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How Thomas Page McBee, Questioner of Masculinity, Spends His Sundays
The back flap of Thomas Page McBee’s most recent memoir, “Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man a Man,” notes that he was the first transgender man to ever box in Madison Square Garden. But Mr. McBee, 37, is known less for his skills in the ring than for his determination to unravel the mysteries of manhood. “Amateur” is a follow-up to his 2014 memoir, “Man Alive.” Both books take an unflinching look at gender and masculinity. Mr. McBee lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with his wife, Jessica Bloom, 33, the director of development at a nonprofit. They live with two rescue dogs, Bruno and Henry, and a cat named Olive.
FOCUS The dogs wake us up around 7:30. Jess walks the dogs while I make the coffee. It’s the only time of the entire day I’m in the house by myself, so I try to do something meditative. Like I’ll pull a tarot card to give me my thing to think about for the day. Or I’ll use the notes app on my phone to write down things I’m thinking about. Usually I start the day thinking, What am I struggling with? What’s a barrier I need to get around?
HEART-TO-HEART Then Jess gets home and she makes breakfast, usually some kind of crazy egg thing or pancakes. Jess is my BFF, the person I talk to the most. We don’t get a lot of time to talk during the week, so we spend a lot of time just talking on Sunday mornings.
CHALK IT UP Around 10 I go to the gym around the corner, Chalk. This is actually kind of funny, I think — it’s the gym “Broad City” is filmed in. It’s very classic Williamsburg. Fighting helped me get really in touch with my body. You learn so much about your own anatomy. Since I’ve stopped fighting I’ve gotten really into strength training. I lift weights on my own now. I work out four times a week.
SINGLE MINDED After I shower I like going to movies by myself or going to a museum by myself. I just love the way stories get told visually. There’s something about the immediacy of a movie that sometimes helps me solve problems in my work. It helps me pinpoint things. I like going with other people, too, but it’s like when I saw “BlacKkKlansman” — I didn’t want to discuss it with anyone after. I didn’t want to walk out of the theater with someone else’s thoughts in my mind.
WALK AROUND If I’m going to a movie usually I’ll go to the Nitehawk or the Williamsburg Cinemas. If it’s a museum I really like the Whitney. If I don’t do either of those things, I’ll just go to Greenpoint and walk around. I love Greenpoint because it looks a lot like Pittsburgh, where I’m from. I’m also a bookstore fiend and they have Word bookstore there.
TREAT In the afternoon we’ll walk the dogs at the dog park right next to our house. They love that, when we all go out together. Right after the dogs we do a special thing: we go get ice cream at Mister Dips, around the corner from us at the top of a hotel. It’s soft serve, and they put coatings on it and looks absolutely beautiful. It’s an insane amount to eat and it’s very filling and disgusting. I love it.
HIT THE STACKS Then we’ll usually walk to McNally Jackson, which is another bookstore. I can spend hours in McNally Jackson. It’s got this nice, clean aesthetic. We just pick something up and hang out.
HIS TURN IN THE KITCHEN By the time we get home it’s early evening. This is where I pick up most of the labor, because I had my free time in the morning. I make Sunday dinner. I like doing it because my mom was a big cook. She passed away, so in her memory I’m learning. I’m on a risotto kick.
AVID LISTENER While I’m making dinner I listen to podcasts. I have my favorites, like “This American Life,” obviously. But I also love “Still Processing,” “Savage Lovecast,” “Fresh Air,” “Dear Prudence” and “Call Your Girlfriend.” Another one I really love is “You Must Remember This,” about Hollywood history. But lately I’ve been obsessed with “30 for 30” from ESPN. It’s sports stories told narratively. I continue to think that sports are an interesting way to reach a different audience and to tell social stories.
MENTAL NOTES After dinner we’ll spend some time talking, mostly creative or professional troubleshooting. Then we’ll watch TV, either “Insecure,” the third season, or “BoJack Horseman.” We have different tastes, so those are the shows in the overlapping part of our Venn diagram. Jess gets in bed at 10, and I’ll walk the dogs and then organize the notes I’ve been taking all day. By the end of the day, I’ve written down a million things. I arrange them in the hopes it might help my unconscious work some magic in bed.
How These New Yorkers Spend Their Sundays
A Drag Performer and Educator: For Kelindah Schuster, who performs as Theydy Bedbug and helps people develop their own drag characters, Sundays are “a sacred day of rest.”
A Nigerian Cuisine Chef: Ayo Balogun, owner of the Dept of Culture restaurant in Brooklyn, devotes Sundays to pancakes with his 13-year-old son and art with his partner.
An ESPN Host: Mike Greenberg tries to avoid sports talk until it’s time to watch football. That leaves time for brunch, books and Taylor Swift.
Married Indie Pop Musicians: When they’re not on the road, Ian Devaney and Aidan Noell, two-thirds of the band Nation of Language, like to relax in the park and have coffee in their neighborhood.
An Urban Forager: Aly Stoffo knows where to find wild mushrooms, berries and other edible plants on Staten Island. But the location of her favorite paw paw patch is a secret.
The Central Park Birder: Christian Cooper, the host of the TV show “Extraordinary Birder,” enjoys a meditative moment, complete with lute music, among the native plants in his rooftop garden.
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