zephyr in the sky at night i wonder

well edna and johnbrown's holiday party last night was a huge success. what a good time was had by all, and according to johnbrown, it (the party) raged until nearly 3 am but luckily i was gone way before midnight. chalk one up to some self-control and good judgment.....what's that? i (luckily) was diane free this am, but i hear she made the rounds with several other party-goers including bret anne, who may just have ended up at the 'tic. (let me quickly put on my surprised face)...hehe

the food last night was nothing short of amazing. that johnbrown is a damn fine cook, and the grilled chicken on skewers with the satay peanut sauce are near perfect in my book. i spent much of the night crowded around the table (and the bar) and that was just fine by me.

so nice that eric's entire family came to the party last night. they sure are down with the gays, and are such delightful people. in fact, i looked around that party last night and realized how incredible genuine and very good looking my friends are. i guess you could say i am blest.......

what a cute couple..... 

and then there was evans...... 

mark seib, the assistant, and myself 

Edna and the entire McNaughton family were in attendance... 

anthony, looking great as usual, and a very thin cliff 

heaven holds a sense of wonder

despite being on call Christmas and spending nearly 8 hours doing double FUPA duty, i still managed to make it out to scarietta and spend some time with the family on Christmas day. as you can see, Carter isn't sure if he really likes his new UGA hat. but i had a good time, spent some quality time with Molly-Catherine aka beatrice-elizabeth, and of course enjoyed my mom's cooking immensely. next year, i have made a promise to myself that i will not be on call, which of course means i will [hopefully] be in a new job.

tomorrow night should be big fun. johnbrown and eric are hosting a holiday cocktail party over on 5th street. only this year, i plan on walking to said event and will not make an appearance as Ptown barbie....

 

my visit with becky and her new lover, Andy, was really special. they arrived sunday night and we had drinks at my condo and exchanged gifts. i think she really liked her Borghese gift set, but i was really blown away by her present to me. It is a painting by one of her favorite artists in Charleston, Carol Mcgill. The painting is of the various bridges in Charleston, in the exact colors of orange I have in my condo. (now i have no sense of decorating, so i owe all the credit to her).

we later joined joel and brad over at the H&H ranch, where dinner featured beef tenderloin, gnocci, and joel's signature winter salad. of course, being on q2h feedings, i went back for a second helping. wine was served and we had time after dinner to really get to know Andy. of course i liked him from the beginning as he introduced himself using his first and last name, a subtle southernism that i picked up, letting me know this boy has manners. and becky is so deserving of a handsome, genuine guy in her life. i can't think of anyone more deserving. 

all about potential, dollface

yesterday's outing for wrapping paper was a success, despite all of the procrastinating last minute shoppers. i found exactly what i needed at Target, and let me tell ya, there were gaggles of queens up in there just tearin' it up on some credick cards. oh the gays....

i awoke this morning feeling slightly anxious, craving something with an "X" in it. I'm still on call, and i still have to wrap all of my gifts. plus i have company coming in a few hours so there are toilets to clean. cause' a dirty toilet just announces that you are low class.

for last minute stocking stuffers for the lady on your list , let me suggest a tub of tussy.

you were working as a waitress at a cocktail bar

it seems that the holiday season has kept diane real busy. she made all the rounds in midtown this morning. let's figure out why...

i was really looking forward to my dinner date with Dori last night (she's the incredibly beautiful woman pictured above, by the way). we worked together for years at piedmont and now she works for one of my very good friends at Abbott. after catching up chez moi, we walked over to Ecco for dinner. and after finding out the wait for a table would be well over an hour, we were lucky and grabbed a table near the bar. the food was really good, this being my first time dining at ecco. we had the tuna crudo and mussels to start. they mussels came in a cream sauce with potatoes and leeks and were simply divine. (even better than the mussels at carroll street cafe). and we split the risotto with wild mushrooms. perfect. i love the atmosphere in ecco, it's warm and cozy and very romantic, and i was with the most beautiful woman in the place.

then it was off to Blake's to meet up with friends where it seems everyone was out to celebrate. the greats, the near-greats, and the junior league were all in attendance. even the drag queens (what? at Blake's?), which still make me very nervous. (is there something fundamentally wrong with a large black man dressed in a red feather dress doing a drag number to christmas songs? let's discuss). BJ and yoga Jason (who I must say complement each other so well) were set on getting me and Dori drunk. mission accomplished. thanks.

somehow we ended up at Wetbar (without taking the shuttle) where we were joined by the Mayor and Ty. and I was soon drinking water. you see, i had to work today unlike the other drunks in that place. dori and i left at a respectable hour, walking back to my place in the light rain and crashed. i woke up to diane hitting me on me on the head with one of those plastic fisher price mallets. i left her in bed for dori to entertain.

i'm really looking forward to a quiet weekend. i have presents to wrap (yes, i finished all of my christmas shopping yesterday in less than two hours). Beck-yay comes into town on Sunday and I am looking forward to dinner with her and Andy, her new boyfriend. looking for last minute stocking stuffers, I told mom I wanted a fleshlight. though i don't think you can buy them at home depot.

somewhere along in the bitterness

geez this week seems to be flying by, and i know exactly why. as usual, i haven't finished my christmas shopping. in fact, i think i have only purchased a total of two gifts. sometimes i think i set myself up for this stress, knowing that i do operate well under a short deadline. and the fact that I am on call this entire weekend is enough to make me get this job done by friday. we shall see.

all this and work is driving me crazy. if i have to hear one more person answer a question with a question i may just go postal. I am so sick of hearing "I don't care, I will do anything my team leader tells me." give me a break, are you not an adult and entitled to having an opinion for once in your life? my thoughts of a new job are heavy on my mind, and my mom keeps asking me what i want for christmas. (i finally told her to stop buying me clothes, as she tends to buy me things that my dad would wear. very nice and quite expensive, but I am 31 not 67 and I don't usually hang out at Opus 1. but maybe i should consider it?) so i thought of a perfect gift this year..... a new interview suit. and i am not talking one of those liquidated K&G ghetto suits, I want a nice one....from bloomingdale's.

so wish me luck as i battle the traffic tomorrow afternoon and throw myself into the thick of last minute shopppers desperate to find that perfect gift. But I have an advantage.....and it comes in the form of a list and a xanax.

It's not a problem, cause it was free....

Ms. USA, Tara Conner keeps her crown!!

and i would have stayed up with you all night

I really should have gone with the boys to High Hill Lodge this weekend. shouldawouldacoulda.

Friday night was a lot of fun. after a tiring 14 hour day at work, i made it home just in time to grab my headphones and CDs and head over to Midcity Cafe. and soon enough, the place was packed with over twenty of my friends there to support me. that means so much to me.

this time, Jefferson and i took turns at the decks, each spinning about 45 minutes. he has such an impeccable taste for music, and it really is cool to be able to spin alongside someone who shares such a passion for music. we complement each other.

now what i wasn't prepared for was the telephone conversation with tim on sunday morning. talk about making a 180 degree turn in a matter of two days. here i was thinking that we were having a good time, and to be honest, it has left me very confused. and i may never fully understand. i can only wonder why he would put so much effort and time into making plans with me, texting me, etc only to withdraw completely??

joel and brad's cocktail party saturday night was big fun. the bartender poured the strongest drinks (even when I asked several times for a "light skinny"). soon enough, people were trashed including an ER physician that was giving me the creeps. but it was fun to catch up with my ptown group. and damn if yoga jason didn't look his best!

the boyscout picked me up yesterday and we met bret, trey, and Holly for a late lunch at neighbors. the weather was so incredible that we felt the need to be outside.

cut to blake's.............another story for another day.

I'll Lick your ice cream, and you can lick my lollipop

if you are a fan of Thai food like myself, then you should check out Spoon. located on Marietta Street in west midtown, this relatively new restaurant offers affordable thai cuisine in a really cute and cozy setting.

for starters, the nam tok beef salad comes on a bed of cabbage and purple onion and is really good. last night, i had the pad kraprao with beef which was a safe choice as it wasn't too hot. (i learned last time that I am not really cut out for a 3 chili pepper entree, especially on a first date. sweating at the dinner table is not pretty). if you like spicy, try the spicy mixed seafood. it is excellent but very hot.

if you know anything about house music, then you have probably heard of Sandy Rivera. This Puerto Rican born DJ who now resides in New York began playing records at the young age of 13. Sandy cites his musical influences throughout the years to come from disco, rap, hip hop, soul and pure house music. He has even released records and remixes from several different dj guises including soul vision, the committee, and Kings of Tomorrow. His hit released under the latter name KOT called "Finally" featured Julie McKnight on the vocals and was definitely an Ibiza anthem back in 2001. I even own that classic track on vinyl.

This year, Sandy returns with a new track called "Lollipop" that is nothing short of pure fun. It has that perfect "sassy black girl beat", an element that johnbrown finds essential to getting down and dirty on the dancefloor. call it the "milkshake" of 2006 if you will.

check out a sample here.

when i was a young boy i tried to listen

there are few djs that can really impress me on a regular basis. but Kaskade is definitely one of them. and last night he surely didn't disappoint. we arrived around 11pm only to find out it was the annual Santa pub crawl, and you guessed it, it culminated at Eleven50. as i entered the club i was bombarded by nearly 150 overserved santas in full costume. it reminded me of a scene (or is it nightmare) from A Christmas Story. but as chris robyler remarked, "john, these people are not in it to win". and sure enough, an hour later, me and my posse of 30+ managed to run off the drunken Santas and we took over the dancefloor.

the opening dj, Rachel, was very good, though her mixing was spotty at times. however she did end with an excellent mix of Coldplay - white shadows.

shortly after midnight, Kaskade took over the decks and for two and a half hours he played a fantastic set. it was progressive, it was funky, it was house. and the man knows how to read a crowd. he would play harder and harder, then bring it right back up by throwing in one of his signature remixes such as "everything". his passion for music and love for dj'ing is apparent in his face and the energy that he exudes. This was my 4th time hearing him out and each time has been a unique experience.

I got to spend some quality time with Arjan, and i honestly think he enjoyed the show more than he expected to. :)

best music i have heard out this year without a doubt. Excellent Job Ryan!

Here is what i remember:


Kaskade - stars align
David guetta vs. the egg - donÂ’t let me go (walking away)
Kaskade - be still
Bob Sinclair - world, hold on
Chris lake - changes (dirty south remix)
Eric prydz - proper education
Pete heller - big love (original I think, pure classic!)
Depeche mode - I just canÂ’t get enough
Kaskade - steppin out
Kaskade - in this life
Kaskade - everything (kaskade's big room anthem)
Late night alumni - empty streets (kaskade remix i believe)
Fedde le grand - put your hands up for Detroit
The creeps - freaks (vandalism remix)
Roger sanchez - lost (d. Ramirez lost in rave mix)
Kaskade - itÂ’s you, itÂ’s me (ended the night with this track)
David morales - here I am (kaskade remix)
Aaron smith feat luvli - dancing
Michael gray - borderline
Supermode - tell me why
Milk & sugar - stay around for this
Kaskade - all you (played near the end, i suspect this will be the next single to be released)
Cicada - the things you say
Evermore - itÂ’s too late (dirty south remix)
Toby neal - do you want (my love)

you must not know 'bout me

well it's that time again. the annual Piedmont Hospital kraft bazaar. This year while perusing the endless line of tables of stuff, i counted 37 christmas sweaters. and i mean all kinds, from cardigans, to sweatshirts, to even jazzy little denim dresses complete with bedazzled santas. my how the ladies love to don the holiday sweaters this time of year. i really didn't find many things of interest, except for the butch lesbian with dental caries who was selling CD wallets made out of old license plates. there i was on my hands and knees looking through boxes for a CD wallet with PAULDING county on it. no luck. and i was going to give it to Eric for 'Critmas. i did enjoy her story of spending the entire day in a junk yard yanking these license plates off of old, broken down cars.

this weekend should be big fun. the toy party on sunday is always a great event, and it's nice to see all of gay atlanta come together for a good cause. especially since it provides an opportunity to show off your newest chemise (thanks johnbrown) and jeans from the Diesel corner at Universal Queer. and they were only marked up 20%. what a deal.

y'all be good and have a coke if you're thirsty.

rattle the cage, flicker the light

a wednesday-hump-day-list-of-things-on-my-mind:

*LG - and i'm not talking about the company that makes TVs. though life is good....
*tongue scrapers - an effective treatment for thrush or just simple chronic halitosis?
*the assistant - my what a Big, er, uhm. Tree, yes, Tree you have there. just beautiful
*Dr. Boulden - my future boyfriend, i mean, cosmetic dentist......should i ever need him... *it turns out they want to use some excerpts from my tired blog in a book to be published in Japan for students of contemporary English and American cultures. My only question: Do the Japanese people know Diane???

Is that a geiger counter? Noooo, it's an ionization chamber....

temperatures in the 70's in late November? only in atlanta.

Billy's party in Kirkwood on friday night was really fun. Johnbrown and erik picked me up and we headed to the hood. erik impatiently served as the back seat driver and navigation system all packaged into one. but we did manage to make it unscathed.

His house is really beautiful, but i found the mix of people at the party to be more interesting. a pair of 6'4" gay twins that i haven't seen in years (erik immediately latched onto one of them), a Paraguayan pediatric nurse, and a brazilian spin teacher at the piedmont hospital gym. can you say SAOP mission? the most interesting guest was a pierced guy who arrived carrying a gym bag claiming he was there to "spin". I immediately thought he was my competition, only imagining him whipping out one of those IPOD mixers and a pair of headphones. instead, he was there to spin fire in the backyard. different...yes.

Saturday night, Tim and I had dinner at Mitra. not realizing it was lesbian hour, i made reservations that really weren't needed. I had the seared ahi tuna over a bed of black rice risotto. and he had the organic chicken with asparagus. mmmm......asparagus.

the play over at actor's express, Based on a totally true story, was enjoyable, but definitely not my favorite. it's the story of a playwright and comic book writer who is approached by hollywood to turn his play into a movie. and as the lead character becomes more and more involved with this project, his relationship with his boyfriend suffers. in addition, he also had to deal with his relationship with his parents and their failing marriage. you can probably finish this story....

and then there was sunday. The "gay bike group" (bret, trey, john, kevin, and I) met up in piedmont park and we set off for a spectacular ride. perfect day for one in fact. through the va highlands, over to freedom park, on to kirkwood, and finally stopping for lunch and a few beers at the Universal Joint in Oakhurst. I came home, showered, and was in bed watching Brokeback Mountain at 7:30pm. Now that sounds respectable, don't it???

Caspercorn

the play that i attended last night has had me thinking about the relationships in my own life. more importantly, i often think about my relationship with my sister, and how it has evolved and continues to change every day. growing up, we really weren't that close. she is over five years older than i am, so we really didn't have common interests as kids. (though she did influence me musically so we did share that bond). and it really wasn't until i reached adulthood that the our relationship changed and we actually became friends. now, i can see how our relationship has changed once again. sure i wish we were close like we once were twelve years ago, but our live are very different now. the things that we both once enjoyed doing together are no longer the same. and that is simply something that i have learned to accept. much like my relationship with my parents and their understanding of my sexuality.

i came across an article that my sister wrote some twelve years ago, when she was a copy editor for the local newspaper down in macon, georgia. and it brings me to tears each time i read it.


October 11, 1994

LITTLE BROTHER GROWS UP

now that it's beginning to feel like autumn, i find myself thinking about school (just like i did every fall for 16 years). More recently, my thoughts focus more and more on my little brother.

Well, I don't suppose I should call John little any more - he's at least 6 feet tall and a brand new freshman at the University of Gerogia. That's really startling.

There's this image seared on my brain of my brother when he was about 7: short, skinny, complete with missing teeth, mussed up hair and a mischievous glint in his eyes. It's hard sometimes to reconcile the young college student and the little boy I grew up with.

Suddenly I understand the shocked expression on the faces of relatives I saw only once or twice a year as a child. I know things change and grow while I'm not there to witness it, but I find my self thinking: Are you REALLY you? When did this happen?

But even stranger than that emotion is the way our relationship has evolved in the past year or so. Somewhere during that time we've advanced from the adversarial big sister/little brother
connection to an actual friendship.

I can't pinpoint when it happened, just as I can't say exactly when my parents became my friends instead of authority figures.

John's five years younger than I. When we were little, it didn't make much difference. We'd both wake up early on Christmas morning, check our stockings, then wake up Mom and Dad before checking under the tree. We repeated that ritual every year until we both knew the truth about Santa Claus. We liked catching lightning bugs in the summer and making snow angels in the occasional Stone Mountain ice storms.

Both those five years were a considerable gap once I moved into adolescence and left him in childhood. We weren't affected by the same issues; we didn't have the same concerns. We lost much of our common ground.

Once I went off to college, it seemed like every time I came home John was a different person. He gained three inches on me during the summer of 1991.

I guess it was during his senior year of high school that he first began to confide in me more, and I in him. When I'd come home for a weekend, we'd go to the mall or rent a movie, just like we'd do with our respective friends.

This past spring or summer I'm nor sure, I was home and pining to shop at the new mall in Alpharetta. To my surprise, John, not my mom, was the willing companion. Not only that, he drove. He patiently served as critic. Then, after tolerating being dragged all over the mall, he insisted on treating me to cappuccino. And over the steaming cups we sat and really talked about school, his getting ready for college, about life in general.

It was a really significant moment: On one hand, I had been looking forward to that time for almost as long as I'd waited from him to get tall enough for me to raid his closed. I'd always admired the close friendships friends enjoyed with their siblings.

On the other hand, we were talking about growing up and moving apart and the occasional yearning for the carefree days of childhood. We were close then because we lived under the same roof.

But we're close now because we want to be. So, I think about him in Athens, hanging out at placed I told him to go, studying and worrying about college things. I remember my breathless time of standing on the threshold of adult life. Then I remember how quiet it was at home with my parents about a month ago, my only trip there since John's been away.

I haven't yet been to visit him and to see how he and his roommate have customized their dorm room. But I plan to go soon.

And I hope it's another step in the process of getting to know each other outside of family parameters. Because I realize that I didn't lose a "baby brother." I just gained a lifelong friend I never realized I had.