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OK, before getting into the main tale, I have to point out one of the TV channels on my cable system that I just noticed tonight:



hee hee hee Don't we all wish we could get a cute Filipino on demand, whenever we wanted one? Ah, but I digress...

Anyway, I did another photo shoot Saturday night. This one was with my friend Vu, the guy behind the Asian calendar. He likes to do shoots for his friends so they have lots of fun photos for their various blogs/Facebook/Fridae/MySpace profiles, and really, for any other purpose they have. We decided to try butch/military (do you love my Royal Thai Army t-shirt?), classy, and edgy. Which one do you like best?









By the time he was done with the raw shots and the PhotoShopped ones, he had over 200 pics for me. I'm going to have some fun with them!

Labels: Friends, Stuff, Website

While Scott and I were checking out CB2 in SoHo the other night we came across Clothespin Chopsticks, which are one of the oddest inventions I've seen in a while.


These are wonderful. Perfect for people who aren't very good with chopsticks. I always thought I was pretty good until I visited Singapore and my friends would give me a fork after a few minutes.


We didn't get any, but Sunday when I visited Pearl River Mart I saw them, and since it's a store filled with real Chinese stuff I figured that meant it was OK.


Scott loved them. And since he's part Chinese that further validated the OK-ness of it all. So I got him a couple of them and gave them to him when we were out for dim sum and he was having a little trouble with some spring rolls.

Labels: Friends

I spent this past weekend in New York, one of my favorite cities anywhere. For fun -- and to save money -- I took one of the Chinatown buses, going from DC Chinatown to NYC Chinatown. Kinda like my bus trip 2 weeks ago, it was...interesting. After we'd made a stop in another city I didn't expect, and as I listened to the stupid college girl sitting in front of me talk about nothing for a few hours and to the driver screaming into his cell phone (in Chinese, of course) I just kept telling myself "this is a lot cheaper than the train, this is a lot cheaper than the train..." In any case, it left me with extra money to buy gifts if I wanted to.

I went up to see my friend Scott (aka Scooter, who is going to be upset with me about one of the photos on his page, and I'll change it, I swear!), a Filipino-Chinese friend from Canada who now lives in New York...could you follow all of that? I met Scott online 8 years ago through his blog and we've been good friends ever since, but the last time I saw Scott was here in DC last May just before I went to Afghanistan. He and I had a lot of catching up to do, and we haven't had any one-on-one time with just the two of us in almost 6 years, so I was glad we were able to talk. We went dancing Friday night after I got in, heading out to The Web (of course I'm going to go there!) and it was Scooter's first time. We got there around 1 and ran into Paul and Son, two of my friends from here who were also spending the weekend in New York. Scott and I danced a lot and drank a bit and stuffed a few dollar bills into go-go boys' pants (well, OK, I did that) and basically stayed until after 4am when they looked ready to close down. I had a cute Japanese guy flirt with me but he was VERY drunk, and I was afraid he might throw up on me.

Saturday I got up after 5 hours of sleep and took the train to Scott's neighborhood in Jersey City, about a 15-minute train ride across the river. He has a great apartment with a deck and a view of the city. We had a long brunch at a nearby French place that is BYOB...you bring your bottle and they will mix your drinks, so we got a bottle of champagne and ordered orange juice and had mimosas. A LOT of mimosas. After wards we hung out at his place for a couple hours, waiting for the champagne to wear off, then headed back into the city. We hot some shops in SoHo and yes, I got clothes at Uniqlo (new pants that make my ass look good and were on sale...VELVET pants!) and Scott got a nice sweater. We also visited CB2, a spinoff of Crate and Barrel, and fantasized about home furnishings. We went out for sushi later and ate way too much! We had been out really late Friday night, so Saturday night I was tired, and I think Scott was dragging a bit, though he seemed more alive than I. We decided to call it an early night, and I was back to my hotel by 11:30. I laid down to take a nap for an hour and then think about going out dancing, but when the alarm went off an hour later all I did was reset it and go back to sleep!

I got up Sunday, with about 8 hours sleep so feeling much better, and did some walking around town, but it was COLD, it was below freezing, and the wind was blowing...brrrr. I visited a leather store in the Village (and I don't mean leather jackets!) and I went to a store called Pearl River Market that is full of Chinese stuff. Scott met me at his favorite dim sum restaurant (yay for Dim Sum GoGo...but there were no go-go boys) and we had a very nice meal, then we had about 3 hours left before my bus home which was not enough time to do much, and we didn't want to walk around outside, so we just found a café and had coffee and talked...we talked SO MUCH this weekend, and it felt really good. Anyway, i caught my bus home, and despite the driver taking a smoke break while fueling the bus (!) we got home OK, in only about 5 hours (for what is normally a 4-hour trip).

Whenever I go there I think about my friend Eddie's (in Malaysia) parents. They've have been living in the US for 12 years, in NYC Chinatown. I often go to Chinatown, like when we went for dim sum, and I always wonder...am I sitting at a table next to them? I mean, it could happen, and I wouldn't even know it. I always feel like maybe I should check on them for him, but I don't know what I would say. "Hi, Mister and Missus Chen, your son is really cute," yeah, THAT would go over well. But it would be fun to tell them about what an amazing guy he is, how he is so smart and so nice, how he has grown into a wonderful young man they can be very proud of. Maybe I should just walk around Chinatown showing people his picture and say "are you his parents?"

So, it was a good weekend. I'm not sure I want to live there...I'd have to be making a lot more than I am now to have a fun life like I'd like to have...I can do more as an occasional visitor than I can as a permanent resident, I think. But regardless of how much time I spend there, I'll always enjoy it.

Labels: Bars, Friends, Travel

I was going to write about this weekend's trip to New York but I'm just too excited about this.

We'll talk about New York tomorrow.

Labels: Life

So far, 42 is a good age.

So Sunday, we first went to a big art gallery downtown where there were 2 photo exhibits: Ansel Adams and Annie Leibovitz. That was very cool, I've seen Leibovitz's work before but many of these photos were first-timers for me, especially some more personal photos of her family. She had her first baby when she was 51 and twins three years later...wow!

Sunday night we went out to a nice dinner at a French/Belgian restaurant downtown. They have an amazing menu; I had lobster bisque, grilled shrimp, boudin blanc, and kiwi sorbet (if i was KL William instead of DC William, I would have photos of each of these). Adrian also had the bisque, scallops, venison, and frangellico mousse. It was all extraordinarily yummy, and the service was fantastic. We were each planning to have a glass of wine - Adrian red, me white -- and the waiter opened two bottles for each of us so we could try them and choose. I've never been to another restaurant that will open multiple bottles for people drinking only by the glass. A great time, and I definitely want to go back.

We were going to the Kennedy center to see a play afterwards, and they had a nice deal...as soon as we were done there was a car waiting for us to take us to the theater, a nice Mercedes. After the show the driver was back to pick us up...kinda nice when everyone else was in line for a taxi or a bus and we simply had our driver pull up, jump out, and open our doors, and off we went.

The play we saw was My Fair Lady, which each of us really likes for different reasons. Adrian is into it because Audrey Hepburn is his favorite actress and the movie version of this was one of her biggest films. As for me, well, when I was 13 I was in the pit orchestra for a high school production of this show, and I've always enjoyed it. We saw a high school show when we lived here before and Adrian thought it would be nice to see a version that didn't use cardboard boxes for the set. The show was great...Adrian had gotten us seats in the fourth or fifth row and the actors were really great, the sets beautiful (no cardboard boxes) and the drummer in the orchestra was ALMOST as good as I was nearly 30 years ago.

So yeah, being 42 has been OK. But every Sunday night probably won't be that great. Thanks, Adrian!

Labels: Friends, Life

We went to a photo exhibit this afternoon, to a fabulous dinner tonight, and then headed to the Kennedy Center for a play. A great time was had but I am too freakin' tired to blog right now, so off to bed with more to follow Monday.

To all who sent e-mails, Facebook notes, SMS...thank you!!! Many of those came from overseas, so they started even before it was officially my birthday here! Special thanks to Eddie in Malaysia, Tracy in California, Paul in New York, and Ethan here at home who all called...thank you, boys!!!

And now to bed. After all, I'm 42...I need at least 5 hours of sleep a night.

Labels: Age, Friends, Life

All right, before I get into this story, a quick tale from last night...

So I go to a club and the guy checking IDs looks at me a couple times and says, "No way can you be this old." And I said yeah, I am, and in fact, "in two days I'll be even older."

A reference to my birthday, naturally. But of course, in two days, we'll ALL be older. By two days.

I'm stupid sometimes.

Anyway, this week I did some modeling. There's a photographer from Minneapolis whom I'd talked with last year after seeing some of his work. He had me send him some photos and then told me he'd like to use me as a model sometime...he travels a lot and had been in DC just a couple weeks earlier and thought he'd be back in 2008, so he said we could do it here or I could come to Minneapolis where he has his full studio. I thought about doing that, but as it turned out he had a last minute trip here this week and called to see if I'd be available. For that, I'm definitely available.

Anyway, he had me bring a bunch of different outfits (I had a backpack full!) and accessories and such. Some of the pics were thoughtful and serene, others were sexy, all of them were fun. We shot for about 2 hours and I saw some of the photos afterwards...nice! He will do some editing on them, working with PhotoShop or something more advanced, and I can't wait to see the final products! I know he won't use very many of them and I'm curious to see what he picks.

This is the first time anyone's asked me to do this. A year ago I don't think it would have happened...in fact, I would never have even considered it. I was pretty unhappy with my body and would not have exposed it to a camera. So yes, I'm very excited! It makes me feel good to have someone else think he can use me and show me and make something that people want to see.

A friend of mine is doing a shoot with me in a couple weeks, the same friend who did the Asian men calendar for this year. But that's a little different, he knows me...this was out of the blue, someone whom I'd never met.

A note to all my photographer friends: I am ALWAYS available to you (well, when we're in the same country) for something like this if you ever need a model or want to practice with one!

Labels: Age, Bars, Stuff

Yesterday at lunch I went running and was changing clothes in the gym afterwards when I ran into one of my bosses (one of the good ones). As I was walking to the shower he said, "oh, hey, that was a great report you sent me last night, thanks very much. Nice work!"

As I say, I was walking to the shower. Which means I was naked.

I've never in 41 years (42 as of this coming Sunday) gotten a compliment while naked before.

Well, not a work-related one, anyway.

Labels: Work

So yeah, I'm about 2 steps away from having an eating disorder. Tonight I came a little too close to that, getting a taste of what it would be like. And it wouldn't be pretty. So I think I'll back away from it slowly. And by "slowly," I mean "quickly." It's ridiculous to think that a 41-year old (42 as of this coming Sunday) man would have an eating disorder. of course, no one should have one, but for someone like me it seems particularly ludicrous. Of course, when you qualify that by saying a 41-year old (42 as of this coming Sunday) GAY man, then it becomes a little easier to understand, though still not a good thing. Fortunately, as I say, I've recognized the warning signs and will now go eat a cookie.

On the plus side, I saw Charlie Wilson's War tonight, a very good film with a somewhat sobering ending. I did not have flashbacks to Afghanistan when I saw it, which is good, but I got a little uneasy during the preview for Stop-Loss, which is about Iraq. I probably wouldn't freak out, though, which is good, as there are some actors in there I'd like to see. But I'm still not thrilled about seeing an Iraq war film yet. I've avoided all the others so far.

Labels: Life, Stuff

When I first heard about it last year I was hoping to see Cyrano de Bergerac on Broadway, starring Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner. Sounded cool...it's a cute story, seeing Jennifer Garner on stage would be very different from seeing her as Sidney Bristow on Alias, and Kevin Kline is one of my favorite actors. So yeah!

But I couldn't get to New York in time. Alas. And then last week I saw an ad and realized they'd extended the show until January 6th due to the Broadway strike. Hmmmmm...

I came up with a plan to go up and back without needing a hotel room, but that didn't work so well. Instead, following some suggestions from Adrian, I had a new idea...

The new plan was to take a bus to New York Friday night, go dancing with my friend Paul, stay at a nearby hotel, meet him for breakfast Saturday morning, then I'd go see the play in the afternoon and take the train home, getting back in time to go dancing back here in DC.

Friday night I took a bus to New York and got to my hotel around 10pm. I called Paul and we made plans to meet at The Web, a club I like. We met up and had a really good time...Paul's not really a club guy but I think he enjoyed it. I had a cute guy hitting on me on the dance floor, and that's always fun. And the go-go boys are always friendly (note to the SE Asia crowd: these are NOT the same as go-go boys in BKK -- no "offing" :P)

I headed back to my hotel around 2:30 and while in the cab saw a text from a DC friend named Hai who was also in New York. I texted back and he called me...he'd come up to see a friend but some drama had developed and he was asking me about finding a place to stay the next night. I asked if he felt OK staying where he was tonight, 'cuz he sounded pretty stressed. He said he really could use another place this night too and I suggested he come crash at my hotel. He was going to be awhile so I napped for an hour and about 4:30am he showed up. We got him settled into the room, after a quick trip to a nearby drug store to pick up some makeup (!), and then we sat up and talked. Until 8am. And I had to get up at 9:30. Uh oh.

So after an hour and a half I was up again and made it to breakfast with Paul...and discovered the restaurant wasn't open yet. Oh well, not a huge deal, and once it opened, Food Bar was as good as always. We had a nice time, and a nice chat, and a nice (and cute!) waiter. And mimosas.

We cabbed back to the hotel and Paul met Hai while I got my stuff together to check out. Hai and I left our bags with the front desk...he had decided to go back that night rather than trying to find another place to stay, and was going to kick around town (it was his first visit) and do some shopping while I was at the play. Paul walked to the theater with me and we chatted some more until it was time for me to go in. Thanks Paul!!

The play was GREAT and I'm so happy I went up for it. Kevin Kline is a really good actor and he really made the part his own...Steve Martin played the role in the movie Roxanne but really, seeing it on stage is so much better. And Jennifer Garner really can act without flying kicks and red wigs...who knew? It was a lot of fun, I laughed so hard (but only at the right times, of course).

No chance to meet the actors afterwards...there was a big crowd, plus I had an hour to make my train...and anyway, they didn't come out during the 20 minutes I waited. So I hustled back the 5 blocks (short blocks, not long blocks, fortunately) to the hotel and grabbed our bags...and waited for Hai. He was taking a bus, not the train, and the bus was leaving from near Penn Station about 5 minutes before my train was to leave. He showed up and we managed to find a cab and make our way through post-show traffic. We got him to his bus stop 10 minutes before he was scheduled to leave, which was cool...but that was when I realized we weren't as close to Penn Station as I thought. I was going to have to run 4 blocks (long blocks, not short blocks this time) with my bag to make it. So I ran, probably scaring a few people but hey, I needed to make my train. I made it to the station a few minutes before I was scheduled to leave.

And found the train was delayed 35 minutes. Naturally.

So I got aboard and we headed south for the 3 1/2 hour trip back to DC. Once there I would have to take the Metro home, change clothes, then head out. Since I was supposed to be meeting people, and was running late, I arranged for Adrian and my friend Stan to meet me at a Metro stop. Adrian would bring me a shirt, I had my toiletries kit so I could shave in a restroom at the train station...I got a few strange looks from the homeless people but hey, ya gotta look good at the club.

We all met up at the Metro stop, I changed shirts in the outdoor parking lot where it was below freezing, and off we went. Sadly, I was so tired I left my ATM card in a cash machine, something I didn't realize until Sunday. But no big deal, I cancelled it and a new one is on the way. Anyway, we had a fun time, lots of friends were out and much fun was had. We headed home around 2:30 and by 3:30am I was in bed.

In the previous 45 hours I'd had 2 1/2 hours of sleep. So I was a little out of it.

So, a small adventure. But definitely a fun one. And while I was there I saw ads for two more plays I want to see...

Labels: Friends, Travel

A quick adventure but a fun one. Got back Saturday night but wasn't quite done, and now I am too tired to keep my eyes open and type some more. But tomorrow night, tales will follow.

hee hee I like New York!

Labels: Travel

Adrian brought me flowers Wednesday and apologized for the way New Year's Eve went. He said that wasn't the way he wanted to start 2008. I appreciated that he acknowledged he made some mistakes. And the flowers smell very nice.

I'm on a small adventure tonight. Not quite as crazy as I first thought. But crazy enough. And sure to be fun! Details to follow.

Labels: Relationships

We headed off to a potluck at a friend's, planning to eat, drink, and be merry, countdown to midnight, then head out to a dance club. Adrian didn't read the invite very carefully, though, so in addition to inviting a friend at the last minute to the potluck, he invited one of his straight clients to meet us at the club at 11pm. While I wasn't in the mood to leave the dinner early, I realized this guy lived 40 miles away and was coming up there just to meet us (or so I thought...turns out he met other friends first) and would be a straight boy alone in a gay club for the first time. Not good. Anyway, Adrian didn't pay attention to the time, so we ended up not leaving the dinner until about 11:15pm...unfortunate, considering we had to drive to the Metro, take the train into the city, then walk a couple blocks to the club. And when we got there -- despite having called in advance and being told they were still letting people in -- it seems that during our 45 minutes of travel the club had reached its capacity and they weren't letting anyone else inside. Adrian not having his client's mobile number, we turned and headed back to another bar a block away, arriving outside the bar as the clock struck midnight, watching the revelers inside through the windows.

Fortunately, soon after getting inside Adrian's client sent him a text...turns out he was also late and couldn't get inside either. Adrian found him and brought him back with us, and the four of us -- me, Adrian, his client, and his last-minute-invite friend -- hung out for an hour and a half until it was time to catch the last train home. It's unfortunate that instead of just getting to spend the evening with my friends, I spent them it with one of Adrian's clients and one of his friends, and at midnight I was on the outside looking in while others had fun. I have felt very disconnected from friends in the past few years, and my friendships here have taken a beating in the last 16 months. That ends in 2008. Watch and see.

(ps: who called me on New Year's Eve, right around midnight KL/SG/HK time? I had a bad signal and tried to move to a better spot but lost the call, and the number didn't register on my new phone, which doesn't have all my numbers loaded yet, so I couldn't call back)

Labels: Bars, Friends, Stuff