Smiles on an Autumn Morn

Sexy Cheeseburger

I'm never in too much awe of people who achieve the impossible.  I dated a great guy (now a friend) who embraces skydiving with a passion only matched to my zeal for reading.  I read about the baby who was clinically dead and miraculously came back to life, making a whole room full of people quite happy.  There's the kid who climbed Mount Everest and wants to do it again.  Or the girl whose arm became one shark's happy meal.  Now she braves the shark-infested waters as if it never happened.  That takes a lot of guts, people.  A shark isn't a guppy, or a clown-fish.  A shark can be one shady animal, and I'm not referring to the one who can swindle you out of your life-savings because you thought he was a man looking for a perfect partner but really is Ugonkele Nburusoya from a little piece of heaven called "Nigeria.". 

But I digress.  As usual.  Where was I?  Oh, right.  People who achieve things.  I admire them.  Speaking of sharks and the "carrunch" sound their jaws make when meeting human flesh, I especially admire someone's hunger and the lengths he or she will go to get their favorite food.

Take Nicole, for example.  She appeared on the Maury Povich show to confess to the world she hit a milestone in human achievements: she had sex in exchange for a cheeseburger.  Now, before you go all holier than thou, keep in mind you're a gay man and when you get that urge you will leave the comfort of your home and go out into the middle of the night for a Big Mac.  Just as long as it isn't a Fish Filet, you're in hog heaven.

So I say, "You go, girlfriend!  On nom nom away, on both ends of your two mouths!  Life's too short and food cannot go to waste!"

Mixed Message

New Music: Cee-Lo Green, Motown, and the F Word

Motown never sounded better.  Even when it's catch-phrase and chorus is, well, the F word.

Moving away from the retro-Seventies Soul that was "Crazy" as Gnarls Barkley, Cee-Lo Green strikes up a real zinger that's going to be the big hit of the fall.  "Fuck You (Forget You) tells the story of the unrequited love between Cce-Lo and "The Heartbreaker"---a girl who becomes quite the gold-digger.  Doesn't matter that he can offer her the real thing, she rejects him over and over until he has a breakdown.  Of course, true to the title, he turns this into his advantage and moves on, cheered on by a trio of backup singers reminiscent of many girl groups of the era.  Brilliant video and an incredibly funny song.

Send Me An Angel

Dear God, Shiva, Allah, Swifty, Baldy, or whatever the hell you call yourself, please send me a man like this cookie.  I've been good.  I haven't slapped that Philippine nurse who for the second time took my seat on the PATH today.  I haven't demonized my ethnicity even though they deserve every bit of it by proxy because they constantly forget the past.  I haven't peed on the homeless man's face even when he's asked me to, but I guess he's into those things.  I didn't vandalize my ex's apartment and left him with only a dildo and lube so he could fuck himself.  I most certainly haven't written thinly veiled vignettes mocking the personality reject that went borderline personality disorder on me in late 2009 and later claimed (without proof) I was in the middle of a "campaign of harrasment against women" in July---at least, not on here.  [Chuckle, chuckle.]

I've been a good, good boy.  Won't you be a good, good Deity and send me a hot mofo like this orange mess so I can go all kinds of ape on it until we were both reduced to raw flesh and bones?  Thank you.

Golden Boy

This weekend my imaginary boyfriend and future imaginary husband Jay Cutler won the Mr Olympia title for the fourth time.  I'm kicking myself in my muscular ass because I had to see it from the extreme bleachers, otherwise known as my laptop in a cold room, alone, giggling and squealing like a fifteen year old girl witnessing the very masculine (yeah, right) Justin Bieber up close and personal.  It's okay, though.  The image is usually way better than the real thing, but give me a little of the real thing and I will positively go mega-cannibal on that ultra-tanned blonde mofo, faux-hawk or no faux-hawk.  I mean, look at him.  The jaw alone.  And those eyes.  And... well... his deep, deep crevasses.

Alright, too much imagery overload.  I need to take care of something.  I'll be right back.

When Waterboarding Doesn't Work

Desperate Housewives, Season 7, Episode 1

Critics have begun to yawn at it, some people I know have decided one more season with another mystery isn't quite the reason to justify staying at home on a Sunday night, but I kinda like it, even after its premiere back in the Fall of 2004.

Which is where Marc Cherry draws most of the blueprints for this season.  I can't blame him: think, he couldn't bring yet another family with skeletons in the closet into Wisteria Lane, could he?  Yawn.  And what kind of street is this where for nine months some freak family moves in and brings a whole lot of unrest to its inhabitants?  If I ever move into a place like that I might as well just throw in the towel and move to the mountains.  Alone.

No---this time, he brings back a couple of key characters that were seemingly dropped at the apparent conclusion of their storylines early in the series.  You thought Felicia Tillman was gone?  Nope: she's alive, thank you very much.  Ditto for Paul Young who we last saw being carted off to jail, framed by Felicia who faked her own death in order to complete her vengeance on Paul for having killed her sister Martha Huber (but not paid the price for it).  He's just moved back to Susan's house after she and Mike left it due to financial reasons, and just purchased his old home.  Why, well... we can only wonder.  It's probably not for a good purpose, and Mark Moses, who plays Paul Young, isn't very good at underplaying his intentions but ringing them loud and clear, scowling and grinning like Jack Nicholson whenever he plays the villain.

But oh well, it's all good.  So is the fact that this season all of the housewives are experiencing some major shift in their lives to some degree.  Susan is finding herself having to take a softcore porn job to keep up with the bills.  Lynette has another addition to the family, but a visiting college frenemy (played by Vanessa Williams, essentially replaying her character on Ugly Betty and spitting out lines tailor-made for her) will most definitely cause a domestic friction.  Gaby and Carlos will both harbor secrets straight out of a Mexican telenovela as the past catches up to them.  You see, it seems Gaby's daughter Juanita isn't hers, and Carlos isn't about to disclose that.  Bree also confessed to Gaby that her son, 11 years ago, ran over her mother-in-law, and she'll wrestle with that knowledge.  And speaking of Bree... it seems she's now on the brink of becoming a cougar herself.  Orson has left her, she has no business to run, and is basically a single woman.  Who might get involved with the hunky carpenter she's hired to redo her home (shades of Susan, season 5).

Overall, the new season was pretty much what you'd expect for the show: bitchy dialogue, comedic moments leading to more dramatic revelations, but not much in the way of secrets.  At least, that is what it seems, because the conceit of Desperate Housewives is that Cherry is known for throwing in a monkey-wrench here and there.  Ricardo Chavira, who plays Carlos, shaved his goatee and to me that was the only shocker.  He looked thin, too young.  Definitely not the uber-macho Latino I've seen for the entirety of the show.  Oh, and no mention of Katherine Mayfair who last we saw left with her new gal-pal to France.  Eh.  She's probably having fun.  I'm sure they'll bring her back somehow.  They brought Paul, didn't they?

Sunday Morning Yums

As I type this I'm watching a little bit on the telly on a professional fighter, former US Army guy, and super hot hunk Tim Kennedy.  I hadn't heard anything from him before today, but my eyeballs popped straight open at the sight of this young man with his perfectly muscled physique (down to the calves! no skinny sticks!), light brown hair, and well... overall deliciousness.  So I had to see if I could find anything on him on the web if at all for remembrance and to remind myself what I require in a potential second half (even if is for a momentary grapple in the ground).  I can say I'm purring right now.  He can knock my lights out anytime.  Anytime.

Mmm-mmm.

Take Her Off (the Air) Already

When she came out I thought she was sorta cute.  Quirky, maybe a little grungy.  She reminded me of a dirty hippie who's just happy to be alive.  But now that she's essentially repeating herself over and over again and slobbering over AutoTune like a famished zombie dog over live ribs I find her annoying.  No, not only annoying, but ear-splitting.  It's apparent that she can't sing.  And if she can... she sure isn't going into great lengths to prove it.  You know who she is: she's been a near-ubiquitous presence in the radio.  The girl with the dollar sign on her name.  Ke$ha.  Someone give that kid a lesson in maintaining a tune that doesn't require a program.  Please.  Even Stacey Q could carry a breathy note farther than this dreck.

Repeat Offender

Does this guy not have anything else to do other than somehow insert himself in live newscast? And if he absolutely has to be in every shot... could he please work out a little?  And get some fashion tips?  Or smile, at least?  [Wait... this is the UK.]  Oh, who cares---the fact that this random guy seems to be in every shot just standing there is quite Dadaistic.

Picture from This is Photobomb.

Sweet Dreams and a Beautiful Nightmare

You decide which is the beautiful nightmare.

Images from Prefabs, Best House Design, and GMen

She's Gotta Have It

Insert caption here.  You know you want to.

On An Acid Trip

I used to think I was this hardcore cynical guy living less than a mile away from New York City---a place known for its Type-A people and no-nonsense attitude.  And then I saw Bethany Storro, a Vancouver woman, on the news channels.  Her face was wrapped in gauze, speaking in a slurred voice on how she was minding her business one day and this African-American woman just walked up to her outside a Starbucks on Columbia Street and offered her something to drink. Now, technically, if that happens to you in the big city you obviously deny the offer... but then the woman threw the contents right at her face.  It was acid.

She claimed that it was one of those once in a lifetime coincidences that she'd bought sunglasses that day because she'd got a new job and wanted to celebrate it.  The sunglasses, newscasters repeated, may have saved her life, and the incident raised the ghosts of how dangerous life in any big city can be.  As a New Yorker, I should know---thirty-odd years ago New York was a very unfriendly place.  Now, you have to go out of your way to have some brush with a crazy person and even they are pretty tame.

The alleged attacker.

For a week Bethany Storro became a poster child for an innocent bystander who even talked of forgiving her attacker.  We sympathized, and people sent in donations totaling 28,000 dollars.  She eventually faded from sight... but then resurfaced in a much less flattering light.

Apparently, it was all a hoax.  There was no African-American woman.  No attacker.  She did it all to herself.  She spent 1500 dollars of the 28,000 she received on herself, purchasing a trip to Seattle, a computer, among other things.

The culprit? The pattern of her burn marks by the acid.  It was very localized and did not run down her neck.  And she was wearing sunglasses during the evening in a dimly-lit part of the city.

So what did she gain with this?  Did she really think this wouldn't blow up out of control as most things do?  Even Oprah had her slated to appear on her show.  Obviously, that will not happen.  Even so, it raises an angry eyebrow onto my eyes that this woman decided to say that a black woman attacked her.  It seems she has some issues of the mental kind.  However... she's going to have to answer a lot of questions and receive some kind of punishment for swindling people who reached out to help her as well as Vancouver's resources.

What a beauty.

Lazy Saturday On A Bubble

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

When you're overworked all you want to do is lie there like a blob.  Sentient, barely awake, shiftless.  That was me today, and not even the prospect of a retro-Summer-like day could move me from the bubble that I was sleeping on.  Of course, I don't mean a real bubble.  I just purchased an Aerobed.  I can't sleep on coils, even if it's a Serta Perfect Sleeper with the pillow top.  When you get to be my size, all that pressure becomes a litmus test in trying to clock in at least 5 hours of sleep.  When you have to start taking GABA or melatonin (I refuse to take Ambien since I equate that with people with personality disorders, and I've known several, mind you, and they're not fun), you know you have a situation.  So I bought the Aerobed and it's worked wonders.  And today, I just lay there, happy, thinking of nothing but well, happy thoughts since my life is riding on an ascending crest both professionally and privately. I turned down two offers: one, to go to the High-Line and dine at Morimoto, and then a second one to go see Fuerza Bruta at Union Square.  Who cares for the the city or the gym when you can be content like a Cheshire cat?  Meh, I'll work out tomorrow.  I'm built enough.

Meet Roelly Winklaar

I don't tend to feature many bodybuilders or even write about them, but I think it's time that I started---after all, isn't that why I'm a gay man who loves men who are huge?

This is Roelly Winklaar.  I don't know much about him, and there's something about him that I like.  He's not ripped to shreds in this picture or in the video, and if there's something I love is that sheet of bodyfat covering a muscular build, leaving only a hint of what's underneath.

 

 

The Hair-Don't that Made the World Go "Huh?"

If you want to divert New Yorkers from complaining against the crazy traffic in an already bottlenecked city due to the United Nations General Assembly or ruin the controversial speech from the lovable funny-man Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, all you have to do is show up in a hair-clip.  That's it, folks.  Don't bother combing that growing mane of hair on your head and just walk up to the UN sporting scraggly hair partially pinned in a hair-clip. And look absolutely, positively fabulous.

I personally like it.  It's an understated way of thumbing your nose at stiff necks while still being powerful.  Of course, you're going to have the fashion police screaming and ripping their eyeballs off and perhaps a plethora of hairstylists lining up to be Our Secretary of State's primo coiffeur, but in the meantime, one has to sit back and admire how without doing much, Hillary Clinton stole the spotlight and made it hers.

Eddie Goan Luv You Looong Time

Praise the Lord Jesus! Eddie Long has been showing boys just how CLOSE he wants them to get to our Lord's word while preaching to his followers that man on man ball-licking is rather impolite, and quite dirty. As a humble observer, I think Long, who is striking quite the pose here, might want to consider filing an application to join the Vatican. They have extensive practice on the initiation of young cocks and turning them into bulls.

Katy-Did Get Tickled?

Poor Katy. Her appearance on Sesame Street got axed.

Sucks for the bloated moms with distended vaginas who can't stand that Katy Perry has a rockin' bod and has a nation ogling after her. Yes, I'm talking to you, Lame-O Mom with the ass scraping the floor, leaving a trail of brown. Stop calling TV channels and complaining. I saw Farrah Fawcett's nipple and Raquel Welch's boobs and look at how I fabulous I turned out. Lighten up.

Look Closely

If you look closely.

you'll spot the gay soldier.

Observations of a Night Owl

I don't sleep much.  I work too hard, then hit the gym, then race home to type anywhere between 300 - 1000 words a night.  Sometimes I can furnish an entire, 2500 word story or essay in one sitting.

I was going to write a much longer piece about the disaster of today's attempt to repeal DADT, but I have a long day ahead.  Technically I should be in bed, but this is how much I love writing that I'll post a quick commentary on the topic.

If ever I was in repugnance of the Republican National Party, I certainly am now.  Gay panic has never reared an uglier head than it did yesterday when they single-handedly filibustered the repeal and barreled ahead to make sure the DADT did not garner its removal.  How else can you force-feed your own warped, elitist thoughts and beliefs to a nation that, while divided, tends to the approval that DADT must be denied once and for all?  The worst of them all was Senator John McCain who had one of the most aggressive reactions today.

But in light of all this, I'm not going to yield to despair like I did last November when the right to gay marriage was basically denied.  I've never met an obstacle I couldn't defeat, and gay people as a whole are fighters to the bitter end.  I won't cave in to complaints, and bitter tirades.  One blockage cannot and shall not stop the ball from rolling.  It is a gay issue, and a human rights issue, and we will have our day to serve, open and proud, without the fear of an ignoble dismissal.

And that's all.

Sunday Blues

Today I woke up with a severe case of the Sunday Blues.  I could almost hear Patricia Barber crooning her way through a minefield of self-contained angst while 5:00 rang its way into my consciousness and I sluggishly made my first moves towards the early day.  Why can't the weekend last forever?  Why can't I wake up in a plush Manhattan penthouse with 12 ft. high ceilings, huge windows, and the luxurious scent of comfort all around me?  I would be so much happier.  Oh well, there's always LX-TV to watch.  In the meantime, let me feast my eyes on a little happy:

Meeting David Dust, Twice

One of the things I love about the East Village is that it's been remarkably resistant to the gentrification NYC has experienced over the last 15 years. Even though it's cleaned up, it retains the same grungy facades of yesteryear, a thing that continues to give it its unique character.

You know, it's one thing when you meet a guy you've met over the blogging world and because you're coming out of a chemical-induced cold (don't ask) you don't write about it immediately as you would other topics.  But when you're going on two weeks and you still haven't even said, "I met this guy and I had a total blast!" you know you're just being a fat-ass lazy motherfucker who can't, it seems, be bothered to come up with even a poorly constructed sentence with some questionable choices in grammar.

But... that's me in a nutshell.  I take advantage that even when the news travel fast, they really don't.  Just check Headline News.  No, really.  Turn it on, and if you don't have it, call your local cable provider.  Go ahead. I'll just sit here listening to Watercooler on Sirius radio.  I have time.

See what I mean?  They say nothing new.  Anything "breaking news" is treated as a salad that will go bad in minutes and then promptly forgotten because we must go back to the main stories, which were main stories last week.  Oy.

Inside The Urge

Exactly two weeks ago I got off my sick ass and went into the City to meet my fellow blogger friend David Dust.  Which proves one point: I will do anything for a night on the town.  I might be on my deathbed, riddled like Camille with tuberculosis... but I'll be there ready to slosh down a couple martinis or cosmos.  I met David in the Village, threw back a couple of drinks in a local bar, and headed to The Urge, a lounge located on the East Village.  There we were promptly greeted by the crotch-grabbing hand of a twink sitting on top of his boyfriend's lap, purring.  I never felt so welcomed in my life!  Had I known this is how friendly East Villagers might be I might have placed my own cock in a rubber ring and wore no shorts, just in case.  I'm not picky... and neither is Mr. Happy.  He always wants to be touched.

Speaking of touch, I know go-go dancers have to do their work, but must they use me as a doorstop so they won't keel over the counter and break their necks?  I wish someone would have taken a picture of me, chatting away rather animatedly with David and his Canadian friend Reid who came with his boyfriend Mike, listening to Kylie belting out "Get Outta My Way"... and then feeling a solid push on my right shoulder.  The three of them were tittering as they looked at me.  I was like, "What? Do I have a cock growing out of my ear?"

And then I realized the push on my right kept right on pushing.  I turned... and came face-to-face with a pair of man-glutes flexing, pointing straight out at my face.  The dancer was working another dude who left a wad of cash in his pouch.  I could almost smell the pleasant funk, and had I not had any restraint he'd be in trouble.  Or I would.  And could you blame me?  If you like ass like I do, you would concur.  So don't point that judging finger at me and please don't raise your eyebrow, and if it's tweezed, then you have a problem, not me!

Kudos for having a great night with David!  Of course, we did make a part deux... but that's another post.  This one's too long as it is.  Ta!


Oh, and clicking on the title of this blog will take you to David's blog-post. :-)

Lungs of Steel

It could be a gospel anthem or 60s Baroque-pop revisionism steeped in folk and soul.  There's no denying that "Dog Days are Over", Florence + The Machine, is the breakthrough song of the current year.  Building on the riff of a harp, singer Florence Welch's voice lilts and hums and hints on huge things to come, slowly forming its own space and telling its story—soft, like Beth Orton or Joni Mitchell.

And then she hits the tension-filled, urgent bridge

Run fast for your mother

Run fast for your father

Run for your children all your sisters and brothers

Leave all your love and your longing behind

You can't carry it with you if you want to survive

and the song enters, full force, led by a tribal percussion and a relentless drive that is both anthemic and self-discovering.  Florence Welch's voice soars higher and higher as if she were channeling  Grace Slick circa "White Rabbit" with tremendous urgency, and right when you think the song is over, it stops for one full second—silence—, and explodes into its climax.

This is music.  This is pop in pure form, devoid of marketing, of a pre-conceived audience, raw.  If there was a poll for the best song of the year, mine would go for "Dog Days Are Over."  Please get their CD Lungs—treat yourself for a pair that can knock it out of the ball park with sheer power.

Throwing in the Towel

[Thanks to David Dust for this picture.]

Okay.

I promise—from the bottom of my plastic, Made in China heart, that I'll never ever laugh at a bodybuilder again. I see the error of my ways. I see how wrong I was in denying myself a chock fulla beef. Vegetarians need to get a hold of themselves, treat their skinny bodies to some Burger King, order the Triple Whopper with everything on it, and go "Banzai!" After all, you can Have It Your Way.

I would not be against suicide bombing this mofo's ass. I'd be all over that like bed-bugs over every nook and cranny in bed-bug infested New York City. I'd make sure I'd go "Brrrrrr" and slobber my hungry face inside that crevasse. And I'd suck the crap out of that man's twin bubbles.

Literally.

Answered Prayers

No comment necessary from the peanut gallery.

Mona Lisa, Er... Smile?

Can you read my poker face?

Pull 'em Up!

Where did sagging pants start? Could someone please be so kind and sit me down on a comfortable couch in a Starbucks and under the aegis of Billie Holliday or The Duke and a hot cinnamon dolce latte explain to me the origins of this fashion atrocity? I can understand low riders and I own a couple of them (and I admit, I do wear them quite well but then again, I have an amazing butt, fantastic hamstrings, and sweeping quads), but when did jeans become so low that they were being tied halfway around a man's thighs? The other day I was bound to work and on my way into the PATH train at Grove Street I came face-to-face with a pair of plaid boxers. Now, no one is more of a butt man than I am, but when one is half-asleep and the man in front of you is wearing denim shorts that are belted that far down, it's too much information. I felt as though I could almost smell him. It wasn't sexy. And then, to make matters worse, I kept counting the seconds to when they actually fell off, which led me to devise a scene straight out of Walter Mitty where I pulled the idiot's jeans clear off and left him completely naked to the world. Of course, what would happen then I can't say, but who has the energy to think that far ahead? Eh. He'd have it coming. And I'd laugh my ass off.  And pat myself on the shoulder for being such a concerned American and perfect Samaritan for showing a man the error of his fashion ways.

Get Outta My Way!

Thanks to 2 Cents Worth Down Under for sharing this fantastic video from Kylie Minogue -- her new song coming out later this month!  I saw it and had to post it here!

Kylie - Get out of my way from James Hatt on Vimeo.

Visiting the 9/11 Tribute Center

Several months ago, at the start of Spring, I ventured with a visiting friend of mine to a little-known building at 120 Liberty Street after we'd enjoyed a pleasant lunch off Ground Zero in a the quaint Stage Door Deli, a place that opens to the St. Paul's Cathedral.  We were just walking around the area, entering stores--among them Century 21--and were drawn in by sheer curiosity.

It's one of those places you might easily overlook because it's "off the beaten path" of the more traffic-heavy Church Street.  I remember that even back then Liberty was really more a narrow backstreet that turned into Greenwich St.  God, the memories... the memories... but I digress. We walked into the Tribute Center and were propelled into that fateful day when so many were lost, when innocence--and life as we know it--was lost.

I did a lot of introspection that day.  I saw the jacket and helmet of founder Lee Lelpi's son on display and wondered who he was, where was he, if he was well, even now.  A shard of plane featuring a window stared at me with frightened eyes and the person behind it huddled for cover, endlessly, bracing for the worst.  A radio transmission crackled its death-tones.

But above all... the pictures.  The pictures of those who died, who's bodies were never found.  Incinerated into dust.  A woman holding her son.  A handsome man, his life cut short.  A father, waving at the photographer, smiling.  A older female in a recliner.  So many faces, all of them taken by a loved one, all of them smiling, expressive.

All gone.

Gone but not forgotten.

It was then I realized the importance of remembering.  Of trying my best to be the best human being I could possibly be.  Of letting go of what is dead, and looking into the future.

After all, life is so brief, and we are so fragile.

Little Voice

Alright, alright, I'll just come out and say it: I kinda like Yoko Ono.  I do.  I don't care that even now people still blame her for breaking up The Beatles and turning John Lennon into little more than a stay-at-home dad---although, if she did, then she made him quite the trailblazer for today's husbands who make the wife be the breadwinner.  And for that alone I like her.  She flipped the coin neatly and made her mark in the world.  It's not a pretty mark, it's actually an ear-splitting one, but a mark nevertheless.  And anyone who has the imagination to make her invited guests not leave an all-white room until they envisioned it blue has quite a set of balls, and no one loves a woman with huge balls more than me.

If any of you know her career you know it's full of a lot of screaming and incredibly bad singing.  If you have any of the Plastic Ono albums you have the perfect motive to make your party come to a crashing halt... or use "Why?" or "The Fly" as your ring tone on your iPhone or Droid   Trust me---it won't make you hit that snooze button as much as leap out of your bed, eyes bulging, and tear your way into your dimly lit bathroom as your heart pounces out of your chest and all you can think of is sheer survival because Satan himself broke into your house.  And yes, that will be you shrieking into the dark, waking up the neighbors, and yes, one of them will call the police on you.  Because they've just believed to have heard a woman being hacked to pieces.

Anyway,Yoko Ono, that tiny little lady dressed in black, is appearing at the MoMA, screaming her teeny little head off.  And I'm seriously considering taking her act and hitting the subways.  Hey, I might get paid for it.  Imagine me, standing at the massive transfer area at 42nd Street, perhaps near the Shuttle or the N line.  After all, most performers tend to gravitate to that area.  And why not?  If she can cash a fuckload of cash making that amount of noise and almost blow-jobbing the mike, what's stopping me?

Clean House Blues

Okay, I haven't been sick for all this time. I've just been in a slothful mood for an entire week after I the week I returned from Tampa I came down with a cold that mind you, was chemical-induced, and not the good kind.  No.  Me and my need for order in my own casita and not enough naso-tracheal protection from the fumes emanating from the cocktail of 409, Chlorox, ammonia, alcohol, and CLR.  Because of course, you can never be too safe, not in this world we live in.  Certainly not in bed-bug infested New York, and leave it for me to be prepared, just in case. Trying to make sure I became the spitting reenactment of the Boy in the Plastic Bubble wasn't the original intent in a conscious way, but the ensuing mayhem on my respiratory system confirmed I'd be unproductive to save my own hide.  So I had to call my trusty Dominican friend Cecilia to come save me via cinnamon tea and finish the job I left incomplete.  And share some much-needed gossip from El Patio, as we call our native Dominican Republic. Thank God for estrogen in my life!