As I crossed over the threshold into old age, I realized, with great annoyance, that while my head hair has retreated into non-existence, my pubic hair has continued to thrive. Wispy, straggly, and long-ass long, it exists solely to irritate me. I could braid it if the whim so moved me. It creeps me out. I am concerned that eventually it will get tangled up in my shoelaces and then where will I be?
So occasionally I break out the pruning shears and lop off the top. I’m not shooting for some kind of manscaping, I just want the mess to look less like something out of a Lovecraft story. Eldritch pubes, that’s what I got.
I also don’t try for anything fancy or too close to the boys, cause I am not crazy. And yet, and yet…. You can see where this is going, can’t you? Yes, tonight I nipped my nutsack.
I’ll pause here to let my male readers unclench. Fortunately, or as fortunate as that situation can get, it was no big deal. I didn’t castrate myself, the skin just got caught in the scissors and caused a tiny, little cut. It didn’t even really hurt, just a sharp pinch. It is possible I screamed like a little girl, a little girl who has just pecked the ball bag, but if ever there was a screamy moment, it was that.
But oh baby jeebus, did it bleed. Reminiscent of one of those chocolate fountains at some pretentious buffet. It turns out your man pouch is thickly covered in veins. Why? So that when you cut your nuts, your melodramatics are justified. The bathroom wound up looking like a set from a slasher movie and my testicles are now sporting a band aid.
Okay, so maybe this is difficult reading, or at least it is for those readers equipped with low hanging fruit. Maybe they are slightly pale around the lips, possibly light-headed. Sorry. Did you want a widdle trigger warning? Suck it up. I’m the one with my poor little huevos bleeding. I suppose this exemplifies the difference between empathy and sympathy.
Guys with unnipped nuts:
Watch out where you’re slinging that blade, buddy.
Maybe I should look into waxing.
Thick
What a piece of work is man.
I really hope this is not PhotoShop; it would reinforce my belief in god.
Happy anniversary to our dear chum and Chaturbate sweetheart, Mikey. October 1st marks Mikey’s 7th anniversary entertaining the masses. My impression is that chat room models do not, in general, have a long run so Mikey’s stint is pretty impressive.
And those of us who count ourselves as his fan base are plenty glad he has stuck it out. Afterall, he’s muscly, big dicked, and so good looking with those huge, beautiful eyes. Amazingly, he’s also sweet, sweet, sweet. Come for the tits and stay for the disposition, that’s what we say.
I like to think this fan club/impromptu therapy group has played a part in his longevity. The small Eastern European town Mikey lives in does not have a terribly vibrant gay scene. Queer life does not add a lot of color to the local landscape. So I think we regulars provide him with a connection to an otherwise unavailable homo universe. Yay for us.
I also think it must have taken a lot of courage for a boy in that situation to make the leap to performing dick dances for strangers on the internet. Please join me in toasting Mikey for having the balls (and such lovely plump balls they are, too) to take that plunge and for continuing to charm all of us.
Anniversary presents for Mikey. And for you, too.
Anthony Varrecchia, cause Mikey is all about hairy old daddies.
And Pete Kuzak, cause Mikey is also all about big muscle meat.
Dimitri Averyanov, cause it’s my damn blog.
Max Warner, cause yeah baby.
Some anonymous guy, cause I’ve decided I don’t care about the crimes of PhotoShop.
Trevor Adams, cause sometimes having everything is just enough.
Mr. Sundial again, cause this is one of my favorite pictures of all time.
Perhaps you remember mrpeenee’s unparalleled collection of aluminum plates, platters and other serving pieces. The fact it is unparalleled mostly because no one else is interested in what is essentially decorative debris is neither here nor there, and I do wish you would stop bringing it up.
The collection. Some of it, anyway.
.Thirty years ago, I got tired of not being able to afford any of the cool stuff in my thrift store prowlings and so I started collecting these. Mostly because they were cheap, but also because no thrift store, no matter how crappy, would fail to have at least one or two pieces.
My limit initially was that nothing could cost more than three bucks. After a while I raised that to $5, but even that allowed me to bring home so many of them eventually R man threatened to put them all out on the curb and me with them. That was probably 15 years ago and honestly, even I realized I had plenty enough. But when I moved to this apartment and mounted them all up on the wall, I wound up with a couple of odd bald spots that could use filling. And so I turned to Google to track down a few more bits.
Almost the very first result was some junk store trying to unload 13 pieces of the very finest examples of aluminum junk. That was more than I had in mind, BUT three of them were exactly the right size and two others were such interesting specimens I couldn’t pass them up so I bought the whole lot.
So here they are. The really interesting ones are the small basket with a handle and made of pierced metal and the other is a tiny silent butler.
Silent butlers. Sssh.
Silent butlers were an invention to help hostesses deal with mess on tabletops. You would rake up all the crumbs littering the cloth and dump them into your silent butler and then close the lid to keep all the garbage from flying back out. You could also empty ashtrays that way.
Also, coasters, cause aluminum coasters are so very practical. Most aluminum pieces feature very realistic botanical art, in this case, each coaster is a tiny CABBAGE. I am in love.
So there. I really am through collecting them now. Really. What few oddball spots there were are now filled and I have no more excuses for any more aluminumania. My decision has nothing to do with them being no longer easy to find or certainly easy to afford. Should the aluminum hostessware industrial complex call, tell them I’m out of the game.
I think the long nightmare of my Bone Hole TM saga may be drawing to a close. If you were lucky enough to miss my whining about this, my Bone Hole TM is an actual hole in my jaw bone that led to an absolutely baroque series of dental procedures up to and including pulling the stupid tooth above it. Since the tooth next to it had been removed years ago for a crown, I wound up with a sizable gap in that neighborhood. Last week, I got a “removable partial” to deal with that and, please baby jeebus, finish up with the whole sorry mess.
I hadn’t realized when discussing this with my dentist that the “partial” in “removable partial” is short for “partial denture.” A denture. Yes, one more entry in our exciting If You Don’t Die, You Get Old sitcom. I also hadn’t realized how massive this bitch would turn out. I lost another tooth 40 years ago on the other side of my mouth. You couldn’t see it, it was the tiny tooth behind the canine so I just ignored it all these years, but my current dentist decided he would include a replacement for it as an anchor for the new partial. That means the structure reaches across my mouth behind my lower incisors and is enormous. Even I, who am fairly casual about sticking big things in my maw, am intimidated by it. When I manage to wrestle it in, it feels a lot like I had taken a whim to swallow a car’s dashboard but gotten stuck on the turn signal.
Of course, it helps a lot in chewing, but comfort is not a big part of its profile. I decided early on I would just put up with it when I’m eating, but I keep forgetting to put it in, so it spends most of the time lurking in the cabinet, silently rebuking me. Since I get enough of that from Saki, I’m considering a life of pudding and cottage cheese.
Changing gears, I’d like to address the plague of the all white room. I spend a fair chunk of time idly scrolling through Tumblr, mostly harvesting pictures of attractive, if scantily clothed young men for these posts. Perhaps you’ve noticed.
Who doesn’t love a good tanline?
Lately though, my Tumblr feed has been choked with image after image of these insipid white-on-white-on-white rooms, a design decision that I loathe. It’s nothing particularly new, this is the at least the fourth big go-round it’s had since the 1980s, but just because something won’t die doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
As far as I can tell, its appeal lies with it being easy to do on the cheap (anyone with access to a bucket of white paint has most of the look nailed down) and that it comforts namby pambies who are afraid of picking colors. I love color in decorating, strong, bright, dramatic hues especially. Here’s a secret: if you don’t like a color, you can change it. I know painting is a hassle, but do you really think trying to live with white floors isn’t?
These rooms are so insipid, so bloodless. I believe their current popularity rises in part from the de-cluttering gospel that writer Marie Kondo has passed on to her cult. Her motto is “Discard anything that doesn’t spark joy” which is fine with me, People cling to too much crap. Got it, and agree with it, but the problem is adhering to passionately to it brings you to these anemic spaces.
This sparks joy for someone? It would be like living in a tidy refrigerator. This type of decorating is committed to an absence of knick knacks, art, books, everything that adds warmth and color and personality to a room. Who would want to live without them?
Speaking of dealing with the gorgeous clutter that a full book case brings:
I’m not sure if they were trying to be ironic, but that image upsets me so much, so fills me with a disturbing rage, I can understand what opponents of pornography must feel when faced with something as beautiful as this
A personal problem, I think.
Lastly:
I loved my garden, but I’m tepid towards house plants. Even if I wasn’t I would still feel strongly against dragging in large, semi-tropical plants like birds of paradise or bananas, such as here to an environment where they will jsut suffer a lingering death. Indoor plants need to be able to tolerate the temperatures we like inside, the arid dryness of our homes and the insufficient light that comes from not being outside, and bananas are not going to do that. Knock it off.
But it’s not all complaints about teeth and bad design decisions around here. California has re-opened from our last round of lockdown, which I honestly expected to last until April, so yay. Because of that, I was able to spend part of this afternoon out on Peet’s cafe’s outside parklette knocking back a latte and a muffin. In these sad times, that’s what constitutes decadence. Also, I have a haircut appointment scheduled whihc is plenty enough to get me in a good mood.
Helping with good moods, our latest selection of mens
My motto. You got a problem with that?
The aptly named Dick Huge.
You know how I love a ginger.
Mike Branson, discovered back in the vaults, from a time when dinosaurs roamed the porn aisle.
Oh, he’s an angel.
Meaty.
I don’t understand how people get their butt do that. And how do you live with it once you do? How do you sit in a chair, or maneuver down the grocery aisle, or pull your fucking pants up? For that matter, how do people behind you in line at Starbucks resist just reaching over and squeezing it to see if it’s real? Anyway, we salute you, Butt Man.
I had to go back to the dentist again today. Readers might remember I have shared with them numerous visits over the last 2 years of varying annoyance, discomfort, and expense. I have now spent more time with my dentist (actually, make that plural, I have two because I am just that special) more time with my dentists than I have with my friends, thank you quarantine. We have shared so much time together I have to assume we qualify for domestic partners benefits.
Today’s trip was the conclusion of two previous adventures. One was a simple little root canal (I am alarmed that I have become so inured to dental torture that I classify root canals as “simple”) that I had last month and for which I got the crown today. The other is just the latest installment in a tooth opera which began in February of 2018. 2 0 1 8. Does anyone else remember 2018? Have unfinished business from then?
To recap for those of you not paying attention, and I know there are plenty of you, I developed a hole in my jaw bone. The tooth above the Bone Hole TM required a root canal (do you see a pattern here?) which then had to be filled and then refilled every other month for a year. Hilarious. Finally, I don’t know, the dentists got bored or something and they pulled the tooth. They also had to pull the tooth and crown next to it because the Bone HoleTM tooth had anchored a bridge. Which brings us to today where I was being fitted for a removable partial bridge to deal with the gaping maw in my lower teeth. Altogether, 3 hours in the chair today, which turns out to outlast the Xanax I started with.
I have not taken up a new sideline in creampie porn. That’s the dried goop from the mould for the bridge. Shut up
Oddly, I was lucky enough to have almost no tooth problems during most of my so-called adult years. I’d go in and get my cleaning, they’d say “Lookin’ good, mrpeenee.” “You too Mr. dentist,” I’d reply as I returned to a life of excessive pastries. All that changed when I crossed the magic barrier of age 50. Fifty, when your prostate swells, your mouth revolts and declares itself the Glorious Independent Republic of Oralslovakia, and those darn kids will not stay off your lawn.
Proving my theory that my dentist and mouth are conspiring against me, while finishing the crown, the serene highness dentist discovered a tooth just rotted away, but which had been hiding it’s decay behind the crowned tooth. “Oh, that’s going to have to go,” the dear little man said. Have my teeth decided to abandon ship? Are things that bad? Fine. See you next time.
Toothsome young mens:
A work of art.
We must have just missed the vampire.
Yet another example of mrpeenee’s love for the Big Lug.
Uptown funk gonna give it to you
Just hangin’ around in the toilet, office.
The disagreement over cut versus uncut will never be solved, but everybody likes great big nuts.
Finally, here’s a cheerful farewell. The vaccine is on its way, lockdown cannot last forever, enjoy the weekend.
For those of you who missed them the first time around, or those who still miss them, here is the 1980s wrapped up in one video:
Let’s see, do we have all the parts?
Bleach blonde, pouty lipped pretty boy singer? Check,
Hyper stylized clothes that make you look like you got dressed in a hurry, in the dark? Check.
Synth laden music ripping off better, more original music (in this case, Spin Me Round by Dead or Alive)? Check.
Ronald Reagan’s poisonous spirit looming around? Check.
The terrifying mystery of AIDS just off camera, but very present? Check.
Turns out the last is more important to this bit than was originally intended since the singer, Paul Lekakis, admitted in an interview with POZ magazine that he had lied about his HIV status to his customers while turning tricks in Los Angeles in the 90s. The interview and, maybe, Lekakis makes this sound unpardonable and shocking. Sweetie, I was there and I remember that by the late 90s when Lekakis was working West Hollywood what AIDS was was unquestionable and how it spread was well established. What he did was bad, but was it that shocking? If you ask a rentboy about his HIV status and then take his word for it, you are simply too naive to be hiring one.
How bad of me to skimp on recounting my recent visit to Austin and the charming Diane von Austinburg. We had a lovely, lovely time. Our definition of “lovely” might not match up with other’s, but do we care? No, we do not.
Essentially the visit consisted of us visiting many of the finer thrift stores in town and canvassing their aisles while keeping up a running diss of their merchandise. Or “merchandise.” To quote myself from several previous times “This all looks like the leftovers from a bad garage sale.” But that’s the best part. We examine a mind numbing array of the chipped and should-have-been-discarded, items of dubious function, and what we were sure was the contents of hundreds of dead grannies’ homes, shoveled into the Goodwill maw by their undeserving heirs and then we don’t buy a single thing.
I did fall sort of in love with a love seat upholstered in a velour Union Jack. Fortunately, Diane was there to quietly steer me away even as I was scheming how to ship it here, to an apartment where there is absolutely no room for it.
And then we went out for enchiladas. Oh, such good Mexican food. High class fare from interior Mexico, low class Tex-Mex in a joint that had started out life as a laundrymat, and a great place we love with such delicious tortillas.
Of course it was not all beat up Pottery Barn rejects and guacamole. After all, there has to be some low point. Who would have dreamed it would turn out to be pasta?
I was staying the very fancy Fairmont hotel. It was excellent. When I made the reservation, I signed up for their benefits program, which I always do wherever I stay. Usually it’s not much, maybe a free bottled water (Whoo-Hoo) but this time it turned out to be a goldmine, baby. From a private registration desk (oh, right this way, Mr. mrpeenee,) and this cool concierge lobby with snacks of a most delicious nature (a dessert bar at night with these adorable miniature French pastries. Another six cream puffs? Why, I think I will.) And a big, comfortable room. What more could you ask for?
Well, that’s where the pasta comes in. Diane works nearby and had come to meet me after I checked in. We hit the Happy Hour snack bar and should have just stuck with that, but instead decided to slide downstairs to their real restaurant and have real food.
The dining room had a theme, which in my experience is never a good idea. If you’re a restaurant, your theme should be “food.” Instead, this place had the walls lined with fake facades of an old timey Texas town. I think? It was hard to tell. It was very Disneyland. I was willing to ignore it and hang with Diane, but I ordered pasta carbonara and that’s where the real trouble came in.
Perhaps you are familiar with pasta carbonara? It is one of the simple dishes that is not easy. It consists of eggs, bacon and cheese over pasta. The secret is how you add the ingredients, but I’m not here to give away my culinary secrets, I am here to gripe.
We both got our dinners eventually and started in while chatting. After a few bites, i realized my pasta was missing the bacon. Called the waitress over, explained, she took it back to the kitchen, reemerged with (possibly) a new plate, which I poked around in and announced, “This is the same thing, there’s no bacon is this either.” She valiantly offered to make another run at it, but she had a look on her face, a look I have myself worn at times, a look that said “The chef is a screaming, egomaniacal lunatic, please don’t send me back in there.” So I just said never mind, take it off the check, we’re fine.
Despite that, before I could finish stealing most of Diane’s excellent Asian pot thing, a manager type slithered over with a third bowl of the pasta. You’ll never guess what was not in there! As she was standing there, I demonstrated my now honed technique for bacon hunting. “The chef says it’s called ‘pancetta’ and he slices it very finely.” The whole “pancetta not bacon” pushed my blood level up a few notches and I offered her 20 bucks if she could find any of this finely sliced pancetta. Sliced on a microscopic level, I don’t know. I did explain the dish only had three ingredients, it seemed difficult to overlook one of them.
I waved it away. Diane approved, noting that by then, one of the ingredients no doubt included spit. She went home and I went back up to the fancy guests’ lobby and to wait for the dessert bar.
My living room is a triangle walled in enormous windows which makes one more conscious (or as conscious as I ever am) of the light and the way it shifts and settles in the room. I was wandering around the apartment in my charmingly vague way the other evening when I realized the setting sun had become perfectly aligned with those windows to shoot all the way down the crooked hallway that leads to the front door. It was like something of out of Raiders of the Lost Something or the Other.
I know in New York a similar phenomenon of the setting sun lining up with the east-west streets is called Manhattenhenge, so I’m stealing that for my own little almost-solstice-but-not-quite celebration. Since I ignore Christmas, it seems very handy.
I was going to try to take a picture of it tonight, but, of course, it decided to rain instead. I’m all right with that. After those weeks of choking smoke, having our brisk clean air back is an immense relief. Plus, sitting up here in my aerie, looking down out at the fog settling on the tops of hills, the streets shiny with rain, The street lights and traffic lights all glittering and reflecting, and the pedestrians scurrying along with their floppy umbrellas, it all seems terribly cozy. A ginger cat curled firmly up on my lap helps.
An added charm: the street lights here are old timey ones, cast to look like lanters. I’ve always admired their solid 19th century charm and now I have one directly outside and I happen to be on the exact floor that puts the lantern part right out my window. I think of it as MY street light, much as a hooker chasing other bitches off her patch would.
Let me reiterate: I like’em big and stupid.
But having cozy little digs could only be improved by having more than a ginger tabby to lean on.
One of the odd aspects of all this smoke in the air here is the proliferation of masks. Days ago, the state health department advised that the elderly and kids and sick people wear a mask that filtered out smoke. Then they upped it to everyone should wear a mask and now they’ve just thrown in the towel and said everybody should simply stay indoors. It’s like the start of a zombie movie.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have seen every permutation on face coverings just short of Darth Vader. It’s gotten to the point where there are generally more people wearing one than not. I do so hate to be left out of any fashion rage.
Man-on-the-street mask. A really cute man on the street to boot.
I’ve also been hacking pretty impressively every time I venture out, so I gave in and decided to go buy one. Naturally, both of the hardware stores in my terribly stylish neighborhood were sold out. But I persisted and this afternoon I went in to my favorite one and snagged the very last one they had.
mrpeenee avec l’masque
I think it has a certain raffish charm to it. Since I have a really skinny head, it only sort of fits and I wasn’t convinced it was doing anything until I took it off before going into the grocery and I was suddenly struck by the very strong smell of smoke from which it must have been protecting me.
So yay it works. It also fogs up my glasses, but I’ll take breathing over seeing any day.
I was huddled in my bed feeling like an idiot, which is not unusual. The day after I posted my triumphant cry that Spring had sprung upon San Francisco, a storm front blew in, the skies opened and it’s been cold and rainy ever since. True, that is spring weather, but it wasn’t the spring weather I had been so very smug about.
I really don’t have any relevant pictures for my adventures in Kitchenland, so I’m just going with muscly youth. I can’t imagine anyone complaining.
As usual, when I’m not happy, I got up to go eat. Something. Anything. I remembered that I had roasted a bunch of baby carrots just because I wanted some roast carrots and there were still quite a few left. As the carrots were whirling around in the mircrowave, I also decided I would make custard. My cooking decisions are almost always based on “What do I have and what can I do with it?” In this case, eggs, half & half, sugar, vanilla and salt pointed towards custard. The fact that I was longing for some sweet blandness didn’t hurt.
Nothing is easier to cook than custard. The most technical part is breaking an egg. If you can do that, the rest is just measure and stir. It is in the oven right now, in its bain marie, which is a fancy name for a pan half full of hot water, almost finished.
While it was baking, the carrots were ready, but I realized I wanted some carbs with it. Bread, tortillas, left over scones, I wasn’t being picky. I had just bought a loaf of this wonderful cinnamon bread I love. Sort of sweet and rich, it’s very similar to challah. Its only downside is that it comes as a whole loaf, unsliced. Instead of just slicing off the end bit and calling it a day, I decided to slice the entire thing to make giving into temptation in the future just that much easier.
Amazing how very tasty the carrots and the cinnamon bread were together. An unplanned triumph. A serendipitous snack, and isn’t that really the best kind.
The timer for the custard just went off. I know you’re supposed to test if they’re done enough with a silver blade stuck in the middle to see if it comes out clean. But I have no silver blades. Get real, this is not Downton Abbey. Silver is terrible metal for knife blades, It’s soft and so it dulls faster than you can eat. I just gently shake the pan to see how much the custard quivers. You want it past the jiggly stage, but not firm, because it will continue to cook as it cools.
OK, so, carrots, heated and eaten, bread sliced and also eaten, combination: a radiant stroke of genius, the kitchen cleaned, the custard cooling and just quivery enough.
I realize all this kitchen madness is not terribly worth a post, it’s just that all of it took place between 3:00 AM and 3:45 AM. It is pitch black outside, no one else is stirring, even the raccoons have gone to bed, but here I am at my peak. This is when I am the most energetic (not saying much) and clear headed. Some people are made for the night and that’s me.
It wasn’t until I retired and the shackles of employment released me that I found out I am an owl. All those years waking up to go to work just when I was most ready to doze off, how wrong they all were.
I’ll go take my meds and get in bed; not to go to sleep, but because that’s my favorite place to read. So I’ll be reading and struggling with the cat over who gets the best bed position, a fight I lose every night, and along about dawn, I’ll doze off.
It’s a perfect world. At last.
All these lovely specimen are courtesy of the stunningly well curated blog For the Love of NudeMuscleMen I borrowed them without permission and I hope they do not mind my poaching because I really do think whoever is picking the art for the collection has an impeccable eye.
mrpeenee 