My Boyfriend's Back and You're Gonna Be Sorry

R Man is back from the East Coast, safe and sound, Yay.

On Nov. 9 we’ll have been together 28 years. One night you're standing around a dingy bar's backroom with your dick hanging out and the next thing you know it's decades later, you're living the schmaltzy scenes from Fiddler on the Roof and having conversations like this:

R MAN: Did you give the cat the belt from my green silk robe to play with?

ME: Maybe a little.

You don’t get that kind of relationship without practice. Trust me.

You are Entering a World of Shadow and mrpeenee

I’ve celebrated Halloween by watching old Twilight Zones. You can see them here, complete with cat litter commercials. I remember being a very young boy, absolutely terrified by the Twilight Zone, which my older brothers insisted I watch with them because they knew it scared me. Older brothers are like that.

Since then, I’ve come to realize the thing that really scared me the most was not the stories, but rather, the theme song. It still does. All someone (like, oh, I don’t know, maybe an evil older brother) has to do is start humming doo do doodoo, doo do doodoo and I am still creeped out.

I think only two stories actually scared me. The one with Agnes Moorehead (hey Endora!) as the old witch whose house is invaded by little teeny tiny aliens. Ooh, very scary. And the one with William Shatner seeing the gremlin on the plane’s wing. The scene where he yanked the curtain (on a plane? What?) open and the gremlin had his furry face shoved up against the window just about made me pee my pants. A critic has pointed out the gremlin looked mostly like a retarded monkey, which is quite right and which explains my lifelong terror of retarded monkeys. One shows up in a bar and I am out of there.

Doo do doodoo, doo do doodoo.

Painted Lady

I haven’t neglected the blog, I’ve been paying attention to the cat. There’s a difference. With R Man out of town, I’ve been relegated to the role of single parent. Perhaps a cracked out, meth-head, unwed mother, but one takes ones role models where one finds them. R Man had a conference in Baltimore and took the opportunity of being so near his family to go visit them in Annapolis. I’m not happy having him away all week, but any circumstance that gets him to visit them without me is not one I’m going to complain about. The fact that it is so close to Halloween is just a coincidence. I think.

Also, having him out of the way made dealing with the painters a little easier. Yes, my little plump ones, the painting is done and it looks fab. The black upstairs hall is particularly thrilling, and I would post photos of it, but it turns out shooting pictures of a black stairwell is tougher than it sounds – they all turn out looking like the classic forgot-to-take-the-lens-cap-off pics of the pre-digital age. Just trust me on this, it’s sophisticated and dramatic and cozy all at the same time.

Jason from Night is Half Gone volunteers that he would like to move into the robin’s egg blue closets in the hall. Come on down, I say. We have an empty shelf there just your size.

We also painted the downstairs stairwell red and the foyer a golden-orange with one red wall. I’m not sure about the orange, I was hoping for a lighter hue with more yellow. What we wound up with seems closer to a Cheeto that you find under the couch long after all the other Cheetos in the bag have gone to their reward.

The Blackness Descends

Big doings at Chez peenee. Back in September I lined up our contractor to come over and paint the stairwell and upstairs hall as a birthday surprise for R Man, who was going to be out of town at a conference. He had been complaining that the hall, which is a creamy white with a big skylight in it, poured too much light into his room when he wanted to sleep in. As the Stones say, he wanted to paint it black.

Everything was going to be so cool - R Man would return from Dallas and be confronted with the black hall of his dreams. Unfortunately, our contractor, Jose, went back to El Salvador the week before he was supposed to start, got an eye infection and the airline wouldn't let him fly back while he was infectious. When I think of all the snot slinging low lifes I have shared airspace with and then they screw up my fabulous birthday surprise, it's no wonder I want to slap people.

So I told R Man all about my aborted plans and he very enthusiastically backed me up on revising them to include a later, uninfected date. Jose got back in early October and promised to call us when he could work us in. The call came in this morning and Jose announced he be here Monday at 8:00 AM.

Miraculously, we had gone to the paint store yesterday, so we're all set, all we needed to do was empty the closets in the hall (the insides of which we're having painted robin's egg blue.) Honey, you would not believe how much crap two gay men can stuff into two large linen closets in twelve years. The good news is that most of it is on its way to the SPCA for deserving kitties to sleep on. The bad news is I am wore out from dragging all that shit downstairs.

Also, for an amusingly ironic twist, R Man is leaving at dawn tomorrow for another damn conference. If I hadn't admitted my nefarious schemes, I could have surprised him after all. I do hate cheap irony.

The Working Stiff

The main part of my job is organizing classes we put on which, ina perverse way, is pretty amusing considering I loathe sitting in a classroom being yakked at. I would rather be trapped in an airport terminal. I would rather eat lunch at McDonalds. I would rather have to see some Lady's Secret Place. My whole distaste of the education process was probably a big reason I got kicked out of the University of Texas. Of course, by the time they put me out the door, I was attended so few of the classes I had signed up for, the concept of "in school" or "out of school" was a pretty hazy one anyway.

So imagine my chagrin when a friend insisted that I attend the expo of Business Technology she's putting on Thursday and Friday. Worse, the reason she came to put this together was because I encouraged her to do so, so sneaking out would be difficult. Of course, my abilities at slithering out of a crowded room are pretty impressive, so we'll see.

And you know what else? MJ has offered to join me on a slapping fest, as I mentioned in my post about shopping at Rainbow Groceries, but apparently there's a "law" against it. Something about Battery, I don't know. The outrage. I thought this was supposed to be America, not some nanny state. I do have to commend MJ and Kevin both. The site I was trying to remember is, indeed, Lurid Digs . Thank you both so much, oh smutaterians. For everybody else, if you haven't been there yet, nip right on over. It's pretty hilarious. Scary, too.

Lost: One Website

Doesn't there seem to be, as Miss Tim Gunn would say, A Lot of Look going on here? If you're posed naked with your ass poking at the camera, tarted up in your best Roy Rogers ensemble and the viewer's eye is distracted by your bibelot cabinet, perhaps you should consider restaging the shot.

Plus, I'm pretty sure Diane von Austinberg and I have picked over each and every one of those adorable crystal whatnots in various junk stores over the years. And discarded them.

And I am not about to consider whom he might be tipping his hat to outside those partially drawn blinds. Are his neighbors used to this or is he just friendly?

All of this is in way of a plea from mrpeenee. Somewhere there is a terribly amusing website that comments on photos, much like this, that they find on personal ads. I run across it every now and then and immediately forget its name. If you know what I'm talking about, please pass along the url. No shame will be attached to your ability to provide this, honest. I think it's something like "Regrettable Decors," but I'm not sure.

Thank you in advance.

Wet Times

I never consider my office particularly cozy except during those rare San Francisco storms, like we had yesterday. Black skies, drenching rain, flooded streets, the whole thing. And there I was, looking out from the sixth floor feeling smug. Then, by the time I was ready to go home, the clouds had rolled by.

It's a sweet life.

On the Town with Peenee

So, once again, my lucky underpants did not let me down. Saturday was a lovely quiet day.
We started out with a vigorous round of Catch the Scrap of Paper with Saki. He won, he always does. I think he cheats. On the upside, I got through it with no flesh wounds. Yay.

R Man yakked it up with our Michigander friend Professor Puffy Pants. R Man was, as usual, very nicely turned out for a morning of not doing much.

We went over and snagged the Urban Street Pirate. This is some of the Pirate work. Candy Darling

and a self portrait, Tim the Baptist. Having talented friends is always a plus, I think.

I have fancy new shades. I have them because I am cool.

I mentioned our favorite restaurant, Chow, has finally reopened It's still as good as ever, thank heavens, but I made a terrible mistake by adventurously ordering egg foo yung for breakfast. Turned out a bad idea, made worse by the fact everybody else had deliciousness on their plates. Bastards.

We went on a grocery run at the latter day hippie, lesbian, communist, worker-owned collective, vegetarian Rainbow Grocery where an excessively earnest fellow shopper rebuked me for taking photos. He explained "The Whole Food people are always trying to steal their ideas." Sometimes it all I can do not to start slapping everyone in reach.

Carrots as proprietary information. Don't tell the vile Whole Foods, whatever you do.

Cherries on Folsom Street are blooming. In October. Who knew the End Times would be so attractive?

Artsy

I'm also very fond of the Fountain of Neptune in Florence.
I am very cultured.

Ride 'em

This is one of my favorite statues, Theseus and the Minotaur, at the Victoria & Albert. In looking for a picture of this, I was struck by how consistently all the published ones are pretty much this orientation, head on from the front. One supposes the bearing is favored because it is the tamest. The statue is located in the intersection of two halls, so when I first saw it, I was looking at it from the side and the impression of it portraying a humpy young man being butt-fucked by a studly bull thang was most pronounced. In fact, the impression was emphasized by the angle making it look like his club is his Club, if you know what I mean, rising stiffly from his groin.

I know plenty of high minded people are offended by this kind of homocentric interpretation; the work, just like the myth, represents man overcoming evil or his worse nature, the concious over the dark unconcious, the super-ego over the id. But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and a half bull chimera being straddled by some marble porn butt is buggery.

Shakin' All Over

The 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake is coming up on Saturday and the city had a drill for earthquake preparedness (what a clumsy noun) today. Apparently nobody wants to think about bad news on a Saturday. Sirens went off a moment ago and we all ducked under our desks, even me, like a good little boy. I should have been thinking disaster thoughts; instead, I was realizing what a nice place for a nap that particular corner would be. I’ll have to bear that in mind.

I’m just not good about earthquakes, I was raised in a swamp, after all. I was getting my hair cut when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. Coincidentally R Man was also getting his do done a block away. We have agreed to never have our hairs cut simultaneously since. It’s the least we can do for seismic safety. The earthquake only lasted 15 seconds and by the time I figured out was going on, it was over. So much for duck, cover and piss your pants. I was still staring at the Vietnamese lady who had been cutting my hair as she huddled under the counter, squawking like a chicken, when everything finished shaking. She offered to finish my hair when she emerged weeping, but I passed. Something about the way she was trembling put me off. I’m sensitive that way. I walked around for a couple of weeks with half-cut hair. Nobody noticed.

We figure we’ll have to walk home from work after the next one, even though my office has massive stockpiles of supplies all ready for us to hunker down here. The thought of surviving a disaster and then living with my coworkers for any length of time, even if my cubicle does seem to have a nice nap corner, is a grim one. I plan on taking my chances hiking through the Mission homeward bound.

The Return of Whatshisname

Hello? HELLO? Is this thing on? How do you work this? Where am I?

It's been very kind of everyone to be concerned about mrpeenee's absence, snarkiness included. I have no excuse - I'm through being sick, I didn't have anything better occupying me, I've simply been lazy and unmotivated. The laundry piles up, voicemails go unanswered, and mrpeenee remains a dusty echo. But I'm back! And I have ... nothing to report. When you've been lying around doing nothing, it's hard to come up with juicy tidbits. Not that I mind imitating sediment, still and all....

Let's see. Hmmm. I dug up and moved a bed of liriope. Our favorite restaurant, Chow, reopened FINALLY after a grease fire last month. We built numerous fires of our own, but in the fireplace, mostly because Saki the Evil and Adorable cat demands them. R Man found a cd of Peter Paul and Mary's greatest hits, which I have listened to with my teeth gritted until I may need dental intervention. You know, the yoozh.

Also, we've had word from the much missed Thombeau of Fabulon. He's doing well, his breakup with Fabulon was amicable, no hard feelings, it was just too much work keeping a nonstop stream of fabulosity coming for his demanding fans. But I do miss the wacky splendors of it all.

I close with an image that is a salute to it. Fabulon, how I miss you.