FHC’s resurrected blog

The cookies I did NOT eat

My partner being a star at Out and Equal

In London

I hope this e-mail finds you well. I am in London since yesterday morning. This e-mail is full of self-pity and complaint. I am aware of it but I try not to complain to my partner or my friends these days so it is a welcome outlet although I apologize for it.

Yesterday was a difficult day. I noticed alcohol and the absence of drugs for three reasons: it was my partner's birthday (let's call him LLII), British culture seems to be obsessed with getting wasted and when we travel is usually when we would get really self-indulgent. I had ordered two bottles of Veuve Clicquot (my favorite champaign) for our arrival which was fine but I started to feel tempted as LLII was drinking all day. Eventually, we had a guest and LLII asked me to serve them and I felt really weird holding the champaign so I asked him to serve the second drink himself. There was this micro-second were I realized that I could pick up a drink one day if my willpower was weaker than usual. I was feeling tired as I had not slept much in the last few days and on the plane. That would happen before: an ambien topped by a Klonopin would have taken care of my trip and I would have arrived fresh in London. That is also why I am writing you an e-mail at 8:58 in the morning although we went to bed at 2 a.m. At dinner, as I knew the night might be long, I was annoyed I couldn't wake myself up with a drink (by which I mean ten drinks). In the middle of dinner, as we were discussing with our friend, I realized that usually we would be trying very hard to score blow or maybe ecstasy. That is what made our traveling cool: going crazy... not visiting the Tate modern. My partner briefly asked questions about clubs to his friend and I felt guilty he couldn't go because of my "recovery". Also the place was extremely trendy (Hakkasan a very exclusive restaurant full of tall beautiful people) and I felt awkward and out of place... I felt my suit was poorly cut as an example or that we were given a bad table....usually when I get this feeling I get wasted and I start to relax and feel more confident. When we went out after dinner, it was all about drinking...people were drinking in the street, businessmen were wobbling on their way home and trashy drunken girl were elbowing their way in the crowd... although I never liked beer that much it did feel weird ... tired and excluded. It is tough because when I am tired, I am not much fun and can feel depressed. Sober, I felt I wasn't contributing much to the evening. As a general rule, I find myself to be boring these days and have to make a huge effort to be entertaining or take interest in people. There is also this thing that I am constantly wishing I could be doing something else: like going early to bed instead of being in bars or even working. Partying is not very interesting right now but it hasn't been replaced by anything interesting yet.

As for my recovery it is a bit of a disaster. I am naturally lazy. Although I have the Big Book in audiobook, I listened to everything but the Big Book while I was traveling. Actually let me rephrase this, I would rather listen to everything including the "seven habits of effective people).To be honest it bores me and I am not sure I would learn much from what I feel is a self-help book written half a century ago. And the vocabulary... the semantic of AA... really annoys me at time: today 24 hours/day: "Live with God in that secret place of the spirit and you will have the feeling of being on the right road". There is always something better to do than reading about recovery: magazines I haven't read, work that I have not yet started, presentations that I should have done a while ago. What kind of preachy BS is that ? that is exactly why I disliked religion...the infantile patronizing demeaning messages that don't mean anything. Also I did let go of most of the resolutions I had after I left Father Martin's Ashley. I have no willpower and typically give up changes after a few weeks. I drunk slightly caffeinated tea yesterday at dinner (it was an Asian restaurant) although I hadn't drunk anything caffeinated for 80 days. When I asked for a decaffeinated tea the waitress told me about a tea that was "very lightly decaffeinated" I hesitated for 10 seconds and accepted. It would not be a big deal if it wasn't a tiny indent in my discipline. That is usually how I start to f*ck up... starting with something small: that's how I restarted smoking...a tiny puff that became two packs a day in a month or so. That's how I started acting out in the past... starting small and going all the way in a matter of days.

The only things I am kind of proud about (although I read I am not to be proud about anything in my recovery as I owe it to God according to 24 hours/day): meditating every day because I hate it and still do it, bringing my friend to AA, having quit everything (cigarettes, drugs..legal or not, alcohol and coffee) for 81 days, being nicer to LLII and slightly more honest. All of that makes does make me feel much better (yet). 

You know as I am writing this, I am thinking that I should make it to a meeting: there is one in Covent Garden at 17:45 p.m. which is only 10 minutes in cab away from my previous appointment in Savile Row and it actually fits more or less my schedule (although I don't expect the person I meet or LLII to be very happy that I take 1 hour of our precious London time for AA) and it will make me feel better. 

I will keep writing.

You guys keep me young....

My bipartisan new physician...

First, are these chairs leather or plastic? Second, what is the subtle message behind all these pictures with different presidents?
But more importantly if he is THAT good, why does he take insurance?

FHC is an asshole and a terrible driver

I drive my motorbike like a madman. It is a beautiful S2R Ducati Monster (750 cc) so like a good fag I see it as my single opportunity to be a maverick as my gay face is hidden by my helmet. 

I am also a rude driver. Every morning I skip the line of cars going from Columbia to Connecticut avenue by acting as if I was going to take a right turn and then cutting the line. I flash my lights at people all the time and intentionally frighten pedestrians at crosswalks. Awful !

This morning, I woke up with a terrible cold which decuplates the chances that I will act as amaor fuck. I had to go to my dentist so I dragged myself to my bike ready to annoy my fellow drivers. I was on M. drive(driving fast enough to ensure that if I was to run over a toddler he would not have any chance to survive), when I got stuck behind some type of a volvo break stopped on the left lane of M. Street. I first started honking violently and as the driver made move to pass her by, I got angry and stuck my front wheel in a rear bender. Finally as she would not move, I got off my bike and approached her window in a menacing manner to ask her what the f**ck is her problem.

So the poor old lady (terrified) told me that she was trying to park but couldn't because I had stopped right before her. I did not apologize and went to park a little further. As we were all going in the same building I was terrified she was also going to see my dentist. She probably had cancer too...

Anyway I am an asshole.

Obama gave me the flu !

My very genuine (albeit belated) efforts in becoming a model employee are thwarted (I am not sure if that word applies here but I’ll try it anyway as I like to showcase my perfect knowledge of the English language) by the fact that I am sick… as in always sick. I had some kind of flu last Thursday and Friday and tonight I have a horrible cold and am all congested which means that I am not going to work tomorrow. My gut feeling is that the savvy cocktail of drugs, booze and cigarettes I was on, was what boosted my immune system and now I am finished. Another possibility is that Obama had a cold and gave it to me when he shook my hand, rather vigorously, at the Human Rights Campaign dinner on Saturday. If at least my poor health would cut my appetite, I would be happy but it looks like if these repeated diseases kill me, they will kill a fat gay man. I eat incredible quantities of food at an amazing pace and am now heavier than Roy which is disconcerting.

My recovery (isn’t it cool that I have my own recovery?) is doing well - thanks for asking - and combines many initiatives at once: meditation (15 minutes in the morning … not a huge success), acupuncture (I have two different acupuncturists who feed me huge amounts of Tibetan medicine), EMDR (some bullshit psychological treatment), therapy (my new therapist is great and only half the cost of my previous one), some yoga (when I am not too weakened by my poor health). I also have a sponsor but have not had the courage to open the Big Book yet. I go to bed early and try not to get too stressed out.

 

5 years later....

I have a sailboat called Dauphine

I have had it since 2008. It is indeed quite surprising because if you look at my archives most of my sailing experiences were disastrous but not that one. Today I went sailing by myself for two hours but it was freezing.

Mika being super-cool

I will NEVER dance again

Why would this blog have to be happy and irreverent? After all if I am going to AA, it probably means it’s going to be full of self-pity and plain boring at times.

 

I went to the Human Rights Campaign national dinner last night (and shook Obama’s hand which was cool and kissed a few high power gays) and it dawned on me, while Mika being super cool, that I will never dance ever again. I never danced sober in my life. I was not a big dancer at start but ended up loving it although I could only dance plastered.

 

I also had a fight with Matoki earlier that day because I stole most of his Achva ( a delicious sesame paste which contains more sugar than sugar itself). I just cannot stop eating even though I am 150 pounds, 9 pounds more than I was 3 months ago and I feel f***ing fat.

 

So it really sucked yesterday to be a recovering everything!

 

You now you have hit bottom when...

you listen to that f***ing "The Secret" audiobook you bought at the gift shop of the psych ward !

DC, Camel crickets and porn

I probably never told you of the time I was in bed watching porn and a camel cricket jumped in front of the screen. Anyway...Our place is infested...they are scary and they scare me out. And I had 1 hour of EMDR and 1 hour of acupuncture today and I do NOT plan to get more scarring memories. I come back home from a long day of behaving erratically today and I find 9 of them in the little dungeon that lead to our place.

So I wasted 20 minutes to find out to get rid of them on web.... and couldn't find anything although it confirmed my initial idea of getting rid of them forever. I made a thoroughpersonal  inventory of every spray we own in the hizzay and ended up attacking them with Slatkin & Co Fabrice Freshner. It stinks but it looks like their learnt their lesson. TAKE THAT CRICKET.

 

So where were we ?

Ok so it has been more than 4 years since I published the first volume of my adventures (which now sell for a hefty $107). In the meantime I am not sure what I did. What the f**ck  did I do ? Well first I got a boyfriend of course. I turned 30 and partied through my early thirties. I lost some hair but not too much and I kept in shape (until now). I got a bike ! A 2005 S2R Monster Ducati with a very low mileage. The bike is still in good shape... Thanks for asking...Hamsa Hamsa (my boyfriend is Israel if you must know).

But more importantly I literally collapsed 2 months ago ! I ended up at the Psych ward in Georgetown where I had to keep a low profile to ensure nobody would try to behead me with a plastic knife until my boyfriend decided to bail me out. And after I got bailed out, I went directly for another month-long staycation at Father Martin's Ashley. Once I was released from there, I made my way painfully to AA meetings.

Today it has been 2 months (two whole months) that I have not had a drink, a cigarette, a coffee, a benzodiazepine or a sleeping pill and I feel....

TERRIBLE ! I am still thinking about a new name for this blog but it might become "the wondrous adventures of a dry drunk".

Times have changed

Now I can post from my phone although it is awfully painful!

Well, well, well look who is back !

More than 4 years have gone by and things have changed !!! It's 8:46 a.m. in the morning on a Sunday for one. I have to go to a meeting my friends but I'll be back and I'll tell you EVERYTHING that happened in the last 4 years in 2 (just two paragraphs).

In Which LL Blogs from the Airport on His Way Back to DC

Bonjour, je m'appelle "twink back in residence."  I'm sitting here at the Delta terminal, set to return to the nation's capital for another 12 weeks of crabcake induced obesity and fun as a summer associate.  Because I once didn't say hi to Ben T's roommate when passing him on the street, I've been blacklisted from that apartment and so for three weeks FHC and I are giving this "friendship" thing a test run as he's gracially agree to let me rent his guest bedroom.  Somehow I have a feeling there'll be lots of brussels sprouts and baked chicken involved.

Leaving New York City was quite an adventure this time.  I had my last exam on Thursday morning, and by Friday 2pm I had the Chelsea mansion entirely packed up and by 4pm, moved into storage.  I rented a very masculine zip-pickup and drove it approximately 100 feet before panicking that it was too big and unweildy.  Forch, the storage facility was only 150 feet away from my aparment.

Obvs, moving out was bitter sweet.  Clearly I'm excited for DC, but it was also depressing to see all my worldly belongings squished into a 4 x 8 x 6 storage room and two suitcases.  It reminded me a bit of the beginning of the universe where all matter was stuck in one tiny, condensed ball.

Saturday I had the day off, and we celebrated over brunch my 26th birthday and 10 year gay anniversary which I had rescheduled for May because of exams.  After the meal, I took EB and Josh back to my apartment where I collected all the change I'd been keeping over two years and put it into a small plastic bag to be counted.  Clearly one step out from the building the bag exploded and like homeless people fighting over old sushi, we sat for 20 minutes picking up the coins from the sidewalk (see photo, left).  It paid off: Coinstar gave me a $109.70 Starbucks card. 

We then had dinner, followed by another birthday, in which I did not get nearly as drunk as expected.  I sent EB, Josh, and Fagat on their way home, and crashed, completely exhausted.

So there you have it; for half of you, this marks the return of LL, and for others the temporary departure.  Either way, see you soon.

Kisses,

LL

In which FHC reflects on America, White People and Drinking

The fact that lately I am constantly constrained by my medical advisors to monitor my drinking (in order to switch alcohol for prescription drugs), confirmed my worst fear: I am an alcoholic surrounded by alcoholics. In the meantime I rediscovered that New Yorkers, who are more civilized than Americans, still do not drink, they do lines of coke. By the way, I am always amused when people pretend that if gay New Yorkers are slim it is because they walk everywhere.

There is this purely cultural white people thing in America that they can only effectively socialize with other human beings by getting tipsy in the very first moments of any interaction. Worse, it takes them at least five drinks (the definition of binge drinking) to be fully fun and inhibited. Finally, they require about seven drinks to be able to dance or have intercourse. They only live during their “happy hours”. The expression “to grab a drink” is considered a social activity similar to “watch a movie” or “go for a run”. Above all creatures, the gays are the ultimate drunk community because they actually value drunkenness and alcohol addiction as a sign of “coolness”.

On Friday, I had to leave early some friends of mine at Bistrot du Coin because, as they were getting more inebriated, my relative sobriety was clearly becoming an impediment to a fun conversation. At Vlada (definitely not a place to visit sober), I was seating on the couch with a bottle of Water when some fugly twink suggested that I should smile more. And, I only managed to go through le Souk (on avenue B) on Saturday by getting smashed on Sangria. Everybody who made it to Mr. Black on Saturday, woke up with a severe hangover but nice memories. Those who went to Nublu, only had a headache. And I ran my first 4 miles race, a step closer to rehab.

In which FHC "goes out"like everybody else

In New York city, after having dinner with Cub B. and LL in some sketchy italian joint, Nicolas C. and I tried our best to act young(ish). Nicolas went through five gin and tonics while I tried to insert a bottle of water every two vodka cranberry hoping that Dr. Christopher S. would never hear about the whole thing. We went to G, Barracuda, Vlada and The Ritz (in which we stayed exactly 30 seconds). A few ugly kids (1) talked to us and if we hadn’t ran into Tim K. at Barracuda I would have really thought that I was invisible. To put the pressure even a little higher, Fagat sent us text message all night long which read “you got laid yet?” and "Lame". I really do hate NYC and all young people.

In which FHC is asked to sober up once again

eaMy primary physician, finally agreed after tough negotiations, which included a mediator, that I could increase my clonazepam dosage to a meager 1 mg twice a day as I declined his kind offer to hook me on Effexor forever (1:15 minutes to ejaculate minimum). On my side of the settlement, I had to accept to reduce my consumption of alcohol I quote from “two drinks a day during the week and 20 on weekends, to two glasses three times a week”. The rationale behind this condition, besides ruining what’s left of my social life, is that mixing alcohol and Klonopin can potentially lead to death.

This of course gets in the way of my trip to NYC this week-end which includes, based on Fagat’s recommendations (who clearly does not welcome all the visiting French people the same way), a circuit through Mr. Black, Vlada and the Ritz on Friday and a Bachelorette party on Saturday at Budha Bar. I hope I can at least order decaf green tea there.

Additionally, there is a strong rumor that I am taking 5 days from the 11^th to May 15^th to join my grandparents (at least I am slimmer this year) in Parrot Cay, Turks and Caicos. Sure, I'll have to connect in Charlotte, NC but then they apparently have Yoga classes. Yet I have never gone through a family event without being smashed before.

In which FHC wants to give up the internet

My rapport to the internet is unhealthy (read: neurotic). I also believe that this might get in the way of both my plan to become a yogi (very time consuming) before the fiscal year ends and the hermitlike behavior I plan to adopt to reach my goal.

Checking my personal and professional thingy e-mails is the first and last thing I do every day. The rest of my awakened time is spent frenetically refreshing CNN.com, dragging thousands of spam e-mails in the trash and placing LL and Kevin W.’s messages in little folders, checking my bank account, my health insurance portal, e-bay, friendster, myspace, facebook, itunes and my favorite blogs. Nothing really changes during the day (besides mass murders on CNN.com) but I still behave like an addict and return to the same webpages repeatedly interrupting my substantive activities every ten minutes. Whenever I send an e-mail to a cute boy, I then constantly check outlook until I finally receive an answer ignoring the fact that there are people out there who have other things to do then immediately answer everything they receive and constant access to the internet. I am lucky that the professional thingy concluded that I was too unimportant to be given a blackberry (and a company car both requested earlier this year).

Among the potential solutions to end what clearly constitutes yet another obsessive compulsive behavior, I envision to check my e-mail only once a day, commit to keeping my inbox empty, give up blogging and take one day offline every week. If I successfully gave up Mark H. and Crystal Meths (not simultaneously though), this must not be much more difficult.

Election Day Special: That French Woman versus the Guy Whose Name Sounds Like that Cancer versus Le "Stylo"

Today is French election day.  It brings back fond memories for me because the first fight I ever had with FHC was during the last election while we were walking to the French Embassy to cast his ballot.  Like a Geisha, he asked me to follow 30 paces behind him, and only after we bumped into a co-worker of his did he become embarrassed enough to talk to me again.

This time around, FHC refused to reveal who he was voting for, indicating that in France it's impolite even to ask the question.  So much for my feigned interest in French politics.

I now have to return to studying federal courts because next weekend we're having a French convention at my apartment and I won't have time to work.  Also, FHC, EKK, and I will "faire a quatre miles" that morning.  Please come out and cheer us on.

In which FHC tells everything about relationships with two words of the day

The guests at FHC’s yesterday briefly evoked somber topics such as the chaos going on at the Professional thingy, religion or the Virginia bloodbath. I like to keep my diner parties conversation non-controversial (calling a 3 people gathering, a “dinner party” is a stretch moreover as I don’t really own chairs and my friends are drunks). As usual, after twenty minutes, the conversation switched in a trice[1] from human rights to sex and relationships.

One of the guest argued that urban gay men are single (besides Chris R. ironically) because they are all waiting to fall in love with men who cumulate good looks, depth, creativity and maturity. In his opinion, such a combination – the boyfriend myth -- hardly ever occurs in nature and even less in cities like ours. Examples could be some freak who lived secluded on a desert island, some hippie’s settlement or Nebraska until his mid-twenties; someone who became good looking late in life or some guy with a profound understanding of Taoism (which I would personally suspect of plotting a terror attack). Additionally, these very rare occurrences being on high-demand are virtually impossible to win-over. The very basic assumption in the argumentation is that good looks naturally drive people to shallowness and dissolute fearful lives in gay urban settings and ultimately turn them into non-human enchained conformist primates. One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong by Leonard Cohen was playing in the background of course.

Isn’t it a charming explanation? One could even add that after all the reason behind this general quest is that we try to escape the guilt of our own shallowness by dating people with a spark of individuality. The guest continued on recommending that the solution would be for (us) shallow people to settle for other shallow people. It reminded me of that e-mail I received recently “I give it a couple of weeks before that dude realizes that [his boyfriend] has no depth and absolutely nothing to say. Then again, this guy doesn't seem like the type who would notice anyway”. As a draconian[2] measure, I decided that I would not go out this week-end to avoid perpetuating this vicious circle.

---

[1] Trice: Word of the Day. A very short time; an instant; a moment.

[2] Draconian. Garner's Usage Tip of the Day.

In which FHC suggests that someone sends in the clowns

Years go by so quickly when you are heavily relying on medication. I have to admit that I enjoyed the day of « la douleur qui ne me quitte pas pour le reste de ma vie », to quote some late Hollywood friend of mine. I repeated to myself all day long “quick send in the clowns…there ought to be clowns”. So far, they sent a morning erection, half a klonopin, many high-carb cakes and a bloody marry at lunchtime. I also registered for the Word of the Day on Dictionary.com and stayed oblivious to the various bloodbaths in the neighboring states. However, all I really wanted was for my son to call me and say that he forgave me for abandoning him when he was just a toddler. No, just kidding, I do not give a damn about him, my friends sent me kind hopeful little messages and endearing phone calls.

I still have to make some wishes. May the year to come be way more tumultuous than the previous and FHC become more courageous, deep and unconventional than he was in his youth, which is somewhat gracefully ending today (I have stretch marks on my ass). Wo sind die Clowns? Schickt die Clowns herein!

In which FHC is hard on himself

The implementation of my new two delusional projects “FHC becomes a yogi before he reaches thirty” and “FHC gets a break from the real world in 16 months” this week end, was seriously hampered by my lack of English (and to a certain extent mathematical) abilities.

I was at Sports Club L.A. Saturday and at Results Sunday for Power Yoga 2 and my performance was clearly disappointing. I could not understand a word of what the instructor would say. She would mention words referring to parts of my anatomy I had never heard before like collar bone and tail bone. I know cock, legs, back, neck and stuff like that but I am sorry I don’t know the name of my bones in English (or even in French actually). The names downward dog and warrior 1 just left me distressed even if I had popped half a Klonopin ahead of time. After the class, old men in the sauna room showered me with advice (like using a real mat) and I just realized it is going to be a really long journey.

I did not only fail at Yoga over the Week-end. I took a GRE diagnostic quiz early on Sunday which turned out to be dramatic. Later on, LL told me on the phone with his usual kindness: “you did better than the monkeys, didn’t you? they get about 25% of the questions right”. Well yes I did, barely. All my answers for the analogy and antonym questions were wrong. I just don’t know these words. The mathematical problem solving was also a disaster. I guess there too I’ll have to study.

In the meantime, I lost 4 friends on friendster (probably the result of not going out for two week-ends straight), it’s raining and LL (whose new friend is a real yogi who eats raw food at 26) also said “you sound so depressed” on the phone today while Chelsea Hotel No 2 was playing in the back. I listened all day to Sung-lo by Erin McKeown.

In Which LL Realizes 'Mos Should Be Nicer to Each Other

Apologies.  When I first heard about Imus' outrageous comments, i didn't realize they were also racist.  I thought "hos" was the offensive term, but it turns out "nappy headed" is a tad on the offensive side, too. 

Imus' comments and overt racism obviously are indefensible.  But now some people are also going after hip hop lyrics, which also tend to degrade black women.  (NDLR: "Even when I'm with my boo, I only wanna be with you" seems tame to me, but whatevs).  Since I couldn't care less about racism or trendy music, I'm not going to write about that; instead, this all got me thinking about whether we as gays perpetuate the same sort of hateful stereotypes in the same way mysogynistic rappers do.

Last year, for example, Nick D. dated someone a little on the effeminate side who also had a high squeaky voice.  We called him "FemBot."  Another friend coined a term - "Marcia" - for really hot guys who turn out to be, well, FemBots.  And don't even get me started on Fagzilla.

To be sure, I understand that emphazing more masculine qualities at times is just the same sort of sexual posturing that animals like mountain goats to in the wild; posting quasi-athletic photos of ourselves on friendster is the equivalent of the rut. 

Still, I think it's hypocritical of us to expect acceptance - to be taken simply as normal - when we're equally guilty of separating ourselves into Queens and Varsity.  Just remember, next time you're at Vlada or Apex and someone says, "That guy is so cute you should hit on him," your response "Yeah, but he's soooo faggy" is no different from saying, "Niggas ain't shit, but hoes and tricks".  (NDLR:  And if you're at Apex, you're probably on your last gasps anyway, so you're really one to talk.)

So go home with him.  I bet he'll end up being a top.

In which FHC has an online diary

I am always amazed at how many activities people manage to fit in a given day. People row in the morning, take classes, have second job, take the bar exam, go out, entertain their girlfriends, read books, shop and listen to NPR. People watch TV shows regularly, cook for themselves and have somewhat successful relationships. When you ask them, they know what’s really happening in Iraq and they have plans for the summer. They f***ing live their life to the fullest (but they are clever enought not to mention it to me cos I would go wacko).

In the fog of my memory, I can only recall sitting there at the professional thingy with an odd expression of panic (which is often mistakened by my colleagues for blankness) and then collapsing into my 9 hours clonazepam-sponsored coma days after days. I must have time to do stuff like everybody else though because I have everything delivered, refuse to take public transportation since 1981 and have a cleaning lady.

So today I wrote down everything I did and then during that silly drug-free 20 minutes window which occurs between 8 and 9 p.m, I read it aloud in front of the bathroom mirror. I had acunpucture this morning (no particular disease in mind, thanks for asking). Apparently I answered a call from my mother even if I have no idea what was said. I bought a “Don’t eat me, I love you” pig T-shirt on e-bay size M. I found a place for Nicolas C. to crash on the W-E of the 27^th in NYC. I had lunch with Savvas P., Juan V. and two Brazilian guys from OAS one of which had really wide shoulders (no memories of that conversation either). I took an hour class in Portuguese (no idea what I was expected to learn). Mentioned something about Yoga to everybody I ran into and said “post-9-11” twice in the same conversation with a busboy. I answered two inquiries from friends about my job. I also got allergy shots and picked up some pictures at the frame shop. I sent for $2,000 of bills to my health insurance. Wrote a nasty “no” to Jesse S. (which used to be my hero a month ago) in an e-mail. I placed e-mails by Mark H., Ari S. in my junk inbox. I checked friendster and facebook every 15 minutes with tears running down my face. I googled “Effexor” for 20 minutes. I biked to and from work. I changed two bulbs in the living room. I listened to whole albums of Shirley Bassey and The Pretenders.

In which FHC returns imperceptibly changed

One cannot stay on his island forever and I am now waiting for a 45 minutes delayed flight back to DC. I am trying to contain my anger while watching dozens of Winnie the Pooh and Miss Kitty backpacks pass by. I am still not completely sure where the island was really located and frankly I really don’t care. I remember that the melancholic songs by Judy Garland, Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, “Amigo Mío” by Naüta, “Why” by Annie Lenox and a hundred remakes of that “Ne me quitte pas” song were playing. Nico was also incessantly talking of breaking my heart in two but I ignored her and kept repeating “resistiré calle sol” to myself. I am certain I wasn’t in Chelsea even if someone wrote that he saw me, drunk beyond belief crying on the bathroom floor surrounded by empty little plastic pockets, Saturday at Boy’s room. My English sounded awful all week-end and my Spanish was even worse. And there were humming birds, slightly tropical fishes, memorabilia of silent movies icons, smaller islands within the island, kites I couldn’t fly, the rainforest, and quickly I lost track of time and purpose. Pictures were taken. I was laughing most of the time and had that little tan thing going on. And I was continuously talking about what I was going to do next: that I’ll go to Yoga, I’ll go back to school, I’ll leave Results and maybe I’ll get more efficient meds. There even were trips within the trip. It was all very hopeful and full of promises. And sometimes we probably did not sleep as much as we should have. In the evening, we would lower our voices. It felt a lot like the Lost Island without the whole Dharma initiative and f***ing polar bears bullshit. And I was confused most of the time, and I had to Klonopin it away frenetically cutting tablets in half with my long fingernails. I drank very little compared to usual and I ignored the internet cos now I seriously hate it: it’s lame. I think I’ll miss the island. Now I have to survive the 17 and then I’ll be in NYC on Friday 27^th-29^th.

In Which FHC's Unnamed Destination is a US Territory For Once

I received a text message from everyone's good friend FHC today that said "We hope you did not take advantage of our absence for not blogging.  Kisses from the islands."  I think what FHC really meant with this message was "LL, who did you sleep with this weekend, please tell us in blog format."  See, FHC gets to hop off to the Caribbean and, me, I'm stuck studying.  In any event, there's very little to say because I had a very well-behaved weekend, involving mostly karaoke with heterosexuals and a vist to Flushing (that's in Queens) for dinner last night.  Fagat's mother was in town (imagine Fagat only prettier) and even she asked how FHC was doing; I had to tell her that unfortunately there was a divorce in the family.  So FHC - who if you remember claims to always be suffering - gets to go away and tan for five days whereas I am sitting here in the library writing a stupid paper and losing melalin at drastic rates.  For future, when FHC tells you how hard life is, or asks you for a favor, just remember how charmed the lives of the French really are.

In which FHC suffers through his wednesday

It is 8:30 p.m. and I am still at the professional thingy which completely ruins all my wonderful plans for the evening (like taking a mock GRE test). Things have turned really ugly for me lately around here. I really wish I could be a waiter like Kevin W. The soundtrack today was Momentum by Aimée Mann (courtesy of Gavin), which she apparently had written for me initially. Maybe I’ll fax it anonymously to my shrink. I also added pictures of me with a baby to all my online profile to start re-marketing myself as a friendly family-oriented stable fag.