IT SLEEPS, I TELL YA...

It’s not true, what they say about New York being the city that never sleeps. I arrived at JFK after 9 p.m. after a full day of travel from Vancouver. Not that it actually amounted to that. You just lose three hours and, along with a “quick” connection in Seattle, the day somehow quite literally flew by.

As things were timed, I went without a meal. Airport food prospects are dismal for me even under normal circumstances. In Seattle, the only choices near my departure gate were McDonald’s or a fish chowder spot. Not real options for a quirky vegetarian. (Side note: Why is it that McD’s is finally introducing a veggie burger in Europe but not in North America?) By the time I figured out NYC transit and dealt with a subway delay due to evening maintenance—this week only, of course—I got to my Chelsea hotel at 10:57. Whole Foods, my go-to for a healthy meal, closes at 11 and I couldn’t negotiate the mechanics of self check-in on time to drop off my suitcase, run the block and a half, race in and grab any salad with the word kale or citrus. Yep, Whole Foods had the nerve to get some shut-eye.

That left me walking the streets of Chelsea, passing on a 24-hour diner with one patron on a stool and searching the shelves at 7-Eleven. I settled on a highly unhealthy pint of Ben & Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream and then, just to be sure I wouldn’t awaken hungry in the night, opted for a cheeseless Domino’s pizza.

How the hell did I from healthy Whole Foods to total junk food? Slippery slope. Maybe it’s what I wanted all along. Maybe I had something to do with that medical emergency on the plane at SeaTac that resulted paramedics coming aboard and a family having to get off. Ice cream! And pizza! Let this be my What-Happens-in-New-York-City moment.

The woman taking my pizza order made no effort to repress her disgust. “You want no cheese.” Not posed as a question. More like a wad of phlegm she was spitting back to me. If there was any subtext, it was, Why haven’t I quit this f*#king job? If she had the chutzpah of The Soup Nazi, she’d have declared, “No pizza for you.” The best she could do was deny me spinach as a topping. “It’ll be burnt.” Huh? “If the pizza has no cheese, the spinach is gonna burn.” Pretty sure she made that up. How would she even know? I got the sense “hold the cheese” wasn’t a thing. Translation: You wanna f*#k with me, I’m gonna f*#k with you. So I asked for onions. If they burn, I like ’em even more.

I’m sure there was a lot still happening beyond the two blocks I walked to grab dinner. (Pizza and ice cream! Together!) And I realize Whole Foods should not be a Big Apple barometer. The weird thing about walking around Manhattan is, after a while, it always seems I’m either walking in circles or the same few establishments have multiplied in a bad retail cloning experiment: Duane Reade drugstore, Le Pain Quotidien, Pret à Manger, nail salons, souvenir shops and Johnny’s/Jimmy’s/Joey’s Pizza. (Apparently women know enough not to ascribe their name with mediocre pizza by the slice. Yeah, New York, I called your pizza mediocre. But then maybe I carry grudges. None of these guys, not Johnny, not Jimmy, not Joey, have ever had vegan pizza in the window. Not once.)

I could have headed back out in search of non-Whole Foods night life after eating every morsel of my pizza and ice cream. (Surely it would take a few hours to go up two waist sizes.) Of all nights, this first night would be the easiest for me to go yawn-free until closing time—whenever that is—in some gay bar in Chelsea or Greenwich Village. (That’s where they are, isn’t it?) Midnight is only 9 p.m. back home, 2 a.m. is only…yeah, yeah, you can do the math. But it’s telling that I Googled Whole Foods before my trip but not gay bars. I decided I’d rather stay in and read the label of my colorful Ben & Jerry’s pint, fretting over how much fat and how many calories were in each mouthful. It led to a different kind of action. I promptly Googled my jogging route to the High Line and beyond and then set my alarm for eight, an Are-you-crazy?! five in the morning back in Vancouver.

I really like New York City. I just don’t do it the way everyone says you’re supposed to. Maybe I’m not cut out for this city. Maybe I should be booking trips to Omaha or Saskatoon instead. But I’ll take it in the way I want to, all the shoulds and supposed tos be damned. And maybe that’s pretty close to the New Yorker mindset after all.

JUST ME

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It’s not like I crawled in a hole. (Think I did that earlier in the fall.) I just wanted to get readjusted to my reality before blabbing about it. Single again.

It’s fine.

I’m good with it.

It’s true that I’m the one who finally ended it but what does that matter? People always ask. As if it’s easier to be the “breaker” instead of the “breakee”. Sometimes I guess, particular if the “breakee” is blindsided and/or delusional. Not the case here. In reality, I’d say we worked in tandem over the final few months to chip away at what had initially shown so much promise. The fact that we’d each attribute the demise to different things only underscores how we’d drifted apart. Through a series of actions and inactions, the relationship imploded.

A year. More when you consider how deeply we’d communicated online during the prior year while having an occasional lunch or dinner as friends when our sensibilities told us a Vancouver-Portland romance was out of the question.

We risked a solid friendship in deciding to try for something even greater. I have no regrets about giving it a go. I did fall in love. Not everything comes with a happy ending.

In the days that followed, I struggled to adjust to the shock of The End. Did that just happen? What now? No panicked regrets,…I think it was the right thing to do, even if we could have gone on for months and years in a less than happy state. People do that all the time.

Reverting to Party of One, the practical side of me truly wanted to know what to do next. Would it be different? Could it? Or would I fall back on going through the motions of living.

It’s always unsettling to be alone again, especially after feeling so sure I’d found The One, a partner for life. Being alone is familiar territory. I’ve lived it. In fact, I’ve often craved more of it. But there’s a fine line between being alone and being lonely, and I need to consciously and consistently track which side I am on.

My favorite photo from my time in Stockholm, taken during

a solo morning jog just after a fresh dusting of snow.           

To be honest, at 53, there is also that nagging fear that being alone may be a fixed status. I don’t entertain any fancy notion that there are desirable single gay men in my area looking to date an old (or is it ancient in gay circles?) fellow with mental health problems. If you’ve read a post or two of mine from October, you know that I am dealing with depression again with some slightly different flavors added to the diagnosis. I’m Bipolar II, which means I am prone to milder states of mania (hypomania) along with episodes of crushing depression. I don’t know how to twist and contort all that into sounding like a good thing.

Still, it’s not all gloom and doom. Last month, I flew to Stockholm for a week. Just because. No one else’s whims or schedule to negotiate with. I have a strong urge to go back. On my own again.

For now, it’s the clear preference.

LETTING OFF STEAM ABOUT THE GYM: MY TOP 10 PET PEEVES

I have no idea what this guy was doing last night at the 

gym. As I did ab crunches, he stayed like this for more than

five minutes. Sleeping? Had he passed out. I later worried,

but when I went back, he was gone. Power napping...

I always cringe through January. It’s because I’m so routine-oriented and all these well-intentioned people suddenly (over)populate the gym. Suddenly, my favorite machine for working my calf muscles—at least, I think that’s what it’s for—always has someone on it. The 52.5-pound dumbbells which no one but me EVER takes is not on the weight rack. (Every other gym regular thinks, Who can’t move up in 5-pound increments? *Raises hand.*) It’s even a challenge to grab a mat to do a few ab crunches.

I try to prepare for the change. After all, I’ve been going to gyms regularly for almost thirty years. In this month especially, I avoid the peak time of 5-7 p.m. whenever possible. (Mornings are out. I’d just drop weights on myself or the pour sap beside me.) I have a good sense of the most popular weights and have my radar on for the first opening. SWOOP! Above all, I try to smile through frustration and be more flexible with what will constitute a full workout.

Two years ago, I wrote a January post to encourage new users to truly commit to the gym and to disregard all that looked intimidating and chaotic. I still feel the same. Go! Get in there! Do your own swooping to grab the weights or machine you want. Just because it's busy, don't give up. But I do have some pet peeves that I thought I’d share this time around. You might relate. You might be the culprit and think you have a reasonable defense. You might just think I’m a cranky, old man.

TOP TEN PET PEEVES AT THE GYM:

10. Leaving a towel on a bench or seat after you are done with your workout. At my gym, there is laundry service so towels are provided. This is great, but it also means some people don’t care where they leave them. Your mother would be ashamed! Practically speaking, the abandoned towel creates confusion to other gym users. “Is someone still working out here?” I’ve seen a piece of equipment unused for over half an hour because of towel abandonment issues. Same goes for leaving your weights by that bench. All this relates to the next peeve:

9. Not using a towel when you work out. I’ve belonged to other gyms where towels were not provided. I was one of the few who always brought one. It’s true, I sweat more than others—it doesn't take long for a big ol’ perspiration stain to form and grow. There have been so many times when sweaty men don’t bother with a towel, even when they’re provided. I’m not sure what the thinking is. Hey, dude. I’m a man. I sweat. Deal. But when the towel-averse guy moves on from one bench to another apparatus, the wetness on the padding is his departing gift. And suddenly I’m thinking I don’t really need to do chest inclines today.

8. Guys who get powder stuff all over. It reminds of back when Ivan Lendl played tennis (I really am showing my age!) and he’d pull out sawdust from his pocket to help his grip on every serve. Lendl was playing for tens of thousands of dollars, swanky trophies and courtside chats with the Duke and Duchess of Kent at Wimbledon. Ostensibly, the powder helps with your grip too but I’m thinking, if it comes down to powder on your hands and everywhere else in a one-meter radius, just lower the weight. Your ego may suffer, but we’ll all feel a bit better about our gym. Thanks.

7. Guys who want everyone to know their regimen goes beyond the gym. You know the ones. They find a buddy and go on and on—loudly—about the two pounds of chicken they’ve had today along with three cans of tuna, the oatmeal and the avocado. Oh, wait! That’s not just today. That’s every day for the past month. Yeah, yeah,…we get it. You’re dedicated. And it’s true, you’re way more ripped than I am. (Truth: I’m not at all.) But the diet just sounds like a downer. Suffer in silence, will ya?

6. Fake users. We’ve all seen them. They’re often on the mats, stretching only their mouths. It’s always a convoluted anecdote about something someone’s sister’s best friend’s fourth cousin said and did at a party—or was it a funeral—last weekend. And there’s always the companion who keeps things going with the courteous “uh-huh.” (Stop that!) Or there’s the guy on the gym floor who knows himself well enough not to get too close to any particular machine or bench. He’s just putting in time. It doesn’t matter what the topic is. He can babble three sets worth on the football game this weekend, four to six sets about the tricks for changing a car’s oil (I really should listen…nah!) and finish up his gym experience with the dramatic saga of how his knees aren’t what they used to be. Just go to the bar already!

5. Noise makers. Granted, the gym is not a library. But how is it that 95% of the members can inhale and exhale, lift and put down weights without, in the words of Madonna, causing a commotion? (I have a hunch these noise makers don’t look to Madonna to finish their sentences.) Do they really want to be compared to notorious tennis court grunters Maria Sharapova and Monica Seles? I recently tweeted about a guy who didn’t grunt while lifting; he actually growled. Made me laugh. Not a good thing when I’m lifting weights over my head, even if they’re only ten pounds. 

4. Weight misplacers. If it says 40 on the barbell or dumbbells, that’s where the 40-pound weights go. You chose to do something—I can’t imagine what—with the 110s. You carry them back to their well-marked spot. Thanks. It helps everyone have a more efficient workout. (Please don’t make me have to make my way through all the Hulks in the area with the heaviest weights just to grab the 40 dumbbells since that was the only open spot for the previous user.)

3. Locker room slobs. Admittedly, I’m not the tidiest person. But where I leave my socks at home is for only me to make sense of the spectacle. When I finished my workout at the gym last night, I went in and a dozen locker doors were wide open. (Everyone uses locks so it’s not done to let people know which lockers are vacant.) Towels were tossed about everywhere. Who raised you? Again I say, Your mother would be ashamed! I’ve smashed my head on an open locker more than once. I’ve seen cleaning staff walk in and look demoralized. These are the same people who have to mop up all the misfires at the urinal. Give them a break.

2. Machine savers. These people like to work more than one muscle at a time with more than one machine at a time. That’s typically what I do. A decade or so ago, circuit training was a fad and people jumped from station to station. The gym I went to had lights and bells signalling when it was time to stop resting and move to the next set at the next station. The fad faded quickly. Still, I think there is something to the notion that, if you’re working separate muscles concurrently, the rest time is reduced and you can be more efficient in completing a workout. I bounce about, but I do so knowing that a bench or a machine I was using may be taken by someone else while I went elsewhere to do a set of lat pulldowns. Fine. I can come back. No big deal. But there are others who are risk-averse and self-centered. They save the bench by leaving a towel, the weights and their water bottle there while they do pulldowns elsewhere. They have another towel and keys that they leave there. Thus, both places are taken by one person. How convenient! How clever! How rude. The gym is not theirs alone and all of us want to get in and get out ASAP. People like this should buy one of those complete workout contraptions for their basement—the kind you see a smooth-muscled guy use on 2 a.m. infomercials. Buy that home gym! Have at it.

1. Prolonged texters. ARGHHH! (Sorry. That was a loud grunt but it's justified.) I could write a separate post on this. Drives me crazy and it’s only getting worse. It’s completely normalized. There is this notion that the cell phone is an essential component of a workout. (I use mine on the exercise bike or when jogging outdoors, but I’m exercising while using the device.) As I look around during a quick rest at any place in the gym, there are guys sitting at machines and benches, texting away, watching videos, scrolling through social media and even taking selfies. They sit. And sit. And sit. Five minutes can pass. I am certain that quad muscle is well rested. In fact, it’s cold now. People do like their rest time and I am convinced that many lose track of how long they are actually looking at their phones between sets. Addiction, habit…I don’t know. When I first went to gyms, it was workout partners who would get lost in drawn-out conversations between sets. Then it was cell phone users, answering a call from their buddy or girlfriend about plans for later. As the cell phone has taken on more functions, it’s impacted gym waits even more.

Last night three of us—people who didn’t know one another—were waiting for the cables and a guy stood there texting away. I’ve seen him before. He gets noticed not for his biceps but for his prolonged texting. “How many more sets do you have?” I asked, which has become clear code for, There are people waiting. He had one more. And then he continued another three minutes of texting. What is that? Passive aggressiveness? A need to assert control after a bad day at work? He actually built a sense of community as the three of us who followed figured out how to quickly adjust the machine for smooth transitions in sharing the machine. As an aside, none of us had our phones anywhere in sight.

All right. I continue to believe we can be more thoughtful people even as we sweat it out. Good luck with your personal fitness goals this year. Don’t let the gym—and it sloppy, sweaty grunters—intimidate you. But if you look up from your phone and see an older guy glaring, by all means, get out of the way!

GILBERT O'SULLIVAN IS FOLLOWING ME!

Most of you probably aren’t familiar with Gilbert O’Sullivan, but he has hounded me ever since December 1979 when I was a teen listening to a Casey Kasem countdown of the top songs of the ’70s. I hadn’t been aware of pop music during the first half of the decade, just a few albums and 45s—Elton John, The Carpenters, The Partridge Family, Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy”. When I finally started tuning in to my AM radio, the playlist featured Mary MacGregor being “Torn Between Two Lovers” and William Bell “Tryin’ to Love Two” while Donna Summer faked orgasms on “Love to Love You, Baby” and rodents shared their mating calls—or was it flatulence—in “Muskrat Love”. It was clear that, as John Paul Young sang, “Love Is in the Air”. What I learned from radio was that love was aplenty. So when I belatedly heard Mr. O’Sullivan’s 1972 #1 hit “Alone Again (Naturally)” it felt bubble-bursting. Indeed, it was the most depressing song I’d ever heard.

Instantly, I identified with it. (I even liked that the “Naturally” came as a parenthetical!) Yes, this was more like it. This seemed like my past, my present, my future. (Apparently teen angst came early for me.) There would be no one wanting to be my everything. Nobody wanting to kiss me all over. (A relief, really.) And I would not have whatever those damn muskrats had. Instead, there was just a big-haired Irish guy acknowledging that this big-haired Canadian boy would feel aching loneliness again and again.

And so it should come as no surprise that, although a year ago, I was getting the sense I had found lasting love—indeed, at last!—it would wilt before year’s end.

I’ve put off this blog post for six weeks or so. I quietly changed my Twitter profile. It’s not that I see Twitter as a mechanism for dating; it just felt dishonest to continue to claim to be one of the #Taken. To be clear, I never used that hashtag. If I recall correctly, I simply said that I was scratching my head over how I stumbled and bumbled my way into a relationship.

The head scratching has stopped, much to the relief of those around me who, no doubt, fretted that I must have lice. That would be the more plausible explanation.

So, yes, Gilbert O’Sullivan has reappeared. It’s not like I’ve gone to the dollar store and purchased a “WELCOME BACK” banner to hang in my living room, but I haven’t chased him and his song away either. (Is it wrong that the song amuses me?) As the titular parenthetical indicates, this aloneness is natural for some of us. For ugly ducklings like me. (Oops. That’s Janis Ian in my head. Second most depressing song of the ‘70s.) 

To ensure I don't wallow in Gilbert's neighborhood, I also play “Dancing Queen” and “Boogie Oogie Oogie” on repeat. It's unlikely Mr. O’Sullivan would join in my amusement. I suspect he would have been one of those who jumped on the Disco Sucks bandwagon at the end of the decade. Mr. Depressing would not want happy beats booming about in his midst. Maybe disco, as much as it offers a joyful detour, is not an antidote. Maybe being alone is my true destiny. Gil—I think I can call him that after all these years—and his “Alone Again” will likely get comfy hanging out once again, not with me but alongside me, two sad-sacks sharing the same airspace but nothing else.

(Naturally.)