schmeredith schmiara

phong just said to me, "is it bad that i'm getting all teary-eyed watching katie couric's last day at the today show?" and i said, "no, i had to turn it off this morning because i was getting that way myself." seriously, people, what am i going to watch now that the female host of the today show is that wretched cunt meredith viara? is that how you spell her name? ask star jones beacuse i don't give a shit. seriously, i cannnnnootttt stand her. she's like, this smug east coast rich-ass soccer mom. you know what, meredith? go take brady to soccer practice and drop kayla off at ballet rehearsal in your 2006 volvo station wagon and stay off my morning program. now i'm going to have no choice but to watch reruns of xena: warrior princess on logo between 7:45-8am. thanks.

in other news, dear readers, a woman unlike anyone else i've ever met in my life, a woman i'm pretty sure the likes of which has never before existed or will ever again exist in this world, is coming to visit me today. my MOTHER. (foreboding low-strings sound here.) oh, and my sister. but my sister visiting is way less stressful than the MOTHER.

it's not that it's stressful, really. i just have no idea how i'm going to do things with her here in nyc. like, she doesn't walk. it's not that she's in a wheelchair; she just has a hip that pains her and has informed me, in no uncertain terms, that we won't be walking anywhere. since i don't own a rickshaw or have slaves to carry me around on one of those things ancient princesses ride around on (anymore), i'm not exactly sure how we're going to navigate the city. cabs? for two blocks? i guess you'll hear about it tomorrow morning.

it's an absolutely whirlwind visit: they're really on the east coast to find robin an apartment in philly (where she's going to law school...WOOT) and are making a less-than-24-hour side trip to new york. probably because they knew i'd throw an 11-year-old girl temper tantrum to my father if they didn't. and nobody wants that, me crying like you've taken away my american girl doll.

no matter what may be wrong at the moment, thank god we live in america.

hey you, over here

ooh look, pictures of our picnic.

swept away

happy monday, dearest readers. and by monday, i mean tuesday. because it was a three-day weekend. if there's anything better than a three-day weekend, it's that you have a shortened work week afterward. later, when i figure out what the hell is wrong with blogger, i'll post pictures of our day in central park. amanda, hilary, and i hosted a revolving array of friends during our five-hour campout at 59th and 5th: jonathan, nakia, perri, marta (perri's girl, not my mother. though she's visiting tomorrow afternoon, god save us all). we spent the afternoon shoeless in central park, eating couscous (not pearl barley because of my stupid stomach), tuna salad, bean salad. fancy picnic things. i told hilary that i loved carrying our wicker picnic basket (courtesy of amanda's father) because it was practically advertising that we were on our way to an afternoon in the park. look at me, going to central park with my basket full of fancy food. where are you going? work? oh, that sucks.

in other news, our apartment is already a 24-hour sweatbox. if i'm home, i wear nothing but a pair of mesh shorts (a prospect that might be exciting for anyone but my poor roommates) because i don't want to sweat through any of my normal clothes. i'm not made of money and i can't afford to wash three outfits a day. except when i sleep, i've stopped noticing just how hot the apartment is. when i'm trying to sleep, though, sweating on my sheets (and not for any good reason), i get very pissed off. better a sweaty bed than a hospital bed, however.

i was on my morning commute today and saw this couple making love. they were so into each other that if they'd been naked (or at least pantless) they would've actually been having intercourse. this is the same couple that nearly made me miss the train in queens because they insisted on holding hands all the way up the stairs, walking extremely slowly. then, at 59th street, they were full-on making out at 8:45am. now, i love being in love. and i love making out. just not at 8:45 on a crowded subway platform. ech, public displays of affection, i started to think to myself. then i thought, hmm, but isn't everything in new york kind of public? bear with me.

maybe it's because i have two roommates and people are always around, but i feel like everyone is always on display here in new york. crowded streets, offices, subways. there's never any true privacy, except maybe in the bathroom. i don't write this because i feel like my roommates are up in my space--our apartment is big enough that if i actually needed alone time (i seldom do), i could get it. i'm talking, specifically, about being in public. in central park or at a bar or on the train. you're never actually alone. in baltimore it was completely possible to be the only person on the street, an unsavory prospect. it was often deserted, especially on sunday afternoons. in new york, however, no matter where you are, no matter what time it is, there are people around. it makes you feel safer, for sure. but it also makes you feel like there's nowhere you can go to be by yourself.

sometimes, especially during my morning commute, i imagine that i don't even have to walk to get where i'm going. i imagine that i could just let myself be swept along by the sea of people pushing their way onto the N train and then the 6 train, riding the crowd like the lead singer of a hair metal band. all i have to do is pick a group that looks like they might be in healthcare and let them take me to work.

dirty laundry time!

with names changed to protect the innocent...

Let Him Go

"I don't know what's happening," Andrew said, frowning. The car we were riding in, an ancient Volvo that he'd borrowed from a friend to take me on a late-night country drive, was dragging itself to a halt. What were left of its dashboard lights dimmed in time to the music. So did the headlights. Eventually the car refused to go any further and we sat there, Andrew and I, in rural Indiana on a schoolnight at two o'clock in the morning.

When Andrew had asked me (via our college's primitive telnet system, our primary method of communication—it was easier, not being face-to-face) to go for an aimless drive in the country, I'd jumped at the chance. It seemed I always did, no matter what the invitation. He wasn't just offering to take me off campus, away from the dorm and its noise. He was offering me his time: a couple of hours, uninterrupted, me and him. This didn't happen often--there were always people around, my friends or his--so I looked at the clock (1:00 a.m.) and went outside to sit on the front steps, smoke a cigarette, and wait for him. Then it all ended in this: a broken alternator, a friendly passer-by with a cell phone, a tow truck. It was an absolutely stupid situation and I was exhausted the next day, but it was worth it, though Andrew and I never got where I'd hoped.

I was always just missing him. Just a little beyond my grasp, Andrew was always the one that got away, the one I wanted but for some reason could never have. In some ways, even years later, he still is. After all the people I've known in my life, all the dates and one-night-stands and relationships, I still find myself wondering "What if?" What if, say, I'd ever told him how I felt? (Did I? Maybe I did and he didn't want to hear it.) What if he'd been interested? What if I hadn't been dating so-and-so and he wasn't still dating his boyfriend? It's interesting when I think about the trajectory my life could've taken: I can almost see a sunny kitchen on a Saturday morning, him reading something or just sleepily staring at the table. It's an imaginary life that seems to run parallel to my own, the one where I'm single in New York City and he's married in Chicago.

It's not that I hope to ever have a relationship with him--that life isn't the one I chose. I write this because I've recently noticed a pattern in myself. I'm not one to pine away, not one for crushes. But rarely--more rarely than I'd like to admit--I meet someone who seems to awaken my senses. When I make eye contact with them or find them looking at me, I feel the blood rush to my face, blooming up and out with an emotion that would feel like sadness if it weren't so giddy. There have only been a few people in my life that I've ever felt this way around, people who remind me that I am, in fact, alive and should notice the things around me. People who make me forget that there was ever another version of me that I presented to others, because with them the only thing I am is myself.

I wonder, though, if these never-were relationships seem so perfect because they were never real. Andrew, for instance, was never available to me: we were always dating other people or not dating at all. Did I let myself fall for him so completely, open up so much, because it felt like there would never be a consequence? Because the relationship would always be a fantasy, something that could've happened but never did, was it more appealing to me? There was always the chance of something more, and never anything to turn stale or implode.

I saw Andrew again for the first time since college a few weeks ago. Neither of us were the people we were in college, but things were the same. Walking down the wet streets of Chelsea I felt the like I did when I was 20 years old: needing to at least put my arm around him, to somehow bring him closer to me, wanting to know what he felt like. Just like college, though, I didn't. When we parted ways--him on a PATH train to New Jersey and me on the N to Queens--we hugged close. I felt him against me, breathed him in, and let him go.

bum gut

the astute among you, dear readers, will have noticed something by now: if ever i don't blog for more than a single day, it means that i'm in the hospital. this isn't morbid or overly dramatic; it's just how it is. by the end of the second day, i have people (terry this time) calling me to ask if i'm back in the hospital. and, yes, i was. i was back in the stupid fucking hospital. same story: stomach pain, crohn's flare-up, 12 hours later it's gone with no surgery (not that i'm making light of the situation; it's a blessing beyond words that i've always escaped with no surgery).

so i'm on antibiotics. and i'm back at work, taking it easy today, because i couldn't stand the thought of sitting around another day. couldn't. stand. it. i had another roommate this time, a crazy old greek man the nurses called "papa" who literally screamed if you tried to touch him. my "doctor," a man i saw only once--when he discharged me--was named, i shit you not, constantine anagnostopoulous. he had eyebrows that were so big they tickled my face when he leaned over to listen to my belly.

so, i'm back. stomach's a little tender, pockets are a little emptier (two hospital stays in two months will do that to a person), but i have every inch of my gut, still. so there's a bright side.

even more pictures

before i forget...here are pictures of last sunday's aids walk!

straddling benches

for all you tori fans out there (ahem, alyson), here's a really interesting new interview from rolling stone. she actually admits that her last two albums were, to say the least, weenie-ish.

read the article here.

dirty pictures

i finally posted pictures of our night out in the east village two weekends ago. enjoy.

p-r-i, public radio international

I was happily dorking out on the subway this morning, listening to my podcast of this week's "Studio 360," from PRI (Public Radio International). It was a great, diverse episode: i learned about how laboratories are making diamonds out of gas (because apparently when diamonds change form they skip the liquid phase altogether and go from solid to gas and can be, therefore, made from gas to solid. science is so crazy sometimes.) and heard two interviews with authors, one of whom was george saunders. now, i wasn't really a fan of what saunders read--his prose was a little stunted, a little self-aggrandizing. but he had a couple really good things to say during the interview, including this:

"I think that's a good way to think about art...everything is true and false at once, and maybe the artist is just like the Shakespearean moron who just says everything at once, and kind of stirs things up, and then just walks away."

maybe that's true. maybe we artists really are just here to say "hey you! hey! look at this!" and then leave the audience to work out what it means. maybe that's why i've been so open to premiering george's songs, songs that aren't always easy to listen to or understand. because that's not really the point, making something that's easy. if i wanted that, i'd cover john tesh songs with a casio keyboard.

just a thought to start out your day. more later.

cake

the woman behind the counter at the bakery across the street, an amazing greek bakery named omonia, is a beautiful greek girl about my age. there are a few of them, actually. this girl, though, was in high spirits tonight, laughing and enjoying herself as i gave her my order. "that cake is delicious," she said, happily. i didn't know what to say. "seriously," she said. "i'm not even smiling. not joking. it's delicious."

i smiled.

she sold me my cake (it was delicious) and said, "what's your sign?"

"you mean like astrological?"

"yes."

"aries. why? what does that mean?"

"i just wondered," she said. "you seem really happy." hello, i thought. did you see the piece of cake i'm about to eat?

porn and aids

it was a big weekend. besides hanging out with friends, going out to bars, and eating a lot, the two main events were being an extra in a promo-shoot for the new michael lucas porn and doing aids walk new york. ahem, let me explain.

a few weeks ago i was reading my daily blogs (towleroad.com and queerty.com) and came across an item that michael lucas, a big name porn director/producer, was looking for extras for a new, um, "film" he was shooting. so, on a lark, i emailed. to my surprise, i got an email back from the casting director later that day. just so we're clear here: no, i was not in porn. no, i did not take any of my clothes off or have sex on camera for money.

i got to this bar on the west side called "secret" or something at 11am saturday morning, possibly the earliest i've ever been in a gay bar, and met the owner of the place. of course the porn company was running late, so i hung out with the owner of this random gay bar for a little while. talked about business. you know, the usual. then michael lucas walked in. for those of you who don't know who he is, just google his name and enjoy the results you get. he introduced himself to me and i was just like, "um, hi. i'm an extra today." highlights of the morning were:

• hanging out with a "titan media exclusive" named spencer. i don't know if this is his real name or fake name, but he was friendly and we talked about books and his move to provincetown.
• seeing michael lucas standing behind a table, his dick out of his pants, being offered up on a plate for the camera. mind you, i was sitting there reading at the time and just happened to glance up to catch that happening. my mouth literally fell open.
• being a fake paparrazzo in promo pictures for this random porn, pretending to take pictures of porn stars in bright pink thongs with this big, expensive camera and a deadpan look on my face.
• did i mention hanging out with porn stars?

anyway, crazy day on saturday. i went from the photo shoot to an audition for a big choral agent. the audition went fine--i sang ok, but was obviously nervous and she made me sing the craziest sight-reading piece ever. apparently it was her own composition. she said something like "i'm sure i'll be calling you for work," but she wasn't very enthused. so we'll see what comes of it.

yesterday, for something completely different, hilary, laura, bucket, and i walked in the new york aids walk. let me just tell you, this event is HUGE. we saw, from afar, naomi watts (like i care), carson and ted from queer eye (again, like i care) and debbie gibson, who sang a wretched rendition of "you'll never walk alone." sorry if you're reading this, debs, but your voice is officially blown. and you should've just stuck with "electric youth."

since the walk was so packed, it took us forever to walk the 10k. and it was actually, i think, a little more exhausting because we couldn't just, you know, walk. it was basically like walking on a crowded subway platform for four hours, though it was ok because we were outside and it was a gorgeous day and we were with friends. so it wasn't so bad after all. and since we raised $600 for gay men's health crisis, it was worth it.

what struck me about yesterday's aids walk is how much less gay it was than the last aids walk i did, indianapolis. that one, probably four years ago, was mainly gays or people related to gays. there were, i shit you not, rainbows and drag queens all over the place. i find it interesting because at the time it didn't strike me at all as strange: that this disease that statistically now most affects straight women was still seen as a gay disease, a gay cause. yesterday's aids walk more accurately reflected the scope of the epidemic. it was people from all walks of life, only about 25% of whom were gay. it's a difference in attitude between the midwest and new york. you know, there are just a few.

first things first

the first thing i'd like to do today is to give a big ol' reluctant receptionist-style shout-out to phong, who came out to his parents this weekend. i'm so proud of him! if you know him (or don't know him and feel like stalking him), show him some love and give him a call.

a mean guy

apparently i'm a very hard-hearted guy. i know there are a lot of you out there that know me that'd probably agree with that statement, but i see myself as very kind and gentle. kind of like jesus but without the long hair or, you know, that whole holy thing. the study i'm working on now, unlike my old study at hopkins, has me working with babies. like, one-year-old babies. and, much like my old study at hopkins, i now find myself in situations that i never thought i'd be in. like carrying a one year old baby around mt. sinai hospital in new york, her not fussing or hating me. walking around with a baby that, in fact, has its head resting on my chest like it knows me. mind you, i used to hate children. hate them. hate.

my boss, laura, does these clinic visits with me. the reason i write that i must be a hard-hearted ogre is this: we have to perform procedures on these babies. not like brain surgery or pain threshold or any other kind of baby torture. normal procedures: blood draws, bioelectrical impedance analysis (don't ask). but these babies scream to high heaven. i mean scream like we were drawing and quartering them or pouring live ants onto their faces. baby torture.

i usually just sit there, though, knowing that the baby will be ok. they might not like being pinned down and having their blood taken, but you know what? i don't like a lot of things. laura always says that she feels like a bad person; like we're scarring these kids for life; like they're going to grow up and then see us on the street someday and start sobbing or screaming. i don't go to the bronx, so the chances of that happening are very unlikely. yet i digress. the point is, these babies are going to be fine, so i just watch the procedures being done. then the baby dries her eyes and has forgotten it in 10 minutes. so i guess i'm a little hard-hearted, since i can see babies be stuck with needles and not even flinch. now puppies--that's another story.

washington square park

i just have to be sappy for a moment, if you'll indulge me. there are moments since i started my new job at mt. sinai when i have to step back and realize just how blessed i am and how lucky i've been in the last few months. work was slow the other day, so i went and read some back issues of the good ol' reluctant receptionist, and i came across an entry i wrote a few days after terry and i broke up. i was just coming out of being totally flabbergasted and was making a plan of what to do next, since i obviously wouldn't be moving to chicago. here's a direct quote of the plan i came up with:

1. work at johns hopkins (where i've just been offered a promotion) for another year, and save as much money as is humanly possible while still managing to buy expensive clothes and eat expensive meals (check! and i definitely was able to buy expensive clothes and eat expensive meals. yay baltimore.)
2. early next year start looking for a job somewhere like columbia, nyu, or mt. sinai (sure, i didn't quite get the sinai job myself [thanks, off-site statistical coordinating center!], but hello. getting a job at mt. sinai. check!)
3. strongarm, coerce, or trick amanda sidebottom into moving from her parents' house in fairfield, connecticut to new york city to be my roommate (even though she's there four nights a week, check!)

what i'm saying, readers, is that going back and reading through some of the posts i wrote when i was in the wake of my breakup with terry, coming up with this completely impossible plan, reiterates for me just how lucky i am. and, that with planning and dedication and the blind stupidity to move to new york city without a job, it's totally do-able. and i'm not even living in a cardboard box in washington square park, licking the mayonaise off burger king wrappers for food. yet.

dolphin fitness

besides our persnickety trash men, who lately have been accusing us of "not sorting our recyclables," and have therefore been "refusing to take our garbage for three weeks in a row," one of the very few things i dislike about new york is my gym. i shouldn't really say that i dislike it. it's a fine gym; the people who run it (a truly astoria-like bunch, since every one of them is a person of color and from different parts of the world) are friendly and shake my hand when i go in. it's fairly clean (especially now that it's been renovated; when i joined it was in the process of converting from a boxing-heavy dude's dude gym to a, um, normal gym) except for the suspicious smell in the men's locker room. they have all the weights i need, usually plenty of benches and machines to go around. but, dear readers, it's no baltimore gay workout station.

most of the time i was in baltimore i worked out at hopkins with, in this order, hilary, ben park, and kel. and it was good--brand-spanking new, individual tv's on every piece of cardio equipment (not that i do cardio, since i'm only going to the gym for vanity weight lifting). let's not forget, also, the 19-year-old hopkins lacrosse eye candy. to this day they're some of the hottest guys i've seen in real life, and that's saying something. just like at depauw, though, they could afford to be hot. when you're not worrying about where your next meal's coming from, you have all the time in the world to think about diet and exercise. kinda like when everybody's so amazed that oprah's lost weight again: like, DUH she's lost weight, she has a personal trainer, personal chef, personal makeup artist...she should look like fucking claudia schiffer by this point.

for my last few months in baltimore, i abandoned hopkins gym (when kel was too busy to work out, which he often since he works two jobs) for the downtown athletic club, the gay gym. it wasn't all gay, of course, but most of us were. and damn, was it nice. not because i was checking people out (obviously i was, but that's not the only reason) but because i didn't feel as much like i had to be a tough-guy beefcake. i am not, clearly, a tough-guy beefcake, try as i might. it was fun, too, because i had friends there. i had hilary, ron, scott, eliza, nakia, leslie, gay abs. it was more than a little like going to the bar, albeit a bar where you pick up heavy things and put them down again while listening to your ipod.

my current gym is definitely meathead-ish. it's about, um, 60% latino meatheads, one of whom has the longest, most crystal gale-like hair i've ever seen on a man. the rest are middle-eastern and greek meatheads, one black guy (who's always there and always insists on blaring rap music through the stereo. BLARING.), and me. there might be an italian in there since a few of them have that horrible up-swept gotti-child guido hairdo. apparently all of the singers and actors and students that live in astoria go to new york sports clubs, because they sure don't go to my gym. it's a little intimidating, my gym, and i find myself posturing like i imagine a straight guy would. stiffening my walk, making sure i'm not flailing my arms around (think nathan lane in the birdcage) when i put down the weights. i'm just short of spitting onto the gym floor. wait, that was a joke but i've actually seen that happen. and i kept making grossed-out faces.

anyway, bottom line is this: i love paying $30 a month for the gym, and i couldn't afford to pay the $86 that NYSC charges. and so i'll work on looking like one of them; a few of the meatheads (the big black guy in particular) have started counting me as a regular and started talking to me. just call me the hulk.

too much thinkin

it's another rainy day here in the city that never sleeps. no, seriously. it never sleeps. at least the greek nightclub directly below my window, platos (pronounced either play-toh's or plah-to's, a topic of much discussion around our apartment) never sleeps. what do i care, though? i took half a tylenol pm with a white wine chaser last night.

since it's a rainy day--and since i no longer really have to dress up for work (by "really dress up" i mean i wear a t-shirt and jeans and my skull-and-cross-bone sneakers to work every day) it would look ridiculous for me to carry my coach purse to work with me. like, "why is the guy in the jeans and t-shirt and skull-and-cross-bones sneakers carrying that really fancy bag? he must be a homo. let's jump him!"--i carried my trusty backpack to work with me. in baltimore, carrying a backpack was no big deal. there were so few people around (it is, after all, a shell/ghost town of a place, but i love it still) that i never had to worry about someone stealthily reaching into my bag and stealing my wallet or my cellphone or my identity. now, though, carrying a backpack on the subway makes me feel like i'm guarding a bag full of plutonium. i clutch it to my chest protectively, wary of all those gypsy children who will try to steal my things. (will they try to throw their baby at me like dr. irwin, my college choir director, insisted they would?)

when i'm not on a crowded subway, though, i carry my backpack like i'm supposed to: you know, like, on my back. and i either have it on one or both shoulders, whichever's most comfortable. as i was walking to work this morning, though, and switched my backpack from one-shoulder to both, i remembered how much i used to think about how i carried my bag in junior high.

in junior high and high school, how you carried your backpack seemed to be an indicator of who you were. it sounds totally stupid but bear with me.

in early junior high, all of the "cool" kids wore their backpack on one shoulder. that was just how you did it, unless you wanted to look like a total fool. never mind the amount of back pain and physical therapy that, ten years later, carrying 40-pound weights by one shoulder has caused. at the time, you had to carry your backpack on one shoulder. then, sometime around 9th or 10th grade (1995-ish, smack-dab in the middle of alternative rock's grip on america), the "alternative kids," amongst whom i was desperate to count myself, started wearing their backpack on both shoulders. to this day, i have a very clear picture in my mind of the generic "alternative" kid that i was emulating: baggy, ripped pants, ringer t-shirt, skater-style pumas, backpack on both shoulders.

so i started wearing my backpack like that. and then i discovered that it was actually, um, way more comfortable and didn't hurt my back. and, well, i never really stopped being an "alternative kid," though now it's more like "alternative lifestyle."

there, dear readers, is the thrilling story of my backpack. i have no life.

a good at-work time waster

my boss laura just alerted me to this little gem of a website: a whole gallery of doctored-up (and totally hysterical) romance novel covers. below is my personal favorite: kangaroo gangbang.

take note

first of all, i totally got called out in brian's blog because he's on a weight-gain mission at the moment. he called me an ectomorph, which i literally had to look up. "lean, slightly muscular" doesn't sound bad to me (and it's accurate).

secondly, his blog entry included this sentence:

"So, my goal is to gain 1.5 pounds a week for 12 weeks, for a grand total of I don't do math."

brilliant.

half cocked

it's an early day here at the mt. sinai medical center--every monday we have a conference call at 8:30am. what the hell kind of person schedules a conference call for EIGHT-THIRTY EVERY MONDAY MORNING? honestly i have no idea because i've never met them. they're down in north carolina. but let me just say, it's early. so instead of paying attention to the conference call that's happening, i think i'll lightly keep an eye on the agenda and tell you all about my "crazy weekend."

ok, so i don't actually need quotes there. it was, in truth, a crazy weekend.

for the last two fridays, hilary and i have been calling our friday nights "singles evenings." that's because instead of going out, we do this: get home from work, go to the gym, get take-out, watch television, and watch a movie. oh, and drink a couple glasses of wine. and then go to bed. god, we're crazy.

saturday, however, was a lil' more planny: i got up late, then went with hilary to hear her friend jessie sing a recital...at lincoln center. he has a great voice, good diction. i wish i could say the same for the girl he was singing with--she somehow got it in her head that "rubato" or "colla voce" means "hold these last few notes as long as humanly possible, or until you're completely out of breath or blue in the face, whichever comes first." i kept wanting to get up and scream "JUST FINISH THE SONG ALREADY!" the high point of the recital, however, was when an old man was unwrapping a piece of candy for literally 5 minutes and a woman down the aisle from him whisper-shouted "will you ssstop with the CANDY!?"

later, we met up with george, who was in town for a premiere of a piece in westchester county. we then went out in the east village where we first went to "urge" (the urge? i don't know.) and met scott and chris. then we went to the cock. that's right. the cock. it literally smells like a bathhouse (not that i'd, ahem, know what that smells like) and had tattooed gogo boys in their underwear. kel kept buying us jaegermeister shots. we then waited for a train for 35 minutes, gave up, and bought an expensive cab back to astoria. let's just say i'm not spending any money this week. if i look skinnier next time you see me, you'll know why.

oh my god this is getting long. so, to wrap up: went to see george's piece premiered yesterday. was good to see him. he'll be back a week from thursday to be recognized by ASCAP for some composing award. and now it's monday and i'm back at work. wow.

enough

yet another filthy dirty laundry. when will it end!?
Enough.

"I know you know what I'm talking about," my friend Perri told me at brunch. He took a sip of coffee, made a face because it was too strong or too hot, and went on. "And I know you understand because you're just like me: a skinny, hairy Jew." I'm always taken aback by Perri's candidness. "And when you're a skinny, hairy Jew, like us, you look for approval wherever you can find it. So when there's a hot guy and he wants to take you home, you're not just flattered. It's like you have to go with him because for so long you've been the odd man out. So now here we are, sleeping with half of New York City because it makes us feel desired. Wanted. But you know what? It's fleeting. And as soon as we're done, on our way home on that brightly-lit train, we know what we've done and we know it's useless." It was one thing that we were cut from the same cloth, Perri and I, but giving it voice changed it. And, I have to admit, he had a point. I knew exactly what he meant because I am, in fact, a skinny, hairy Jew who has a habit of looking for validation in the wrong places. Well, I'm not actually Jewish, but that's a long story.

I let what he'd said sink in for a bit. I thought about the times that I've slept with people; about some of the things I've done that I'm a little less than proud of. I thought about getting caught in situations that I couldn't get out of, when I didn't think about what I was doing until it was too late. And I thought about why I let these things happen; why they keep happening. Perri was on to something. I'm not saying that every time I've slept with someone it's because I was proving to myself that I could, that I was always testing myself to see the hottest guy I could bag. But that motivation, the challenge, was too often part of it. It's driven by that side of me that feels like I'll be found out at any time for what I really am: the shy, unathletic kid; the awkward, self-conscious teenager. And it's that side, the one that remembers being those things, that's surprised when the hottest guy in the bar wants to take me home. It's that side that says to me, Robert, take it while you can get it.

So I guess the question is, now that I've diagnosed the problem, what am I going to do to fix it? Am I going to continue to sleep with random people for the challenge? If I don't want to seek validation from strangers, will I stop? Will I finally be able to tell myself, Enough. You are worthwhile without anyone else having to tell you so. Because, I know, in the long run the only opinion of myself that really matters is mine. And no number of underwear models or muscular punks or 19-year-old Abercrombie and Fitch boys will ever truly be able to give me what it is I need: self-confidence, love, respect.

I have to be honest with myself about what it is I want and why, and do my best to be honest with others. I have to try to find validation from within, not from acquaintances in the bedroom. I have to be confident that I am, as my mother always told me in her inimitable, matter-of-fact way, "good-looking enough for all normal intents and purposes." I don't have to constantly prove to myself that I'm desirable by racking up notches on my bedpost. Not that there won't be more; they'll just be less frequent. And they'll be etched for better reasons.

gimme money!

hilary and i have decided to start a team for aids walk. i mean, actually, that hilary and i talked about forming a new york aidswalk team and then, of course, planny planpants herself actually went to the website, figured out how to do it, and created our team. so far it's me, hilary, and my boss. we were going to call ourselves "we love anderson cooper," at which point laura (my boss) suggested that we get pictures of him from vanity fair, cut out the eyes, and wear anderson cooper masks. that would be extremely creepy (even for an event as gay as new york aidswalk) and a possible legal issue, since, you know, anderson cooper totally isn't gay (allegedly). so we decided to call ourselves the "baltimorons." because, yes, hilary and i just moved here and laura was born there. and her whole life her father's called her "the baltimoron." so it just fit.

the aidswalk is a week from sunday, and if you're in new york (or would like to travel to new york that weekend) and would like to walk, either go here or email me. or, to donate to our aidswalk team, click here. since my personal goal for fundraising was $25 (that's right, i like to aim really high. reach for the stars. all that.) it shouldn't be hard to reach it. and how funny would it be if i raised like $150 and the little thermometer at the bottom of the page registered that i'd raised like 600% (shut up i don't do math) what i was supposed to? i'd feel like donald trump. but for aids research.

so, in short. click here to donate money to GMHC and aids research. click here to join our team.

you're the best.

on the 6

every day on the subway i find myself adopting a kind of zen attitude. (it's like a zen thing; it's like, you know, how many...babies fit in the tire.) i guess i'm just not in as big a hurry as some of these people--the people who act like if they don't get down those stairs to the uptown 6 train like NOW they're going to either have a heart attack or stroke or lose their health insurance. i'm sorry, were we being chased by an alien and no one told me? is the train on fire and i just didn't notice? no? well then settle the fuck down. we're all going to get there eventually.

since i'm not in a huge hurry to get around the subway (unless i hear a train coming, in which case it's like "get the fuck outta my WAY, grandma!") i watch all these people running past me, pushing each other, getting pissed off. and yeah, i get jolted around and whatever. but it's still better than fighting elbow-to-chin to get up an empty platform 30 seconds faster.

i write this because i've seen the same pushy latin woman three times now. since i take the exact same train as i did at my temp job, and i've stood in the exact same place on both platforms for a month and a half now, this isn't surprising. but this woman, this crazy 40-something woman with this crazy, hunted look in her eyes (though she's dressed semi-professionally, which i assume means she's a secretary somewhere and not, you know, some kind of tribal warrior) has literally pushed her way to the front of the platform every time i've seen her, and then elbowed her way onto the car before people have gotten off. now, i know that i'm from oklahoma. and i know that i'm a little, um, slower than most people. but it's just courteous to let people get off the train before you try to shove your crazy ass onto it.

anyway, this woman fights her way onto the train and if anyone getting off the train dares to bump into her she shoots them this look that says, ai, mami, you betta fuckin watch where you goin. she's scary but i'm pretty sure i could take her if i had to.

death match on the 6 train.

food tv

apparently fake letters on blogs have really caught on. this is a good one, at least.

garbage assholes

i write to you this fine tuesday afternoon from my new desk at my new job with my new boss sitting right next to me. and i can't really tell you a whole lot about my job because, unlike my temp job (see "dear temp job"), i don't want to lose this job. and i hear that blogging about work is a totally awesome way to get immediately canned. i'd rather not find out for myself, so i'll just say this: it's awesome so far; the people are nice; the work's busy but enjoyably so; and the commute from my front door to my desk is just under 35 minutes. woot.

no, dear readers, i'm not going to write about work. i'm instead going to write about the garbage, specifically the new york city sanitation department. is that what they're really called? who cares, because they are fucking assholes.

and here's why.

for two weeks in a row now, they've refused to take our garbage, telling our crazy greek landlord that "we need to put our recyclables in clear plastic bags." at least i think that's what they're telling him, because i can understand literally not a word that this man says. and he inevitably comes to talk to me about it between 7:50-8am, which is just after hilary and amanda have left so i'm the only one left at the house and am therefore the only one around to deal with him. anyway, crazy greek landlord tells us that the garbage assholes have told him we're not separating out our garbage correctly (i think). mind you, we're not just throwing bottles and cans and boxes in our garbage. oh no. those are all either LINED UP on our kitchen counter or in a mysterious box that somehow became our "recycling bin" because it was next to the trash can. so i know for a fact that these garbage people are lying. and we can't have this trash pile up another week.

don't tell anyone, but on wednesday (our next trash day) we're going to take our trash down the block and drop it off in front of someone else's house. this will have to be done under the cover of darkness, because apparently the trash is serious business here in new york city, and i'm sure that we'd either be fined or have our asses kicked if anyone saw what we were doing. but i'm sorry. these trash men have it out for us and we're not going to take it lying down.

a quick 'un

so, dearest readers, where have i been all day? why on earth is it 9:45 pm and i'm sitting here blogging for the first time? how, i hear you all asking in my head (at least i hope it's your voices in my head, and not those other voices. you know, the ones that say things like "kill" and "now.") where have you been all day, robert? why did you make us sit through our jobs without at least writing something? well, it's because i was at mt. sinai medical center all day, becoming oriented for eight hours. it's all pretty run of the mill: hazmat splashes on you? wash it off and report it. get stuck with an aidsy needle? report it (and then panic just a little).

the good news is that i don't have to wait sixty days for my medical benefits. they kick in on june 1, which is just about when my medicine's going to run out. if it were any more closely timed it'd be worrisome. hell, it already is worrisome.

and so now i'm sitting here watching lifetime television for women with the roomie. it's called something like murder on shelbyville lane. of course. and it's completely, perversely engrossing.

so if you'll excuse me.

dear temp job

dear temp job,

listen, i have to tell you something. you're probably not going to like it, but please at least try to hear me out. try not to get upset or throw a temper tantrum or start randomly firing people like i know you have a tendancy of doing. just try to stay calm, temp job.

i don't know exactly how to say this, so i'm just going to come right out and say it: i'm leaving you. and no, it's not what you think. there isn't anyone else. ok, so that's not exactly true. there is someone else, in fact, and i'm leaving you for him. his name is permanent position at mt. sinai medical center, if you must know. but don't bother trying to look up his phone number and address to make harrassing phone calls at all times of the night. i've already warned him about you and his number's unlisted. oh i know, temp job, i know that you're part of corporate america and that you have your ways, but you're wasting your breath.

do you think this is easy for me? do you think it was easy breaking the news to miriam, our crazy temp agent in midtown who threatened to "shoot herself" when i told her i was leaving you? who said "well, what am i going to do now? i'll tell you what i'm going to do. i'm just going to shoot myself." the thing is, temp job, i think she just might be crazy enough to do it.

you should know one thing. i've been cheating on you the entire time we've been together. it's true. blogger, google chat, the new york times, even baltimore's citypaper. i've been ignoring you practically since i met you, but somehow you keep coming back for more. i'd almost think you needed me. almost, but not quite, temp job.

i can't blame it all on your mother, the VP of sales with whom i constantly had to deal during our relationship, nor can i blame it on your repetitiveness, or even your lack of respect. the main reason i'm leaving you for someone else is simple: he's offered to pay for my crohn's care. that's something you'd never even consider, you cheap bastard.

oh, and he's better in the sack.

yours,

robert

rocksnob

i'm a total rock snob. i've decided it's time to blog and come clean about this because in the last week i've done two really, really rock-snobbish things:

1. gotten into an argument with a complete, utter stranger (that i met on a GSW, no less, and haven't actually met in person) about the merit of liz phair's latest two albums. my stance is that her last album was among the worst albums i've ever wasted $14 on, and that the one before that shouldn't just be forgotten, it should be used to somehow torture liz phair herself. i say that because she went from indie rock goddess (the press's term, not mine) to over-the-hill avril lavigne. you see? i'm such a rock snob that i can't even tell a story without editorializing. the point is, i argued with a stranger about liz phair. dork.
2. i've gotten very proprietary toward certain bands, particularly the gossip. now, i've extolled the gossip's virtues on this very website since its inception, and have tried to force them upon any unsuspecting rock fan who's never heard of them. beth ditto's voice will, if you let it, change your life. but now, with the release of their newest album, which is completely fucking hott-ass dance/punk, they're starting to finally get attention. they're all over mtv2, all over logo, have been featured in out magazine. and now, i was shocked to see, our dear members of the cabinet at read your blog, shelby have picked up the cause. now, i say this is shocking only because members of the cabinet mainly listen to dance music and mariah carey. i'm not saying this to be mean; it's just a fact. they love thems some mariahs. so when i saw a post about a new discovery of theirs--the gossip--and then scott put "standing in the way of control" on the jukebox at the phoenix, i was like, shit, this bad has made it! which, i have to say, i'm happy about. because how many queer punk bands with queer fat girl lead singers are in the top 40 right now? but back to me being a rock snob. every time a new person asks me if i know about the gossip, i feel like i have to say something horribly dorky like, "um, YEAH--i had their first two albums AND their first EP." you know, to prove that i was there when it started. that i'm not going to be one of those people who started listening to green day after dookie came out. see? dorky rock snob.

the first step, i hear, is admitting that you have a problem. so consider me on the road to recovery.

oh, and if you want to see the gossip talk about a lot of cool stuff, including the bush administration and beth ditto's "r&b/funk/hip-hop" side project (!) click here.

back on the market

ah, what a long, frustrating morning of not being able to get onto blogger this has been, dear readers! you have no idea what it's like, clicking the refresh button every few minutes to see if the "network administrators who have been notified of the problem" have fixed the problem yet. does this make me an incredible nerd? yes it does. but i'm an incredible nerd trying to kill the last 24 work hours at my temp job, so i have an excuse.

so my roommate (we won't name names, but let's just say that it's not amanda and her name rhymes with schmilary) went out on her first date in quite a while last night. and, i have to say, self-congratutorily (is that a word? who cares, i'm that nerd who pushes the refresh button) that the date went well. i mean, how could it not? as i told her before her date, "listen. even if you never see this guy again, you get to drink a free pitcher of hogaarten." and, hello, it's a date. and, as i've always told myself, you have to give a lot of unnecessary head, er, i mean, kiss a lot of frogs, to find your prince. so, at my loud-voiced prodding, hilary's--er, i mean schmilary's--once again started kissing frogs.

it's because i finally got her to join an online dating site. now, listen, bitches. say what you will about online dating. and no, i haven't actually used an online dating site to meet guys so much as i've used an online cruising site to meet guys, but it works. besides the fact that i know several people who have had great success with online dating (again, i won't name names, but you know who you are), my new boss was just telling me about a great date she had with a guy she met online. and i've dated two great guys, both (ok, one) of whom i'm still good friends with. so i practically forced her hand to guide the mouse to an online dating site and make a profile. and you know what? two days later she had a date. yes, people.

so i just have to say this: in 2006, i have no idea how people are supposed to meet each other. considering that i don't pick people up in bars (the last guy i dated that i picked up in a bar was an intensely, um, interesting panamanian man who shall remain unnamed. god, is this the most anonymous blog ever!?), and i don't pick people up in subways (anymore) or at my gym (i'm not so into 19 year old greek fat muscle heads. imagine.), what's wrong with meeting guys online? you just have to have a few rules, all of which i shared with hilary before her date:

1. if he's misrepresented himself in his picture, you have aboslutely no obligation to even finish the date. seriously. if he's sent you a headshot from 1978 and is now 160 pounds heavier or old enough to be your dad (unless you're into that kind of thing), tell him so. does this sound bitchy? yes it does. but they'll get the message
2. meet guys in public places (like, um, the astoria beer garden). let's not have you wind up in some guy's freezer or under his floorboards.
3. don't take it too seriously. like i told my dear roommate, there are a lot of fish in the sea. and this is new york, which means those fish are going to be swimming by every few days. if this guy's an asshole, just don't call him back. if all he does is talk about himself or pick his teeth or complain about the roach infestation in his apartment or talk about how much he loves the black eyed peas, don't sweat it. enjoy your beer and get the hell outta there.

what have i forgotten? i'd love your input.

canned

now, i'm not saying that this whole article is about the company i'm currently working for, and that i know all of the names it mentions. because i can't say that or i might get, you know, canned.

so enjoy.

taking drugs with mickey

i love it when straight girls hear about gay days. read eliza's brilliant post here.

moviephone and shopping buddy

i just got so excited because i received a text message. even though i've been on the text message bandwagon a while, all my friends just recently joined me. so i never know who it's gonna be from. but i felt loved.

the message?

"Like ringtones? Love music? Reply GO to play Billboard Music Trivia!"

much like the time that i got commercials from the hippo but not quite as entertaining.

subway thoughts

having just moved, i have this conscious feeling of purposefully, determinedly planting roots here in new york. trying to settle in, make this feel like home. it's really the first time that i've moved somewhere that wasn't for school--the major moves in my life have been to indiana (depauw) and baltimore (peabster). starting at a new school is a little bit like being at a big singles bar that costs 30k a year: the mixers, the receptions, the ice cream socials, the "activity" fairs. everything is designed to bring the student body together, so it wasn't hard to find a group of friends. i met hilary, for instance, at one of the first receptions at peabody. because, i think, she said something about liking dashboard confessional and at the time i was etrenched in my love for all things chris carraba. (ok, so i still am and if he showed up at my office door right now i'd probably beg him to let me have his babies, which means that i'd have to come up with some miracle in modern science so that he could knock me up.)

amanda, too, i met at a mixer--she was in my, god what was it called? orientation group? help me out here, amanda. the point is, you're forced to get to know people, to get used to it.

since new york is a little, um, different than college, however, i'm making more of an effort to make myself realize: this is where i live now. this is where home's going to be, probably for quite a while. i feel a little bit like i've reached the end of the line. not in a bad way, i mean, but because it's been my goal for so long to live in new york (really since, i think, i was about 14 years old and decided that i was, irrevocably, queer) i'm not really sure where i'd go from here. unless, obviously, i was offered some ridiculous deal performing or teaching somewhere. until then, i'm here. riding the subway, cooking at my apartment, partying in the east village. making new york a home.

it's a good thing

let me just go ahead and write my usual "what a weekend!" post.

what a weekend! friday night i went to phoenix, a bar that scott called a "dive bar" but was actually a lot nicer than any bar in baltimore. when i think dive bar, i think, you know, some bar in fell's point that's in the back of someone's house where you have to hold the bathroom door shut with your foot while you pee. where natty boh's in a can are two dollars. or, even better, i think about the drinkery, the pre-stonewall spot at which i spent many a falling-down-drunk evening. wait, that just made me sound like an alcoholic. let's try it again. "...at which i spent one or at the most two falling-down-drunk evenings."

much better.

anyway, phoenix was far from a dive bar; but it was much less scene-y than the other gay bars i'd been to in nyc, bars like splash--er, i mean "SBNY"--xl, g. all those chelsea bars where gay guys stand around in a circle wearing tight t-shirts judging each other. having been to phoenix, however, and then saturday night to dick's--yes, it's a gay bar named dick's--with perri, i was happy to find normal gay bars with normal people. well, as normal as gay guys in new york get, at least.

perri and i walked into "dick's" and looked around: we were the youngest people there by a good 15 years (and i'm being generous). 80s diva music was playing on the stereo; red light bulbs hung over the pool table. the bar still smelled like stale smoke even though smoking's been banned in new york for years. "is this ok?" perri asked me, turning around. "it's perfect," i told him.

yesterday i taught my first voice lesson since moving to new york. on top of that, it was the first time i'd taught someone who had never sung a note in their lives outside of the shower. shockingly, it didn't go so badly. i had pictured myself trying to kill all this time--what do you do with someone who can barely match pitch for an hour??--by talking, talking, talking. i didn't have to, though. we had plenty to work on and he was a very nice man. he chose to sing "to dream the impossible dream" and went home to work on it for our next lesson. fun. oh, then i gave my friend andrea a coaching, for which she insisted on paying me. now, i love being paid. but when i've been friends with someone since college i get all weird about it. when hilary reminded me that today's the day i have to buy a new metro card, however, i felt less weird. thanks, andrea.

in other news (if you're still even reading by this point--jesus christ), it's my last week at my temp job. that's right, ladies, my old job at hopkins helped me get a new job at mt. sinai, doing basically exactly the same thing i was doing at hopkins, but with a little less responsibility. and so i get to say "LATER!" to corporate america again, as i'm once again welcomed into the fold of academic research. i get to wear jeans there. and go for walks in the park on my lunchbreak. and have my health insurance paid for. it's a good thing.