DELISH!

I am a health and fitness fanatic.

Newflash?! No. Everyone knows this. It's part of my identity. I am also an eater - that is also a part of my identity. Everyone who knows me or reads me knows that. These days, though, I live on a diet that is best described as extreme. I eat protein in the form of fish and poultry with occasional bits of red meat. I eat carbs by way of oats and sweet potatoes. I get roughage through many green vegetables. I avoid sugars and non complex carbs. These rules of diet do not make life easy; sometimes they make life unpleasant. Especially when you have a sweet tooth, like I do. I have admitted that a couple of times a year I will treat myself to some cookies from www.thischickbakes.com and on extremely special occasions I will even bake my own brownies.

The rest of the time, I have to find satisfaction where I can.I frequent the health food store called Westerly, on the corner of 8th and 54th in Manhattan. There, I buy organic nut butters or I get nuts from their bulk bar -- From time to time I even have some Jumbo Flame Raisins or some Dried Black Mission Figs. Life is TOO SHORT to go without sugar forever. Natural fruit sugars are a wonderful thing; when indulged in with moderation. I have had some luck with some of the vegan deserts that are sold at Westerly ( I am particularly fond of Miss Lillian's raw vegan lemon meringue pie - but at 8 dollars a slice, it's a little like Christmas morn to get one ). Recently, I was at the refrigerator case looking to see if any of Miss Lillian's pies were on sale and I spotted something.. a little package with two little nuggets in it.

SUN GEMS

There were several different flavours of these fruity nutty treats -- and they were affordable! And they weren't so much food as to threaten my diet! Well... I just had to try a few. So I examined the choices and I bought some and took them home...

Now.. let me tell you about vegan treats bought in prepackaged cellophane envelopes. You are taking a BIG risk. They aren't always super expensive (though they can be, let's not lie about it) -- and they also aren't always tasty. Some of the things I have bought that sounded good .. um. SAWDUST. And sometimes they hurt your teeth and gums to eat. It's pointless gettnig upset about it; you have to try them. You have to look around and test the waters. Like they say - without risk there is no reward.

Well.. I got my reward.

Didi's Baking for Health makes raw and vegan treats that are free of wheat, dairy, gluten and sugar. They cost about two bucks (give or take a few cents - off the top of my head, I cannot be counted upon to give the correct price) and each one that I have tried has been DELISH.

It's important to say this: just because you are eating healthy, just because it is raw and vegan, doesn't mean it is right for you. If you are watching calories, carbs, sugars (even natural ones), you will want to READ the nutrional contents! Make sure that you are ok to have these wonderful treats - and they DO contain nuts; so anyone with nut allergies, READ the LABEL.

The flavours:

Sunflower Crisp Ingredients: sunflower seeds, walnuts, raisins, dates, vanilla, spices -- this may be my favourite. Perfection.

Lemon Crunch Ingredients: almonds, brazil nuts, dates, raisins, lemon -- this is so yummy and very moist!

Coconut Cruncher Ingredients: almonds, dates, coconuts, vanilla -- VERY tasty! I have tried these more than once and one time I got one that was a little hard, so I wrote to the makers and they suggested a light spray of water and, sure enough, it moistened right up. Worth the effort.

Carob Fudge Ingredients: walnuts, dates, raw carob, coconut Oh my gosh. It's wonderfully rich and gooey!

Spirulina Sunrise Ingredients: brazil nuts, figs, cashews, dates, spirulina, sesame seeds I don't know what spirulina is but these are so moist and tasty!

Apple Date Ingredients: apple, dates, raisins, walnuts, sunflower seeds, orange, spices. PERF!!

Cashew Ginger Cream Ingredients: cashews, ginger, coconut, dates I've never had this one. Not a ginger fan. Sure does sound like it might be worth trying though..

Anyway, these are my new treats to myself in between occasions when I can get a POUTY PEANUT BUTTER BLAST from www.thischickbakes.com

If you are in NYC and want to visit Westerly, look for Didi's products back at the back of the store where the vegan deserts are kept in the refrigerator case.

ORhttp://www.bakingforhealth.com/index.html

Like the title says...DELISH!!

M.I.A.

Well, it's an odd little thing - blogging. I started at Livejournal because that is what my friend, Trish, introduced me to.

Then I switched to Blogger because Lisa-Gabrielle got me into it - I liked the format and the ability to add photos.

Then I switched to MySpace because I could post what mood I was in and what I was listening to.

Then I switched to Facebook because I could tag my friends when I wrote about them.

Am I fickle?

Who cares. All the blogs are still active, for archival purposes.. but I have to admit that I have missed blogger. So I am going to go back in my Facebook Notes and copy and paste what I have written there, in case anyone in the blogger community has missed any of them. I am going to start with the Facebook note that started it all... You see, on Facebook, people post notes and they tag you and you do the exercise and tag someone else. I did this exercise and it sparked such a response that it got me writing, blogging, on a regular basis.

This was fun; but mostly, it was fun for me because of what I learned about myself - by seeing how honest I am willing to be and by going back and re reading my answers.

25 Random Things About Me

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you have to write a note with random things, shortcomings, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end choose some people to be tagged, listing their names and why you chose them. You have to tag the person who tagged you.

1 -- My feet and hands are cold almost all of the time. I'm that person who needs three blankets on the bed in August, so maybe I have a circulatory problem.

2 -- I can recite the Julia Sugarbaker diatribe about The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia; complete with Dixie Carter's exact inflections. It is a little scary but fun and I only do it on very rare and special occasions.

3 -- There is a spot on the left side of my neck that I always miss when I am shaving my hair off. Pat has to touch me up in that exact spot, every time.

4 -- I met an actor, the roomate of my friend, who was showing me his bedroom; he was so proud of his dvd/vhs collection (in alphabetical order) and I felt like the wizzened old maven who smiled and said oh how marvelous for you. What I really loved about him and his room was the unholy blinding enthusiasm he had for his very own room. He was so youthful and passionate about this space where he lived. He had a symmetrically and vertically hung row of photos from that Daniel Day Lewis movie about the oil baron ("I am obsessed with Daniel Day Lewis") and a symmetrically and horizontally hung row of photos of his favourite band ("Radiohead is the greatest band that ever lived!"). He had a guitar which he played and sang to. When he passed through a doorway in his house, he grabbed the chin up bar and did a couple of pull ups. It was like being with a grown up five year old. He had such commitment to his passions and love of living each moment. I loved witnessing him and his life and wondered where the rest of the people are like that. I wondered if I am like that; and if I am not, when did I stop being like that. It was an encounter that lasted a few minutes but that I will always remember.

5 -- I never got busy with a girl. I know a lot of gay men have. I'm just not one of them.

6 -- I get down on my knees and scrub our kitchen floor because I get joy out of cleaning our home. It is a worthwhile task. Each time I do scrub that floor, though, I move our umbrella stand and I tell Pat "If you're going to POLISH the floor you have to MOVE the umbrella stand!". Every time. Ok, sometimes I might forget. And I don't say it when he isn't there. Sometimes. Ok, sometimes I say it when he isn't there. I say it to myself and the ghosts in our house.

7 -- I actually miss acting. I miss the commaraderie and the creative relationships. I'm not sure I would ever go back to it because the sacrifice would be too great. But there are artists I would dearly love to share that experience with. I would love to do a project with Brady, especially now, having seen his bangarang production of LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA. I have a soft little daydream that I might learn to sing so that Happy McPartlin and I could go to Brady's theater and do SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE. I'd love to get to act with Jane Titus and Jennifer Houston. I'd love to act with Hunter Gilmore. I'd love to act with Pat Dwyer again. If you haven't had the chance to act with Pat Dwyer, I can recommend it.

8 -- I can't really drive in reverse. It rattles my cage to back out of a driveway, though I do it; it still rattles my cage.

9 -- I didn't cry on September 11th but I cried when Obama won.

10 -- I love, Love, LOVE reading the US magazine fashion police page. I LOVE it.

11 -- I miss college. I miss a lot of things about the college experience. I love learning and I miss the attending of class, any class, to learn something new. I also, though, miss the feel of the campus. I love college campuses. Love to walk around them and smell the future rolling off the buildings toward the students who are just beginning their lives. I love to run on college campuses at night, my shadow playing off those high street lamps and dancing off the walls of buildings where students are in night classes or studying or just sitting with fellow students talking. I miss the excitement of meeting new students and people and wanting to be their friends and get to know them and their stories and their everything. I wish people wanted to know each other the way they did when I was in school. The people I meet now don't want to commune and don't want to share; don't want to ask and don't want to hear. It was all so bohemian and new. I'd like to have that again but I'm afraid I might be too old for it.

12 -- I love poo stories. They just make me laugh and laugh and laugh. I am the most vulgar man and I have no censor button. I said that last night to a man I met that I hope will be my new friend. We were talking at a party and I said something crass and just had to own it so I told him just that: "I have no censor button and I am a vulgar man. It's a dangerous combination."

13 -- I haven't had a slice of pizza in two years and sometimes I want one so bad that I think I might cry. But I want to be in shape more than I want the pizza, so I suffer, silently.

14 -- Speaking of food and being in shape; my friend Jimmy Hays Nelson is my role model. I wish I could be more like him. He recently started working out with my trainer, Ray, my hero. They are the most extraordinary men. They stay on their diet, they train like it is an extreme sport and they get results. I don' thave their discipline. In spite of press to the contrary, I actually have days when I can't get to the gym because I am tired or unmotivated or in pain - so I don't go. I have times when I cannot diet for another day, so I binge eat raisins and peanuts, which may sound better than binge eating pizza or candy; but it's still not good. Ray and Jimmy manage to stay on target and golly, gee damn, do I respect them for it. Last night, during our goodnight call, Pat told me that our friend Hunter is not drinking right now because he is in the middle of a big audition cycle. I've talked to Hunter about this kind of thiing. When he is in a show, he will focus so hard on that show that he stays on diets that are necessary to keep him looking the part; if he has to cut certain foods or alcohol, he does. He gets to bed at a certain hour, gets to class, even gives up his ice cream. That kind of discipline is such a turn on. I, so, admire my friends who can do it. They have deep inner strength. I love that. I wish I had it. The discipline and the strength.

15 -- I never got ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS. I didn't understand what made it funny; mostly because I didn't understand what they were saying. Boy, howdy, those girls talk fast.

16 -- I think Stockard Channing is so neat. She is way talented and super beautiful.

17 -- When I was a child I would spend hours reading book after book after book of PEANUTS comic strips. HOURS.

18 -- When I was a freshman in college I hooked up with the youth minister of a local methodist church. On the kitchen floor in the rectory.

19 -- I sleepwalk. And usually I sleep eat while sleepwalking. That's why we never have dangerous foods in the house because you never know what's going to happen. During our first few years together, Pat would wake up in the morning and find ice cream sammich wrappers on the floor in front of the fridge and ask me about it and I wouldn't remember. So we stopped buying ice cream sammiches. Once, he was entertaining Miss Laura in the living room; it was Christmastime and, suddenly, I burst through the doors from the hallway that lead to the bedroom. Laura said hello to me but Pat said "Honey, he's asleep; he can't hear you". But his eyes are open, quoth Miss Laura. "I know. He's asleep." They watched me go to the big Nutcracker cookie tin that I had filled with peanut butter chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and begin shoving cookies in my mouth. After four were in, Pat said "STEPHEN!". I turned on them. "what?!". "What are you doing??!!" "eating cookies!" I ate two more and went back to bed. Laura called after me... 'goodniiiiight...'

20 -- When I am reading something, anything, and the writer uses the word THAN where they should have used the word THEN, it goes through my head like a metal spike.

21 -- I need to be challenged, intellectually. I think that is one of the mainstays of my friendship with Vince Gatton. He is so smart about everything. When I am with him and we are talking, I can smell the burning rubber coming off my brain. Don't get me wrong - I like talking about simple things, base things. I can do the chit chat and gossip and talk dirty about sex and discuss the finer points of reality tv. But it's nice to debate now and then. I'm so grateful for the people I know who challenge me. I love to work.

22 -- I am a little miffed by the level of middle class morality that so many people have adopted; not just the masses but the people I meet. People are so uptight about physical affection and fucked up about sex. I remember a time when people I knew were getting busy with one another whether they were pursuing a romantic relationship or whether they were just friends who wanted to express their love for one another in a different way. I remember parties where friends would get a little loaded or high and slow dance and make out and oops! let's switch partners. Pat and I have discussed the friends we've had that weren't romantic relationships (and this can get to be a gray area when you are in an open relationship because at any point somebody you are just hooking up with can turn into a relationship) but that we got busy with just because we loved each other and it was fun -- like taking an excercise class together. But something has happened in this country. While the internet has made having sex like ordering fast food, society has imposed a greater morality on people. Maybe it is because of STDs or maybe it is because of televangelists. I don't know but it has certainly fucked up my hobby of making out. When I was a younger man, a man who was shy a lot of them time, I wouldn't even kiss people hello on the lips. When I left Texas to move to New York, my mother kissed me on the mouth and I thought "well that was nice". It wasn't sexual or Oedipal - it was a deeper expression of love. I always remembered that. It was years before I could kiss people hello or goodbye on the mouth because I am a propriety geek and was always afraid people would think it was a come on. But Mark Irish always kissed me on the lips. He always kissed Pat on the lips. David Schmittou and I were cheek kissers; he and I discussed the difference between he and I and Pat and Mark. One day I decided I wanted to be a lip kisser. I want to know my friends. I want to share my love with them. Some are ok with it. Some still tend to think I wanna fuck. Sometimes I do wanna fuck. Oh well. But I think that people have become so afraid to touch, so guarded, so jaded, so terrified that if they let you in, they might get hurt. I know a little about that. It's the story of my life. But if you don't take risks, you won't live. Whenever I am saying goodbye or hello to Guy Smith, I say "put your lips on mine" and he does. Others see me coming and turn their heads. It's just love. I think people need to let love and friendship, affection and physicality, become slightly greyer areas. Brady and I hold hands at the movies. David and I used to lie in each others' arms on the sofa. Jr used to sleep between Pat and I, the three of us intertwined. None of us ever fucked. But if we had, so what? It's just love. People are too uptight. Leads to cancer. Last week i was watching the movie CABARET again, having been on a Liza jag for the last two months. The scene where Sally and Brian and Max are partying and dancing and wind up dancing real slow, real close, the three of them with their arms around each other. It was more intimate than sex. Intimacy. That's the real fear. isn't it?

23 -- I want to learn to box. I want to learn to fight so badly. I'm a lover, not a fighter. Still. I want to learn to kick some ass.

24 -- I hate negativity. I hate it so much. It makes me want to puke. Some years ago, Laurelle asked me why I never shared my problems with her; she thinks that is an important part of relationships. I told her I don't like talking about my problems. I'm private. The deeper fact is that I don't want to heap negativity on anybody. I don't want to be that for anybody else. Now, here is the flip side to that discussion: I don't want my loved ones to feel like they cannot bring their problems to me. I dont ever want anyone to censor who they are around me. Lisa-Gabrielle once told me that she didn't bring a problem to me because she knows I hate my friends dumping on me. That's bullshit. I am a superstrong person and I'm also really smart (I don't want that to get out because I like playing the pretty-but-dumb card) and when people bring me their bullshit, I usually have the answer for them. I think Annalisa and Tom and AJ can seriously back me up on this. I usually have the answer and I am usually right. I am putting aside my trademark modesty and self depracation to own this. I may not be able to run my life but I can certainly run yours. It's cause I can see the truth; and I can see you. The thing is, once people dump their bullshit and I have given them the answer, they usually feel better. Negativity gone. See how that works? I just choose to not dump my negativity on others - as often as I can. Sometimes I have to. Hey, we all need to reach out from time to time. Fortunately, I usually go to Pat or Doctor Bowler. Yes. I am a mass of contradiction. Keeps my family on their toes.

25 -- I love Twizzlers. I don't eat them but I love them and miss them. They're shiny and red.. how do you not love that?2

6 -- I'm throwing in one extra one for good measure: I love walking barefoot on grass. I do it whenever I can. Barefoot, period, is great. Barefoot on beach is especially great. But in my parents' garden, Brady's garden, Central Park, the community garden on 48th street.. the second I can get my shoes off, they are off. Go for a walk in the park with me someday and I'll show you. We'll walk barefoot, hold hands and make out. It's fun.