FHC’s resurrected blog

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

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.

Please Yente, See That He's Gentle

Some people requested that I blog about waking up at 7.30am this morning passed out in the hallway between Kevin D and FHC’s bedrooms and about how I then (natch) missed my 8am flight back to NYC and showed up one hour late for my really important meeting in the city.  Instead, however, I’m going to write about vicariously dating – since I’m unable to date (I’m still in the mourning slash denial phase), I’ve put myself to work finding suitable spouses for my friends. (With Fagat out of the country, btw, it’s been much harder to fill my flailing hookup story quota). 

First, there’s KMZ.  I am in love with the guy who is in love with her.  He is handsome (a marathoner), smart (former federal court clerk), and went to a really preppy, outdoorsy, and fratty liberal arts college in Williamstown, MA, (where we imagine our straight alter ego would have gone).  We’ll call him Steven Segal.  He sent KMZ an adorable and witty email inviting her out for drinks, and instead of being excited, she asked me to help draft her response declining the offer.  But I will not let him go that easily.  At first I think my pressure was welcomed, and KMZ seemed to enjoy being forced to name five good reasons not to go on a date with him (none of them was adequate).  But now I’m sensing she thinks it’s a little creepy; particularly the part where I said “All three of us can go out for drinks next Saturday.”  All I get was “I think there’ll only be two of us if we do go out.”  Two, indeed.  Next thing you know I’ll be standing outside his door with poster board signs professing my love.

Next, is my friend Amy K. whose birthday last night was responsible for me eating 100 chicken selects last night and then boarding a plane while hammered this morning.  I am desperate for her to date this really great catch in DC and told her that he’s really looking for a wife (oops, I guess that’s a turn off) but is also really picky (good one).  I will do anything for them to heart each other, including omit the small detail that he dated someone Amy K. definitely does not so much like as thinks is a dud.  Did I mention that he’s picky?  I have the opposite problem with my friend Joey W.  He’s recovering from a 6 year break up and is going on a date with a girl I went to college with who also ranks in the bottom 10 of all the people I’ve met in my life.  Let’s call her Judge Dredd.   But I want his date to go well and theoretically have a successful sexual encounter.  So do I tell him?  I certainly don’t want  to be the best man at Judge Dredd’s wedding, but I also want him to date without the specter of my judgment (it’s harsh) haunting him.  In both cases, I’m suppressing my instincts (to gossip and badmouth) so that my friends can have the healthy dating life I don’t.  Is that so wrong?

In other news, I am still wasted and hoping McDonald’s delivers. 

I Want My MTV

It’s pretty hard to follow yesterday’s post – it’s not every day that FHC has a terrible accident, throws away millions of dollars, and wastes countless man-hours of hard work.

Today I thought I’d blog about what’s it like not having cable.  First, there are the obvious consequences.  No, I haven’t seen Entourage.  I don’t understand any of the controversies concerning Project Runway 3 that I read about on Gawker.  When one of my best friends was being overshadowed by his camera hungry co-worker on Bravo, I had to pretend I wasn’t watching out of “loyalty.”  We don’t have cable, and my ability to banter around the water cooler (slash Ten Penh) suffers. But it’s worse than that: I also have become stupider.  WIthout cable, I have no way to keep up with Hollywood gossip reliably.  Consider our BBQ last night (thanks Kevin – for giving me  the runs).  18A made a joke about the formerly N’SYNC Lance Bass.  “Ugh, he’s so gay,” I replied.  “Gay gay gay.  He should just come out already.”  *Blank Stares*  “He is out,” everyone shouted at me.  “Well, he has a big penis” I was forced to interject, pretending like I wasn’t embarrassed for not knowing.  This is what happens when I don’t watch Access Hollywood and E! News every night.  How else am I supposed to know?  And because I don’t get cable, I don’t even know who his obviously star-humping boyfriend “Reichen” is.  Next thing I know, you’ll all tell me Suri C. has been spotted in Wichita, Kansas on the set of “The Simple Life.”

In other news/blogorama, Toad’s Place is opening in Richmond, VA, and we’re really crossing our fingers that NW DC is the next stop.  DC continues to be in the midst of a crime wave, and the  apparent solution is to release more potential criminals onto the street.  FHC and I are going to try to spend the weekend doing activities that don’t involve thousands of dollars worth of rented equipment. 

An Open Letter about How You Need to Shut Up

For those of you who wanted to commit sui after reading yesterday’s entry, or worse, have no fear: LL is to the rescue as the “optimistic” half of the couple.  For the record, none of you should be surprised that FHC’s sometimes veers towards the borders of the morbid – there are two copies of American Psycho on FHC’s bookshelf but only one of High Fidelity.  It’s also what you get from someone whose favorite biographies are of Oscar Wilde and Pamela Harriman, and who forced me to watch the Thomas Crowne Affair only because he wanted to see the scene were the catamaran capsizes.  Practice, apparently, for when we play Loul a le mere in Brittany.

That said, if you’re wondering why FHC gets fed up sometimes, it’s because of you people.  Yes, you.  Somehow FHC has managed to find as friends, acquaintances and, arguably, boyfriends, total know-it-alls and dictators.  Every evening over dinner (sausage and soup) FHC says, “I had coffee with William today, and he told me that I have to cut my hair” or “I had lunch with Spencer and he told me that I don’t run enough and should buy a wig.”  For heaven’s sake, before criticizing FHC,  telling him what to do, or trying to explain to him why you know how the world works, why don’t you get your little lives together first.  Last time I checked, FHC was a professional, and you were the second assistant to the Deputy Hairdresser at Salon Cielo.  FHC will buy a house when he’s ready, he’ll take the pills he likes, and he’ll decide when he’s purchased too much silver from the Waldorf on eBay.  FHC may be French, but when he escaped that country he escaped its bureaucrats, too, so please don’t try to replace them here.

I know you were hoping that the blog was funny, but we can’t all be as clever as you are 7 days a  week, and sometimes we have to get serious.  So stop being so insufferable, smile once in a while, and try to have fun instead of telling other people how they should amuse themselves, it’s really déclassé.

With love, always,

LL

FHC, I Don't Think We're in New Jack City Anymore

A few days ago, FHC joked that Carlos was having a party/potential bloodbath tonight.  Hahaha hilarious FHC.  If only there hadn’t been 14 murders in the last 13 days – and three in peaceful Northwest, your joke might have been what we Americans call “funny.”  Seriously, though, maybe the newly reopened National Portrait Gallery should have thought twice about putting on display that painting of Vigo the Carpathian.  Here are some examples of increasing tendency of DC residents towards craziness and violence:

- Walking home from work, I watched a homeless man approach a toddler holding a McDonald’s bag and demand “Give me that food.”
- Two days ago I was waiting for FHC to come back from work when I heard a crazy person scream from across the street.  “You Faggot get back here before going into your gated community you Faggot.” 
- FHC told me this afternoon, “I’m going to smash your head into the wall until it bleeds.”  That part was standard, but then he poured hot coffee into my lap.
- The Titanic tried to dock at our marina last weekend AND I peeked into a sewer recently and there’s a river of pink slime running beneath the city.

It’s become so bad that we no longer walk anywhere, and recently 90% of our good friends have been held up at gunpoint or mugged.  Lucky, our jeans are so tight we can’t carry wallets.  Gentrification, obviously, is a large part of the problem.  Gays can move to a dying part of town, invest capital, and place flower pots on every corner, but you think we’d also be able teach the displaced inhabitants some manners. 

In the spirit of Fagat, who apparently is attracting new visits to his site only by posting almost nude men, we’d like to direct you to this video of a “Tetu Casting Call.”

Now we’re off to Prom.  Here's hoping no one spills pig's blood on that bitch, Carrie.

Club FHC: Open for Business

FHC and I once again turned Washington, D.C., into our own private country club this weekend.  Our recent activities – tennis, sailing, and (tomorrow) golf – prompted what I thought was a reasonable question: Why don’t any of our friends belong to country clubs?

“*My* friends all have country houses – on the Chesapeake, in West Virginia, and all sorts of wonderful places,” FHC snapped – shocker! – at me.

“But, FHC, I asked about country clubs, not country houses.”

“Yeah, well, you’re friends are a bunch of flying monkeys.  They are poor and underachieving.”

The problem with not belonging to a country club is that finding a tennis court becomes an intense competition.  (And finding a tennis court empty enough for FHC to feel comfortable playing even tougher).  Yesterday, a family of four tried to kick us off an open court so their idiot children –  dressed in jeans and sneakers in 100 degree heat – could have a court all to themselves.  This morning, two sporty gays intimidated us with their tank tops, forcing us to switch to a different set of courts entirely.  We were then joined by two old women who, after hearing FHC’s obvious French accent, loudly started discussing the World Cup with each other in an effort to make us clear out of their way:

“It’s so interesting, Mary, all the foreigners are off the streets today watching that match.”  “Oh, yes, June, you mean the World Cup.  I think every person from another country is at a bar somewhere right now watching.  I’ve never understood soccer.  But they love it.  I’d be surprised if any of them were doing something else right.”  As if FHC had forgotten the World Cup was on and their conversation was going to prompt him to scurry off the court to Lucky Bar. 

We came home to see France had lost in a tie-breaker/nail-biter/down-to-the-wire-showdown, and Kevin D. still missing – we haven’t seen him since Friday at sundown.  We’d like to close for the weekend by commenting at how much improvement FHC has made in tennis since beginning last weekend.  As Fagat observed, “he definitely has the aggression thing down.”  But now he’s also learned aim, coordination, and fetching balls that he hits outside the fence. 

Blow the Man Down, Sailor

While some of our friends have spent their free time with puerile, hedonistic adventures – going to the Madonna concert, for example, and no we’re not jealous – FHC and I like to spend our free evenings and weekends bettering ourselves, learning new hobbies and going on adventures.

Our adventure for this weekend, of course, was sailing – or is sailing, because we just started today and someone told us we have to continue on Sunday and Monday as well.  Unfortunately, we don’t  have any pictures, but you can be sure that FHC looked his cutest in a little button-down, shorts, and gym shoes (I forbid him from wearing his Tod’s, which almost ended our relationship, obvi).  We had a co-student with us, a junior at “Gettysburg” College.  As if that place really exists.  Today we learned tacking and jibing and docking and a variety of sea shanties.  We learned all the parts of the boat – and by “we” I mean FHC tried really hard to learn but words like “t-eeee-ller” and “hal-eeee-ard” don’t translate that well into broken English.  FHC also tried to play one of his favorite games from Cancun – “Loul à le mer” – but fortunately our instructor, Sawyer, forbid it, mostly because the Potomac is so dirty that I wouldn’t have drowned but instead gotten herpes or stuck with a floating syringe.  But honestly, we had a really good time, and LL gets so much credit for coming up with such a good plan for our long weekend so we didn’t get board.  Gosh, where would we be without LL’s good thinking and adventurous spirit?

If you want to keep up with our sailing, please check in over the next few days.  Meanwhile, we’re g oing to see “The Devil Wears Prada” because we’re gay stereotypes and at least half of this couple spent 2 years as a personal assistant and would really like to see the Hollywood portrayal (we all know how nice the Weinsteins are to their assistants, after all).

Smooches, kisses, and hugs.  See you tomorrow at the christening/bris of Sam H.K.

I'll take "Rapture Ready" for $400 Alex

I’ve had a lot of pop Christianity shoved down my throat this week.  First, I saw the Omen on Sunday .  I know: not good. (Did the original really star Gregory Peck?)  Besides, it res no acting for Mia Farrow to play a possessed psychopath.  I did learn a valuable lesson though.  If the devil is out to get you, he’ll make you really un-photogenic.  Looks like I might have problems.  Then, I watched an episode of Nip/Tuck in which Christian / Troy and Sean / McNamara operate on a girl with stigmata.   All it takes is a bleeding prostitute and suddenly everyone thinks JHC is watching over them.  The problem, I realized, is that Juifs like me who know nothing about Christianity only get our information from these ridiculous pop culture sources.  Based on the religious films I’ve seen over the past five years, my basic view of Christianity – or really Catholicism except that maybe it’s all the same to me – is as follows: Jesus shows his love by stabbing knives through young whorish women, Jews show their love by working with the devil to stab Him back in return, the Pope lives in a dark smoke enshrouded room and loves astronomy, the Holy Grail is Mary M., and Armageddon will be foreshadowed by a lot of thunder and lightening.  I’m worried that this set of facts would not do me much good in “The Bible” category on Jeopardy.  To top if all off, FHC has left me alone in his bedroom sleeping opposite a giant crucifix, only JHC’s arms are severed at the shoulder and I think he might also be smiling.  The thing that confuses me most, though, is why in all these movies people are trying so hard to stop the Second Coming and the war for our souls.  Other than the fact that some of us might be scared of losing, if it has to happen sometime, I’d prefer it now while I’m still young to enjoy it. 

In other news, if you thought LL was partying it up while FHC was gone, you should have been on the phone with FHC while he was at a nightclub in his undisclosed location.  Who, we wonder, did FHC go with? 

I’m off to go clothing shopping with the almost famous Ben /T. and John /J.  It’s supposed to storm, so wish us luck please.

Oh, and F, some of us are really ready for you to come back home because a) our bed feels really empty and b) I cannot wait to find out what happens on Lost.  And apparently we can't buy lotto tickets anymore.

The World's Leading Blog

        Some people have called to ask what LL does when FHC is away for so long.  Is Kevin D. any fun?  Who controls the netflix queue?  Do your supervisors wonder why you don’t bring your charming French boyfriend to any events  and assume that you must have broken up with him because gays can’t stay monogamous?  Does Kevin W.’s ambien business collapse without the usual offers of $50 from a Nigerian bank account for four pills?
        There are two answers to all these questions: Nothing is different, but also everything is different.  My daily habits stay exactly the same.  I wake up at 7.30am, make coffee, eat toast, get on the bus, come home from work, watch Cold Mountain, and go to bed early.  Occasionally on weekends I get incapacitatingly drunk, mock Midwestern states like Nebraska, and eat a midnight quarter pounder with cheese. 
        But doing all these things sans FHC just isn’t the same.  Sure, Kevin D. was a fun date for Cold Mountain mostly because a) it was a terrible movie and he was good at mocking it and b) I could watch without subtitles.  The difference, though, is that without an accomplice saying things in b roken English, life isn’t as much fun.  When FHC and I scarf down a 1 million calorie sandwich from McDonald’s together, we have a sense of camaraderie in the American experience of obesity.  When I’m alone, it’s just déclassé and embarrassing, so much so that I have to hide the bag from Kevin D. to avoid being busted.  Or take today for instance.  I finished watching Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (two thumbs up) and am sitting here alone with no one around to discuss all my questions: where does that macho eat-what-you-kill attitude come from and why don’t gays have it?  Is the collapse of FHC’s blog the next Enron?  And, most importantly, don’t we all secretly think Andy Fastow was a little bit dreamy? 
         Maybe worst of all, people treat me as though FHC has died.  So have you moved on with FHC gone?  Who makes you pasta with sauce every night?  Are you really going on a bike ride alone to keep his memory alive?  Are you going to open a Friendster account?  Can I have his Vilebrequin bathing suit?
        Most of these questions will never be answered.  But in the meantime, I’m going tonight to Carlos U. and Malcolm X.’s “pub crawl,” which apparently includes 7 bars, a scorecard, and lunch with Carlos and Malcolm themselves for the unfortunate winner.  Note that this is the type of activity that only a lawyer would characterize as “fun.”