Returning home ...

Two days ago I loaded up an SUV with my entire tangible life- clothes, bread machine, miscellaneous stuffed animals (and yes, I am secure enough in my mascu-femininity that I can sleep with a stuffed turtle named Henry should the mood strike me- he’s warm and comes accessorized with a bathrobe and boxers!).

My arrival in DC marks the beginning of another chapter in this tireless novel- I’m on the precipice of a ginormous cavern filled with millions of question marks, swirling about like an ensemble of bubbles caught in a breeze. It’s dizzying; each answer leads to more questions, like a clue-ridden DaVinci Code movie that never ends. It is life unfolding to its fullest- a shining new day, illuminated by an infinite number of colors and pigments that are forever growing and changing.

Basically, I’m scared to death …

As Philadelphia faded into the distance of my rearview mirror, I was still dabbing at puffy eyes after saying goodbye to my roommate, Tanya. Well … she was much more than a roommate. A colleague, a mentor, a confidant, an advisor, a role-model, and a friend. It’s her I’ll miss the most-- our chats in the kitchen over wine glasses that refused to stay empty, our sprinting across the school parking lot to avoid missing the sign-in sheet for staff members, our engaging discussions on Harry Potter and the sexuality of Dumbledore ... It’s all gone.

As I sat in the food court at the Pentagon City mall, I stared at the post-holiday crowds rushing about to return gifts and take advantage of the latest sales. There could have been at least 500 people there- probably a lot more. And, surprisingly and disturbingly, I felt so completely alone. Returning “home” had never felt so strange.

And so, as any gay man would do, I consoled myself with a lavish shopping spree at Bed Bath & Beyond. Homo-therapy, ahhh …

I’m sitting here amongst a micro-city of boxes and storage bins, wishing I could Mary Poppins everything into its proper niche. I wish I could fast-forward through the next few days- hell, through all of the ambiguity that awaits me in the upcoming weeks. But missing the journey devalues the destination, as evasive as this destination seems to be. I’ll close my eyes, leap into the cavern, and hope the question marks are sensible enough to break my fall.

Sleep tight, Henry.

A Japanese Christmas

They say that to really appreciate your own culture and customs, you must first step out of your box (ladies please don't be concerned - I mean your "comfort zone") and see the world from a different perspective -- like standing on a desk in Dead Poets Society ... and being able to stare down at crotches in the classroom from an aerial view instead of sideways glances in the shower. AHEM - woah, derailed there for a second.

Another way to shake up your paradigm (ladies, keep calm) is to have someone else come into your box and take a look around (OBGYNs are cultural pros!). In the metaphorical sense, having my Japanese friend in Lakeland, Florida, for 2 days during the Christmas holidays was a unique opportunity to take a good, hard look at my own box.

Here are Makoto's observations of an America VERY different from the Washington, DC he has become accustomed to:

-We put trees in houses and decorate them. It's like a bonsai that has decided to take over the house.

-There is an over-abundance of religious institutes, particularly those with schools conjoined.

-There is a shocking over-abundance of old people clogging traffic as they purposefully try to lower the nation's speed limit to approximately 25 mph.

-We spend a surprisingly large amount of money on gifts and exchange them, and then hug! Why do we hug each other?!? What's the point???

-Lights on houses are simply spellbinding. It's like a small scale Tokyo.

-Every meal is to be photographed from multiple angles.

-Gay bars must be photographed inside and out (lots of flashing *wink*)

I think my favorite part of the evening was when Makoto was completely surrounded by Americans hanging on his every word (sign), asking all kinds of questions about his home and heritage. And when asked by a little child "Do you like girls???", he turned the darkest red I've ever seen.

Gay, deaf, and Japanese? He's a one-stop shop, filling the diversity quota for any American gathering.

And in case you're wondering- no, he did not have any business to do in any literal boxes.

Do you reuse your shopping bags?

Every Christmas I have the ultimate pleasure of perusing The Lakeland Ledger, the ultimate comprehensive guide to national news and the local to-do-s of Polk County.

Everyday The Ledger poses a question to the general public in their special segment called "Polk Pulse" (please note that The Pulse is the most frequented gay bar in Lakeland -- coincidence?). Yesterday's question was: "Do you reuse your shopping bags?"

I pray, pray, PRAY on bended knee that this person's response was really a satirical spoof, cleverly poking fun at conservatives. If this is a real person, may god have mercy on our souls.

I quote: "No, I don't reuse my shopping bags. I love it the way it upsets liberal idiots that think that 'Oh, you're going to save the trees, you got to reuse your plastic bags because our resources aren't infinite.' Actually, they are. I don't reuse my bags. I think anybody that says you should ought to be shot."

I find myself, probably for the first time in my entire life, completely speechless.

I'm imagining a world where everyone wanders around assuming that natural resources are automatically replaced once tapped, and that people who care about the earth we live on should no longer have the privilege of existence.

Peace on earth, but screw the earth itself. Huh???

The Golden Compass Points Straight ... TO HELL !!!

The Vatican has decided to use its influence and power to dictate where we should (or shouldn't, rather) spend our money this holiday season. In fact, the Christian community at large has called for a boycott of The Golden Compass.

Pastors and preachers alike have cautioned the general public not to support a film with obvious non-Christian themes. This tale of witches, talking creatures, and wrestling with the powers of evil marks a strikingly eerie comparison to the release of Harry Potter (hugely popular in England, and branded as evil in America). Is there something Britain knows that we don't?

The Vatican has called The Golden Compass "the most anti-Christian film possible" - obviously the Pope hasn't seen the South Park movie (yikes!). "The film portrays the church as an orthodox dictatorship, which conducts cruel experiments on children and tries to suppress free will".

Hmm ... "free will". Like the free will of choosing what films you will and will not see??? AH, the irony!!!

The anti-religious elements of The Golden Compass are obvious: there is a large, organized entity that controls what information is passed on to the public (in the movie this is called "dust", i.e. the truth), and calls whatever is against the messages of this entity "heresy".

But the ironic twist is that the reaction of the Christian community is precisely what the movie is about-- restricting the public's ability to make decisions for itself, dictating what information should and should not be passed around, and avoiding any kind of discussion that would actually challenge the views of the Church.

Fear of challenge? Seems this house might actually have been built on the sand, in the end.

And please don't bring back the Inquisition, because that was just plain rude.

Between DC and Philadelphia

This past week I had the unusual pleasure and honor to make a delightful sojourn down to the District for reasons yet to be disclosed (although I'll give you a clue- prospects for a "boj" spelled backwards! See how clever you are!!!). And due to the unreliably freakish time-tables of Septa, and the apprehension I have of ever riding the Chinatown bus again (last time I endured the Chinese-stampede, a common ritual when you have a "reservation" to travel economy-style), I decided to rent with Enterprise.

Quite like the professionalism displayed by the Chinatown bus people (I think the company was called New Century Travel, which is somewhat misleading and ironic considering the stampede looked like some Medieval-aged mob trying to storm a castle because our food rations had been cut), Enterprise also has a loose interpretation of the word "reservation"-- and when I say loose I mean like Monica Lewinsky on poppers. In essence, "reservation" means nothing to Enterprise.

So rather than a compact car as requested, for gas purposes, I was given the option to take a percentage off my bill and drive-------- a Dodge Ram (environmentalists gasp in horror). With regard to Mother Earth, I feel as good driving a Dodge Ram as I would harpooning the last whale of its own species ... however it was snowing and I had no other option to get my butt to DC.

You can picture the scene clearly, can't you? Barreling down the road in a truck that eats gasoline like a Weight-Watchers member at a buffet on their cheat day, blasting the tunes of Hairspray, Wicked, and Enchanted, and singing exuberantly like an insane-asylum escapee while children and adults alike stare up at me in the cab with uninhibited horror and surprise. It was delightful.

There are many things to help you pass the time on your journey up and down the interstate. There is the section of I-95 that has large yellow signs indicating a "weave area", which instantaneously puts me on alert to see if I can find Beyonce patting anywhere in the immediate vicinity. There is the large rest area with people scrambling to ingest as much fat as possible before they sit completely sedentary for the next 4 hours of their lives. There are the New Jersey drivers who had to take an oath to "Do-no-harm-haha-screw-that" before obtaining a license from the DMV (seriously those people are the WORST).

The trip was like taking off a band aid- quick, stinging for just a moment, and then discarded into the trashcan of my memory as I try to prepare for my last 2 weeks here in Philadelphia. As I was driving back through the maze of cars and SUVs, I couldn't help but feel I suddenly didn't belong in either place-- and I wasn't sure if the road I was taking or the direction I was going was the way to my future or to my past.

I'd almost rather stay in between-- singing Dreamgirls, imagining the impossible, and remaining contently unaware that the world can actually see me when I'm lost in my own world, in my big Dodge cab in a large red bullet that is sailing down the highway of life.

Don't touch me there!!! ... Touch me here!

A few months ago I attended a birthday celebration extravaganza at a rollerskating rink where most of the people were black (aside from me, there was only one other white guy- he was very old, skated alone, and may have been entirely insane).

After taking to the rink and forgetting that my ankles are actually made of jelly, I took a breather on the side to enviously watch little 9-year-old shits who acted like they had skated out of their mothers' wombs (I did the Slip 'n Slide method, old school).

Now ... I am quite used to being around straight people and seeing couples engage in slightly disturbing behaviors such as hugging, hand holding, and kissing (the older I get the more puzzled I become at how straight people are attracted to another human being whose anatomy is so entirely different ... how are you supposed to know what to do with that thing?!? Very odd, I must say).

What is not often observed, particularly outside of Dupont Circle and Minnesotan airports, is the PDA of gay couples. There are few places where you can get away with it- New York, San Francisco, DC - and only in certain sections of town. Wait ... I take all that back. In the world of sports you can hug, embrace, ass slap-- lord, anything short of actual penetration -- and that's acceptable. Anyway, non-athletic displays of affection are rarely tolerated.

So imagine my surprise when I see two guys skating around the rink holding hands! (obviously they forgot that we were in Virginia) My jaw dropped, and I violently shook my head back-and-forth in a very cartoon-like manner ... oh my heck, there are 2 guys holding hands and they have not yet been lynched by the breeder mob!

But wait a minute ... there goes another pair of guys holding hands! Oh my sweet lord in heaven, there's another! What is going on here? Why are all the gay boys congregating at this rink? Did Sarah Jessica Parker promise to swing by or something?

Apparently in black rollerskating culture it is perfectly acceptable for grown men to hold hands to aid them in performing skating "tricks" across the rink. I saw a number of male and female pairs spinning around the rink uninhibited by their casual retaliation against society's rigid roles and definitions of appropriate same-sex behaviors. Suddenly the rink became very peaceful, and this sense of community and friendship gently embraced the rink like a child squeezing a stuffed teddy bear.

I must say, I have never seen anything like that. And I think it's absolutely brilliant.

Another week of weird

Every morning I pour myself a cup of crazy; it's the only real way to start your day. At least if you feel slightly psychotic when you leave the house, the following random happenings and snippets of American culture don't seem as strikingly freakish or appalling:


-Grocery store ad: "Turkey butt -- 2.39 a pound". Now, since I am quite up-to-date on my slang, I am privy to the knowledge that in the world of colloquialisms "turkey butt" also means a wedgie, a.k.a. a camel toe from behind (but hopefully less moist ... wait, is a turkey ass moist?). According to this grocery store, wedgies cost approximately $2.39 per pound. But seriously, if your wedgie is large enough to be measured by the pound, then your ass is doing the gobbling- not the turkey.

In actuality turkey butt in the culinary sense refers to the fatty part of the bird that sticks out from its ass, and is also called the Pope's Nose, the Parson's Nose, or the Sultan's Nose (brown nosers, if you ask me).


-"I accept boobs in the face..."- random quote from a party: yeah, I don't remember why but for some reason after a few swigs of vodka the love pillows in the act of suffocation was deliriously hilarious. There was no mention of splinters from the twig and berries, but boobs are just funner to tease.


-Bear Bottoms Diaper Changing Station: to those not familiar with the gay community, be fortunate that this does not immediately bring to mind the damp and musty bottom (wink) of some geriatric fat queen that either cannot control his bowel movements or is into a fetish that I would rather not comment on. Regardless, posting such an obscene display (that comes complete with a table and straps) in the "family bathroom" is insulting as it only targets one narrow sub-culture of the cruising bathroom world (however, the tables are kept quite far off the ground for all of those really long-legged Idahoans). Haha ... I da ho? No, you da ho, Senator ... you da ho.


-A trash can in the Wal-Mart bathroom that had a sign taped to its front which read: "Out of order". Although this same sign is often seen in my imagination floating ominously around the heads of many Wal-Mart patrons, I found it hard to believe that a container designed to carry objects and with no electrical or mechanical components could actually be "out of order". Are they going to fix the trash can? How long will it take to order the parts? And who the hell purposefully puts garbage IN the receptacle of a Wal-Mart bathroom anyway?


-A religious sign outside of a church that said "God has not forgot". Indeed, that may be true, but he has clearly forgotten his English grammar and correct use of the past participle. Perhaps Moses would have gotten further with Egypt if he had simply said "Let my people went!"


-A dump truck that had the following self-advert on its side: "Our landfills provide 17,000 acres of wildlife habitat". It's an oxymoron - wildlife landfill. I'm sure the deer don't appreciate prancing over broken toilets and garbage bags spewing open with bear bottom diapers. Why don't they do the animals a favor during the winter and just burn an entire forest to keep them warm?


-The "Friends Free Library" in Germantown. It made me feel very sad to think that every single person inside that library did not have any friends.