Monthly Archives:

November 2013

Today I’m jetting to Washington, DC for a baby shower for my friend Chris. As I may have likely mentioned, this marks my fifth baby shower, which for a guy is a little strange, even if I am gay. (Although for that matter I honestly don’t know another gay guy who’s gone to a baby shower. Maybe it’s just me, and my torturous karma for decrying babies all these years.) This is one I’ve actually been happily anticipating, as it’s a Jack and Jill affair (the other ones I’ve attended have been all women – which can be a bit much).

Normally I wouldn’t travel this far for a baby shower. Even Suzie’s in Brooklyn was a bit of a stretch for an as-yet-unborn child, but Chris is the guy who performed our marriage ceremony. He’s the guy who taught me to be a little less afraid of straight men. He’s the guy who showed me that true nobility came not in titles or riches or fancy clothes, but in the integrity of an honest heart. He’s been one of my best friends for almost two decades, and anyone who sticks around this crazy mad-house of moods deserves some serious loyalty. Besides, the mother-to-be is even cooler than Chris.

In this strange sky perhaps there is a portal to another world.

In this strange sky perhaps there is a path to the beautiful.

In this strange sky perhaps there is a pool in which swims all the answers.

With the first hard freeze, the pretty leaves have mostly shriveled and fallen. Luckily, I caught these just in time, as the last of the sunlight lingered into the afternoon. As we near the magical close of a calendar year, it is all barren trees and empty branches for the foreseeable future. The colorful beauty seen here is now a memory.

Once upon a time I made a gift registry for my birthday. It didn’t go over well. That was long before I had a website, in my younger, more delusional years. Most of the items were beyond ridiculous (a trend that I’ve carried through to this day, because if you ask for the Louis Vuitton train case for $4500 it lessens the sting of a bottle of Tom Ford for $210). The reason for this list is for those family members who always ask me what I want, and to give them an idea of what’s appealing to my fancy these days – a tricky bit of boxed-in business at best. My whims are fickle as the wind, but everything listed here is something I truly adore.

Since we’re speaking of fragrances, it would be an egregious error on my part not to at least mention the two new Tom Ford Private Blends that were just released, just in time for the holiday season. However, I’m not officially asking for either of them, though they are both decent. The truth is, both of the new Oud scents – Oud Fleur and Tobacco Oud – are wonderful, but not such distinct entities that it justifies their price points. (Yes, I said it: I’m foregoing a Tom Ford Private Blend or two when they’re redundant. In the case of Oud Fleur – my favorite of the two – I felt it was initially a charmed work, until it dried down to an eerily-similar version of Santal Blush (which I already have) tinged with Oud Wood (which I also already have). It did, however, give me the grand idea of combining the two. When it comes to fragrance, I always strongly advise against any sort of mixing and matching. For the Tom Ford Private Blends, combining similar scents usually results in something spectacular, so I’ll be giving the Santal Blush – my favored holiday scent – a supplemental boost of Oud Wood and seeing how they play out, without the hefty investment of having it done for me.

As for the stocking stuffers (and those casual acquaintances who have been reaping the myriad benefits of this website without contributing so much as a hello) there’s also my  Amazon Wish List – to which I’ll add some new wishes. Remember the reason for the season: give ’til it hurts. Jesus would want it that way.

Andy’s birthday cakes from last month – one in tiramisu, and one in carrot cake.

A couple of years ago, I did a live-post day of entries for Veteran’s Day. I’d had the day off from work, and hadn’t made any other plans, so I spent the day doing not much of anything, but documenting it in photos. There were the obligatory naked shower shots, a series of breakfast prep shots, and a few late season rose shots. This year I don’t have the time nor the inclination to bore you with the mundane particulars of the day. (I’m actually driving to New Jersey to select granite for the kitchen.) In my absence, peruse the following links, brought to you by Novembers past.

We begin in appropriately timely fashion, with a treatise on time.

A rural throwback to last year, and a lifetime ago, in the sleepy expanse of upstate New York – Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

It’s almost holiday shopping season, and I’m not ready for another amateur hour.

One of my proudest moments: my stint as a Cheesecake Boy.

Keeping things delightfully (and shirtlessly) toasty, were the hunky likes of Matthew Morrison, Tom Daley, Quinn Jaxon, Tom Daley, some sexy footballers, and even more Tom Daley.

In further circles within circles, Kira and I have been rendezvousing in Boston for two years now, traditions intact. Up next: our holiday weekend where we walk around Boston (oh so much walking!) to look at the how the stores are decked out for the season. A few cozy stops for food and drink, and then a night of good cheer and company.

A coral bark maple was in need of some pruning, and its color was at its peak, so I clipped a few branches and plopped them into water for a fall party I was having. Anytime one tries an unexpected item for cutting, there is the risk of dismal failure. Especially when the cut comes toward the end of a season. Truth be told, I was expecting the worst – the one time I tried to cut a few stalks of bamboo, the leaves fell off almost instantly. (Literally before I could finish arranging them, they started to lose their grip.) A few stalks of a flowering cup plant shed so many stamens overnight that I was starting to think it was possessed. Yet for every few failures, there is a happy, unmitigated success, like this startlingly simple yet powerfully effective bouquet of dogwood branches from this past spring.

Unlike the staying power of those dogwood branches, however, this fall bouquet was quick to shrivel. Luckily, our fall party was set to last only a few hours, so it survived intact, waiting for the night to begin its final stretch of decay.

Once it started that downhill transformation, it moved quickly – drying out in a few short hours, spent from one final fiery show. In other words, if you’re going to attempt a bouquet of fall foliage, cut it just before the party starts because it will not last the night.