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Heeding the Holiday Start

En route to Amsterdam for our family Thanksgiving dinner, we finally gave in to one of the Christmas music channels on Andy’s radio, and so we spent the ride there and back immersed in our first brush with holiday music this year. It was time, and we needed a little holiday lift. On this day of gratitude, which also marked the anniversary of Andy’s Mom’s passing, we have learned to be appreciative of the little graces afforded in life

A bright flash of lemon cypress and the mottled leaves of ivy among these scarlet kalanchoe blooms provide a lovely holiday entry point – proof that powerful colors and simple plants will always be better than any artificial tinsel or electric lights. I will try to take that lesson with me throughout the season, turning to the natural world for tranquility when all the human-induced holiday madness threatens to overwhelm. 

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Happy Thanksgiving

There is quite a lot I have to be thankful for this year, and most of it is right here in this post. 

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours – may we love and accept and embrace each other in the year to come. 

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A New Kind of Party

This used to be one of the biggest party nights of the year. It kicked off the holiday season, and we always spent it in our friend Bob’s apartment overlooking Washington Park, where his gregarious collection of friends and relatives provided a happy and convivial atmosphere for good times to come. For many years, this was our tradition, and when Bob moved I begged and pleaded for him to keep it going, which he did for a bit, but eventually he got out of the party game – a trendsetter for the dying tradition

At first I missed them – the parties, and the people, and the chance to reconvene just as the most wonderful time of the year was getting started. It was a tradition that had become comfortable, that allowed for a brief bit of drinking and debauchery to varying degrees, which we would then feed and quell the next day at Thanksgiving dinner

After a few years, however, I understood Bob’s giving up the party ghost. It was a lot, and I can’t imagine being saddled with the clean-up following a party on a day like Thanksgiving. Tonight, I remember those days, and I celebrate the traditions we have now.

For instance, today I made the traditional candied yams, as well as this new pumpkin tres leches cake, and a couple of dips for appetizers. Andy made a last-minute supermarket run, and then we were both in for the night by 8 PM. We watched a bit of the ‘A Christmas Story’ and now I find myself writing this good-night post in the attic while the light of a few candles flickers cozily nearby.

Twenty years ago, we’d just be arriving at the party at such an hour, the chill of the evening only partly kept at bay by whatever fanciful coat I found to display. Now I’ve traded in my velvet jacket for a sleeveless sweatshirt and shorts, and it’s a trade-off that feels surprisingly good. 

For all you revelers still carrying the torch, party on friends – be safe, be yourself, and be sure to enjoy every moment. 

 

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Lurkey for the Turkey

It is once again Turkey Lurkey Time, celebrated in such posts as this (in which I actually caught a Boston turkey on camera). That means we are posting this silly Broadway holiday classic, a version from the appropriately-titled film ‘Camp’:

That’s all. 

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Rush of Madness

Before we dive into the maelstrom of the holidays, let’s have this moment of calm – and let’s see if we can return to it whenever the season threatens to overwhelm. The music of Phillip Glass often provides a mesmerizing opportunity in meditation, his notes flowing like water, spilling over one another in gorgeous wave upon wave, rushing and then slowing the way a stream does depending on rain and snow melt. It is music for contemplation, music with which to pause and breathe. 

Once tomorrow arrives, there is no turning back – it will be the high holiday season, and the rush of that rollercoaster to Christmas will bring us down that first steep track with a whoosh. The chain reaction of holiday magic will be set into motion, and there will be scant few moments in which to find true peace and comfort. That seems the antithesis of how this season came into being, and so I will strive to find a way to honor its humble and more meaningful origins. It begins with a post like this, and a quiet morning with just a little piano music to ease into the day. 

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Rose Hips and Autumn Leaves

The holiday season slowly unfurls in this lovely piece entitled ‘Autumn Leaves’ by the brilliant Vince Guaraldi, who wrote the classic themes to the Peanuts holiday features. This selection is a lovely entry into the season, transitioning from autumn’s splendor into hints of the holidays to come. In our haste to hurry into all things Christmas, we sometimes forget that there’s a full month of autumn still to celebrated. 

There are also moments of quiet beauty, as found in these rose hips, that shouldn’t be discounted in all the bombast and hoopla that is currently building – little bits of nature showing off when the world has written her off. Such gems are there to be found if one adjusts expectations.

While I will always love the blooms of a rose, and the fragrance that often accompanies them, I also appreciate the rose hips when they ripen into such glory. It’s a forgotten stage of the rose’s life-cycle, and as we move toward winter it’s wise to celebrate such simple joys. When the snow arrives there will be enough time to conjure and create the artificial means of getting through the winter. For now, I slow down to listen to the music of autumn, the wind and the rustle of the leaves… 

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Tuesday Bluesday

Named for the color of the sky in these shots rather than any Tuesday blues sort of thing, the turn in weather of late has suddenly thrust us onto the verge of the holiday season. These two tall evergreens are already decorated with hanging pinecones, the very best sort of decorations when it comes to the holidays: natural, simple, and easy. Every year I strive for this trio, and almost every year I fall short. Or rather, I fall into excess. I used to do too much, I used to force things, and I used to make life much more difficult. The last couple of years I’ve slowly worked out of that, choosing to be selective about commitment and social events, and to enjoy the days as they arrived. Being mindful is something that works well for that, and for a lot of things. 

This holiday season is about to commence, and I’m going into it with the same goal. 

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A Place of Beauty and Respite

When I started this website way back in 2003, I wanted it to be something different from everything else that was online. It was supposed to be a repository of my creative work, and a little corner of the internet that celebrated beauty, in all its myriad forms. As the years passed, and social media took over, I kept to my original intent. That became easier as most of the surrounding internet clutter was turning more and more vapid, dumbed down by a culture that no longer bothered to proofread, that didn’t value words, that feasted on emojis and memes, never wanting for something that might take time to digest and appreciate. Our technological leaps and bounds brought us speed and connection, and no one bothered to wonder at what cost, to slow it all down and pause, just for a moment, on how fast too fast might be. 

For the most part, the key to the longevity of this site has been in keeping things light and frivolous, even when the world turns dark and serious, as it has done more and more often these past few years. Yesterday, for instance, as referenced in this morning’s recap, there were worldly events going on that went against the silly post I’d planned – which was going to be a second celebration of our first night out in years, showcasing a pink velvet jacket and jewel-encrusted necklace – but that felt off-tone and out of taste. 

The world has been awful before – and it will be again. That’s why this site always goes dark on 9/11. When you’ve lived through that, or something like a worldwide pandemic, you add it to the days you remember, and you seek out intervening moments of beauty to act as a balm upon the hurt. It can never really heal or erase the pain, it just makes life a little more bearable. 

I’ve always wanted this site to be a glimpse into that kind of beauty, or a little wink of whimsical enjoyment, but sometimes life steps in and demands a more sobering assessment. This post, a pause filled with greenhouse cyclamen and the quiet contemplation of a Monday afternoon, is my way of honoring the difficult days behind and ahead of us.

I’ll put that velvet jacket on again one day soon, and get back up to the business of being fabulously frivolous, but for now all I have is a few flowers.

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Dazzler of the Day: Patrick McNaughton

At the helm of the gloriously queer-positive endeavor that is DandyQueerArt.com, Patrick McNaughton has been providing “an ever-evolving online magazine, gallery, and shop recognizing the creative achievements of the world’s best lgbtq+ erotic artists.” Curating and cultivating a vast collection of queer artists and their artistic output is no small task, and McNaughton is adroitly navigating those challenging waters on a daily basis. It appears to be working, as evidenced by their recent Pajama Party for the Dandyland Queer Holiday Gift and Erotic Art Fair. Bringing a sex-positive attitude and unabashed authenticity to the world is the greatest way we have of connecting us to each other, and McNaughton brings that idea of connection to everything that DandyQueerArt celebrates. Check it all out here, and then give McNaughton a pat on the back for being named Dazzler of the Day

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A Melancholy Recap to Start the Holiday Season

We have arrived, already, at the week of Thanksgiving. The past few days have brought their fair share of heartbreaking incidents – another mass shooting at a gay club in Colorado that killed at least five, a Brandeis shuttle bus that overturned killing at least one, and my own Auntie Naty – one of the most memorable and challenging members of my Dad’s family, passed away in the Philippines. All in all, not a great week – and now we are supposed to give thanks. Well, in gratitude may we find grace, and peace. 

It began in gratuitous and innocuous fashion, with this shirtless Zac Efron post, rekindling the glory days of shirtless male celebrities

A green matcha morning eased us into Tuesday.

Another return to form was found in these shots of a shirtless Andrew Garfield for GQ

Gone majestically to seed for the season.

A hydrangea bloom illustrates the juxtaposition of new and old – the crux of where some of us currently find ourselves. 

A peek at some fresh succulent inspiration.

Candlelight provides the place and space for calm, if you let it. 

Commencing the sparkle sequence, and setting up for the holiday season. 

Andy and I made our first return to the social scene in three years with a night out at The Pride Gala 2022: The Rainbow Age ~ A New Era of Visibility. I wore this shimmering outfit

A dreamy cream sauce by Andy

This batch of ham salad brought me back to Saturday nights of gambling with my golden girls

Blue clouds beyond the Hudson River.

Going down the Boston memory lane with empty rooms of a young heart.

Dazzlers of the Day include Dave Woodman, Joe Phillips, Priya Nair, Greg Fox, and Nick Jonas.

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Empty Rooms of a Young Heart

It should have felt cold and empty because that’s literally what it was. Not a couch or a bed or even a chair offered a place to sit, and the little cot I’d hastily assembled had already fallen apart, leaving only the thin mattress on the floor. Our newly-purchased Boston condo was entirely unfurnished – not even a log left in the fire-place, as if we were visiting some place the Grinch had just ransacked – yet in this sparse space of echoes and emptiness I couldn’t have felt warmer or more at home. It was December 1995, and I was finishing up the last few days of retail work before returning home for Christmas. Finals had been completed the week before, and as I stood at the kitchen counter looking up at the then-John Hancock tower trinkling in the distance, I’d realized that the dream of me living in Boston – the one I’d had since visiting Quincy Market a decade prior – had finally come true. 

Dinner, and breakfast alike for that matter, consisted of the bagels procured from Finagle-A-Bagel, and a carton of orange juice. There weren’t even glasses in the kitchen, so I drank straight from the carton like some heathenish bachelor, tearing off bits of bagel since there weren’t knives or forks or plates either. A roll of paper towels stood on the counter, while a plastic shopping bag served as the makeshift garbage. It sounds ridiculous, but I was happy and, looking back on the moment, full of hope. Life hadn’t really happened to me yet; the heartaches I tended were largely of my own making, and I leaned into them, hungry for something to feel, hungry for something to signify that I had arrived. That something was ill-fittingly placed on somebody – and his name was George. 

When I set up the general theme of fire for this fall season on the blog, I thought I’d be burning up all the demons and ghosts that had been haunting me from years past – those who had done me wrong, and those from whom I couldn’t break free. Yet when I looked back and re-read my journals from then, and faced my part in things without trying to salvage an image or reputation, I realized that some of the fires I started would have to consume me. This may be one of those stories. 

It had been about one year since I met the first man I ever kissed, and in that year the entire experience had worked to harden my heart against any other men, or women, who happened to cross my path. My defenses were up, as much as I wanted someone to walk beside. I couldn’t see then that I was in desperately in love with the idea of being in love, obsessed with the whole artifice and atmosphere of being in a couple. At such a young age, that betrayed itself in wildly-vacillating mood swings, where I would push people away as badly as I wanted them near me. Figuring that if love was meant to be, anyone who was worthy would see through it and accept me for the wounded little porcupine I was, prickly spikes and all. As a nineteen-year-old young man in Boston, I was also aware of the power that youth held, the sway and swagger it could command, and I was not above using this as leverage whenever the opportunity presented itself. If that meant playing the twink card in situations where gay men might offer something of value, why wouldn’t I work every available angle?

On this brilliant fall day, practically hours after getting confirmation from my parents that I could begin looking for a place to call our own in Boston, I found myself in the South End, traipsing along Tremont to the cluster of real estate offices that were suddenly hustling and bustling with the bubble that was just beginning to grow. It was early afternoon, and the receptionist looked at who was available, casually saying they would call someone. So it wasn’t fate or destiny that brought George into my life, it was his unfortunate availability at being the only agent on duty for my questionably-fortuitous arrival. 

With the know-it-all swagger of a college student, coupled with the unearned pride and power of being able to seek out a new home, I followed him into his office and sat down across from him, his desk between us. 

(When I thought back to our meeting later that first week, I would want it to mean something more than a mere transactional set of unfeeling circumstances. I wanted it to have the alignment of stars and planetary symbols, I wanted it to be the beginning of a romance that would change my life. I didn’t want it to be such a casual and nonchalant nod from a receptionist who said you were the first available and then you appearing as some secondary haphazard quirk. Certainly not the stuff of destiny or dreams coming true. It wasn’t the way I wanted a great romance to unfold. But that’s the whole point isn’t it? It wasn’t what I wanted. In those days my relationships, or non-relationships as they too often were, were solely about what I wanted.)

He had a sign for Tea Dance which I looked at a little too long. He watched me and gave me a quizzical look, as if to say ‘What do you know about tea dance?’ I looked at him differently after that, wondering immediately whether he was gay. I couldn’t tell then, not anymore than I can tell now, whether certain people were gay, and since it never really mattered unless I was interested in them, it’s never really mattered. On that day, at that moment, with this man who gave off a charming smile whose intent I could never quite determine, it suddenly and intensely mattered. 

It was a little lifting of the veil, a parting of the curtain that let us both know the other knew: the secret codes of gay life in certain places back in the 90’s. He winked at me then, and rather than return it with a smile or a laugh for a nod, I snarled. Wolf-like, menacing, and more than an eye-roll, it was the look of disgust, perfected with the smug cruelty of someone who thought he could not be touched, who would simply and outright refuse to be touched. If only I’d known how well it would work…

We talked price range and location and ideas, and my sarcastic quips and testy tone, not entirely-uninspired by Linda Fiorentino’s wondrous anti-heroine in ‘The Last Seduction’, seemed to keep him slightly off his seductive real estate banter. I was not to be charmed or had for the price of a peanut. Still, there was something charming that went beyond the sale before us, and he unexpectedly jumped up and said, “Let’s go look at some places!”

I was not dressed or prepared or ready for such an outing – my backpack and sneakers were not what I envisioned wearing when seeking out our future Boston residence, but George didn’t notice or mind. He said we weren’t going far, just a block or two away, and after crossing Tremont, he wrangled a set of keys out of his pocket, and brought us into a little place on a nearby side street. We ascended to the second floor, and after the dim hallway, the light of early afternoon flooded the place in shocking relief. A small place, indeed, it had some charm to it – an exposed brick wall in the little kitchen, where a depressing bouquet of dried flowers hung desiccated from a string. He walked through the space, pausing to let me take it in, and I made a few cutting comments, as was my wont for so many years of my life. He was alternately puzzled and amused, and as was my other wont in life, I assumed he totally knew it was an act. Break through it, kind sir, break through it. Break through to me…

I said we could keep this in mind, and the only thing I started thinking was how nice it might be to live so close to this guy who was starting to warm to me, and starting to turn on his real estate agent charm, but I hadn’t fallen so foolishly or deeply under a spell that I would say yes to a home without seeing our other options. 

We made a date to set up viewing some other places, and a few days later I returned to Boston. It was further into the afternoon than the day we first met, an hour after most people had finished work and school. The days were getting darker earlier, and there was a chill in the air. I entered his office in a slightly better wardrobe, while he was in jeans and sneakers. I must have made some critical commentary, as he surveyed the moment and asked if I was always so… and here he paused to struggle with the best word… snippy

I’d been called many things in my life up to that moment, and as my brow instantly furrowed, a smile also formed at the same time. Taking it in, I balked a bit, saying I preferred the term ‘prickly’, and he quickly tried to explain himself. It wasn’t necessarily bad, and then he said he was going to start calling me Snippy. 

Is there anything more endearing that being nicknamed by someone you secretly adore? It didn’t matter what the nickname was – it was a moment of intimacy, a little shared something that no one else had to know. Without hesitation, I wore the badge of Snippy as proudly as I wore Aloof and Arrogant and Asshole. Underneath both our stances was another wink, as if we were both playing a game now, and having some element of fun. We walked to his car and he brought us to the second property – a large, labyrinthine floor-through that had been divided into a number of smaller sections and rooms. While it had the most space of any place we would see, it was parceled off so much that it felt claustrophobic. Interior rooms with no windows were not for me. Snippy reared his head again. 

The onset of evening. The cold air. The second fall in which I was falling for some guy I barely knew. Our final place to look at was located right on the beautiful border between Copley and the South End, looking onto the Southwest Corridor Park and up at the John Hancock Tower. This was Braddock Park, he explained, and we climbed the stairs into a stalwart Boston building that had stood there for far longer than the two of us had cumulatively been alive. What history had such a place seen? I thrilled at the notion. 

We walked up to the second floor, and he unlocked the door, switching on the overhead lights as we entered. The hardwood floors instantly warmed the place with their amber hues, and a marble fireplace mantle held pride of place in the middle of the room. Walking to the front pair of windows, he showed me the view, then took a few short steps into the little kitchen area and its window that perfectly framed the Hancock Tower. I don’t know why, or whether this is just rose-tinted hindsight, but it felt like home. That part had nothing to do with George, who was ambling into the bedroom.

He struggled to find the light, but once he did he said this room, and its lovely bay window, was probably one of the main selling points of the place: a floor-through with windows in front and back was not as common as one would think. The bathroom was there, with a half-wall of exposed brick, lending a rustic warmth to the suddenly cold evening. At all turns, I felt a coziness here, a sense of refuge from the wilderness of the city. 

We went back into the main room to discuss the merits of this place, the chief one being its location. In close proximity to the Green and Orange lines, and right near Copley Square, it was as near as I could get to where my Mom had taken us on trips as kids. And throughout it all, the main rule of real estate repeated itself in the back of my mind: location, location, location. George was in agreement as well, and whether he had intentionally saved the best for last, I wouldn’t know, but Braddock Park was the chosen one, at least for me. My parents would have to visit for the final say, and then it was a done deal. A few weeks later we closed on it, and George left us a gift basket with pasta and tomato sauce and breadsticks. For something that would come to mean so much, it all felt like it happened too easily and flippantly, as though we weren’t making a decision that would be grandly fortuitous for us, as though I hadn’t just found a home. 

It also felt vaguely anti-climactic when George invited me to his office Christmas party a few weeks later. I honestly don’t remember how that came to be – whether it was a casual comment he made the last time we saw him, or whether some generic postcard from his agency arrived at the condo a few days later. It didn’t matter – I took it to heart, and with a new place in Boston to call home, I wondered if I couldn’t somehow get a partner out of the deal too. I mean, he did leave a gift basket – do all real estate agents do that for their clients? (Spoiler alert for idiots like me: yes.)

Looking back, I don’t know why I should have been so affected by George. He was affable and decent and cute enough – but what was exceptional about selling someone some property? I think it was just the excitement and glamour of being in that city, at the ripe age of 21, and wanting to taste all of it, all at once, with such passion and intensity that anyone in my periphery would have been subject to such burning desire. Luckily for all involved, I was too chicken-shit to do anything, other than giving him a copy of ‘The God in Flight‘ as a Christmas gift at that office party at which I drank too much and was summarily dismissed (which was entirely appropriate). It took me a few weeks to get over him – this man who really didn’t deserve my love, any more than he deserved my harsh jabs and vicious barbs – and a few years to see my folly and nonsense in the whole situation. Chalk it up to the silliness of youth. I vowed to do better. If I wanted to find someone to share a life with, I couldn’t afford to be Snippy anymore. My heart understood; my head would not be so quick to set down its weapons. 

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Blue Clouds Beyond the Hudson

Behold the Hudson River in a glorious bit of resplendent afternoon sunlight. It is backed by a bank of blue clouds that serve to set focus on the lone tree holding onto its leafy carriage – the magnificent willow tree you see in the forefront. With its scene-stealing chartreuse coloring, it recalls its early spring incarnation, and I like the parallel poetry inherent in such a play.

Some Sunday blog posts are all about the visual at hand. No more needs to be written. (Especially after writing all this last night.)

  

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Gambling with My Golden Girls

A rambling intro before we get to the ham salad so gloriously pictured here, but rest assured we will get to it…

It may strike some as strange that a teenage boy would want to spend his Saturday evening with a quartet of fifty-something women playing a card game nicknamed ‘Dimes’ (which seems, from all minor research I’ve done on the subject, to be a sort of Texas Rummy) but it was absolutely fitting for my high school years. I was, and I remain, way more ‘Harold & Maude’ than ‘Dirty Dancing’

If you’re gonna play the game, boy
You gotta learn to play it right…

During my junior year, my dear friend Ann was my lifeline. Amid a sea of depression and anxiety and just getting through the age of 16, she was my misfit-partner-in-crime. With a mohawk-like swath of blond locks that she hair-sprayed dangerously high into spiky formations, a wardrobe of black and silver, and a die-hard love of Guns ‘n Roses and any other head-banging band that came with a frightening front-man, she was a formidable force. Underneath all the eyeliner and armor, however, she was a kind and sensitive soul, a non-proclaimed ‘straight-edge’ gal who wanted nothing to do with drinking or smoking or drugs of any kind, and who got straight A’s because she was smart as hell, especially when it came to math. The juxtaposition of her brazen appearance and everything that was going on underneath it was something to which I could immediately relate. We started hanging out on the weekends, roaming the mall or the Southside of Amsterdam, doing much of nothing and loving every minute of it. Our wanderings were harmless, when one considered the other antics of kids our age, but outwardly you would have thought we were up to no good, and all things insidious. I loved that – it lended us a protection that we both needed when kids were especially looking to hurt those who were different. 

Every gambler knows
That the secret to survivin’ is knowin’ what to throw away
And knowin’ what to keep
‘Cause every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep…

It was Ann who introduced me to the card games that her mom Ginny played every week (the woman who purchased Madonna’s ‘Sex’ book for me) – along with Ginny’s friend Janice, an Aunt called Barb, and their friend Julie (whose mother Funzie cooked and hung out amiably in the background). I think the first time we played it was at some graduation party at Ann’s house – we were sitting at a picnic table and someone was passing around a bottle of Rumpleminze – Ann and I passed, but we took part in a quick make-shift card game. They called the game ‘Dimes’ because that’s what we bet on each hand. High rollers we were not. That day we only played a few hands, but Ann said they played every Saturday, and soon enough I had ingratiated myself into attending with Ann and our friend Jessica (whose Mom was Janice). 

This was a secret world to which I instantly thrilled at being a part – even if I was on the periphery with the other kids. As a burgeoning gay boy, I knew how to make the middle-aged ladies laugh against their better judgment. I could push my comments to the edge of tasteful and they would try to balk before they gave in to their laughter at my absurdity. We provided joy for each other at a time when I don’t think there was much joy in our weekday world. 

I found an appreciate audience for my outfits and hats and nonsense, and they had an appreciative mouth who was happily willing to devour any and all foodstuffs they had on hand. Julie’s mother Funzie loved me for how much I loved her food – a hungry boy appeals to many a mother’s heart. There would always be some delicious selection of dinner leftovers culled and curated by this group of Southside Amsterdam Italians, and often the simple crowning jewel for my easily-awed palette was a basic bowl of ham salad served on a cracker or small bun. 

Our food break came in between the two card games, and I soon came to understand that the cards were merely the catalyst for being together and sharing food and finding a way to make this miserable world a little more bearable. While others my age were getting their kicks and distractions fumbling about with sex and liquor and drugs, I found my fun at these card games, bisected by a hefty serving of ham salad and some sweet treat to finish it all off. It’s always been amusing to think of the yarns and rumors that people spun of what Ann and I were up to on our weekends. Pulling back the wizard’s curtain on that would always be one of life’s delicious surprises to people expecting some wild and wayward youth

Thus it was that most of my Saturday nights passed through the end of my high school years. I’d return to the card games when home from college too, and reconnecting with these ladies – my own quartet of surrogate golden girl mothers – was a safe touchstone when real darkness and demons worked their wretched way with me. No matter what was going on with us – and soon it would be health scares and loss and the awfulness that is the unstoppable onward march of time – we could return to the crowded kitchen table, deal out the cards, and settle into a couple of hours of not worrying, highlighted by a little mid-game feast, and bits of gossip and song snippets. The simple secret of life right there – getting through it together with good friends and good food and the complete lack of pretense and pretend. When you find your tribe, everything falls into place, if only for a Saturday night. 

Most of those ladies who saved my life are gone now, but their memory lives on – in my mind, in their children’s hearts, in this silly little blog post. Whenever Andy cooks a ham, I’ll ask that he make a batch of ham salad with the leftovers, and every time I’m brought back to those card games, and those wonderful women, and the haven we once provided for each other. 

And when he finished speakin’
He turned back toward the window
Crushed out his cigarette
And faded off to sleep
And somewhere in the darkness
The gambler he broke even
But in his final words
I found an ace that I could keep…

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Dazzler of the Day: Nick Jonas, Again

Cover guy for the Autumn/Winter edition of ‘Man About Town’, Nick Jonas graduates from Hunk of the Day to Dazzler of the Day thanks to this cover shoot. (He actually graduated a couple of months ago, but some guys demand a dazzling encore.) Nick has been here many times, such as in this underwear post, and this GIF-heavy post, and this caught-on-the-ropes post. He’s also gone heavy on playing up his arms, and playing up his bulge, and playing up his everything. He continues to dazzle with his return to the Jonas Brothers, whose music I unapologetically adore of late. 

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Andy’s Dreamy Cream Sauce

Over the past few years, Andy has been quietly perfecting his white cream sauces. Known in these parts for his outstanding reds, I’ve been gently encouraging him to branch into the creamier territory, for things such as fettuccine Alfredo or this pancetta and pea creation. I know it’s doing nothing for my wardrobe, but it’s doing wonders for the happiness of my tummy, and at this stage in life that’s definitely more important than fitting into a pair of slim fit jeans. (Jeans are overrated anyway.)

With its base of butter and cream, it’s difficult to go wrong with any variation on an Alfredo, and I’ve been reaping the benefits of some delicious trials without so much as a single error. He does a mean chicken and broccoli dish that I end up eating for dinner, then breakfast, and lunch, and dinner again. Pasta is perfect for fall comfort dishes, and ’tis definitely the season. 

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