Edmond Manning's Blog, page 9

Bleak. Hard. People suck.

Oh yeah, and then we all die.

good read, but soooooooooo bleak.

I know how you’re supposed to celebrate birthdays: cake, candles, joyful dinner with loving friends, making out with your significant other, champagne. Cards with jokes about getting old. I’ve had birthday years just like that and loved the crap out of each one.

Last year, I dined with a new friend in a spectaular Italian restaurant, and we ordered unfamiliar foods and ate rich deserts. We toasted my birthday. The evening was perfect. You never have to talk me into cake. Just hand over a fork.

But.

I also dig spending my birthday alone.

That’s kind of messed up, I suppose. What kind of anti-social creep likes to dine alone on his birthday? Turn off the phone and read a book by a stream instead of raking in the calls and texts, affectionate jeers, that once-a-year chorus of HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I will admit that every year, I wait by the phone for my Mom and Dad to call and sing The Song. I love that tradition, even more so now after losing him.

Mom called this morning and she sang. Her voice was beautiful.

After Parental Singing is achieved, I view the rest of my actual birthday similar to how I see New Year’s Eve: alone time to reflect on where I’ve been and where I’m headed. But maybe with a little bit of adventure thrown in. It’s the day I came into the world a blank slate, mostly the same as every crying baby born on August 2nd, but maybe already a little bit different.

But mostly unwritten — who knows how I might turn out?

Over the years, my birthday evolved into Adventure Day.

Last year, I bought a gorilla suit and went banana shopping at Lunds. With the assistance of my lovely dinner companion, we harassed my pals Dave and Don. After dark, I monkeyed up to their windows, tapping and doodling my gorilla fingers on the glass until one of them screamed obscenities unfit for human consumption, and this is coming from me, who believes ‘fucking’ makes a handy adjective.

As to be expected, they chased me through their yard. I threw fresh produce at them and then hopped into the get-away car. Dave chased me down the alley, hurling a banana at our retreating escape. The gorilla returned ten minutes later for another sneak attack.

Adventure Day.

Well, today got a little out of hand.

Here’s the thing. My drivers’ license expired today, requiring my trip to the DMV for renewal.

I regard my trips to DMV as an opportunity. I take ‘theme photos’ for my drivers’ license and I regard the art quite seriously. I did ‘Giddy’ one year wearing a bow tie and an unnatural grin that made people uncomfortable. I’ve done ‘Furious,’ and ‘Surprised.’

The most recent is ‘Drug Dealer.’ I didn’t shave for three days prior, wore a striped shirt that looked like prison garb, and my hair was greasy from not showering. I arched one eyebrow and silently mouthed, “Duhhhhhh” while she finished saying the word, “–eeeeeeeseee!”

This morning, perhaps the Olympic spirit was in the air because I decided to go for the gold. This year’s theme:  Magic!

Of course, that would mean I needed to dye my hair black, since all good magicians have jet black hair and I am so blond people tell me blond jokes and then apologize. I required noticeable, black eyebrows I could arch meaningfully to indicate ‘I have a secret.’ Of course, matching black goatee.

Magic!

I called Ann to tell her my hair dying plans. She said, “Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no…”

I couldn’t find a single flaw in my plan but Ann found a few:  they could arrest me, everyone will know it’s not my real color, I’ve never dyed my own hair, ever, so I have no clue what I’m doing, my goth hair would be on my license for the next four years, etc. Even if she suspects it’s pointless and I’m determined to be an idiot, Ann feels obliged to remind me when there could be consequences that require bail money.

For a professor of Education, she gives good legal advice.

“It’ll be great,” I assured her. “You’ll see.”

Things didn’t go great.

Just to give you some general direction of where this train wreck is headed, pretty soon I will explain how the DMV lady said at one point, “You’ve got a big black smudge on your forehead.”

But let’s return to a happier time.

Full of confidence, I headed to the local pharmacy and proudly asked for their hair dye products. I returned a minute later to ask where to find the mens‘ hair dye products. I returned a minute later to ask where to find hair dye you can wash out an hour later after the joke’s over.

Armed with my jet black spray-on dye, I went home.

I taped off my forehead and ears with blue painters’ tape. (Got an iPhone photo of that to send to Ann when she’s having a bad day.) That wonderful blue tape allowed me to spray paint my bangs this afternoon. Left a clean black horizon right at my hairline. Don’t worry, I rubbed it in with a towel to make it look more natural.

I sent photos to Ann, and then when text responses could no longer contain her, she called. We chatted. I expressed my worry about the uneven stripes of black cutting across the back of my head. Looked like a sick tiger back there.

I say, “What if someone figures out it’s for my theme photos at the DMV?”

Ann laughed hard at that. In a barely audible voice (which I’m confident was accompanied by her wiping away tears), she said, “Oh honey, nobody – nobody – is going to care about your little prank. They’re going to be so horrified by your awful dye job, they will focus on feeling humiliation for you.”

We agreed I needed to take a clean towel, the dye, and the toothbrush I used to do my eyebrows. Against Ann’s sage advice, I decided to wear a baseball cap to cover up my striped head. I promised not to let it touch the front.

“No, no. That’s not going to work out well,” she said.

Kudos, Ann. Right again.

I blasted the AC all the way to the DMV so that nothing melted on my head. The last thing I needed was more black streaks down my face. When I arrived, I coolly took the number sixteen from the red dispenser.

I was cool.

Just another jet-black-haired person here to renew their drivers’ license. Nothing to see here.

Someone behind the counter called out for number “Ninty-three.”

Fuck. Sixteen wasn’t even in the same decade.

I had assumed this errand would be over quickly. I had been expecting more of a get-in and get-out caper. And who assumes that? Who thinks, ‘I’ll pop on over to the DMV quickly…’  Nobody. You bring a book, a deck of cards, and maybe a pack of cigs to trade for food.

I texted my plight to Ann. This could take a while. What if my hair melted?

Another of my unfortunate decisions was to compensate for the obnoxious dye smell with an abusive quantity of cologne. I only own one bottle of cologne which is actually a mixture of woodsy oils given to me by a sexy young hippie. On nights when I wander through the neighborhood pretending I’m hiking a redwood forest, I might rub some on my moustache under my nose to facilitate my imagination.

In short, I reeked of a cross between rabbit-tested chemicals and an angry forest.

The DMV was packed. I lowered myself with resignation between two individuals who were pleasant enough when I first sat down.  I am sad to report that my neighborly relationships soon soured.

When I texted the smell issue to Ann, she replied with, “This just keeps getting better and better.”

Every case simply took forever. Then there was the guy who just kept yacking about cars. At one point, I almost got up and said to Ninety-Eight, “Nobody cares about your neighbor’s jeep and how much he sold it for online. Fill out your damn forms.”

If I had been my blonde self, I would have gone for it. We’re blondes. Who cares if we’re idiots. But as a raven-haired man, I had a responsibility to my new people to keep it cool. Chill. Magic!

The gruff lady barked out, “Six!”

I texted Ann that I had to sign off. I had work to do. Mentally, I began calculating the odds of her being the one to call out “Sixteen!” She was living the DMV stereotype.

Nobody approached for ‘six.’

“Seven,” she called out. “Seven!”

Nobody came.

“Eight!” she yelled.

“Nine!”

“Ten!”she said, followed immediately by, “You’re kidding me.”

After I snagged sixteen, I had watched people stroll in and grab a number. Their whole affect shifted into despondency. We were a mass of seething emotions, all of us, gritting our teeth and stupid Ninety-Eight. I watched a few people storm out, huffing about bureaucracy. I didn’t realize that it was a staged walk out.

In an accusatory voice, she yelled, “Eleven.”

Nobody came forth.

“Twelve!”

She was getting pissed. “My god. Thirteen!”

Yup. You guessed it. Nobody stepped out. By the time she got to sixteen, she had worked herself into a frothy rage and she despised all of us dopes staring at her, slack-jawed in those permanent chairs, cowards who refused to step forward.

See, this was the kind of attitude I was hoping to avoid.

I walked slowly to her station.

I decided I was the cheerful sort of raven-haired man, chummy. Yet, curt. Possibly international. Hard to tell.

My friend behind the counter was not in a great mood.

Her coworker leaned over and said to my lady, “Everybody’s mad at me today.”

My lady said, “You get used to it.”

I felt sad. They have hard jobs. People yell at them for laws they did not design. Earlier I saw a man argue with an employee over handing over the motorcycle’s deed. She kept repeating politely, “It’s the law, Sir. I have to collect it.”

I wanted to make her day better.

I turned to the initiator of the conversation and said, “I’m mad at you and I’m not even in your line. But I’m furious!”

She looked at me in shock and I suddenly remembered my plan to not draw undo attention to myself. What happened to playing it cool, dark-haired man? I guess I’m not a blank slate after all.

“I’m furious,” I said, and raised my fists in the air, shaking them like an angry Avenger. “I could scream.”

She laughed, my lady laughed, and I laughed too. My dad said shit like that all the time to strangers and it worked.

We giggled some more and I said, “I’m sorry people are being douche bags to you today. That sucks.”

She laughed and thanked me, and my lady said with good cheer, “C’mon. Vision Test.”

I was reminded again that I am not a blank slate when I almost failed to read the numbers accurately. Nope. I’m 45. I need glasses.

The big moment: the photo.

I took off the ball cap. Sat on the stool.

She said, “Smile.”

I said, “I don’t have a great smile, so if you don’t mind, I won’t.”

Instead…Magic!

I saw a click and being eager to leave, I leaned forward just in time for the flash to burn my much-closer eyes.

“We have to retake it,” she said.

After the second photo, she said to me, “We have to retake that one too. You’ve got a big black smudge on your forehead.”

She handed me a couple towels and I turned to their little tiny mirror. I panicked. Yup, a fat black line the exact shade of my hair color created a crescent moon on my forehead. Almost like a person wearing a baseball cap might get if he accidentally forgot and rubbed it against his forehead.

I wiped it off frantically, but it kept smearing. Plus, the mirror was small and I couldn’t see very well – that flash was still burning my eyes. Then, the paper towels smudged the side of my coal-colored hair, and dragged more black chalk onto my face. I scrubbed a few more times, aware this was taking longer than it should and she would be watching.

I said, “I worked on my car today.”

What the hell? Why the hell did I say that? Augh.

I spit on my fingers but they smelled like woodsy oil from my generous application. Sure enough, I was soon using oil to rub the black ash deeper.

Scrubbing my face, with the towel, I now looked like a terrified coal miner. Who the hell was that terrified man staring back at me with panic. A grifter? Ex-con? Terrorist?

Adventure Day achieved: I lost track of myself.

I cleaned up the best I could. She took the photo and said nothing. I think maybe she was pretty cool after all.

Yet, I don’t think the impact was Magic!

Not even Magic.

Not even magic.

We’ll see.

The DMV will mail me my new drivers’ license in seven to ten days. And in the meantime, I will feel like a kid again, excitedly checking the mail every day, eager to see a wonderful surprise arrived for me.

That’s the best part of Adventure Day, perhaps, feeling young, feeling goofy.

Getting excited about being you, dark-haired or blond.

Well, that and cake.

And Parental Singing.

I know how you’re supposed to celebrate birthdays: cake, candles, joyful dinner with loving friends, making out with your significant other, champagne. Cards with jokes about getting old. I’ve had birthday years just like that and loved the crap out of each one.

Last year, I dined with a new friend in a spectaular Italian restaurant, and we ordered unfamiliar foods and ate rich deserts. We toasted my birthday. The evening was perfect. You never have to talk me into cake. Just hand over a fork.

But.

I also dig spending my birthday alone.

That’s kind of messed up, I suppose. What kind of anti-social creep likes to dine alone on his birthday? Who turns off the phone and reads a book by a stream instead of raking in the calls and texts, affectionate jeers, that once-a-year chorus of HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I will admit that every year, I wait by the phone for my Mom and Dad to call early in the morning and sing The Song. I love that tradition, even more so now after losing him.

Mom called this morning and she sang. Her voice was beautiful.

After Parental Singing is achieved, I view the rest of my actual day similar to how I see New Year’s Eve: alone time to reflect on where I’ve been and where I’m headed. But maybe with a little bit of adventure thrown in. The first day I showed up was an adventure! It’s the day I came into the world a blank slate, mostly the same as every crying baby born on August 2nd, but maybe already a little bit different.

But mostly unwritten — who knows how I might turn out?

Over the years, my birthday evolved into Adventure Day.

Last year, I bought a gorilla suit and went banana shopping at Lunds. With the assistance of my lovely dinner companion, we harassed my pals Dave and Don. After dark, I monkeyed up to their windows, tapping and doodling my gorilla fingers on the glass until one of them screamed obscenities unfit for human consumption, and this is coming from me, who believes ‘fucking’ makes a handy adjective.

As to be expected, they chased me through their yard. I threw fresh produce at them and then hopped into the get-away car. Dave chased me down the alley, hurling a banana at our retreating escape. The gorilla returned ten minutes later for another sneak attack.

Adventure Day.

Well, today got a little out of hand.

My drivers’ license expired today, requiring my trip to the DMV for renewal. I regard my trips to DMV as an opportunity. I take ‘theme photos’ for my drivers’ license and I regard the art quite seriously. I did ‘Giddy’ one year wearing a bow tie and an unnatural grin that made people uncomfortable. I’ve done ‘Furious,’ and ‘Surprised.’

The most recent is ‘Drug Dealer.’ I didn’t shave for three days prior, wore a striped shirt that looked like prison garb, and my hair was greasy from not showering. I arched one eyebrow and silently mouthed, “Duhhhhhh” while she finished saying the word, “–eeeeeeeseee!”

This morning, perhaps the Olympic spirit was in the air because I decided to go for the gold. This year’s theme:  Magic!

Of course, that would mean I needed to dye my hair black, since all good magicians have jet black hair and I am so blond people tell me blond jokes and then apologize. I required noticeable, black eyebrows I could arch meaningfully to indicate ‘I have a secret.’ Of course, matching black goatee.

Magic!

I called Ann to tell her my hair dying plans. She said, “Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no…”

I couldn’t find a single flaw in my plan but Ann found a few:  they could arrest me, everyone will know it’s not my real color, I’ve never dyed my own hair, ever, so I have no clue what I’m doing, my goth hair would be on my license for the next four years, etc. Even if she suspects it’s pointless and I’m determined to be an idiot, Ann feels obliged to remind me when there could be consequences that require bail money.

For a professor of Education, she gives good legal advice.

“It’ll be great,” I assured her. “You’ll see.”

Things didn’t go great.

Just to give you some general direction of where this train wreck is headed, pretty soon I will explain how the DMV lady said at one point, “You’ve got a big black smudge on your forehead.”

But let’s return to a happier time.

Full of confidence, I headed to the local pharmacy and proudly asked for their hair dye products. I returned a minute later to ask where to find the mens‘ hair dye products. I returned a minute later to ask where to find hair dye you can wash out an hour later after the joke’s over.

Armed with my jet black spray-on dye, I went home.

I taped off my forehead and ears with blue painters’ tape. (Got an iPhone photo of that to send to Ann when she’s having a bad day.) That wonderful blue tape left a clean black horizon right at my hairline. Don’t worry, I rubbed it in with a towel to make it look more natural.

I sent photos to Ann, and then when text responses could no longer contain her, she called to laugh in my ear. I expressed my worry about the uneven stripes of black cutting across the back of my head. Looked like a sick tiger back there.

I say, “What if someone figures out it’s for my theme photos at the DMV?”

Ann laughed hard at that. In a barely audible voice (which I’m confident was accompanied by her wiping away tears), she said, “Oh honey, nobody – nobody – is going to care about your little prank. They’re going to be so horrified by your awful dye job, they will focus on feeling humiliation for you.”

We agreed I needed to take a clean towel, the dye, and the toothbrush I used to do my eyebrows. Against Ann’s sage advice, I decided to wear a baseball cap to cover up my striped head. I promised not to let it touch the front.

“No, no. No hat. That’s not going to work out well,” she said.

Kudos, Ann. Right again.

I blasted the AC all the way to the DMV so that nothing melted on my head. The last thing I needed was more black streaks down my face. When I arrived, I coolly took the number sixteen from the red dispenser.

I was cool.

Just another jet-black-haired person here to renew their drivers’ license. Nothing to see here.

Someone behind the counter called out for number “Ninty-three.”

Fuck. Sixteen wasn’t even in the same decade.

I had assumed this errand would be over quickly. I had been expecting more of a get-in and get-out caper. And who assumes that? Who thinks, ‘I’ll pop on over to the DMV quickly…’  Nobody. You bring a book, a deck of cards, and maybe a pack of cigs to trade for food.

I texted my plight to Ann. This could take a while. What if my hair melted?

Another of my unfortunate decisions was to compensate for the obnoxious dye smell with an abusive quantity of cologne. I only own one bottle of cologne which is actually a mixture of woodsy oils given to me by a sexy, young hippie. On nights when I wander through my neighborhood pretending I’m hiking a redwood forest, I might rub some on my moustache under my nose to facilitate my imagination.

In short, I reeked of a cross between rabbit-tested chemicals and an angry forest.

The DMV was packed. I lowered myself with resignation between two individuals who were pleasant enough when I first sat down.  I am sad to report that my neighborly relationships soon soured.

When I texted the smell issue to Ann, she replied with, “This just keeps getting better and better.”

Every case simply took forever. How could every single person’s issue have such complications? Then there was the guy who just kept yacking about cars. At one point, I almost got up and said to Ninety-Eight, “Nobody cares about your neighbor’s jeep and how much he sold it for online. Fill out your damn forms.”

If I had been my blonde self, I would have done it. We’re blondes. Who cares if we’re idiots. But as a raven-haired man, I had a responsibility to my new people to keep it cool. Chill. Magic!

The gruff lady barked out, “Six!”

She was living the DMV stereotype.

I texted Ann that I had to sign off. I had work to do. Mentally, I began calculating the odds of her being the one to call out “Sixteen!” Plus, I wanted to work through my answers to awkward questions.

Nobody approached for ‘six.’

“Seven,” she called out. “Seven!”

Nobody came.

“Eight!” she yelled.

“Nine!”

“Ten!”she said, followed immediately by, “You’re kidding me.”

After I had snagged my number, I watched people stroll in and grab a number. Their whole affect shifted into despondency. All of us were doomed to stay for a long time. We were a mass of seething, surly emotions, all of us, gritting our teeth about stupid Ninety-Eight. I watched a few people storm out, huffing. But this was ridiculous.

In an accusatory voice, she yelled, “Eleven.”

Nobody came forth.

“Twelve!”

She was getting pissed. “My god. Thirteen!”

Yup. You guessed it. Nobody stepped out. By the time she got to sixteen, she had worked herself into a frothy rage and she despised all of us dopes staring at her, slack-jawed in those permanent chairs, cowards who refused to step forward.

Well, great. This was the kind of DMV rage I was hoping to avoid.

I walked slowly to her station.

My friend behind the counter was not in a great mood.

Her coworker leaned over and said to my lady, “Everybody’s mad at me today.”

In her gruff tone, my lady said, “You get used to it.”

I felt sad. They have hard jobs. People yell at them for laws they did not design. Earlier I saw a man argue with an employee over handing over the motorcycle’s deed. She kept repeating politely, “It’s the law, Sir. I have to collect it.”

I turned to the initiator of the conversation and said, “I’m mad at you and I’m not even in your line. But I’m furious!”

She looked at me in shock and I suddenly remembered my plan to not draw undo attention to myself. What happened to playing it cool, dark-haired man? I guess I’m not a blank slate after all.

“I’m furious,” I said, and raised my fists in the air, shaking them like an angry Hulk. “I could scream.”

She laughed, my lady laughed, and I laughed too. My dad said shit like that all the time to strangers and it worked.

We giggled some more and I said, “I’m sorry people are being douche bags to you today. That sucks.”

She laughed and thanked me, and my lady said with good cheer, “C’mon. Vision Test.”

Then, the big moment: the photo.

I took off the ball cap. Sat on the stool.

She said, “Smile.”

I said, “I don’t have a great smile, so if you don’t mind, I won’t.”

Instead…Magic!

I saw a click and being very eager to leave, I leaned forward just in time for the flash to burn my much-closer eyes.

“We have to retake it,” she said.

After the second photo, she said to me, “We have to retake that one too. You’ve got a big black smudge on your forehead.”

She handed me a couple paper towels and I turned to their little tiny mirror. I panicked. Yup, a fat black line the exact shade of my hair color created a crescent moon on my forehead. Almost like a person wearing a baseball cap might get if he accidentally forgot and rubbed the cap against his forehead.

I wiped frantically, but the smudge kept smearing. Plus, the mirror was small and I couldn’t see very well – that flash was still burning my eyes. Then, the paper towels smudged the side of my coal-colored hair, and dragged more black chalk onto my face. I scrubbed a few more times, aware this was taking longer than it should and she would be watching.

I said, “I worked on my car today.”

What the hell? Why the hell did I say that? Augh.

I spit on my fingers but they smelled like woodsy oil from my generous application. Sure enough, I was soon using oil to rub the black ash deeper into my skin.

When I finished scrubbing my face and dared to look in the mirror, I now saw a terrified coal miner. Who the hell was that man staring back at me in sheer panic. A grifter? Ex-con? Terrorist?

Adventure Day achieved: I lost track of myself. Became someone completely new.

I cleaned up the best I could. She took the photo and said nothing. I think maybe she was pretty cool after all.

Yet, I don’t think the impact was Magic!

Not even Magic.

Not even magic.

We’ll see.

The DMV will mail me my new drivers’ license in seven to ten days. And in the meantime, I will feel like a kid again, excitedly checking the mail every day, eager to find a wonderful surprise just for me.

That’s the best part of Adventure Day, perhaps, feeling young, feeling goofy.

Getting excited about being me, whether dark-haired or blond.

Well, that and birthday cake.

And Parental Singing.

Great lines, but too long.

Lots of build up, Build Up, BUILD–

–release was quite lame.

Loved and hated this.

Great premise, good writing, yet

something didn’t work.

Broken, bended lives

Fascinating Berlin life,

What’s German for ‘grief?’

There are a number of us who are not fond of summer.

We try to dampen our grumpiness for you Summer Lovers. We don’t want to spoil your fun, and yeah, there are some miraculous days/weeks in summer that make me reconsider my allegiance to autumn and winter. Well, in the last week, all the Summer Bummers like myself have come out of the closet to unite and make angry banners that read:  THIS FUCKING HEATWAVE IS BULLSHIT.

I believe I may have seen a few Summer Lovers helping with the banners.

We’ve all been stretched a little thin, our patience worn down, our vulnerabilities in sharp relief, so when a tropical ice storm cracked Minnesota’s heat wave with shocking, frigid degrees in the 70s, boasting air you could breathe out instead of simply digesting, well, it made me feel like dancing.

Well, not literally.

‘Live free! Go dance in the rain‘ is one of those things cheerful and judgy Facebook things you read on a distant friend’s wall, possibly invented by some smarmy fourth grade schoolteacher in Peoria creating her ideal life in Photoshop. Meh. Fuck you, Peoria Teacher. Quit judging me.

I’m not really a dancing in the rain kind of guy. I admire it. I appreciate rain. I will even stand it, arms stretched apart, head up and mouth open to and say thank you, God, god, goddess, Great Purple Mermaid, or whoever is listening in the sparkling night.

Thank you for this rain.

I just don’t see the need to cheese it up and introduce jazz hands.

Tonight, I listened with pleasure in every drop and after a while, it stopped.

I would not deny myself a walk this first night of freedom from humidity’s prison. I am a night walker, making neighbors in an eight block radius part their shades and say, “He’s back. That chubby guy is dance-walking down our street again.”

I have a night routine: walk, milk, brush teeth, read a comic, fall asleep.

I like my night routines because they make me think of growing up. Mom and Dad read to us, not once in a while, but book after book after book, a chapter before bed while we ate homemade cookies and sipped our milk slowly to make it last. How terrible to be out of milk before the chapter ran out. My brother always nourished his longest, and we were jealous. We brushed our teeth under protest, as protesting was an important bed time tradition, and when the last of the toothbrushers emerged in their pajamas, we knew it was time: Battle for Prayer Bed.

We said prayers every night, all six of us kneeling around the double bed in my sisters’ room or the double bed my brother and I shared. Mom and Dad would initiate the prayers, but we were expected to carry them. We prayed for relatives who died, and those who were hurt, and people in rough times. Mom and dad might add a new name and not explain it, people who hurt in a manner we kids were too young to understand. Our parents wanted us to stay children as long as we could.

It sounds very sweet and holy, and it was. Because of those bed time prayers, those adults and extended family remain locked in my heart.

But as I said:  Battle for Prayer Bed.

It was an honor to have prayers at your bedside, the understood value being that after prayers you could fall in bed right away and sleep instantly while everyone else (i.e. the girls) trudged back to their bedroom. To host prayers was to win the bid to host the Olympics.

Our Nightly Olympics.

It mattered.

These days, I have a slightly different tradition.

I put on my headphones and select music to match the mood. I walk to the gas station two blocks away, half-jog some nights because while I know that they close at 11:00 p.m., I rarely manage to leave my home before 10:45. On the way to and from the gas station, I think about Battle for Prayer Bed, and the family who live in my heart.

I arrived at 10:57 tonight and the Mexican janitor in his 60′s, looks up from the mop bucket and says, “You’re the last one. Again.”

I have long stopped apologizing for this shortcoming of mine and now greet him with the same promise: I will deliberately steer clear of mopped areas if I can. I think he changed his mopping pattern, anticipating my three or four nights a week arrival.  I always buy milk; I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mop there early like he used to. He knows me.

I bought my milk, paid the guy with the pompadour, and exited in the dark.

In the magic two minutes I spent paying for my milk, the rain poured again. I dashed to the pumps themselves where I spent the next fifteen minutes rocking out, dry, while rain beat down on the aluminum pavilion. I’m sure people across the street were at their windows remarking, “The chubby guy is dancing at the gas station tonight.”

During a lull, I waltzed out, confident it could not possibly begin to rain again, because I had decided it was over.

Within a half-block the drizzle was drazzle, the drazzle became a chunky splattering, the splattering a rinse that begat a downpour and I was soaked. Socks and underwear-soaked.

Meh.

I walked home in the rain, letting it tickle me, thinking of names from my history, Grandma Bernice, Mrs. Volman who lived next door and was never seen alive without a dangling cigarette in her hand. Tall and taciturn, Grandpa Manning. I thought of my mom’s godfather, Joseph Powers, and Uncle Bill, and my godparents who passed away, leaving me a painting of the Last Supper.

I miss the family I grew up with. I made a choice to live in Minneapolis and while I still see them fairly often I miss them. I’m not in their lives the way I would be if I lived there. They’re not in mine that way either. But still, we’re pretty close on some levels. I texted a graphic description of a recent bowel movement to my brother, who wrote in reply:  “The heat is making you delirious and leading you to think I want to hear about this. That’s the only possible explanation.”

Yeah, well, he’s right, I was delirious with heat this week.

Tonight, cool July invited me to squeak into the gas station at 10:57 p.m., I had even said a prayer on the way over that they would open up and accept me for who I was, tardiness and all. They did.

And my jubilation at the freedom to walk and dance, to go for a cold chug of milk and get scowled at by a stranger I know well, and to be loved by parents who never gave up on any of us, who filled my heart with words, all of it conspired to fill me with joy.

I felt like dancing.

I danced in the rain tonight, even throwing in some kick line action and jazz hands. You got me, Peoria Teacher. Dancing in the rain is pretty cool. But in a way, I won tonight, too, because tonight I hosted, and all my family came: Mom, dad, sisters, brother, Grandma Hemmer, Uncle Charles. My cousin Kevin.

Tonight, I won the Battle for Prayer Bed.

And now, I shall roll over and fall asleep instantly.

Hey, if you’re in the twin cities tomorrow night and feel like hearing a wide range of voices in the queer community, tomorrow night there’s a Queer Voices reading at the Intermedia Arts center on 28th and Lyndale.

I’m going to read from King Perry. I’ll have paperbacks with me for sale if you’re interested, but if you don’t want a book, please don’t buy one. Just saying. Come and listen to all the interesting voices in our spectrum.

Details below.

***

For more than 9 years, Intermedia Arts’ Queer Voices reading series has been creating a safe space for GLBT writers and audiences to explore the day-to-day material of life without internal or external censorship. Curated by John Medeiros and Andrea Jenkins, Queer Voices is the longest running series of its kind in the nation.

Join us on June 26 for a special pride reading as we welcome back past Queer Voices artists. Intermedia Arts will also be donating half of the donations to MN United! 7-9PM. 2822 Lyndale Ave South, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55408

Featured Artists include:

CATHERINE FRIEND

MELANIE HOFFERT

ANDREA JENKINS

ELLIE KRUG

ELLEN LANKSY

EDMOND MANNING

JOHN MEDEIROS

SCOT MOORE

JOSE LUIS NARANJO

KAROLYN REDOUTE

CHRISTINE STARK

SOUL DANCER

More info:

http://www.intermediaarts.org/queer-voices1

Sweet without syrup

hard-sculpted lives with beauty

out, out brief candle!

Narrator: boooo-ring.

Only a New Yorker could

make New York so drab.