Hell in a Handbag. A Nice Handbag, but Still...

Sweetums, once again mrpeenee begs that you bear with me. We're fighting back the world of chaos on multiple fronts. Before we delve into the sordid details, here's some houseboy bits to make us all feel a little cheerier.

Chaos, the one: Project Runway begins shortly and I have given up cable. What a fool I was.

Chaos, part deaux: Saki, the evil and adorable cat has gone on a hunger strike over the kitchen renovation. It's too disruptive, I've moved his food bowl, the kitchen is sealed off, he's mad. He hasn't eaten since Monday night. Today, in case you haven't been paying attention, is Thursday. Consequently, Nursemrpeenee has loaded up a syringe (oh, I just happened to have it lying around) with chicken broth and am occasionally blasting it down his throat. Yes, we're living in a kitty nourishment shooting gallery.

Chaos III: the side effects of my AIDS medicine, Atripla, which I had long since overcome, have decided to rear their nasty little heads. It's possible this is related to the fact that I was absentmindedly taking two of the pills each night instead of the prescribed one. I have no idea how long I have been stumbling along like this. Last night I looked down at the dose in my hand and thought "Wait a minute...."

So now that I'm not poisoning myself semi-accidentally, maybe things will get better. Till then, I can look forward to waking up each night in an agitated panic, gasping for breath like a crazed poodle and, worst of all, in the middle of a hot flash. Yes, it's true; my HIV meds bring on the menopause.

I've looked this up, out of the almost 800 men participating in a test on this drug, only one reported this side effect, feeling like he was nailed down beneath the french fry heat lamp at Burger King. Great, I win the lottery.

In happier news, the widely reported birthday of internet malcontent NormaDesmond (Happy B.D., old girl) has reminded me that Jason, over at Night is Half Gone posted recently that his version of Aries, my own sweet, sweet horoscope identity is this

God love you, Jeisean.

Kichenless

Kitchen, before

Kitchen, during. Hopefully.

I decided to wrap up Gay Pride Week by renovating my kitchen. That's gay, right? Actually, the timing was my contractor's idea; he shows up when it's your turn in his schedule and you had better take it when you can get it.

So he blew in this morning and ripped everything out. Saki is not feeling the love about strangers banging around in his house and resents being locked in one room away from the action and temptingly open doors, even if it is the room he would be hiding in anyway.

I'm just replacing the counters, tiling the backsplash and having the cabinets stripped and re-stained. No new cabinets, no new floors, no new appliances. Still the whole thing will take the better part of a month which means on top of all the other "no's," no kitchen. The big holdup are the countertops. I'm having them made from the scraps left over from when they cut new granite counters. They grind up the scraps and mix it with resin and cast some obnoxiously eco-hip material. Apparently, it is then hand-polished by blind nuns who have taken vows of cabinetry, at least if the price is any indication.

Anyway, after today's demo there's a gap of a couple of weeks while it's being poured and set, so no kitchen for mrpeenee until the middle of July. Think Bastille Day. Already I hate living La Vida Sans Cochina. I had to empty all the cabinets and drawers last night and carefully set aside a bag of snack products to live on, which I promptly lost in the chaos.

I assume Saki and I will be fighting over the cat food soon.

Gaily Proud, Proudly Gay

Every few years, mrpeenee overcomes his aversion for the gay pride parade and celebration thing and decides to attend. Every few years, mrpeenee is a sucker. This year, I noticed several gay blogs hectoring readers into participating in the parades around the country: gay civil rights are won not through complacency, they would shrill; you owe it to those who came before and lack this opportunity; a show of solidarity in the face of growing conservatism is important. And so I went and remembered, once again, despite agreeing with the high-minded sentiments, I do not like these gay pride celebrations. I find them tedious and crowded and shrill. My favorite memories of gay prides gone by were the ones where R Man and I would sneak down for lunch in the Castro, which was empty while all the reveling tourists were in the Civic Center and then come home to read.

Here's pretty much what today looked like

crowded, hot, filled with people I would not be enthused about sitting next to on a subway; not enough cute boys; a block long line to get in the fetish area (and honey, I can see that at Blow Buddies any weekend night I want to) and, in general, nothing that interested me. It was just another big street fair, with the same skeevy chicken fajita purveyors poisoning the unwary, speeches I couldn't hear and didn't want to listen to, and gangs of people rushing aimlessly around.

I wanted to like it. Honest. I tried to be open to it, to get into the mood, but the mood seems so artificially hedonistic and gay, like all those boa-wearing celebrants are just trying too hard. And Bank of America can put their GLBTQ employee task force in matching tee shirts all they want, I'm still not going to open an account there.

Nevertheless, here's some pictures I took.

Secret Agent Fred and his friend helped make the scene more bearable. So did some vicodan I took while I was standing behind a dumpster next to a cop. I am such a wild dog.

Tits. Everybody likes tits.

I asked the is guy "Can I take you picture?" He said no, but by then I already had (You need to

move fast around mrpeenee.) Sorry, bitch.

This guy, on the other hand, was very sweet about encouraging me to photograph his rather lovely man teats.

Steamworks, the bathhouse in Berkley, was advertising with high quality meat.

He was very nice when I asked him to turn around again and show us his butt. He even laughed when I said I was sure that wasn't the first time he's heard that. Harharhar. mrpeenee: crackin' em up in aisles.

More Steamworkers. Let me point out I have been a regular habitue of the old joint and I have NEVER seen specimens like this toiling away there. I must go on the wrong shift.

This is what most of the parade looks like, the wrong people in thongs.

I thought this was adorable; an adorable muscle boy and his adorable mother hanging at Pride with slightly less adorable boyfriend. Isn't that adorable?

I don't know what these guys were selling, but I liked their technique: large bare muscles.

Again, product seems unclear,

But the old tar seems like he might be interested in a pair. Or two. Or a six pack. Whatever.

Sling shot. He had a girl sort of hanging on him, but so was his chubby guy friend. Who knows what's going on?

Speaking of who knows what's going on, I was never ever able to discover what was so hilarious about this guy's back, but by then we were headed out and I had some more vicodan calling to me, so I wasn't pressing the matter.

The Refined Life. Sort Of

Darlings, we're off to the theatuh on Friday evening to see what Miss Sandra Bernhard has to say about things. Current things. We saw her here several years ago and were delighted with her efforts, so I'm looking forward to the show. It takes a lot to get me out of the house of an evening these days. I probably wouldn't even go this time if I didn't remember a sketch I saw her do back in the dark ages imitating Christine McVie living life as a restaurant hostess after she had received an eye injury from the flying fringe of Stevie Nicks' shawl. Pretty funny stuff.

Also, just now in our terribly quiet little neighborhood, I heard a racket out front and when I went to look (I had to, it was upsetting Saki and he demanded a report) it was not the skunks or coyotes I expected, but an actual fight. Fisticuffs. A brouhaha. Just as I was fixing to yell "I'm calling the cops" (which is a phrase I used with fair regularity when I lived in the French Quarter but haven't since we escaped to San Francisco) someone beat me to it. Damn. I hate when that happens.

Once we were standing on our Chartres Street balcony in the French Quarter with friends chatting and getting loaded when we saw a couple ambling up across the street. The gentleman kept repeating "Oh, bayby, bayby, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." The Lady, without breaking stride, turned, punched him in the jaw and dropped him, as they say, lack a bag of dirt and kept walking. He got up, still apologizing and caught up with her by now in mid-block at which time she punched him again. He managed to keep his feet, barely, and proved himself unable to learn his lesson because when he pulled up next to her she popped his sorry ass yet again and knocked him down, yet again. They then passed out of our sight and lives, but they remain a symbol of love to me. Oh, l'amour.

You know what else is a symbol of love? This.

mrpeenee, Queer

What could be more appropriate for Gay Pride week than Cyndi Lauper's birthday? I love this remake of her old Money Changes Everything. I think her voice is better than ever and she's toned down the idiosyncratic yips and yaps and barking she used to decorate her singing with. Plus she's rocking a zither, or as much of it as she can reach around her enormous knockeroonies, and some guy is playing a squeezebox.

Are you sufficiently gaye? Find out. Get your Gay card on.

Tip: raise your score by answering “yes” to everything just like the real mos. “Wanna drink?” “Suck my dick?” “D&D free, right?” I would have had a perfect score, but I hit the last question, which implies black and brown do not go together, and I had to refuse to lower my standards by saying yes. I know they’re shooting for sartorial solecisms, but I also have my eye on an antique chair upholstered in black leather with brown velvet stripes I’m mad for. Plus, if you really think black and brown don’t go together, you have obviously not been paying enough attention to Kristen Bjorn’s smut.

Tragically, in light of mrpeene’s devotion to celebrating queer sensibilities, he has sprained some stupid tendon in his right hand. Since I am right handed, this is getting in the way of a number of things I need to do, things like grab a bottle of Mineragua (my new fave bebeda,) or clutch pearls when shocked, or snatch up a baseball bat, or lots of things. Lots of things.

OK, so baseball bats don’t really come my way that often.

Hot Time, Summer in the City

idntitapity. Indeed. What could be more of a pity than the fact that on Sunday when I was running around the Castro with friends in from out of town, the place was infested with more cute boys than I have ever seen there at one time, and yet today, when I was there armed with my camera, it was cuteboy-free. Dammit.

Castro, sans cuteboys

Where is everybody?

And what a fabulous first day of summer it was, you would think the ideal time to lure out muscley youths who had forgotten their shirts at home. Many of my photos today were taken looking straight up at the dazzlingly blue sky, a sky that had absolutely no fog in it.

I was not lying down in the street, I was just so impressed with the clear skies. Honest.

The air was warm, just on the cusp of being hot. Everyone reveled in it.

mrpeenee, and his pet hydrangea, reveling in San Francisco's heat wave.

What could be more summery than riding around with your hand hanging out the window

Queer pride comes to SF. Yay.

The only cute guy I saw and I didn't even get a good shot of him. Again, dammit.

The best part of this, the most fabulous day was that one of my most favorite restaurants, Chow, has a beauty of a new waiter. Porn quality, actually.

Trapped with the Stars of Yesterday

I had to go down to the Civic Center today to snag several more of R Man's certified death certificates for our lawyer, for the bank, for the mutual fund. I'm not even sure what they all are for any more. Everyone I deal with demands one; I expect to need one to get on the bus soon. After he was cremated, the funeral home ask me "How many death certificates you want?" I think I said "Uhm... five?" Should anyone ever ask you that, tell them you want a fucking ream of them. Believe me, they'll come in handy. And why didn't the funeral guy suggest something along those lines to me? Surely he's run into this before.

So anyway, I was in the Civic Center, an odd nexus of San Francisco. Museums and the library and homeless guys and a farmer's market and city hall and the Bill Graham Auditorium, which was surrounded by fancy ass tour buses and big rigs, one of which just said "drums" on its side. A flotilla of trucks, an armada of buses. Literally dozens of each. Traffic had just ground down to a complete halt. Complicating the picture was Larkin Street, the main way out of there, being closed by the cops at the federal building a block away. Why? Nobody was saying and even if they had been, you couldn't hear them over all the horns honking.

But why where all tour stuff swarming the auditorium? Darling, BRET MICHAELS. Wowzah. Did you even know he was still alive? Did you care? Indeed, but yes, on tour with his rockin' "We're Still not Dead" or something like that tour.

I took my death certificates (and wouldn't that be a fine, fine band name?) and fled.

SO very not Bret Michaels.

More Dreamy Dreams

I'm reluctant to discuss the dream I had Friday night for two reasons. For one thing, it's very difficult to describe, very slippery, and two, it's embarrassingly shcmaltzy. But I'm going to to try, because the impression it left behind was so amazingly strong.

I'll finish with some beefcake muscle pussy, just to even things out,

So, the dream, or more specifically the waking up, since I have no idea what the dream itself was. Stay with me. When I woke up I understood I had been dreaming about R Man and it seemed like the whole thing had no story or visual impression or memory, just an immersion in R Man himself. I came to with a vivid sense of how sweet he always had been. Not that he was a girl scout or suffered fools gladly, but he always had a deep lovability and kindness that was never syrupy. And when I woke up, it seemed like I had been swimming in his very sweet nature. It had been all around me like light is on a bright day.

Crap. I absolutely am failing at this. There is just no way to explain what the sensation was. It was totally different from any dream I've ever had. Of course, trying to describe a dream never works, but still, even among dreams, this was unique to me. It was wonderful. I laid in bed wrapped up in the emotion of it, reveling in it. If there was one brief moment of my life I could relive, it would be that one. That's how profound it was.

Oh, never mind. I knew, planning this post, it would never work. It's like describing color to a blind man, frustrating to me and boring to the reader. Let's move on, shall we?

Ask the Cool Cookie, over at I’m a Filthy Fucker (and who am I to doubt his assertion?) posted this charming image earlier this week:

I was very impressed by it.

My encyclopedic memory of smarm is so vast I was actually able to remember that the original was this:

Both have their charms, but I am always impressed by artisans and whoever ran this through Photoshop so successfully deserves our wholehearted admiration, don't you think? Yes, the beard may be a trifle plush (although that's probably part of its appeal,) but the chest hairs would seem to have been placed individually, each one nudged into place by somebody as devoted to his art as a medieval monk illuminating a manuscript of the Gospel. I say right on, girl.

Porn. Accidents. Porn Accidents.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Dreamy Dreams

It's 6:50 in the morning and I'm up to write about my dream I just had.

It was set in a laundromat, the shabby kind that has mismatched equipment. Some friends and I were in this town for its film festival because they wanted to get the film they had made in the festival. Slowly, I came to realize the film their kids had put together was better and was actually going to make it and theirs wasn't and heartache lay ahead.

Also, some cute guy was there and took all his clothes off to wash them. This really happened in a New Orleans once while I was dong my laundry and the cops took him away even though he kept protesting his pants were wet. Nothing so untoward happened in my dream so I was able to chat up the cute guy. Now that I remember it he was wearing bright blue underwear.

There was tension that one of the few working dryers was going to be available before my friends' load had finished washing. An evil gypsy-looking guy was eyeing it. I found out another dryer that was marked Out of Order really worked if you leaned against the door to keep it closed. We told the kids that was going to be thier job and they weren't feeling it, but isn't that why you have children?

Because I wasn't washing clothes and had a bunch of quarters , I was very popular. Then my friends started telling me I should only give them my quarters. I started singing You Don't Own Me and everyone in the place joined in. Except, maybe the evil gypsy guy. Definitely the cute underwear guy

I can now fit youtube videos here in mrpeenee cause Mitzi from Clutter from the Gutter told me how. Yay for Mitzi.

Domino Porn

I am such a nerd, such a gormless nerd, I truly find this thrilling.

Something to give my life meaning.

Red Scare

When one is a middle aged homogay, there are times when the decorating sickness falls on one. There is nothing to be done, one must resign oneself to swatches. So let me tell you about my own particular Designing Women madness.

R Man and I had longed planned curtains for our poppy yellow dining room. He was holding out for hot pink and white stripes. Considering his very staid disposition, his occasional fondness for clown college style decor was always surprising when it reared its bizarre little head. I was actually all for it, but R's all-too untimely demise sort of derailed the project.

Since he died, I had periodically and with no great enthusiasm, hunted for fabric for the curtains. No dice. All I could ever find was excessively tasteful stripes and insipid flowers. One store where I described the chintz of my dreams, with monkeys and palm trees in pink and orange all but pushed me out the door.

Finally, though, I accidentally ran across a beautiful chinese style embroidered fake silk, with gold dragons and red thorn trees on a scarlet background.

I had our curtain lady (the amusingly appropriate Mrs. Draper. I'm not making that up) run them up, with a matching pair for the flanking windows in solid crimson silk.

Once that train had left the station, I found myself on a red roll. A coppery red mirror to offset the charming plum branches hand painted for us by the immensely talented Super Agent Fred.

A tiny tangerine glass vase.

And a beautiful oxblood lamp.

Lastly, at the store where I snagged the lamp and the vase, an enormous asian armoire in red lacquer waylaid me. I certainly did not need it. We had a perfectly good china cabinet that matched the rest of the mahogany furniture in the room. But you know, I never really liked that stupid hutch, and the armoire was on sale and it was red and all of a sudden I saw my hand passing over my credit card. The next thing I knew....

before

after

Saki scopes out the defensive possibilities of the new cabinet.

It's not my fault. It's The Sickness.