gay boy Archives

Presidential Photobomb

There’s a certain kind of quiet inside the Lincoln Memorial—stone and echo, like a room built to hold its breath. And then, of course, there’s us: bundled up, leaning in close, trying to fit a whole day into one small frame.

We snapped this photo and only later really noticed how perfect the timing was. Lincoln sits behind us in his permanent, patient stillness, looking like he’s tolerating the modern ritual of the selfie with the same calm he gives everything else. It feels like a photobomb, but the slow, presidential kind—less “gotcha,” more “remember where you are.”

Washington, D.C. has a way of doing that. You walk around with coffee in your hand, chatting about where to go next, and suddenly you’re standing in front of something you’ve seen your whole life in textbooks. The scale of it doesn’t hit you all at once; it comes in pieces: the cold air, the marble, the softness of light on white stone.

We came for a photo, but left with that lingering feeling that some places are bigger than their monuments. They’re built out of memory, and the quiet pressure of history, and the strange comfort of being very small for a moment—together—while something enormous sits watching from the background.

Book Boo in BK

There’s a particular kind of quiet you can find in Brooklyn when you’re near the water—busy, but softened. A long stretch of boardwalk, the river breathing beside it, and the skyline set back like a thought you can’t quite finish.

He sits with a book open in his hands, cap pulled low, knees folded in. The page has that steady pull that makes the rest of the world feel optional. Around him, the city keeps its own pace: distant footsteps, a few voices drifting past, the metal rails holding the edge between land and water.

It’s an ordinary scene, which is why it feels like a small miracle. The kind of moment you don’t plan for, but later you remember the light and the space and how simple it looked to be completely elsewhere without leaving.

I like the way places can live alongside us like that—how a walkway, a bench, a view of towers and clouds can become part of a memory without announcing itself. Brooklyn doesn’t always give you room to exhale, but sometimes it does, and you take it when it comes.

Book Boo in BK, paused mid-chapter, with the whole city behind him like background noise.

AtoZ Matchbox

On the table, two small boxes sit like a quiet conversation. Denim-blue sleeves, gold lettering. One reads A to Z, centered and calm. The other scatters the alphabet across its face, as if the letters were poured out and left to settle where they pleased.

It’s a matchbox, but it doesn’t feel like a disposable thing. It feels kept. The kind of object that lives alongside you, waiting in a drawer for the night the power goes out, or the evening you decide to light a candle just to make the room softer.

I like how simple design can hold memory. An alphabet is one of the first maps we learn, a way of naming the world so it stops being a blur. Here it’s stamped in gold, warm against the textured blue, turning a plain utility into something close to a small heirloom.

AtoZ Matchbox is a tiny reminder that everyday items don’t have to be loud to be meaningful. They can be steady. They can be beautiful. They can sit in the background of your life until you need a spark—then suddenly they’re the whole moment.

End of a Winey Weekend

The weekend ended the way some weekends do—slowly, in the soft middle space between one last pour and the drive home.

We were out among the rows of vines on the North Fork, where the green feels patient and the air has that quiet, worked-in kind of calm. Someone sits on a set of painted picnic benches, glass in hand, smiling like they’re keeping a small secret. The colors beneath them look almost childlike, like something meant for a playground, but here they belong to the day: bright stripes against grass and trellis lines.

There’s a particular comfort to vineyards. They’re orderly without being stiff. You can hear the place living—leaves shifting, distant voices, the thin clink of glass—while time moves at a different pace. It’s easy to let the weekend stretch longer than it should, to pretend the week ahead is only a rumor.

By the end, though, the sweetness turns reflective. Not sad, just settled. Like closing a door gently instead of letting it swing.

If you’ve ever tried to hold on to a Sunday afternoon, you know the feeling: a small, warm ache to keep what’s good exactly where it is—sunlight, laughter, the last sip—before it becomes memory.

Boys in the Back yard

Some evenings feel like they’ve been waiting all day to arrive.

The backyard is still, the kind of stillness that doesn’t ask for silence, just a little attention. Light pours through the trees and settles on the deck rails, turning plain wood into something warmer, almost new. It’s the same yard, the same familiar space, but the hour changes everything—softening edges, stretching shadows, making the ordinary look briefly cared for by the sun.

Boys in the back yard can mean a lot of things. Sometimes it’s noise and motion. Sometimes it’s just being there—sitting down, breathing out, letting the day fall away in small pieces. A chair that holds your weight. A breeze that moves through leaves without much effort. A dog nearby, content and watchful, as if this routine is part of the yard’s foundation.

I like moments like this because they feel unedited. Nothing is being improved or renovated. There’s no big event, no announcement—just a quiet scene that reminds you how much of life is made from repeat places and passing light.

If you stay long enough, the sun slips behind the trees and the yard returns to itself. But for a while, it’s enough to sit on the deck and let the evening do what it does best: make a home feel bigger.

Lunch at Kitchen Kettle Village

Lunch at Kitchen Kettle Village has a way of slowing the day down. Out on the patio, the tables feel tucked into summer—shade from the trees, the low murmur of people passing by, and that easy kind of light that makes you forget to check the time.

We ended up lingering longer than we planned, letting the afternoon stretch. There’s something comforting about eating outside when the air is warm but not heavy, when a breeze moves through and everything feels a little less urgent. Even a simple lunch tastes better when you can hear the world around you—chairs shifting, glasses clinking, conversations floating in and out like background music.

Kitchen Kettle Village sits in that familiar Pennsylvania rhythm: busy, but gentle. It’s the kind of place that invites wandering after you eat, the kind of place where you can carry a relaxed, full feeling from one shop to the next without needing a reason.

By the time we finished, it didn’t feel like we’d just grabbed lunch. It felt more like we’d paused—just long enough to let the day settle, to be present, and to enjoy a small pocket of summer.

Clearwater Beach Boys

There’s a particular kind of brightness that belongs to a beach town—sunlight bouncing off pale sand, the sky stretched thin and patient, and buildings in the distance that look like they’ve been left out to fade on purpose.

This photo feels like that: two guys tucked into the frame, shoulders touching, hats and sunglasses doing their best to negotiate with the glare. Behind them, Clearwater Beach keeps going—flag up in the wind, a lifeguard stand posted like a small, quiet lighthouse, and the slow movement of people crossing the sand like they’re part of the tide.

Vacation pictures are usually proof: we were here, it was warm, we smiled. But the better ones carry something else, something you only notice later. A little ease. A little ordinary happiness, sun-warmed and unposed, the kind that settles into you the way salt does—subtle at first, then suddenly you realize it’s everywhere.

Maybe that’s what “Clearwater Beach Boys” really means. Not just the place, not just the day, but the feeling of being briefly unhurried. Two lives meeting the ocean at the same time, looking back at the camera as if to say: remember this, even when you’re far from the water.

And if the answer to “???” is anything, it’s this: yes. We’ll take the light when it comes.

Vacation ready at Bushgardens Tampa

There’s a particular kind of energy you can’t fake—the moment right before a day gets big. The kind that shows up in a quick selfie, in the easy tilt of a hat, in a grin that says we’re already halfway gone.

We were vacation ready at Busch Gardens Tampa, standing beneath a canopy of bold color, letting the place do what theme parks do best: pull you out of your usual rhythm and set you down somewhere louder, brighter, and a little unreal.

I like these in-between moments as much as the rides. The pause before the first line, the small plan that isn’t really a plan, the feeling that the day is wide open. It’s funny how a park built on spectacle still leaves room for the quiet details—the way the light hits a face, the closeness of someone beside you, the sense that you’re making a memory while it’s happening.

Some days don’t need a complicated story. Just comfortable shoes, an open afternoon, and the person you want next to you when the world starts moving faster.

Busch Gardens Tampa delivered the rush, but this was the part I wanted to keep: the calm, happy start of it all.

Hanging with Harry on Friday

Friday has a way of softening the edges of the week. Everything ordinary—hallway light, scuffed floor, the quiet pause before plans—feels a little more forgiving.

Harry doesn’t care what day it is, of course. He just knows the small rituals: sit close, settle in, let the world move around us for a minute. He stretched out across my lap like he belonged there (like he always has), and I caught myself smiling at how quickly a room can feel warmer with a dog in it.

There’s something comforting about these simple, almost forgettable snapshots. A peace sign and a tired grin. A white coat against denim. The kind of moment that doesn’t announce itself as important until later, when you’re looking back and realize it was.

We didn’t do anything remarkable. We just hung out. But in the quiet way the week finally exhales, it was enough. Harry’s calm weight, the steady patience in his eyes, and that brief feeling that time slowed down just to let us be still.

If your Friday found you running hard, I hope you get a small pocket of rest. And if you’ve got a Harry nearby, give him a little extra room on your lap.

A Pilgrimage for the Almighty Monthly Metro-card

In the elevator’s mirror, the city folds in on itself.

The patterned screen between me and my own reflection turns a simple selfie into a kind of stained glass: a hooded outline, a face half-found, the light flattened into warm, tired amber. The subway has a way of doing that—taking whatever you bring down with you and translating it into something quieter, more private.

Somewhere above, the day is moving without me. Down here, it’s all small rituals. Waiting. Listening. Holding a plastic card that decides how far you can go and how long you can linger between places.

A monthly MetroCard is such a strange little promise: unlimited movement, but only within the same familiar corridors. It becomes a talisman you check and re-check, as if losing it would mean losing the map of your own routines. You tap, you ride, you climb the stairs, you find the elevator when your legs or your patience ask for mercy.

Calling it a pilgrimage feels almost honest. Not because it’s holy, but because it’s repeated. Because it asks you to keep showing up—descending into the same tiled tunnels, trusting the same rattling doors, letting the city carry you even when you’re not sure what you’re heading toward.

And in the mirrored hush between floors, you catch yourself and think: I’m still here. Still moving.

The Book Boy

Inside the bookstore, the air feels a little warmer than the street, as if the shelves have been holding onto everyone’s winter all day. Paperbacks rise in uneven towers on the tables, their corners softened by hands that linger. The floor looks like it has seen thousands of careful steps—scuffed, honest, and still welcoming.

The Book Boy stands there in a cap and scarf, turned slightly inward the way people do when they’re trying to hear what a cover is whispering. He doesn’t look rushed. He looks paused, as if the rest of the city can keep moving for a minute while he weighs one story against another.

This is the kind of place that lives alongside you. It creaks in small ways—spines flexing, jackets sliding, a quiet shuffle in the aisle. The stacks don’t feel messy so much as lived-in, like the shop is letting time settle where it wants.

Outside, it might be snowing or it might only feel like it should be. Either way, the scene holds that same soft hush: the familiar comfort of browsing, the small mystery of what you’ll carry home, and the sense that the ordinary is never quite ordinary when it’s wrapped in pages.

Boyfriends be Blizzard

The snow turns ordinary errands into something cinematic. A sidewalk becomes a small stage; the wind edits the scene for you, softening the edges, erasing the sharpness of the day. In the middle of it all, two boyfriends lean together for a quick selfie—cheeks cold, jackets zipped, the kind of closeness that feels practical and tender at the same time.

“Boyfriends be Blizzard” sounds like a joke you say to keep your teeth from chattering. But there’s truth in it, too. When weather arrives with teeth, you find out what you keep and what you let go. You keep moving. You keep laughing. You keep someone close enough to share warmth, even if it’s only for the length of a photo.

The street behind them is blurred with snow and motion—parked cars collecting white, a fence beaded with slush, the day reduced to a few muted colors. A paper bag swings from one hand like proof that life continues: coffee, groceries, something simple carried home. The storm doesn’t stop the routine; it just asks you to do it slower, shoulder to shoulder.

In weather like this, the world feels smaller and quieter, as if everything beyond the falling snow is far away. And in that narrowed space, affection is louder. A kiss on the cheek, a grin caught mid-flurry, a shared pause before stepping back into the cold.