Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

“He was simply someone who floated through our lives and didn’t seem to care how flatly he perceived everyone or that he’d shared our secret failures with the world, showcasing the youthful indifference, the gleaming nihilism, glamorizing the horror of it all.” ~ Bret Easton Ellis

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We hereby banish winter for (almost) the rest of the year! 

That doesn’t mean the darkness has been completely eradicated.

Our world is in sorry shape. 

There is much work to be done. 

The damage of a winter, no matter how benign, takes some time to correct. 

But spring does it every time. 

This year, I think we just need to help it out a bit. And it will feel good to help. 

Spring gives us a renewed sense of drive and purpose. I’ve been feeling that little spark in the past couple of weeks. While everything seemed to go to shit, my heart sailed through on the crest of some radical belief system I didn’t even realize I had. Maybe you’ve realized the shift that’s been happening since last fall. It feels so far away now, and only when looking back do I see the distance that’s been traversed. Perhaps that’s why I don’t like to look back that often. It’s exhausting to think of what we’ve done and been through. 

Instead, we look ahead. 

To the return of warmth.

To the return of glamour. 

To the return of spring. 

“Our insignificance is often the cause of our safety.” ~ Aesop

It’s not always easy to be inconspicuous, especially if you love color and drama and frills that the majority of the populace simply doesn’t celebrate on a daily basis. My own personal hell is that as much as I love over-the-top style, I simultaneously abhor the attention. While I’m much better at accepting compliments graciously at this point in life, there’s a bigger part of me that would rather not be bothered. I have never dressed to impress anyone other than myself. A lot of people don’t seem to understand that, which is fine. Those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter, or however Dr. Seuss put it.

As for being insignificant, Aesop uses the term in the opening sentence not in a negative way, but as an indicator of going unnoticed. Flying under the radar. Blending in with the masses. And it’s not a bad thing. Herding and pack behavior has saved many an animal from death at the jaws of a predator. The appropriately convincing camouflage has hidden many a potential victim from attack. And donning sweat-pants, t-shirt and baseball cap has allowed me to traverse the grocery store without drawing stares and looks at any sort of fabulous ensemble in which I might have otherwise outfitted myself. Most days I like it best to be left alone, Greta-Garbo-fashion, lost behind a pair of oversized sunglasses, hidden in a sea of workout wear, disguised in plain, mainstream sight. That notion simply doesn’t jive with my style, and so I’m left with the conundrum. First world problems for a first world denizen.

Having canceled every single one of the amazing events that were scheduled for New York this past weekend, I found myself oddly at peace with the whole turn of events. Normally, I’d be emotionally scarred and mentally bruised (I still have stress when I think of a Miami trip that was doomed due to a winter snowstorm over seventeen years ago).  This time around, maybe it’s because I’m older, maybe it’s because I’ve reprioritized things, or maybe all the meditation I’ve been practicing has kept my resting-state freak-out mechanism from being triggered. Whatever the reason, I’m glad such calm has become a part of my life.

The candle pictured is from my friend Marline, who gave it to me just before this most recent bout of Mercury in retrograde began. I’ve been lighting it before I do my meditation each evening, and it has brought me much light and peace. To that end, may this be a post of peace and calm as well, in times as troubled as any I can remember. (And I lived through the last great stock market crash of 1987 ~ I was dancing to ‘Who’s That Girl’ at the time, I believe, or the ‘You Can Dance’ remix compilation.)

It sounds like there may be a lot of people home for the next couple of weeks, and while this has never been the place where kids congregate, as a rule, everyone is welcome to visit and pass the time looking through the archives and searching out anything of interest in that little earth box at the bottom left when you scroll down. Type in anything! I’ve written about all sorts of nonsense about which I know little to nothing, and it’s always fun to see what idiocy and lunacy came out on this blog just a few short months ago. 

As for how to get through social distancing and being alone, I have some tricks for that too. Well, not so much tricks as practices I’ve perfected from a lifetime of unconscious social distancing. It pays to be an introvert at times like this. The first and most important lesson is to learn how to be ok being alone. Much easier said than done, it involves liking your own company. So many of us simply don’t like ourselves. Oh we pretend we do, and in such obvious ways we metaphorically scream how much we love ourselves, but rarely in a genuine, healthy way. Selfies don’t count. Neither does pride in appearance. If you can’t sit quietly in a room by yourself, you might not really like the company of yourself. And I would begin these next few days by asking yourself why that might be. That’s the place to start. 

Shall we commence?

More than a trend, social distancing may be the lifesaving move that keeps millions safe, provided we all practice it. I don’t have much faith that America can do that. But if I can forego a fabulous weekend in New York, then you can stop going out for a couple of weeks. I’m not here to preach – I’m here to entertain and work out my own creative outlet in the process. It also turns out that this little corner of the internet is a space where some have found comfort along with entertainment and exasperation. We will get through this together. So pull up a chair, grab your tea or coffee, take a deep breath – no, really, stop and take a deep breath – slowly in and slowly out – drop your hunched shoulders a bit, and relax for this recap of things that were supposed to happen this week, things that did happen, and things that didn’t. It was all meant to unfold exactly as it did. 

I was going to wear this bejeweled coat beneath the bright lights of Broadway this weekend – it was something I’d been working on for the past three months – and perhaps the lesson and enjoyment was in the work getting there rather than any ostentatious show. 

When the music didn’t play.

Daniel Craig went shirtless while his Bond movie got delayed.

Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias may be making some beautiful music together. 

Wash your hands like you were washing these naked male celebrities. 

Dinner with an old friend. 

Paperwhites on parade.

Plans change, plots fizzle, but friendship remains. 

Hidden hints of spring. 

Citrus dreaming. 

New Boston bedding.

Boston blues. 

Bare naked solitude.

Hunks of the Day included Sergio Guadarrama, Carl Radke, Will Taylor and Cody Fern. 

After several seasons of using this Marimekko bed collection, I decided that this spring the Boston condo needed a breath of new life. Nothing updates a small space better than new bedding, so I found this subdued chartreuse duvet cover with a hint of chinoiserie. The entwined tendrils of tropical vines and birds of exotic plumage lend it the perfect look to see us through the rest of summer too. While the brightness of the Marimekko was a boon to the warmer months, this one has a richness and depth that I like, and temperature-wise it’s just as cool. As we are all getting older it’s time to appreciate such a shift; the light, flighty, flimsy trappings of spring and youth will not last, and it’s important to recognize that. It need not be something that we mourn – we were all young once – and the important thing is to keep your heart and mind youthful while embracing the advance of age and, ideally, wisdom.

To contrast the golden aspect of this particular shade of green, I found a touch of deep aquamarine in a couple of textured pillows. I love the way these colors play off each other, a variation of certain wedding invitations and decorations.

It’s precisely the jolt the bedroom needed at this time of the year, when all is bright and hopeful, and the grays and browns of this early stage need a little extra push of color. Come May and June the outside will have caught up to the inside, but for now this is what will have to do. Enchantment is often conjured by mind over matter.

As for spring, it is but a week away, and I can’t wait. A promise kept is reassurance that the world is occasionally kind, and spring is a more reliable covenant than a rainbow.

A lifelong dream: to have the ideal conditions and climate to grow citrus trees, whether indoors or outside, a garden room or a warmer latitude. The idea of such a garden room has been haunting me for decades, especially when we limp into the final stretch of winter. Lemon trees and lime trees, despite their tart fruit, have the sweetest blossoms. Oranges too. To have access to that perfume at this time of year has proved an elusive goal. Even the greenhouses up here seem to have a tough time with their citrus, or maybe they just sell so quickly I don’t notice them enough.

There is nothing more soul-satisfying than taking in a deep breath of a lemon flower on a bitter winter morning, a moment that recalls scenes of tropical splendor even if you’ve never been to paradise. I’ve created my own connotation, using the sweet fragrance of the orange blossom to indicate a summer day – no matter how hot it might get (what luxury to complain of the heat!) the perfume instantly conjures refreshment and a cooling calm. It has rescued many a heat-wave-beleaguered visit to Boston and New York. It’s also accompanied me poolside on those lazy days when all you need is a book and a glass of iced tea.

Alas, until we get notified about winning the HGTV Dream House in South Carolina or the latest Powerball drawing, such things as a garden room with a grove of citrus trees will have to occupy dreams of the day and night. We will make other arrangements, perhaps an orange blossom soap, or a neroli cologne, to conjure the enchantment of the citrus bloom.

In the micro-climate behind our grill, a daffodil has already poked the first straps of its green leaves through the ground, along with a flower bud. I hadn’t been looking for such signs of life because it’s much earlier than they usually appear, but it caught my attention as I made one of the first surveys of the yard. It gave me a thrill of hope, not so much for the global warming as for the return of spring. Even if this was a tease and a great big snowstorm comes to take it all away, we’re nearing the best time of the year. It put me in the mind of summer days and pool gatherings…

We have a minor revamping of our pool in the works for this year – a new liner and stairs if all goes according to plan – and such thoughts are happy and plausible goals to have. To get there, though, requires some forethought, and that’s what I do best. I’ve been making an earnest attempt to live in the moment, but the Virgo in me adores a plan of action, however loose or subject to change it may be. With a basic structure in place, all the adornments can be made, and adornments are the best part of life.

Since we moved in to our home almost two decades ago, we’ve both been chagrined by having to use a ladder to get in and out of the pool. A set of steps would be easier on Andy’s back, more aesthetically pleasing, and afford additional lounging opportunities for visitors to the pool. (And I don’t mean the squirrels.)

There have been a lot of changes to our yard in the last few years. A pair of cherry trees bloomed reliably early every spring, but eventually grew too big for their allotted space and had to be excised. A small patch of lilies of the valley took over the edge of the yard and now pokes up through the lawn, but they’re so pretty I’ve left them alone for now. The thin row of Thuja ‘Green Giant’ plants have grown into a living wall that threatens to overtake the narrow walkway along which it grows. We lost two prime specimens of Fargesia nitida – the fountain bamboo – part of the mass-flowering and subsequent die-off that only occurs once a century; I will look to find a couple to replace them now that that batch has finished its die-off. Such is the promise of the garden – no matter what has happened, there’s always a chance to grow again.

There was a long stretch of my life in which I was terrified of straight men. They were the ones who called me a fag, the ones who threatened with violence and brute force because they couldn’t argue with wit or intelligence. It took a long time to understand that they were the ones who felt threatened and small, that their actions were the stuff of insecurity and weakness. Once I realized that, they were no longer to be feared. Of course, realizing this on an intellectual level is much different than exercising it in daily life, so it took a while before I welcomed straight men into my world, but in 1995 I started to do just that with Suzie’s friend Chris.

We were about as different as two people could be, but somehow our friendship slowly grew over the next couple of years, jumpstarted and solidified with an infamous trip to Puerto Rico, and since then he’s been one of those friends who have become family by choice and deliberate selection. Chris taught me that straight men could be as sensitive and compassionate as anyone else, sometimes even more-so, as he wore his heart on his sleeve and was in many ways much more sensitive than me. He opened up a world of friendship that was refreshingly devoid of competition (we would never be going after the same person) and all the other stereotypically-challenging but nonetheless-true difficulties of friendships with women and gay men. It was a profound relief to be friends with a straight guy ~ it removed so many concerns and reminded me of childhood friendships that had long since dissolved in the wilderness of adolescence. My friendship with Chris opened me up to other friendships, and he was one of the first to help me broaden my narrow viewpoint and break down my barriers. I met him twenty-five years ago this month, so this weekend we are celebrating the silver anniversary of our friendship with a stay at the Plaza, a play, and a Betty Buckley concert. (See below.)

In addition to that, we are celebrating something else. About fifteen years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting my friend Sherri’s husband Skip for the first time. He’s probably appeared in more stories and posts than most because he’s the webmaster for all that you see here, and better than that he’s become a treasured friend. Like Chris, he has a certain social charisma that I’ve always lacked ~ and those are the people that I love to be around because they’ve made it their mission for people to love to be around them ~ their lives are designed to be such because they like people around them at all times. I tend to prefer a quieter and more solitary existence. That we continually get along so well is one of the magical mysteries of friendship.

Today is Skip’s birthday, and we’ll be celebrating with cocktails (and mocktails) at the Plaza, followed by dinner, and capped with the first preview of ‘Plaza Suite’ – so Happy Birthday! Rain check…

{PS – At the time this was originally written, these were the plans. Given the shutdown of Broadway, the advice not to travel, and the general insanity of the world, we are forced to make other plans, so stay tuned for the denouement of this!}

Trading out booze for sparkling water, and a fried onion blossom for a frisee salad, Suzie and I found ourselves in a slightly different place than we would have been twenty or even ten years ago as we set up at dinner at Provence. After browsing West Elm and enjoying the short walk in the light of the setting sun (on that glorious 70 degree day!) we settled into our meal and caught up on where life had taken us since we last visited New York at the end of January. Time goes by too quickly between visits these days, even if social distancing isn’t the worst thing one could do to close out this winter. (We went hugless just to be safe.) 

On a day and night that brought out a full super-moon, and the final throes of Mercury in retrograde, there was comfort and security in spending some time with Suzie. It was a nice reminder that there is still some stability in the world, that there are people on whom you could still count and consider as true.  

After dinner, we searched for a bit of dessert, ultimately settling on some chocolates from Pearl Grant Richman when the line at the ice cream place proved too ridiculously long on the first warm day of the year. A sweet ending to a sweet evening.