Kid Walking

Most mornings while I’m at my car getting ready to leave, this kid walks past on his way to the bus stop. He’s a senior, and one of the nicer kids in the neighborhood. Usually, he’s in shorts and flip flops. Once, he was carrying a guitar. Today, he was wearing a tie.

I’m surprised to say that I processed this photo in Instagram, and I love the results. For a cell phone app, I’m becoming impressed.

My Corey

I spent most of yesterday afternoon feeling like I was going to toss my cookies. Fortunately, the feeling passed by about 4pm, and it was completely gone by 6pm when my dear friend Corey decided to come over and cook me dinner.

Chicago

I took my model Mickey, who’s become one of my good friends, to Chicago this weekend. I wanted to visit some of my best friends, Courtney and Charlie (and Bea) one last time before they move away from the city, and Mickey hadn’t spent a lot of time in Chicago, so I was excited to show him around.

We spent a lot of time downtown, doing touristy things.

Here is Willis Tower. We tried to go up to the observation deck, but there was about a thousand people in line in front of us, so we didn’t wait.

Here is Mickey at the Bean.

The Chicago river going into Lake Michigan. Off to the right, you’ll see a bit of one of my favorite buildings in Chicago, which is called Aqua.

Instead of Willis Tower, we went to the observation floor of the John Hancock Center. The 94th floor is not quite as high as Willis, but you’d never know it when you’re up there. And personally, I think the view from Hancock is better. It’s closer to the lake and you can see more of downtown.

We sat at the cafe in the Observatory for a long time. We had a great conversation and a couple of bottled waters. Between the peacefulness of it, the view, and the good conversation, I could have stayed there until sunset. Here’s Mickey.

Mickey asked me which of the four directions/windows I liked best. I pointed to the south and said I liked this one because you could see the lake and downtown. He then asked someone to take a photo of the two of us in that window. I thought that was sweet.

The outside of the Hancock.

You can see a sliver of Trump Tower here.

A subway platform/tunnel.

There was a comic convention in town, so there were a lot of people in costume on the trains.

Bea, my goddaughter, really liked Mickey too. I thought that was cute. Mickey later said that he never thought he’d “meet a Bea that he loved more than his fav Golden Girl.”

I also got to see some of my favorite Chicagoans this weekend: Marc, Chris, AK, and a former model of mine. As always, I missed a lot of photo opportunities. Last week was rather stressful for me, but this weekend away was exactly what I needed.

Photobombing Dog

My love of dogs compelled me to post a link to this:

Dog photobombs every single photo in Craigslist apartment listing

The Neighbor in My Dream

I had a dream the other day that I walked out of the bedroom to find my neighbor Brock, who I’ve always thought was kind of hot in a straight/suburban kind of way (photo below, taken through my office window after we first moved in), standing in the living room looking out our back door.

Brock has never been in our house before, and so seeing him in the living room surprised me, even in the dream. Then Brock turned and looked at me. “Come here and look at this,” he said.

I walked over to the window and looked out with Brock. His wife and about four kids were playing baseball in my backyard. Brock looked at me. “Doesn’t it look like first and second bases are too far apart?” He asked.

And yes, it did.

And then I woke up.

Three Scenes from Today — Jury Duty

1. Arriving: It’s not every day I get to see downtown at the crack of dawn. I think I’d like living in Indianapolis a lot more if I didn’t work in the godawful suburb of Fishers.

2. Lunch: I wouldn’t hate life if I got to have lunch at City Market a few times a month. The food was okay (I had avgolemono and stuffed spinach rolls from a Greek place, but there seemed to be a lot of mall food court-like options [and there's still that cookie place that the gays were protesting a couple of years ago because they refused to make Pride cookies for IUPUI]), but the people watching and atmosphere were perfect.

3. Leaving: Just behind the cute boy from my jury pool. (How else am I supposed to find new models?)

Midway at Sunset

Here are a few photos I caught a couple of weeks ago at the Indiana State Fair. The sunset that night was perfect, so much so that these are largely un-retouched.

Los Angeles, The Superheroes

Here is my last post of L.A.-related photos.

The second night we were in town, we met a friend at a bar called MJ’s, which was having a superheroes-themed event. I have to confess that this was much more fun than I expected it to be. [Click any photo to enlarge.]

The Sisters were also there. I love these people. I mean, I really love these people. If Indianapolis had a House, I’d be a Sister.

I love L.A. because of its “anything goes” mentality. You might see a woman walking her dog wearing a bathrobe and combat boots or you might see a person in Stella McCartney everything. When we were parking to go into MJ’s, there were guys in superhero costumes wandering the streets nearby, and no one gave a shit.

I should have taken a photo of this one guy at the bar though. He was wearing a cat’s head. It was a full mask, covering his whole head to his neck, with a snout so long that he couldn’t even have a drink. All you could see were his eyes. He was also wearing a harness, capri pants, and high tops.

“What superhero is he supposed to be?” I asked Jay.

“I don’t know,” Jay shrugged. “Thundercats?”

“Oh, no,” our friend Zack chimed in. “He’s always here like that. He has two cat masks, a black one and a tabby one. I’ve talked to him but I’ve never seen his face. He’s nice.”

No one gives a shit. And I love that about L.A.

Los Angeles, Other Photos

Here are a few more shots from our trip to Los Angeles, just some wayward images of random things, really.

Despite my desires to eat clean and mostly vegetarian, I can’t go to L.A. and not have an In-N-Out Burger. My vegetarian partner joined me for one.

A skater boy.

Skaters.

Of course, we had go to The Abbey, which some travel sites call the best gay bar in the world. This place has changed a lot since I lived here in 1991. It was just a coffeehouse that served a couple of beers then.

And our bartender at The Abbey was hot. And friendly.

Back in 1991, I called this home.

A random hot guy on the beach.

Another shot from Venice Beach. One of my L.A. friends says that this shot sums up the whole city, perfectly.

I like palm trees. I miss them.

 

I had Jay take a shot of me at Hugo’s, in West Hollywood. This is one of the best vegetarian-/vegan-friendly restaurants I’ve ever found. I love it here.

Los Angeles, The Sights

Here are some of the sights we saw in Los Angeles. See more photos after the break, or see all of my vacation photos on my Facebook page.