Pen and Ink

Lost and found.

My house has a black hole. As in those voids in space that draw in starships on Star Trek.

Usually it's the socks that everyone loses in the dryer. But the black hole in my house has been getting greedy.

It started a few months ago. You see, I have this special set of Uno cards that John gave me. They're Halloween-themed with images of the Peanuts characters. They even come in this decorative tin. We played them last spring when John's friend Hope was visiting. I remember the evening distinctly. Dinner at Galanga, and then Uno on my lanai.

That was the last I saw of the Uno cards. I searched and searched for them, to no avail. John got his knickers in a twist thinking that I intentionally lost them. I couldn't figure it out.  I even wondered if Hope snagged them. It was the first time I had met her and hey, she could be a klepto. But I really didn't think that was the case.

More recently, I've been missing a particular DVD. John and I were talking about Mormons a week or so ago and I asked if he had ever seen the film Latter Days. It's the sweet romance about the gay mormon who falls for the hot LA guy. With Jacqueline Bisset as a motherly restaurant owner.

He hadn't seen it, so we agreed we'd watch it when we got back to my place.

Do you think I could find it?  Nope. I searched high and low. Room after room, every place it could possibly be, and places that it couldn't realistically be.

Near the end of my search, I got lucky. The Halloween Uno cards re-appeared.

Now I need something else to go missing so I can have my Latter Days DVD back.

* * * * *

Ironically, I went looking for the Uno cards just now so I could take a picture for this posting. They're MIA again. However, we did take them to New England last weekend, so probably they're here, just misplaced at the moment.

If I could turn back time.

I don't know what it is, but the retail business has always fascinated me.

Years ago, I worked part-time for a retailer called Huckleberry Finn. It was a small chain in the mid-Atlantic states that sold furniture and home accessories. It was a job I took shortly after college until I could find my "real job."

Months after I left, the stores were sold off to another chain called Yield House, known for its pine furniture and home accessories. My manager from Huckleberry stayed on in the store when it converted to Yield House. She asked me to come back part-time. I had been spending my evenings sitting in my apartment doing nothing, so I agreed. (The job eventually came to feed my monthly trips to Boston before I finally moved there.)

The Yield House job proved critical to my plans to make my move to Boston. I went full-time and transferred to the company's flagship store in Braintree, Mass. Ultimately, I worked my way into management and at the time I left was a "floating manager," going from store to store to fill in when there was a void in management.

To this day, I still find the business fascinating. I love visual merchandising and how it can be used to move product. I still remember experiences when excellent customer service really paid off.  Whenever I see articles in the newspaper about any retail company, I read every word.

In short, if I could turn back time on my career, I'd probably go into retail management.

Back in 2001, during my first trip to Ogunquit, I found a store called Spoiled Rotten. Owned by a guy named Toby, it's located in an old New England home and filled with wonderful treats for the home. It's a wonderfully warm retail environment. It inspired me and my dream is to one day own a shop like it.

Last weekend I made my now-annual stop at Spoiled Rotten. John and I were snapping pics out in front of the store when Toby stopped by to say hi. (He even took the picture below.)  I told him how much I love his store and how it is an inspiration to hopefully do one of my own someday. His advice was this: you just have to bite the bullet and take the plunge.

Thanks for the inspiration Toby. May Spoiled Rotten be a success for years to come!

The last word.

As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is my final comment about my weekend in Boston and Ogunquit.

This is just wrong.

Once upon a time, many years ago, the South End of Boston was a run-down neighborhood of boarding houses and empty storefronts.

Then, like in so many urban neighborhoods, the gay boys moved in and cleaned it all up. Homes renovated, streets beautified, and empty storefronts filled with cafes, frou-frou home accessories, and stores filled with over-priced clothing designed to fit those of us with 30-inch waists.

Renaissance well underway, you could walk through the beautiful, tree-lined streets and see cute guys holding hands with other cute guys, or other cute guys walking their cute dogs. I used to work in the neighborhood, which was a lot of fun.

For better or worse, as it happens with so many neighborhoods, the renaissance continued. Cute guys with cute dogs were replaced with cute straight couples with baby strollers. The boys, alas, have moved into other parts of Boston.

This reality hit me when I walked into a restaurant men's room the other day. (Get your minds out of the gutter.)

One of my favorite places to eat was the Garden of Eden on Tremont Street. While looking for a pre-theater place to have dinner the other night, I was happy to see that Garden is still there. The five of us took our evening meal and at one point, I got up to use the men's room. 

That's when I was confronted with this:

A changing table? In the South End? This is just wrong.

Why can't renaissances just stop at some point?

The beauty of Maine, part two.

More of Ogunquit's beauty, both natural and man-made.

The beauty of Maine, part one.

I took these photos along Marginal Way in Ogunquit. My camera is a Kodak EasyShare C613. I bought it on a whim last weekend, but I'm so happy I did. This thing takes amazing pictures.

Do, a deer.

After dinner we ended up at an Ogunquit institution. The Front Porch.

This place is a theater queen's dream. A great piano player/singer and a whole room full of gay men and straight women singing their hearts out.

Being there with the bf, of course, is fun. As a singer/performer/voice teacher, he bristles at some of the people trying a little too hard. There was one guy at the piano last night driving him particularly crazy. Every now and then I'd feel John's grip on my arm get a lot tighter. I knew that some sound entered his ears and, like fingernails on the black board, it drove him crazy.

But still, it was a lot of fun. Our whole group from Boston (and South Florida) was together, which was wonderful.

This morning, though, the results are showing. As I write this we're sitting around the living room with people in various states of recovery from drinking too much. I had three cocktails throughout the evening, but rather than making me drunk, they just made me sleepy. So I'm pretty well rested.

The others? We won't go there.

Images of New England.

Since Rick from Bandit Talks asked for some Boston pics, here's a bunch.

Harvard University.

Glenn and Drew at dinner at the Garden of Eden in Boston's South End.

Jose and Chris, upon Jose's arrival at Moon Over Maine and taken just moments before posting.

Reunions.

Our first day in Boston was just wonderful.  The weather was perfect at about 80 degrees, sunny, breezy. Just splendid.

Waiting with Cary for the Commuter Rail train to take us into Boston.

We started the day prowling around Harvard Square. John and Cary had never been there. Having a 23-year relationship with Boston and surrounding communities, I reflected on the changes in Harvard Square over the years. I was dismayed to see boarded up the former Greenhouse restaurant, right next to the Harvard Coop. It was in that restaurant more than 20 years ago that Martin and I started a conversation that ultimately ended up with both of us coming out to each other.  Oh, such history.

One of the first highlights of the day, though, was a lunch visit with my friends Martha and Jurgen. I had not seen them since I moved nearly five years ago.

I've known Martha and Jurgen for about ten years when I became involved with Martha's then-nacent dance company, Snappy Dance Theater. I did some volunteer work for them, eventually joining the board. They're wonderful people and it was a treat to see them.

After lunch we dropped John off at MIT for a visit with his friend Mia. Cary and I continued on into Boston. We strolled through Back Bay, sat for a bit in Copley Square, and then wandered through Copley Place and the Prudential Center Mall. It was while I was waiting for Cary outside Saks that I remembered that my friend and former colleague Nan worked in the Pru Center. She and I worked together for Fenway Community Health, the gay and lesbian health center in Boston. So I called and got her voice mail.

A few minutes later she called back, all excited.

"Where are you??"

"Right downstairs in the garden area. Get down here."

"I'll be right there."

When she arrived she told me that Pam, another of our colleagues, was running over from the main building of the health center. She got there a couple minutes later.

It was a wonderful, brief reunion. We only got to catch up for a few minutes, but it was wonderful. We hadn't seen each other in years.

The day ended with a performance of Zanna Don't. I'll talk about that in a later post.

Off we go.

I'm back. The weekend was crazy too, so I didn't get to write as promised.

As I write I'm sitting at Fort Lauderdale airport awaiting our flight to Boston. John, Cary and I are all here and excited.

Going to Boston, for me, is going home. We're staying with Chris and Drew. Tonight, Chris is making a dinner party in my honor with lots of friends coming by -- Jim and Dana, Sean and Walter, Michael (sans Martin, who is working, and, I'm told, none too pleased about it) and Ara. It will be a fun evening.

Over the weekend I bought a new digital camera as a treat to myself, so I'm going to take lots of pictures and will post them throughout the weekend.

This is gonna be a great trip!