The Tin Man » 2003

Thursday, May 1, 2003

For some reason, it’s often hard to tell whether a young guy is gay, or just an evangelical Christian. They’re both so well-groomed and overly friendly, and they both want something from you.

Just another of those things I wonder about.

3:31 PM | 8 drops of oil

Friday, May 2, 2003

If tickets to Broadway shows weren’t so goddamn expensive, maybe I’d spontaneously see the revival of “Gypsy” that got such a rave review in the Times this morning. I really want to. But $101.25 for an orchestra ticket, and $66.25 for a nosebleed balcony seat? Plus an additional 10 bucks if I order it online? I just can’t afford that right now. This is why I rarely see Broadway shows anymore, as much as I’d love to.

A show gets a terrific review — “Gypsy” or “Hairspray” or whatever — and I figure I’d better buy a ticket that very morning, or else it will be sold out for months. But I can’t afford it, so I wait, and then I figure, well, I’ve waited so long, I probably won’t be able to get a ticket now. So I wind up never seeing the show.

So instead I go to the movies, and I miss out on great theater.

11:53 AM | 8 drops of oil

Monday, May 5, 2003

When I walk to my office building every morning, I pass a news kiosk that has a guard dog lying in front of it.

It doesn’t look like much of a guard dog. It’s a Siberian Husky, I think, with a white coat and brown spots. It’s cute, as Huskies tend to be. But the reason I know it’s actually a guard dog is because the kiosk has a sign that says something like, “WARNING: THIS PREMISES PROTECTED BY GUARD DOG.” (I wouldn’t normally use the word “premises” to describe a news kiosk, but I guess it qualifies.)

The other reason I know it’s a guard dog is because it lies there with a frown on its face and barks loudly at anyone who ventures close enough to pet it. Even children.

It sure is a grumpy old creature.

When I was walking to work this morning, I finally realized why it’s grumpy. Thing is, if I had to sit outside a news kiosk every single weekday, on the curb of a busy street, with traffic rushing by, including lots of loud buses, while my master got to hang out inside the kiosk all day, I’d probably be pretty grumpy, too.

It’s still cute though.

Maybe I should set it free…

2:41 PM | 1 drop of oil

Tuesday, May 6, 2003

I may not be a fan of New Jersey, but I do like the TV column in the New Jersey Star-Ledger. Today: That Time Warp, about temporal distortion on “That ’70s Show” and other programs:

With TV time, a year can represent a year, or it can mean a day (see “24″). Characters can age at varying rates, from not at all (Bart and Lisa Simpson) to ultra-fast (Andrew Keaton aged three years in about four months on “Family Ties”).

Even “Buffy” has engaged in temporal distortion, I think. Buffy turned 17 in “Surprise,” in January 1998. Four years later, there was another birthday episode, “Older And Far Away,” in which the gang threw Buffy a birthday party at her house. The odd thing (aside from the fact that the episode took place in February, not January) is that even though it was obviously Buffy’s 21st birthday, nobody suggested taking her out for a 21st-birthday bar crawl.

On top of that, I’m pretty sure the Scoobies have been drinking at the Bronze since before they theoretically turned 21. But maybe the folks at the Bronze don’t check IDs.

Of course, a few months before Buffy’s supposed 21st birthday, she’d just returned from Heaven, which probably had its own temporal distortion. After all, “time didn’t mean anything” when she was there. That could screw with things.

Or maybe the age of your body is what’s important. Buffy died in May 2001, and her body was resurrected more than four months later. Presumably, when her body undecomposed, it returned to its pre-death state, which means that her body’s aging would now be more than four months behind schedule. So Buffy’s body would have turned 21 sometime in May or June.

Still, winter 2002 was the 21st anniversary of her birth, and maybe that’s the relevant point.

I am so glad I’m not Buffy’s lawyer.

12:03 PM | 4 drops of oil

Wednesday, May 7, 2003

If it’s Wednesday, it must be time for another Buffy review.
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1:39 PM | Comments Off

I have been addicted to Friendster the last couple of days. It’s fascinating. If you don’t know about Friendster, it’s essentially a networking tool. You invite your friends onto it, and they invite their friends, and you can see who your friends’ friends are, and who your friends’ friends’ friends are, and so forth. Eventually, you acquire a network of people; anyone within four degrees of separation is included in your network. You can see how you’re connected to various people. You can contact them for dates, job leads, and so forth.

I love the social and mathematical implications.

Currently, I have seven people designated as friends, and my network consists of 9,281 people.

Within my network, the person with the most friends has 541 of them. I guess he’s the biggest Lois Weisberg of my network. (That’s a link to a fascinating article by Malcolm Gladwell, if you’ve never read it.)

Within my network, there are 116 single gay men in or near New York City.

I looked up a friend of mine in Los Angeles to invite him into the network as my friend, and it turns out he’s already in my network — only we’re separated by three degrees.

In New York itself, there are a few people to whom I’m connected via two different friends of mine, neither of whom know each other. This just goes to show that when it comes to gay people, New York really is a small town.

Another weird thing is that so many of the single gay New York men in my network are buff and shirtless in their photos. I didn’t know I was connected to so many people who would choose to present themselves that way. It kind of irks me, for some reason, even though I’m sure they’re good people. Well, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friends’ friends’ friends.

I’m also surprised at how many amazingly hot guys some of my friends and their friends know.

Anyway, I’m just waiting for Sleepster, which will let you see all the people who have slept with all the people you’ve slept with, and all the people who have slept with them, and so on.

Now that would be scary.

3:56 PM | 1 drop of oil

Thursday, May 8, 2003

Goodbye, East/West. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Because there were two of you, and because you guys knew how to make yourselves stand out from the crowd and garner attention, and because of the time and energy you guys put into finding links and writing thinks, you guys became the de facto center of the gay blogging community. The one-stop shop for tops and pops and mops. Philo’s warm squishy new-agey Californianess always contrasted nicely with Choire’s crunchy nutty New Yorkathon. It was like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup on crack and alcohol.

I’ve only met Philo once, and he seemed like a really nice guy. As for Choire, he’s really nice too. Ever since I first met him about two years ago, though, I’ve never been able to get a good read on him. I thought he was one thing, and then he turned into another thing, and then he turned into something else entirely. In fact, this part of his tribute to East/West leapt out at me:

Sometimes there were so many levels of irony in the East West soup I didn’t even know what I actually thought. Neither did readers, sometimes: irony, like sarcasm, doesn’t always play without vocal intonation or facial expression. I also didn’t know after a while if I was making fun of myself or not. Finally, I stopped caring, and let the good times roll.

Maybe it’s all those layers of irony that confused me.

Good luck in your future endeavors, guys. I’ll be reading.
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3:09 PM | Comments Off

Friday, May 9, 2003

I have a new crush. It’s the soup guy.

There’s this soup place around the corner from my office. You know, those places that make everyone think of the Soup Nazi on “Seinfeld.” All they sell is soup. They have different soups each day, and you get on line and choose a soup.

I went there for the first time yesterday, and I noticed one of the two employees behind the counter. He’s really cute. He wears a backwards baseball cap. He has pale skin and brown hair. He has nice eyes. He has a little soul patch on his chin. And his lower lip is adorable.

Yesterday I got chicken noodle. Today I got minnestrone.

The guy is all business. “What can I getcha,” he says. He takes my order, fills up a container with soup, gives me a hunk of bread, sticks it all in a bag and says, “Four seventy-two.” All this with barely a glance.

Clearly he’s secretly in love with me but is just too shy to say anything.

I will be eating more soup from now on.

12:51 PM | 3 drops of oil

I hate it when this happens.
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7:45 PM | Comments Off

Monday, May 12, 2003

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about blogs and openness and self-disclosure, and whether it’s good or bad. Things have been percolating inside my head.

I finally saw Pottymouth on Friday night, and Andy was brilliant.

I remember talking with Andy once about his show. I remember he told me that my blog entries kind of reminded him of the things he talked about on stage. This was back when I used to write more openly here about romance and sex.

I thought about his comparison again while watching Pottymouth on Friday night. I thought about how brave Andy must be to stand onstage in front of a crowd of people, describing his sex life in detail, making fun of himself, and so forth. I think he has a day job, too; what if his co-workers saw his show? What would they think?

Or what about potential romantic interests? What effect could such public openness — and not just as to romance and sex, but also as to thoughts and emotions — have on those people?

I wrote this in an old blog entry:

Why am I writing about all of this here? Could this possibly make anyone think any better of me? I’ve realized that one of my goals in keeping a blog has been to make connections with other people, and I’ve met some great folks… But…

Is it possible to know too much about a person? Subconsciously, I think I’ve hoped that my blog would bring a love interest into my life. Just be honest and truthful about myself and people will be all touched and moved and impressed by my honesty and self-awareness, won’t they. But how could someone love me after seeing all my mangled up, chaotic insides? Is detailing all my neuroses just a stupid, stupid idea? I mean, what the hell am I thinking?

Can blogs lead to romance? I still don’t know. I do think that blogs can fuck up the process of getting to know someone, or even of just communicating with someone. This is so funny because it’s true. When I stopped blogging last year, someone said to me, “How am I going to know what’s going on in your life from now on?” And I responded, “I guess you’ll actually have to ask.”

A blog lets you spy on someone’s life, even that of someone you know, without actually interacting with that someone. It works the other way, too; it lets you speak to a person without actually speaking TO the person.

A blog can bring people into your world, but maybe only so much.

And openly discussing your life can take away the fun of sharing. If everyone is special enough to know about the mysterious details of your life, then nobody is special enough. And someone’s got to be. I think.

These are all reasons why I haven’t been blogging as openly as I used to. It’s hard, because I’m a compulsive self-expresser; I process things through writing about them and talking about them. Also, it’s fun and cathartic.

I’d love to write more openly here. Sometimes I really really want to.

But I’m not so certain anymore that such openness can bring all the amazing benefits I used to think or wish it could.

12:13 PM | 3 drops of oil

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

Today is May 13.

Earlier today, I saw someone write the date on something, and he wrote May 12.

Later in the day, I saw someone write May 14.

I’m too lazy to come up with a punch line to all this right now. I thought of “never put off until tomorrow what you can write today,” but that’s just not funny.

So I’ll leave it up to you.

Please leave any potential punch lines in the comments.

If nobody leaves anything, I will feel really lame.

4:31 PM | 4 drops of oil

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

Last night I went to bed around 11:15. I woke up about three hours later, for no apparent reason. I couldn’t fall back asleep. I drank some water. I watched some TV. I got back into bed and my mind was racing. I wasn’t tired at all. An old journal entry popped into my head, something I wrote near the end of my last year of college. I dug through my box of old notebooks and found what I was looking for:

4/27/95

…I thrive on emotions, I suck them out of people, I am a supervillain like one of Superman’s super-powered enemies, with my fatal addiction that makes me have to suck in the universe like a vacuum sucking in a black tablecloth, only there is no underneath because I’ve sucked out existence. And even that won’t be enough because I must have more, more emotion. Intense emotion… Beautiful sexy crunchy, life-fulfilling emotion!

I got back into bed and my mind was still active. The sky outside grew lighter. “Fuck,” I said.

I fell asleep around 6:15 and slept for another hour and a half.

I’m exhausted today. I might go home at lunchtime.

I had a major bout of insomnia a week and a half ago. I thought it had pretty much gone away. But apparently it’s come back.

There is so much I want to write about, so much inside me that I want to express. And yet.

12:12 PM | 6 drops of oil

Thursday, May 15, 2003

I’m home from work today. I decided to take today and tomorrow off as a kind of mental health vacation. I left my office around 3:15 yesterday afternoon, exhausted. When I got home I fell asleep. I woke up a couple of hours later with stomach cramps and chills. I took my temperature; it turned out I had a very slight fever. It continued into this morning, but now it seems to be gone.

When I write here about things that are stressing me out, I’m always worried that it’s going to come off as whining and complaining. If it comes off that way, I don’t mean it to. The thing is, I do this for myself. Putting things into words can be helpful, seeing my thoughts laid out in a progression of sentences. There’s this odd beauty in it — especially when it’s on a computer screen.

One day recently, I suddenly thought to myself, “Jesus Christ, Tin Man, how did you ever wind up working as a public utilities lawyer for the state of New Jersey?” I have no idea what I’m doing in this job. My desk at work has piles of paper, and I’m lost in them. All my cases seem the same to me, and they’re all equally uninteresting. And I’m so poorly organized; I’m always forgetting things. And I hate how slowly things move in the legal world. Everything requires paper, multiple copies of it, and multiple phone calls.

Going to law school was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I’m now $50,000 in debt, and not only do I hate what I’m doing, I’m bad at it, too. My most recent annual evaluation stated, “Needs improvement.” My job is making me ill. I am a public utilities lawyer for the state of New Jersey. This is not what I ever expected to be doing with my life.

The thing is, this world isn’t made for people like me. It’s made for people like my brother, who’s extroverted and interested in business. I couldn’t care less about any of that stuff. Words such as “investment,” “mortgage,” “insurance,” “banking,” and “broker” make my eyes glaze over; my brother seems comfortable with that stuff. That’s something my brother and my dad have in common. They also have in common their season tickets to the Rangers (or used to, anyway, until the Rangers apparently started to suck.) Then there’s the fact that my brother is straight and I’m gay. All of this is probably why my dad calls my brother at work all the time to chat, while he rarely calls me. It’s not that he doesn’t love me; it’s that he doesn’t feel as comfortable with me, I’m guessing.

I had dinner with my mom last week. During the meal, I compared myself with my brother. My brother is on his third serious girlfriend, while I’m perpetually single. I started to talk about this, and my mom cut me off. “This is the lifestyle you’ve decided you want to live,” she said. I stared at her. “I thought we were past this,” I said. Indeed, I did think we were past it. Last year, my mom told me that she and my dad don’t want me to be alone, and that if I wind up in a relationship with someone, I should feel free to bring him to family events. I felt my parents had come so far. And then — this.

My mom seems to understand that I’m attracted to guys, but she doesn’t understand why I don’t get married anyway. She said that I’d be better off with a woman, someone who could nurture me, look after me. First of all, that’s insulting; if I’m in a relationship, I don’t want to be coddled. Second of all, even if I did want that, why couldn’t that be a man? And anyway, didn’t she see “Far From Heaven”? Does she want me to wind up like the husband? Because that’s what would happen.

Here is what I want.

1) I want to enjoy my days. I want to have the financial freedom to stay home and write if I want to.

2) More importantly, I want to have the discipline to stay home and write.

3) I want the guarantee that what I write will sell.

4) I want to live confidently and happily. I want not to care about what other people think. I want to be so confident that I don’t give a damn if someone else doesn’t like what I’m doing with my life.

5) I want to have a partner: someone I can have fun with, joke around with, be open with, be serious with, have meaningful conversations with, have great sex with. I want this to come out of a place of strength. I don’t want someone who pities me or wants to take care of me (sorry, Mom); I want someone who loves me for all the great qualities I have. And I know I’ve got lots of them. And I want to love him for all of his great qualities, too.

Now I’m going to go enjoy the rest of my day.
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1:08 PM | Comments Off

Friday, May 16, 2003

Finally. Buffy 7.21: End of Days.
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8:26 PM | Comments Off

Saturday, May 17, 2003

Last night, still getting over a fever, I decided to stay in. I wound up watching the 30th Annual Daytime Emmys. I got all misty-eyed watching a bunch of Muppets sitting around a piano, singing some of Mr. Rogers’s songs in a tribute to him.

The majority of the Daytime Emmys, though, are for soaps.

I used to be a big soap opera nerd. First there were the nighttime soaps. I started watching “Dynasty” when Krystle (Linda Evans) was kidnapped and replaced with a double. And I have childhood memories of hanging out at home on Friday nights, doing my childhood things — perhaps reading the new comic books I�d bought that afternoon, like I did every Friday after school — and occasionally popping into the den, where my parents would be watching �Dallas� and �Falcon Crest.�

In 1986, when I was 13, I decided to start watching “Days of Our Lives,” which my mom had watched forever. I’d tape it every day and watch it after school. I soon became engrossed in the adventures of the Brady clan: Roman came back from the dead, Kimberly’s newborn baby was kidnapped and missing for a year, Steve “Patch” Johnson fell in love with Kayla, Bo and Hope had a baby. I became obsessed. I drew a family tree. I memorized the order in which the cast members were listed in the closing credits. For a few weeks I even recorded each day’s developments on a separate index card. Yeah. Obsessed. I even got my brother to start watching.

“Days of Our Lives” led me to “Santa Barbara,” which was probably the most entertaining, creative, off-beat soap opera of the 80s. It was undeservedly cancelled in 1993 after only eight and a half years on the air.

During my freshman year of high school, a year when my life sucked, I finally wrote my own soap opera. I called it “Changing Times.” I made up a cast and a family tree and sketched out various long-term plot lines. I wrote three weeks’ worth of half-hour episodes, then stopped.

This all leads into my big soap opera story.

In the summer of 1988, my family went on vacation to California. Over several days, we drove down the coast from San Francisco. Eventually we got to Los Angeles, where we were spending a few days. We were at a restaurant, and my brother and I were arguing over something stupid. My mom told us to be quiet, and she pulled a letter out of her purse. She gave it to me to read.

It was from Susan Orlikoff Simon, one of the directors of �Days of Our Lives,� who�d gone to high school with my mom. Apparently my mom, without telling us, had written her, saying that we were going to be in L.A. and asking if it would be possible to visit the studio.

In my hand was her response, telling my mom that we were totally welcome to visit the studio.

It turned out we were going the next morning.

Well, I just totally flipped out right there. I couldn�t believe it. Oh my god oh my god oh my god. We were going to visit �Days of Our Lives.�

Early the next morning, August 4, 1988, we drove out to the Sunset-Gower Studios. We stopped at a gate. A guard checked a list and let us drive through. We parked the car. We got out of the car. We walked into a building.

To our left was a receptionist�s desk.

To our right was a loungy area, where a few people were hanging out, chatting.

Holy shit. It was Frankie (Billy Warlock, later of �Baywatch�), Adrienne (Judi Evans), and this other guy, just sitting there, chatting with each other in three-dimensional glory, just like real people. I nearly fainted.

It turned out to be an amazing morning. We got to see the sets in use for that day�s taping. We got to watch rehearsals. We got to see the control room. We got to see the place where they store the sets not in use. I got to see my dad chat about real estate with Victor Kiriakis, a.k.a. John Aniston, father of Jennifer Aniston (way before �Friends� made her famous). Judi Evans flirted with me.

I got to meet a bunch of the actors. In addition to the above, I got to meet Jennifer Horton (Melissa Brennan), Mike Horton (Michael T. Weiss, later of �The Pretender�), Shawn Brady (Frank Parker), and Justin Kiriakis (Wally Kurth, now on �General Hospital�). Unfortunately, none of the big superstars were in the episode being taped that day, so I didn�t get to meet Roman and Diana or Kim and Shane or Steve and Kayla. (My mom really wanted to meet Drake Hogestyn, who played Roman.)

But my dream had come true.

A few weeks later, the director sent us a script of the episode we�d seen them rehearse that day, signed by about 20 cast members. (I wonder how much it would fetch on EBay today.)

When we moved to Japan I couldn�t watch the show anymore, but during college I started again. My dorm�s cleaning lady watched it, too, and she regularly asked me if I�d seen �the story,� as she called it.

I haven�t regularly watched �Days� for a long time. Either it�s not as good anymore, or I grew older and more discerning. For several weeks a few summers ago I was into the ABC soaps, which seem to be where it�s at these days. After last night�s awards show, maybe I�ll start watching them again.

What is it about the soaps? What draws me in? It�s not primarily the attractive people, or even the romance. It’s partly the fantasy and the adventure. But more than anything else, it�s the sense of continuity balanced with change: the byzantine family trees, the complicated, suspenseful plot lines that go back years and years. In an ever-changing world, there�s some security in knowing that you can tune in every day and watch the same people, or their relatives, live out endlessly complex stories, all in the same town.

My name is Tin Man, and I am a soap opera nerd.
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5:06 PM | Comments Off

Monday, May 19, 2003

To be depressed when you have experienced trauma or when your life is clearly a mess is one thing, but to sit around and be depressed when you are finally at a remove from trauma and your life is not a mess is awfully confusing and destabilizing. Of course you are aware of deep causes: the perennial existential crisis… the truth that you are not Tolstoy, the absence in this world of perfect love, the impulses of greed and uncharity that lie too close to the heart — that sort of thing. But now, as I ran through this inventory, I believed my depression was both a rational state, and an incurable state.

– Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

I’ve been wondering lately if I’ve been depressed. I don’t feel like I am. Is my life a mess? Not really. But is my life where I would like it to be? Not really. I feel frustrated and dissatisfied with parts of my current existence, but it doesn’t feel like depression; I can function, and I can enjoy going to movies and eating out and browsing in bookstores. I had a very relaxing self-imposed four-day weekend, in fact. I think that my unhappiness is tied to particular external circumstances, and if I change or remove those circumstances, I think things will much improve.

Anyway, I’ve always been more of an anxiety-type guy. When I began seeing my current therapist, she had to file a diagnosis for insurance purposes. She asked me, tongue in cheek: “Okay, do you want to be anxious or depressed?” I chose anxious, because anxiety is more my thing. Anxiety means activity. My brain is highly active, for better or worse. Depression — I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like me. As much.

One of my previous therapists was a psychiatrist, a full-fledged MD, and in two years of sessions he never thought I needed medication. Neither of my other two previous therapists thought I needed medication either, although neither was an MD. Last week I told my current therapist (a PhD, not an MD) that I wanted a referral to a psychiatrist. I’d mentioned it before. This time she agreed. She thinks I might be depressed, because I haven’t been exhibiting the energy or initiative to make the necessary changes in my job situation.

But I don’t think that means I’m depressed. Down, sure. A bit despairing, yeah. But depressed — not physically. When it comes to things I want to do, I can do them. I have the mental energy to write these words (and many other words). I’ve made necessary appointments. I shower and get dressed and come to work (even if I can barely get myself to do any of the work I’m supposed to do).

Anxious, that’s another story.

I’m scared of medications. Well, more accurately, I’m scared of side effects. I’m scared of permanently screwing up my metabolism. If there’s anything I’m thankful for, it’s that I have a nice trim body that requires no effort to maintain, and I’d hate to lose that. A friend is encouraging me to try supplements first, instead, since they’re natural.

We shall see.
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12:35 PM | Comments Off

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

Last night I watched ABC’s 50th Anniversary Celebration on TV. (Actually, I was out for the first half of it, so I taped it and watched most of it last night.) I’m a sucker for those big TV nostalgia-fests. This one wasn’t spectacular — it was awkwardly edited and had pointless, incomplete cast reunions — but it was filled with lots of great TV clips. I think ABC’s heyday was in the late ’70s and early ’80s, when it ran escapist sitcoms like “Happy Days” and “Mork & Mindy” and fun shows like “Eight is Enough” and “The Greatest American Hero.” I’m too young to remember that era very well, but these are the memories I have manufactured for myself, and isn’t that what nostalgia’s all about?

The best network anniversary special I’ve ever seen was NBC’s 60th Anniversary Celebration, a three-hour show broadcast on a Sunday night in May 1986. I still have it on tape somewhere, and I used to watch it all the time. The whole thing was liberally sprinkled with clips from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. There were a few radio excerpts, but I guess radio doesn’t translate very well to TV. Different NBC celebrities introduced each segment, but the main hosts were Malcolm Jamal-Warner and Keshia Knight-Pulliam, a.k.a. Theo and Rudy of “The Cosby Show,” NBC’s big hit at the time. They travelled through the NBC studios at 30 Rockefeller Center, and there was a musical number in the lobby of the building, with all the singers and dances dressed as NBC tour guides, wearing navy blue jackets with the NBC logo and khaki pants or skirts. And the musical number included a woman dressed as the NBC Peacock. You really had to see it.

There was an entire segment consisting of clips from “Saturday Night Live.” Bryant Gumbel and Jane Pauley hosted a segment on the history of “The Today Show.” Deidre Hall of “Days of Our Lives” and Pat Sajak of “Wheel of Fortune” hosted a segment on NBC daytime. Barbara Eden of “I Dream of Jeannie” appeared on a stage decorated as a big suburban home to host a loving segment on NBC sitcoms. Michael Landon of “Little House on the Prairie” did Westerns. Michael J. Fox did something. There were segments on variety shows, cop shows, news, TV movies, sports programming, children’s television, and so on. There was an even a segment that had various NBC logos morphing into each other.

The whole thing was really quite cheesy and wonderful. I have to find that tape.

I love the 1950s, or at least the 1950s as I used to see them, filtered through movies and television. I used to fantasize about going back in time to the ’50s and wandering through an empty suburban house on a random weekday, when the kids were at school and the father was at work and the wife was out shopping with her wifely friends. Nobody would be home, so I could sit on 1950s furniture and watch cheesy 1950s game shows and soap operas, and then I could go outside and wander along the suburban streets filled with big Chevys, kids on tricycles, and leafy black-and-white trees.

It should be no surprise that “Back to the Future” is one of my all-time favorite movies.

We all need a little escapism, right?

3:18 PM | 4 drops of oil

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

Buffy 7.22: Chosen.

Amen.

1:48 PM | 8 drops of oil

Thursday, May 22, 2003

Last night I dreamed that someone stole all my possessions, and I realized it was because I’d given someone my credit card. I lived in a big communal room with a bunch of other people, and all my possessions, including my bed, were contained in an armoire against a wall. Everyone else who lived in the room had an armoire, too. One day I came back to the room and realized that there was a gap where my armoire used to be, and that’s when I realized I’d used my credit card to pay for several things, and that one of the clerks who’d had access to my card must have somehow stolen my possessions. But I had no idea who. I felt guilty for having been so careless.

The cops showed up, and then I realized that my armoire had come back — whether because of the cops or in spite of them, I’m not sure. At any rate, all my possessions were still in the armoire… except for my wallet. I wasn’t sure whether to be happy or not.

3:52 PM | 4 drops of oil

Friday, May 23, 2003

This morning I accidentally swallowed a little bit of Listerine.

I feel slightly woozy.

Why do some people refer to a blog entry as a “blog,” and a blog as “blogs” plural?

“I like your blogs.”

But I have only one.

“No, I mean I like the blog you wrote yesterday.”

But I didn’t write an entire blog yesterday. I wrote a blog entry. This whole endeavor is my blog.

“Huh?”

Exactly.

It’s so dark and cloudy out again. It sort of doesn’t feel like a real day.

Woody Allen’s recent movies are not as good as his earlier ones.

More later.

10:33 AM | 2 drops of oil

I have joined a Success Team. We have our first meeting next Wednesday.

The concept of success teams was started by Barbara Sher, an author I’ve come to love. She’s written numerous books about discovering your goals and then achieving them — books such as Wishcraft and I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It. Her main idea is that in order to get what you want, you shouldn’t waste time trying to change who you are, because it won’t work. Instead, find ways to accommodate who you are.

Her theory behind success teams is based on networking and community: you might not be able to reach your goals using your own resources, but if you’re in a small group, you will meet people who know people who know other people, and so forth, and you can all help each other reach your goals. You also have the benefit of the other people’s brains, and they might be able to see your situation differently than you see it. Plus there’s lots of mutual motivation going on.

One of my goals lately is to get back into performing. I think I want to take an acting class, or get involved in community theater, or do some singing, or something. For someone who considers himself an introvert, I seem strangely to thrive around other people more than I’d expect to, and I hope to tap into this energy through performing once again.

Wish me, um, success.

4:28 PM | 3 drops of oil

Monday, May 26, 2003

This weekend I learned that I am a few degrees of separation away from a couple of celebrities.

On Friday night I went out with a friend and some of his friends, and I learned that my friend’s friend’s ex-boyfriend, with whom my friend’s friend still lives, went home with a certain celebrity after the Les Miz closing party. The celebrity’s name rhymes with Gallon Strumming, and he once appeared in a photo with Faustus’s dog.

Later in the weekend, I learned that on Friendster (which I recently mentioned, and which everyone else now seems to be talking about too), I am three degrees of separation away from another celebrity, who was a child on a 1980s sitcom about a single mother and her male Italian housekeeper and who subsequently came out of the closet. His name rhymes with Manny Gin Sorrow, but on Friendster he uses the one-syllable version of his name.

I’m not sure if it’s really him or just an impostor, but at any rate… it’s pretty cool.

New York is such a small town.

1:28 PM | 3 drops of oil

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

Last night I was walking home after having dinner with a friend of mine. As I began to walk up the steps of the brownstone in which I live, I saw one of my next-door neighbors standing on the stoop of the adjacent brownstone, smoking. He said hi, and I said hi. “How are you?” he said. “Good, how are you?” I said. I’ve lived in my apartment for a year and a half, but for some reason none of our interactions had ever progressed past this. I hadn’t even known his name or anything about him.

But last night the conversation continued. For some reason he actually introduced himself and told me his name, and I told him mine. I asked him which apartment in the brownstone was his, and he told me that he and his partner actually owned the whole building and lived on the three main floors, with tenants renting the basement. I had seen both men before, but I had assumed their building was divided into apartments like mine is, and although they’d both seemed kinda gay, I hadn’t thought to assume that they lived together, let alone owned the whole building.

Then he invited me in for a drink and a tour.

I walked into a beautiful townhouse. I saw a renovated kitchen and a little den in the back that had skylights. The partner was there, and I got introduced. They poured me some red wine. Food was cooking on the stove. They’d just returned from 10 days in London and were trying out a Jamie Oliver recipe: salmon wrapped in prosciutto, with some lentils and spinach on the side. It smelled delicious. They were expecting their gay friend from around the corner. He soon showed up — a middle-aged British man, who apparently has a partner as well. They’d all gone to London together, or something.

I drank wine, and much delightful conversation ensued. I decided to leave before they began eating, so as not to cause any awkwardness, as there were only three pieces of salmon and I’d already had dinner. But before I left, I gave them my number. After all, you can never know too many affluent, fabulous gay couples, right?

I walked down their front steps, took about four steps along the sidewalk, and then walked up the steps of my building, laughing at my good fortune and at myself.

It’s so typical of me to live next door to such people for a year and a half and not know it.
—–

2:07 PM | Comments Off

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

The other night I had a dream about my friend Doug, who died in the World Trade Center.

I have this close group of friends from college. We all lived in the same dorm for two years, and we’re still close today, even though we’re scattered across the country now (and one’s in China). Most are married, a few are not, most are working, one’s getting an MBA. Doug was among these friends.

In the dream, I was living in this big apartment, and I had my group of college friends over for some sort of party. Doug was there, too, and I was surprised to see him. He was incorporeal; he looked and sounded just like Doug, but he had no physical substance, just like a ghost. Other than that, he was the same old Doug, just one of the guys, standing around and schmoozing as gregariously and happily as he always had.

He talked about all the travelling he’d done since he’d died. He pretty much floated around the world now, from place to place, and he was privy to people’s thoughts and dreams in a way that ordinary human beings are not. He’d seen so many people and places. It sounded like he was on a great adventure.

He seemed so present.

I don’t know why I dreamed about him; I hadn’t been thinking much about him lately. But I don’t think I’ve ever fully been able to wrap my mind around his death. Part of me feels like he’s spending a couple of years abroad, in Madagascar or something, and just doesn’t have e-mail access. We human beings rely on sensory perception, on tangibility; absence is cognitively hard to grasp.

He was 27 years old, and he’d gone into work that morning just like he always did. And then he was gone. I don’t get it.

11:05 AM | 1 drop of oil

Bill, a 36-year-old journalist, spent time in Amsterdam, where he found that most gay men were versatile, then moved to New York, where everyone was obsessed with top/bottom. “It’s very American to have to decide, like ‘McDonald’s or Burger King?’ Why should you limit yourself that way?” Versatility benefits everyone, he says. “The best tops are also bottoms because they know what it feels like.”

– “Who’s on Top?”, New York Magazine

11:20 AM | 7 drops of oil

Thursday, May 29, 2003

Today is the conclusion of the National Spelling Bee, in which nerdy kids spell nerdy words. It probably will garner slightly more attention this year, thanks to the highly entertaining movie “Spellbound”. (You can play Hangman on the movie’s website.) The competition is being broadcast live on ESPN today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a one-hour lunch break at noon.

I’m taping ESPN today.

This is the first time in my life I’ve ever said that.

11:16 AM | 1 drop of oil

Last night was the first meeting of my Success Team. There were only four of us, which was a little disappointing, but we’ll see.

We met up at Starbucks and then moved outdoors, where we sat at a small table by the Hudson River, the skyline of Lower Manhattan looming on the far side. It is rare that I can look at the skyline of Lower Manhattan without thinking of certain things.

We did several exercises. One of the first exercises was to describe each other. In turn, each person would turn his or her back to the group, while the other three discussed the positive aspects of that person for three minutes, based only on first impressions. You had to take notes on what was said about you.

Here are the notes I took on what was said about me:

depth, absolutely

reserve - indicates strength -

doesn’t show you everything at one time

still waters run deep

very friendly

a lot going on - interested to know more - what he holds dear to him -

seems like a deep thinker - rather considered -

thoughtful of other people - aware of what they’re feeling -

sensitive to what they need - not a bull in a china shop

good taste in frappucino! sweet tooth - good thing!

expressed himself well - no trouble with it -

comfortable with words & w/ talking about himself but

not in a self-centered way / but matter-of-fact

After that, we each picked a practice goal and brainstormed about solutions to those goals. And there are homework exercises. In addition to the homework, each of us is supposed to call one of the other team members during the week to check on that person’s progress.

The goal I picked was to find an acting class in the city, but I don’t know how enthusiastic I am about that anymore. I think instead that I’d like to find people to read my screenplay and tell me what it needs to make it better. I think it needs more plot, but I don’t know, because I can no longer read it with a fresh eye.

By the way, one of the group members is trying to find people to attend her workshop for women who want to empower themselves. Are any of my readers females in the NYC area who would be interested in learning more about it? Or who would like to publicize it on their blogs (like I’m doing now)? If so, I can give you her e-mail address.

Hey, look, it’s working.
—–

2:09 PM | Comments Off

Friday, May 30, 2003

So, yesterday was, of course, the end of the National Spelling Bee.

While it’s usually the longer, multisyllabic words that are the most fun, such as “kwashiorkor” or “ostreophagous” or “electroencephalograph,” the shorter ones can be interesting as well. One of the shorter words this year was “lefse,” which did in poor Jesse Zymet, who had no trouble with “oropharyngeal” but misspelled “lefse” as “levsa.” Not that I would have done any better, mind you.

What is lefse? Well, just check out Freddy’s Lefse! Because Norwegians have been credited with many things, but the best just may have been the sharing of their lefse recipe!

It looks like a blintz.

I noted on that page that lefse is “traditionally served with lutefisk or with any holiday meal” (coming soon to a Rosh Hashannah table near you!), so of course I had to learn more about lutefisk.

Behold the power of lutefisk.

It would be rude to bring you to Norway and not give you your own lutefisk.

I particularly enjoyed the lesson on understanding the relationship between aquavit and lutefisk.

I think my life needs more lutefisk.

More lutefisk! I want more lutefisk!

I love the word “lutefisk.”

God bless the Internet.

11:51 AM | 5 drops of oil