On this date exactly 18 years ago, Andy drove me to the Department of State, then at the bottom of State Street, at the corner of Broadway in downtown Albany, where I began my career with the State of New York. Nervous and scared and unsure of where it would take me, I stepped into the role of Data Entry Machine Operator, the very lowest on the totem of entry-level positions, and began the journey that would become my state career.

When this blog has its fall season premiere – tentatively slated for September 23 – I’ll expound upon that journey – and all the various twists and turns it has taken over the years. It probably won’t appeal to anyone outside of fellow government workers (and probably not even them to be honest), but it seems as good a place as any to begin our 16^thfall season on this website, when we look to re-set the stage, when others are going back to school and getting another chance to begin again. School and work, comedy and tragedy, yin and yang – we will be right where we need to be – and hopefully you’ll come along for the ride.

Before that, however, a few more weeks of summer are at hand, and a couple days of summer wrap-ups since I stuck around for the sunny season this year. Whether you liked it or not…

Our glorious brown turkey fig tree, which made such a showing already this year, gave me two delicious birthday presents when we returned from Boston (more on that trip in a bit). A pair of figs was finally ripe, and I hastened to cut them up and devour them in case we don’t get any more. The tree has been producing a multitude of fruit, but none of it looked close to being ripe, so I’d been researching tricks to hasten the process along.

The first was an instinctual one: to cut off some branches and pinch off a few growing tips to signify that the plant may be in peril and fruit production should commence to ripening as soon as possible. I also wanted to save a few stems in case our lovely pot doesn’t survive a winter in the garage.

The second was less well-known, and slightly more controversial. Like bananas, figs require a certain gas to ripen fully, and by sealing off the bottom of a fruit with some olive oil, it is said that this gas stays within the fruit, thereby impelling the ripening process. The controversial part is that fruit ripened in this method is said to be a little less sweet. Personally, I didn’t care – I just wanted something ripe regardless of how it was done. And it seems something worked – at least for two.

Oh, and these tasted simply divine.

When I see kids growing up online today it makes me glad I never had to do that. By the time social media was a thing, I was a grown-ass adult. Maybe I didn’t always act like it, but I knew enough that what was done here would be done forever – that you didn’t ever erase something that was online, so I made the decision to live as openly and freely on here as I would in my real life existence. In other words, it had to pass the mother/husband/best friend test: if it was fine for my Mom, Andy and Suzie to see, then it was ok to put up here. Thankfully, none of those people nor myself have been particularly prudish, and nothing I put up here has been disrespectful or rude unless someone really deserved it. (Hello Pier 1 Imports.) 

As I get even older, I stand by just about everything that I’ve posted here. I may cringe at former righteousness or shirk off some shameless show-offiness, but for the most part I have no regrets. I can say that at this age. When I was fourteen years old, I couldn’t have done as well, so I’m thankful the internet wasn’t born before I was. A head-start makes a world of difference, and I needed it to get ahead of the trauma and drama that today’s social-media-saturated world can inflict. 

When I see a teenager with a YouTube channel and millions of followers, I worry that they didn’t ever know what it was like to develop without being watched in some way, to grow and flourish and become who you were meant to be without the influence of perception on such a large scale. What does an absence of privacy and a chance to be completely alone and isolated do to a person? The next generation is about to find out, and everything I see happening in our world seems to be tipping toward a major shit-show. Part of me is glad I’ll be dead when all of it comes to fruition. And maybe somewhere these words will live on as a wish and a warning.

The final week of August has begun, and with it goes the final full month of summer. Our fall season won’t officially begin until September 23, and we intend to make full use of every last one of those summer days. Before that final flourish, however, let’s look back at this full week of August revelry…

It began with clouds, some of which bought storms.

Siesta, not fiesta.

Luscious lavender.

I just love games.

We are all guilty.

Sometimes there’s a frat boy inside of me…

Like in this instance.

A bulging collection of Hunks.

A new birthday suit for my 44th birthday…

… and my old birthday suit. 

Another Madonna Timeline from ‘Madame X.’

Hunks of the Day included Craig Ramsay, Giovanni Bonamy, George Hill,  Jay Ellis, and Jax Taylor.

Seeing as how it’s my supposedly special day, it seems a fine time to focus on the frivolous bits of flotsam and jetsam that populate my scanning interest these days. Each one is a category on this blog because I post so much about them that this makes for easy organization. Such was the intent of early blog ambitions – these days if I want to seek out a specific post I simply type a keyword into Google, followed by ‘Alan Ilagan’ to see what exactly I wrote since the search engine here is broken. 

Anyway, here are a few favorite topics and the links to their respective collections. The great revamping of 2012 obliterated most posts prior to that year, though a few choice ones have been saved that go back to 2009. After 2012, however, almost every post is still up and online here. It makes for a large body of work, because seven years of anything – especially when there are three posts a day – results in a vast collection of words and pictures. This is the modern-day diary, a virtual throwback to the little Garfield diary I once filled out in 7^thand 8^thgrades, that came with its own lock and key. Diaries are funny things. Blogs are too. Both feel a little antiquated, a little quaint, and more than a little necessary for those of us who feel the need to express things or burst. But it would be foolish to pretend that either a diary or a blog is entirely without guile or underlying purpose all of the time. We all wear disguises, even and sometimes especially when we purport to be naked. Veils of veils and shadows of shadows, the trickery of light at perpetual play – these are the subtle shifts of an online persona. The voice you hear now as you read these words is probably not mine. But I digress, entirely too much, particularly on such a fun day. Let’s keep it light and whimsical, like the very best notions that accompany one’s anniversary of birth.

And the categories are:

• Andy
• Art
• Boston
• Cocktails
• Cologne
• Family
• Fashion
• Flowers
• Food
• Gardening
• Holiday
• Literature
• Madonna
• Male Nudity
• Music
• Theater
• Tom Ford
• Travel
• Underwear

In addition to those main categories, there are a few silos that have more than hay in them:

• The Blog
• The Writing
• The Pictures
• The Projects
• The Utter Nonsense

Wild geese that fly with a moon on their wings…

When you’ve shown your ass to the world for the last sixteen years that ALANILAGAN.com has been around, it’s a bit of a relief to put all your clothes on and celebrate in a new kind of birthday suit. Hence this birthday post. Suited up in the post-coital garden of Adam and Eve, the only cup you will see here is in the cup plant behind me. (My junk is buried deep in the archives so you’ll have to search to find it.)

As for birthday wisdom this year, I’m feeling a little drained. This isn’t some grand post with multi-layered levels of meaning. This is me at 44 not giving a shit because I’m pretty happy with where I am right now. But there’s still some bitter to go with the sweet, so let’s have at that. 

Forty-fucking-four, and I feel every second of it. Not always in a bad way, in fact usually not in a bad way. I earned all the gray hairs, laugh-lines and frown-creases I’ve got, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I traded them happily for knowledge and a certain amount of wisdom. I also bartered for patience and a bit of apathy, because in the not-so-distant past I cared a little too much. Better to let things go, better to let others get bogged down with semantics and the eternal quest for what’s right. It’s ok to be wrong. It’s ok to make mistakes. I don’t have to like it, I just have to be ok with it, and I am.

44 has a nice smooth edge to it – two even numbers divisible by 2 and 4 and even 11. Not one to get into numerology, I still hope that 44 brings about luck and fortune. I’™m more into astrology, which has me on the Leo-Virgo cusp, with a distinctive preference toward the latter. And second only to Virgo regarding annoyance factor may be Leo, which is why I’m so often such an insufferable dominatrix of sorts. (It also means that it’s much easier just to do as I say from the beginning because I’m going to get my way in the end. Why must it be so much work for everyone?)

Sorry, it’s my birthday, so I get to be a little insufferable. (And having just re-read these last few sentences I am roaring with derisive laughter. Leos roar; Virgos deride. This is my sweet spot.)

Birthdays sometimes turn into an opportunity to indulge in a little nostalgia, but this year I’m not feeling that. We will look back another time. Right now I’m worlds away, floating on a cloud of musical theater, traipsing through streets of storied beauty, and thanking my maker for keeping me ticking another year.

Some posts don’t require words, just one sweet picture.

The drama of a summer sky as seen from a parking lot can be a beautiful thing. When the mundane meets the magnificent, something magical happens. Here, in the midst of an errand, I paused to examine the sky – all beauty and prettiness and painted by the hands of God. How else to account for such majesty? Maybe God is Mother Nature. Or vice versa. Regardless, the entity responsible for this has much mad respect.

These particular cloud formations erupted one night when the atmosphere turned itself upside down, threatening tornados nearby, and shattering the summer sweetness with some driving rain, ending as soon as it began. Volatile stuff, more fun in retrospect than in the moments fraught with potential danger. The sensations of worry become more pronounced the older we get.

As soon as they formed, they dispersed and dissembled. I could barely get these shots in time before the beauty passed. That lends another layer of meaning to them. There will never be another time when the sky looks exactly like this. It was, and will forever remain, a once-in-a-lifetime image.

The week of my birthday begins with a not-so-nostalgic look back. Let’s get that over and done with so we can focus on this coming Saturday… and what better place to begin than with this year’s birthday wish list!

A summer gathering with extended family proved good for the heart and soul.

Dinner and a show with immediate family is pretty good too. 

Alan vs. Allen vs. Allan.

A lobster roll in downtown Albany.

Southern Sweet Peach Tea: a summer cocktail recipe. 

This is where I hang in the summer. 

A PSA from my workplace. 

Madonna celebrated her birthday, because August babies are the best.

There was also a new Madonna Timeline: Batuka.

Once upon a promise kept: a new project goes online. 

Mmmmm, grilled cheese.

The sexiness of Simon Dunn on full display.

Dress for the job you want. 

A little frond for a little vase.

I love that Betty Buckley is in Boston as we speak, and that I get to see her on my birthday this Saturday!

Hunks of the Day included Erwan Heussaff, Danny Walters, William McLarnon, and Rome Flynn.

One doesn’t necessarily need to go big if you’re already home, and sometimes the littlest things are the most beautiful. This simple ‘bouquet’ is created from the smallest vase in our home (a whimsical work of shell-like grace, procured from Faddegon’s a couple of years ago) and a single frond from a Japanese painted fern (which had sprouted up via spore beside our pool heater). The impossibility of all those elements coming together and forming a rather hardy bouquet makes it extra appealing.

Ferns have proven to be tricky things in arrangements. Sometimes they last for weeks, other times they wither in the span of minutes. There’s nothing consistent about it, as both results have been gleaned from the very same species, clipped at the very same time, and given the very same treatment. Ferns can be finicky.

The variety of Japanese painted fern seen here has generally proved to last more than a few days, particularly if cut early in the morning after a damp night. Coupled with this wonderfully-ribbed off-center vase, it makes for a striking visage, and has me completely rethinking my outdated notions of perspective.

A promise kept adds a certain sparkle to one’s karmic evolution, and here, as promised, is my most recent project, online for all the world to see. (I can send you a link for a rather expensive hard copy to be printed if you’d like.) This is ‘Once Upon A Watercolor’ – my family-friendly project for the summer of 2019. It was officially released at ‘The Flower Party’ earlier this season, and now finds proper placement in the pantheon of projects here.

There was a minor promotional roll-out for the project (see this delusional interview – Part One and Part Two, along with this fantastical press release) but keep in mind that this was nothing compared to the hype and hoopla built up for the ‘PVRTD’ project a few short months prior to ‘OUAW’. They’re both on the projects page, which means darkness and light can co-exist, whether you take the pink pill or the blue pill or no pill at all.

Don’t forget that if you are looking to work for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation as a Forest Ranger or Environmental Conservation Police Officer, the time to apply for the Civil Service exam is now. Diversity candidates are especially encouraged to apply. 

#TinyThreads

It seems like such a tease to post this on a Thursday, but it’s far better than posting it on a Monday, so let’s enjoy the relatively quick route to the weekend. This was taken last Sunday, on a perfectly beauteous day filled with sun, tempered with some bright happy clouds, and backed by the blue skies for which the best August days are rightly renowned. Things get more intense as the sun loosens its grip for the season. Gone is the hazy heat of July, dispelled by cooler nights and whispers of fall on the breeze. It was absolutely lovely, and I spent much of the day reclining on the patio and reading a book in between quick swims and dismantling a climbing hydrangea from our brick chimney. At some point beauty can’t be justified by threatening structural integrity, so it was time. We have several other specimens scattered throughout the yard to make up for it.

As for the backyard patio, it’s in fine form at last – after a stubborn and stilted start to the warm weather, everything has caught up. The hanging sweet potato vines are descending almost to the ground, while potted papyrus, elephant ears, and angel’s trumpets are in their glory. If only our season could extend beyond October – we need just a little more time for the figs to ripen. Well, we shall see if they can make a run for it before it’s time for their slumber. In the meantime, let’s have more beauty, more loveliness, more of these summer idylls…