It’s still fall, remember that. We have not quite moved into the winter season yet. Hold on for a few more weeks. The holiday season, however, has already begun, and I suggest we just give in to it and ride this crazy train into the New Year. With Mercury heading into retrograde in a  couple of weeks, this is all we have left. Godspeed, and on with the Monday morning recap…

I tried to kick things off a peaceful note, with some words of encouragement from Maya Angelou.

One of the most popular Hunk of the Day posts of all-time was this one for Milo Ventimiglia. We are already working on his second…

There was a Twitter challenge, but a miracle of miracles occurred when two people let down their guard and remembered their humanity and humility.

The end of November is always a bear.

No comment on the beginning of December.

Ben Cohen is back and better than ever.

Give it to me! YEAH!

Forget winter, it’s the Holiday Card that is coming.

The nudity-inducing blanket.

This year’s Holiday Stroll is already in the books: Part One, Part Two and Part Three.

A Holiday Stroll coda.

A simple holiday scene.

Hunks of the Day included Oliver Thornton, Manny Gutierrez, Mariano Ontañon, Matt Wilkas, and Brandon from the Kilted Bros.

Some blankets are so soft that they simply demand to be coddled with no clothing on. Who are we to deny such a sumptuous experience? When mortals defy the invitation to this sort of luxurious comfort, they go against their very natures. I’ve never denied those experiences, and there’s nothing more lovely than slipping out of our starchy day garb and into nothing but a cozy blanket.

This year’s holiday photo card takes a questionable turn, as it’s one of the more disturbing images I’ve featured of late. It’s time, as we’ve had a stretch of semi-innocent cards for the past couple of years and every now and then you should do something that wakes you up and pisses people off. To that end, I think this one will be a doozy. I’m offering no other advance word or hype on the subject, other than a few possible lead-ups with Christmas cards past, and this will be the only sneak-peek anyone gets until the big reveal.

The theme was a “Mary Christmas” and I’ll leave it at that. (No, I’m not in a wig or a manger, which is good since a friend once graciously pointed out that I make a damn ugly woman.) Get ready to gird your loins, because Jesus is coming…

Let this Christmas Wish List happen! Despite what the photos indicate, I’m far from a Tiffany’s gal, and the only breakfast I’m having is the traditional croissant on the street outside the store. However, there are more reasonable requests in the aforementioned link, so if you’re feeling especially generous, or just want to peruse my wildest desires, click away.

If November gets sent out in a flurry of former links, let’s greet December in the same honorable way. This is the month when holiday madness can either make or break you. Eventually, you have to give in or fail at fighting it. I’ve been preparing things for a few weeks now, so most things are under control, but there are always those stressful moments of unexpected obligations that show up out of nowhere that cause the most trouble. Each year I decide I’m just going to go with the flow and have a good time, and each year I get a little better at making that happen.

December 2010

December 2011

December 2012

December 2013

December 2014

December 2015

Even with the last-ditch stomach-filling experience of Thanksgiving, November is largely a dismal month. The days do nothing but get shorter, daylight wants only to disappear, and the weather turns like a caged monkey. It’s unpredictable and volatile, but the general trajectory always ends in the death of fall. Heading down that path is tricky at best, and for some reason November tends to depress me more than any other month.

To combat those doldrums, a look back at some cozy, or at least superficially entertaining, November posts.

Back in 2010, before this blog had its last major revamping, the only posts that survive are a few Madonna Timelines and some shirtless Hunks. Oh wait… those are the only posts that I do. Never mind.

November 2011 was slightly more eclectic, with some Gregory Maguire, a reunion with Kira, and ever more Madonna.

In 2012, the holiday spirit took over this blog, with some Holiday Card exposition, some nude dudes, and a major Revelation.

The tail-end of November 2013 found posts on the holiday stroll, Hunks of the Day, a poem, and Auntie Mame.

Two years ago we returned to traditional form with some family fun, a little Madonna, an orchid, and a multitude of hunky men.

And last year, we had Peanuts, risotto, red wings, and my ass in a bear suit.

…{Continued from here}…

I immediately followed him back and sent a few quick messages: “Hey… Sorry if I’m a bit sensitive about certain comments. I’ve been trolled and attacked and I’m decent at dealing with them, usually in an offensive manner… That said, I’m sorry for your circumstances, and I wish you good health no matter what.”

He replied: “No worries. I’m a jerk. I was just speaking to and apologizing to someone today for making social media comments without regard for the fact the people on the other end are actually real. I don’t know why that’s such a struggle for people to realize but it is. Especially probably with more well known people such as yourself. People say really rude things but don’t actually see there’s a real person on the receiving end, so I’m sorry.”

I was touched by the response, and replied as much: “That’s a very cool thing to say, and it has been taken to heart. I’ve been trying to be less defensive as well, because you’re right, I put myself out there on other public pages, and the whole point of social media is to engage and interact. I’m trying to be better, and sometimes the most unlikely people bring that out…Anyway, thanks for engaging and helping to turn this around… My name is Alan. I’m pleased to meet you. Have a good night.”

His response: “I’m really sorry man. I’m Kenny. I’m really glad we turned this around. Proud actually. Thanks and nice to meet you Alan.”

That’s what this world needs, and that’s what we each need to work on: being patient with each other, learning to listen, being careful not to lash out, and being willing to disagree but not take it all so personally. There is still grace to be found here, there are still people whose commonality supersedes their differences. Most of us, in fact.

It started in the way that so many troll-attacks have started on my Twitter-feed of late: a comment that my profile picture was “ridiculous”. Being that the commenter’s profile pic was a doleful-looking canine, my knee-jerk response was: “Said the dog.”

What followed was the usual sussing-out of whether this attacker was one of the usual Trump-trolls, just having a bad day, or making a joke that I was taking way too seriously. We bantered a bit, sparring over why he had come to my Twitter feed to make a disparaging comment when I hadn’t even been aware of his, and seemed to be on the verge of blocking each other or engaging in full-out war.

My pet-peeve is when someone sees a post I made on someone else’s FaceBook or Twitter feed, then proceeds to criticize or insult me. That’s what raises my ire, because I have not tagged them or gone on their respective page to do such a thing. I’m trying to be more understanding about that, as more often than not it’s just done to get a rise out of me or gain some notice that their limited number of followers could never provide.

This time around, the gentleman in question was responding in an occasionally-challenging but generally respectful manner, and I held my typical tendency to go on the offensive more or less in check. I’d been called worse than ‘ridiculous’ in the past, so when he said it seemed to have struck a chord with me, I realized he was right. For some reason it had. Maybe it was because he wasn’t just another hateful troll who was only out to hurt someone to make his own life feel less miserable. Those are easy to dismiss. This was someone who seemed to have a head on his shoulders, and based on a quick perusal of his photography, an appreciation for beauty, or at the very least a desire to capture something honest and truthful in this world. He was also battling some health issues, and seemed to be having a tough time because of that. We each have our demons, and even when being called names, I always remember this. A favorite line from ‘The Great Gatsby’ came suddenly to mind: “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone… just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

We paused in our exchange. Somehow, and maybe by a little miracle, we each seemed to have a moment of grace, timed fortuitously and at the perfect junction where we both let our guards down a bit. That rarely happens on social media, where arch-enemies are conjured as quickly and ferociously as friends, and none of it translates into the real world. Here was a time fraught with the possibility of breaking through that bullshit. I wanted to write a little apology to him for taking it so personally, but he wasn’t following me so I couldn’t direct message him, and I didn’t want to make it all so public.

Just then a notification popped up. He had just followed me.

{To be continued…}

‘I don’t know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes– it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, ‘Well, if I’d known better I’d have done better,’ that’s all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then you say to yourself, ‘I’m sorry.’ If we all hold on to the mistake, we can’t see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can’t see what we’re capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one’s own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that’s rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don’t have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”

~ Maya Angelou