Farrah hood

I wanted to mourn the putting away of my winter clothes, so I went with Mary to dinner at Acme, wearing my hooded coat from Diesel. I asked Mary to take my picture, and when I looked at the result, I noticed that the hood made me look like I had Farrah Fawcett hair.

What are your thoughts on Farrah Fawcett? When she died last year, I read an article on Salon that called her the "pretty girl reaching for depth." I was moved by that epitaph, as I've always sort of seen myself as a "deep girl reaching for prettiness." Salon wasn't the only one who offered a remembrance of Farrah, of course. In fact, the publishing company where I work put out a book about her last year, and it ... ahem ... underperformed. (Ah, well. We've all been there, book.) I think that people resist the effort to embrace a re-contextualization of a life that was basically blameless, a life lived in a seeming pursuit of joy and happiness. Perhaps that's to our credit as humans. Personally, when I am on line at the supermarket and glance at a tabloid headline that reads "Such-and-such-actor's sad final days" before the actor is even dead, it gives me a chill. Whose final days aren't sad, I wonder? Sometimes even my not-so-final days have a tinge of sorrow.

Mary and I went out to dinner on Valentine's Day. Like most years, I was happy to say goodbye to Valentine's Day even before it arrived. Goodbye, Valentine's! Goodbye, winter! Until next year, hooded coat! And goodbye, Farrah Fawcett.

Soft-soled shoes

Today was my annual trip to the podiatrist to have my hoof sanded down. I have sustained many lingering injuries over the course of my life - a mysterious fractured foot, repetitive-stress wear and tear to my knees from obsessive running - and, during the year, these injuries lead to the buildup of callouses on my feet. At the injuries' worst, I feel like Black Beauty or Seabiscuit, two horses whose own foot problems led to high-stepping drama on the racing circuit. Unlike Black Beauty, however, I don't have to be destroyed; instead, once or twice a year, I go to a podiatrist to have the callouses shaved off. I like my current podiatrist, but on occasion I have felt that other podiatrists were getting more satisfaction from handling my feet than could possibly have been intended. I suppose that, were I a "foot man," I would become a podiatrist, as well. No one speaks of "foot men" anymore these days - have you noticed that? Perhaps they have gone and retained themselves a good publicist.

Today, my podiatrist idly inquired whether I had watched the Grammy's, and, rather than replying, I went on a strange tear about internet rumors about Justin Bieber. That he is really a 50-year-old man with a degenerative disease. That Usher is his lover. Etc., etc. Actually, I have not actually seen the rumors personally, but they are related to me by the young people in my department at work. Sometimes I think they make things up to tell me to get a reaction out of me, because they think I am insane. But I am merely a harmless eccentric ...

I left the podiatrists' office with a spring in my step, and a bottle of fungicide in my pocket. (I have a mysterious discoloration on my right big toe, and it has persisted, surprisingly, for years. This spring, I vow to wear sandals without socks for the first time in recent memory, whether it makes me even more of a pariah amongst the gays than I currently am). I looked down at my soft-soled shoes - the cross to bear of anyone with recurrent callouses - and mused to myself that this is often how I picture myself, when I think of myself: as a pair of shoes, walking down the street. Of course, this is because I can't literally look at myself, unless I am looking in a mirror. I can only look down at my legs and feet, and venture a hopeless guess as to the rest.

Bookcourt

Wearing black Levi's and some old short-sleeve Paul Smith shirt with what appears to be sea anemones on it, I went to Bookcourt in Brooklyn. Two of my authors, including the lovely Simon Van Booy, were on a three-person panel on romance and philosophy. My author Andrew Shaffer (GREAT PHILOSOPHERS WHO FAILED AT LOVE) brought a prize wheel with him (!) from Iowa and they did a little philosophical game show. My ticket was called, and I sat in the hot seat and answered some question about philosophy. I don't remember what the question was, but I won a chocolate. I know that John Reed from the Brooklyn Rail, whose voice I sometimes hear in my head like a moral compass, would say that it was corrupt of me to win at a game that I had helped set up. But what is the book business if not corrupt? (I love the word "corrupt" - my father called me that once when I was a child, and I still hear it as though pronounced with his voice's rich, majestic timbre.)

The room was full of hot straight guys, which always puts me in a bad mood. The other panelist, Todd Colby, was the only guy there whom I thought could be "funny," but a quick Google search the next morning revealed that he has a wife. And also that he has terrible luck and has barely survived fires and such, so probably not the best match for me, anyways. I like to be the unlucky one in any relationship, and I usually am.

Remember when a guy's ambiguous sexuality could become fodder for a years-long, ultimately unrequited crush? (I still think of you now, Steve from Zido's.) Now, thanks to Google, my hopes are dashed within hours, not years. I'm sure that's for the best. Now, after meeting him, I am sure that my email address will be added to Todd's mailing list, and I will get emails soon inviting me to a reading he's doing in Brooklyn somewhere. Thanks to Google, I will file these emails away in a folder called "To be wistfully ignored," a folder that, strangely, is full to overflowing. (Anyway, don't people realize that people who live in Manhattan, like me, pay extra every month so that we don't have to go to Brooklyn?)

Several of my most existential questions that evening received an answer, or, rather, a temporary salve, in the form of the reading, the ersatz game show, and a nice dinner afterwards with Mary, who accompanied me. But my most pressing question, in the end, was not answered to my satisfaction. Why does Andrew Shaffer have a prize wheel?

Idi Amin for TopShop

Everyone at work loved my blouse today! It was a short-sleeve button-up shirt from Marc by Marc Jacobs, which I daringly paired with some light-blue corduroys from Club Monaco. High on the compliments I was receiving for the shirt, I went over to Alyse's, where I came down to earth by helping her clean her apartment. This entailed unpacking a vast trunk of past outfits from her recent summer abroad in Europe, where she took lots of pictures and lots of lovers, most of whom gave her some scrap of fabric to remember them by. We breathed in the musk of these emotionally unavailable men, and it made our heads spin. I took the pieces out of the trunk, one by one, and their beauty transported me to other worlds, other times. "What a beautiful bikini!" I exclaimed while holding one piece, but it turned out to be a handkerchief. (Whew!) "Look at this exquisite Israeli cloth!" I cried while fingering an item that turned out to be a Louis Vuitton scarf. Everything seemed so exotic to me - and much of it seemed vaguely African. What I thought was a Moroccan scarf turned out to be a blouse. What I deemed a Bangladeshi shepherd's cloak was actually a pair of pants. We became consumed with the fun of mis-interpreting fashion, and invented new lines, new designers, for her outfits. I called one blouse "Nora for Target." (Nora is a friend of hers who is a successful actress, if fond of simple styles). Emboldened, I called the next item out of the trunk - which was ill-advised and overly ambitious - "Isaac Mizrahi for Sears." Alyse countered that the belt I'm wearing as a sash in this picture was "Idi Amin for TopShop." ! Where could we go from that one? Where - I ask you!? My cousin beat me at my own game!

Hugo Boss socks

I used to say that whenever I date, I at least get a pair of socks out of it. This became true again recently, with a young fellow named Mark. We had an innocent date, and then another innocent date, which was a new thing I was trying - no sex for a while. But he slept over, and, being frisky gays in NYC at the beginning of a new decade, we played "Space Invaders" with each other's joysticks. (That's a clever euphemism I just made up). In the morning, he woke up before me, and I heard him looking about my apartment and making clucking noises. I just stayed in bed, silently wondering what sort of judgments he was forming about me, based on my messy apartment. Manhattan gays are all such li'l Martha Stewarts. To me, being gay means dirtiness and rock music and protesting on bridges and drunken evenings that may end up in jail. To my peers in the gay milieu, though, it means cleanliness and emulating straights and sconces. What the fuck is a sconce?! When we'd been getting ready for bed, the Colonel jumped into the bed with us. "Ahhh!" Mark screamed. "The cat's in the bed! The cat's in the bed!" I laughed at him then, a complicated laugh filled with love for my cat and derision for cat-fearers and of the peace and wistfulness of knowing that it won't work out, ever, between me and the fellows. I never saw Mark again. But he left behind his Hugo Boss socks, which I've worn at least once since then. They are really nice socks!

New Year's Eve

I went with Chris to see Hedda Lettuce on New Year's Eve, at Chelsea Clearview Cinemas. Hedda did a "multimedia" presentation of "Mommy Dearest," which was totally hilarious. I laughed until I practically cried! But I'm always thisclose to tears, you know, so that doesn't mean anything. Then we watched Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper in Times Square on the movie screen. I don't know about you, but there's something about New Year's Eve that gets me choked up in the end, every time. I start the evening bitter, but get practically sentimental as midnight draws nigh. As the ball dropped, I was thinking about how every day is like New Year's Eve for me, because I love changing personas, lifestyles, thought patterns, like I love changing outfits. (Here I'm wearing John Smedley and BDG). Just as I was overcome with emotion and was about to stand in solidarity with the other people in the theater, the woman in front of me, who apparently was holding a fistful of glitter, threw it carelessly upwards, and it fell in one big clump in my lap. Chris took this picture. This is me, then, ready to stand and face 2011, if not for the lapful of glitter.

Me and Cherita and Yolanda at Westville

Cherita came back into town, and we went with Yolanda for my birthday lunch! Okay, this lunch was several months late, but I'm so happy we're keeping this tradition going even though Cherita lives in LA part of the year now. Since our last birthday meal (Yolanda's, in September) Cherita has moved, Yolanda has moved on, and someone has moved in with me, just temporarily. We went to Westville, my new favorite restaurant. Sam, the elfin busboy I have taken a growing but doomed interest in, was not working that day. Oh, well. He probably got a new book of spells, or was at the podiatrist getting his cloven hoof sanded. Elves are so cute! In this picture, Cherita is wearing a hat she made herself, Yolanda is wearing curve-hugging couture, of course, and I'm still working last year's Diesel coat, bought on sale at Overstock.com, but still mildly fierce. Rock it!