Wish List

“Topher, take those off the list,” my fiancé Preppy says, tapping the computer screen.
“What? I need new shoes,” I protest.
“You can’t put shoes on our wedding registry. It’s trashy. And they’re not even good shoes. Go back to looking at blenders.”
“I already found a blender. What if I get married in the shoes? Someone could buy my wedding day footwear. They’d be in every picture. That’d be really gratifying for the buyer.”
“You can take them off now, or I can do it while you’re asleep, but they’re not staying. New rule: You don’t put anything on this list without us both agreeing to it. You can’t be trusted. You’ll put light bulbs and Clorox on there.”
“Like we don’t need those things? Those would be very practical gifts.”
We’re on the Target Club Wedd website, registering for our gifts. I really thought we didn’t require that much around the house, but once I started looking, I discovered a slew of items we desperately needed. It’s like when the annual Sears Wish Book would arrive in the mail back when I was a kid. I’m enjoying the shit out of this. Any gay person who’s on the fence about supporting the necessity for marriage needs to create a wedding registry. They’ll be on board for equality faster than you can say “Kitchenaid Mixer.”
We’ve been infuriatingly elusive on setting a specific date for our wedding- Preppy’s got a huge work thing that’ll take up most of the summer, then his parents are renewing their vows in September, and I’m up for a role in a play in October… it goes on like that until roughly July of 2012. We have been operating under the assumption that two weeks will magically appear in both of our schedules, and that’ll be our wedding. I have no idea why we thought that would happen. It has never occurred before. Our mutual days off are as rare as unicorn sightings, but we held out hope.
Then Club Wedd asked us for our wedding date, and we had to come up with something or it wouldn’t let us create our wish list. Flush with our desire for a new lawnmower and 600 thread-count sheets, we agreed upon October 17th as our fake date. Funny, that materialism was able to get an answer out of us, after friends and family have been begging for months. My pal Slutty Mandy has been resorting to threats.
I can’t speak for Preppy (even though I do, constantly.) But I know the reason I haven’t been in a huge hurry to set a wedding date is because even though it’ll be the biggest event of my life, when we leave Massachusetts and return to Georgia, nothing will have changed. We’ll have this wacky marriage license that’ll only work in some parts of the country. It’ll be like my Sprint service when I was on tour, fading in and out of range as we drove from state to state. My desire to get married has been overshadowed by the more immediate concern of having that marriage actually mean something wherever we go.
The night we get home from our Cape Cod nuptials will likely be very similar to what we’re doing right now: I’ll prep dinner, he’ll make sweet tea. We’ll watch bad reality television and fold laundry. He’ll do some planning for work and I’ll make him read whatever I’ve been writing. Not exactly Earth-shattering stuff, but it’s the life we want. If flying to another state and getting a piece of paper lets folks know we plan to have a whole lifetime of nights like that, then it’s probably worth making room in our schedules.
“You wanna just go with this October 17th date?” I ask. “It’s as good as any other day.”
“Sure,” he says. “We can do that.”
We both open our planners and cross out two weeks in October. I write “GETTING HITCHED” with a Sharpie. We’ve set a date, thanks to the good people at Target. When we return, we’ll still have about forty miles of bad road toward getting that marriage recognized in our hometown. But our lives will be noticeably different: We will have new sheets, and a lawnmower if anyone’s feeling generous.

And if I play my cards right and ask nicely, I might get some brand-new shoes.

Play Ball

My summer job took me by surprise. While I was in the midst combing Craig’s List, applying for jobs as a veterinary assistant, coffee slinger, dog groomer- basically anything that didn’t involve much counting or moving heavy objects- I got a call from my friend Jennifer. I was her children’s babysitter when they were in diapers, but now they’re both pre-teens, which is confusing to me.
I don’t understand how time continues to advance for those kids, while I’ve barely aged a day. It must be one of those paradoxes they talk about in the Star Trek movie.
I’d really appreciate it if you just let me go on believing that.
Anyhoo, Jennifer was looking for child care for the summer, but can’t call it babysitting because the very idea of being babysat makes her twelve year-old apoplectic. After quick negotiations and scheduling, I got back into the “manny” business. It’s really a fantastic way to spend the day. I am simultaneously reminded of why I love kids, and why I have no intention of ever having any of my own.
It’s fairly easy to entertain them when they’re young. My nephew is three, and pretty much anything you come up with is compelling to a preschooler. You can put a piece of Scotch tape on their hand and they’ll keep busy for fifteen minutes. The trouble with age ten and up is that they stubbornly insist upon having their own interests, and you’ve gotta get on board.
My mother says one of the happiest days of her life was when I quit playing clarinet in the school band, and she never had to suffer through another student concert slaughtering the likes of “Louie, Louie” and “Wild Thing.” Despite the claims of many, no adult has ever had any genuine interest in kids’ activities or performances. They go to basketball games, concerts, and school plays out of love for the child, and hope the experience will be mercifully brief. It never is, but one can hope.
So that’s why I’m in the back yard today, playing catch with ten year-old Jackson.
“That’s not bad, but you’re hesitating on your release and losing speed. Just power through the pitch,” I instruct.
Oh wait, I didn’t say that. HE said that. Because Jackson can actually PLAY baseball, whereas I am just one giant bag of suck. The last time I played baseball, I was eight, and I was terrible. My coach kept me in the outfield, where I would sing to myself and chew on my glove, enjoying the musky taste of leather. Occasionally the ball would manage to land in my general vicinity, which would fill me with dread, because I’d never see where it landed. I would meander around, scanning the grass for the ball like I was in an Easter egg hunt, never terribly invested in how this enterprise turned out.
I lasted one season before being allowed to return to the fudge and Murphy Brown episodes I’d been longing for the whole time. The only thing I missed was the uniform, because I liked costumes.
“Jeez, Mister Topher,” shouts Jack as I evade another pitch. “It’s like you’re TRYING not to get near the ball!”
That is exactly what I’m doing. I’m also resisting the urge to start chewing on my glove.
“Jackson, with all the things I’m good at that we could do together, do you realize how huge it is that I’m willing to do stuff with you that I’m terrible at? That is true friendship, pal.”
“I know that, Mister Topher,” he says. “But I really think you can get better.”
That thought hadn’t occurred to me. I had long since crossed out baseball on the list of things I’m capable of doing without humiliating myself. That list also includes, but is not limited to: Dancing, dribbling a ball, and wearing a swimsuit. But this kid believes I can improve, which is a stark contrast to the kids on my little league team. I am lifted by the belief of this child that I can learn. So we continue to toss the ball, and I actually manage to catch it a few times without flinching.
It’s probably for the best that Jackson and his sister won’t let us call this babysitting, because right now I’m not certain which side is benefitting more from it. I wonder if this kid can teach me to dribble a ball.