With the comprehensive two-part recap of the Madonna Timeline already posted (HERE and HERE) there is little more that needs to be said in preparation for the 100^th entry of that venerable feature, but I’m going to occupy one more post with this preamble. (The official post will finally appear here in a few short hours.)

A trio of hints as to what #100 will be:

• It’s from one of her least popular albums.

• She performed it on the Reinvention Tour.

• It features a choir (but it’s not ‘Like A Prayer’).

Do you ever feel like anxious because time is going by too quickly? For me it happens mostly when something like a crocus blooms, or a tree changes color. I feel glad that there is such beauty to take in, and I’m aware of how fleeting, and therefore precious, such a moment is, but accompanying such happiness is the nagging anxiety that this will not last. It feels like if I don’t acknowledge it, if I don’t honor it in some way, none of it will mean anything.

I guess that’s partly why I do what I do. Why I take pictures. Why I write things down. Why I created this website. It’s a form of documentation, a virtual staking of a claim that I was here – that we were here together – and that it matters, it’s always mattered, and it will continue to matter. It’s quite a stretch to liken a website to art, but the purpose is largely the same.

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,

And death shall be no more

Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore

For these things will have passed away…”

Behold, I am Coming Soon…

Yes, it’s already November, but much too soon to be this tired. However, such is the state I’m in, so this post is going to take an indulgent look back a year, to last November. It started in the aftermath of a political election, when I was feeling particularly dirty. The best thing to do when one feels dirty is to take a bath. (Of course, these things must be done gratuitously.) And you must have the right kind of soap.

After behaving so badly, it was time to go to church.

Luckily, there were other bad boys to pick up the shirtless slack, including Adam Levine,  Keith Urban, Scott Herman, Chris Zylka, Brahim Zaibat, Chris Evans, Channing Tatum, Taylor Lautner, Wes Welker, Dean Geyer, Taylor Kinney, Josh Wald, and Matthew Mitcham.

And we could always count on David Beckham and his bulge, especially in his first and long over-due crowning. And this video.

As we await the 100th installment of the Madonna Timeline, last year we did a quick recap of some of the stronger entries.

This was, and remains, the only person who can give me fashion advice safely.

The proximity to the holidays always brings up happy memories.

Last year was easy – no idea how to follow it up this year.

I spent my first visit at The Out, where I let it all hang out, but only in the good light on the bed.

God, I guess I did get naked a lot. Well, do…

And always – always – there was the sanctuary of Boston.

That’s right, November. Thanksgiving time, and the holiday shit has already begun in earnest. I am so not ready for this jelly. Not yet. Let me finish the Halloween candy first, then we’ll talk turkey. Somehow I’m still on schedule, having just put in the order for this year’s Holiday Card – and though I say this every year, I think this one might be the most shocking of them all. (And after last year’s card, that’s no easy feat.) Back to present time, here’s a quick recap of everything that went on here in the last week. (Admittedly, it wasn’t much.)

Are you ready to ride this train? I honestly don’t think I am. Too late now…

My jockstrap-covered cock got removed from FaceBook and Instagram, (but my dick is safe for Twitter apparently!) resulting in a spike of traffic for this very website. Here, this gasoline will put out my fire much faster.

One of my favorite small trees is making its final glorious show for the season: the coral bark Japanese maple. A late-season hydrangea gives it a run for its money. But in this light, everything looks good.

While the weather took a turn for the chilly, the parade of Hunks kept things warm and toasty. It’s hard not to get a little hot and bothered upon seeing the shirtless likes of Chris Hemsworth, Rodiney Santiago, Reichen Lehmkuhl,  Daniel Osborne and a double post of Ben Cohen: here and here.

Halloween was, as always, a total bore.

Musically, the week was uncharacteristically devoid of Madonna, but this gem by Mika and a timely classic by Guns N’ Roses kept things rolling. (Not to worry, Madonna will be back in a major way – in the meantime, feast on this and this to see how far we’ve come.)

Won’t you take a lick of my honey stick?

My very first hike was a smashing success. And by that I mean I didn’t fall and break my ass or require a search and rescue mission. It was the perfect day, affording so many great shots that I had to break it down into three parts: Part 1: The Hike, Part 2: The Cliffhanger, and Part 3: The Retreat.

A wooden fence is all that separates the edge of the trail from a rather steep, and dangerous, drop. The ones who stay within the lines are supposedly safer, but that’s never been the way it really works. I don’t stray far, only far enough to get a better view. Measured risk, defined danger, controlled chaos. Wild abandon can wait until someone else is beside me.

On the forest floor, the last of the fern fronds stays bravely stalwart, not yet yielding to the frosts. Some will see it through the winter, courageous evergreen types, earning nicknames like the Christmas fern, and one can find them poking through the snow. If they’re not ravaged too badly, they’ll be there in the spring, when it starts all over again.

For now they share the wild carpet with pine needles, oak and maple leaves, and myriad mosses.

It looks so calm and welcoming, this cushioned expanse of earth, on the smallest scale, on the largest scale, and part of me wants to fall into it too, to join the delicious decay, to burrow into it like some hibernating creature who can’t face the winter.

Instead, I look in the opposite direction ~ up. Into the boughs, and, beyond, into the sky. Patches of blue through yellow leaves. Into the clouds, into the heavens, into the face of God ~ and I want so fervently to believe.

My time here has drawn to a close.

A blanket of leaves deceptively shrouds the rocky outcroppings, lending the trail a softer aspect that it might usually have. That is but one of the dangers of the mountain. Or the forest. The trickery is real, the traps are dangerous. Around every corner lurks a new bit of treachery, masked by seemingly-harmless beauty. The irresistible call of the siren.

The stone shifts, solid-seeming but all the more precarious because of it. Slippery wet leaves vie with slippery wet moss for the chance to take one down, and the softness they portray is like the most wispy thread of smoke in the fall air.

Like the leaves, sometimes it’s good to fall, to be ripped from the lofty perch of all that you’ve ever known, to be torn from the only high home you’ve ever had, freed and unbound to begin the fluttering descent.

The danger is real. The wind is wild. The warning is dire.

But to keep to the path is the more dangerous choice.

And so, some of us cross…

{To be continued}

Like some other famous upstate New York destinations (Saratoga Race Track as the most glaring example), John Boyd Thacher Park is one of those places I’ve never visited. I’m not sure what took me so long, but the long over-due trip was made a few weekends ago, on a Friday I had off from work. The foliage was just slightly past its peak (though still, as exhibited here, more than brilliant). The park itself had officially stopped charging for the season (there’s no fee to park after Columbus Day). I had the morning – and most of the space – to myself.

I stopped at the overlook first, which seemed a world away from Albany. With the shifting clouds moving swiftly overhead, spotlighting areas of open green fields and fiery-hued forest in alternating swaths of glory. It reminded me of overhead drawings of the land of Oz, everything Munchkin-small at such a great distance, patches of farmland and meandering streams, and the almost-surreal color palette of a Northeastern fall.

At my second stop, I noticed a sign that said all visitors had to stop to pick up a parking permit, and that if no one was at the gate (they weren’t) to go to the visitor’s center. Not wanting any trouble, I made my way there and talked with a friendly woman who gave me a map and an introductory explanation of what the basic trail was like. She warned that the waterfalls were dry since there had not been much rain, but other than that the day was a beautiful one for a hike.

My first official hike. Granted, it was short (barely a mile), and well-tread and well-marked (there were even sections of stairs), but for a first attempt – alone no less (which everyone had warned against), I did all right.

More importantly, it reminded me of childhood days when I would go walking in the woods, far as any trail – marked or unmarked – would take me. I’d forgotten how important walks like that could be. How grounding, and centering, and calming. I felt that again as I started along the Indian Ladder Trail, descending along moss-lined stone and the first blanket of fallen leaves.

The best part of a space like this is the extreme juxtaposition of the most minute, microscopic views of the world – in the lichens and mosses and seeds – with one of the grandest views in the region – of a valley and fields and forest.

It is a humbling feeling. A good feeling. A feeling I’d been missing.

{To be continued}