May 28, 2008

Let Me Do It

The phone is ringing, and I don’t know what to do. I try pushing what I think is the “Talk” button, but somehow that opens my e-mail. When I try to go backward, I start a game of Brick Breaker. The call rolls over to voicemail, which is worse, because I don’t know how to check that either. Last time I tried, I took three photos of my hand.
I got a Blackberry. It seemed like such a good idea at the time- so sleek and stylish, filled with little technological wonders that would change my life in unexpected ways. And it has. I am no longer capable of answering the telephone, a skill I guess I’ve just taken for granted for the last quarter century.
Last night I came home, and apologized to my fiancée for not returning his call earlier in the day.
“Oh, you did,” he said. “You just didn’t realize it. About an hour later I got a call from you, but you were driving and singing along to the new Madonna. I kept yelling your name, but you were really into the song, so I just let you sing for a while and then I hung up.”
That is really distressing. I can’t have my phone calling people without my knowledge. It’s one thing for Preppy to catch me warbling about the four minutes I have to save the world, but what if it decides to call my mother while Slutty Mandy and I are swapping sex stories?
“Just lock the keypad,” says Preppy, a Blackberry veteran.
“Um, yeah, I have no idea what that means.”
“Didn’t your phone come with an instruction manual?”
“Well of course it did, but really baby, who has the time?”

I hate instruction manuals. They feel like school. When something new is introduced to my life, I want it to integrate seamlessly, without any hassle. I always report that I learn best by doing things on my own, which is true. There’s just usually a lengthy period of humiliating failure before I actually learn how to do it.
I’ve been attending an Episcopal church of late, which is similar to my own Methodist upbringing, so I can generally play along without much trouble. The prayers they recite are slightly different, so whenever we get to a part I don’t know I just mumble. I’ve been offering up eloquent tributes to our Creator like:
“I believe in God the Father Almighty, ma moo hum hooba Earth, and in Jesus Christ, hee hidey ho la la.”
I know God understands that my heart is in the right place. They offer classes at the church where they apparently teach you the intended words, but I haven’t gone. There’s an actual book right there in the pew with every word printed, but nobody else is using the instruction manual, so I feel like I’d stand out. I really wanna do this on my own- just last Sunday I figured out how to perch my behind on the pew when on the little kneeling thing so I wouldn’t fall into the person next to me.

It was a major breakthrough.
Last night, after Preppy stopped impersonating me singing “I’m outta time and all I got is fo’ minutes… fo’ minutes,” he showed me how to call my sister, who I hadn’t talked to in two days because I didn’t know how. She was doing laundry.
“Which is ALL I do now,” she said. “We’re trying to potty train Jack and he’s not really cooperating with the process. He’s going through like five pairs of underwear a day. I am not amused. All the books say this is supposed to be a natural process, take away the diapers and he’ll get the hint. But all he knows is that when he goes like he used to, he ends up with wet underwear and gets all pissed off. Then he just does it again a few hours later. I try to teach him, but he doesn’t want my help.”
My nephew is learning a lesson I’ve picked up on myself lately- introducing new behavior can be very messy and frustrating. If you insist on doing it all on your own, you gotta accept the mess and stick with it until you know what you’re doing.
I tried to tell my sister that, but I accidentally hung up on her and took another picture of my hand.

May 21, 2008

Pomp and Circumstances, Part Two

“Where’s your life partner?” asks the headmaster of my old high school.
I’ve never been a fan of that phrase, “life partner”. It’s such an antiseptic expression, like how you’d describe your relationship to a homo-nervous loan officer.
“Under that tree,” I say. “He promised my Mama he’d take pictures.”
“We’ve got someone for that,” says the headmaster. “Bring him over! There’s a place for him at the head table.”
I was asked to come to Idyllwild, California, to give a speech to the graduating class about what life is like as a grownup. The most distressing aspect of that request is the implication that I am a grownup, which totally flies in the face of how I see myself every day. I’ve spent weeks thinking I’m in absolutely no position to tell them anything. I’m still questioning my presence as Preppy leaves his grassy knoll and takes his seat next to me. And then the Class of 2008 begins filling the amphitheatre.
“Oh my God,” I say. “They’re babies.”
This makes me very anxious. Whenever I have an attack of nerves before facing an audience, I become absolutely certain I have a booger in my nose. This thought invariably hits as soon as everyone is looking in my direction. I become utterly obsessed with checking for it, but because everyone is looking I have to do a series of brushes with my hand and modest twitches.
“What are you doing?” Preppy asks through clenched teeth as the program begins.
“I’ve got a boog.”
“No you don’t, you’re just panicky. Stop doing that. You look like you’re on coke.”
So I switch my interest to shuffling my notes and inspecting the crowd. In the front row there’s a cluster of girls sitting with rapt attention. Behind them are the cool artsy guys, sketching in their little books and occasionally glancing up. And in the very back, there’s a lanky boy in overalls and green nail polish whispering to his companions, who are all stifling laughter.
Ah, yes. There I am.
I was expelled from this school when I was seventeen. Afterward, I got a job and my own apartment. I didn’t even know how to balance a checkbook. I just did what I had to do, figured things out, and I kept working. And now, looking at these kids, I wonder how on earth I did that.
“So, please welcome our guest, playwright and columnist Topher Payne.”
Scattered applause. I stand, twitch my nose again, and walk to the podium. I tell them that everyone will say this was the best time of their lives, but that isn’t always true. I hated my teens. My early twenties were no picnic either, but things started looking up around twenty-five. I tell them they should enjoy the last few years of their parents paying for stuff, and try not to fuck that up. I warn them about bad relationships, credit cards, and coming out of the closet on Mother’s Day. I reveal they don’t have to go to college to succeed, but trying to do without it is much more nerve-racking.
I tell them high school provides them with skills, but they have to provide themselves with opportunity, and if they don’t there’s plenty of people who are hungry for it and more than ready to pass them by. So be ready to fight for what you deserve. That one took me a long time to learn. I hope they listened.
Afterward, a bunch of the kids come up and shake my hand, including the one in the overalls and nail polish. I compliment his color choice. I watch them go- kids released into the wild. And then my “life partner” and I head back to the bed and breakfast to drink beer and watch Desperate Housewives in our underwear.

I wish I’d told the seniors to value the moments when you get to do stuff like that, because eventually careers and life make it harder to take time for doing nothing with the people you love. I still don’t feel like a grownup, but I’m aware of the time that’s passed, and I’m learning to appreciate what I have. What I shared today didn’t feel particularly like wisdom, just notes on hard-earned experience. But heck, that may be all wisdom is.

May 14, 2008

Pomp and Circumstances, Part One

“Alright Mister Payne, we’ve got you booked in the Oak Tree Suite for four nights,” says the woman on the phone. “We call it that because of the beautiful view of an ancient oak tree outside.”
“Clever,” I say.
“There’s a delicious breakfast every morning, which we can pack up to go if you’ll be hiking to the summit while you’re here. Have you stayed in Idyllwild before?”
“Yes, but it’s been a little while.”
Last year, as some sort of grand cosmic punchline, I was asked to deliver a speech at a New York fundraiser to the alumnae of the boarding school in California that expelled me at age seventeen. Theresa, the Director of Alumnae Relations, had followed my writing career with interest, and had determined I would be a wacky choice to address the crowd. I figured chances like that don’t come along that often, so I just let it all hang out at the podium. I said the school was training brilliant artists who were unprepared for the world in so many ways. No one bothered to mention what a FICO rating was, in case we ever wanted to buy a house. No one mentioned we’d better make sure you have health insurance, in case you come down with a bad case of cancer at age twenty-one. But boy, could we ever talk about some Shakespeare.
The response was extraordinary. Afterward, my former classmates were shaking my hand, saying what I did was brave and unexpected. Theresa asked for a copy of the speech to share with the faculty back in California. And the headmaster of the school presented me with a diploma. That night, my pal Erica took great delight at announcing to bartenders that I’d just graduated high school. I felt a little more legitimate as well, coming back and showing my boyfriend my diploma.
He was no longer dating a high school dropout. I was Class of 2007, baby, with the paper to prove it.
I framed it above my desk.
And then, about a month ago, I got a phone call from Theresa again.
“When you said someone should be telling the students what to expect in the real world, did you mean it?”
“Of course I did.”
“Good. Then you’ll be happy to hear this...”
And that’s how I ended up being booked as a speaker for the Class of 2008 commencement exercises at Idyllwild Arts Academy. My fiancée Preppy just got a promotion, so he’s been living at his job lately, occasionally coming home to shower and sleep. There was a question about whether he’d be able to get the time away from work for the California trip.
“You’ve got to be there,” I said. “I can’t do this without you there.”
“That’s silly. You did the New York speech by yourself.”
“I had Erica in New York, and I was talking to people my own age! This is me standing in the amphitheatre in front of a bunch of kids in caps and gowns I never got to wear, trying to tell them what the world is like without terrifying them! Not to mention, I hate teenagers. I try to avoid talking to anyone between the ages of thirteen and seventeen because they give me that LOOK. I hate the LOOK.”
“What look?”
“Oh, you know the damn ‘I’m sixteen and I know everything, you’re old and know nothing’ look. I didn’t even know who Miley Fucking Cyrus was ‘til that drag queen did her at the Ruby Redd show.”
“Darlin’, these are not normal teenagers. These are freaky artist teenagers like you were. Just be real with them, and chill out.”
“But you’ll go?”
“Yes, I’ll find a way. I’ll be there.”
So it’s official. I’m off to California to shape the minds of tomorrow. Fancy that. Not bad a guy who just graduated a year ago. I begin compiling a mental list of pointers, like that guy from the “Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen” song. Credit cards are not free cash. Don’t get a gym membership if you’re not going to actually go. Don’t come out to your parents on Mother’s Day. Don’t name your children after objects or U.S. states. Buy real pasta, not Ramen noodles. And most importantly, when a chance in life comes along that absolutely terrifies you, DO IT.

May 07, 2008

The Topher's Crown Affair

Dawn may not have been the prettiest girl my Mississippi hometown- that honor went to Sheri, a cheerleader who drove a red Trans Am with T-tops and married at a very early age. But there was something compelling about Dawn’s beauty, which seemed to have been achieved through sheer force of will. She’d done pageants her whole life, walking runways all over the state in hand-beaded gowns made by her florist father.
When I was in sixth grade, Dawn managed to work her way into the Miss Mississippi Pageant. The whole town was buzzing about it- Miss Mississippi had managed to snag the national title a few years prior, and with Dawn now in the running, Kosciusko was basically two steps away from being the hometown of an honest-to-God Miss America.
At her farewell party and "trunk show" in the Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, Dawn modeled all of her outfits for the upcoming week: Luncheon, interview, and of course evening gown, with her father at the podium providing commentary and insightful tidbits on his careful construction of each ensemble. Then Dawn sang some opera and we all had cake. It seemed so strange, watching Dawn taking delicate bites of cake and shaking hands in a bugle bead strapless gown, her face a mask of Mary Kay and her hair teased within an inch of its life. There wasn’t exactly a surplus of glamour in Attala County, so having this momentary insight into the life of a beauty queen was all rather exotic. There was a look in her eyes I’d never seen before- sort of a glazed expression of sanguine contentment which I now associate with all pageant girls and people tripping on mushrooms.
Sadly, Dawn was not destined to become Miss Mississippi. She had the will, but at the end of the day she lacked the genetics. Miss DeSoto County (who was freakin’ gorgeous) grabbed the crown, and went on to place 4th Runner-Up in nationals, but nobody was allowed to talk about it around town. The wounds were still too fresh, us having gotten so close and all. But even years later, after Dawn was working for the post office and her pageant days were behind her, she was forever cemented in my mind as the girl who might have been queen.
Dawn’s been on my mind lately, as I’ve accepted an invite to throw on a pair of size fourteen heels and work the runway as a debutante for this year’s Atlanta Cotillion. It’s a tremendous fundraiser for AID Atlanta, with a half-dozen fellas hosting events all summer long to raise money. There’s a ball in September, where Preppy has to put on a tux and escort me down the aisle, like a practice run for our wedding only I’m in a big dress. Then they announce who raised the most dough, and YOU GET A CROWN. Not a little tiara from Party City, mind you. I’m talkin’ a proper, glittering crown that Dawn from Mississippi would tackle me and try to steal.
I’d initially signed on as kind of a lark, thinking it might be a fun story. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized… I want that damn crown. How many times in life does a big awkward gay guy have the chance to be crowned anything?
“You realize you have to host big fabulous events, darling,” said my buddy George when I told him of my debutante status. “Like pool parties with DJs. You have to host events you wouldn’t necessarily be fabulous enough to attend.”
“If I show up somewhere in a swimsuit, people will start taking their money back. How do non-fabulous people raise money?”
“How on earth would I know what the non-fabulous do with their spare time? Cake walks and tag sales, from what I’ve seen on television. It’s not pretty.”
George was right. I’m not fabulous. Semi-fabulous at best. I don’t know what DJs people like, or enough guys who look good in Speedos. If I’m gonna win, it’ll take some serious creativity. Because I’m not just doing it for me. I’m doing it to send a note back to my hometown paper letting them know one of their own finally scored a crown. And following Dawn’s example, I will do it by sheer force of will.