FHC’s resurrected blog

In which FHC finds himself locked out of his own life

I had a pretty hectic day because I forgot all of my codes while on my five-week redemption trip. My brain was already a little deficient before I left but now it’s as if they had erased all these PIN numbers, aliases and passwords in my (mostly) electronic life. I had a little card with some of them that boyfriend No3 (may god bless his bleeding heart) had designed for me but I lost it in the move. I forgot the password to get in my computer at home and had to call my exes last night (roommate and boyfriend- the late LL) who both pretended they didn’t know it which was a) a lie and b) embarrassing for everybody involved. I went through all the weird nicknames I had given LL in the course of our brief yet passionate relationship but could not log in. Then this morning I couldn’t open my locker because I had forgotten the code (cute… I just sounded as if I was a Walmart employee) and therefore wasn’t able to score a shirt or a suit to do the professional thingy. I could not get money from the ATM because I can’t remember the card code and eventually skipped lunch. Finally, I could not log on Zipcar, Netflix, Manhunt and all these vital websites. I tried really hard at one point to answer some of the security questions but must have been high when I selected the answers because it did not work out. Thank god I managed to get invited at Alex A. tonight and will be able to eat for free there but this is only going to solve my situation temporarily.

In which FHC spends time with imaginary naked pagan gods

Before taking my plane to Frankfurt very early this morning, I went for a short run in the gardens of the villa Borghese. As it was before 7 a.m. and Italians do not usually wake up early, I was alone and the place was completely silent. The entire gardens were covered by a light morning mist. Pagan gods on antique fountains and statues of naked roman heroes were waking up and emerging from their decadent night around the small lake and I had the feeling to be sent back to the time when the Medicis were dying of malaria because of Rome’s swamps. Just this morning vision was enough to justify the two days stopover in Italia as well as waking up early.

I, of course, also got to eat memorable meals around Roma with an old college friend and his Milanese girlfriend. I looked aimlessly for a 46 short costume by Zegna and could not find it (Italian are not THAT small). Finally, I went to a few landmarks just in order to catch a glimpse of the Japanese culture. I was slightly disgusted by the fact that people in Roman attire were surrounding the Colosseum and the Plaza di Spania. It felt a lit too much like Disney. Thank god the gypsies, at least, were really poor.

In which FHC begs you not to expect a postcard

Finally I am leaving the unnamed destination for Rome. I sighed of relief when I went through my last bitter fight with airline ground personnel. Incidentally I was informed at the airport that the plane would leave two hours later than expected and that some undeserving spy met a poisonous death (which is just another justification to avoid Chinese eateries particularly if you have poor relations with the Kremlin). This is now my last time in a refrigerated lounge full of extremely eager Chinese businessmen and convicts who stare at me because I am wearing two sweaters, am covered in lion repellent and look at my gayest. Sorry little chaps: I am used to more temperate and civilized places. Additionally I won’t have to listen to Richard Quest anymore (this guy has really cool friends though like Keith Richards or the Dalaï Lama). This trip exhausted and aged me (not as much as Frenchbenj but still): I have two days to put myself back in some shape (as well as dig out some Italian delicatessen…don’t we all wish we would be 24 spending thanksgiving with friends in a lake house) before returning to the rumbles of my life in DC….a new life which won’t include a fat, not-so-well-behaved pet as an example.

I celebrated the end of my time off by going to a nightclub last night with the son of a semi-famous (yet extremely corrupt) senator running for Presidency and a few wild expatriate girls. I of course did not manage to get laid and was not even approached by any prostitute. This was also my way to celebrate that Thanksgiving thingy you guys are so much into. Today, I spent a little time by the pool watching natives in Speedo. LL (btw: congratulations for not blogging two Saturdays in a row) had started this nasty habit of asking me to return from the unnamed destination with a tan because the late Kevin D. once said “FHC is the only guy, who can go stay in the unnamed destination for a month and return fatter and paler”.

I hate to tell you that but I will be back in DC pretty soon. Inch Allah.

In which FHC loses his cell phone

This trip had gone a little too well so far. So I wasn’t astonished when I discovered this morning that my US cell phone is missing. I must have spent a good hour pouring my luggage on the floor of my hotel room and going through the rumbles screaming and fuming until I finally concluded that for the first time in my life, I lost my f***ing cell phone. The little guy was a little over one year old. It is difficult to know where as I went through 6 countries and probably 12 hotel rooms in the last 5 weeks. Of course as the bloody thing is roaming, there must be a nomad family calling their relatives all over the world to wish tem a happy Jour de Merci Donant at the moment. Additionally, I understand that, as this is Thanksgiving day in your country, it will be quite difficult to get an answer from T-mobile on what should be my next steps.

In a way it’s not such a big deal as I went an entire month without calling anybody in the US or in Europe which must mean that I actually don’t really need a cell phone. Plus it was already so painful to get used to that one a year ago that I am not sure if I can go through the same pain once again. Arghhhhh !

I am pissed.

In which FHC would like to escape at some point...if possible...

Earlier this week, I had to spend a night in the capitale of crime in the unnamed destination. On the highway, we had to give way to a furious motorcade: I later realized that it was the plane crew which was escorted by armed police to our hotel location. I did not leave my room besides to check out some gorgeous marines drinking by the pool in the morning. Nothing better than half naked tattooed white trash American military for breakfast. Besides that, last week, I ran into my first camel cattle and was almost sick when I was asked to eat some lamb meat with my hands.

I am now in a more peaceful place, albeit boring, and have to spend another week here. I am glad to say that I apparently did not yet caught malaria/giardia/flesh eating bacteria this time. However, I have reached that sad stage when I am counting the hours before I return to what we like to call “our world” (you know where everybody is under 25, has a tan, nice clothes and thinks about partying) and am able to finally have a meal without a colleague or a client and not having to get in fights with the valet to get my suit back. I’ll be in Roma on November 26, 27, 28 before returning to DC. I have asked everybody I know for some contacts in Roma but nobody got back to me (Jim M. pretends that it still is very closeted)… as if I was the only one hooking up with clergymen.

In the meantime, my ex-husband LL has been strengthening his friendster profile instead of blogging (a.k.a WHO IS THAT DAEVE GUY???). I am also a little pissed off as I noticed that I will miss many Holiday parties because of the state visit of mummy dearest scheduled for early/mid December.

In which FHC claims that he is still alive

I have now been touring aimlessly the unnamed destination for about three weeks and am now used to have my skin covered in a moist mix of sweat and red dust. This distinctive glow makes white boys look desperately ill and young local boys sexy and tempting. I went through five countries, stopped at six border posts and even re-entered the scary portion of the unnamed destination today just to leave a few minutes later. Along the way, I drank 33 beers, 6 Cointreau on piled ice and half a bottle of Saint Emilion. I did not get laid once but went in two night clubs and met one friendly prostitute called “Francine”. I did not see any Kangaroo, no, thank you for asking though. I am now clearly on the fat side, my westons are destroyed and I have holes in my shirts. I also lost various items along the way mostly in planes and conference rooms. To summarize I quickly turned into a fat, impoverished, drunk bastard.

In the last few days, the conditions of my trip got a little rougher and I did not have access to the internet which actually got in the way of some strategic purchases on e-bay, the unhealthy correspondence I like to keep with my ex-husband and a discussion with Fagat on the various STDs that afflict him. Thank god, dearest LL posted very regularly on really interesting topics and my readership seems to have completely forgotten my existence. I might be able to convince him to take charge of the blog forever as we all know that 3L have a lot of free time.

Let me take this opportunity to congratulate you for your recent political turmoil: with the democrats in the Hizzay, it might be easier for everybody to get laid in DC. 

Introducing the Skinny Black Pant

As any of our good friends will share with readers, when Moses came down from Sinai to distribute gay genes around, there are some he forgot to give us: a sense of style, good taste, interior decoration.  The ones he did give us are precisely the ones that people like James Dobson love to hate: alcoholism, fetish for preppy racquet sports, prostitution. 

But worst of all, we have -- shopping addiction.  Don't confuse this with trendiness (we know, the readers who know us best never would.)  We're decidely untrendy.  Even so, put us in a bad mood and all it takes is a handle of Smirnoff shopping spree to cheer us up.  Yesterday we hoodwinked Fishwatch and Carl D. into enabling us on a trip for (skinny) jeans at Barney's Co-op.  Keep in mind we're a poor student; the last thing we can afford is to spend our summer associate salary on jeans that cost more than an iPod.  (Note to law firm recruiters: less popcorn, more denim.) We thought we were just going to browse, trying on different styles so that instead of purchasing jeans full price, we could be well-informed in our bargain eBay purchases.  Slash we almost purchased two pairs then and there and went home with one pair which we love.  (PS - We heart shopping with Fishwatch because he has the perfect gay body and makes skinny jeans that we could never hope to fit into look fabulously normal.)

We first noticed we had the shopping gene when we learned in middle school that if we duped our mom into buying us clothes from Abercrombie & Fitch we would: a) Get to gawk at stunning frat boys on the walls of the store and b) Get a complimentary copy of the A&F Quarterly.  Had we known how destructive all these images of male perfection would be to our developing psyche and body image, perhaps we would have been smarter and only shopped at the Gap started working out in high school so we could look good today.

As puberty progressed, so did the force of the gay shopping gene.  It all came to a head when we were forced to write a note to Santa indicating that even though we were a growing boy we  preferred polos size "XXS" instead of "L" for Christmas.  But the real problem with the shopping gene/addiction is that, like binge drinking, the day after you don't feel as good.  This morning, we keep walking back and forth in the library with our new jeans on, pretending we have to get coffee or use hte men's room, fishing for compliments and yet no one has looked up from their Fed Courts reading.  Hello people, we just bought new jeans tell us how much you like them. 

In which FHC justifies himself

My blog entries have historically been nurtured with prescription drugs and the overall desperation of being a middle aged gay man. Since I started my little punitive expedition I feel that I have very little constructive material for the blog and logically I contribute very little. My readership needs to understand that my trip through the unnamed destination, as eventful and exotic as it actually is, is a non-moment defined as a period where everything that happens is of no consequence for my life. When I’ll return to DC, it’ll be as if time had been suspended for a little more than a month besides the fact that I missed Kenneth d.’s historical party . At best it is a transition period, where everything is actually so discreetly meaningful that I can’t find the time to let myself be egotistic enough to write an entry. It’s not so much that I am happy but more that, as usual, I don’t have the time to think of how scared I am. Back in the US I successively lost my relationship with someone who eventually would become a major US lawyer, my house, my roommate and, to some extent, my social life (I still score e-mails from LL, Fagat and solicited ones from Kevin W.) so I really feel that I have been floating in the unnamed destination like Major Tom. Today I laughed only once when LL recommended that I take my mother to a show about “gay, HIV-positive, muppets”… we eventually decided that she’ll see the Drowsy Chaperone while in NYC. I run in the morning on desert beaches surrounded by extreme poverty and I go to bed late in the evening, exhausted, with nothing to dream about (I eventually end up masturbating of course) besides perhaps the December visit of my mother and the new place on Kalorama road.

Of course, I could tell you that I had breakfast next to Venus Williams the last two mornings and that I had dinner with a cute and somewhat peculiar, at least unconsciously poetic (or maybe just very good looking), Georgetown student – courtesy of friendster - last night but it would wrongly induce you into thinking that the unnamed destination is very similar to DC (please forgive the picture, I couldn’t resist)….ok maybe I have to admit that the kid wasn’t really interested… It is not, it is more like a time off when I get to do some cheap meditation without the intellectual effort. In that sense, it is exactly the opposite of what Fagat is experiencing in Spain right now (ô I am not jealous….oh no).

We Just Can't Quit You Jack Twist

Please pardon me for blogging a day early.  I'm impatient and let's face it, from *another* gay evangelical scandal to the United States posting nuclear secrets on a federal government website to the imminent verdict in Saddam's trial on Sunday, there's a lot to talk about.  JK, we only care about gay prostitutes and meth additiction.

As of 5pm today, the Reverend Ted Haggard was accused of paying for drugs and sex from a prostitute in Colorado or some other free-wheeling state.  We've never heard of him before since we only get our news from US Weekly and only learn about celebs from Gawker Stalker.  But apparently he's some kind of really important leader who's BFF with Karl Rove and leads something like 30 million crazies churchgoers.  After looking at his photo (above), we only have one thing to say: Obvi.

What's funny about the allegations is that Haggard has confessed -- to buying meth.  In other words, he's quite comfortable admitting that he purchased illegal drugs but so scared of being cast as homosexual that he refuses to concede there was any sexual activity.  Because gay male escorts frequently give closeted evangelical men massages without actually screwing.  Oh, and he purchased the drugs but threw them out before he used them. 

Haggard, not surprisingly, had a wife and five children.  I guess the gay life-style really is a threat to families, at least so long as men like Haggard are so fearful of their own sexual identities that they build fake lives that fall to pieces later.

Our first reaction to news like this is a pinch of sadness: we spent a lot of time in the closet, and it's hard to forget the terror I felt when I was hiding my sexual identity.  To that extent, we empathize -- slightly -- with Haggard's struggle to come to terms with being gay.  We can even understand -- without condoning -- why he used hate-filled rhetoric against gays to bury his sexual identity even deeper. 

At the same time, the news naturally leads to second, more pure, reaction: PLEASE SEND US A LIST OF ALL THE HIGH-PROFILE CLOSETED MEN BECAUSE WE CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF THESE STORIES ABOUT HIDDEN SEX SECRETS AND HYPOCRITICAL FALLS FROM GRACE.  What are we going to do when the election cycle ends and there's no longer anything to gain from outing fire-breathing conservatives? 

At least we finally have a gay sex scandal that doesn't brand the rest of us as man-child-sex lovers.

In which FHC is by the ocean

I have been spending the last 24 hours in a room by the ocean watching the fishermen paddling on their traditional boats and further away the oil tankers on their way to feed Kevin D.’s SUV and indirectly most armed conflicts. I went running along the ocean front which unfortunately is covered in trash but a normal human being should be able to overlook that and concentrate on the surrounding beauty of the place and one of the most infamous yet beautiful island on the horizon. I did not go out as I don’t know anybody here. The unnamed destination can sometimes be peaceful, deliciously laid back and gorgeous.

Unfortunately I now have to change hotel to start the professional thingy again. I stay until Saturday in this city and then embark on a long journey with potentially limited internet access.