Archive for the ‘Health’ Category
On Spring Break
In which The Gay Recluse goes on a trip. I’m going away for a few days/weeks/months. Hope you have a beautiful spring (via the mythical Helibores)! xoxo TGR
Filed under: Conspiracy, Health, The Gay Recluse, The Spring Garden | Leave a Comment
Tags: Goodbyes, Helibores, Spring
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. It’s often said that as you get older, time moves faster. This is undoubtedly true, except for when it moves more slowly than it once did. I’m reading a book by Richard Rorty,* who — unlike Plato/Kant/Schopenhauer/Freud/Jung — argues that there is […]
Filed under: Architecture, GWB Project, Health, Washington Heights, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: Dark, Light, Literary Criticism, Richard Rorty, Truth
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. My fifth grade teacher, Mr. W, was a large, macho man with a mustache and a tight perm. (You could actually be macho and have a perm in 1978.) He liked to aggressively talk about boys and girls “dating” and “kissing,” and […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Gay, Government, GWB Project, Health, Memory, Nostalgia, Resignation, Sickness | 10 Comments
Tags: Cleaning Supplies, Fifth Grade, Girls, Harold & Maude, Knives, Macho Men, Suicide, The George Washington Bridge
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. You’d be surprised how often ‘str8 bros’ write in to tell us how ‘wrong’ we are in our assertions that this or that is homophobic, that we really shouldn’t be offended by something that’s ‘not that offensive,’ that we’re actually hurting the […]
Filed under: Architecture, Gay, GWB Project, Health, Language, Letters, Pessimism, Sickness, Stereotypes | 1 Comment
Tags: Hassles, Homophobia, Letters, Str8 Bros, The George Washington Bridge
On “Whatever Homo Tendencies I Have Are Basically a Minor Health Problem” (Valentine’s Day 2k8)
In which The Gay Recluse revisits the past, both distant and not-so-distant. As many of you may or may not know, last year we wrote an essay that was published by Gawker on Valentine’s Day as part of a “Gay Modern Love” contest sponsored by Sheila (miss u!) and inspired in part by our rants […]
Filed under: Competitions, Dream, Gay, Health, History, Longing, Memory, Nostalgia, Obsession, Pleasure, Search | 2 Comments
Tags: 2k8, Gawker, Gay Modern Love, Sheila, Valentine's Day
On a Valentine’s Day Tower
In which The Gay Recluse remembers subtle forms of fourth-grade terror. It’s not hard to remember a phase we went through in elementary school, specifically fourth and fifth grade (and possibly sixth, although even now it pains us to think about this) when each Valentine’s Day, we took it upon ourselves to make increasingly elaborate […]
Filed under: Architecture, Dissonance, Drag Queens, Dream, Faith, Gay, Health, Longing, Memory, Pessimism, Ruins | 1 Comment
Tags: Elementary School, Ghey, Terror, Towers, Valentine's Day
On the George Washington Breathing Project: Good Steam Versus Bad Steam Edition (Includes Roundup!)
In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly dies of lung cancer. Some winter mornings, we wake up and consider the rooftops of Washington Heights, where — thanks to the sumptuous pre-war architecture, the expansive breadth of the Hudson and the gentle rise of the Palisades — we are charmed by the wisps of steam that […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, GWB Project, Health, Pessimism, Politicians, Science, Technology, Washington Heights | 1 Comment
Tags: Asthma, Boilers, Ghettos, Lung Cancer, Slumlords, Smoke
In which The Gay Recluse ponders gay marriage literary equality. (Ed: we accidentally published an earlier version of this piece with a lot of unfinished crap at the bottom — please disregard in favor of the below!). UPDATE: please check out this post for gay-oriented 2008 book recommendations from those better informed than us! Last November, […]
Filed under: Disease, Gay, Government, Health, Landscape, Language, Literature, Politicians, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Assfucking, Cocksucking, Fiction, Gay Marriage, James Balwin, Janet Maslin, Marcel Proust, Michiko Kakutani
In which The Gay Recluse remembers an old obsession with the color red. Years ago, we went through a phase when we wore only red shirts. But here’s the thing: you couldn’t find any good ones that were new, so we were required to scour used-clothing shops all over the country in a mostly vain […]
Filed under: Architecture, Gay, Health, Longing, Memory, New York City, Obsession, Ruins, Washington Heights | 1 Comment
Tags: Art Nouveau, Doorways, Flannel, Red, Seattle, Shirts, Tours, Vintage Clothing Shoes, Wrought Iron
In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly dies of lung disease. Although there are countless slumlords offenders in Washington Heights, this building is one of the worst. We’ve written about this building before — and for a while it seemed to get better — but now that it’s getting cold, the smoke is getting worse, […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Health, New York City, Washington Heights | 2 Comments
Tags: 311, 672 West 162nd Street, Asthma, Boilers, Cheap Oil, Department of Environmental Protection, Pollution, Slumlords
In which The Gay Recluse cooks. Yesterday we went for a walk in the rain, in part because we wanted to check out what was happening uptown, and in part because none of the grocery stores around us carry the curly parsley that we needed for the lentil soup we planned to make. We’ve been […]
Filed under: City Pattern Project, Dissonance, Food, Gay, Health, Landscape, Longing, Memory, Nostalgia, Photography, Pleasure, Science, Search, The Autumn Garden, Washington Heights, Weather | 4 Comments
Tags: Cultural Revolution, Enbalmed Bread, Health Food, Lentil Soup, Recipes, Sugar Cereals, Uncle Jimmy
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with birds. Recently one of our oldest friends from high school got in touch. He moved to the city and found our address in the alumni directory. We haven’t seen him since our ten-year reunion, which was — ouch — twelve years ago. It’s strange how someone […]
Filed under: Animals, Architecture, Athletes, Competitions, Disease, Dissonance, GWB Project, Health, Longing, Memory, Resignation, Ruins | 2 Comments
Tags: Bastages, Birds, Demons, Friends, High school, Hockey, Junior Varsity, Varsity
In which The Gay Recluse is always late. This morning we reluctantly got out of bed at 7:15 am — instead of our usual 7:30 — so that we would have enough time to do everything we needed to do and catch the 8:20 train instead of the 8:30, because we had an important 9:00 […]
Filed under: Animals, Architecture, Dissonance, Fashion, GWB Project, Health, Obsession, Pessimism, Subway | 2 Comments
Tags: Breakfast, Cats, Delays, Floss, Mint Flavors, Pills, Procrastination, Rituals, Seagulls, Shower, Toothpaste
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with birds. Lately we’ve finally gotten around to uploading all of our old compact disks onto iTunes. It’s kind of torturous, trying to remember whatever possessed us to like bands such as _____ or _____ or even _______. We ended up throwing a bunch into the garbage […]
Filed under: Animals, Capitalism, Good Rock, Health, Longing, Memory, Obsession | 1 Comment
Tags: Birds, Cornell, Hüsker Dü, Warehouse
On Shade Flowers
In which The Gay Recluse enjoys shade plants. Recently we were reminded of a past obsession. There was a part of us that missed being young, filled with longing, even if — as we knew at the time — what we wanted was unattainable. But the greater part of us was relieved not to be […]
Filed under: Brooklyn, Capitalism, Dissonance, Health, Longing, Memory, Obsession, The Autumn Garden | Leave a Comment
Tags: Gardens, Japanese Anemones, Music, Past, Shade
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with naps. Lately we’ve had trouble sleeping, so have begun to rely on naps. Sometimes the best place to sleep is on a crowded subway train. (If you can get a seat!) Especially on the A or D between 59th and 125th Streets, a trip that during […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Conspiracy, GWB Project, Health, Longing, Subway | Leave a Comment
Tags: Naps, Teenagers, The D-Train, The George Washington Bridge, The MTA
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with birds. One thing about birds. No matter how disgusting and dirty they look walking around on the ground — especially pigeons — they are always beautiful in the air. Sometimes at the gym — which is on the third floor — we blow off our workout […]
Filed under: Animals, Architecture, GWB Project, Health, Longing, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: Birds, Fish, Pigeons, Seagulls, Workouts, Zoning Out
In which The Gay Recluse is officially one year old. So guess what! We made it through an entire year. For us, that meant 696 posts, 549 comments, 95 categories, 2,617 tags and 96,339 total views. It’s true that we were a traffic whore at times. Which we don’t regret, but lately we haven’t had […]
Filed under: Architecture, Dissonance, Health, History, Longing, Memory, Ruins, Search, The Gay Recluse | 6 Comments
Tags: Birthdays, Cities, Orchids, Solitude
The Gay Recluse 