To put the dichotomies of my life in high relief, during Gay Pride Week I was asked to be the full time music leader at My Very Pentecostal Church. I said yes. Then I ran straight off to a booty call in the next hamlet over. No sense selling out to one side or the other too completely, I figure. The winds of change, they blow at the oddest moments. It seems unwise to be too tethered to either option when they do.
There is a wonderful family at the church that includes a little girl, named Sarah, who has Down Syndrome. Sarah's family sits across the aisle from me within my dwindling peripheral vision. I have on many occasions glanced across the aisle to see her grandmother trying, in vain, to coax her into clapping in rhythm to the music. Her aunt is a gifted musician and a wonderful lady, to boot. It's easy to clap in rhythm, play like a virtuoso and sing like an angel when you have the gift and the training. In my years, I have noticed that all three don't add to up to an ounce of true worship. My pappy taught me that.
Sarah's feet never stop moving. She claps on nonexistent beats to songs she hears but will likely never comprehend. "Victory in Jesus" means little to her, I imagine. But she claps and sways and belts out suspect lyrics with a gusto rarely seen in more self-conscious, pious grownups. When I need a reminder of what it really looks like to lose yourself in the moment, I glance at Sarah, accept the stinging rebuke she represents, and re-focus my attention heavenward in hopes that I might achieve what comes so effortlessly to her.
Sarah's family and I often meet at the Dairy Queen in town after church. She has a cheeseburger which she ritually pounds flat for easier consumption. It made so much sense to me the first time I saw it, that I pounded my own down as a show of solidarity. Ice cream cones pose a challenge beyond Sarah's ability to reason. She is delightful to watch as she happily chases stream after stream of wilting ice cream down first one side and then the other in a dizzying game of Ice Cream Tag.
It has been written many times over that children with Down Syndrome, in particular, are welcoming, loving, happy people who have much to teach the rest of us about unconditional acceptance. Knowing this, I was still taken aback when Sarah approached me in the church parking lot on Sunday with a request for the next service. She'd like us to sing "Sweet Bye Bye". I knew immediately that she referred to "In The Sweet By and By". But I liked her rendering of the title so much more.
It didn't take me long to connect the dots in my mind between her own condition which typically shortens a lifespan significantly = and my own. I wrote down the request and put it at the top of the list of what the congregation would sing the next Sunday. On Wednesday night, she caught me in the parking lot before the service and said that she wanted to sing "Sweet Bye Bye" that very night. I don't have any involvement in the Wednesday night service, but her gifted aunt and her grandmother noted, "She wants to sing it with you...tonight."
My people make a big deal out of hearing from God. Mockery comes easily when Oral Roberts has claimed that God would off him for want of several million dollars. Lesser known instances emphasize the point when you travel in these circles. I know that I've never heard the Burning Bush Audible Voice of God. But I also know that I've frequently been the second-hand recipient of a message from The Big Guy on any number of occasions.
God spoke to me this week through a little girl with Down Syndrome. We sat on the step of the podium Wednesday night - each with our own microphone - and we sang "In The Sweet By and By". Sarah sang the lyrics that poured out of her heart without regard to what was printed on the page. I stuck to what was written. And I sang an inferior song. That lesser song moved me as I sat shoulder to shoulder with my spiritual superior:
"We shall sing on that beautiful shore
The melodious songs of the blest.
And our spirits shall sorrow no more.
Not a sigh for the blessing of rest.
In the Sweet By and By,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.
In the Sweet By and By,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore."
My mortality drapes over my shoulders like a comfortable shawl that I forget I'm wearing. A little girl unwittingly altered my perspective with a song and a speech impediment. The Sweet Bye Bye, indeed.
Very, very sweet.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
At 42
Today I turned 42. When I was 34, it did not seem at all likely I would turn 42. I plan to have a drink to celebrate. At least one.
At 42, I know that there is no point to picking up the phone book until I've located my glasses. I also know that unless I put the remote control in the same place every time, I will be 10 minutes late to see whatever is on the T.V.
At 42, my keys are always in my pocket. Not only can I go wherever I want, whenever I want, but I know that if I set them down anywhere, I will be homebound for two days until they reappear.
At 42, it seems I always have cash. I like that part. I am never precluded from going through the Dairy Queen for lack of funding. My income exceeds my expenses at 42. That's a very nice thing = and I'm grateful for my grandpa's harping on debt.
At 42, my hair is the same color it's always been - naturally - with a side note that I was actually born a red-head with kinky, curly hair. No kidding. Only up close do the white hairs that have begun to dominate my temples betray my age.
I've learned, at 42, that I only have crow's feet when I smile. So I don't smile as much as I once did. I laugh more. I just don't smile as much. I laugh from the gut more...the kind that hurts. I tell more revealing stories about myself...I think so people will remember me. I'm usually the butt of the joke in these stories, but it makes people laugh and I admit I think they're funny, too.
I don't think I'm cut out for a lot of things at 42 that I aspired to at 24. I know my limitations more intimately now than I did then. I spend less time wanting what I don't have and wondering about what might have been. The days are too full - even if just with laundry and house cleaning - to wonder about how they might have been different. I don't covet the way I once did. I used to dwell on the fairness of life. Now I chuckle at the very notion.
At 42, I own a 2-bedroom, 1-bath bungalow in a rural Kansas "town of 3,000 people, countless animals and one grocery store known by no name that is common among civilized people". That's what it says on the big sign when you enter town.
No, it doesn't. But it would be true. At 42, I love Molly Ivins and David Sedaris where I once loved Molly Hatchet and David Cassidy. At 42, I can avoid the president (and I recommend this practice) when he's on T.V. At 14, I never imagined such a wonder. At 42, politics inflame my passions like baseball once did. I know, at 42, that everything political affects my life directly or indirectly. So at 42, I shun people who don't engage in politics, at least as interested observers.
At 42, I don't let nonsense go un-noted. I'm not immune to the nonsensical utterance myself. But I took a cue from my 82 year-old grandmother and have begun calling a spade a spade with greater frequency. I might not see 82 and I'd hate to miss my "Say Anything You Want" opportunity.
Mostly, at 42, I know who I am. The birthday emails are so thoughtful. The cards will go on top of the T.V. for a couple of weeks. I'll appreciate whatever gifts show up and my time at the pool and the celebratory cocktail(s) with my One Drunk Friend. At the end of the day, though, the greatest gift I have at 42 is knowing who I am and who I'm not.
I don't have to listen to anyone explain me to me. I can discern whether someone's evaluation of me is accurate or not. I don't allow words to be put in my mouth because I know them all and use them freely myself. I dress how I like. If I like. I speak my mind - often. Always. And without regard to my surroundings or the consequences. At 42, I am a presence where at 24 I was merely present. And that, my good friend, is a present at any age.
Especially at 42.
At 42, I know that there is no point to picking up the phone book until I've located my glasses. I also know that unless I put the remote control in the same place every time, I will be 10 minutes late to see whatever is on the T.V.
At 42, my keys are always in my pocket. Not only can I go wherever I want, whenever I want, but I know that if I set them down anywhere, I will be homebound for two days until they reappear.
At 42, it seems I always have cash. I like that part. I am never precluded from going through the Dairy Queen for lack of funding. My income exceeds my expenses at 42. That's a very nice thing = and I'm grateful for my grandpa's harping on debt.
At 42, my hair is the same color it's always been - naturally - with a side note that I was actually born a red-head with kinky, curly hair. No kidding. Only up close do the white hairs that have begun to dominate my temples betray my age.
I've learned, at 42, that I only have crow's feet when I smile. So I don't smile as much as I once did. I laugh more. I just don't smile as much. I laugh from the gut more...the kind that hurts. I tell more revealing stories about myself...I think so people will remember me. I'm usually the butt of the joke in these stories, but it makes people laugh and I admit I think they're funny, too.
I don't think I'm cut out for a lot of things at 42 that I aspired to at 24. I know my limitations more intimately now than I did then. I spend less time wanting what I don't have and wondering about what might have been. The days are too full - even if just with laundry and house cleaning - to wonder about how they might have been different. I don't covet the way I once did. I used to dwell on the fairness of life. Now I chuckle at the very notion.
At 42, I own a 2-bedroom, 1-bath bungalow in a rural Kansas "town of 3,000 people, countless animals and one grocery store known by no name that is common among civilized people". That's what it says on the big sign when you enter town.
No, it doesn't. But it would be true. At 42, I love Molly Ivins and David Sedaris where I once loved Molly Hatchet and David Cassidy. At 42, I can avoid the president (and I recommend this practice) when he's on T.V. At 14, I never imagined such a wonder. At 42, politics inflame my passions like baseball once did. I know, at 42, that everything political affects my life directly or indirectly. So at 42, I shun people who don't engage in politics, at least as interested observers.
At 42, I don't let nonsense go un-noted. I'm not immune to the nonsensical utterance myself. But I took a cue from my 82 year-old grandmother and have begun calling a spade a spade with greater frequency. I might not see 82 and I'd hate to miss my "Say Anything You Want" opportunity.
Mostly, at 42, I know who I am. The birthday emails are so thoughtful. The cards will go on top of the T.V. for a couple of weeks. I'll appreciate whatever gifts show up and my time at the pool and the celebratory cocktail(s) with my One Drunk Friend. At the end of the day, though, the greatest gift I have at 42 is knowing who I am and who I'm not.
I don't have to listen to anyone explain me to me. I can discern whether someone's evaluation of me is accurate or not. I don't allow words to be put in my mouth because I know them all and use them freely myself. I dress how I like. If I like. I speak my mind - often. Always. And without regard to my surroundings or the consequences. At 42, I am a presence where at 24 I was merely present. And that, my good friend, is a present at any age.
Especially at 42.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
You Asked For It
Inexplicably, there are people who want to know what I really look like. They even have the nerve to complain that my profile picture is too small (a situation over which I have no control). For the strong-stomached and the weak of eyesight, I grant you this one wish. And remember, you asked for it.
Where You Belong
If Gay Pride delivers nothing, beyond boobs on bikes (San Francisco, primarily) and queens in convertibles, you can't help but leave a parade with a sense of belonging. In the worst hungover, crystal crashing moments of a life, one can cling to the knowledge that they belong somewhere. That doesn't relieve the dehydration, cramping and that pleasant, lingering tingle down south....I hear. But it is nice to know.
I belong in Kansas. I lived in all the other places: Chicago (too cold for a skinny queen), San Francisco (too kinky for a squeamish queen), Des Moines (too rural for a suburban queen) and Omaha, where they sound like North Dakotans only without the charm or a movie to their credit. I also belong to a people....the queerly deviant fringe who only make sense in context. (e.g. The leather daddy with cod piece in line at Taco Bell is a juxtaposition that tarnishes both the subject and the locale.)
My Hell's Kitchen agent, however, has taken my name and work to the streets of New York City. NEW YORK CITY! This morning comes the report that he had strolled the sidewalks of New York (and not the nicer ones, if I catch his drift) with not one, but a bevy of drag queens with microphones in hand. They were, no doubt, mesmerized by his effortless Carol Channing impression that pops out anytime he gets excited or drunk. He does a lot of Carol Channing.
Said drag queens, whom we revere at Gay Pride Time if at no other, were recording for all posterity his drunken rambling about a blog (the one you see here) with which he was quite taken. Now I have been pimped to New York Magazine and the good people at The Occasional Fag (http://www.theoccasionalfag.com). I am a quiet, relatively serene homosexual on the prairie with an ever-burgeoning fan club on the streets of New York City. Whatever will I do when they realize I'm just a poor man's Garrison Keillor with a cock ring and a thing for Malibu Rum?
My point is, it's important to not only know THAT you belong, which I do, but also to know WHERE you belong. Many years ago, when I was young....er, my best and dearest friend was a Queen Under Nubian Transport (QUNT, for short). Her people had been traded for molasses in the 18th century and she ended up wearing a dress and high heels, lip-synching to Patti LaBelle in 1989's Kansas City. Who says progress doesn't march right along?
Ms. Ramona Baker, as she was known on the less tasteful stages of the Midwest, had encountered an unfortunate accident as a child that had left her mildly mangled on one leg. She could still dance, play third base, get to third base (wink, wink) and kneel for hours on end in bookstores of ill repute. But she was obviously hobbled in some unfortunate way. The pharmaceutical haze of the early 90's prevents me from sharing with confidence just how she came to be imperfect in her lower parts, but I believe it to have been from either a vicious dog or a car accident. It earned her the nickname La Gimp.
Upon purchasing my very first new automobile, the 1990 Ford Festiva, our QUNT informed me that she had a cousin in New Orleans who fairly insisted that we visit for an extended weekend - free of charge. Being young and marketable, particularly where the light was dim, I leaped at the invitation and drove the two of us to Nawlins for a weekend of debauchery. Somewhere around Memphis, La Gimp let it casually be known that she might not remember her cousin's phone number, address or name. At the Louisiana State Line, she confessed her sins and said she had never known anyone south of Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
There we sat - parked in the Not Nicest of The Not Nice Places in what used to be Nawlins. At long last, she revealed further that while she may never have had a cousin in Sin City, she did have the phone number, address and several schematics for the Bath House written on her bra. The queen was nothing if not resourceful.
We were, as she'd planned, past The Point of No Return and destined to sleep in a Festiva in New Orleans or trick our way in to a soft bed and a warm shower. While I was not born pretty, I can accessorize well. Suffice it to say I was not observed sleeping in a Festiva at Louis Armstrong Park. Ahhhh...the good old days.
I digress.
We debauched for 3 full days and headed back from whence we'd come when the QUNT decided that she needed - NEEDED!! - to stop at the rest stop near Columbia, Missouri - 2 hours from home - in order to change into her drag. Her hope was to catch one of the shows upon our return and be stage-ready by the time we hit the edges of home. I pulled into the Pretty Potty on the Prairie and she disembarked with drag bag in hand. I turned up the radio, leaned the seat back and had thought to catch a brief nap while she painted, tucked, and teased her hair into an unnatural shape.
I was awakened from my shallow slumber by what sounded like a bus bearing down on my petite, gentle Festiva. I squinted my eyes and confirmed that, indeed, we had been joined by a big, yellow school bus. That was a nice, pastoral tableau, particularly when the stream of little Webelos began to exit the bus followed by their fully grown and identically dressed Den Daddies. I smiled as I beheld the half-Aryan Dream, half-Prairie Paradise scene before me.
Until I realized that they were heading into the loo where La Gimp was fast changing genders.
I knew this was going nowhere good and fast. Me, in rural Missouri, with a black man dressed as a black woman trapped in a rest stop toilet with 30 little boys and 2 grown men in neckerchiefs, shorts and black socks. As my instincts are normally spot-on, it must have been the first uniformed tyke through the door who alerted La Gimp to the impending doom.
I started the car and revved the engine praying to Jesus that if they had guns, they hadn't earned their merit badges fair and square. Out the opposite door bolted our QUNT, waving her wig in one hand and her boy clothes in the other. Her Tina Turner fringed mini-dress was waving like the Kansas Wheat as she squawked, "Stawt the goddamned caw!" On a full run - in substantial heels - she caught me as I rolled along the parking lot toward the on-ramp to I-70. She caught the hatchback, lifted it and flung her belongings and herself inside.
Two grown men in neckerchiefs, merit badge sashes, and black knee socks were chasing after her as though her drag were any more egregious than their own. She lost nothing more than a pump in the chase. The men had left their dignity behind when they put on that silly uniform and enticed little boys into the woods with promises of iron-on badges and smores. As usual, the Queen was triumphant, even in the least dignified of circumstances.
And isn't that the real message of Gay Pride? Whether you're marching in the parade, fouling yourself on a float, or slinking out of a bath house at 6 a.m. on The Lord's Day, we do tend to triumph despite all. So should you hear of me on a podcast somewhere, sitting among the wheat fields, baring my ass to the world, figuratively speaking, remember that it's where I belong. And may you belong, too.
Happy Gay Pride Everyone!
I belong in Kansas. I lived in all the other places: Chicago (too cold for a skinny queen), San Francisco (too kinky for a squeamish queen), Des Moines (too rural for a suburban queen) and Omaha, where they sound like North Dakotans only without the charm or a movie to their credit. I also belong to a people....the queerly deviant fringe who only make sense in context. (e.g. The leather daddy with cod piece in line at Taco Bell is a juxtaposition that tarnishes both the subject and the locale.)
My Hell's Kitchen agent, however, has taken my name and work to the streets of New York City. NEW YORK CITY! This morning comes the report that he had strolled the sidewalks of New York (and not the nicer ones, if I catch his drift) with not one, but a bevy of drag queens with microphones in hand. They were, no doubt, mesmerized by his effortless Carol Channing impression that pops out anytime he gets excited or drunk. He does a lot of Carol Channing.
Said drag queens, whom we revere at Gay Pride Time if at no other, were recording for all posterity his drunken rambling about a blog (the one you see here) with which he was quite taken. Now I have been pimped to New York Magazine and the good people at The Occasional Fag (http://www.theoccasionalfag.com). I am a quiet, relatively serene homosexual on the prairie with an ever-burgeoning fan club on the streets of New York City. Whatever will I do when they realize I'm just a poor man's Garrison Keillor with a cock ring and a thing for Malibu Rum?
My point is, it's important to not only know THAT you belong, which I do, but also to know WHERE you belong. Many years ago, when I was young....er, my best and dearest friend was a Queen Under Nubian Transport (QUNT, for short). Her people had been traded for molasses in the 18th century and she ended up wearing a dress and high heels, lip-synching to Patti LaBelle in 1989's Kansas City. Who says progress doesn't march right along?
Ms. Ramona Baker, as she was known on the less tasteful stages of the Midwest, had encountered an unfortunate accident as a child that had left her mildly mangled on one leg. She could still dance, play third base, get to third base (wink, wink) and kneel for hours on end in bookstores of ill repute. But she was obviously hobbled in some unfortunate way. The pharmaceutical haze of the early 90's prevents me from sharing with confidence just how she came to be imperfect in her lower parts, but I believe it to have been from either a vicious dog or a car accident. It earned her the nickname La Gimp.
Upon purchasing my very first new automobile, the 1990 Ford Festiva, our QUNT informed me that she had a cousin in New Orleans who fairly insisted that we visit for an extended weekend - free of charge. Being young and marketable, particularly where the light was dim, I leaped at the invitation and drove the two of us to Nawlins for a weekend of debauchery. Somewhere around Memphis, La Gimp let it casually be known that she might not remember her cousin's phone number, address or name. At the Louisiana State Line, she confessed her sins and said she had never known anyone south of Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
There we sat - parked in the Not Nicest of The Not Nice Places in what used to be Nawlins. At long last, she revealed further that while she may never have had a cousin in Sin City, she did have the phone number, address and several schematics for the Bath House written on her bra. The queen was nothing if not resourceful.
We were, as she'd planned, past The Point of No Return and destined to sleep in a Festiva in New Orleans or trick our way in to a soft bed and a warm shower. While I was not born pretty, I can accessorize well. Suffice it to say I was not observed sleeping in a Festiva at Louis Armstrong Park. Ahhhh...the good old days.
I digress.
We debauched for 3 full days and headed back from whence we'd come when the QUNT decided that she needed - NEEDED!! - to stop at the rest stop near Columbia, Missouri - 2 hours from home - in order to change into her drag. Her hope was to catch one of the shows upon our return and be stage-ready by the time we hit the edges of home. I pulled into the Pretty Potty on the Prairie and she disembarked with drag bag in hand. I turned up the radio, leaned the seat back and had thought to catch a brief nap while she painted, tucked, and teased her hair into an unnatural shape.
I was awakened from my shallow slumber by what sounded like a bus bearing down on my petite, gentle Festiva. I squinted my eyes and confirmed that, indeed, we had been joined by a big, yellow school bus. That was a nice, pastoral tableau, particularly when the stream of little Webelos began to exit the bus followed by their fully grown and identically dressed Den Daddies. I smiled as I beheld the half-Aryan Dream, half-Prairie Paradise scene before me.
Until I realized that they were heading into the loo where La Gimp was fast changing genders.
I knew this was going nowhere good and fast. Me, in rural Missouri, with a black man dressed as a black woman trapped in a rest stop toilet with 30 little boys and 2 grown men in neckerchiefs, shorts and black socks. As my instincts are normally spot-on, it must have been the first uniformed tyke through the door who alerted La Gimp to the impending doom.
I started the car and revved the engine praying to Jesus that if they had guns, they hadn't earned their merit badges fair and square. Out the opposite door bolted our QUNT, waving her wig in one hand and her boy clothes in the other. Her Tina Turner fringed mini-dress was waving like the Kansas Wheat as she squawked, "Stawt the goddamned caw!" On a full run - in substantial heels - she caught me as I rolled along the parking lot toward the on-ramp to I-70. She caught the hatchback, lifted it and flung her belongings and herself inside.
Two grown men in neckerchiefs, merit badge sashes, and black knee socks were chasing after her as though her drag were any more egregious than their own. She lost nothing more than a pump in the chase. The men had left their dignity behind when they put on that silly uniform and enticed little boys into the woods with promises of iron-on badges and smores. As usual, the Queen was triumphant, even in the least dignified of circumstances.
And isn't that the real message of Gay Pride? Whether you're marching in the parade, fouling yourself on a float, or slinking out of a bath house at 6 a.m. on The Lord's Day, we do tend to triumph despite all. So should you hear of me on a podcast somewhere, sitting among the wheat fields, baring my ass to the world, figuratively speaking, remember that it's where I belong. And may you belong, too.
Happy Gay Pride Everyone!
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
What I Did On My Summer Vacation
This is one of those posts you make so that the most recent one doesn't include the term "pony tail butt plug". It occurs to me now that the preceding sentence defeats that purpose altogether.
I got so many hits (from Calgary to Phoenix to Belgium - really) from folks who had actually done searches on "pony tail butt plug" that I decided it must be something of a phenomenon. Mine did arrive in time to take to the campout. And that's all the information I'm giving on that topic. Although, it does bear mentioning that these items are not easily purchased with size-certainty. It really takes making a mistake once - or getting very, very lucky - to find out just what size of contraption is right for you. And THAT'S all I'm going to say on that topic.
Except that it was very popular. There. That's all I'm going to say on the topic.
Oh, and if you loop it through the waistband of your chaps, you prevent any projectile mishaps. That did not happen, for the record. I'm just saying. It's a handy idea that occurred to me on the 5th or 6th glass from the Box o' Wine. It was noted, as well, that this particular orientation of the aforementioned device makes it stand out very much like a pony's tail. And THAT is all I'm going to say on the topic.
At the ripe old age of 41 years and 51 weeks, I apparently still look hot in a pair of chaps. That was a nice surprise. I wouldn't have figured as much. I've never worn chaps very much. Thrice, in fact. This was the third time I'd been in public in a pair of chaps. Perhaps I missed a prime presentation opportunity during all those years gone under the bridge. These are things they should tell you when you're 22:
Whether or not your body is fit for a Speedo.
Whether or not you need to consider clothing-optional vacations.
Whether or not you should always wear jeans with your chaps.
And whether shaving your head will increase your dating prospects.
Why we make people figure these things out on their own is beyond me. It might sound cruel to learn that you're not among the Speedo-gifted at a young age. But what a treat to know that you can run, testes to the breeze, whenever the urge strikes. Vacationing with people old enough to have birthed you increases your appeal immensely, I learned. I am the Brad Pitt of the geriatric set, it would seem from last week's comments, pinches, pats and whistles.
Hey, when you're past 40 you take your cat calls where you can get them.
I slept in a tent for 3 nights. It rained the last night. I packed up the next morning. I know a warning sign when I see one. The tent survived nicely in the wind and brief downpour, but I know Kansas. If you get one night, you'll get two. I wasn't tempting fate. I once knew a drag queen who tempted fate and it did not turn out well.
It was a Gay Pride Parade of many moons ago when one of the more famous (and now dead) drag queens had prepared herself for her perch atop a float by consuming a medium-sized helping of cocaine. For the uninitiated, cocaine is frequently cut (mixed with) baby laxative - for the purposes of both fun and profit, I assume.
Having properly be-coked herself, she sat upon her royal perch and commenced to waving at the madding throng for the first several blocks of the parade route. Twenty minutes in (you can set your watch by this), she felt the urge that only baby laxative can give.
Myrna was not a small girl. She was truly round. She was like a globe with red hair, ankles the size of hams...and style. She was the only human who could do eyeshadow four inches up her forehead and make it look like she planned the whole thing. She assumed her perch on a folding chair at the back of the flatbed and commenced to waving to all who would gaze upon her. And, as mentioned, our old girl felt nature's call with an urgency normally reserved for cats in water.
Summoning her Ladies in Wading, she spied a bucket filled with a faux palm tree and, being in a flowing, hooped frock, proceeded to de-plant the palm and mount the bucket on the chair upon which tower she sat herself....to do her bidness, as we say in Chickopee. It took but one sudden lurch forward for our girl to tip just far enough backward on her precarious perch, that she, the bucket and the chair ended up in reverse order at the back of the float. Her gown above her neck, she could not see, but could only feel her public demise.
Her Ladies in Wading being of the entrepreneurial sort, took to shaking bottles of Co-Cola and pointing the spray in her general bottomly direction to relieve her of what most surely would stain. As only a Queen could do, with everything righted upwards, she resumed her perch and finished the Parade with only one block of homosexuals the wiser.
...And that is why I cannot drink Co-Cola at Pride Parades.
...And that is why I do not tempt fate by waiting for the second night of rain.
...And that is why I will never again buy a Pony Tail Butt Plug one size too small.
...And that is what I did on my summer vacation.
I got so many hits (from Calgary to Phoenix to Belgium - really) from folks who had actually done searches on "pony tail butt plug" that I decided it must be something of a phenomenon. Mine did arrive in time to take to the campout. And that's all the information I'm giving on that topic. Although, it does bear mentioning that these items are not easily purchased with size-certainty. It really takes making a mistake once - or getting very, very lucky - to find out just what size of contraption is right for you. And THAT'S all I'm going to say on that topic.
Except that it was very popular. There. That's all I'm going to say on the topic.
Oh, and if you loop it through the waistband of your chaps, you prevent any projectile mishaps. That did not happen, for the record. I'm just saying. It's a handy idea that occurred to me on the 5th or 6th glass from the Box o' Wine. It was noted, as well, that this particular orientation of the aforementioned device makes it stand out very much like a pony's tail. And THAT is all I'm going to say on the topic.
At the ripe old age of 41 years and 51 weeks, I apparently still look hot in a pair of chaps. That was a nice surprise. I wouldn't have figured as much. I've never worn chaps very much. Thrice, in fact. This was the third time I'd been in public in a pair of chaps. Perhaps I missed a prime presentation opportunity during all those years gone under the bridge. These are things they should tell you when you're 22:
Whether or not your body is fit for a Speedo.
Whether or not you need to consider clothing-optional vacations.
Whether or not you should always wear jeans with your chaps.
And whether shaving your head will increase your dating prospects.
Why we make people figure these things out on their own is beyond me. It might sound cruel to learn that you're not among the Speedo-gifted at a young age. But what a treat to know that you can run, testes to the breeze, whenever the urge strikes. Vacationing with people old enough to have birthed you increases your appeal immensely, I learned. I am the Brad Pitt of the geriatric set, it would seem from last week's comments, pinches, pats and whistles.
Hey, when you're past 40 you take your cat calls where you can get them.
I slept in a tent for 3 nights. It rained the last night. I packed up the next morning. I know a warning sign when I see one. The tent survived nicely in the wind and brief downpour, but I know Kansas. If you get one night, you'll get two. I wasn't tempting fate. I once knew a drag queen who tempted fate and it did not turn out well.
It was a Gay Pride Parade of many moons ago when one of the more famous (and now dead) drag queens had prepared herself for her perch atop a float by consuming a medium-sized helping of cocaine. For the uninitiated, cocaine is frequently cut (mixed with) baby laxative - for the purposes of both fun and profit, I assume.
Having properly be-coked herself, she sat upon her royal perch and commenced to waving at the madding throng for the first several blocks of the parade route. Twenty minutes in (you can set your watch by this), she felt the urge that only baby laxative can give.
Myrna was not a small girl. She was truly round. She was like a globe with red hair, ankles the size of hams...and style. She was the only human who could do eyeshadow four inches up her forehead and make it look like she planned the whole thing. She assumed her perch on a folding chair at the back of the flatbed and commenced to waving to all who would gaze upon her. And, as mentioned, our old girl felt nature's call with an urgency normally reserved for cats in water.
Summoning her Ladies in Wading, she spied a bucket filled with a faux palm tree and, being in a flowing, hooped frock, proceeded to de-plant the palm and mount the bucket on the chair upon which tower she sat herself....to do her bidness, as we say in Chickopee. It took but one sudden lurch forward for our girl to tip just far enough backward on her precarious perch, that she, the bucket and the chair ended up in reverse order at the back of the float. Her gown above her neck, she could not see, but could only feel her public demise.
Her Ladies in Wading being of the entrepreneurial sort, took to shaking bottles of Co-Cola and pointing the spray in her general bottomly direction to relieve her of what most surely would stain. As only a Queen could do, with everything righted upwards, she resumed her perch and finished the Parade with only one block of homosexuals the wiser.
...And that is why I cannot drink Co-Cola at Pride Parades.
...And that is why I do not tempt fate by waiting for the second night of rain.
...And that is why I will never again buy a Pony Tail Butt Plug one size too small.
...And that is what I did on my summer vacation.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Inconveniently Erected
So a few months back I let myself be suggested into the notion of camping. I've camped. I grew up camping. We considered it a form of ritual abuse. In the 70's, our parents would make us sit on the beer in the back seat and keep one hand on the styrofoam cooler's top to stop its annoying squeaking as we barreled down back roads to a poor man's Nirvana.
"Take that hand off that cooler and you'll go through life as the only one-handed fiddle player in the history of Johnson County," my dad would say. I despised him as much for his inability to distinguish the violin I played from a fiddle nearly as much as I despised him for his cruelty. He would blow long streams of smoke from a Lucky Strike that served to get the rest of us just high enough to endure the ride.
We would tell each other stories about snakes and legendary carnivores that lived beneath the murky depths of Pomona Lake. Then we'd slip on our only pair of tennis shoes for what might well be our last wade ever. I think I saw one snake in all those years. We also saw a camper explode spectacularly when its propane tank issued the ultimate camping complaint. My mother pronounced this as evidence that God had never meant for people to camp with all the comforts of home.
"That's what staying home is for," she offered, blowing a long stream of smoke from a Kool Extra Long.
We dodged wasps in the nude in the communal showers that, to this day, seem like a spectacularly bad idea. We learned to survive on nothing more than ash-coated hotdogs, blackened hamburger and marshmallows stuck on sticks that harbored God-Knows-What fungus. Small wonder we all have cancer now.
Over the last 25 years, I have had the occasional urge to camp. I would get right on the cusp of my anticipated departure and realize that life without Central Air was not my chosen path. I have hair that is almost too short to brush, yet I go nowhere without a blow drier - just in case. I enjoy smelling like my deodorant. The plus side never outweighed the con side when I'd completed the analysis, so I never went. Tomorrow, however, I am going camping.
I had thought to dip my toe in the proverbial waters by renting space in a cabin at the campground. Yesterday, I was possessed by something dark and ugly and walked out of our General Store with a tent and a sleeping bag. I was so excited with my purchase that when I got home, I immediately unpacked the tent and made sure I had all the tools necessary - mentally - to assemble it. It would not do to be seen fumbling in public with my only means of shelter. I once made a complete fool of myself at Joe's Crab Shack with a pair of those nutcracker lobster jobbers. Since then, I practice everything that I can foresee happening before I get out among the general public.
I applauded myself aloud when I had erected the small 2-person tent in the living room of my bungalow. I had unwittingly walled myself off from the kitchen, however. It would take going outside, around the house, and back in through the garage just to have a sandwich until I took it down. I tiptoed around my triumph and called down the block to announce my new-found aptitude.
"I bought a tent!"
"Why did you buy a tent?"
"For the campout. And I put it together!"
"I thought you were staying in a cabin because you were 'born in the Western Hemisphere and felt entitled to walls'. Where is this tent?"
"In the living room."
"You have a tent in the living room?"
"I didn't want the neighbors to be witnesses for the next 18 years of this mortgage that I had tried and failed to erect a tent in my yard."
"People don't talk about those things," said my beloved sibling.
"I would," I said.
I checked and double-checked the list of things to bring to the camp and made trip after trip to the General Store to stock up. My Ford Escort began to groan either from the added weight or the sheer embarrassment. I'm not sure which. It hadn't occurred to me that a bright pink Escort might feel inferior among the cabal of camping vehicles we would encounter. I imagined if I were a Pink Escort that I would presume a life heavy on the Marriotts and light on the camping. Late in both our lives, we were going to bite the bullet.
My friend David called today while we were bundling kindling for the fire at camp. I had mentioned to him once before that I'd be gone for five days in the great outdoors. I've been trying to get him to read more so I wouldn't be friends with the only illiterate in New York City. To encourage him, I told him I'd be reading "Naked" (by David Sedaris) while away. I did not mean to tip my hand that I would be reading naked.
"You're camping naked?" he shrieked.
"Nude, I think they call it," I mumbled.
"I thought you meant you were reading a BOOK titled NAKED!"
"Well, I am. I'm reading Naked....naked."
"Oh darling, really! So this is about sex," he hissed a little too proudly.
David doesn't go to the grocery store unless it coincides with his libido's cycle. I firmly believe that when his sex drive leaves him entirely, he will be found starved to death on his kitchen floor. I believe David to be the sort who would sign up for group therapy just to meet men. He is dedicated where I am resigned.
"It's a little about sex, " I muttered. I am very comfortable with my sexuality and still fairly confident in my over-40 body. Nudity does not bother me. I think sex is one of the greater occupations we can undertake as humans. I just don't like talking about it with anyone other than the person (or persons - don't judge) with whom I'm having it.
"I didn't know it was a SEX CAMPING TRIP," he bubbled. I swore on my dog's life that if he said "You Go Girl!", I was hanging up and returning the tent.
"It's NOT a sex camping trip. But if sex happens...," I trailed off, hoping to end the subject on a muted, though hopeful note. I knew this was not the time to tell him that I'd bought the bright red pony-tail butt plug to wear to the Leather And Levi Cocktail Party with my black leather chaps, armband, boots and cock ring. It took me three days to explain to myself that I'd be dressing up at the All-Boy Naked Camp Out for a cocktail party. I knew I couldn't explain it to David with Candice Bergen counting in the background, "One minute...two minutes....".
The cock ring was a tip from one of The Boys. When I looked askance at the suggestion, they noted that, in their experience, they can be handy in avoiding unexpected displays of genital exuberance. I made a mental note of it on the spot and when I came home from dinner, made an actual note of it. It was the first item in the bag when I started packing.
I leave tomorrow with high hopes that the tent in the living room is the only inconvenient erection I'll have to report.
"Take that hand off that cooler and you'll go through life as the only one-handed fiddle player in the history of Johnson County," my dad would say. I despised him as much for his inability to distinguish the violin I played from a fiddle nearly as much as I despised him for his cruelty. He would blow long streams of smoke from a Lucky Strike that served to get the rest of us just high enough to endure the ride.
We would tell each other stories about snakes and legendary carnivores that lived beneath the murky depths of Pomona Lake. Then we'd slip on our only pair of tennis shoes for what might well be our last wade ever. I think I saw one snake in all those years. We also saw a camper explode spectacularly when its propane tank issued the ultimate camping complaint. My mother pronounced this as evidence that God had never meant for people to camp with all the comforts of home.
"That's what staying home is for," she offered, blowing a long stream of smoke from a Kool Extra Long.
We dodged wasps in the nude in the communal showers that, to this day, seem like a spectacularly bad idea. We learned to survive on nothing more than ash-coated hotdogs, blackened hamburger and marshmallows stuck on sticks that harbored God-Knows-What fungus. Small wonder we all have cancer now.
Over the last 25 years, I have had the occasional urge to camp. I would get right on the cusp of my anticipated departure and realize that life without Central Air was not my chosen path. I have hair that is almost too short to brush, yet I go nowhere without a blow drier - just in case. I enjoy smelling like my deodorant. The plus side never outweighed the con side when I'd completed the analysis, so I never went. Tomorrow, however, I am going camping.
I had thought to dip my toe in the proverbial waters by renting space in a cabin at the campground. Yesterday, I was possessed by something dark and ugly and walked out of our General Store with a tent and a sleeping bag. I was so excited with my purchase that when I got home, I immediately unpacked the tent and made sure I had all the tools necessary - mentally - to assemble it. It would not do to be seen fumbling in public with my only means of shelter. I once made a complete fool of myself at Joe's Crab Shack with a pair of those nutcracker lobster jobbers. Since then, I practice everything that I can foresee happening before I get out among the general public.
I applauded myself aloud when I had erected the small 2-person tent in the living room of my bungalow. I had unwittingly walled myself off from the kitchen, however. It would take going outside, around the house, and back in through the garage just to have a sandwich until I took it down. I tiptoed around my triumph and called down the block to announce my new-found aptitude.
"I bought a tent!"
"Why did you buy a tent?"
"For the campout. And I put it together!"
"I thought you were staying in a cabin because you were 'born in the Western Hemisphere and felt entitled to walls'. Where is this tent?"
"In the living room."
"You have a tent in the living room?"
"I didn't want the neighbors to be witnesses for the next 18 years of this mortgage that I had tried and failed to erect a tent in my yard."
"People don't talk about those things," said my beloved sibling.
"I would," I said.
I checked and double-checked the list of things to bring to the camp and made trip after trip to the General Store to stock up. My Ford Escort began to groan either from the added weight or the sheer embarrassment. I'm not sure which. It hadn't occurred to me that a bright pink Escort might feel inferior among the cabal of camping vehicles we would encounter. I imagined if I were a Pink Escort that I would presume a life heavy on the Marriotts and light on the camping. Late in both our lives, we were going to bite the bullet.
My friend David called today while we were bundling kindling for the fire at camp. I had mentioned to him once before that I'd be gone for five days in the great outdoors. I've been trying to get him to read more so I wouldn't be friends with the only illiterate in New York City. To encourage him, I told him I'd be reading "Naked" (by David Sedaris) while away. I did not mean to tip my hand that I would be reading naked.
"You're camping naked?" he shrieked.
"Nude, I think they call it," I mumbled.
"I thought you meant you were reading a BOOK titled NAKED!"
"Well, I am. I'm reading Naked....naked."
"Oh darling, really! So this is about sex," he hissed a little too proudly.
David doesn't go to the grocery store unless it coincides with his libido's cycle. I firmly believe that when his sex drive leaves him entirely, he will be found starved to death on his kitchen floor. I believe David to be the sort who would sign up for group therapy just to meet men. He is dedicated where I am resigned.
"It's a little about sex, " I muttered. I am very comfortable with my sexuality and still fairly confident in my over-40 body. Nudity does not bother me. I think sex is one of the greater occupations we can undertake as humans. I just don't like talking about it with anyone other than the person (or persons - don't judge) with whom I'm having it.
"I didn't know it was a SEX CAMPING TRIP," he bubbled. I swore on my dog's life that if he said "You Go Girl!", I was hanging up and returning the tent.
"It's NOT a sex camping trip. But if sex happens...," I trailed off, hoping to end the subject on a muted, though hopeful note. I knew this was not the time to tell him that I'd bought the bright red pony-tail butt plug to wear to the Leather And Levi Cocktail Party with my black leather chaps, armband, boots and cock ring. It took me three days to explain to myself that I'd be dressing up at the All-Boy Naked Camp Out for a cocktail party. I knew I couldn't explain it to David with Candice Bergen counting in the background, "One minute...two minutes....".
The cock ring was a tip from one of The Boys. When I looked askance at the suggestion, they noted that, in their experience, they can be handy in avoiding unexpected displays of genital exuberance. I made a mental note of it on the spot and when I came home from dinner, made an actual note of it. It was the first item in the bag when I started packing.
I leave tomorrow with high hopes that the tent in the living room is the only inconvenient erection I'll have to report.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Back By Popular Demand
Every year when Gay Pride rolls into town, I make it to some parade somewhere. I believe I have been to parades from Wichita to Sheboygan to San Francisco and most parts in-between. It's usually the same routine.
We all know the drill: cat call at the go-go boys, give a shout-out to the drag queens, and keep an eye out for someone to take home apres-parade. My plan always goes to hell when the goddamned P-FLAG contingent strolls by beaming from ear-to-ear. I try to be in line at the porta-potties when I sense them coming. If I get caught on the curb, I'm a blubbering idiot by the time the second father strolls by with his bare-chested, nipple-clamped daughter dragging her bald girlfriend on a leash. That kind of love just turns me to mush. (The father's, not the other.)
Gay Pride is important to me. Our own legends invoke the harmonic convergence of Judy Garland's Funeral, the raid on The Stonewall Inn in New York, and my fifth birthday. It was my fifth birthday. So I have my very own very lavish bash courtesy of any city anywhere and most cities everywhere. Beyond my feelings of how important it is that we be seen and heard in our full spectrum of outrageousness, it's my birthday, dammit. I want a parade. And so I have a parade.
When I first relented and acknowledged that I was gay, I attended my first Pride Parade within 90 days. I also fulfilled the other three first-page requirements from the handbook:
I bought a Communards cassette tape.
I had my hair permed (just on the top).
And I made friends with a drag queen.
Between my fresh-faced pervert of a boyfriend and Ms. Ramona Baker, as she was known on the stage, my education was fast and complete. Jerry would drive in circles around a bar he wanted to patronize until I demonstrated that I could use "nelly", "butch", and "trick" in a sentence without betraying my gay youth. Ramona taught me that mascara can fill in the blank spots of a moustache. If you made me choose today, I'm not sure which of those was most valuable. The memories, at a minimum, are priceless.
Every year, as my birthday approaches, I think back on the people, places and things of my gay time on earth and remember with varying degrees of fondness some of the characters I have encountered. Many of them are dead. A lot of them are old. Some of them just got lost in the messy mixture of time and moving vans and storage units. All of them are alive and still talking over one another in the recesses of my memory - especially at this time of year. It's like Pride Day brings them all to life as a reminder of my provenance.
One night, after demonstrating my contextual knowledge of "bottom", "top" and "open relationship", Jerry and I went to dinner, dancing and a drag show for my birthday. My budding friendship with Ms. Ramona Baker got us very good seats and an after-show elbow-rubbing with the performers. We ended up bouncing from bar-to-bar with a contingent of men in women's underwear until we landed at Frisco.
At Frisco, we discovered that one of our contingent, Ms. Fritz Capone, had gone missing. Boys will be boys, even when they're being girls. So we assumed she had taken a shine to some fair lad and gone off to do whatever it is that girls who are boys do with boys. We continued to celebrate the occasion of my birth until the law required us to leave and the lights to be put out. We made our way home and were awakened the next morning at 6 a.m. by the phone ringing.
No one we knew would call at 6 a.m. unless there had been a death, so I jumped out of bed and answered the phone to hear Ms. Ramona Baker speed-talk me through the events of the previous night.
"Grrrrrrrrrl.....your face is gonna fall off when you hear what happened to Ms. Fritz Capone," she hissed.
"Is she dead?" I asked.
"Well....", Ramona could milk a story the way Sam Harris would squeeze every drop of life from Over The Rainbow in the old "Star Search" days. You would have to sit on your hands to keep from applauding as she rounded the final turn of a story.
(It is at this point that I want to disclaim any actual knowledge of the ensuing events on the slim chance that the central figure is still alive after decades of impressive alcohol consumption and all the other things that tend to happen to gay people to prevent us from hitting old age.)
As repeated down through the years, the story goes that Fritz had over-consumed at some establishment and escorted herself outside for fresh air and someplace nice to lie down. She settled on the hood of a Buick outside the local dinner theatre. The location of the dinner theatre always provided for interesting interaction between the well-heeled heterosexual sect of the city and the high-heeled homosexuals that patronized the adjoining bars. Fritz did two bars of "Now I lay me down to sleep..." and was discovered some time later by the well-heeled owners of the Buick who did not remember having left a portly woman to guard their hood ornament.
They reacted the way heterosexuals always react when they find a body on the hood of their car: They called the police. Before any straight people get their back up, you should know that this is not our first response. We would first roll the body over to ascertain how cute the body is and then decide whether to take it home and call the police or to call 911 on the spot. There is no dismissing the value of an official record of a cute man having been hauled out of your flat.
The police arrived at the scene of the Buick and did their dead-level, 3 a.m. best to feel a heartbeat from the lifeless form still balanced on the car's hood. Feeling no heartbeat through seven layers of undergarments, 2 layers of foam, 2 extra-large breasts of indeterminate material and enough sequins to cover The Louvre, they did what all policemen do when they think somebody might be dead: They called the coroner.
The coroner, having been trained to detect a pulse from various other sources or, mayhaps, having previously encountered a passed-out, pancaked He-Lady, quickly determined our beloved Fritz to be Not Dead But Drunk. She narrowly missed a trip to the morgue and wound up, instead, drying out among the lower, yet living, caste of society. Upon her waking, she reclaimed her wig from a hooker, her shoes from a pervert and made her phone call to be picked up and restored to her former glory.
And these are the things that make me proud every June. I have inherited the indomitable instinct to survive from queens who woke up in jail for all the right - and wrong - reasons. I have buried, married and carried my share of men from point-to-point in my years. The best and worst in each of them gives me cause to smile when I remember who and where I come from. I am a man with a culture worth celebrating.
Whether it's Langston Hughes, Harvey Milk or the Fritz Capones we've all known in our day, it's the smile or the wince upon remembering that infuses this time of year with the pride of affiliation. For better or for worse, I am not alone. I may be in Kansas, but I will never be alone so long as the voices of decades past come to life each June and cause me to giggle late at night when I'd rather be sleeping. It's mid-June and the parades are popping up all over. My birthday is right around the corner - 42 this year. And all of the old gang is back to have a drink and to tell the old, old stories. Even if it's only in my head, they're back.
Back by popular demand.
We all know the drill: cat call at the go-go boys, give a shout-out to the drag queens, and keep an eye out for someone to take home apres-parade. My plan always goes to hell when the goddamned P-FLAG contingent strolls by beaming from ear-to-ear. I try to be in line at the porta-potties when I sense them coming. If I get caught on the curb, I'm a blubbering idiot by the time the second father strolls by with his bare-chested, nipple-clamped daughter dragging her bald girlfriend on a leash. That kind of love just turns me to mush. (The father's, not the other.)
Gay Pride is important to me. Our own legends invoke the harmonic convergence of Judy Garland's Funeral, the raid on The Stonewall Inn in New York, and my fifth birthday. It was my fifth birthday. So I have my very own very lavish bash courtesy of any city anywhere and most cities everywhere. Beyond my feelings of how important it is that we be seen and heard in our full spectrum of outrageousness, it's my birthday, dammit. I want a parade. And so I have a parade.
When I first relented and acknowledged that I was gay, I attended my first Pride Parade within 90 days. I also fulfilled the other three first-page requirements from the handbook:
I bought a Communards cassette tape.
I had my hair permed (just on the top).
And I made friends with a drag queen.
Between my fresh-faced pervert of a boyfriend and Ms. Ramona Baker, as she was known on the stage, my education was fast and complete. Jerry would drive in circles around a bar he wanted to patronize until I demonstrated that I could use "nelly", "butch", and "trick" in a sentence without betraying my gay youth. Ramona taught me that mascara can fill in the blank spots of a moustache. If you made me choose today, I'm not sure which of those was most valuable. The memories, at a minimum, are priceless.
Every year, as my birthday approaches, I think back on the people, places and things of my gay time on earth and remember with varying degrees of fondness some of the characters I have encountered. Many of them are dead. A lot of them are old. Some of them just got lost in the messy mixture of time and moving vans and storage units. All of them are alive and still talking over one another in the recesses of my memory - especially at this time of year. It's like Pride Day brings them all to life as a reminder of my provenance.
One night, after demonstrating my contextual knowledge of "bottom", "top" and "open relationship", Jerry and I went to dinner, dancing and a drag show for my birthday. My budding friendship with Ms. Ramona Baker got us very good seats and an after-show elbow-rubbing with the performers. We ended up bouncing from bar-to-bar with a contingent of men in women's underwear until we landed at Frisco.
At Frisco, we discovered that one of our contingent, Ms. Fritz Capone, had gone missing. Boys will be boys, even when they're being girls. So we assumed she had taken a shine to some fair lad and gone off to do whatever it is that girls who are boys do with boys. We continued to celebrate the occasion of my birth until the law required us to leave and the lights to be put out. We made our way home and were awakened the next morning at 6 a.m. by the phone ringing.
No one we knew would call at 6 a.m. unless there had been a death, so I jumped out of bed and answered the phone to hear Ms. Ramona Baker speed-talk me through the events of the previous night.
"Grrrrrrrrrl.....your face is gonna fall off when you hear what happened to Ms. Fritz Capone," she hissed.
"Is she dead?" I asked.
"Well....", Ramona could milk a story the way Sam Harris would squeeze every drop of life from Over The Rainbow in the old "Star Search" days. You would have to sit on your hands to keep from applauding as she rounded the final turn of a story.
(It is at this point that I want to disclaim any actual knowledge of the ensuing events on the slim chance that the central figure is still alive after decades of impressive alcohol consumption and all the other things that tend to happen to gay people to prevent us from hitting old age.)
As repeated down through the years, the story goes that Fritz had over-consumed at some establishment and escorted herself outside for fresh air and someplace nice to lie down. She settled on the hood of a Buick outside the local dinner theatre. The location of the dinner theatre always provided for interesting interaction between the well-heeled heterosexual sect of the city and the high-heeled homosexuals that patronized the adjoining bars. Fritz did two bars of "Now I lay me down to sleep..." and was discovered some time later by the well-heeled owners of the Buick who did not remember having left a portly woman to guard their hood ornament.
They reacted the way heterosexuals always react when they find a body on the hood of their car: They called the police. Before any straight people get their back up, you should know that this is not our first response. We would first roll the body over to ascertain how cute the body is and then decide whether to take it home and call the police or to call 911 on the spot. There is no dismissing the value of an official record of a cute man having been hauled out of your flat.
The police arrived at the scene of the Buick and did their dead-level, 3 a.m. best to feel a heartbeat from the lifeless form still balanced on the car's hood. Feeling no heartbeat through seven layers of undergarments, 2 layers of foam, 2 extra-large breasts of indeterminate material and enough sequins to cover The Louvre, they did what all policemen do when they think somebody might be dead: They called the coroner.
The coroner, having been trained to detect a pulse from various other sources or, mayhaps, having previously encountered a passed-out, pancaked He-Lady, quickly determined our beloved Fritz to be Not Dead But Drunk. She narrowly missed a trip to the morgue and wound up, instead, drying out among the lower, yet living, caste of society. Upon her waking, she reclaimed her wig from a hooker, her shoes from a pervert and made her phone call to be picked up and restored to her former glory.
And these are the things that make me proud every June. I have inherited the indomitable instinct to survive from queens who woke up in jail for all the right - and wrong - reasons. I have buried, married and carried my share of men from point-to-point in my years. The best and worst in each of them gives me cause to smile when I remember who and where I come from. I am a man with a culture worth celebrating.
Whether it's Langston Hughes, Harvey Milk or the Fritz Capones we've all known in our day, it's the smile or the wince upon remembering that infuses this time of year with the pride of affiliation. For better or for worse, I am not alone. I may be in Kansas, but I will never be alone so long as the voices of decades past come to life each June and cause me to giggle late at night when I'd rather be sleeping. It's mid-June and the parades are popping up all over. My birthday is right around the corner - 42 this year. And all of the old gang is back to have a drink and to tell the old, old stories. Even if it's only in my head, they're back.
Back by popular demand.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Everybody Ought to Know
It was high entertainment when my dearly departed friend Randy would drunk-dial me from deep in the heart of Dallas every-other-month or so. The laws of nature seemed to argue for the practice. We would hoot and whistle and stomp our feet over many irrelevant miles of fiber optics when he would get all liquored up and decide I needed to participate, if only by proxy.
With Randy, getting cocktailed and picking up the phone was as sensible as picking up your racket and hitting tennis balls. What would two or eight Bourbon and Cokes be without someone to call? Those long, raucous descents into the basest topics of conversation are marked indelibly in my memory. I treasure them the way you would a torn pair of panties from the first time you had really good sex. If I could scotch tape them into the book, they'd sit next to the dinner napkin on which we doodled at the Senior Prom in 1982. I have high expectations, therefore, when the drunken masses stumble upon my number in their little black books. Be entertaining or suffer the consequences.
When David called from the comfy confines of his Hell's Kitchen condo to announce his love for someone whose middle name likely escapes him, I pegged the drunk dial up front. David calls for three reasons only: He's in Love, He's Suicidal Because He's No Longer In Love, or He's Going To Make Me Famous. I keep picking up the phone when I see the 212 area code on the off chance that the latter might be true in time for me to have B-listers at my funeral. Hope springs eternal and all that.
"Dahling," he mumbled, "You're going to be published!"
"Published by whom?," I asked, after running through the who/whom rules. I had no intention of screwing this up over a misappropriated indirect object, even if he was just drunk and over-exuberant.
"New... York... Magazine," he stated emphatically. I think it was emphatic. He could very well have been slowing down the pace to remember all three words. Sometimes you just don't know. From the stature of the publication, I knew he was over-exuberant and over-liquored.
"Really. New York Magazine. Hmmmph," I snorted. "What the hell would New York Magazine want with the ramblings of somebody like me," I challenged.
"Dahling," David huffed, "I told them all about you. How you're gay and you used to live in appropriate cities and how you have AIDS and now live in Kansas and have become a writer."
I lowered my forehead to my lap. On the off-chance that he had actually told someone I was a writer, he had told a lie of biblical proportions. He'd also put me on the hook to fulfill one of those dreams that I'd assumed would be on my Last and Final Regrets List at my passing. It's lodged in between having sex in the Tuilerie Gardens of Paris and lying naked with my newly minted partner on a beach in Greece. And making a loaf of bread that weighs less than my bicycle. Writing would be a kick. I'm just not sure I'm the schmoe for the job.
"I met a woman at a cocktail party," he continued with all the exuberance that intoxication would allow. "Her name is Lana."
"As in 'Turner'," I chimed.
"As in 'Turner'," he confirmed.
"She's a manager or editor or owner of New York Magazine. Or she was serving the crostini at the party. They had a very nice spread..." And he was gone. My literary future took a quick back seat to the quality of the booze and bruschetta at not one, but two NYC cocktail parties. I remember that one of them was in honor of a new camera. A camera.
"They give parties for cameras now?" I poked.
"Dahling, that is not the point. The point is I mentioned you to Lana and told her that you were fabulous and MUST be published immediately,"
My David is an architect. He speaks with authority on literature in the same way that your average plumber might critique your couture. Since the day I started jotting down thoughts, David has seen a book, a column and a movie starring Meryl Streep and someone who approximates my appearance without all the nasty flaws. I'd say Eric Roberts, most likely.
And that's what he does. He calls, all be-liquored and in love, and digs at my Lost Opportunity List like it's his mission to have me die sans regret. I thrust and parry and deflect and blush all the while wondering in the back of my mind, "You think so?"
"Put the boy back on the phone," I told him.
"Hi!," said the child. How the hell he manages to lisp where there is no 's' is a remarkable talent, I thought.
"He met someone at a party tonight - a literary type. She was from New York Magazine," I repeated. My hope was that the kid was more sober than the 50-something demi-socialite and would set me straight as to my publishing prospects.
"Right....," he drifted off. He was either lying about remembering this or someone was fiddling with his belt. I hurried along.
"He said her name was Lana....as in Turner."
"Who?"
"Lana Turner."
Nothing. You could hear a hairpin drop.
"Tell me you've at least heard of Lana Turner," I sighed.
"Is she old," he asked.
I'd had my fill of the child. "EVERYONE IMPORTANT IS EITHER OLD OR DEAD!!" I ranted.
"Put David back on the phone," I snapped.
"Dahling, you wouldn't believe how beautiful this man is," he purred.
"He'd have to be," I sniffed. "You found the only homosexual in New York City who hasn't so much as heard of either Carol Channing or Lana Turner. Where ARE you shopping nowadays?"
"Now don't be mean, dear. He's from Connecticut," he said. Now, I have never lived in New York City. I visited once when I was 18 - for part of a day. I assume that "He's from Connecticut" is the equivalent to our sweeping dismissal of "He wasn't raised In Town". If one was not raised In Town, chances are they will misuse your indoor plumbing or ignore it altogether in favor of your lawnmower shed. Not being raised In Town means an acceptable lack of social graces, such as they exist in this pleasant oasis of deprivation.
"Still," I pleaded. "You gave a ring to someone who doesn't know from Carol Channing" I implored.
"How long have you known this person?" I repeated the question the way a teacher would on a final exam - just to make sure you hadn't gotten lucky the first time.
"32 days." He stuck to his story.
Fine with me. In the space of ten minutes, I'd managed to sit in rural Kansas and feel culturally superior to a gay man in a recently renovated Hell's Kitchen condo who had just been to TWO hobnobbing affairs. I let the thrill of shaming an urban twinkie roll over and over my tongue like damn good wine - the kind with a corked bottle.
I walked outside the house here on the corner by two churches in a town through which no major road passes. My neighbor was outside, my parents drove up simultaneously and I triumphantly announced to one and all,
"I'm talking to someone in New York City who's never heard of Carol Channing or Lana Turner!"
"Don't be ridiculous," said my John Deere dad.
"Everybody knows that."
With Randy, getting cocktailed and picking up the phone was as sensible as picking up your racket and hitting tennis balls. What would two or eight Bourbon and Cokes be without someone to call? Those long, raucous descents into the basest topics of conversation are marked indelibly in my memory. I treasure them the way you would a torn pair of panties from the first time you had really good sex. If I could scotch tape them into the book, they'd sit next to the dinner napkin on which we doodled at the Senior Prom in 1982. I have high expectations, therefore, when the drunken masses stumble upon my number in their little black books. Be entertaining or suffer the consequences.
When David called from the comfy confines of his Hell's Kitchen condo to announce his love for someone whose middle name likely escapes him, I pegged the drunk dial up front. David calls for three reasons only: He's in Love, He's Suicidal Because He's No Longer In Love, or He's Going To Make Me Famous. I keep picking up the phone when I see the 212 area code on the off chance that the latter might be true in time for me to have B-listers at my funeral. Hope springs eternal and all that.
"Dahling," he mumbled, "You're going to be published!"
"Published by whom?," I asked, after running through the who/whom rules. I had no intention of screwing this up over a misappropriated indirect object, even if he was just drunk and over-exuberant.
"New... York... Magazine," he stated emphatically. I think it was emphatic. He could very well have been slowing down the pace to remember all three words. Sometimes you just don't know. From the stature of the publication, I knew he was over-exuberant and over-liquored.
"Really. New York Magazine. Hmmmph," I snorted. "What the hell would New York Magazine want with the ramblings of somebody like me," I challenged.
"Dahling," David huffed, "I told them all about you. How you're gay and you used to live in appropriate cities and how you have AIDS and now live in Kansas and have become a writer."
I lowered my forehead to my lap. On the off-chance that he had actually told someone I was a writer, he had told a lie of biblical proportions. He'd also put me on the hook to fulfill one of those dreams that I'd assumed would be on my Last and Final Regrets List at my passing. It's lodged in between having sex in the Tuilerie Gardens of Paris and lying naked with my newly minted partner on a beach in Greece. And making a loaf of bread that weighs less than my bicycle. Writing would be a kick. I'm just not sure I'm the schmoe for the job.
"I met a woman at a cocktail party," he continued with all the exuberance that intoxication would allow. "Her name is Lana."
"As in 'Turner'," I chimed.
"As in 'Turner'," he confirmed.
"She's a manager or editor or owner of New York Magazine. Or she was serving the crostini at the party. They had a very nice spread..." And he was gone. My literary future took a quick back seat to the quality of the booze and bruschetta at not one, but two NYC cocktail parties. I remember that one of them was in honor of a new camera. A camera.
"They give parties for cameras now?" I poked.
"Dahling, that is not the point. The point is I mentioned you to Lana and told her that you were fabulous and MUST be published immediately,"
My David is an architect. He speaks with authority on literature in the same way that your average plumber might critique your couture. Since the day I started jotting down thoughts, David has seen a book, a column and a movie starring Meryl Streep and someone who approximates my appearance without all the nasty flaws. I'd say Eric Roberts, most likely.
And that's what he does. He calls, all be-liquored and in love, and digs at my Lost Opportunity List like it's his mission to have me die sans regret. I thrust and parry and deflect and blush all the while wondering in the back of my mind, "You think so?"
"Put the boy back on the phone," I told him.
"Hi!," said the child. How the hell he manages to lisp where there is no 's' is a remarkable talent, I thought.
"He met someone at a party tonight - a literary type. She was from New York Magazine," I repeated. My hope was that the kid was more sober than the 50-something demi-socialite and would set me straight as to my publishing prospects.
"Right....," he drifted off. He was either lying about remembering this or someone was fiddling with his belt. I hurried along.
"He said her name was Lana....as in Turner."
"Who?"
"Lana Turner."
Nothing. You could hear a hairpin drop.
"Tell me you've at least heard of Lana Turner," I sighed.
"Is she old," he asked.
I'd had my fill of the child. "EVERYONE IMPORTANT IS EITHER OLD OR DEAD!!" I ranted.
"Put David back on the phone," I snapped.
"Dahling, you wouldn't believe how beautiful this man is," he purred.
"He'd have to be," I sniffed. "You found the only homosexual in New York City who hasn't so much as heard of either Carol Channing or Lana Turner. Where ARE you shopping nowadays?"
"Now don't be mean, dear. He's from Connecticut," he said. Now, I have never lived in New York City. I visited once when I was 18 - for part of a day. I assume that "He's from Connecticut" is the equivalent to our sweeping dismissal of "He wasn't raised In Town". If one was not raised In Town, chances are they will misuse your indoor plumbing or ignore it altogether in favor of your lawnmower shed. Not being raised In Town means an acceptable lack of social graces, such as they exist in this pleasant oasis of deprivation.
"Still," I pleaded. "You gave a ring to someone who doesn't know from Carol Channing" I implored.
"How long have you known this person?" I repeated the question the way a teacher would on a final exam - just to make sure you hadn't gotten lucky the first time.
"32 days." He stuck to his story.
Fine with me. In the space of ten minutes, I'd managed to sit in rural Kansas and feel culturally superior to a gay man in a recently renovated Hell's Kitchen condo who had just been to TWO hobnobbing affairs. I let the thrill of shaming an urban twinkie roll over and over my tongue like damn good wine - the kind with a corked bottle.
I walked outside the house here on the corner by two churches in a town through which no major road passes. My neighbor was outside, my parents drove up simultaneously and I triumphantly announced to one and all,
"I'm talking to someone in New York City who's never heard of Carol Channing or Lana Turner!"
"Don't be ridiculous," said my John Deere dad.
"Everybody knows that."
Thursday, June 08, 2006
29 Days
When my cosmopolitan friends from sea to shining sea bother to contemplate my move to rural Kansas, I'm sure they shake their heads and cluck their tongues. It must seem like one of those moves people make to prepare for an imminent demise. And in a way, it was.
"Kansas," I can hear them whispering behind their hand at cocktail parties I should have been attending in Chicago or San Francisco. My mostly anonymous years in both cities were replete with opportunity and carnal education. I moved in circles that were but orbiting universes of even better circles. Far from the exotic allure of an Englishman in New York, I was a Middle-Aged Kansan in Chicago. No ring to that whatsoever. Not even a tinkle.
When time and circumstances converged, I made my way back to the flatlands to this town of 3,000 people, countless animals and one grocery store known by no name that is common among civilized people. Financially, I'd be comfortable for the rest of my numbered days. Socially, I'd be entertained - if only in the delight of observation. Sexually, I'd be challenged beyond all the limits intended for human endurance. I adopted a life without capital letters. This life would be so lower-case that t.s. eliot would shit himself. k.d. lang would re-capitalize if she knew what lower-case really looked like. I am the Little 'Mo on the Prairie.
I live in a time and place where the nicest of 78 year-old ladies thinks nothing of calling up and asking if I can play piano at the Brush Arbor Revival meeting two counties over for "the real nice colored man" who will be singing. The lack of palpable animus in the worst of racism makes for challenging moments when I'm glad the phone doesn't transmit the dropping of jaws. I've stopped doing double takes at men who carry transparent spit cups through the grocery store. The Mennonite waitress on roller skates with her bonnet and ankle-length dress at the drive-up hamburger joint doesn't register as odd anymore. I'm still all me. I'm just all here.
Today I watched with muted glee as the Senate failed to muster even a simple majority to condemn the curious notion of Gay Marriage. Those who work themselves into a dither over the matter - on both sides - should know some of the people I know. They'd find more important things by far to occupy their time, I assure you. I tip my hat (John Deere nowadays) to those ubiquitous uni-gendered couples who have managed to endure each other's company for decades. I haven't managed to maintain brand loyalty to a potato chip for that long. I know that I'm not designed for Gay Marriage. I hope everyone gets what they want in the end. They should know my friend David, however.
David is the unwitting poster child for the absurdity of Gay Marriage. He is smart, funny, cultured, educated, well-employed, housed exquisitely and he possesses poise beyond the prediction of his upbringing. What's more, David is a resident of New York City. New York City! Only if the baths went condo could his socio-sexual options be any better. The best of the gayest at least drop in for a visit every few years, giving him a shot at some of the finest available deviants this planet has to offer. On the day that Congress dismissed the dissing of our Holy Matrimonial Future, my phone rang at 10 p.m. Eastern (9 p.m. Central and Pacific).
"Dahling," he slurred. "I'm in love."
Two parties...maybe three, I thought to myself. He's half in the glass, if not the bottle. This isn't the first time I've gotten this phone call from David - or someone like him. It's not even the first time this month. To wit:
"David?"
"Yes, dear?"
"How long have you known this person?"
"That's not important."
"I know it's not important on the scale of hangnail to Apocalypse, but I'd still like to know....How long have you known this person?"
A long, slightly slurred pause ensued until he coughed up,
"More than a month."
"32 days?"
"Yes, 32 days."
I was trained as an attorney, so I know when to concede a point. Thirty-two days is, indeed, more than any month. He had me there.
"We've exchanged rings," he gushed.
"You what?"
"Rings. We exchanged rings."
"Oh sweet Jesus on a Triscuit," I muttered
I allow myself the indulgence of a second date with the same frequency that Haley's Comet makes a cameo appearance in history. This was as true during my years in Chicago and San Francisco as it is today. It's just more easily explained today. The excruciatingly quick pace with which my people tend to couple and un-couple has in no small way contributed to my steadfast solitude. It's the Davids in my world who confirm at every turn that I'm not cut out for the hustle and flow of whirlwind romance and crashing defeats on the rocks of love.
"Here, talk to him," he insisted.
"Oh dear God no, don't..." I pled to no avail. Before I could inhale twice to clear my head, I was speaking with Him.
"Hi!," He managed to lisp and lilt simultaneously.
Well, at least He's homosexual, I reasoned. That's never a given with some of my Davids. My people have been known to poach from the other camp in ill-fated and worse-advised shopping excursions for husband material.
"So how long have you known my friend," I asked.
"In two days it will be a month!" He gushed.
"So you don't mind that David sounds like Carol Channing when he gets excited?"
"Who?" He asked.
"Carol Channing. Hello Dolly??"
Nothing. Dead silence.
"Tell me that you know who Carol Channing is," I ordered. I picked up the Gay Hotline and put my finger on the Revocation Department's pre-programmed speed-dial number.
"No idea," he blithely admitted.
"He gave you a ring?" I asked.
"Oh yes!"
"So tell me," I jabbed "is it good jewelry or cheap jewelry?"
Forever etched in the annals of my memory will be this unlikeliest of responses from the New York City Homosexual:
"It's in the middle."
"Put David back on the phone," I barked.
I heard the tell-tale clink of ice in glass and the not-quite-silent splash of something which reminded me that I lived in lower-case letters and not the outsized cursive of coastal homosexuality. To argue the absurdity of this charade with my most cosmopolitan of friends would be like debating the origins of the universe with my Yorkie. There would be barking, licking, and eventually someone would have to pee. But there would be no meeting of minds and no talking sense where sense could not be heard.
David had let himself off the hook of temporary madness by laying claim to more than a month of coupled happiness. Mathematically, the beautiful young boy wearing David's ring had copped to a maximum of 29 days. That, I told myself, is the difference between us and them. We're so damned anxious to rush toward ordinary that we'll make 29 days into 32 days just to be that much closer to 'Til Death Do Us Part certainty.
You have to give us that. At least we're sincere. We mean well. No harm, no foul. David will enjoy the delusion for the few more weeks that it lasts and will call in waves of grief at The Decline and Fall of Gay Civilization when one of them moves on. And that boy with the ring? He'll be gone by the time I forget that I knew this. That's how I comfort myself on the prairie, to be brutally honest. They think me deprived of all that is good, gay and right.
Some days, I grant them all of the above. But it passes.
In about 29 days...give or take.
"Kansas," I can hear them whispering behind their hand at cocktail parties I should have been attending in Chicago or San Francisco. My mostly anonymous years in both cities were replete with opportunity and carnal education. I moved in circles that were but orbiting universes of even better circles. Far from the exotic allure of an Englishman in New York, I was a Middle-Aged Kansan in Chicago. No ring to that whatsoever. Not even a tinkle.
When time and circumstances converged, I made my way back to the flatlands to this town of 3,000 people, countless animals and one grocery store known by no name that is common among civilized people. Financially, I'd be comfortable for the rest of my numbered days. Socially, I'd be entertained - if only in the delight of observation. Sexually, I'd be challenged beyond all the limits intended for human endurance. I adopted a life without capital letters. This life would be so lower-case that t.s. eliot would shit himself. k.d. lang would re-capitalize if she knew what lower-case really looked like. I am the Little 'Mo on the Prairie.
I live in a time and place where the nicest of 78 year-old ladies thinks nothing of calling up and asking if I can play piano at the Brush Arbor Revival meeting two counties over for "the real nice colored man" who will be singing. The lack of palpable animus in the worst of racism makes for challenging moments when I'm glad the phone doesn't transmit the dropping of jaws. I've stopped doing double takes at men who carry transparent spit cups through the grocery store. The Mennonite waitress on roller skates with her bonnet and ankle-length dress at the drive-up hamburger joint doesn't register as odd anymore. I'm still all me. I'm just all here.
Today I watched with muted glee as the Senate failed to muster even a simple majority to condemn the curious notion of Gay Marriage. Those who work themselves into a dither over the matter - on both sides - should know some of the people I know. They'd find more important things by far to occupy their time, I assure you. I tip my hat (John Deere nowadays) to those ubiquitous uni-gendered couples who have managed to endure each other's company for decades. I haven't managed to maintain brand loyalty to a potato chip for that long. I know that I'm not designed for Gay Marriage. I hope everyone gets what they want in the end. They should know my friend David, however.
David is the unwitting poster child for the absurdity of Gay Marriage. He is smart, funny, cultured, educated, well-employed, housed exquisitely and he possesses poise beyond the prediction of his upbringing. What's more, David is a resident of New York City. New York City! Only if the baths went condo could his socio-sexual options be any better. The best of the gayest at least drop in for a visit every few years, giving him a shot at some of the finest available deviants this planet has to offer. On the day that Congress dismissed the dissing of our Holy Matrimonial Future, my phone rang at 10 p.m. Eastern (9 p.m. Central and Pacific).
"Dahling," he slurred. "I'm in love."
Two parties...maybe three, I thought to myself. He's half in the glass, if not the bottle. This isn't the first time I've gotten this phone call from David - or someone like him. It's not even the first time this month. To wit:
"David?"
"Yes, dear?"
"How long have you known this person?"
"That's not important."
"I know it's not important on the scale of hangnail to Apocalypse, but I'd still like to know....How long have you known this person?"
A long, slightly slurred pause ensued until he coughed up,
"More than a month."
"32 days?"
"Yes, 32 days."
I was trained as an attorney, so I know when to concede a point. Thirty-two days is, indeed, more than any month. He had me there.
"We've exchanged rings," he gushed.
"You what?"
"Rings. We exchanged rings."
"Oh sweet Jesus on a Triscuit," I muttered
I allow myself the indulgence of a second date with the same frequency that Haley's Comet makes a cameo appearance in history. This was as true during my years in Chicago and San Francisco as it is today. It's just more easily explained today. The excruciatingly quick pace with which my people tend to couple and un-couple has in no small way contributed to my steadfast solitude. It's the Davids in my world who confirm at every turn that I'm not cut out for the hustle and flow of whirlwind romance and crashing defeats on the rocks of love.
"Here, talk to him," he insisted.
"Oh dear God no, don't..." I pled to no avail. Before I could inhale twice to clear my head, I was speaking with Him.
"Hi!," He managed to lisp and lilt simultaneously.
Well, at least He's homosexual, I reasoned. That's never a given with some of my Davids. My people have been known to poach from the other camp in ill-fated and worse-advised shopping excursions for husband material.
"So how long have you known my friend," I asked.
"In two days it will be a month!" He gushed.
"So you don't mind that David sounds like Carol Channing when he gets excited?"
"Who?" He asked.
"Carol Channing. Hello Dolly??"
Nothing. Dead silence.
"Tell me that you know who Carol Channing is," I ordered. I picked up the Gay Hotline and put my finger on the Revocation Department's pre-programmed speed-dial number.
"No idea," he blithely admitted.
"He gave you a ring?" I asked.
"Oh yes!"
"So tell me," I jabbed "is it good jewelry or cheap jewelry?"
Forever etched in the annals of my memory will be this unlikeliest of responses from the New York City Homosexual:
"It's in the middle."
"Put David back on the phone," I barked.
I heard the tell-tale clink of ice in glass and the not-quite-silent splash of something which reminded me that I lived in lower-case letters and not the outsized cursive of coastal homosexuality. To argue the absurdity of this charade with my most cosmopolitan of friends would be like debating the origins of the universe with my Yorkie. There would be barking, licking, and eventually someone would have to pee. But there would be no meeting of minds and no talking sense where sense could not be heard.
David had let himself off the hook of temporary madness by laying claim to more than a month of coupled happiness. Mathematically, the beautiful young boy wearing David's ring had copped to a maximum of 29 days. That, I told myself, is the difference between us and them. We're so damned anxious to rush toward ordinary that we'll make 29 days into 32 days just to be that much closer to 'Til Death Do Us Part certainty.
You have to give us that. At least we're sincere. We mean well. No harm, no foul. David will enjoy the delusion for the few more weeks that it lasts and will call in waves of grief at The Decline and Fall of Gay Civilization when one of them moves on. And that boy with the ring? He'll be gone by the time I forget that I knew this. That's how I comfort myself on the prairie, to be brutally honest. They think me deprived of all that is good, gay and right.
Some days, I grant them all of the above. But it passes.
In about 29 days...give or take.
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