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I was talking to one of my best friends recently. He and his boyfriend do rather well, financially, but like every other American in 2010, he's the first to admit there's always room to tighten one's belt, financially.

"I've seen your bathroom," I said. "And I swear I don't mean this to be a bitch so much as a Dad, but... maybe you guys could free up a few bucks a month by limiting yourselves to one hair gel and one hair spray, and a more economical brand of each." This comment came about, unsolicited as it was, after seeing the assortment of styling products that Bryan and Rico had on display in their master bath: there was a can of top-shelf hairspray: another can of designer freezing spray, and two pump sprays - one for volumizing, one for shine. In addition, there were a half-dozen jars, each boasting a different specific tonsorial skill, from glossing to spiking to waxing to stiffening; and I swear they even had a can of styling mousse that was probably more for nostalgia's sake than for the sake of actual grooming.

"And," I couldn't help adding, "for a guy who is somewhere between zygote and just-old-enough-to-pee-straight, you sure seem to dye your hair an awful lot." I'm not even talking about the possibility of letting a few stray grays bleed through in his always-perfect mane; I was just wondering out loud if a few cents a week couldn't possibly be freed up for groceries or health care or Haitian relief efforts if he allowed a few stray blondes to poke through the painted strawberry patch.

"Our hair is different," he snapped, a bit too quickly to be brushed off as merely defensive. "And these are all essential."

Never missing the opportunity to be a cunt - and a dramatic one at that - I turned my right knee in for the perfect diva bevel pose and, paraphrasing the character I'm currently playing in "Urine Town", stated through a sneer, "you're too young to know now, Bryan darling, but there really are things in life more important than haircare products. Food, water and shelter, for example."

"And weight management supplements?" he responded, affecting a near-perfect mirror-image of my own dramatic stance in mocking reproach.

"I beg your fucking pardon?" was all I could muster as a comeback. It wasn't so much that I was offended by the implication, but really thrown that he had nailed my diva pose with such dead-on precision that I'd now have to go watch hours of old Rosalind Russell films to find a new way of establishing social dominance through statuesque posturing.

"You spend more on health supplements than Rico and I spend together on all our grooming shit," he admonished. I'm certain he could see the silent math taking place behind my now-squinting eyes and crooked, reflective sneer, as I recounted my last checkout experiences at the Vitamin Shoppe, GNC and InVite. "You eat so many pills before leaving the house in the morning that I'm surprised you can swallow anything else before lunch time. You have pills for fat burning - both instant and long-range, nutritionally and systemically - another pill for increasing metabolism, two different ones to maintain water balance, pills to inhibit carb absorption, pills for energy, pills for stamina in the gym and stamina in bed, pills for strength and muscle recovery; you have other pills to attack bloat due to water, and another for bloat due to decreased levels of good fucking flora in your digestive tract, whatever the fuck THAT means. You have a time released... THING... that you take four times a day to increase your anabolic lean mass potential while inhibiting catabolic breakdown. And not only do you take one amino acid before working out and another one immediately after, you take a combination of them in free form, have another you spray on your fucking food, and take a whole handful of the branched-chain aminos morning noon and night!"

Three weak-willed fingers went up, half-mast, on my right hand, just hinting at the retort that I hadn't the nerve to make audible. "Three," I was thinking. "I take THREE Branched Chain Amino Acids. Three times a day. Not a HANDFUL. You FUCKTARD." I'm pretty certain my lip was quivering as a cry-warning, too.

While my inner drama queen channeled Patty Duke's Neeley O'Hara and wanted to scream "It's the DOLLS, I tell ya," I thought better of it. I did, though, manage to pull my shit together to say with absolute conviction, that he was comparing apples to oranges. That HEALTH supplements are not BEAUTY PRODUCTS. That these were ESSENTIAL. That these were not for VANITY but for PHYSICAL WELL-BEING. And that he was INDEED a Fucktard AND an Ass-Hat.

"No," he corrected. "They are no more essential than my grooming supplies. What they are, like it or not, are your own 'Cost of Doing Business'."

I thought for a moment. And I couldn't respond.

He was absolutely right, and he had me. I mean, of course I called him a Cunt Lick yet again in the silence of my brooding, but he had me. Dead to rights.

As a gay man in New York City, we all have a Cost of Doing Business.

For Bryan and Rico, that cost is grooming products. They simply aren't comfortable walking out of the house feeling they haven't absolutely assured themselves and the world that witnesses their passage through space and time that day that they've taken every step fathomable to present the perfect picture of the Modern and Well-Appointed Gay Male. For my friend Christian, he will forgo a week's worth of breakfasts and dinners if it means he can have the right shoes for every possible occasion and an assortment of accessories from belts to bags to sunglasses that are the essential ornaments in his daily trimming. Richie has dodged the building manager looking for late rent more than once in the past few months; but look in his dresser drawers and you'll find them filled with jeans that cost more than my car because apparently you wear them for a month without laundering them and they form a custom fit specifically for your body, and I think they also cure fibromyalgia and black mold and were woven by wood nymphs of sunshine and morning dew. Regardless, they are the only "casual" pants he can conceive of wearing, and he once literally turned to me on a night out when I asked him why he looked so down and confided, "because my jeans are off-the-rack and nobody wants to make out with me now."

And I spend a small fortune on nutritional supplements, most of which, if not all, have asterisks on their labels stating emphatically (in tiny type) that whatever the miracle I'm hoping they'll provide, their magic has not yet been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration; add to those products the constant energy and protein supplement expenditures, and I'm 100% guaranteed that my GNC Gold Card's annual fee pays for itself with the first purchase, and that once a year my Vitamin Shoppe rewards points total enough to provide a $200.00 shopping spree through that store's aisles.

The Cost of Doing Business. If being a confident gay man is your trade, then you have this column on your corporate tally sheet circled in heavy black Sharpie and highlighted in fluorescent yellow. Every operating period. Of every fiscal year.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, but these line item entries are of excruciating importance to each of us as sole proprietors of our own gay-owned and -operated selves. Just like a baker needs the best flour and an accountant needs to be up on the latest tax law changes, each of us has some set of standards - some unbreakable rules or code of conduct or list of essentials - he feels to be paramount to the success of his operation.

Now, my little run-in with Bryan neither made me more defensive of my reliance on supplements for the confidence that I'm doing everything possible to stay physically fit and thus sexually viable, nor more willing to cut back and wean off of them as crutches or true aids. It didn't get him to commit to a single can of Aqua Net Mega Hold and a dollar jar of Dippity-Do gel. But what it did accomplish was making me face my damages, fiscal or otherwise, and own the choices I make to provide for myself the way I do.

We can't all be perfect. Hell, none of us can or should even HOPE to be, and few of us will ever come even remotely close. But what each of us CAN be is self-aware, and the owner of his own corporate mission statement, if you will. And if that personal company policy is what helps you keep your doors open, then hang your sign proudly in your shop window, and announce it to the world.

"I'm open for business... Come on in."

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Cas I am moved to print a retraction of sorts, if you'll indulge me: Bryan, who is featured heavily this week, pointed out an erroneous credit in my New Year's column, "Waiting for My Ball to Drop." He brought it to my attention that the Times Square ball was not, as I'd stated, crafted of Baccarat crystal. "My people are offended by your error," he admonished. You may note that Bryan is often admonishing me for one grievous trespass or another. "Which people have I offended," I asked with all sincerity. "Redheads, Jersey Boys, or drunks?" "The Irish, you dick-for-brains." The crystals forming this year's New Years ball designer originated in the factories of Waterford, in Ireland, and not Baccarat. I apologize deeply if I have indeed offended the Irish. Or, for that matter, redheaded drunks from New Jersey. So to Bryan, I say "I'm sorry, Pal. You were absolutely right. You're also fat."

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