Yoga...

so...I've been contemplating taking yoga classes/lessons for a while. I think it will be a good way to replace cardio one day a week, help with core strengthening and help with some toning. I took the plunge today, and had my first session with a great teacher.

I was sweating (it was actually dripping off of me) after about 15 minutes, and I spent about an hour doing yoga. It was difficult! I was straining sometimes. It's much more difficult than I had anticipated.

I think I'll be going back at least once a week, try and shake things up a little with my routine and get past this plateau...

Dating...

so...I've done my fair share of dating. I have been in relationships in the past, and have even lived with boyfriends. I have found folks I thought could be the one, and others that I know clearly are not.

Dating is difficult in a town where all eyes are on the door, waiting for the next best thing to walk in and sweep you off your feet. Where you're judged by what you have and where you work, not who you are as a person and what you can bring to the table.

What's a boy to do? Will keep you posted on that one, not sure where it's going!

getting off...

get your minds out of the gutter...I mean getting off the train! I don't know what there is about manners here in NYC, but sometimes I think they've left town.

when I wait for the subway, as it pulls up, I move away from the doors to either side and wait for the passengers on the train to get off. No matter what time of day or night. It's common courtesy.

All weekend long as I was getting off the subway I was met by a wall of people head on - some of whom tried to push their way on even before the doors were fully open. Let us off first people - it's much easier that way.

letting go...

when I was in LA on business back in April, a flyer in my boss/friend Eric's office caught my attention. It was for a stage production of Holding the Man by Tommy Murphy somewhere in Australia. The show is based on the book of the same name by Timothy Conigrave. I commented that I had heard fantastic things about both the book and the production. Not long after that Eric presented me with the book to read. Having already packed two for the trip, I packed it away to bring home and read.

I picked it up last weekend to read on the train out to the Hamptons on Friday. I couldn't put it down. I got so engrossed and involved in Tim and John's lives and their love. It's a true story. A memoir. A coming of age/coming out tale. A look at AIDS in the early onset of the crisis, from a distinctly non-American perspective.

I get wrapped up in books all the time, I love to read. Fiction or non-fiction, if the story intrigues me, I'll pick it up and read it. I get attached to books, or stories, or characters easily. I have a ton of books I've read and still more waiting to be read. I fell in love with this book from the very first pages. I fell in love with Tim and John and what they had with each other.

I wept. For a while, knowing it's a memoir, and that AIDS plays a central theme, you know the outcome, and you might get emotional. Towards the middle of the book, I would start to get teary eyed, but still be able to read a chapter or two before having to put it down, the weight of it being too much. As the end of the book drew near, I couldn't go more than a paragraph or two without becoming a blubbering mess. I finished it today on the subway home from the gym and good cardio workout. I had tears streaming down my face. I had sunglasses on and it was still apparent. I was sniffling and choking back the emotion. I am crying now writing this remembering how wonderful it was. I feel like I lost two friends...it really was that good.

I have to pass it on to people to read, but it's sitting on my bed, I can't let go of it yet. It really is like saying goodbye to someone, when you know it will be the last time. I'm not ready to let go, but I know I have to...

Tim and John...I hope that you've found each other again...

Ending Relationships...

what happens when someone just doesn't get the hint that the relationship is over? I guess there can be conflicting messages out there sometimes, but you'd think when you stop into a branch and close out your accounts, withdraw all funds and cut up the credit cards in front of them they'd be pretty positive your relationship was done. But not Bank of America. I'm still getting text messages and emails telling me that my account balance is under the threshold I set and what the current balance is. It's $0 dipshits - I closed the accounts after years of neglect and mistreatment after their merger with Fleet...

OY...BofA - ITS OVER. Pick up the pieces and move on, and harass and abuse the rest of your unfortunate customers!

weekends away...

I generally tend to subscribe to the philosophy that "bad things happen when you leave the city." Sometimes though, there's an upside to leaving the city. Seeing good friends and family, spending time in a great place that you just couldn't get in Manhattan proper. Like the view of Hamptons Bay that I spend the weekend looking at, either from the deck or the hot tub on the deck...

As nice as the view is, and as great as the friends are, Dorothy had it right...

"There's no place like home!"

Recruiting

So...it's happened a few times in the last few weeks. The latest was as I was coming up out of the subway and into my office building this morning.

Recruiters there to tempt me with their flyers and wanting to tell me all about being saved. I think this morning was Jews for Jesus. On the way to the subway it was the Evangelicals. The other day walking to the deli it was the Mormons.

How come all these different religions can openly try and recruit me, but it's the gays that are accused of blatantly recruiting? I don't pass out flyers or talk people up on the train to try and get them to join my ranks.

Since I came out, about 13 years ago several friends have come out after I did. I've helped many others open the closet doors. I have yet to receive my toaster oven or even microwave - hell, at the rate I am going, I could re-do my entire kitchen (small as it may be). I didn't even have to hand out flyers. But, I'm recruiting?