Music has always been a huge part of transportation for me, and I'm not strictly speaking emotional distances. I have always been a huge believer that what you are listening to while driving is the single most important part of driving. If you're tired, then the choice of The Decemberists is probably ill-advised, because that will cause you to veer into oncoming traffic on your way home from a funeral (or maybe that's just me). If you're driving 300 miles home starting at midnight because you had a full day of class, rehearsal, and an improv show, then might I suggest cranking classic Brittney Spears and Eminem. There's nothing in there that is going to let you nod off.
But, as I was waking up this morning, getting ready for today, letting iTunes play whatever it wanted to in the background, Train's "Drops of Jupiter" came on. For about two weeks in high school, I was really into this song. And I still like this song, but mostly because it reminds me of one specific memory.
I was getting out of a long rehearsal. This must have been tenth grade, because I was carrying a backpack that weighed about 85 pounds, threatening to tip me backward with every step. At one point, it almost realigned my spine into skuliosis, but that's another story for another day. Anyway, I got into my father's truck, and this song was playing. My dad, who had been waiting on me, was singing along to it. For some reason, I just found this absolutely bizarre.
My father is someone who loves classic rock. And some classic pop. But he's the quintessential my-taste-in-music-froze-in-my-twenties person. I imagine that that happens a lot. However, there's not really a huge selection of stations in south GA that aren't Christian, country, or rap, so the one 80's through present day station was his general fixture. And he ended up liking it.
I told this story to K'Fain a few years ago and she said, "Of course your dad liked "Drops of Jupiter." Everybody's dad likes Train. Nobody you know actually likes Train except for your dad." I laughed, and we probably kept watching Law and Order: SVU.
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Posts may be sporadic for the next two weeks because Camp City Year is ramping into its home stretch. Keep safe 'til then, and look for posts from the dark side.
Showing posts with label Story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Story. Show all posts
Stories from the Past: Coming Out Cow
My senior year of high school, the theatre director a TCHS declared that we would do a one-act version of the three-hour Sondheim monster Into the Woods. Because I didn't sing, I would be the Narrator for the play, and she had planned to enlist all of the pretty, preppy, show choir kids to play most of the parts. The traditional corps of the department would serve as back-up artists and crew...which, while crappy, was better than an earlier idea to dress them all up as trees and have them dance around as different parts of the scenery.
Just like this...but made of dancing high school theatre kids. Image via Wikipedia
Anyway, I had decided months ago that I was going to come out before my senior year started because I was tired of living the lie. So, on Sunday, August 8th, 2004, I told my parents, which is another story for another day. It intersects with Into the Woods because I was working on that show at the time. In fact, I was the theatre intern with my friend Alisabeth. Between us and Mandy, we were given the job of doing the cow.
For those of you who aren't very familiar with Into the Woods, it's a musical mash-up of the stories of Jack, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Little Red Riding Hood all going into the woods to get their dreams. Okay, well, Jack obviously has to have a cow because he's going to the market to sell his cow for food for him and his mother. Now, there are two ways that you can do this. You can either hire an actor to play the part of the cow or you can build a cow prop.
We, sadly, attempted the latter. It was maybe the most dangerous weapon that I've ever seen on wheels. Made of two-by-four, chicken wire, plaster, paper-mache, and white paint, more people bled on this cow than I would have thought possible. It was a hot disaster. The casters wouldn't stay straight, the back of the cow buckled, and it needed so much plaster to make it look like a cow verses a box covered in chicken wire that that was what I was assigned to do with Alisabeth for the second week of school.
Friday, we were sitting out in the courtyard outside the drama room. This was right after the outdoor furniture that had been used at the previous year's prom had been donated to the school but before they screwed on that brass nameplate that dedicated it to that kid that died. Alisabeth and I are slathering plaster on the cow and talking about the election. She had proven to be mostly conservative, and this being 2004, my senior class could vote for the first time, and it was shaping up to be an important decision: you could either vote for President Bush or you could vote against him (Kerry not actually counting as a canditate because he stood for nothing). Although we could agree on the upcoming pro-liquor referendum for Tift County (which was dry at that time), we eventually ended up on thornier subjects. Like gay marriage.
Obviously, I defended gay marriage against her arguments, but at the same time, I had to admit to myself that it looked like it was going to be an uphill battle, even for civil unions. I mean, two of the four states to have same sex marriage have happened in 2009, and this was five years ago. If I'm not mistaken, Massachusettes was the only state to have anything like this going on. My fervent support made Alisabeth ask me if I was gay. To which I immediately replied "no."
I started to kick myself and got really quiet. I guess Alisabeth was either embarassed that she had asked and I wasn't or didn't know what to say because she knew I was closetted. I actually surprised most people when I came out. And I had promised myself that although I wasn't going to throw myself a "coming out" party like a debutante, I also wasn't going to deny it any longer if anyone asked me. And this was my first test, and I had already screwed it up. After another couple of minutes of silence, I back-tracked:
"Wait, scratch that."
"Scratch what?"
"I am gay. Not many people know. Don't spread it around."
"Okay..."
We talked about my coming out for a little bit. I didn't want the news to get around because I was afraid, this being the deep South, that I'd be harrassed. But, I didn't trust this girl, and the circle of people who knew was getting big. Soon, it was going to explode. But for now, I was just another guy covered in plaster, trying to make a cow for the musical theatre. And the future was a story for another day.
By the way, the cow never did become satisfactory. Instead, we dressed up a short girl like a cow. She did a much better job than a plaster representation.
Just like this...but made of dancing high school theatre kids. Image via WikipediaAnyway, I had decided months ago that I was going to come out before my senior year started because I was tired of living the lie. So, on Sunday, August 8th, 2004, I told my parents, which is another story for another day. It intersects with Into the Woods because I was working on that show at the time. In fact, I was the theatre intern with my friend Alisabeth. Between us and Mandy, we were given the job of doing the cow.
For those of you who aren't very familiar with Into the Woods, it's a musical mash-up of the stories of Jack, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Little Red Riding Hood all going into the woods to get their dreams. Okay, well, Jack obviously has to have a cow because he's going to the market to sell his cow for food for him and his mother. Now, there are two ways that you can do this. You can either hire an actor to play the part of the cow or you can build a cow prop.
We, sadly, attempted the latter. It was maybe the most dangerous weapon that I've ever seen on wheels. Made of two-by-four, chicken wire, plaster, paper-mache, and white paint, more people bled on this cow than I would have thought possible. It was a hot disaster. The casters wouldn't stay straight, the back of the cow buckled, and it needed so much plaster to make it look like a cow verses a box covered in chicken wire that that was what I was assigned to do with Alisabeth for the second week of school.
Friday, we were sitting out in the courtyard outside the drama room. This was right after the outdoor furniture that had been used at the previous year's prom had been donated to the school but before they screwed on that brass nameplate that dedicated it to that kid that died. Alisabeth and I are slathering plaster on the cow and talking about the election. She had proven to be mostly conservative, and this being 2004, my senior class could vote for the first time, and it was shaping up to be an important decision: you could either vote for President Bush or you could vote against him (Kerry not actually counting as a canditate because he stood for nothing). Although we could agree on the upcoming pro-liquor referendum for Tift County (which was dry at that time), we eventually ended up on thornier subjects. Like gay marriage.
Obviously, I defended gay marriage against her arguments, but at the same time, I had to admit to myself that it looked like it was going to be an uphill battle, even for civil unions. I mean, two of the four states to have same sex marriage have happened in 2009, and this was five years ago. If I'm not mistaken, Massachusettes was the only state to have anything like this going on. My fervent support made Alisabeth ask me if I was gay. To which I immediately replied "no."
I started to kick myself and got really quiet. I guess Alisabeth was either embarassed that she had asked and I wasn't or didn't know what to say because she knew I was closetted. I actually surprised most people when I came out. And I had promised myself that although I wasn't going to throw myself a "coming out" party like a debutante, I also wasn't going to deny it any longer if anyone asked me. And this was my first test, and I had already screwed it up. After another couple of minutes of silence, I back-tracked:
"Wait, scratch that."
"Scratch what?"
"I am gay. Not many people know. Don't spread it around."
"Okay..."
We talked about my coming out for a little bit. I didn't want the news to get around because I was afraid, this being the deep South, that I'd be harrassed. But, I didn't trust this girl, and the circle of people who knew was getting big. Soon, it was going to explode. But for now, I was just another guy covered in plaster, trying to make a cow for the musical theatre. And the future was a story for another day.
By the way, the cow never did become satisfactory. Instead, we dressed up a short girl like a cow. She did a much better job than a plaster representation.
Stories from the Past: Dot's Gun
Today, I had to go into town to make some phone calls (don't ask...), go by the bank, and drop off a letter at the post office. Of that, I only accomplished making one of the two phone calls I needed to make. It wasn't that I got busy, necessarily. I mean, yesterday I watched the last 14 episodes of Buffy Season 5 (a fantastic way to spend a stormy Sunday if I do say so myself). I was talking to my mother...and then to my father when my mom went to rehearsal. And they were both in the mood to tell me stories about my family. Naturally, I probed the deep dark past. I got answers to a lot of questions that had been puzzling me for a while...but I promised my mother that the stories wouldn't end up on this blog...well, most of them.
Okay, some of them.
Anyway, here's a snippet of a story from this afternoon:
My Grandma Dot shot her husband in the leg.
Okay, not exactly. See, the thing is, my G'ma Dot (my mom's mom) has been married eight times, and the man she was married to at the time, DeWitt, was husband number two. My mom was sixteen and she and her younger brother David were the only two of her four siblings who were still at home. G'ma Dot and DeWitt met, got married, and things seemed to be okay. And then, things started to go bad. DeWitt started drinking and acting crazy. And my grandmother, back in her firecracker days, wasn't going to have any of that.
DeWitt was standing out on the front porch, drunk and banging on the door, demanding to be let in. He was a big man...250 pounds...over six feet...and redneck as hell. Mixing his upbringing with his liquid courage, he pounded on the door, promising that he would beat the hell out of Dot the moment he got inside. My grandmother knew that he wasn't lying. So, she went back to her bedroom, pulled out her pistol, ran to the front door, and shot through the door.
DeWitt immediately began cussing her for all that she was worth and started limping back to his car. Dottie (my mom) screamed "Shoot him again!" Dot barely nicked the man...the bullet when clean through his pants and only grazed his legs (Tis merely a flesh wound). DeWitt drove off, but he swore that he'd be back and get his revenge.
Dot believed that he would be back and that he'd do exactly what he said. She was effectively now a single woman who had two children to look after and protect. So, she pulled a disappearing act. In the course of that single night, she moved all of her stuff out of the house that she shared with DeWitt. She quit her job so that he couldn't follow her to her new house from work and got a new job. She moved on and considered divorcing DeWitt to protect herself and her children.
Well, DeWitt got off the sauce. And Dot came back to him. By this time, DeWitt's daughter (from a previous marriage, as all of Dot's kids were from her first marriage as well) had gotten pregnant and, because she was...white trash-y...she gave the baby to Dot and DeWitt to raise. Well, DeWitt started drinking again. And Dot wasn't going to stand it. So, she pulled another disappearing act. This time, she got her mother Eula involved, and they disappeared with David to Panama City Beach...but not before dropping that baby off at DeWitt's parents house. It was hard to lose that baby, but it was easier to lose that baby than lose her life...and that's how the Panama City chapter of my mother's life began.
Okay, some of them.
Anyway, here's a snippet of a story from this afternoon:
My Grandma Dot shot her husband in the leg.
Okay, not exactly. See, the thing is, my G'ma Dot (my mom's mom) has been married eight times, and the man she was married to at the time, DeWitt, was husband number two. My mom was sixteen and she and her younger brother David were the only two of her four siblings who were still at home. G'ma Dot and DeWitt met, got married, and things seemed to be okay. And then, things started to go bad. DeWitt started drinking and acting crazy. And my grandmother, back in her firecracker days, wasn't going to have any of that.
DeWitt was standing out on the front porch, drunk and banging on the door, demanding to be let in. He was a big man...250 pounds...over six feet...and redneck as hell. Mixing his upbringing with his liquid courage, he pounded on the door, promising that he would beat the hell out of Dot the moment he got inside. My grandmother knew that he wasn't lying. So, she went back to her bedroom, pulled out her pistol, ran to the front door, and shot through the door.
DeWitt immediately began cussing her for all that she was worth and started limping back to his car. Dottie (my mom) screamed "Shoot him again!" Dot barely nicked the man...the bullet when clean through his pants and only grazed his legs (Tis merely a flesh wound). DeWitt drove off, but he swore that he'd be back and get his revenge.
Dot believed that he would be back and that he'd do exactly what he said. She was effectively now a single woman who had two children to look after and protect. So, she pulled a disappearing act. In the course of that single night, she moved all of her stuff out of the house that she shared with DeWitt. She quit her job so that he couldn't follow her to her new house from work and got a new job. She moved on and considered divorcing DeWitt to protect herself and her children.
Well, DeWitt got off the sauce. And Dot came back to him. By this time, DeWitt's daughter (from a previous marriage, as all of Dot's kids were from her first marriage as well) had gotten pregnant and, because she was...white trash-y...she gave the baby to Dot and DeWitt to raise. Well, DeWitt started drinking again. And Dot wasn't going to stand it. So, she pulled another disappearing act. This time, she got her mother Eula involved, and they disappeared with David to Panama City Beach...but not before dropping that baby off at DeWitt's parents house. It was hard to lose that baby, but it was easier to lose that baby than lose her life...and that's how the Panama City chapter of my mother's life began.
Last Weekend at Shorter
I keep a drafted blog update where I keep ideas for things to blog about when something interesting doesn't happen over the course of my day. However, I've really got to start getting more specific, because I no longer understand two of the things that I could potentially write about...so, if any of you from my past get what I mean by "Gangs by gender" or "The Castle," please clue me in...because I really have no idea.
Recap of graduation weekend (Warning: Long story coming):
I graduated last Saturday with a BA in English and Theatre, summa cum laude and with honors...there was a lot of symbology happening next to my name on grad day. Anywho, so the night before that, we had Bacchalaureate, which sounds like it would be a lot of fun--it sounds kind of like Bacchanalia, and thus I assumed that we were getting together as a class one last time to have a rocking good time and drink. But sadly, this didn't happen. Which is why I'm glad I took a book. Somehow, it ended up with all of us sitting in the gym listening to some guy give a sermon. His sermon lasted exactly the same length of time that it took me to re-read The House of Yes. I picked the perfect book for this occasion.
Post-Bacchalaureate, the senior theatre class went to Los Portales...there ended up being about twenty of us in the party. However, Nick, William, Trey, and I were the first four to arrive. Big mistake to come to this restaurant. I knew that there was a reason that I always stayed at my beloved Los Palmas. This place was a hate crime waiting to happen. We walked in the front door and everyone stopped and started staring at us. The people who were being cashed out at the register started talking amongst themselves, saying they could take us if it came to it. Finally, we were seated...in the middle of the restaurant. So, now we're four queens feeling threatened, and we're getting eyes from all over the place.
You know, I really forget that homophobia exists until I'm confronted with it. Most people are so cool and understanding...wait, no, that's just the world around myself that I've created, but whatever.
So, I hung around this place for about an hour and a half (even their chips and dip were gross), and then I went out and grabbed wings with Catie, Krystin, Paul, and Chris. Ate a ton of wings. Went home. Packed. Watched the Dollhouse finale. Slept.
Graduation. Yes, I'm sitting on the front row between a girl I went to high school with and Amy Goggins. The speaker offended me by preaching prosperity gospel and by saying that we as a class should go out and "sell ourselves." I got my diploma (just one, despite the two degrees...their both BAs, so the degrees would have look the exact same. I get it...I just don't agree). As my mother tells it:
On her way to get to me, my mother falls down a ravine. I can't say anything to her except, "Did you fall, Dot?" Two black guys help her up. They all go to Gondoliers and I tell them that I'll be there as soon as the theatre grad photo is over. I'm thinking twenty minutes tops.
In the fifty minutes that I was at the Theatre photo, here's what happened:
-I almost lose my hat and robe.
-Stephanie gets a note in a sealed envelope from Audrey. Audrey says read this when you have time. While waiting on people to make it to the green room to get the picture made, Stephanie opens the note, which expresses the general theme that although she has denied it for a while, Audrey does have feelings for Michael (Stephanie's ex-bf from about a year ago). Someone said the word "cheated" and the room lost its shit. I'm not going to weigh in my opinion here (I'm too much of a lady to use that kind of language), but the timing was shit-tastic. Of course one more crisis is how 2009 STD would end its time.
-Got grad gifts from Mr. B and Georgie. Georgie gave me a novel planner...which I'm about to start using. Mr. B gave all the seniors a book about dreams...and he said, as I was hugging him, that he gave me two books. I didn't get two books and I glanced around and saw that Grant had two...no big. I didn't even mention it because I figure that the universe said he needed it more.
-Was an hour late to lunch. My grandmother and Lani were being stoic. They left about ten minutes after I got there because Lani had to be back. My G'ma Dot couldn't stay after the ceremony because her feet were hurting too badly. Extended family was a little low on the gushing pride...which is kind of what I expected and I'm a little whatever about it all. They didn't come to my Capstone show for one reason or another. Which is totally fine...if you didn't want to come, I didn't want you there. But to not understand that that was the night that I graduated and that walking around in the robe was just some pomp and pageantry...you don't get me or what I do at all. So, lunch was okay...I ate a salad and two bites of pasta.
Outside the restaurant, I stopped my family and told them that Trey's family might be at the apartment when we got back. I told them that Trey's family didn't know that Trey was gay. They immediately began laughing. My mother said, "They have to know. Have they met him?" She thought about it for another second and asked, "Where are they from? The moon?" That made my day and has that racheted to the number one spot on quotes from my mother.
We moved me out and I said goodbye to Shorter. Btw, the SM keys got found. Apparently, I gave them to Chris. I must have been drunk or a zombie when this happened, because I have no recollection of this. I mean, they went missing in the middle of my show...if I would have just kept them, I wouldn't have had to take the lid off of the weapons closet to get the gun.
I spent the night with Krystin in the torrential downpour. And that ends this story, because I fear that I'm starting to ramble.
Tomorrow, I promise an honest-to-God reflection on something...today, all I had in me was plot.
Oh, and theatre folken, you might want to take a gander at indiemonos.blogspot.com. I promised you, didn't I?
Recap of graduation weekend (Warning: Long story coming):
I graduated last Saturday with a BA in English and Theatre, summa cum laude and with honors...there was a lot of symbology happening next to my name on grad day. Anywho, so the night before that, we had Bacchalaureate, which sounds like it would be a lot of fun--it sounds kind of like Bacchanalia, and thus I assumed that we were getting together as a class one last time to have a rocking good time and drink. But sadly, this didn't happen. Which is why I'm glad I took a book. Somehow, it ended up with all of us sitting in the gym listening to some guy give a sermon. His sermon lasted exactly the same length of time that it took me to re-read The House of Yes. I picked the perfect book for this occasion.
Post-Bacchalaureate, the senior theatre class went to Los Portales...there ended up being about twenty of us in the party. However, Nick, William, Trey, and I were the first four to arrive. Big mistake to come to this restaurant. I knew that there was a reason that I always stayed at my beloved Los Palmas. This place was a hate crime waiting to happen. We walked in the front door and everyone stopped and started staring at us. The people who were being cashed out at the register started talking amongst themselves, saying they could take us if it came to it. Finally, we were seated...in the middle of the restaurant. So, now we're four queens feeling threatened, and we're getting eyes from all over the place.
You know, I really forget that homophobia exists until I'm confronted with it. Most people are so cool and understanding...wait, no, that's just the world around myself that I've created, but whatever.
So, I hung around this place for about an hour and a half (even their chips and dip were gross), and then I went out and grabbed wings with Catie, Krystin, Paul, and Chris. Ate a ton of wings. Went home. Packed. Watched the Dollhouse finale. Slept.
Graduation. Yes, I'm sitting on the front row between a girl I went to high school with and Amy Goggins. The speaker offended me by preaching prosperity gospel and by saying that we as a class should go out and "sell ourselves." I got my diploma (just one, despite the two degrees...their both BAs, so the degrees would have look the exact same. I get it...I just don't agree). As my mother tells it:
"I was about to start clapping for you when they said 'John McGowan Freeman, summa cum laude,' but before I could, I pulled my hands apart and the room burst into cheers and applause. You have a lot of fans."I spent my time wisely and I'm well-liked (though how the hell that happened, I have no idea). Anywho, at the end of the ceremony, it was raining so they couldn't let us proceed out into the weather. Instead, they circled us around a back way and ended up holding us behind the stage of graduation. To the left of me (seeing as I was like sixth in line) were a line of fire doors that were propped open. I grabbed my regalia to my chest and turned to my friends, "You coming?" and I stormed out the door to look for my family. What were they going to do to me for not following their rules? Not let me graduate? Already done. Take my diploma back? From my cold, dead, rotting fingers. Anywho, I walk up the hill to go find my family...I am literally the only graduate who made it up there for about ten minutes. So, I see all my profs and whatnot.
On her way to get to me, my mother falls down a ravine. I can't say anything to her except, "Did you fall, Dot?" Two black guys help her up. They all go to Gondoliers and I tell them that I'll be there as soon as the theatre grad photo is over. I'm thinking twenty minutes tops.
In the fifty minutes that I was at the Theatre photo, here's what happened:
-I almost lose my hat and robe.
-Stephanie gets a note in a sealed envelope from Audrey. Audrey says read this when you have time. While waiting on people to make it to the green room to get the picture made, Stephanie opens the note, which expresses the general theme that although she has denied it for a while, Audrey does have feelings for Michael (Stephanie's ex-bf from about a year ago). Someone said the word "cheated" and the room lost its shit. I'm not going to weigh in my opinion here (I'm too much of a lady to use that kind of language), but the timing was shit-tastic. Of course one more crisis is how 2009 STD would end its time.
-Got grad gifts from Mr. B and Georgie. Georgie gave me a novel planner...which I'm about to start using. Mr. B gave all the seniors a book about dreams...and he said, as I was hugging him, that he gave me two books. I didn't get two books and I glanced around and saw that Grant had two...no big. I didn't even mention it because I figure that the universe said he needed it more.
-Was an hour late to lunch. My grandmother and Lani were being stoic. They left about ten minutes after I got there because Lani had to be back. My G'ma Dot couldn't stay after the ceremony because her feet were hurting too badly. Extended family was a little low on the gushing pride...which is kind of what I expected and I'm a little whatever about it all. They didn't come to my Capstone show for one reason or another. Which is totally fine...if you didn't want to come, I didn't want you there. But to not understand that that was the night that I graduated and that walking around in the robe was just some pomp and pageantry...you don't get me or what I do at all. So, lunch was okay...I ate a salad and two bites of pasta.
Outside the restaurant, I stopped my family and told them that Trey's family might be at the apartment when we got back. I told them that Trey's family didn't know that Trey was gay. They immediately began laughing. My mother said, "They have to know. Have they met him?" She thought about it for another second and asked, "Where are they from? The moon?" That made my day and has that racheted to the number one spot on quotes from my mother.
We moved me out and I said goodbye to Shorter. Btw, the SM keys got found. Apparently, I gave them to Chris. I must have been drunk or a zombie when this happened, because I have no recollection of this. I mean, they went missing in the middle of my show...if I would have just kept them, I wouldn't have had to take the lid off of the weapons closet to get the gun.
I spent the night with Krystin in the torrential downpour. And that ends this story, because I fear that I'm starting to ramble.
Tomorrow, I promise an honest-to-God reflection on something...today, all I had in me was plot.
Oh, and theatre folken, you might want to take a gander at indiemonos.blogspot.com. I promised you, didn't I?
A Friend's Wedding
I like the format of having a little taste of something at the top of my posts and then getting to the meat of telling a story.
Today's short bit: The Gay Agenda. For all of you heterosexuals out there, here's a look at the gay agenda for Monday, April 20th, 2009:
1 PM: Get out of bed
2 PM: Get dressed
3 PM: Find somewhere that will serve brunch if you bitch about it long enough
That's it. That's everything we've planned for today.
By the way, for those who are interested, I will appearing...well, I guess that's the right word...on Jamel and Eric's radio show this Friday at 3. Dr. Werner will also be there, so I'm sure we'll be talking about the gay at least a little. Tune in or watch in on channel 48 on campus.
And now, a story, courtesy of my friend Jackie:
This past weekend, Jackie attended her brother's wedding. This was an accomplishment in and of itself. Because, you see, Jackie's brother was making a mistake.
Prior to the wedding, Jackie's mother had found out that Angela, Trevor's (her brother) fiance got fired from her job for stealing. However, her kleptomania was overshadowed by the even more harrowing revelation that Angela was also popping pills. A lot of them. Of the painkiller variety. But, instead of going to rehab, Angela said no no no and instead, plans to marry Trevor proceeded. When confronted with why he wanted to continue with the wedding, Trevor said, "I can fix her." Trevor's a mechanic; I have no doubt that he could fix the click in my engine or restore my car, but I seriously doubt that this enables him to change a druggie. Especially when we're almost positive that he gave her pain pills last summer.
Oh, and Jackie's mom has cancer but hates to take pain meds. She's allergic to codeine so she has straight up morphine. She doesn't check her pills, and all of the pills in the house live in the same place: a lazy susan pharmacy in the kitchen. So, you could easily play the I'm-going-to-grab-an-antacid card and pocket a few of the higher powered bits.
Now, I love a down home wedding as much as the next guy, but this one, from what I here was extra-special. First off, junkie the clown has gained a lot of weight since her dress was designed. And by that, I mean they had to let the dress out. Twice. And come the wedding day, you could see her belly-button through the fabric. I don't have a common about that; sometimes, things happen. Like twins.
We only suspect she's pregnant, though. We have no proof.
So, anyway, Jackie was impressed into service as a bridesmaid. And what is an awful wedding without an awful bridesmaid's dress? The colors of the wedding were terracotta, cornflower blue, and sage green. So, this:
I mean, I guess it goes together in a somber, muted sort of way. It...totally...makes me think spring wedding. Top that with the fact that none of the dresses matched in cut, style, or fabric, I'm sure the wedding party looked like runaway refugees from 27 Dresses.
The other two bridesmaids were the bride's sisters. One of them, in the words of Jackie, has "an elevator that has never hit the top floor." She wore her Letterman jacket almost the entire wedding. The other sister...I can't remember, but the overall effect was that this was a classless lot.
The bride's father kept peeking into the bridal room to check on everything. Which is creepy, because everyone is changing in that room.
Now, I had offered to attend this wedding with Jackie and a mutual friend of ours so that when the minister asked if anyone objected, I could stand up, stop the wedding, and walk out. But, I didn't go. It wouldn't have mattered if I did, though, because the minister skipped that part of the ceremony.
I know that people only step weddings in the movies. But if you're so worried that someone is going to have an objection to the marriage as a minister, maybe you should refuse to perform the ceremony. Maybe there are major issues that need to be worked on before people make lifelong vows.
At the reception, because they are good Southern Baptists, there was no music and no dancing. Jackie was the only woman above 18 who was not married. Thus, she grabbed the bouquet (only after letting it drop to the floor when it was thrown and staring at it for a few seconds, though).
So, a classy wedding was had by all. And then I found out the classiest bit of all: the bride's family makes their living by making jelly. Like jelly. As in jam. In fact, so into the jelly business are they, that that was their wedding favor: jams in all varieties with the couple's engagement photo on the label. Don't worry; people could take any kind that they liked. The have a separate jelly kitchen in their home for the making of jelly. It's what they do.
And it's nice to know that, whatever turns my life may take, I won't be married in an awful color palette in a dress that is now too small for me, given away by parents who make jam for a living. I may do a lot of classless things, but I shine in comparison.
Today's short bit: The Gay Agenda. For all of you heterosexuals out there, here's a look at the gay agenda for Monday, April 20th, 2009:
1 PM: Get out of bed
2 PM: Get dressed
3 PM: Find somewhere that will serve brunch if you bitch about it long enough
That's it. That's everything we've planned for today.
By the way, for those who are interested, I will appearing...well, I guess that's the right word...on Jamel and Eric's radio show this Friday at 3. Dr. Werner will also be there, so I'm sure we'll be talking about the gay at least a little. Tune in or watch in on channel 48 on campus.
And now, a story, courtesy of my friend Jackie:
This past weekend, Jackie attended her brother's wedding. This was an accomplishment in and of itself. Because, you see, Jackie's brother was making a mistake.
Prior to the wedding, Jackie's mother had found out that Angela, Trevor's (her brother) fiance got fired from her job for stealing. However, her kleptomania was overshadowed by the even more harrowing revelation that Angela was also popping pills. A lot of them. Of the painkiller variety. But, instead of going to rehab, Angela said no no no and instead, plans to marry Trevor proceeded. When confronted with why he wanted to continue with the wedding, Trevor said, "I can fix her." Trevor's a mechanic; I have no doubt that he could fix the click in my engine or restore my car, but I seriously doubt that this enables him to change a druggie. Especially when we're almost positive that he gave her pain pills last summer.
Oh, and Jackie's mom has cancer but hates to take pain meds. She's allergic to codeine so she has straight up morphine. She doesn't check her pills, and all of the pills in the house live in the same place: a lazy susan pharmacy in the kitchen. So, you could easily play the I'm-going-to-grab-an-antacid card and pocket a few of the higher powered bits.
Now, I love a down home wedding as much as the next guy, but this one, from what I here was extra-special. First off, junkie the clown has gained a lot of weight since her dress was designed. And by that, I mean they had to let the dress out. Twice. And come the wedding day, you could see her belly-button through the fabric. I don't have a common about that; sometimes, things happen. Like twins.
We only suspect she's pregnant, though. We have no proof.
So, anyway, Jackie was impressed into service as a bridesmaid. And what is an awful wedding without an awful bridesmaid's dress? The colors of the wedding were terracotta, cornflower blue, and sage green. So, this:
I mean, I guess it goes together in a somber, muted sort of way. It...totally...makes me think spring wedding. Top that with the fact that none of the dresses matched in cut, style, or fabric, I'm sure the wedding party looked like runaway refugees from 27 Dresses.The other two bridesmaids were the bride's sisters. One of them, in the words of Jackie, has "an elevator that has never hit the top floor." She wore her Letterman jacket almost the entire wedding. The other sister...I can't remember, but the overall effect was that this was a classless lot.
The bride's father kept peeking into the bridal room to check on everything. Which is creepy, because everyone is changing in that room.
Now, I had offered to attend this wedding with Jackie and a mutual friend of ours so that when the minister asked if anyone objected, I could stand up, stop the wedding, and walk out. But, I didn't go. It wouldn't have mattered if I did, though, because the minister skipped that part of the ceremony.
I know that people only step weddings in the movies. But if you're so worried that someone is going to have an objection to the marriage as a minister, maybe you should refuse to perform the ceremony. Maybe there are major issues that need to be worked on before people make lifelong vows.
At the reception, because they are good Southern Baptists, there was no music and no dancing. Jackie was the only woman above 18 who was not married. Thus, she grabbed the bouquet (only after letting it drop to the floor when it was thrown and staring at it for a few seconds, though).
So, a classy wedding was had by all. And then I found out the classiest bit of all: the bride's family makes their living by making jelly. Like jelly. As in jam. In fact, so into the jelly business are they, that that was their wedding favor: jams in all varieties with the couple's engagement photo on the label. Don't worry; people could take any kind that they liked. The have a separate jelly kitchen in their home for the making of jelly. It's what they do.
And it's nice to know that, whatever turns my life may take, I won't be married in an awful color palette in a dress that is now too small for me, given away by parents who make jam for a living. I may do a lot of classless things, but I shine in comparison.
Oblique Look at Early Childhood
A piece of the Internet:
A writing device that I use when I get stuck is Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies. While I've never seen an actual deck of these cards, I do use this website to provide me a unique way of looking at a situation when I get stuck writing. It's a random server that gives a lot of different ways of looking at problems.
A story:
Scenes from the Academy
When I was four years old, I attended Covenant Christian Academy, a Christian private school in Panama City, FL. Originally, I only went three days a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Other kids went everyday, so I had to learn very early that if I wanted to participate and do everything, I had to be able to do tasks quickly so I could catch-up on what I missed. If I wanted to make a J out of assorted legumes and construction paper, then I would to have blaze through my math sheets and eschew coloring in true colors for broad strokes.
In the first grade, we had a school-wide Thanksgiving event. My class was better than the other first grade class because we had real feathers for a pine-cone turkeys. The other class had construction paper feathers. We won so hardcore. We glammed up our turkeys with so many feathers that they looked more like a drag queens centerpiece or the NBC logo than an actual Thanksgiving symbol, but we as children fully embraced the concept that more is more.
And then there was the meal. They took us to the meeting hall and sat us all at long tables. Half of us were dressed as Indians and the other half as Pilgrims. As a child who hated being sticky, I obviously sided with the more civilized English. From there, the meal started.
Our re-enactment was pretty true to the original: we Pilgrims brought guns and smallpox and the Indians brought corn and that commercial 80's where the Indian cries that tear because of littering. We ate a big meal and the Pilgrims forced all of the people dressed as Indians (which, why did we call them Indians? As a child, I'm sure I could have wrapped my mouth around the words "Native American.") to march the Trail of Tears and go live in Oklahoma. Then, we fought the British. Okay, maybe not really. But we did have a meal.
I have always been a huge fan of ketchup, and the fact that there was no bottle on the table for either my potatoes or turkey was distressing. However, on the side of my plate, nuzzled between the roll and the dressing, there was this gelatinous blob in roughly the same color as ketchup. I tried to dip my turkey in it, but it wouldn't give. Always a rational child, I assumed that the ketchup had congealed because it was too cold in the kitchen. Thus, I scraped some on my turkey and ate it. I promptly wretched--as much as I loved ketchup, my first encounter with cranberry sauce left something to be desired. One of the den mothers of my class explained the dish to me and told me that I'd like it later in life.
I've always hated that--just because someone is older doesn't mean they know a damn thing about you as a person. Instead, what it means is that they think that the next generation will be a copy of the current one, and, thus, their experience can inform the future.
A writing device that I use when I get stuck is Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies. While I've never seen an actual deck of these cards, I do use this website to provide me a unique way of looking at a situation when I get stuck writing. It's a random server that gives a lot of different ways of looking at problems.
A story:
Scenes from the Academy
When I was four years old, I attended Covenant Christian Academy, a Christian private school in Panama City, FL. Originally, I only went three days a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Other kids went everyday, so I had to learn very early that if I wanted to participate and do everything, I had to be able to do tasks quickly so I could catch-up on what I missed. If I wanted to make a J out of assorted legumes and construction paper, then I would to have blaze through my math sheets and eschew coloring in true colors for broad strokes.
In the first grade, we had a school-wide Thanksgiving event. My class was better than the other first grade class because we had real feathers for a pine-cone turkeys. The other class had construction paper feathers. We won so hardcore. We glammed up our turkeys with so many feathers that they looked more like a drag queens centerpiece or the NBC logo than an actual Thanksgiving symbol, but we as children fully embraced the concept that more is more.
And then there was the meal. They took us to the meeting hall and sat us all at long tables. Half of us were dressed as Indians and the other half as Pilgrims. As a child who hated being sticky, I obviously sided with the more civilized English. From there, the meal started.
Our re-enactment was pretty true to the original: we Pilgrims brought guns and smallpox and the Indians brought corn and that commercial 80's where the Indian cries that tear because of littering. We ate a big meal and the Pilgrims forced all of the people dressed as Indians (which, why did we call them Indians? As a child, I'm sure I could have wrapped my mouth around the words "Native American.") to march the Trail of Tears and go live in Oklahoma. Then, we fought the British. Okay, maybe not really. But we did have a meal.
I have always been a huge fan of ketchup, and the fact that there was no bottle on the table for either my potatoes or turkey was distressing. However, on the side of my plate, nuzzled between the roll and the dressing, there was this gelatinous blob in roughly the same color as ketchup. I tried to dip my turkey in it, but it wouldn't give. Always a rational child, I assumed that the ketchup had congealed because it was too cold in the kitchen. Thus, I scraped some on my turkey and ate it. I promptly wretched--as much as I loved ketchup, my first encounter with cranberry sauce left something to be desired. One of the den mothers of my class explained the dish to me and told me that I'd like it later in life.
I've always hated that--just because someone is older doesn't mean they know a damn thing about you as a person. Instead, what it means is that they think that the next generation will be a copy of the current one, and, thus, their experience can inform the future.
A Quote and "A Childhood Savior"
"The only thing of value anyone has to offer
is their uniqueness
and individuality
no matter who you are or what you do.
Life your life.
Notice what you are really thinking about
Write about that.
Show us what you don't want anyone to see.
Remember that while art can be product
product can never be art."
--Penny Arcade, "Manifesto" (as anthologized in Verses That Hurt)
I think that the above quote is a beautiful rendering of an artist's place in the world. Her whole "Manifesto" is fantastic, but that's the big point right there. Now, I'm going to tell a story about something. I'm not feeling very inspired today, so we'll just see what happens.
A Childhood Savior
When I was young (think like a wee child of six and on), my grandmother had this enormous Rottweiler named Ledi. Ledi was the first of my G'ma Helen's dogs. Ledi ruled the north side of the kitchen, curled on her side against the indentation in the wall on top of a ratty blanket. She was a big girl, so she had trouble with her knees. But she a good dog and I can always remember my grandmother having this dog when I was young.
A lot of people say that Rottweilers are evil killer dogs. They can be. Ledi and Bandit (the other Rottie) would attack someone if they thought that any of us were in danger. But that doesn't make them killers; that makes them protectors. Ledi couldn't be allowed outside while the kids were in the pool. We would go under the water, and she would instantly run to the spot on the side of the pool where we went under and bark at us until we returned to the service. Then, she would run along the edge, trailing us, making sure that we were okay.
I know that dogs can't have panic attacks, but if a dog could have, it would have been this one.
I was in the pull one day by myself when I was eleven. It was hot, I was pale, but I do love the water. I always have. In my grandmother's pool, there is a railing, like in a lot of pools, that leads down the center of the steps. Because my brother Mason and I were small, we could slide down this railing in lieu of having an actual slide. Sure, it wasn't the episcent of cool, but it was fun and different. The fact that the adults told us not to do it made it that much more inviting.
So, I was in the pool by myself, the adults trusting me to my own safety. Maybe they were in the kitchen, shelling peas and talking about people, maybe they were asleep--I don't recall. What I do know is that I was playing on the "slide" and Ledi was walking around the backyard, patrolling for threats. I went down the rail a few times, and everything was good. And then, I got up on to it, slick with the water from the pool, sat on it, and fell off the other side.
I had neglected to think of a few things. First, the rail was hot and slick and I should've been more careful. Second, the rail anchored into the concrete on the side of the pool. Third, the top of the rail that I was falling from was about four feet off the ground. Add that to my height of about four feet, and I was looking at a pretty good bash of my head. I could already see the stitches, the blood, and the emergency room in my future. I was ready for it. I Zen-ned out, and tried to just take the fall.
Suddenly, though, I hit something warm and hard in mid-air and tumbled into the pool. From out of nowhere, Ledi had ended up beside me and I fell on her, knocking me into the pool and away from the concrete. I scraped my arm and stomach on the side, but I was fine. Ledi yelped and ran off. She wasn't very fond of me for a while after that, but she saved me then. No one else around and I was headed for a concussion.
Rotties are protectors.
I wasn't one of the people in my family that helped bury Ledi a few years later. She had gotten older and bigger and more arthritic and it had become a tragedy to watch her. The thought of her dying was sad, but it wasn't nearly as sad as the thought of her having to live a life confined to a messy palette on the floor, barely able to get up and eat.
So, she was put to sleep. I don't really remember what happened. I remember watching my dad go out with G'ma Helen and my aunt Lani, but I don't remember digging the hole. I remember a sad meal afterwards. I remember it was twilight, back before the back yard had been completely cleaned out and it was a bit of a jungle back there, teeming with snakes and boyhood games.
They walked back in, and it bothered me that nothing had been said over that grave, and that such a good protector was sent to the earth. But we mourn our pets, and we move on. And the day gives all new opportunities to save and be saved.
is their uniqueness
and individuality
no matter who you are or what you do.
Life your life.
Notice what you are really thinking about
Write about that.
Show us what you don't want anyone to see.
Remember that while art can be product
product can never be art."
--Penny Arcade, "Manifesto" (as anthologized in Verses That Hurt)
I think that the above quote is a beautiful rendering of an artist's place in the world. Her whole "Manifesto" is fantastic, but that's the big point right there. Now, I'm going to tell a story about something. I'm not feeling very inspired today, so we'll just see what happens.
A Childhood Savior
When I was young (think like a wee child of six and on), my grandmother had this enormous Rottweiler named Ledi. Ledi was the first of my G'ma Helen's dogs. Ledi ruled the north side of the kitchen, curled on her side against the indentation in the wall on top of a ratty blanket. She was a big girl, so she had trouble with her knees. But she a good dog and I can always remember my grandmother having this dog when I was young.
A lot of people say that Rottweilers are evil killer dogs. They can be. Ledi and Bandit (the other Rottie) would attack someone if they thought that any of us were in danger. But that doesn't make them killers; that makes them protectors. Ledi couldn't be allowed outside while the kids were in the pool. We would go under the water, and she would instantly run to the spot on the side of the pool where we went under and bark at us until we returned to the service. Then, she would run along the edge, trailing us, making sure that we were okay.
I know that dogs can't have panic attacks, but if a dog could have, it would have been this one.
I was in the pull one day by myself when I was eleven. It was hot, I was pale, but I do love the water. I always have. In my grandmother's pool, there is a railing, like in a lot of pools, that leads down the center of the steps. Because my brother Mason and I were small, we could slide down this railing in lieu of having an actual slide. Sure, it wasn't the episcent of cool, but it was fun and different. The fact that the adults told us not to do it made it that much more inviting.
So, I was in the pool by myself, the adults trusting me to my own safety. Maybe they were in the kitchen, shelling peas and talking about people, maybe they were asleep--I don't recall. What I do know is that I was playing on the "slide" and Ledi was walking around the backyard, patrolling for threats. I went down the rail a few times, and everything was good. And then, I got up on to it, slick with the water from the pool, sat on it, and fell off the other side.
I had neglected to think of a few things. First, the rail was hot and slick and I should've been more careful. Second, the rail anchored into the concrete on the side of the pool. Third, the top of the rail that I was falling from was about four feet off the ground. Add that to my height of about four feet, and I was looking at a pretty good bash of my head. I could already see the stitches, the blood, and the emergency room in my future. I was ready for it. I Zen-ned out, and tried to just take the fall.
Suddenly, though, I hit something warm and hard in mid-air and tumbled into the pool. From out of nowhere, Ledi had ended up beside me and I fell on her, knocking me into the pool and away from the concrete. I scraped my arm and stomach on the side, but I was fine. Ledi yelped and ran off. She wasn't very fond of me for a while after that, but she saved me then. No one else around and I was headed for a concussion.
Rotties are protectors.
I wasn't one of the people in my family that helped bury Ledi a few years later. She had gotten older and bigger and more arthritic and it had become a tragedy to watch her. The thought of her dying was sad, but it wasn't nearly as sad as the thought of her having to live a life confined to a messy palette on the floor, barely able to get up and eat.
So, she was put to sleep. I don't really remember what happened. I remember watching my dad go out with G'ma Helen and my aunt Lani, but I don't remember digging the hole. I remember a sad meal afterwards. I remember it was twilight, back before the back yard had been completely cleaned out and it was a bit of a jungle back there, teeming with snakes and boyhood games.
They walked back in, and it bothered me that nothing had been said over that grave, and that such a good protector was sent to the earth. But we mourn our pets, and we move on. And the day gives all new opportunities to save and be saved.
You Remind Me Of The...
At lunch today, Ellen leaned across the table and said, "I don't want this to sound weird..." and I finished her sentence in my head before she even had the chance to. But you're just like this guy I..."dated in high school." For some reason, this sentence always starts that way and the only thing that ever changes is the last detail.
"Oh, really? Well, I'm sorry if we broke up under bad terms."
"We did."
"Why?"
"I wouldn't sleep with you."
Shrugging, I said, "Yeah, I do that."
However, is it as ubiquitous for everyone as it is for me for people to come up to them and say "I know you, but different and somewhere else?" I'm known for a dry sense of humor and for reflecting too much (read: obsessing) over the dark parts of life. But I'm always someone's best friend from high school.
And then they say that we should meet because either A) we'd be perfect for each other or B) we'd get along so well.
My response to this is that A) I don't need someone like me. I'm screwed up in my own ways. And if I can't help myself, then I certainly can't help someone going through the exact same things. We have to help each other out if that's going to work. Plus, if they're just like me, they're far too paranoid, feisty, selectively social for it to work out. We'd end up getting on each others nerves. And as far as getting along...I don't know...I think there can be only one person holding court at a time.
Plus, I never say this. Nobody I meet and spend time with is the same as anyone else. They are all unique. So, do we say this as a gross over-simplification or do we say it because we just meeting the same boring slags again and again?
"Oh, really? Well, I'm sorry if we broke up under bad terms."
"We did."
"Why?"
"I wouldn't sleep with you."
Shrugging, I said, "Yeah, I do that."
However, is it as ubiquitous for everyone as it is for me for people to come up to them and say "I know you, but different and somewhere else?" I'm known for a dry sense of humor and for reflecting too much (read: obsessing) over the dark parts of life. But I'm always someone's best friend from high school.
And then they say that we should meet because either A) we'd be perfect for each other or B) we'd get along so well.
My response to this is that A) I don't need someone like me. I'm screwed up in my own ways. And if I can't help myself, then I certainly can't help someone going through the exact same things. We have to help each other out if that's going to work. Plus, if they're just like me, they're far too paranoid, feisty, selectively social for it to work out. We'd end up getting on each others nerves. And as far as getting along...I don't know...I think there can be only one person holding court at a time.
Plus, I never say this. Nobody I meet and spend time with is the same as anyone else. They are all unique. So, do we say this as a gross over-simplification or do we say it because we just meeting the same boring slags again and again?
Setting Up the Dogs
Once upon a time, my grandparent's had a dog. He was a Shar-Pei (those wrinkly dogs you remember from the Snuggle commercials). His name, classily enough, was Bubba Chang. He arrived one Christmas and was dead by the next. His grave is outside my grandmother's bedroom. So, to commemorate the death of this dog, they bought another dog and commissioned him Bubba.
In the subsequent years, they didn't know quite where to stop. From the woman that they bought Bubba from, they received a dog named Rosco. He was a rescue dog: blind, almost deaf, poor center of balance, and emotionally scarred, this dog had come from a home that should appear only on MSNBC specials on animal abuse...they shouldn't actually exist. And these animals shouldn't actually have to go through these things. Thus, Rosco hates being left alone and must sleep with someone every night. When my grandparents go away, I tend to house sit, because Rosco cries so much at night when he's by himself, the kennel will not take him any longer.
Then they bought Baby Girl and Pretty Girl. Then came Buffy (who died because of an undiagnosed bone marrow cancer at Auburn). Then came Opie. Then came Buddha and Giggles. Then came Izzy. They are black, brown, white, multi-colored, big, small, wire hair, short hair, long hair...a veritable panoply of all aspects of Shar-Peidom. My grandparents breed them, so that's why they have so many. They have such dumb names because that's what happens when you let a seven-year-old (my cousin, Baylee) name all of the animals.
Today, they brought home an all-white puppy. Her name is Gennarosa (sp?). That's what the breeder called her and they didn't change it. And she's really cute. She's 8 weeks old, and I can barely stand it. So, even though two of the other dogs are pregnant already, they continue to accrue dogs.
My mother hates the dogs, I think they're cute, and they have become part of the essential mix of the compound. I'm sure that I'll tell more stories about them someday, but here's the philosophy that this house has towards animals.
A few years ago, my grandfather had a violent infection that ultimately proved fatal. During this time, my grandparents bought him a puppy. My mother thought that he didn't care, but it seemed to bring some light into his life. So, my Aunt Lani said "If it'll make him smile, I'll buy him a dozen damn dogs."
So, we add family members. Because they make us smile in the face of all that isn't happy.
In the subsequent years, they didn't know quite where to stop. From the woman that they bought Bubba from, they received a dog named Rosco. He was a rescue dog: blind, almost deaf, poor center of balance, and emotionally scarred, this dog had come from a home that should appear only on MSNBC specials on animal abuse...they shouldn't actually exist. And these animals shouldn't actually have to go through these things. Thus, Rosco hates being left alone and must sleep with someone every night. When my grandparents go away, I tend to house sit, because Rosco cries so much at night when he's by himself, the kennel will not take him any longer.
Then they bought Baby Girl and Pretty Girl. Then came Buffy (who died because of an undiagnosed bone marrow cancer at Auburn). Then came Opie. Then came Buddha and Giggles. Then came Izzy. They are black, brown, white, multi-colored, big, small, wire hair, short hair, long hair...a veritable panoply of all aspects of Shar-Peidom. My grandparents breed them, so that's why they have so many. They have such dumb names because that's what happens when you let a seven-year-old (my cousin, Baylee) name all of the animals.
Today, they brought home an all-white puppy. Her name is Gennarosa (sp?). That's what the breeder called her and they didn't change it. And she's really cute. She's 8 weeks old, and I can barely stand it. So, even though two of the other dogs are pregnant already, they continue to accrue dogs.
My mother hates the dogs, I think they're cute, and they have become part of the essential mix of the compound. I'm sure that I'll tell more stories about them someday, but here's the philosophy that this house has towards animals.
A few years ago, my grandfather had a violent infection that ultimately proved fatal. During this time, my grandparents bought him a puppy. My mother thought that he didn't care, but it seemed to bring some light into his life. So, my Aunt Lani said "If it'll make him smile, I'll buy him a dozen damn dogs."
So, we add family members. Because they make us smile in the face of all that isn't happy.
Falling Into the New Year
On New Year's, my brother hosted a party. About twenty people showed up to drink a little bit, dance a little bit, play cards, watch TV, and just generally hang out. As 2008 drew to a close, our friend Martin punched himself. In the face. Which is ridiculous, but people do stuff like that all the time. But no, Martin hit himself in the face hard enough to knock himself through a window.
As the glass shattered, my brother and his roommate hauled him back in through the window and extracted the glass shard about the size of a deck of cards from his ass. There was a little blood, but nothing to infect anybody or make anyone pass out. The room went quiet. The music was turned off. And my brother made an announcement:
"Everyone leave. Grab a DD and get out." And they did. Within fifteen minutes, his apartment went from a party house to empty. Mason walked around and turned the lights out and called my father.
"I'm afraid my neighbors are going to call the cops."
"When did this happen?"
"Like fifteen minutes ago."
"Well, if the cops aren't there yet, they aren't coming. They're out in force, especially tonight." This comforted my brother somewhat. My dad offered to send me to go pick him up so that the apartment would be abandoned in case anyone showed up. My brother declined...they would be able to figure out whose apartment it was with the most minute of efforts.
"I'm just going to go to bed."
"Where is Martin?"
"Sean drove him down the street."
"Sean's been drinking!"
"And it's just down the street." With that, my brother hung up the phone and maneuvered into his bedroom in his pitch-black apartment. And he went to sleep.
The next morning, waking up to see the hole in his wall, he duct-taped a sheet over it, and called a glazier.
Now, this story is funny to me because someone punched themselves hard enough to fall through a window. I don't masochists with that sort of willpower. It just goes to show you the evil of drink. I feel likke after one of these stories, I should now tell awful prom night stories and tell you how many empty calories are in beer. But I don't really believe that. I like wine a lot. And sometimes, I like being tipsy.
But, just because you're in college doesn't mean that when you drink too much consistently, you don't have a drinking problem. Just because it's cool to drink every weekend and practically expected doesn't make that not borderline compulsive. Alcoholism is one of the unspoken diseases of the young.
How do you deal with something like this? As much as I love a bulleted list, I don't know what to say. You can talk to the person, but they won't be receptive. Due to the cultural factors and the normalcy of the problem, few people would actually seek help. And it's not every one looking for a good time, but there are enough people with problems to make this story an uncomfortable chuckle on the iceberg of larger problems.
So, I'll continue to see people show up drunk to shows. I'll continue to watch people drink fifths of vodka by themselves. I'll watch an Oprah special unfold right before my eyes.
And I don't know how to stop it.
But this is making me sad. I'm going to go have a margarita and feel better.
As the glass shattered, my brother and his roommate hauled him back in through the window and extracted the glass shard about the size of a deck of cards from his ass. There was a little blood, but nothing to infect anybody or make anyone pass out. The room went quiet. The music was turned off. And my brother made an announcement:
"Everyone leave. Grab a DD and get out." And they did. Within fifteen minutes, his apartment went from a party house to empty. Mason walked around and turned the lights out and called my father.
"I'm afraid my neighbors are going to call the cops."
"When did this happen?"
"Like fifteen minutes ago."
"Well, if the cops aren't there yet, they aren't coming. They're out in force, especially tonight." This comforted my brother somewhat. My dad offered to send me to go pick him up so that the apartment would be abandoned in case anyone showed up. My brother declined...they would be able to figure out whose apartment it was with the most minute of efforts.
"I'm just going to go to bed."
"Where is Martin?"
"Sean drove him down the street."
"Sean's been drinking!"
"And it's just down the street." With that, my brother hung up the phone and maneuvered into his bedroom in his pitch-black apartment. And he went to sleep.
The next morning, waking up to see the hole in his wall, he duct-taped a sheet over it, and called a glazier.
Now, this story is funny to me because someone punched themselves hard enough to fall through a window. I don't masochists with that sort of willpower. It just goes to show you the evil of drink. I feel likke after one of these stories, I should now tell awful prom night stories and tell you how many empty calories are in beer. But I don't really believe that. I like wine a lot. And sometimes, I like being tipsy.
But, just because you're in college doesn't mean that when you drink too much consistently, you don't have a drinking problem. Just because it's cool to drink every weekend and practically expected doesn't make that not borderline compulsive. Alcoholism is one of the unspoken diseases of the young.
How do you deal with something like this? As much as I love a bulleted list, I don't know what to say. You can talk to the person, but they won't be receptive. Due to the cultural factors and the normalcy of the problem, few people would actually seek help. And it's not every one looking for a good time, but there are enough people with problems to make this story an uncomfortable chuckle on the iceberg of larger problems.
So, I'll continue to see people show up drunk to shows. I'll continue to watch people drink fifths of vodka by themselves. I'll watch an Oprah special unfold right before my eyes.
And I don't know how to stop it.
But this is making me sad. I'm going to go have a margarita and feel better.
Woman of AIDS, Mother of Panic
Submitted for the approval of the Memoir Society, I call this story "Woman of AIDS, Mother of Panic"
My mother thought she had AIDS in the early 1990's.
You have to know my mother for that to sound like the insanity that it truly is. My mother, while never dull, has never risen to the level that AE felt like they needed to have an intervention. Plus, she's only been with a few people. We've never had that particular talk, but I think a few glasses of wine and I could get the number out of her. Suffice it to say, she didn't share heroin needles or have unprotected anal sex for kicks.
But, it was a scary time. And she was a new mom. She had gone from the summer of 1988 when she didn't have a care in the world but her husband and her career. She could take off at a moment's notice to go away for the weekend, hit the beach, run the side bets at a fishing tournament, politically campaign for someone, join a charismatic church, bless out a liar, and still be at home in time to catch the evening news with my father. This changed, though, and in the summer of 1990, she had two very large, very heavy, very demanding children. My brother and I required a special amount of looking after.
It got to the point that we were living on a farm out in the middle of nowhere, sticksville, USA in south Georgia. The nearest grocery store was thirty miles away. Our farmhouse would be dusted by crop dusters (post DDT, but not by too much) everyday. And that freaked my mother out. As did having these two little aliens all to herself all day long everyday. As did being removed by a few hundred miles from all of her friends and her life in Panama City, Florida. As did the animosity between my brother and I. Even at eighteen months, I didn't appreciate the new alien (my little brother, Mason) that had imposed himself in my family situation, and I was not above shoving him out of the way to get what I wanted.
To give you an idea of how isolated my mother was, she was thirty miles from the nearest grocery store. Imagine having to haul two babies into a van for a trip to the grocery store, pushing them around, getting food for a family of four in a buggy that has a car seat in it to hold the infants, and all of the work that that implies. Now, my mother wasn't one of those women living on the Great Plains in a house mad of sod that occasionally had a snake fall out of the roof, but it was an ordeal.
Anyway, back in the early 1990's, they didn't know what this little thing called "Anxiety Disorder" was. My mother, however, had it. In spades. She had her first panic attack in a Hardee's drive-through on the way back from the grocery store with my brother and me. All she could think was "I can't breathe, and I'm going to die in this damn drive-through in front of my babies." She calmed down, finally got her breath back, got a Diet Coke in the drive through, and went home, hunched over the wheel. When she turned on to the dirt road where our farm house was, she was white knuckling it. She just wanted to get the groceries inside, put the kids down for a nap, and figure out what was wrong with her.
Well, at this same time, my father's parents had a condo in Panama City, and my family would go visit them a few times a month. One day, one of my grandfather's friends was this GP named Harry. Harry would come down to Panama City, stay with my grandparents, and go fishing on some of Granddaddy Mack's boats. Back in this age before HIPAA, healthcare reform, malpractice, and all that jazz, my mother got all of her medical check-ups pro bono from granddaddy's friends. So, Harry was looking over my mom.
He looked at my mom, glancing her over, ran a normal blood test, and sat her down. My mother had lost about two stone (somewhere near thirty pounds) in the previous two years, which is abnormal, considering all she did was look after children. She should have, in theory, gained weight...it isn't a reigstered diet secret that you lose weight by watching Santa Barbara. However, she looked like she was wasting away, her vitality and color draining fromher face. So, he told her that she probably had AIDS and she should prepare herself and her family for the inevitable test results.
My mother freaked out. This was during an era when AIDS testing took two weeks. When it had only recently been reclassified from GRID. When the disease was less than ten years old. When it wasn't an international health concern. When you thought you could get it from anywhere, and that was partly true. Now, my mother is a smart woman, but when he told her that she might be full-blown AIDS, she thought "Possible."
She had only been married to my father for a few years, so it might have come through her previous sexual partners. Or, she might have received it in a transfusion (my mother had cancer twice and broke her neck within a two year span at this same time, but those are other stories for other days). It was a scary time, and she couldn't say for sure that she was clean. Which made the next two weeks terrifying.
Over the next two weeks, my mother had at least one panic attack a day. Her throat would swell, she'd hyperventilate, and she would be constantly on edge, her nerves shot by the end of the evening. She was sure that she was going to die and abandon her family that she had worked so hard to gain.
They called her back two weeks later: negative. But the damage was done. My mother had developed an anxiety syndrome that was so bad, she couldn't make regular doctor's appointments. And because it went undiagnosed, it kept getting worse. And my mother kept losing weight.
In this pre-internet age, her godsend appeared in the form of Sixty Minutes. They ran a special on this new, very real disorder called "Anxiety Syndrome." And my mother had all the symptoms. She turned to my father and said, "That's what I have. That's what's wrong with me." She misted up a little. She wasn't having a panic attack then, but she was experiencing a common catharsis seen in hospitals everyday: even though the prognosis isn't good, it's comforting to be able to put a name to your enemy.
She went later that week and interviewed with a neurologist and got a positive diagnosis and some pills (Cerzone, my mother says, is the best drug ever produced. A pinch under the tongue could quell a hurricane). She started to gain the weight back, nearly as inexplicably as she lost it. But, thinking back, she figured it out.
Left alone with two children and this medical condition she didn't understand that made her choke, she wouldn't eat when she was alone because she was afraid of choking, falling over, passing out, dying, and my dad walking into my cries and my brother's empty stare as we huddled near our mother's cooling corpse. I might have inherited my hint of the macabre from her. So, she only ate dinner with my father every night. She was trying to keep up with two infants on roughly 600 calories a day. Some anorexics do better than that. No wonder she looked like she was falling apart.
After she regained her strength, Dottie made an appointment to see Dr. Harry. When he walked into his office and found her, she cussed him out for fifteen solid minutes at the top of her lungs. His exam rooms were full. Nurses scurried into other rooms. People peered out of rooms. When she finally stormed out, she went to my grandmother and told her what she had done.
"Good for you," was all Grandma Helen said. And strangely, Dr. Harry never went fishing with my grandparents ever again.
My mother thought she had AIDS in the early 1990's.
You have to know my mother for that to sound like the insanity that it truly is. My mother, while never dull, has never risen to the level that AE felt like they needed to have an intervention. Plus, she's only been with a few people. We've never had that particular talk, but I think a few glasses of wine and I could get the number out of her. Suffice it to say, she didn't share heroin needles or have unprotected anal sex for kicks.
But, it was a scary time. And she was a new mom. She had gone from the summer of 1988 when she didn't have a care in the world but her husband and her career. She could take off at a moment's notice to go away for the weekend, hit the beach, run the side bets at a fishing tournament, politically campaign for someone, join a charismatic church, bless out a liar, and still be at home in time to catch the evening news with my father. This changed, though, and in the summer of 1990, she had two very large, very heavy, very demanding children. My brother and I required a special amount of looking after.
It got to the point that we were living on a farm out in the middle of nowhere, sticksville, USA in south Georgia. The nearest grocery store was thirty miles away. Our farmhouse would be dusted by crop dusters (post DDT, but not by too much) everyday. And that freaked my mother out. As did having these two little aliens all to herself all day long everyday. As did being removed by a few hundred miles from all of her friends and her life in Panama City, Florida. As did the animosity between my brother and I. Even at eighteen months, I didn't appreciate the new alien (my little brother, Mason) that had imposed himself in my family situation, and I was not above shoving him out of the way to get what I wanted.
To give you an idea of how isolated my mother was, she was thirty miles from the nearest grocery store. Imagine having to haul two babies into a van for a trip to the grocery store, pushing them around, getting food for a family of four in a buggy that has a car seat in it to hold the infants, and all of the work that that implies. Now, my mother wasn't one of those women living on the Great Plains in a house mad of sod that occasionally had a snake fall out of the roof, but it was an ordeal.
Anyway, back in the early 1990's, they didn't know what this little thing called "Anxiety Disorder" was. My mother, however, had it. In spades. She had her first panic attack in a Hardee's drive-through on the way back from the grocery store with my brother and me. All she could think was "I can't breathe, and I'm going to die in this damn drive-through in front of my babies." She calmed down, finally got her breath back, got a Diet Coke in the drive through, and went home, hunched over the wheel. When she turned on to the dirt road where our farm house was, she was white knuckling it. She just wanted to get the groceries inside, put the kids down for a nap, and figure out what was wrong with her.
Well, at this same time, my father's parents had a condo in Panama City, and my family would go visit them a few times a month. One day, one of my grandfather's friends was this GP named Harry. Harry would come down to Panama City, stay with my grandparents, and go fishing on some of Granddaddy Mack's boats. Back in this age before HIPAA, healthcare reform, malpractice, and all that jazz, my mother got all of her medical check-ups pro bono from granddaddy's friends. So, Harry was looking over my mom.
He looked at my mom, glancing her over, ran a normal blood test, and sat her down. My mother had lost about two stone (somewhere near thirty pounds) in the previous two years, which is abnormal, considering all she did was look after children. She should have, in theory, gained weight...it isn't a reigstered diet secret that you lose weight by watching Santa Barbara. However, she looked like she was wasting away, her vitality and color draining fromher face. So, he told her that she probably had AIDS and she should prepare herself and her family for the inevitable test results.
My mother freaked out. This was during an era when AIDS testing took two weeks. When it had only recently been reclassified from GRID. When the disease was less than ten years old. When it wasn't an international health concern. When you thought you could get it from anywhere, and that was partly true. Now, my mother is a smart woman, but when he told her that she might be full-blown AIDS, she thought "Possible."
She had only been married to my father for a few years, so it might have come through her previous sexual partners. Or, she might have received it in a transfusion (my mother had cancer twice and broke her neck within a two year span at this same time, but those are other stories for other days). It was a scary time, and she couldn't say for sure that she was clean. Which made the next two weeks terrifying.
Over the next two weeks, my mother had at least one panic attack a day. Her throat would swell, she'd hyperventilate, and she would be constantly on edge, her nerves shot by the end of the evening. She was sure that she was going to die and abandon her family that she had worked so hard to gain.
They called her back two weeks later: negative. But the damage was done. My mother had developed an anxiety syndrome that was so bad, she couldn't make regular doctor's appointments. And because it went undiagnosed, it kept getting worse. And my mother kept losing weight.
In this pre-internet age, her godsend appeared in the form of Sixty Minutes. They ran a special on this new, very real disorder called "Anxiety Syndrome." And my mother had all the symptoms. She turned to my father and said, "That's what I have. That's what's wrong with me." She misted up a little. She wasn't having a panic attack then, but she was experiencing a common catharsis seen in hospitals everyday: even though the prognosis isn't good, it's comforting to be able to put a name to your enemy.
She went later that week and interviewed with a neurologist and got a positive diagnosis and some pills (Cerzone, my mother says, is the best drug ever produced. A pinch under the tongue could quell a hurricane). She started to gain the weight back, nearly as inexplicably as she lost it. But, thinking back, she figured it out.
Left alone with two children and this medical condition she didn't understand that made her choke, she wouldn't eat when she was alone because she was afraid of choking, falling over, passing out, dying, and my dad walking into my cries and my brother's empty stare as we huddled near our mother's cooling corpse. I might have inherited my hint of the macabre from her. So, she only ate dinner with my father every night. She was trying to keep up with two infants on roughly 600 calories a day. Some anorexics do better than that. No wonder she looked like she was falling apart.
After she regained her strength, Dottie made an appointment to see Dr. Harry. When he walked into his office and found her, she cussed him out for fifteen solid minutes at the top of her lungs. His exam rooms were full. Nurses scurried into other rooms. People peered out of rooms. When she finally stormed out, she went to my grandmother and told her what she had done.
"Good for you," was all Grandma Helen said. And strangely, Dr. Harry never went fishing with my grandparents ever again.
A Story Worth Telling
So, I'm going to start telling stories, posting the stories from my life sometimes. They'll drop pseudonyms as needed. But, I want to start writing them and putting them out there.
Submitted for the approval of the Memoir Society, I call this story "Nothing But Yams."
It had been a while since Krystin and I had hung out. She had been dealing with personal trouble (to the tune of relationships and all that jazz) and I had been running the sound boards for Shorter College's Dance Concert (imaginatively titled "Light in Motion"). So, we hadn't had a chance to hang out in forever. But, we were taking time and getting back together. And it just so happened that we were playing Magic.
For those of you who weren't nerds in middle school and have thus grown up to productive lives with beautiful spouses, Magic: The Gathering is a trading card game with the conceit that you and your opponent are wizards standing at opposite ends of a battleground. You summon creatures, cast spells and enchantments, and draw power from the land, trying to slay your opponent. Suffice it to say, this game is not sexy. At all. And I hadn't played it in years. My parents had burned my green and black deck in the backyard barbeque, using the pages of a V.C. Andrews novel as kindling. The devil was in these cards and they were not pleased.
But, Krystin and I have an awkward friend. He really enjoys hanging out with Krystin, but he's so awkward that they can't simply hang out; they have to have something to do. So, Krystin came up with the idea of having him teach her how to play Magic so that they could do something instead of attempting to maintain a really awkward conversation.
I digress. Krystin and I were playing on my coffee table, blowing through game after game while we talked to my roommate Nick and his boyfriend William. The theatre department potluck had concluded a few hours before, and we had just been shooting the shit for a while, talking about a little of this and a little of that, but mostly keeping things witty and light. We were talking about how things had gone that semester and how busy everyone had been.
"We haven't hung out in ages." Krystin said.
"Yeah, I know. But you had stuff and I had my English Oral Exam, and it just wasn't a good time." I responded.
William speared another piece of turkey and said "How'd that go, by the way? I never got a chance to ask?"
"It went fine. I mean, I had to read Heart of Darkness and they didn't ask me a single question about it, so that kind of sucked."
Nick got up and opened the window and said, "I've heard that book is awful. Nothing but yams." The conversation hit a brick wall. Krystin and I glanced across the table at each other, mentally trying to figure out what Nick meant by his comment. Finally, I said, "What?"
He looked at me. "My friend Kristi, she hated it when she read it. She just looked at me one day when she was reading it and said 'This book is about nothing but yams. That's all they talk about yams. Africa and yams. Yams, yams, yams."
"There are no yams in Heart of Darkness." Krystin and William nodded. "I mean, if there are, they aren't really a big deal."
"Are you sure? What's that book about?"
"A boat trip up the Congo River."
"Oh, well what book was she talking about?" We didn't know. We tried Googling it, but we couldn't find anything that made any sense. Someone theorized that it might have been Cry! They Beloved Country, but none of us had ever read it. I later read on Wikipedia that yams are a major symbol in Achebe's Things Fall Apart. I loved that book, but I haven't read it in years, so I had no idea. But, from that point on, we started using the phrase "nothing but yams" to describe something that was bad. "The Feast of Caroles is nothing but yams."
And truth be told, Heart of Darkness is nothing but yams.
Submitted for the approval of the Memoir Society, I call this story "Nothing But Yams."
It had been a while since Krystin and I had hung out. She had been dealing with personal trouble (to the tune of relationships and all that jazz) and I had been running the sound boards for Shorter College's Dance Concert (imaginatively titled "Light in Motion"). So, we hadn't had a chance to hang out in forever. But, we were taking time and getting back together. And it just so happened that we were playing Magic.
For those of you who weren't nerds in middle school and have thus grown up to productive lives with beautiful spouses, Magic: The Gathering is a trading card game with the conceit that you and your opponent are wizards standing at opposite ends of a battleground. You summon creatures, cast spells and enchantments, and draw power from the land, trying to slay your opponent. Suffice it to say, this game is not sexy. At all. And I hadn't played it in years. My parents had burned my green and black deck in the backyard barbeque, using the pages of a V.C. Andrews novel as kindling. The devil was in these cards and they were not pleased.
But, Krystin and I have an awkward friend. He really enjoys hanging out with Krystin, but he's so awkward that they can't simply hang out; they have to have something to do. So, Krystin came up with the idea of having him teach her how to play Magic so that they could do something instead of attempting to maintain a really awkward conversation.
I digress. Krystin and I were playing on my coffee table, blowing through game after game while we talked to my roommate Nick and his boyfriend William. The theatre department potluck had concluded a few hours before, and we had just been shooting the shit for a while, talking about a little of this and a little of that, but mostly keeping things witty and light. We were talking about how things had gone that semester and how busy everyone had been.
"We haven't hung out in ages." Krystin said.
"Yeah, I know. But you had stuff and I had my English Oral Exam, and it just wasn't a good time." I responded.
William speared another piece of turkey and said "How'd that go, by the way? I never got a chance to ask?"
"It went fine. I mean, I had to read Heart of Darkness and they didn't ask me a single question about it, so that kind of sucked."
Nick got up and opened the window and said, "I've heard that book is awful. Nothing but yams." The conversation hit a brick wall. Krystin and I glanced across the table at each other, mentally trying to figure out what Nick meant by his comment. Finally, I said, "What?"
He looked at me. "My friend Kristi, she hated it when she read it. She just looked at me one day when she was reading it and said 'This book is about nothing but yams. That's all they talk about yams. Africa and yams. Yams, yams, yams."
"There are no yams in Heart of Darkness." Krystin and William nodded. "I mean, if there are, they aren't really a big deal."
"Are you sure? What's that book about?"
"A boat trip up the Congo River."
"Oh, well what book was she talking about?" We didn't know. We tried Googling it, but we couldn't find anything that made any sense. Someone theorized that it might have been Cry! They Beloved Country, but none of us had ever read it. I later read on Wikipedia that yams are a major symbol in Achebe's Things Fall Apart. I loved that book, but I haven't read it in years, so I had no idea. But, from that point on, we started using the phrase "nothing but yams" to describe something that was bad. "The Feast of Caroles is nothing but yams."
And truth be told, Heart of Darkness is nothing but yams.
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