Once a hottie...

Aging is a strange thing. Regardless of how old you get and how your body changes, you rarely feel like your internal age matches the external.

Maybe that old adage is true, "you're as young as you feel."

I certainly don't feel very different from when this photograph was taken more than 20 years ago.

And you know I wasn't sitting home nights...I mean, damn.

But I guess we're conditioned to equate aging with being unattractive. Especially for gay men.

That's why it surprised me yesterday when someone whom I consider fairly attractive began flirting with me at work. Being the slow study that I am about some things, it took me a while to figure out that I was being flirted with. In fact, it got fairly explicit in nature before I got the hint.

No details - this is a family-friendly blog.

But it reminded me of something I think about a lot. I can't remember a time when I didn't feel on the inside anything different from what the hotshot in the photo looked like on the outside. Confident, sexy, slightly more dangerous than expected, and a damned fine catch.

Maybe that's delusional. Or maybe it's a hint of a greater truth and a reason to believe that it's really what is inside that matters.

I don't care, I feel fabulous. And I plan to for a long time.

Reality TV

You're fired.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Pack your knives and go.

You've been voted off the island.

No Bachelor rose for you.

The biggest loser.

Big money, no whammies!

I'm concerned. Happy, but concerned.

It's been such a marvelous time to be a free-thinking, compassionate liberal New York gay guy over the last few weeks - I'm afraid of losing this radiant flame of happiness I have inside.

I want to gloat. I want to point fingers and stick out my tongue and scream "nyah-nyah -- you SUCK!" at so many people. But I simply don't feel like I should.

It's early days yet - but I feel like a corner has truly been turned.

The Shrub actually seemed somewhat contrite during his press conference yesterday when he announced the resignation of Rumsfeld and the will of the people being demonstrated in this election. George Allen isn't planning (yet) to drag out the Senate tally in Virginia. Even Nancy Pelosi got both eyes back in her head and pointing in the same direction a few times yesterday when she talked about the road ahead.

I am cautiously optimistic. After six long years of despair and disappointment, I feel like I am peeking out from under the covers after a long, bad dream.

BLUE, red and white

Well - Election Day is past and some semblance of sanity appears to be returning to the nation.

My own state of New York was quite a few shades bluer this morning. With Elliot in the governor's seat, I eagerly anticipate an entertaining next four years - which are projected to include a damned good thrashing of those mummified throwbacks in Albany and some kind of recognition for same sex couples.

I can see it now - we'll be the bridge state between Massachusetts and New Jersey - creating a string of states of homo-matrimonial bliss where people can travel back and forth without losing their rights simply by crossing a state line. A string of pearls for married girls!

And Hillary - well done. No surprises, but worth recognizing anyway. Thank you for allowing Bill to continue to touch you in public - it's very big of you, I'm sure. He'll make a charming first lady.

Some other thoughts:

• NAN-CY! PELO-SI! Shake up the House, girl!!! You as crazy as a box of water, but we love you!
  
• To the state of Arizona (a former home state for DuPree) - well done! Glad to see that since the days of your psychotic conservatism and "let's go hunt us some gays" mentality, you've voted down a same sex marriage ban. And how clever that you have voted English to be the state language. Let me know you get along with enforcing that,okay?
• To the citizens of South Dakota - congratulations on being strong enough to stand up to your state government on a woman's right to choose. You defeated a truly evil law that had no right to exist in a sane and enlightened world. (even if you did screw up on the same-sex thingie)
  

By the way - on the topic of a woman's right to choose - if you don't have (or had, at some point) a uterus.......shut the fuck up. Go back to dancing with your snakes and judging people.

• To the states of South Carolina, Tennessee, Idaho, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Virginia and Colorado - I am SO glad to hear that you have banned same-sex marriages - and in some cases, ANY recognition of same-sex domestic unions - so that the sanctity of marriage will be preserved. Most of you are what I'd consider "D-List" states anyway, so most folks won't notice your bigotry in any really big way.


• And oh - Mr. Rick Santorum? Not the big shot we once were now, are we? HA HA HA HA HA
• Bernie Sanders in Vermont - congratulations, you old devil. You're a true chameleon - look! he's an Independent! now he's a Democrat! - heh heh

All I can say is that I'm glad to be New Yorker now - I have been since we moved here nearly four years ago - but I'm even prouder today.

Our country has temporarily lost its collective mind - and to some extent, its immortal soul. We've allowed lunatics and fanatics and hate-mongers - both at home and abroad - to reduce us to our basest and deepest fears. They've made us accept unthinkable biases as truth and alienated the global community. They have pushed the nation and the world backward instead of forward - making the Cold War era not a memory, but a possibility once again.

But we're waking from that long, bad dream. And I, for one, see some light breaking ahead on this beautiful autumn morning.

Hot Hypocrite

All I can say is, at least we finally got a fairly good looking one...


Foley? Not so much....

Oh, Irony...how I love thee

My first smile of the day came courtesy of the juxtaposition of a Letter to the Editor from the Albany Times Union and an ill-conceived ad placement.

One of those days...

Talk about a bad hair day.

I was notified at 5:15 last evening that the best, most positive and career-development conscious manager I've ever had is starting a new job "effective immediately."

No warning. No transition.

Just - BOOM. Like that.

Plus - the other half is in a very cranky mood about the way his business partner is acting.

And I have a crapload of work to do that I simply DO NOT care about.

Today sucks. Hard.

Listen - I bet you can hear the sucking noise from where you are.