Category Archives: General

The juniper berry.

In the immortal words of the Countess, “Get me a bromide! And put some gin in it!”

I haven’t taken a week-long vacation since 1997. Literally. I’m one of those who would rather take two or three longer weekend jaunts in the place of one week away. It’s more interesting that way, and I never get sick of where I am. This year, however, the fates have conspired to have a friend’s wedding in Maine, and our own anniversary a few days later, coincide for one full week of vacation in the state that is ‘The Way Life Should Be’. We’ll begin in Portland today, and finish up in Ogunquit next week.

That means my co-workers, and the great city of Albany, will have a full week’s reprieve from the anal-retentive prissiness and fun that I bring to every party. Unfortunately for Maine, it comes with me.

In the words of Virginia Woolf:

“It was his fate, his peculiarity, whether he wished it or not, to come out thus on a spit of land which the sea is slowly eating away, and there to stand, like a desolate sea-bird, alone. It was his power, his gift, suddenly to shed all superfluities, to shrink and diminish so that he looked barer and felt sparer, even physically, yet lost none of his intensity of mind, and so to stand on his little ledge facing the dark of human ignorance, how we know nothing and the sea eats away the ground we stand on – that was his fate, his gift.”

“Did Nature supplement what man advanced? Did she complete what he began? With equal complacence she saw his misery, his meanness, and his torture. That dream, of sharing, completing, of finding in solitude on the beach an answer, was then but a reflection in a mirror, and the mirror itself was but the surface glassiness which forms in quiescence when the nobler powers sleep beneath? Impatient, despairing yet loth to go (for beauty offers her lures, has her consolations), to pace the beach was impossible; contemplation was unendurable; the mirror was broken.”

The days look to remain in the 90’s, the pool looks to remain inviting, and the only thing that doesn’t look to remain is men when I head out on vacation at the end of the week. For now, I’m here, trudging through the heat and humidity like much of the country, and sometimes the only escape is to look back. To that end, the week in review:

There was gratuitous male skin aplenty, as there tends to be when the temps hit such heights, starting off with Mr. Summer Fun himself, Andy Cohen. Pushing that male nudity envelope even further was the ESPN Body Issue, always such a gift, as it featured a naked Matt Harvey and an equally naked Giancarlo Stanton.

It wasn’t all sports guys who took it off though, Broadway triple-threat Nick Adams got his second Hunk nod, while openly-gay singer/songwriter Tom Goss lost most of his clothing too. Of course, such exposure is par for the course in the day of a male model, as proven by naked male Garrett Neff.

(We also featured John Travolta, on the non-Hunk side of things.)

When I was a kid, I had the whole world in my hands.

It was a week of pricks, weed, and an ongoing project.

A pair of cocktails – one tried-and-true and one brand-new – were presented in the forms of the Bloody Mary and the Rainier Cherry Muddler.

When there are cocktails, there is usually food, and this week I offer two recipes: a traditional Pasta Puttanesca (which I tried for the very first time) and this raspberry summer salad.

Finally, it was the 4th of July, one spent with an adorable family.

Well, let’s just say they don’t hide it. (Dancing with cute shirtless boys rarely does.) The atrocious goatee adds some confusion to the guessing-game, as no self-respecting gay man would do that to his face (I learned that lesson the hard way). As for Mr. Travolta’s sexuality, I cared a lot more when he was cuter.

Growing up in Amsterdam, New York, I never got to meet many people with the name ‘Ilagan’. In fact, aside from my parents and my brother, no one else in the entire state seemed to share our surname. The closest Ilagans we knew were family in New Jersey. When you grow up in a way where you are instantly and always so different from those around you, it sometimes makes you wonder whether you truly exist, and until you have some concrete proof, there is always a bit of doubt.

Proof for me came in the unlikely Christmas gift of the globe seen here. Spinning it around on its offset axis, I ran my hands over the surface, feeling the raised roughness of mountains and the smooth expanses of seas. And then I found my father’s homeland – the Philippines – and examined it closely. There, near the north, was a town whose name I recognized with a thrill: Ilagan. I’d never heard of it, I didn’t know such a place existed. And for perhaps the first time, I felt as if I suddenly existed. My initial unlikely thought was that there was a place where the name ‘Ilagan’ appeared in long lists in the phone book. That was my reference, because the only phone book I had ever seen, the small one that included Amsterdam, merely had our single listing in it ~ the lonely, solitary ‘Ilagan’ that comprised our family, in a town where we were the only ones. Now, seeing that name on the globe, where even Amsterdam or Albany didn’t merit a mark, I felt suddenly part of the world. We were here, or at least we were there.

Being bi-racial never much bothered or even affected me (certainly not as much as being gay would become such a struggle). When some kid in religion class insisted, not maliciously, that I was the Asian character in ‘The Goonies’, I didn’t get upset, I simply thought some people were really, really stupid. (I never did manage to convince him that I was not, in fact, a member of the cast. And to think I worked with Sean Astin before ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and didn’t even know it.)

The power of that moment has stayed with me. The simple act of seeing my own name in print somewhere, even if it was halfway around the world, made me feel less isolated. When you are finally confronted by people who are like you, the world seems a much less-frightening place, and no matter how alone you might be, you feel a lot less lonely.

In a holiday week where we celebrated this country’s Independence, we went from rain to hot-hot-hot in about a day. There is no room for a happy medium here, so hang on, it’s going to be another bumpy summer! Like a tree, I can bend, and you better learn too, or your ass is gonna get broken. Here we go…

We begin with some simple sustenance, and one of the first meals I ever made for Andy. Give me a dish that has some vodka in it, and I’m good to go. It’s the only way to cook. Follow it up with some super scallops, and I’m in gastro-heaven. A beet salad provided some extra color, while this salad had some serious nuts.

 My weekend at Monument Beach, Cape Cod, was remembered fondly, as was this very special meeting.

Libations that begin with the letter ‘L’ provided a light and breezy (if still remarkably potent) accent to the summer scene, with a Lychee Cocktail and a Lavender Cocktail, each refreshing but packing a punch, and both ideal for the season.

The Hunks of the Day were in short supply, represented only by male model Matthew Kirk and reality star Mike Shouhed, but there were a number of random naked men too.

Tori Amos had to go all the way to China to pick up the slack for the missing Madonna timeline.

I got naked not once, but twice. Granted, there was ten years between them, but still…

And last but not least, All American Boy Steve Grand was simply… grand.

It seems that with all the rain this has been one bummer of a summer thus far, but hopefully that changes this weekend. With temperatures slated to soar into the 90’s, and no plans other than pool-side reading and lounging (and perhaps a summer movie), we may conjure the season after all. The book of the moment is ‘The Night Circus’ by Erin Morgenstern, and it’s proven to be perfect summer fare – not too difficult, light on the realism, and just entertaining enough to keep my interest. It’s going quickly though, so I’m on the prowl for the next read. Suggestions are always welcome.

America is a willingness of the heart.

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Vestiges of its power and pull both pre-announce and linger long after its arrival. All that talk of moonlight madness isn’t just talk, it has an effect, I’m sure of it.

It’s pretty too, and mesmerizing, as it moves slowly across the sky, momentarily nestling among the pine trees, dancing with the hawks, diddling behind the clouds. (Yes, I said ‘diddling’.)

June ended on a wild and tempestuous note, with a rash of flash-floods and thunderstorms that shook much of New England up. More on this past weekend’s sojourn to Boston and Cape Cod later, for now let’s put the past in the past, so we can get on with July. Summer needs to turn to high…

It wouldn’t be summer without a Super Speedo post, so that’s how we began.

The pool went and grabbed my iPhone, pulling it to a wet death at the bottom of the shallow end, and despite my quick efforts at retrieval, bag after bag of rice, and a hair-dryer, it was all for naught. $300 later I have a new one (whose battery drains just as quickly as the original) and a new Apple coverage plan to cover two more dips.

Is this the saddest song ever written? I don’t know…

The twins – Emi and Noah – dropped by a for a swim and a cook-out, and they are as cute as ever.

The kitchen was put into use – summer use (which means we grilled, saving the stove and oven for cooler days) – and the results were this quinoa dish and a simple grilled chicken meal.

Shamelessly-shirtless (and pants-less) poses were posted here, here, and here.

Far better bodies were displayed by the Hunks of the Day, Victor Ross and Soren Gear.

Why I don’t need a vacation (but want and will take one, or several, nonetheless).

High-blooming escapades by the likes of lychnis, a variegated dogwood, and some hydrangeas heralded the arrival of summer proper.

Meet the Wolf’s Eye Dogwood. A variegated version of the traditional Chinese dogwood (Cornus kousa), this one packs a double-cream wallop when in bloom. Quite honestly, I’d never been a big fan of variegated foliage until I saw one of these beauties in bloom. The effect was enchanting. I thought the foliage might subdue the power of the blooms, but instead it highlights them, not vying for affection but working in tandem to produce the airy results seen here. As for the leaves themselves, they are little works of art on their own, edged with a creamy border, then dappled with a soft wintergreen center. The look is one of cool elegance, ideal for when the summer kicks the temperatures up.

We can get only so close to the baby robins.

But they are leaving the nest soon.

It goes so fast…