Rudynate

I had a mad crush on my spine surgeon. I wouldn't call him handsome, but he was great to look at none the less and he was a triathlete, so he had a great build. He was very focused and seemed just rock-solid. I felt like a junior high-age girl whenever I was around him.

I would use venmo.

It's become an entertainment of mine-taking note of pay phones and phone booths. When I find one, I call my husband on it. The other day, I found a row of three phone booths at Stonestown Mall in San Francisco.

I don't like to pay with 20s, but I don't hesitate to if an atm that dispenses large bills isn't handy. It's all money.

Many years ago, when I lived in Germany, it was common for guys to waltz in the gay bars during carnival season (Fasching). The first time I walked into a bar and saw male couples turning tight little circles around the dance floor to Strauss waltzes, I was enchanted. I learned to follow but not to lead. Haven't done it since. Here in San Francisco, there used to be a great place called the Metronome Ballroom, where they had same-sex tango classes. It's funny how things change. The idea of separate same-sex dance classes now seems quaint.

A young man with whom I had a strong infatuation hanged himself. He was a recovering Mormon with close family ties. I can't say I was devastated by his suicide, but, since I knew him as well as well as I did, I thought about it a lot more. I was more concerned about the guys who lived at the site where he took his life. They were good friends of mine and had an on-again off-again sexual involvement with the suicide victim. They had a tall staircase in their entry hall and came home from work one day to find him dangling from a rope in the stairwell. Ghastly.

Your own evidence implies as such- "Though for some it can make a large difference."

I suppose I could imagine someone working hard enough crushing the anchovies into paste to work up a sweat but making a Caesar salad just doesn't seem like that strenuous a task.

Just generally, that sort of restaurant is a thing of the past. Years ago, I was a waiter in the fine dining room at the Petroleum Club in Denver on the 38th floor of the Anaconda building. When we got hired, the club sent us to a tailor and we had two tuxedos made. We prepared dishes tableside, boned fish tableside, carved roasts tableside etc. etc. flaming desserts, flaming coffee drinks, cordial cart wheeled to the table after dinner, cigar service and so on. That type of restaurant simply doesn't exist anymore. So of course its going to be rare to see a bunch of cheeses rolled up to the table on a cart and the waiter peeling off a half ounce of cheese with a slicer.

That would be extremely unusual here.

Agree completely.

In the US, cheese is conventionally seen as a before-dinner thing.

The cheese course after dinner is usually tiny portions.

The cheese course usually precedes, or takes the place of, dessert. It's becoming more and more common, in upscale places to offer a selection of cheeses on the dessert menu.

If it's the way you grew up, it isn't an affectation-it's the way you grew up. Let me say here that there is nothing inherently with affected behaviors. I have many behaviors which I have consciously adopted and which have become part of me. There are others, such as eating my salad after the main course, which seemed like extra baggage and I have let go of them. It's all a part of experimentation and self-discovery.

Whether or not it's an affectation is a function of why you took it up. It isn't an affectation for the French because it's just what they do. It isn't an affectation for someone who has health concerns. But in a young man who took it up because he'd heard it's what the French do, it's an affectation.

I got a flu shot at Safeway the other day. The pharmacist was a gorgeous gay hunk who was very well dressed. He was wearing impossibly tight jeans. They certainly looked good, but they didn't look a bit confortable.

Approximately 30% of the population is sensitive to dietary cholesterol-a very large minority. Those who are positive for the apo e trait, in particular, process lipids differently from the rest of the population and are sensitive to dietary cholesterol. People who have at least one copy of the apo e allele account for about 30% of the population.

I'm stuck in the baggy-jeans look of the 90s. I wear Levis 550s because I like the way they look, not because I have to.

I have a bit of loose skin around my belly button that becomes visible at low levels of bodyfat. This might be just the thing.

I like just about any kind of pie. At Thanksgiving only, I make an apple, cranberry and raisin pie. This year, I was thinking of making a sweet potato cheesecake, but I'm at the tail end of a contest prep and decided it could wait until Christmas.

I actually used to enjoy spending Christmas day by myself. I would get up late, go have a great breakfast in a luxury hotel, go to the Jewish Community Center to workout, take in a movie, order Chinese takeout, call my family late in the day. They all thought my solitary Christmases were weird.

I usw retin-a sparingly for breakouts. If you get to it soon enough, it disappears in a day or two. I get cystic acne on my chest and that takes a like more time to go away.

I used to use Dr. Huaschka products, from Switzerland. I've just started feeling like spending time and money on primping and grooming again. It feels good.

Years ago, I knew a waiter/model and his agency required all of their models to use the Lazlo program. My skincare program at the time consisted of bath soap and the cheapest moisturizing lotion I could buy and I thought it was silly to be spending all that money on the Lazlo products. After he'd been using the program for a couple of months, there really was a noticeable improvement in his skin quality.