When I announced I was visiting New York for a month, a number of friends advocated for restaurants and culinary experiences I simply had to try. I heard things like, “They have the best pizza,” or “Nobody knows about this place, but their curries are to die for.” Ramen noodles, cheese cakes, and donuts.

Gay ice cream.

It’s not surprising.

I think we all want to own a little piece of this mysterious mega-city, to know a secret spot for cranberry muffins or crepes or the best street vendors. To know a ‘best’ food item is to know New York in a way that that others do not, which means somehow New York knows you love her, so she let you find the best pierogies outside Poland.

I’m no different.

I wanted to have my own unique New York experience, to discover and love this city in a way others do not normally see.

That’s why I panhandled on Wall Street this morning for several hours, permitting a cardboard sign at my side to ask for money.

I woke up at 6:00 in my studio apartment in Chelsea, my home for the month of May, and dressed like I often do:  camo pants, gray shirt, flannel jacket. Looking around the city for the past two weeks, I discovered I already dress pretty closely to homeless attire, so really, I didn’t have to alter my wardrobe. I haven’t shaved in a few days, so I’m all kinds of scruffy and this morning I resisted showering. My cardboard sign said, “Anything helps,” and I drew sad little dollar signs at the bottom, a suggestion for those who didn’t understand my words.

I hopped the Downtown 2 Train to Brooklyn and by 7:00 a.m. got off at Wall Street. I wanted to be ready for morning rush hour.

My first location wasn’t great, so after a half-hour I moved to be right *on* Wall Street, near the subway entrance, down the street from Tiffany & Co. Across the street, a majestic colossal giant with stout Greek columns and a tuxedo’d door man wearing a tall top hat. Every now and then the door man would catch my eye and sternly communicate, ‘Don’t come over here.’ And I would glare back, ‘I will if I feel like it.’

I had grabbed a Starbucks cup from the trash and wiped it dry. Placed it front of me with my sign and waited.

People walked by.

I contemplated the best way to conduct myself. I kept my hands out of my pocket, fingers interlaced in front of me. I figured that made me look harmless. Vulnerable.

I sat.

Nothing happened.

New Yorkers on their way to work, clipped by. Cell phone chatter. People with coffee. Nobody really looked down at me. I noticed every cigarette butt in a 30 foot radius, every gum stain now a black circular tattoo on the city sidewalk.

I watched a clutch of moms bundle their kids into a school bus. I didn’t realize that – that New York kids got bussed to school. Huh. Interesting. I watched with curiosity and realized one of the mothers was deliberately keeping her back to me, standing between me and her kids, because, oh right. I was a panhandler.

When the first guy dropped money in my cup, I was stunned. I had forgotten why I was here.

He gave me $2.50 in quarters. He also gave me this big grin, as if he was delighted to see me. Then, he darted to the curb and into a cab. Almost immediately after that, an older man with silver hair dropped a dollar in my cup. He smiled big, too.

I hadn’t expected the smiling. I don’t know why.

A young guy, construction worker, whom I heard speaking in Spanish on his phone a moment earlier, dropped a dollar in my cup and showered me with this dazzling, unrestrained smile. It was a second date smile, the kind you get from someone who is happy to see you again and they want you to know it. I don’t know why I was shocked but I was. He moved four feet away and started a new phone conversation. He was in no hurry to get away from me.

A brown-haired woman veered off her linear path to pass me a dollar. She handed it to me seriously and turned to walk away. She was the first who didn’t smile. I wondered about her life and the kindness obviously in her that made her step my way. As she crossed the street, she looked over her shoulder at me and smiled big. She waved, as if leaving a friend after a coffee date.

A black woman in her 40’s gave me money and said, “God bless.” A Korean man in a pink shirt and white knit vest handed me a dollar and smiled shyly. He bolted away – it was obvious he was late for something – but he made time to stop for me. A woman with the most complicated bun and hair three different shades gave me money and murmured something like, “Mmmhmm,” before disappearing into the flow.

Black people. White people. Older. Young people. Casual dress. Suits. Everyone who contributed looked at me, looked me in the eye for a brief second.

A handsome young buck, sporting a burgundy shirt and silk tie handed me a dollar. He wore reflective sunglasses and like many others, had ear buds embedded in his skull. His hair was freshly shorn, stylish, very Abercrombie & Fitch. For some reason I thought I would see a smirk or a wrinkled judgment cross his face as he handed me the dollar. Something like, ‘Jesus, what happened to you, man?’

Nope.

His mouth was terse, like he understood the seriousness of my situation and he nodded at me. Respectfully. And then he was lost in the crowd.

Mostly everyone ignored me, walking by on their way to busy lives. I didn’t resent them. I’d walk right by me, too. I wondered about them and if they had given money on the previous block or the previous day, the way some people were generous with me today.

I took the subway to Times Square for a different audience and experienced the same kindnesses, people who looked me in the eye for a moment. Smiled. Nodded. A woman gave me two crumpled dollars and boarded her bus. An older man, possibly Japanese, stopped and pulled out his wallet. He made time.

A twelve-year-old kid raced up close to me, dropped in a dollar, and darted away, like a sparrow. I think he was a tourist and asked his parents permission to do this act of kindness. A toddler waddled by and seeing me at her eye-level, she burst into giggles. I waved and she screeched with delight, looking back as she and her mom moved toward the theaters.

A guy with frazzled hair, donning ear buds and smoking a dangling cigarette, approached and put $2 in my cup and stared into my eyes. Without words he somehow communicated, ‘I understand.’ I tried to fathom what he meant by that look, what he had gone through, his life experiences, but the only thing I got was him letting me know, ‘I understand.’

I cried when he walked away because he was so earnest and genuinely worried about me.

Best of all, I had the most amazing food today.

While at my Wall Street location, an Asian-American woman handed me an aluminum foil-wrapped square. After I watched her walk away, I noticed she was carrying a brown bag for her lunch. I unwrapped the tin foil to find her homemade sandwich.

She made it with processed cheese, the kind that remains imprinted with its individual plastic wrap. The meat was a thinly-sliced, cheap hybrid of ham and pastrami, rather difficult to name. Wheat bread. Mayonnaise. It wasn’t fully cut in half as the bottom piece of bread was barely perforated. A half-assed job done by someone in a hurry. I know. I’ve made sandwiches like that.

Obviously, she had made it for herself, but when she encountered someone who she thought needed it more, she did not hesitate. She gifted it to me and disappeared into the crowd of busy professionals.

I gave away all the money I collected to my fellow panhandlers, those who truly needed it. I made sure to look them in the eye and smile big. I now know how much that matters.

But I ate her sandwich.

Swear to God, it was the best homemade sandwich you will ever find in New York.

I consumed it slowly while sitting on a bench before the impressive Wall Street Exchange, reflecting on my own reasons to love this big city.

 

My neighbor Rose called me early this morning to say, “Have you looked out your front window yet?”

I had not. I was still in my pajamas.

After a slight hesitation, she said, “My car is in your front yard.”

It was.

I do not know anyone with worse car karma than Rose and her family.  In the fourteen years we’ve been next door neighbors, some crazy shit has gone down. On three separate occasions, drivers zooming down Portland ave. smashed the rear view mirror off a van Rose’s husband used for his electrical contracting business.

The same van had been broken into twice while parked directly in front of their home. The second break-in was immediately after her husband had replaced the expensive tools stolen the first time.

Twice, drunk drivers sideswiped Rose’s street-parked car. A different time, a drunk driver rammed Rose’s daughter’s car so unbelievably hard from behind that it literally pushed the car under Rose’s suburban. Both cars were significantly damaged.

Looking at the scene from my front window the morning after this happened, I had thought Rose had backed her minivan over her daughter’s car.

Last night, someone rammed one of their cars again, this time pushing it from street-side parking into my front yard.

Of course, nobody left a note. They just drove away.

Nice way to begin Valentine’s Day, huh?

Rose, her daughter, and I did our best to push the car free. Minnesota’s weather conspired against us. The front left tire spun without traction. The snow and ice packed underneath the frame had frozen solid, making it impossible to free.

I jogged away to retrieve cardboard to place under the spinning tire.

When I returned from my basement, three men had joined Rose and her daughter. One man was older with black and grey dreadlocks pulled up behind his head into something like a bun. Another man seemed like he was in his early 20′s and his face wore surprise, like perhaps he didn’t know why he had stopped to help. The third man spoke with a Middle Eastern accent and he grinned at me when I returned, nodding at the cardboard. He said, “Good idea.”

As we struggled to push, pull, and dig out the ice from under the car frame, I noticed the Middle Eastern man wore white business-wear alligator shoes. Not boots.

I’m sorry to say that my first reaction was to think, ‘If I were wearing those shoes, I’m not sure I would have pulled over to help.’

Clearly, he’s a better person than I am in that regard, because he did pull over, despite not being perfectly dressed for the occasion. He did not hesitate for a moment to get on his knees to dig out ice and snow.

While the dreadlocks man attempted to rock the car from the front, he casually said, “I have to be careful pushing too hard; I have a bad back.”

A bad back? Why the hell did he pull over to help?

Again, another Samaritan who probably should have said, “Not me. I can’t help this time.”

But he did.

By the time we succeeded, and yes, we did succeed, I shyly marveled at these Valentine’s helpers. Ill-prepared for manual labor in the cold, they stopped. They got out of their cars on an ordinary Thursday morning because they saw a woman in trouble. Maybe they stopped because it was Valentine’s Day, a day we’re all supposed to remember the world is full of love, but I don’t think so.

I think these are men who would have stopped any day.

The young man who looked perpetually surprised seemed genuinely surprised (of course) we freed the car.

We all cheered and clapped our gloves, and Rose thanked them individually.

The surprised young man jogged back to his vehicle, a minivan, and as I waved goodbye to him, a cheerful woman in the passenger seat joined him in waving effusively. Obviously, he had somewhere to go as well, but he made time and his lady waited patiently while he performed this act of service.

I received well-wishes from near and far today, Facebook posts, text messages, and even homemade cookies from mom.

But nothing warmed my heart today, made me feel connected to the deeper love, like those three unlikely strangers who decided, ‘I can help. So I will.’

A little miracle happened today. A tiny one, related to technology and birthdays.

During my siblings and my college years, our parents initiated the *eye rolling* tradition of calling on our respective birthdays and singing the traditional hymn. They preferred to catch us early in the morning, so by 8:30 a.m. if mom and dad hadn’t called on my birthday, then they were probably in prison. But even then, they would probably save up their one call for the next kid’s birthday.

Every year. Without fail.

As technology advanced, they sometimes caught voicemail and felt obliged to sing at every extension. If I missed Mom and Dad because I was teaching or working early, I would find singing on my home, cell, and work voicemails. They really were invested in making sure we were each well celebrated.

As my years (like technology) advanced, the tradition didn’t seem so ridiculous. In fact, I found I rather needed that phone call. I began to crave it. They sang with enthusiastic joy. They sang because they were glad I am in the world. The older I get, the less confident I am that I’m totally awesome. I have made enough mistakes to know this. I am clumsy with others’ hearts just at the moment I ought to be more compassionate. Some days when I lack the confidence to go out in the world, I need a few people to think I am so wonderfully awesome that I am worth singing about.

My heart needs that.

Luckily, mom and dad always felt I was worth song.

In 2008 when they called me at home, I deliberately let them go into voicemail. I knew they would sing their message and I could save it, listening whenever I needed to feel their love. Another year, a boyfriend was taking me out for a great breakfast and he wanted us to arrive before the restaurant got too busy.

“We have to hang around my place for a bit,” I insisted. (It was my day after all.)

I explained it was a huge deal to my parents to call and sing to me, while not admitting to him it was a huge deal to me. He suggested a touch of narcissism on my part to assume that my parents had nothing better to do–

The phone rang.

“Excuse me,” I said, grinning and blushing. “I better take this call.”

I think my favorite part of listening to mom and dad sing is that they always begin singing at exactly the same moment, which means right before they began they were staring into each others’ eyes, waiting for mom’s official nod. When I hear them sing, I remember that they met in the church choir where they fell in love. One of their flirty games was retrofitting church hymns with lyrics about their favorite card game, pinochle.

In our family, when we played pinochle, Dad would quietly sing under his breath, “Jack of Diamonds, Queen of Spades…”

Mom would sing her reply, “No, I do not have them…”

They cracked each other up, every single time.

Mom still calls each of us on our birthday, early-ish, and she sings with gusto and enthusiasm. With Dad gone, she’s singing for two.

For years I’ve been plotting to get their 2008 Happy Birthday To You off my home voicemail and onto my computer. I’m not very technologically savvy, so I kept saying, “There’s got to be a way to transfer this,” while not really doing anything about it. I listen to the message semi-regularly and end up smiling after they finish. For a few seconds, it’s my birthday and I am awesome.

A recent upgrade to my home security system means I don’t need my home phone line anymore. I can axe that bill and, of course, that means losing all saved voicemails.

Retrieving that particular voicemail is now a top priority, so I added it to my massive To Do list, the one I hide in my den. If you saw my three columns and twenty boxes per column, you’d think a crazy person makes my To Do list, and you’d be right. But I need the list. Work’s been busy. Book stuff. Writing. House projects. I need to organize part of my life.

Today was typical — an exceptionally busy day at work. I was lost in an irritating task, wrestling with work problems between four one-hour phone meetings, mildly frustrated, that pleasant frustration before a solution strikes you. A busy two weeks lay behind me and two busier weeks lie ahead. Work conferences. High impact facilitation. And in the middle of this, I have to drive to a water park in Wisconsin.

It’s not the best weekend for me to get away, but tomorrow my siblings and mom and converge at The Wilderness Resort in the middle of Wisconsin. My two sisters celebrate birthdays in January and early February, so we usually gather to celebrate the ‘winter birthdays.’

Amidst this work chaos and extensive travel, my old computer died, which has prompted several nights installing software that doesn’t quite work like it’s supposed to. I’ve been visiting the Geek Squad, soaking up their 15 minutes of free help several times a week.

Between meetings today, I logged into my email service provider’s website to get my email (it’s one of the casualties of the computer switchover). While visiting web email, I discovered how to download voicemail as an audio file. Despite my delight to discover this important task handled so simply, I decided that with the next conference call in ten minutes, I couldn’t afford to listen to the full singing at that moment.

Quietly thrilled, I emailed the audio file to myself to listen later, at home.

After work tonight, I was exhausted. But I dragged myself to the Geek Squad to soak up a rich 17 minutes of free problem-solving. I think we sorta fixed the email problem. I guess. After that, I knocked two other things off the To Do list.

Then, I got home.

Ate my takeout pasta and green salad.

When I dragged myself away from an hour of Hulu and cracked open email to check if tonight’s problems were truly solved, I found an email from my work self and an attachment I very much wanted to hear.

I opened it.

I listened.

My parents sang to me in their sweet-song tones, cheerfully bestowing birthday love that felt fresh and true. My dad’s voice is strong, his pre-cancer voice. My mom sings lightly and she has always had a beautiful voice. At one time, she sang professionally. She always sings beautifully.

Dad sang well, too. In fact, after he died, the young grand daughter of a church friend mom and dad saw at daily mass, a grand daughter who attended mass daily too, looked around one weekday morning and asked about my dad. She said, “Where’s the singing man?”

When her grandmother explained that he had passed away, the girl said, “Oh. The Singing Man is singing in heaven.”

I gotta tell you, for a non-Catholic, that’s a hard image to let go of. I really want that to be true. And I love thinking of my dad as ‘The Singing Man.’

Tonight, my parents singing rejuvenated me so I bought construction paper and made a huge sign to celebrate my sisters’ Winter Birthdays, which I will tape to their hotel room door. Then, we will put on our swim suits and mom will escort us to the pool area, where we will scream our guts out, dizzy, laughing, ridiculous kids on water slides.

My brother and I will giggle like when we were young co-conspirators. My sisters and I will share ‘what it was like for me’ stories as we march toward the stairs, headed back to the top. Just like we were when we were kids and mom and dad watched us run around and scream.

How often do you get to time travel like that? To visit the siblings of your youth?

I guess I’m getting two miracles this weekend.

 

 

 

If you need someone to think you’re awesome, so wonderful that you’re absolutely worthy of song, I invite you to listen to the link below. You can borrow my mom and dad’s love for a while.

mom and dad singing

After breakfast with a friend, I stopped at the closest Kowalski’s to me to pick up some salsa. I intended to do a lot of fiction editing this afternoon and really, editing goes best with chips and salsa. It just does.

As I approached the front of the store, I saw two parents gently arguing with their kid, maybe four or five years old. He was holding on (both hands) to a fairly unremarkable walking stick, something he had clearly picked up on their stroll to the store.

I should note that it’s a balmy 40 degrees today in Minneapolis, and with the sun grinning hard on everything in December, well, to Minnesotans, this practically counts as a summer day. Driving to the store, I passed hordes of joggers, parents pushing strollers, and hell, I think I saw a woman doing yard work. I do love that Minnesotans see the December sun minus accumulated snow and think, ‘Fuck it: I’m going rollerblading.’

Based on how they were bundled, this family had clearly walked to the store.

Dad tried to coax the stick out of his son’s hands, *promising* that the stick would still standing against the wall brick wall by the bike rack when they came out.

While his son said nothing, the pout and mistrust on his face revealed his faith in Dad’s words.

The stick! This stick is everything!

You’d think I spent 10 minutes watching this drama unfold, but all this occurred during the twenty seconds it took me to approach and pass this family, entering the store. I had the fleeting thought ‘Oh, just let him carry his stick inside’ but when I saw the carefully piled apples, jars precariously arranged, and precarious stacks of Christmas candy, I realized the parents’ wisdom.

Stick disaster lurked in every aisle.

As I searched for my salsa, I reflected about the time in my life when a treasure like a good stick was everything.

I once owned a small cedar chest, a cheap souvenir from when we visited Mt. Rushmore on vacation. It contained a feather, two unique pennies, the back of a cub scout pin which had broken off of something meaningful. I think I remember a piece of string that I intended to use for some future invention. Yes, I once owned treasures.

In the grove across from our childhood home, I would find amazing sticks from time to time and always relished my good fortune. Holding it in my young hands, I would marvel at how the stick was so straight, so powerful! Not a single knot or irregularity! Only the luckiest boy in the world could find a stick like that. I could use it for ninja fighting or when I played pirates with some of the other neighborhood kids.

“Where did you get it?” I imagined other kids would say with ill-concealed jealousy.

“Oh this?” I would reply casually, twirling the stick over my head and catching it with ease. “I found it.”

When I left Kowalski’s short moments later, I saw the stick propped against the brick building. Mom and Dad had won. At that moment inside the store, their son was fretting, worried that someone might steal the one treasure he owned in the world, the one possession he could say was truly his.

I got in my car, strapped myself in. Thought of my writing day ahead and reflected how much I love salsa. Wondered if I should have gotten cheese to melt over the chips.

I also thought about how lucky I am to not be shopping for Christmas presents today. I’m remaining in Minnesota for Christmas, the first time ever, and while I will very much miss my Huntley family, I need this break from traveling and gift-buying. My best friend is visiting. We will stay up late gossiping. We will reveal sad stories. Eat amazing food.

My many Minnesota friends are eager to celebrate with Ann, so with these friends we will make fires in my fireplace, laugh until we can’t breathe, and become friends all over again. I will try to force everyone to drink egg nog, though most people I know hate it.

I still have treasures in my life.

I hopped out of my car and approached the stick.

I carefully positioned four quarters around the base of the stick, arranged in a pattern so that the boy would know some stranger didn’t accidentally drop these coins. No, the boy is right — the stick is truly blessed.

I remember a time in my life when a quarter meant riches.

And four quarters?

Well, that was like Christmas.

 

 

 

Like millions of other kids in high school, I wasn’t invited to the cool kid parties. Or, any party. For our senior trip, we visited a remote resort in Wisconsin. One afternoon, all my classmates ditched me (and two others) while they partied in the woods. In a class of thirty six (yes, you read that right: thirty and then six), the omission was noted.

I can’t really blame them. My dad taught English at our high school; you can’t party with a teacher’s kid.

Let’s face it. Everyone’s got a boo hoo story about high school rejection, feeling left out and vulnerable. Who knows how many of our stories are valid and reflect reality? But the painful feelings of separation and isolation were real.

Very real.

These surprisingly vigorous feelings made me apprehensive about October’s Gay Romance Literature (GayRomLit) conference. I felt excitement but also dread, like the first day of high school. I knew a handful of writers and readers from the online love we shared, but how would we manage in person when we couldn’t type the acronym ‘LOL?’

What if I showed up and nobody wanted to talk to me?

Would I eat alone in the cafeteria pretending it was exactly what I wanted?

After all, I only wrote one book. Other attending writers published dozens, have more readers, more writing skills, more marketing skills, more of everything. It’s hard not to feel a little insecure around talented people.

Nevertheless, I decided to enjoy myself and be ridiculously me, despite the teenage drama in my head. If I didn’t fit in, so be it. These days, if I am rejected I want it to be because I showed my true self. It matters now, to be my whole self as much as I can for everyone to see.

After preparing for so much rejection, imagine my freshman surprise to be wildly embraced beyond all reasonable expectations. While trying to check in at the host hotel, I ran into twelve or thirteen people I ‘knew’ online. We hugged, chatted, hugged, chatted, and they introduced me to their friends, some of whom said, “Oh sure, I’ve heard of you.”

It took me 45 minutes to check in and get upstairs.

All weekend, instead of waiting to belong, I witnessed writers and readers creating belonging. Come join us. Who are you? Sit at our table. What do you write? Who do you read?

The first conference night, despite feeling overwhelmed and shy, I joined an impromptu lobby party where I experienced iced cake vodka for the first time. These new friends showered me with questions and before long, we traded anecdotes and hilarious flirts as if this was our fourth successful date, the one where we have sex.

Hoping to return the favor later that weekend (and feeling a little guilty for gulping the last of the cake vodka), I purchased a few bottles of flavored vodka myself. Friday night, I boldly invited new friends to meet me in the lobby for a drink around 10:00 p.m. Nothing formal. No guest list. Just show up and pass the word.

A dozen people appeared at 10:00. We found an unlocked hotel ballroom to create our bar. We swilled vodka shots out of plastic cups, everyone saying, ‘Wow, this tastes exactly like cake.’ Conference friends passing by followed our laughter and poked their heads in the open door. Can we come in?

Yes. Stay. Bring your whole self.

I had a lovely conversation with someone who felt challenged by so much extroversion. We toasted with caramel vodka. I met two people I secretly admired, celebs in the GayRomLit world who happened to wander in and opted to stay. I provided lessons in how to devour a chocolate vagina pop and I’m chagrined to recall that someone in the room filmed it with their Smartphone. When I chomped off the top, women in the room screamed in empathetic agony.

Erica from Iceland approached me and shyly asked if she might go to her room and return with several bottles of her country’s liquor. She had been hoping for a secret vodka party just like this one to share with her new friends. A few moments later she returned with a bottle of Brennivin and Opal, two mysterious Icelandic treats.

While I could write paragraphs about each new friend at the Secret Vodka Party and how they blasted their unique flavor of love, I can’t do that for all. But Erica deserves  a shout out. Before the conference, she noted her local GLBT youth center lacked any current fiction, nothing new on the shelves for many years. Budgets for fiction are non-existent. She politely asked GayRoomLit authors to donate a hard copy and she would take them back to Iceland.

Seventy authors cheerfully agreed.

Erica paid for the shipping or dragged them in her luggage.

I was proud and grateful to co-host with her.

The Opal was a huge success because it tasted so awful.

Everyone who partook immediately grimaced at the taste of bitter, hard licorice and some other flavor akin to wheat. After the initial taste and involuntary reaction of saying, “OH GOD,” the taster inevitably smacked his lips together a few more times, experiencing a more pleasant sensation and then would say, “That was terrible. Pour me another shot.”

Erica laughed freely, happy to talk about home and the many uses for this strange liquor.

More people arrived and we welcomed them eagerly, found them chairs and poured them shots. We laughed about books, sex, writing habits, and people we admired sitting two chairs away. As more found their way to us, I said to my friend Anne, “How does everyone know we’re here?”

“Oh sorry,” she said cheerfully, “I tweeted that you were hosting a secret vodka party. Told everyone to come.”

Then, she resumed crocheting a penis.

About this time, one of the conference organizers pulled me out into the hallway to look me in the eye and say, “This is your party. You’re responsible for this room. You. Clean up when it’s over.”

While she is a powerful and imposing woman, I was not intimidated. No, her message was not a threat, but loving trust. “I trust you. I believe in you. Make it right.”

In that moment, I realized I could check something off my Bucket List:  host a high school party.

I can’t say I’ve spent much time fretting over high school parties I never attended.

I had friends in high school and I now understand they saw more of my true self than I imagined. Still, some days I feel I missed something important, a piece of American Life that passed me by.

As I returned to our party room, several faces sought mine to make sure things were okay. I nodded. All was well. Although not everyone I had come to love at GayRom Lit attended the Secret Vodka Party, I felt warm to experience so much rich, loving acceptance in one room. Strangers and friends laughing, drinking, sharing vulnerable stories, sharing their true selves.

I heard someone gag on Erica’s Opal drink and say, “Ugh. Awful. Pour me one more.”

In the corner, Anne smiled and crocheted a penis.

 

 

 

As I sit here typing late at night, the outcome of Minnesota’s Marriage Amendment is not known.

If it passes, our Minnesota constitution is updated to clarify marriage in our state can only mean one man, one woman. Many of my gay friends, especially those in significant relationships, are holding their collective breath, awaiting Minnesota voters’ decision tonight. I know this is important. I get what is at stake. But I can’t help but feel that we’ve already won.

We won.

When I was thirteen years old, I dealt with some of the normal teenage angst — irregular hair growth bursting from previously smooth  surfaces, awkward body odor, and the general fear that I would not survive high school. I had also acquired a unique Catholic angst picked up along the way: I was an abomination before God.

This last one made me really sad because I didn’t *feel* like an abomination. I didn’t want to be an abomination. I loved my family and loved my friends. I liked reading Charles Dickens in the room my brother and I shared. Sure, I wasn’t always nice to my two sisters, but I was thirteen. I thought that was normal. And yet, I was a teenage abomination because I was gay.

I had scanned a few books on my parents’ bookshelf, Catholic child-rearing books, and discovered that gay children were extremely rare. Good, decent parents shouldn’t worry about that possibility — it probably wouldn’t happen to your family. But if it did, well, start praying. You had an abomination on your hands and a lifetime of grief ahead of you before the fire pits of Hell took your child.

When I was fourteen, mom and dad took us on a fantastic family vacation. We laughed and played games. Mom and dad taught me how to play pinochle. I felt so guilty and miserable at being a Satan-sent influence on these wonderful, loving parents that I chose to spend a lot of time in the motel pool. In the pool, nobody could tell I was bawling. I did not enjoy being an abomination. Until these recent discoveries, I had always believed Jesus was my friend.

While I intellectually and spiritually outgrew the ‘abomination’ years, I can be honest enough with myself to admit I harbored a lingering, translucent feeling that somehow I was “less than.” When presented with the possibility, my straight peers would deny me a place at the table.

This year’s Minnesota marriage amendment changed everything.

My friend Brett campaigned tirelessly, trying to get Minnesota voters to VOTE NO. He spent his Sundays visiting local churches, facilitating difficult conversations as they struggled with their faith and this decision. He drove hours outside the twin cities to attend these events. When I heard him speak eloquently and passionately at a VOTE NO party this summer, I was struck by his grace, his commitment to human rights. His voice cracked with emotion while he spoke. He’s not gay. He’s married with two kids.

My friend Kyle made phone calls for Minnesota United night after night after night. I saw his Facebook posts inviting friends to join him. He works all day and having the equivalent of a ‘telemarketing hobby’ is not his idea of relaxing down time. But he committed. Last weekend at a party, I spoke with his wife Anna and she described her own experience making those discouraging phone calls, the bigoted resistance, how it wore her down.

In August, I attended a training session to facilitate church conversations similar to the ones my friend Brett initiated. I was surrounded by men and women of faith, and I will admit it made me slightly itchy (especially in the hairy places that were formerly smooth). During introductions, I discovered I was one of the few gay people in the room. Most attendees were straight men and women who challenged this proposed amendment “for my kids,” or “for my sister and her partner,” or “my adult son who just came out to us.”

They came for love.

Face it, Minnesota gays, there is no way–NO WAY–that this anti-amendment momentum could have achieved anything like the outraged enthusiasm it has without the committed, inflexible love from thousands of straight allies. Yet, these are the same people I was told would always think of me as an abomination. These were the ones who would turn away in deep disgust once they learned my shameful secret.

They’re the ones changing our civil rights’ trajectory.

In an hour or two we will know the outcome of the Minnesota Marriage Amendment. I will surely be disappointed if it passes. But I’ve already seen too much love to get overly discouraged. To give myself, hope, I will drive through the streets of Minneapolis to reveal in peoples’ front yards the hundreds, no thousands, of VOTE NO signs demanding justice. Yes, we will eventually have to undo that constitutional amendment but we will do it eventually. We will.

In this battle, the ‘we’ included grandmothers. People who believed in God. People who didn’t believe in God. Single lesbians, soccer moms, goofy twenty-somethings who thinks the whole debate is ridiculous. ‘We’ included people who worry about constitutional law and don’t really care much about gays. They were welcome, too. ‘We’ included rogue priests, happy newlyweds, single dads, and gay couples in love for twenty years.

Straight people. Gay people. Every rainbowlicious flavor in between.

I think the real victory here is that the the definition of ‘we’ expanded to include so many, to invite all of us to fight for civil rights and justice. We believe that even former abominations deserve loving marriages.

We won.

 

 

 

.

Having been born during the Martin Luther King riots during 1967, I was roughly 100 years too late to go to a Dickens’ wedding.

I read a lot of Dickens in my teenage years (all of them) and the endings often boasted the most delightful weddings. The highbrow weddings were elegant: the painfully-in-love true bloods almost always bore great sorrow with their stark beauty in their wealthy surroundings.

Ester Summerhill.

Agnes Copperfield.

Lucie Manette.

They suffered for love.

But you also had to assume they served a good fucking wedding cake. Right? Something massive, five tiers, thick white frosting. If invited to a Victorian wedding party for a Dickens’ aristocrat, hell yeah, I’d go.

When the Victorian 99% tied the knot, you couldn’t always count on wedding cake.

Oh, their weddings definitely had cakes: jelly roll cakes, half-frosted, sideways cakes, fun cakes made by devoted children who did not understand the difference between flour and sugar. Even breakfast cakes. But these weddings also suffered more shenanigans, like the jelly roll cake toppling and the closest toddler eating it from both paws. When discovered, he blinks at the wedding party in wide-eyed astonishment.

That kind of thing.

Then an aged parent bumps his head hard and everyone cries and kisses him over and over.

It’s a thing in Dickens’ weddings:  everybody laughs. Then, everybody cries. Then, everybody laughs again.

These weddings boasted quirky artistic spaces, mis-matching twinkling lights adorning a boarded-in yard, lots of home-baked treats, succulent meats, random candle light, and everyone in love with everyone else. Children are serious and adults laugh like children. Inevitably, some minor Dickens’ character usually got tipsy and confessed his love for another minor character whom you had also come to deeply love. For the next two months they would avoid each other for the sake of British Modesty and soon thereafter would wed.

If a racous wedding hosted by the Micawbers conflicted with Lucie Manette‘s swan-studded afternoon tea ceremony, I might have to send Ms. Manette my deepest regrets and most sincere congratulations for scoring a French nobleman. Who cares that he’s disgraced and penniless? You got a title, girl!

This weekend, I attended my very first Dickens’ wedding.

On October 27th, Meg and Austin married each other in a lumberjack-themed wedding in northern Minnesota. My goddaughters were Paul Bunyon and Babe the Blue Ox. Everyone wrapped themselves in colorfully-knit afghans (courtesy of the bride and groom) and witnessed Meg and Austin share their love amidst the Lake Superior’s stark beauty.

I ministered the service.

The day Meg called to invite me to marry them, she cried hard and then I cried too, because I love being loved. We laughed, cried more. She is a queen who inspires my heart with her optimism, pragmatism, and her every Scribblenest creation is infused with hand-loved, good cheer. Love swirls around her way other women wear perfume.

Her father died recently and even in her raw grief for him she exudes this great love. She is not immune from life’s hardships and I’m sure she has her days, but she chooses to respond to life by loving it.

Everyone promised how easy it would be to acquire a ministry license online. Maybe it’s easy for some. Not for me. I was misdirected to the wrong office twice and I finally found a triage administrator who confirmed I had at last found the right place, but then looked at my offering and said, “Sorry, you don’t have the right paperwork. You have to order the letter.” It took two more tries before I finally nailed it.

Only three weeks before the wedding was I legally capable, far too close a call for me.

But today, I love that nerve-wracking experience , because I see the universe setting me up. The whole thing felt like an’ ill-disguised Dickens rant against insanity of government and complexity of bureaucracy. I suspect Bleak House‘s anti-heros, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, placed their invisible legal stamp on my paperwork.

A few weeks ago, Meg cooked the three of us amazing Indian food so we could discuss wedding details.

She bustled around the crock pot, while Austin and I, both eager to help, stood in the kitchen mostly in her way. Austin entertained me with volcano stories, the latest curiosity to snag his intellect. The world fascinates him. Meg served us sumptous curry and various Indian delights. Their home glows with the warmth of their life, interesting tree branches collected, knick-knacks, cat toys, and Meg’s  self-portrait of Austin and herself crafted in felt.

They wanted the service short, because they invited family and friends to stand with them on Artists’ Point overlooking Lake Superior. Very windy. Weather was likely to be in the 40′s. Or 30′s. Probably not the 20′s. No, it would more likely be snowing than that cold.

They were iffy on the whole, ‘I now pronounce you man and wife’ line, and in the end, they kept deferring to me, telling me to say whatever felt right. That night, we decided on nothing more than my minister outfit: my camo pants and red flannel. We did find it rather amusing that we are an Iowan, an Illinoisian, and a Wisconsinite leading this lumberjack wedding party to Grand Marais, the heart of the north shore.

We love being Minnesotans, even if we are adopted.

We love this damn state and the character that shaped it.

Meg emailed me a week before the wedding, sending a story she wanted me to consider reading at her wedding, a cute tale about two dinosaurs who fall in love. She emailed me back a few days later to say, ‘Forget it. Do what’s in your heart, that’s what I really want.’

Adorable, right?

Austin is also a Dickens’ escapee from a Victorian era. He sports a fierce red, sea captain’s beard which, we discovered several weeks ago at breakfast, holds up to 7 full-sized crayons. My younger goddaughter initiated this experiment while the rest of our breakfast party made snarky observations over bacon. Austin kept offering greater access to his beard, occasionally blinking wide-eyed in ticklish surprise. The first time I met him many years ago, I found myself struck by the everyday uniqueness of him  and I loved him when I saw his email included the words ‘fascinatedbydinosaurs.’

I thought, ‘who the hell is this king?’

The wedding party hit Grand Marais Friday night. (To my west coast friends who wrestle with geography in ‘fly over states,’ that’s about five hours north of the twin cities.) It’s the ‘up ‘dere’ part of Minnesota that is oft teased. After checking into their various motels, the wedding gatherers partied at Sven and Ole’s Pizza Parlor. Saturday morning, the men followed the groom on one hike and the women followed the bride on hers.

Nice. I like symbolism.

I arrived Saturday noonish with Mary, a mother of my goddchildren. She and I laughed for most of the five hours’ drive that morning except when I snored in the passenger seat or asked her for last minute advice on my wedding speech. We were so engrossed in our this delicious, uninterrupted time that during the last twenty minutes of our five hour road trip, I said, “Oh, we forgot to listen to music.”

Saturday afternoon, everyone draped ourselves in colorful home-knit afghans and followed Paul Bunyon and Babe the Blue Ox out to the sun-dappled rocky plateau. Instead of rose petals, Paul and Babe spread bio-degradeable cocoa chips. (In the brief lull before the wedding party assembled, we took turns deeply inhaling the cocoa basket while attempting to convince The blue Ox not to taste them.)

Meg and Austin followed those Minnesota legends, Meg wearing her her home-tailored dress, adorned with felt shapes and words she turned into artful expressions of joy and love. Austin wore a suit that made him look incredibly distinguished and European. Upon seeing him, I realized that not all men who can wear suits well choose to wear suits. He sported a jaunty fedora that made him look fetching but also like a lost German tourist. Whenever Austin beamed in our direction, we all raced in to hug him.

I followed wearing my camos, a red dress shirt and tie, bearing my favorite well-worn axe from the garage.

Meg and Austin found their spot, the one that felt perfect.

Any lingering skeptics finally understood why Meg and Austin had picked this miraculous setting for their wedding. The sun beamed madly on us after a mostly-cloudy day, the rocks reflecting the joyful hard light right up in all our faces. Nearby wet rocks were soaked as the sun bit them and they would not release the light. I felt like we stood on a black, sparkling diamond while cold waves relentlessly chiseled the stone, shaping it.

Some do not appreciate Minnesota’s starkness, it’s raw beauty. They cannot feel the sheer power in a land that is cold, do not feel the beauty of woodsy survival, and don’t understand that we might actually bless another winter night by fire light. Hey, I’m not all poetry and sunshine about Florida in June, so I do not expect everyone to share this unique flavor of love.

But please know that it exists. We of the frozen land and many lakes feel it.

All our out-of-state wedding guests felt it that day, too. All of us stood around and gaped, many wrapped in afghans, understanding this rare beauty, the gift of this October day. Guest gift bags supplied hand warmers, knit caps, and local fudge. Nobody suffered out on the rocks.

I won’t repeat most of the ceremony and certainly not Meg and Austin’s vows. While I love blogging about my life, many moments are too important to share. Those words, the marriage vows, these will remain a cherished memory for the 60 or so who stood in mid-40′s temperatures to watch Meg and Austin beam right back at the sun.

The reception?

Well, think quirky artistic spaces, mis-matching twinkling lights adorning a boarded-in yard, lots of home-baked treats, succulent meats, random candle light, and everyone in love with everyone else. Apple cheddar pie, grasshopper mint pie, blueberry pie, a flourless chocolate cake. A red velvet cake and many different cheeses. Tender strips of pink-hued steak, hot from the grill.

My new friend Noah and I shared a glass of rum punch while his daughters ran up to him, waving their glow sticks. I chatted with Libby and Brenda from San Francisco, and they expressed their surprised delight to party outside in northern Minnesota. My friend Heather and I bantered playfully with John, recently moved back from Switzerland.

We drank, laughed, and took turns exploring the knick-knack filled house that they had rented for the party, an art gallery and old curiosity shop. We warmed ourselves in the backyard around three different pit fires, laughing, toasting, discussing the beauty of the day and gossiping about how much we love this couple together.

Since many have asked me ‘what the fuck was up with that axe?’ I do feel compelled to share. I feel I can share this and still honor the privacy of our Dickens’ wedding.

As part of the closing remarks, I said, “Long before horror movies, the axe was used to create and sustain life. Up here in northern Minnesota, they chopped down trees and made homes for themselves. Split firewood, necessary to survive the winter. Built lives for themselves. With no axe, there was no way to build your life together. So, by the power of the Universal Life Church, Hennepin County, and this big, ol’ axe, I now pronounce you Minnesotians.”

Everyone cheered and waved their colored afghans.

Meg and Austin kissed.

Then we all cried.

 

Sunday night, I returned from my first writers/readers conference (GRL) thinking about ‘the cool kids.’

Earlier that day while goodbying in the Albuquerque Hard Rock Casino lobby, a writer who I had been eager and nervous to meet signed one of her books for me. Inside the cover she wrote “Thank you for making me feel like one of the cool kids.” I was shocked by those words because *I* am certainly not one of the cool kids. Not by a long shot. Why would she write such a thing?

I hardly need to summon proof but suffice to say that the first night of the conference, I accepted a $2.00 bet to lick an ordinary electrical socket. We were in a steakhouse at the time. (And not even drunk.)

Not. Cool.

(By the way, it wasn’t the first restaurant fixture I licked that evening. But since the other dare only netted me $1, I didn’t think it worth mentioning.)

I suppose I could write about all the times I was ‘not cool,’ from my high school fat/book nerd days to my many Saturday nights studying at the university library, but that’s hardly the point. I would bet most of us do not feel we are ‘cool,’ or have not been part of the ‘cool kids.’ Not ever.

But perhaps the definition of ‘cool kids’ has changed.

Throughout the conference, I witnessed beautiful exchanges that made me tear up. Gushy fans of certain authors nervously asked for autographs only to have the object of their affection reply by saying, “Sure. And how about a hug?” Then, I’d watch that same beloved author turn around and “squee” (my new favorite word) on a different author whom she deeply admired. I loved the unapologetic gushing, the intensity of joy in meeting a stranger already deemed a friend.

Again and again, I overheard similar phrases, like, “You’re writing touched my heart.”

“Through this book, I feel like I know you.”

“I cried when they got together in the end.”

Squeee!

Nobody was exempt from squee-dom, and your giggly, frolicky, gushy self was very welcome to stay.

I felt bashful and happy to befriend certain authors who I have admired. I met email buddies for the first time, friends who gifted me valuable, hard won advice about writing, marketing, and publishing. These are my role models, the ones who are planning to become lifelong writers.  I tend to make an ass of myself in these circumstances (re: Things Licked For $2.00) but they liked my idiocy and we played and laughed like new playground friends.

In fact, the entire weekend felt like a grade school playground where at last nobody held advantage over any other social group. Those first to the swings eagerly shared. The Four Square kids weren’t snobbish about their ability to master the red ball. Instead they said, ‘Come play.’

Those who wrote fiction about shape-shifting squirrels discussed their work with pride alongside those who wrote historical romances. The young adult writers danced their assess off with the BDSM readers, laughing and spinning on the dance floor. And those who didn’t dance discussed books on the sidelines, and they were just as happy. They could speak freely, loudly even, instead of nerdy whispers. They were now the cool kids, too.

Last weekend in Albuquerque, I think cool meant “to love” or perhaps to unapologetically believe in love. Cool might have meant unapologetically loving love between men, whether you’re biologically a man or not.

We love writing.

We love reading.

We love stories about shape-shifting squirrels.

Or maybe we don’t, but if you love shape-shifting squirrels stories, well then, good for you. You’re welcome here. Join us. Dance with us. Or not.

Bouncing along toward a large group event involving all 400+ of us, I passed an author friend alone in a side corridor. I stopped to see if she was okay. Crowds made her anxious and she was doing her best to control her fear so she could go inside. She is a beloved, award-winning writer. I joined her in the lonely corridor. I confessed my fear of big crowds, how easily I am overwhelmed by large quantities of people.

We talked and then not-talked, just reflected glumly on our limitations, the things that scare us.

When she felt ready, we joined the party to share coconut shrimp (with a ginger dipping sauce) with 400 other people who also get nervous in crowds.

Cool might be mean radiating your goofy, joyful love and also embracing your vulnerabilities. I like this new definition of cool. I like that all of us – all of us! – were part of the cool kids.

I have a few more stories to tell from GRL and I will undoubtedly blog about them in the days and weeks to come. Moments where I felt loved and aha’s about writing. I must tell about the Secret Vodka Party. I won’t name names. I won’t embarrass you. Well, not any more than when I licked that light socket for $2.00.

What the hell was I thinking?

Not. Cool.

I know how you’re supposed to celebrate birthdays: cake, candles, joyful dinner with loving friends, making out with your significant other, champagne. Cards with jokes about getting old. I’ve had birthday years just like that and loved the crap out of each one.

Last year, I dined with a new friend in a spectaular Italian restaurant, and we ordered unfamiliar foods and ate rich deserts. We toasted my birthday. The evening was perfect. You never have to talk me into cake. Just hand over a fork.

But.

I also dig spending my birthday alone.

That’s kind of messed up, I suppose. What kind of anti-social creep likes to dine alone on his birthday? Who turns off the phone and reads a book by a stream instead of raking in the calls and texts, affectionate jeers, that once-a-year chorus of HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I will admit that every year, I wait by the phone for my Mom and Dad to call early in the morning and sing The Song. I love that tradition, even more so now after losing him.

Mom called this morning and she sang. Her voice was beautiful.

After Parental Singing is achieved, I view the rest of my actual day similar to how I see New Year’s Eve: alone time to reflect on where I’ve been and where I’m headed. But maybe with a little bit of adventure thrown in. The first day I showed up was an adventure! It’s the day I came into the world a blank slate, mostly the same as every crying baby born on August 2nd, but maybe already a little bit different.

But mostly unwritten — who knows how I might turn out?

Over the years, my birthday evolved into Adventure Day.

Last year, I bought a gorilla suit and went banana shopping at Lunds. With the assistance of my lovely dinner companion, we harassed my pals Dave and Don. After dark, I monkeyed up to their windows, tapping and doodling my gorilla fingers on the glass until one of them screamed obscenities unfit for human consumption, and this is coming from me, who believes ‘fucking’ makes a handy adjective.

As to be expected, they chased me through their yard. I threw fresh produce at them and then hopped into the get-away car. Dave chased me down the alley, hurling a banana at our retreating escape. The gorilla returned ten minutes later for another sneak attack.

Adventure Day.

Well, today got a little out of hand.

My drivers’ license expired today, requiring my trip to the DMV for renewal. I regard my trips to DMV as an opportunity. I take ‘theme photos’ for my drivers’ license and I regard the art quite seriously. I did ‘Giddy’ one year wearing a bow tie and an unnatural grin that made people uncomfortable. I’ve done ‘Furious,’ and ‘Surprised.’

The most recent is ‘Drug Dealer.’ I didn’t shave for three days prior, wore a striped shirt that looked like prison garb, and my hair was greasy from not showering. I arched one eyebrow and silently mouthed, “Duhhhhhh” while she finished saying the word, “–eeeeeeeseee!”

This morning, perhaps the Olympic spirit was in the air because I decided to go for the gold. This year’s theme:  Magic!

Of course, that would mean I needed to dye my hair black, since all good magicians have jet black hair and I am so blond people tell me blond jokes and then apologize. I required noticeable, black eyebrows I could arch meaningfully to indicate ‘I have a secret.’ Of course, matching black goatee.

Magic!

I called Ann to tell her my hair dying plans. She said, “Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no…”

I couldn’t find a single flaw in my plan but Ann found a few:  they could arrest me, everyone will know it’s not my real color, I’ve never dyed my own hair, ever, so I have no clue what I’m doing, my goth hair would be on my license for the next four years, etc. Even if she suspects it’s pointless and I’m determined to be an idiot, Ann feels obliged to remind me when there could be consequences that require bail money.

For a professor of Education, she gives good legal advice.

“It’ll be great,” I assured her. “You’ll see.”

Things didn’t go great.

Just to give you some general direction of where this train wreck is headed, pretty soon I will explain how the DMV lady said at one point, “You’ve got a big black smudge on your forehead.”

But let’s return to a happier time.

Full of confidence, I headed to the local pharmacy and proudly asked for their hair dye products. I returned a minute later to ask where to find the mens‘ hair dye products. I returned a minute later to ask where to find hair dye you can wash out an hour later after the joke’s over.

Armed with my jet black spray-on dye, I went home.

I taped off my forehead and ears with blue painters’ tape. (Got an iPhone photo of that to send to Ann when she’s having a bad day.) That wonderful blue tape left a clean black horizon right at my hairline. Don’t worry, I rubbed it in with a towel to make it look more natural.

I sent photos to Ann, and then when text responses could no longer contain her, she called to laugh in my ear. I expressed my worry about the uneven stripes of black cutting across the back of my head. Looked like a sick tiger back there.

I say, “What if someone figures out it’s for my theme photos at the DMV?”

Ann laughed hard at that. In a barely audible voice (which I’m confident was accompanied by her wiping away tears), she said, “Oh honey, nobody – nobody – is going to care about your little prank. They’re going to be so horrified by your awful dye job, they will focus on feeling humiliation for you.”

We agreed I needed to take a clean towel, the dye, and the toothbrush I used to do my eyebrows. Against Ann’s sage advice, I decided to wear a baseball cap to cover up my striped head. I promised not to let it touch the front.

“No, no. No hat. That’s not going to work out well,” she said.

Kudos, Ann. Right again.

I blasted the AC all the way to the DMV so that nothing melted on my head. The last thing I needed was more black streaks down my face. When I arrived, I coolly took the number sixteen from the red dispenser.

I was cool.

Just another jet-black-haired person here to renew their drivers’ license. Nothing to see here.

Someone behind the counter called out for number “Ninty-three.”

Fuck. Sixteen wasn’t even in the same decade.

I had assumed this errand would be over quickly. I had been expecting more of a get-in and get-out caper. And who assumes that? Who thinks, ‘I’ll pop on over to the DMV quickly…’  Nobody. You bring a book, a deck of cards, and maybe a pack of cigs to trade for food.

I texted my plight to Ann. This could take a while. What if my hair melted?

Another of my unfortunate decisions was to compensate for the obnoxious dye smell with an abusive quantity of cologne. I only own one bottle of cologne which is actually a mixture of woodsy oils given to me by a sexy, young hippie. On nights when I wander through my neighborhood pretending I’m hiking a redwood forest, I might rub some on my moustache under my nose to facilitate my imagination.

In short, I reeked of a cross between rabbit-tested chemicals and an angry forest.

The DMV was packed. I lowered myself with resignation between two individuals who were pleasant enough when I first sat down.  I am sad to report that my neighborly relationships soon soured.

When I texted the smell issue to Ann, she replied with, “This just keeps getting better and better.”

Every case simply took forever. How could every single person’s issue have such complications? Then there was the guy who just kept yacking about cars. At one point, I almost got up and said to Ninety-Eight, “Nobody cares about your neighbor’s jeep and how much he sold it for online. Fill out your damn forms.”

If I had been my blonde self, I would have done it. We’re blondes. Who cares if we’re idiots. But as a raven-haired man, I had a responsibility to my new people to keep it cool. Chill. Magic!

The gruff lady barked out, “Six!”

She was living the DMV stereotype.

I texted Ann that I had to sign off. I had work to do. Mentally, I began calculating the odds of her being the one to call out “Sixteen!” Plus, I wanted to work through my answers to awkward questions.

Nobody approached for ‘six.’

“Seven,” she called out. “Seven!”

Nobody came.

“Eight!” she yelled.

“Nine!”

“Ten!”she said, followed immediately by, “You’re kidding me.”

After I had snagged my number, I watched people stroll in and grab a number. Their whole affect shifted into despondency. All of us were doomed to stay for a long time. We were a mass of seething, surly emotions, all of us, gritting our teeth about stupid Ninety-Eight. I watched a few people storm out, huffing. But this was ridiculous.

In an accusatory voice, she yelled, “Eleven.”

Nobody came forth.

“Twelve!”

She was getting pissed. “My god. Thirteen!”

Yup. You guessed it. Nobody stepped out. By the time she got to sixteen, she had worked herself into a frothy rage and she despised all of us dopes staring at her, slack-jawed in those permanent chairs, cowards who refused to step forward.

Well, great. This was the kind of DMV rage I was hoping to avoid.

I walked slowly to her station.

My friend behind the counter was not in a great mood.

Her coworker leaned over and said to my lady, “Everybody’s mad at me today.”

In her gruff tone, my lady said, “You get used to it.”

I felt sad. They have hard jobs. People yell at them for laws they did not design. Earlier I saw a man argue with an employee over handing over the motorcycle’s deed. She kept repeating politely, “It’s the law, Sir. I have to collect it.”

I turned to the initiator of the conversation and said, “I’m mad at you and I’m not even in your line. But I’m furious!”

She looked at me in shock and I suddenly remembered my plan to not draw undo attention to myself. What happened to playing it cool, dark-haired man? I guess I’m not a blank slate after all.

“I’m furious,” I said, and raised my fists in the air, shaking them like an angry Hulk. “I could scream.”

She laughed, my lady laughed, and I laughed too. My dad said shit like that all the time to strangers and it worked.

We giggled some more and I said, “I’m sorry people are being douche bags to you today. That sucks.”

She laughed and thanked me, and my lady said with good cheer, “C’mon. Vision Test.”

Then, the big moment: the photo.

I took off the ball cap. Sat on the stool.

She said, “Smile.”

I said, “I don’t have a great smile, so if you don’t mind, I won’t.”

Instead…Magic!

I saw a click and being very eager to leave, I leaned forward just in time for the flash to burn my much-closer eyes.

“We have to retake it,” she said.

After the second photo, she said to me, “We have to retake that one too. You’ve got a big black smudge on your forehead.”

She handed me a couple paper towels and I turned to their little tiny mirror. I panicked. Yup, a fat black line the exact shade of my hair color created a crescent moon on my forehead. Almost like a person wearing a baseball cap might get if he accidentally forgot and rubbed the cap against his forehead.

I wiped frantically, but the smudge kept smearing. Plus, the mirror was small and I couldn’t see very well – that flash was still burning my eyes. Then, the paper towels smudged the side of my coal-colored hair, and dragged more black chalk onto my face. I scrubbed a few more times, aware this was taking longer than it should and she would be watching.

I said, “I worked on my car today.”

What the hell? Why the hell did I say that? Augh.

I spit on my fingers but they smelled like woodsy oil from my generous application. Sure enough, I was soon using oil to rub the black ash deeper into my skin.

When I finished scrubbing my face and dared to look in the mirror, I now saw a terrified coal miner. Who the hell was that man staring back at me in sheer panic. A grifter? Ex-con? Terrorist?

Adventure Day achieved: I lost track of myself. Became someone completely new.

I cleaned up the best I could. She took the photo and said nothing. I think maybe she was pretty cool after all.

Yet, I don’t think the impact was Magic!

Not even Magic.

Not even magic.

We’ll see.

The DMV will mail me my new drivers’ license in seven to ten days. And in the meantime, I will feel like a kid again, excitedly checking the mail every day, eager to find a wonderful surprise just for me.

That’s the best part of Adventure Day, perhaps, feeling young, feeling goofy.

Getting excited about being me, whether dark-haired or blond.

Well, that and birthday cake.

And Parental Singing.

 

 

 

There are a number of us who are not fond of summer.

We try to dampen our grumpiness for you Summer Lovers. We don’t want to spoil your fun, and yeah, there are some miraculous days/weeks in summer that make me reconsider my allegiance to autumn and winter. Well, in the last week, all the Summer Bummers like myself have come out of the closet to unite and make angry banners that read:  THIS FUCKING HEATWAVE IS BULLSHIT.

I believe I may have seen a few Summer Lovers helping with the banners.

We’ve all been stretched a little thin, our patience worn down, our vulnerabilities in sharp relief, so when a tropical ice storm cracked Minnesota’s heat wave with shocking, frigid degrees in the 70s, boasting air you could breathe out instead of simply digesting, well, it made me feel like dancing.

Well, not literally.

‘Live free! Go dance in the rain‘ is one of those things cheerful and judgy Facebook things you read on a distant friend’s wall, possibly invented by some smarmy fourth grade schoolteacher in Peoria creating her ideal life in Photoshop. Meh. Fuck you, Peoria Teacher. Quit judging me.

I’m not really a dancing in the rain kind of guy. I admire it. I appreciate rain. I will even stand it, arms stretched apart, head up and mouth open to and say thank you, God, god, goddess, Great Purple Mermaid, or whoever is listening in the sparkling night.

Thank you for this rain.

I just don’t see the need to cheese it up and introduce jazz hands.

Tonight, under my twinkling-lights gazebo, I listened with pleasure to every falling drop.

After a while, it stopped.

I would not deny myself a walk this first night of parole from humidity’s prison. I am a night walker, making neighbors in an eight block radius part their shades and say, “He’s back. That chubby guy is dance-walking down our street again.”

I have a night routine: walk, milk, brush teeth, read a comic, fall asleep.

I like my night routines because they make me think of growing up. Mom and Dad read to us, not once in a while, but book after book after book, a chapter before bed while we ate homemade cookies and sipped our milk slowly to make it last. How terrible to be out of milk before the chapter ran out. My brother always nursed his longest, and we three were jealous. We brushed our teeth under protest, as protesting was an important bed time tradition, and when the last of the toothbrushers emerged in their pajamas, we knew it was time: Battle for Prayer Bed.

We said prayers every night, all six of us kneeling around the double bed in my sisters’ room or the double bed my brother and I shared. Mom and Dad would initiate the prayers, but we were expected to carry them. We prayed for relatives who died, and those who were injured, and people in rough times. Mom and dad might add a new name and not explain it, adults who hurt in a manner we kids were too young to understand. Our parents wanted us to stay children as long as we could.

It sounds very sweet and holy, and it was. Because of those bed time prayers, those adults and extended family remain locked in my heart.

But as I said:  Battle for Prayer Bed.

It was an honor to have prayers at your bedside, the understood value being that after prayers you could fall in bed right away and sleep instantly while everyone else (i.e. the girls) trudged back to their bedroom. To host prayers was to win the bid to host the Olympics.

Our Nightly Olympics.

It mattered.

These days, I have a slightly different tradition.

I put on my headphones and select music to match my mood. I dance-walk to the gas station two blocks away, half-jog some nights because while I know that they close at 11:00 p.m., I rarely manage to leave my home before 10:45. On the way to and from the gas station, I think about Battle for Prayer Bed, and the family who live in my heart.

I arrived at 10:57 tonight and the Mexican janitor in his 60′s, looked up from the mop bucket and said, “You’re the last one. Again.”

I have long stopped apologizing for this shortcoming of mine and now greet him with the same promise: I will deliberately steer clear of mopped areas if I can. I think he actually changed his mopping pattern, anticipating my three or four nights a week arrival.  I always buy milk; I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mop there early like he used to. He knows me.

I bought my milk, paid the silent guy with the pompadour, and exited in the dark.

In the magic 50 seconds I spent paying for my milk, the rain poured again. I dashed to the pumps themselves where I spent the next fifteen minutes rocking out, completely dry, while rain beat down on the aluminum pavilion. I’m sure people across the street were at their windows remarking, “The chubby guy is dancing at the gas station tonight.”

During a lull, I waltzed out, confident it could not possibly begin to rain again, because I had decided it was over.

Within a half-block the drizzle was drazzle, the drazzle became a chunky splattering, the splattering a rinse that begat a downpour and I was soaked. Socks and underwear-soaked.

Meh.

I walked home in the rain, letting it tickle me, thinking of names from my history, Grandma Bernice, Mrs. Volman who lived next door and was never seen alive without a dangling cigarette in her hand. Tall and taciturn, Grandpa Manning. I thought of my mom’s godfather, Joseph Powers, and Uncle Bill, and my godparents who passed away, leaving me a painting of the Last Supper.

I miss the family I grew up with. I made a choice to live in Minneapolis and while I still see them fairly often, I miss them. I’m not in their lives the way I would be if I lived there. They’re not in mine that way either. But still, we’re pretty close on some levels. Earlier this week I texted a graphic description of a bowel movement to my brother, who wrote in reply:  “The heat is making you delirious and leading you to think I want to hear about this. That’s the only possible explanation.”

Yeah, well, he’s right, I was delirious with heat this week.

This very evening, cool July invited me to dance in the night and squeak into the gas station at 10:57 p.m. I had even said a prayer on the way over that they would open up and accept me for who I was, tardiness and all.

They did.

And I felt jubilation at the freedom to walk and dance, to go for a cold chug of milk and get scowled at by a stranger I know well, and to be loved by parents who never gave up on any of us, who filled my heart with words, well, all of it conspired to fill me with joy.

I felt like dancing.

I danced in the rain tonight, even throwing in some kick line action and jazz hands. You got me, Peoria Teacher. Dancing in the rain is pretty cool. But in a way, I won tonight, too, because tonight I hosted, and all my family came: Mom, dad, sisters, brother, Grandma Hemmer, Uncle Charles. My cousin Kevin.

Tonight, I won the Battle for Prayer Bed.

And now, I shall roll over and fall asleep instantly.