From Charlie Adams (Charles J. Adams III, who for 28 years, until his retirement in 2013, hosted the popular morning radio show “Charlie & Company” on WEEU in Reading), photos from the Murals Corridor (mostly Cherry St.) in West Reading, passed on to me on Facebook by Eleanor (Severin) Houck (my first cousin, daughter of Bertha Zwicky Severin). Two from the set:
(#1) “Wake Up”, 410 Cherry St.
(#2) “Clique”, 416 Cherry St.
Some of the principal ingredients for chocolate torrone — for some years when Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky was a child, the standard dessert for her birthday, which is coming up next month. Then yesterday, under the header “Chocolate Torrone”, this innocent question from EDZ:
I don’t suppose you remember what cookbook the torrone I used to have for my birthday was in?
I didn’t, and it took me many hours of searching to discover the answer and find the actual, enormously detailed, recipe (which I will reproduce below); as a bonus, I unearthed an account of the very first time EDZ’s mother Ann made a chocolate torrone, back in 1970. (So: a moment of sweet nostalgia to go along with memories of delicious food.)
Reflection 1: fury at the roof rats that have taken up residence on my patio and are now devastating the plants there.
Reflection 2: a recent Economist story about Cambodian farmers trapping rats to sell for food in Vietnam.
(Some may see a possible thematic connection between the two reflections.)
Every year, an emotionally difficult time of the year: Ann Daingerfield Zwicky’s death day is 1/17 (this year a Sunday, today), and my man Jacques Transue’s birthday is 1/22 (a Friday this year). When Ann died, in January 1985, it was in fact extraordinarily cold and bleak in Columbus OH; and then of course Jacques’s birthday was pretty much swallowed up by the aftermaths of Ann’s death (including a memorial service at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, on the Ohio State campus).
This year, I’m in Palo Alto CA, where midwinter is normally wet and cool (though not truly cold), but also green and graced by many winter-blooming flowers. In fact, this year it’s unseasonably dry and what counts as warm for winter here (high temperatures near 70 F., at least for a while), so the edge has been somewhat taken off my midwinter funk over my lost loves.
Into the midst of this have come some touching photos of J in his later years, as he was sliding towards death (which finally came in 2003) — a contrast to the photos of him that I’ve been posting here recently, photos of a strong, vital, handsome younger J.
(About men’s bodies and about sexual peasure, so not suitable for kids or the sexually modest. Meanwhile, more chapters in the story of my sexual life; and, again, that might not be for everybody.)
As for packages, this is specifically about the male genital package, as playfully represented (metaphorically) by the banana and eggs in these little Spanish lessons (from my long-ago collage-making days):
(#1) The metaphorical penis
(#2) The metaphorical testicles
My banana and my eggs, they comfort me. In fact, they do, and that’s the first thing I’m going to talk about. The second thing is that if you’re an old guy, nobody wants to hear anything about this, it’s just embarrassing — but I’m going to push against that attitude.
(And I note that though I’m talking here from a male perspective, the two main points apply as well, with some adjustments in details, to women.)
Yesterday (1/8) afternoon I had a video appointment with my family doctor, Peter Ro, mostly filled with news of improvements in my condition, but also with plans for the future, many of which we decided to put off, on the grounds that at the moment, the most important thing was to keep me away from other people (since they all represent covid-19 threats to me).
This posting is mostly going to look back to my previous video appointment with Dr. Ro (on Friday 12/18/20) and a set of concerns over sleep.
But first some notes on my coping with life at the moment, which I’m managing with some insouciance despite my extreme isolation — face-to-face interaction almost entirely with just one person, my caregiver Kim Darnell (though in recent weeks I’ve gotten some visits from my daughter in place of Kim).
My favorite in this series so far, because it presents me as not only sweet and fuzzy but also as contemplative (if you know me, you know that I am not only a very playful nice guy, but I am also deeply serious about what I see as my work and almost relentlessly analytic, about pretty much everything):
(#1) Once again, I have no idea about when this photo was taken or by whom; the shirt, with its horizontal stripes of charcoal and purple, turns out to have some history, however
I continue to find Nice Guy photos of me projecting a sweet and fuzzy persona; apparently, lots of people I know find this presentation of self attractive (and have done so for at least 20 years). They have a point.
Here’s the latest, me at the Ramona St. condo:
(#1) Photographer not known; and date not known, but it was before the diningroom table (in the top center) became my work table and the desk (on the right) became a storage surface
This image of me is very much like #1 from my 1/5/21 posting “More sweet and fuzzy” (from 2001), but with a head tilt. Both differ from the image in my 1/3/21 posting “Sweet and fuzzy, from 2006” (the first in the series).
(Warning: sex between men, described in vivid detail, so entirely unsuitable for kids and the sexually modest.)
Earlier in the day I described in my 1/5/21 posting “Superbowl Sunday” — a report from the San Jose gay baths on Superbowl Sunday 1996 — there was a brief interlude in which a group of buddies turned up to get off together (well, in each other’s presence) before the game. The event was a form of male bonding for the guys, and also (since they were guys) a form of friendly competition, about who could get hard first and who would come first. (Apparently, such celebrations are, or at least were, not uncommon before big football games. Since I was, and am, both a sports idiot and also signally un-straight, it was all a surprise to me.)
Another Nice Guy photo of me from Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky’s stash:
(#1) The origin of this photo is currently unknown — but note that it was taken in a public place — an eating place? — with other people visible in the background
This for comparison to this 1/3 sweet and fuzzy photo from 2006:
(#2)
