Robert took me to this party tonight.

But on the way, we stopped at Borders Books so I could buy some presents for my team members. They deserved something really good, because we are doing really good sales. (Actually, extraordinary sales!) And they have been working really hard.

Imagine my astonishment when I found out that they didn't have a cheese section! Imagine my outrage when they didn't have five copies of anything I wanted! Imagine how hard it was then to buy two books for each person that fitted their speciality, that would be about equal in all ways and would not destroy me financially! I think I found good books for each of them; something that they can read and learn from and then be so much smarter when they talk to customers. I think they'll like their presents. They all seem to want to be able to stun the folks with their knowledge, and that's a good thing.


So we went on from there...

and finally ended up at our destination,



the home of Queen Fashions!

Well, this house was rather amazing. I doubt you'all have seen anything like it, I surely hadn't. It's not that it was such a wildly expensive house to do, it's just that the entire house screamed "queeeeeen!". hehe.

There were a lot of people from the gay Mardi Gras Krewes, and they are always great fun and so dramatic. And amazingly enough, they decided to do a "white elephant" gift exchange. This is where everyone brings a gift and puts it under the tree. The first person opens a gift and then selects the next person, who can open a new gift or "steal" the gift that the first person has. Everyone has to open the gift and show it to everyone else, just in case they want to steal it later. After several people have opened gifts, people start stealing back and forth, but once a gift has been "stolen" twice, then it belongs to the last recipient.



Bry, from ChaosInAustin has described how they do this at his workplace parties in the past, but I never really got the idea about how it works.... until tonight! hehe



This really cute kid who was standing in front of Robert and I got a nice hors d'ouvre platter that I could so easily use at work.... and he hated it... so when my turn came up later I "stole" it! Bwahahahaha! It was his turn to pick a gift then, but well it was late, poor baby, not sure he got anything better...

And Robert traded his perfectly lovely bright red pasta set which some parts of it could have been used as a hat, for a bottle of something... well by that time it was getting a bit blurry...

It was all wonderfully silly.

And that's a good thing.


Bits

Alex's computer died, and he doesn't think he will get his new one until after he returns from Vegas. If you have any messages for him, I'l be glad to pas them along...

Luca should be finally moving into his house this Monday...

Bok is charming and gorgeous, but you knew that.

And many of us will be meeting in Vegas the first week in January... and if you are not one of them....

well, why not?


your devoted durlx

Christmas In Heaven...

I got home from work tonight and decided to decorate the front of the house. I don't know what exactly got me into the mood. I just knew that I wanted to put up lights and fortunately Robert was there to help. (Robert has a collection of useful tools, like a electric screwdriver and a good staple gun.) Those of you who grew up anywhere else might be astounded at how we put up lights in the deep south. We use a staple gun to put up decorations. And that includes stapling 'indoor" type extension cords to various parts of the house! Easy as pie, dears, just make sure you use a gun with half inch staples... so you don't go through any wires...



For a while, I hadn't done anything to the front of the house. For Bill's last Christmas, I went all out, since his family was coming and there were lights and garlands everywhere from front to back. The year after he died, I went overboard, totally. Margaret was still alive and had the house next door then, (Robert has it now), (which is identical to the one I live in), and Peaches and Joel lived in the other side next to me. You must understand that Peaches thinks about how to decorate for Christmas all year long, just like he thinks about how to do Mardi Gras. And we got into this one-up-manship thing that was just out of control! "I'll see your three wreaths, and I'll raise you three decorated sprigs with lighted candles! Bwahahaha!" And then I'd come home from work the next day and there would be something else on their side that I would have to match.

Both houses ended up being outlined in lights from the front to the back, and in the back, every single tree, bush and fence post was illuminated. Some of the neighbors claimed that the streetlights on the block actually dimmed about the time our houses lit up and that they heard a humming noise from the nearby transformer station behind the old church.

It was also one of the worst Christmases I ever had. I had been dating someone, thinking that I might be coming out of the bad things I had been feeling after Bill's death. But that came to a screeching halt the week before Christmas; in retrospect, it was the best way for things to work out, but at the time it was a crusher. Christmas Day, I looked at all the decorations and screamed, "Why the fuck did I do this! I hate it!"

And for a while, I did, I really did... Actually, I hated it for years. And that is so not me. Just check out this thing I wrote>, just before I started the journal. It's about holidays and there's some stuff about me as a lil' durlx. I was an "enfant martha", crazy for the holidays.

Last year, I finally put up a string of lights across the front of the house and the guys next door put some up, but it was a half hearted attempt.

This year it was different. I wanted to do more. I set up the portable sound system in the open front door and cranked it up with some holiday sounds. As I mentioned, Robert came over with his tools and I started putting some lights up; fortunately Robert, good friend that he is, (and a big fan of Christmas lights of every sort), stayed around and helped me. It looks O.K.; I used to do stuff that was much more impressive, (for instance, I would have never have used bows or arrangements from a previous year!) but it looks like something approaching holiday cheer. It will have to do.

After it was all done, Robert came out and we looked at it, while I played the song "It's Christmas In Heaven" from the Monty Python movie, "The Meaning of Life". o.k., so I'm not totally healed, just getting better all the time, hehe,



Robert's House.



Robert has only begun the front of his house, and he has enormous holiday resources to draw from! Don't know if you know this, but Robert is a collector of holiday lights; he has a lot of stuff from the last few decades, including a silver tree complete with a rotating color wheel, all totally vintage fifties!



And a whole lot of different lights, of which this is just a small sample...



Robert does the holiday well.


One other important thing...

I thanked a whole lot of people in the previous post, but I missed mentioning Nina. Why, I just don't know! She's appeared in this journal for every Mardi Gras and some Halloween's as well. She's a treasure... After I had gone back to work and had been working for a while, she came to town and we met out front and started talking. She started staring at me in that way she has, kind of an amazed look, and she hugged me and said, "Oh. My. God!! You're happy!" I was, but I hadn't taken the time to think about it until she brought it up! She's very good at this sort of thing and I love her for it; she has a great talent for making people feel joy. Like I said, a treasure!

So this is the true anniversary post.

..and now, on to year three...


durlx

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When It's Christmas Time In New Orleans...



One of the big holiday things here in New Orleans is the Celebration In The Oaks. For many years, the Friends of City Park have been decorating huge areas this large urban park area for the holidays and charging admission to raise money to preserve the park. The park is an amazing place; 1500 acres that were once the site of a plantation, (well, that's true for almost anywhere here in the city..) but it is also the site of a couple of ancient oak trees where �affaires d�honneur� were settled� dueling, in fact, was not outlawed in the park until 1890. The NO Museum of Art is in the park, including the new sculpture garden, which is by all accounts, sublime. (I'll be adding my review of this new art space soon.)

The park has a small amusement area with an old carrousel, a very good botanical garden, some really lovely catering facilities, a golf course, a boating area in the bayous, lots of picnic areas and still has a few quiet and untraveled areas that seem a bit wild. (Of course, they are the crusiest areas in the park.) During the "Great Depression", the Works Progress Administration spent over $12 million and employed 20,000 local workers to build the stadium, the bridges and walkways and the lagoons and fountains. The result was a beautiful thing; no matter what anyone says about FDR and the WPA, they did one thing absolutely right. They employed artists and skilled craftsmen and let them create some beautiful things.

I have some very happy memories of Celebration in the Oaks... the area with the carrousel has a walk through garden area with a series of Christmas trees, (about a hundred) that are decorated by grade school classes from all over the city. The teacher picks a theme and the kids make ornaments. (They are laminated so they can last for the season.) It's all about lots of plastic cups and glitter and construction paper, and how many languages can you say "Happy Holidays" in... my favorite "ornament" one year was on a tree with crayoned greetings in various languages. One 10 year old girl who for whatever reason didn't seem to be into the traditional Christmas/holiday thing, had made a rather large , say 6 inches by 10 inches, tribute to Whitney Houston! It was all about how Whitney was such a great talent and how she had lost her baby, but still went on, even though she was very sad, and always gave great concerts. It was absolutely stunning amidst all the other very predictable entries; both hysterically funny and a bit heart breaking at the same time. Where was this strange child coming from?

Then there was Bill's last year there. He had started to show the effects of the brain lesions and he was having some periods of disorientation. I had asked his family to come and visit, (in fact, I told them it was important that they come now...) and I suggested that they come a few at a time so as to not overwhelm Bill... well, they all showed up at the same time. It was nice to have a house full of family, but it was a bit rough on Bill; way too much input; at the park he kept yelling "Watch out! Man with a cane! Watch Out!" People were very kind to him, as they always were throughout his life. I wondered, as I always did, about the kind of things that little red head could get away with.

Bill's last year was also the year that I worked a concession area that K-Paul's ran in the park during the season. It was a lil' Cajun Village where you could buy gumbo and jambalaya and andouille sausage-on-a-stick. I set the whole thing up, made sure that the food got there everyday and cooked and served most of the nights. After a while, it just got so "carny" feeling. The same holiday songs played over and over in the same order and after a while the guys I worked with and I started making up filthy lyrics to fit the holiday songs, (Oh cum a whole face full, etc) ... And some nights, the most disgusting people showed up! A husband would decide he wanted an "andouille sausage-on-a-stick" which I had to grill on a huge smokey wood fired pit) and his wife would ask how much it was and I would say "$2.75", and she would shriek "Tooo seventy fy-ahve! For a peice of saw-sa-ahg! Oh my gawd! No way honey. I will feex you some saw-sa-ahg when we git hawm!" Then she'd look at me with intense scorn and snarl, "Thaht's reee-diculous!" I'd smile brilliantly and mutter "bitch". And then there was the night that I didn't have any clean chef coats and I had to use one with the name Leroy on it. Some very drunk kids came by and just razed me for like ten minutes and then went on their way through the park, but every few minutes, they would yell at the top of their lungs from somewhere, "Heeeey Leeeroy!" This sort of thing tends to wear on you, hehe.

I haven't been back in years, but I think I'll go this year. There's lot's of new lights, actually hundreds of thousands, it's just down the street from where I work and I can ride the scooter through the drive-through area, I think. (I'll take lots of pics.)

So anyway, that's a lil' bit about the holidays on New Orleans.








And you know, there's something else about this time of year...

Monday, December 10, 2001
I added a web cam. I decided it was time to join the party.

I had been spending time on developing the web site, but kind of half-heartedly. If no one was really looking at it, I could just forget about it for weeks at a time. So I thought I'd up the ante. Now I have to come up with new stuff and I really have to learn some more HTML so I don't look like too much of an idiot. This is good, I think.

Comments [0]
9:04 AM


Well, I've decided to add a journal. This will be mostly for what's new on the site and for general news.

Comments [0]
8:48 AM

Yes, this journal is about to start it's third year. No one could be more amazed at that fact than I am! When I started this journal, I wasn't working and had begun to think that I might never find anything I wanted to do again. I was broke as a joke and wondering where I might end up. A card board box under I-10 seemed likely, hehe, but I don't know how I would have survived without an internet connection!

During the time that this journal spans, I made some friends through the journal and the GayCams message boards, some of them quite dear... there's the group meeting in Vegas this year (for the third year) and the group going to Ireland in March this coming year. There's the people who have come to visit: Alex, (the first), luca, (the most persistant, hehe), Mike, from SpudPuppy's Place, Unokhan, and his mate from Red Stick City, and AbJr. , who knows so much about the local architecture... every visit was amazing!

And those I met in other cities: Pebbles, (a lovely man, me boys), Dazed, (yes, he is, but nicely so), Bryan from ChaosInAustin, (a most charming man indeed), Beau!, Doc, (who moved to Vegas....), the totally fabulous ZillaFag!, (two years in a row in Vegas and a total treat!) and ETin NY, (yet another incredible man!) And of course, there's GC and Bok and a few other "local" Vegas boys... And Rich, in San Fran, who gave me a tour of the gayest areas and dinner...

Really. Such an wonderful group of people that I've met through this bit of the net. And so many more that I expect to meet in the future. Like Jazzy and Massy for the Ireland trip in the spring, (and will Ford meet us there?!) and Tampa Dan says he might be visiting sometime...

A special thanks to Robert, my neighbor and friend, and Michelle, both of whom have appeared in the journal many times, and to Davo and Glennie in Australia, who visited last year and also enrich my life from time to time with lil' packages if Tim Tams from Oz!

And you other guys... and you know who you are, my online friends... I won't name you all here, but you are on the e-mail trail... I love you guys! You have made this whole thing worth the time I've spent on this journal. Your e-mails and responses have kept me going; there were a few times when I was ready to give it up, but then someone sent a word... Thanks for that.



And for the rest of you....

www.durlx.com
www.durlx.com
(December, 2003)

Cities Page View Percentages
Los Angeles, California (United States) 43 12.22
San Francisco, California (United States) 33 9.38
Ashburn, Virginia (United States) 28 7.95
Detroit, Michigan (United States) 28 7.95
Baton Rouge, Louisiana (United States) 27 7.67
New Orleans, Louisiana (United States) 22 6.25
Saint Louis, Missouri (United States) 22 6.25
Sevilla (Spain) 22 6.25
Richardson, Texas (United States) 17 4.83
Bradford (Great Britain (UK)) 17 4.83
Toronto, Ontario (Canada) 10 2.84
Sarasota, Florida (United States) 9 2.56
New York, New York (United States) 9 2.56
Atlanta, Georgia (United States) 5 1.42
Chicago, Illinois (United States) 5 1.42
Chelmsford, Massachusetts (United States) 5 1.42
San Diego, California (United States) 4 1.14
Montr�al, Qu�bec (Canada) 3 0.85
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (United States) 3 0.85
Sioux Falls, South Dakota (United States) 3 0.85
Milano (Italy) 3 0.85
Seattle, Washington (United States) 3 0.85
Tampa, Florida (United States) 3 0.85
Miami, Florida (United States) 3 0.85
Melbourne (Australia) 2 0.57
Plano, Texas (United States) 2 0.57
Barcelona (Spain) 2 0.57
Carrollton, Georgia (United States) 2 0.57
Fort Worth, Texas (United States) 2 0.57
Nottingham (Great Britain (UK)) 2 0.57
Phoenix, Arizona (United States) 1 0.28
Denver, Colorado (United States) 1 0.28
Cherry Hill, New Jersey (United States) 1 0.28
Wien (Austria) 1 0.28
Columbus, Ohio (United States) 1 0.28
Burnaby, British Columbia (Canada) 1 0.28
Des Moines, Iowa (United States) 1 0.28
Hicksville, New York (United States) 1 0.28
Haifa (Israel) 1 0.28
Edmonton, Alberta (Canada) 1 0.28
Sandridge (Great Britain (UK)) 1 0.28
Ottawa, Ontario (Canada) 1 0.28
Graz (Austria) 1 0.28

...that's just for the last six days... last month it was over 150 cities all over the world...

hehe, the hits are not all that many by internet standards, but they are varied in their origin... and I like that very much.

So, the rest of you... I'd like to hear from you... (just don't put "hi" in you subject line, haha, that's what every spam asshole does now!)



And last of all, but not certainly least, our boy Noah. Noah has been fighting "agent C", cancer for quite a while and his fight has been quite amazing; and very hard. His strength has been a source of inspiration to many people and he has many friends around the world. He's going through another bad patch right now and I ask you to send him some good thoughts. You may be a skeptic about the idea of sending good thoughts, but I can assure you that it works, if you just stop thinking about it and simply do it. You've got to learn to trust me on these things...



Thank you all so much!


durlx.


oh, and one more thing... on The Gay Male Body, ( a gay reference listing site), do vote for me... it's a good site and it's my lil' bit of vanity to at least be in the top ten. My friend Alex had been number one for quite a while... and that's good company.