Tomorrow we head to Provincetown for New Years. I'm so looking forward to it. Provincetown is like my second home. There are few places where I feel as relaxed and happy. I will try to post from there, but I can't guarantee how successful I'll be. A little catching up: Christmas was very nice. Lots of cool presents from my honey, and all the food that I labored over came out great. For an appetizer we started out with shrimp cocktail, for dinner I made a baked ham, smashed taters, arroz con polo, peas with baby spinach and shallots, and baked beans. Eve, our guest, brought a tomato, basil and mozzerella salad, and ceviche. Of course, several bottles of champagne helped to wash it all down. We spent the afternoon watching MOULIN ROUGE (I need to watch it again before I can really figure out how I feel about it, I think) and MEET THE PARENTS (cute). After Eve headed home Curt and I watched Margaret Cho in I'M THE ONE THAT I WANT (laughed my ass off, but I think I enjoyed it more than Curt). Yesterday (Wednesday) we just peddled around the house, took a walk, did a little Boxing Day shopping in our neighborhood, took naps, and then went out last night. The Eagle, Paradise, then back to the Eagle. Ended up being Ho's (shocking, isn't it?!?!) and invited a little honey home with us. Drunken sex. Fun but not great. Slept in until about 11am this morning. Today, Curt took advantage of one of my Christmas presents to him, a "Men's Grooming Facial". Exfoliation, hydration, deep pore cleansing, brow grooming, ear grooming, neck grooming. He ended up not needing the last two, although he did choose to have his eyebrows plucked (!). He loved it, looks great, and I think I've created a monster. So now you all know a little secret, my 6'6" manly-man is a big girl at heart. Clinique, Biore and moisturizers of all types are my competition for his affections. But you should have seen how happy he was when he got home from his facial. How could I ever deny the man I love such happiness?

Merry Christmas from us . . .

I've become a slave to the Blog. When several days go by without blogging I start feeling guilty as hell, isn't that funny/sad/weird? Anyway, couldn't post on Thursday night because Curt decided to go off his diet and go out to dinner. Heading to Anchovies, sat at the bar, drank vodka martini's, ordered a pizza to share, and talked with Billy the bartender and Amanda the waitress (we've known them for years). Merry, merry, merry. Decided it was too early to head home yet after we left there and so went to Baja to see if anyone we knew had also decided to spend the night drinking. Rob, the new bartender (who works at The Vault in Provincetown in the summer) was working, and before long a few other friends came in. Merry, merry, merry. By the time we left Baja we should have gone home, but did we? Of course not! Over to the Eagle for a nightcap. Drunk mary's, Drunk mary's, drunk marys. Hung out with off-duty bartender Roger and his boyfriend, chatted with an old Provincetown trick we once had, and decided we really wanted to make a new trick of the boy he was with (we'd have to tape his mouth shut though because when he opens it Carol Channing comes out). Stumbled home and apparently (because I can't actually remember) threw our clothes on the floor and went right to bed. Woke up late and still drunk (seriously), took a shower, started to get dressed, and suddenly Curt (who is still in bed because he has the day off) started getting frisky and made lewd passes at me. They worked. Between going to work and having sex, I'll pick sex any day. Called work afterwards and let them know I was going to be very late, but I'd be there in time for my 10am meeting. Panic sets in when I can't find my cell phone - I am convinced that I left it on a bar somewhere when I pick pants up from the floor and find my phone in the pocket. Whew! Run out the door still smelling like Curt, still drunk, and feeling mighty fine. Hail down a cab and make it to work only 5 minutes late for my meeting. Spend a little time trying to get through my e-mails, then off I go for a little last minute shopping. Wendy's chili and a Coke for lunch. I run back to work for a little more e-mail managing when I'm suddenly informed that, at my discretion, I can let me staff leave at 3pm if I want to. Thing is, we were planning a small department holiday party and secret santa gift swap that was going to start at 3pm! So I let everyone know we must change our plans, and I head back out to buy my contribution to the party - champagne. Get back, have our gift swap, eat food. Curt is out shopping and stops by. Get through the champagne and I then contribute a bottle of wine that I'd been given. Merry, merry, merry. We agree to go out afterwards for some drinks with several of my staff. Merry, merry, merry for several more hours. Suddenly I realize that my Ex is having his annual Winter Solstice party starting at just about that very moment. We rush out of the bar and head over to the party (mind you, I think i've been somewhat drunk for a solid 24 hours at that point). Lots of champagne at the party. We were, as usually, the zany sideshow attraction. Extroverts in a party of mostly introverts. At one point I walk by Curt having a conversation with someone and he says, "Honey, you can play the spoons, right?" and without hesitation I say, "Of course!". I run into the kitchen, grab two spoons, come out and start playing them (I actually did sort of know what I was doing) to the tune of some Christmas Carol while Curt got the rest of the room to sing along. At the end I got a round of applause and I announced that I could play the saw too, if anyone happened to have one on them. We got home, passed out, and spend yesterday in a fog quite literally incapable of doing much more than watching tv, surfing for porn, eating, and drinking as much water as possible. Much more productive today. We've done laundry, Curt has cleaned the house from top to bottom and I've ordered groceries and planned our Christmas day meal. Somehow way back on Thursday night we'd had the presence of mind to call Eve and ask her to join us on Christmas day. Another person we also invite each year has had his phone disconnected and so I don't quite know what to do in that case. Hmmmm. A little more shopping tomorrow and we'll be all set. Who-hoo! Merry, merry, merry!

I doubt this will come as a surprise to any of my friends . . .

See which Ab Fab character you are! click here
quiz made by xqueeniex

The music industry continues to fumble in dealing with downloadable music, as this article at Boston.com points out. Am I missing something, or isn't the most obvious answer to create a Napster type service which provides short snippets (or extremely low-quality samples) of each song so one can "shop" for what they're looking for, but that then charges a small fee for downloading the high-quality version. That way artists and record companies could get royalties. You could have the choice of downloading an individual song, say for $2, or an entire album for the equivalent of what you'd pay for that album in a store. Why can't the music industry get their act together and do this? I would LOVE a service like that. I suspect that the solutions currently on the table, like Pressplay, RealOne, etc., aren't going to provide me with the music I'd want anyway. The majority of the tracks that I search for are in the dance category, and generally I'm looking for hard-to-find remixes that you can't even buy in a store. I'm talking about "white label" tracks, or promo items that only DJ's being serviced by the dance labels can get their hands on. Other than downloading these tracks from the internet, I know of no other way the general public can get their hands on much of this material. I often don't even know what I want until I download and hear it, since in a club or a bar there's really no way (short of invading the DJ booth) that I can find out the artist or name of a track. It's not until I've downloaded something and realized that I've been hearing it out that I know I even want it (I actually end up discarding much of the music I download, because in my search for certain tracks or specific remixes I usually end up missing my mark more than hitting it). I would love it if some of the larger independent dance labels got together and started a service like I described. It makes great sense for the dance music industry, since distribution and exposure are the greatest challenges for dance labels and artists. I would subscribe to that in a heartbeat and I bet most DJ's would as well (if for no other reason than to identify which songs they then want to search out on vinyl). I have such great ideas - why aren't I a millionaire?

The boyfriend is trying to diet (Atkins, again), and so he doesn't want to go out to eat and doesn't want to drink. He also doesn't want to go shopping or do anything that involves spending any money, because it's already an "expensive" month due to the holidays and our upcoming New Years weekend in Provincetown. So here I am, home from work. I've made myself a vodka martini (Kettle One these days), I'm munching on wasabi peas, our condo is illuminated by Christmas lights and candles, and Moby is playing low while Curt reads on the sofa. You know what? The combo (except for the boyfriend reading on the sofa) is sorta kinda re-creating the mood of being out in a trendy bar/lounge, where you are the most important customer, and (thanks to being able to wear my comfy-cozy Joe-Boxer PJ's and a sweatshirt) I feel like I'm thin, muscular, and gorgeous. Bliss. Does anyone want to go in the bathroom and do a bump?

The Most Fabulous Two Links In One Post Award of the day goes to . . . Dave, Live in London, for linking to both Hello! Magazine and Rate-A-Rod (I'm going to make you go to his site for the links). The combo is trashy, slutty, and just amazingly fantabulous. They may just be the only two sites you'll ever need.

Lycos has released the most popular search terms for the year. Here's a little quiz so you can see how accurate you are with guessing the most popular search terms broken down into categories. I only got 3 out of 9 correct. The number one word search that brought people to this site? HEAD SHAVING.

Sometimes you realize how really gay you are. Take, for instance, our trip down to New York on Amtrak's Acela high-speed train. We were both in vacation mode and so, with no cares about navigating or steering, started drinking immediately upon boarding. There we were, in great spirits, toasting each other (making loud clinks each time with our respective beer and little wine bottles), and it was all very Patsy and Eddy and funny. Somewhere around New London, CT we decide we should really have some food, and I send Curt for more drinkies and something to nibble on. He returns with a cheese and cracker assortment and two more bottles (each) of our drinks (it's a high speed train so we must economize our time, right?). Right about then, the oh-so straight guy sitting across from us returns to his seat with a Coke, Durrito's, cookies, and a sandwich of some sort. There we are going, "Ooo! This gouda is delicious!", "Oh, try the cheddar with this type of cracker", "Oh, my wine! I need my other wine!", "This one cheese is a bit bland, isn't it?", when I nudge Curt and point out what the straight boy is woofing down. Of course, we both laugh, realizing what BIG FAGS we are with our wine and little nibbles of fabulous cheese. It's moments like that when you realize that somewhere along the way you've lost all heterosexual perspective and you really do live in a little gay bubble.

I'm getting panicked about Christmas. I don't feel prepared. As always, it's a week before and I still don't have all my shopping done, and I have absolutely no clue what I'm going to cook. We usually invite friends over that have nowhere else to go (we call them our orphans), but this year we may just spend Christmas alone. It may only be the two of us, but I want to make it special. Unfortunately, Curt, in one of his cleaning frenzies, threw away the Gourmet Magazine with the rack of lamb recipe I was going to make (I actually sometimes pick through the garbage to double-check what he's throwing out) so instead he may just get a ham for Christmas dinner. Boring, huh? I need to get my menu set - and soon! No matter what I make he'll be happy as long as there are mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, and booze, so I don't know why I sweat about the other stuff. So later this afternoon we're having a little holiday party in our office. Time's are tough so not much money is being spent on it. The e-mail invitation said, "Don't be a grinch! Come partay wit' yo peeps!" They are serving wine (thank God) so I'm all over it. Then I'm also letting my own staff have a little "partay" Friday afternoon (because I'm such a great boss) and that night is my Ex's annual "Winter Solstice" party, which is a tradition that he and I actually began together. Now I only participate as a guest, which I actually prefer anyway. Not that I don't like to have party's, I just don't like having the stress of putting together a party at the same time I'm stressing about finishing all my other Christmas preparations. Not much going on today, obviously, and not enough time to write more about NYC. Best sign off now, I think.

I learned yesterday that I'm going to be a great-uncle! My niece is going to have a baby in August. She's not more than a few weeks along and, of course, there could still be complications, but my brother-in-law (her father) couldn't contain his enthusiasm and has announced her pregnancy to everyone he can think of. It has occurred to me that when this kid is 23, I will be 60 years old, which I think is fairly young for a great-uncle. I could very easily live to see the day I'm a great-great-uncle! This is what happens when you are the youngest child, born 10 years after the next oldest, and your oldest sister starts popping out kids in her early twenties. You get nieces and nephews who are equal-distant in age to you as you are from your own siblings, and you are likely to become "the eccentric Uncle" for multilple generations of your family. Yay! Obviously, there's a good reason I so love Auntie Mame.

After my last post, I was feeling a little patriotic again and thought you might be too . . .

Three months after the World Trade Center attack, the debris is still burning, there is still smoke, and the air still smells of dust. We left our hotel on Saturday and took the subway to Canal Street, then walked the rest of the way down Broadway to "Ground Zero". Curt bought a ski cap for $2 from a little Asian woman on the street because his ears were getting cold. The whole area had been closed off and evacuated immediately after the attacks, but now Broadway south of Canal is open to traffic, and there are military guards stationed along the route. Walking south, I started to realize that on September 11th this same area was where countless people, dust covered and shocked, ran for their lives. Memories of the television images ran through my mind. We weren't quite sure when we'd come upon the first obvious signs of what had happened, but it turned out to be street vendors selling World Trade Center paper weights, pictures, and other crap. Not quite sure where to go, we followed others down a street closed to vehicles, and that's when I got my first strong smell of the dust. I looked around me and realized we were walking past storefronts that had been covered up and now sat vacant. Then suddenly there it was on our left - a huge hole in the city where buildings should be. People were just standing and staring, snapping photo's, vying for a good angle. There wasn't much talking. The sun was in our eyes, and they'd put up fencing that partially blocked our view, but we could see water being sprayed on the debris in the distance, tarp on all the surrounding buildings that were still standing, broken windows and holes in many of them. We could hear the sound of big construction vehicles in there, somewhere. The area is huge. The magnatude doesn't come across on television. We walked another block to get another angle. Past more closed storefronts, some with "reopening soon" signs, and a few still dark and with dust everywhere. Our new angle gave us a more dramatic view. A building, naked with exposed twisted steel and concrete, stood sadly and sickeningly in the distance. It dawned on me that between it and where I stood is where a Tower should be, but there was nothing except piles of indistinguishable rubble. Here people were even more crowded together for a view. A few wanted their picture taken with the distruction behind them and I thought that was odd and a little sickning. I didn't want to wait and see if they smiled for the camera, and I certainly did not want to take any pictures of the scene with Curt or myself in them. The fences along the street were covered with placards, flowers, and all sorts of things that people had left in remembrance. There are still signs with pictures and the names of the missing, left by desperate loved ones still hoping for a miracle. I turned and looked at the reactions of the crowd. Overwhelmingly, I saw expressions of disbelief, confusion and sadness. Tears were welling up in the eyes of many (including my own). A couple held each other and tears ran down the woman's face. But most surprising to me were the looks of anger. People seemed to go through a progression of emotions as they stood and absorbed what they were seeing, and I saw anger on the faces of a surprising number of people. Personally, I felt mostly shock and sadness. I continually looked out into the blocks and blocks of rubble and tried to find something that looked familiar, something that looked as though it had once been a building, but I was too far away, and there was little left to recognize. We didn't stay too long, but it was long enough. The point of our trek wasn't to gawk or to get pictures, but to pay our respects and grasp the enormity of what happened. Neither took long. We turned and walked by businesses full of Christmas crowds and restaurants busily serving lunchtime patrons. Only a block away from the site of such a huge disaster, life had managed to continue in New York.

I Love New York. Good to be home, but I wasn't ready to leave the Big Apple. Frankly, we would have liked a few more days to just run around town. The trip included too many highlights to mention in just one post. I will need to decompress slowly and write about it in over time. Enough right now just to say that it's a kinder, friendlier New York City than I've ever experienced before, but just as dazzling and exciting as ever. And what trip to New York city would be complete without a chance star sighting (not counting our brief but fabulous time in the Today show crowd with Katie, Matt and Al, of course).

No new posts until next week. Off to the wedding and some fun with friends in New York. I'm going to skip out of work really fast and see if I can find a storage disk with more memory for my digital camera so I'll plenty of pictures to share. Meeting the boyfriend at the train station at 4pm, and will be in NYC before 8pm - early enough to get into some trouble tonight!

I'm all jittery today. Maybe it's the very large cup of tea I had this morning when I got to work, maybe it's the excitement of leaving for New York City tomorrow afternoon, maybe it's the potential if another terrorist attack in the next few days involving biological weapons, or maybe it's just finding out that a certain lovely New Orleans drag queen read my October 30th post and wasn't sure what to make of it (honestly Bianca, I think you're fabulous and wouldn't have bothered to mention you if I didn't!) A nice lunch of Thai basil friend rice with chicken - my favorite (oooh, dat's spicy baby!) - and having absolutely no meetings on my afternoon schedule should turn my frown upside down. Curt's off drinking and being merry with coworkers at a holiday party this afternoon, giving me the chance to leisurely walk home and pick up a few gifts for him. Hell, I might just make a Fritz-stop for a little holiday cheer myself! I can do a bit of gift wrapping tonight, finish packing for the trip, and maybe try to corner the boyfriend into a small area of the condo somewhere since it seems to work for Beau and Jeff . (However, if that trick fails, I'm confident that staying in a hotel for 3 nights is sure to get me laid at least twice while we're in NYC, since shacking up in a hotel room seems to usually act like an aphrodisiac for us.)

Getting our act together for NYC. Amtrak ticket bought? Check. Hotel reservations made? Check. Luggage brought up from storage area? Check Shirts ironed? In-process. RSVP's for wedding and various parties before and after? Check. Wedding present bought? Um, no. Boyfriend lubed and ready? Check. Almost all we need to do is finish packing it all up, get through a day and a half of work, and off we go! (And yes, we are always this prepared. I'm not good at waiting until the last-minute to make preparations.)

I just need to say this. The key to happiness is always believing that where ever you are, and what ever your circumstance is at the moment, that you are blessed to have that experience. And that's all there is.

Snow of all kinds. It's snowing for the first time this winter here in Boston. Curt just went to bed, and as I was closing the shades in the bedroom for him I looked out the window and saw that all the cars were covered. I ran out the front door, scooped up a snowball, and took it in for him. He wouldn't eat any, but I did. The first snowfall is so magical - it's unbelievable that I grow to hate it so much as the winter goes on. Rob and Wendy came and shared two bottles of champagne with us before heading off to Rob's brother's party. After they left we opened a third bottle and started making out. I then had a little bit of a surprise for Curt (I did say at the beginning of this post, "Snow of all kinds", if you get my drift). Pretty soon we were naked and making love in the candlelight/firelights/Christmas lights. It's been a really, really wonderful day. But now he's in bed, and I can't sleep yet. I'm finishing off that bottle of champagne, and looking at our little tree, our stockings hung on the fireplace mantle, our nice little home. I'm so lucky. How'd I get so lucky?

We worked our asses off today. Spent a few hours cleaning out our basement storage area and throwing away stacks and stacks of stuff (mostly all Curt's - it would appear that I've married something of a pack-rat, kids). It's a very low ceiling making it really difficult for 6'6" Curt to work down there, so it was really a job best suited for 5'6" me, but even I kept hitting my head on the beams, so now I've got three pretty heavy-duty scrapes on my head. I'm just hoping they heal before the wedding in NYC next weekend. That's the bitch of shaving your head - no way to hide things with hair. The rest of the day was spent Christmas decorating. We put up our little artificial tree, even though we were thisclose to buying a real one this year. We were in the mood to decorate though, and in the interest of striking while the iron was hot, up it went. We had gone to Target yesterday (having both taken it off from work) and bought more lights for the back deck and front windows and some more decorations for the tree. Curt put up the lights on the windows and on the deck, then cleaned up the place when we were through. Our little South End hideaway looks pretty cute, I have to say. My special treat from the universe today was that our hunky upstairs neighbor was working behind our building on some water drainage problems we've been having and so he was in and out of our place all day. That gave me a little eye candy and gave me a chance to give him another stack of porn videos (if you don't have any idea who or what I'm talking about, read my November 8th post). There was a quick exchange between us that went something like this: Me: "More goodies to keep you entertained." Him: "Yeah, cool. I'm the master . . . masturbator." Me: "Yeah, me too. I can't get enough." Him: "I've never found anybody that could keep up with me." Then he disappeared out the back door. Now, what did that mean? Was that some sort of strange straight boy confession or invitation? More likely this is just hopeful thinking on my part. Seemed kind of strange, though. Anyway, now that things are so nice here, we've invited Rob and Wendy over for some champagne and to see our decorations before they head to a family holiday party this evening. I've got to go put a log on the fire and pop a cork.

New Orleans relocation update. If only Curt would get laid-off, we might just take you up on that, baby. It would be a perfect situation for a while as we searched for jobs and our own little love-nest to buy, but the rat-bastard just can't get himself unemployed. Looks like they might actually want to keep him for the long-haul, which puts the kibosh on our finely detailed plans (if he got laid-off, it was God's way of telling us to move. You see how scientific we are about these things?). It seems at the moment that we'll just be sitting tight in Boston for a while. Our thoughts are turning again to P-Town, and maybe buying a rental property down there that we'd use off-season and rent out during the Summer. That way all you possums can have a place to come up and vacation with us Boston boys. How fabulous would that be?!? See ya at the A-House!

I woke up this morning hearing . . .

Sing - sing a song. Make it loud, make it strong. Don't worry if it's not good enough, for anyone else to hear. Just sing. Sing a song!" . . . going through my head. Why God? Why? After watching Pearl Harbor last night, which just didn't deliver, we plopped in our second DVD rental of the evening, The Broken Hearts Club which was quite good. Not excellent, but good. I'm still looking for a gay-themed film that I can recommend to my family and friends - a film that I can tell everyone about and say, "Watch this movie, this is my life!". I had hopes that The Broken Hearts Club might be it, but it wasn't. For all it's blatant intentions of trying not to be your standard gay-Big Chill, that's exactly what it turned out to be. I guess it's up to me to finally get off my ass and write a screenplay for the kind of film I want to see - actually put some of my film school education to use. I've got several half-completed screenplays done and several ideas for others that I've never even written a word for. I keep thinking someday I'm going to have all sorts of time and ambition, but as I get older I realize if they're ever going to be written (even if just to satisfy my own need to fully realize them as screenplays) I just need to DO it. One of the best decisions made by The Broken Hearts Club folks was to cast Dean Cain in it. Dean is, IMHO, one of the hottest men on the planet. It's those damn eyes he's got. I love you Dean! I love you, I love you, I love you! Hello, am I 36 or 14? Oh well, Dean's only a year younger than me, it's a perfect match. I think even my boyfriend would approve (as long as he could watch). Yes, yes - better yet - a three-way relationship! Curt, Dean, and myself. What a blissful existence that would be. I'm afraid I would have no time for Blogging though. Much too busy with my two hunky bottoms. Unfortunately (actually, not so unfortunately come to think of it), I think Curt would prefer to bring Pearl Harbor actor Josh Hartnett in to share our happy home. Sure, Josh is cute, but he's just a wee bit too twink for me (perfect for Curt, though). But again, here's another guy with those damn sexy eyes, so how can I refuse? Josh or Dean? Dean or Josh? Boys, boys! Stop fighting!

Today is the 60th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. We thought it would be appropriate to rent the film Pearl Harbor tonight since we didn't see it when it was released last summer. It's disappointing that so much of the film is so melodramatic, predictable, and overly-produced, because the attack sequences were pretty remarkable I thought. You always hear about the attack on Pearl Harbor, but it wasn't really until I saw this film that I really understood the magnitude of what happened. The size of attack, the horror of it, and the way people died. While the cinematography, editing and special effects seemed gluttonous in the first half, I was really quite glad so much money had been pumped into the attack scenes to make them as realistic as possible. They should hack off all the non-historically accurate sequences and show it in classrooms. My father remembers being in a movie theater, 12 years old, when they stopped the film and someone came out and announced that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. I e-mailed him as soon as the movie was over and asked him to write down everything he could remember about it That's a memory I want to make sure he shares with the rest of the family in detail.

1967 - 2001. I was reading through one of Boston's gay rags and came upon a small story saying that Melanie Thornton, best known as the lead singer for the mid-nineties dance/pop act La Bouche (Be My Lover, Sweet Dreams), had been killed in a plane crash. I wasn't sure if I believed it, and immediately jumped on the internet to see if I could get confirmation. I guess I've got to believe it when it's reported by the BBC. Curt and I started dating when these songs were big club hits. What a powerful voice she had, and how sad that we'll never hear it again.

Hurray!! We've just made reservations to rent a condo in Provincetown for 4 nights for New Years! This will be new and different for us. I can't remember the last New Years Eve I spent outside of Boston. Of course, it's completely inconceivable to me that it's going to be New Years in just over 3 weeks - it hit 72 degrees yesterday and today! If the boyfriend isn't going to get laid off and we're not going to move to New Orleans, then plan B is to buy a rental property in Provincetown. So the reason we're staying in a condo instead of a B&B or a hotel is because we want to get an idea of how the process with the reservations place works.

Based on the spam e-mail I receive, I deduce that I am a lonely, debt-ridden, wrinkled, gambling cum junkie, who is paying too much for life insurance and has some serious erectile problems. I want to work at home, like nude teen girls who fuck dogs & horses (not to mention chicks with watersport fetishes), would like to enlarge my penis naturally, improve my sex life with Viagra, and oh yes - I have instant access that is just a click away! Just don't tell my boyfriend I'm like this, okay? He see's me through rose-colored glasses.

Thinkin 'bout linkin to Rupaul's Blog. I've been thinking it over, and I've decided that I'm not going to link over on the left to Rupaul's weblog . . . yet. Ron and I were talking a little about this on Saturday night. Sure, linking to Mr. Charles has a certain fabulous quotient to it, and I just love that he's Blogging, but I've concluded that he's a brand spankin new Blogger and must pass the same criteria as anyone else before I will recommend him (if I haven't yet linked to my own friend Troy's new Blog, I certainly can't link to Ru!). He must update fairly regularly, be occasionally interesting, often funny, and make me on at least several occasions think while I'm doing something completely unrelated, "I wonder what Rupaul's up to?". That's when I'll know I need to link. He's doing a great job so far though. Good writer, updating frequently, and doesn't seem hesitant to let us all into his world. Blogging is half diary writing, half public entertainment - it's a hard balance to find, and I would think the diary writing aspect would be especially hard for someone who leads part of their life in public as it is (or does that make it easier?). Self-censorship is a bitch - and the arch enemy of good Blogging. A big chunk of what makes it possible for me to write my Blog is that I don't know most of you who read it, and you don't really know me. I'm writing somewhat anonymously. Even though I can see the site stat's, I can disassociate numbers from actual living, breathing, thinking, (and most importantly) critical people. For me to write what I hope is a good Blog I can't think about if I will offend, or come off as stupid, or if I seem like this or that. If I did, I'd be paralyzed and would censor myself to such an extent that it wouldn't be worth Blogging at all. It wouldn't be a good document of my life, and it certainly wouldn't be worth you coming here and reading it for entertainment. That's why I don't share this with any of my family or many of my friends. I write about my life, click "publish", it goes off into never-neverland, and then it becomes whatever you make of it on your computer screen. You don't see me, I don't see you. Rupaul doesn't have this luxury. He means things to us - we have preconceived notions about what we want/think/know him to be. No pun intended, but now he's letting his hair down and sharing the personal side of Rupaul Charles, and he still has to go out and do concerts and interviews, and be cornered by people on the street or in clubs who will have read his Blog. Everybody in his life will know about his Blog. Most of us don't have to deal with that. That quasi-anonymous shield the rest of us have won't be there. God, I hope he doesn't read this and suddenly get cold feet. I'm thinking he could potentially have one of the most interesting Blogs out there. He's certainly starting on a promising note. But before I link to him he needs to get into his groove and figure out his own comfortable balance. I suspect it will be much hard for him, but the end result could really be fascinating. Welcome to the club, Rupaul! But I'm not going to link to you yet. I'm just not going to do it. Nope.

Well, here we have IT. After much hype and speculation, Dean Kamen (eccentric millionaire inventor extraordinaire) finally unveiled "IT" ( or, as was its code name during development, "Ginger") to a highly curious world this morning on Good Morning America. Now apparently called a Segway Human Transporter, "IT" basically is a two-wheeled scooter that balances for you, requiring no particular skill, dexterity or talent. "A gyroscope that acts like your inner ear, a computer that acts like your brain, motors that act like your muscles, wheels that act like your feet." This will undoubtedly be a very useful tool for people with limited mobility, or people who spend long hours of their day walking. The United States Postal Service and the National Park Service already have plans to field test the device next year, and according to Time Magazine the Boston Police department is looking at it, so I may soon be seeing Boston cops patroling on them. Will it revolutionize transportation within urban areas and change the way we think as was theorized and early reports promised? That remains to be seen. I've got to admit, when I first saw "IT" I wasn't very impressed, but then the more I contemplated the device the more applications I could envision for it. I can just picture myself at 90 years old, zipping around a nightclub chasing boys on my IT. At least I won't have to worry about loosing my balance and spilling my drink. I'll love my IT!

Ugh! Up at 3am and couldn't fall back asleep. Especially surprising because I was exhausted and ready for bed last night at 9pm, and figured I'd sleep soundly until the alarm went off. It was a long day of transferring files off my old computer onto my iBook and taking down the "Tower of Power" (the corner wall unit where I had my computer and music equipment). Took the entire day because then we needed to re arrange the bedroom and bring the bureau back in, clean, take stuff to the basement for storage, etc. At about 3pm we suddenly remembered we had been invited to a housewarming party and forgotten about it. Oops. Needless to say by that time we were at the no-turning-back stage. I'm not sure where we got all the energy, considering the night before we met the one and only Ron from Leatheregg and his partner out for dinner, and later attended the annual Slave Auction put on by the Leather Knights at the Ramrod. It was, of course, all for AIDS charity and there were about 6 or 8 brave souls who volunteered to be auctioned off by Mr. Drummer New England Russ Kippen. There were other things to bid on also, including a 3 month membership to Mike's Gym (our neighborhood gym) that no one seemed to want except us. We eventually got it, for a steal too, at $60. Okay, I admit it, I bid on a slave - a cute little barback that works in Machine. It was just me and another guy bidding, but after going back and forth a few times I decided to let the other guy take him. The highest bid for the evening for anyone was $80, so it wasn't that it was getting too rich for my blood, it was just strange to be bidding on a human being and, frankly, a little uncomfortable. I was too weirded out to get into a bidding war. You get a date with your slave and whatever happens on that date is between the two of you. Curt asked what we would do with the Machine barback if we got him, and I said we'd go out to dinner - if more happened that would just be icing on the cake. Right? Right. A strange coincidence, considering the post below which I'd written that sameday, is that I ran into two former ACT-UP Boston members, Dave and Yuri, neither of which I'd seen in years. We were all good boys and neither Ron, Curt or myself got overly inebriated. Quite a difference from the last time we met Ron out for a night!

World AIDS Day, 2001 Think and Link Keri Duran. Stephen Stout. Ben Incerti. Kevin Flynn. Bruce Silva. These are the names of people in my life that have died from AIDS. There are others, of course, but these are people I knew well, who impacted my life. They are people that you should be reading about in this Blog, but you don't because they are no longer here to participate in my life. I find it quite odd that I've pondered and fussed and hemmed and hawed for so long about today's post. It's certainly not for lack of things to write about on this subject. I guess I don't know where to start in writing about my own experiences with AIDS. It's been, as Alfred Hitchcock would call it, the "McGuffin" in my life - the plot element that has driven so much of my story, although my own HIV status is, as far as I'm currently aware, negative. I am compelled for some reason today to focus on my AIDS activist days as a member of ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) Boston. Perhaps it's because I want to work through some demons still in my psyche from those days, or perhaps I'm being guided by Keri, Stephen, Ben, Kevin or Bruce to document it all, their lives, our experiences. They are not forgotten. In August of 1989, when the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit came to Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art, there was a huge rally in support of the exhibit, which was stirring up much controversy everywhere it went. My boyfriend and I decided to go. It just so happened that many of the same people who organized and attended this event were the same people who comprised the fledgling ACT-UP Boston. That day, in addition to chanting and handing out free-speech and "Silence No Art" literature, they also handed out AIDS and ACT-UP brochures and stickers. Their enthusiasm and passion was like an addictive drug. We were both 24, and looking for a cause - looking for some way to change the world - and as young urban fags, there was no cause as important as AIDS. It helped also, of course, that many of the ACT-UP boys were breathtakingly gorgeous. We began attending the weekly ACT-UP meetings held each Tuesday night in the Back Bay YWCA, and soon not only became passionate about the cause, but equally mesmerized by the dynamic cast of characters that made up ACT-UP Boston. As time went on, an initial core group of 30 of us soon turned into meetings of a hundred or more. People couldn't fit into our meeting room and had to listen from the halls. We took our main cues from big daddy ACT-UP New York, but Boston eventually became a major player in the ACT-UP phenomenon, equaling the sister-ACT-UPs in San Francisco, Washington DC., London and other major cities. Our demonstrations(protests) against drug companies, insurance companies, and state and federal government would sometimes attract numbers even we were surprised by. We'd hold demonstrations that would stop traffic and public transportation, we'd yell and chant in inappropriate places, we'd plant people in press conferences and embarrass public officials by asking questions that they didn't want to answer. We'd flood Boston media with press releases. We'd leaflet at public events, and go out late at night and sticker the city anywhere possible so people would always be reminded about the AIDS crisis wherever they looked. Visibility for the disease that no one wanted to acknowledge. People sometimes looked at ACT-UP as a nuisance, but our thinking was always that our "visibility" actions were minor inconveniences compared to what those people sick, dying and dead were going through. This was at a time when it was "a gay problem", and something that only happened to people who somehow deserved it. We were in a fight to make the world wake up. We saw infections rising, we saw treatments as few, far between and costly (and those that existed often made people feel just as sick as the disease itself did). We saw drugs that held promise squashed by money-hungry drug companies because they wouldn't be profitable. We saw insurance companies deny people with AIDS and HIV coverage. We saw the spread of HIV among women and other minorities increase while Ronald Reagan and George Bush wouldn't even say the word "AIDS" in public. Yeah, ACT-UP was brash and sometimes inappropriate, but people were dying, and we knew it was only the beginning. Though most of the group spent it's energy trying to bring the AIDS problem to people's attention, the Treatment group, which really was our core, was comprised of seriously smart and well informed individuals (many themselves sick or diagnosed with HIV) who knew every drug, every test, every experimental procedure & protocol. They often knew more than their doctors did. They lived and breathed the mission of keeping people alive. The dirty little secret, you must understand, was that ACT-UP knew it's shit, and the key members of the Treatment group knew and met with the top researchers, scientists and doctors in the field. They sat in meetings with pharmaceutical manufacturers and were called to meetings with public officials. While publicly the media spin was often that ACT-UP was just a bunch of young, angry radicals, the truth was that we were often secretly being tipped off and encouraged by "the respectable" establishment. There was a place for the AIDS Action Committees or the Gay Mens Health Crisis (itself started by ACT-UP founder Larry Kramer) type organizations - those that worked within the system and that could do the 'warm cuddly" work that was also needed, but everyone involved with the crisis understood the critical role that ACT-UP was playing. Without ACT-UP to push issues and be a thorn in the side of the people and companies that deserved it, I seriously do not believe we'd be where we are today. I believe that ACT-UP was instrumental in positively contributing to the lives of all people with HIV and AIDS. What the ACT-UP movement influenced over 10 years ago reverberates still today in public health policy and in treatments that still affect people and prolong lives. ACT-UP was necessary. Although obviously I could go on and on dissecting the phenomenon and role of the organization itself, it was really the individuals in the group that were the most amazing thing: the story that most needs to be told. These were people, mostly young, who were passionate and concerned. While the majority of young urban gay culture spent their leisure time working out their pecs and developing the beginnings of what would become the circuit scene, the activists felt that they were on a very different, very serious, mission. Your typical ACT-UP Boston member dressed in black, wore Doc Martin Boots, wore "Silence = Death" tee-shirts, idolized Madonna and Morrissey. It was quite a little sub-culture, yes it was, and we'd hang out at the Ramrod, look out for each other, have romances, take care of the members in our group who got sick. Lawyers, accountants, waiters, models, students and people on disability, too sick to work. It could be bitchy and immature at times, but oh what an education in life it was for me! The great thing about ACT-UP was that it only asked from you what you could give it. If that meant just showing up occasionally to demonstrations, that was fine. If that meant being willing to participate in acts of civil disobedience and risk arrest, even better! Personally, I never felt comfortable with the idea of being arrested. I was always just support, which meant that I was the "buddy" of someone who was going to risk arrest and I'd keep my eye on them to make sure they weren't abused or hurt by the police, and I'd be in charge of bailing them out of jail as soon as possible . Others were willing to do whatever was needed, of course. Ken, chaining himself to a filing cabinet in the State House. Scores of people laying down on the subway trolly tracks at rush hour in front of the Harvard Medical School and tieing up traffic. Keri and Michael somehow getting onto the roof of the State House and throwing a balloon with red dye on the golden dome ("This state government has blood on it's hands!"). A fabulous "FensFest" Safe Sex event in Boston's most popular cruising area where we handed out condoms and lube, provided security (on the lookout for bashers, mind you, not to stop men from having sex) and even put on a show (Abe Rybek, bless his heart). Needle exchange programs for addicts, free condoms and info on HIV testing for sex workers - everyone took a role and did whatever they could with it. Eventually, we eased out of ACT-UP Boston. Too many strong ego's, too little direction. I once said to someone that I had to leave because it all became too much like hitting your head against a brick wall over and over again. By that time Clinton was in office, the world was waking up to the AIDS problem, and ACT-UP Boston no longer had a definable purpose or direction. All that was left (and continued to do good work) was the Treatment group. It was several years of work, challenge, frustration, attitude, and love. I cherish my memories of what we accomplished, how we did it, and the people who came into my life because of it all. Almost all of them are gone now, either dead or have moved on with their lives and I've lost track of them (not all, though). I've written a lot here, but somehow I don't feel I've accomplished what I set out to do. There's obviously way too much to write about, and I've got too much I want to cover. I don't think I've done either ACT-UP or any of the individuals I wanted to mention justice. After all these words I still haven't managed to really tell any of their wonderful stories, but it's a start, and maybe something I should (or need to) work on more. But today did not pass without acknowledging them, and that was my only real goal. I think that in keeping with wonderful ACT-UP in-your-face theatrics I will publish this post is in RED to symbolize the blood of the millions who have died, will die, or are sick. Complacency must not be tolerated. There still is no cure for AIDS. ACT-UP FIGHT BACK FIGHT AIDS. More information about ACT-UP can be found here: ACT-UP New York