Lincoln knew what he was doing.

I shaved my beard off today.

This happens about once a year and always sort of sporadically. It’s usually because of a show/role/performance but this year it was more of a check in to see “how things were going”. I first grew my facial hair in to give myself a bit of a false definition to my chin line which for many years was not very well defined (read: nonexistent). After losing a significant amount of weight in the past year I thought it might be something to check in on to see if any of my chins had disappeared along with the other weight.

Thankfully they had done just that and I now only have one real chin rather than multiple chins all sloughed together on my neck. Now, my face is less an amorphous blob and more an actual face. Hooray for actual face.

Also, I have a bit of a confession. I’ve started putting minoxidyl (the main ingredient in rogaine) in my beard to try and fill it out a bit. Vain? Absolutely. I have always had a lot of my self image tied up in my facial hair. My beard has been a bit patchy in the past and I’ve had a couple spots where things didn’t quite connect (bridge between my moustache and goatee, sideburns on my left side, couple of larger patches on the right side) that have always bothered me. I’ve always had to grow my beard out quite a bit to mask these bearded imperfections. I’m jealous of guys who have genetically lucked into beards like this:

Perfect coverage. Full. Thick. Amazing. 

Or this:

Football beard. *grunt* 

Or definitely this:

Photo selected only to show beard fullness and for no other reason...*melt*

Lucky bearded bastards all of you. Thankfully I can grow enough facial hair for it to look right but not as much as I would want if I had my druthers.

When I was in college one of the running jokes was to give me rogaine as a present or gag gift because I was quite clearly losing my hair on the top of my head (monk’s hat style). After the obvious hilarity ensued from the initial gift I did actually use the bottles they would give me. Like they always say in the commercials/warnings the effects of Rogaine will go away when you stop using Rogaine. So while sometimes it would show some extra hair growth on the top of my head, it would go away after I ran out of the bottle. (I was a college student so I couldn’t afford to buy anymore either.) I would always apply as directed to the top of my head then it would leave some residue on my finger tips so I would rub that on the largest patchy spot under one of my 4 chins. This grew in amazingly and even after I stopped using Rogaine, it stayed on like a champ. My oval beard champion spot.

This has always made me think dreamily that maybe one day I too could have a beard like these lumberjacks. I too could posses facial hair deserving of admiration and jealousy. Little ole Strother could have a beard that could take any other beard in a cage match of beards. (Thanks “Title of Show”) I found a good batch of generic minoxodil on sale on Amazon and decided to pounce. I have now been using one bottle for the past month or so and have definitely seen some improvement. The shave was a way to take my face back to zero so I could more closely monitory my progress. It’s a lot easier to see hair follicles popping up when the beard is short/nonexistent.

Why all this devotion to facial hair? Why such a strong desire to have a thick beard? Well, it’s what I’m attracted to and with a bit of an “I’d fuck me” attitude, I want to have that same thing.

When I was in high school I grew facial hair to cover my chins and also to somehow assert my masculinity. In my tiny little small town mind, who could suspect a guy with a beard of being gay!? It just didn’t seem like it could exist in the world. (Thank God I was wrong about that.) I held on to facial hair tightly throughout high school to the point of refusing to shave at the cost of missing a performance with my choir because our director “didn’t want anyone to think I was a drug dealer”. I even came up with an elaborate hide utilizing some of Ginger’s concealer and some clear packing tape. While it fooled my director from a distance, he still refused to let me participate in the show…bastard.

My facial hair remained a huge part of who I was even after I cut off all my shoulder length hair (which was the right choice). I always feel kind of naked without at least some hair on my chinny chin chin. It's colder without it for sure because all the skin under there is not used to braving the elements. All through college and all post college I've kept my face adorned in some form of hair so that's why a shave gets such an extended post. 

I just think I look better with some facial hair. I used to wear it to hide what was underneath but now that I'm happier with all that, I wear it to enhance what's underneath. I don't look as ridiculous without facial hair as I used to but it's still not how I want to look. I used to try and hole up in my room until my facial hair grew back when I shaved, now I'm no longer at that point and I don't hate it with the same fervor. As the beard comes in a bit more I'm even finding myself happy with just some stubble, but something has to be there.

And for those who care to know, it's working. The patches get smaller and the stache gets ever closer to connecting. It won't be long before I can actually rock the elusive "monkey tail" style in all it's glory. 

Christ Blogging is Hard

Jesus. I did such a good job there for a little bit.

Apparently a hurricane and earthquake are still not motivating enough to blog about. Long story short they were both anti climactic and boring...at least here in DC. I've had all sorts of "experiences" since the last post and I've just been zapped energy wise. Also, when you fall so far behind the mountain of updates you have to do looks so daunting that you say "ahh fuck that" more often than not. I'm going to spend the next couple of hours catching up...sort of.  So I am going to grant myself amnesty from all the posts before and try and catch up a little but not kill myself over it and start anew.

Or I might spend 15 minutes trying to make this damn thing in Gimp. Writing with a track pad is hard. 

Maybe a daily recap is a bit much to ask. Still a good goal to aim for. It's probably better to expect 2-4 updates a week as far as real posts go. Maybe that'll stick...

...probably not.

Keep on dancin' till the song ends...or turn it off before it gets that far.

Being one of the gays I have a small (not-so) secret place for little miss B Spears in my heart. She is a skanky white trash hot mess but lord love her little heart I like her. Or I usually do. Her new CD is just awful and I have absolutely ZERO standard for her. Does the song make me wiggle? If the answer is yes then I consider it a win for Britney. This cd blows.

Most of the songs are boring and repetitive. The couple of singles are ok but the rest is all filler. With the exception of gasoline and brief moments of a couple of other tracks the cd is not even qualified for background music at a party because it’s all over the place. I do love the whistle-filled "I Wanna Go" and think it’s a pretty solid addition to the Spears library. THIS is what you need to crank out B. Catchy fun and danceable fluff. Don't try and transition your career to some sort of house mash up. You don't do it well. Even with (or especially with) Will.I.Am. in the studio. (Big Fat Bass is one of the top 10 worst songs ever written. I will defend that to the end. It. Is. Awful.)  "Till The World Ends" isn't bad but nothing terribly exciting and "Hold It Against Me" is lackluster. Of course, the radio has played them so much that now I do groove a bit more than when they first came out but they're flat and boring songs overall. 

I was hoping for a fun dancey album of trashy pop but what I got was an attempt by a pop star to give herself an “edge” with “house” music and “urban” beats. All of these words deserve quotation marks as she doesn’t even get close.

Buy the singles and don’t waste your time with the rest of the album. Miss Spears, you have one more shot. Don’t shave your head again either. 

I may not be Fred Flintstone Baby but...

It was just another day. Until terror struck P St…for everyone but me.

This is now the 7^th earthquake I have lived through and not felt. A couple in California (where I was sure I’d feel at least one) and now DC. I was walking back from Starbucks to a meeting at the gym and all of a sudden people started running out of the buildings and looking up. After a couple of seconds murmurs of “Did you feel it?” started making their way through the crowd.

No. No I did not feel it. (That's what she said...bazing!) 

I had no idea anything had happened. Apparently if you were moving at all (on a bus, in a car, on a bike, walking quickly) you might not have felt the quake. Since I had no objects to really put any of the movement into perspective for me it just felt like a regular step in my stride and I didn’t feel even a quiver.

Government agencies shut down, businesses closed, people went home and took unscheduled leave time. DC is the least prepared city for a natural disaster ever.

Teeny earthquake: City shuts down

Snowstorm: City shuts down for weeks

Hurricane threat: Grocery stores emptied

The capitol of our nation is the wussiest city I’ve ever lived in.

1)    It’s fine, some people didn’t even feel it…yes it cracked the Washington monument but it certainly didn’t fall. Take precautions but it’s not a sign of the end times.

2)    Invest in some snow plows. I know it doesn’t snow most of the year and the budget is tight but for Christ sake have SOME option for when/if it snows. The money lost due to lack of people going out for 2 weeks of snow time is way worse than the money it would cost to get a couple plows and hire some people. Even if it took a day or two to do, it’s fine.

3)    Don’t even start with hurricane. It’ll be a separate post all together.

I know I shouldn’t “wish” an earthquake to happen anywhere. Even a pansy little one like we had here has done some damage. It shakes buildings off their foundations and cracks penis shaped monuments. No one wants that. So clearly I don’t want another earthquake to happen…I’m just saying if one does and I live in that city I hope I feel it next time. (I also hope it’s a little puss puss quake like this past one because I think while I want to feel one, I’d also be terrified if one really rolled through and say knocked down a wall or something so dear universe…don’t take this too seriously, I wanna feel one but I don’t wanna die in it.)

Second star to the right and straight on till morning.

I never want to grow old.

Now not "old" the way kids say old when they think of 30 (which is just barely over 2 years away) or 40 or even 50. Old to me isn't so much a number as it is a state of being. Things give out. Our bodies can only take so much and enough wear and tear and we're all gonna deteriorate sooner or later. We can slow this down by treating our bodies well and by staying in the right mindset but it's going to happen to everyone eventually. I am fully aware that I will not be as spry or limber as I am today when I am in my 50's. No getting around it.

But.

I won't have to consider myself "old" when the 50's run around necessarily. Old to me is "given up". You can be much older than 50 and still not be "old" as I use the term. I don't think anyone is "old" until they are done living. Sure your capabilities change but that means you readjust and figure out where to find the life and the youth in the parameters your body gives you. Can't mountain bike anymore? Go for a walk on the trail. Can't walk the trail anymore? Try a wheelchair. Can't use a wheelchair? Paint a picture of the trail. Can't hold a paintbrush too long? Dictate a story about it. You get my point. Life is about living and until I'm in a box (or more likely scattered in the ocean) I don't plan on stopping. If I ever get to a point where my days are spent being unable to take care of myself, lonely and in pain then I don't want to extend that time any longer. Life throws stuff at us and who knows if I'll even be able to walk tomorrow but hopefully I;ll be able to find life in whatever turn it takes.

Why this sudden ode to youth?

I went to visit my great Aunt in her assisted living community today. I go to visit her about once a month. I'm the only relative nearby so it's basically my duty. This all sounds pretty selfless but don't confuse me for a saint. While I definitely see how much my visits mean to her and at the end of the day I'm glad to go...it's a giant pain in the ass.

Ask anyone who has had an aging relative and (if they're not sugar coating it like an old southern lady is wont to do) they'll tell you it's tough. The older you get it seems the more set in your ways you are (somewhat rightfully so, you've earned it) but with that comes a stronger sense of annoyance when things aren't as you see fit. To block out one of my days off in a time period where I already have next to no free time is a tough sell especially when the things we often talk about aren't terribly fun. Now and then I'll get a good story about my family or some of her work history (she had a high government clearance level...but she's a good former worker and never tells me any of the really good stuff) but most of the time we talk about which of her friends are sick or dying, how terrible her doctor's appointments were or Charlie's bowel movements.

(Her cat. I could have placed the parenthesis right after his name but what fun would that be?)

Aunt Betty, while certainly a sweet old lady who means well by all her friends and family, is still a bit at odds with many of my viewpoints and at times difficult to interact with. Of my family however, she and I probably do share the most liberal leanings but that's like saying she's the skinniest girl at Kirstie Alley's house. (I kid, I kid. I adore you Kirstie and you look great these days.) She is still extremely conservative but unlike most of my fam, she will listen to rebuttals and discuss her points with a somewhat (mis)informed POV without just shouting at you that you've been brainwashed by the "goddam liberal media". It's still tough though to gear up to go listen to how Obama is destroying the world, marriage should be between a man and a woman and Bill O'Riley has "some really good ideas" on my day off.

However, Aunt Betty is not what this post is about. I can handle her quirks because we have a pretty good mutual understanding that we're not going to agree on many issues but that's ok. (A disagreement in my family that doesn't end up in a shouting match?! Shocking.) That and of course she's my family and has done lots of really great things for me and those important to me so the least I can do is visit now and again. She's grateful to have someone come out to talk to her and help out with her computer and I'm happy to stock up some good karma points and actually feel connected to one side of my family. Aunt Betty and I have a pretty solid mutual understanding of each other even if our viewpoints are clashy.

This post is more about the slow spiral many people hit as they "get old". (Remember getting old and aging are two totally separate ideas for me.)

I am glad that she has someone around to come visit her mainly because when I arrive on the assisted living campus (it is like a sprawling college campus for the 65+ frat boy and sorority girl) you can feel the people there staring at you because you're young. For some of them it's a wistful look as if they are remembering their youth and what it was like when they were my age. Others it feels like they're actively trying to suck the youth out of you a la Hocus-Pocus (which PS scared me to death as a child). They stare at you from their rascal scooters as you walk by, some saying hi, others just staring and you can feel the eyes of most everyone in the room land squarely on you. It's a creepy feeling especially the first couple of times you visit. I'm a bit more acclimated to it now and I just smile and exude as much youth and vitality as I can and say hello to every person I pass just so they have some human interaction. It's really sad to think (know) that some of these people don't have anyone left in their lives. That they spend their days in pain missing days and people gone by. Longing for some form of real connection and interaction other than a casual hello from a guy with a beard walking down the hall going to meet someone who is not them. This, this is where I never want to end up.

I want to age. I want to grow and learn and experience. I want to fail and succeed and go new places. I want all the great things that come with getting older and I'm prepared to deal with the inevitabilities that come along with that. What I'm not prepared to do is live a life where I'm just stalling. If I get to a point where my friends and family are all dead. I can't move. I spend most of my day in pain. I lament even having to get up in the morning because of the supreme amount of effort it takes me. If I get to this point then I don't want to be there anymore.

Death is scary yeah but I'd rather check out what's behind door number eternity than cling to an unlivable life.

I'm ready to get older but in true Peter Pan form, I'll never be ready to be old.

"That man ate all our shrimp...and two plastic lobsters"

Brunch. The gayest (and therefore the best) meal of the day.

Today's brunch is brought to you by Masa 14.

Masa had been on my "to do" list for a while and I finally had someone to go with. The delightful Sara Brunow.

We got there before the doors opened which turned out to be pretty unnecessary as there was plenty of space. We sat down and knew before going that we were doing the unlimited brunch for $35 (including drinks). We perused the menu and ordered some breakfast-y items and drinks. Sara got the Masa Mimosa and I tried the Lychee Bellini.

Can someone please clarify whether it is pronounced lie-chee or lee-chee for me? I have now officially heard "people who should know" (read: Chinese people) pronounce it both ways and I keep making myself look like an ass when I order anything with lychee in it. I just want the confidence in my pronunciation so that no matter how they say it back to me, even if in a corrective tone, I can think to myself "no way mister, screw you. I said it lie-chee and I know I'm right so you can take your lee-chee crap elsewhere because that don't fly over here."

While the lychee was fantastic, the Masa Mimosa is clearly the winner of the drink race. The Masa Mimosa is a regular mimosa but instead of orange juice it has blood orange juice and a hint of mango puree which was amazing. Bottomless is a dangerous term but thankfully I wasn't in the mood to get smashed.

Now to the food. The most amazing thing we had was easily the chorizo plate. Had the waitress just brought that dish out over and over again I would have been satisfied. Their granola was really great with a hint of vanilla/almond to it that I enjoyed. I was a bit underwhelmed by both the tuna steak and the chilaquiles although both still good they just didn't stand out with quite as much flavor or pop as the rest of the dishes did. Everything else we tried was quite good and the overall experience was pretty solid. With attentive waitstaff (my water was never less than 1/3 empty...but who's drinking water here really?), great ambiance, yummy (and bottomless) food and drink for a reasonable price it's tough to go wrong here. I'll certainly head back and probably lounge around a bit longer. With a larger group or date it would be a great way to spend your 11am-2pm Sunday time frame and then leave stuffed and buzzed. Sara and I had to roll out early to get some errandy things done and having already made asses of ourselves mispronouncing lychee and talking too loudly (theatre voices) of our sex lives (limited shame) it was probably best to leave before the bell rang anyway.

"It is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time"

Career.

Yikes. Heavy wordage when you think about it. What you "do" with your life. How do you make a living? How do you set your work/life balance? Can you really separate "work" from "life" or do the two intertwine too much?

For me "work" has often been a large part of "life". Pursuing theatre, music and teaching was a big part of my identity and remains part of it even though it is removed from "work" for the time being. I think one of the things many people struggle with is deciding if what they "do" defines "who they are". (Let me put more quotation marks in this post how bout it?)

Right now I'm caught in the middle of a somewhat amorphous phase of my life. I've stopped "working" in theatre and the arts and now my job is massage therapist and spa manager. I still believe that my passion for the arts helps define who I am and what my life is even though I'm not working in that world. Massage is something that has happened pretty organically for me. I've always been good at it so when the chance to take classes while keeping my full time job came up I thought why not. I've really connected with the work and I love the things I am now able to do. (Ref: older post about being called a healer.) So now, for the first time in my life, my job has not been a (mostly) complete representation who I am. I don't say the words "I'm a massage therapist" with quite as much conviction as I used to say "I'm a(n) actor/director/teacher."

This makes it sound like I'm not happy with being a massage therapist...that's not the case at all. I'm actually quite happy with it. I'm paying off all the debt I accrued saying "I'm a(n) actor/director/teacher". I'm learning new skills and how to think in different ways (which is extremely important to me). I have met lots of really amazing people. I am exploring lots of new ways of thinking and developing new and healthy habits. I'm learning about the human body and ways that it breaks and ways you can fix it. I'm engaging and training a completely new side of myself and I am constantly excited about it. I think the disconnect is coming from my life time dedicated to saying "I am __(insert job)__" and letting that take all the work out of defining who I am to someone else. I think there is such a strong idea of what a(n) actor/director/singer is that when you tell someone that one of those things is your job then they already "know" a lot about you. When you say "massage therapist" or "spa manager" it doesn't come with quite the same understanding.

Having a job that doesn't have an immediately defining manifesto leaves one in a place where you have to confront exactly what you want to portray to people as you. A hefty task.

Hmm, that was a significant ramble away from what this post was originally going to be about. Let's backtrack.

I saw a client of mine who I have been seeing for many months this weekend. I hadn't seen them in forever and our schedules finally clicked for them to come in. After catching up briefly we went into the spa and I asked what they wanted me to work on.

Lots of stuff came pouring out about how difficult things have been lately. No real specifics but just a clear picture of a rough patch from a client who isn't terribly talky about personal life. It was clear that this massage was going to be the first real break the client had had from this shitstorm in their life and it was super important to them. I have yet to do a massage that had quite as much meaning as this one did for me. This client was around from the very start of my massage career and we developed a great rapport. To see them so clearly frustrated and upset with something was tough because I'm a bit of an empathetic d-bag. It was clear that this massage was the first time they have had to really switch off and disconnect from all the shit going on in their life. I have never felt more motivated to do my best work than here. I felt like I was really making a difference in my client's life that was significant and meaningful.

All of a sudden the work that I've not been ascribing as my "I'm a __(blank)__" is actually pretty important and can be really powerful. I may not be curing cancer or saving starving kids but I am helping people feel better and I think there is a lot to be said for that. Helping someone recover from a sore muscle, a stressful day or even a month of shitty stuff going on is a pretty great job and I'm happy to take it on. To be an integral part of the health and wellbeing of others is necessary and worthwhile. I may have to explain who I am a bit more now than I'm used to but I think that's a good thing. I want to be more complex than a job title.

Till they fall off

Today the experience is training arms and core. (God that's a douchey way to start a post..."Oh you know just workin' the lats and the tris baby, gettin' swole". Kill me for that.)

I've decided the reason to have a trainer is mainly to have someone tell you "Oh no you're not done yet."

When I train by myself I lift until I'm pretty sure I'm done. That I can't do anymore. Everything I've read says you should lift to exhaustion when you're looking to gain muscle.

Well my idea of exhaustion on my own is different from exhaustion with a trainer. I lift to my idea of exhaustion and then Chandini says "Ok 8 more to go...for this set."

What the hell do you want from me?

It's good though. It's good. I've just resigned myself to being sore for the rest of this year. I hope that by the end of all the PT time that I'll have learned more about where "actual exhaustion" is and have some lifting regiments I can do on my own.

I think one thing I have to stop doing is equating lifting and the gym with douchey. While yes often times the two do indeed go together (stop bouncing your pecs in the mirror when you're done with a chest press asshole...you know who you are) they aren't necessarily always tied together. I've learned a lot working out with intelligent and informed trainers about the body, nutrition, health, wellness and being sore. Having a commitment to being healthier is actually pretty awesome and making lifestyle changes that positively effect both my body and my health are good steps to take. I think growing up in a pretty unhealthy environment engrained in me the idea that being healthy and fit was a bad thing or something to be looked down on. "Why waste your life in a gym or eating healthy foods when you can be fat and happy?" Well fat was certainly not happy and while I'm sure some of that is mental, a lot of it is biological. Low energy levels, inability to walk long distances or even stand for long portions of the day and low self esteem tied with poor body image from years of being unhealthy certainly aren't the way to go. There's a balance between letting the gym and your eating habits take control of your life and letting them govern your decisions. All sorts of studies (which I will leave unreferenced because I don't feel like looking them up right now) have suggested that working out during the day actually makes you more productive and while yes you do have to give that time to being in the gym, it's not a waste at all. I'm starting to look at the time I spend working out or the times I skip the free bread bowl or a slice of pie at the beginning/end of a meal as investments in the future. Sure I "lose" an hour now but it's hopefully going to help me live longer and improve my quality of life when I get old. Growing old (and I mean actually old as in nursing home old) is terrifying to me. I have been to those places and the people who are confined to rascals and walkers with tennis balls on them are pretty depressing. I want the ability to walk and move unassisted as long as I can have it and if that means I have to spend some time in the gym now and maybe skip a movie on the couch now and then well then so be it.

Changing a lifetime of unhealthy choices and habits takes a lot and it's hard most of the time. Of course I'd rather have Doritos than green beans for my snack but I'd also rather be confident going to a beach and taking off my shirt. I spent too much time apologizing for how fat I was (or how fat I perceived myself to be) with my body language and attitude. Shaking all of that off (literally and figuratively speaking) has taken a pretty intense borderline obsession with this process but I keep looking towards the light at the end of the tunnel. When I've built up the body and the health that I'm aiming for and I can start the "maintain" phase I hope it will be a bit easier than the "swimming against the current" mentality I have now. I've still got a ways to go before I'm there mentally but each day is a step in the right direction. (How motivational.)

Huh, this was supposed to be a boring short post about an arm work out.

I wish I had Gob there to make it more interesting...

I ran a quarterly all staff meeting today.

It's as exciting and interesting as it sounds.

It was the biggest thing that happened today. <---Depressing sentence.

My staff is awesome and they had great ideas though so I do have that going for me. Thank goodness they're all so great or I'd be boned. Yay staff!

I'm not gonna write anymore about this. You wouldn't care to read it anyway.

To make up for how boring of a post this is, here's a link to a cat trying to get into boxes that are too small for it.

I admit that in the past I've been a nasty

I love the Little Mermaid.

Guilty.

Super gay? Oh yeah, but you can suck it if you have a problem with it.

Lots of gays seem to like the Little Mermaid too...what is it about this movie that unites all the homos? Well, let's break it down.

*A story about a young girl struggling with living in a place where no one understands her. (Ghey)

* Singing/Dancing undersea life. (Ghey)

* A young girl searching for a forbidden true love. (Ghey)

* Some of the best Disney songs ever written. (Ghey)

* A Disney Villain modeled after a drag queen (Ghey g-ghey ghey ghey)

Urusla is the best Disney villain ever. (Malificent is scarier than Ursula but Ursula is such a better overall villain.) She has the best villain song too. Today I youtubed "Poor Unfortunate Souls" to catch up on all the words and re-familiarize myself with the song that I as a child had memorized.

A little piece of me died to see that The Jonas Brothers have done a cover of the song but I pressed on. I now proudly know all the words to "Poor Unfortunate Souls" and have sung it basically every day since learning. If I could audition with this song I absolutely would.

While I might not be able to use it professionally...the drag race is coming up soon...