Sunday, July 27, 2008

Protest Attire

When I spoke to Steve, he told me about a gay demonstration in D.C. that he was considering attending. Our friend Ron had called him the night before to ask what to wear. I could not believe it; to me, this was hilarious, and I said, : "I'd say go right for the blue chiffon. What did you say?"

Steve said "I told him to wear a hat."
A hat? I make hats all day. It's barely a living, but it is what I do, and frankly that would be the last thing I would have said. I would have been thinking practially: dress in layers, be comfortable, use sunblock, wear something approriate for tear gas, or that would not come apart if you are dragged off by your feet. That's the way I am, hopelessly pragmatic.
What made you think of wearing a hat, I asked him.
"I just thought, it could rain, or it might be really hot and sunny and you would be more obvious, too."

I'm not sure that one would want to be noticed during a protest, but the rest made sense.

"Well, after the hat suggestion, Ron asked me how about a hood?" Steve went on, but before finishing I interjected "What?, Like a ski mask? That would be swell."

"No," Steve soldiered on despite my attempts to throw off the line of discourse, "No, like a parka or a windbreaker kind of thing?" Then Steve said "I told him absolutely not."
So then Ron asks "Well what then, a pith helmet?"
"And then Steve recalls" by that time, I was so disgusted by the conversation, that I said no, I meant something like Lady Di would wear."

"Now Yer talkin' ".

I just could not get over it; who asks what to wear to protest in? You just decide do I want comfort or do I want to project an image, such as: I'm gay and I want to look white collar, or military, or truck driver.

Come to think about it, the whole affair is starting to sound like the Village People, and maybe that's the point....

Motherhood

I was working a craft fair booth, trying to pry some cash out of a woman across my table. She was being mercilessly but methodically harrangued by a small boy of about 8 years. She was tough though, and in between words to me she would say stuff like: "Go away", "find your father", "play a game with someone,"; she had a millon retorts and I suppose it was her delivery, but I was laughing so hard that I had to apologise to her and explain that I just thought she was really funny.

People aways ask me why I don't want any kids.
My answer is that there is too much furniture involved.
Usually they are so taken aback, that they just shut up. It's a great defense.

The real answer is that kids are little bastards to each other and everyone else. They have constand demands, and they alway smell like spit.

My customer said "They should ask me about raising kids, I have four and I could write the book. I don't even have to look," she continued, "I just feel them behind me and I tell them to get lost. Just a minute ago I yelled at a kid and when I turned, I realized she wasn't even mine! The look of fear and horror on her face was so awful, I almost had to buy her something to make her feel better."

I really liked that the woman said almost.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Drugs in the Dark

My mind whirrs as soon as I go to bed. Often I fall asleep with the television on, and wake up later to find that my mind will not sleep for talking to me. I walk to the other bathroom, go to a certain shelf, find a bottle of antihistamines and take one, replacing the bottle where it came from. Generally I can fall back to sleep relatively soon after that.

It has occurred to me that someone could change the contents of that bottle, or that they could just change the bottle, but I would recognize the shape in my hand, and the way the bottle closes.

It's a crapshoot, but since it's not a high traffic area, I'm going to go with trust.
I'm already tired.

Friday, July 04, 2008

Screwy Degree

Dee's mother was pretty miffed. She didn't want to lend Dee any money for a trip to Europe.
"You have to go out and get a job you don't like, just as everyone else does," her mother told her.
"Yeah, or be happy the rest of your life; good choice" quipped Fred, Dee's lover, on receipt of the news.
"Ma, I don't even know what those jobs are: Dee countered. "I mean, those jobs I could do that would pay me decent money and "benefits"; I don't even know the name of those jobs."
"That's just what I mean", her mother says, "You're 33 and you've been enjoying yourself all along and you used your inheritance and you haven't made any money at it, so you have to get a job. I'm not picking at you dear, but just have to get a good job."
"Ma, all the people who have those jobs have some screwy degree in paper work".
Dee's mother hates this theory. "What the hell do you mean by that?"
"You know Ma, like my cousin Bitsy who works for the government counting heads on wheat in Africa. What kind of degree does she have?"
Dee's mother is stumped "well, I guess, well, it's like in statistics or the law of averages" mom says still secure in her argument.
"Right" Dee says, "Just like I told you,; a scrwy degree in paperwork." Dee feels justified and virtuous no matter how much of a sponge she is beginning to sound like.
"Look Dee, there is no reason for you to criticize her, she got a good job with good pay, and you don't need a degree to find a job like that just because it's stupid".
This is great, thinks Dee, she can hardly wait to call her starving artist friends; they will think this is hilarious.

Denny's Story

My friend Dennis got some guns a few years ago. I guess what made me nervous was how drunk he was when he showed them to me, and how he was so proud to own them. He was going to sail the Caribbean, and feared the pirates, (there really are pirates in the Caribbean) so he got himself a gun, and a little pearl handled one for his girlfriend. He treated them like fine art. I was hoping they were not as loaded as Denny.
I have not seen him in a couple of years so when I saw him at his mother’s house, I asked “are you packin?’” like some gun moll in an old movie, but he did not get the reference.
He had brought his cats along, as his trip to mom’s was far from home. The cats were found as kittens, and as adults, were puffy black elegant animals with white skunk stripes in their lustrous hair.
It turned out that the guns were left at home. “That’s good” I said, “It’s not nice to visit your mother with cats and guns.”
That could be the name of a band Den will never be in, because he’s tone deaf, but he loves music and has no inhibitions about singing anytime, anywhere. Sort of like; guns and roses or cats and roses, or cats and guns….see how easily this gets out of hand?
Once, after Denny broke up with a woman that I was friends with, I told her that when he slept with me, he would lie in bed afterwards crooning country and western ballads, and that, combined with his smoking was what put me off him. “He never sang to me” the woman said.
“Not once? I asked.
“Nope, not once.” She returned. That was awkward as he was with her for years and with me about a week.
At that point, I apologized to her, but neither of us knew what for.