Dead Sea Scowls

His breath smells of spearmint and cigarettes.

“Can I ask you a question?” His dark brown eyes are fixated on mine. “My name is Kobi.”

He’s slim, wearing a fitted black dress shirt and slacks, and has his thick black hair slicked with gel. He has a good smile and wastes no time as I, like moth to flamer, gravitate toward him.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Persistent, he is.

“Of course.”

All personal space is destroyed instantly, and he takes my hand. He’s close enough to kiss. And I almost do.

“Do you take care of your nails?”

Not being the expected marriage proposal for which I’d hoped, I sensed an impending predicament. I don’t believe in karma, but I felt the situation was apropos given that I’d just smirked at some poor sap who’d been wrangled into a neighboring kiosk’s massage chair. But with my deer-in-the-headlights gaze and his smooth talk, Kobi has suckered me in.

“No, I’m an archaeologist. I don’t really take care of my nails.”

“Oh, so the allergies bother you?” Kobi furrows his unibrow–his only unfortunate physical trait.

For a moment, I think I have an easy out. “Yes, the allergies.” I channel Utter Devastation. “Well, shucks. Guess I’ll be on my way to the Gap.”

Equipped to deal with an arsenal of excuses, Kobi deploys Plan B. “Well, you’re in luck!”

Son. Of. A.

“This product is from the Dead Sea, which means it’s all natural.”

Somewhat befuddled by this equation–as I’d been with archaeologist equals allergies–I want to ask why exactly the product’s source area means it’s all natural. But before I respond, he takes hold of my left thumb.

“What’s your name?”

“Matt.”

“What?”

MATT.” Louder and slower; my inner anthropologist screams.

Kobi yammers on about the product, and starts using a tri-colored, belt-sander-like contraption on my thumbnail. He tells me he’s from Israel and asks where I’m from.

“Alabama.”

“Oh, yeah? Nice country!”

“Yes.”

But then we’re back to my thumbnail.

“Now, watch and be amazed, Matt.”

“Mmhmm.”

He recites a litany of nail care steps–his own incantation.

“And then you scrub the top of the nail with this side of the magic cube.” He makes sure I’m staring intently at the side of the cube embossed with a blue rectangle.

“Now, let’s get under the light.” He pulls me by my thumb and I quash my juvenile temptation to fart.

“Okay, ready?”

“Sure.”

He reveals The Nail. Honestly, I’m genuinely surprised at how different it looks from its gnarled, nubby neighbors. With its pronounced sheen from a treatment of vitamin aloe-vera oil, it’ll surely be the envy of phalanges everywhere.

Relieved that I’m not allergic to any of the crap he continues to coat on my nail, I keep going along with the whole charade, knowing that I’ll sneak away somehow. Double-plus bonus: now I have a nice nail.

“Just try and scratch it. Go ahead.”

I think about telling him that I don’t intentionally harm myself, at least not since I was a cutter. But I figure it’s not the time. After all, we haven’t even gotten to oils or lotions.

“This dry skin around your nail, you see?”

“Yes, see and.”

I like how we’re communicating in sentence fragments, yet completely moving forward with conversation. He drops a bit of oil onto the tip of my thumb and rubs it in. The dry skin disappears.

“Like magic!”

“Well. Look. At. That.”

He says it’s time for lotions. My curiosity is piqued, even though I know this can’t lead anywhere good, especially since my eyes keep watering from the overpowering fragrance bouquet enveloping me. But instead of running away with my shiny nail, I just stand there. He returns with various samples, asking that I smell each.

“And my favorite is Wild Kiwi.”  He shoves a tube underneath my nose.

“Smells good.”

He dabs a little on his arm.

“You rub it in this way. Feel this.” With every cooed, seductive word, he rubs my hand through the lotion.

Most sane gay men wouldn’t object. But my neurotic, germ-averse mind begins its own cooing. Who knows how many people have touched his arm? How many of them wash their hands after they piss? What about the Gap?

So I pull my hand away from Kobi’s annoyingly clear, ridiculously smooth skin. He mumbles something.

“You know, you’re supposed to laugh when I tell a joke!”

Uh oh. Kobi angry!

The shit slowly starts hitting the fan. I begin back-tracking, saying I have to meet a friend for lunch and asking how late he’s here so that I can return and buy something.

“You’re not coming back.”

Stunned by his forwardness, I’m at a loss.

C’mon, I’m not dumb.”

He knows the jig is up.

“Oh no, I know, I’m just, you know…”

I grasp for anything. But good excuses–allergies, skin-infections, herpes–escape me as I attempt to free myself from this sticky, kiwi-tainted situation.

“It’s the price, right?”

Thinking this is a way out, I say yes.

“Well, for you…I’ll make you a deal.”

God. Damn. It.

He tells me that I can have everything he’s shown me for the reasonable price of my firstborn and a pint of blood. Or $59.95. Still, I can’t afford it. So I play the broke graduate student card, telling him I can’t swing it.

With fifteen minutes invested into the ordeal, I know there’s no possibility of politely backing out. So when he says he’ll cut the price in half, I agree. He’s worn my polite, southern self down, just like the magic cube. I just want to leave. But then, out comes the mud bar soap.

“And this goes well with the lotion!” He picks up a chart with the soap’s price boldly printed as $45. “It cures psoriasis, eczema, and acne.”

I’m fairly sure that the neighboring Proactiv kiosk vendors will disagree, and momentarily entertain the notion of dragging them into the discussion–inciting an inter-kiosk war and escaping in the melee. But at this point, even I’m beyond niceties.

“NO MUD BAR! This will have to do!” I scream at him, motioning to the box that reads Seacret: Skin Care From the Dead Sea and wondering how it’s come to this.

“But you see the red skin that you have on your face? This can be helped with the bar.” He points to my face for passersby to judge.

Oh, honey. Even though I’d just taken a shower and my skin is dry–just dry!–I feel self-conscious.

“The damn Seacret is enough!”

What’s next, asking if my shirt is really one hundred percent cotton?

Kobi retreats to the register and swipes my card. He puts the Seacret in a bag, the quality of which is one rung down from a takeout container for a Panda Express pu pu platter. He hands it to me and stamps the accompanying receipt in bold red lettering that reads “NO REFUNDS, ONLY EXCHANGES.” And smiles.

Why, Kobi, why?

With my dignity bagged, I try to melt into the crowd, but feel the stares, almost hear witnesses mutter “Dumb sack.” After rummaging through a few more stores, I leave incredibly unsatisfied.

On my way out, Kobi and multiple other kiosk vendors stand poised and ready. I wait and blend myself with a passing group. But right as we pass the kiosks, the group disperses, and I’m left between multiple chatty rocks and a hard place: the kiosk vendors and Sears.

“Sir, can I ask you a question?”

I dart into the land of pastel shirts and pleated pants, then out the door. Circling back around the mall to where I think I parked, I raise my hand above car roofs and press my panic button. Sunlight glances off my thumbnail, spraying oddly intense light in all directions. Mesmerized, I stop and stare.

My Precious.

But then my alarm sounds nearby, snapping me back from the edge of Mount Doom. Searching for blinking taillights, I shield my eyes–the side of my hand propped on my forehead’s deeply-set wrinkle ridges.

I wonder if there’s a cream for that?

But before I can think about it further, I get in and turn the key.

A lotion-like panacea? Methinks not.

And my shiny nail and I are gone, with the smell of kiwi and torched gullibility wafting in our wake.

Cordon Who?

Immediately after I lift the lid off the skillet, I realize my latest culinary creation is, quite literally, a hot mess. Bubbling violently, the pungent pastiche of grouper fillets, applesauce, and flour strikes an olfactory chord that hearkens back to my hamster’s pee-soaked pine shavings.

But I eat it anyway. Because I’ve eaten a lot worse.

***

While I writhe in agony on my living room floor, clawing my way to my far-flung cell phone to call Kelli–one of my best friends who, fortuitously, lives across the parking lot–I listen to Jake Gyllennhal’s on-screen character mutter to himself as he masturbates in a barrack bathroom stall.

The two of us grunt in sync: one toward release, one toward rescue.

***

I’m shifting uncomfortably in my seat. The department’s archaeology lab is dead quiet, but my mind is screaming itch, itch, itch! A week-long case of poison ivy has nearly broken me; my sleep-deprived mind can’t take it. I need an escape; otherwise, I’ll tear off my skin. So, I lock the lab, leave campus, and resolve to spend the afternoon in hedonistic repair.

I stagger to a nearby video store, peruse the possible selections, and contemplate my accompanying food options: pizza, doughnuts, candy. But then I rent Jarhead, and resolve to fall completely off the wagon. About ten minutes later, I pick up three pizzas and totter next door just as the neon hot light clicks on. A dozen cream- and jelly- filled doughnuts slide across the counter in their crisp, white box. With one pustule-covered hand I balance them; with the other, the piping-hot pizzas.

Without putting anything down, I unlock my front door and spread my decadently deleterious dinner across the kitchen countertop, then add a bag of crispy M&M’s from an open care package. Perfection. Sweet, savory, greasy bliss will surely help me convalesce.

Before I know it, the movie is well on its way and everything but half the bag of M&M’s has been reduced to a few scattered crumbs. Horribly full, I stretch across my partially broken yellow leather sofa. But as I do, a breathtaking pain shoots up my right leg.

And when I try to stand, I tumble face-first into beige carpeting.

***

So, here I am: bloated, disgusted, and surrounded by a truly horrifying array of crappy food containers. I can almost hear the coroner whisper Sweet Jesus as he photographs the carnage around my crumpled body.

But if I can reach my phone and call Kelli beforehand, I know she’ll at least have the decency to toss the evidence of this culinary catastrophe before the authorities arrive.

Just as Jake climaxes, I reach my phone. The screen’s dark, the battery dead.

“Fuck.”

Having little recourse, I re-extend my leg. A few muffled screams later, I’m on my back breathing heavily, distended stomach slowly rising and falling. The pain is gone.

***

Food and I have always had a complicated relationship. But I’ve salvaged it repeatedly, pulled it out of the ashes of a former incarnation–made it new again.

With Jake as my witness, binging was once my modus operandi when life got too chaotic. But I’ve also avoided food altogether to achieve a slim, anorexic body: exposed ribs, concave abdomen, sunken cheeks–physical markers I once believed defined beauty. And mediating those extremes during graduate school was a bulimia-induced, grossly toxic ballet of stomach acid and esophageal tissue.

Whether it was finishing some postmodern tome or finally understanding what heuristic meant, I’d contort eating into some sick rewards system: minor accomplishments served as my meal tickets. But that system became too subjective–what was worthy of dinner, really?–so I opted for a strict one-meal-a-day rule.

Only after my friends began commenting on my ghostly pallor–the bags under my eyes, my thinning profile–and my hair began falling out in clumps did I become slightly more proactive about eating a little here and there. Nothing major, nothing heavy. But if I did go overboard–enjoy the taste too much, binge a bit–down my throat my index finger went, and I was light again. I was in control.

An intervention later, I re-centered, and was told by my therapist to start a food journal. I had to re-learn how to eat.

March 22 2007     6:43 am

Eating breakfast today makes me feel disgusting, especially since I ate three times yesterday. I just don’t like how eating during the day disrupts my schedule, my routine.

Regardless of the disorder, the result was always the same: shame–both for engaging in the destructive behavior and perpetuating it. To relate to food as I did–to abstain, to binge, to repeat–was a First World luxury in which I overindulged.

***

By now, I know I’ll never be ripped, nor entirely rid of vestigial baby fat under my chin. But with that knowledge has come self-acceptance. Now, rather than feeding a disorder, cooking sustains me in every imaginable way.

I transform with every dish, and have a newfound respect for the ways in which food has dovetailed with my personal history–informed, strengthened, diminished it. Because making something out of what ingredients you have isn’t reserved for the kitchen: I’ve rebuilt and filled this shell of a person like a manicotti roll.

Enjoying the process...and the results.

Food unlocks the culinary and carnal–the feelings that fill those liminal spaces where the pious believe souls reside, but where I think inner happiness is born and nurtured. Because there, within the stalks and sinews, the leafy greens and hardened shells, is a place where the past and present collide.

Where I find redemption.

Aging Out

Fourth of July was winding down, and I was having a difficult time discerning between firework pops and pipe bomb explosions. Especially since I rate our neighborhood’s sketch factor based upon the number of times I’m accosted each day by meth addicts. Or followed by a deluded prophet claiming I’m the messiah.

Like the other day, when I became a contestant in Super Market Sweep: Dodge the Addict Edition.

Dear Combative Meth Addict:

If you get up in my face and demand money for the nonexistent baby (MethSandwich) your “mother” (the woman lighting up behind the bush) is caring for nearby, and then proceed to call me a “curly-haired freak” after I politely refrain, be glad that all I say in response is “Good luck with that.” 

Whether it’s the thumpa thumpa pulse of Koreatown’s nightlife, or the prevalence of PBR-soaked handlebar mustaches, I’m finding myself opting for the Age Exit where bootcut jeans and fitted tees are still in vogue. Where I’m not the only one fighting the urge to channel my inner 95-year-old, throw my hands up like some Charlie Brown character, and yell at the slow-moving hipsters sporting cutoff Mom jean shorts to find the other half of your pants! Fashion faux pas aside, I know I can’t blame hipsters for everything–and not just because I’ve straddled the hipster line a time or two.

***

Lately, I’ve realized that my late twenty-something self can’t bounce back from a few drinks like before, and my body needs a little bit more time to recover from that partial cross-fit workout–the one that ended with me chugging orange juice to quell my ringing ears and shaky body from succumbing to a blood sugar crash. Eight years ago, I could’ve caught a few hours of shuteye in a friend’s tub before reaching up and turning on the shower, dusting off my clothes, re-wetting my contacts, and springing to my seminar on art since World War II. Not only that, but I also could’ve qualified to be a cast member on The Real World or Road Rules. But now, I’m the same age as that guitar-playing country guy who everyone thought was old.

That, and I’ve been dealt unintended reality checks. By fourth graders.

“Like the Nintendo 64?”

“Well, sort of. But older. You know, the original Nintendo. With cartridges this big.”

I’d expanded my hands about six inches apart. Incredulous, they’d cocked their heads in unison, as if they’d been watching a Pong game. (Yet another inapplicable analogy.)

“Why would they be that big?”

“Well, that’s what fit the machine. Okay, well, y’all know what a Sega is, right?”

More consternated looks had followed, as if I’d asked them to write a book report on that old classic Where the Red Fern Grows. But then, salvation–the hand-waving blond class runt.

OH!”

Phew.

“My dad has one of those I think. It’s in a dusty box in the basement.”

Alright. I think it’s time for y’all to move to the next station.”

Now, I know I’m not about to draw Social Security or anything. But there’re moments when we all realize that life isn’t stationary–that there will come a time when your jokes fall flat because the audience is too young to know why it was crucial to align yourself with either N-Sync or BSB (Backstreet Boys, duhuhhhh!). As infuriating as it can be, it’s interesting to acknowledge that I’m changing–that I’m cashing in all-nighters fueled by Red Bull and vodka for Melatonin and a few episodes of Murder, She Wrote. At 9:00.

Melatonin and Murder, She Wrote.

Plus, with most of my twenties behind me, I’m starting to learn about all sorts of new things.

“You know, you really should get a colonoscopy.”

“Are you serious? Isn’t that for, uh, older…”

“Honey, just think about it.  Especially at your age. And with our family history.”

I’m slowly making peace with my increasingly deep laugh lines, and tolerating the inset coffee stains on the backs of my teeth. But the unhealed shin scrapes still make me feel ancient, and remind me of my defunct circulatory system.

“Those still haven’t healed?”

“Babe, I heal like an eighty-five-year-old. On cumadin.”

But I’ve started to grow comfortable with the fact that peace and quiet and green space are more important factors in finding our new place than proximity to bars and clubs and ABC stores. That the din of nightlife can take a backseat to cricket chirps.

***

Sometimes, life gets incredibly loud. We let ourselves get lost in the cacophony, and ignore seemingly insignificant moments that, in hindsight, we grasp at for cherished remnants.

There’re plenty of reasons why we so easily dismiss a day here or there–chalk it up to a lack of coffee or bruised feelings–like there’s an infinite number to follow. But when we least expect it, we’re reminded in no uncertain, harsh terms that this is not the case–that we have to reconcile the good and the bad, and hug close any and all experiences. Because they make us who we are–they are our life’s manifold bookmarks, to which we turn on dark days to illuminate our minds and raise our spirits.

So the next time I have to skirt a group of tipsy hipsters hogging the sidewalk, I’ll bite my tongue. And smile, knowing that I’ve had those same good times, too. And will always welcome more.

Even if I experience them at a different pace.

Demolition Man

Dad inspects the doorjamb’s freshly flaked paint and eyes me suspiciously.

“If this gets any worse, you’re grounded. And I’m going to confiscate your cars. I mean it.”

Channeling the biggest doe eyes I can, I insist I have no idea what in the world he’s talking about. Shaking his head, Dad turns and walks back into the TV room. Once I hear the TV’s football commentary growing louder, I slowly close my bedroom door, tiptoe to my closet, and uncover my stash of meticulously mangled Matchbox cars.

***

As of late, I’d become obsessed with apocalyptic dioramas—the after-effects of anything cataclysmic. And there, across the floor, was my own little Hollywood-style set: a Lincoln Log village crushed asunder by the hooves of a possessed unicorn plush toy. The closest scene that rivaled this one was one I’d arrayed after watching Waterworld: The polar ice caps had melted and flooded Laura’s Barbie camper and the nearby Lincoln Log resort. At least Ken and Blaine had been able to cling to a passing seal and sea lion, and made it to safety. Barbie wasn’t so lucky. She drowned. As did Stacy; but that goes without saying.

Whether it was from repeatedly watching Red Dawn, or the time I snuck downstairs and peeked around at the TV at the worst possible moment of Schindler’s List, I’d never been able to shake my odd, albeit macabre, fascination with these people-things that populate the world around me. Why they do the things they do, inflict what they do onto others, and react in the most bizarre fashions when the world falls apart. No, I wasn’t becoming a sociopath: I was becoming an anthropologist.

But with this transfixion with the breakdown of society and its ensuing chaos came a profound interest in destruction. And that’s when my disappearances into the basement became more frequent, and my hammer-wielding competency peaked.

Each trip involved a fairly repetitious process with the same result: calculated destruction. Of course, these trips could never last long, since the basement wasn’t so much a playground as it was a place Laura and I never spent a great deal of time. The parents would become suspicious, especially if there were repeated hammer bangs. One bang was easily shrugged off with an “I knocked a hammer off the tool bench” coupled with the aforementioned doe eyes. Two or three bangs, not so much. So I had to be stealthy and poised: two things I’d never mastered.

So I’d select a cherished car, stuff it into a pocket, sneak downstairs, turn the historic key in the basement door, and shuffle down the basement’s narrow concrete staircase. With only a few moments to spare, I’d grab a hammer, position myself just-so, and bring it down with problematically-ferocious force atop the small metal bodies. A crunch later, and I’d scurry back upstairs and dodge Scooby’s accusatory, beady-eyed stares from his cage top perch near the basement door.

***

Demolishing things segued to pyrotechnics, with a little help from Captain Planet. Mostly because the Wheeler action-figure’s arm activated a lighter-like contraption that fired sparks from his open midsection. All irony aside, the power, and fire, was mine!

The power is mine!

Unfortunately, this more socially-problematic behavior couldn’t be as easily hidden. But that’s when having parents who perform seasonal prescribe burns on isolated forest land came in handy. I won!

Still, toting along a shoe box house with interior cardboard dioramas to my first prescribe burn took some creative, on-the-spot explaining. How I squeaked my way through is anyone’s guess, but there I was, watching the tiny house be consumed by the inferno writhing around its soft edges.

But I could only hide my quirky behavior so long before I got complacent. Or cocky. Or both.

***

At some point the time comes for parents to trust their children to stay home alone and not burn the place down. Thankfully for my parents, I’d pilfered everyone’s shoe boxes and had plenty of ready-made cardboard houses to take the fiery hit.

One afternoon, I realize I have a sliver of time to offer up a house to Hades. So I hustle my sacrificial house outside, and use a found bent match to light it up. About fifteen-seconds in, a neighbor pops outside–just on the other side of a low privacy fence. To avoid detection, I hastily stamp out the burning half.

At this point, more discerning kids, or at least the sociopaths, would realize they’d better dispose of the evidence, go back inside, and act like nothing happened. But again, I don’t catch on, and I’m not unlocking sociopathic tendencies.

Not only do I run back inside with the extinguished cardboard house, but I don’t even think to cover up the smell. So ten minutes later when Mom and Dad return, I realize two things: One, never do this again; and two, never underestimate the fears historic homeowners have of faulty wiring. Within a few seconds of walking in, Mom and Dad stop, drop their hardware store purchases, and inhale deeply. Oh. Crap.

“Do you smell that?”

“Yeah, it smells like something’s burning.”

Instinctively, they start feeling the walls for hot spots and sniff along the kitchen’s periphery. I begin sweating profusely. Then force my exaggerated, toothy smile to a painful extreme.

“What…whawhat smell? I don’t smell anything!” Big smile.

“Oh. God. I think there’s a fire inside the walls,” Mom spouts, the timbre of her voice growing increasingly higher. “I think we should call the fire department!”

I feel faint. Dad begins lumbering to the phone, and I try desperately to convince them that they don’t smell a thing. But then, I do smell something. Something burning. Outside.

Standing on my tiptoes, I look through the window over the kitchen sink, and see flames. Contained flames. Grill flames.

“No, no, no! Look, look, look!”

Either the emphatic shriek of my prepubescent voice is so startling that it breaks Dad’s train of thought just enough, or saying things in triplicate conveys some unspoken truth to adults. But it’s probably the gust of air that wafts through the open back door and fills the kitchen with the smells of hamburger. Dad stops.

“It’s the grill. See!” I bellow, simultaneously pointing out the back door and to the kitchen window like a Police Academy officer directing traffic.

After convincing themselves that their oddly poised son is right, Mom and Dad shrug it off, venture into the plastic-covered downstairs bathroom, and begin their work again. I race upstairs, grab the remnant cardboard house, douse the entire thing in water, spray horrifically potent bathroom freshener all over the bag, and scamper back downstairs, out the open door, and to the big garbage can. Tucking my foible beneath the overflowing can’s garbage bags is almost too easy.

Victorious, I saunter back inside to where Mom and Dad stand prepping their supplies.

“Here, can you handle this?” Dad asks, handing me a hammer and motioning to some protruding nails from the molding.

I smile.

“I think I can manage.”

Excuse Me, Ma’am. Could I Please Have Your Uterus Back?

About five minutes into watching the North Carolina General Assembly banter about House Bill 695, my stomach knots up.

As has become routine with women’s rights issues, old white men are debating over the same anatomical parts from whence their devoutly Christian, heteronormative family sprung. But in multiple ironic turns, they completely disrespect the women that have given them, and their lovely offspring, life and make misogynistic allusions to “our women” as chattel. And all to honor His name and the preservation of “real life”–that sweet imbalance of power grafted from the 1950’s and stitched into the lives of twenty-first century women.

Why has it become so necessary to toxify women’s health debates with illogical, fallacious assertions and statistics from conservative think tanks–the ultimate political oxymorons–and thus endanger them through unnecessarily heightened restrictions on life-sustaining care, all in the name of theocratic ideals that allegedly value life as a gift from God?

Do these egocentric, bumbling buffoons not return home every single day and forget how critically important the women in their lives are to them–how their spouse, mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, or friend has had their back, supported them, or taken one for the team to cover their stupid, ball-bearing self?

I, for one, have a litany of reasons why I owe the women in my life so incredibly much, and would never be so presumptuous as to think that I–a man!–possess some innate, superior knowledge to decide how and when and why my mother, sister, grandmother, aunts, cousins, or friends can seek medical treatment.

Methinks these politicians haven’t perused their family albums lately.

But I’ll never forget the hospital photos of me all blood-covered and cradled in my mother’s arms.

Mom, I've got your back!

Nor do I forget how my sister has always had my back.

My big sis has always been there for me!

How my grandmother was my right-hand gal during the tumultuous high school years and never once questioned why I preferred hanging out with her instead of other boys my age.

Mom Mau never judged.

How my gal pals have lifted me up over the years, and have talked me off the proverbial ledge on more than one occasion.

So, as culturally-insensitive remarks fly and conservatives wield religious beliefs like scalpels–excising another slew of women’s rights from established policies–I can only remind myself of why we left and how absurdly tragic North Carolina’s fall from grace has been under the current administration.

And how terribly self-loathing these men must be to disenfranchise the very people who will always be the reasons why we’re all here today.

A Waking Reality

The straw in my homemade iced coffee is twirling around in a caffeinated maelstrom; Brand New’s “The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows” is streaming through the desktop’s speakers; the air conditioner is doing its best to keep up with the climbing heat.

Brain fuel.

And I’m finding myself contemplating approximately 248 things.

So I halt the circling straw, take a sip of coffee, glance at the Shiva statue staring at me from the desk alcove, and try to focus on the positive things and breathe and do all of the Zen stuff that you’re supposed to do when you’re feeling inundated by all sorts of stimuli.

Breathe in.

There’s a new journal next to me, the first seven pages of which I jotted full with a business schematic, each sentence ending more with a punctuated dream than a period.

Ideas free-flowing like air.

Breathe out.

The All-American Rejects just queued up, and “Move Along” is bubbling into the slowly chilling apartment.

When all you got to keep is strong, move along, move along like I know you do…

The tiny Art Deco vase on the nearby kitchen table holds the last of the week’s dying flowers. The red is morphing into a deep umber–the color of floral finality.

The beginning of floral finality.

A gulp of coffee later, and I’m scanning through my mind, trying to pinpoint what it is that I want to do.

…move along, move along just to make it through…

I’ve been sleeping incredibly deeply the last two nights, and I’ve woken up in an oddly crisp haze–the most contradictory state of being I’ve experienced in a while. So unless Andy’s been slipping me roofies, I’m experiencing an unexpected catharsis–like my body knows something that my sleepy mind hasn’t yet wrapped itself around. Because this kind of sleep only follows emotionally-charged decisions: leaving graduate school, leaving my horribly toxic job, leaving for California.

…when everything is wrong, we move along…

And it hits me. We’ve moved. Moved along past the wart-covered parts of the past year. We’ve pushed forward, through tears and sleepless nights and cardboard boxes and packing tape and goodbyes and hellos. We’ve kept the momentum going, and are starting to feel the potential of just being happy.

The roads we travel, the journeys we take.

And we don’t know what to do with that feeling.

Jay Brannan’s “Housewife” fills the room. I turn off the air conditioner. And sit and listen, fading in and out between the lyrics.

…two boys are falling hard…

Because we’ve overcome a lot together.

…crazy about each other, we both have fucked our pasts…

Shared and taken, embodied change and effected it.

…but when we are together, we have a fucking blast…

And have plenty more ahead of us. We just have to unlock our combined potential, nurture it, and help it breathe on its own.

So that it can help lead us on, into a future where we sleep deeply–dreaming of happily ever afters, and waking up in the middle of their reality.

Rinse and Repeat

My hair is flaming. Not gay-flaming–actually on fire flaming.

The flames savor my Aqua Net-coated curls, and aren’t even slightly blunted by Laura’s eight-year-old hands turned ad hoc snuffers. And while our parents are running full-tilt across the field–their mouths agape and faces contorted by fear and shock– everything slows down.

But before the flames lick my scalp, my parents reach us and extinguish my head with a mixture of dirt and water. Now reduced to smelly, singed puff balls, my sizable blond fro won’t be garnering any attention from passersby for a while. And Laura’s fingers will resemble Lil’ Smokies for the next few weeks.

***

Long after my parents realized that Laura and I could get ourselves into trouble in approximately four seconds, I’d passed through my early years with plenty of nicknames based on my curly hair.

The blond phase.

From Cheese Curls and Curly Sue, to Goldilocks and Mop Top, I’d had plenty of little monikers, and responded to each with a knowing smile. Like most kids, I soon tired of the repeated name-calling, and wished for my hair to be straight like everyone else’s. But the most the curls ever did was change from bleach blond to dark brown. And tighten.

And while high school came with non-hair affiliated nicknames–like Pip and Faggot–I still got more hair-raising commentary from the peanut gallery: “I bet the girls love running their hands through those curls!” And they did–completely unsolicited no less. Not to mention students sitting behind me in class thought it was fun to hide pencils in my hair, so that when I bent to get something out of my book bag, I’d shed a forest’s worth of No. 2’s. But I figured that sort of thing would taper off once I graduated. I mean, out in the real world I’d heard of something called personal space. It sounded amazing.

Nicknames didn’t really follow me to college. But I came to resent my curls because, like most late-bloomers, I didn’t want to look like the baby-faced, naive “Boy Next Door” or a Boy Meets World doppelganger. So I used my misunderstood goth years to add a bit of flair–black hair dye–and style–a mohawk–to my so called life.

The misunderstood mohawk years.

Soon enough, I realized I looked exceptionally dumb and gave my hair time to rebound. Plus, I assumed people would be less inclined to offer hair critiques if I didn’t draw attention to it.

***

Years after the mohawk incident, and following several unfortunate cases of head-shavings gone bad interspersed with “accidental dreadlocks” and a stylist intervention, I’ve come to realize how much work curly hair can be. And how good it can look when treated well.

Now, I’m not saying that people with straight hair have an easier time.

Actually.

I am. Because my morning routine involves approximately 612 steps. Or 10.

One: Assess rat nest; Two: Convince myself it’s worth the effort (have a cup of coffee if necessary); Three: Turn on the shower tap and dunk my head repeatedly; Four: Keep head under faucet until fro resembles a saturated sponge; Five: Run fingers through fro to break up massive snarls (scream if necessary); Six: Pump out palm-full of high-quality, non-alcohol based conditioner and run through hair; Seven: Use plastic, wide-toothed comb and brush through curls (whimper through remaining snarls); Eight: Rinse thoroughly and clean comb of dead Cousin It hair clumps; Nine: Towel blot dripping hair; Ten: Add Moroccan oil with keratin.

Now, this sounds easy and all, but it takes a good ten to fifteen minutes from start to finish. And that’s if I don’t want to do anything else to it. Sure, I don’t have to condition it whenever I go out. But the fact that Facebook’s tagging function can’t recognize me with untamed hair is telling enough for me.

The fro that stumped Facebook.

But there’s a significant drawback to taming my hair: public crazies who feel it’s their duty to run their hands through it before informing me that my hair is, in fact, curly.

“You don’t say?!”

My sarcastic incredulity often falls on deaf ears, being lost amid profuse head nods and smiles–as if they’re affirming their toddler that, yes, they did just use the potty correctly!

And you wouldn’t believe the repulsive looks I’ve gotten when I’ve had a bad day and respond with something like “What in the hell do you think you’re doing? This is my fucking head!” As if it’s my fault for reminding them that my body isn’t the public’s domain. Plus, I can only wash my hair once a week, so I certainly don’t want someone’s hand funk mixed in until the next washing.

Still, the curls have gotten me out of jams before. Like the time a cashier made everyone else wait in line while I ran to get my wallet–all because she was certain I was Josh Groban. (Because Josh Groban shops for spatulas at the Dollar General in Sanford, North Carolina.) So I signed the receipt with a little extra flourish.

I love you, Sanford. Love, Josh Groban? Or not.

And even though I have to assure plenty of people that it’s not a goddamn perm, when all is rinsed and combed, I’m pretty glad my curls have lasted.

Because they’ve been a fitting metaphor for my life: frizzed and burned out, matted and kinked. But repeatedly conditioned and revitalized along the way.

The Celebrity Factor

Soon after we stepped off the escalator with Janice Dickinson and her badly tattooed boy toy, she said something about a skank and laughed and walked her twiggy self away.

“Did she just call us skanks?”

“I dunno. Doubtful, but maybe she was annoyed because she thought I was trying to take her photo with my camera when I was checking the time.”

Janice’s commentary probably had absolutely nothing to do with us, but it got me thinking more about celebrities and why I’d even give a damn if she called me a skank. I mean, the only thing I know about her is that she’s never said no to a plastic surgeon. And that a manatee could swim through the unnatural space between her thighs.

When it comes down to it, celebrities are just like the cashier at the gas station, or the mechanic down the street, or you, or me–just with a lot more money and maybe a television show and a few dozen houses. Sure, that sounds sort of amazing, and I’d probably be alright with that for a day. But then the bills would come in for that Switzerland chalet I forgot about, and I’d be all like, “Well, how am I supposed to buy my third goddamned Maserati with built-in Zen garden?!”

I guess I’ve never understood the appeal of having my life on display for everyone to consume–to have random strangers pontificate about my love handles or that terribly tacky outfit I wore that one time. After all, that’s what Facebook’s for, right?

That’s not to say I haven’t flipped out after meeting an author whose work I love, or bumping into a celebrity. Usually, though, the reason why I’m excited to see them is because I’m drawn to them more by what they stand for outside of their celebrity persona than anything else.

But every now and then, I get drawn into the spectacular, buzzing fray. Like with the whole Paula Deen debacle.

The only thing I find sad about the whole damn thing is that Paula seems to be one of the only women on any cooking show who actually eats her own food. Still, I don’t have time for racists, or people perceived to be racists. (Because, really, if someone’s alleging you’re a racist, and there’re plenty of sound bites and statements to support it, it’s pretty likely you are.) And I have one thing to say to the gays coming to her side: She probably doesn’t like you anymore than any other minority, and she and Bubba would probably be glad to throw you and “them” into the kitchen; have all “y’all” enter through the back restaurant entrance; and get you cute little “N’s and F’s” all dressed up and tapping around some bigot’s wedding.

So, to anyone–especially a minority–coming to a bigot’s defense, all I can say is bless your misguided heart.

One thing about Paula’s swift and justly deserved fall from grace that I find so fascinating is that most of the public only started paying attention to it when Paula’s sponsors started pulling the plugs. And suddenly she’s on talk shows trying to recoup money and garner support. Are we really so enthralled with what Sears has to say that we can’t form our own opinions? That we have to rely on someone else to call bullshit first? And I don’t just mean about celebrities.

Hopefully as this country moves forward, there will be much greater accountability and transparency, and more people will feel the need to know where their shirt was made; what that sandwich funds; who authored that cookbook your stuffing recipe comes from.

With hope, we’ll see an upsurge in putting the right people up on pedestals instead of bigots who’ve slid by on their buttered cheeks for far too long.