Devoid of the warm hues that earlier, kinder days had elicited, the leaves of our coral bark maple have faded to this pale echo of former glory. They go ghostly like this when the hard frosts begin to overtake the night. Some of our ferns do the same thing. It’s a signal for us to rethink our notions of beauty. Gone are the days of strong color and vibrant pizzazz. Late fall and winter bring muted and somber tones, and our eyes must adjust to the shift. It’s not always welcome – I love bright colors and gaudy shades – but it’s good to train our sights on texture and patterns and things that will show through the seasons of snow and ice.
Author Archives: Alan Ilagan
November
2019
November
2019
A Smudging in Our Extra Hour
The occasionally-disconcerting shift of Daylight Saving Time inspired me to do a fall smudging, which was long overdue anyway. It’s a tradition I have embraced, usually performed at the turn of a season. On the Sunday after pushing the clocks back, it felt like the opportune moment to realign things. We are manifesting a peaceful and calm holiday season, and that begins with a steady waving of a burning sage wand throughout the house, opening windows and doors and driving out any negativity from our home.
There is a feeling of cleansing and healing that accompanies a proper smudge, a sense of purification and a chance to start anew. It doesn’t heal all the wounds, nor is that its intention. We need to remember our hurt so that we don’t repeat it. A smudge is simply a new beginning. It banishes bad thoughts and lingering regrets. Ancient mystics used it as much for its spiritual benefits as for its physical purifying of the air.
Moving systematically throughout the rooms of our home, I wave the burning sage stick in slow, calm arcs, making sure its smoke reaches every nook and corner, opening closets and drawers and releasing anything bad that may be lingering, or that I may be holding onto. As I pass each open window or door, invigorated by the smoke and the cool November air, I feel more and more worry and stress lift from my shoulders. By the time I reach the garage and walk around our cars, the sunlight of the day is pouring in and I feel at peace. May the remainder of fall be a little bit better.
November
2019
Liam Payne in Underwear
Fueled by some tequila, Liam Payne moved into a new comfort zone with this photo shoot for Hugo Boss, and I’m told more is on the way. He previously gave a nude sneak-peek of things in this post, and he’s already been a Hunk of the Day when we had such things, so the only way to gain a second crowning is to doff it all… stay tuned…
November
2019
For the Love of Sam
Sam Smith delivers something that’s not in the least bit weepy, and I am entirely present and here for it. This is his take on Donna Summer’s classic disco revelations ‘I Feel Love’ – and it’s more than lovely. When they hit those high notes, you will get chills. Good ones. Not all former Hunks of the Day can so thrillingly master a disco song, so enjoy this little masterpiece.
Things have gotten entirely too serious here of late. Let this be a return to our frivolous roots, a throwback to all the sacred silliness found in a disco song. I’m feeling it. You wanna feel it too? Turn it up. Turn it out. Get down…
{This now concludes our mid-day dance-break.}
November
2019
A Noirish November Recap
The only thing ‘noir’ about this post is the fact that November is the month I wear Tom Ford’s ‘Japon Noir’ Private Blend. It refuses to fit anywhere else within my fragrance year. Actually, there may be a few noirish moments from this recap given that spooky nights formed a portion of Halloween week. Read on, if you dare.
Since it was all about the treats and tricks, let’s begin with our usual ending: the Hunks of the Day. Last week’s guy/eye candy included Chris Noble, Pablo Brägger, Ryan Bridge, Shep Rose, Ric’key Pageot, and Sean Doolittle.
Donald Trump got booed and it was glorious. Freedom of speech is as good as sex.
A pair of October poems to send off the manic month.
A friend says goodbye to her mother.
Meatloaf: the ultimate comfort food.
No, wait… Soup: the ultimate comfort food.
A black cat, for inspiration.
Boston days not lost to amnesia.
The parade that killed Barney.
An unexamined life may be worth living.
Chris Hemsworth shirtless & animated.
A view of Albany from up above.
The scariest night of the year, calmed by a storm.
November
2019
Storm & Terror on Halloween Night
As the temperatures went from tropical to temperate, the winds kicked up and Halloween night suddenly turned deadly. Ever since I had a spat of nightmares a few years ago that people were trying to break into our front door, I’ve never much enjoyed Halloween, when people coming to your door in scary costumes is suddenly ok and sanctioned. Because of that, I’m not the one who hands out the candy, and if it were up to me the lights would be off, the house would be bolted shut, and a warning shot would be fired off every ten minutes or so alerting the children that no one was welcome here.
On such an uneasy night, a surge of stormy weather was, I originally thought, rather unwelcome. How could it do anything other than add to the spooky tension already pervading the atmosphere? How many tales that began on dark stormy nights ever ended happily? Leaving Andy to man the front door with nothing but a big bowl of candy to protect him and our home, I secluded myself in the basement, where I tapped away on the laptop and watched ‘Practical Magic’ out of the corner of my eye. By 11 PM the movie was done and I traipsed upstairs to bed.
The wind had begun in earnest, and the rain had joined in the fun. I was sublimely exhausted, and as soon as my head hit the pillow I was instantly asleep – a rarity these days, when tossing and turning seems to be my preferred method of dealing with end-of-the-day fatigue. Sleep came quickly and easily, but an hour into such heavenly bliss I was scared shitless by the frightening visage of a figure lurking in the hallway and shining a flashlight on me. I screamed like I was being murdered, so terrified was I by this stranger, before I realized it was Andy, who was saying that the power was out and I would need to set my cel phone alarm.
I would never get back to sleep now, I thought, as my mind started racing and doing all the things that usually prevent sleep from coming. The wind outside howled, and I listened as the house was pelted by rain and acorns and who knows what other sort of debris from the oak trees and pines above. I waited for another big limb to come crashing into our attic as it done once many years ago, shaking the house to its foundation, but none ever came. That didn’t mean one wouldn’t, and so I went into a sleepless fit. Resigning myself to a night of restlessness, I thought back to the storms that would hit Boston, when the rain would start dripping onto the air conditioning unit and click and echo through the night. At first it was distractingly irritating, and I thought for sure it would keep me up like some metronome or clock whose ticking doesn’t blend into the background but ends up getting louder and louder. Instead, it began to lull me to sleep, to calm and quell fear with a steady drone and drumbeat.
On this night, the windstorm worked a similar sort of magic. While it first caused consternation and concern, it soon gave way to a distinct sort of gray background noise that turned my own fitful rage on its head. As the storm itself raged outside, the cozy comfort of our bed provided refuge and safety and warmth. There was just enough noise so that the stillness and quiet of our lost electricity did not manage to mess with my head. (It is possible for the world to be too quiet, especially when trying to sleep.) The storm snuffed out the terror, and soon I was happily ensconced in slumber.
November
2019
The Air Above Albany: Space and Time
Returning to Albany from Washington, we were near the midnight hour when we reached this vantage point of our fair city. It’s a helpful shift in perspective to see such familiar places in such wildly-altered fashion, taking one out of the routine paths and patterns, forcing a new view that places one in a new mindset. It’s usually a reminder of how small we are – not only us but our villages and towns and cities. What vast expanses of darkness with such little pools and islands of light.
Time is like that too. An hour- a single hour – may feel like an eternity. All of the world, and quite a bit more, can fit into an hour, and at the same time all of one’s love could never occupy enough of a century to satisfy. I think of how time bends when we’re given an extra hour like we were early this morning. All of the things that might be accomplished in an hour. And all that might not. Which hour will we take? It seems like such a shame if we have to take it when it arrives – I’m not up at 2 AM as a general rule. I prefer to hold onto it for a bit, savor the moment when we might make the most of it. Or maybe time doesn’t work that way. It feels so malleable one second, so impossibly rigid the next. It’s a tricky construct, and the mind can become boggled and fraught with consternation if one dwells too long or dives too deep. It would perhaps be wiser to keep things light and sparkling, like the little illuminated bits that wink from high above downtown Albany. There’s magic everywhere.
November
2019
A Shirtless Chris Hemsworth in Motion
Saturdays scream for shirtlessness, though when it comes to Chris Hemsworth most days scream for shirtlessness, so here we go. Mr. Hemsworth has done the shirtless stance before, in posts like this and this, and we have the obligatory Chris Hemsworth nude post here, and a requisite superhero Chris Hemsworth post here. Taken together, it’s a veritable Hemsworth Hoard.
November
2019
The Fatigue of a Well-Documented Life
Long before I began this blog in early 2003, I’d been documenting the events of my life in diaries, journals, projects, and letters. It began with a Garfield Diary, complete with tiny lock and key, in about 6thgrade. What goes into a sixth grader’s diary? Sadly, I don’t remember, and I’m fortunate in a way that it was nothing too serious. That’s much too young to have anything worthy of commemoration. In various fits and spurts, I’d add to the little book over the years, much in the way that I would crochet a few more rows in a never-ending blanket (that remains unfinished to this day) from time to time. Eventually the secrets got darker, and at some point in high school I decided it was safer to destroy it than keep it hidden. I don’t recall how I did it, whether I burned it or shredded it or dismantled and spread it around like a serial killer, but by the end of high school, my childhood diary was no more. My childhood had suffered the same unsensational fate.
That was when my creative projects began, and I poured the semi-auto-biographical drama of a teenager into words and images that I’ve been doing ever since. It was 1993, and since then I’ve been a keen documenter of my life in one form or another, sometimes taking creative liberty with things and changing them just so, or simply jotting things down in an old-school Backstreet Boys daily planner. (Oh relax, I had an ‘N Sync one the next year.) Eventually that release and expression took the form of this blog, but the reality is that my life has been recorded in some form or fashion for the past twenty-six years. For the first time, I’m starting to feel the fatigue of it. Maybe it’s the overwhelming wave of social media saturation that has flooded our existence in the last few years. Maybe it’s the work that goes into sustaining a daily blog that been going since 2003. Maybe it’s just finally growing up and out of the need for such self-analysis and introspection. Whatever the case, I’m tired.
I also miss being off the grid. Even when I was writing projects and sharing things with people in the 90’s, there was always the option of shutting it off and disappearing. Those options are sorely limited now. The simple necessity of a cel phone makes it almost impossible to completely turn off, and most of us have too many obligations to be absent for too long. That is taking its toll, whether we realize it or not. I firmly believe that is not a human being’s natural state. We are designed to rest and relax and simply not think for every second of the day. We were made to reflect and take in our surroundings, to be still and quiet from time to time, to fully decompress and allow our brains to settle without excessive stimuli. I look at some young people today and marvel at their inability to even sit still without scrolling through a phone or bopping to whatever is being broadcast in their earbuds. I do not envy that life. I do not envy today’s youth. And I know they don’t envy me. I guess I just miss the days of quiet.
The same goes for a bit of the unexamined life. I miss that. There is an art to simply existing, a certain beauty and skill involved in experiencing something – anything – just for the sake of experiencing it – and without recounting or documenting or telling a story about it afterward. I still manage to make such moments happen. Not always purposefully, but sometimes they are deliberate, and not always perfectly, because sometimes things don’t work out the way you envisioned. They have been moments just between me and the universe, never documented, largely forgotten, and all an integral part of enriching the soul.
I’m aiming to have more of them, and less of this.
November
2019
November Remembers With Its Words
We are now deep in the dark of fall, the brief lull before the holidays kick into their festive frenzy. Before all the leaves are ripped from the trees and the chill settles in for the rest of the year, we may yet have a few days of calm and stillness, when the wind isn’t starting to unleash its fury, when the cruelty of the rain is kept somewhat at bay. As awful as those states may be, they still pale in comparison to the melancholy doldrums of an overcast sky that teases but never delivers snow. The best balm at such a time is poetry, especially the poetry of Mary Oliver, who has a keen way of weaving words into something as beautiful as their inspiration.
THE RETURN by Mary Oliver
1.
When I went back to the sea
it wasn’t waiting.
Neither had it gone away.
All its musics were safe and sound; the circling gulls
were still a commonplace, the fluted shells
rolled on the shore
more beautiful than money –
oh, yes, more beautiful than money!
The thick-necked seals
stood in the salted waves with their soft, untroubled faces
gazing shoreward –
oh bed of silk,
lie back now on your prairies of blackness your fields of sunlight
that I may look at you.
I am happy to be home.
2.
I do not want to be frisky, and theatrical.
I do not want to go forward in the parade of names.
I do not want to be diligent or necessary or in any way
heavy.
From my mouth to God’s ear, I swear it; I want only
to be a song.
To wander around in the fields like a little reed bird.
To be a song.
3.
Two eggs rolled from the goose nest
down to the water and halfway into the water.
What good is hoping?
I went there softly, and gathered them
and put them back into the nest
of the goose who bit me hard with her
lovely black beak with the pink
tongue-tip quivering,
and beat my arms with her
lovely long wings
and beat my face with her
lovely long wings,
what good is trying?
She hissed horribly, wanting me to be frightened.
I wasn’t frightened.
I just knew it was over,
those cold white eggs would never hatch,
the birds would forget, soon, and go back,
to the light-soaked pond,
what good is remembering?
But I wasn’t frightened.
4.
Sometimes I really believe it, that I am going to
save my life
a little.
5.
When I found the seal pup alone on the far beach,
not sleeping but looking all around, I didn’t
reason it out, for reason would have sent me away,
I just
went close but not too close, and lay down on the sand
with my back toward it, and
pretty soon it rolled over, and rolled over
until the length of its body lay along
the length of my body, and so we touched, and maybe
our breathing together was some kind of heavenly conversation
in God’s delicate and magnifying language, the one
we don’t dare speak out loud,
not yet.
6.
Rumi the poet was a scholar also.
But Shams, his friend, was an angel.
By which I don’t mean anything patient and sweet,
When I read how he took Rumi’s books and threw them
into the duck pond,
I shouted for joy. Time to live now,
Shams meant.
I see him, turning away
casually toward the road, Rumi following, the books
floating and sinking among the screeching ducks,
oh, beautiful book-eating pond!
7.
The country of the mockingbird is where I now want to be,
thank you, yes.
The days when the snow-white swans might pass over the dunes
are the days I want to eat now, slowly and carefully
and with gratitude. Thank you.
The hours fresh and tidal are the hours I want to hold
in the palm of my hand, thank you, yes.
Such grace, thank you!
The gate I want to open now is the one that leads into
the flower-bed of my mind, thank you, yes.
Every day the slow, fresh wind, thank you, yes.
The wing, in the dark, that touches me.
Thank you.
Yes.
November
2019
The Day that Barney Died
Who knew such trauma went down at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1997? I was blithely unaware of this tragedy, and now that I’ve seen it, nothing will ever be the same. The drama kicks into overdrive at around the 1:37 mark. Kids – do not watch without adult supervision.
November
2019
The Glued-Down Penny of Amnesia
Remember those days when you could go to school, work a job, and still be ready to go out until 2 am on a Friday night? I do. I distinctly remember going to class, taking the commuter rail into Boston, working my job at Structure and then taking ten minutes to freshen up for a night out on the town. Those days are gone but the memory still feels fresh, especially when this song comes on.
GOODBYE TO THE SUMMER
SOLD DOWN THE RIVER
UNHAPPY EVER AFTER
WELL DID YOU EVER?
DID YOU EVER REACH FOR THE
GLUED-DOWN PENNY?
SAME OLD JOKE AND IT’S NOT FUNNY
BURNS ARE RED BRUISES BLUE
OUT WITH THE OLD CHEATED BY THE NEW
DO YOU SUFFER FROM LONG TERM
MEMORY LOSS?
I DON’T REMEMBER
It was fall. The chill in the night air was welcome after a few weeks of stifling conditions on the subway platforms. The magical preparatory period before an evening out was at hand, and I was at the condo playing Chumbawumba because my taste was always questionable and it was the 90’s. We were going to meet up at the Tar Bar, where everybody once met. Nuns, drag queens, bikers, college kids and elderly locals converged under the darkened ceiling and came together without judgment or conflict because once upon a time we could do that.
The splendor of a weekend sprawled out before us – what happy luxury in that, and how it seemed as if it might last forever. Candles flickered in the condo, while a window or two let in the night breeze. This song kept pumping, and as silly as it was it provided the perfect motivational music for a night out.
YOU SING THE SAME OLD VERSE
STICK LIKE GLUE FOR BETTER OR WORSE
WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND
AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN
The all-important decision had yet to be made: what to wear? Every day, and every night, hinged on what was decided at that pivotal moment. Would we blend into the crowd or would we make them bow down before us? Our youth was its own invincibility, our innocence its own formidable power. Illusions and delusions were equally grand and we trafficked in the cultivation of both. How lucky and wonderful that those were the only decisions that had to be made.
THIS HEART PULLED APART
HYDRA FIGHTING HEAD TO HEAD
BURNS ARE RED BRUISES BLUE
OUT WITH THE OLD CHEATED BY THE NEW
DO YOU SUFFER FROM LONG-TERM
MEMORY LOSS?
I DON’T REMEMBER.
I had to let it happen… I had to change… A jacket of black leather, studded with metal accents and lined with extra zippers, replaced my basic Structure uniform of khakis and sweaters, along with a pair of jeans and a simple white t-shirt. It was the 90’s for God’s sake. It was all wrong, and all right. ‘Amnesia’ continued to play on the stereo in the bedroom, spilling out into the rest of the space. Iris Apfel once remarked that she enjoyed getting ready for the party much more than the party itself. I understood that way back then. The little gatherings before the main event were always where the good stuff happened. They were also where one’s real friends were, the squads we each assembled to help get us through this thing called life. They empowered simply by being present – the best people do that.
Find your tribe, then hold onto them.
AMNESIA
DO YOU SUFFER FROM LONG-TERM
MEMORY LOSS?
I DON’T REMEMBER.
October
2019
Two Black Cats
Black Cat by Rainer Maria Rilke
A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:
just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.
She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once
as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.
– OR –
Black cat, nine lives,
Short days, long nights,
living on the edge
not afraid to die…
~ Janet Jackson
October
2019
When the Day Sees Fit for Soup
It was the first truly dreary day of the fall, a Sunday on which it rained from morning to late afternoon. A heavy, mostly windless rain fell dismally down, an undesirable situation which found Andy rushing out to prepare the pool for closing. Inside, there was only one thing to do: make soup.
The previous day I’d tried my hand at a meatloaf, and there was some pork left over from the endeavor. I put that into a large pot, rendered some fat, added a chopped onion, a bit of garlic, some carrots, then a few cups of water after things wilted down a bit. After bringing it to a rolling boil, I found some leftover chicken stock and added that. Trying to be healthier (by pretending there wasn’t a bit of pork involved), I went easy on the salt, but added a dried and seeded guajillo pepper for some heat.
When Andy returned from the grocery store with spinach in tow, I added that at the last few minutes of cooking, then boiled up a six-minute egg. Some chopped fresh parsley and the soup was done. Soup is good for the soul not only in the eating, but in the making.
October
2019
Making Meatloaf
When I was in kindergarten there were a few activities that kids got to do during free time. One of these was in a small kitchen area, where a table held a large vat of soapy water and dishes. Kids could go there and pretend they were cleaning and washing their dirty dishes, and I always wondered who in fuck would want to play at that? There was one girl, I don’t remember her name, who was consistently using it, splashing about in the water with big rubber gloves, happily going through the motions of post-dining duties. I never joined her, because, again, who in fuck would want to do that? The other night though, I made this virgin attempt at meatloaf and when it came time to mix it all with my hands, I thought back to that girl, and felt a little childish thrill at making somewhat of a mess in the kitchen. It turns out I can still rediscover a lost childhood, one dish of raw meat at a time.
As for the meatloaf, it was my first try and it came out pretty well. I shaped it myself instead of putting it into a loaf pan, so it went a little wider than hoped, but meatloaf isn’t supposed to be perfect. This recipe called for part beef and part pork sausage, a minced leek and red bell pepper, some parsley, and the other typical meatloaf ingredients. (The odd addition was some freshly-grated nutmeg.) Then it gets covered in tomatoes before going into the oven, which helps keep it moist and flavorful. Meatloaf is one of those delicious fall dishes that I’ve only recently started to enjoy as an adult. I don’t have any specific memories tied to it, other than the happiness of having a husband who makes this on occasion, and that’s enough.