My friend, Bart, has inspired me to come up with my own list. As well as my own experiment of posting a new list each day for next five days. So here goes day one.
Ok. It’s been a while. As in an “almost 3 months” while. Ugh. It was not my intention to take such a long break. Oh well, I guess. It feels hard to write in the summer. All the sunshine. All the the stuff going on. And this year summer started early because we had an excellent summer fake out back in May, which I filled with things like wearing shorts and flip-flops and shooting hoops and taking long bike rides and building backyard campfires and going to Burgerville for the express purpose of getting a chocolate shake. I was going to write about some of that, but I didn’t. And then June came around and I had a birthday and JJ had a birthday and Tony had a birthday and there was the T*Party and Pride and softball games on Saturdays and MTB and JJ did a tri and MTB and I went to Vegas and Val’s family and friends gathered for her memorial, which was beautiful, and later a bunch of us helped cleaned out her apartment and that was kind of brutal. And then June was over. Just like that. And I hadn’t written a thing. And July picked up where June left off. MTB and I and her dogs went camping on the 4th at Cove Palisades and there were more softball games and Colleen came to town and RU came to town and MTB and JJ and I watched 3 on 3 basketball tournament and MTB had her garden party and I saw the movie the Life of Pi outside at Irving park and MTB and I went to the Washington Country fair and Radio had a birthday and Venae had a birthday and RU had a birthday and Nat and Ally had one too. And I didn’t write down a thing here about any of that either, even though I thought about it. And now its August and I am planning a trip to Indy with MTB.
Every weekend it seems like there are 1000 things to do. And I’ve done so much already. I’ve made ice cream twice this summer and had s’mores and cooked hotdogs over an open fire and I’ve picked blueberries out of my own yard and made kale salads and lettuce salads and taco salads and tuna salads and I’ve been to a handful of cook-outs and a basement show and gone swimming at the pool and swimming at the river and I’ve scored some finds at estate sales and I’ve become obsessed with my Klean Kanteen insulated water bottle and I’ve ridden both of my bikes all over town. I am tan. My thighs have a little more definition. I am wearing cut off t-shirts again. And I don’t wan it to stop. I want to go backpacking and see a movie at the drive-in and make a pie and take a short road trip and hit some golf balls. So until the end of September, I am going to do my best to pretend the days are not getting shorter and that grey skies in morning don’t mean anything and that its always a good idea to leave a towel and a blanket in the car and there’s no good reason to turn down a milkshake.
Three nights ago, I had a dream about Val. In the dream there was a party being held for Val at somebody’s house. I want to say it was Deborah’s house, except it didn’t look anything like Deborah’s house does in real life. It was a big, old Portland style house, at least 2 stories high and people were everywhere inside. Standing on the stairs and in the halls and filling up the rooms. So many people, in fact that MTB and I got overwhelmed and went outside and sat together, in the city strip grass, between the sidewalk and the street. It was sunny out and it felt like it was the middle of the day, with the sun high in the sky, and MTB was sitting between my legs and leaning back against me, when Val pulled up to the curb in a convertible. Not a sports car, though. It was a convertible Volvo sedan that was two tone blue, which was funny to me in the dream. I kept thinking where the hell did Val get a convertible, two tone Volvo sedan. Val was smiling really big and she was wearing a bright, blue plaid shirt and it looked like she’d just gotten her hair cut. And she leaned over, with her arm resting on the driver’s door, and she asked MTB and me how the party was. I think we told Val that there were a lot of people inside the house, like it was crazy crowded, and everybody was asking about her, and she told us she was thinking about not going inside. We all sat there for a while and Val never did get got out of the car, either. She sat there grinning in the sunshine, working her charming thing, which seemed a little mischievous, in a super sweet way, and kept looking at MTB and me and then up at the house. MTB and I told her she looked really fucking cute and that if she wasn’t coming into the party, she should go drive downtown and flirt with the girls. (Because in the dream there was some magic downtown square and main drag where dykes drive up and down and flirt with each other.) And Val laughed, and said something like, you think so, like you think the girls will like me.
I’m not sure I believe in signs and I’m not sure it matters if I do or I don’t, but I’m glad to have had that dream of Val. To have woken up with image of her grinning and happy in the sunshine so firmly planted in my mind.
I got home late tonight and stood in my backyard. Right on top of the edge of one the veggie boxes I built a couple years ago. It was so quiet. I looked around at everything that’s coming up. It’s already starting to get thick and lush by the back wall. I had grand plans to move things around this spring but it didn’t happen. Plans got derailed. That’s ok. Spring is long. And things will still grow and and open up and bloom. Plus, this is not really my home.
Home. It’s such a tricky thing. When I look at my longing, which is vast and deep, I believe that home is at the bottom of it. That I am always longing for home. Sometimes, if I try I, if I bring consciousness to it, or I am feeling secure, I can construct it — the stretch of road leaving Lake Lemon and heading toward camp, walking up the steps to Becky’s house, the streets around Butler, the drive from our old apartment on Fall Creek to Martha’s house, the smell of frankensense, the smell of toothpaste when I am camping, a chocolate shake and a car window rolled down on a hot summer night. I could make a new list. Call it, “ways to find home” and tape it up to one by my mirror called “take care, 2013.” It’s worth thinking about. It would be hard work. I know, home needs to come from somewhere inside me, but sometimes that place inside doesn’t seem to exist, which is about the best way I can explain it. Where there should be home in me there is me, untethered, and wishing I could find something to anchor myself too.
Sometimes I sit on my back stoop. Except it’s not really a stoop. Its 3 steps that lead from the big glass sliding door off the kitchen and down to the gigantic deck that takes up almost half of the back yard. I like sitting out there at night and looking at the sky and the outlines of the plants and trees in the dim light. Its quiet and everything seems close in, kind of like a giant cocoon, and I’m not distracted by the weeds or how I didn’t move things around the yard the way I should have. I tried to sit out there tonight and write, because it was warm and because I needed to unwind, but it was raining on my computer screen. The front porch is not the same, with the street lights and the cars and the neighbors across the street sitting on their porch and talking and laughing and smoking. If my front porch was a proper covered porch it would be different, but it’s not, which is not the point. And by that I mean it’s not the point to dwell on all the things that not the way they should be or the way I want them to be. Although I can easily go down that path. The scarcity path. Which is a stupid heart suck. I was talking to my friend, VG, tonight about how you imagine the way you would be in certain instances or circumstances, and future you is like some other version of yourself, potentially better, more together, more Zen. But then when you are neck deep in the circumstance, you are so remarkably you. You are not the future you. You are the present you dealing the way you do with the stuff that’s happening in your life. You are doing the best fucking job you can do.
The thing is we’re all in it. Either we’re standing in the middle of something or were somewhere in the ripples. Millions of centers and millions of ripples.
Dad’s Hair
My dad’s hair smelled. Not bad. Also, not good. Just distinct. He always wore a hat. Mostly a rolled up stocking cap. So maybe it was the smell of the hat and his sweat trapped in the hat and then dried on his head plus cigarette smoke and sawdust from work and the smell of outside mixed with smell of his truck, in which he stored everything – his tools, books, clothes, etc. Sometimes I’ll smell the inside of one of the stocking caps that I used to wear all the time and I swear it smells a little bit like him.
When I was young, maybe 6 or 7 or 8, Dad used to let me and my sister Katherine comb his hair. He’d sit on the side of one of our beds and take off his stocking cap and and Kath and I would stand or kneel behind hind and run a comb through his hair, over and over and over. Or maybe it was a brush? Dad never said much to us while he sat there. He was mostly quiet. Kept his hands folded together in his lap. Maybe his head was bowed down a little, unless one of us tilted it up or to the side. Which is a distinct possibility. I’m pretty sure Kath and I fussed over him and probably argued about taking turns and whoever wasn’t doing the grooming likely tried to lean up a little bit against his shoulder or his back.
Hair Cut
For a chunk of time when I was little, like at least in kindergarten through 2nd grade, I had short hair. My mom called it a pixie hair cut, which was maybe a way to cutefy the cut which was pretty boyish on me. Or at least I passed a lot as a boy then. Mom always took me to her hair stylist to get my hair cut. The salon was in the basement of a semi fancy, old hotel near downtown and first mom would get her hair permed and I would run around the hotel and ride the elevators and then while Mom was under the dryer I’d get my hair cut. Mom’s stylist used scissors on everything but my bangs, which she cut with a straight razor. She would pull a lock of of my bangs out with her one hand and hold them and then with her other hand hack at the ends with the razor. It always tugged on my head in a way that made me tear up. I would get so quiet and I wouldn’t look at myself in the mirror because I didn’t want to see myself crying. I don’t think she needed to use a razor to get the stupid pixie look she was going for and sometimes I think she must have enjoyed inflicting the pain on me.
MTB’s Hair
The first time I saw MTB was years ago at the E room. I noticed her because she was rocking a modified mullet and wearing mostly black, and I’m pretty she was wearing a vest too. I remember thinking about her hair and thinking “bold.” As in right the fuck on bold. It was so fucking cool, I thought; she was making the mullet her own. Plus she looked hot. I saw her a few times at the E room. I thought the same thing every time. Bold! Coooooool! Hot!
I met MTB in person about 4 years ago via a get together for CS. CS invited a bunch of people out to celebrate the fact she’d quit this job that was sucking the life out of her soul. I was sitting at the end of table with 6 or 7 people when MTB walked in Bar Bar and I thought, holy shit there is that hot dyke who rocked a mullet from E Room. I immediately got self conscious and I tried not to stare at MTB. Or not to be too obvious about staring. At some point CS introduced us and then at some point later, MTB and I caught each other’s eye across the table. I’ve got to admit that I don’t remember how MTB was wearing her hair that night. I’m sure there was that curl cascading down the right side of her face, but I couldn’t say how long or how short it was, or if it was dyed. Besides catching her eye, what I remember were her boots. Danner’s. The kind a logger would wear. I nearly melted.
MTB and I are undertaking a mutual blog challenge. The challenge runs from today through next Wednesday the 25th and our goal is to publish a post on each the following topics: hair, dogs, summer and beer.
We are kicking it off with beer. Which is funny because I don’t drink beer. I don’t even like beer. I never acquired a taste for it. Cheers. Except not with a beer.
I’ve drunk beer exactly one time in my life. I was 14. I was at party celebrating our Episcopal diocese getting a new bishop. Episcopalians are decadent when it comes to alcohol. Or at least they were in the 70s. Me and my friends were some of the youngest kids at this party, which was put on by one of my best friend’s older brother and sister, who were kind of cool, or at least cool enough to know lots of cool people. Also, their mom let kids drink alcohol at their house, upping the cool factor exponentially. The scene had a little bit of The Dazed and Confused feel to it, with a whole bunch of high school and college kids coming in and out of the house. Classic rock blasting on the stereo. And a handful of us, who had just gotten out of junior high.
I started out with a couple of Strohs tall boys, which tasted bitter, and then had some Little Kings creamed ale, which tasted creamy and bitter. But Little Kings were what all the cool, older kids at the party were drinking, so I just sucked them down. I followed up the Strohs and Little Kings with some wine and then port and then some liquor. Just re-reading that sentence, makes me want to vomit. The night did not end well for me. But I won’t go into too many of the details. Suffice it to say that when I got home, I vomitated. (I asked my housemate, Remy, who I just accidentally called Roomy, what another word for vomitate is, absolutely unaware that I was thinking out loud and in doing so, that a non-word combination of regurgitate and vomit was actually coming out of my mouth. Pun intended. Anyway, she said I had to include the word, vomitate, in my post) I vomitated a lot that night. Outside the party in a neighbor’s front yard. And then in the bathroom attached to my mom’s bedroom.
After that, for years, and by years I mean up through college and a little longer, I mostly stuck to disgustingly sweet liquored drinks, like cherry vodka and peach schnapps, etc, which did not make me a very good dyke. Because I was never up for splitting a pitcher or springing for a six pack or going in on a keg or driving over to Ohio on a Sunday because Indiana is dry on Sundays. There was no shot gunning for me. Or playing quarters. Or funnneling. I don’t regret that. But maybe its why I didn’t stick with rugby, which I do regret a little.
My housemate, Remy, suggested that I tell that story, in part, because I don’t have any other beer stories of my own. Remy also said I could basically lie and say I drink beer, but I think she was just humoring me because she is tired and I want attention. Remy said a bunch of other things about beer, like how delicious it is to have one after a long hike and how once when she was drinking Belgian beers with her friend, Lisa, the bartender touched Remy’s finger nails because her nail polish was glittery and that chicken cooked on a beer can reminds Remy of going to Communist Bulgaria and hearing the song, Ring of Fire, and sitting in a bedroom full of stuffed animals, and also of constipation. Except, Remy wants to stress she wasn’t not the one who was constipated; it was her friend, and for some reason a very handsome soccer player took Remy and her friend to the hospital where her friend was given anal suppositories.
Is it maybe lazy or a cheap shot or too obvious or trying too hard to be funny to end a post on beer when you don’t drink beer with the phrase “anal suppositories.”
I am so very confident that MTB is going to have a much better story about beer! Very confident, in fact.
True confession. It is 10:30 on Friday night and I just ate a bowl of tomato soup with saltines and I am currently listening to a Justin Bieber song on purpose. I had plans for tonight. With myself. And at 6:30 they sounded perfect. Run some errands. Eat some food. Go to this thing at Slabtown. I was gonna ride my bike. But then it started raining and it was colder out than I wanted it to be so I checked out some new music thinking I would just wait out the rain. And it probably did stop raining at some point. I just didn’t notice because I got caught up big time into culling through a list of top 100 songs of 2012. I cannot resist the new song hole. I also made myself a list of things I want to get done on Saturday and Sunday. Lists rule. I make lots of them. Practical ones, like grocery lists, errands to run and people I need to get hold of for one reason or another. Aspirational ones, like things I want to do this summer, books I want to read and projects I want to work on. Creative ones, like this long list I have of titles I can use for poems or stories or essays. I have a bunch of iTunes playlists. I have an audio list on a digital recorder of song ideas. I have a list called l.z., which is a list of things I can do to bring joy into my life and help me not get twisted up in my neurosis. If I was a different kind of person I would make a zine of my lists except I tend to not hang onto my lists. I do have an one old list from when my dad died. It is crammed full of writing in all directions and in different color inks, divided up by lines and boxes – call social security, call VA, get estimate for cremation, find bank account info, ask coroner they keep dad’s body at the morgue before we have to move him, etc.