In Which We Are Back Again

Once again, I have successfully escaped from Texas. I suppose it's a good idea both to stay in practice and to remind myself I still can do it. There is so much about the old place that just makes me crazy with irritation but also stirs a reluctant fondness at the same time. I suppose that can be true of every place, I'm just most familiar with the Texas flavor. 

I went to Houston to visit my brother Ed who has been living with Parkinson's disease for several years.  The last few months have been very difficult for him; it's common for Parkinson's sufferers to develop psychosis and Ed had a rough patch of it  This spring he has struggled with hallucinations and memory gaps. It was hard seeing him like this, he would have moments when it would be obvious he would sort of lose traction mentally in the middle of a conversation.  I'm glad I went to see him, I'm just sorry it was such a sad visit.

In related travel news, I had the best guacamole I've ever had while I was hanging out with Diane in Austin. Making it even better was the fact that we got it at a new restaurant called Tzintzantzun.  My hand to god.

One of the many best things about San Francisco is that no matter where you travel, you get to come back here when you return. I like Texas and I love California, the problem is air travel between them.  Yuck.  We sat in a fully loaded plane at the gate for more than an hour waiting for the fog in San Francisco to lift.  It's traditional when that happens to get home and tell your friends about it and they ask "What fog? It's been sunny all day here." Also, United lost my bag, fortunately they found it several hours later and brought it to me.  Thank you United, I would have hated to have lost all those dirty clothes. 

I am never leaving San Francisco again. 

Boys for whom I would leave San Francisco:

Every time I've run across this picture of this boy and his stunning buttcheeks, I'd save it to share with you, naughty pusses.

This young man looked suspiciously familiar, have I featured him in the Nekkid Guys segment recently? Do you care? Also turns out his name is Marcus Bailette, in case you were wondering.

More superior butt shots.

Selfie, daddy edition.

There is a present for you down in the basement.

Love a lout.

In Which We Leave Town

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In Which We Go to the Movies

 I finally got around watching Project Hail Mary in an actual theater.  Friends had told me that it was well worth the trip to see it there and to watch it in IMAX, but I screwed around too long and it had been downgraded to the regular screens. 

Years ago I was an enthusiastic moviegoer, but now the allure of lying in my own bed with the cat and with my laptop on my stomach watching whatever Netflix dishes out is just too much to deny.  The Barbie movie in the summer of 2023 was the last time I set foot in an actual cinema, but Project Hail Mary sounded interesting and I like Ryan Gosling (he does a good job considering most of the role is a solo act,) so I figured what the hell. I put on my pants and went to the movies. 

The theater is in what used to be a very nice shopping mall attached to our convention center, but all the retail has surrendered and closed, leaving only the cinema and a half empty food court. It was like dropping by Miss Havisham's for tea.  But the theater was very clean with very comfy chairs that reclined.  I knew from bitter experience that seats like that are not meant for men as tall as me, but I didn't really mind and just let my feet hang off the end of the foot rest.  

Better writers than I have already discussed how the experience of movie watching has declined so sadly.  Let me just agree with what they've already said.  The experience included 20 minutes of commercials which I ignored by playing crosswords on my phone, followed by eight trailers for upcoming movies.  And what were the movies? Six sequels, one remake, and one (ONE) original new movie.  Staying at home with my cat in the bed never seemed so appealing. 

The movie itself was fine, not the best sci-fi I've seen but also not the worst.  Lots of great big, very loud action sequences which frequently were so confusingly shot it was not clear what was going on or where it was located. My main criticism is that no movie needs to be 2 and a half hours long. Two and a half hours is a miniseries. Give my fucking bladder a break. 

Recently I saw a story about some big shot from Sony rebuking theater owners at their annual meeting for a number of problems they had created for themselves and that were driving down attendance.  He mentioned the commercials as a particular problem and I certainly agree.  I do not appreciate spending $27 just be forced to watch an ad for eczema cream.  Fuck. Off. But the Sony guy represents a problem equally as bad.  Studios think milking the same old intellectual property for endless sequels and remakes is a safe bet.  They're wrong. It's going to take more than yet another Spider-Man movie to get me to put my pants on again and struggle down to the cinema. 

I think I'll just stay home with these guys instead: 

Ink stained.

He needs glasses to see to the end of his dick.

I'm trying to focus on his beautiful musculature, but I'm distracted by what he's holding. What is that?

Once again, I ask, "Is that real?" And once again, I realize, I don't care.

In the weeds never looked so good.

In Which We Are Identified

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In Which We Gel

How do you get gelatin? Originally, it was just the boiled down remains of slaughtering, horns and hooves and fish heads, all the crap nobody wanted to eat.  It was the scrap of scraps.  It rendered out a squishy, fairly clear glop.  Some misguided chef somewhere realized you could suspend more edible bits in it and, voila, in a marketing masterpiece, they called it aspic and somehow it became fancy.  No excessively fancy Victorian or Edwardian dinner was complete without it.  It was not sweet particularly, but was often part of the fish or meat course. Food scientists discovered an easier way to make it, they added sweeteners and fruit flavor and what did they have? They had jello, baby. 

That brings us up to the madness of the post-World War II era.  Homemakers of the time were wild for any product that made the drudgery of domestic life easier.  Canned food, frozen food, and anything labeled "instant" was a big hit.  Jello fit right in plus it had the added panache of aspic's reputation as gourmet grub.  Bridge clubs everywhere were swept up in a frenzy for it.  "The girls" couldn't get enough; a luncheon consisting of coffee, cigarettes, gin, jello, and gossip was guaranteed to get you through another week of your loveless marriage and those fucking kids.  

Hearkening back to its roots as a medium in which you could suspend all manner of random crap, recipes proliferated claiming to be "salads" since that implied health and slenderizing. One of the most popular of those so-called salads was for Ambrosia, which was a mixture of jello, whipped cream, canned fruit cocktail, and the always disgusting dried coconut.  

As a baby gay in the mid-60s, how mrpeenee longed for Ambrosia without coconut.  Dried coconut, in mrpeenee's unshakable opinion, is unfit for human consumption.  I would just as soon chow down on a piece of shag carpeting.  mrpeenee's mother (mapeenee) absolutely refused to consider this very minor modification.  "Coconut is in the recipe," she would state adamantly.  A recipe in her world was something that might as well have been etched in stone.  Looking back I can only sympathize with the poor dear.  She had four kids and a husband whose only contribution to housework was to open yet another bottle of cheap scotch. Her life was not easy breezy.

But that was then, and now it's a new day, a day in which mrpeenee is fully capable of making his own damn jello, anyway that I want to.  The internet was only too happy to provide me with thousands of recipes for ambrosia.  I landed on one called Orange Fluff which expanded its madness to include Cool Whip, miniature marshmallows, and vanilla instant pudding in the mix.  I have now made it twice and it is just as delicious as I dreamed all those many years ago in the suburban swamps which formed me. 

I know this kind of cooking (or "cooking".  The preparation only calls for boiling water and stirring) is often sneered at, but I am here to vouch that it is tasty in the extreme.  It may not be Julia Childs, but neither am I.  What it is is a product of those mid-century women's magazines just as much as I am.  Here's to you ladies. 

Boys for whom I would firm up: 

That's what I need to help me in the kitchen.

Boeuf al a mode

Just a simple boy wondering where the fuck his underwear is.

Wheeee

There are some men for whom clothes are not only overrated, they are almost a crime.

Exhibit A

The strain of trying to think.  Don't bother sweetie, it's not what you were meant for.

In Which We Are Lost

 

Is that stupid Mercury back in retrograde AGAIN?  Because I am in the midst of a string of small time disasters. 

Last week I was on my way to the chiropractor riding in Waymo (the local driverless robot taxi, because I am a fancy boy.)  I hopped out, took two steps and realized I was wearing my sunglasses and my regular glasses had fallen out of my pocket in the backseat of the car that was disappearing into the distance.

When I turned to my dear friend Diane von Austinburg to complain about the loss, she very perceptively asked if I had lost another pair of glasses because she knew that I had just replaced my sunglasses less than a month ago.  That's why it's important to remember dear friends can actually know too much.  I have now decided to simply staple these new glasses to my forehead. 

I was already brooding about these annoying and very expensive calamities when I thought to console myself with a cookie.  The very first bite included something much harder than you would expect in a chocolate chip cookie.  When I fished it out of my mouth it turned out to be a crown.  

My dentist, God love her, got me in the very next day to reattach the crown.  Inspection of the site where it used to live revealed a small cavity, the first one I've had in years.  She breezily assured me she would fill the cavity without any numbing since the nerve there had been removed originally and before I could marshal any protest based on how horrifying that idea is, that's exactly what she did. 

So the obvious answer to all this misplacement is to simply never leave my apartment again.   If I can't see and I can't chew, I will simply have to sit here in the dark waiting for the end.  

Boys I wish I could find: 

Exhibit A.

I also tried to convince Diane that the evening when my dinner consisted of most of a bag of Cheetos meant that I was now a vegan, but she didn't fall for it.

Ready, steady, go.

Our old friend Giancarlo Volti.

Shapely

In Which We Are Mystified

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