Certain winter weekends cry out for quiet. They demand a sense of stillness and tranquility. They want to whisper, to pad around softly on sock-covered feet, to wrap a cozy blanket around huddled shoulders. To hunker down with a book on a conversation couch, itself an exercise in coziness, the way it closes in on itself, creating its own nook and staving off the outside world. From this vantage point, one can watch the world go by beyond a bay window. The patches of snow grow and ebb, expanding and contracting as the winter days march onward.
On this couch, I set up shop. A cup of turmeric ginger tea sits on a marble coaster. A cone of white sage incense sends up curls of calming smoke ribbons. A piece by Max Richter plays in the background – the music that will inform this entire weekend.
It is a time of contemplation. Of consideration. A time for healing too, if we can reach that far. I’m still not sure we are there yet. Yet I’ve learned to accept that too, to find a sense of peace in the not knowing. Of this moment alone I am sure, and then it passes, and then the next. This is the way we make our way through the winter.
There are dips and peaks in the daily trajectory of our lives, and before freaking out at either tip or trough, I’ve learned to step back and pause to better gauge a more comprehensive collection of days and weeks. Unfortunately, what gets the most attention, and the posts that I tend to write, are those which touch on deeper and darker issues. “What’s the point of sitting down and notating your happiness?” Madonna once asked during her ‘Like A Prayer’ era. I tend to agree with her on that. However, it gives a false image of unhappiness and dissatisfaction here, as much as I try to temper things with eye/guy candy and hunks of the day and frivolous fashion and witty/shitty banter. Hopefully you are understanding that, but in the event that we are all getting bogged down in the tragic, let this be a moment where we recognize that the overall trajectory of the past few months has been one moving toward happiness, and a healthier way of living. That can upset people who don’t deal well with change, or who want the casual friends they have to stay quietly in whatever box they’ve allotted or created in their mind. My good friends, and the family members who know me well, understand such nuances, and are happy to see anyone work toward improving their lifestyle. “Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind” and all that other Dr. Seuss wisdom and shit.
The past few weeks – months, actually – have been spent in improving things from the inside out. I’ve improved my diet and exercise regime (still trying to make that trajectory trend upward), I’ve stopped drinking alcohol, and I’ve been seeing a therapist. That’s a lot of changes in a relatively short time, and even though they’ve all been long overdue, such a dramatic shift on multiple fronts has resulted in a couple of panic attacks and a withdrawal from social events. That was actually a good thing, especially during the holidays, when a reduction in socializing made for a more-bearable season. I will take some of that to heart next year when the holidays roll around again. It worked out well in reducing stress and all that stuff that builds up to make it difficult to focus on getting close to the people that matter.
As for how it’s been going in the post-holiday weeks, I’d say it’s getting much better. There’s still a long way to go, and one of the main things I’ve come to appreciate is a change in how I view the process of improvement. Rather than setting a big huge life-changing goal and detailed plan for the next year (something of which I was once guilty – I’m a Virgo after all, a man with a need for a plan) I’m learning to set up smaller goals for a day. It makes for a lot of little accomplishments. Lots of happy successes. And I feel happier because of them.
Standing in the parking lot of the supermarket and talking with an old friend (because that’s what adults do I guess) we lamented the fact that we hadn’t seen each other at a party in a very long time. In that very moment, I posited the idea that no one throws parties anymore is because we are all in touch via social media, and there’s less of a need to get together. There was something sad in the realization and admission.
For many years, there was a series of parties that constituted our holiday social season. It began with a pre-Thanksgiving get-together at Bob’s in the heart of Albany. We would cram ourselves into his apartment overlooking Washington Park and kick off the holidays at a Friendsgiving gathering of sorts, before we all headed off to our respective family fiascos. Then Rob M. and we would coordinate weekends for our respective holiday parties, and finally Rob C. would close out the year and the season with his New Year’s Eve bash.
This past Christmas there were no parties. Yet we’ve all been in touch via FaceBook or Twitter or Instagram so it doesn’t feel like we’ve missed anything. In fact, it feels like I know more about my friends’ comings and goings than I did when we would regularly go out and see people. There is a continuous social gathering online whenever we decide to plug in, a perpetual party that takes place in all corners of the world and at all hours of the day or night. It offers instant if tenuous connection, a joining of the masses, and a communal get-together that gives us all a false sense of social camaraderie. For the introverted among us, it is in many ways a relief – a way to be social without actually being social.
Yet part of me misses those parties, and it’s why we haven’t entirely given up on them just yet. There’s something about seeing friends in person that will never be as nourishing or enriching as connecting via text or FaceTime. There is an intimacy and immediacy, and the shared moment that brings two people together in a way that no computer or phone screen could ever replicate. The richness of a three-dimensional being, the scent of someone’s sillage, the way that eyes look back at you – these things can’t be conveyed no matter how many online lookers gaze your way.
So here’s to the people who still party, the people who still bring other people together, and the personal connection that reminds us we are not alone in the dark, staring at a phone or a computer, lost in the land of virtual mediocrity. Go on now, get out of here. Close this page and whatever device you’re reading it on and look around you. Stand up and stretch, breathe deeply in of the world around you. That is what’s real. That is what matters.
To recap several hunks we’ve featured here of late, this post is a gratuitous exercise in shirtless male celebrities, and let’s be honest, we could all use a little more exercise. First up is Todd Sanfield, whose modeling career is as lucrative as his line of underwear, and both offer ample evidence of the heat that January so desperately needs. Mr. Sanfield has been here before in sultry posts like this and this and this, not to mention this Hunk of the Day crowning.
Every winter comes with its own set of hardships and difficulties. Following the Christmas bonhomie there is often a let-down and a few weeks of despondent regret, when recent excesses are suddenly regrettable with the arrival of credit car statements and such. The weather of late has been a bit of a roller coaster, with temperatures that have swung from the 60’s to the 20’s in a few quick days. Not ideal for the seasonally affected among us, but we must trudge on. One of the ways I make it through the winter wilderness is by making weekly pilgrimages to Faddegon’s Nursery. When the nearest botanical garden is hundreds of miles away, it’s what you have to do.
Luckily, plants are plants, flowers are flowers, and beauty may be found in a local greenhouse. I still remember a little gift shop in Chicago, during a rather cold and trying winter, and one of its rooms was a tiny corner made mostly of windows, where the light, gray and dim as it was, filled the space. A few pots of paper white narcissus bloomed and scattered their divisive perfume in the air, while pretty scenes made up of up cycled metal and wood, along with a few other touches of green foliage, made for an impressive respite. I was having a difficult day, but this brief brush with beauty calmed the turbulence of my heart, and I clung to whatever balm I could find.
That same sense of peace, however fleeting or momentary, is what I try to capture during the winter. It eases the soul when the outside wind bangs and rages. Our houses can only barricade us from so much, eventually some of the winter will seep in. Beauty, however, is impenetrable. Its essence goes right to the soul and cannot be felled or destroyed, no matter how strong the gusts of wind or how high the fall of snow.
I felt such power the last time I was at Faddegon’s. It started in the face of a Lenten rose, careened off the curves of a pink spath, and winked at me from the gorgeous painted plate of this orchid. In the tranquil stillness of a greenhouse, where the only sounds came from the distant hum of a fan and the dripping of a recent spray of water, there was peace to be found in the winter. Peace and beauty, and for one moment all was right with the world.
If I wanted to convey my general attitude and life-view in a GIF or two, look no further than the ones presented here. Of course they are from Madonna, who manages to channel ennui, glamour, haughtiness, dismissal, vanity, snark, impatience, humor, and defiance in a couple of glorious eye-rolls at society. The first is from the Blonde Ambition era, and the second is from her pre-MDNA tea-sipping ‘W.E.’ period. Both touch my heart and tickle my funny bone.
“The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitants of the northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the fixed smile of the tropics. ” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
A January thaw wreaked havoc with the gardens and emotions, accompanied as it was with strong winds and much-higher-than-usual temperatures, yet I managed to weather it without the traditional emotional mayhem. Maybe I’m getting better at this. Previous January thaws have thrown me for loops and whirligigs and dizzying spirals. I tended to grab onto the moods and shifts of those around me rather than holding true to myself. Despite appearances to the contrary, I can be pretty stalwart when it matters.
The earth teaches these lessons in its own way. It sometimes takes a few turns around the sun for me to get it – I take my time in learning certain things, and that’s all right. The longer it takes to learn a lesson, the longer I find it stays with me.
One of those life lessons is that of forgiveness. I’ve had trouble with this one for decades, and it still doesn’t come naturally or easily to me. Because forgiveness, in most cases, means that someone has done you wrong. After a while, one gets tired of having to forgive. Repeated incidents that require forgiveness tend to reveal underlying attacks which, in their repetition, lend the rational person to determine it may not all be entirely unintended. But I’m getting ahead of myself, talking in vague ambiguities, when winter should be hard and steadfast and crystalline. January thaws muck that up, but I wouldn’t give up a 60 degree day with sun for anything right now. We will live with the emotional mayhem. Winter weather will return soon enough.
“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” –Edith Sitwell
One of the things that I’ve admired about Justin Trudeau is that he is human. He’s made mistakes, apologized for them, and admits he is not perfect. We all will have our issues with politicians, no matter how seemingly good they occasionally appear. This post, however, is not to delve into anything as serious and deep as all that. This is all about Justin Trudeau’s beard. Where do you stand on it?
Personally, I dig it. I dig the gray (ahem). I dig the gravity it lends, and the casual flair that is somehow peppered with distinction. It’s how a beard should work. It’s almost enough to grant him a second Hunk of the Day crowning. Almost.
When you get temperatures in the 60’s in January, it tends to make people a little giddy and crazy and out of sorts, and when that coincides with the full moon, well, it’s a wonder we’re all still here. Somehow, though, we made it through the wilderness. One week done, another one begun. This is how we find our way through the winter. That and buying flowers for the husband. Hence these roses, given as a thank you for the rather impressive feat of Andy fixing the snowblower on his own, thanks to nothing more than a YouTube tutorial. On with this rollercoaster of a recap…
There aren’t many Tweets that stop me in my tracks these days, not given the current climate of utter insanity that rules the online world, but this one shook me to my core (and it’s affected others similarly), both for its startling accuracy and its beautiful, difficult, unwavering truth:
“Queer people don’t grow up as ourselves, we grow up playing a version of ourselves that sacrifices authenticity to minimize humiliation and prejudice. The massive task of our adult lives is to unpick which parts of ourselves are truly us and which parts we’ve created to protect us.” – Alexander Leon
This month marks the start of the 16thyear of existence for ALANILAGAN.com, which makes me feel like a grumpy old Dad spewing grumpy old Dad jokes as his kid peels out of the driveway while texting. Thankfully, this website behaves much better than any teenager ever could. It does exactly as I say, adhering to precisely what I program, and doesn’t give me any lip or sass aside from the occasional error that is more the provider’s fault than anyone else’s. Quite the opposite of any unruly offspring, this website has provided a steady anchor no matter what crazy fucking shit is going on in my personal/family life, offering a single sanctuary on which I can perpetually rely, unlike just about everything and everyone else. There’s something special in that, and I don’t take it lightly. Not after sixteen years. We’ve been through too much together.
Is it strange to anthropomorphize a website? Of course it is. Yet strange is what we do best here. There aren’t many personal blogs that have lasted this long, so I can basically do what I want. Though to be honest that freedom has been in place from the very beginning of our journey back in 2003. The world was very different then, but what has remained the same is the desire to express myself as creatively and crazily as I feel fit, without censorship or limits. That may result in a voice that will never be palatable for mainstream/mass consumption, but my words are basically harmless, and the nudity is never full-frontal. Anyone who claims this place is pornographic must cringe at all the porn on the average sitcom. They have no place here anyway, as we have an acceptance policy of all people, and they would not be comfortable with such a stance. They are always welcome to join us, I just doubt it would be their cup of tea. We get many passing visitors like that, and I’m always glad for the brief time they spend here. I’m more grateful for those who deign to return, no matter how few and far between they may be. This is my sweet thank you to those folks, the ones who come back on the regular, who put up with my trying posts some days, my nonsensical posts other days, and the general ridiculousness that populates all the rest of the remaining days.
Anyway, please come back to see how this sweet sixteen year unfurls. If it’s anything like a real-life sixteen-year-old, get ready for the drama. You know I will do my best to bring it.
Continuing on their rather happy journey of body- and self-acceptance, Sam Smith posted these beautiful images of a recent vacation (lucky sun-drenched paradise-visitor) with the following sage advice: “Feels so good to have my top off on holiday. Spent all my life hiding my body from the sun. The last year my skin has been soaking in that LIGHT. Don’t let anyone or anything stop you from feeling that kiss from above you beautiful humans.â€
What a lovely message they have for all of us, and how wonderful to see someone in full enjoyment of everything they are. How few of us live that way. I certainly don’t. I put up a good front, but behind this façade there are some big-ass cracks in the foundation. As Smith guides the way, I’m doing my best to make them better, and if not improve then accept them and be grateful for the fissures that made me who I am today.
It seems incredulous based on history and previous traditions, but this site is in need of some sparkle and pizzazz. I’ve tended to traffic in such enchantments to an extent that when a period of serious posts and contemplative quietude occurs it gives off the notion that the blush is off the rose, that fun is off the table, and glamour is gone for good. Not so, not so, not so.
We may be battered and bruised, we may be downtrodden and blue, but the heart of a chameleon remains pure. A trickster has survival instincts that run deep. Those instincts are instrumental in making a new way for oneself when the old avenues are closed down and not navigable. A proper trickster will always find a way, in our mercurial magic and transformative nature. There’s nothing wrong with dressing up our journey with fancy finery in the process, or thrilling our companions with bejeweled glory. To catch the eye is an art form. It takes a certain kind of sorcery. Those who make the attempt to marvel do so at great risk. The rest of the world loves to see a misstep or a fall. There are those who will always revel in the misery of others. I don’t care to figure out why.
Let us instead do our best to shine.
Let us brush off our imaginations and return to the land of unabashed play, where fantasy and make-believe and magic prance like pink ponies, and flowers and feathers fall from branches cradling drops of sunshine. Where the sky is always blue, when it’s not eavesdropping and cloaked in black to better see the dancing moonbeams.
The best way I find to conjure such enchantment is in getting all gussied up and decoratively decked out. At its best, it’s life-affirming, at its worst it’s frivolous, and whether best or worst it’s entirely harmless and far better than any number of vices. From your head down to your toes, from your fascinator to your velvet shoes, and every shade of Tom Ford in between, you still have the power to enthrall.
The possession to fascinate.
The wherewithal to survive.
The frivolity to enchant.
The charm to sparkle.
Here, now, is a song to help you channel your own fabulousness. It’s like ooh la la la la…
No one fills a Speedo like Gaston, stuffs his shorts like Gaston, then bulges out of his banana-hammock like Gaston… ok maybe this isn’t how Disney intended that song to go, but for a beast like Luke Evans it’s deserved. My hat goes off to all the guys who bravely front a Speedo on the beach, and Americans should get out of their board shorts and into the spirit of true freedom, where the sun can reach the most remote parts of our bodies… but before we delve into taint tanning we’ll stop there. Evans has rocked out before with his bulge out in this Speedo post. He’s also shown off in his underwear and, even better for his fans, in even less. You may find that a naked Luke Evans is more your cup of tea. Sip carefully, it’s very hot.
Certain songs are like elegies, for those moments when there’s nothing left to say. We listen to their sadness and try to make sense of the sorrow, but there is no answer or solution to loss and grief, only bottomless depths of more. Perhaps there is comfort in company; quite often there is not. That doesn’t mean the effort is in vain.
When the loss is not by death or force, when the loss of someone from your life is by choice, sometimes that’s even harder to take. And when you’re the one to go, sometimes another’s heart is harder to break.
IN EVERY HEART THERE IS A ROOM
A SANCTUARY SAFE AND STRONG
TO HEAL THE WOUNDS FROM LOVERS PAST
UNTIL A NEW ONE COMES ALONG
I SPOKE TO YOU IN CAUTIOUS TONES
YOU ANSWERED ME WITH NO PRETENSE
AND STILL I FEEL I SAID TOO MUCH
MY SILENCE IS MY SELF DEFENSE
AND EVERY TIME I’VE HELD A ROSE
IT SEEMS I ONLY FELT THE THORNS
AND SO IT GOES, AND SO IT GOES
AND SO WILL YOU SOON I SUPPOSE
Once there was a girl who loved me very much. She loved me more than I could ever love her, maybe more than I could ever love anyone. Being loved like that is a luxury we should all be lucky enough to feel at one point. It scares most people, but we are better for it. Later on in life I would be the one to do the loving, or so I thought, though never quite as purely and unreservedly, never in such undiluted and untainted form.
Oh I thought I did. It felt like I loved more fiercely and carelessly than anyone could have ever loved someone, even those I barely knew, but it was fallacy and fabrication. To be loved by someone who knows you, and who has known you since you were a child, is how we complete our souls. Not all of us are lucky enough to have that.
BUT IF MY SILENCE MADE YOU LEAVE
THEN THAT WOULD BE MY WORST MISTAKE
SO I WILL SHARE THIS ROOM WITH YOU
AND YOU CAN HAVE THIS HEART TO BREAK
AND THIS IS WHY MY EYES ARE CLOSED
IT’S JUST AS WELL FOR ALL I’VE SEEN
AND SO IT GOES, AND SO IT GOES
AND YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS
SO I WOULD CHOOSE TO BE WITH YOU
THAT’S IF THE CHOICE WERE MINE TO MAKE
BUT YOU CAN MAKE DECISIONS TOO
AND YOU CAN HAVE THIS HEART TO BREAK
I probably didn’t deserve such a beautiful song. I’m not sure if I deserve it now, but maybe I’m a little closer. We approach grace in different ways. It takes a little longer for some, and most of us fall down along the way. We just need to find those who will help us get back up, who will sit with us in silence or just be there without fanfare or expectation.
AND SO IT GOES, AND SO IT GOES
AND YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS.
