I wished for some snow this winter, and I certainly did get it! It snowed last weekend, and then there was a massive snowstorm this weekend (17 inches roughly). More snow is expected tomorrow night, to boot!
Sean was snowed in with me the last three days. You know, it was really nice. We cooked for each other, watched movies, played in the snow... it was fun.
So before I go any further, I have to mention the events of last weekend. So after the snow, last Sunday, Sean and I went to Lowes to look at tiles and stuff for renovating his condo. All that flood damage from December has been fixed now, and he has some money left over that he's going to put into making the place nicer. Anyway, he was looking at dishwashers and asking me what I thought. I was like, this one's nice, but it's your place, so you make the decision. Then he basically said it's our place, and he would like me to live with him, and I said yes.
That's pretty much how it happened. I'll never forget the dishwasher section of Lowes. Sigh. There's no real timetable yet on when I'll actually move. We both have loose ends to tie up, we're both very busy. But this weekend snowed in together I think proved we really can live with each other without driving the other crazy, so that's a good thing.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Definition of the Day
Yesterday, Groundhog Day, the groundhog Phil saw his shadow, so maybe six more weeks of winter? There was a lot of snow, but unfortunately the streets are clear (for once) so I have to work today!
At any rate, here's something humorous I came across. Lada Gaga fans will appreciate this:
"Bluffin with my Muffin" - the offering of a baked good to distract your enemies so that you can make a quick escape.
At any rate, here's something humorous I came across. Lada Gaga fans will appreciate this:
"Bluffin with my Muffin" - the offering of a baked good to distract your enemies so that you can make a quick escape.
'I was cornered my thieves on a dark, deserted street, and only managed to escape by bluffin' with my muffin (blueberry).'
Monday, January 25, 2010
Back, But Wishing I Weren't
I've been back for a few days. While on some level it's good to be back in one's own home and bed, I gotta be honest, I'd much rather be in a beach in the Yucatan.
Sean and I had a wonderful time. On many levels I think it was our best trip yet. After the turbulence and stress of last year we both needed it. The first four or so days, in fact, were spent just lounging by the beach. There's something delightful about swimming in bath-warm water and sun tanning in the dead of January. Margaritas, coronas, relaxing.
We visited Mayan ruins, which have to be seen to be believed. As with other ancient wonders I've had the privilege of seeing, nothing really compares to that first moment of awe when you stand before something amazing, such as a Mayan pyramid.
We went snorkeling and swimming at a protected reef area that was absolutely beautiful, too. I took pictures with a water-proof camera (I'll have those developed shortly). The water was so blue and transparent it makes our trips to cold, murky Rehoboth just seem depressing. Sean and I got lots of good sun, too.
Now, I suppose, it's time to get "serious" about this year!
0
Sean and I had a wonderful time. On many levels I think it was our best trip yet. After the turbulence and stress of last year we both needed it. The first four or so days, in fact, were spent just lounging by the beach. There's something delightful about swimming in bath-warm water and sun tanning in the dead of January. Margaritas, coronas, relaxing.
We visited Mayan ruins, which have to be seen to be believed. As with other ancient wonders I've had the privilege of seeing, nothing really compares to that first moment of awe when you stand before something amazing, such as a Mayan pyramid.
We went snorkeling and swimming at a protected reef area that was absolutely beautiful, too. I took pictures with a water-proof camera (I'll have those developed shortly). The water was so blue and transparent it makes our trips to cold, murky Rehoboth just seem depressing. Sean and I got lots of good sun, too.
Now, I suppose, it's time to get "serious" about this year!
0
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Vamos a Mexico!
The Poison Pen is off for the next eight days to Mexico to enjoy warmer climes and celebrate a new year! Adios!
Friday, January 08, 2010
The Melting of America The Story of a Can’t-Do Nation
Tomgram: Orville Schell, What Doesn't Work in America TomDispatch
The Melting of America The Story of a Can’t-Do Nation By Orville Schell
Lately, I’ve been studying the climate-change induced melting of glaciers in the Greater Himalaya. Understanding the cascading effects of the slow-motion downsizing of one of the planet’s most magnificent landforms has, to put it politely, left me dispirited. Spending time considering the deleterious downstream effects on the two billion people (from the North China Plain to Afghanistan) who depend on the river systems -- the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Indus, Amu Darya and Tarim -- that arise in these mountains isn’t much of an antidote to malaise either.
If you focus on those Himalayan highlands, a deep sense of loss creeps over you -- the kind that comes from contemplating the possible end of something once imagined as immovable, immutable, eternal, something that has unexpectedly become vulnerable and perishable as it has slipped into irreversible decline. Those magnificent glaciers, known as the Third Pole because they contain the most ice in the world short of the two polar regions, are now wasting away on an overheated planet and no one knows what to do about it.
To stand next to one of those leviathans of ice, those Moby Dicks of the mountains, is to feel in the most poignant form the magnificence of the creator’s work. It’s also to regain an ancient sense, largely lost to us, of our relative smallness on this planet and to be forcibly reminded that we have passed a tipping point. The days when the natural world was demonstrably ascendant over even the quite modest collective strength of humankind are over. The power -- largely to set an agenda of destruction -- has irrevocably shifted from nature to us.
Another tipping point has also been on my mind lately and it’s left me no less melancholy. In this case, the Moby Dick in question is my own country, the United States of America. We Americans, too, seem to have passed a tipping point. Like the glaciers of the high Himalaya, long familiar aspects of our nation are beginning to feel as if they were, in a sense, melting away.
The eight years of George W. Bush’s wrecking ball undeniably helped set our descent in motion. Then came the dawning realization that President Barack Obama, who strode into office billed as a catalyst of sure-fire change, would no more stop the melting down of the planet’s former “sole superpower” than the Copenhagen summit would stop the melting of those glaciers. After all, a predatory and dysfunctional Washington reminds us constantly that we may be approaching the end of the era of American possibility. For Obama’s beguiling aura of promise to be stripped away so unceremoniously has left me feeling as if we, as a country, might have missed the last flight out.
And speaking of last flights out, I’ve been on a lot of those lately. It’s difficult enough to contemplate the decline of one’s country from within, but from abroad? That -- take my word for it -- is an even more painful prospect. Because out there you can’t escape an awareness that what’s working and being built elsewhere is failing and being torn apart here. To travel is to be forced to make endless comparisons which, when it comes to our country, is like being disturbed by unnerving dreams.
In the past few months, as I’ve roamed the world from San Francisco to Copenhagen to Beijing to Dubai, I’ve taken to keeping a double-entry list of what works and what doesn’t, country by country. Unfortunately, it’s largely a list of what works “there” and doesn’t work here. It’s in places like China, South Korea, Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, and (until recently) the United Arab Emirates -- some not even open societies -- that you find people hard at work on the challenges of education, transport, energy, and the environment. It’s there that one feels the sense of possibility, of hopefulness, of can-do optimism so long associated with the U.S.
China, a country I’ve visited more than 100 times since 1975, elicits an especially complicated set of feelings in me. After all, it’s got a Leninist government which was not supposed to succeed; and yet, despite all predictions, it managed to conjure up an economic miracle that, whatever you may think about political transparency, the rule of law, human rights, or democracy, delivers big time. When you’re there, you can feel an unmistakable sense of energy and optimism in the air (along with the often stinging pollution), which, believe me, is bittersweet for an American pondering the missing-in-action regenerative powers of his own country.
As I’ve been traveling from China’s gleamingly efficient airports to our chaotic and all-too-often broken-down versions of the same, or Europe’s high-speed trains to our clunky railroads, I keep that expanding list of mine on hand, my own little version of what works and what doesn’t. Over time, its entries have fallen into one of three categories that I imagine something like this:
1. Robust, full of energy, growing, replete with promise and strength, the envy of the world.
2. Alive and kicking, but in a delicate balance between growth and decline.
3. Irredeemably broken, with little chance of restored health anytime soon.
And here then, as I imagine it, is the shape of America today in terms of what works and what doesn’t, what’s growing and what’s failing:
1. Bio-technology, developing dynamically and delivering much of the world’s most innovative technological research, thinking, and ideas; Silicon Valley, which still has enormous inventiveness, energy, and capital at its disposal; civil society which, despite the collapse of the economy, still seems to be expanding, still luring the best and brightest young people, and still superbly performing the ever more crucial function of being a goad to government and other established institutions; American philanthropy, which is the most evolved, well-funded, and innovative in the world; the U.S. military, the best led, trained, equipped, and maintained on the planet, despite the way it has been repeatedly thrust into hopeless wars by stupid politicians; the fabric of much of small-town American life with its still extant sense of cohesiveness and community spirit; the arts, both high-culture and pop, boasting a still vibrant film industry that remains the globe’s “sole superpower” of visual entertainment, and the requisite networks of symphony orchestras, ballets, theaters, pop music groups, and world-class museums.
2. Higher and secondary-school education, in which America still boasts some of the globe’s preeminent institutions, though the best are increasingly private as jewel-in-the-crown public systems like California’s are driven into the ground thanks to devastating, repeated budget cuts; a national energy system which still delivers, but is terminally strung out on oil and coal, and depends on a grid badly in need of some new “smartness”; environmental protection, which compares favorably with that in other countries, though always under-funded and so, like our extraordinary national park system, ever teetering above the abyss; the court system, overburdened and under-funded, but struggling to deliver justice.
3. The federal government, essentially busted; Congress, increasingly paralyzed and largely incapable of delivering solutions to the country’s most pressing problems; state government, largely broke; the Interstate highway system and our infrastructure of bridges and tunnels, melting away like a block of ice in the sun because maintenance and upgrading is so poor; dikes, water systems, and many other aspects of the national infrastructure which keeps the country going, similarly old and deteriorating; airlines, some of the sorriest in the world with the oldest, dirtiest, and least up-to-date planes and the requisite run-down airports to go with them; ports that are falling behind world standards; a railroad passenger system which, unlike countries from Spain to China, has not one mile of truly high-speed rail; the country’s financial system whose over-paid executives not only ran us off an economic cliff in 2008, but also managed to compromise the whole system itself in the eyes of the world; a broadcast media which -- public broadcasting and aspects of a vital and growing Internet excepted -- is a grossly overly-commercialized, broken-down mess that has gravely let down the country in terms of keeping us informed; newspapers, in a state of free-fall; book publishing, heading in the same direction; elementary education (that is, our future), especially public K-12 schools in big cities, desperately under-funded and near broke in many communities; a food industry which subsidizes sugar and starch, stuffs people with fast-food, and leaves 60% of the population overweight; basic manufacturing, like the automobile industry, evidently headed for oblivion, or China, whichever comes first; the American city, hollowing out and breaking down; the prison system, one of America’s few growth industries but a pit of hopelessness.
As you may have noted, category one is close to a full list, category two, close enough, while category three is just a gesture in the direction of larger-scale decline. Unfortunately, it seems ever expandable. You’ll undoubtedly be tempted to add to it yourself. (I have the same impulse every time I’m elsewhere and see some shiny new industrial or designer toy we don’t make or even have.) When I told a friend about this tallying obsession of mine, he suggested that it might turn out to be a great website. (See the vigorous world of the Internet in category one above.) And so it might -- a kind of electronic stock market Big Board where the world could weigh in and help track all those things people find encouraging or discouraging about the U.S. and other countries.
The initial impulse for my list, however, was self-protective. I was searching for “things that work” here, the better to banish that dispiriting sense of an American decline into the sort of can’t-do-itive-ness that Congress has come to exemplify. Consider my exercise some kind of incantatory ritual -- a talisman -- meant to hold off the bad spirits just as, when I arrive in Beijing in winter and find the mercury near zero (an increasing rarity these last years) or stumble into a snowstorm in New York City, I’m relieved. For me, such manifestations of real winter are signs that nature may not yet have totally surrendered to us, that global warming is still being challenged, and that things may not be as far gone as I sometimes fear.
And yet that list of can-do’s remains so unbearably short and the cant-do’s grows by the trip. I’d love to be convinced otherwise, but like the ice fields of the Greater Himalaya melting before our eyes, American prowess and promise, once seemingly as much a permanent part of the global landscape as glaciers, mountains, and oceans, seems to be melting away by the day.
Orville Schell is the Director of the Asia Society’s Center on US-China Relations, where he leads a project on climate change and the Tibetan Plateau. He is former Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, the author of many books on China, and a frequent traveler in his various journalistic pursuits.
The Melting of America The Story of a Can’t-Do Nation By Orville Schell
Lately, I’ve been studying the climate-change induced melting of glaciers in the Greater Himalaya. Understanding the cascading effects of the slow-motion downsizing of one of the planet’s most magnificent landforms has, to put it politely, left me dispirited. Spending time considering the deleterious downstream effects on the two billion people (from the North China Plain to Afghanistan) who depend on the river systems -- the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Indus, Amu Darya and Tarim -- that arise in these mountains isn’t much of an antidote to malaise either.
If you focus on those Himalayan highlands, a deep sense of loss creeps over you -- the kind that comes from contemplating the possible end of something once imagined as immovable, immutable, eternal, something that has unexpectedly become vulnerable and perishable as it has slipped into irreversible decline. Those magnificent glaciers, known as the Third Pole because they contain the most ice in the world short of the two polar regions, are now wasting away on an overheated planet and no one knows what to do about it.
To stand next to one of those leviathans of ice, those Moby Dicks of the mountains, is to feel in the most poignant form the magnificence of the creator’s work. It’s also to regain an ancient sense, largely lost to us, of our relative smallness on this planet and to be forcibly reminded that we have passed a tipping point. The days when the natural world was demonstrably ascendant over even the quite modest collective strength of humankind are over. The power -- largely to set an agenda of destruction -- has irrevocably shifted from nature to us.
Another tipping point has also been on my mind lately and it’s left me no less melancholy. In this case, the Moby Dick in question is my own country, the United States of America. We Americans, too, seem to have passed a tipping point. Like the glaciers of the high Himalaya, long familiar aspects of our nation are beginning to feel as if they were, in a sense, melting away.
The eight years of George W. Bush’s wrecking ball undeniably helped set our descent in motion. Then came the dawning realization that President Barack Obama, who strode into office billed as a catalyst of sure-fire change, would no more stop the melting down of the planet’s former “sole superpower” than the Copenhagen summit would stop the melting of those glaciers. After all, a predatory and dysfunctional Washington reminds us constantly that we may be approaching the end of the era of American possibility. For Obama’s beguiling aura of promise to be stripped away so unceremoniously has left me feeling as if we, as a country, might have missed the last flight out.
And speaking of last flights out, I’ve been on a lot of those lately. It’s difficult enough to contemplate the decline of one’s country from within, but from abroad? That -- take my word for it -- is an even more painful prospect. Because out there you can’t escape an awareness that what’s working and being built elsewhere is failing and being torn apart here. To travel is to be forced to make endless comparisons which, when it comes to our country, is like being disturbed by unnerving dreams.
In the past few months, as I’ve roamed the world from San Francisco to Copenhagen to Beijing to Dubai, I’ve taken to keeping a double-entry list of what works and what doesn’t, country by country. Unfortunately, it’s largely a list of what works “there” and doesn’t work here. It’s in places like China, South Korea, Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, and (until recently) the United Arab Emirates -- some not even open societies -- that you find people hard at work on the challenges of education, transport, energy, and the environment. It’s there that one feels the sense of possibility, of hopefulness, of can-do optimism so long associated with the U.S.
China, a country I’ve visited more than 100 times since 1975, elicits an especially complicated set of feelings in me. After all, it’s got a Leninist government which was not supposed to succeed; and yet, despite all predictions, it managed to conjure up an economic miracle that, whatever you may think about political transparency, the rule of law, human rights, or democracy, delivers big time. When you’re there, you can feel an unmistakable sense of energy and optimism in the air (along with the often stinging pollution), which, believe me, is bittersweet for an American pondering the missing-in-action regenerative powers of his own country.
As I’ve been traveling from China’s gleamingly efficient airports to our chaotic and all-too-often broken-down versions of the same, or Europe’s high-speed trains to our clunky railroads, I keep that expanding list of mine on hand, my own little version of what works and what doesn’t. Over time, its entries have fallen into one of three categories that I imagine something like this:
1. Robust, full of energy, growing, replete with promise and strength, the envy of the world.
2. Alive and kicking, but in a delicate balance between growth and decline.
3. Irredeemably broken, with little chance of restored health anytime soon.
And here then, as I imagine it, is the shape of America today in terms of what works and what doesn’t, what’s growing and what’s failing:
1. Bio-technology, developing dynamically and delivering much of the world’s most innovative technological research, thinking, and ideas; Silicon Valley, which still has enormous inventiveness, energy, and capital at its disposal; civil society which, despite the collapse of the economy, still seems to be expanding, still luring the best and brightest young people, and still superbly performing the ever more crucial function of being a goad to government and other established institutions; American philanthropy, which is the most evolved, well-funded, and innovative in the world; the U.S. military, the best led, trained, equipped, and maintained on the planet, despite the way it has been repeatedly thrust into hopeless wars by stupid politicians; the fabric of much of small-town American life with its still extant sense of cohesiveness and community spirit; the arts, both high-culture and pop, boasting a still vibrant film industry that remains the globe’s “sole superpower” of visual entertainment, and the requisite networks of symphony orchestras, ballets, theaters, pop music groups, and world-class museums.
2. Higher and secondary-school education, in which America still boasts some of the globe’s preeminent institutions, though the best are increasingly private as jewel-in-the-crown public systems like California’s are driven into the ground thanks to devastating, repeated budget cuts; a national energy system which still delivers, but is terminally strung out on oil and coal, and depends on a grid badly in need of some new “smartness”; environmental protection, which compares favorably with that in other countries, though always under-funded and so, like our extraordinary national park system, ever teetering above the abyss; the court system, overburdened and under-funded, but struggling to deliver justice.
3. The federal government, essentially busted; Congress, increasingly paralyzed and largely incapable of delivering solutions to the country’s most pressing problems; state government, largely broke; the Interstate highway system and our infrastructure of bridges and tunnels, melting away like a block of ice in the sun because maintenance and upgrading is so poor; dikes, water systems, and many other aspects of the national infrastructure which keeps the country going, similarly old and deteriorating; airlines, some of the sorriest in the world with the oldest, dirtiest, and least up-to-date planes and the requisite run-down airports to go with them; ports that are falling behind world standards; a railroad passenger system which, unlike countries from Spain to China, has not one mile of truly high-speed rail; the country’s financial system whose over-paid executives not only ran us off an economic cliff in 2008, but also managed to compromise the whole system itself in the eyes of the world; a broadcast media which -- public broadcasting and aspects of a vital and growing Internet excepted -- is a grossly overly-commercialized, broken-down mess that has gravely let down the country in terms of keeping us informed; newspapers, in a state of free-fall; book publishing, heading in the same direction; elementary education (that is, our future), especially public K-12 schools in big cities, desperately under-funded and near broke in many communities; a food industry which subsidizes sugar and starch, stuffs people with fast-food, and leaves 60% of the population overweight; basic manufacturing, like the automobile industry, evidently headed for oblivion, or China, whichever comes first; the American city, hollowing out and breaking down; the prison system, one of America’s few growth industries but a pit of hopelessness.
As you may have noted, category one is close to a full list, category two, close enough, while category three is just a gesture in the direction of larger-scale decline. Unfortunately, it seems ever expandable. You’ll undoubtedly be tempted to add to it yourself. (I have the same impulse every time I’m elsewhere and see some shiny new industrial or designer toy we don’t make or even have.) When I told a friend about this tallying obsession of mine, he suggested that it might turn out to be a great website. (See the vigorous world of the Internet in category one above.) And so it might -- a kind of electronic stock market Big Board where the world could weigh in and help track all those things people find encouraging or discouraging about the U.S. and other countries.
The initial impulse for my list, however, was self-protective. I was searching for “things that work” here, the better to banish that dispiriting sense of an American decline into the sort of can’t-do-itive-ness that Congress has come to exemplify. Consider my exercise some kind of incantatory ritual -- a talisman -- meant to hold off the bad spirits just as, when I arrive in Beijing in winter and find the mercury near zero (an increasing rarity these last years) or stumble into a snowstorm in New York City, I’m relieved. For me, such manifestations of real winter are signs that nature may not yet have totally surrendered to us, that global warming is still being challenged, and that things may not be as far gone as I sometimes fear.
And yet that list of can-do’s remains so unbearably short and the cant-do’s grows by the trip. I’d love to be convinced otherwise, but like the ice fields of the Greater Himalaya melting before our eyes, American prowess and promise, once seemingly as much a permanent part of the global landscape as glaciers, mountains, and oceans, seems to be melting away by the day.
Orville Schell is the Director of the Asia Society’s Center on US-China Relations, where he leads a project on climate change and the Tibetan Plateau. He is former Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, the author of many books on China, and a frequent traveler in his various journalistic pursuits.
Saturday, January 02, 2010
The Poison Pen At The Movies
Maybe it's the cold weather, but I've been catching up on a lot of movies on my want-to-see and friends-recommend lists.
So, here are some movies I've watched/rented from Netflix over the last few weeks... Instead of stars I'll rate them with up to five Poison Pen skull-and-crossbones.
Love Song for Bobby Long - I didn't think I'd like this one (my mother recommended it), but wound up really enjoying it, tearing a little at the end. Five skull-and-crossbones.
Let the Right One In - A very different and atmospheric vampire movie from Sweden. A perfect antidote to the Twilight movies. Four skull-and-crossbones.
RocknRolla - I generally enjoy all ofMr Madonna Guy Ritchie's movies, and this one was great. It's supposed to be the first in a trilogy, so I can't wait for the next installment. Five skull-and-crossbones.
In Bruges - Collin Ferrell oozes Irish sex-appeal in this rather slow-paced but quirky movie. Three skull-and-crossbones.
Waltz With Bashir - A movie that alternated between documentary and animation, it's an import from Israel that's quite interesting. Three skull-and-crossbones.
New Moon - Don't laugh. I saw this Twilight sequel in theaters with Chef Tom (I owe you, Sean) because love is taking your boyfriend to see shitty movies with hot actors. I didn't see this for plot or dialogue, just gratuitous shirtless Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. Three skull-and-crossbones just for the shirtlessness.
So, here are some movies I've watched/rented from Netflix over the last few weeks... Instead of stars I'll rate them with up to five Poison Pen skull-and-crossbones.
Love Song for Bobby Long - I didn't think I'd like this one (my mother recommended it), but wound up really enjoying it, tearing a little at the end. Five skull-and-crossbones.
Let the Right One In - A very different and atmospheric vampire movie from Sweden. A perfect antidote to the Twilight movies. Four skull-and-crossbones.
RocknRolla - I generally enjoy all of
In Bruges - Collin Ferrell oozes Irish sex-appeal in this rather slow-paced but quirky movie. Three skull-and-crossbones.
Waltz With Bashir - A movie that alternated between documentary and animation, it's an import from Israel that's quite interesting. Three skull-and-crossbones.
New Moon - Don't laugh. I saw this Twilight sequel in theaters with Chef Tom (I owe you, Sean) because love is taking your boyfriend to see shitty movies with hot actors. I didn't see this for plot or dialogue, just gratuitous shirtless Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. Three skull-and-crossbones just for the shirtlessness.
Friday, January 01, 2010
Año Nuevo, Vida Nueva
I had a wonderful New Years Eve (and New Year's Eve Eve), ringing in the new year with friends and Chef Tom.
Wednesday I had lunch with M at Alero, then we spent the day window shopping, and went to a dinner party at Erica's. Thursday I spent the day mostly sleeping in (since I've had the week off) cleaning up a bit (I still haven't gotten rid of my xmas tree yet).
Then, I met Chef in Cleveland Park for NYE dinner at a places I hadn't been to before called Sabores, which has a wonderful South American menu. We then had champagne and our giant fortune cookie (see below) - which promises good things, by the way - and we went to Town to dance and count down to the new year.
Today, after getting together rather late, we met M and S in Chinatown for lunch/dinner at this place (see below) where they make their own noodles. I thought it was rather good, and Chinese on the first is a bit of a New Years Day tradition.
Wednesday I had lunch with M at Alero, then we spent the day window shopping, and went to a dinner party at Erica's. Thursday I spent the day mostly sleeping in (since I've had the week off) cleaning up a bit (I still haven't gotten rid of my xmas tree yet).
Then, I met Chef in Cleveland Park for NYE dinner at a places I hadn't been to before called Sabores, which has a wonderful South American menu. We then had champagne and our giant fortune cookie (see below) - which promises good things, by the way - and we went to Town to dance and count down to the new year.
Today, after getting together rather late, we met M and S in Chinatown for lunch/dinner at this place (see below) where they make their own noodles. I thought it was rather good, and Chinese on the first is a bit of a New Years Day tradition.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
New Year, New Decade
It occurred to me that the new year, which begins tomorrow, is also the beginning of a new decade, as well. Scary how ten years flow by like a swift river.
I had a wonderful Christmas at my family's with "Chef Tom" (pics below). One of the best Xmas's yet. I've been off work all week, savoring the time-off after an incredibly turbulent year. Indeed, the end of a turbulent decade.
Sean/Chef and myself are off to Mexico after next week, which I am very much looking forward to. Happy New Years to everyone!
I had a wonderful Christmas at my family's with "Chef Tom" (pics below). One of the best Xmas's yet. I've been off work all week, savoring the time-off after an incredibly turbulent year. Indeed, the end of a turbulent decade.
Sean/Chef and myself are off to Mexico after next week, which I am very much looking forward to. Happy New Years to everyone!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Festivus Airing of Grievances!
I think at this point it's getting cliche, me starting each post lately with an apology for not posting in awhile. That seems to happen a lot of late... so all I can say is I'll update this blog when I'm able and feel like it. So check back periodically, you never know what I might post.
We had a beautiful snowstorm over the weekend here in D.C. It effectively shut the region down (though I don't think it was quite as bad as the one back in 2003). I like snow, my knee pains aside, and I think we're due for a snowy winter.
I got my holiday shopping done, my holiday tree is lit and pretty (I finally got a real one this year). Sean and I are preparing to go visit my parents tomorrow...
Most of all I am excited that 2009 is coming to a close. What a BITCH of a year! Let's examine the shiteous things that happened, shall we...
Adam's Festivus Airing of Grievances!
At any rate, 2010 will bring great new things, I am sure, for all of us! Starting with a trip in early January to Mexico - a great start if I may say so.
Be safe this HOliday season (including you, Drunky, don't drink and drive!).
Happy HOlidays from The Poison Pen!
We had a beautiful snowstorm over the weekend here in D.C. It effectively shut the region down (though I don't think it was quite as bad as the one back in 2003). I like snow, my knee pains aside, and I think we're due for a snowy winter.
I got my holiday shopping done, my holiday tree is lit and pretty (I finally got a real one this year). Sean and I are preparing to go visit my parents tomorrow...
Most of all I am excited that 2009 is coming to a close. What a BITCH of a year! Let's examine the shiteous things that happened, shall we...
Adam's Festivus Airing of Grievances!
- I got laid off my last job (though I got a sweet severance package and a new job that started the week after, so I made bank this year)
- My new job, while paying significantly more $, also comes with more demands and stress.
- Sean's job stresses him out even more.
- My friend got arrested for something that wasn't their fault.
- The national economy continued to fucking tank.
- Sean and I went through a rough patch around Halloween.
- Sean's condo was flooded.
At any rate, 2010 will bring great new things, I am sure, for all of us! Starting with a trip in early January to Mexico - a great start if I may say so.
Be safe this HOliday season (including you, Drunky, don't drink and drive!).
Happy HOlidays from The Poison Pen!
Friday, December 18, 2009
Friday, December 04, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Good Morning, Baltimore!
Sean took me to Baltimore this weekend as a surprise getaway. He had told me, "It's something we've talked about" as a clue. That left a whole range of things open. I thought it could be anything from a bed & breakfast to camping.
He got us a very nice room at the Hotel Monaco, we had a fantastic meal at a seafood restaurant called The Oceanaire, hit the nightclub Hippo. The next morning I took him to the Baltimore Aquarium (see pics below) and to Fells Point.
It's been ages since I've been there - which is funny because it's so close. It was a great weekend spending time with Sean, working on things.
He got us a very nice room at the Hotel Monaco, we had a fantastic meal at a seafood restaurant called The Oceanaire, hit the nightclub Hippo. The next morning I took him to the Baltimore Aquarium (see pics below) and to Fells Point.
It's been ages since I've been there - which is funny because it's so close. It was a great weekend spending time with Sean, working on things.
Kaiseki
Been working on things in my personal life, as readers may have been able to tell, so I haven't really written much lately.
Weekend before last Sean and I went to Sushi Taro. We tried going once before, but missed our reservations. Ever since the restaurant re-opened and extensive renovations, I've heard nothing but complaints that the place is now too expensive and pretentious.
So, I went in fully expected to be disappointed. And came out feeling like I'd had one of the top 10 meals I've had in my life.
First, I have to explain that yes, the menu has become very expensive. But, I must also stress the sushi is far more authentic, as are the other dishes. Let's face it - teriyaki and California rolls aren't exactly authentic Japanese, or very high-end for that matter.
We opted for the 11-course Kaiseki meal, which is arranged by the head chef every night based on fresh ingredients. I honestly wish I could remember every dish, but everything - especially the exotic, hard-to-find fresh fish - made it a very memorable experience.
I can't wait to go back... perhaps for a future special occasion.
Weekend before last Sean and I went to Sushi Taro. We tried going once before, but missed our reservations. Ever since the restaurant re-opened and extensive renovations, I've heard nothing but complaints that the place is now too expensive and pretentious.
So, I went in fully expected to be disappointed. And came out feeling like I'd had one of the top 10 meals I've had in my life.
First, I have to explain that yes, the menu has become very expensive. But, I must also stress the sushi is far more authentic, as are the other dishes. Let's face it - teriyaki and California rolls aren't exactly authentic Japanese, or very high-end for that matter.
We opted for the 11-course Kaiseki meal, which is arranged by the head chef every night based on fresh ingredients. I honestly wish I could remember every dish, but everything - especially the exotic, hard-to-find fresh fish - made it a very memorable experience.
I can't wait to go back... perhaps for a future special occasion.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Excuse My Dancing Skills!
This is why you should never invite me to your wedding...
Those other people are clearly just jealous of her pole-dancing abilities.
Those other people are clearly just jealous of her pole-dancing abilities.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Anniversary
Last night was Sean and my third anniversary.We went to dinner at the place we first had dinner at, Zaytinya.
We're taking it one day at a time right now, that's all I can really say. And I appreciate it if our friends can respect that process.
We're taking it one day at a time right now, that's all I can really say. And I appreciate it if our friends can respect that process.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Meshes of the Afternoon
A classic surrealist film from the 1940's - Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon. (I remember watching this, and Salvador Dali's Un Chien Andalou in college)
There's a scene where she watching herself through a window. What made me remember this film was a dream I had recently...
There's a scene where she watching herself through a window. What made me remember this film was a dream I had recently...
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
November In Doubt
I haven't been blogging lately... my sense of humor is kind of muted right now. I've been going through some things I'd rather not air on this trivial blog.
Maybe I'll post about it all later, when things work out, or don't. I think this song explains sort of how I feel lately...
Maybe I'll post about it all later, when things work out, or don't. I think this song explains sort of how I feel lately...
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Why We Hate (yet sometimes love) DC
A new favorite blog to check out, especially if you live in the DC region.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
DILF Wednesdays: Michael C. Hall
Here's a "killer" DILF for this Halloween week which seems to be dragging... Michael C. Hall of Dexter fame. I fell in love with him when he played the main gay character on Six Feet Under, and he DILF-alicious on Dexter...
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Self Control
I'd forgotten what a hot video this was (it's up there with A-Ha's Take On Me). I was shocked to hear Laura Branigan was dead, so sad! She's part of the reasons I miss the 80's!
Ghosts of the Past, and Things to Come
So today I am working from my laptop, sitting at Soho cafe. Just sitting here on my laptop - something which I have not done in a long time, brings back a flood of memories. All the times I was here through college, through formative years of my early 20's... this place, the bars, the street all are laden with memories.
I was talking with a friend this morning on email, and we were also talking about a tarot reading we did as a group. Some might not take much stock in such things, but the strange thing was that all of our reading said that the coming year would bring change.
It certainly did. Some good, some bad. But I guess that's the thing... you don't get to choose the hand that fate deals and sometimes it feels like the universe has a dark sense of humor. I guess it's funny sometimes how a simple fortune-telling can carry meaning that isn't apparent at the time. Only in hindsight do we see how much crazy change has occurred.
I was talking with a friend this morning on email, and we were also talking about a tarot reading we did as a group. Some might not take much stock in such things, but the strange thing was that all of our reading said that the coming year would bring change.
It certainly did. Some good, some bad. But I guess that's the thing... you don't get to choose the hand that fate deals and sometimes it feels like the universe has a dark sense of humor. I guess it's funny sometimes how a simple fortune-telling can carry meaning that isn't apparent at the time. Only in hindsight do we see how much crazy change has occurred.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Spooky Readings
I've mentioned before that I love October, and Halloween ranks as probably my favorite holiday in the year (well, besides my birthday). So I've been looking for some good Halloween-season movies and books to help get in the mood.
Sean and I saw Paranormal Activity last weekend when it was cold and wet outside. I'm really, I mean really sensitive to motion sickness. These Youtube-ish movies where they can't hold the camera fucking still really bothers me. That aside, I thought it was a great movie right up until the very end, when they fucking ruined it. But I do recommend seeing it. You'll won't sleep so easy the night you watch it, I'm sure!
Anyway, what are some of your favorite seasonal reads? Any recommendations?
Sean and I saw Paranormal Activity last weekend when it was cold and wet outside. I'm really, I mean really sensitive to motion sickness. These Youtube-ish movies where they can't hold the camera fucking still really bothers me. That aside, I thought it was a great movie right up until the very end, when they fucking ruined it. But I do recommend seeing it. You'll won't sleep so easy the night you watch it, I'm sure!
Anyway, what are some of your favorite seasonal reads? Any recommendations?
Friday, October 16, 2009
3
It took me two listens to Britney's new song "3" before I realized what she was talking about. I've only had one threesome in my time, and it was a dizz-aster. TMI? Anyway, here's the song from my favorite trainwreck from Kentwood, LA.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
La Roux
I love this video... mostly because I really like her hair! How much product does that take, I wonder?
LA ROUX 'BULLETPROOF' from soyo on Vimeo.
Friday, October 09, 2009
Equality March leader seeks end to 'incrementalism' - Washington Blade: Gay and Lesbian News, Entertainment, Politics and Opinion
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Time to Leave This Funhouse
Last night I overheard P!nk's latest song "Funhouse"
"This used to be a Funhouse / But now it's full of evil clowns / it's time to start the countdown..."
I learned from a close friend this weekend that he's chosen to move back to Europe, and while he will be missed, I can't entirely blame him, either.
Maybe I'm coming at this from a different perspective, but as a young gay man, the U.S. has consistently been a disappointment. My home country, yes, but you'll have to excuse me if my patriotism is in short supply these days. Or rather, if I had full rights, then I'd feel differently. But at this point any bones thrown to the gay community in the U.S. is "a day late and a dollar short." The U.S. had to be dragged kicking in screaming into the civil rights era - long after most other developed nations (excluding South Africa) had addressed the race issue. And so it goes with gay rights. There is a fundamentally reactionary part of this country I really, truly hate - mostly because they hate me, people who think like me, and they will do anything to stop us. They ban gay marriage, protest and blow up abortion clinics, and vote against health care.
Which brings me to my disclosure: it's been a quasi-secret that my boyfriend and I have discussed moving to abroad for awhile. At first it began as a an idea to toy with, the with time, and my disappointment with sweet-tongued false-promise Democrats, the more I've become committed to moving somewhere better.
My boyfriend and I have looked at many options, and are strongly leaning towards Canada. We've being doing research on immigrations categories and requirements, and learning what steps we need to take. It may be co$tly, but when I think about the future life I want to have, I want to have my civil protections and live in a place that is welcoming. To quote that stupid Paula Cole song from the '90's, "I don't want to wait for our lives to be over" before equality comes to the U.S. I'm feeling done with this place, done with these people who live in an imperialistic bubble, done with the religious fanaticism, done with the discrimination. I'm tired of Democrats telling me to wait and be patient. Patience left Adamtown about four years ago.
So - best of luck to my friend who is moving, and I am hopeful about my own move. It may take time (I am looking at at least a year to get everything in order!) and money, but it is something I/we want. This year has brought so many changes and eye-opening moments. D.C. has been a wonderful place to me - I am grateful for the experiences I have had and the friends I've made and hope to keep for life. But I feel this calling to leave, and it's time to start planning and packing and leave this "funhouse."
"This used to be a Funhouse / But now it's full of evil clowns / it's time to start the countdown..."
I learned from a close friend this weekend that he's chosen to move back to Europe, and while he will be missed, I can't entirely blame him, either.
Maybe I'm coming at this from a different perspective, but as a young gay man, the U.S. has consistently been a disappointment. My home country, yes, but you'll have to excuse me if my patriotism is in short supply these days. Or rather, if I had full rights, then I'd feel differently. But at this point any bones thrown to the gay community in the U.S. is "a day late and a dollar short." The U.S. had to be dragged kicking in screaming into the civil rights era - long after most other developed nations (excluding South Africa) had addressed the race issue. And so it goes with gay rights. There is a fundamentally reactionary part of this country I really, truly hate - mostly because they hate me, people who think like me, and they will do anything to stop us. They ban gay marriage, protest and blow up abortion clinics, and vote against health care.
Which brings me to my disclosure: it's been a quasi-secret that my boyfriend and I have discussed moving to abroad for awhile. At first it began as a an idea to toy with, the with time, and my disappointment with sweet-tongued false-promise Democrats, the more I've become committed to moving somewhere better.
My boyfriend and I have looked at many options, and are strongly leaning towards Canada. We've being doing research on immigrations categories and requirements, and learning what steps we need to take. It may be co$tly, but when I think about the future life I want to have, I want to have my civil protections and live in a place that is welcoming. To quote that stupid Paula Cole song from the '90's, "I don't want to wait for our lives to be over" before equality comes to the U.S. I'm feeling done with this place, done with these people who live in an imperialistic bubble, done with the religious fanaticism, done with the discrimination. I'm tired of Democrats telling me to wait and be patient. Patience left Adamtown about four years ago.
So - best of luck to my friend who is moving, and I am hopeful about my own move. It may take time (I am looking at at least a year to get everything in order!) and money, but it is something I/we want. This year has brought so many changes and eye-opening moments. D.C. has been a wonderful place to me - I am grateful for the experiences I have had and the friends I've made and hope to keep for life. But I feel this calling to leave, and it's time to start planning and packing and leave this "funhouse."
DILF Wednesdays: Clive Owen
I'm not sure if I've featured British actor Clive Owen before, but he's a total DILF. Pictures of hot men always help ease one through the work week.
Don't worry Sean - you're still my only knight in shining armor!
Don't worry Sean - you're still my only knight in shining armor!
Friday, October 02, 2009
Season of New Things
It finally feels like autumn outside - the fall is my favorite time of year! It is "the Season of the Witch." ;) I always associate fall with new beginnings. Almost every serious relationship I've had, including my current one with Sean, has begun in the fall (so much for Spring being the season of romance). I think I always associate this time of year with new beginnings because it's when school starts. I've also always loved Halloween.
By the way, what should I be this year? What is everyone doing for Halloween?
Anyway, I guess my point is I really hope this season brings new (and by new, I mean good) things for all of my friends and myself! I was discussing with my friend M over dinner at Cava last Friday (and there's another story with her and the inept DC government, poor thing, but we'll save that for another time) . I was mentioning how 2009 has been a pretty rough ass year for all of us. I know you have to take the bad with the good, but really, I am hoping that good things are on the horizon for all of us.
BestWitches Wishes!
By the way, what should I be this year? What is everyone doing for Halloween?
Anyway, I guess my point is I really hope this season brings new (and by new, I mean good) things for all of my friends and myself! I was discussing with my friend M over dinner at Cava last Friday (and there's another story with her and the inept DC government, poor thing, but we'll save that for another time) . I was mentioning how 2009 has been a pretty rough ass year for all of us. I know you have to take the bad with the good, but really, I am hoping that good things are on the horizon for all of us.
Best
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Now That He's Part of the Family...
I really owe Sean for being such a good sport about going apple picking and winery-visiting with my family in the Shenandoah Valley this weekend...
Political Identity as Fashion
On the Metro recently I got to thinking about flags as fashion statements. One thing particularly endemic to the U.S. is the American flag on everything. In my case, I found myself on a crowded Metro train full of tourists, all of them covered with tacky “I Love DC” shirts or, of course, U.S. flags.
I tried to think of any other country where one would see something like that. Canadians I’ve come across in traveling love to put the maple leaf on their backpacks and suitcases, (it’s as if they are trying desperately to say “I am NOT an American!”… and I can’t blame them) but somehow it doesn’t come across in quite the worshipful way it does when Americans do it. I think there’s also a parallel with Europeans and their national football/soccer shirts. But with us, I feel, it reaches patriotic overkill.
On the crowded metro train I found myself rolling my eyes at the tackiness. But then I realized I’m guilty of flags-as-fashion to a degree myself. It’s no secret I have a thing for Union Jacks. I think for a lot of non-British people it’s a fashion icon that transcends its literal symbolism… maybe our love of British icons has its roots in idolizing the “Swingin’ London” of years past? I have Union Jacks on rugs, belt buckles, shoes (thanks to Ben Sherman), shirts, mugs, etc. Thought I doubt it would be as fun or fashionable where I actually in the U.K.
What passes for an ironic fashion statement in one place has an entirely different meaning somewhere else. Just a musing…
"Adam, are you sure it's not a bit much? I mean, you're bathroom's lovely, but really..."
I tried to think of any other country where one would see something like that. Canadians I’ve come across in traveling love to put the maple leaf on their backpacks and suitcases, (it’s as if they are trying desperately to say “I am NOT an American!”… and I can’t blame them) but somehow it doesn’t come across in quite the worshipful way it does when Americans do it. I think there’s also a parallel with Europeans and their national football/soccer shirts. But with us, I feel, it reaches patriotic overkill.
On the crowded metro train I found myself rolling my eyes at the tackiness. But then I realized I’m guilty of flags-as-fashion to a degree myself. It’s no secret I have a thing for Union Jacks. I think for a lot of non-British people it’s a fashion icon that transcends its literal symbolism… maybe our love of British icons has its roots in idolizing the “Swingin’ London” of years past? I have Union Jacks on rugs, belt buckles, shoes (thanks to Ben Sherman), shirts, mugs, etc. Thought I doubt it would be as fun or fashionable where I actually in the U.K.
What passes for an ironic fashion statement in one place has an entirely different meaning somewhere else. Just a musing…
"Adam, are you sure it's not a bit much? I mean, you're bathroom's lovely, but really..."
Friday, September 25, 2009
Productive Day
I've been very productive, both personally and at work today, which is odd considering it's Friday and usually it's a day I completely blow off, staring at the clock and waiting for the weekend to begin. Actually most of this week has been spent doing just that. Sometimes when I'm overwhelmed with stuff, I fall into an apathetic/catatonic state where I don't have the drive to do anything. Ask me again how I feel next Monday, but for now I'm feeling better overall.
Here's a soup recipe I want to try soon, from the guys who run The Inn at Little Washington. It looks very fall-ish, so maybe I'll be inspired during the day tomorrow... I'll finally get to put my Cuisninart food processor!
Apple Rutabaga Soup
1 stick butter
1 cup onion, chopped
1 cup granny smith apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
1 cup rutabaga, peeled and roughly chopped
1 cup butternut squash, peeled seeded and roughly chopped
(I'd use the pre-chopped squash one finds in stores nowadays, cutting butternut squash is a royal pain in the ass.)
1 cup carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
1 cup sweet potato, peeled and roughly chopped
1 qt. chicken stock
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup maple syrup
salt & cayenne pepper to taste.
In a large saucepan over medium-hi heat, melt the butter. Add the onion, apple, rutabaga, squash, carrots and sweet potato and cook, stirring occasionally until the onions are translucent. Add the chicken stock and bring to boil. Simmer 20-25 mins, or until all the vegetables are tender.
Puree the veggies in a blender/food processor. Strain through a fine mesh sieve into pot. Add the cream, maple syrup, salt & cayenne. Bring the soup to a simmer and serve.
Here's a soup recipe I want to try soon, from the guys who run The Inn at Little Washington. It looks very fall-ish, so maybe I'll be inspired during the day tomorrow... I'll finally get to put my Cuisninart food processor!
Apple Rutabaga Soup
1 stick butter
1 cup onion, chopped
1 cup granny smith apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
1 cup rutabaga, peeled and roughly chopped
1 cup butternut squash, peeled seeded and roughly chopped
(I'd use the pre-chopped squash one finds in stores nowadays, cutting butternut squash is a royal pain in the ass.)
1 cup carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
1 cup sweet potato, peeled and roughly chopped
1 qt. chicken stock
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup maple syrup
salt & cayenne pepper to taste.
In a large saucepan over medium-hi heat, melt the butter. Add the onion, apple, rutabaga, squash, carrots and sweet potato and cook, stirring occasionally until the onions are translucent. Add the chicken stock and bring to boil. Simmer 20-25 mins, or until all the vegetables are tender.
Puree the veggies in a blender/food processor. Strain through a fine mesh sieve into pot. Add the cream, maple syrup, salt & cayenne. Bring the soup to a simmer and serve.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Long TIme, No Post
Alright, it's been while since I bothered posting, so here's a pretty picture to make up for it...
Let's see... I went out on Friday with some of Chef Tom's friends to dinner at an oyster bar on 17th st (as a side, I love oysters. I know raw oysters turn some people's stomachs, but I don't care) and then a few drinks. I swear to god we saw a guy with a Kate Gosselin hairdo. For real... I'm still wondering if he was doing as part of a prank or some pre-Halloween thing. I really hope the poor guy wasn't really trying to rock that. Of course the bar was JR's. And no, it was Drunky McDrunkerson in drag. Man with a Kate Gosselin "hairdon't"... I'm an athiest and I'm praying for that dude. Help him, Jeebus! Anywho...
Sunday Chef and I went to the Ukrainian Festival out in Maryland to get in touch with his mother's side-of-the-family roots. There was borscht, pierogies and pivo (beer) to be had!
We also spent the later afternoon at the Mayorga Coffee Factory in Silver Spring. It's funny sometimes, the little things. Like just spending Sunday afternoon having coffee and reading the newspaper together. It was really... just really pleasant in it's own boring yet comfortable way. I can't help but feeling we've reached some turning point in our relationship. You know, the one where reading the paper together feels natural.
Let's see... I went out on Friday with some of Chef Tom's friends to dinner at an oyster bar on 17th st (as a side, I love oysters. I know raw oysters turn some people's stomachs, but I don't care) and then a few drinks. I swear to god we saw a guy with a Kate Gosselin hairdo. For real... I'm still wondering if he was doing as part of a prank or some pre-Halloween thing. I really hope the poor guy wasn't really trying to rock that. Of course the bar was JR's. And no, it was Drunky McDrunkerson in drag. Man with a Kate Gosselin "hairdon't"... I'm an athiest and I'm praying for that dude. Help him, Jeebus! Anywho...
Sunday Chef and I went to the Ukrainian Festival out in Maryland to get in touch with his mother's side-of-the-family roots. There was borscht, pierogies and pivo (beer) to be had!
We also spent the later afternoon at the Mayorga Coffee Factory in Silver Spring. It's funny sometimes, the little things. Like just spending Sunday afternoon having coffee and reading the newspaper together. It was really... just really pleasant in it's own boring yet comfortable way. I can't help but feeling we've reached some turning point in our relationship. You know, the one where reading the paper together feels natural.
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