It’s October third.
And it’s Wednesday.
Whatever. I’m getting cheese fries.
“Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.†― F. Scott Fitzgerald
#TinyThreads!!!
This year the squirrels have been going mad over the dogwood trees in our yard. At any given time over the past few weeks you could find at least three perched in the branches, reaching out and nibbling on the pretty fruit that’s all but been devoured by this point. Personally I’ve never found the dogwood fruit appealing as far as taste and texture go (and I’ve tried it in a cocktail – if it doesn’t work there, it won’t work anywhere). The squirrels, on the other hand, are loving it.
Is it not disturbing how we seem to be setting children up for a lifetime of cartoon cannibalism?
There you are, October.
You always show up sooner than we seem to expect, perhaps sooner than we’d like.
You with your time trickery (not that I’ve ever minded an extra hour of anything) and the gradual descent into deep fall. I see you and your burning maple leaves, I see your pumpkin insanity and gourd gore, and for the most part I enjoy every last bit of it. Before we get to the meat of the month, let’s do our usual Monday morning recap of everything that happened in the first full fall week of posts on ALANILAGAN.com. Here we go.
It began, as most things have, with the cosmos.
Tuesdays always meant fucking religion class. (Guess it sort of backfired.)
How are you liking the #TinyThreads posts? Is it worth linking each of them here?
Boys and girls and freaks in the middle.
You know I’m right. It’s there in black and white.
(Yeah, I like the feature, but not these little links.)
Here’s what makes me beautiful.
(Then again, maybe this bears reposting.)
Our ‘Naked Male Celebrities‘ category got a jolt from John Krasinski, who bared his naked ass in this shower scene.
September doesn’t fade, it flares.
(I mean, isn’t this too much?)
(From here on out, I’ll post one #TinyThreads link and let you follow them all back on your own. We’re all adults here.)
The Hunk of the Day feature – probably the most popular part of this website, returned in fine form with Henry Golding. Fellow hunks followed out-of-suit, including Chris Hughes, Ammar Campa-Najjar, Tim Bish and Brandy Martignago.
A fiery close to the flaming month of September! This is the month we returned to resume the 15thyear of ALANILAGAN.com, and it feels like everything’s as if we never said goodbye. It remains to be seen whether that’s a good or bad thing, but I feel we’re leaning toward the good. During the summer, I found that I missed writing. The project in which I was immersed was mainly focused on photography, but I was longing for the opportunity and impetus to work with words again. At its heart, that’s what this space has been for me, and I’m grateful for such an outlet.
As for the end of September, what more is there to be said? It’s never been a favorite month of mine, coming as it did with the arrival of school, and the slow die-off of the gardens. I’ve not been kind to it in turn, writing it off as one of those purgatorial waiting periods when you’re waiting for the real snap of autumn to arrive. It’s never wise to rush the summer off the stage, but sometimes the push and pull of teasingly lovely weather wreaks a greater havoc with the heart than a simple clean-cut cleaving. There’s nothing more maddening than a blurry line of demarcation.
When it comes right down to it, I prefer a cheesy pop song to a cheesy pizza.
A good pop song lasts forever.
And a bad one lasts even longer.
September has a way of making its flower colors pop, perhaps more-so than any other time of the year. I think it’s the cooler temperatures and the lower slant of the sun in the sky. The blue seen above is the deepest it gets in September. That makes the perfect foil for some of the year’s brightest blooms.
This summer got off to a very late and stunted start. I thought we had caught up, but based on the late appearance of the morning glories and seven sons’ flower it seems we are still a bit behind. Normally I don’t mind extending things for as long as possible; this year we are ready to move forward. Still, let’s not rush such beauty. Let it linger as long as it likes.
In another post, John Krasinski will get his proper crowning as Dazzler of the Day; for now, here’s a glimpse of the reason why: his naked ass. Clearly Mr. Krasinski has graduated beyond his early days at ‘The Office’ and currently stars as Jack Ryan in the new television series. Jack apparently requires a much more buff body than Jim, and no one is complaining.
Co-worker: “Remember that day you thought you looked really good?”
Me: “No. Narrow it down.”
It may not be groundbreaking, but hopefully you’ve noticed the bit of redesigning that’s gone on here since the blog was dark this summer. All those florals and fall-like patterns on the header, slider and outer regions of this site were created from the enchanting offerings on view at Avalon Rose Design. This is my first purchase of graphics from anywhere, proposed by webmaster extraordinaire Skip (Mr. M.) Previously I thought I could get away with finding what I needed with a simple Google image search. But where’s the honor in that? And where’s the support to creators and artists? Anyway, I found Avalon Rose Design and fell in love with the antiquated and vintage-like images they have. It was exactly the look and feel I was going for when trying to make things a little prettier here.
The way they’re put together may be rudimentary at best, but that’s all on me, as I basically had to teach myself the most basic maneuvers in the nightmare that is Photoshop. (As most of my photos likely attest, I hardly ever use it.) I just wanted to share the source material in case you want to make something similar.
As for these designs, give the repetitive intricacies of making such beauty, I’ll likely keep them to a minimum as far as revamps go – perhaps with a seasonal change for when winter arrives next. We’ll see. No promises = no expectations = no stress. Besides, these are so nice I’d like to leave them up for a while. When you find a lovely set of curtains you don’t put them up for a few weeks only to take them down again.
This is like the junk drawer.
You rely on the junk drawer far more than you realize.
There are sequins in my junk drawer.
What’s in yours?
Emotionally, I do much better whenever I’m working on a creative project. (That may explain my pissy mood of the past three years, which is the length of time since my last project.) The labor of love that was ‘The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star‘ is up in its entirety on The Projects page of this website. Check it out and bookmark it for later, because that’s where a new project will be posted by (fingers-crossed) November 2018. That means I’ve been creatively sated for the time being, and now it’s time for all the fun promotional stuff.
I’m not going to lie, there’s a bit of bait-and-switch on the way regarding the promotional images about to be posted and the actual content of the project itself. That makes it more intriguing though, so stay tuned for what’s to come…
In the meantime I invite you to check out previous projects below:
It’s been far too long since we’ve had a properly gratuitous Simon Dunn post, so let this go some way toward rectifying that. Mr. Dunn, as you may likely remember because who can forget such hotness, made a splash as an openly gay Olympic bobsledder. Currently, he’s a trainer in London and does all sorts of fun, and often thankfully shirtless, extracurricular activities. Here are a few shots that have appeared on his wildly popular Instagram page.
He works hard for his money-maker body, and inspires his clients to do the same. Even from halfway around the globe, he’s proven to be an inspiration to others, as evidenced by such naked teases as seen here. (If you’re lucky enough to live in London, you might even be able to score a training session with him.) His first Hunk of the Day crowning put him on this website’s radar, and ever since then he’s offered tantalizing glimpses of treasure trails and the like in posts like this. Soon after that first HOD, he earned a second one, and now stands to join the rarefied Threesome Club if and when he gets around to winning a third. (He’s probably just one naked photo shoot and interview away from getting that glorious triumvirate.) Until then, this post will have to suffice and tide over his fans.
{Check out his website here, where you can schedule your own personal training session in London.}