FHC’s resurrected blog

The Fabulous Life of . . . Congressional Super Pages!

Lately I’ve been thinking that I would have been more successful professionally and sexually if  someone had taken me under his wing during my formative teen years.  More specifically, I’m disheartened that, as a growing boy, nobody ever thought to prey on me.

At first, I thought the problem was just technological: the internet hadn’t yet made it to the Midwest so I couldn’t go into chat rooms for young teens and obviously it was like millennia before the myspace era.  But then I saw The History Boys this week and found out that sexual predators were around in the 1980s too!  Clearly my priorities were not in line – I was more interested in the fall of the Berlin Wall (seriously) than getting laid (I didn’t learn what the phrase “suck my dick” meant until 8th grade . . . if only . . . ).  So I didn't go to prep school like some people; does that mean  I should have a stale sex life?  What.  The.  Eph. 

Meanwhile, I also learned this week that had I explored my interest in politics at an earlier age and come to work in DC as a Congressional Page, I, too, could have met my future powerbroker husband.  I mean, just because I wasn't an athletic lacrosse playing flirt doesn't mean I didn't deserve to get hit on by older men in high school.  Instead of the hallowed walls of the Capital, I only got hit on (slash whorishly wasted) in the dark rooms of Apex and Cobalt.  Classy. 

Couldn't Dateline have at least enlisted me in its fight to catch predators?  Now I’m on my way to becoming a young professional and have missed my chance.    No older closeted men hit on 25 year olds these days; prepubescents are all the rage. 

So what to do?  My stalkerish college Shakespeare professor sent me an email over the weekend asking me if I’m in town to catch up . . . only withered, old, and scholarly isn’t so much what I was thinking as handsome, powerful, and well-connected.  As Kevin D. taught me, when the going gets tough, there’s always Craigs List.

In which FHC pops half Xanax

I have noticed that even after my valiant efforts in refurbishing my friendster profile with new old pictures under favorable lighting and after eliminating all traces of LL, I have managed quite logically to increase the number of visits. Yet the ratio of contact per lacoste-wearing click is very weak and around 0.05% [Frenchbenj charitably sent me a smile]. In marketing the logical conclusion would be that either the product has an internal defect or the advertising is just not well targeted. On the other hand, I get a lot of messages on Myspace but everybody looks like they either have participated to a murder rampage or plan to. I have never seen as many weirdos as there is on my profile, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon kind which google “Arlington, VA coke for handjob” and end up on my blog…the Mark H’s kind if you allow me. People who write “*wink*” in e-mail messages. You know what I am talking about. I have yet to meet a decent person, besides myself and Justin Timberlake, on myspace.

In other news, it looks more and more like I could be moving on Kalorama st. in early November which would leave me a month to clean-up my lifestyle before my mother comes over. Apparently, I’ll get cable and wireless internet which should more or less make up for everything I lose in the Remove-FHC-From-Our-Lives process. Perhaps I’ll even cancel my National Fitness Network membership and become a proud MINT member. Also you are lucky, Mrs. Plucky, because dearest ex-LL volunteered to blog tomorrow. Also I have been cracking down on this little sleep problem, one half alazolam (don’t know the strength…or don’t want to know) at a time and it seems to also have solved my Borderline Personality Disorder problem, too bad it wasn’t prescribed to me.

In which FHC does not have anything to sit on

How does one buy furniture for his apartment before one’s mother shows up? Do I have to order stuff from Crate & Barrel between now and December? Right now, I have nothing besides a bed (which mattress has seen more than it should at its age), a few forks from the Waldorf Astoria, a Botero, some African masks and a wooden wine rack I bought from Alex A. a few years ago. My roommate owns everything else including the TV, the plates, the porn and the vacuum cleaner and apparently he's getting married. If I don’t react very quickly I’ll soon have nothing to sit on and will have to cook my soups in a travel tea kettle. I have a dream that one day this will be my dirty dishes that I’ll get to leave in the sink. What I really need first is a comfortably beat-up armchair – a leather one - a really good one to read the paper, have witty conversations with myself (as I plan to unleash my schizophrenia once and for all) and watch the fireplace. As Rodolphe B. hinted yesterday evening, I am probably going to turn even more in a couch potato now that I’ll live by myself. On the other hand, I might also sober up because Kevin was clearly an enabler with all that alcohol flowing in the household. And maybe I’ll get a drum set too…and also an emperor scorpion (and also a fish tank) or a ferret to fill the emotional gap left by Olliver-D-Le-Chat.

In other news, last night I dreamt that my brother had his hand cut while doing catamaran but could not find any explanation for it on the web. If I hear another fag saying “Project Runway” or “oxymoron” I’ll explode. And finally, I have a question for you, what does “did if foul out” means?. See you at Results.

NDLR: Seat is the object ...on the other hand to sit is the verb.

In which FHC writes for all the whiners out there

With my little housing search, I believe that I have reached the apex of my potential as a whiner.   Having dinner with a good friend of mine last night, I found myself able to say cute little sentences such as “you known between my recent divorce, the professional thingy and my housing situation, these are tough times for me”. I also look a little anemic and worn out these days which create a nice setting for my well rehearsed tirade on how miserable my life is. I feel that complaining about one’s situation is the most amiable of socializing forms: it makes everybody feel better about their own lives, calls for advice and kind words and create endless opportunities for vivid and warm conversations. Of course this only applies to whining for inconsequent things: one should never complain about disability, death, poverty or anything real of that kind because it could make his audience uncomfortable. One of the reasons of that paradigm is that actually real friends prefer to see you slightly unhappy because happy people don’t really need friends. Whining is basically underrated because it is commonly described as a selfish and meek way of expressing yourself while it actually is the kindest and most selfless way to engage your fellow human beings. The lies on whining are mostly spread by huge assh*les like Dale Carnegie and cult leaders and always in the name of positive thinking – this terrible disease which afflicts so many American households. Comedy, for instance, is just a disguised form of whining moreover when it is self-deprecating. What is more genuine than sharing your miseries with a stranger? I personally despise the people who never have anything to complain about: they always are suspicious and boring to me and either are vain weirdoes or unrealistic fools. They also are free riding on other people’s complaint to fuel their dinner conversation which is unacceptable and balance their tedious outlook on life. Nothing pretty has been created by positive thinkers, all creation is a complaint. My advice to you: trust the whiner above all because he has the courage to open up to you.

In which FHC is moving out

This time, I swear it is the real thing. We are bringing down the legendary Corcoran Retirement House: it is of course a little painful but it was bound to happen. We had been living there since June 2003 (more than 3 years and 30 generations of Kevin’s boyfriend not including the very missed…Trevor). The main reason is that Kevin D. was stung by the nest building ♥ bug which has been infesting the DC gay community in the last few years (but I’ll let him unveil the news himself as well as his plans regarding interior decoration) and our appliances are really tired. Therefore FHC gets to move out too and fire the new cleaning lady between now and December.

So that let us in the difficult position of having to decide where in the city I should rent next because buying is just impossible now that I have spent all of my savings on e-bay. It seems obvious that tweed jackets are happier outside of the fast-paced Dupont Circle, and I am tempted to look for a one bedroom in Adam’s Morgan for its bike messenger crowd or even worse Georgetown for its elitist snobs. And I’d like to get a f***ing rent control too please because everybody has one in this city besides the poor of course.

In other news, I’d like to say to my friend the publicist that I just got a T-shirt signed by Ronald "Winky" Wright and this is what I’ll use as casual wear in the years to come. Isn’t it sad that I had to wait for my parents to hear about MS13.

In which FHC adds a footnote to his Saturday evening

After spending two days as a complete hermit, I started to crave human contact on Saturday night and had no other choice than to go out. LL incidentally suggested that I should get a puppy to satisfy my socialization needs (which we could envision now that Olliver is moving to the suburbs). To be really honest, it was not only motivated by a strong inclination to bond with other fellow human beings but mostly by my wish not to inspire too much pity from the ones who know how many Netflixes I watched last week. It was all very charming and I was doing really well until some faghag dancing frenetically in the overcrowded and smoky upstairs bar at Cobalt slammed her heavy arm in my face. As I walked back to my cave with my lower lip bleeding, I really thought that I am way too old for clubbing.

It reminded me of that response from a friend of mine (who is now - almost – domesticated and whom, I am told, is moving to a more happening city) to that quote which I had kindly sent to him as a smuggish advice “Those who live on vanity must, not unreasonably, expect to die of mortification”: “I have come to realize though that, in a town like Washington, aging is difficult. If you are in Paris or London, maybe New York (to a lesser extent), as you get older you find "épanouissement" through the intellectual, cultural etc. circles of your life. Here, those circles tend to be so thin and vain that the only option -which I would find abject- is domestication”. But then I could also be single in Plymouth, PA and then what would I have to rejoice about in my old age?

In which FHC watches the Battle of Algiers

I watched the very aesthetic 1965“Battle of Algiers” last night following Alex A’s advice. The movie describes, from an Algerian point of view, the uprising of Algiers against the French rule. Apparently it was a big hit in the last two years at the State Department and the Pentagon which organized private viewings for their Etat-Majors. It is always amazing to see how history makes sense later on (to some extent because it’s written by the winners). I believe that it must feel a little murkier, inconsequent and uncertain when events are unfolding particularly for the armies which have to comply with the ever-changing decisions of their governments. In French textbooks the Algerian Colonial history was still, until recently, described as, a ’fine intellectual adventure’ with a ’broadly positive outcome’. Very few people, like Sartre, are visionary enough to see clearly through it and courageous enough to stand for their vision.

My father was actually brought up in Algiers for a few years before the Independence and used to tell me that he “walked on cadavers” on his way to school which might constitute a little dramatization. The French population was for long time under the impression that most Algerians had nothing to do with the insurrection and wanted to remain French. This obscene certainty was based on a real attachment of many French “Pieds-Noirs” to Algeria, the Government’s discourse, the news report, a certain naivety and the smugness and patriotism of the post WWII victory. But above all it demonstrated the powerful contempt of the European for the Arab and more generally the Muslim culture. It legitimated the torture, the propaganda and five years of useless battles which left the Franco-Algerian relations scarred forever.

The movie is not so much leading to question what is currently happening in Iraq and the strategies employed to break the insurrection because it probably is handled very well and professionally in the same mathematical manner and with the same awful methods employed by Colonel Matthieu in the movie. However, it leads once again to wonder what ignorance led the US to place itself in such a tragic and hopeless colonial situation in Iraq which unleashed once again oppression and violence against innocent civilians (the unknown known) and why the American population has let it happen. The outcome was indeed predictable or the unknown known in the words of Rumsfeld.

In which FHC dresses [poorly] for the part

As the premise of yesterday’s evening was that we would get to “hang out with the band”, I was expected to dress for the occasion with something like a groupie outfit. Specifically, I was told to wear “something charming and cute that is casual and fun”. Sadly, I have reached the point where one’s wardrobe only leave me him the choice between moving to an estate in the North of Sussex, stay home and watch TV or die. In the past two years, I have slowly classicized my outfits to the point that I only have stuff to wear for poetry readings, Yale alumni meetings and walks in the country. I must have thought I would remain married to a lawyer for the rest of my life at one point.. For an instant I really wanted to step in my closet and lit myself in fire to make a stronger statement than an entry in my silly  blog.

As I was running late and more depressed than usual, I finally digged out some tank-top with the inscription “Surf-fight” on the front which I covered with a ridiculously small vintage leather bomber. I put on my coolest pair of jeans and these ugly $10 sneakers on which I must have puked at least ten times. I found myself spending the evening with charmingly overdressed Portland people (and very talented ones… I loved their show) in that very uncomfortable costume feeling slightly foolish and listening to stories about weird and astonishing local customs.

In case, I had any doubt on the effect I managed to produce, Kevin D. welcomed me later that evening by telling me that “from far [I] look like a twink until one sees the saggy wrinkles on [my] face”. Great ! Because that’s the look I was going for.

In which FHC is late

At my hair salon, you can have your shoes shined. I don’t. I find it degrading both for me and the shoe shiner. Alternatively I have no problem having someone fill my rental car with gas mostly because I refuse to be directly linked to curb carbon dioxide emissions. Strange uh? Makes you meditate. Doesn’t it now?

I have taken on a new activity: pillaging people friendster’s profile for ideas of movies (now that Facebook is being sold for $1 bn I feel less guilty to be such an online wh*re). Not people really: trendy people…no…let me rephrase that…pretty people (on the wicked assumption that pretty people have good cinematographic taste ?). I got “Felini's Satyricon + Cassanova = heaven” and Malena for a start. However, I could not add the “Scarlet Empress” to my netflix because it’s just not what netflixers are into (netflixers are just not pretty people). Of course one cannot always be lucky when browsing friendster for movie ideas.

Ari invited me to be a Pink Martini fan tonight at GW (ok…and…yes I lied… I am not in NYC tonight). I am late.

In which FHC feels like some kind of a gerbal

I finally found out why my sleep is so disrupted lately (besides the fact that apparently it is a September tradition). I dream of snakes. Upon this revelation early this morning, I went surfing the World Wide Web in order to find out what snakes nightmares are all about. I obtained the following cheerful explanation: “People who are dying or who have lost a loved one often dream of snakes, at or near the time of death”. If I wasn’t convinced yet that I am dying, it will do the trick… as if I could not dream of Asian women or gay vows like everybody else. The website went on to suggest that one should ask the snake what it wants while dreaming. My most important goals in life, having conversation with snakes in my sleep and having hot tricks sleeping over, seem quite contradictory (too bad because I had a medium-term plan). In Freudian terms: Fuck me? [pause] Well, fuck you!! But don’t worry too much about my sleeping pattern: I have taken once gain the habit of popping Indian pills in the evening – even if the late Kevin W. once told me that India has the worst record for fake drugs killing people - and plan on getting paralytically drunk on the occasion of a dinner at Alex A.’s tonight. Also I started a critter cages collection which is really difficult because I am competing against all the 12 years old pimply rodent lovers out there.

In other news, we had old Fagat on the phone yesterday who told us that fat people are once again rioting against slim models and disturbing fashion week in Madrid by stoning them to death: our advice to old Fagat “stay home”. I pride myself in having one of the biggest music collection ever and a song in mind for each moment (particularly the dramatic ones). However this guy has something to teach me.