In Which We Consider a Culinary Masterpiece

I only discovered, sort of recently, that pimento cheese is considered a Southern delicacy.  Is that true?  Does the rest of the world not know of this delicousness?  If so, you have my sympathy, even my pity.

Pimento cheese is the kind of simple and satisfying food that shows up in school cafeterias and cheap diners and mrpeenee's kitchen.  Here, I'll give you the recipe: take grated cheese, add sweet pickle relish, chopped up pimentos, and mayonnaise. Serve on bread.  Boom.

Just as a side note, I regard grocery stores offering pre-grated cheese as one of the great technological advances of our time, equal to, possibly greater than, the interweb.

When I was a child, in the dark ages of the Kennedy administration, one would occasionally see it  referred to as pimento cheese salad apparently because anything contained in a bowl made up of chopped bits was considered a salad.  Also sometimes anything chopped up and encased in jello made the cut as a salad, but that seems like pushing a very questionable envelope.

It is one of my very most favorite food products.  The American south has a lot of very problematic elements, but if it is, in fact, a southern phenomenon, it is just one more reason I'm glad I was raised there.

Naked guys I'm also glad of

Gavin Reed.  I spent way too long trolling through the Colt website trying to find this his name.

Bruce Jones.  Because I think bandanas are unintentionally hilarious.

Julian Chase. Don't you think he looks a lot like Tom Hardy?

Jake Wilder, from the ancient days of Fox Studio.  Not that Fox Studio, the gay porn one.

Efureimu.  Look, I didn't pick out his stupid name.  Stop giving me a hard time.

The lusciously meaty Tristan MacLeod.

Here we present chaturbate model Courtney981.  His onlyfans page is not worth it.  You're welcome.

In Which We Survive a Tangle with The Man

 

Guess what?  Diane von Austinburg and I are going to Europe in the spring, Paris and Venice, to be specific.  I haven't been to Europe in decades; after R Man died, it just didn't seem appealing to try a trip like that without him.  And then by the time I became resigned enough to life without him, my back had degenerated to the point that I couldn't face the idea of a 10 or 12-hour flight.

But coincidentally, my trip back from Houston was on a plane with seats that converted into flat beds, full sized comfortable beds.  A whole new world of possibilities opened before me.  If I could lie down for the bulk of the flight, flying to Paris suddenly seemed very doable.  Sleeping for a 12-hour stretch is no great effort for me, I have been training for this for years.

Plus since then, I got my trigger point injection which has dealt very handily with the pain in my back.  The injections last about 6 to 8 weeks so I will be able to get another one right before we go and should be pretty much pain-free.  What a concept.

Convincing Diane was a snap, god love her, she is such a sport, game for anything.  So that only left one hurdle, renewing my passport.

A career of working for the federal government has left me permanently leery of being entangled in any part of their web.  Nevertheless, I wasn't going to revel in fresh croissants in Paris and strolling along canals in Venice without a passport and so I dove into the very murky waters of travel documents.

The State Department handles passports and they used to have an office devoted entirely to that across the alley from where I worked, so handy. But that was before decades of Republican attacks on the size of the government did away with all that customer friendly nonsense and instead moved the whole function of accepting passport applications over to, drumroll please, the US Post Office.  I suppose they thought moving passports to the most reviled agency in the government would discourage citizens from fleeing the country.

First I got my passport photo taken (Diane said it did not make me look like a serial killer, which would've been sweetly supportive, I suppose, if I had made any reference to thinking that it did make me look serial killer-ish. Hmmm.)  I made an appointment, showed up on time (amazingly) only to be confronted with a locked door and a scrawled message to use the regular post office window instead, because what's the point of going to the specific level of hell that is a post office if you are going to duck out on dealing with the exquisitely surly postal employees.

During our lengthy time together, the clerk never once looked me in the eye, not even when she was trying to say my birth certificate was invalid.  Bitch, what do you want for me?  That paper is more than 60 years old, has gone through several hurricanes as well as my erratic youth, and it's all I've got.  There was a tense couple of moments when it was not clear if I was going to be able to stuff my face avec croissants in Paris after all, but she finally shrugged and stapled it to the passport form.  

The clerk asked me if I wanted the form rushed and I said no, which immediately seem to raise all sorts of red flags.  I guess I was the only customer who had ever declined their idea of a rush job.  She was so suspicious of me that she kept kind of circling back to that point throughout the rest of the process.  We would be sailing along on some random other part of the questionnaire and she would again spring "Do do you want this rushed?" like she was hoping to be able to trip me up.

I was finally able to totter out of there, past all the people in line behind me who had been making sotto voice, passive aggressive complaints about how long I was hogging the window.  I considered hissing at them as I passed, but I was so glad to escape I decided not to.

Anyway, a little more than six weeks later, my passport showed up in the mail months before I needed it and with my waterlogged birth certificate stapled firmly to it because, honestly I don't know why, it's the post office, maybe they have a staple fetish.

So come April, Diane and I will be winging our way to the glories of Paris and Venice.  I have cleverly scheduled us so that on my birthday, I will have breakfast in Paris and dinner in Venice.  Doesn't that sound fabulous?

Naked dudes who are also fabulous:

I am pretty much completely out of naked guys' identities this week.  Sorry.

Surfer dudes are always welcome.

I know some of my readers are very fond of hairy, beefy guys.

Whereas everyone likes a well turned buttchop

Maybe the Post Office thinks if they make the passport system too easy then everyone would have one and then, I don't know, the terrorists win?

Have mercy.

Big nuts.

In Which We Take a Little Trip

 

You know, for a respectable old widow, I certainly talk about recreational drugs a lot.  I swear it is not my fault, the medical establishment simply thrust them upon me.  What can I do?

Perhaps you remember a couple of weeks ago, I was dealing with episodes of depression brought on by my withdrawal from opioids.  Dr Google assured me that was normal, but that they could go on for quite a while.  I talked to my physical doctor and she recommended ketamine.  Multiple jokes about raves ensued, but I went along with it.  The depressive episodes had been very unpleasant and I was willing to roll with whatever chemical might kick their little butts.

I was skeptical because I am skeptical of everything, but my chiropractor is all for The Wonders of Ketamine and recommended the website he uses.  And if you can't trust some guy who cracks your neck regularly, who are you going to trust?  So I signed up on the website, downloaded their app (because of course there was an app,) and got ready for my k hole.  

But before I could do that, I had to 

• Speak with a clinician for my intake, 
• Choose a Guide (The list had all their qualifications, but of course I picked mine based on his picture like I was scrolling through fucking Grindr)
• Select music for my trippin' session from their playlist (I am not making this up)
• Specify your intention.  You cannot go into this with the idea that you'll just see what comes up.  Oh no, you have to have a purpose, an objective and you have to write it down where the clinician and guide can look at it and make sure that you are intentional enough.  Trying to explain that you are not a very intentional person will not get you anywhere.
• Deal with numerous surveys, checklists, reminders about the surveys and checklists, and just random impertinent questions.  They seemed to worry about my suicidal ideation a lot.  A.  LOT.  I have no suicidal ideation, but all these surveys apparently didn't want to take my word for it.
• And plenty of other hoops to jump through.  The whole thing reminded me of an overly complicated party game where the rules need to be explained in detail, repeatedly.

Anyway, I finally settled down to take the first dose, but first I had to arrange for my Peer Treatment Monitor, which is a fancy way of saying a responsible adult who could make sure I didn't wander out of the house wearing my underwear on my head.  Since I don't know any responsible adults, I roped Super Agent Fred into the role.  The irony of that idea was not lost on either of us.

I knocked back the dose (encased in two large-ish tablets I had to hold in my cheeks to dissolve like a goddam chipmunk,) laid down in my room with the curtains drawn and the ethereal ersatz Brian Eno music quietly playing and waited to see what might come up.

HOLY MOTHERFUCKING MOTHER OF CORN COBS.  I got really high.

In my youth, my wayward youth, I had quite a bit of amusing experience with LSD, but that had not prepared me for how absolutely, blitzingly high I got with this. Plus acid takes a while to kick in, whereas the ketamine obliterated me within moments.

I saw god. Literally.  They didn't have much to say, but they seemed nice.  I left my body and soared through Someplace Else.  I understood the entire cosmos.  Look, you're just going to have to take my word for it. Trying to describe this is like trying to describe an orgasm; words are just insufficient.  

I loved it.  It was never scary or overwhelming but at the same time it was very profound.  I went from considering death and dying, the grief I still have about R Man's death, about surviving AIDS to wondering why my feet are always cold.  I covered a lot of ground.

The whole thing only lasted a couple of hours, but they were quite a couple of hours.  Afterwards, the company insists, pretty firmly, that you journal your experience.  I hate people using the word "journal" as a verb.  But I'm a good sport so here is my journal much of which I wrote whilst trippin':

• No wonder people like this so much
• The physical aspect of this is much more profound than I expected
• At one point I needed to get up and pee but my legs didn't work
• It allowed the Gary who is in charge to take a break
• I have slipped the mortal bounds and am one with the cosmos
• Part of me wanted it to last longer (come back, come back, come back) but part of me was glad when it was over
• It was very nonlinear, first I was here and then I was there

Yeah that's the kind of state I experienced.  Even after the session timed out, I felt like I was a second behind what I was doing.  Every gesture or sentence seem to come from somewhere out of my control.  It made me wonder, who is running this show?

Anyway I've done one more since then and enjoyed it and have four more to go.  Has it helped?  I'm not sure honestly.  The episodes of depression I was experiencing that were the reason of this whole circus have been random and so I don't know if they are done or if I just haven't had another one lately.

Naked guys:

Chase Stobbe and his lavish nipples.

Anonymous buttchops.

Blonde hotness David Ciachek

Cory Evans is very pretty.

Always glad to see Zac Beech and his charming rump.

I wish I was friends with Henry Kvil.

I appreciate photos that include the subject's name, cause I can only remember so many naked guys.

I am pretty sure I have featured this guy recently, but you really can't see too much of an ass like that.

Anonymous ginger beef.

In Which We Present This and That

At one point Mr Penney had rather fabulous eyelashes.  Long and thick, when I put on mascara they would look like false eyelashes.  Often in classes when I should be paying attention but was bored, I would play with them.  But that was long ago and these days they are sparse as hens' teeth.

As you approach old age typically men worry about losing the hair on top of their head. No one mentions that both your eyebrows and eyelashes also are going to jump ship.  All your hair assumes the attitude of "It's been real, thanks for all the fish, buh bye." Except of course for your ear and nose hairs which will become more lush by the day.  I could make a toupee out of the bristles sprouting from my nose.

Today's post is going to be sort of random.  Very much a view into mrpeenee's thought process, scattered, haphazard, brief, and ending in naked dudes.

***

My back continues to be pain-free, thank Lucifer.  I got a trigger point injection a couple of weeks ago and it worked like an absolute charm.  For decades I've wondered what it would feel like for my back to not constantly be telegraphing signals of pain.  "I got the message, you can stop now," I would tell the stupid joint that was all the problem.  It never listened.  But now the injection has shut it up and I could not be more glad.

***

I live astride the dividing line between the Castro and the Mission neighborhoods and every holiday the Mission lights up with dozens of illegal fireworks all night.  One of the best things about this apartment is the excellent view it provides of that subversive celebration.  Imagine my disappointment then when on this New Year's Eve no sparkling lights and booms blossomed.  Not one.  

***

When R Man got me my wedding ring, instead of the date inscribed inside, he had them use the Latin phrase "In secula saeculor um" which means forever and ever.  At least I thought that's what it meant, I have been informed by a commenter that the Latin is incorrect.  I don't know what they think I'm going to do about it, get a new ring?  Oddly enough I do not speak Latin so I can't really argue, but I also don't really care.  R Man chose it and that's good enough for me. 

***

Word reaches us today of the death of David Soul, upon whom I had such a crush back in the day.  He had to share my fantasy with Bobby Sherman, his co-star on Here Comes the Brides.  David defined the concept of blonde hotness, but Bobby was dreamy.  Flights of angels, baby, flights of angels.

***

Considering how puny my beard is, I suppose it's surprising how strongly I dislike it.  What is the point since there is so very little of it?  It hardly deserves the dignity of calling it a beard, it is nothing more than a collection of patches of very thin, sad bristles.  I'm sure there are geisha ladies who have more robust facial hair.  Also considering I have been shaving for 50 years, it seems like I should be able to do a better job of it than I actually do. All of this is weighing on my mind because of a recent shaving accident which resulted in my upper lip bleeding like a shark attack victim, oops.

And now, for the naked dudes:

The mirror has two dicks.

There is something so thrilling about a big heap o' muscle naked in a hotel room.

Charles Paquette has changed his nom de smut to Brandon Bosse.  Who knows why.

Dean Young demonstrating the classic Landing Pad pose.

Clown tats.  Yuck.

Beefy goodness presented by our old friend Colt Studios.

More Colt, but I forget his name. How many fabulous naked men can I remember?

Beefy.
  

In Which We Enter a Happy New Year

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