Some of these paintings use combinations of images from my dreams. But for the most part, I don’t know where they come from. I see a photograph of Barbie Benton, and I think to myself, “Well, she should have a rodent head.”
It’s a pretty simple fact: we tend to click with folks who complement our likes and dislikes.
I’m not normally prone to sit around and spout platitudes like that; it’s just something that struck me this afternoon as I was rummaging through the refrigerator and noticed the pattern with which J-no and I are polishing off the Thanksgiving leftovers:
- He tosses back the wine. I take on the beer.
- He tackles the cranberries and the mashed potatoes. I scarf down the pate and the glazed ham.
- He reheats a bowl of gumbo and a heap of cornbread stuffing. I construct a sandwich he’d never dream of touching: dark meat turkey with horseradish and turkey schmaltz on toasted rye bread.
…And between the both of them, they licked the platter clean.
It’s World AIDS Day, and like thousands, if not millions of my fellow webloggers, I should be writing about the ways in which the disease–or, more properly, the syndrome–has touched my life, the sorrow it’s brought, the special memories it’s fostered. I should tell stories about the first person I knew to be HIV-positive (the brother of the man who directed me in my first-ever play), the humbling and/or awkward encounters I’ve had with AIDS activists, patients, and caregivers (at a dance concert, being thanked profusely by a group of Belle Reve patients to whom I’d given a handful of tickets that I couldn’t have sold anyway), or the many people I know who are persevering and have been for a decade or more (including a New Orleans doctor who ranks as one of my favorite people in the world).
I should be doing all that, but I’m not. For seven years, December 1st has meant something quite different to me. I know it’s selfish and more than a little hokey, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
Thanksgiving worked out fine. Jonno’s gumbo kicked ass. Elizabeth brought the best pate I’ve ever had. Despite the crowd, our house is still remarkably clean. And apart from venturing out last night to catch Varla‘s latest show, I’ve done little the last two days but catch up on sleep and make my way through a stack of unwatched dvds.
Not everyone’s holiday, however, has gone so smoothly.
“She got pushed down, and they walked over her like a herd of elephants,” said VanLester’s sister, Linda Ellzey. “I told them, ‘Stop stepping on my sister! She’s on the ground!”‘
“All they cared about was a stupid DVD player,” she said Saturday.
Ellzey said Wal-Mart officials called later Friday to ask about her sister, and the store apologized and offered to put a DVD player on hold for her [emphasis totally mine].
Wal-Mart Stores spokeswoman Karen Burk said she had never heard of a such a melee during a sale.
“We are very disappointed this happened,” Burk said. “We want her to come back as a shopper [mine again].”
—CNN
That, Ms. Morisette, is irony. Or farce. Or something.
Our house is a wreck.
The dogs are filthy.
We’re expecting 30 people for dinner.
And we’re under a tornado watch.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Am I dreaming? For God’s sake, shake me! Shake me like a British nanny!
For the 1,347th time: I don’t give a flying fig profiterole about having a frilly, overpriced marriage ceremony in a church or a chapel or a cathedral or a synagogue or a mosque or a carcass-strewn clearing outside Salem, Massachusetts. All I want is the peace of mind that comes with knowing that were I ever to be run down by a cell phone-wielding, SUV-driving Minnesotan tourist while crossing the godforsaken intersection of Canal Street and St. Charles Avenue, my boyfriend would have the right–nay, the duty–to unplug my ass from the wall.
So all you self-appointed protectors of the US Constitution go right ahead and pass your “Federal Marriage Amendment” or your “Marriage Protection Act” or your “Adultery is for Breeders Resolution.” The gays are a peaceful but crafty people: no matter how much spiteful, hateful legislation you throw our way, we’ll find a way to institute a system of civil unions that allows us to accumulate and perpetuate family wealth just as you and your round-peg-round-hole friends do.
Twenty-five years ago, a young woman in central Mississippi who was either extremely sadistic or extremely dim purchased a copy of Newsweek at the Piggly Wiggly checkout stand on her way to work. She tucked the magazine into her wooden purse and drove eight blocks to the elementary school where she was employed as a teacher. After the 11:00 bell, when her 20 or so fifth-grade students–none of whom had travelled outside the country and few of whom had even ventured beyond the Mississippi border–had seated themselves and stowed their belongings in the proper cubbyholes, the woman perched herself on the edge of her desk and proceeded to read aloud the magazine’s cover story about incomprehensibly gruesome events that had transpired thousands of miles away in a country none of the children could have identified on a map.
Before long, most of the woman’s students had placed their heads on their desks. Some had quite clearly broken out in cold sweats. None were particularly hungry when the lunch bell rang at noon. All were terrified by thoughts of Kool-Aid and death and parents feeding poison to their children. One boy in particular was haunted for years by dreams in which a series of faceless tyrants attempted to murder his three brothers; he alone was able to save them, and as often as not, he failed. These dreams were eventually supplanted in late junior high by an equally disturbing series of nuclear holocaust nightmares, but to this day, the former remain vivid in his memory.
And that’s how I remember Jim Jones and the Jonestown massacre.
I just had a dream about Madonna. We lived together in a fabulously chic apartment somewhere in Chinatown. (No, I’ve never seen anything fabulously chic there either, but it was a dream, dearie.) She was my best friend. We went shopping together. We bought matching t-shirts.
And we had sex.
I guess that means I’m officially gay. Or, more likely, it means that I undercooked my steak last night. E coli can do the darndest things….
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