Nice legs!

Daniel and I went to the Highline, because that is the thing to do. Daniel has complained about his legs to me in the past, saying that they are so pale he hates to wear shorts. But he is wearing shorts in this picture, some white ones with blue stripes. Daniel actually has the best legs I've seen this summer, and I hope he continues to wear shorts. (Update: while he was observing the Pride Parade yesterday, someone handed Daniel a sticker that read "nice legs!" Really, gays? A sticker, even?)



How is it that some fellows have amazing musculature without even working out? I, on the other hand, pump iron mercilessly almost every day, and still am considered a "hard gainer" by the trainers at NYSC. I wish I had Daniel's figure, but I must make due with my African and Dutch genes, forever storing fat for an apocalypse that surely has already come.



After we disembarked from the Highline, we went to meet up with Johnathan and Christina for the "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work" documentary in Chelsea, at which I laughed my head off. On the way there, we passed a blind albino, walking slowly with a cane. A blind albino! Isn't that just God saying "f*ck you?"

Cherita and Yolanda

It was Cherita's birthday last week, and Yolanda and I took her out to dinner last night to celebrate. For the last ten years or so, whenever it's Cherita's, Yolanda's, or my birthday, we go out and have dinner, just the three of us. I wish one of us was a documentary filmmaker, as that would be an interesting movie - a yearly look at the lives, loves, and outfits of three college friends who are a little too into clothing.


Yolanda, of course, is the most stylish of us - she dresses people for a living, and just finished up years of work as a stylist on the t.v. series "Ugly Betty." She's starting work on a movie in July. In my recent marathon session of apartment cleaning, I dug up the debut issue of Black Hairstyles and Trends, the magazine she worked at for a minute in the mid-90s. I'm so sentimental - I couldn't bring myself to throw it away, even now. I'm sure even she doesn't own that issue now. Maybe I have a hoarding problem. Last night, Yolanda told us about the fellow she's been dating, and I was struck, as usual, about how quiet she can be. We probably would never have heard about this major change in her life if we hadn't asked! I wish I wasn't so loud-mouthed - I feel like I drown out my friends sometimes.



Cherita's outfits are the most idiosyncratic of the three of us - to me, she often seems like she's planning ahead for grandmotherhood - or senility. She had just come from an extended trip to Los Angeles, where she liked one guy and dated another. I can totally relate to that kind of trip, Cherita.


Yolanda called me "skinny minny," but in reality I've gained back most of the weight I lost this year. I'm going to stop eating chocolate during the day, that's what I'm going to do.

I took this picture as we were walking away from Hill Country. Thanks, ribs!

MARY reading

I did a reading for MARY Literary at KGB Bar this past Sunday. I read my story "Here's what happens at the movies," and I wore a t-shirt with a bunch of birds on it. I bought the shirt years ago from Urban Outfitters, but it's hard to wear, so I don't wear it often. Look how horrible I look in this photo! Whenever I see pictures of myself, I usually think, "m-m-m-monster!" Really, is this how I look? Well, at least my biceps are poppin'. Some of William's entourage was there - including Aaron and William's mysterious boyfriend. (I recently used a mental image of William's boyfriend when I needed help "finishing up," but then I was overcome with feelings of shame). I came to the reading with one fellow who I have romantic feelings for, but which it probably won't work out with. Teresa says you can't sleep with a friend and have it still be romantic. Then it's just lust. Bah! I'll settle for lust, Teresa!

At the reading, Teresa and Vanessa sat together. Johnathan sat with Sloane. Matt's hot girlfriend Josie was there, too, and the amazing writer Pete Pavia. I don't know who took this photo - it was either Oscar or Paolo. I noted with interest that, although I read a story about pedophilia, the audience was still with me 100% when I finished. I seem to have really found my niche.

Endomorphic

Nicky was in town, and we decided to go to Filene's Basement. Humph! Nicky spotted this mannequin and pronounced it "endomorphic." That's a new word I've learned today. I like this mannequin's t-shirt, and I don't think the mannequin is endomorphic at all. Poor li'l mannequin! You're really quite a catch, when I think about it. A nice body and a missing head - definitely a cheap date, if nothing else!

Throughout the evening, I was giving Nicky a crash course in using Grindr, the iPhone's G.P.S. app for loose gays. Nicky isn't gay, but he wishes he was, so that sex would be ubiquitous for him, as it seems to be for the gays. Oh, Nicky. Sex may be ubiquitous, but people become less fun when they've had too much fun, as it were. These days, I mainly use Grindr to send messages to my friend Daniel, who has complained to me before about friends of his becoming "endomorphic" and him losing interest in them. This was not a good time to quit smoking, I'm sure, as I've been eating like an endomorph for over a week now. Oh, well. If I hadn't quit smoking now, I might have burned down my apartment while Daniel was asleep inside, which I'm sure would also have irritated him.

Really, there is much to discover about oneself during a visit from a friend, in the early days of summer.

The pilgarlic

In 1998, I had a word-a-day calendar in my cubicle at Lehman Brothers in San Francisco. I don't remember a single word from that calendar except for the word "pilgarlic." Pilgarlic! Who has ever used that word in conversation? Apparently, it means a "bald man," and also a "sneaking fellow." How my friend Hilary, who worked at the next cubicle over, and I would laugh about that word!

I certainly wasn't laughing three years later, when I met a real-life pilgarlic. I met him somewhere on the LES - I forget where. He mentioned that he couldn't get home that night, and, because he seemed like a really nice person, I offered to let him crash at my place. How crazy of me! We spent the night talking, lying in my bed, and he told me several times how he "got" me. He suggested that the world was insane, not me. (I already knew that). By the morning we were making plans with each other in them. He went to buy some pot, or somesuch. Then, I got a call from my bank. He was attempting to make a cash withdrawal across the street! Of course, this can't happen - he didn't know my PIN, although he apparently had made several inaccurate guesses. What were his guesses? "Guitar?" "Vodka?"

Over the course of the day, my pilgarlic made a few purchases with a couple of credit cards he had also taken. A coat at the Burlington Coat Factory. A Metrocard. I canceled the cards, and the charges were reversed, but he did get to keep the merchandise. I got to keep this pair of his socks, which he carelessly left behind and which I've clung to all these years, wanting to at least get something out of that night. He got so much - I got his socks. I went to the local police precinct and filled out a police report, thinking that that was the end of the story.

A few months later, I was boozing it up at the Boiler Room when I saw him again. I ran into the street to call the police. He ran after me, followed by Xavier, my favorite bartender. The pilgarlic shouted at Xavier: "This man (me) is an alchoholic!" Xavier and I both burst into laughter, and I said, "Oh, we all are!" How silly of him - he was at the Boiler Room, after all, not Le Cirque.

Anyway, he jumped into a cab and sped off. I grabbed the door handle of the cab, but it kept driving, dragging me down the street. I let go and tumbled, it seemed, back into the Boiler Room. Xavier wanted to buy me a drink. I wasn't so sure that was the right idea, but it was nice to be led somewhere, so I let myself be led. The manager of the Boiler Room, whom I hated, approached me and demanded to know what had happened. I declined to tell him. He insisted, saying that he could "86" me. I told him to go ahead, and flicked my lit cigarette at him, catching his shirt on fire for just a second. It suddenly got very serious in the Boiler Room, of course, and EVERY bartender in the joint told me to get out. I was, apparently, banned for life. I calmly told the manager I would gladly get out, but that first I was finishing my drink, which I did. Then I walked out, highly amused and ashamed, both - a simultaneous duo of emotions that even today I seek out. I STILL don't go back to the Boiler Room, which speaks both to the power of the "86" and the sneaking power of the pilgarlic.

I have clung to the pilgarlic's socks for years now, but by now, in the year 2010, they are full of holes. I threw them away this morning. Come, quietly, to your own conclusions.

SOMETHING RED / Babatunde's shirt

I went last night to the launch party for Jennifer Gilmore's new novel SOMETHING RED. Isn't that the best title ever?! I had some dumb thought that I would wear the shirt that Babatunde custom-made for me and outshine Jennifer at her own party! But, as you can see, she easily defeats me in that fashion battle. (But Babatunde, all day long, I was getting compliments at HarperCollins on the shirt. It was a hit! I had a bit of a date later in the evening, so I brought a change of shirts in case the shirt was too "gay" for a first date. I needn't have worried! When I arrived on the date, he was wearing denim jeans and a denim jacket - a fashion faux pas that secretly thrilled me). Also of note about the party: Albert Mobilio from Bookforum called me a slut!

I used to be Jennifer's assistant at Harcourt, and now we go to each other's events all the time. At my last gig, at the Living Room, she called out "sing an Indigo Girls song!" and I responded by playing the first verse of "Freebird." I don't know from the Indigo Girls!

I'm reading SOMETHING RED right now, and will be writing a review of it, too. It's buzzing with paranoia and resentment, and, though set mostly in the 80s, seems to have lessons within it that are right up-to-the-minute. And, lurking within, there's something else, too. A call to arms? A jeremiad? I'm halfway through, so I won't say too much else about the book, except that I am looooving it. I love Jennifer, too. Buy her book! :)

Alia's missed connections

Alia H. was in the building for a meeting, so I met up with her for a drink afterwards. We went to the French restaurant where yet another of my emotionally unavailable boytoys works. (But we didn't go to his section, we stayed downstairs. I'm too old to stalk anymore, and plus, I've already enjoyed his company many times. And I am always afraid that he will accost me in the restroom of the restaurant, as he's warned me he will! Restrooms are for peeing!)

Alia is famous for having had five "missed connections" entries written for her, which is crazy to think about! But today, Alia was mourning a real missed connection - she just broke up with her boyfriend! Arg, I liked him for her. Such a sad situation. We commiserated about that sort of stuff, then, as a joke, I showed her the "GrindR" app that's all the rage with the kids. Right away, she coerced me into emailing some nearby guy, and now me and the guy are just as chatty as teenagers. She's such a good cyber-wing-woman! I forced her to accept a couple of hugs from me as partial payment.

I loved her outfit, but then when she took off her scarf and coat, she was wearing the same thing she always does! I love her consistency, and her ways in general. We will movie it up soon, Alia H. Stay strong. Doomed relationships lead to better ones. Things happen for a reason. Hugs are therapeutic.