Lowest of the Low

I remember one day when I was still living at home - I must have been 18 or so - and my mother stopped me at the door.

"You're not going out of the house like that!"

I was wearing one of my favorite blue plaid shirts, button-down short sleeved and very traditional casual - sort of a Hollister style, if Hollister actually existed back then in 1936.

Except it was torn in the back. Not a huge tear; it was just enough a vertical slice going from the tail to just above where the pants waist was, so a scintilla of flesh was exposed just above the belt.

"What's the big deal?!"

"No son of mine is going out like that! You are going to take that shirt off THIS INSTANT!!!"

She was mortified. I couldn't believe her reaction was so great as to this infinitesimal jot of skin on my back.

I met overreaction with overreaction., naturally.

"FINE! YOU CAN HAVE THE FUCKING SHIRT!!"

And I grabbed the shirt over each pectoral, and I ripped it, scattering the buttons and completing the tear up the back, so that I ended up with the shirt in half in both hands. It was very David Banner, except for the fact that I was probably 100 pounds. I threw the shirt on the ground and ran to my bedroom and slammed the door -- I was very much the teenager. (The pisser is that I cut off my nose to spite my face - I loved that shirt!)

I said right then and there that I would never do that - everyone has his or her own style, and he or she has every right to express their taste and individuality, as long as it isn't obscene or illegal. I knew at this point I would never be a father, but I would be the favorite uncle or bestest godfather, and my wards would surround me and say I was the coolest adult ever! because I allow free thinking and would never cater to societal norms like every other grownup.

Cut to now: what in God's name is up with these guys wearing their pants below their asses?! Has everyone seen this? What the hell is that?! I hope it's regional, but upon doing some research, it seems not the case.

A slight 'pant sag' in the kids these days isn't that bad - in fact, I think it sort of has a aura of masculinity about it. But NOW! the pants are worn below the cheeks nd its just plain stupid and detrimental to one's day-to-day life. Why would you want to walk like that? And here in NY, we're all taking stairs up and down to the subways - can you imagine going up the stairs with your pants around your thighs? What is wrong with you people?!

It seems this whole thing started in prison, of all things, because belts aren't allowed, so it was commonplace to have your pants hang low. Then, when they came out of prison, they continued the 'style' to show their street cred.

And now, I see nice guys - good, hard-working, non-street cred 20-somethings wearing their pants like the village idiot.

And how are their kids going to learn to walk? Are all the infants now going to start emulating these guys when they learn to walk, so that even after this fad goes away, the teenagers in 15 years will still be walking like a penguin carrying his egg? Good Lord I hope I'm dead if that's the case.

Hold on- I just found a website saying the same thing I am: http://www.angrywhitedude.com/. This extremist right wing zealot is ranting about a guy that shot himself dead due to a loaded gun being carried in his sagging pants. One response to his beef is "I hope you're not encouraging people to carry unloaded weapons! You need two hands to load a gun, particularly a glock, and women would be particularly vulnerable."

I changed my mind.

Best Wishes

I just hit a milestone. Or, more apropos, a big huge milestone hit me right in the face. Or, more apropos yet, a mileboulder. Big goddammed fucking mileboulder. After this summer, life will never be the same (although if you think about it, after every little twitch of the muscle, life is never really the same. The course of the rest of your life is altered by every single seemingly random minutiae of movement. You choose to step on a bug, you leave a smear of goo, someone slips on the goo, breaks their hip, BAM! paraplegic for the rest of their life. So quit squishing bugs!). And I thought I would let it go by as if nothing happened. Can't be done.

I had a birthday. I turned.... I can't say it. It's a big number. It's a number that turns out to be one less than the average age one becomes a grandparent.

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN???!!!!! I'M NOT THAT PERSON!!!! I AM NOT ONE YEAR OFF THE AVERAGE AGE ONE BECOMES A GRANDPARENT!!!!!

Look at my writing!! I have the emotional maturity of an 18 year old! I hold torches (while simultaneously wanting to torch) ex boyfriends. I have BOYfriends, for godsakes!

I know I'm supposed to cherish the passing years, take joy in fantastic health, feel blessed for where I've come from, blah blah. To which I respond, fuck you, you piece of candy assed shithead and I hope you choke on your own sugar-filled bile while having a diabetes induced coma. And that's my birthday wish.

Do you think this is where I envisioned myself at this age? Managing an industrial tool rental department in a large city? Living with a roommate in lower-middle class neighborhood (but it's a fantastic apartment and a great roommie)? Buying moisturizers? Economizing?!

I do not celebrate this birthday; I tolerate this birthday. This is the birthday where I say, 'Finish my Master's? Ehh, why bother....' This is the birthday where I can no longer shop in Abercrombie and Fitch. This is the birthday where I contemplate the advantages of joining AARP (in a few years). This is the birthday where I don't pluck the greys.

Don't misinterpret me- I'm not sad or regretful. I'm shocked that this came so fast. Wasn't I sneaking cigarettes in the back yard just a few years ago? Doing 11pm rehearsals for Naturalism class just a few months ago? Smoking doobies yesterday? What the Hell have I been doing?

So resolved: I'm not where I want to end up, so I'll take steps to where I want to be. Maybe I won't get to where I planned, but I can try.

I'll figure out where I want to be. Soon.

I just saw the 'We Are the World' video remake for Haiti for the first time. I didn't know anyone in the video except Barbra Streisand and Tony Bennett. God - I'm 46.

Tears for Years

I cry. For a fortysomething year old man, I cry a lot.

And it's not about real stuff. I mean not about things like a broken heart, or paths not taken, or other self pity shit. Stupid stuff makes me cry.

I wonder if that's expected of someone like me or not; the first time people meet me, do they think, 'Oh, he seems like a crier?' I don't think so, but I also think I look a lot better than I actually do, so my self-image may be slightly skewed. (I have half-heartedly attempted online dating, and twice when we got to the point of exchanging real photos, not just the ones in the best lighting or the professionally done ones, I never heard from them again. Of course they were both in their early 30's, so maybe the reality of dating someone over forty for them didn't match the fantasy. I probably couldn't have really followed up on it anyway. Incidentally, I'm not too worried about it: the relationships I have and had are decidedly with guys that are way off the Richter scale attractive, so I assume that, while they undershot, I have to be close. The rule is that the people you date are always plus or minus two from where you are on the attractiveness scale. Husbands and wives don't count; love throws the rules out the window. Whatever love is. Point being that Guy Lepore, if that's your real name, I'm not offended. You're very cute and I think you're closer to 25 than 30 anyway, so a conversation about skateboards and Justin Bieber would have been imminent, and I know nothing about either. Conversely, you probably have no idea what the president has and hasn't done as part of his campaign promises, let alone who the president is. Just saying I'm not bitter.)

I will get choked up at the movies. Every movie. I mean almost every single movie. 'Avatar' was not a good movie - it had a predictable a trite story line with an ending to match. But the effects were so overwhelming I cried. (Not every movie- I saw one Tyler Perry movie in my life, and the entire theater cried except me. It was an awful movie with a story line that seemed passable only because the acting was so much worse than the script. And what the fuck was Gladys Knight doing in that piece of shit movie? Just because you're a black celebrity does not mean you have to do a Tyler Perry movie. She should be ashamed. sidenote: my ex, the one appearing in previous posts, needed a Kleenex throughout that movie. That should have been a sign.)

I will bawl recounting the storyline of a particularly moving film. I can't even say the title "In America" without getting a lump in my throat. Or "Lion in Winter." Not that the story is so touching, but that Katharine Hepburn is so good in that movie, I am humbled by her existence. My own humility makes me cry.

Dogs make me cry. I met a Bernese Mountain dog yesterday, Lily, that was so beautiful and amiable and trusting and bouncy and monstrous pulling her mistress around that my eyes welled in awe and jealousy, due to Lily doting on that lady being pulled around and not on me. The stories of Steve (the dog that previously appeared in the upper left corner-I lost the pic!) being such a monster get my eyes watery. Steve has now taken to nipping at his real owner's calves while his dinner is being prepared. And Steve can't help himself; his excitement is so massive that he can't contain it within himself. His honesty and reckless abandon is tear-forming.

Animal abusers will bring a tear. Ashley Yeater made the news because she gave up her dog rather than her boyfriend, who was convicted of throwing her yorkie down so hard that he broke six ribs and lost an eye. Ashley said, "Let's keep things in perspective: it's only a dog." Ashley makes me cry.

Forgetting someone's birthday will make me cry, apparently. It makes me feel so selfish and egocentric, which I don't think I am, that I cry at myself.

Ricardo Antonio Varela Peralta makes me cry if think about him too much. He's not supposed to not be here, and we weren't together long enough.

But I laugh alot, too, just in case you're worried that I'm chronic. But mostly at myself. Like at how much I cry.

Friends, Lovers, Stylists, Bloggers

Well, I couldn't be more pissed! So I have this love/hate relationship with me ex/current/ex. But he is such a dick.

When we first broke up, last summer (right before my birthday, which I don't think is a coincidence at all), it was childish and shocking. I merely mentioned to him that I found it insensitive and demeaning when, in the movie theater, he hissed at me that "You're not helping the situation!" when I whispered that I wish the other theater-goers would stop talking. It was a hiss. Big ol' nelly hiss.

So of course his response to me when I said I felt a little put off by his reaction to my whisper was to put his hand in my face and stomp off to his train platform. When I sit and wait with him, telling him he might feel better if we talk about it, he puts his headphones on and didn't speak to me again. For two months.

But I'm the forgiving type - what can I say? And I think too the fact that he had the final say rubbed my craw for that span of time. So I contacted him via text. Asked him if was doing well, and to tell him I was just thinking about him.

"Who is this?" was the text I got back.

SO, one would think to say 'fuck this', right? But yet I still pursue. All right, I admit it, the sex was amazing. A-MAZE-ING. (I'm reluctant to write that, not because of any protestant editorialism, only that I hate to advertise for him. But it's also an ad for me isn't it?) Male anatomy (read: penis) is like a dog's nose: it can lead you where you know you shouldn't be going, and you know you're a bad dog for turning the garbage can over, but the immediate gratification is worth the potential outcome. And who knows? Maybe the the upside-down garbage can will never be discovered. Worth a shot, right?

And don't get me wrong - I can get along with Ex. We always have a good time when we're out. We understand each other. And while our interests are fairly dichotomous, we can talk for hours, look into each other's eyes, and know that we're each thinking, "ehh. Good enough. I'm not gonna kill him, so...."

Well, it's all past. We have made a not-entirely-unhealthy break-up. It's been about two months or so. And we still talk, and hang out occasionally. And he still does my hair (tonight). Free. Not too bad: friends with the ex, right?

He's blocked me from his Twitter account. He's taken me off as a Facebook friend, and put up some wall that I can't even see that he is still on Facebook (a mutual friend is still friends with him. That's the only way I know he still has a Facebook account). AND he has a blog site on this same portal! Which he was doing whilst we were together and he never told me! Granted, it's one of this 'paste and copy' blogs, where he reads something and relays it on his blog - totally unoriginal-, and he hasn't added to it since October, but all the same, right? Wouldn't you say to your partner, 'Hey, I started a blog. You should check it out?'

Just for that, I'm not telling him that I just wrote about him when I see him. Tonight. To get my hair cut. Free.

Dear John and John and John,

Dear Marles,

I'm sorry I can not see you again. It's not you - it's me.


When I met you at the gym, you seemed like a very nice gentleman doing your leg presses very diligently. It was actually a nice amount of weight; your legs must be very fit.


I should have somehow gotten you to stand up. Totally my fault.


It's not that I don't like overweight people. Most of the people in this country are fat and I have many friends that are overweight. I just can't imagine spending the night with them. Well, most of them. And you.


And also, I assumed when you accepted my invitation, you were single. As you described to me in several details that most people would be embarrassed of and probably not even admit until at least the third date. Maybe ever.


Going through your boyfriend's Blackberry - not endearing. OK, so you found some phone numbers and messages that makes him seem untrustworthy. I give you that. Apparently, he has justifiable reasons to not trust you, also. Besides that you went through his Blackberry, YOU WENT OUT ON A DATE WITH ME!!!!


And really?!! You bit him?!?! On the cheek?! In an attempt to kiss him in the middle of the Blackberry fight?!? I'm trying to visualize how one tries to kiss someone and it turns into a bite on the cheek. Can't see it. Nor do I see it in my future.


So thank you for the text today, and maybe yes we can see each other again. But either you're paying or we're going dutch. No, you're paying because that'd be the only way it'd be worth it.


Sincerely,
Bob


p.s. Word of advice: don't get the tattoo of an arrow on your back pointing to your ass with the caption "Entrance Here." You'll regret it at some point in your life. And could you ever go swimming?


Dear Carlos,

I'm sorry I can't see you again. It's not you - it's me.

You are actually a very nice gentleman and you are going to make some one very happy. Probably. Someone really odd. And appreciates your 'visions.'

I just don't know how to take it when you look at me and tell me you see images of stags and dreamcatchers in a doorway. Is that a compliment? I mean I guess I'll take it that way, since you told me that most people give you panoramic visions, and I give you very specific visions. But can I really live up to it for a long term relationship? Or pretend that I find it unique and fascinating beyond the second date? And guess what - if you wake up with a different chant that is somehow 'communicated' to you each morning, and your chant for the day we got together had something to do with butterflies, and you actually SAW a poster of a butterfly when we were in Chelsea, it's not a sign. Butterflies are kind of gay, and Chelsea is kind of gay. It's like thinking about sand, and later that day you go to the beach. Not a sign of anything - it's just nature.

Also, don't order rose' wine on the first date. Or ever, but particularly on the first date. Does not
impress. Well, it actually does impress, but not the good kind of impressing.

Sincerely,
Bob


Dear Eru,

I'm sorry I can't see you again. It's you.


You are very very very cute and I wish it were different.


I'm all about a fantasy. In the right time and place, everything's game. But I'm probably not going to call you 'daddy' in public. And forgive me for being an ageist and an elitist, but shouldn't YOU be calling ME 'daddy?' It just seems more appropriate for a thirty year old dancer to call the older and, frankly, more established man the daddy. And giving me the nickname of 'Slip and Slide' was a little presumptuous and honestly, something you'll never ever know.


And I'm not sure if you are able to stop drinking. You drank A LOT. Now, you may say that it wasn't that much and you can handle your booze. However, the fact that you fell asleep in a position that most people don't really fall asleep in, tells me that you indeed drank a lot that I didn't see. There was already a lot that I did see.


You'll be fine. I don't think you even remember my name. Actually, I don't think I ever told you. Thank God.


Sincerely,
Bob

Here's a good tidbit

I'm in Phoenix now. I decide I'm going to cook dinner for the folks, but I need some items from the store. Like rice-mom has rice, but she has it already cooked and in the freezer. I have no idea whats she planning on doing with it. No wonder dad doesn't like rice!

So, upon returning from the store, about a block away from mom and dad's condo, there's an ambulance and a sheriff's car at an apartment building.

"Slow down!" Mom screams. So I slow the car down and mom is careening her neck to the building. "Do you see anyone?!"

"No, mom."

"Wait! Here comes the stretcher.. shoot! Turn around!"

"What?"

"Turn around! I want to to see if they bring anyone out."

"Mom, do you no anyone in that building?"

"No. I'm just being curious. Make a U-turn!"

So I turn - in the middle of the street - and we see the EMTs coming out with an empty stretcher.

"I bet someone hit his wife and she refused treatment. Mark my words."

So of course I say, "Now mom, how do you know that?"

AND she says, "Well, of course that's what happened. This is that type of neighborhood. Why else would they bring an empty stretcher?"

This is where we have all learned to just nod our head and say, Oh. OK.

The Joy of Finishing Time Off

No one meant any harm, I'm sure. My family is really not intentionally malicious, I don't think. But the best kept plans....


I'm just finishing up a stay with the family. I haven't seen them in many years. My brother has been at least ten years, and probably much much more. My sister has been maybe five years, and I think the same with my folks. Ahhh, my folks.


So I arrived in Phoenix the day after I was scheduled to arrive (Delta has the collective communication abilities of a kindergarten class. The short story is that they sent me to the wrong terminal to catch my flight, and when I asked when boarding was, they basically told me to sit down and shut up and read the screen. Maybe I'll write about that at some point. It's SO not the story!) Everything's great on arrival to Phoenix. I meet up with Mom and Dad, have dinner with some family friends and call it a night. Nice.

The next day, we hop in the car for a lovely and scenic drive to Colorado. Now, my dad has cataracts in his right eye and can't see out of his left, so the driving is going to be divided between Mom and me. Me as the primary driver, of course. Oh wait! I forgot to mention we had to pack up some food for the trip (we were staying in time shares) that was going to go bad if we didn't take it with us. Like the Jell-o with carrots and celery shavings in it (I told mother that I doubt anyone would eat it. "But it's healthy!" was her response.). And the leftover pasta with marinara sauce (or 'noodles with the red topping,' as we like to call it). Of course, the travel time is a day and a half, so the ice all melted into the leftovers, and we had to pat the 'food' with papers towels to try to absorb the water out of the noodles and Jell-o. It went uneaten, even after we salvaged it (!) with paper towels. Mom really tried to martyr that one - '(sigh)I guess I'll just throw this out. Are you SURE no one wants this?' Oh, and Dad's deaf, but I'm convinced that those 'hearing aids' he's adopted are actually ear plugs.

So I drive quite a few hours. It's a long, boring drive. And lots of U-turns. "BOB! That's your turn!" was a common scream en route. My navigator was less than effective, hence the U-turns. "What!?" was also a common scream. "Goddammit, Roy!" - another favorite.

After quite a bit, Mom says, "Let me drive." I'm thinking that this is OK; I need to rest my eyes and our goal is to go only maybe a couple of hours more to Santa Fe.

To say that Mom swerves while driving is like saying whales enjoy a nibble of krill now and again. A massive understatement. At first I thought it was just the wind catching the car causing it to veer. Just a gust of wind nudging the car into oncoming traffic, and Mother thankfully corrects this near catastrophe. Not the case. After the eighteenth near head-on, Dad yells, "Carol, what the Hell?!" Mom screams in reply, "Goddammit Roy, I'm cleaning my nails!"

Thirty-second swerve: "Mom, do you want me to drive?" "No! I just need to get a Kleenex out of my purse." (She keeps her purse on the floor under her feet when she drives. Just in case she needs to grab anything.)

Seventy-fifth: "Mom, really. Let me drive." "I'm fine! I thought that lady in the lane next to me was reading a magazine I wanted to pick up. I was trying to see the cover."

And to say that Mom tailgates is like saying George Bush doesn't care about black people. Another massive understatement. You know how angler fish have that glowing little worm thing that attracts the little fish to its mouth? Well, tail lights are like the angler fish to my mom's little fish, only this little fish has two other helpless fish in tow.

As I involuntarily grab the dashboard to prepare for the impact, mom says, "What is the matter with you?! I have the cruise control on!" as if the cruise control somehow corrects itself before collision. Maybe she has an idea that cruise control is sort of like the Autopilot in "Airplane!" and is going to drive the car safely into the passing lane. I don't know. That whole game of 'Guess what Mom is Thinking' has become a very old game for us siblings.

The next day I resume driving ("Why don't we stop in Albuquerque tonight instead of making it all the way to Santa Fe? I'm sure it'll be cheaper." That's how I got Mom to give up driving - just throw the $ sign at her.), and we stop for some gas. Mom says, "Bob, let me drive now." I said, "No. Why?"

"Because I feel like I'm going to fall asleep."

"WHAT!?! Then you REALLY aren't driving!"

"Oh, just keep me occupied. I'll be fine."

And this is just the flipping trip TO our destination! I thought it was my neo-conservative brother that was going to screw up everything.

Well, not him exclusively.