Author: crbfay

A sheer leotard and a sexy bug: Experiencing Ric Ocasek.

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Ric Ocasek’s death this past weekend hit me kinda hard. At this point I’m pretty inured to the musical icons I grew up with dying. Prince. Tom Petty. Heck, I even choked up a bit when I saw that Eddie Money passed away a few days prior. “Shakin’” will always be one of those songs that I scream along with when I’m alone and cannot be shamed for my awful, awful voice.

When I heard that Ric was gone, I needed to sit out on the porch for a while and be quiet. Then I put on Candy-O.

Ric was gut punch. 

For me music is an even more of a memory trigger than an aisle of Yankee Candle scents. And the deepest of those memories have a visual component:

–Sometimes it’s a movie I’ve conjured up in my head based on the lyrics. I do a harrowing Edmund Fitzgerald.

–Sometimes I imagine I’m up there performing a song. Usually that song is “Caribbean Queen.”

–Sometimes it’s the layout of the room where I listened to that song. Whenever I see ice glazing the trees, I’m back in our family room on Long Island during the ice storm of 1973 —the ice storm in The Ice Storm. The power was out for days; my dad was out off town on business; my mom was low on smokes. We huddled in sleeping bags and blankets in front of the fireplace. Our only entertainment was a very sturdy, pretty huge transistor radio clad in avocado green pleather. WABC 77 had this thing where they would play a particular song twice in a row, declaring it a “WABC repeat repeat RE-PEAT!” before starting it over. WABC’s chosen song, again and again, while the world froze? “Top of the World” by The Carpenters.

But so many of the musical memories lodged in my brain are tied to the promotional ephemera put out to promote the work. Album covers, videos, even those carnival prize mirrors —I stole three of them from my job at the Zoo Amusement Park: Mick Jagger’s lips, Pink Floyd’s Wall, and a psychedelic nightmare left over from REO Speedwagon’s “Riding the Storm Out” days. They fit perfectly one atop the other on the side of my stereo cabinet.

My intense memories of Ric Ocasek and The Cars stem from this non-musical side of music.

I will get thru the obvious one first. I lost my virginity on a Friday the 13th in front of the wooden altar of a 25” console television playing MTV and the video for “You Might Think.” It won the very first MTV award for best video. In it, Ric cute-stalks a model who looks like his famous model wife but is not his famous model wife thru an oversaturated fluorescent world set against a black background. Video effect follows video effect until Ric turns into a bug. Continue reading →

Panic with purpose; or, that man is clearly trying to slip me a Quaalude!

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Part 3 of… “Being vulnerable in the face of sexual assault (when you’re pretty sure it was your vulnerability that got you assaulted)”

This past Friday, I had what can only be described as a “beneficial panic attack.”

I had to flee a location. That alone was not unusual. Since I confronted the loser who sexually assaulted me this past May, I have fled more rooms than I have entered. Yes, it’s a paradox that violates all rules of space/time. I know that. I’m not here to explain quantum mechanics to anyone, but I live in a constant state of Schrödinger’s Panic Attack. Every room can contain a variable that will trigger me OR it may not. It’s completely random; I can never be sure until I open the box. And I never stop opening boxes.

PTSD messes with your sense of space and time. I’m told it’s the amygdala.

Entering new rooms has pretty much devolved into the same multi-point kabuki of driving around the block, breathing exercises, looking for exits, etc. Over and over again.

Once that is all done. I can how scan the horizon like a meerkat looking for that single point of information that I can extrapolate into a dire threat to my person.

Extrapolating from single points of information is what gives each panic attack it’s own nuances, it’s own notes. When you extrapolate from a single point, you can go anywhere. Literally. That’s how geometry works. Each panic is different, which is why each one imprints itself on the palimpsest of my PTSD brain. “Indelible on the hippocampus,” as the wise woman said. Continue reading →

Yes! And I would like to stop talking about sexual assault now. Please?

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Part Two of series that’ll be as long as I need it to be:

“Being vulnerable in the face of sexual assault (when you’re pretty sure it was your vulnerability that got you assaulted)”

Now that I’ve moved past the etymological implications and diversions of the word “vulnerable,” I need to get busy being vulnerable. Seems like the best way to be vulnerable would be to interact with people.

Of course, it was a “people” that assaulted me. There will have to be some work to do before I can go back to feeling my standard annoyance in crowds rather than dread.

Fear has a way of flattening. Going to a bar or a party is like one of those tactical ranges you see in cop shows. Two-dimensional cut-outs pop into view, and you have to decide RIGHT THEN AND THERE whether or not the old lady with the grocery bags is packing heat. Except I have to peer into the cut-out’s mind and figure out whether or not they’re not going to listen to me if I say no —either that night, or a few months down the road. I shouldn’t have to go all Minority Report just to grab a beer and be around people.

But not all people are that smirking loser, although sometimes it seems all people are smirking-loser-adjacent. Since I confronted what happened, it’s been very easy, too easy, to recall all his behaviors as threatening. Then it’s a quick step to concluding that every action by every person is a threat.

But, there must be literally dozens of people in Greater Columbus who are not him. And nothing like him. If not, I’m screwed anyways. Continue reading →

Vulnerability, I am com-miiiiiiiing!



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immigrtant song

Part One of series that’ll be as long as I need it to be:

“Being vulnerable in the face of sexual assault (when you’re pretty sure it was your vulnerability that got you assaulted.”

The worst aspect of dealing with the PTSD caused that smirking bastard sexually assaulting me is that I’ve been closing myself off from others. It’s not just that I’m scared to step foot in a gay bar. That I can understand. Unfortunately, I’m also avoiding friends, family, and anyone who can help.

My therapist says I should be more vulnerable, more open to these interactions. I’m not going to get thru this alone.

But isn’t vulnerability what got me into this mess? I certainly was vulnerable when he assaulted me. Now I’m supposed to be some sort of therapeutically vulnerable?

Etymologies will help. Etymologies always help. They’re not just for SAT prep anymore.

As I tried to wrestle with the contradiction of being vulnerable when vulnerability got me in the situation where my therapist says I need to be vulnerable, I went down the etymology hole. I go there whenever my therapist introduces me to a concept I don’t quite grasp.

New concepts from the therapist’s office often land with a bit of a clunk with me. It’s not that they don’t make sense —the words are never “big” words —it’s more that they come into my brain thru the wrong door, too fast. Researching the etymology helps me guide them thru the proper door at a proper speed. Continue reading →

Facing Pride (when the guy who sexually assaulted you will probably be riding on a float)

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And when that float comes by, people will cheer. It’s a very popular organization. People like popular things.

I do not feel particularly popular this year.

He’s a very active member of a very active organization that has always mustered a float, going back to the days before every company with a slack-jawed intern’s ability to Photoshop a rainbow onto promotional materials had a float. I assume he will be up the night before putting some sort of tissue paper rainbows on the float because of course rainbows.*

*No one will be able to figure out it’s a float of gays without the agreed-upon signifier. People love agreed-upon signifiers as they are scalable all the way from billboards down keychains down to Pride-themed quarks…“Take this fun quiz to find out if you’re a Top Quark or a Bottom Quark. Then alter your fundamental quantum architecture to show them ‘Love is Love.’”



But I digress. Let me. Let. Me. Digressing is the only way to keep him out of my head now that I’ve confronted him. 

He is everywhere.

The actual incident took place over two years ago, but I had compartmentalized it away. I was busy walling off this particular anchorite even as I was calculating how much friction* was needed on my part to get this the hell over with.

*There has to be a happy medium friction. Not too enthusiastic. That would get it over with, but you need to demonstrate to him that you really, really wish had not chosen this current path that is fucking up your life even as it happens. Not enthusiastic enough, and it may never end.

When you’ve been reduced to mere provider of friction, you’re free to leave your body and wander your mind. You look for an empty chamber in which you can brick up all the emotions attached to whatever hell your body’s going thru. It’s called dissociating. It’s neither fun nor not-fun; that’s the point of it.

So, I walled off what he did; we remained friends; I met new people thru him. I actually had people to stand next to in gay bars. That’s pretty good for me as I am wondrously horrible at small talk. But, I have not been intimate with ANYONE in Ohio since. I am increasingly scared to be alone with people. I let other relationships, ones without sexual assaults wither. I wasn’t worth it.

The physical pain from being scared and clenched all the time sucked, too.

And the panic attacks. Don’t forget the panic attacks.

I had to confront. I had to let him know what he did to me. After getting triggered by particularly lame pass at a May 4th BBQ from a dude in a sad, confusing hat, I spent the next three weeks consumed with the notion that he thought everything was okay. I yelled at a lot of things and and a lot of people.

So, I wrote him a succinct note. Short declarative sentences. The biggest word was “compartmentalize.” I never used “sorry.” And, if you’ve ever spent five minutes with me, you know that’s a big fucking deal.

So, that’s that. Right? I mean, they released the Mueller Report, and the next day we got a functioning democracy back again, right? And my succinct note actually took longer to come into the world.

Everything is now great!

When you stop compartmentalizing something, the shit-covered anchorite you got in there runs amok. It smears the walls and tries the locks on other cells. Some of those open, and those shit-covered anchorites get to rampage, too.

His stupid face is everywhere, even in places it’s not. Week before last, I thought if I went to DC to twirl thru some museums, I could escape him. Lose myself in the loose structure of sightseeing. And, at times, it worked. It’s hard to be think of anything but the Hope Diamond when you’re looking at the Hope Diamond. I saw the moment when two 70 year old women discovered that LL Cool J stands for Ladies Love Cool James.

*

*Then they both tittered, blushed a little, and seemed to get lost in the giant hands Kehinde Wiley had given him (or he actually has; in that case… Damn!). Of course, this was all done in hushed tones, because Mr. Cool James was hanging in the same room as Amy Sherald’s rapidly iconic Michelle Obama. Michelle and LL were brooking no nonsense.

But those moments were fleeting. I couldn’t escape WHY I had driven three hundred miles thru the mountains. I didn’t want to go to DC; I wanted out of Columbus. I did not want to see him, did not want to think of him. So, of course, that’s all I did. I was miserable. I had panic attacks each time I tried to go out at night.

And now this weekend…



They will be parading him thru the streets of Columbus like some golden calf of non-consent. Over half a million folks —the biggest Pride in the Midwest (and West Virginia) —will cheer and smile when the float goes by, and he will smile back. In that moment, his smile and the crowd’s smiles will all be the same to me. I won’t be able to discern whether they mean happiness or threat. The worst shit comes with a smile.

I cannot forget that smile. It’s a smile that in an instant went from a sign of camaraderie and affinity to one of menace and uncertainty. He never stopped smiling, like steamrolling over my withholding of consent was just a fun game. I wasn’t attacked at knifepoint in a dark alley by some right-wing closet-case unfortunate —it happened on a pleasant afternoon, for the most part in my kitchen. After a bit of pleasant chit-chat.

And now I’m supposed to go out and make small talk? I rather stroll thru the parking lot of a dead mall in a dying suburb with glowing fifty-dollar bills stapled to my naked supple man-flesh. At least then I could reasonable be prepared for what happens.

Small talk is now a primary assault vector as far as I’m concerned.

I am overwhelmed by this new variable. I know in my logical brain, when I slow things down, that a smile and some banter are still just as innocuous as they always were. But are they? Were they ever?

What am I supposed to do when the float comes by?

I could stand up on a trash can, point, and go all Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasions of the Body Snatchers.

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J’accuse! 

The crowd will hush, turn to me, and I will clear my throat. My voice will not waver or go into that octave that only the astronauts can hear. In my best police procedural prosecutorial tone, I will calmly, forcefully lay out why they shouldn’t fucking be smiling at him. 

They will stop smiling. Someone will suggest harming the guy, teaching him a lesson. No, I will say, let this be a teaching moment, but for everyone. I will make a sweeping hand gesture. I will urge them to examine their own actions.

How have they contributed to an LGBT community that in many, many ways valorizes toxic power bullshit?*

*For examples of toxic power bullshit, look at the flyers to your next club “night.”

How often have they laughed off assault as just something that happens? Just something you’re asking for by walking into a bar?

Have they ignored someone’s NO, treated it as the starting point of a zero-sum game?

Everyone will be quiet for a moment. A few will weep, but then smiles all around. Folks will hug (only if they want to), happy the air has cleared. The parade will continue, just a little more chill and respectful. They will make me King Gay.

OR… I will fly up like the pissed-off chupacabra I am, and I will rip out his carotid artery with my teeth or beak or whatever chupacabras have. Then I will shake it around like a chew toy, howl, and dive into the Scioto. Everyone will know my righteous anger.

BUT… I will shrink. My anger and shame and confusion and loneliness will register with no one. The “community” that Pride supposedly offers is not for me this year. I cannot compete with tissue paper rainbows and FUN. I will disappear into a Mobius of blaming myself while knowing that I did nothing wrong. And he will be on a float. I can’t square that. I shouldn’t have to.

Wait, you say… You’re always going on about how you hate “corporate Pride.” And you hate crowds. Like you’re going anywhere near 500,000 people all milling about and bumping into each other. So, you’re not even planning on going… What gives? Why are you buying trouble?

Because, I want to be able to avoid the Pride parade on my own terms. I don’t want to have to avoid it because I’m scared to see his stupid, stupid face. Or remember his stupid, stupid bad touch.

I want to avoid it because I don’t like it. Now, if I don’t go, it’s a personal defeat, not me being too cool for school. I don’t have much. So, if you take away my ironic detachment, you’ve really hobbled me as an individual.

I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do this weekend. I know I’m not supposed to hide. He’s certainly not going to. He’s popular; people want to see him. I’ve spent over two years shrinking away out of shame; no one will miss me. Pride is for winners.

Geez, I can’t let that be my new narrative. It can’t be dictated by a guy who thought I was a person until he didn’t want me to be one anymore. 

But what am I supposed to do? Go, mill about, and hope that I “understand” peoples’ smiles?

I’m really stuck.

Your hat’s not cute, and neither is the way you’ve forced yourself on me. Stop it. Now.

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Yesterday, for the first time in a long time, thoughts of suicide flashed across my brain. I was doing so good, I swear. Don’t be mad. Please don’t be mad.

The thoughts were so overwhelming, it took me over two hours to put in four bolts to attach the handle to a Fiskars 18” reel mower. The mower was fraught with bad thoughts. Every time I picked up a bolt, I shuddered. I felt broken, not normal, stupid. I didn’t matter, and the mower knew it.

Things started falling apart over the weekend. I had traveled back to Brooklyn to attend a friend’s birthday BBQ. I was so looking forward to this visit because I finally had good news to share with my friends: I have been off my psych meds for long enough that I was seeing concrete results.

(This is not a piece about the specifics of going off the meds.)

People were happy to see me. They complimented me on the weight loss that comes with not being warehoused on drugs that mess with your metabolism. I actually had concrete things to tell them about concrete things I was doing —storytelling, and eventful road trip down south, battling an owl in my living room. Real everyday things that people do.

A few times over the weekend I found myself tearing up as I told folks that, for the first time since maybe they’ve known me, I didn’t anticipate my life ending in suicide. It felt so good to hug people and not feel like I was going through the motions of a hug because that’s what I heard real people with real feelings do. These were no simulacra of hugs; these were actual physical manifestations of joy. I had forgotten what that was like.

So far, so good. Exhausting, but good. I have been dealing with some hip issues for a year now, and standing around chatting amiably, shifting from one foot to the other is just the worst. So I sought a perch.

At large gatherings I like to perch, to position myself somewhere I can observe the action. Watching people move about in a Brownian motion is very calming and centering for me. Along one side of the living room in the party apartment, the host had moved one of the barstools from the kitchen to get it out of the way of the all the people instinctually gravitating towards the kitchen.

I hate barstools. I feel like a bear on a unicycle in a second-rate provincial Russian circus. I imagine folks are staring at me and marveling how such a fat ass could balance on such a tall, tiny thing. Give him a pink tutu and a stupid hat.

Speaking of stupid hats, no sooner had I gotten comfortable, than a guy in a completely ridiculous hat sidled up next to me. I cannot over-emphasize what a stupid hat this was. It seemed like he couldn’t decide whether he was emulating Walter White or Blossom.

“You need to be careful,” he drunk-shouted at me over the music.

“Huh?” I tried to be polite, but I have very little tolerance for obvious drunks anymore. It’s just so… basic. Also, I had no fucking clue who this dude was. Maybe I’d seen him around before, but I couldn’t tell you where. Much less a name. He is not a Facebook friend because, for the most part, I’m only Facebook friends with people I’ve actually spoken with and who didn’t annoy me. Also, the hat, which still was so, so stupid, would be a dealbreaker. God, that hat is seared into my memory.

“The light switch. There’s a light switch.” He physically tugged me off my perch to show me a rocker switch that was in no danger of being activated by me, as I was perching on the front edge of the stool.

“Okay,” I said and tried to get back on the stool, hoping he would leave me to my happy perching.

But he grabbed me —fucking grabbed me —leaned in and slurred, “Now I get to kiss you.” I pulled away, which is a universally understood gesture meaning NO, NOT EVEN IF YOU WEREN’T WEARING SUCH A STUPID HAT.

(Also… “get to” like I’m a maiden in a coastal village he’s just plundered from his longboat. Wearing a stupid hat.)

Then he grabbed me again, chuckling. This asshole in a stupid hat thought he was being cute. He actually thought overriding another human being’s denial of consent was just something people do when they’re being adorable.

I could feel the blood draining, but thankfully I had the wherewithal and self-worth to pull away.

Again… I HAD THE WHEREWITHAL AND SELF-WORTH TO PULL AWAY… This cannot be over-emphasized.

A few years ago, I had moved back to Columbus because I felt my world shrinking so much that I was only months away from offing myself. (That dead body you found in Prospect Park next to a poisoned Smoothie with the note inside a Ziploc bag pinned to his chest? That would’ve been me.) I felt like I had no agency. I didn’t matter.

Against that backdrop, I was sexually assaulted. He, too, thought he was being cute. I can still see his stupid smirk, stupider than any stupid hat, as he pulled me back in. I remember saying “No” quite emphatically, but he said that was “adorable,” and yanked me towards him.

I shut down. Sometimes disassociation is your only defense. Please God, just let him finish so this hell can be over, and I can shove this down into the brain-basement where all the other times guys thought disassociation was cute molder and rot. I remember thinking, “How can somebody be so turned on by what’s got to come across as really, really unenthusiastic consent at best?”

I mattered more as convenient friction to him than as a person.

(UNENTHUSIASTIC CONSENT IS NOT CONSENT; IT IS SELF-PROTECTION.)

I vowed then that I would not be forced into disassociation again. I needed to get back my emotions so I could fight off assholes like that in the future. So, working with my therapist and my medical doctor, I went off the meds.

It’s taken a long time, but I now feel like I have the full range of emotions necessary to protect myself. I see a future. I don’t know what that future is, but I know it’s there.

Still, it’s a fragile future. Just at the beginning of the year, I’ve started replying to people on location-based dating services. I even went to get drinks with one. He ghosted me afterwards, but I still consider it a little victory. I’ve even chosen not to view the fact that I was attacked by an owl in my living room when I returned home from the date as a portend that I should remain alone. It’s just a sign the chimney needs to be fixed. Right?

As I rushed away from the stupid, rapey hat to the sanctuary of the bathroom and my tiny bladder, I bumped into a friend, a good friend, someone to whom I had given a hearty hug full of real emotion just hours earlier. As I brushed past I said, “I gotta go to the bathroom. Some dude just bad-touched me.”

“Who?” the friend asked. I pointed to the stupid hat, which now loomed above the party like a Macy’s Parade balloon of a cartoon character no one’s liked since ribbon candy was a thing. “Oh, him. Heh.”

That was my friend’s reaction. I felt gross. I felt small. I felt like Stupid Hat’s need to be cute overrode my need to be safe at a party full of friends. I had obviously done something wrong. How dare I not find grabbing me fun! People are drunk, go along with it, you pussy!

I spent about five minutes in the bathroom, doing some basic tai chi breathing moves. It helped. I felt I could return to the party. After all, the interaction with my attacker —and he was an attacker —lasted maybe forty-five seconds. “You’re overreacting Chris,” I could hear my mom say. “Just giving them the reaction they want.”

“Oh, him. Heh.”

I tried to enjoy the party, but all I was doing was watching out for the stupid hat. I was scared to remain there. So, I pulled an Irish Farewell and left. Clearly, it was more important for Stupid Hat to have fun than me. I told myself that I had spent enough time. All this bargaining to assure myself I was leaving on my own accord.

But I had been driven away by a hat.

I tried to pat myself on my back for getting away from my attacker. The old me would’ve just let him do whatever he wanted because that’s how you make friends, right? People don’t like you, Chris, because you don’t let them grope you. I stood up for myself, didn’t I?

But then why did my friend chuckle when I told him what happened? Clearly, I reacted incorrectly to being grabbed and groped.

It would be different next time.

Next time came sooner than later this past Tuesday as I left Lowe’s up by the Polaris Mall after purchasing the aforementioned lawnmower. I don’t usually like spending time up by that mall because the people can be kind of a classist, privilege-y bunch. You have to cut through the judgment with a machete.

As I entered the clearly marked (stop signs and hatch-marks) crosswalk in front of the store, one of those tiny, cheap-looking Range Rovers that serve no purpose other than to advertise how little you care about driving flew past me and a handyman loading a truck without stopping or slowing down.

It was the automotive equivalent of the stupid hat.

So, I yelled, “I’m walking here!” (I had just spent a weekend in NYC after all) and offered up the universally agreed upon gesture that says, “Hey, I wish you would follow the rules of the road.”

The Range Rover, nearly a hundred feet away at this point, slammed on its brakes.

“Oh joy!” I thought, but I continued pushing the cart with the mower towards my ancient Volvo station wagon. Just as I opened the lift-gate, the Range Rover screeched to a halt, less than three feet away from me.

A woman in an “I’d like to speak to your manager” fake blond bob stuck her phone at me. “Does it make you feel big to flip me off IN FRONT OF MY CHILD?!?” she yelled. The child looked appropriately horrified.

I felt so trapped. She had hunted me down and was sticking a camera in my face. I couldn’t escape. I could try to de-escalate the situation. But she didn’t deserve de-escalation. She was road raging over me not liking being almost run down by her. What the fuck kind of privilege is that? How dare I, a mere plebeian in her world, question her right to drive here stupid hat car anywhere she wanted.

So I fucking snapped.

“You blew through a crosswalk with stop signs with your child in your car. And now you’re following me. Shut the fuck up you privileged twat!”

I felt like a floating ball of rage. It must’ve been a show because she recoiled and held the phone up like she was warding off a vampire. She sped off, continuing to hold the phone. I assume this was to capture for posterity the moment I turned on my super-human T-1000 speed in pursuit.

Others in the Lowe’s lot averted their eyes from me.

But at least they weren’t laughing?

I could feel shame welling up in my gut. “You’re only giving them the reaction they want.”

You’re overreacting. Therefore, your feelings no longer matter.

I cried the whole way home. I remember nothing of the drive but that. And it was rush hour on one of the busiest stretches of interstate in Columbus.

I cried most of yesterday as I assembled the mower. At one point, a pair of pliers slipped in my hand, pinching my palm. I deserved that pain. At least the pain I felt was real. Not the fake pain of overreaction. I mulled over the ‘along the sidewalk; not across the street’ possibilities of the old carpet knife I used to open the lawnmower box. I cried some more. I went to go work out and use the steam room, but I forgot to put my gym bag in the car. I cried at my inability to do anything right. No wonder I don’t deserve to be touched on my terms.

What are my choices now?

I can’t go back to disassociating anymore. The chemistry won’t allow it, and I won’t allow the psych meds back in me. I like having feelings.

But feelings suck. I’ve been robbed of them for so long, full-time since 1991, that it’s like learning to walk again. Sometimes I feel like I’m in a taped segment from a telethon where they show the plucky kid from St. Jude’s taking tentative steps after getting a cancerous mass removed from the base of their spine. Except when I stumble with my newly regained emotions, I feel like I’m being punished. Like they expect me to run a triathlon and are annoyed when I can’t.

I know this piece has been somewhat scattershot, full of clunky metaphors and poorly edited. But, know what, so is my brain. I need to get this out.

I’M WALKING HERE, PEOPLE!

TO SUM UP…

“No” means NO. It is not the beginning of a negotiation.

“No” means I no longer find amusing whatever it is the hell you’re doing.

If I pull away, let me go. If you pull me back, I will rip your fucking arm off.

Always leave another human being with a clear escape route.

If a friend says they’ve just been accosted, don’t laugh. Don’t try to see it from the point of view of the attacker because you’re uncomfortable or drunk. It’s never fun. It’s never just part of the scene.

I matter. I am not here for friction, cuteness, or a teaching moment for your brat.

Your hat is stupid.

25 days of joy, constraint, & my holiday brain: Day nine.

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I got the window seat at the coffee shop on a snowy day…

Bite me, Mrs. Murphy!

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Instead of doing what I “should” be doing, I’m looking at snow.

It’s a wintry vindication.

Being able to stare at snow in lieu of work is one of my most cherished activities. It’s been that way since the first day it snowed outside of Mrs. Murphy’s fifth grade class at Malibu Elementary in Virginia Beach.

That helmet-haired, pinchy-faced woman was probably the most damaging teacher I’ve ever had. Continue reading →

25 days of joy, constraint, & my holiday brain: Day eight.

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This shirt has fucking pockets!

This shirt has fucking pockets!

This shirt has fucking pockets!

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Yes! This fucking shirt!

The one I got last night at the fucking Von Maur’s in the fucking mall. Six dollars!

My six-dollar, originally 78, plaid, heavy twill shirt has pockets!

All it took was a mindless act. Just putting away my earbuds. Sometimes, it’s the simplest acts which unlock the most.

I was walking into Franklin Park Conservatory, the giant municipal biodome. My sister had gifted me a membership. I would’ve been happy enough with the admission and 10% off in the gift shop. But I had a new shirt that the gentleman at Von Maur’s assured me looked as good as a six dollar shirt can look on someone. Continue reading →

25 days of joy, constraint, & my holiday brain: Day seven.

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Having the whole hot tub, swimming pool, and/or ocean to myself.

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The pool at the Belvedere.

Kate Winslet was right. At the end of Titanic there clearly wasn’t enough room on that headboard for both her AND Leonardo DiCaprio. Jack had to die so Rose could experience the joy of being in the water alone.

There is nothing better than floating alone. When I’m in the ocean, I like to face away from the beach so I can’t see anyone else. Then I pretend I’m Rose, just floating alone, not a care in the world. And somehow still clutching a big ass diamond.

A couple of Sundays ago I spent an afternoon in Columbus, Indiana to soak up that sweet, sweet modernism. I spent the night at the Hotel Indigo downtown. They had an indoor pool and hot tub. Since this was a Sunday night in December, the hotel was practically empty. 

I had the whole pool area to myself —I was nothing but moist, pruny bliss for around 90 minutes.

I could crank up my music, line dancing to Donnie Iris’ “Ah, Leah!” from the 3’ section to the 4’8” section and back. And forth. Again and again. Above the water and below. I am a graceful nymph when unconstrained by most of the gravity.

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Then I took to the hot tub. It was spiral, a fibonacci of pleasure. The unique layout allowed me to contort myself in front on the jets in manners both therapeutic and profane. No one want’s to see a middle-aged man releasing his psoas muscle with the jets.

Then back to the pool to dance to the sixteen-minute version of Santa Esmeralda’s disco classic “Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.”

Then back to the hot tub. My coccyx could use some work.

Then pretending to float dead to “Echo Beach” by Martha and the Muffins.

I lifted my head out of the water only to see a mother and a father with their toddler. The parents let out a sigh of relief at not having to explain the dead body to the front desk. The little girl was ready to leap in with her puffy pink winter coat. “Come on in. The water’s fine!” I crooned. The girl accelerated he pace to the edge. 

“We’ll wait until after breakfast tomorrow.” They took their daughter away from the happy man in the pool.

One of the best things about solitary pool bliss is that many times your very alone-ness engenders further bliss…

This past August I took a long weekend on Fire Island. I stayed at The Belvedere: A Guest House for Men. The hotel is gay man’s 1950s fever dream, all decaying Roman statues and oil-paintings of young men doing calisthenics.

As is often the case in places with “…for Men” in their names, the entire hotel was clothing optional. Because I’m just soooo blindingly pretty, I optioned clothes upon my body. Why drive men crazy with something they can’t have?

I’m very claustrophobic; I don’t like people pawing at my body; it makes the walls close in. People think just because you’re staying at the gayest hotel in the second gayest town on Fire Island, you’re a sample cart at Costco. “Please try the Nervous Irish Sausage. It’s only $8.99 on the end cap.”

I actually had to shriek, “This is not a negotiation!” at one gentleman. He assured me that I didn’t understand that entering the hot tub, even when it’s empty, was tantamount to me consenting for an inner thigh massage. “It’ll loosen you up.”

Thank you… happy being tight.

Therefore, I was in heaven the one night I had the whole area to myself from 11pm to 12:30am. It was a salt-water pool. Something about the extra buoyancy gave me the confidence to remove my trunks. Nothing ruins being naked than other people seeing you naked.

The Belvedere had a classic disco Sirius station playing in the pool area. How often in life does one have both room to twirl AND the option to do so naked?

The upside of being the only male in the pool “for Men” is that when someone comes down to the pool, looking for thigh massaging opportunities, they cannot handle your bliss. The see a solitary dumpy —yet blindingly pretty —middle-aged guy frolicking to a 12” of M’s “Pop Muzik,” and they’re kinda weirded out. Most folks do not find the vision of me frolicking sexy, and for that I am glad.

So they leave.

You know you’re properly alone when your solitude makes intruders uncomfortable.

 

25 days of joy, constraint, & my holiday brain: Day six.

/ crbfay / Leave a comment

When the cat fails at something…

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There is an old Far Side cartoon captioned “Nature scenes we rarely see.” In it, a six-point buck leaping over a fallen log gets his antlers ensnared in a low branch. The panel cuts right through the anthropocentric need to view animals and nature in general as this perfect ballet existing for our edification and pleasure.

That is nonsense. Animals are just folks in funny suits trying to get from point A to point B with the least amount of mistakes. And just like I have driven all the way to gym with my iPhone on the roof of my car, animals mess up all the time.

To the untrained eye, my tortie cat Kim is perfection. [All cats are perfection, unlike those slobbering suck-ups without the good sense to retract their claws on wood floors, the dogs.] First of all, she’s quite beautiful with artistically asymmetrical tortie markings punctuated by deep green eyes. However, it takes her a good thirty seconds to get her face together before perfection. During this time, she is how I am 90% of the time. Thirty seconds of bonding over our imperfections.

Then there’s the elegance. She’s like a prima ballerina, but with a tail for extra stabilization. But…

She spent the first 18 months of her life in a tiny cage at the vet’s office. Consequently, she can hardly jump. She needs to commando herself onto the bed, jumping onto the side of the bed and pulling herself up, paw over paw. Not only is this amusing, it also serves to remind that I can overcome obstacles too —once I stop laughing at the cat.

Last night, when we were fighting on the destroyed Crate and Barrel ottoman that serves as her Octagon, she fell off. This was not one of her calculated leaps off the ottoman to re-gather herself on the floor before lunging teeth-first into my forearm. This was a mistake. Looking into her eyes as she realized she was going to go down, I hope I was able to offer her solace as all certainty collapsed around her. I could see time slowing down for her, like how a car accident seems to take and hour to play out. I expected her to give up on the game/ultraviolence. But all it took her to collect her certainty was fifteen seconds under the bed. I wish I could get my shit together with fifteen seconds in a tight space.

After Labor Day, I returned from my sister’s lake cottage with two wicker plant stands. I placed them in the middle of the dining room. About five minutes later, when Kim was feeling her Cheerios and turbo-ing thru the house, she ran full speed into one of the stands. It went about two feet in the other directions while she went a foot back. Then she retreated into the previous room… and bolted thru the dining room, steering clear of the offending wicker. After she was sure she could make it thru, she returned to rub her face all over the plant stand. Accept your defeats; regroup; win; literally rub face in it.

When an animal messes up, I am closer to being one with creation.

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