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.

Snowed hard again the other day. Mostly melted by the next day. Can you believe we’ve had two blizzards in late April ? Yeeeesh. I know how you like your Minnesota weather updates.

Work is good. Clients are clients. Traveling less these days, which is great.

I’m going to New York in a few days. No, really, dad. I’m going to stay for a month. I’m working on the third book in a series and it takes place in New York. I’m going to live there during May, in the neighborhood of Chelsea. Should be fun. I’m terrified.

I’d like to talk to you about it.

I’m not sure what I’d expect you to say. You’d grunt. Awkwardly assemble some encouraging phrase. You would remind me of times I succeeded in the past and say something like, “you’re good at this sort of thing.”

I could always tell two things about your affirmations. First, they were always hard and angular for you to say aloud. Over the years I definitely got the impression that when you were a kid, nobody made much effort to tell you that you were wonderful. As a parent you sometimes stumbled finding the words, words you never grew up hearing. Mom used to tell you that you were wonderful, but I don’t think anyone encouraged you much as a child.

The second thing I could always tell was how much you meant it, even if the words were angular and unsure. You meant it. You tried hard to show us all your love. It was you, in your fifties, who originated the big hugs, more than pat-on-the-back hugs, squeezing us hard to show us all you loved us that much.

I miss you, Pops.

We all do.

We talk about you all the time. Whenever the five of us eat a meal together, we toast you with milk or cocktails, whatever is available. I don’t know when you talked to Matt last, but he’s dating someone. We all like her a lot. She is funny and smart and they are sweet together. Eileen moved into her new place. She decorated it beautifully. Andrea went to Israel and brought us all water from the Dead Sea. That was cool.

On the phone, Mom and I will often laugh over something ridiculous you said. Not long ago, we remembered the night you smoked three dozen cigarettes *at once* as a prelude to quitting smoking. You couldn’t bring yourself to throw them away because cigarettes were so expensive. Mom recalled the long-ago Sunday you broke the church’s new crucifix moments before it was to be blessed by a visiting bishop. The bishop entered the sacristy to find you holding Jesus’ broken body in both hands.

Legend has it he looked at you, shook his head, and said, “Oh, Joe.”

Good one, Pops.

Then, mom and I get quiet and talk about the things we miss. Your voice. Your absurd expressions, especially feigned innocence. Your quiet.

Sometimes I call home when I think mom won’t be around so I can hear you on voicemail. We persuaded mom not to change the outgoing message so we can all hear your voice from time to time. Your wrist watch alarm still goes off at 1:00 p.m. every single day. The watch alarm you never discovered how to disarm is now important to us. Whoever is in the house when it starts beeping yells out, “Hi Dad!”

Mom considers it your daily check in.

Mom’s doing good.

She keeps herself busy with church work, volunteering and many house projects. She still works in the yard and washes the kitchen floor on her hands and knees. She hosted Easter brunch for all the families a few weeks ago. She made the egg dishes, ham, salads, and the yummy apricot coffee cake dribbled with frosting and carefully-placed jelly beans. Everyone brought the usual dishes and they loved it.

Your church friends miss you. They tell stories about you after mass each morning. Mom recently told me how, years ago in front of your morning mass group, Father Garrity said, “Joe, tomorrow  it’s your patron saint’s day today, St. Joseph the Worker.” In your dry voice you said, “He’s not my patron saint. I follow St. Joseph the Idler.” Aunt Barbara and mom recently remembered that line together and shared a good laugh at the conversation that followed.

I know Clarice and Ed miss you. They plan things for mom to do – trips, dinners, prayer groups. They keep her busy.

I remember the last time you were in the hospital, two months before your death. I walked in Sunday morning and you were laughing heartily, your face shining. I was a little shocked and, for a second, I believed you might get better. I could hear other laughter as I came into the room and soon saw  Ed and Clarice, yours and mom’s two best friends. They were chortling.

I kissed you on the head and said, “You look good. You must have had a energizing visit from great friends.”

You beamed and said, “I did. But they left. Then Clarice and Ed showed up.”

Ed howled with laughter.

I say shit like that sometimes.

Pops, I think I may have inherited your obnoxiousness.

Hey, want to hear a weird coincidence?

I have had it in the back of my head for weeks now to send mom a huge bouquet of flowers on May 1st. It’s May Day and mom used to make May Day baskets with flowers for grandma and all her friends. Do you remember? Little construction-paper baskets with fragile Spring violets and lilies of the valley pulled from our yard. Home baked treats. Love notes to grandma’s octogenarian friends, reminding them we were happy they were part of our family.

May 1st is also the first day I’m going to be in New York City. It’s a big day.

I thought of sending flowers to her for Easter but something in me said, “No, wait until May Day.”

The flowers would be my way of reassuring mom while I am in New York.  She’s nervous about my upcoming trip. The flowers would say, “Don’t worry about me. I’m going someplace new but you will see me again. In the meantime, I’m having an adventure.”

Yesterday I called mom to update her on the April blizzard (she likes the Minnesota weather updates too) and on the phone, she reminded me that May Day, May 1st, will be the two year anniversary of your death. You died two years ago.

Well, shit.

I don’t know if I blocked the offending day from consciousness or perhaps I genuinely forgot. I have too many thoughts in my head; some dates are bound to slip. I dunno. When I realized I forgot you died on May 1st, I immediately got sad, wondering how I could possibly forget the miserable day you left us.

But then I was comforted by the thought that maybe I didn’t exactly forget. Maybe the strong, insistent notion to send mom flowers on May Day was actually a subtle communication from you.

Maybe you wanted to send a message to mom, saying,  “Don’t worry about me. I’m someplace new but you will see me again. In the meantime, I’m having an adventure.”

I signed the florist card, ‘From all of us who love you.’

The wording is a little awkward, I know. But it’s sincere.

I learned from the best.

For a month.

I’m researching a book in a series I’m writing (The Lost and Founds) and I convinced myself I must research neighborhoods in person. I need to take subways and study certain neighborhoods. I’ve got to find a few police stations for plot points I’m considering. Mostly, I’m going for smells and night-time observations. I want to feel the crush of people around me.

I’ve been reading books about New York City for a few months now, obscure books: immigration demographics from 1960s through today, secret underground tunnels and abandoned subway stations, old money families, and an incredibly detailed book about the habits of New York City’s rats. I’ve taped a giant city map to the wall in my spare bedroom with pins in locations I wish to visit.

Sounds fun right?

Springtime. New York. Sewer rats.

Sure. I’m excited.

Well, and also, a little bit terrified.

Okay, more terrified than a little bit.

I am not the adventurous type. I’m the guy who says, “When’s do the new episodes of Grimm start again?”

Adventure seems to find me, though. Gradually, I’ve learned that more weird things happen to me on airplanes than other people. The pot candy. The dog named Peepers. People tell me life secrets or I become the Vomit Whisperer in row 33C. I haven’t even dared to tell some of the worst airplane stories.

And it’s not just in the sky.

Adventure hunts me down on land in the form of a traveling yard zombie, the corpse stain on my kitchen floor, The Dickens Wedding. Four separate times in life people have assumed I was twin brothers. One woman thought I was twins for three months. That’s not normal, right? Once I came home from a business trip and found 50 photos of Kyle Feldman hidden throughout my house. Plastiqua.  The Secret Vodka Party. Adventure just sort of shows up in my life and–reluctant adventurer that I am–I keep saying, “No, no, I’m not ready.”

Doesn’t seem to do any good.

On the phone last night, I fretted to Ann about purchasing my round trip plane ticket to New York. It was time to make this trip official. I explained to her that ‘I can’t do this. I’m not this adventurous.’

She questioned the wisdom of saying, “I’m not this way.” Isn’t that rather limiting?

We reminded each other of a vacation together near the border of Belize, a time when I jumped out of our rental to get better photos of a fat python slithering into the Mexican jungle preserve. Probably wasn’t a brilliant move. We hadn’t seen people in the past three hours. We were deep into crocodile territory and we had been warned “they can really haul ass when they’re hungry.” Ann watched in surprised horror as I raced to the fat, fat snake.

I’m terrified of snakes, as in sick-to-my-stomach terrified.

But how often do you get to touch a honest-to-God jungle python?

Well, actually, Ann stopped me from touching it.

Adventure slithered off into the jungle.

I think my real fear is that I am prone to making an idiot of myself in an impressive range of behaviors, from intellectual buffoonery to slapstick to fucking up a person’s name six times in a row. (Oh, and Death By Wild Animals You Should Not Touch.) In New York City, with many more people around me in greater concentration, I’m bound to do something dangerous and humiliating, perhaps both at the same time. I prophesize this New York Post headline:  “TOURIST GETS MUGGED, HIT BY SUBWAY, RE-MUGGED ON SAME DAY. THEN, BIT BY A PYTHON.”

Adventure, you make me nervous.

Despite my attempts to find housing, I don’t have a place to live. I’m answering craigslist ads, putting my own ad out there, following a half-dozen websites recommended by friends. Friends of friends are asking around for me. A NYC friend promised me a room for a week. This reminds me that people are kind.

People will help you.

That realization makes me take a deep breath. People will help you.

A friend has agreed to house sit in my Minneapolis home for a full month. Yes, people will help you.

Still, the very act of living seems too adventurous some days, too hard. Some idiot(s) blew up the Boston Marathon a few days ago. I felt sick. I felt that way after Hurricane Katrina. After the Twin Towers were destroyed. After Sandy Hook Elementary School. Abused children, teen suicide, companies that swindle millions out of their retirement.

Some days, this life is too damn much adventure.

But people will help you.

People will help you.

I’ve decided to say yes to this New York adventure even though part of me also says, “No, not yet. I’m not ready.” Maybe I’m supposed to say ‘yes’ to life adventures like this one, to help prepare me for the big ones, the unhappy ones doomed to come into our lives. Maybe by saying ‘yes,’ my adventure muscle grows bigger.

I have no idea how the hell living in NYC for a month will turn out. Sure, I’m saying, ‘yes,’ but it’s through clenched teeth.

But I promise you this.

If the Post headline reads: RENEGADE TOURIST LIVING IN SUBWAY TUNNELS, please keep in mind it wasn’t voluntary.

The giant rats got me.

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.’

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

You do too, I know. Nobody loves it.

The intense vulnerability, fever dreams, the confidence that this last cough dislodged a necessary chunk of your lung, the temple-pounding throb reminding you that every internal system hurts. Spread eagle on my back, bleary-eyed and staring upward, it’s possible for me to believe life will always be this miserable. I forget what it’s like to actually want food.

I spent the last days of my 2012 holiday vacation tormented by the flu, including several memorable nights lying awake all night, watching the hours tick by. One night in particular everyone else in the world was doing that too, since it was New Year’s Eve, but my countdown continued until roughly 7:30 a.m. when I finally decided to end this sleep charade and drag myself out of bed.

I did so, and feeling weak, lay on the floor four feet from the bed where I finally fell asleep.

On January 2nd I decided to visit the doctor and find out if this was the flu or ebola. I wasn’t sure anymore.

They made me wear a mask as soon as I entered the office, which I understood but seemed a little absurd since I was the only one in the reception area. I knew I was feverish but hadn’t appreciated just how feverish until the woman taking my height and weight asked me if I were finished.

I said, “Finished what?”

“Finished arguing with the wall,” she said nervously.

Oh.

The doctor’s diagnosis was ‘flu’ although he is gay and therefore preferred to use the much more dramatic medical interpretation, influenza. It’s just a dramatical sounding word, right? (Yes, I used the word dramatical.)  Influenza sounds like a sexy, intimate Spanish dance but with heavy coughing and mucus.

You’d think after shuffling through the doctors’ offices and my feverish disposition that I would head straight home. Of course, that would be the sane, sensible thing to do. Go. Home. But the problem was that January 2nd was a Wednesday, and everyone knows that Wednesday = New Comics Day.

It’s the day that the week’s new comics are available on the shelf. You walk in, greet the other comic book nerds, and head to the New Books section of the store to see which of your favorite titles showed up. Is there a new Walking Dead? What about Avengers Versus X-men? Did that new story from Locke & Key finally ship? I once had a friend interrupt my explanation of New Comics Day to say, “Wait, you’re telling me new comics come out every single week? Isn’t that overkill?”

We are no longer friends.

I am at a loss to explain what New Comics Day means to nerds like me. I thrill at pulling the brightly-colored copies off the shelf. Each darling book is eye candy and I experience some hard-to-explain tickle to be a responsible adult with this child-like hobby. Yes, this excitement could be saved until Saturday afternoon but showing up on Wednesday is the difference between watching the football game in real time and watching a recording of it later.

I’m not the only nerd to feel this way. The store is packed on Wednesday, all over us concentrating solemnly for five minutes finding our desired books and then suddenly jocular with our neighbors as we delight in the reading feast ahead.

Feverish and focused, I showed up last Wednesday wearing my illness-prevention-spreading mask.

The store employees whom I love razzed me about my mask and asked me the obvious, ‘You sick?’

In my only good zing of the day, I cocked my head and said, “Didn’t you guys read the paper this morning?”

For a split second they fell for it and their faces went blank. Visions of holocaust fallout danced in their heads.

I snickered behind my mask and they called me an asshole. These comic store men are a necessary part of my Wednesday experience.

I picked up my books, paid for them, and headed out with less than the normal fanfare and verbal abuse. They cut me some slack.

On the way out, I encountered a man roughly my age, dark beard. He leaned heavily on a cane. He was helped through the front door by two people who seemed obviously to be his parents. They smiled at me sheepishly and he made it through the doorway. I backed away. Whatever his health issues were, he didn’t need them compounded by the flu and I found myself glad I had continued to wear the mask.

They walked him through the store slowly, an arm on each of their son’s elbows.

Who was he? What was his story?

Two days later when I was mostly healthy, I called my friend at the comic book store to find out. I was right — the guy was my age. He has ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. He is gradually losing muscular control. One day, he won’t be able to chew his food or speak. He will be unable to turn the pages of his own comics.

I keep thinking about this guy and his parents specifically. They fascinate me. I’m assuming they are his primary caregivers. As primary caregivers, they are responsible for everything — food, medicine, adjusting his pillows, getting him to the doctor’s office/hospital as necessary, every trip to the bathroom. There are vital trips for his care, and non-vital. I would imagine getting him to “New Comics Day” is not a vital trip in their mind.

Yet, they came. They brought him.

Somehow, they understood his desperate need to be part of New Comics Day.

They love him.

January 2nd was icy and cold. The man was frail and using a cane. The three of them had to maneuver icy sidewalks and mini-snow banks to make it to the front door. I know, I did too. Even more reason to stay home or at the very least, having him wait in the car while they conducted his business inside.

But that’s not how New Comic Day works. As a nerd, you have to see those sparkling beauties on the shelf and feel the thrill of pulling them off the shelf yourself.

I kept visualizing the way they carefully shepherded him through the door. Perhaps this was less a hardship on them than I imagined. Maybe they are happy he wants to leave the house. Maybe they anticipate a day when he is no longer around and they want to make sure they did everything in their power to show him their love.

“He’s kinda declining fast,” my comic book store friend told me. “Four months ago he would come in without help. But in the past couple of months, he’s always with a friend or his parents picking up new books. They have to carry the new books to the front counter for him.”

When I get sick, I feel nobody in the world has been sick like this. Nobody understands suffering like me. And yes, having the flu sucks.

But I forget about the world of ongoing suffering, people whose lives aren’t interrupted by illness, they are dominated by illness, thrown into a life trajectory from which there is no ‘getting back to normal.’

There are living rooms out there converted into makeshift bedrooms. Rented hospital beds that will not get returned until there has been a death in the family. Parents who had hoped to escort their son down the wedding aisle now find themselves on a Wednesday in Richfield, Minnesota, summoning the physical courage to walk their son into an ordinary hobby store.

Even as I let these sorrows wash over me, feel the love and pain swirling together in these families, I am oddly heartened by the notion that even muscular degenerative disease cannot stop the thrill of  New Comics Day. Until he can manage this no more, this man will show up on Wednesdays in sheer defiance. This Wednesday, he was alive, participating in the world.

Never underestimate the maniacal perseverance of a comic book nerd.

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.

So here goes! This is what has consumed my recent months…

What is the working title of your book?

King Mai

(This is the second book my series, The Lost and Founds.)

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I plotted the entire series before I had finished the first book, King Perry. I wanted the first book to illustrate the insanity and beauty of the west coast. (San Francisco). The second book (King Mai) would illustrate another flavor of kingship as demonstrated by the fine people in the Midwest, specifically DeKalb, Illinois. Each book highlights a different geography, a different flavor of love.

DeKalb is a fascinating town — a unique hybrid of university life and small town America, the perfect place to illustrate an entire blue-collar community of kings and queens urging local farmer Mai Kearns toward his destiny as the one true king. I came to love DeKalb during my college years, which is why it seemed natural to revisit that love and share it with others.

What genre does your book fall under?

Hmmmm…that has been the cause of some speculation and debate. I would argue it’s Gay Romance. King Weekend stories follow two men in love for a single weekend. Just because they don’t ride off in the sunset together, does that mean they didn’t feel love? They weren’t in love? I have heard others describe what I write as Gay Fiction or Gay Literature. Could be. I just like to tell a good story.

With kissing.

(And sex in corn fields.)

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie?

Vin Vanbly – Edward Norton. Norton’s got a very ‘ordinary’ face, but still handsome. He may have to gain a few pounds.

Mai Kearns – ?? I suppose to be 100% authentic, it would have to be a Thai actor, but two hot Asian-American actors come to mind (John Cho and Ken Leung). Since Mai gets angry about people confusing Chinese and Thai, I suppose I really need a Thai actor. Damn. I really want to meet Ken Leung.

What is a one sentence synopsis of your book?

Local farmer Mai Kearns has roughly 40 hours to solve a kingly treasure hunt that will drag him through every emotional hell he encountered growing up in this Midwestern university town, as he hopes to overcome the rage in his heart in time to save his parents’ doomed farm.

Whew! I did it. One sentence!

Will your book be self published, published by a small press, or represented by an agency?

I do not know the answer to this yet.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Six months. Another three months of revisions and editing. I am a slow, slow writer. I’m the crock pot of writers.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre.

Uh…nothing? I don’t know anything like this. As far as I know, there are no other books about ‘kinging.’ The only comparable book is the first in the series, King Perry.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

I don’t want to answer this question in detail or I may accidentally reveal spoilers. However, in short, I will say that this novel was inspired by the straight men in my life who befriend and love me.

What else about your book might interest the reader?

Fibonnaci Hopscotch, Butterfly Trees, Egyptian hieroglyphics, a visit to the Lost Kings headquarters, Corn Fest, King Jimbo the Bruiser, A Curious Army, secrets revealed about Vin Vanbly, an angry waitress named Coleen, and the movie Fargo.

There. Hope this clarifies everything.

Thank you for reading about my next big thing.

I invited a few people to participate in the Next Big Thing. So in roughly one week’s time, check out Aldous Mercer, Alix Bekins, and Michelle Kenoyer.

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.