The heat is on! Finally, enough sun. And too much fun to be had stroking these keys on this computer. On with the recap!
It began with more heat, courtesy of these shirtless male celebrities.
A turkey was my neighbor for a brief time.
Some #TinyThreads for your perusal.
The first time I heard ‘Delta Dawn’ and it was in P-town.
Our Connecticut adventure – Part One and Part Two.
Summer song by the Spice Girls.
Hunks of the Day included Tom Holland, Paulo Avelino, Jake Owen, and Dominic Thiem.
Up until this month, I have never seen the appeal of eating ribs. From what I recalled, they were no more than a thin silver of tough and dry meat against a bone, and even worse they were messier than a Donald Trump speech. All that messy effort left more meat and flavor on my hands than ever got into my belly. As an adult, I have never ordered ribs in a restaurant, and I probably haven’t tasted them in two decades.
That all changed when we joined in a Southern-inspired meal at Missy and Joe’s. When she brought the ribs in from the grill, the meat was falling off the bone, perfectly flavored, and, best of all, substantial enough that three were enough to fill me completely up. They were, to put it mildly, a revelation.
Cut to our Fourth of July festivities, when Andy and I tag-teamed our own rib-feast for a quiet dinner with Mom and Dad. The preparation and execution could not have been simpler. (Andy said it was easier than hamburgers and hot dogs.) One of the tricks we were told was to use country style, or St. Louis, ribs. The baby back things are too small and don’t carry enough meat for my liking.
I took care of the first part, applying a generous rub of spices (at this point in my rib-novice learning curve, any pre-made rub would do), then tightly wrapping them in foil. Placing them on a foil-lined baking sheet (yes, all that foil is necessary, because a lot of juice will come out) I slid it into a 275 degree oven and cooked it for three hours and some change. (I’m told you can do 300 degrees for two-and-a-half hours, but I also read that slower cooking leads to more tender meat. I don’t suppose there’s that much of a difference to my taste buds, but if you’ve got the time, why not slow it down?) Soon the kitchen began to smell really good. When it was done, I pulled it out and let it cool for a bit so it wouldn’t fall completely apart for the grilling part. (Some sources claimed it was fine to refrigerate them at this point if you wanted to grill the next day, and that this also helped keep the meat together. We didn’t have time for such nonsense because it had to go in my belly at the first opportunity.)
Now it was Andy’s turn. On a grill set to high, he placed the rib racks (we cut each in half to make for an easier handling process) and painted each side with Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce. It only took a couple of minutes and an equal number of turns to get a nice color to them, and then they were done.
Paired with a bourbon peach sweet tea and some macaroni salad, these ribs are my new favorite thing. Your waistline may hate you, but your mouth is going to be supremely happy.
A fan hums and swivels in the corner. With each sweep of the room roving bands of air push against my face and it’s still not enough. When the heat is this immense and intense the only thing to do is be very still and quiet and think cool thoughts. A languid pop ballad sung by one of the cheesiest groups of all time is good too. Nothing too challenging. Nothing to make you think too hard. Enter ‘Too Much’ by the Spice Girls.
LOVE IS BLIND, AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE
DEEP AND MEANINGLESS, WORDS TO ME
EASY LOVER, I NEED A FRIEND
ROAD TO NOWHERE, TWISTS AND TURNS BUT WILL THIS NEVER END…
On years like this, when spring hardly gave us any sun or warmth, I’m not quite ready to barricade myself against the first little heatwave, if it can even be considered such. Our potted tropical plants are just beginning to unfurl their leaves, when in most other years they’d be in full lush bloom by now. The garden plants have largely caught up, especially in the last couple of weeks, as nature has a way of evening out the particular inconsistencies of an off-year. That said, on especially hot days, even if we haven’t had a lot of them, I find myself retreating into the controlled air-conditioned environment of the house, hunkering down in the dim coolness, where false visions of the world can be found on screen and the artificially-manipulated temperature no longer induces sweat and stickiness.
TOO MUCH OF SOMETHING IS BAD ENOUGH
BUT SOMETHING’S COMING OVER ME TO MAKE ME WONDER
TOO MUCH OF NOTHING IS JUST AS TOUGH
I NEED TO KNOW THE WAY TO FEEL TO KEEP ME SATISFIED
Back in the late 90’s, when I was still in college and between semesters, the summer was an extended staycation, with lots of lounging and lazy do-nothing days. The Spice Girls movie was playing on television, showing them on their tour bus doing some lounging themselves while this song played over the opening. It reflected the enjoyable ennui of summer, when lying around and raising your eyes to the television was more than enough exertion for the day. When at last daylight faded and the sun went hidden behind the other side of the earth, I’d traipse upstairs into the well-lit environs of my bedroom. In my heart swirled enough darkness; I was always seeking the light. There I would loll about on the cool, carpeted floor, reading or perusing magazines until the early hours of the morning. The next round of daylight could never come soon enough. It just felt better when the sun was shining, even if it got too darn hot.
To combat that, I found it best to put on a pop ballad, the cheesier the better, and let it wash over me like the waves from a fan. If you’ve got some sweet ice tea and hard raspberry candies, so much the better.
WHAT PART OF NO DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?
I WANT A MAN NOT A BOY WHO THINKS HE CAN…
EVER SINCE YOU WERE GONE I FELT DEPRESSED
EVERY MONTH, EVERY YEAR THAT PASSED
EVERY SMILE ON YOUR FACE
EVERY ACT OF GRACE
IT REALLY IS KEEPING ME AWAKE…
We rose to more sun, even if the fabled storms were on the march. Outside the bathroom window, I looked at the rolling hill of green grass that led down to the pool. Bushes of spiraea in umbrels of pink hosted clouds of happy bees, while the vining heads of bittersweet unfurled their pesky tendrils. A pale purple clematis shrugged off a few striking blooms. Summer in the moment of a morning…
Downstairs, I could already hear the kids in action. How much summer living had we already slept through? Kids are magical in the way a few minutes can elongate into hours, in the way that so much can seem to happen in such a short stretch of space, in the way their perception bends time. I wanted to slow things down as well. The day of departure begins with the recognition of impending change. Andy headed down while I took a quick shower.
As I got dressed, I looked over the little chalkboard on which the boys had written welcome messages. Gift bags that they had filled were off to the side and I suddenly felt sadness at having to leave. There was never enough time. Especially when children are involved. Soon there would come a day when these summer mornings weren’t quite as magical, when they didn’t hold as much hope and promise as a kid who just finished the school year feels. It’s still a while off for Julian and Cameron, and I only wish they hold onto them, enjoy them, and wring out every bit of laughter, sunshine, tears, happiness, and love as they possibly can. Hopefully they’ll also remember the guys who visited at the start of summer. (To make sure that those guys remember too, I’ve written it down in these blog posts.)
Over breakfast we talked over our summer plans, what little there were of them. Summer isn’t something that should be completely planned out, but it’s always good to have something substantial to look forward to. We tentatively planned a stop-by at our house – it’s been years since they’ve visited, and it would be lovely to have the kids see where we live. Eventually, the boys found occupation in the family room, as Cameron executed some gymnastic splits and Julian prepared a song on the ukulele.
I wandered in to help Cameron change out outfits for his Lego characters. A bald man wore a dress. A princess spun her hair around and became Sia. Another princess did a back-bend. The imagination bamboozled all boundaries; the power of childhood obliterated constrictions. With a fanciful eye for fashion and color (he wrote a little story on Frida Kahlo which he had colored in bright and bold shades that would have made her proud), Cameron was an exuberant life force, embodying the freedom of a childhood lived to the fullest. I hoped he would stay that way, never changing no matter what.
Andy joined us as Julian readied a song he had just written – and by written I mean he had created the lyrics and music from start to finish – which comes naturally to some, but will always be an insanely impressive feat to someone who only remembers the opening chords to ‘Private Dancer’ on the piano after seven years of weekly lessons. (I can do a bit of ‘The Rose’ too, thank you very much.) Julian is very much a musical prodigy – he’d just shown off by jumping into a couple of Madonna tunes from YouTube. Now his ukulele was strumming to the sound of his own music, his own melody, and his own words. As it was last year, this year his song would be one of the highlights of our visit.
The sun poured into the living room, and after a spat of a quick downpour, summer was once again preening in sparkling beauty. As I loaded the car, I paused by the sundrops along the walkway. They glowed in the sunlight, their cheery yellow petals still holding onto a couple of twinkling raindrops. I waited until the memory was made, then went back inside to say our goodbyes.
BUT WHEN YOU FLY AND YOU’RE FAR AWAY
WHEN IT’S KEEPING ME AWAKE
BUT THE THING THAT IS NEVER GONE AWAY
IS THE LOVE THAT’S BETWEEN YOU AND I…
Greeted with the glow of sundrops, we walked along the mossy brick entrance to begin an all-too-brief visit to our friends Missy, Joe, Julian and Cameron (and their new doggy-addition, Queenie). Their beautiful Connecticut home provided our refuge as we managed to dodge most of the rainstorms that seemed to fall everywhere else last weekend. We had, at my instigation, loosely planned a meal of Southern standards, built around a boozy glass of Southern Peach Sweet Tea. The recipe is simple, provided the making of the tea is done correctly. We’ll begin there, as that’s where it all started:
Southern Peach Sweet Tea
To make the tea, I boiled about 8 cups of water, took it off the heat, steeped it with a few Luzianne tea bags for about five minutes (I’ve been told this is the authentic southern sweet tea ~more authentic than Lipton, if you can imagine), then immediately removed them before adding a good deal of sugar, then refrigerating overnight. That exact order, and the exact timing of the quick tea steeping is what is integral to making it right. (Leaving tea bags in too long leads to bitterness.) Or so those Southern ladies say. Who am I to argue with the South? When followed in this way, the recipe turns out tasty cocktails that go down way too easily, and that’s all that matters.
Doug and Julio joined in for lunch en route to World Pride/Gay Pride/The Biggest Parade the World has Ever Known. On Doug’s advice, Missy turned out a hellaciously divine rack of ribs that had oodles of meat falling deliciously off the bone. Having been raised on tiny ribs with the thinnest strip of meat almost impossibly stuck to the bone, I’ve never been a fan of them. Couple that with the mess they made and I don’t think I’ve ordered them once in my life. This recipe and preparation has changed my whole thinking on them, and Andy is already looking into finding a country rib rack for our next meal. I brought along some collard greens and gluten-free biscuits (for the celiac diva) with jalapeno and bacon, as well as some super-soft ice cream in bourbon mint and peach. Doug and Julio made a cherry pie and some coconut-pineapple rum balls. It was the best meal we’ve had in a while. But that was only the beginning. Better than the food was the company ~ and this remains one of our favorite weekends because it has some of our favorite people.
Work and kids and home ownership have us all scattered throughout New York and Connecticut, so this is one of the few times when we can all get together without pressure or worry or rush. That’s especially nice when Julian and Cameron are involved. It takes time for kids to get comfortable and come out of their shells; luckily we eased out of shyness last year, so this year we moved quickly into the comfort zone and soon enough there was ukulele music, fashion shows, and Lego princess parades.
After Doug and Julio headed to the happy madness of Pride, I went down to the pool with the kids, where we played shark, seaweed and something else. Andy’s back had gone out the night before, so he took a restorative nap. After such a boffo meal, we nibbled on some leftovers before bed and the day, like our stomachs, was suddenly full…
(So was Queenie, who had the last of the coconut pineapple rum balls, without permission.)
Goody goody gumdrops.
Tikki tikki tembo…
Sometimes summer is just one long and crazy rhyming scheme, a waking dream, or a popsicle of cream. A time to be silly, and willy-nilly, and pic-a-dilly. There’s no need to be serious when the times are so delirious. Go to the ends of the earth to find a Friendly’s with a Fribbler. Don’t be such a quibbler! Oh dear, my mind is fried. No fear, my hands aren’t tied. My rear, time will bide.
Soon the summer vines will take a stranglehold, becoming too much to do anything aboutuntil next year. These little sundrops are a reminder that it’s still the time to be frivolous and silly. We can return to our profound posture come fall, and it’s coming sooner than we want or realize. Enough of that pish-posh. We came here to play.
Summer is the time for sun and fun, where the only thing to be done is plotting out the trajectory of a walk or bike-ride. Where the meals are heavy on fresh vegetables and fruit, seasoned with whatever the garden is pushing up, where the glasses of water are tall and sweating, where everything slows down and sighs of contentment are plentiful. We have arrived. Enjoy the moment.
Our clematis, with which we’ve been through quite a lot – is again in bloom, partly because I remembered to help train it up a lamp post (some years I forget and it flops about before I can get its awkward angles properly secured). It’s putting on a lovely show with these purple blooms, and I’m re-energized to making it happy. That will come in the form of some extra manure around its base. There’s already a carpet of groundcover to keep its feet cool, while its upper-branches and blooms get lots of light and warmth. That’s pretty much all you need to keep it coming back for more.
This specimen has been growing for about fifteen years now – I planted it shortly after we moved into our house, and it’s been here in various states of health, happiness, duress, and ennui, and for that I feel an allegiance. As one of the three-year trajectory plants (the first year they sleep, the second year they creep, the third year they leap) it takes some time to get established, but then it’s a stalwart performer. Even when I forget to tie it up and help it rise, it will still throw off a few pretty flowers as it scatters into the lawn. I admire that sort of determination.
How silly humans are.
We send rockets into the air, blow them up, and watch them burn.
Sometimes the unfortunate blow off a few fingers in the process.
All in the name of America.
Home of the brave…
Ahh, America.
How far we have come.
At this point, some might say how far we have fallen.
I’m not going political here, not today. I just want to celebrate the ideals of what our great country was founded upon. Freedom. Justice. Equality for all. A welcoming beacon for all immigrants and refugees. A land where our differences work together to make us strong.
Looking around us today, that seems to be slipping away a bit. I still think the American spirit will endure, that we will, at our heart, reject hate and ignorance and racism. I carry that hope because hope is also at the heart of America. We are a work in perpetual progress.
Happy Birthday to our nation.
Long may her freedom wave.
How are all these people affording month-long summer stays at vacation spots?
Am I the only one who has to go to work?
A Tanqueray and tonic.
A wrap-around porch in Provincetown.
An evening cocktail with a cherished friend.
The drink sat before me with a requisite lime, made by a bartender who learned it instantly and who would remember it for all my time there. My friend Kristen sat beside me as we waited for the rest of our group to make it to the very tip of the Cape. We were all of twenty-five or twenty-six years old, and this would prove to be one of the first, and one of the last, of our youthful vacations together.
At the Gifford House, just down the road from the place we had rented out, a gaggle of gays had already started gathering. In mid to late July, the height and hounding of deep summer had commenced. Men milled about while a few ladies laughed and tore through the place in summer shorts and sun-blonde hair.
It came on the sound system at the bar and everyone except me immediately began singing along. We had apparently landed in the very gay world of ‘Delta Dawn’ – a world I didn’t even realize was slipping away before I even had a chance to learn its wondrous ways. I sat there with Kristen and we looked around in happy amusement. Our extended weekend had started when we boarded the ferry in Boston – I didn’t have a boyfriend and it was already summer and we just wanted to have fun. Kristen was game for anything, so we sat there people-watching, and now listening as the whole place sang along to a song I’d never heard. Making a mental note that this was something I needed to learn, we listened as guys intermittently laughed, joked, talked, smoked, and sang along. It was the end of the 90’s – the end of the world’s innocence. I ordered another Tanqueray and tonic and we moved to the outside porch. It was still light out, and we were going out for dinner. Kristen had a boyfriend – she drew people to her and captivated them with an outgoing friendliness that I adored and envied. That night I was just happy that she was my friend. It emboldened me to be brave, and brave meant that I could flirt with a guy without worry or care.
At the other end of the porch, a handsome man was sizing me up, and I was doing the same. We would go our separate ways before ending up back at this porch by the end of the night. Without Kristen by my side, I had only my own wiles and wit to sustain conversation, and I tended to veer into cutting criticism far too easily. He didn’t seem to mind, and after a while of feeling him out I decided it was better to be kind.
He was cute. I was available. It was the end of the night. We were so young.
Moving shadows, soft moans, summer mugginess, sweaty stickiness, salty sweetness… he came and went and in the coolness of the night I waited for the next chapter to begin. When we saw each other on Commercial Street the next day it was as if we had never met.
How long it seemed to have taken for a man to be a mere footnote in my story, and how soon I’d learn to relegate them to even less. My heart had been slow to understand, but once the lesson was figured out, once I understood the basic mechanism of the thing and how everything related, it was impossible to forget. I would never not be a little cold again. That’s how the heart protects; that’s how the heart heals.
As for Ms. Dawn, she knew her way around heartache. It debilitated her, but she lived with it. Dwelling inside perpetual disappointment is also dwelling within the realm of hope. They are sister spirits, and one is rarely encountered without the other. Not to say that it makes the hurt any less, and sometimes I think the smallest bit of hope is the most dangerous thing in the world. How long had she waited? Is she waiting still?
In Savannah, there’s a statue of a young woman by the river, looking out to the water and waiting for a sailor she loved who never returned. As the boats pass by her, some blow their horns in honor of this woman-in-waiting. In a city renowned for being so haunted, that might be the most haunting story of them all.
In that last summer of youth in Provincetown, we left our own ghosts behind. Friends and strangers, lovers and dangers, they wander the nights of memory, summer phantoms carried on the sweet, rotting scent of privet and salty sea mist.
With all of our modern-day technology, you would think someone could make an oven door that you can actually see through.
A flash of feathers and a fluttering of brown and gray alerted me to the presence of a large creature right across the street from our brownstone in Boston. It was much too large to be a pigeon or squirrel (both regular denizens of the street) and soon enough a head popped up, then went down, then popped back up again behind a car, and as it traversed the sidewalk I saw it was a turkey. More incredible were the four or five baby turkeys waddling in its wake (turklings?) How this turkey family came to be living across the street from me in the middle of a metropolis is a mystery. There must have been a nest in the shaded little square of bushes, and since I’m told turkeys are highly territorial (kids have been attacked while straying into their supposed territory near school bus stops) I don’t see how one would make a nest on a relatively-well-tread street.
Yet there it was. There they all were. Against all odds and reason, they kept to their corner while curious and amused onlookers whipped out their phone cameras and aimed for the best shot. I watched from the safety of our second floor vantage point, puzzling out what circumstances could have brought them to Braddock Park.
In addition to listening about their rumored territoriality, I heard that they were dumb as rocks. Some are so stupid that they reportedly look up at the sky when it’s raining, open their beaks, and drown themselves. I suppose the validity of that is as suspect as their vicious territorial nature. One never knows quite what to believe these days. We watched them a little longer before leaving for a show; the neighborhood children were transfixed and every passer-by paused in befuddled delight. Turns out turkeys make the people come together.
The next morning we looked for them again. Some of the neighbors were looking too, but the turkeys had disappeared. I saw the nosier of them poking around in the little garden, trying to prod anything to come out, but there was no one there. Maybe something got them in the night – a raccoon or possum or dog. Or maybe they had decided they’d had enough of city life and took off to somewhere more rural. More likely it was the work of humans. We’ve always been the most destructive species.
Kicking off this month with the heat of some hunks, here’s a nifty shirtless collection of some gentlemen who have previously graced this site with their lack of clothing. We begin with a beach summer scene featuring perennial Speedo-clad (and unclad) favorite Pietro Boselli. Shine on, summer sun, shine on. And the question remains whether he’s better from the front or the back; judge for yourself with the GIFs on hand.
See also a naked Pietro Boselli here.
Ronnie Woo knows his way around the kitchen, cooking for an impressive living, as well as the gym if we are going by his body. See more of him here.
Tyson Beckford is one of the classic male supermodels, whose looks have lasted far better than some of his female counterparts. And many of his male counterparts for that matter. Check out his naked ass here.
An old standby and a promising newcomer share a pairing here, as Gus Kenworthy poses and pouts, while Thomas Bradfield licks and leers. Ken worthy was completely naked here; Bradfield got into his underwear here.
Chris Salvatore has always been generous in showing off his underwear – his own line especially. We are nothing but grateful, especially for nude shots like this.
Another pair of hotties is Bryan Greenberg and David Beckham. Greenberg’s hunky pecs were on display here; Beckham’s bits were all over this post.
Chris Hemsworth was one of the funniest part of the last Avengers movie, and he has a knack for comedy that makes him almost more endearing than hot. Almost. Because look at Hemsworth’s almost-naked body here.
All the world loves a ginger. Bryce Eilenberg of RuPaul’s Drag Race certainly embodies that adage, as he will show off in bulge shots here.
Finally, and fittingly, bringing up the rear of this post is the rear-end of Will Young, who let it all hang out in the name of music video glory. I don’t have the link for when he was featured here, but scroll down a bit further and type something into the search box. See what comes up…
