What Kind of Love Tube has Handles, Anyways?

Hold on to your breath— I have news… I met a girl and we weren’t (I repeat, we WERE NOT) in a vodka pool.  Hooray!  She is smart, has a healthy balance, and I really like the way her hips gently move to the beat of music that’s being piped in.  We’re not even gonna go into my jealousy for that clingy turtle neck that got 1:1 privileges throughout the evening.

“Wow!”

That and more are some of the machinations running through my head while I was gulping for air and watching her make dinner last night. Of course, the (polite) introvert in me can’t find a way to enunciate those feelings because I grew up in the South where girls don’t say things like that out loud to people they hardly know.  So, I’ve got to work on communicating more concretely*… if we make it to the point where those kinds of thoughts are welcome on the outside.  Right now, we’re interviewing each other for adaptable-enough characteristics, checking for fleas, and offering reading material to address all the layers of life: head, heart, & soul. 

I’ve been knowing since I left Louisiana that I need to keep my expectations in check if I meet someone to date, and so I’m using the adage from Terms of Endearment when Debra Winger was dying from cancer and her mom, Shirley McClain, was banging on the nurse's station.  As the doctor said to her, I'm saying to myself, "Hope for the best and prepare for the worst."  But, this is just love, not cancer, right?  This relationship will either:

   >  get to the next phase

   >  land in the friend zone, and we will wave to each other from opposite ends of the same lesbian gathering on some distant day**

I mean, it’s so easy in an all-girl community to just keep being girl…friends.  In fact, the perks can be better.  You get a ton of “extracurricular” honesty that a girlfriend rarely discovers (until after the breakup).  And, there never has to be a breakup.  Looking at the event from this perspective, friendship can be the marathon while swapping intimate energy is merely a sprint.

And, at my age, how do I know I need someone enough to let them in?   When you’re young, there’s that K.D. Lang effect—constant craving.  But when older, you enter into a relationship knowing that those feelings start out innocent and then seduce you into a vacuum where you lose track of all that you are and can be, bartering your last capsules of hope for one more day of love heroin.  Once that source of euphoric power moves into your heart &/or bedroom, you’re sliding against the wet slippery sides of an imprisoning tube where benevolent beings didn’t install handles and there doesn’t seem to be an exit portal until one or the other does something so blatantly unethical or immoral that there’s a U.S. Postal Address Change Form taped to a suit case at the front door step.  Yikes!

 How does everything start out so awesome and end up so not?  Is there another way to do this thing called love?  So, I think about that love tube without handles and I wonder why the Goddess would create such a powerful experience but not create safeguards.  Doesn’t she love us enough to help us avoid unnecessary heartaches?  Then, an idea boomerangs toward me.   If we were able to stop at each good feeling and analyze it, it seems that the experience would no longer be good or a feeling but merely a one-dimensional thought.  Maybe the Goddess wants the mind to think and the heart to feel, and for both of them to make things work within the same experiences—without safeguards or advantages, one over the other.   

*Note:    Thank you Dim Sum for this morning's conversation, "How an abstract person can keep an concrete person's interest."

**Note:  Unlike most multiple choice tests, the longest answer is not necessarily the correct one

What Does the Buddha Know About Nothing?

     All things are emptiness because they don't possess a true essence or nature.  When I
     see something and believe it exists, the imagery comes from the dynamic spirit within me.
     This is the illusion.  We, humans, assume that objects and people have a particular nature,
     but we are really projecting our own essence.  
                                                    - a summary of readings from Thrangu Rinpoche

When I lived in Baton Rouge, Dim Sum turned me onto Tig Nataro.   (You can find her on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSwzYB545hY).   I imagined that if I lived in “a real city,” I could go see her perform.  Now, in Austin, I can; so, I will. 

The show is a few days away and I haven’t invited anyone.  I tried to entice Dim Sum, but she’s not booked an afternoon plane that I know of.  I thought a friend might buy the other ticket (since my size 4 pants are sliding off my hips and a return of cold cash would feed me for days), but I keep having this nagging reminder that I've met a few women this month. 

It doesn’t take a mathematician (or readers of this blog) to count the reasons why I need to ask a date to go with me to Tig Nataro, but my mind keeps making lists with friend’s names who could be delightful dates.  Am I avoiding?  You already know that I think about what I’m thinking about all of the time.  I can safely say that after an internal audit, the word or its synonyms haven’t passed through the ticker tape.  So, I walk with a cock’s confidence that I’m not avoiding dating since I REALLY, REALLY want to do whatever that looks like. Still, I’m not picking up the phone, and the words aren’t coming out of my mouth.  

I tell myself that it’s for the sake of ease.  It will be much more better if I ask a friend. It's on a school night. It would be rude to ask someone to endure that traffic.  Better, I’ll ask my couple friends if they want to buy both tickets and have a nice evening out.

“Hmmm.” I think. “It sounds like you’re a-v-o-i-d-i-n-g.”

“Or just lazy,” me echoes.

The truth is that if I go out on a date, so many terrible things could happen.  I won’t even list the dozen that quickly filled my brain between 4 and 5 today.  Instead, I’ll tell you a story.  Recently, I met a really nice woman.  We were having a delightful conversation when she offered to buy me a beer.  (This idea excited me because any carbs are welcomed for nourishment sake).  We return to the table and a few of her friends show up. I imagine my life with her (at least the next 10 summers and Thanksgivings), and I imagine sitting at the table with her friends, sharing meals year after year.  I imagine I'll be lucky to make it through the first one before the leader (every group has an alpha dog) realizes that I’m struggling.  Naturally, the pack will want to protect their friend before I prove to be a freeloader—, a good for nothing.

“Stop! You’re right.” 

“It’s worse—, I hadn’t even finished half of that beer. “

I looked at the remaining ounces and wanted to gulp them down, chasing my anxiety.  I know I’ve had it rough with all of the moves with #3, and I’m starting over in a town that is as familiar as foreign.  (Austin population was at 1M when I moved and is at 4M, now.)  But, I’ve got a lot to offer.  At least, that’s what people tell me, and they don’t even know about my extra Tig Nataro ticket. 

The truth is that I’ve got all kinds of nonsense rambling around.  It’s good to be introspective but not to the point where I’ve carved up my strengths and bagged them for the bin. Being single is tough because no one touches you in an intimate way, emotionally or physically.  I’m stuck in my head 24/7.  Sometimes,on some days, a rude interruption from a lover would be the best cure-all.

“It’s just me against the world.”

But, being single can be rewarding.   I’m way less co-dependent.   I’m way more resourceful.  I get to sleep on both sides of the bed.  I get to eat anything directly out of any carton.  The list could go on.  The difference between being with someone and being someone seems to be that I’m accountable for my happiness.  If it’s not happening, it’s because I’m looking too far outside of my heart or head, seeing emptiness in objects and not living in my essence.

Frieda Whales says, "Give Peas a Chance and Share the Rainbows"

I spent the last two weeks of September preparing for PRIDE. (And, I spent  the past two recovering from it!)  In Austin, they have the parade in late Sept because it will finally be only 95 degrees hot.  Someone got smart and changed the rules.

“These summer parades are ridiculous.”

And, everyone said “Amen, you can't take off enough clothes!”

So, I was scrambling for SWAG.  (It’s that stuff people put their logo on and drop in a bag at a festival, conference, etc).  I’ve only been in Sales for a few months—, all of this is new.  When I realized I had a week to get my name on something, I knew I was in trouble. 

“I need rainbows!”

But, the gays stole the rainbow. 95% of Americans stopped buying them; China stopped making them; now, it’s hard to find them. I thought that maybe I would go to the east side of Austin that has a big Hispanic population.

“Mexico still makes rainbows,” I thought. “I could buy 500 pieces of something and print my logo on it.”

And, so I drove to the east side around noon and realized it was hot. I forgot about rainbows and started looking for aqua fresca stands, and then I thought that I might need to eat some lunch and popped into Joe’s Mexican bakery because it’s one of the last establishments that’s still in place or hasn’t changed names since the condos and new fancy buildings have begun to encroach. 

I used to live on the East side.  It was after college and before the area became trendy.  A friend who inherited a house that his dad built in the '40s let me live there for $100/month.  I used to walk across the field and I’d pass Joe’s.  I included it in my favorite poem, A Walking.  It’s 4 pages long but here’s a bit of it:

                                                                . . .

i hope,

a foot for each rail,

i want…

   I want

both feet on a rail,

   but my Body can’t balance—

i hop off.

   when forward takes my Soles

my weight falls

outside of those tracks;

   when me jars my Mind,

   my Crossroad dilemma dissipates,

i look up

over the ditch and through the marsh

and to the snot-green house,

   I am on my Way;

but i can’t take my body

and legs won’t go

   to that Apparition;

ugly before and uglier now—

    I feel ugly near its Frame.

will my head move

   from this Apparatus—

with its termite-eaten, swollen boards above

its warped, termite boards below;

   will my mind tend to my Mission

and buy my times?

                                                                                            

i should get some news and sit on the lumber;

     should I get some and not sit?

When will i know

   when I am There—

if i am before

   that Mound to climb?

six hundred feet far,

ahead of my head is joe’s mexican bakery,

      and with my Body balancing on

my legs

i am walking

    thinking of yellow molettos y pumpkin empanadas,

para mi angelo, la marana, mi amor.

      WHO remembers:

   to find enough Change

   to buy some News

   to go to the Pile;

to pass freddy’s house

faster than anywhere else,

because he pelts me with peaches;

when they are green—

   whip by Unseen,

   ‘cause We know

they’re not summer soft ones.

i ‘member

how to dart between his pellets—

   fasten my Worries

   lighten my Limbs

   glance beyond his Hailstorm,

moving quick as a speeding bullet.

i cross tracks and run on a road,

into some mud and find

      Silence.

   I stand forward

   stare Up,

into a chasm of sun’s flowers.

                                 

i see

black-brown buttons holding

green stems

holding blonde hairs,

   above My head;

   I know

      THEY

   give Life

to gold-white rays.

   I am full-length stretching

my arms

   touching Highest tips,

   Now.

i feel

   Their Fibers

   welcome Peace

   to Our body.

. . .

All of these memories and that yummy food made me forget about rainbows.  I dashed off to my next appointment with homemade tortillas in my belly.

Before the week was over, an artist made me my very own rainbow and we had them printed on car coasters.  It was fun to ask straight people.  All seemed eager to help me celebrate my people’s festival.  

As the week progressed and more of the city put out their flags, I saw lots of rainbows.  There were celebrations at many businesses throughout the week, and I attended as many as possible in hopes that I could share mine.  

“Would you like a coaster?  It has a rainbow to make you happy on your way to and from work.” 

I assured the festival goers with each of the 150 that I handed out.  (Don’t do the math.  There’s a lot I’m not telling you about my distribution methods).

Since the theme of this year’s PRIDE festival was Oz-tin, every kind of rainbow added to the colors of the parade.  (Apple employees brought 3,500 people wearing one on each tee shirt!)  I loved being amidst so many of these symbols that used to tap open the hope button in my mind.  But, that was the ’70s and ’80s and before the gays stole it. 

“Can’t we share the rainbow?”

This concept reminds me of when my goddaughter was 3. She would sleep over once in a while.  My second girlfriend set up a toddler-sized lady bug dome tent and added a few layers of padding on the hardwoods.  She, me & #2 weren’t ready for her to sleep all the way down the hall, alone. 

In the morning, I’d fill her belly with syrup and bacon, and we’d drive her home.  On one particular morning, #2 found a bag of pretzels under the seat or in the door or somewhere.  She had a few, and I had a few.  From the back seat, we hear a peep.

“Share.” 

15 years later, I still hear her voice in my head. I say it to myself—with her innocence—when I’m offering or wanting something.  

So, this idea that gays stole the rainbow and hid it in clear sight makes me sad.  I don’t want the straights to be without this symbol of hope, but I can't force them to share.

P.S.

Here's a video of the crew I was with: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128255673@N06/15210261329/?fb_action_ids=1509145139324014&fb_action_types=flickr_photos%3Ashare&fb_ref=w

Skipping Past Yoga and Landing in the Vodka Stream

I've been going full-steam ahead since I got home.  I'm trying to build a network to support my new career and it's disheartening that I don't have the right tools in my toolchest.  $10K and 6 months invested, I'm back—, looking for a familiar job with former peers who live in cubicles.  But, I can't let regret take root.  I've got to keep keepin' on.

I'd been working with a family, giving them every free minute and jumping through hoops when I more needed sleep or exercise.  At the end of the third week, the husband called and said they were headed back to Ohio and didn't need the home we'd put the 4th contract on.  My insides were fiery hot while I calculated the gas I'd spent for 500 miles of futility.  But the call came just in time to be facing Friday night happy hour.  For that—I am grateful.

At the beginning of the day, I'd planned to go to laughing yoga. But my knees buckled and my heart fell out.  I sat still, visualizing how—envious that—Robin Williams got his ticket off this planet.  I had to shift gears and get out of my head, get near someone.  Laughter and thought of giving up the ghost don't go together, so I opened my events calendar (thank you Facebook, for giving me more to do than I could ever ask for!) and headed to the Austin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival fundraiser.

It was a pay $20 at the door and drink until the cabinet is dry, so I gulped Deep Eddie vodka with grapefruit and cranberry and Texas Tea and plain ol' regular flavors.  A nice man— let's call him Danman—adopted me.  We stood and watched an ice sculptorist who was dressed in thick leather and could have been mistaken for Eddie in Rocky Horror Picture Show.

When Danman would return with freebies,  we'd stand and watch the chainsaw slip through clear ice blocks, and I'd suck good vibes from Danman's aura.  (Hey—, he had plenty to spare!)  He was sweet; he was human, and I know that a benevolent deity sent him to keep me company until she wanted my attention.

You can imagine that I was p-l-a-s-t-e-r'd by the time she stood beside me, talking casually about the goings-on as if people drink custom-crafted vodka in motorcycle repair shops everyday.  She was 5 foot nothin' & 90 lbs wet, and I couldn't get oriented fast enough to form more than one dangling clause at a time.

"Is that your husband?" she asked when my partner in crime, Danman, went for another free round.
"Him?" I looked at my feet.  "He's nice."
"I thought you were married."
I stare forward, "Why?"
"You're with him."
Numb to the thought-- how anyone could confuse me for straight?
"It's the purse," She points.  "Are you gay?"
I cock my head back as if to say, what kind of question is that? And, the extra vodka in my system adds a few pounds of force to my equilibrium.
"I saw you."
I'm just beginning to find the connections between my mind and tongue. I turn to make sure she's not looking at, talking to, someone behind me.
"I saw you earlier.  I wanted to know you."
I feel her words push against the fruity vodka current, making it flow counter-clockwise.  I turn to her. "Wanna go outside--so we can talk?"

Drop the Drawbridge and We Will Show You Our Bellies!

“When I was a little boy…”

Nope.  There’s a song in there, but it’s not mine.

When I was a little lesbian, a friend and I went into this bar.  It was the kind of bar that mothers warn children about; it’s the kind of bar that burns memories into your mind that aloe can’t ooze away.  So—being back in Austin—I had the opportunity to go back, and I did.

Austin—especially that area—has changed, become trendy, and the bar has modified their marketing.  But now, condos are encroaching and a new one will ultimately bring the death of The Chaindrive as well as 200 year old oak trees where Davy Crockett probably slept on his way to the Alamo. 

I was in the neighborhood for a “networking” event with the Austin Gay&Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.  It’s a good group of business owners who get together and swap cards.  The Rainforest Partnership (http://www.rainforestpartnership.org/) spread out trays of munchies and stocked a bar. (Both staples made us gay while the philanthropists talked about their mission in a land far away that might be preserved if humans, here, would stop exhausting about and consuming so much stuff.)  Because these particular hostesses aren’t gay and about 20% of the attendees are gay-friendly, I’m used to bumping into a real and in-the-flesh straight person who has infiltrated our fortress.  In this case, they had actually dropped the drawbridge so we could cross their moat. 

I begin a conversation with a woman who is indubitably a mom. You know my gay aunt was a mom, but this one had a different rhythm.  She hands me her card…”

And we begin to talk about her work with faith-based parents who are actually trying to maintain a relationship with God as well as their gay child(s).

“WAIT!”  and, “don’t leave.” I know you’ve heard this spill. You’re probably yawning or pissed off that I would bring it up, here, in our private, safe place. 

“After all we’ve been through?!” you might have already said to me at supersonic, angry speed.

“I know.” This problem came up at the last Austin Gay&Lesbian Chamber luncheon after another friendly was supposed to be introducing her business.

Instead, she launched a presentation about being a kid, with her goofy siblings, on the family farm.  

“We didn’t know that our church was bringing gays to show them what their family could be like.”  She goes on to say, “When I started my business, I wanted to specialize in gay tax law so that I could…”

Well, you can imagine that this didn’t go over with the boys—at all! They were all haughty and angry that she would even say the word ‘religion’ in front of them.  “Did she really expect them to forgive her for brainwashing those gay men!”  And, it didn’t go over with the girls because they just wanted to learn about her tax business. “Why didn't she get to the point?” And, I thought it was awesome that she showed her belly.  (But, I was wearing a Vince Camuto dress that day, and how is it not possible to feel great in that?)

So, this woman—Susan, the mom—had walked from Rainforest, across the street, and into Chaindrive.  She sits down with a longneck and her husband—right there—where men have done some pretty excruciating things to each other with and without wearing or slapping leather against raw skin.  But, there wasn’t much chance that we were going to talk about that with them.

After the first hour of listening to the old and young gays, it was clear that the friendlies just wanted to be...with us.  They might have been only as comfortable as I am whenever I invite myself to a Hispanic family’s fiesta. (I’ve done it to strangers and distant friends of friends because I’m white bread.  I need to get a little culture somewhere. Often, I’m the only one who speaks English, but I don’t care because they make the best friggin’ homemade everything, and then we all smile and baile!)  My example might not apply. But I’m trying to say, "Not all people communicate with words. Sometimes it's good to just sit and swap energy without our mouth-a-phones."

But the friendlies listened, actively, to my rant about Christians “who have a responsibility to witness to the souls of gays” and “not turn their backs on children who were raised to have a relationship with God” while they “build and support outreach programs for prisoners who have murdered and raped…”  You can imagine that this topic, colliding with my 3^rd longneck, ushered in a personal pain about my paternal DNA donor who showed me one too many Bible verses about unconditional love.  But, these two listened—actively without saying, “You’ve got to let that go; you’ve got to get over it; you’ve got to move on."  They weren’t trying to ease their guilt by easing my pain.  They were just being human…with me.

So, I say—it’s our time for healing.  We’ve been playing into the hands of those who want us to disappear.  No more cowering in dark places on bar stools. Our souls get to breathe, swapping energy with all kinds of other (healthy) souls like They and Them do every day of their lives.

Our minority clan is at that time in history where stinky ol' Aunt Ethel wants to give us a wet hug and a tight kiss.  It's our chance to open up and embrace those people who have slammed, and sometimes nailed, our closet doors shut, and picketed the sidewalks in front of boy scout dens, and dismissed millions of us for having the potential to marry livestock since the first patriarchs of the Bible brought their floods, locusts, and human sacrifices.

Humanity has waited at least 10,000 years. It's a great time to be alive—, dear baby God! If we’re going to be accepted by them, we have to accept them.  It’s a simple equation kind of mental math: war makes war, good sees good, etc. 

We teeter on the precipice of a new day and our generation is privileged to participate in it. Before each soul releases its mortal coil, we—the gays—deserve to be seen and heard (and I’ve been single for 3 years, so I need to be felt).  The only way they’re going to know that we too bruise and bleed is for us to show our own bellies.  And, that's going to be tough through this evolution. 

"Are you with me?"

We all have different packaging.  There’s not a 1 single phenotypical characteristic that we wear that says, "Hello, I’m a fag.”  So, rip off that tag.  It should be clear that we belong with them….because we are them. 

And now it’s time. You’re gonna get it because I need to say it, because #3 moved me to SoCal where I mediated with the best of the granola crunchers, and because you really want it, and you really need to hear it…

“We are all one.”

Now roll over and show me your belly!

Let's Not Talk About It

We need to talk about it.  I've shied from the topic, but there's a threshold that each of us, ladies and drag-queen fakers, will cross.  That's when we will cry like banshees—releasing our pain into vacuous winds.
I want to be clear that I haven’t seen 'it.'  But--, it is throb, throb, throbbing on my horizon like a neon sign in a border town, short'd-out.  Everyone knows that I'm moving toward it.  This moment of matriculation waits, sandwiched and dormant between my smile scars.
Younger friends don't linger as long as they used to. That prompts me to fear that 'it' is obvious. So, I'm not sure what to do or how to dismiss or contain the anx that my young friends have for me... and for themselves (eventually).  'It' is a hateful thing, it is.  And, it will have me.

I'd only been back to Austin a few weeks when a strange guy from Cuba (literally off the plane from Miami, and then coming from a free night's stay with Austin's finest officers) said at the bar, in the boy's bar, “What was it like?” I knew exactly what he meant.  “I haven’t crossed that threshold, yet—thank you very much!”  And then his boyfriends distracted this country’s visitor with a sugary shot of something fruity that he didn't need (more of). 

         Since I know that I’m headed to the other side of Promise Land—, I’m not sure what I think I can do about it.  Did I ever, in the course of the last 30 years, receive a courtesy call on the 27th day?

         "Hell no!" 

         And, it’s not like I get to check a box:

⃝ go

⃝ NO GO!

…somewhere, and send my mandate to the Comptroller of my biological ecological order. If I'd ever had such an option--, it got lost in the mail that was forwarding from Baton Rouge.  Anyhoo, it's probably too late because I’ve begun to glisten.  (NOTE: I said ‘glisten’, not break out in hot hives.) 

         I can always date someone who might show me how to get through it.  She can reassure me of life on the other side. 

        “I’ve always dated women a bit older than me—two weeks, four years, and eight years older,” I tell myself.  “And it’s not like it slowed any of the other, older, women in my life.” 

        But, I feel like a vampire with a heightened sense.  Their blood flow has a different rhythm—I can feel it ooze, trudging uphill as if it doesn't have enough iron to get all the way up to the heart and freshen their systems.  Healthy bloodflow is like those pantyliner commercials where butterflies dip down to dance on sundropped hillsides. 

        “Why does the voice change?” I ask my mom.

        “I don’t know,” she says politely.

        She’s been a nurse for 30 years.  She knows. So, I present my question another way.
       “It’s not like my ears can detect that extra bit of bass in real life. But, there's a difference when we're on the phone.”

       “I don’t know,” mom repeats.

       She’s known me long enough.  It's not safe to follow some of my thoughts into the tunnel of despair.  She sits quietly until some other random stimulus interrupts our car ride and brings us to the junction of ice cream or margaritas or something yummy.  

To Have and to Hold Love

“How long?”

I raise an eyebrow like Mimi taught me.  It adds a slant to my pirate eye, complimenting my grin. It's my most readily available weapon.

“Hey there, I ask about you. That's my job. I'm you're friend."

I reply with a shrug, and I look passed feeble oaks with naked limbs.  “Three; it's been three. You know that.”

“Well, you look like a ghoul or something.  Besides, don't act bothered that I ask—, about you.”

I get up. The water is boiling or it's about to, and she is pricking anticipations that were pounding before I pushed the door bell button.

“I’m sorry—, but you're carrying so much dead weight. You need…” I hear her walk toward me in the kitchen nook.  "This isn’t healthy.”

My throat is full with something dry and heavy. I push out words while I hear her too close behind me. But, it's not unhealthy.”  I press her sternum, looking for a button so I can breathe, get space. I don’t look up. “We’re just too different.”

She finds enough of the pot handle to steer it.  The glass body drops and three microscopic bubbles sear my hand. She guides my other one with a loose lead, and I follow the folds of her cotton hoody. 

“I’m just going to take this off.”

I hold my breath. I hold the top buttons.

“No?” She looks up and cups the side of my face. “Ok, I’ll take these off.” She laughs that Joker laugh of soft glee while the five steel nubs pop in series, and then I’m standing with my flaky-white skin exposed in her intimate room with all the others who have been with her.  Here. 

She raises my hips to the top of her mattress, and I stretch out of my coat.  She opens every other inch while she talks of the first time I made her laugh, of that food fight that took us years to clean, of that weekend at the beach with her crazy ex, of that week in a cabin with mine, and of her love for me. 

“I love that we can share this love.” 

She presses, pulling the top sheet over us.