“One less bell to answer”

Saturday night: and my three days of drawing, eating delivery pizza and napping is interrupted by a text from Mitchell. “What r u doing?” I remind him I’m on deadline for the 48th time, but I’d be going out to have a drink with an out of town friend at Pigalle at 11:30 if he wanted to meet me at Barrage later. “Staying in” he responds. I roll my eyes.

This either means he drank his ass off and charmed his way into the pants of someone at Barracuda or he plans on spending the evening with Adam4Adam. Regardless, I choose not to respond, which means, twenty minutes later, he’ll start asking for details. Who’s this friend and where do you know him from, blah blah blah. I keep my answers short since I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to wear.

I decide to go out to Barrage by myself after I leave Pigalle. When I make the decision to fly solo, I get charged by the idea of being social and chatting it up with strangers. But I know deep down that I’ll get there and be bored in 15 minutes and find the two best looking guys in the room and watch them from a distance. It’s my lot in life, it seems.

Finding two good looking guys is a bit of a stretch since Barrage is practically dead. I wonder if Garrett, the adorable bartender still works there since I never see him anymore. I try to drag my drink out as long as possible before leaving.

Highlight of the night: I caught two guys favorably checking out my shoes.

In the cab on the way home, I wonder if I should get back on Nerve.com, but paying good money to try to meet people is for heterosexuals, so I nix Match and Chemistry as well. (Chemistry.com is the absolute worst BTW). Too old for DList and too short for Connexion I decide to do the next best thing; take a shower, brush my teeth and go to bed.

“What r u doing?” the text reads, it’s from Mitchell…

Currently Reading: Slab Rat, by Ted Heller (2001)
Currently Wearing: Blue Uniqlo T-shirt, Urban Outfitters Houndstooth sweater vest, blue jeans and yellow and brown Gola tennis shoes.

Sorry for the silence folks. I’ve moved and gone a trip and just got internet and the holidays are coming blah blah blah blah blah — anyway, I’ve decided to re-launch the strip at the beginning of the new year, which gives me plenty of time to figure out my next move and build up a buffer that will guarantee regular posting (at least for a month or two). It’s basically a time for me to look back at the last 150 strips and figure out what worked and what didn’t and the best way to move forward if I want Abel Boddy to become a stronger webcomic.

“Like the Joker’s cosmetics shit in Batman”

I actually did work on two new strips but I was too busy re-coloring this one to finish them. When I started “Abel Boddy”, I had this one rule that I wouldn’t re-do anything if I wasn’t happy with the final results, but I am so over that shit now. I’m so obsessed with improving my work I will go back and re-draw something entirely if I think it looks too much like shit.

I went to the most recent “Reading for Filth” this weekend, in honor of Oktoberfist, it featured all fisting stories read by writers in the nude. It didn’t really work out that well; it started an hour late, there were like 12 people there (including the four readers) and only one person was naked — a woman, of course. And, I learned, that I find fisting stories to be a little disturbing. One good thing came out of it being such an extreme disappointment: I didn’t have to write about it.

I discovered these dumplings at the grocery store that I absolutely love. There’s never more than six packages of them at one time, so I buy them all and save them for steaming later. This means they’re usually all I eat on weekends, that and cheesecake, a combination that puts me to sleep. The whole thing makes for the most unproductive weekends imagineable, not good for someone who’s trying to take over the world with his drawings.

Currently Watching:“The Rules of Attraction” (2002)
Currently Wearing:Uniqlo jeans shorts, black Hanes wifebeater and vintage suspenders. No shoes.

“The Return of Mitchell Paley”

I got this text this weekend:
“Just saw Josh Charles @ Paula Rubenstein — he looks like hell”
…it was from Mitchell, who I haven’t seen in weeks. After going on imaginary dates with him for the better part of year, I had come to the conclusion that his phone could not make outgoing calls. I decided to put this theory to the test by waiting to see how long it’d take for him to call me and he disappeared off the face of the Earth.

He followed up with “I’d luv 2 c u, we should grab a drink next wk”. Forgive me for the dramatics, but Mitchell Paley is the one person in New York that I absolutely cannot see: I haven’t been to the gym since June, I haven’t finished my screenplay or moved into a new apartment. In short, I haven’t made any visible signs of progress in my life that would make me look like the productive, big city gay creative that I always pretended to be when we went on our pseudo-dates.

“You’re being tested”, Zach told me, “It’s what happens when you tell everyone you’re trying to ‘lay low’ for the rest of the year.” His mocking was referencing my recent declaration that I was going to pass up party invites and bar crawls for drawing, exercising and reading that stack of books that has been growing since January. Since then, I’ve been two penthouse parties, a book party at Soho House and fashion week.

But there’s no way I’m going to grab a drink with Mitchell.

Check out my fashion week experiences here, here and here, then watch me flip it around and get all political here.

Currently Watching: “Will and Grace, episode 8.11: Bathroom Humor”
Currently Wearing: Black with white striped Uniqlo wool pullover, Levi’s blue jeans, gray leather and canvas Heutchy shoes.

“Barneys, Ted and John Varvatos”
Since I decided to forego paying rent for finding a few pairs of the world’s most perfect slacks, I actually had money to shop at this season’s Barneys New York Warehouse Sale. I had been twice before, but never with enough cash in my pocket to take advantage of some pretty outrageous discounted prices. The Barney’s sale is sort of like going into a prison; there’s security guards, bag checks and everything seems to be separated by chain link fences. And while prisoners have to go to the toilet in plain sight of each other, Barney’s shoppers must strip down on the sales floor if they want to try something on. Was it worth it? Three pairs of $350 John Varvatos trousers for less than $200 says ‘yes’.

This next week is going to be a little crazy for me, since I’ve been working alongside my editor to get me some decent access to New York Fashion Week this year, so far I have almost 30 shows on my calendar, but I only really care about four of them. The rest are plan B’s, just-in-cases and time fillers.

A mere hour after my Barneys warehouse score, I was walking through the meatpacking district heading to splurge on shoes at the Buckler boutique when I passed Ted, architect, on the corner of 14th street. If you don’t know who Ted, architect is, I suggest you go back and read here and here. Anyhow, I noticed him when I was about fifteen feet away, because I have a tendency to do that. And not only did he turn to look at me, but he watched me walk away. I’m pretty sure he didn’t recognize me from before (he was pretty drunk the first time around), which made the whole situation even sweeter somehow.

Designer markdowns AND sexual validation? Now that’s a good day.

Currently Watching: “The Starter Wife”, episode two
Currently Wearing: Uniqlo denim shorts, Urban Outfitters sleeveless hoodie, American Eagle Outfitters sneakers.