scared. i'm clinging to something that's become, i hate to admit it, a little comfortable. so friday's our last night out to the gay bar, and i've done my best to round up all the gays i still have in the area. look out, baltimore.

look, mom, i'm a realtor!

in an effort not to lose my deposit when i move to nyc, i've taken the initiative to actually advertize my apartment on craigslist myself--and show it myself, and hand the people the applications to live there. then i'll give them each oral sex (my version of the mint on the pillow) and dance around in circles four times while doing a rain dance, because that's obviously what it's going to take to get this six hundred ninety-five dollars back.

seriously, though, i'm thinking about getting a gold blazer and a red tie, and, as hilary suggested, tying balloons to the railing outside my apartment. because i am, obviously, now a realtor.

caught

phong recently got a new phone; not just a new phone, but an extremely fancy phone that has television on it. everytime i see a commercial for a phone with television, i think to myself, buy a BOOK! like, call me an old fuddy duddy, but do we really need television everywhere we go? is it not enough that every middle- and upper-class person aged 20-40 has an ipod plugging up their ears 24 hours a day (myself included)? do we really have to have sound and sight distracting us at all times? yet i digress.

phong's new fancy televisionphone also has--get this--a camera in it with camcorder capabilities. now i know that this is nothing new, but considering that the phone i use is a four-year-old nokia that people make fun of me for every time i use it, cameraphones are still pretty new technology to me. and phong got some memory card for it that's like smaller than my pinky nail but can hold gads of pictures and movies.

what does this all mean, dear readers? it means that at any given time i could be having my picture taken or, worse, a video made of me. now don't get me wrong; i do, in fact, thirst for the attention of paparazzi who make it their only job to chase me around with cameras, selling my pictures to magazines like us weekly and life and style who have to know what brand of flip-flops i wear or which starbucks i go to. so, i guess, pictures (and videos) like these are just giving me a taste of what that will be like:




yep, that's me in the hospital, then me drunk. then ashli dancing funnily and then me fishing for a compliment from amanda. what have i learned from phong's new toy? watch what you say, watch how you look. because you never know when you'll be on camera.

bigger fish to fry

so, dearest readers, most of you probably know that i have a lil' something called crohn's disease. no, i didn't get it from having illicit sex or from doing drugs or because of anything else fun. i got it genetically. lame.

so my crohn's has been doing really well; after i was diagnosed in august 2004 my doc told me that i basically had "IBS with an underlying case of crohn's," meaning that i could just take these pills and probably be fine for the rest of my life. then, last thursday morning, i went to the hospital and was told i might need surgery. which means i'm not fine for the rest of my life. but, luckily, i don't have to have surgery.

what sucks, i just discovered today, is that my doctor thinks i have a much more severe case of crohn's than he initially thought; i have to go on this lame immunosuppressant drug which might make it easier for me to get sick. oh, and remember? i'm moving to new york in 10 days and i'm leaving my health insurance and doctors behind.

so i can't start this new more hard-core drug yet because i have to be monitored. apparently they don't want you just wandering around new york on immunosuppressants without a doctor. who'da thought? so they're making me stay on prednisone for, um, the next...well until i get a new doctor and can afford the new fancy drug and all the fancy blood tests it'll require. prednisone. yep, that stuff that can give you a distended, puffy face and damage your liver. i'm already doing plenty of damage to my liver without prednisone's help, thank you very much.

all of this made it not to sad when jordan said we'd have to postpone our nudie mag photo shoot:

jordan: it will happen on friday or this weekend
robert: i work friday, buttttttttt lemme know about this weekend and gimme warning
robert: because i have parties, packing, shit to do
jordan: okay definitely
robert: i'm not in the mood to pose nude today anyway
jordan: hahahaha good
robert: instead i'll go to the gym and then make a delicious pesto
jordan: fag
robert: says the young man who was about to take pictures of me in a jockstrap

rest assured, dear readers, crohn's won't get me down. i'll be naked yet.

here hold this

ah, the things we do for "art." my friend jordan, the only person i'm friends with who's a new york hipster, wants to put together an "art school soft core porn zine." and i'm to be his first model. HA. here's how the conversation went:

"i want to make a porn magazine. will you model?"
"um, do i have to have my cock out?"
"yes."
"then no."
"oh come on!"
"ok, i'll do it if: i get no more naked than a pair of underwear and you make me look hot."
"ok, we'll see."
"no, not we'll see. that's the deal."
"ok, but i don't want you to shave your chest."
"it's trimmed already. i don't like walking around looking like burt reynolds."

and so, after promising jordan that i'd get in my underwear in his apartment for him and his roommate, while phong watches and he takes what promise to be the most hysterical pictures ever taken of me, the day is finally upon us. the original plan was to have me holding his chihuahua puppy named rory while i pose in a jockstrap and fur-trimmed parka. the only problem is finding the, um, jockstrap and fur-trimmed parka. "do you have either of those?" jordan asked me. yeah, jordan, because i wear both of those things all the time. because, you know, i'm actually foxy brown. either way i'm going to be posing nearly-nude with a small dog. brilliant.

the question is, am i doing it as a favor to a friend or am i doing it because i am, underneath it all, incredibly, undeniably vain? or because i really just wanna see what i'd look like in a fur-trimmed parka and underwear holding a chihuahua? it's probably a little of all three.

lovers

so ashli brought her digital camera with her to the bar on friday night. always dangerous. when instructed to pose "like i was in love with her," i ended up making this face:
which looks a lot more like i'm pooping my pants. but, after all, what is love if it doesn't make you poop your pants?

the heart of gay astoria

so i can't believe that i haven't done this until just now, but i just did something that always has to be done before one relocates: i googled "queens" and "gay bar" to see what the homo situation around my new neighborhood is. and, miracle of miracles, good news: there are three gay bars two blocks from my house. and, if the description of a local gay-owned cafe is to be believed, 32nd st and broadway--one block from our new digs--is the "heart of gay astoria."

this keeps happening to me; when i moved to baltimore i signed a lease in mt vernon having no idea that it was "the heart of gay baltimore." i chose to live here because it was close to peabody, then months later found out that all the gay bars i'd be going to were literally around the corner. much like, um, my new place in astoria.

now i'm not saying that i'm never going to go into manhattan to go out. obviously my manhattan friends won't be coming to astoria to go out, and if i wanna see 'em i'll have to go to manhattan. but it's nice to know that if we feel like being lazy, or feel like being local, or, dammit, just feel like hanging out in our own 'hood for once, there are places to go. and plenty of 'em.

in the time it takes you to watch this program

now, i don't often quote "simply recipes" (i just steal all her recipes), nor do i claim to be a culinary wizard. but when you come across a passage like this...

"At a conference last December, Stephen W. Sanger, chairman and chief executive of General Mills Inc., noted the sad state of culinary affairs and described the kind of e-mails and calls the company gets asking for cooking advice: the person who didn't have any eggs for baking and asked if a peach would do instead, for example; and the man who railed about the fire that resulted when he thought he was following instructions to grease the bottom of the pan -- the outside of the pan."

...you gotta share it.

nothing comes between me and my coffee

i have to start the day with a little snippets-from-science-y bitching: every morning when i'm buying my coffee ($1.25 to refill my classic DARE travel thermos with decaf) i get stuck behind that certain person. you know who i'm talking about--it's that person that has to have their coffee just so. one packet of sugar--stir thoroughly--taste. two more dollops of half and half (not skim!)--stir thoroughly--taste. make a face. roll eyes. talk to friend on your left. one more packet of sugar--stir thoroughly--taste.

every morning, when i'm stuck behind this person, i hem and haw and exhale loudly. if you don't know how many packets of sugar it takes by NOW, i think, you shouldn't be DRINKING COFFEE. i see drinking coffee as something of a cult; i've had a cup of coffee every morning, basically, since the fifth grade. is this maybe why i'm five feet tall? who knows. the point is, i can tell how much milk to put in my coffee just by looking at it. and, snobby as it may sound, i only drink skim milk in my coffee. you gotta sugar it up? make it easier to drink? plebian.

anyway, so i'm stuck behind this person, barely able to mask my annoyance and disdain, and every morning the coffee offender notices that i'm behind them, then like shuffles left or right, still doctoring their coffee, just enough to let me put a squirt of skim milk and crane around to get a stirrer.

things like this, obviously, are how i distract myself from the fact that i'm moving to new york city in 11 days.

insults

according to ashli, the same girl who apparently TOTALLY HATES PEOPLE WITH ANY BACK HAIR,

"Auto response from robbi607: finding out my BMI and bodyfat!

Sgt Pez: oh god...the number's probably going to be too large to fit on a piece of paper"

thanks ash.

it's that time again

Smokeout

“How many cigarettes do you smoke a day?” the doctor asked me, standing with a clipboard next to my hospital bed. She couldn’t have been more than five years older than me; her short-spoken, tight-lipped bedside manner gave her away as the first-year resident I suspected she was. A little too matter-of-fact; a little too threatened. The doctor was, I suspected, my age; I was sure that this girl left the hospital after her 24-hour shift and crashed in bed with her boyfriend, threw on her ratty Hopkins Medicine sweatshirt and watched Lifetime. Why, then, did I feel like I’d been caught with a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches on the far side of the playground? Underneath my tattoos and my cigarettes and the acrid humor I’d been relying on all day, I felt like I’d been exposed for what I was: an addict, no better than any other. Paul, my boyfriend, the dentist, the non-smoker, non-drinker, the one who’d constantly reminded me that smoking will not only kill me, it will make my breath stink and cause my newly-whitened teeth to turn back to a rancid yellow, gave me a pointed look. Well, his look said, answer the nice doctor.

“I smoke one cigarette a day,” I told her, lying. The truth is that I smoked at least one cigarette a day, sometimes two, and in times of stress or a death in the family it was more like a pack. I’d been stressed and my family had been dying. “And,” I went on, “I know that it’s bad, and I know it’s stupid and useless and that I should quit.” It was the same self-effacing, puppy dog-eyed, I know I’ve done something bad but isn’t it cute the way I’m asking for forgiveness speech I’d given to my primary care doctor, a matter-of-fact, aging lesbian who had kind eyes and responded with the same forced laughter that my pre-teen Hopkins doctor was responding with now.

The truth is I knew I should quit. As if the long-term effects weren’t bad enough—lung cancer, for instance, which claimed my boyfriend’s grandfather; or emphysema, which claimed my own; or throat cancer, which would put a permanent end to the singing career I was just trying to build—there were the more immediate effects to worry about, effects that seemed more pressing to a gay urban 25-year-old: yellow teeth; bad breath; difficulty putting on muscle mass no matter how often I hit the gym. Why, then, did I keep accepting invitations to go outside and have a cigarette? Why, when I thought about high school, about my youth, about freedom and about the possibility I felt ahead of me, did I always imagine a cigarette in my hand? Why, when I knew what it would do to me in the end, was smoking still so alluring?

I’ve quit more times than I can count. My last, most successful, period of non-smoking lasted for a year and a half. At the time, I reflected in my journal about what I thought it meant to be a non-smoker. I quit, I wrote, because, unlike the boy I was when I was 17— an outsider, a queer in small-town Oklahoma who wanted nothing more than to fit in, look tough, cross the tracks and be one of the kids his mother warned him about—I no longer want to die. How profound, I thought, I’m choosing life. Then, two months later, I walked home from the Mt. Vernon Super Mart, shakily opened a pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights (my cigarette of choice after “giving up” Camel Reds) and took that first, long-missed, sour-tasting drag. It didn’t burn anymore, or feel as foreign in my mouth and lungs as it did when I’d taken a hiatus when I was younger. After a year and a half, it was still familiar, a constant in my life when nothing else seemed that way. And I knew, as I always did, that it would kill me if I gave it the chance.

And so here I am once again, on the edge of this field I’ve never understood or been able to stand on for long, the one called “not smoking.” And, as always, I’m going to give it a concentrated effort; I’m going to think about lost grandfathers and lost singing careers and more time spent in hospitals. I know that it’s bad, and I know it’s stupid and useless and that I should quit. And, once again, I’m going to try.

update: my last cigarette was (last) wednesday afternoon. as in a week and two days ago.

sugaring, waxing, threading

i was talking to terry on the phone last night, because we hadn't talked in a while and he's leaving for rio today. i worry about terry going to rio because, even though i know he lives in big, bad chicago, and he's a big-city tough guy now, i still imagine him as the jean-short-wearing, fishing-hat-loving, hall-and-oats-listening gay ex-frat boy from marseilles, illinois by way of valparaiso, indiana. when he came to baltimore he was like fresh off the boat. this is probably one of these reasons i immediately liked him so much--he wasn't jaded, he wasn't fake; he was so midwestern. and now he's going to rio for spring break. everything i hear is that rio is incredibly dangerous, like knife-you-in-the-street for your lunch money dangerous. i imagine terry and his friend kevin bouncing along in some overcrowded yellow and pink and red omnibus, chickens and dogs and children swinging from the roof. wait, is that africa i'm thinking of? india? either way, i think that rio's dangerous.

i told terry to be careful, soft-pedaling the rumors i'd heard about rio because i didn't want to sound negative. phong piped in, "and tell him not to pick up any hookers--apparently they have a really huge HIV infection rate in rio. we just talked about that this morning. weird!" no worries there. i hope.

so anyway, we're talking about terry's trip to rio because he just did a home chest-waxing. now, as someone who used to wax their chest and has since made peace with having a hairy chest, i know exactly what terry went through. i will never, ever forget the first time i waxed my chest. i made the mistake of doing it with NADS--you know, that stuff that the sadistic australian inventor bitch named after her daughter--which is this green sticky nightmare sugar concoction. i did it a couple nights before i was scheduled to leave for choir tour in hawaii. while i did it, i did double-shots of bacardi. emily, drew, and i finished off a handle--a HANDLE--of bacardi that night; it's the last time i've had it since. long story short, i know what it's like to do a home chest-waxing. ouch.

never one to be one-upped by terry, though, i shared with him my own recent hair removal experience: my boyfriend shaving my back. that's right, i've become one of those people. those people who have to shave their backs. those people who have to have their backs shaved for them by their boyfriends in the shower.

getting older: ain't it grand?

in the same boat

apparently i've bitched and moaned about my apartment enough that people have taken notice: a brilliant post by eliza, in which she's created fake classified ads for both her apartment and mine.

sweet.

Survivor:Operagirl: Classified

done and over with

oh, dearest readers, what a crazy day i've had already. not crazy bad, necessarily, just crazy. multiple study participants, training my replacement, leading the goddamned lab meeting. ah well, i'm here with you now. that is, until amanda picks me up for lunch in fells point in about 10 minutes.

so the recital went pretty well yesterday; it's always nerve-wracking to have my friends in the audience. it was an elderhostel recital, which means that the audience was chock-full of really appreciative old people, and, if you can ignore all of the candy-wrapper-unwrapping, program-flipping, translation-whispering, and nodding, they're a wonderful audience. other than them, though, i had a really nice turnout: friends from peabody, friends from hopkins, friends from out of town, boyfriends, coworkers. in some instances it was the first time people have heard me sing; in other cases it was the first time they'd heard me sing in like two years. so, obviously, i wanted to impress, which meant, obviously, that i was a little nervous.

all in all, though, i think the recital went pretty well. i didn't miss many notes; i only missed one entrance ("vamp!" i thought to the pianist. "vamp!"). and, i'm happy to say, it's over. now all i have to do is, um, throw/give away half my shit and pack the rest of it into boxes. in the next two weeks. oh, and cancel all of my utilities. and then, you know, one more little thing: find a job in new york city.

you go boy

i'll tell ya, when you don't read your blogs for a week you really have a lot to catch up on. apparently some 18 year old homo is suing because he was harrassed while in school in oklahoma. YES! (via queerty)

porntastic

sean cody plays too big a part in my life. (via queerty)

the day of the show, y'all, part the third

tonight's the big night, the night i've been preparing for for the last, um, well three weeks. okay so maybe four. however long it's been, this recital hasn't been programmed for very long. granted, i've been practicing a lot. and i even thought about bringing the music with me to the hospital, though i didn't. (side story: when our choir director saw hilary the day i went into the hospital, he gave her music to give to me. she was like, "um, he's in the HOSPITAL. i think he has a few things to worry about besides evensong." i got to church on sunday morning, the morning after i'd been discharged, and he was like, "did hilary give you the music?" i'm sorry, i was busy having my gut shut down on me; i somehow didn't have the energy to learn a lot of plainsong.)

anyway, tonight's the whitman recital. george, mike trinastic (boombastic say me fantastic), and i had our first--and last--rehearsal last night, and i have to say that things went well. what's funny is that i picked these weill/whitman songs without ever hearing them. i played the accompaniment on the piano then learned the voice parts separately. when played apart from each other, they just sound like random early 20th century art songs. when they're played at the same time, the songs become this totally FUCKED UP, schmaltzy, cabaret-style...you get the picture. if nothing else, it's an interesting recital. "interesting," even. i told george and mike that it's like a tour of all things 20th-century song: 40's, 70's, 2000's.

i'm excited for the recital, but also, let's say, pensive. it just seems like everything's coming at me like a ton of bricks--albeit a ton of really exciting bricks. george and mike are here, amanda's here, the recital will happen, then i start getting ready to move. work has become almost parenthetical (if any of my coworkers, ahem, steph, are reading this--don't tell the doctors!) as i search for a new job and try to get everything done here and my replacement trained. so i didn't sleep a lot last night, both from excitement and...well, i guess just excitement. but i brought a banana to work with me and am sucking down some decaf.

you know, power foods.

oh yeah, the recitial is:

tonight at 7:30
peabody conservatory room 308C

back in the saddle

ok, since i know that all of you have been absolutely chomping at the bit, checking my blog as many as one, sometimes even two times a week, here's the quick-and-dirty story you've been waiting to hear: Why I Haven't Blogged Since Wednesday.

so wednesday night during the project runway finale (a sidenote: chloe!? did you SEE HER COLLECTION? it was like prom dresses from oklahoma in 1987. shrugs. shiny upholstery material. sure, santino's and daniel v's were uninspired. but at least they weren't ugly.) my stomach started to hurt. it was kind of bad, but still not as bad as anything i went through in fall of 04, re: writhing in pain during thanksgiving dinner at amanda's house. so i take some hyoscyamine, the drug i was given for times of stomach pain crisis. it does nothing. i go to bed, convinced that it'll go away. i lay there. and then i lay there some more. and as i'm laying there i'm watching the clock. and noticing that it's like four o'clock in the morning and i still haven't gone to sleep. and the pain's getting worse. i start throwing up (sorry to get all graphic, but ya know what? crohn's ain't pretty.) at 4:30, which is disconcerting because the last time i started puking like that was when i went to the hospital. phong starts suggesting that we go to the ER (yes, i'm a homosexual and i had a man in my bed.) at 6:30 and i finally agree, barely able to stand, at 7:15.

so we get to the ER, i'm mysteriously, incredibly, triaged right away, and by 10am i'm being pumped full of some incredible pain killers. and i mean incredible. this doctor comes in a little later, this asshole ER doctor with the bedside manner of eva braun, and informs me--just like this--"that i have a blockage related to crohn's and that they're going to have a surgeon come talk to me and that they're very sorry but they're going to have to move me out into the hallway because they need my room." for those of you who don't know, crohn's causes all this inflammation and scarring in your intestine. when you have a blockage--gross--it means that no poop can get through because you're so inflamed. which means that they have to cut out a part of your gut and then sew it back together. which means weeks of painful recovery akin to gastric bypass surgery. oh, and they're going to need me to get out of the room because they need it.

thankfully, i saw four people from the GI team at hopkins and the attending told me that probably, in point of fact, steroids could make the inflammation go down and i wouldn't need surgery. lucky for me, by friday morning it was clear that i wasn't going to need surgery--this time, at least--and that i'd be able to go home fairly soon. and here in the black hole life-sucking vortex that is johns hopkins hospital, "fairly soon" means in another day and a half.

so, a little list, of which i'm so fond:

doses of prednisone taken: 13
doses of righteous almighty painkiller taken: 3
times vomited: 5
magazines read: 5
books read: 1
hours of TLC watched: at least 13, including 2 episodes of "wacky wild weddings"
crazy old black man hospital roommates: 3
crazy old black man hospital roommates with really comical gas: 1
IV sticks: 3
number of 4am phlebotomy blood-draw visits: 3
number of 5am vital signs visits: 3
number of GI fellows, all of which reminded me of the incompetents on grey's anatomy: 4
number of prescription painkillers with which i was sent home: ZERO. assholes.

so i'm better. my gut still feels kinda funny and the prednisone is making me feel a little bit like a robot. and every time i take it i think, "go down, little gut. stop swelling." the doctor told me that 70% of people that have to have prednisone have to have it again within a year, or have a surgery. he kept going "so you can see it as three-fourths full or three-fourths empty. er, i mean 70% empty, er, i mean full." he just couldn't figure out the math.

hmm, maybe that wasn't so quick-and-dirty. but i had to get it off my chest.

half the strife is o'er

it's a done deal: amanda, hilary, and i are the proud renters of a pretty fuckin' sweet apartment at 33rd st. and broadway in astoria, queens. my rent in queens will be 95 dollars a month less than i pay in baltimore. ridiculous. amanda signed the lease yesterday and hilary and i will write her big, fat, meaty checks when she's here to visit on monday. what's funny is that we actually prorated the apartment for the rest of march to hold it--it's worth it--so the apartment's already ours. like amanda has keys. it's a very strange thing to sit here at a desk in baltimore, maryland, knowing that i have an apartment in new york sitting there, waiting for me to move in my ikea furniture and start using its kitchen and sleeping in its tiny bedroom. it's made this inevitible transition seem even sooner, but it's also made it much easier to be excited.

stephanie asked me yesterday what i wanted to do for my going away luncheon. i have no idea. i want it to be casual, and i want it to be cheap, and i only want my immediate office and the bosses to go. i'm thinking somewhere in fells point. arcos, maybe? suggestions?

as promised, here are pictures of the new apartment--more will follow once i have them (and blogger starts cooperating).

crossing fingers and toes

i just handed our office manager my formal notice that i'm leaving. mind you, they've all known since new years about the big move. so no one's surprised. but, for some reason, i've been avoiding actually writing the letter and handing it over. something seems so final, now. there's no turning back. not that there ever was, really. hilary, amanda, and i have been aboard the express train labeled "new york or bust" for a while now. and we're not getting off until the last stop: 33rd st and broadway in astoria, queens.

which brings me to my next topic: i talked to amanda after work last night, and she put a good-faith deposit down on an incredible apartment in astoria. we haven't signed the lease yet, but hopefully we're well on the way. as soon as we have and everything's final, you all can expect pictures. let's just say, this place has a big ol' kitchen, a huge living room, hardwood floors, lots of light, and is surrounded by a lot of good restaurants. keep your fingers crossed.

this sounds tonal but it isn't actually tonal

after much him-hawing, our recital--the one with me and george that's a week from today--is actually happening. for the last four days there's been some question, since the fabulous pianist we asked initially double-booked himself and had to pull out. and, we all know, nobody likes a premature pull-out. i wanted to be like, "listen, michael. a viola recital? c'mon. you know that singers are where it's at!" or something like that. but i would've ended up sounding like i was on some nickelodeon saturday night pre-teen comedy show. remember snick? yeah. that.

anyway, george found us a pianist, miracle of miracles, in durham that agreed to trek up to baltimore to play the recital. and, an even bigger miracle: he's a really good accompanist. it's the same guy that played fog argument when i sang it at UNC earlier this fall. or was it summer? ah how the months blend together. the point is, he's good. he's a straight guy but i'll overlook that for the purpose of the recital. you can't get much gayer than a recital built around walt whitman poems by composers like weill (bi) and rorem (flaming homosexual). oh, and don't forget that george lam. what a faggot!

so the recital's on. and i'm practicing like a bat out of hell. or a practicing bandit. whatever, i'm practicing a lot. the rorem's currently kicking my ass, since he was in his "this sounds tonal but it isn't actually tonal" mid-60's phase. eliza, you're the only one that knows 'em, so when you hear me fuck up the notes just smile and nod. and we'll both know that i'm wrong, but it'll be our secret.

if i can make it there

amanda might have found us an apartment here. and it's a steal. more news when i know it.

brokeback bobbitt

let me just preface this blog by saying i didn't actully watch the oscars. the only thing i really wanted to see, anyway, was dolly parton singing her snappy little tune "travelin' thru" from transamerica. and i missed it. oh, that and the dresses. i wanted to see dolly parton and all the pretty, shiny dresses. since i missed dolly in all her folksy glory, though, i had the oscars on in the background while i putzed around my apartment, trying it get it back into order after a week/weekend spent generally away. i have to say, though, having not watched the oscars, that brokeback mountain was totally robbed. ok yes phillip seymore hoffman (botched the spelling there, didn't i? yeah, well, i'm too lazy to look it up) was very good in capote (pronounced
"cuhpaot" if you're speaking bawlmerese), but i wanted the oscar to go to that lil' heath ledger. really for effort more than anything else. oh and also michelle williams because i'll be a dawson's creek fan until the day i die. and hello, crash? please. did anyone even see that movie? (if you did and you're about to leave an angry comment below that's like "robert you're only mad because it's not a gay movie and you hate all things not gay blah blah blah blah blah," you're right. so i saved you some typing.)

really, though, i'm bummed that brokeback didn't walk away with more prizes just because we're now going to have to hear for the next week about how the oscars "wasn't so gay this year" after all. you know what i'm talking about. everybody was making a big flying deal about how gay the oscars were this year. gay gay gay. gay people everywhere. gay oscars. and now, since capoat and brokeback didn't take home the big prize, and truman capote's sexuality was never addressed in the film, short of him being a mincing fairy for the entire thing, the oscars weren't so gay after all. and we're all going to have to hear and read and know exactly why. we're going to hear about the "academy" and its possible "homophobia," or how it doesn't pay to be gay in hollywood, or...mark my words, it's gonna happen.

in other news, hilary gave a great recital at tom's church in bethesda yesterday. it was really an intelligent program--start with a set from figaro, go on to some spanish songs, then round it out with some copland and berstein. oh, and i didn't miss a single entrance during the duet from figaro, except i did completely make up some mushy-sounding fake italian. luckily, i didn't break out in laughter, as i usually do when i start to make up words. for some reason, the made-up words just sound so ridiculous that i can't help but laugh. there was no arm-crossing looking-away yesterday, though, which is good. because hilary would've ripped off my dick. onstage.

a day late!

A Better Place

There are times in our lives when we have to finally let go of childhood. Things happen that remind us that we are, in fact, adults; that whatever we were holding onto, whatever bastion of our youth remained, eventually breaks down. It could be college graduation or getting your first job. It could be buying a house or paying your own insurance. Whatever it is, you know that things aren’t going to be the same.

Mine happened this week. My Nana, my great-grandmother, died yesterday. She was 98. This was the woman, an old lady as long as I knew her, that used to take my face in her wrinkly hands, lean me right down to her, and say, “You’re my angel.” She grew old enough to see not only her own daughter marry and have three daughters; she saw her grandchildren have kids of their own. She’d come to Oklahoma from Texas in a covered wagon, a decade before cars became common. She lived through the roaring 20’s, survived the Great Depression as a single mother, saw most of a century and the beginning of another. She was never anything more than a benevolent fixture in my family, even though my mother tells me stories of her biting wit, her humor. She was Nana, and the next time I see her she’ll have transformed into something that’s not her at all: an old, frail body at the front of the church, the spirit and energy that was my great-grandmother nowhere in sight.

It’s strange the way I’ve reacted to her death. I’ve always eschewed, ridiculed the idea of one’s spirit “going to a better place” when they die. Something about the idea heaven, of eternal life, is so tied up in Christianity, a religion I took myself out of years ago, that I can’t believe in it. But today I can’t help but feel like she’s in a better place, indeed. It was her body, not her mind, that failed her, and it couldn’t have been easy to deteriorate physicially while being fully cognizent. She’s in a better place, whether that place is heaven or just the end; eternal life or unending sleep.

In this way it’s been easy, knowing that her struggle with old age is over, to let go of her. What’s been harder is what her death means, the way that it’s been a harbinger of things to come in my own life. Death, anyone will tell you, is unavoidable. Up till now, though, I’ve lived under the delusion that my life could go on forever at is was, sailing, unchanged. But for the first time since I’ve been old enough to care, it has changed. Life isn’t permanent; people move, people grow apart; people die.

It’s hard for me to let go of this part of my childhood. I can’t help but feel like with my great-grandmother’s passing a bit of me passed, too. That child, my Nana’s angel, is gone; I’d never give up what I have as an adult to revisit childhood, but her death has reminded me, at the risk of sounding cliched, that I only get one chance on this earth. That life is linear, not circular; that I’ll never again have the chance to be a teenager or go to prom or graduate college. What’s done is done; the mistakes I’ve made can be apolgozied for but never taken back.

And so, I say thank you to my great-grandmother. Thank you for your years of kindness; thank you for raising my grandmother and helping her raise her family. Thank you for my memories of bacon drippings kept by the stove and for ham hocks and for making your way through life in Oklahoma, even when it wasn’t easy. And thank you for the grace with which you lived and died, and for reminding me, while I’m still here, to wake up, take a breath, and live my life while I have it.

pour myself a cup of ambition

yet another reason to love my girl dolly. (via queerty)

we consider ourselves bicoastal, if you consider the mississippi river one of the coasts.

what a weekend. oh wait, weekend? it's thursday. yet it's my first day at work since last friday and will be my last until monday. sound confusing? yeah, it is. i'm confused.

the trip to oklahoma was, i suppose, successful. last night when i got home, jordan sent me an IM that said, "how was the trip? super fun!?" i said, bewildered, "um, as super-fun as a funeral can be, i guess." i didn't fight with my mother a single time, which is really an achievement since it seems to be my job to fight with my mother. i didn't go ballistic on the airplane even though i wasn't able to drug myself into oblivion beforehand. i barely even flinched when my grandfather (not the jewish one) referred to philadelphia as a "nigger town." yes, i was on good behavior.

the funeral was, as i told phong afterward, what i think my family needed. i hope that at my funeral no one sings "how great thou art." i hope that there's no old man preacher (the same man, in fact, that baptized me. when we greeted each other, he said, "i actually baptized you, young man!" to which i responded, "well i'm not sure how it stuck.") talking about how we'll all be reunited in heaven. but, as cynical, as agnostic as i am, i know that it's what my family, my mother especially, needed to hear. she's grounded in christianity; i might be the black sheep, i might be the heathen, but her relationship with christ is her rock. she needed to hear that she'll be reunited with nana in heaven, needed to hear it from her preacher from 25 years ago, when she was just married, just starting a family.

so i'm back at work. for a day. because tomorrow robin comes to visit temple in philly. i have one day to catch up on the six thousand and one emails i've gotten from the boss-people. the new girl, the one who sits behind me, told us at her interview that she does roller-derby and lives in charles village. this morning we talked about how good the bloc party album is and discussed good places to go to rock shows. she is, indeed, my replacement.