Come the Revolution

The picture on the left says it all.

I don't know how much of a stink the media is making in the outside world about the "crisis" in northwest Queens, but I'm frankly amazed that people aren't rioting and tearing down the glass towers of Manhattan.

For those of you who're too busy sucking on the everything's-peachy glass teat of the TV news, around 25,000 people in northwest Queens have been without electricity through the worst heat wave the city's seen in a number of years. For eight days, now.

From the New York Times:

"Consolidated Edison reported major progress yesterday in the week-old struggle to restore power to western Queens, but thousands faced a new workweek without electricity and frustrations boiled over as some officials called for a declaration of emergency and the resignation of the utility’s chief executive."

Fozzie is going on eight days without power at his apartment in Astoria; he spent the last four nights with me, ut I'm sitting here wondering about the people who don't have someone to stay with -- a place to go where they can hang out in the air conditioning for a while or get a cool drink. And why aren't these people storming the headquarters of Con Ed like the mob from a Frankenstein movie, torches and pitchforks akimbo?!?

The most infuriating thing is that no one who matters -- like the mayor of NYC -- seems to think it's a particularly big deal. He keeps having news conferences in which he's out there telling us that there are people trying to help and we're just going to have to suffer through it. And while that may, indeed, be true, heads need to roll. Not the Con Ed worker on the ground, certainly. From what I've heard, they've been practically heroic.

No, I think that it's the manager and the planners who need to be out on their asses. Or maybe in jail. Again, from the Times:

"To reporters later, he used even stronger language, saying that Mr. Burke and other utility officials should be held criminally responsible.

Mr. Gioia called the blackout the last straw. “Con Ed misled the public,” he said. “They misled the media and the mayor. They’ve shown no plan to get out of this crisis.”

He spoke of elderly sick people and a woman unable to get milk for her baby. “When Kevin Burke called this an inconvenience it made my blood boil,” Mr. Gioia said.

Mr. Burke, at his news briefing, brushed aside questions about the demands for his resignation, saying he was focused only on the restoration of power."

Having had to watch Fozzie go through all this, I'm perfectly ready to see them all in jail.

Once More Unto...

Monday, I went and had an audition for a gig at a rather well known theater. I thought I acquited myself pretty well, but one never knows. It felt good to go to an audition and do well.

I didn't get it.

In fact, in the very well-intentioned rejection note went out of its way to point out that I'd done really well, but the director just wanted to go in another direction. Young, tall, lanky. Cute. You know. All the things I'm not.

I'm just gonna let that one stew.

I Should Be So Lucky...

... as to have his career. Thanks, Mr. Buttons.

And You Wonder...

...why it is that I love Central Park so much.

Flickr

So, as you know, I've just started futzing around with Flickr, and have consequently been browsing other people's photos.

And -- eternally regretting that I never was one -- I have a fascination with gymnasts. Hence my coming across this photo.

Whoa.

Genius

Fozzie, in Silhouette

Ain't he cute?

For Those Left Out

A certain friend, upon reviewing some of the photos I posted from our walk about town last weekend, noted that he'd remembered having several pictures of his posterior — which he claims, erroneously, is overly large — and that somehow the fact that they'd not made it onto the post confirmed his allegations.

To wit, see the end of this slide show.

The Good with the Bad

Of the many really excellent advantages of working internment at The Velvet Prison™, a pleasant public restroom experience is definitely not one of them.

More than once, lately, I've gone to the restroom for my afternoon consitutional and found that two of the three stalls have been occupied. It's just some sort of Law of Sociology that the only free stall would be the center one, right?

Well, I've got news for you: When they built The Velvet Prison™, ventilation of noxious gases in the restroom was not foremost on their minds. At least not when all three toilet stalls in the men's rest room are being used.

I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

The Fauna of Central Park

I've been kinda going mad with my new camera lens. It allows me to take pictures of skittish subjects to which I might not otherwise be able to get very close.

Some of them are prettier than others.

This one was fascinating to me. It was just about the only one of the thirty or so rapid fire shots I took that actually came out well enough that I could — if the urge overtook me, which I doubt it will — actually print and frame. This little guy came out of nowhere and caught me unawares, so I didn't have the chance to set the camera to the automatic "action" mode. Otherwise I might have been able to catch a few more good shots. Still, it was fascinating to see this side of what we otherwise think of as sweet, twittering songbirds. Not so nice to the bugs, are they?

Here's one I never would have gotten with my old lens. This guy had just finished having a little tete a tete with a family that ended up being teases: They kept making like they were going to feed him something, but they never came up with the goods. Imagine his disappointment. Still, he was cool enough to hold still for me while I adjusted my shutter speed and aperture settings. Go figure.

This little fella was just lounging on the grass with his dad, a portly older fellow who, truth be told, looked a lot like this guy, only with a lot less hair. Remind me to get a handsome dog that never looks old, would you?

I spent a good minute, maybe a minute and a half setting up what I thought was going to be a great shot of this empty tunnel along the horse path, near the W. 72nd Street exit, and outta nowhere, this particular park species came flat-footing it past me. So I snapped her anyway. If she wants to sue me for exposing her big fat butt to the world, she's welcome to it. I'll sue her for ruining my shot.

I'm calling this one "Watching the Watcher." I was perched on a rock overlooking the newly renovated playground just south of Sheep Meadow when this guy came up, gave me a collegial nod upon seeing my camera, and then proceeded to snap away. So I did the same to him. Afterward, he came over to me and said, "Since you look like you know what you're doing, would you take a couple of me with the skyline in the background?" Fooled him! Nice Aussie accent though.

This denizen of Sheep Meadow was waiting for his friend to throw him a frisbee. I have absolutely no idea what's up with the meditation hands. Maybe it's some sort of Zen practice. What the heck, right? If Zen can be applied to motorcycle maintenance, why not Frisbees?

Here's something that amazes me about New Yorkers: The packs we carry. Every day, something like 8 million people leave their apartments carrying everything they're likely to need for the day on their backs, since getting home again is going to be such a pain in the ass. Unless, of course, you're rich, or you actually live in midtown. So make that, oh, I don't know, 7 million people.

Okay, I admit it. I just thought this guy was cute. Sue me. Actually, I hung around and watched him and his friends practice their capoeira routines. That's some fascinating stuff. And it reminds me just how out of shape I am, too.

Thanks, guys.

Yay for The Lagemæ!

It's with not a little bit of jealousy that I introduce you to the Littlest Lagemæ, McHale. This handsome young fellow is the perfect addition to Tiny & Super K's family.

See what moving to Pittsburgh and buying a house with a back yard will get you?

Sadly, it only makes me rue the day I let Gavan talk me into giving up Buster. I wonder how he's doing? No offense, Gavan, but had I known that a year or so later we'd be kaput, I'd have kept the dog and dumped you.

Ah, well. Life, right?

A Few Observations

There are a few things I've learned since getting my new camera lens. To wit, some observations I've made...

Sometimes, even the camera shy need to shave:

Even with a wide-angle zoom lens, it's still possible for a muscle-loving voyeur to get caught:

You see the most amazing things when you look up:

You see the most amazing things when you look down:

Even the non-famous can fool an inept paparazzi like me:

More observations to report as they come in.

J'regret

Oh, if only I had known this show was happening. I need to pay closer attention to the world around me, clearly.

In other news, apparently I have to retract every negative thing I've ever said about the Red States. I'm one of them, yo. Or at least it's too close to call, as is proved out by my score on The Yankee Test:

44% Dixie. Barely in Yankeedom

I Am Become Destroyer of Blogs

A couple days ago, I foolishly decided that I no longer liked the silly clock that was taking up space over there on the right sidebar, so I decided to fiddle with the code for my blog.

Bad idea.

You know that I know just enough about this stuff to really fuck things up but not enough to actually repair any of the damage I do, right? 'Cuz I tend to forget that, and you need to remind me more often.

Anyway, somehow I managed to screw up all the "previous post" and "archive" links so they were all pointed at some non-existant portion of my computer's hard drive. Okay for me as I'm viewing the web page. Not so much for you. As the Soup Nazi might say (or shout), "No links for you!"

I, however, am not content with just fucking up in one way, my friends. When I'm going to make a disaster of something, I prefer to create a cascading clusterfuck of disaster. And of course I'm an impulse creator (damnable artistes!), so I never back anything up before I start futzing.

The short version of this story is that it's taken me three days to get the blog back in some sort of working order. For a while there, entries were appearing overlaid, on top of one another. Talk about information overload.

All is well now. Keep your fingers crossed.

Oh, and yes, I've saved a copy of the code for my blog in a safe place, in case I ever again have the urge to jigger with it.

Just as an aside, if you haven't checked out my favorite space alien cat's take on the Fourth of July holiday, then do.

Also, I am — as you know — a big fan of the blog Chasing Mercury. Chase recently re-designed the blog to incorporate a lot of his photos — making it more of a photoblog with text, which I'm digging. This one is one of my recent favorites. You should go and explore for yourself.

I was trawling through some old photos not long ago and came across a picture I'd taken from the fire escape of my old apartment, the one I shared with Maya and Jessie (and Liza and Matt and Gary and John over the years, too). It was a funky old place. Fozzie — who met me when I lived there after returning to NYC in December 2001 — thought it was weird and creepy (and particularly seems fixated on the fact that my bedroom had a classroom-sized chalk board affixed to the wall), but there was much about it that I loved; not least of which was how big and how quiet it was.

Anyway, the picture was of the courtyard dining area of the restaurant below us in the building next door. It was called St. Mark's Bistro, and had some of the best food (and worst service!) I've had in New York. Its Sunday brunch was particularly good. I'll never forget, however, how incensed I was when I found out they were going to first open that seating area. I used to love the quiet privacy of just sitting on the fire escape and escaping the world. I also got one of my all-time favorite pictures of Truckstop there. Jeez, but he was a handsome cat.

Even if he was the Bastard Heir of Satan™.

My Kinda Superstar

Not long ago, Ken and I went to see the musical Spring Awakening. We didn't so much love it, for reasons I won't bother going into here, although I will say that I enjoyed the music by my secret husband, Duncan Sheik --– who, by the way, needs to shave.

But I digress.

The highlight of our evening, actually, ended up who was in the audience.

Since Spring Awakening seems to have become the "it" musical du jour, you would expect that you'd get a celebrity sighting or two.

But I would never have expected that I would see David Byrne at the tiny Atlantic Theatre Company. And --– best of all -- the man rode his bicycle to the theater.

How fucking cool is that?

I hope --– if ever I achieve a measure of success --– that I'll still ride my bike around town. I want to be cool like David Byrne.

'Course, it would help if I bought a bike, since mine was stolen. Natch.

There was another celebrity at the theater that evening, and though I didn't see it myself, Ken insists that he gave me the MRI -- a rather intent going over with the eyeballs in a cruisy sorta way. I'm not going to flatter myself, frankly, especially since said celebrity is happily partnered.

Just reporting the facts, ma'am.

And I Will Overhear Their Conference

There's a new phenomenon that's been popping up on my radar recently. It hasn't been named yet, but I'll work that out soon enough.

This is the way it works:

The light seems to bend itself around a guy, depending on how hot he is. Or maybe the light bending is only a side effect of some electromagnetic change or field that forms around a hot guy's body, again, depending on — maybe even fueled by — his level of hotness.

Regardless of how it happens, the result is what's interesting. Anyone standing in close proximity to the hot person is rendered invisible.

It's been proved out in field test. Walking down the street with Topher tends to turn one invisible, as the hungry eyes of passers-by slide over his companion in their haste to rest on him. And — independent confirmation — sitting at a table next
to a big-muscled sketching artist will also render one invisible to passers-by the big picture window in which one sits writing. It's happening right now.

These observations are moot, now. When one is off the market, one shouldn't be strategizing how to avoid being caught in the Hot Guy Invisibility Field.

But now it has a name.

I Had A Dream

This is how you know your boyfriend cares for you:

When Fozzie returned from his recent weekend away, he insisted on seeing me that very Sunday evening. Naturally, he can't go more than a few days without ravishing me, or being ravished in turn.

That Sunday happened to the be day of the Gay Pride Parade, so after enjoying the Festivities with Topher, I dutifully made my way to Fozzie's den.

As it turned out, when I got to the Den, Fozzie wasn't feeling well; he had a sore throat. So it ended up being a night of cuddling and comforting, mixed with some spicy Thai food from Our Place.

Before we went to bed, though, I mentioned to Fozz that I'd figured out why I was never able to get any sleep at his place, and consequently ended up a dazed wreck at work on the day following any sleepover: Fozzie tosses and turns, and jerks in his sleep. And he — not to put too fine a point on this — doesn't seem to be able to restrain from, er, touching me, even in his sleep. All that mixed with the fact that I'm a light sleeper means that every time I'm bumped, shifted or, er, touched, I wake up.

Mystery solved.

So cut to us going to bed. I drop off pretty quickly, but because of his sore throat, Fozzie's unable to sleep, and he's tossing and turning all night long. What does he do?

He gets up and he goes to sleep on the sofa, fearing he'll disturb my sleep. And this, after I had a dream (which frankly probably wasn't a dream) that I roused myself just enough to slap his hand away during one of his...er, touching forays to my side of the bed.

What does one say to that? I'm unworthy.

And that's how you know your boyfriend cares for you.