Where the Heart Is

It’s a travel day, which means we hop on the tour bus at dawn and drive ‘til sunset, stopping for meals and smoke breaks along the way. I’ve downloaded the audio book of Jane Fonda’s autobiography, which is a curiously intimate experience. I feel like I’m taking a road trip with Barbarella, and she’s regaling me with stories for seven hours. By the time we get to Atlantic City, I’ll know her better than most of my friends.
Jane’s right in the middle of a fascinating story about when Greta Garbo told her to become an actress (Garbo was naked at the time. Seriously, read this book) when we stop in a random South Carolina town for lunch at Subway. Most of our meals are at Subway now, because my costar and I are trying to get skinny, so audiences will find us funnier. It’s a proven fact that audiences prefer their quick-change comedies performed by people with flat stomachs. It’s in a book somewhere. Look it up.
Our sound guy Max had been snoozing on the bus, and when he emerges he takes a moment to survey his surroundings. It’s disorienting, falling asleep and waking up in different cities all the time.
“Holy shit,” he says at last. “My family lives here.”
Our company is made up of theatre gypsies who’ve spent their adult lives chasing work from city to city, so it’s fairly common for at least one of us to have a story about whatever locale we pass through. I suggest Max call up his people so we can see who managed to create our bizarre sound man, but he shoots the idea down. He hasn’t been home in seven years. His mother’s no longer alive, and a twenty-minute reunion with his father over five-dollar footlongs wouldn’t really work out so well.
Max is silent over lunch, which is unusual for anyone in this group. I choose to let him keep his own counsel. When we stopped at a mall food court in Gainesville, Florida, I was overwhelmed by memories of the last place I called home before Atlanta. I was nineteen, and dating a U of F student whom I adored in that all-consuming way you can only really pull off the first time you’re in love. He was also the first boy to rip my heart out and pulverize it. Every inch of Gainesville served as a reminder of that wound. I didn’t eat lunch that day. Instead, I sat outside the mall and smoked, which only made it worse because I was beside the movie theater where we saw The Phantom Menace on our first date. A shared hatred of Jar Jar Binks became the foundation of our relationship. But that's a story for another time.
It’s a disquieting discovery I’ve made on this tour of America: When you leave a place, no matter how much time elapses or how thoroughly you think you’ve changed, part of your heart stays frozen in that precise moment in time. If you ever come back, that little piece thaws, and it feels as though minutes have passed instead of years.
This weekend, we journey to my home state of Mississippi. It’ll be the first time I’ve performed there in over a decade. When I left, I was doing children’s plays for a hundred kids or so. I return on the national tour of a two-man show, performing in a thousand-seat opera house. I’d say it’s a dream come true, but I honestly never considered the possibility of something like this ever happening. My entire family will be in attendance, plus folks from my hometown, and my fiancé Preppy’s parents. Preppy himself will be stuck working in Atlanta, which I’d seen as kind of a bummer, but now that the day is upon me I realize his absence actually scares the shit out of me. When I’m confronted with that much of my history all at once, I need an anchor to remind me I’m not an anxious adolescent anymore.
But the reason Preppy can’t be there is because he’s at home, maintaining our life, and I’m latching on to that. I’ll deal with the little piece of my heart which defrosts when I return, secure that Preppy’s absence is a reminder of where the rest of my heart lies. My talkative new friend Jane Fonda says with each passing year we become ourselves just a little more. I like that notion. The version of me approaching thirty has plenty to offer the place an optimistic eighteen year-old left behind.

Man In Motion

My bed in the Greenville, Alabama Jameson Inn is freakin’ huge. You could throw some ropes up and hold an exhibition wrestling match in here, like those gay wrestlers used to do in Suburban Plaza.

I’m lounging on a pile of pillows, engaging in my nightly ritual of loading up my I-pod with music and podcasts for the drive to our next tour stop. I’ve been working my way through the NPR catalog of podcasts. Also, as we drive, I’ve taken to writing down the names of songs I haven’t heard in a while and downloading them when I get to the hotel. That’s pretty much the extent of my life right now. Two hours of performance, followed by eight hours at hotel, and the rest is driving.
Not that I’m complaining. It totally has its upsides. I’ve listened to so much NPR on these daylong drives that I’m now better-informed than at any previous point in my life. I’ve got an amazing handle on this whole financial bailout thing. Plus, after listening to him talk for up to ten hours at a time, I think I have a crush on This American Life host Ira Glass. I already had a crush on Atlanta public radio personality John Lemley, so now I feel like I’m cheating on him with Ira. Sorry, John.
I’m also hearing songs I haven’t even thought of in years. Like “Walk the Dinosaur,” and the theme song from St. Elmo’s Fire, which took a minute to find because to my surprise it isn’t called “St. Elmo’s Fire.” It’s titled “Man in Motion,” and I’ve listened to it so many times I’m pretty sure it qualifies as my theme song. I totally love it, and am convinced that I too can be where the eagle’s flyin’, higher and higher. All I need’s a pair of wheels.
My co-star Jef and I have begun to notice the result of lengthy bouts of inactivity followed by trips to Wendy’s and Burger King. Zippers on our costumes began to catch. Pants which once fastened without resistance started to put up a fight.

Three meals a day from the dollar menus are officially taking a toll.
“Jef,” I say at last one night in an Arkansas Days Inn. “Have you seen Super Size Me?”
“I know where you’re going with this.”
“Where I’m apparently going is to the Big and Tall shop, and I’d really like to avoid that. I refuse to get fat. I can’t afford a new wardrobe.”
“I’m game for a boot camp if you are,” he says, and an idea begins to form in my mind.
Several years ago, I hired a personal trainer named Drew, who managed to get me in the best shape of my life. This was despite my resistance at every possible turn.

With my newfound biceps and less expansive ass, I managed to trap myself the man I now intend to marry. And I never touched a free weight again.

Until now.
Apparently personal “training” turned out to live up to its name, because I still remember everything that buff bastard taught me. I’d just blocked it out, like a childhood trauma or a the details of a car accident. And that information’s been lying in wait, knowing eventually I’d come waddling back, and do those damn lunges again.
I wrote out routines for upper and lower-body workouts. Weights were purchased, and early-morning plans were set. And against my own body’s protests, I was back in motion. But this time, my cohort is a man who’s sobbing right alongside me, missing cheese. I think it also helps that this time, I’m kinda in charge, which I really dig, because I like to be in charge of things. I’m never happy as a student for very long. The responsibility of setting a good example is the number one thing getting me out of bed.
If we keep this up, and maintain our united front insisting on Subway for lunch and dinner, when I return home this June I’ll be in great shape for whatever the hell I’m doing after this tour ends. Which is probably the next thing I should tackle- come summer I’m gonna need something else to do for money.

I’ll think about that while I do crunches. As long as I keep moving, something good’s bound to happen.

Screen Test

It’s our night off in Kansas City, and the company’s having dinner while making plans for the evening out. I’ve missed two episodes of Lost, and I have a pile of candy bars and cigarettes, so I’ll be staying put at The Comfort Inn.
“I need to quit hitting the titty bars,” says Max the sound guy. “I blow through all my cash, and for what? Overpriced drinks and tossing singles at some high school dropout with silicone fun bags.”
“You should use my time-tested gay bar rule,” I say. “Whenever a night at the bar seems like a good idea, take ten minutes and go whack off. If it still seems like a good idea, then head on over. But usually afterward you’ll just wanna watch Food Network. Or whatever straight people watch. A sport of some kind, I’m guessing.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” says Max.
“Never go to a bar when you’re horny. It’s like going to the grocery store hungry. You’ll just end up bringing a bunch of crap home you don’t really need.”
Meanwhile, Randall found a dollar movie theatre, and is trying to rustle up a group to see Madea Goes to Jail. As intriguing as seeing Rudy Huxtable turning tricks in Old Fourth Ward might be, none of us are willing to pay actual money for the chance.
“That’s really interesting,” I say to Randall. “I knew you were a black guy, but I didn’t know you were… you know… THAT kind of black guy.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Oh, nothing. Nothing. I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to observe this without getting hurt.”
“What kind of black guy, Topher?”
“Just, where seeing a movie with an all-black cast supersedes your need for actual artistic merit.”
“Oh, no, Topher,” says Max, intervening. “White people aren’t allowed to talk about Tyler Perry movies.”
“No, it’s okay,” says Randall. “I admit it. The Medea movies aren’t that good. But usually in a movie, if there’s some supporting black cast member, the whole point of the character is their blackness, and what the white people think about their blackness. I know this may shock you, but I sometimes go an entire day without having a conversation about being black. In the Tyler Perry movies, everybody’s black, so then they get to talk about other things. Don’t you see shitty gay movies for the same reason?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie about gay people where the entire film wasn’t about them being gay,” I joke. And then I realize I’m not joking at all.
It’s one of the sad truisms of gay life. For some reason, despite being known as the standard-bearers of art and culture, we can sure make a lot of bad movies about our own lives. I’m not entirely certain why this is. After My Best Friend’s Wedding, I remember Rupert Everett trying to develop an action movie where he’d play a gay James Bond type. It’d be just like a James Bond movie, except he’d be bedding twinks instead of Ursula Andress. It’s a shame that never happened. I’d see that. Brokeback Mountain was an excellent movie about gay love, written by a woman, directed by a straight guy, starring two straight guys. I had high hopes for Not Another Gay Movie- give us our own American Pie franchise! But come on. Admit it. That movie was horrible, and the sequel somehow managed to be worse. I’ve heard more genuine laughs in a cancer ward.
And yet, I saw it. Just like Randall sees the Tyler Perry movies. Because it is nice to see some reflection of yourself on the big screen, no matter how skewed or poorly executed it might be. But when you do exist as part of a subculture, does it really help when you consistently show you’re willing to feast on scraps?
So I’m adapting my gay bar rule. The next time my local multiplex showcases the current “gay movie,” I’m going to gather a group of my friends together and hang out at my house. If after a few hours of enjoying the sparkling conversations and zingers I still want to see the movie, then I’ll buy my ticket. It’s always good to have a screening process to consider what’s motivating the choice.

I have a feeling I’ll save a lot of money that way.

Stuff I Learned When I Almost Died

I got an e-mail this morning from a regular reader of my column- I can’t use the phrase “fan mail” because those are letters dedicated to flattery and asking for photographs. I worked at “Party of Five” star Mitchell Anderson’s restaurant for a number of years. That man gets real fan mail. I get critiques of my columnist photo and occasional requests for information on home repairs.

But this letter was different. The reader had recently been diagnosed with cancer, and as I’d written a little about it in the past, she was requesting a few pointers from my experience. She included her phone number, so I just gave her a call.
When asked why I’ve never written in detail about my experience with B-Cell Lymphoma, my stock answer is that I’m saving it for my one-man show. It’s my clever slight-of-hand which keeps me from having to discuss it. As I’ve said before, I firmly believe there are some challenges in life which we need not revisit. Just extract what lessons you can and get on with things. Maybe that’s unhealthy, but unlike a physical disease, one’s methods for maintaining emotional well-being really can’t be questioned. Whatever you’ve found keeps your shit in one sneaker is what works for you. Rosie O’Donnell likes to hang upside down. If it makes her less Rosie hosting “The View” and more Rosie hosting The Tony Awards, let the woman pretend she’s a vampire bat for an hour or two.
That’s why I hated my few attempts at therapy. You sit in a dimly-lit room with a stranger and talk about all the horrible moments from your life. How awful. Just put on a pot of coffee and a Pixar movie, and I’ll be right as rain in no time. As for all the traumatic crap, I’m a fan of good old-fashioned Southern suppression.

But then a moment like this comes up, and I’m on the phone with a stranger, navigating the land mines of my own history.
So okay. I’ve told you about my life for four years. We’re friends now. So here’s the two big things I learned from the period when I was trying really hard not to die.
Thing one: I insisted in my first course of treatment that I face it on my own. I went to chemo by myself, met with doctors by myself, the whole shebang. This was because I needed to know I was strong enough to fight on my own power. I know now that doing this caused a fracture of truse in my relationship with my family that took years to repair. The effect it had on my boyfriend at the time was never repaired. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It is smart, strong, and brave. When you’re in for the fight of your life, utilizing every resource you have means utilizing the people around you. It’s tough for them too, and during times that you’re doped up and delirious, you get to have a little break. They don’t.

Nobody gives them anything to take the pain away.
Thing two: People who survive chronic illnesses are not “survivors.” They are Veterans. They have been to battle, fought like hell, and all they want is to get back to the life they were fighting for. Don’t treat them like a sick person. No one is ever “dying.” You are alive until the moment you aren’t anymore. So don’t make the weepy “You’re dying” face when you see them. They hate that.
The expression, “You were spared for a reason,” implies others are DEAD for a reason. Granted, I’m not in charge here, but I find it hard to believe that people with children, houseplants, partners, and a lot to offer the world are getting snuffed out for a reason. Living through an illness simply gives you an appreciation for the unpredictable length of life. No one can predict how long they’ve got, so just marvel at how extraordinary RIGHT NOW is. And if in that moment of now, you find you’re not happy with what you see, get busy changing it. Because yesterday and tomorrow are both completely beyond your control.
That’s what I learned. Use it as you see fit.