Spot the drag queen . . . So yesterday I had the day off and by late afternoon I started planning what I was going to make my honey for dinner. So I turn on the Food Network for a little inspiration. Just my luck, Molto Mario is on. This guy isn't exactly my favorite - I'm not sure why. For some reason he bugs me. Anyway, the show is just starting and he introduces his 3 guests, and one of them is "Priscilla". I look and I think, wow, that's one butt-ugly woman. Then I look again and realize, that butt-ugly woman is a man! I grab my camera, because I know no one is ever going to believe this. She laughs and asks all the requisite questions, "Mario, why not just use red pepper flakes?", "Mario, how do you make crutons?". Then, when asked to help scoop the seeds out of a zucchini remarks, "Thank God for nails." She does pretty well, considering I'm sure she's flying on extacy or blow (why would you bother to dress in drag and be on Molto Mario unless you were on extacy or blow?)

Unfortunately, the car (referred to in our house as the "Black Shadow") had to go in for a tune-up, financially squelching any possibility of a weekend get-away to Provincetown this weekend. Columbus Day Weekend is part of Women's Week in P-Town, so that's out. The next possible escape trip to the tip of the Cape is going to have to be sometime in mid-October. (sigh)

My friend Sheri and I have been recollecting things about our college years together. Here's what it basically comes down to: Endless nights of dressing up and going to the only local gay club - The Common Ground, pizzas and extra cokes, being in student films, being on local TV, reenacting GONE WITH THE WIND and STAR WARS in our living rooms, Abba, Fleetwood Mac, Duran Duran, Arcadia, Power Station, cats and dwarf hamsters, Terwilleger's pop quiz's, Dave Hamovitt's tongue, car problems, more going to the Common Ground, wearing makeup, working in cool stores and radio stations, Jim Tilillylang, Charles and Diana, Minz I, Rita Reagan, Dhalia Pelli, Pyramid Mall runs, Panda Food, Cool Grey eyeliner, more Common Ground, Shirley Maclaine, Hedda Gabler, Karen and Karen, Betty helping us thru graduation, Little Debbie Snack Cakes, our "dance" routine, yogurt from the vending machine, walking thru Ithaca at 2am, Hall & Oats, Fergie and Andrew, the smoke machine for Blitz: "disperse, disperse!", cooking Thanksgiving dinner, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, press releases, psych class, pop music class, and NEW YEAR'S at the Common Ground. No doubt this list will grow.

Last night we went to a little Enterprise premiere party and watched it with 8 other gay boyz. Okay, so here's my review: I liked the script and the concept, but I thought the execution sucked. If it looks like a duck, and sounds like a duck, it's Rick Berman and Paramount. But, lets start off on a positive note: I liked the cast. Scott Bakula is going to be great. His legs aren't bad, either. T'Pol is a hotty and an interesting character. Jolene Blalock did a good job in the role - she's got the whole Vulcan thing down and seems to be a good enough actress - it's just too bad Rick Berman is fixated on tits so much. The guy who plays Chief Engineer Charles Tucker is a winner. I'm going to really like this character and Curt thought he was hot. They should definately find reasons for him to take his shirt off more often. Doctor Phlox caused some confusion with the gang though - everyone thought he looked like a Cardassian (he does) and acted like Neelix. All the rest are fine as well, I'm sure they'll all grow on me as time goes on. Now let's switch to the problems: There's just a certain "look" and sound to these Rick Berman shows that I'm really tired of. They are so cookie cutter. You can smell them from a mile off. The way they're shot, the way they're edited. The same frickin lighting schemes, the same special effects shots. I mean, I'm sorry, but several of the shots of the Enterprise going into warp or flying by are the exact same angles that we've seen in The Next Generation and Voyager. Couldn't they do something a little different? Personally, I think it would have been fun to see a few special effect homage's to the Original Series. Dennis McCarthy's same melody-less scoring (blech!). It just feels like the same TV show that I've been watching since the last few seasons of The Next Generation - just a different cast and characters, and I'm tired of it. It's a turn off for me. I can only surmise that Berman has got a group of directors and a crew that he knows won't make waves or be hard to work with. He's got them all trained just like he wants them, which is why this show looks and feels just like all the others - and that's too bad because this show doesn't feel "fresh" at all, and that's what I really wanted. I have no inclination that I'm going to be drawn to UPN every Wednesday night because "Omigod - what will they do and what will I see this week!?!?". It's just the same old, same old. One of the best things about the new show is the new opening credits because they are fresh and different. Too bad nothing else about the show is. I wish that more of the humor, which was one of my favorite things about the script, worked better in the final product. The whole Archer and his Dad with the model thing didn't work at all and was just confusing to the crowd I watched it with (I only got it because I'd read the script). So, I'm still thinking about it, but those are my initial feelings. Curt was bored to tears by it.

I'm not much of a TV viewer, but every Fall I scan the new shows looking for some possible winners - something that might actually entice me to watch every week. Another Will & Grace or West Wing. There are only a few possibilities this year, it seems, and here's what I think so far: The Ellen Show: SUCKS! Emeril: REALLY SUCKS! Now, I tried to warn Emeril not to do this way back in May, but he didn't listen. Tonight is the premiere of Enterprise, which looks promising. I've read the first episode's script and, just an hour ago (thanks to my friend Derrick) got to see the opening credits. I'm all excited, and being the longtime Trekkie that I am, I'm hopefully this will be the start of something beautiful.

I'm a little tired. The last two nights I've been kept up by a lot of Dick. No, not THAT kind of dick you cheeky monkey. Director Richard (Dick) Donner and Creative Consultant Tom Mankiewicz narrate the director's track in the recent SUPERMAN - THE MOVIE DVD release, which I borrowed from my ex this week. The last two nights, after Curt crawled into bed, I put on headphones and watched the movie while listening to Donner and Mankiewicz re-live their experiences making it. It has been 22 years since they completed their work on the film, and it was fun to hear their reactions which, after all this time, can be somewhat objective. Both clearly still hold considerable disdain for the producers and some of the Warner Brother executives that worked on the film. Mankiewicz is pretty obviously the man responsible for writing most of the best elements (despite other people getting actual screenwriter credit). And they both remain in awe of the sets and special effects that were created (many of the talents responsible now dead). More than anything, they gush about how lucky they were to have the cast they did: Brando, Reeves, Hackman, Kidder. Several times I was struck by Richard Donner's sad tone when explaining how hard they worked to do something, only to end it with "of course, now with CGI, it would be easy". It sounds like he misses the days when filmmakers had to be creative and ingenious in solving problems, and he obviously holds in very high esteem those "old school" people who helped him make a movie that was nearly impossible to pull off at the time. Much of the fun in filmmaking has been taken from him, it seems. It's just not as much fun now that you can easily put on screen anything you can imagine. SUPERMAN - THE MOVIE still holds a special place in my heart. Right up there with STAR WARS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND - childhood films that consumed my thoughts and dreams while growing up in rural upstate New York. John Williams brilliant score, the crisp writing that amused audiences of all ages, the amazing production design, fantastic cast. Just the scope of the damn thing is amazing. Even though today special effects may be much more advanced and convincing, and some of shots in SUPERMAN look a bit amateurish today, whenever I see this film I still get a big grin on my face and get a little nostalgic. It's still a favorite, and to this day, when I see Christopher Reeve in his red and blue costume shoot into the sky of Metropolis, I still believe a man can fly. Good job Dick and Tom. And thank you.

It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free. Bunting of blue, white and red, always arranged with the blue above, the white in the middle, and the red below, should be used for covering a speaker's desk, draping the front of the platform, and for decoration in general. With everyone being so patriotic and hanging flags everywhere, there's no time like the present to brush up on your U. S. Flag Codes. There may be a pop quiz.

I've found that Curt and I are dealing with our fears in slightly different ways. For me, coming downtown to work each day suddenly feels like I'm possibly taking my life into my own hands, so I wanted to stay away from downtown this past weekend and just have a little piece of mind. Curt, who works out of the city, felt more inclined to challenge and face his fears, and so he sarcastically suggested on Saturday that we go to Faneuil Hall for raw oysters and clam chowder, then get a 12-pack and go sit on top of the gas tanks for the afternoon (there are large gas holding tanks in Charlestown that were rumored to be a potential terrorist target). I won though - we left the city and went outlet shopping.

Well, the city of Boston is well and remains unscathed, despite rumors that something horrible would happen this past weekend. Our Mayors reassurances that there was "no credible threat" did little to help the businesses on Newbury Street, Downtown Crossing and Faneuil Hall on Saturday. News reports showed them all to be pretty empty (or very noticeably uncrowded at best). I think a lot of people in Boston are still spooked (including myself). It's unnerving to know that the FBI knows about terrorist cells in your own city, and that the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center flew out of Boston. Curt remarked this weekend how different an experience this whole thing must be for us than for people who live in more rural areas. We're grappling with the tragedy of what happened AND trying to cope with the possibility of a follow-up attack in the very place that we live. I think for the very first time we both actually envy rural living, if only because you can feel pretty safe that you're not going to be nearby if there's an explosion or get a whiff of some life threatening chemical when you walk down the street. Just this weekend there was yet another scare when two suspicious planes flew low over Quabbin Reservoir, which supplies much of the drinking water to Boston. Authorities are saying that they've found no evidence of anything wrong with the water, and pointed out that there are 412 billion gallons of water in the Quabbin and that it takes years for water from one part of the reservoir to get to the other. It is unrealistic to think that it could be contaminated from a small plane. I guess I'll keep drinking the water. We're shaken but not stirred.

The Fall season brings the return of affordable prices in Provincetown and the ability to get into a restaurant without a reseravation or waiting in a line. The express ferry will end until Spring soon, so I've been bugging Curt for a weekend get-away, and, discovering that this is occuring this coming weekend guarantees lots of horny boys will also be there. Seems like a perfect weekend for a little R&R.

Mark Bingham was one of the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco that crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. He is also widely credited in the media as being one of the passengers thought to have fought back against the hijackers. What you don't hear is that Mark Bingham was a gay man. He owned a public relations company, The Bingham Group, with offices in San Francisco and New York. He was also a member of The San Francisco Fog Rugby Football Club. He made a last phone call from the plane to his mother.

An H&M clothing store opened in Boston's Downtown Crossing a few weeks ago. I stopped by for the first time today and checked it out. It's big, with a huge open entrance which is quite different and refreshing for Boston. The clothes looked nice and the prices are reasonable, so this seems to be a good addition to the Boston shopping scene. The place was mobbed by cute boys, too (and that's always a plus). I will need to drag Curt there this weekend to try and add to our Fall and Winter wardrobes. Besides being interested in injecting some money into the economy (my patriotic duty - although I do realize H&M is a European company), there is also a degree of normalcy and optimism in shopping - two things that I desperately crave right now.

95% of the time, I walk out of bookstores with nothing. I don't know why this is. Most other stores - grocery stores, clothing stores, electronic stores, record stores - I end up buying something more often than not. You see, I'm not much for shopping. I have no aversion to it, but I'm just not one to buy things that I don't need. So I seldom go into a store unless I have the inclination to buy something. But bookstores are a different story - I probably go into a bookstore once a week, and I always intend on buying a book - but I seldom actually do. I like to read, and I'm always looking for good reading material. The problem is that I have a hard time finding any. I don't read just for the sake of having something to do (as I think many people do). The books I read must be enthralling, entertaining, and if possible, enlightening. I have little patience of interest in books that don't give something. I don't read much fiction, although if I've heard good things I'll give it a try. Most of the time I find fiction to be unsatisfying and predictable. I stick more with biography's, autobiographies, or non-fiction work about events. But I just don't find many that seem interesting. I'm afraid this makes me sound like some sort of book snob, but I'm really not. I'll read anything if it's good - but the problem is that there's so much out there that just isn't. If you read anything good, let me know. I'm need a new book.

How ironic that the United States Government earlier this year gave the Taliban $43 million to declare that opium growing is against the will of God. This article, written by syndicated columnist Robert Scheer for the Los Angeles Times, predicted that no good would come from that. And he was right.

This will probably come as no surprise, but Curt cancelled his trip to Tampa. He was scheduled for two weeks of training in the sunshine state. The prospect of him being away for two weeks wasn't very appealing anyway, then after the events of last week we were both very against it. Besides being uncomfortable with the idea of flying right now, I knew from work that the chances of him being able to get to Florida on time (or easily) were slim to none. Sure enough, just for kicks, we got on the internet yesterday and checked his flights to see what would have happenned had he gone. Both flights (Boston to Philly, Philly to Tampa) had been cancelled. He wouldn't have been able to go even if he had wanted to.

In the days following the bombing, we - like everyone else in the country - searched our memories to recollect any friends (or friends of friends) we might know who worked in the World Trade Center in New York. The day of the attack I was in touch with almost everyone I knew in NYC just to be on the safe side. Yesterday, as we were at Fritz having Bloody Mary's and brunch, we realized there was a possible association with this tragedy that we'd forgotten. As we ate, our conversation turned to our next door neighbor (the one that quit his job in the Spring & moved to Provincetown to work for the Summer). We had seen him the week before last when he stopped by our place to say hello. Anyway, as we were eating our brunch, we realized that he had said he was going to fly to Los Angeles on September 11th for a week before flying to NYC to find a job and reside there permanently. Suddenly we both stopped eating and quickly got our check. We decided to go home and check the internet lists of passengers on the two planes that left from Boston to Los Angeles. I was pretty sure we would have heard if he had been on either of the flights - the local news stations had been giving the names of all the New England residents who were killed - but we wouldn't feel better until we had checked the lists again anyway. Thank God, he wasn't listed.

The John Hancock Tower is the tallest building in New England, and stands sleekly on its own in Copley Square, away from the high-rise area of Boston's downtown. Despite is enormity in its local area, its presence is made less overpowering by its pure, crystal-like geometry and reflecting glass skin. The dominant view when you are close to the building is of the nearby historical buildings reflected with subtle distortions of colour and shape in the Hancock Tower's glass. - Galinsky.com Well, my number one stop in tours of Boston for visiting friends and family is gone. As the press release says: In the wake of this week's tragedy, John Hancock Financial Services conducted a review of its security operation. As a result, the company has decided to close the John Hancock Observatory, which is located on the 60th floor of the company's main tower on Clarendon Street. Hancock officials had considered closing the Observatory for security reasons in the past, and this week's tragedy made that case more compelling. "Every year, more than 400,000 people, virtually all of them unknown to us, visit the Observatory," said John Heavey, Hancock General Director of Security. "Unfortunately, once they are inside, it is very difficult to control or limit their access to other parts of the building. That creates a significant security concern for our employees, tenants, and the public-at-large. Since there is no feasible way to fix this problem, the prudent thing to do is to close the Observatory." Heavey explained that the Observatory was not part of the tower's original design, and the layout of the main lobby and elevator banks makes it impossible to adequately monitor or control visitor access into or out of the 60th floor facility.

I think most people, including myself, don't understand exactly why we were attacked. I don't pretend to know that much about the details, but I do know that the U.S. isn't exactly loved for its foreign policies in countries abroad. Certainly, the U.S. military has helped kill thousands of Middle Eastern civilians in the past, but because the U.S. news media has failed to address this in a sufficient manner, most Americans think that what happened on Tuesday was a baseless attack. (Links via Jonno.) Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying what happened wasn't horrible and incredibly sad and wrong. All I'm trying to get across is that the media is doing a lukewarm job at trying to explain to me why it happened. Shouldn't we know why the U.S. is seen as enemy by so many? Especially after four days of 24-hour news coverage? -- Keith Caulfield's Blog I agree.

Well, yesterday was just about the most terrifying day of my life. I got to work about 8:00am. As usual, Curt had driven me to work. He left me off at the corner and I went into Dunkin Donuts to get a coffee and a bagel (but I completely forgot to order the bagel until I was out the door, and I ordered a small coffee instead of my usual medium, so I should have known something was off in the universe). I walked to my office, checked my e-mails, procrastinated, and then about 9am two of my co-workers come running over to me asking if I knew how to get the TV in one of our meeting rooms to work because they'd just heard on the radio that a missile or a plane had it one of the World Trade Center towers. So I go help them and once we get the TV on the three of us are standing there watching smoke billowing out of the first tower - and I'm thinking what an incredible accident it must have been if it was a plane - when suddenly WHAM a second plane hits the other tower. Then I'm thinking, that's no accident. By then, other people start gathering in the meeting room. I was amazed at the absurdity when one of the newscasters said that he wondered if there's something terribly wrong with the navigational system for airplanes in the New York City area. I remember saying out loud, "They can still SEE, idiot!" Pretty much nothing more happened for about a half hour as we all watched the TV and the news spread. I went back out to tell some of my staff what was going on when I heard my cell phone ringing. It was Curt asking me if I was aware what was happening. He had been on his way to an appointment when a guy came running out of a bar and yelled to people on the street that had to come and see what was happening on television. We were all pretty glued to the TV until my company pulled all the senior staff together at 10:30. In the meantime, the Pentagon got hit and there were reports of other planes having been hijacked and no one knew were they were going. It was pretty scary. Several times I stared out the window at the skyscrapers in the Financial District and the Hancock Tower in the Back Bay and searched the sky for airplanes. During the emergency meeting, we didn't know whether we were at the end of what was going to happen or if there'd be more. I really don't remember much of the meeting because I was VERY uncomfortable and felt very claustrophobic. I was containing my panic, though, and desperately wanted to be professional. We mainly just need to figure out if we had anybody on those planes. We've got some staff traveling around the county, plus of course we've got program participants flying to and from programs every day. Turns out we had several programs running in NYC yesterday. Immediately we got to work trying to figure out where everyone was. Quite quickly we were able to get in contact with all the program coordinators and discovered that all our groups were safe. We actually had one group staying in the Marriott, which is in building #7 of the complex. That's the one that collapsed last night. They weren't in the hotel at the time though, thank God. We also had several people who had left programs early to do things on their own and we had no idea where they were (we're still trying to find out what happened with those people. Hopefully they just headed home). We also cancelled several NYC programs that were to start in the next few days including ones focusing on the "American Institute of Banking" and "Navigating Wall Street: Institutions At The Epicenter Of World Finance", both of which obviously would have visited the World Trade Center. Once we discovered that all our groups were okay, we learned that the national air travel system was being shut down. This meant that scores of individuals would be trapped where they were. Nobody could get TO or FROM programs if they were flying. We have lots of participants who travel by car, train or bus to and from programs in the U.S., but it's impossible to run International Programs if people can't fly to them. So we arranged to delay all International programs running in the next few days and got to work making sure people trapped overseas had places to stay. We discovered eventually that we had no participants on the planes, although we would later find out that our account manager at Quantas Airlines (Australia) was on flight #11. I didn't know him. I have to say I was NOT in the best of shape psychologically through all this. It would have probably been better off for all of us if we'd just turned of the TV and focused on our work, but we didn't. It kept going and we all kept going in to find out what was happening on the TV. My throat was constantly dry and I really had to work to keep myself calm, so I'm sure I must have been in a mild state of shock. Curt was calling and asking me to just come home (prior to him getting home, all the cell phones were jammed which just added to my paranoia). The military had started flying planes in formation over Boston and much of the city was being shut down and evacuated. No one was sure where the President was, etc., etc. My intellect knew that I was probably pretty safe but my heart really wanted to just go home (walking, of course, so as to avoid any calamities with public transportation). The real concern was just that no one knew what/if something was going to happen next. I went out with a co-worker to try to find some food around 12:30. Everything was shutting down. Wendy's, McDonalds, all the deli's. Everything was closing. Downtown Boston was becoming a ghost town. There were only security guards and police all over the place. The Governor had been taken out of the city to somewhere safe. It was really amazing and scary. New York was hit, Washington was hit, were other cities were also going to be hit? We had another senior staff meeting at 1:30 and everyone got updates on what was going on with all our programs and people. I had to call Curt and tell him that another meeting had been scheduled for 5pm, so I still wouldn't be coming home. As the afternoon wore on however, I started feeling a little better because nothing more was happening. The element of surprise was gone - the country (the whole world really) was on high alert at that point and I felt pretty confident that everything that was going to happen had done so early in the day and within a short frame of time. So I made it until 5pm, attended the last emergency meeting and then, with nothing left personally to do, I left for home (carrying the Elderhostel Emergency Mobile phone with me), and even felt confident enough to board a bus rather than walk home. It took a long shower, a glass of wine and two beers to settle me down last night. Curt and I spent the evening watching the news and talking about how unbelievable it all was. I spent some time last night trying to get through to some friends in NYC. I'd tried briefly during the day but calls weren't going through. I don't know anyone that worked in or near the World Trade Center, but I know people who live and work in Manhattan, and who's to say where they were or what they were doing? Luckily, with the exception of one person, I've contacted everyone I know. I'm pretty confident that the person I can't get through to is okay, but I still won't be quite at ease until I hear from her. I went to bed at about 10:30pm, but woke up around 1am. After some tossing and turning (I kept hearing sirens but I think they were mostly just in my mind), I got out of bed and went and watched more news until about 5am, when I was finally able to fall back asleep. Curt drove me to work again this morning. He decided to leave for his two-day reward outing at a resort inn in New Hampshire. I was agreeable to but told him that if ANYTHING happened today that he was going to need to turn around and come back home immediately. My worst nightmare is that, should something happen in Boston (or anywhere for that matter) he and I would somehow be unable to be with each other . It was tough for me to let him go, but on the other hand I do want everything to return to "normal", and I know he was looking forward to this trip. As for his two week training session in Tampa, I doubt he'll be going. Even if air travel resumes normal operations by Sunday, he really doesn't want to go at this point. He asked me, "Does that make chicken?", and I said that I didn't care if it did - I don't want him flying right now. Today is feeling a little more normal. Still having emergency meetings, and fighter planes are flying over the skies of Boston, but I'm feeling more confident and people are reacting more normally here in the office. It'll be a while before things feel completely comfortable again (at least Friday, when Curt gets back). Until then I'll just focus on work, hug the pillow tight at night, and try to keep my mind on more pleasant things.

Well, it's done. I've quit my gym. Since my place of employment moved in December, I've made it to the gym a whole two times. It just goes to show that when it comes to working out the key to going is convenience. If it ain't near work or home, or on the way to work or home, it just doesn't work. Besides, I've been using the fitness center my company put into the basement of the building for cardio, and I've been wanting to join the South End's notorious fag-boy gym anyway.

An 8-foot-long Amazonian monkey on the loose in southern New Hampshire has local authorities hanging bananas and oranges in the trees around Danville, but as of yesterday the woolly primate had yet to take the bait.

Turns out the rest of the month is going to be a little weird for Curt and I. He'll be going to Tampa, Florida for TWO WEEKS of training from September 16th through 28th. Two whole weeks! We haven't been apart for that long since he lived in Albany! Then, yesterday, he calls me and says, "I have bad news - I won an achievement award and they're sending me and 20 other achievement winners to a resort in New Hampshire September 12th, 13th and 14th for an all expenses paid holiday." Spouses are invited but, of course, that sort of thing doesn't necessarily work very well in our case, so he'll be going alone. They have contests and give away's so I told him to just win something nice for me. It's going to be very strange though - because after next Tuesday I only see him for two days before the end of the month. I don't know how in the world I'm going to deal with that!