In Which We Live It Up

Back when I was a good deal younger than I am now, leading the fabulous existence of an '80s queer in New Orleans, I remember thinking occasionally what a quiet, restrained life I had.  Looking back on it, I must have been out of my mind, more so even than usual.  Those were the days when I'd go out to queer bars and bath houses pretty much every single night whooping it up, listening to loud music and chasing dick. Now if I have a haircut and a doctor's appointment both in the same week, I am laid low for days. 

I was considering all that this last weekend.  Diane von Austinburg was in town and we made a day of it.  We met up with our friend Hotfoot to go check out a charming new little museum with a very interesting couple of exhibits.  It wasn't crowded and the space is a dynamite use of an old bank downtown.  We dug it.

After we had had our fill of being cultured, we headed for a bar, because what else do you do late on a Sunday afternoon?  Hotfoot's husband Drumstick joined us there and after a couple of drinks we adjourned for sushi.  Diane and Hotfoot both said it was excellent.  Drumstick and I both agree sushi is nothing but overpriced cat food and we refuse it.   Still, it was a very nice dinner hanging out with old friends. 

But wait, there's more! After dinner we came back to my place and played Yahtzee like the wild dogs we are.  They all polished off a few bottles of wine and even though I was the only one not drinking, I was also the only one to not win a game.  I was so annoyed, I briefly considered cheating, since they were all so wasted by then they wouldn't have known, but even I have my limits.  Everyone had completely conflicting demands about what music I should be playing.

The whole underpinning for the evening was a celebration of Super Agent Fred's birthday.  We toasted to him, and we told stories about him, and we all got a little teary-eyed occasionally.  It was very reminiscent of evenings gone by when we would explore bars all over town, the sushi place was one of Fred's favorite spots, and a Yahtzee tournament was a tradition of ours.  It was a good time and times like that help say goodbye.

Speaking of Super Agent Fred, I have been able to make progress (finally) on the website where I will be offering up his art.  I know I have been really slow getting a handle on all this, but I am able to think I should have something soon.  

You know what else Fred was very fond of?  Naked men:

Fred was very fond of the species known as "daddy".

A cowboy for my niece Amber, who appreciates beef.

 

And buttchops for me.

Speaking of buttchops, someone would seem to have been a naughty little puss.

I've mentioned before how I love big boys with that dumb look on their sweet face.

I can never remember this guy's name.  If anyone knows it, please share with the class.

Surly, but so darn beautiful.

Cough, Cough

In my post The Return of Diane, Muscato impertantly demands details about Diane's visit claiming "We're waiting. Certainly there's enough depravity to recount by this point, no? After the weather we've had here this week, I could use a diversion…"  Tragically, there is no depravity to report; not just because I have turned into a fusty old thing, but mainly because I've been sick the whole time poor Diane's been here.

I developed an interestingly wheezing cough the day she arrived.  I tried to blame her cat in Austin, implying she had imported dander to which I was allergic, but she pooh poohed that with a firm pooh pooh and before I could fabricate any kind of evidence supporting my theory, I was spiraling down an all-too familiar path into our old friend, bronchitis.

I've contracted bronchitis so many times that now when I call my doctor with my self diagnosis, he no longer questions me, but just sends a prescription for antibiotics and probably a short prayer of gratitude that I'm keeping my snotty infection out of his waiting room.

Believe me, this re-enactment couldn't be any farther from the truth if it featured Bea Arthur and Carol Burnett.

The last few years I worked, I wound up with bronchitis each fall and then again at the tail end of every winter.  This, though, is the first time I've fallen for it since I retired, so yay for avoiding the filthy public and mass transit.

The only entertainments we've attempted have all wound up with me pathetically slumped over and coughing vigorously.  Still, the antibiotics have done their wonders and I'm pretty much recuperated tonight: unfortunately, tomorrow is Diane's last day in town,  rats.

The Return of Diane

After many starts and stops, unfortunate oops and errs, our dear friend Diane vonAustinburg finally will be appearing in the skies over San Francisco Wednesday afternoon and shortly thereafter we all will be tucking into a terribly groovy new restaurant based on a Venetian seafood bar.  It's called Pesce, Secret Agent Fred and I are wild for it, but not as wild as a chance to hang with Diane.

She'll be in town for about a week, we will cook, and beat thrift stores to their knees and in general hang out. Several other friends here have already demanded their share of the Diane-ness so her dance card is filling rapidly.  Her only request is that we hit some art installation at Grace Cathedral where some possibly deranged artist has hung 20 miles of colored ribbon from the ceiling.

Reports as they become available, or as I make them up.  Depends.

Again, Yo.

Oh darlings, I'm so very sorry to have sort of drifted off like that.  Oops.  First there was my whirlwind tour of the south, then my computer died and then inertia won out once again.  But trust me, my thoughts were never far from you.  Except when I was thinking about snacks.

Austin was terribly amusing since I got to hang out with Diane von Austinburg and eat excellent Mexican food and I found a cock ring in a thrift store.

I visited with my white trash crazy family in Houston all of whom are still white trash, crazy and very amusing.  The less said, the better.

The night I got to New Orleans there was a parade.  Not for me, specifically, but for Halloween, but close enough.  It was the Krewe of Boo.  Is that adorable or what?

I had a lovely hotel.

And I got to visit with Jason from Night is Half Gone who took me out for the biggest banana split I have ever seen, cause the pound and a half of shrimp I had eaten for dinner shortly beforehand was apparently not enough.  He was charming as always.

Oh, and I bought a house.

My plan is to live there during the fall and winter and then flee back here to San Francisco to avoid the miserable heat, cause I have done my time with that bullshit.  It's a block over from my best friend in a terribly cool neighborhood, has a huge yard and seems structurally sound, but shabby, just the thing an elderly poof needs as a hobby.

It's been a rental for the last thirty or forty years, I'm sure we've all seen the equivalent dingy white paint and cheap bathrooms.

I intend to drag its sorry ass into the land of fagulous beauty.  My friend Stephen, who has lots of experience with renovations, is in charge of the remodeling and I've anointed myself as Queen Decorator.  Lots of turquoise.

I'm going back on Saturday for the inspection on Tuesday and unless that turns up a nest of alien invaders in one of the back rooms, I'm set.

News from Austin.

I'm hiding out at Diane VonAustinberg's for a few days as part of my 2013 World Peace and Enchilada Tour, which will also include a flying visit to my family in Houston and a longer one to New Orleans as a reward for putting up with the flying monkeys that comprise my beloved relatives.

Diane is,of course, the consumate hostess, aside from trying to kill me on her treadmill by luring me up on it backwards, like some crazed OK Go video.*  We had delicious Mexican food tonight and look forward to tearing it up in various thrift shops tomorrow.  The thrill of other people's discarded crap!

*DVonA says:  I did nothing to lure Mr. P onto the treadmill ("I'm really getting quite good at this" he says, just before slipping off the end. "Except now I'm sort of dizzy.").  I have done nothing but give him excellent directions to my house, which he ignored and which resulted in him taking an hour-long tour of the Texas hill country. Now, back to Mr. P.

Lies, all lies.  Although I am sort of dizzy.  Maybe I should go lay down.  Also, when I demanded candy to assist in the creative process, Diane denied having any and offered dried apples instead.  How am I supposed to sling wit and wisdom with dried up apples?

Possibly more travel bulletins as they occur.

We Give Thanks for So Many Things

In case you missed it, Thursday was Thanksgiving.

before

after

Let's just move on, but not before offering up sincere and deep thanks to Diane von Austinburg (who blew in town just for the cooking) and Secret Agent Fred, both of whom were great help.

In more up-to-the-moment news, we are sharing in the general slavering over tonight's trainwreck that is the Liz and Dick movie starring Lindsay Lohan.  A great many reports confirm that it seems destined to challenge Plan 9 from Outer Space's long held title as the worst movie ever made.  The New York Time's review actually said that it wasn't "terrible enough."  That's right, they were complaining it was insufficiently crappy.  Wow.  That's just greedy.  Anyway, come 9:00 PM West Coast time, count on the inhabitants of Chez Peenee to be in our jim jams, thrilling to this epic.

Lifesaving bitches at attention in case the Virginia Woolfe scenes overcome mrpeenee.

The mrpeenee That Care Forgot

Vacation slide shows. Who doesn't love them? I'm going to split this last little trip into the New Orleans and Austin segments to better drag it out. Whee! Let's go!

We had a lovely time in New Orleans. Secret Agent Fred had never been and was most impressed with all the the charm, the architecture, the food, the cute boys, and mostly the law that allows you to take your cocktail with you out of the bar in a plastic Go Cup. There were many Go Cups involved.

Also involved was the ongoing misapprehension by about everyone we came in contact with (including the hotel desk clerk, who I'm pretty sure was an old trick of mine) that Fred was my spouse and that I was an abuser. Spousal Abuse! How hilarious. Fred had gotten in a brawl in a bar here the night before we left (oh, those Irish hooligans) that resulted in a broken jaw, a black eye, and various scrapes and bruises.

I thought about getting a tee shirt that said "Not My Fault" but I never got around to it.

It also resulted in us using a candy wrapper as an eye patch and a 40 of piss water beer as an accessory one late night in a patio at our hotel. It was a very late night.

The same night, same patio, I was a middle aged mutant ninja. I supposed it was result of all those people thinking I had popped Fred in the eye in some misguided homage to Rick James.

Speaking of happy times, we celebrated my birthday at one of my favorite joints, Liuzza's, where we were joined by a gang of best old friends

Let's just call them "The Girls."

as well as Diane von Austinburg and blogger extraordinaire Jason from Night is Half Gone

who very, VERY sweetly brought my favorite birthday cake in the world, a New Orleans specialty called a Doberge. Rich and totally delicious.

We also got to hang out with Jason and his drastically good looking boyfriend at an odd bar outside the French Quarter. The joint had this bullet proof door you had to be buzzed in through, I suppose with the idea it would keep out the low lifes, but there were plenty more riff raff inside than out, so maybe that plan wasn't working so well. Also, I have no pictures from that part of the evening because by then I was so loaded I apparently mistook my car keys for some kind of super spy camera and tried taking pictures with them. Again, another plan that so very didn't work. Still Jason and his boyfriend John were funny and charming, just like his blog so it was fun.

Most of our time was just spent wandering around the French Quarter and the neighborhood next door, the Faubourg Marigny. During the prehistoric time I lived there, The Quarter was the gay neighborhood and Marigny a quiet little backwater, but time marches on and now The French Quarter is much too expensive real estate for impoverished poofters (like I was) and now all my friends have fled to the Faubourg, a charming area full of pretty houses that have benefitted from this migration.

My friend Cow Queen says the places that used to be cheap apartments in the Quarter are now vacation homes for out of towners. Certainly that would explain the odd, almost deserted quality its streets have at night now, so different from the crazy buzzing energy of my youth there.

It was sad and sort of poignant to walk them after midnight, as we did so often, and see so few people around. It reminds me how wildly lucky I was to be there when I was.

What else, let's see....

At some point on every trip I make to the Old Country someone snaps a "I Walked with a Zombie" shot of me.

Our hotel, the Provincial, located directly across from where R Man and I used to live, had an unexpectedly charming bar in it. If you're in town I recommend it.

You get home from a trip, look through your photos and wonder "Why did I take four pictures of a dumpster?" Then you remember you liked the color of the shutters and were, perhaps, a tiny bit loaded.

Our friend Rich has the most charming patio. Full of bananas and elephant ears and ginger, it's like the definitive New Orleans setting.

So, yeah, a fabulous trip and a sweet reminder of how I love the old place.

And They're Off

Secret Agent Fred and I went out for drinks this afternoon. I stopped drinking in 1980 and only started again, rather timidly, a few years ago. I still stick with one drink, partially because that's all it takes to get me loaded and mostly because more than that and I turn into a nasty drunk. Not nice.

Anyway, we had fallen into a shabby joint called Martuni's that's marooned in a no man's land between downtown and the Castro. It's the sort of comfortably unattractive place you can stay for an hour or so complaining the whole time "This place is a dump." Decoration is squarely in the camp of fussy old queens from the Nancy Reagan school and the waiter we always get is surly. And yet, it's where we wind up.

Today they had a special "Electric Lemonade" so of course, I ordered one based on my theory that if you only have one drink, it might as well be ridiculous. Surprisingly, this turned out to be rather tasty. As I told Fred, "Looks like anti-freeze, tastes like fruit punch."

All of this bacchanal was sort of in the way of warm-up. Fred and I are off for a vacation in New Orleans next week and the always attractive Diane von Austinburg will join us there. I suppose middle-aged shenanigans will follow. Also, I'm hoping to visit with that blogger of bloggers, Jason from Night is Half Gone. I could promise to post updates from my travels (we're also going to hit Austin while we're out on the road,) but I know that's a lie, so I'll just say adieu for now and ask you to check back April 14 for all the fascinating details I can make up.

In the meantime, here's my new favorite pretend boyfriend, Sadik Hadzovic .

Remember

Season's Greetings

Our dearly beloved Diane von Austinburg sent me the most luscious cashmere sweater. Soft coziness and lots of it, yummy. I was thrown off for a while when I opened the box because she signed the card "DvonA," and since the card was printed all in capitals it looked like this:

DVONA

I assumed I had acquired a new tranny stalker boyfriend with good tastes in sweaters, which was sort of unsettling, except for the part about cashmere gifts. So I was relieved when my word puzzle skills kicked in and I was able to figure out who it actually was from.

Also, my new favorite drag name? DVONA. It's now replaced my former fave, Tann Ng Bedd, a good thing cause that one was just too hard.

DvonA

A divine

Diane-less

OK, you can consider me officially bummed out. Man. Our beloved Diane von Austinburg was scheduled to come out for Thanksgiving and we were going to go down the coast to Big Sur to hang out for the annual celebration of carbohydrates. Then last month, Diane broke her tail bone. Sitting is very painful, so a four hour plane ride and then a three hour drive down the thrilling but zig zaggy coastal highway is just such a dumb idea not even I can endorse it, despite my astonishing powers of being delusional.

Let me make clear I really am disappointed and feel awful about the poor thing's on-going pain. That said, because I have the sense of humor of a sixth grader, I cannot let go of the inherent sniggering in a bone named "coccyx" and commonly referred to as the "tail bone." I am ashamed. I am a bad friend. And yet, I snigger.

I'm not alone in this. Our friend Super Agent Fred asked her if she cracked it practicing her triple axle lutz. John, another pal, suggested the break had obviously come about during a skateboarding spree. I favor a simpler and more broad reaching conclusion: shenanigans. She can blame tripping over her cat all she wants, there is still a free floating implication of sexual gymnastics gone bad, terribly, terribly bad.

So, now that I have that more or less out of my system, let me reiterate how sorry I am for her. Poor thing.

Houseboy Jinx Nocturnus demonstrates a functional coccyx:

Going On

People ask me "How are you doing sweetie?" and I say "OK." It's the truth. I miss R Man, sadness wells up like a bubble sometimes, but dissipates. I am not distraught or inconsolable. Victorian writers had a saying "Sorrow is a deep well...." Typical of them to speak to sorrow, but not happiness. I suppose they thought of cheerfulness more as an attractive puddle. I think the saying means you can never sate your grief, the more you allow yourself to be sad, the sadder you feel. I know that's true for me anyway. I mope, therefore I am mopey.

Fortunately, our friends have surged around offering comfort and joy, including all my blog brotherhood, so thank you all, thank you very much. Every single comment has been a bright spot in a dim time and I appreciate them.

Also, Diane von Austinburg has been visiting since Monday, charming as always, even though the thrift stores we've visited (strictly as a form of grief therapy) seem to be suffering from quality deprivation. I'm sure crack houses have better yard sales.

I'm trying to focus on not being morose and I've decided to take a substantially long break from work. My days so far consist of sleeping late, taking naps and going to bed early with HGTV marathons squeezed in between. It's OK with me.

Our cat Saki is very attentive and insists on sitting on a pillow on my lap while I'm at the computer. It's sort of sweet and annoying in equal parts, especially since he sometimes insists on making editorial comments in the form of biting me.

mrpeenee Sweepstakes

Diane von Austinburg, god love her, blew back into town last week to support us through the trials of Thanksgiving. Believe me when I tell you we were giving plenty thanks for her, not the least was for her delicious butternut squash bread pudding.

Of course we hit the very best thrift stores.

Alas, we scored ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, except a pair of charming little saucers, one of which I promptly broke.

We did unearth this bizarre oddity.

Diane has urged me to throw it into a competition here. The best guess what it might be wins. The prize: I will personally go back to Thrift Town and if it's still there (chances seem good,) I'll snap it up and send it to the winner.

Hoo Hoo.

Second place will win houseboy Vantius Olivier.

To save time I have already declared myself as second place winner. Thank you.