What about love; don't you want someone to care about you?

When is a meal not a meal?  Prior to yesterday, I might have said when it consisted of trash food, chain food, macaroni and cheese from a box, or only alcohol.  Now I know, however, that a meal can be an experience, thanks to Blue Hill at Stone Barns.  Aside from being a five-star restaurant with an award-winning chef/owner, Blue Hill is renowned for its farm-to-table approach to cuisine.

Arriving in Tarrytown along the Hudson was only the beginning of my bourgeois experience.

The evening began promptly at four o'clock, and our party of seven was seated at a round table near the entrance of the dining room, next to a beautiful--and large--table display of fresh greens.  Our drink orders were placed, our "menus" were perused, and conversation began as a dull murmur.  As expected, our party quickly became the "rowdy table," so you can image our surprise when we were treated like royalty, rather than the heathens we actually are.

Social lubricant; we needed this about as much as Richard Simmons needs caffeine. 

The entire experience seemed to happen in the most surreal ways possible.  To begin, we were sitting at an active, working farm, wearing suits, and about to pay entire paychecks for a single meal, and the anachronisms only continued from there.  Our server was the most incredible woman named Christine I've ever encountered in person.  She knew every ingredient put before us, she was able to keep our attention despite constant interruptions from the uncouth peanut gallery (us), and she smiled the whole time.  Oh, and did I mention that she was cool as shit? Because she was cool as shit.  Because the menu--pictured above with the plant on the cover--is actually just an almanac of month-by-month harvest cycles that explained what ingredients we could encounter during the day with no mention of actual courses, Christine had the nary-impossible task of explaining each course to us.  The questions that she fielded from our table were ridiculous.  "Is this actually charcoal?"  "So wait, do we eat this?"  "Did you know that Tebali Wheat and Barber Wheat ring particularly well with music people because of Renata Tebaldi and Samual Barber?"  The last question pretty obviously came from me, but as a shock to all of us, Christine seemed to be charmed by our particular brand of rambunctious.

"I don't care for shellfish." - Karla.  "Well, the shellfish trees aren't really blooming this time of the year." - Christine
Then came these "Farm Tacos" with lobster knuckle.  This was just one of many time Christine caught us off guard.

It is impossible to count the number of times that a person at our table looked around the restaurant, realized that nobody else was as loud as we were, and tried to shush our group to no avail.  Naturally, when Christine came to us between courses to tell us that we had to get up from our tables, we presumed that we were being escorted from the premises.  None of us could really blame her.  Instead, we were brought to the most beautiful scene that I've ever been given.

My friend's reaction is pretty appropriate in describing how we all felt.

I say without hyperbole that the beauty of the table combined with the shock of our own private dining experience moved a couple people to tears.  Humorously enough, the room was originally the manure shed for the farm (the land was originally owned and operated as a farm by the Rockefeller family; you may be familiar with that name), so the building was designed to access the farm as easily as possible.  Thus, looking from the table, we were treated to the natural beauty whose bounty had been feeding us for two hours by this point.

This is the side of the manure shed.  Shit has never looked so glam.

At our private table (which we coined the Obama suite, as this is surely where the First Family would have dined at this restaurant), we enjoyed fresh bread, homemade butter, lard and honey, and a wonderful summer soup of fresh vegetables.

There was also a pigeon there, just to remind us that we were still in New York, not the English countryside.

After a few more courses in the shed, we were escorted back inside to our original table which was cleaned, freshened, and reset for our arrival.  It is important to note that we were probably ten or eleven courses in at this point, and Christine was kind enough to inform us that we still had a long way to go.  But stalwartly we continued on our merry journey to culinary nirvana, telling tales of diarrhea, vegans breaking their veggie vows in epic ways, and one particularly well-time Karen Carpenter joke; it may have been too soon.  Also in typical "us" fashion, we continued to be the only table seeming to be having any fun at the restaurant. Christine's visits became more frequent than normal, we laughed ourselves to tears in between courses of amuse-bouche-sized tomato burgers, and a particularly tasty combination of grilled watermelon, proscuitto, and cold cantaloupe soup.

This was just one of many times that I took a bite and could only utter: "Holy. Shit. You guys, what is happening in my mouth?!"

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that at this point Christine started to actually show us the freshest ingredients of the day, so as to let us decide whether we wanted to eat them later in the meal.  Obviously we always did.  I didn't use the phrase "culinary nirvana" lightly.  Shit was real.

This is a chicken mushroom, or known by it's street name: "the vegan panty dropper."  Its name is derived from its color and the shape of its growth, however, it actually tastes like chicken.  As the only vegan at the table said: it was a "game changer."

Soon we began to get full.  In our defense, we had been eating for over three hours, and every bite was the best bite that we had ever tasted.  It was like what I imagine would be marathon sex, but with foodgasms every five minutes.  Also, I was regularly laughing myself to tears because we are pretty stellar at amusing ourselves.  Soon the comedy revolved around how much more food they could possibly put in front of us.  Were they actually just fattening us up to slaughter as us the next dish?  As we pondered the potential reality of that scenario, Christine came and took us on another adventure.  This time, we were escorted to another private table on a beautiful stone patio.  I was too overwhelmed to take a picture, apparently, but we were treated to a few more courses, then dessert courses and coffee/tea.

There were TWO of these at the table.  Like a trooper, I ate some other people's shares for them.

It was on this patio that our party's humor gave way to an overwhelming sense of appreciation.  We appreciated the company of one another, the food that we had all been sharing, and the incredible kindness shown to us by our wonderful Christine.  We all came to this dinner with something to celebrate: new jobs, new homes, new prospects, new schools.  What we really got, however, was so much more than a celebration.  We were treated to a perfect storm of food, love, and kindness.  Suddenly my summer of sending our hundreds of resumes and never receiving word back on any of them didn't sting so harshly, and all of those hours I spent working a crappy retail job to just get by while I had two law licenses gathering dust in my proverbial trophy case weren't a huge waste of a summer.  This meal--no, this experience--rejuvenated our souls.

Money couldn't buy what we got at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, but they brought us a bill anyway.  We paid our tabs, and Christine baited us with a final "adventure," which she led us to believe was time and/or light sensitive.  So, after we wrapped up our coffees and teas, we got up from yet another beautiful table and were escorted once again past the same jealous tables of stuffed shirts who got to go on exactly ZERO adventures during their meal...

And then a miracle took place.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!?!?!?!

A door opened ahead of us, and a bright white light illuminated the kitchen of the restaurant.  This was like Dorothy seeing the Wizard for the first time, except there was not man behind the curtain to ruin the magic.  There was just a kitchen full of some of the brightest young culinary talent in the United States, and one very famous, very accomplished, James Beard Award winner who greeted us with handshakes and a smile.  For some perspective here, Dan Barber is a god.  Getting to go into his kitchen and watch him work is a really big fucking deal.  It would be watching Warhol do screenprinting or Beyonce twerk in a mirror.  For the second time, members of the group were moved to tears.  I, myself, almost cried when an entire hollowed out log was placed in front of us with various chocolates and truffles spread on it.  Chocolate makes me feel things.  Oh, there was also fresh fruit prepared just for us, and those flowers visible in the picture above.  All of this was done just for us.  Nobody else in the restaurant got to see the kitchen or chat with the cute sous chef or SHAKE DAN BARBER'S HAND.  I can't properly explain the magic that took place in that kitchen.  We watched the chefs prepare all of the incredible food that had just delighted us for the previous four hours of our lives, and then we posed for pictures, including one with Christine, obvs.  She is probably the coolest person at that restaurant, and if you have the pleasure of going to Blue Hill at Stone Barns, you should definitely look her up.  She's the bomb.

The evening ended soon after that, but the feelings that our group shared, and the experience of the afternoon/evening was once in a lifetime.  The impetus for going there in the first place was at the recommendation of Robyn's late-sister, Jamie.  Although I never had the pleasure of knowing her myself, I am eternally grateful to her for Blue Hill.  She claimed that it was the best meal she had ever eaten, and I am absolutely sure that I feel the same way.  The food was perfection, the ambiance was beautiful, but the experience was utterly overwhelming.  I challenge you to recall a single meal that you shared with friends which resulted in mass emails between all of you the next day thanking one another for the shared experience and commenting on how unreal it all still seems.  (Please don't actually take my challenge.  It is rhetorical.)

I guess that is really the answer to my original question, though.  Like I wrote, a meal isn't a meal when it is an experience.  We had a meal last night, the seven of us, and it was delicious.  But more importantly, we had an experience last night, the seven of us, and it was epic.

One more piece of food porn for your palate.  This was one of the vegetarian alternatives that came from Brianna while the rest of us devoured our veal like ravenous carnivores.  

Untitled

Today the Prop 8 trial court released its ruling. The court held that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, violating both the Equal Protection and the Due Process clauses of the fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution. What is crazy to me is that the Due Process clause argument and analysis of the court ruling mirrors my personal logic in my previous blog post. I'm not trying to make some grand statement about my intelligence, but I will admit that it is a very validating moment to hear your personal conclusions of law thrown back at you from federal court rulings while you are in law school. If you are interested:

The Opinion

It is epic long, but with a handy-dandy index and very helpful headings, you can skip to some of really good stuff. To see where the money is really made, start reading around page 109 of the document or 111 of the .pdf file.

It is a good day for civil rights, people. God bless all of you, readers, and God bless America.

Obama doesn't have that problem...obviously.

A couple things have converged in recent history to bring me to this post. Most recently I discovered that today marks Lisa Simpson's wedding day. Pretty exciting, huh? Yes, I think so, also. Furthermore, I have found myself discussing marriage a lot with friends, so this is the gay marriage post. Turn back if you don't care to hear my opinion of gay marriage, as a repentant-gay Catholic.

Still here? Alright, you asked for it. Here's how it all begins: I am Catholic. I am gay. I struggle with that dichotomy all the time. It was through a lot of prayer that I came to the realization that I was made the way that I am and that I have no choice but to be homosexual. I am called to be the love of somebody's life. I am called to be a parent - I want one boy and one girl. But, as a man of faith, I believe that marriage is a sacred union between a man and a woman. The doctrine of marriage has evolved from a Judeo-Christian background and is now backed by the power of law. So I will never be the person to rail against religion for not letting me marry the man of my dreams in a church.

Here's where it gets tricky. As a man studying the law, I have learned that a marriage is a legal union between two people (a man and a woman in most states) that classifies their relationship for purposes of insurance, survivorship rights, spousal immunity, etc. Legally, everyone has the right to marry whomever they please, so long as they are of opposing sexes (with certain exceptions) and they are consenting adults.

Ready for the paradox? I am against gay marriage but I am pro-gay marriage. As a gay man I am limited, only, by the vocable "marriage." In this post, alone, I have already given two definitions of the same word. Some people spend months planning huge wedding in grand cathedrals. Some just go to the court house and make it official. Then there are countless marriages in-between.

Separate-but-equal is a term used to describe the state of the country when it came to different races. There were white drinking fountains and black drinking fountains, white seats on buses and black seats on buses. The struggles of minorities in the history of our country have been long and hard, and to a certain extent they continue today. There remains bigotry in hiring processes, a supposed need for affirmative action in scholarship, and racial profiling under the umbrella of 'public safety'. I don't want to draw too large a comparison between the vast struggles of African Americans in the mid-1900s and what is happening to the gay community now, but there is an analogy there that I am willing to illustrate. Many people, hoping to find a way out of a very large can of worms, advocate for "domestic partnership." They tell you that being a domestic partner is sufficiently similar to marriage, legally. You get partnership rights, insurance benefits, etc. But there is one huge problem: you aren't married.

Domestic partnerships are our own brand of separate-but-equal. Sure, the black drinking fountain still had water in it, but it wasn't equal. Sure, the back of the bus got you there as fast as the front of the bus (barring negligible travel times, for you anal-retentive physicist readers), but it wasn't equal. Equality is something we all strive for and something that the United States has prided itself on trying to provide for all her citizens. There is a fundamental problem with calling a purely legal union between people of the same sex a 'domestic partnership' but calling a purely legal union between a man and a woman a 'marriage.'

So, like I said, I am limited by the word "marriage." I don't have the right to get married in a church and I am not seeking that right. But I absolutely should have the right to the same marriage at a court house that anybody else does with the person that I love, with whom I choose to spend the rest of my life. If I could call the legal relationship anything but a marriage, I would, since the word is too easily twisted to mean any of its various definitions. It is hard to think of other words that describe separate things that are so facially similar yet fundamentally different. Whether two [heterosexual] people that are legally married care about the religious implications of their union or not, their relationship is a marriage.

They are married.

Nobody would call a man and a woman eloping at the courthouse a 'domestic partnership' so why should that be what I settle for? My civil right to marry can and should be divorced (no pun intended) from the religious doctrine of marriage. As far as I am concerned, I deserve the right to be married to the person that I choose. I don't entertain the religious aspects of marriage when I think about my rights. Not everyone can get married in a church anyway. I'm not reinventing the wheel here, but next time somebody asks you for your stance on gay 'marriage', think about the fact that a marriage isn't so easily defined. If I am to settle for a domestic partnership, then that phrase ought to describe any legal union between people, heterosexual or not, that isn't established under the auspices of a relationship with God.

Legally, I want to marry the man of my dreams (or at least the man I choose), anything less and I will remain a second-class citizen, yearning for my own pursuit of happiness, which is a fundamental right, I might add.

Look at your life, look at your choices

Approve - verb
1. to speak or think favorably of; pronounce or consider agreeable or good; judge favorably: to approve the policies of the administration.
2. to consent or agree to: Father approved our plan to visit Chicago.
3. to confirm or sanction formally; ratify: The Senate promptly approved the bill.

Approval - noun
1. the act of approving; approbation.
2. formal permission or sanction.


When reduced to pure definitions, "approval" is just another tree in a forest of words. However, if you are a sentient human being, and you are not incarcerated for crimes against humanity, you know as well as I do that 'approval' is a red wood among saplings, to carry the analogy further.

I seek approval from many sources: my parents, my friends, my superiors, my subordinates; when I list the sources, it exhausts me. I want my parents to approve of my choices in law school. I want them to approve of my choices in men. I want their approval of my friends. Why do I care what they think, anyway? Shouldn't I just do what makes me happy? Of course I shouldn't just do what makes me happy. I want my parents' approval because I want them in my life. My parents provide support that I can't find anywhere else, even if they also give me headaches that I wouldn't be able to conjure with a migraine, the morning after a bender of Jack Daniels and chain smoking. Approval is the key to the compromises that come with maintaining that relationship.

That logic flows into my friendships, also. I want my friends to approve of my other friends, my cooking, my sense of style, my sense of humor, etc. I compromise with them to maintain peace, to make them feel good about themselves, and because I love them with all of my heart. When they don't approve of a decision I am making, I harshly reflect on the path of reasoning that lead me to that choice. I often find some error that I had brazenly overlooked, but, obviously, I stick by some of the unapproved choices, anyway. The key to approval is knowing when it is necessary and when to ignore that inclination and do what you must. As with most things in life, approval is a balancing test.

The most fascinating approval, though, is when I know people are seeking my approval. There are plenty of people who seek my approval, but do you want to know the amazing thing? Most of the people who want my approval are THE SAME PEOPLE WHOSE APPROVAL I SEEK. Mind-blowing, right? OK, so I didn't just reinvent the wheel, but think about the people who you want to approve of your life and choices? I'll bet you can think of times where they want your approval, also. When you stop seeking approval from a person, one of two things have happened, either you've stopped caring for the person, or they've stopped caring for you. Maniacal approval-seeking aside, normal approval helps us stay accountable to ourselves and others. I hand out approval for all kinds of things, even (and this is a secret, don't tell anybody) some things that I don't normally approve of. Here's the real clincher...ready?
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Real love is knowing when to approve even if you don't. Being sought for approval is great responsibility and it is not to be taken lightly. When somebody wants you to approve of their choices or lifestyle, bear in mind that they are vulnerable and you have to choose carefully how to proceed. Unsurprisingly you must engage in another balancing test: personal/emotional safety vs. personal/emotional perception. What I perceive as wrong might be the best option for somebody else. So the moral of this story, I suppose, would be to reserve your disapproval for when it is really necessary. The impact will be felt every time you assert your disapproval, so use it cautiously. You never know when your disapproval will change a life for the worst, rather than the better.*


*But never forget to be true to your feelings and not be afraid to express your opinions to your loved ones. If they can't handle, fuck them, anyway.

A Moment, A Love, A Dream Aloud

Long time, no blog, eh? Whatever, if you aren't used to that by now, you never will be. Man up, this is how it is going to be.

Speaking of my cold-heartedness, it has recently been a topic of interest to various people in my life that I don't cry. Ever. Before we all jump to the same logical (albeit incorrect) conclusions, I don't refuse to cry, it isn't a 'macho thing', and I would cry if I could. People have called me "dead inside" and "cold" but what I always find fascinating is how quickly my capacity to love is forgotten in a backlash of 'why aren't you more sad? (sic)' I defend myself, usually, by giving specific instances where I might have cried, given different circumstances. Here are a few of note:

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When I saw "My Sister's Keeper" with my good friend Nicole, I could have cried for days. That movie is like somebody killed a thousand puppies with a kitten cannon for shits and giggles, then made you call EVERY pet owner and give them the bad news while they told you about their terminal cancer. I'm talking sad here, people. The problem? Everyone else in the theater. Imagine, if you will: Me, sitting in a theater full of sobbing women. Not crying. Not tearing up. Not softly sniffling. SOBBING. I was simply too uncomfortable to cry. Nicole, thankfully, understood, and we then went to see "The Proposal" immediately afterward to give us each a pick-me-up. Note, please, that given different circumstances, I would have cried.

When my father called me to tell me he had cancer, completely blindsiding me and wracking my world, as I knew it, I was too shocked to react at all. By the time I actually felt anything I had rationalized the scenario a thousand times in my head, and I went straight to recovery-mode, never stopping off at the sad station. (you're welcome for that analogy carrying on JUST too long) Note, had there been some sort of build-up or prior indication, I might have been better prepared to be sad, but as it turns out, there was no warning and shock seems to be a stronger emotion for me than sadness.

When I realized I was going to fail a class for the first (and last) time of my life, I could have cried. I called my parents, hoping for a light scolding followed by some good old-fashioned TLC from the parentals. Not so much. What I was confronted with was some epic guilt followed by a very pragmatic talk about what my options were from that point on and how I would recover from this tragedy, never considering how I was feeling at that moment. Note, had I simply dealt on my own, I probably would have cried it out like a child falling from a high-chair.
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Those are just a few samples of stories I use to try and illustrate my unique inability to cry. This post, however, isn't really about me, so much as it is about an opinion. Here's my opinion, I think that I don't value sadness as an emotion enough to cry.

Still with me? Alright, good.

In a day, I feel any range of emotions: happiness, anger, frustration, hatred, bliss, joy, glee, depression, most of all, love. Rarely do I feel 'sad.' Instead, I feel other emotions. And I realize many of those words are synonymous, but I identify different feelings with each of those descriptive words. I am not sure when I chose to not be sad, but I must have chosen it, because I haven't cried since I was a child. Even my parents can't recall a time that I was sad and cried after the age of 8 (broken wrist). For every second that I might waste feeling sad, I think that I am able to experience another moment of love, instead. I don't recommend this lifestyle to everyone, obviously, as it doesn't always turn out well for me. I do, however, think that optimism combined with a lack of valuation for sadness has really taken me far in my life and if you have the cajones to do you that way, then it should be a viable option. People will stress the importance of all the emotions in your life, etc. however I am confident when I say that you just need to make sure you feel SOMETHING. Numbness won't take you places, but ranking and ordering how you feel is taking life by the balls and riding it all the way home.

Sadness, suck it. Crying, suck it. Love, welcome home.

That's what I'm saying.

Seacrest out.

"I'm just a love machine and I won't work for nobody but you"

First, I must say, that I am blogging robot. I have blogged a lot in the past week, I tell you.

Anywhichway, today I bowled for the second time this week. I subbed on a team with a group of new friends that I made. A few of the team members were acquaintances of mine prior to tonight, but before my bowling experience, I would not have considered any of these people as 'friends.' Unsurprisingly, though, all it took was a pitcher of beer, some serious laughs, and TONS of inappropriate humor and I now find myself with a bunch of new BFFs. It is here that I shall branch into the meat of this blog post: my ability to make immediate friends.

For most of my young life, I challenged myself to never be introverted, to thrust myself into social situations headfirst, and through my tooth and nail approach to relationships, I have made lots of friends in my day. Now, as an adult (in the eyes of the law, at least), this skill rarely lets me down, and has given me a seemingly infinite network of people to rely on and places to travel. My life is full of love and friendship and I feel blessed every day for the people I know and the relationships that I have. It is nights like tonight that remind me how many blessings I can find in my surroundings.

Now, by this point, if I were reading this blog post, I would presume that there is a giant "BUT" coming. And usually your intuition would be correct, but tonight, I am going to go for broke and just leave you on a positive note, reader. No matter the adversity, no matter the shit storm flying your way, blessings are not so hard to find, if you look in the right places.

(don't worry, I'll get dark again by my next post, I'm sure)







Bitches. (There. Happy? Good. Me too.)