Yet another day of writing things for other people. This time it’s a piece on New Year’s–perhaps the least interesting of all holidays to me. I’m not entirely pleased with it, although I think it paints a charming if none-too-realistic picture of my boyfriend. Read it if you like.
P.S. I’ve consumed nothing but sugar today and I feel weird.
Blech…ack…phew…sniffle…yack. I hate being sick.
Of course, no one really enjoys being sick. Some people hate feeling bad; others feel a sense of obligation to their job and that they’re somehow letting everyone in the office down by missing a day of work.
But that’s not me.
No, I hate being sick because daytime TV sucks ass–not just any ass, mind you, but primadonna informercial Susan Lucci-style ass. Yeah, Sesame Street‘s okay, and I can kinda stomach Zoom (though not as well as when I was a kid), but the bulk of daytime TV is made up of soaps, talk shows, and courtroom crap. And frankly, I’d rather suffer through simultaneous bouts of malaria, dropsy, and rubella than sit through five minutes of Jenny Jones. You think I’m joking…
I’ve always been like this. As a kid, I used to lie to my mother when I was sick just so I could go to school and hang with my friends–anything to avoid crappy reruns of Hodgepodge Lodge and Vegetable Soup. I’d be racked with chills, running a fever of 103, but I’d down some Tylenol and pretend nothing was wrong, then hop off to class.
In my previous life, I must’ve been Typhoid Mary…. Now I’m just Mary.
I’m liking Jason’s monologue/play-in-progress. The name “Harold” just kills me–no offense to any of you who might be named Harold, of course.
I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: Popeye’s has the best red beans in the world.
Back when I was a vegetarian–back when I used to think I was health-conscious, smoking over a pack a day and listening to lots of wacky music with theoretically politically correct messages–I used to thrive on Popeye’s red beans. They’re cheap, filling, and, well, cheap. And they’re tasty, too.
I eventually started in with the meat again, and my eating habits totally changed–including my fast food habits. With my self-imposed dietary restrictions gone, I had no need to schlep all the way over to Popeye’s. For me, the only draw was their red beans; you see, I’m one of those rare Southerners who doesn’t particularly care for fried chicken (except livers, which, unfortunately, not many Popeye’s carry anymore). These days I eat Popeye’s once or twice a year.
Today was one of those days. And something strange happened. As I was standing in line, the Popeye’s DJ started playing a really old radio tune, and it dawned on me that the song in question was 13 friggin’ years old. I know that because I remember riding to New Orleans with my then-girlfriend Margaret in the winter of 1987/88 with my old Mustang’s top down, the weather a nippy 40-something degrees, the car’s heater blasting from the floor panels, us laughing and smoking like crazy, listening to the be-turtlenecked hipster sing his little diddy. I particularly associate the song with a trip we made for New Years’–it was practically the only tune Meg wanted to hear.
I recalled that when we came down that time, we stayed with my friend Alice and her mom–who, as luck would have it, lived right around the corner from the very Popeye’s in which I stood today. I looked out the restaurant’s window. It’s located in a fairly poor neighborhood, so the cars and the buildings were relatively old–in all likelihood, nothing had changed much in 13 years.The clothes of the people on the street were generic cold weather things–cheap sweaters, nylon windbreakers. Almost 13 years ago, when I was a very different person, I could have been standing in the very same spot, listening to the very same music, looking at the very same cityscape.
In situations like that, I like to fantasize that I’ve been knocked unconscious and I’ve just come to. What is there in my surroundings that can tell me where and when I am? And today the answer was “nothing.”
P.S. I posted the Secret Santa participants. Snoop around if you like.
Um…could someone tell me what the HELL is going on?
Sometime between last night and right now, some weasely little program decided to screw up all my “.jpg” extensions. For example, if I had a pic named “MyFatAss.jpg”, it’s now called “MyFatAss.jpgchange atleast now to LINUX”. Not surprisingly, my PC ain’t quite swift enough to figure out what in the dangnabbit’s goin’ on, so it’s not recognizing the files for what they really are–simple little harmless ol’ jpegs.
Luckily it’s just one folder on my work computer. If it’d been my home computer….ugh, let’s not think about it.
Yes, I’m alive.
No, I’m not hiding from the mob–what makes you say that?
Yes, I’m almost finished with the Secret Santa realness goodies…
Oy, such a week I had. Between work and the plays and a couple of events I was coordinating, I thought I’d never make it through.
I’m happy to report, however, that everything came to a screeching halt after Saturday’s performance (which, fyi, went remarkably well). I was so exhausted I didn’t even leave the house on Sunday. Many more details to follow…as soon as I catch up with everything.
Meanwhile, don’t forget: today’s the last day to sign up for the Secret Santa sexyfunky holiday lovefest!
Okay, well that’s fucked up. And kinda cool.
1981 was an eye-opener for me. It was my 7th grade year–my first year in public school. Between the quaint but ridiculously out of date elementary school I’d attended and my overprotective mother (she cringed at the thought of me playing football or riding my bike in the street), I quickly realized I’d missed out on a lot. I was particularly clueless about sex: although I discovered the joys of masturbation around that time, it took me at least a year to understand the real implications of what I was doing.
1981 was also the year AIDS appeared in the headlines. Over the next couple of years, the public learned more about it, and I learned more about sex. I began fooling around with men–not just the few curious boys in my class, but men, with wives and children and houses and stuff. I didn’t yet identify as gay, but I slowly came to realize that I might have something in common with the gay men on 20/20 and 60 Minutes who spoke about their uncertainty and fear in the face of this new disease. So as I got older, I was dealing with two problems–my not-so-latent homosexuality and the fact that my dalliances could be dangerous.
Of course, that didn’t stop me. I kept having sex with men–in fact, if anything my escapades grew more frequent. I was a teenager filled with raging hormones. What could I do?
As I came to accept my homosexuality over the remainder of that decade, I became fairly active in AIDS activism. Well, as active as any of us could be in Mississippi, where talk of sex–much less homosex–was not commonly a topic of dinner table conversation. There were no ACT UP chapters, but I did what I could.
Today, though, I can’t tell you the last time I attended an AIDS fundraiser. I feel kind of like an anomaly. Yes, I’ve had a few acquaintances die from AIDS, but no one very close to me. And I know a number of men who are living with HIV, but to the best of my knowledge, none have even become seriously ill. With advances in treatment, it feels like no one’s dying anymore.
Hey! We’re a best bet!
