Category Archives: General

This helpful squirrel loves to hold my nuts.

Well, mine and Andy’s. 

Something for the booty and the mind at the same time. 

Falling horse chestnuts.

Shit is real. And dangerous.

They’ll poke your eye out, just as you’re looking up.

In Ogunquit, there is a majestic horse chestnut tree right on the main drag, with a sign above that warns passers-beneath it to ‘watch for falling horse chestnuts’. I don’t think looking up is the best advice at such a time, but I get what they meant. 

Stay tuned for our brief Ogunquit recap – it was truly beautiful. 

It’s disheartening to think that our Presidential election is as close as the broken media is portraying it to be. Kamala Harris is a capable prosecutor; Donald Trump is a convicted felon. That alone should be enough. For some reason – the misinformation and willful ignorance of Americans perhaps – it’s not, so if you’re still somehow on the fence for this very important election, a few facts for your perusal:

For freedom: In his own words, Trump killed Roe v. Wade and the right of women to make their own health decisions. Under his Project 2025 blueprint, and with the help of his VP pick JD Vance, Trump will likely implement a national abortion ban, to say nothing of the risks he poses to such options as IVF. 

For your finances: Trump’s tariff plan will tank the economy and raise costs of everything even more. His tax breaks will not benefit you – you do not make nearly enough money to benefit, and neither do I. Also, to count on someone whose companies have gone bankrupt multiple times to help our economy is downright stupid. 

For border security: Trump killed the bipartisan border bill that would have protected our borders – he is not interested in border security. He also had four years as President to build that wall, and failed miserably. 

For backing the blue: Trump instigated the January 6th insurrection, resulting in police dying, our Capitol being breached and vandalized, and putting our representatives in danger. Trump wants to pardon all of those criminals. 

For patriotism: Trump has called injured and killed veterans ‘suckers’ and ‘losers’; his generals have sounded the alarm on his fascist plans; his own Vice President – Mike Pence – won’t support him, largely because Trump didn’t care that his own supporters wanted to hang him on January 6. 

For character: Trump is a convicted felon, who cheated on his third, and then-pregnant, wife with a porn star, then lied and paid money to cover it up. He lies more than anyone else on the planet, and still clings to his sad and repeatedly-disproven lie that he didn’t lose the last election. 

For safety: Hundreds of thousands of Americans died thanks to Trump’s bungling of the COVID pandemic; he thought, and said out loud, injecting bleach might help. He was given a blueprint for how to handle such an event and threw it out because it came from President Obama. We all know someone who has died from COVID, and that might have not happened if someone competent was in charge at that time. 

For competence: Trump is a fucking moron. 

If you’re still voting for him in the face of all that, you should examine why. Deep down, you know. And I have a feeling it’s not in the name of anything noble or good. 

If you haven’t educated yourself on the merits and plans and detailed vision that Kamala Harris has for our great country, read it all here. This is substance. This is serious. This is a responsible adult who cares about our country. This is the best way forward. We cannot go back. 

We teetered on the edge of 80 degrees yesterday, and it felt sickeningly like summer again when I finally took a late lunch. Once I got home, I hopped right into the pool while Andy set up the grill for one final round of hamburgers. He had had the foresight and wisdom to heat the pool to a cozy 84 degrees, so swimming in the warm water was a welcome embrace of comfort and pleasure – and not something I thought I’d get to do again this year. A bonus bout of summer coming later than it ever has before. Global warming indeed.

It also offers the ideal bit of counter-programming for our fade-to-black fall, and is a lovely little hint of the next summer to come – for there is always another summer… until there isn’t. This idyllic scene will be but a dream for the next six months, so having a last bit of joy gives Andy and I that spark of happiness to last through the coming winter. 

‘Tis the damn season.

Here’s a pumpkin. 

There’s nothing great about it. 

It’s going to be in the 70’s today.

I don’t feel like blogging. 

I don’t feel like doing much of anything. 

It’s a feeling of blah.

Of meh.

Of fuck it all. 

But enjoy this pumpkin, and your fall fun. 

Andy says there are warmer days to return soon – a little throwback to all our summer sun, and a summer I didn’t fully inhabit. Some summers get lost like that. It’s nothing worth regretting, it’s nothing worth recalling. Some things simply need to be buried. Perhaps they’ll be resurrected in a song, or a scent, or a bittersweet reminder that the brain suddenly unleashes years later. The mind works strangely, without explanation. For now, I will try to soak in the sun and get outside to see this last showing of the hydrangeas. They had such a wonderful year.

Let the dance party of one commence!

Crank this one up and give in to the boogie.

It’s midnight. We’re safe. And we made it to the weekend. 

Disco inferno time – burn baby burn!!!

They say you shouldn’t write this late at night.

This post is proof of that. 

Forget my silly nonsense – just play the song already and get down.

There now – isn’t that a little bit better? 

Did you funk out like I just did?

I’m talking about midnight.

Midnight! Come on! 

When Ryan Murphy decides to make you a star, nothing’s going to stop that from happening. Witness the celebratory two-pronged entertainment attack that is ‘Monster’ and ‘Grotesquerie’ which is currently putting an often-naked Nicholas Alexander Chavez front and center of Hollywood, which also grants him this virgin Dazzler of the Day crowning. 

Vicomte de Valmont: I often wonder how you managed to invent yourself.

Marquise de Merteuil: Well, I had no choice, did I? I’m a woman. Women are obliged to be far more skillful than men. You can ruin our reputation and our life with a few well-chosen words. So, of course, I had to invent, not only myself, but ways of escape no one has every thought of before. And I’ve succeeded because I’ve always known I was born to dominate your sex and avenge my own.

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Ever since I was a young boy, the power of femininity has been apparent to me. More than that, I knew from a very young age that women were the driving force of the world, literally giving birth to anyone and everyone who ever mattered, made a difference, and populated the world. We owed it all to the ladies. That they were the ones who traditionally wielded such femininity was only part of their power, and often merely the veil – easily discarded, impossible to ignore, and hazy in a lace-like dream. Growing up, I wanted to tap into the power of that femininity. I thought I could do it with the perfect perfume, the subtle sly smile and glint in my eye, or the delicate swirl of a tongue against a dripping, engorged cock. The foolish workings of a young boy’s mind – to think that being feminine could ever be so simple and stereotypical, so completely sexist, and birthed from an impenetrable patriarchy. I mistook poses for power, thought I could approximate control with the right stance, the right look, the right outfit, the right attitude. And somewhere deep inside I knew that wasn’t the real power of femininity. The sirens, the witches, the wardrobe – they all played their part, but there was so much more to it. Some days all I could do was dress it up…

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Marquise de Merteuil: When I came out into society, I was fifteen. I already knew that the role I was condemned to, namely to keep quiet and do what I was told, gave me the perfect opportunity to listen and observe. Not to what people told me, which naturally was of no interest, but to whatever it was they were trying to hide. I practiced detachment. I learned how to look cheerful while, under the table, I stuck a fork into the back of my hand. I became a virtuoso of deceit. It wasn’t pleasure I was after, it was knowledge. I consulted the strictest moralists to learn how to appear, philosophers to find out what to think, and novelists to see what I could get away with. And in the end, I distilled everything to one wonderfully simple principle: win or die.

This naked fluorescent lighting system is just plain homophobic.

That’s all. 

It’s nice to see the warty pumpkins get their time in the proverbial sun, as these gourds and their ubiquitous popularity will attest. Way back when I was a little kid, the more perfect the pumpkin, the better, and it was always a challenge to go to some pumpkin place and find the best of the bunch. Invariably there would be a side that was obviously the one that rested on dirt, or a patch of mottled or less-than-ideal-orange that indicated some lack or excess of light or water, or some other imperfection that marred the otherwise plump and round perfection of the picture we all had of a pumpkin. It’s heartwarming to see the embrace of other forms, such as in this extravagantly bumpy specimen nestled amid a patch of ornamental cabbage that sets its coloring and texture off in gorgeous fashion. 

Halloween has come a long way since the days of flimsy plastic masks tied precariously around our heads with a bit of springy string. The perfect pumpkin has become the perfectly unique pumpkin. There’s not a better holiday to celebrate being a little different. 

Vamping while I return to the land of the office and regular responsibilities, these merry marigolds, hardly dampened by the rain, are taking the moment to do an impromptu parade and tide over those hungry for a traditional Tuesday morning blog post. This is it, peeps – indulge and enjoy! 

The vacation glow will be gone by the time you are reading this, and I’ll already be back in office-mode, trying to catch up on hundreds of e-mails and wondering precisely how many days remain until I might retire… a happy daydream to see us through any work-week nightmare.

I love an ornamental cabbage – the colors, the architecture, the design – all of it thrills the visual sense. The way they nestle a rainfall, turning it from something annoying into something amazing is one of the greatest lessons of nature. Here, they provide a moment of pause before I muster the energy to recap our holiday weekend in Ogunquit – but first, the weekly recap begins here, a bit later than usual in the day.

A happy song reprieve.

Backlit, brilliant and beautiful.

Blue mid-day moment.

Welcome to a new black parade.

The real color of fall.

A new urinal cake is always cause for celebration. 

A faithful return.

Raw and tender dogging it.

National Coming Out Day – a thing since 1988.

‘Tis autumn.

A fall bacchanal.

Basket case.

Olfactory excess.

The Fade-to-Black Fall Playlist.

Way back in the 1990’s…

Autumnal Ogunquit memories.

Wisdom in the sweetgrass.

Dazzlers of the Day included Joe Keery, Joe Locke, and Cheryl Dunye.

“In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top—the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation—and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as “the younger brothers of Creation.” We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out.”

“Children, language, lands: almost everything was stripped away, stolen when you weren’t looking because you were trying to stay alive. In the face of such loss, one thing our people could not surrender was the meaning of land. In the settler mind, land was property, real estate, capital, or natural resources. But to our people, it was everything: identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us. Our lands were where our responsibility to the world was enacted, sacred ground. It belonged to itself; it was a gift, not a commodity, so it could never be bought or sold. These are the meanings people took with them when they were forced from their ancient homelands to new places.”

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, ‘Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants’