One of our favorite months is at hand, Mercury in retrograde be damned! I also hear a full moon is rising later this week, so let’s see what mayhem results and try to keep things as calm and collected as possible. It appears April showers will be bleeding into May, and I shall endeavor to embrace the rain because what other choice do we have? Stomping around in a state of tantrum because of the weather was so three years ago… on with the weekly recap!
The May sweeps period of television used to be when the shows put out their best rating-grabbers, often ending with a dramatic cliffhanger to keep people talking and guessing for the rest of the summer, hopefully enough to insist that they return in the fall. I loved the drama of it all, and I have no shame in aging myself to say that I was just coming into childhood cognizance when the big cliffhanger of the 80’s left everyone wondering ‘Who killed J.R.?’ on ‘Dallas’. In fact, that whole scenario informed a substantial part of what I would later do in life in that I would do my damndest to be the person who was on everyone’s lips, the guy who, if knocked off, would inspire a frenzy of suspects too numerous to narrow down because he’d created such a stir his entire life. It’s not easy to cull that kind of broad and sustained hatred, not the kind that makes people actively want to kill you – but that didn’t stop me from trying, whether intentionally or subconsciously. All these years later, I remember J.R., but not the would-be killer, because sometimes that’s how life works. The villains get all the glory, even when they become the victims; I learned that dangerous lesson and ran with it the wrong way.
The cliffhanger from this previous post found my much-younger self having just procured the phone number of a gentleman who was the first person to show any interest one following the fallout from the first man who kissed me. That fallout was more damaging than originally understood, and if there is any excuse to offer for my bratty behavior, it’s that. And it still won’t exonerate my guilt at how I treated another human being. Back then, I simply didn’t care. Not about him, and certainly not about myself.
Once upon there was light in my life
Now there’s only love in the dark
Nothing I can say
A total eclipse of the heart…
Back to that train platform on a glorious spring afternoon, where I stared down at the name and phone number written by a man I’d not even exchanged a word with on the train. In neat block figures, it was such a simple and seemingly-insignificant thing, but at that pre-internet time it was the only way I would have of finding out who he might be, the only way of making a tenuous connection. Fate and destiny and luck and coincidence informed so much of our lives before it was all so readily available online. It made things more difficult in many ways, but oh so much richer and more meaningful. It was as if the stars guided us rather than manipulated keystrokes to research and become who we thought someone might want us to be. All I had to go on was his smile, already fading in my mind’s memory, a name and a phone number. And somehow it was enough.
Never one to indulge in playing the hard-to-get games (as later suitors would unfortunately discover) I only waited a few hours to call him, because there was never any question on whether I would call. (Cliffhanger my ass.) The question was what I would say or do when I did call.
Without deliberately intending to do so, I kept my aloofness and distance, mainly from habit but also from the recent wounds that part of me realized hadn’t even started to heal. When I dialed the number from my dorm room, it was more of a dare to myself, a challenge to get back into the dating pool, and a gauntlet to see how bad I might be.
That spring and summer I was completely channeling Linda Fiorentino’s ferocious character in ‘The Last Seduction’ (not at all a worthy romantic aspiration by any stretch of the imagination) – my heart was on guard and safely barricaded from the previous fall’s romantic fiasco, and this gentleman, sweet as he might be, would pay the price of stumbling into such wayward behavior.
I don’t remember much about that first phone call. He had a deep voice and sounded slightly nervous. He still lived at home with his parents and was in Boston for an interview I think. He was also apparently not out yet, and in the debilitating way I had back then of comparing anything and everything, I realized that I had the upper hand there. I would give him his first book of gay literature, bring him to his first Broadway play, and introduce him to a world of pants entirely bereft of pleats. More than that, I would rain down emotional hell-fire, mental manipulation, and just plain meanness and cruelty. It would amaze me how much a young man could get away with when someone was taken with his beauty, especially when he never felt beautiful.
With just a few scant weeks before the end of that spring semester, it seemed futile to me to start a new relationship, especially when I’d be away for the entire summer, but somehow we managed to meet at least once or twice, taking a couple of steamy car-rides and pausing for parking-lot make-out sessions where I felt keenly that he was way more into me than I would ever be into him. That was good though, in the warped way my mind was processing romance at the time. Better to be the object of desire and have some say in the way things went. At the end of it all, I gave him my home phone number, and throughout the ensuing spring and summer we’d share sporadic phone calls. I remember visiting friends in Rochester and sneaking out to the car on a rainy May night to call him. It was raining and ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ came on the radio and I wondered at what I was doing. Every call was a dangled promise, a dare to keep thinking of me – of us, if we could fathom such a term at sun an early point – and he held on, seemingly as lonely as I would never admit myself to be.
I’d told him about a gay novel I’d just read and he sought it out and read it, and the idea that I might have such influence on another person made him suddenly repellant to me. His pronouncement that he might be falling in love, pulled forcefully from his lips with the blunt lack of precision by my immature guile, only emboldened me to be cold and dismissive. Not seeing myself as worthy of being loved, I derided anyone else who saw the opposite. Yes, I was that far lost, that fucked-up. And the more I pushed him away, the crueler I could be, the more we both inadvertently played into ‘The Rules’. By the time I returned in the fall, torturing him by phone felt like a cozy habit, and when he presented me with a poster of the cover of the book I’d suggested to him, his earnest hope of pleasing me carried the whiff of everything repulsive to me. I hated myself instantly for feeling that, but knew no other way around it, or any way to hide it.
When met with such disdain, he didn’t fight or flee, but rather tried to wrap his head around it. I could see him sometimes trying to work it out in his head, and feel even more contemptuous annoyance toward him for that. Far from my finest moment, this wasn’t helping me heal, or helping me move on, and rather than be honest and cut it all off, I kept it going, trying to be sweet and kind when I saw his hurt, trying to temper and reconcile the lack of respect I had for him with the genuine kindness he tried to show me. To my detriment and shame, I strung him along as a plaything rather than anyone serious, discarding his feelings in a way strikingly similar to how I’d been treated a year or so before. It was so obvious I made myself sick seeing it all play out, and so I treated him even worse, seeing what horrendous things I could say and get away with, defiling and degrading him in and out of the bedroom. There was nothing precious about such a power play, and something in me knew it would harden my heart in ways that might not be undoable, but I didn’t care.
I’ll write about the rest some other night, later in spring, when the dander is up again – when I don’t need to sleep for the start of another week…
1: the quality or state of being assiduous : DILIGENCE
2: persistent personal attention
This little park in Albany is right across the street from my office building, and it’s a charming place three seasons out of the year. (Technically it’s closed from November to March.) Right now it’s filled with tulips and flowering trees, the way much of Albany is, and makes for a happy pause in the downtown work day.
It was only a partial eclipse, but it was enough to cast a spell of shadow across my afternoon walk back to the dorm. Near the end of my first year at Brandeis, we were in the midst of a celebrated annual eclipse – I looked it up, and it happened on May 10, 1994. I remember it distinctly; I was under the newly-leafed-out maple trees near Hassenfeld – my dorm building – when the event was happening, and while I noticed a slight dimming of the day, what I saw more vividly were the shadows of crescents on the path before me. It struck me how frightening such a phenomenon might have appeared to centuries of people before me. Knowing what was happening rendered it more intriguing than frightening, and I took a few photos of the shadows. Somewhere those photos are in an old shoe box, waiting to be excavated on a day when there’s time for such boredom.
(Turn around) Every now and then I get a little bit lonely And you’re never coming ’round
It would be a year later when a thumping dance cover of ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ by Nicki French would take the gay scene by spring storm, and it formed the soundtrack to the adventures with the second man I ever kissed. That’s the memory at work here, and it’s fitting that an actual eclipse kicked it off.
(Turn around) Every now and then I get a little bit tired Of listening to the sound of my tears
At the tail end of my sophomore year at Brandeis, I’d mostly given up on men before I even really started. The first guy who ever kissed me had proven to be more damaging than I realized at the time; his harrowing and haunting hold on me, no matter how much I disputed and denied it, was dangerously informing all the kisses that followed. And maybe I was a little more reckless than I should have been. Whatever the case, it was a warm spring afternoon as I waited for the commuter rail at Porter Square, which would take me back to my dorm room at Brandeis.
I don’t recall what I’d done in Boston that day, but I do remember the tall, blonde-haired gentleman who stood across from me in pleated olive pants (two hapless strikes in one bad pair of trousers). He’d noticed me too – I was keenly aware of such things – and I saw he held his gaze a little longer than necessary. In an age before Grinder and social media, this was how gay men met. It was a veiled world of codes and subtle cadences – entire histories and desires could be read in a few furtive glances, interest gleaned from the slightest nod or hesitation.
(Turn around) Every now and then I get a little bit nervous That the best of all the years have gone by
After Tom, I wasn’t really looking for men, in spite of how I talked and carried myself. It was easier to be saucy and sordid than genuine and vulnerable. Safer too. When he watched me my gaze was anywhere other than back at him. Nobody played aloof better than me and already it felt less like playing and more like the life I was actively and desperately carving out for myself. With practiced sighs of boredom, I wanted to appear as though I wanted to be anywhere other than where I was – mostly people left you alone that way.
(Whenever I indulge in looking back, the closest I come to regret is in thinking of how disdainful I could be to the world, and how much I pushed myself to being alone when it was the last thing I really wanted.)
(Turn around) Every now and then I get a little bit terrified And then I see the look in your eyes
We were both early for the train, and there were only a few other people around, so this went on for some time. Feeling his eyes on me was a different sensation than the usual notice I would garner from my sartorial arsenal. It wasn’t interest in a coat or a bag or a pair of shoes – it was interest in my person, in the physical shell of my body. I felt him size up my hair and face, my chest, the spread of my thighs as I sat on a rigid bench across from him. I felt him notice every motion of my hands, every shuffle of my feet. A few times I would pause and deliberately catch him staring to which he averted his eyes, pretending it wasn’t happening. Such games we once played, such silly wastes of time.
The advance of commuters was upon us, and more people filled the little waiting area. I shifted my backpack onto my lap as people squeezed onto the bench beside me. He continued to stare and study, drinking me up as I drank up his interest, until it was finally apparent what was happening. At last I looked into his eyes for a moment, holding on a little longer than almost any other man would have done for another man. He broke first, and smiled broadly before a quick chuckle that shook his shoulders slightly. I smiled back, but briefly, not quite willing, or, quite frankly, knowing, what to do next, other than keep my distance.
(Turn around, bright eyes) Every now and then I fall apart (Turn around, bright eyes) Every now and then I fall apart
Pushing the memory of that first kiss from my mind, I let the smile leave my face and took out a book. It struck me that the man had nothing with him – not a bag or briefcase, not a coat or jacket – only the billowy pockets of his pleated pants, and perhaps one on the front of his white baggy button-down shirt. What brought him to Boston on such a day, what had he done to land him at Porter Square, and where might he be going? Despite the fear, despite the past, I was suddenly interested, piqued by his surreptitious engagement with the college-age young man I was then.
The rumbling of the commuter rail left us scrambling up to the platform, and I followed him at a distance – keeping him just far enough away to not appear overly-zealous. He sat near the front of the car, and lots of seats were available for the taking. I took one a few rows back, where I could see him still but he couldn’t see me. I would be in control this time – if this ended up being a time.
(Turn around) Every now and then I get a little bit restless And I dream of something wild
He turned around to look at me, then beyond me, just once. And then I saw him take out a scrap of paper from his pocket, and a pen, and scribble something down.
The conductor called out Belmont, as the train tilted to its side – the memorable mark of Belmont in my mind – then we righted and resumed our journey. Next stop was Waverley, then Waltham, and as we neared the Brandeis/Roberts stop I wondered if this was all in my mind. I would have to walk by the man on my way out, and my brain was scrambling how to play it – and whether to bother playing it at all. Equally enchanted and exhausted by how humans seemed to have to work to connect, I felt a flash of utter defeat and hopelessness, and a relief at a life of solitude. And then something came over me as I slung my backpack over my shoulder and marched down the aisle.
And I need you now tonight And I need you more than ever And if you only hold me tight We’ll be holding on forever And we’ll only be making it right ‘Cause we’ll never be wrong
I can’t describe what was happening as I walked toward the exit before the train had even come to its Brandeis/Roberts stop – whether it was a surge of adrenaline as I felt my heart thumping in my chest, or a last grasp at what might be something romantic. He was directly to my right, sitting by himself in a double-seat, and he looked up at me – the first time he would ever look up at me given his height – and I was about to let it all go when my body abruptly stopped. I turned to face him, and in one smooth, deft motion I unfurled the palm of my hand, into which he placed the piece of paper with his phone number on it. Closing my hand around it, I continued to the exit without saying a word. All these years later, it’s still probably the smoothest, scariest, and best-executed move of any of my romantic endeavors.
Clutching it madly, I walked away from the train platform without looking up at any of the passing windows, and only when it was gone entirely from view did I hurriedly open it up and gaze down upon his name and number.
Together we can take it to the end of the line Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time (all of the time)
I don’t know what to do and I’m always in the dark We’re living in a powder keg and giving off sparks
I really need you tonight Forever’s gonna start tonight (Forever’s gonna start tonight)
Once upon a time I was falling in love But now I’m only falling apart There’s nothing I can do A total eclipse of the heart
Did I call him? That’s a story for another post, as this has gone entirely more moody than a Saturday blog post should ever be. I promise to tell the rest when the dander isn’t up…
Vanity fashion lines come and go awfully quickly these days, but one of the most enduring and compelling has been the one started by Todd Sanfield, whose body walks the walk that his products talk. Sanfield created his underwear line 13 years ago, and has been modeling and promoting it consistently ever since. It’s expanded into swimwear too, and at the helm of it all is Sanfield himself. That sort of singular drive and determination is what sets him apart from those that have fizzled. Earning his first Dazzler of the Day (after having been named a hunk in several previous incarnations in these parts) Sanfield is still offering scintillating images and products to match. Check out his offerings here.
Happily spent from two nights of dining with our dear friends Eileen and Raph, I stumbled into the house well after 10 PM last night and heard the following music emanating from the local classical music station. It was mystical music, carrying calm and beauty and a sliver of mystery to it – shards of whispered secrets sounded across every pluck of the harp and strum of the guitar string. It was spring music, imbued with hope and a bit of tension, the way cold could still creep into the night and shock in the sunniest of mornings. Entitled, ‘The Spirit of the Trees’, it went perfectly well with the photos of our coral bark maple tree just coming into its miraculous chartreuse splendor.
Here we are already at the end of April, one more day of the month to go before the glory of May arrives, in apparently rainy fashion. Spring rains are somehow more maddening than the rains of fall – less depressing perhaps, but more bothersome. We waited all winter for some relief – it’s like stalling and hesitating and pulling back when you’re ready to go, go, go…
A little rain – or a lot of rain – won’t stop the show of the coral bark maple leaves. They will shine brightly even on the grayest days, brightening their corner of the yard with this magnificent shade, accenting themselves with that striking red bark. This fresh hue will last for a while, carrying its clarion call into the start of summer before ripening into a slightly deeper shade of green. Then, come fall, the reversal of fortune occurs, as the leaves turn bright yellow before fading to a ghostly pale cream color. By winter, all that will remain are the coral stems, which will burn through the months of slumber until they recreate this spectacular show all over again.
A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania, Atsushi Akera was a professor in the Science and Technology Studies department of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, during which time she wrote the book ‘Calculating a Natural World: Scientists, Engineers, and Computers during the Rise of U.S. Cold War Research’, which sounds as impressive as it is unlikely that I would understand a word of it. She recently retired in order to create Cafe Euphoria right cross the river in Troy. Cafe Euphoria is a transgender and nonbinary worker owned restaurant and cafe, which also offers community support, a safe space to dine and simply be, as well as a fabulously-curated thrift shop. Akera earns this Dazzler of the Day for her ongoing work to be supportive and inclusive of all communities. (Read more about her efforts in this article.)
I happened to catch a photo of Longwood Gardens on FaceBook the other day, and it inspired notions of making a pilgrimage to Pennsylvania next winter or spring to find my long-sought-after dream plant, the Blue Himalayan Poppy (Meconopsis).
The quest to see a specimen of Meconopsis has been quietly burning for years, inspired by a book on finding the elusive Shangri-la in Tibet. After realizing that flying to the Himalayan mountains just to see a blue poppy was perhaps too crazy and extreme even for me, I did a little research and found that there were several stands of blue poppies growing in Canada. That was still about ten hours away, and the blooming period ranged from anytime in July to August- and if I happened to miss it, it wasn’t another trip we could easily make the following weekend.
When I looked on the website for Longwood Gardens, however, I saw that they had a featured list of plants in bloom according to date – and one of them was the Himalayan blue poppy. You cannot imagine my excitement when I realized this dream was within a few hours’ grasp.
Would I travel the world just to find a flower? I would do more than that, and love every moment of it. The mind can travel without setting foot in a car or a plane, and seeking the Himalayan blue poppy had taken me around the world ~ now it’s time for the eye to travel, to seek beauty in the land of Penn’s woods… Sometimes one need not look any further than one’s own backyard. (Or at least a neighboring state.)
This little squirrel decided to share a lunch-break with me as I sat at the counter in Stacks earlier this week, drinking my decaf Americano and nibbling a cookie. He or she or they munched on a peanut left for their friends in a nearby park. Not mad about this sort of company. Peaceable companions are the best.
This Dazzler of the Day thrills on so many levels it’s impossible to fully encapsulate all the superlatives his life’s journey has earned, so I’m turning to his magnificent website for all the reasons Josh Sundquist is so amazing:
Josh Sundquist is a motivational speaker who has inspired audiences across the world. His speeches blend humor and heartfelt storytelling to inspire people to discover their 1MT1MT (One More Thing, One More Time). Josh is an in-demand keynote speaker for conferences of salespeople, leaders, and other professionals.
At age nine, Josh was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer and given a fifty percent chance to live. He spent a year on chemotherapy treatments and his left leg was amputated. Doctors declared Josh cured of the disease at age thirteen and he took up ski racing three years later.
After years of training, Josh was named to the 2006 U.S. Paralympic Ski Team for the 2006 Paralympics in Turino, Italy. Josh has since represented the United States in international competition as a member of the U.S. Amputee Soccer Team.
Josh’s internet videos have over one billion views and he has four-million followers across his social media profiles. He’s best known for his viral photos, especially his Halloween costumes. People Magazine named him to the 2017 “Social Media Power List.” As a social media influencer, he’s worked with brands like Chase, Chevy, Dairy Queen, AT&T, and Michelob Ultra.
Josh is a Celebrity Ambassador for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and makes regular appearances at events and in the media to raise money for children’s hospitals across the country. He has been featured on the back of Doritos bags (specifically, Spicy Nacho flavor) for his work on behalf of amputees. Josh grew up in Virginia. He graduated from The College of William and Mary and later received a Master’s in Communications from the University of Southern California. Today, he lives with his wife Ashley and their dog Mushu near the beach in California. Josh and Ashley enjoy watching magic shows and visiting very old things in foreign countries.
This time around I felt it before I confirmed or knew about it. There was an uneasiness in the air, a slight shift of the spring trajectory we had been on, and when it finally came across someone’s FaceBook feed it was almost a relief to see it. Mercury is in retrograde. A relief, and then a worry, and then something in-between.
Sitting down for a daily meditation, I watched as the wind brushed through the thuja hedge, touching on the Japanese umbrella pine before scuttling out of sight. A spell of rain began soon thereafter, and the chill in the air signaled we had not yet crossed the frost-free date in upstate New York (last time I checked that happened the first week of May).
Now that I know Mercury is in retrograde, I can relax a bit, and lean into the mayhem and mishaps to come. It’s a more peaceable way of dealing with life in general, a reminder that when we roll with the punches it’s sometimes easier than going against the flow.
The bane of lawn purists around the world, this little dandelion is too often seen as a pesky weed, but if they were less hardy, less common, and less unrefined they’d be cherished as garden plants. It’s all a matter of perspective, and a shift in the way we view the world is always a healthy exercise.
The flowers themselves are radial works of sunshine and wonder, their seed-heads the stuff of childhood whimsy and wishes. The jagged leaves are handsome in my eyes, but I like a leaf that looks like it could bite. When you learn to appreciate something like the dandelion, life is so much sunnier at every step.
Officially announced as the Commencement Speaker for this year’s SUNY at Albany’s graduation ceremony, DB Woodside has a formidable entertainment portfolio that goes back to the 90’s. As an actor and director, he has appeared in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, ‘Single Ladies’, ‘ Parenthood’, ‘Lucifer’, ’24’ and ‘The Night Agent’. SUNY’s commencement speech will bring him back to his alma mater (he earned his BA from SUNY and a Master’s degree from the Yale School of Drama) and this earns him a Dazzler of the Day crowning.
