I Began To Speak

Let me set the scene for you. 

There is an empty theater, in a country in which I do not speak the language. I am up on stage. The only light comes from the spotlight up the balcony.  I stand there. Ready to speak. Feeling vulnerable, anxious and excited all at the same time. My thoughts are swimming around in my head like a school of fish looking for the current to get upstream. Slowly I approach the microphone. Taking a long deep breath in I close my eyes. 

.....

Sometime last week I found myself thinking about holiday traditions. Wondering what plans (if any) my family had made for Christmas. As I let my thoughts wander off into space, a little voice in my head led me back here. Where pretty consistently for years I would share my life with anyone who took the time to visit. I stared at the screen for a little while before I began to write. Then the phone rang, another e-mail came through, and I got distracted with the everyday minutia. The page remained open, not willing to let myself forget about this space. 

The tab sat open on the screen for days before I looked at it again. Pangs of nostalgia began to surface and I found myself longing for answers on how members of our community were doing. Well, this is as good a time as any and down the Rabbit Hole I went.

Where to start. Without the help of my trusted google reader, I spent some time going through the links page. This led me to other pages with more links and more links and so on and well you get the picture. Some of bloggers are still posting regularly; Continuing to chronicle life events such as marriage, babies, loss of loved ones and growing older. Most have stopped writing completely. Some links are broken. Some work but have been abandoned, forgotten. It's a weird feeling when you stumble across a blog that has not been updated in a long time. It's almost as if I unearthed a time capsule and I sit here slowly examining it's contents. As you can imagine can be somewhat familiar at times but mostly foggy. I wonder if anyone is thinking the same if they visit here.

Years of my life are chronicled within the archives of this site.  So many people took this journey with me. I am forever grateful for this space which allowed me to create wonderful relationships with people who I still speak to and hear from often.  With the help of social media, I have continued to foster these relationships. 

I'm just going to say it.... I miss this community. This place where I felt safe sharing my thoughts, my daily struggles and successes. I miss laughing with you, crying with you, being angry when you needed me to be angry. There is something strangely satisfying about sharing your lives with others. It's been over two years since I've written. Much like many of the blogs I found, this one has been abandoned, forgotten. The thoughts that lie in the archives feel like those in a time capsule. Lying still waiting to be unearthed. But by whom? 

So.

Here I am. Standing up in front of the empty theater. I approach the microphone. Taking a long deep breath in I close my eyes. 

Opening them, I begin to speak. 

Huh?

OOOH LAST WEEK!!!!
WHERE ARE YOU?
OLLY OLLY OXEN FREEEEEEE!!!!

What day is it?
Oh, Tuesday.
Grand.


I don't know what's going on, but I do not remember a thing that has happened since the last time I posted.

Although I do believe that Mother Nature got my note because it's definitely fall outside.
And guess who is totally not dressed appropriately today?
Yep.

Okay, I leave you with a funny conversation between me and Ari from earlier today.
(Background info: My mother is italian and my father is jewish- therefore in college people called me pizza bagel... which then turned into bagel bites and has now become hot pocket)

me: i just panicked bc the place i would love to get married at in boston is closing in nov 08but then i saw how expensive it was

so im fine
Ari: are you getting married between now and november 2008

that came out of nowhere and i entirely missed it

me: oh no

well not that i planned to

but the place that i love love is getting sold

10:54 AM Ari: what is it

10:57 AM me: http://www.gamblemansion.org/gambleframe.html

11:00 AM but actually the more i look at it the less i like it lol

Ari: its a nice lookin place

me: eh

11:01 AM

it seems to classy for me

Ari: hahaa

me: i just dont know what my style would ever be

Ari: it would be a pizza bagel theme

11:02 AM me: ok

explain

11:03 AM Ari: yummy food

the hora

chair thing

me: um

Ari: good wine

opera music

me: i dont think were doing the hora at my wedding

11:04 AM

youre crazy

Ari: tim would buy in

and then communion

me: buy in?

11:05 AM like in poker?

Ari: he'd be big blind

11:06 AM you can be little

and i get to see my cards before i bet

me: uh ok

when would all this happen?

11:08 AM Ari: thats up to you

but i would avoid passover

New Job... Same old...

Hello out there Internet.
Or any of you still reading.

Mea Culpa.
Mea maxima culpa.

I cannot tell you enough how sorry I am that I haven't been updating regularly.
But you know what. I've been busy over here in Beantown.


It took a week, but I finally have my office and computer set up.
Let me tell you how much of a nightmare that was.

Okay, well just checking in.

Read this for your enjoyment.
It made me laugh.
c/o The Onion

This Gap Sweater Is Fucking Awesome
By Garrett Alford August 22, 2007 Issue 43•34

So, I'm in the Gap, right? The new fall line is out, and I'm looking at the standard fit, straight-leg jeans. And these fuckers are just awesome. They sit real nice just below the waist, are slightly loose through the leg, and come in four stellar washes—even though as far as I'm concerned, the lighter washes are complete bullshit, but whatever. We'll save that for another time.
Now, I'm not going to say there was anything supernatural involved, but all of a sudden it was like the clouds parted and the angels started trumpeting hallelujah or something and my eyes just slammed in the direction of a mannequin wearing the sweetest fucking navy blue V-neck sweater I have ever seen.

Talk about a perfect goddamn sweater. I may have been 20 feet away from the display, but I was already thinking about how I would wear that fucker. Would I go classic Garrett Alford and wear a white T-shirt underneath, or would I maybe get a little crazy, wait for the perfect fall day, and bust out my plaid shorts? Sweater with shorts. Pretty awesome, right? Most people would balk at such a combination, but I wasn't fucking around. And with its unbelievably versatile wool polyblend, dry-clean-only material, the sweater wasn't fucking around, either—especially not at $39.95.

You gotta love the Gap. Got to!

At first I played it cool, as if the sweater were just some stupid fucking American Eagle T-shirt. But when the sales associate told me he didn't have my size in the back, I seriously almost flipped my shit. I should have seen this coming because—and I'm not trying to brag or anything—I wear medium, which is a pretty popular size. So I went to check the mannequin, and, lo and behold, the son of a bitch was wearing a medium. But he wasn't just wearing the sweater. He was doing everything right with that sweater. Everything. It was as if the mannequin intrinsically knew all the nuances of how the sweater should be worn and understood on a deeper level exactly why I would be attracted to that particular garment. What became completely fucking undeniable at that moment was that the sweater worked on two levels. I'll say it again: two levels.

Let me explain.

The mannequin had on a pair of jeans with a couple small rips in the denim, and a button-down white shirt that wasn't tucked in. Now, you see these two pieces of clothing on their own and you think, "This guy's a dickhead." But throw in that navy blue V-neck, and suddenly we got an interesting fucking dichotomy going on. Did this guy wake up, throw on some clothes, and just happen to look awesome? Or—or—is he about to go out to a bar and be the envy of everyone who is too dressed up or not dressed up enough? Either way, the guy's golden. He cares, but he doesn't. Two levels.

But as good as the mannequin was, he could never figure out how to amp up those two levels enough to take that sweater to the max. That's where I come in like a fucking freight train. See, even though I am in no way gay, I knew the sweater had the potential to make me look handsome: By tucking in the shirt and adding a tie, I become this suave gentleman who your parents are going to lose their shit over. Or, I go the complete opposite direction by wearing tennis shoes and a baseball cap, and keeping the cuffs of the collared shirt unbuttoned, in plain view, so everyone can see that I'm a guy who doesn't give a flying fuck if his cuffs are buttoned or not.

Understand? We have here an entire look, a fully formed lifestyle, flowing directly from that navy blue V-neck sweater.

I asked the Gap employee if I could have the mannequin's sweater. Though he insisted it was against store policy, he listened to all the things I wanted to do with the sweater, and how I needed it for a date I was going on later that night. He must have really appreciated my passion because he pissed all over that store policy and let me buy it. Of course, I didn't really have a date, but now that I've got this sweater, I'm sure it won't be long. That's a fucking guarantee.