It’s the last really colorful month for outside splendor, and as such some of the flowers seem to be putting on a brighter and more saturated show than they may have done earlier in the season, when the whole of summer spread out before them. Now any day might be the last before a hard frost, and so we have this beautiful moment where the flowers put on their showiest farewell, perhaps sensing this will be it for the season.
Every added day at this time of the year feels like a bonus flower day, and maybe this will be one of those extended falls where the warm weather lasts and sees us through to December. It’s the least Mother Nature could do after giving us such an awful summer.
Like any good gay person growing up in the 709’s and 80’s, I had a rather fanatical obsession with Wonder Woman, as evidenced here. From her outfit to her no-nonsense power and intelligence, she was everything I was not, but most wanted to be. Embodied brilliantly by the insanely talented Lynda Carter, Wonder Woman became my idol. I studied both character and actress for hints and help in how to be so effortlessly and beautifully in command. For a little gay boy who saw no role models for the two-sided torment he felt inside, Wonder Woman represented a rare possibility of living a life not dictated by society. Cut to this week, when Lynda Carter tweeted her support of those coming out, and those who can’t quite yet, for National Coming Out Day. Looks like she’s still a hero and inspiration to me and so many others. She also has a new album out now, and if you haven’t heard her magnificent voice you are in for a treat when you check it out. The very least I can do is name her the Dazzler of the Day.
When I joined Facebook in 2007, social media was a very different animal. In the ensuing decade-plus of online evolution, things got better, and then they got much worse, to the point where I’m mostly only on Facebook to post my blog links. And that seems to be pointless anyway, since many people will comment on a link I posted and it’s very clear they didn’t even visit it. Add to that the vitriolic behavior, the proliferation of misinformation and lies, and the annoying ads that show exactly what I want, only to lead to the page the item is on showing it completely sold out. And then there’s the problematic and inconsistent censorship they have inflicted on my ass (and other assets) over the years, which fueled my web traffic as well as initial fury. Finally, there are the comments. I’ve culled my friends to the point where I don’t get that many rude comments, but everywhere else I visit the comments are horrendous, car-wreck collections that ruin any spare moments I go down one of those rabbit holes.
All of those things have been slowly been eroding my interest in remaining there on any meaningful manner. A few friends of mine have totally shut down their accounts, and seem all the happier for it. While I don’t myself completely deactivating my account, I’ve already pulled away in a lot of ways. The other night I deleted about 60 albums – thousands of photos going back to 2008. Most are still on this website, so this will be the main repository for that sort of thing, as long as it’s standing. Facebook will remain a source of contacts and seeing birthdays and such, but I see myself moving farther an farther away from its reach.
When Andy said he was going to keep the pool going for a while as the temperatures looked stable for another week or so, I was slightly skeptical, but he turned out to be right. Yesterday the sun came out for the afternoon, after steaming a bunch of shirts of the work-week ahead, I was sweaty enough to appreciate a dip in the pool, likely the last. It felt good to float again, to approach the closest we humans get to feeling what it’s like to fly. The sky reflected on the surface of the water as the sun illuminated the clouds moving overhead.
In a season where treats and indulgences are overhyped and too-often disappointing, this rare extension of the season of sun was a welcome and appreciated brush with the pleasantly sensual – a calming and quiet moment that was unexpectedly restorative.
It was the fall of 1998. I’d just met my first serious boyfriend. It felt like a giddy time, though slightly fraught with worry, the unknown and the uncomfortable notion of opening up my life to another person, and the vaguest sliver of worry that this wasn’t the one, at least the one who would last forever. And then the more frightening notion that maybe not anyone would last forever.
The job I had was my first brush with an office environment – as a research analyst for John Hancock. Located just a few blocks from the condo, my commute was a seven minute leisurely walk, five if I was rushing, which I never was back then. It was dull and monotonous work, the scope of which was never entirely explained to us (other than a class-action lawsuit was involved and we needed to find duplicate numbers on microfiche) but I excelled and moved up the limited ranks quite quickly. A little over a month on the job, I felt comfortable in talking about my new boyfriend, feeling a relatively new sensation of pride in another person, in being part of a couple. But there were still moments of doubt. We never held hands. We never walked too close. We never kissed in public.
Mother clutches the head of her dying son
Anger and tears, so many things to feel
Sensitive boy, good with his hands
Noone mentions the unmentionable, but everybody understands
Here in this cold white room
Tied up to these machines
It’s hard to imagine him as he used to be…
On October 12, 1998, I walked into the office and was about to begin the usual routine. Co-workers whirled through the microfiche readers, while others ate their breakfast bagels at the center table. I heard the news before I saw it in the paper – back when we got news from the newspaper, back when that was usually the first one would hear of anything. A co-worker blurted out that Matthew Shepard had died. After a few days in a coma, he’d given up his fight. His life was finished. It was the only time up to that day where I felt the wind knocked out of me, and I had to literally sit down at the table in the middle of the room and pretend that I was looking at some microfiche nonsense. Anything to keep from crying.
Many things haunted me, starting at that moment. The image of him being mistaken for a scarecrow at first. The image of his face being soiled and dirty save for the trails of his tears. The image of a loneliness so pervading that the feigned interest of a couple of questionable guys made the danger worth the risk.
Laughing screaming tumbling queen
Like the most amazing light show you’ve ever seen
Whirling swirling never blue
How could you go and die, what a lonely thing to do…
What everyone else in that office saw as just another dead guy – one of probably a dozen in a paper as sprawling as the Boston Globe – I saw as something far more personal. This 21-year-old – just a year younger than myself – had been killed simply for being gay. He was murdered for being what I was. From that point forward the world would be haunted in a way that most of my straight friends could never fully feel. It changed everything in an instant, and the immense sorrow of where we were, and how far we really hadn’t come, took up residence in my mind, the lingering remnants of which surface to this very day.
Silence equals death, this is what they say
But the anger and the tears do not take the pain away
How far must it go, how near must it be
Before it touches you, before it touches me
Here in this cold white room
Tied up to these machines
It’s hard to imagine life as it used to be…
The details of the night he was attacked felt eerily familiar in the way it all began. A random encounter at a bar – where we all went looking for love back then – that ended with a drive onto the desolate and cold back roads of Wyoming – some sad American nightmare where Matthew was brutally beaten and tortured by two straight men… and for what reason? For being gay? For being different? For wanting to be loved? How could anyone be so hated simply for loving?
Laughing screaming tumbling queen
Like the most amazing light show that you’ve ever seen
Whirling swirling never blue
How could you go and die, what a selfish thing to do
After we learned of what had happened, when a guy riding his bicycle passed Matthew’s body strung up on a fence, and initially mistook him for a scarecrow, I didn’t think he would die. The world couldn’t be that cruel. It couldn’t be that cold. So when he did, and when someone so flippantly said he was dead, I had to sit down, because whatever hopes and dreams I had secretly harbored since I was a kid were suddenly knocked out of me.
It was an act of hatred that I would never understand, and in the following days and weeks and years I would read everything I could about what happened, trying to come to some sort of understanding as to why they did it, and at every turn and every new piece of information, I failed. Yet throughout all that time, and through all these years, the memory of Matthew has remained alive. I’d forgotten the names and fates of his killers, but Matthew Shepard is indelibly imprinted upon my memory, imprinted on my heart, imprinted on that precious part of life that should have been filled with innocence and hope and dreams.
Did you ever ask those strangers what they’re searching for?
Did they laugh and tell you they’re not really sure?
You were hurt by love but still you came right back for more
Il adore, il adore, il adore…
Having spent the weekend mostly in Boston, I’m getting back into the Albany bearings, so forgive this brief intro to the weekly recap. Not that I believe for one second anyone minds brevity when it comes to my words… on with the recap! PS – Watch your ass because Mercury is still in retrograde – and this one seems to be a doozy.
The older I get, the more I start to see the importance of a day like today, especially when I look back at my own childhood and elongated coming out process. I grew up in the 1980’s, and in a rather sheltered/cocooned household. Raised by strict Catholic parents, I never heard anyone talk about being gay, not in my formative years, not when it mattered and would have made a world of difference. And there was no internet or gay bookstore in Amsterdam, NY to help me see any possibility for all the confusing feelings I had.
If you do not see yourself in the world around you for the majority of the first two decades of your life, you do not see yourself as a valid part of humanity. You feel a little lost, but the truth is there was never a path that I saw, so it’s a sense of being lost that allowed for no way to being found. Looking back at that time, it’s a wonder I wasn’t an even bigger mess than I was. It’s like an orca that has been born and raised in captivity – the dorsal fin droops, there are all sorts of health issues, and the poor little creature doesn’t know any other way of life, so it gets afflicted with all these problems without knowing what its life could have been. Do those animals feel the pull of the ocean, the pull of who they were meant to be? I felt it subtly, without name or explanation, and it mostly came out as me feeling alone and different without exactly knowing why, which only served to feed into my social anxiety and create an absolutely debilitating environment in which to grow up. It’s hard enough for a kid to make it unscathed through childhood – adding these other elements imbued my time as a child with a sense of terror – and the absence of that terror in what I could see in my friends only added to my confusion and feelings of inferiority.
Whenever I wonder whether I should keep this silly blog going, I think back to my twelve-year-old self, and how impactful seeing something like this would have been. Not because I’m so wonderful and fabulous – but because everything I’ve put forth here is a pretty accurate reflection of my mundane, dull, boring, yappy, crappy, sappy and happy life. I didn’t need to see a famous celebrity come out, or a glamorous historical figure outed – I just needed to see the possibility of being gay as something that existed. I needed to see someone simply living their life, being accepted, occasionally celebrated, and working on just being a better person. Instead, I saw a heteronormative world that had no place for me or what I was feeling. For twenty years – arguably the most important years of a person’s life – I did not see myself. That’s something that doesn’t ever go completely away, and it’s the reason that moments like National Coming Out Day still matter.
“In my leisure time I appear rather… impractical. But I do think that I’ve made a practical woman out of myself. You can’t have worked the number of years I have, through hell or high water, without being basically practical” – Diana Vreeland
The sales clerk trying to sell me on this Marimekko apron was being utterly adorable. She saw me eyeing it and picking it up, then sauntered over and said what a beautiful piece it was. “You could wear it even as a part of an outfit, over some jeans or something,” she said.
“Or nothing at all!” I excitedly exclaimed. How little did she know me. “You know, for a party.”
“Oh I can totally see you just in that, with a glass of wine, just hanging out,” her associate chimed in. He seemed to have a better read on what I might wear and how.
The coloring of the apron is a bright and plucky homage to Diana Vreeland, who seemed to adore only certain super-saturated shades of scarlet, as evidenced by her red drawing room in New York if I remember correctly. Her vibrant exuberance very much inspired this fall’s strong color palette. We needed the lift.
“All my life I’ve pursued the perfect red. I can never get painters to mix it for me. It’s exactly as if I’d said, ‘I want rococo with a spot of Gothic in it and a bit of Buddhist temple’- they have no idea what I’m talking about. About the best red is to copy the color of a child’s cap in any Renaissance portrait.” ~ Diana Vreeland
A return to the splendor of color has been an intent of this season on the blog. It definitely feels like I’ve moved into the winter of this website’s lifespan, and with archived work that now spans well over a decade (and unarchived posts that have been lost since its inception in 2003) there is an albatross-like sense of baggage to the whole scene, a heaviness that one might want to release at some point. To shake things up, and keep this space as visually appealing as possible, I’ve tried to inject some stronger hues to the layout and the posts. Hence this bag, in which I’ve been carrying toiletries to and from Boston on recent visits there. The colors are gaudy, the design is ridiculously over-the-top, and the overall effect is one of magnificent bagnificence.
For a very long time, I kept my travel items subtle and unobtrusive. A monogrammed Louis Vuitton Keepall and its iconic ‘LV’ design was the showiest I got, and toiletry kits were even less fancy. I’m not sure why – maybe because travel status is so temporary and fleeting. I didn’t want to get attached or love something that I would only use a few weeks out of the year. What an idiot I was! How much joy have I cheated myself out of over the years? These days I use the brightest and gaudiest carrying accoutrements I can find, such as the little floral piece seen here, or this item from this post, originally intended to accompany me to a fabulous weekend in New York.
Such frivolous joys, such silly accessories – and such giddy effects. Trinkets and charms do make the day go by, and in such pretty fashion why would we settle for something in any way dull or merely utilitarian? Too many opportunities to be colorful go to waste. No one wants to cause a scene or make a production. No one wants to make waves or cause a commotion. Here’s to starting a riot with a bag of flowers! Here’s to engulfing your head in a scarf of scarlet fire! Here’s to skating through life in a pair of lime-green-soled sneakers! With so little to create allure these days, such tiny frivolities feel like home, and I find comfort in all this color.
The rain was tugging on these fall berries, but they held fast to their perch, refusing to let go. Such obstinance in the face of nature is admirable. Eventually they know they must succumb. Even if they manage to remain on their host branch for the winter, the wind and the cold will desiccate and decimate them, until they resemble tiny black shriveled raisins, if they resemble anything at all. Sometimes winter takes all of what they once held inside them, turning it inside out and exposing the tender fruit and seeds.
Still, there is something to be said for putting up the good fight.
Fall brings to mind lessons like this – lessons of resilience and strength, of going through with the mission of life even when adversity seems poised to win, even when the outcome looks grim or at best uncertain. It’s the nobility in finishing a race you already know you have lost, of closing out a game in which there is no possible way to win. The simple act of seeing something through to completion, no matter what the end may look or feel like.
And, truth be told, one never knows how benign or kind the winter may be. Perhaps Mother Nature has doled out enough pain with all of this summer’s rain. Perhaps she’s battered us enough. We’ve had years where such berries lasted well into December. I remember a holiday stroll in Boston where there were roses still blooming. Part of that felt wrong, but mostly I just embraced the reprieve, pulling them close to my nose and laughing at our luck.
We’ve had an abundance of rain this year, so why should fall be any different? Here is what can happen the day after the water falls: beauty and whimsy and gorgeous enchantment. I don’t often plant impatiens, and in all honesty this little pot of them went largely unnoticed and unwatered on our back patio. Not that water was ever needed (see aforementioned rain situation). The pink catmint flowers seen below also enjoyed a banner year in their typically sunny location, which this year was over-run with, you guessed it, rain. No matter – this is the end result, and it’s pretty enough to almost make up for the weather.
This Japanese hot pot recipe ushers in the official fall soup season. On a recent rainy and gray day I prepared this simple but satisfying meal, which I like to serve with a couple of seven-minute eggs for protein. Fill it with any of the greens you like – I opted for bok choy this time around since that’s what Andy had stocked in the fridge. Kale and spinach work equally as well, though the latter will all but melt into the stock. I prefer the hardier stock of the kale, or the sturdy stems of the bok choy.
The mushrooms give it an earthy richness, as done the miso hidden in the stock. A generous helping of sliced daikon gives a bright white half-moon accent to many of the spoonfuls. My favorite part is the skin-on buttercup squash, which I microwave for a few minutes before cutting and dumping into the pot. The skin softens to something edible and fine.
Some Pacific seaweed gives it that essence of ocean that I so often desire, and a few teaspoons of mirin round out the flavors at hand. Simple and substantial, this one works on the coldest evenings, and will be a staple seeing us through the winter. I don’t want to think about that yet, so for now let’s just enjoy the sight, scent, and taste of soup on a fall night.
Having recently finished up this year’s Fall Treasure Hunt weekend, I was compelled to take a rare look back at our interactions with the Ilagan twins, so I found these photos of Uncle Andy with Noah and Emi in years gone by. It’s amazing how quickly they are growing up, and how much we are evolving in the process. Just a few short years ago we could throw them easily around in the pool, and they could barely reach the counter-top of the kitchen.
Now they almost look like young adults in comportment and carriage, and I want to go back just a couple of years, not only for their youth but for our younger years. I only indulge in such maudlin sentiments for a brief moment, and then I’ll be back in the mindfulness that focuses most on the present, and all the wonder and joy that can be found in the here and now. The twins represent that passage of time in ways that are bittersweet and contemplative, providing a pause in the relentless tick of the clock.
