I can say anything I want with my thighs.
Monthly Archives:
June 2020
23
June
2020
No comments
June
2020
Happy Hydrangeas
We have about seven large plant stands of hydrangeas – most of them the ‘Endless Summer’ variety that was all the rage a number of years ago – and though I managed to coax them all into one or two blooms every once in a great while, only the plants in the front of the sun where all the sun goes ever reliably bloomed every year. The backyard plants would, if we were lucky, put forth one or two paltry flowerheads a piece, and for the past several years they’ve done nothing but produce foliage.
I haven’t minded much since their foliage is handsome, and they grow so large they become architectural elements that frame the house and a side entry-gate. I was somewhat annoyed at the fact that we couldn’t keep them on the blue side of their color range – our soil just would not keep them blue, no matter how many coffee grounds, rusty metal objects, or soil acidifiers I showered upon them.
Don’t get me wrong – I love pink – and a rosy-hued hydrangea flower is better than no hydrangea flower at all – but I did give up on pampering and cajoling them into bloom. It was also possible that our weather pattern killed off the buds that were present in the winter. We always got weird stretches of wickedly freezing temps for unprotected stretches of time, ensuring that even those that survived the enormity of a winter season would be felled by a few quick days of all-killing cold. ‘Endless Summer’ was supposed to flower on both old and new wood, but it did seem to favor old wood, if it managed to keep its buds intact.
This year, with a relatively mild winter, I left the old wood standing instead of pruning it all off like I normally would, and for the first time in at least a decade, most of our bushes have a multitude of blooms forming. While these, the first to bloom, are decidedly pink, there are bluish ones coming up in the backyard (worthy of their own post soon enough).
Perhaps the world makes up for its cruelty in this small way. I’ll take whatever bit of beauty is afforded right now. (Stay tuned for that blue one!)
22
June
2020
No comments
June
2020
Sonic Therapy: ‘Welcome Home’ by Karel Barnoski
For the last century, the universe has been whispering to humanity to slow down, to dwell in stillness and take in pockets of quietude. Lately, it’s begun to scream and rage since no one seems to be listening. If you’re looking for something deep to help you process everything that’s gone on over the past few months, or if you’re simply looking for something to help you get through the damn day, I found the perfect album for meditative rumination.
A thirteen-song musical cycle that is as delicately-nuanced and shaded as its cover art ~ a corner room looking over what might be either the rise or fall of the sun on a body of water – ‘Welcome Home’ is written and performed by one of my brother’s friends, Karel Barnoski, whom I remember with much amusement from our childhood days of playing hide and seek. Hearing him in this realm makes me marvel at the wondrous possibilities that life lays out for each of us, and what we decide to make of them.
Opening with the jaunty ‘Interplay’ the mood is initially playful, which is fitting for the memories I have of Karel as a kid. By track two, however, things take a thoughtful turn: ‘Bath’ offers a balm to everything going on in the world right now ~ a contemplative, sparse soundscape that seems to encapsulate so much of the quiet and stillness that reveals Barnoski’s mastery of the space in-between the notes.
Title track and album centerpiece ‘Welcome Home’ is tailor-made for 2020. Home is many things to many people ~ not always a place, not always a happy frame of mind ~ but it’s what grounds us, it’s what centers us. We may not have grown up in a perfect household, but even the most nomadic among us carries around an essence of home ~ a place, whether physical or spiritual ~ that speaks to us in its own way. Finding that space, and keeping it sacred, is a big part of our journey in this world. The music here allows that place to exist.
‘2019’ is one of the first pieces I’d ever heard Barnoski play on one of his FaceBook live events. It arrived just as we were all hunkering down in our stay-at-home existence. Maybe that’s why it feels a little more powerful ~ the way a song melds to a moment that, as it’s happening, you somehow realize will be historical and resonant, that you are making a memory that will burn itself indelibly into who you are about to become. Here, it offers calm and beauty, refuge and consideration, a way of sorting out whatever ails your own little world. I’ve kept this one on repeat when writing, and it clears the mind and heart like a mini-meditation.
‘The Knife’ brings an underlying tension to the proceedings, darker shadings and a stormy turbulence that is only partially resolved in its dramatic continuation, ‘The Knife (Jam)’ – seven-plus minutes of musical excitement that is a journey unto itself. About halfway through the storm gives way to calm, and a sort of ambivalent resignation, then swirls back around for one final flourish before letting everything settle down again.
The dim mood conjured by ‘Isolation’ perfectly embodies so much of 2020 and reminds me that music and art still matter, that they still provide a haven and comfort for all people. A work of beauty is an invitation for everyone to appreciate, one of the last and perhaps only truly egalitarian systems we have as a civilization. Barnoski touches upon the events of the past few months in his titles, such as ‘Quarantine’ and ‘Stir Crazy’ and if a pandemic keeping us all home results in such glorious work, then it appears the universe is seeing us through these changes and ushering in a new normal framed with beauty, framed with an appreciation for something quieter, something that sounds like a piano being played for the sake of all of us ~ to keep us calm, to keep us together as much as we are apart, to keep us from going crazy.
Every once in a while a collection of music will come along that so deftly and magnificently captures a moment that it’s unclear whether it was the hands of the artist or the hands of the universe guiding us into such states of rapture and beauty. ‘Welcome Home’ stakes its claim of timelessness thanks to the artistry of Barnoski and the way he blankets a difficult world in swaddling clothes of musical consolation. He plays the hurt into the heart, allowing it to have its time and moment there, then plays it gently away, and we are better for having heard and felt it.
Final track ‘All Together Now’ brings back the theme from ‘Welcome Home’ ~ a happy and hopeful return to a time that may not come again, and that may or not have ever been. That’s the remarkable gift this song cycle ends up being ~ it gets us as close to the human experience as music ever can, carving out the space for us to confront demons, reconcile turmoil, and create a new reality. ‘Welcome Home’ is a session of sonic therapy we could all use right now.
{Karel Barnoski’s ‘Welcome Home’ is available on Apple Music here and on Spotify here.}
22
June
2020
No comments
June
2020
The Centerpiece of the Day
When I first started meditating, it was something I did near the end of the day. At the onslaught of winter, it felt better to trudge through the long, dark days and save it as something to savor before bed, preparing the mind for a restful and calm entry into slumber. As the light lingered, and my working schedule shifted to a work-from-home situation, I moved the meditation sessions up to the moment I shut down the computer for the day, around 4 PM, as a way of establishing a line of demarcation for the work day, and allowing me to decompress from whatever stresses the job had created. As such, it became the midpoint of the day, where it remains more or less to this point.
For weekends or days off, I’ve been moving it up even earlier – around 2 PM – and it is the centerpiece of a good day. My meditation sessions last about twenty minutes now, and are the centering force that have kept me calm in the face of all sorts of insanity, especially now that Mercury is in retrograde until mid-July. In twenty minutes, I can go from agitated and bothered to calm and resigned, and even more than that, this consistent pattern of meditation has resulted in a greater level of calm in the grander ocean of my existence. Studies have shown that regular meditation changes how our brain operates on a daily basis, allowing it to be more focused and calm even when not actively engaged in meditation or deep breathing. I’ve noticed it firsthand.
Things still annoy and bother me, and I throw little hissy fits, mostly in my head, but they are over sooner and quicker than they were before. There is no bitterness or anger that fuels lingering feelings of upset or tumult. As the days pass, I’m working on reducing these reactions and bouts of disappointment even further, until they will hopefully be no more than blips or tiny crests in a sea of gentle waves.
Still, I wouldn’t recommend fucking with me just yet. Mercury is in retrograde and I will not be held accountable for hurting people if they come for me, even in jest. Namaste, mofos, namaste.
22
June
2020
No comments
June
2020
A Blazing Recap
Of course we get the best pool weather we’ve had in years in the weeks where our pool is out of commission. I’m chalking it up to the disaster that is 2020 and the current loveliness that is Mercury in retrograde.
These chocolate crush cookies famously made at the Levain Bakery find a homemade approximation that is doused in deliciousness.
These #TinyThreads made for some light summer reading.
Giving the sideyard some loving.
The BLT: the only summer sandwich.
A midweek respite, like an oasis.
Typically of 2020, another disappointing moment.
This year’s BroSox Adventures are on hiatus given the state of the world… so Skip and I went back in time for this placeholder.
The first day of a summer that would not hesitate.
Turning cocktails into mocktails with an equally sunny disposition.
Happy Father’s Day to Dads near and far.
A song for the second day of summer.
The Hunks of the Day returned with Pablo Alborán and Christian Cooper.
21
June
2020
No comments
June
2020
The 2nd Night of Summer
This is just for the second night of summer. Turns out I had the foresight to put this on our first summer mix, and it came on over the stereo as I wilted from the midday heat, without a pool or a new summer fragrance. Is there a sadder state in which to find oneself? Don’t answer, universe, I already know there’s nothing to complain about. Certainly not on the second night of summer.
Well it’s the second day of summer
You already got me sweating about it
Oh it’s the second night of summer
And I’m disintegrating without you
Throwing me that shade like I’m not cool enough
Throwing me that shade like I’m not
Like I’m not cool enough
Throwing me that shade like I’m not
Like I’m not
Like I’m not cool enough
Not cool enough
Some songs are no longer relatable to me lyrically. When we’re talking about a woman who’s getting on a plane with a carry-on and without me, well, what’s the big deal? And if anyone is throwing me shade, I’m throwing it right back, and the shade I throw is the stuff of endless night. Some songs I simply like because of the way they sound, the way I did as a kid before I know what ‘virgin’ or ‘preach‘ meant. Isn’t that the point of a pop song anyway? This one is taking me away in a haze of heat, riding waves of hot air like I’m not cool enough…
Sun up and sun down
Sun up and sun down
As for this second night of summer, the heat is on. Beating a hasty retreat to the interior of air-conditioned coolness, I sink gratefully to the floor, where a soft rug awaits my lotus-positioned body, folding in on itself like some intricate piece of origami. Closing my eyes, I take in the start of summer, on its second day – the forgotten day, because everyone only talks about the first day, and what does the second even matter?
Well it’s the second day of summer
You already got me sweating about it
Oh it’s the second night of summer
And I’m disintegrating without you
Throwing me that shade like I’m not cool enough
Throwing me that shade like I’m not
Like I’m not cool enough
Throwing me that shade like I’m not
Like I’m not
Like I’m not cool enough
Not cool enough
21
June
2020
No comments
June
2020
Happy Father’s Day
When I was a little kid, one of the best things I got to do was crawl into the bed between my Mom and Dad if I’d had a nightmare or was freaking out about bugs being in my bed (oh, the joys of sleeping with me). Most children have the same experience: the supreme safety and coziness of sleeping next to your parents, when no matter what worries or concerns you have about school or friends or siblings, simply waking up with the two people who love you unconditionally makes everything better.
Back then, my parents felt invincible, larger-than-life, and perfect in every single way. Before the light crept in, and before Dad got up to get ready, he would shift and slowly stretch his legs, raising each one up and down, slowly and methodically, working out the cracks and snaps, twisting slightly to stretch every muscle. He would do the same with his arms. Unaware of my observance, he went through this routine before he got going every morning, and it stuck with me. My Dad was doing his part to keep active and fit, and it was a lesson that has stayed with me to this very day.
It’s also something I think of when I see him slowing down, when his body is no longer able to do what it used to do. I want to see him keep going, to push himself to stay active. I write him letters imploring him to walk every day, reminding him that a little discomfort and muscle ache now might lead to a prolonged health and ability to keep moving later on. The way children and parents switch roles is an accepted way of life, and we all go through it in our own manner. I hope I’m doing some justice to the way in which Dad taught me so much.
For his age, he’s in remarkable shape, and there are still those moments when his eyes alight and he looks and engages like he is is his forties again and I’m a little kid, soaking in all his wisdom and heroism.
On this Father’s Day, I honor my Dad and all that he’s done for me, and for our family, for all these years. We get to have a outside visit, in this changed new world, and hopefully spend some more time together in the coming months.
We also remember Andy’s Dad, whose birthday was yesterday, because Father’s Day is about those we have lost too. Good Dads never stop watching over us.
20
June
2020
No comments
June
2020
Turning Cocktails Into Mocktails
Who said that mocktails can’t be pretty and satisfying?
Oh, it was probably me several years ago.
Fortunately, I can admit when I’m wrong, or in this case mistaken and unwilling to see other options.
Such as this citrus spritzer – one of the simplest and most delicious drinks, perfect for a sunny summer day. There are a multitude of variations – infinite really – that can be crafted in similar fashion. Begin with some freshly-squeezed citrus (here I used orange). Add some simple syrup, made of honey or sugar boiled with water and whatever flavorful additive you’d like to try (here I used some ginger coins). Then top with club soda or a complementary seltzer – in this case I used a grapefruit sparkling water. Garnished with some orange peel, it was heaven in a few sips.
If ginger syrup is your accent flavor, lemon and orange work wonderfully, depending on whether you want something more tart or slightly sweeter. I’ve tried a mint syrup with lime to approximate a mojito with mixed results, and a wildly successful hibiscus tea with honey and a grapefruit seltzer. Turns out there’s a hibiscus-flavored La Croix that I will try for another round, and that could very well be the signature mocktail for this tumultuous year, when it’s just me and Andy enjoying the backyard. It’s the perfect time to experiment with refreshment.
20
June
2020
No comments
June
2020
June 20, 2020: Summer Begins
The first day of summer rings slightly hollow this year, as so much has turned to shit since 2020 kicked the door in and trashed the place. Some summers feel destined to be haunted, and must be prepared for and set up as if we were battening down the hatches for a winter storm. It’s far better to go in over-prepared and expecting the worst than to go in bright and full of bonhomie only to have the wickedness of the world shut it all down. That’s the mood right now. That’s the summer set-up. On guard. Under attack. Wrecked and ravaged.
Personified by the sorry state of our pool – still unopened, a veritable swamp filled with stinging insects and squirming larvae, and inviting all sorts of nasty critters that feed upon them – the summer begins in less-than-fine fashion, in the very worst ugliness that summer can sometimes embody. I fear that tension and restlessness will portend the way the season goes, and I’m not sorry to start in such a dim world. From humble beginnings there is room to grow, room to get better, room to bloom and blossom into something prettier and more beautiful.
Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer’s day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land
Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they’ll listen now
And so we begin in a quieter place, a more somber place, perhaps a more mature place, and rather than maturity leading to something more tame, my heart and passions feel more excitable and unpredictable than ever. Maybe it’s just my perspective that has shifted, and maybe that’s the best thing that could have happened.
We are also going into summer with a song already chosen – entering from what is traditionally the ending: I tend to let the summer play out before determining which song will best represent the season that year. Here, I give you ‘Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)’ by Don McLean, named after and inspired by Van Gogh himself. Whatever may come for the next three months, this song will run through its days and nights – rather fitting for the stars that occupy the night, as well as the bracts of the Chinese dogwood that drip and dangle their starry expanse against the sky.
One of the lasting effects of being an English major is the tendency to pick apart and dissect every word of a song, then expounding upon them in expansive, extrapolated form, analyzing even the most unintended placement of words or innocent punctuation and drawing personal conclusions that we try to mold into a different form of art. I was about to do that here, so full of possible meanings are the lyrics, so beautifully dark and deliciously disturbing are the images. An artist embodied by a painting embodied by a song embodied by a passage of writing… and I simply will not attempt it. I will not even begin to try to come close to what has already been created. I will simply listen, and invite you to do the same.
Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent’s eyes of china blue
Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand
Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they’ll listen now
What summers did Vincent Van Gogh see? And how did he see them? Were they a comfort or a distraction? A balm or bit of restless overheated bother? Most summers have a tinge of darkness to them, bringing their own stormy swells and popping them in between all those sun-soaked days. Some summers carry mostly rain and gray overcast days, a waste of a season, perhaps rescued by some early autumn days when it’s already too late, when we’ve already given up. And some summers are glorious, mostly when they are not expected to be. I haven’t entirely ruled out that unlikely possibility, because the heart hopes against reason, and mine is not exceptional in that way.
So we dance, and we rise, and we face the summer sun, still seeking out its warmth and heat and light, still seeking out a happiness most of us haven’t known since the innocent days of childhood, if we were even lucky enough to have a few seasons of innocence. Most of my summer memories are sugar-coated with the sepia-haze of half-remembered sensations – the buzzing of a thousand cicadas, the gentle lapping of water from a pool or a sea, the blooming and delicate sweet scent of a hundred bright snapdragons. I hesitate to probe into how much of it was true; my construction of summers past is generally joyful. I will not tamper with that now.
For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night
You took your life, as lovers often do
But I could have told you, Vincent
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you
What might this summer bring? As the world devolves into chaos, and monstrosities we never would have envisioned as possible come to unsettling fruition, I’ve decided to focus on stillness and quiet, on our home and gardens, on a pool that will once again be filled with sparkling water. While travel remains a risk, we will take our trips just a few feet off our back patio, in the branches of a fig tree or the twining chartreuse trail of a sweet potato vine. In a song about an artist, in a sky filled with the starry forms of flowers and the sparkling forms of stars. In the scent of a beach rose, in the fronds of an ostrich fern.
Surrounded by beauty, it shall be a summer of reflection and contemplation, a way of both stilling and thrilling the passage of time. Strange the way that works, the way heat eventually gets to you, and then the retreating into the air-conditioned comfort of the living room for a mid-day meditation. There is peace within the home. There is peace within the summer. There is peace within the fuzzy purple bloom of a petunia.
Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget
Like the strangers that you’ve met
The ragged men in the ragged clothes
The silver thorn, a bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow
Dear summer, please go easy on us. You begin with Mercury in retrograde, a most inauspicious way to begin, but what say do the seasons have in planetary alignment? What say do any of us have anymore? What say did we ever have…
Now I think I know
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they’re not listening still
Perhaps they never will
19
June
2020
No comments
June
2020
BroSox Adventures Through the Years – Part 2: 2018 ~ 2020
There’s something that I never really got to experience before Skip became a friend: the straight-guy bonding of a sporting event. Most of my straight male friends up until that time weren’t really into that ~ and if they were they weren’t including me on any of the fun (and to be fair, I likely pooh-poohed the notion in image or downright dismissal). Skip pulled back the curtain on all of that, and though it was a strange and often confounding landscape of over-priced beer, oversized t-shirts, and over-used crocs, there were glimmers and hints of what made baseball so captivating for so many in our country. There was, to begin, its history. Sepia photos lined the interior of Fenway Park, drifting back decades. There was also the ongoing saga of the Red Sox and their mostly-underdog glories. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there was the feeling of community in a stadium full of fellow fans, the way we were all there to enjoy ourselves, no matter how different or strange we might otherwise have appeared to one another. When Skip would heckle the other team, he got applause and cheers and support, knowing nods and friendly smiles, and as embarrassing and irritating as it might have been in any other realm, here it tickled me.
At some point in all the games, I would pause and look around at all the people en masse together. Maybe I appreciate it more considering the current state of our socially-distant world. But even back then, when standing shoulder to shoulder was commonplace, I felt the warm kinship of rooting for the home-team, to be a part of something in a collective sense ~ something that so rarely happened to someone who so unintentionally fought to distance himself from others. I owe many things to Skip, and showing me how it felt to be part of the crowd, to be included, will always be one of the most important ones. Here’s the second part of our baseball recollections:
BroSox Adventures 2018
The detailed, in-depth multi-part blog posts for our annual Red Sox game pilgrimage was combined into a single end-of-summer post since I took the summer of 2018 completely off from blogging (on Skip’s sage advice). That said, our Red Sox trip went on as planned, without the bothersome intent to capture it all for posterity. We still managed to remember and recap. That was the year we went on the hunt for a serial killer by the Charles River, Skip went dumpster diving and planking, and we took our trip in August rather than June, switching things up a bit. It was also the year I thought we could pawn him off on the bear community, and it was a dismal failure. A bit of payback for the I-Wanna-Dance-With-Somebody-who’s-not-you encounter a few years back.
SKIP’S TAKE ON 2018:
I just told this story the other day. How you were taking me on a “serial killer” tour while we were 3 sheets to the wind and me realizing halfway through that there was no killer we were just walking on dark half alleyways WAY TOO close to the Charles River and were probably going to fall in the water and drown just like the “murder victims” did. You recall the Bear Community much differently than I do. It wasn’t payback. I didn’t feel slighted. Quite the opposite. As a straight man I always assumed a “bear” to be 6’4″ with a dark beard and probably wearing a leather vest. I was shocked to see a bar full of guys who look very much like I do. And that was the moment that me, a doughy, middle-aged, dad-bod white guy who holds very little appeal to straight women, realized “Holy shit… I’m actually someone’s fetish!” No one offered to buy me a drink… but still. If I’m not mistaken this is also the trip that I brought an edible gummy that my brother-in-law had procured for me in Colorado. You mistakenly tossed out the half that had gone uneaten on the first night which then made me do a goddammned dumpster dive the next morning in a fucking Back Bay playground trash-can. Which you filmed without my knowledge btw…. asshole.
SEATS/GAME: Another Saturday Night game. Loge Box not far behind home plate. Ray’s Pitcher walked three. Couldn’t throw a strike to save his life. I yelled so loud he could hear me. “You can’t fucking see the strike zone. It’s INVISIBLE!!! INVISIBLE!” He walked in a run. Got pulled. People high-fived me because I caused the run. Sox won.
SIDENOTE: Red Sox won the World Series this year.
ALAN’S FOLLOW-UP: Listen, if you’re going to leave a ratty plastic bag twisted into a foil ball on the credenza for longer than a minute, I’m going to throw it out. I set that video clip to ‘Bad Boys’ and it was fucking brilliant. For some reason the crowd always loves your inane screaming. I do recall the word ‘invisible’ being hollered maybe three more times than necessary and then laughing at that. It’s one of those mysterious intricacies of game life that I still don’t quite comprehend. Fellow fandom? Shared joy in the abuse of the opposing team? Can’t we just get matching hot dogs and have that be enough?
BroSox Adventures 2019
This brings us to last year’s shenanigans, where we planned a full-on Chinatown chow-fest, and set things off in typical rowdy form, tempered with a visit to the Charles River and some stoop-gazing that might see us transition into our middle-aged Boston exploits. Eventually, we found the fabled Peking duck and everything fell into place.
SKIP’S TAKE ON 2019:
I think that this was my favorite trip. They seem to have crazily gotten better every year which seems unlikely (and probably why the universe forced a year off). Soooooo many memories on this trip. For the first real time we had a “theme” aka “Chinatown.” Damn if it didn’t live up to it. Where to start and where to finish? Awesome sandwiches packed by you for the drive. Google Maps saving the day (and an hour and 20 minutes). Bleacher seats suck when you’re used to Loge Box or better. I did make friends with the “Set It Off” girls and we found them again downtown. Eating past close at a Chinese restaurant while the staff played cards waiting for us to finish. Amazing walk on Saturday. One of my favorite quiet and undersold memories: drinking on the stoop in the summer, just chatting and waving at passers-by whilst enjoying the remnants of a long awaited tradition. Unintended test run Chinese dinner where the waiter didn’t speak a lick of English. FINALLY getting my Peking Duck and it being so much more than I thought it could be.
SEATS/GAME: Friday night game. First time we did the game on a Friday. Center/Right Bleacher seats. They sucked. Felt like the game was happening without us participating. First time ever we witnessed a Sox loss.
SIDENOTE: We had to leave first thing because I needed to race back to get to Mia’s dance recital.
ALAN’S FOLLOW-UP:Who knew Peking duck would become such an ordeal? Glad it was worth it in the end ~ and it’s a pretty cool testament to our friendship that one of the best parts of all these trips was sitting on the front stoop of the brownstone and watching the world go by.
BroSox Adventures 2020… 2021?
Originally, we had a brand new set of plans for this year’s BroSox excursion with a fancy night at the Mandarin Oriental (thanks to the above-photo of Skip’s dog Cooper – another story for another time) and a totally-switched-up game plan. That is obviously on hold until further notice, and until such time that we can make them happen, I’ll hang onto the memories here. Bookmark it for when you need a laugh at our silliness. As for the final word on our trips thus far, I have to give that to Skip, who in typical fashion puts our momentary sorrow for losing out on this year’s trip in perfect perspective: after five years of successively-excellent trips, maybe the universe was giving us a year off for an off-year.
SKIP’S FINAL NOTES: Holy shit going back in time brings back so many amazing memories. Just a true and unbridled camaraderie with one of the best friends I’ve ever been fortunate enough to have. When you look back at this tradition in such a way, a clarity is shed upon its evolution. It makes me exceptionally sad for this year’s lost trip. Yet I remain hopeful for next year’s trip. I expect it to be the best yet and I think in honor of all that is lost in this world, in this nation, and in this lifetime… we kick it up a notch.
18
June
2020
No comments
June
2020
BroSox Adventures Through the Years – Part 1: 2015 ~ 2017
Prior to 2015, I had only been to Fenway Park twice in my life: once with my whole family in 1986 (the infamous year they made it to the series against the New York Mets, which we will not discuss at this juncture) and then again in 1993 on an orientation excursion night during my first days at Brandeis. During the latter, I left the game somewhere around the 7th inning, when the Red Sox were down by 11 runs and I needed some alone time on Newbury Street. I’ve always felt slightly guilty about that, being a Red Sox fan, thanks to my Dad, since birth basically. Ever since ’93 I’d looked casually at a return trip, but nothing really got me excited until the more happily infamous 2004. From that year until 2015 I looked slightly more seriously at making a return to Fenway, if only out of curiosity because it had been so long. I put forth a few feelers to my brother, hoping he’d take the ball and run with it as a way of reconnecting since we did so little bonding of any sort.
By 2014, it was on my bucket list, and very few things make my bucket list unless they are a distinct and definite possibility. I tossed out the idea a few more times, but it was clear if a Red Sox game was going to happen, it was going to be entirely up to my own machinations. At around this time, Skip and I had established a regular movie routine, and since he had been a lifelong Red Sox fan we floated the idea of possibly taking in a game at some point. On one of our pre-movie hang-outs we fleshed out a plan, and after consulting with Sherri and Andy about the logistics, we set things into motion. In a way, it was fitting that as an adult I was going back to Fenway with a member of my chosen family. As kids, we have no choice or say in the matter ~ as adults, we get to choose and cultivate the people we want to be in our family circle. Skip was one of those people, and it didn’t take any nudging or pushing to get him to want to spend some time with me. Here’s a look back on my recollections on our adventures, along with Skip’s take on them, which is the real reason for reading on. (He is also the repository for the history of where our seats were, something that by this point blurs together for me.)
BroSox Adventure 2015
Our very first BroSox Adventure took place in 2015. It was a quick one-night trip to test the waters and bring me back to Fenway Park, where I hadn’t been in over two decades. I’d originally wanted my brother to take me, but he didn’t take the hint, and Skip was practically a brother by that point anyway. That first year I remember both of us getting accustomed to hanging out with some relaxing down-time, something we’re rarely afforded with movie start times, dinner reservations, and show tickets. I get to work with Skip’s wife Sherri, and we are able to find occasional jewels of time when we can take a breath and laugh. For Skip, the ride to Boston was our first extensive expanse of one-on-one time, and it did not disappoint.
On that Saturday, we arrived in the noon hour and headed for a casual lunch at the Rattlesnake Bar. From there, the fun continued with some pre-gaming at the condo and then the actual game – my first in over two decades. We walked back from the game, something that would become a tradition. I couldn’t handle a Red Sox subway crowd, we could never find an Uber, and it was a way to prolong the adventure as we made our way back into the city with the throngs of fellow jubilant Red Sox fans. The fun didn’t let up until we sped back into Loudonville and I almost got a speeding ticket to cap it all off, but we were saved by Officer Happy Ending.
SKIP’S TAKE ON 2015:
I remember the Rattlesnake Bar! I didn’t know what to expect of the weekend as it was our first trip and we were feeling our way around. We were good friends to be sure, but I had no idea how a weekend-long hang was going to go. As it turns out, amazing enough to start a tradition, but I didn’t know that at the time. I remember walking down Boylston and just happening upon the place. This is probably where you learned that I can sometimes be obnoxious in my “inside baseball” knowledge of the inner-workings of a restaurant. The bartender totally fucked up your order and then blamed it on the kitchen. I spent a good 20 minutes explaining why that never happened, how she fucked up, and how she blamed it on the staff in the back when it was clearly her mistake. That was a really fun lunch and set the tone for that trip and basically the rest of our Boston weekends. Having not known what to expect it suddenly occurred to me how natural and casual the whole trip would play out.
SEATS: Saturday afternoon game. This was our first time and we went with scalpers, ended up on the first-base line under the 2nd deck.
SIDENOTE: This game was only a few days after a woman sustained life threatening injuries from a broken bat at Fenway. This was the same day that a horse won the triple crown for the first time in decades. I watched the race on an old guy’s phone in the row behind me. Sox won.
ALAN’S FOLLOW-UP: I totally forgot about that baseball injury!! I do now remember telling you that you were responsible for protecting my precious face should a bat be thrown into the audience. I think you told me it wasn’t called an audience.
BroSox Adventures 2016
My only goal for our second Red Sox game was to avoid the sophomore curse. Ok that’s a lie. My only concrete goal for that second trip was to install a new air conditioning unit in the bedroom window. The weekend began in sunny form – I was cracking open a beer for Skip and pouring a G&T while Skip did most of the work of the installation. I took him out to Boston Chops, where we had a steak dinner on the sidewalk and watched the world walk by.
Our game this year happened to fall on the same weekend as Boston’s main Gay Pride festivities, lending a sparkle and excitement to the city, and our time there. There was also Skip’s new Oculus, from which I experienced my first brush with a virtual dinosaur. I also think this was the time we stopped at Club Cafe and Skip asked if some strange guy wanted to dance with me and he definitively gave an emphatic no. Being rejected without being interested was actually a first for me. Leave it to Skip to teach an old dog new tricks.
SKIP’S TAKE ON 2016:
So I remember a lot about this trip. The first being how scared I was of the air conditioner install. Not that I had any doubt in my abilities to properly install it but rather: it was about the air conditioner in the back of the mini-cooper on the ride there as it took over the entire back of the car. I was worried that I hadn’t properly packed enough tools in my tool bag as I was certain that if I hadn’t packed it, you wouldn’t have had it, and mostly I was worried about lugging that air-conditioner into the apartment as the first one and a half floors of stairs up to the condo door were very steep with no handrail. Other small memories include: Boston Chops Pomme Frites, getting rooster-kicked by you after that guy said he couldn’t dance with you because he had to work in the morning. I realized the sting of being shut down at a bar wasn’t solely relagated to hetero guys punching outside their weight class when hitting on attractive women.
SEATS/GAME: Saturday afternoon game. Second year, went with scalpers again. Loge box way behind first base. Wasn’t until the bottom of the 7th that I realized we bought similar seats in two completely different sections. Thankfully we didn’t get moved. Sox won.
SIDENOTE: I barely slept that last night worrying about us walking the old air conditioner down 3+ flights of stairs.
ALAN’S FOLLOW-UP: Much ado about an air conditioner! And rightfully so ~ I totally wouldn’t have had any tools or handy-man accoutrement, and I would have been royally pissed if I had to spend a single night in a non-air-conditioned room. (This is why Skip’s such a good friend: he knows me better than I know myself sometimes.)
BroSox Adventures 2017
We did our best to tone down expectations after two banner years of Boston fun, but we needn’t have bothered. After barely touching upon the Pride festivities the year before, 2017 marked Skip’s first time at a Gay Pride Parade (and my first in a few years). Skip began a little under the weather the first night we arrived, and Sherri is so much better at handling that sort of thing than me, but he rallied the next morning and came back from the brink of chills and death to attend his first pride parade. We had dinner near Fenway, at Tiger Mama, forgoing fanciness for some delectable Asian street food. Then we were onto our first night game, which I loved oh-so-much better than day games. Maybe I enjoyed it a bit too much, because this is the game at which I laughed so hard I spit a mouthful of beer at the guys sitting right in front of us. They weren’t too thrilled. It remains a contender for most memorable moment thus far.
SKIP’S TAKE ON 2017:
Fun year. I mean they all are but this one stood out (fever chills first night aside.) The first pride parade was amazing. Butch lesbians on motorcycles. Elizabeth Warren and that one Ginger Kennedy offspring. Every company in Boston with floats broadcasting “Surprise! We’re totally LGBTQ friendly now!” I remember “The Karate Kid” being on a big screen at Hojoko. I thought the girl in the Uber was coming on to me. Realized later it was Pride weekend and she thought I was gay. And for as long as I live I will never forget the look of abject terror and disgust on those two guys’ faces when you totally did a gigantic spit-take on the back of both of their heads in the 3rd inning. I honestly thought I was going to have to fight two AARP golf grandpas because you couldn’t hold your beer after me making fun of you for forgetting where the fuck we were sitting.
SEATS/GAME: Our first night game. On a Saturday. Fuck the scalpers and bought online. Great seats on the 3rd base line. Sox won.
SIDENOTE: We saw the Sox play the Tigers that year. Starting pitcher was Verlander who you had a crush on. I explained how hot his wife is. Shortly after this game he got traded to the Astros and they won the World Series. Not before beating the Red Sox along the way. You lent your condo to Sher and I that fall so that we could both go see our first playoff game. There were snipers on top of the press box for that game because of the Vegas shootings. Sox beat the Astros. It was their only win that postseason.
ALAN’S FOLLOW-UP: Ahh, yes, so many colorful characters in this weekend – that Uber lady for one; she was so gay-friendly and you were so clueless. It almost made up for the guy I didn’t even want to dance with… and I too cannot forget those two guys I spit on. Literally the first and thus far only time I’ve done a genuine spit-take, and they were completely unamused, if not downright hostile.
{More to come…}
18
June
2020
No comments
June
2020
We’re All Little Tomatoes, Hanging On
THE SUN HAS LEFT AND FORGOTTEN ME
IT’S DARK, I CANNOT SEE
WHY DOES THIS RAIN POUR DOWN?
I’M GONNA DROWN IN A SEA
OF DEEP CONFUSION
‘Hang On Little Tomato’ is a song by Pink Martini that perfectly personifies this almost-summer moment in a year that has just gone completely bonkers. It’s swerved riotously into cray-cray territory in ways we probably won’t fully comprehend and realize until we’re all dead and buried and the history stored in the cloud reads back like a doomsday novel. Not quite the beginning of summer most of us had hoped for, and certainly not the celebratory year I had in mind for 2020, but then I hear this song, and I take a few deep breaths, and I realize we will be ok if we just hang on…
This happy song reminds me of the baby shower I threw for Suzie and Pat before the birth of Oona. It was in November, but the weekend it took place was a glorious throwback to a late summer moment – all sun and warmth and beams of happiness. Suzie’s spirit has always been infectiously upbeat, even when pregnant, and this song and album added to the joy and quirky atmosphere of a baby shower thrown by a not-quite-baby-friendly yours truly. It turned out lovely enough – the guests make a party, and Suzie’s pals (along with her Mom’s pals) were a hoot unto themselves. It’s not easy to throw-back to summer in November, but we managed it, thanks partly to this song.
SOMEBODY TOLD ME, I DON’T KNOW WHO
WHENEVER YOU ARE SAD AND BLUE
AND YOU’RE FEELIN’ ALL ALONE AND LEFT BEHIND
JUST TAKE A LOOK INSIDE YOU YOU’LL FIND
YOU GOTTA HOLD ON
HOLD ON THROUGH THE NIGHT
HANG ON
THINGS WILL BE ALL RIGHT
EVEN WHEN IT’S DARK AND NOT A BIT OF SPARKLING
SING-SONG SUNSHINE FROM ABOVE
SPREADING RAYS OF SUNNY LOVE
This year, Suzie delivered a tomato growing container, fences and all, from her Mom, and we planted a few tomato plants – the first vegetables we’ve planted in probably ten years. Seemed a good time to do so – end of the world and all – and we already have some fruit forming on the lower branches of the upward-reaching vines. Tomatoes can be tricky to grow well – susceptible to certain diseases and growing dangers – but I was raised by a father whose main claim to cultivating fame was a vegetable garden robust with tomatoes that lined the garage sill in all stages, shapes and sizes of ripeness. We had an excess of the red fruit, matched only by the number of zucchini from his other garden. I learned the power of manure and proper soil preparation. Witnessing firsthand the back-breaking work turning over a decent patch of soil required, the way my father worked well into the dwindling light of the evening to make the dirt a welcoming home. He would then nestle the tomato plants deeply into the ground at an angle, piling the soil up most of the stem because he knew the roots would grow from the whole stem, stabilizing the plant. They soon righted themselves, rooted in stability, and then quickly began their fruit production. We began picking tomatoes soon thereafter and didn’t let up until the fall. There were many BLT sandwiches, or just simple fresh slices with some salt and pepper. They seemed to taste better coming out of one’s own garden.
JUST HANG ON
HANG ON TO THE VINE
STAY ON
SOON YOU’LL BE DIVINE
IF YOU START TO CRY, LOOK UP TO THE SKY
SOMETHING’S COMING UP AHEAD
TO TURN YOUR TEARS TO DEW INSTEAD
Andy grew tomatoes in the garden at his first house too – bushels of cherry tomatoes, along with some peppers. He had a little trouble with the beefsteak variety – one of which I made the mistake of planting this year (we shall see) and when we planted some at our current house, it was always hit and miss.
One fall we neglected to get to all the fruit before the killing frost, and the next year a multitude of sports popped up. We let them grow, eagerly anticipating the sweet tartness of whatever hybrid we had, only to be disappointed with the bitter flavor of some second-hand wannabes. Since then, we’ve avoided the laborious vegetable garden in favor of pretty perennials that returned year after year, growing in size with an easier routine of maintenance. But we missed the fresh bright fruit of a homegrown tomato, so this year we said yes to a container from Aunt Elaine, and currently are coddling a trio of plants just beginning to offer their first crop of fruit.
AND SO I HOLD ON TO HIS ADVICE
WHEN CHANGE IS HARD AND NOT SO NICE
IF YOU LISTEN TO YOUR HEART THE WHOLE NIGHT THROUGH
YOUR SUNNY SOMEDAY WILL COME ONE DAY SOON TO YOU
Every day, I visit the little tomatoes we have, watching them with a protective gaze and sending up a crop of little prayers that they make it – that some spell of mildew doesn’t take them out, that they don’t fall prey to the proliferation of chipmunks in the neighborhood, that something else doesn’t cut short their treacherous road to ripening. After the year we’ve already had, I don’t have much faith… but I’m still hanging on.
17
June
2020
No comments
June
2020
Typical Tumult
Perfectly emblematic of the year that is 2020, these are about the only blooms that the mockorange clumps produced this season – a sad, sorry, and lamentable situation, especially considering we once had four strong and healthy shrubs that towered up to and over the roof of the house. When we first moved in almost twenty years ago, I planted two little mockorange plants. I didn’t know then the house already had two clumps of it – so neglected and forgotten had they been. I noticed their leaves as the season progressed, and gave them a healthy dose of manure. The next year those old plants came back strong, blooming and filling the yard with their sweet perfume. One was a double version of the traditional mockorange, and the other was the typical single version. Both were equally glorious in fragrance. The two new specimens took a few years to bloom, but once they began they too filled June with their delicious scent.
Unfortunately, as lovely as the scent is, the blooming period is criminally short, and the shrubs themselves tend to revert to a weedy form, with unremarkable foliage, and a thicket of half-dead stems after a few years. It seemed they ran out of steam, as did my enthusiasm for them. But now, absent their big blooming explosion of perfume, I regret not working a little harder on their care.
17
June
2020
No comments
June
2020
In the Middle of the Week, A Respite
The temperatures are scheduled to climb in the next few days. Our pool remains unopened with no prospect of hope for a new liner this month. The idea of the country sliding back into the throes of this COVID crisis has everyone I know rightfully on edge. Yet somehow, I manage to remain relatively calm. Part of this I attribute to a regular meditation regime – twenty minutes a day, usually after my work hours. I’ve only missed it two or three days in the past three months; it has quickly become that intricately woven into a necessary and actually enjoyable habit.
There’s also my therapy sessions, which I’ve scheduled once every two weeks, a good timeframe to keep things on track, especially in such troubling times. It feels almost like an afterthought by this point, but eliminating alcohol from my intake has likely helped raise my mood too – the removal of a depressant I’d relied on for years has gradually lifted a bit of the haze of middle age. And our imposed social isolation has actually worked to help me overcome some social anxiety – not in the obvious isolated aspect, but in the quiet I’ve had the opportunity to focus on eliminating the underlying reasons for such anxiety.
There are also some mind tricks that help with the wayward turn the world has taken of late, well, maybe ‘mind tricks’ is the wrong term – this just something I focus on when things feel claustrophobic or stifling, the way an overly-hot and humid day can physically work to crush the soul. It’s a practice I put into play when I would occasionally find myself in Boston or New York on an impossibly hot summer day, when the heat got wedged in the concrete and sidewalks, emanating from brick and glass and the very sky itself. It was difficult to cool down, especially when walking was involved, so I’d go slow, keep to the shade wherever available, and conjure the cooling sound of trickling water and the fragrance of a mockorange or neroli to quell the restless agitation. Envisioning simple blooms like the ones shown here, and memories of cooler spring days seemed to help. It took me out of the heat of the moment, which is a strange notion now that I think about it. So much of mindfulness is about staying in the present moment, but it’s also about clearing the mind. I might finally be finding the balance that works well for me.
In the middle of a harried week, I seek the solace of this respite, like a fountain in a hidden garden.
16
June
2020
No comments
June
2020
A Little BLT For You & me
Is there anything simpler or better for an almost-summer lunch than a BLT sandwich? Perhaps a BLAT sandwich because I do love an avocado. For this one, Andy kept it true to the original, and on my lunch break I stepped onto the backyard patio and indulged in this summer treat. There are no tricks involved in the making of a BLT. Toast the bread, if you like, and be sure to slather mayonnaise on both pieces of it, but that’s about it. The ingredients take care of themselves, and there’s nothing tastier than that pink mix of tomato juice and mayonnaise that always ends up running down your hand. I’m not so proper to pretend that I don’t lick it up.
