Posing like a fucking boss, this is my tribute to the Super Bowl, and I’m taking the lazy way out with a simple Monday morning recap. A lot of stuff went down this past week, most of which didn’t make the blog. Read between the lines of this recap, and strike a muscle pose. Like a meathead. Wearing spectacles. (Oh, and follow me on TikTok or whatever you’re supposed to do there – I’m on it, I’m into it, I’m TikToking for you – for all of you!)

Hello again, Earl. (That’s Mr. Grey to you.)

It’s been three months since I had any booze and, oddly enough, I don’t miss it one bit. 

Winter pining.

Andy’s ongoing Audi adventure.

It was a snowy winter morning in January, and that has made all the difference.

I took Suzie to see Matthew Bourne’s ‘Swan Lake’ this past Friday and it was just as enchanting as I remembered it. (Suzie may have fallen asleep at one point. And she left a huge mess on our table at the Russian Tea Room, but I told all the servers who stopped by who did it.)  

Dreaming of Ogunquit makes the winter bearable. 

Speaking of winter, we have entered the final full month of the beast, and though it’s a leap year it’s still a short one. 

Chicken soup for the soul and the stomach.

Baring my ass for the Dolly Parton Challenge, like you knew I always would. 

This Super Bowl mocktail is counter-programming at its best. 

The limited selection of Hunks of the Day included Taylor Swift’s beau Joe Alwyn, Charles Michael Davis and Patrick Mahomes. (More to come this week, I promise!)

How is it that Dolly Parton has not played a more prominent role on this website in all these years? Who doesn’t absolutely adore Dolly? As part of the gay population, I believe it’s in our handbook that loving Dolly Parton is one of the mandatory non-negotiable requirements. A minimum qualification if you will. Luckily, it’s always come rather easily to me, having been raised on her movie ‘9 to 5’ and its accompanying fingernail-clicking title track. Plucky, kind and fabulous beyond all get-out, Ms. Parton has defied the limitations of country music, and even more impressively the rules of the entire entertainment industry, surviving and thriving in a successful career that has spanned decades, without ever really going out of style.

Case in point is the viral Meme seen below, where she cheekily shows off the various versions of herself that she would use for social media and immediately rendering her relevant once again. It is as much a showcase for her chameleonic nature as it is for a modern-day flourish of social media savvy. (For the record, I’ve never been on Tinder or Grinder or a 3-ring Binder, but oh if these social media sites had been around during my dating hey-day… actually, I think we all – the whole lot of us – offer unending gratitude that they weren’t. Think: hot mess minus the hot.)

PS – Follow me on TikTok under ‘alanilagan’ and be in awe. I just love the TikTok! 

Mercifully, this is the shortest month of the year, and as the last full month of winter that is a blessing without disguise. It seemed like we should present something fiery for February, and these scarlet berries mirror the cardinals that occasionally visit the yard and spruce things up with their fiery plumage. Though the gardens remain in a state of slumber, the cardinals and finches have been providing bits of their colorful carriage, creating temporary gardens whenever and wherever they alight. The blue jays add to this as well, mimicking the blue of the sky, etched with their striking stripes and patterns.

Even the squirrels want to get in on the winter show, traipsing along the fence and digging in the snow for a stray acorn or errant nut. Their gray coats are better at blending into the surroundings at this sad time of the year, but their actions are just as interesting as they are in the sunnier months.

In our home, we are already getting antsy for spring, which still feels a long way off. We’ll see what the groundhog has to say tomorrow, not that it’s wise to put anything of substance in that one’s paws. Winter will take as many weeks as it takes and there’s nothing much to do about it. The best thing is to find its rare pockets of beauty and enjoy them as they come.

There will be another spring, and another summer.

The sun will shine again.

The pool will beckon.

The gardens will bloom.

For the spring…

for the summer…

Maybe even for the fall.

But fear not, for we are on the right path.

One more day of January, then the shortest month of the year will begin, the last full month of winter. 

The light, then, is up ahead.

Bundle up, the cold is not over, but hope…

Hope is still warm.

No winter can ever take that away. 

Earl Grey tea ebbs and flows in my existence. There are periods when I’m all for it – craving and demanding its floral notes in tea and cookies and scones – and then there are long stretches when I want nothing to do with it. Lately, I’ve come around to it again, maybe because a nice floral tea seems designed for winter mornings like this one. Unexceptional Tuesdays when a sweeter, quieter start of Bergamot is needed to cast its exquisite spell and see us through the rest of the week, or at least the remainder of the day. Such moments of peace are by their nature smaller and more elusive, and so I value them more. Let’s sip on that for a bit and not rush ahead just yet.

Inhabit the moment.

Breathe in the beginning of the day.

Exhale the worrisome thoughts.

Exist.

Be.

We are enough. 

It was a week filled with sickness and a slow but steady recuperation. Felled by the flu, I spent half the week alternating between chills and sweats, and the rest of it racked with overall body aches. That made for hours of bed-bound contemplation and feverish deliberations, none of which came to much. It’s not good to be inside your head so much, or inside the house so much either. I had no choice in either, and so I did my best to get better – drowning myself in hot green tea with lemon and honey, regular doses of Tylenol in the morning and NyQuil at night, gallons of water, and freshly squeezed citrus in whatever else I was drinking. On with this sickly recap so we can leave it all behind…

Speaking of sick things.

Embracing the imperfect.

At least trying.

Bright flaming red!

Are roses enough to see us through the winter?

The Jonas Brothers stepped out in their underwear. 

The trajectory and lifespan of this blog was given serious consideration, and we are entering the winter of its existence. Relax or be dismayed, it’s not imminent. 

Madonna as mere mortal. 

This is the closest we can figure for the first movie night with Skip. 

Kira and I weather a winter storm in Boston, starting with this shakshuka evening, a Saturday of swimming lessons and shopping, and a contemplative Sunday ending. 

Hunks of the Day included Justin Chambers, Alex Ranghieri, Jimmy Garoppolo, and Calum Scott.