Rami Kashou

Project Runway fans will be jealous: I was mere feet from Rami Kashou, season 4 runner-up. He was in town to speak at The Phillips Collection. The Phillips has a exhibition on right now from Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the "drapers" who were responsible for The Gates in Central Park two years ago. I had been working on the marketing campaign for the event as was excited to see that it was a full-house.

He spoke a bit about his life story, then took questions for 45 minutes or so. The best questions were asked by a few small children in the audience, including things like, "did you feel cheated when you didn't win"? The kids didn't beat around the bush.

I would have liked to hear him speak about how his work related to that of Christo and Jeanne-Claude (thereby tieing it into the exhibition) but I was pleasently surprised to hear him talk about his work and life in relation to the Palestinian occupation. He chose his words carefully, and steered clear of turning the event into a political discussion, but he did touch on the fact that his purpose in life, as he sees it, is to "exist" in spite of the turmoil in the world.

Yet another trip to Brussels

Keith, Eric and Britt

Yes, Brussels is getting old. But this trip was actually nice for once.
I flew to Brussels the day after my cruise (for work of course) and had the pleasure of flying with an (almost) all guy crew, several of whom I've known for several years.


After a relaxing afternoon at the coffeehouse down the street, we headed downtown to the Reserve, a bar just off the Grand Place owned by a UA customer service agent.
Someone was having a birthday. Never did quite figure out who that was, but hey I got some birthday cake, so I was happy. After a multitude of beer rounds, none of which I had to pay for, we looked a bit different than on the plane:

So we headed back to the Place for a light dinner. This is my favorite old-town square in all of Europe, and everytime I am here something is different. I think they are stringing up the lights in anticipation of the Christmas market which will start in a few weeks:

The Cruise

Yes I know I'm behind....

After a lovely lunch with some facebook acquaintances on the 24th (and an unsuccessful shopping expedition for a new swimsuit) I flew down to Fort Lauderdale on Sat the 25th and immediately ran into Michael from Rhode Island in line, which was an auspicious start to a nice week. The ship, Holland America's Eurodam, was nice (and brand new) but they were short staffed and not on top of their game and it was apparent from day one unfortunately, as my room wasn't cleaned properly when I arrived and I don't think I met my cabin steward, well, ever during the cruise. Most of the time they are there to greet you as you walk in your cabin and point out the amenities. Not that that was necessary for my inside cabin. I found the lightswitch on my own.

This was my third cruise with Aquafest, which does gay group charters on mainstream ships. Rather than chartering the ship (as some groups do), they put together large groups (we were 350, down from last year due to the economy) at prices more economical (for my wallet at least) than whole-ship charters. We had our own private parties every night, plus afternoon t-dances, which I usually skipped because it coincided with my naptime. The fun straight folk are often bummed out the they aren't "allowed" in - its kind of funny...

The day goes something like this: get up, eat stewed prunes (my ship tradition), work out, lay by pool, eat, lay buy pool, nap, get up for cocktail hour, have cocktails, dinner, change for party, attend the evenings party (with cocktails), roll into bed in the morning.

Our dinner/cocktail group: Michael, Michael, Eric, Greg Paul and Scotty.


Me with Michael and Scotty from Houston.

I only got off the ship twice. In San Juan, Michael and I took a day trip to El Yunque, the only rainforest in the National Park Service (a factoid for your next trivia game). We had a nice hike, and believe it or not, it rained on us the moment we got out of the van (I had to remind myself I was in a rainforest after all).


The big party of the week was of course the halloween costume party. I have included some of my favorites below:

All I could think of was a washed-up Whitney Houston


The Andy sisters as Alpine milk maids...


The Twisted sisters, who packed blue knee high plastic go-go boots and managed to find a use for them in each costume night.

There is a big contest with cash prizes. If they had a category for most inexpensive, last-minute costume I would have entered with my toga. As I was neither particularly creative nor outlandish, I watched the parade from the sidelines...

My second venture off the ship was to Holland America's private Caribbean island for some beach time (had to put my foot in sand at some point).

I thought I would be sad to come home, but unlike years past, I felt fairly calm and truth be told I was exhausted! It was nice to come home and sleep in my own bed, if for only one night before I had to go to work again...