Saw this online somewhere and wanted to hypocritically share it with you – you, who are actually good enough to be visiting my website if you are reading this now:
“Some of you need to log off and touch grass.”
That warning is as much for me as anyone else. We have been scolded. What we do about it now is entirely in our hands. (Come back for a pre-spring song in a few hours.)
We have arrived at long last at winter’s final day. How many weeks has it been? Count the weekly blog recaps below and see for yourself. In total, it wasn’t a horrid season. We had some snow storms, and then the temperatures remained steadfastly below freezing, ensuring the insulating blanket of snow cover for the gardens and the grass. We didn’t lose electricity for any stretch of time, so we will count this as a relatively benign season. Peruse the weekly recaps below for a more detailed glimpse into how we made it through the winter wilderness, then look to the Eastern sky for the dawn of spring tomorrow…
12/23/24 ~ A Recap Bordering on Holiday Joy
12/30/24 ~ A Holiday Recap in Limbo
1/6/25 ~ A Recap Filled with Comfort Food
1/13/25 ~ A Toasty Recap
1/20/25 ~ A Recap Slightly Later Than Usual
1/27/25 ~ A Recap Clad Only in Underwear
2/3/25 ~ A Recap Fronted by David Beckham’s Bulge
2/11/25 ~ A Day Later Recap Due to Divinity
2/17/25 ~ A Super Bowl Recap
2/24/25 ~ A Floral February Recap
3/3/25 ~ Already A March Recap
3/10/25 ~ A Lost Hour Recap
3/17/25 ~ A Recap with Outtakes
When you’re just trying to conquer Block Blast and this emotionally-cloying ad pops up to hit you like that Sarah MacLachlan animal cruelty commercial… it’s not right. And who are the sick fucks playing this kind of game? My Lord.
Retirement seems to agree with Tom Daley, and while he need not don the regulation Speedo for diving anymore, it’s a comfort and reassurance to see he is still using it for recreational wear and photo opportunities. While we are still in the midst of winter, there are ways to warm up. A list of links to that end follows.
Tom Daley bathing and bulging.
Tom Daley stripping and stretching.
Tom Daley as Dazzler of the Day.
Tom Daley’s crocheted contours.
Tom Daley busting out of his Speedo.
Tom Daley selling his stuff in a Speedo.
You are so very welcome.
When I get out for a lunch walk, I often pass this ancient building on State Street, right beside the building where I started my state career almost twenty four years ago. It stands somewhat incongruously with more modern buildings surrounding and towering over it, and I love it all the more for that. There is a plaque on it denoting its historical significance as the place where Anneke Jans Bogardus once lived. She was one of Albany’s more notorious denizens, having earned herself the nickname of ‘The Vulture’ and cultivating a reportedly cantankerous personality during the 1600’s, when she is said to have come into swaths of impressive land in New York due to a surprise gift left her in a family will.
Disputes and questionable records left the whole story a little bit muddy, which is somewhat fitting, as mud would one day save Anneke’s ass. Her rumored ornery disposition with others was on full display when she allegedly got into an exchange when passing several local men out for a break of pipe-smoking. The story is that she lifted her skirt and presumably mooned them, for which they took her to court. She was cleared when she explained she was merely attempting to keep the hem of her skirt out of the mud.
That’s a woman after my own heart. Leave them with something to talk about and end up with your name on a plaque that survives for centuries. And who doesn’t get a kick out of a good mooning?
Calvin Klein has engaged Bad Bunny as the body and face of his spring campaign, so we have these sizing shots by photographer Mario Sorrenti to rival the recent display of Jeremy Allen White in his own Calvins. Bad Bunny has already been a Dazzler of the Day here, and he cements that status with this turn in the iconic boxer briefs.
See also:
Jeremy Allen White in his Calvins.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson in his Calvins.
Bad Bunny body, Bad Bunny Calvin Klein, Bad Bunny underwear, Bad Bunny bulge
Only a few more days of winter remain, and though the technical arrival of spring doesn’t instantly equate to better weather, I’m allowing myself some hope. The pool is thawing out and Andy is eager to get it open. The last few years we’ve been opening it early to catch that first spell of 80-degree days that have been creeping up earlier and earlier. I don’t know if that will be the case this year, and I’ve made my peace with enjoying it if it happens, and not being disappointed if it doesn’t. There is wisdom, and contentment, in learning to roll with the punches.
On a deeper level, it’s like the proverbial rock at the bottom of a river bed. The trick is to sit still and be ok with whatever washes around you, no matter how wild and crazy and mucky it might get. Especially when Mercury is in retrograde motion.
I’ve been religious about maintaining my daily meditations this winter, and it’s been a consistent and comforting respite. For that little section of the day, I sit in complete silence and reverence. Every day we are alive deserves such an honor, even if it’s just for fifteen minutes. Even if it’s just counting breaths and letting other thoughts fall away.
Winter’s waning light rises from a candle, in a purple-tinted bit of glass that once belonged to my grandmother.
For reasons that should be obvious (these look ridiculous!) the two photos here are outtakes from The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale and were wisely never used in the final project. Twenty years ago I wa much more careful of my image and putting forth only what I thought was presentable, and these in no way passed muster. Today, I find them hilarious, and am happy to parade myself looking like a sheer-sheathed, frilly fool with peek-a-boo Calvin Klein briefs. When at last you know how to take the pissout of yourself, you become more or less invincible. On with the weekly recap, if it so pleases you…
It began, sigh, with another FAFO moment for those who voted for the FOTUS.
This shirtless quartet of gents in shades of gray righted the ship for the moment.
Our lone Dazzler of the Day was Josh Groban, who hasn’t texted me since.
The cop-out post, or, a skylight pictorial series.
Scarlet streaks of hope in a backyard of gray.
A scandalous take on boba tea.
Birthday wishes for Skip garnered a favorable social media response, further evidence that people want to see anybody other than me up on here. So send me your Dazzler recommendations! Almost all will be honored! (Even you, Urbanczyk… someday…)
These days I find myself doubting everything.
Obsessed – utterly OBSESSED – with this Lady Gaga song.
Disturbing dreams and comforting realizations.
Echoes of incense in a sacred space.
The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale went all gratuitously naked and nude, with an underwear-heavy post titled ‘Vanity Under Where‘ and then re-doubled on the effort with a post titled ‘Vanity Under There‘ and capped things off, literally all off, with this George Michael-inspired ‘When you shake your ass, they notice fast’ post.
Now let’s have a great week of Mercury in retrograde! It’s Monday, my friend Ann’s favorite day, so rock out with your whatever out and do the damn thing.
We pause once again to honor our posting schedule of The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale which will return next weekend (and do come back then because the ballerina bit is about to begin and it is tutu much!) For those who have lost track, below is what has been posted thus far from that 2005 project:
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
The featured photo was a selfie (because some of us were doing selfies way back in the 80’s and 90’s, ahem) taken back when the Divine Diva tour was in its planning stages. I was on my way into the office job I had at the time, which was located unironically in the Capital District Psychiatric Center. Andy always joked/hoped they’d mistake me for one of the clients and keep me overnight, but I always outsmarted them. It was a brutalist concrete building inside and out, with large gaping stairwells that were not seemingly designed for such a space, as there ended up being nets of thick rope hanging over the spaces where someone might jump. Fascinating and disturbing all at once, not unlike the trajectory of the fairy’s tale already in progress…
We have replaced ‘bedtime‘ with ‘scrolling in bed’ time and we are the worse for it.
Twenty years ago, the only freedom I knew was the outward kind. Freedom to roam, freedom to dress up or down, freedom to speak and shout and scream. All superficial, all vain, all relatively meaningless. At the time, while I felt the literal freedom, I also felt entirely bound and tied up inside. This is the most insidious sort of imprisonment – the self-lockdown that some of us inflict upon ourselves, and so often not intentional or deliberate or even noticed or acknowledged. I certainly didn’t see it or feel it then – I felt only and ultimately entirely free. How was I to know there were prisons that weren’t made of concrete and steel bars?
Even without chains or shackles, even without armor or clothing, it’s possible for one to be weighed down and tied up with the inner constraints of our own minds. You can throw away all the bags and coats, kick off all the shoes and jewelry, and strip out of everything, even the cologne, but the ties of a fettered mind won’t be undone until you’re ready to truly examine yourself and acknowledge who you are. Twenty years ago I wasn’t nearly ready for that, so I hid myself with a naked vanity that proved too good a mask for my own benefit. Not only that, but such vanity would prove a different kind of prison of its own; I was shackling myself with an image I wouldn’t ever be able to entirely shake.
These days I can look back and wanly smile at the shenanigans of my youth, the things I felt I needed to prove, the stories I needed to write and live out, the mark and legacy I wanted to leave behind. It all feels so foolish and still so precious. And I have much of it documented here – in what I’m posting now, in what I’ve posted before, and in all I have yet to post – ripe for examination, consideration, and exoneration. There is a fatigue to the well-documented life – but it’s the best kind of fatigue.
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
It is striking how lonely vanity can become.
Someone once wrote that some people have what is called ‘contagious vanity‘ – that is, they believed so strongly and fervently in themselves that while you might actively dislike them, you cannot take your eyes off of them. Their fascination with themselves lent them a fascination to others. It was possible, then, to become a person of interest once you became interested in yourself. What a strange and bizarre concept, I thought, even as I began to challenge myself into making it happen. To rise above the chattering criticism of the world and the mirror, into an echelon so high that even if it all fell down, you’d still be on top.
Vanity thy name is…
Satin sheets are very romantic…
What happens when you’re not in bed? ~ Madonna
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
Looking back twenty years ago has been a trip – especially when looking at how young I was, how vain, how foolish, how ridiculous, how lovely and how wistfully tinged with innocence. On the cusp of thirty that year, I felt as old as I had ever felt – how quaint that seems now that I teeter on fifty.
The musical accompaniment of this, a cover of Madonna’s ‘Dress You Up‘ given an immaculate glow-up by the brilliant Darren Hayes, pays tribute to those moments I felt beyond the reach of mere mortals. May you have felt such a brush with greatness in your mind as well.
…Where Vanity lies with Divinity…
This is the tale of how a vain little boy grew into a vain young man.
Vanity was his weapon of choice against encroaching insecurity.
Boisterous, attention-getting, contagious vanity.
Cruel, vicious, wicked vanity.
He wasn’t much to look at, but through sheer force of will
he forged himself into someone desirable.
Through hell-bent tenacious rage he willed himself handsome,
and one day it suddenly came to be true.
… no matter how much he was loved…
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
The last time I tried to talk to my Dad in church, the doors of the place were locked, and the church was closed to the public. That was earlier in the winter, which made the disappointment a little keener, having traversed the chilly path on an icy day.
I’m not sure why I seek out a church in which to talk to him. He never much liked church, at least he didn’t seem to like it. On some level it must have brought him comfort because he went for the majority of his life, likely on the insistence of Mom, but still – he would only maintain something he didn’t truly like for so long. And so I find him there – or try to find him there, as I’m not sure he is with me in the House of God.
On a recent Tuesday, I took my lunch time and walked up the hill to St. Mary’s, which was blessedly open again. It was also entirely empty, which made for a more peaceful moment. I slid into the last pew on the right, where light poured in through stained glass, and a haze hovered in the air – likely the remnants of the Stations of the Cross Friday service.
The comforting scent of incense hung there like a veil between worlds – a wispy web of faded smoke, the smallest particles floating in shafts of stained-glass-shaded light. I hurriedly ran through the prayers I knew in my head, then attempted to speak silently to my father, though my heart knew he wasn’t there. The terror I felt in that same space, when he was in his final days, no longer gripped me; there was a duller, more muted ache in its place. One is sharper, but quicker; one is gentler, but longer.
The past few weeks I haven’t been sleeping well.
It’s mostly my fault, turning to the phone when I get the slightest bit restless, which is the worst thing a person can do when trying to get to sleep.
And then there is the pesky new habit of waking way too early (like 4 in the morning) and not being able to get back to sleep, which is the scariest indicator of age I’ve had in a while.
The other night it was merely a bad dream. Well, maybe not bad, just slightly disturbing.
I was in my childhood bedroom waiting for a boy to look in my window and find me. Enticing him with a lamp, I flash the light to tell him to climb up the wall and come inside. My Dad is somehow onto me and waits for the boy to arrive. I flash the light and the boy is there – just as my Dad bursts in and goes for him. I scream at him, ‘Don’t, it’s just a teddy bear!’ and suddenly the boy has actually turned into a huge teddy bear, the kind that my brother used to beat up at Suzie’s house. The dream ends, and I wake a little after three in the morning. It leaves me flummoxed and searching for meaning. Dad’s visits aren’t usually filled with such conflict, and suddenly my perspective changes as I lay in bed and dwell upon things while trying to get to sleep again.
With eyes that are the same age as my Dad’s when I was about two, I see now that he was merely being a good Dad – a tad overprotective and overbearing, with a delivery that may have been a bit too rough and jarring, but at its core was love, and wanting his child to be ok.
It reminded me of the day in real life when he yelled at my friend Jeff for dunking the basketball in my brother’s new hoop. It was markedly lower than the standard basketball hoop, and such a circumstance attracted the boys of the neighborhood, who were drawn in by my brother’s notice. They took turns dribbling the ball down the driveway then jumping into the air and dunking it like [insert famous basketball star of the 80’s here since I was gay and unaware]. Jeff had come down from his home on Van Dyke and was mid-dunk when my Dad, to my embarrassment, shame and chagrin (because I knew I would be mocked for it) charged out and began yelling at them not to do that. It was noisy and in his mind dangerous for them to use the hoop that way, and though the delivery was loud and unnecessary, it was another form of protection – our own and Jeff’s – he didn’t want an injured kid any more than he wanted a broken hoop after just one day of being erected.
I see a similar conundrum when my brother yells at his kids. Part protection, part overreaction, part worry and part fear. The terror of having kids of his own, and finally knowing firsthand how our father must have felt. The additional loss of control in a life that must have felt a little uncontrollable and unfair, all those years growing up with the comparisons between us both. The impossible paradox of love, and wanting to protect your child so much that it brings out an anger that can only be founded from fear. Love, in all its forms, always so troublesome and fickle and infuriating, always so worth the risk of making oneself unliked by your own children if it means keeping them safe, even if they never knew that’s all you were trying to do.
I see my Dad differently now, in a way I wish I had seen when he was alive. I see my brother and friends who are also fathers a little differently too.
I am constantly at awe and wonder at love, and awake at night typing this out on the phone so I don’t forget.
