Separation Anxiety

“She’s still out there,” I say, looking out the front window of the house. “Rolling on the doormat, lookin’ all cute.”
Preppy looks up from his work at the coffee table.
“Topher, I swear if you feed that damn cat she will never leave and there will be hell to pay. And don’t get any ideas about doing it while I’m at work because I already counted the cans of tuna in the pantry.”
“But she’s hungry, baby. And she’s adorable.”
“Of course she’s adorable, darlin’. She’s a kitten. That’s all a kitten knows how to be. But we’re not taking on some mangy stray, so let it go. You do this every time you see a stray cat or those orphans on TV, and you always forget how kids and animals get on your nerves after a few hours.”
All of this is true. Last weekend I worked as a technician on a film set. There was a baby in the movie. By the end of day two, I was fully prepared to become a parent.

Thank God I don’t have a uterus.

I know in my heart of hearts I’d be one of those trailer trash mothers who keeps getting knocked up just because she thinks babies are cute.
Even if I could talk Preppy into letting me feed the kitten, it’s not like I could take care of her. I’ve been cast in a play that’ll be touring the country for seven months, beginning in November. I’ll return just in time to get married in June, which I find more than a little alarming. I’d expected all of our wedding plans would be done spread out over the dining room table, the two of us carefully plotting each detail and arguing over cuts to the guest list. Now all that’s gonna happen via phone and e-mail while I’m lodging at a series of La Quinta Inns in minor Red State cities.
This is, quite simply, not the level of control I wish to have over the whole affair.
Being gone for so long worries me. This week, a couple we’re friends with broke up, and I honestly never saw it coming. It shook me up more than I expected. They seemed to really love and dote on each other, and I had every expectation that they were looking forward to a bright future together. When I found out, I asked way too many questions, because I needed to know what the cracks in their foundation were. Where did things go wrong? I couldn’t accept the trite explanation of, “Sometimes these things don’t work out.” I needed to know why. Those boys were seeing each other every day, and couldn’t make it happen. How will I maintain a relationship from hundreds of miles away?
I never got a satisfactory answer from either of them.
“You think you’ve got it bad?” says my sister Shannon on the phone the next morning. “My husband was at WAR, for God’s sake. For over a YEAR.”
It’s so unfair, Shannon being able to play the war card. No matter how bad things are for me, she’ll whip out that whole homefront drama while her husband was off saving America. How the hell am I supposed to argue with that? It’s like Sarah Palin with her damn special needs baby. Back that woman into a corner, and she’ll shift the topic back there somehow.

Jesus, lady. We get it, we get it.
“But how did you keep things stable while he was gone? And don’t tell me it was by thinking about his sacrifices and bravery, because that doesn’t make up for the fact that there’s nobody to watch movies with and it doesn’t make you any less horny.”
“Well, duh,” says Shannon. “That’s why you send naked pictures.”
“That did it? For a whole year? Adding photos to the spank bank kept your marriage alive?”
“Hell yeah. Get creative. The tricky part is getting into your pose in ten seconds, before the timer goes off, but I’ll bet you can do it.”
Since I met Preppy, I’ve placed a lot of faith in face-to-face contact smoothing just about anything over. If we argue on the phone, I know once we sit down and talk it out it’ll all be okay. And if I have a crappy day, I’ve got seeing him to look forward to. Taking this much time away from our life means giving up those things for a while, and having faith that everything will still be in place when I return. That whatever “doesn’t work out” in some relationships won’t happen while I’m not looking.
“I guess I’m just worried Preppy might forget why he loves me without me there to remind him every day.”
There’s a long pause.
“That’s so pitiful I don’t even know how to respond,” says Shannon.
“I don’t wanna leave town if it’s gonna hurt us. Preppy says it won’t, but how does he know?”
“All you know is what you want. And what the two of you want is to get married next June and grow old and ugly together. But you won’t find out what happens until you go. And you can’t stay in his face forever.”
“I know, but I was gonna try.”
I get off the phone and sign the contract for the tour. As I take it to the mailbox, I notice the kitten took the hint. She’s moved on, leaving me with the hope that she’ll be fine without me.

Thank You For Being a Friend

“So, I think Parker and Eddie are having problems,” I tell my buddy George on the phone.
“Who the hell are Parker and Eddie?”
“You remember, when we used to hang out at Mary’s, before I met Preppy? Parker was tall, had those really complicated highlights, never talked much? And Eddie was always drunk, I think he’s a florist or a doctor or something?”
“No idea who these people are,” says George. “But go on.”
“Well, they broke up yesterday, then they worked things out, but this morning there’s trouble again.”
“Why do you know this? Are they calling you?”
“No, it’s all right there on Facebook. Eddie went from ‘in a relationship’, to ‘single,’ then back to ‘in a relationship,’ and today it says ‘it’s complicated,’ which sounds like an understatement.”
“Just so I’m clear,” says George. “You don’t actually know these people?”
“I do too! From the bar, a few years ago.”
“Darling, this is absurd. Someone you knew from the bar back in your skinny days is not a friend, no matter what Facebook tells you.”
I think I’m developing a problem. After abandoning Friendster for MySpace a few years ago, last week I took the time to create a Facebook profile, since that’s apparently all the rage these days. I really just did it to keep up with the people in my life who now refuse to call, text, or e-mail. If you wanna know what’s up with them, you gotta read their “Wall”. I posted some photos, accepted a few friend requests, and had fully intended to leave it at that.
Within three days, I had two hundred friends.
I was not aware I knew two hundred people. But I hadn’t thought of my classmates from elementary school, or the next-door neighbor of a friend in New York, or the people I used to hang out alongside at bars before I moved out to the suburbs. Collectively, that adds up. And then, you start looking at those people’s friend lists, which reminds you of all sorts of other people you haven’t talked to in fifteen years, and within minutes, you’re caught up on every aspect of their existence since you last met, and you’re getting daily updates.
My friend Molly from junior high is hosting a poker tournament in Louisiana. There is not a single reason for me to possess this information. Until last week, I don’t think she and I would’ve even known each other if we were in the same elevator. I’m certainly not going to attend the poker tournament. But I know it’s coming along very well.
When I get friend requests from people whose identities I can’t quite place, I’ll click over to the photos to see if it jogs my memory. If it’s a cute boy, I’ll go through his whole album to see if he’s got any shirtless photos. It just gives my ego a healthy boost when attractive strangers want to be friends with me. Also, I like shirtless photos. Go ahead and judge, you know you like them too. It takes a minute to upload a picture, so it’s not like they put the picture up accidentally. I figure if a hot guy goes to the trouble of putting up half-naked pictures, the least I can do is observe, and decide what I think about it.
Then I have to check their relationship status, because I have several quality single friends who I’m always looking to set up with someone.
People keep sending me virtual plants, which is somehow supposed to save the rain forest, but I’m not sure how that works. Apparently there are also people “tending my patch”. Slutty Mandy recently told me she’d chased away a chipmunk that was eating my petunias, and the least I could do was send her a sunflower. I think that was the moment I realized I was completely immersed in a bizarre, foreign culture.
My cousin Nelson’s bedroom is across the hall from the den where I do most of my work. There are moments where both of us are on Facebook, messaging each other from ten feet away. We used to have actual conversations. No we send each other YouTube clips.
I don’t really worry about this scenario, because I know once the newness of it all wears off, I’ll move on. When I first discovered Xtube, my friend Greg and I competed to see who could find the most out-there, fetishy clips. But we reached a point where we saw a few things that I questioned the legality or physics of, and most of which I really wish I could un-see, so we abandoned the exercise. After that experience, plus exhausting the searches to find out if there were any clips of people I knew (and yep, there were), I haven’t really been back.
In the meantime, however, I’m enjoying getting caught up with the bartender who snuck me drinks in Florida when I was nineteen, and the guy who played a talking vending machine in the children’s show where I played a giant blue soccer-playing kitten.

And there are, of course, the unexpected benefits.
“I just got a request from some grad student who likes reading Austen and looks great in a swimsuit,” I tell George.
“Is he single?” George asks.
“Sure is,” I say. “I should introduce you. I mean, after all, now he’s a friend of mine.”

Sleepless in the Suburbs

It’s four in the morning. I wake up agitated. It’s too quiet. I realize the air-conditioning isn’t running. The bedspread is on the floor and the sheets are soaked with sweat. The room even smells hot. Confounded by this, I check the thermostat. It’s eighty-six degrees, which would be perfect if I was at a barbecue but not really ideal for a night’s sleep. There’s air coming out of the vents, but it’s warm air, mocking me. I throw on boxers and look at Preppy snoring contentedly.

I have no idea how he sleeps through stuff like this.
I’ve always been the person who wakes up at the slightest provocation, bolting up to seek the source of the sound. My father used to go to work at five every morning, and I’d jump out of bed when I heard him in the kitchen. I don’t really know why I did it every day. But I couldn’t keep myself in the bed, knowing there was something going on in the house that I needed to investigate. I’d find him at the kitchen table, eating Raisin Bran in his postal uniform.
“You should be asleep,” he’d say. “Everything’s okay.”
Then he’d give me a hug, and I would go back to sleep until I heard my mother moving around a little while later.
Standing outside my house in my underwear and flip-flops, I shine a flashlight on the air conditioning unit, which is currently not doing anything. This is a little panic-inducing, because calling a technician will require money we don’t have. Suddenly I miss having a landlord. Plus, there’s no way I’ll be able to sleep knowing there’s a problem to solve. This is exactly WHY I wake up to every sound. Because there might be something I need to take care of, like a broken air conditioner.

Now, if only I had the slightest idea what to do.

Other than knowing the sound it’s supposed to make I’m at a complete loss.
Back when I lived in Mississippi, I dated a guy named John whose next door neighbor loved reggae music. John’s neighbor seemed to particularly love reggae music at three in the morning, played at a volume which managed to provoke a rage in me I wasn’t aware I possessed. I would toss and turn in John’s bed, pillow over my head, trying my best to avoid the inevitable confrontation. But it was no use. I’d inevitably launch out of bed, pounding on the wall with my shoe. The music would get louder. John was oblivious to all of this. Without his hearing aids John was profoundly deaf, an aspect of his existence which presented countless hurdles, but did usually guarantee a good night’s sleep.
So I’d have to throw on my boxers and a t-shirt, marching across the hall to his neighbor’s door. He’d greet me in a cloud of pot smoke, wearing a sarong, black lights glowing in the background.

Our conversations were never cordial.
“Jesus, do we have to go through this every night?”
“Dude, what’s your problem? Your buddy never complains when you’re not here.”
“Because my buddy is DEAF, you jackass. But I’m not, so could you turn it down?”
“I wish he’d fuck another deaf guy, then.”
I’d try to explain my frustration to John the next day, but he’d just tell me not to worry about it. How does one explain annoying sounds to a deaf person?
“It’s like if roaches were crawling all over you,” I told him. “You couldn’t sleep through it.”
Later, when John started having nightmares about bugs attacking him in his bed, he blamed me.
Still standing outside, I think of kicking the air conditioner, because that tends to work with vending machines when they won’t relinquish my Snickers, but decide against it. Then I follow a cable to a fuse box on the side of the house, covered in ivy. I start ripping the ivy off, delighted by a possible solution. That’s when I see the big spider. It’s one of those fat bastards, so big they look hairy. This launches me five feet back, having a small panic attack. Because I saw Arachnophobia at a particularly impressionable age, I have always seen spiders as malicious, calculating creatures, hell-bent on world domination. Even Charlotte’s Web gave me the heebie-jeebies, especially because she had Debbie Reynolds’ voice, and frankly I find that woman alarming. She’s like a garden gnome in drag.
Now the spider is the only thing standing between me and cool air, and by extension, sleep. I take off one of my flip-flops and run toward the fuse box kamikaze-style. I smack the hairy monster off the box, flip a switch, and the air conditioner returns to life with the sound I was hoping for. I feel quite pleased with myself as I go back into the house, having slain the monster and completed my mission. Back in the bedroom, Preppy is spread-eagle on the bed. I want to wake him and share my harrowing hero’s journey, but decide to wait ‘til morning. I give a little push to roll him over, but he won’t budge.
“Baby, move over,” I say, pushing harder.
He flings an arm out in protest, managing to punch me in the face.
“Jesus Christ!” I yell, a hand to my throbbing eye.
“Shh,” he says. “You’re being loud.”
He resumes snoring. I grab my pillow and the bedspread and head for the sofa, deciding I’ve fought enough battles for one night. I should be asleep. Everything’s okay.

Money Dearest

My neighbor Mrs. Richardson explained over our back fence that the neighborhood only uses one yard man: Walter, a man in his late thirties who lives at the end of the block. The system is simple: Whenever Walter feels like it, usually around the end of the month, he’ll drag his mower out and take care of your lawn. You can’t call Walter to schedule an appointment, because he uses prepaid cell phones and is always changing numbers. It’s also difficult to decline lawn service, because you never know when he’ll come by. So everybody just keeps fifty dollars on hand for when he comes to your door to collect.
I told Mrs. Richardson that didn’t sound like the best setup, and I might check around for something a little more reliable.
“Oh, please don’t,” she said. “We all use him. Walter lives with his poor mother, and he won’t get a real job. Only way she can get him to make money is by doin’ the yards. We do it to help her out.”
So I hired Walter. Gotta help his poor Mama.
I’m in the kitchen making dinner, which I do now because I’m home all day, and it’s important to have a few noticeable housekeeping things done when my fiancée gets home. Otherwise he begins to wonder what it is I’m doing. And I can’t say “I was writing,” because if I was actually writing all that time I’d have a novel longer than Gone With the Wind to show for it. In truth, I don’t do a lot of actual writing. But I spend a great deal of time staring at a blank document in Microsoft Word, begging my brain to actually come up with something. So then I’ll stop staring and have a cigarette or twelve, call my sister, maybe watch some clips of baby animals on YouTube. I love baby animal clips, particularly panda cubs climbing on things or sneezing. You wouldn’t think you can fill a whole afternoon watching those, but trust me, you totally can.
I can usually snap myself out of gazing at the screen slack-jawed about an hour before Preppy gets home, at which point I’ll start dinner and dust something in the living room. That’s key, because when he walks in the house and smells Lemon Pledge, his brain tells him I’ve been cleaning.

It also helps if I put a little Windex behind my ears, to complete the effect.
“I’ve been thinking,” says Preppy as I drain the pasta. “My domestic partner benefits provide the exact same coverage for both of us. Same health, dental, prescriptions, all of it. And I pay for that.”
“Oh-kaaay,” I say, not really sure where this is going, but really hoping it won’t interfere with my long-term plans to use these benefits to have all of my teeth capped. My ultimate goal is for it to look like someone’s turned on a fluorescent light when I open my mouth.
“So, if I pay for us to have identical benefits, how come you only let me have two movies on the Netflix queue, and you get four? Shouldn’t we each get three?”
Giving Preppy his own personal Netflix queue was a little gift from me last year. It didn’t cost that much more to upgrade my membership, and then he could pick out his own movies. I hadn’t thought of it as being in the same category as him providing my health insurance, but since the Netflix is considerably cheaper, I’m glad that’s how he sees it.
“I’ll fix it tomorrow,” I say, adding it to my to-do list. I’ve got a book coming out soon, at which point hopefully I’ll be financially stable again and Preppy won’t have to cover the bills. Until then, however, things are a little lean. I take pride in not having asked him for actual cash yet, but I had to take my change jar to the CoinStar at Kroger today, so that may be ending soon.
The next morning, the doorbell rings. It’s Walter the yard man, holding the check I’d given him the day before.
“I’m really sorry about this, Mr. Payne,” he said. “But the bank said they couldn’t cash this check.”
Well, shit. So much for having my own money.

I go to my wallet and pull all the money I’d gotten from cashing in my change, and hand it over.
“I’m sorry about this, Walter. There must’ve been some mix-up and the bank.”
“Mm-hmm,” he says, giving me a look that lets me know he’s completely aware I’m full of shit, but willing to spare my dignity and play along.
And just like that, I’m broke. I am officially completely dependent on my partner. The leap of faith I took in leaving my day job now feels more like a stumble. I call around, and manage to get a gig babysitting the next afternoon. Despite Preppy’s assurances that I shouldn’t worry, everything will be fine, I know that I need to contribute more than just the smell of furniture polish to the house. I can just picture Mrs. Richardson leaning over the fence, talking to the neighbors.
“You don’t even have to read the book,” she’ll say. “But everybody’s buying a copy. He won’t get a real job, and the only way Preppy can get him to make money is by writing those books. So we do it to help his husband out.”

Evidence Tampering

I’m in the drive-thru at Chik-fil-a, which I always feel a little guilty about because they donate money to Focus on Family, and I really shouldn’t support that. But damn, those fanatical fundamentalists sure do make a fine chicken sandwich. I’m mulling over this quandary and looking forward to my waffle fries when the woman in front of me pulls ahead to the trash can, discarding a bag from Wendy’s, and another from McDonald’s.
I’m left wondering if she’s conducting some sort of tour. If I followed her out of here, would she stop at Dairy Queen next? I saw a movie once where Meredith Baxter played a bulimic who’d go on drive-thru raids like that.
There are so many social problems I wouldn’t even know existed if Meredith Baxter and Judith Light hadn’t dramatized them for me.
Then, as I receive my own order at the window, I have to move an empty Burger King cup out of the holder. A quick look in the back seat reveals the evidence from my most recent late-night run to the Krystal on Moreland Avenue, where I’m willing to risk being assaulted just to have tiny hamburgers at two in the morning.
Shit. I’m just like the lady. Only I don’t even throw the bags away. So I’m actually worse than the lady, because I’m also a slob.
It isn’t as though I’m ordering every meal via drive-thru speaker, but it is disheartening to note the change in lifestyle that’s occurred since I got my driver’s license. When I was still a pedestrian, I ate at fast food joints only a few times a year, mainly because it was rare for me to even walk past one. They don’t market fast food to people who walk, because you never see anyone walking down the street stuffing their face with a triple bacon cheeseburger. That’s reserved for drivers, who sit in traffic and eat French fries by the fistful. Oh, and by the way, other people can totally see you when you do that. The image of a man in my rear-view mirror deep-throating a Moe’s burrito is forever burned in my memory.
One would think that my expanding waistline would’ve been enough to sound the alarms in my mind, but it’s actually the moment at Chick-fil-a that really scares the hell outta me. I get home and delay my lunch in favor of cleaning out the car. Every paper wrapper, every plastic cup, every little cardboard Krystal chick container, leave me feeling shamed.
I must destroy all evidence.
I tend to do that. Any physical reminders of an unpleasant incident must be completely eliminated. A photo makes me think of a bad moment? Gotta tear it up. The polo I was wearing the day I found out I had cancer ended up in the trash, because it would forever be my cancer shirt. I bought new sheets once on the day a boyfriend broke up with me, and eventually I had to give the sheets away because I felt rejected every time I opened the damn linen closet. I should let my fiancée know about this, so he’ll know to take me to an alternate location if he ever has bad news for me. Because if it happens at home, I’ll have to burn down the house to eradicate the memory.
My grandfather was an avid fan of Playboy magazine in the 1970s- he had the entire decade stacked on the top shelf of the guest bedroom closet. My cousin Nelson and I used to pull copies down and marvel at the centerfolds featuring women with frosted blue eye shadow and pendulous, pre-silicone boobs. Nelson was clearly delighted by what he saw, but I was always more interested in the staging of the photos. Who stands in their library reading Ivanhoe wearing nothing but garters and heels? Or, why was this woman standing naked in front of a blazing fireplace holding a poker? Wasn’t that dangerous?
Then one day, we discovered a promotional copy of Playgirl that had been sent to my grandmother in 1975. These men were sexy in the Burt Reynolds mode- big mustache, overly tan, a little thick in the middle, overgrown pubes the size and shape of a slice of Sbarro pizza. They lounged, on rocks and in hammocks, looking directly at me with a smirk that said, “Admit it, Topher, you like it.”
I stole it. I took it home and committed every page to memory, reveling in fantasies of these manly men and me doing… something. I wasn’t entirely clear on what, but I knew it was something very wrong and potentially fantastic.
The Playgirl had to be destroyed.
I cut every single page into tiny pieces, taking hours with the task. I put the resulting confetti in a paper bag, then walked six blocks to the Presbyterian Church and threw it in their dumpster.
And here we discover the flaw in my destruction-of-evidence plan: I still remember every detail of that macho man lying in repose on a rock with a boner. I vividly recall the cancer shirt and the rejection sheets. Getting rid of the actual objects didn’t make the memory go away. In fact, the ritual may have highlighted them in my mind.
Maybe the best way to learn from a shameful experience isn’t by trying to eliminate it- it’s facing it head on. With that possibility in mind, I try something new: I take one of those Krystal containers and tape it to my dashboard. We’ll see what happens.

Faithful

Okay, remember how my pal Slutty Mandy decided try something new and go out with a guy a few years older than her usual meat market? Well, she called me with an update, and it was a doozie.
“Wait, he’s WHAT?”
“You heard me,” she said. “He’s goddamn motherfucking MARRIED. As in, man and wife, rings and shared debt, the whole thing.”
“But you said he was divorced.”
“Because that’s what HE said,” she hissed. “Then last night he clarified that statement. Apparently when he said “divorced,” he meant “not really even remotely divorced.”
“Well that is just… tacky.”
“It seems that the only difference with older guys is that they’ve had more time to get really good at lying. I’m so fed up. The only thing worse than being a dirty mistress is being one without realizing it.”
“Maybe it’s time you try that lesbianism thing the girls are so wild about,” I say. “Lindsay Lohan seems to find it agreeable. I think I’ve got a brochure around here somewhere.”
“I’ve tried the girl thing,” she says. “Aside from it being less messy I really failed to see the appeal. Jesus, Topher, why do men do this? Why is one person never enough for a guy?”
It’s a question often asked. Statistics tell us that men wrestle with the concept of monogamy more than women. Although, I assume these reports are based upon interviews. It’s entirely possible that the men are admitting to their indiscretions, while the women are simply better at hiding it.
For most of the guys I know, finding the one and only remains the stated goal. Listening to them, one would assume they crave monogamous relationships. And yet in the moment, a nice option comes along, and suddenly a man can conveniently forget he’s married until after he’s been on a few dates and stayed over. It’s bad enough when there’s one man involved, but when it’s two guys attempting a relationship, surrounded by other horny gay guys… well, resisting temptation basically becomes your full-time job.
My friend Sammy used to hang out with a married guy, just as friends. There was a little flirtation, but nothing that spelled trouble brewing. Then one night, Sammy got a text from the guy that said “I wish I was inside U,” and attached to the message was a picture of his erect penis. Sammy was without words. He handed me his phone and waited for my response.
“Where is he right now?” I asked.
“I think he’s at Wetbar. Why?”
“Because this was taken in his bedroom. It’s a used dick pic. Not only is he trashy enough to try and cheat with you, he sent you a picture he probably took for his husband.”
“Oh my God,” said Sammy. “That IS trashy. I don’t even warrant a new dick pic?”
“If that doesn’t sum up the situation, I don’t know what will.”
Look, I’m no idiot. Monogamy is hard. I have cheated on boyfriends in the past. I had every excuse in the world, too: We hadn’t been dating that long, I was drunk, he ignores me, I think the relationship is going to end soon anyway, he won’t let me fuck him enough, he won’t let me blow him, or my most consistent, I just wanted to feel desirable. I was smart enough to know, sometimes in the moment and sometimes immediately after, that what I was doing was hurting the guy I was dating at the time even if he didn’t know. I didn’t realize how much I was fucking with my own head. That came later, when I actually committed to one person and finally respected how significant that is, and how unprepared I was to not solve problems in the relationship by going out and getting some strange.
We don’t really need statistics to know that men love the thrill of a new conquest. But a word of advice to those who might conveniently forget they’re married at the sight of a hot ass: Work to maintain what you were lucky enough to find, or know when to walk away. But don’t try juggling your commitments. You might get off in the moment, but at the end of the day all you’ll be is a used dick in somebody’s i-Phone, waiting to be deleted.

The Firing Squad

I’m on the phone with my best gal pal, Slutty Mandy, catching up on the events of the weekend. Mandy’s been out a few times with a slightly older guy. I mean, not AARP or anything, but a little above the age group with whom we tend to socialize. There’s logic to this, really. She hasn’t had much luck with guys in the late twenties-early thirties range, so she’s just leapfrogging over them and trying the next level.
“My date went surprisingly well. Spent the day on his boat…”
“He has a boat? That’s good. Means he pays his bills.”
“How so?”
“Because,” I explain. “If the bank starts taking things away, the first thing to go is always the boat. So if he’s managed to hang on to that, there’s probably a good credit rating on this one.”
As years pass, different things make a man appealing. Ten years ago, it was abs and access to a reliable dealer. Now it’s steady employment and a solid FICO rating. Although I suppose the abs and reliable dealer would still be welcomed. They’re just no longer deal-breakers.
“So,” I say. “When do I get to meet this fella? I could make dinner. I’m a housewife now, I do that sort of thing. I also do crafts now. Do you need an afghan?”
“I don’t need an afghan in July.”
“Well, I’m really bad at it, so it probably wouldn’t be ready ‘til around President’s Day. Now, seriously, when do I get to see this guy?”
“Um… you don’t get to meet him yet.”
“Why not? What are you hiding? What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing is wrong with him, sweetness. I’m just not quite ready to put him in front of the Topher Payne Firing Squad. I wanna try this out a little bit longer before you show up and openly judge him.”
“I do NOT do that!”
I totally do that. Here’s thing: I am very protective of my friends. They’re quality people with much to offer the world. I also know that when people get into new relationships, they tend to completely ignore their friends for a lengthy stretch while they’re flush with dewy romantic encounters. Anyone who says they don’t do that is a damn liar. We all do it. I did it. Some of my friends claim I’m still doing it.
My point is, if you’re going to take this quality person with much to offer out of my daily life for a while and keep them all to yourself, I have the right to evaluate whether they are worthy of such an honor. And if they are not, am I not duty-bound to report my findings? What sort of friend would I be if I didn’t point out that the person my best friend is dating drinks entirely too much, or wears pleated pants, or has no chin?
And don’t think that I’m some shrieking harpy here. They all did it to me back before I met Preppy. When I was roommates with George, he would actually reject men on the doorstep. The unlucky suitor would arrive for our date, George would open the door, and make a guttural sound of disgust. Mandy would play it with slightly less subtlety, settling in with a glass of scotch and tilting her head in mock-interest. With careful precision, she would pick my boyfriends apart, leaving them lying in a heap on the floor before announcing they weren’t clever enough to run with me or my crowd. Preppy managed to disarm them all through a method no one had tried previously: He found them all hilarious. Their posturing and interrogation left him amused beyond words.

Which, incidentally, is one of the reasons I like them too.
“All right,” I say to Mandy. “You have your clandestine affair. Keep him to yourself for now. But eventually he’s gonna have to face the tribunal. You can’t hide him forever.”
“I know that,” she sighs. “But for now, let me believe I can.”
“Fair enough,” I say, already preparing my list of questions for the man who dares to win the heart of my best girl.

Make It Happen

“It’s right here somewhere,” I say, slowly driving through the streets of Candler Park.
“Do we need to turn Vera on?” asks George, reaching for my GPS. “Preppy made you get her for situations just like this.”
“No, I got it. It’s just past the golf course… I think.”
“Watch it, George,” Slutty Mandy says from the back seat. “You’re ashing all over me.”
We’re taking a post-brunch field trip, so my best friends can see the most exciting thing that happened to me all week. Possibly ever.
“There! Right there!”
I slam on the brakes directly in front of a 1920s Baptist Church, which was repurposed in the 1970s when it was purchased by the First Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta. Two days ago, it became the site of my upcoming wedding to Preppy.
“That’s not a little church!” yells George. “You said little. You said you were gonna have a tiny church like the one Slash played guitar in front of in the November Rain video.”
Slutty Mandy begins singing Guns and Roses behind us.
“Turns out those only exist in music videos and episodes of Little House on the Prairie. Besides, we needed a larger space. I’ve got a big family, and the guest list just kept growing. We’ve got sixteen attendants now.”
“Sixteen?” shouts Mandy. “Christ, who are you, Princess Di?”
“Look, y’all. I never had a graduation ceremony, I’m not Jewish so I didn’t get a bar mitzvah, I don’t even do big birthday parties. This is the one and only time I’m asking everybody to drop everything and come celebrate something, and I don’t wanna hear crap about it.”
“Down, Bridezilla, down,” says Mandy. “Nobody’s going to take away your special day. I’ll put the baby’s breath in your hair myself. I’ll carry a parasol. Whatever you and Preppy want.”
“Preppy wants what he always wants. Whatever makes Topher complain the least,” says George, examining the building with a critical eye. “God, I’m just wondering how in frosty hell I’m supposed to do flowers for a space that size.”
“I’ll help you,” I say. “We’ll do it together. It’ll be fun.”
“I don’t know,” says George. “You don’t take instruction very well. And you never have free time.”
“I will for this! My last day at the restaurant is next week.”
“What?” says Mandy. “You quit your job to plan your wedding?”
“No. That’s just a benefit. I’m gonna try to be a writer. Full-time. And if I need extra money, there’s plenty of things I can do. Odd jobs.”
I know, it seems rash, but I really did think this through, in my way. I made a budget of the exact dollar amount I need to make each month, and then I just have to come up with creative ways to make that much money. So I made another list of things I might be good at that would still give me time to write. I came up with babysitting, photographing events, phone psychic, being one of those guys who gives out comment cards at movie screenings, hosting a talk show, and assembling products in my own home, among many others. My friend Vincent in New York does pretty well cleaning houses in suggestive outfits. If I got some abs maybe I could do that.
Poor Preppy. When he met me I had a nice, stable, full-time job doing very responsible, adult-type things. But once I convinced him to marry me, I up and decided I’d had enough of all that. He was a little nervous about the whole thing, but I promised him if by the end of the year I was broke, I’d go put in an application at Starbucks.
But you never get anywhere without taking risks. I could keep telling myself my day job doesn’t define me, but is that really true? Whatever you do with the majority of your day does define who you are, at least to some extent. If you spend ten hours a day being a bartender and two hours a week being a musician, then which one of those words really describes you better? There are two things I wanna be at this point in my life: A writer, and married to Preppy. As I drive away from the church, I feel like I’m finally making both of those things happen.

Rain on my Parade

“I will never, never be dry again,” I say to my best pal Slutty Mandy as we wring ourselves out under the Civic Center awning. We’ve just walked the route for Pride Parade 2008, apparently sponsored by The Wrath of God.

All that flooding and rainbows felt distinctly Old Testament.
“Preppy is so lucky he had to work today,” says Slutty Mandy, trying to bring her phone back to life. “Is your Blackberry working?”
“I’m hoping it will when it dries out.”
“Great, well there goes getting a cab. Fabulous.”
We decide to forego riding MARTA from Civic Center, suspecting that every single waterlogged reveler was headed in that direction. Instead, we simply return to the parade route and walk it in reverse, back to Mandy’s apartment in Midtown. To pass the time, I bitch constantly about how wet/chafed/tired I am.
“I’m sorry, didn’t you walk EVERYWHERE up until like six months ago?”
“Not in the rain. And not for like, miles. This is coming dangerously close to exercise, and you know how I hate that.”
“How do you think I feel? I had spin class this morning. My legs are killing me.”
“Oh, no, Soggy Mandy. People who exercise voluntarily are not allowed to bitch about having to engage in MORE physical activity. There’s nothing so obnoxious as people in great shape complaining about how sore they are. You’re supposed to like this sort of thing.”
“Your denial of your own history astounds me. You used to go to the gym.”
“I also used to breast feed. People change.”
We decide to cut through my old neighborhood.
“Oh, man. That’s where Neighbor Guy lived. He was my waist size, too. If he hadn’t moved away he could loan me clothes.”
“Sweetie, would you really stop at a former trick’s house demanding pants?”
“Yes. I would compromise myself in any number of ways for dry clothes right about now. Ooh! Charlie used to live over there before he got married. And Dean moved to Stone Mountain of all places, got himself a farm house. Over there’s where Criminal Mike lived until the cops found him. Aw, and that bartender with the tattoo of eyeballs on his lower back, remember? He lived right there.”
“Jesus, did you fuck all your neighbors?”
“I didn’t have a car. It was practical,” I say, really considering my surroundings. “Wow. I don’t think I know anyone in Midtown anymore.”
It’s only been about two years since I left my little apartment on Durant Place, and my fiancée and I almost always make it to a bar once a week, but a curious thing has happened: Right around the same time I packed up my boxes and headed out of the Midtown mix, a good number of my friends did too. No longer content with our tiny, overpriced apartments, yet in no way prepared to buy one of the area’s stately old homes, we took our leave. I got a house on a quiet street in Decatur, a car, a soon-to-be-husband. We have a yard. Now, I borrow lawn care supplies from neighbors instead of having sex with them.
And while the life I’ve built is a source of great joy, I can’t help but be a little wistful as I remember closing Blake’s and stumbling down this street, belting “Express Yourself” for the benefit of my sleeping neighbors. Let it never be said that I don’t have happy memories of my bachelorhood. Vague, drunken, happy memories. I recently visited my friend Nick at his new apartment in Ansley Forest, and of course already knew where his bathroom was.

Half the homos in Atlanta know the layout of those apartments. They’re an inevitable stop on our personal parade route through gay life in the city.
As Slutty Mandy and I approach Grady high school, a blonde guy in his early twenties passes us, drenched and happy, with a few of friends.
“Come on,” he says. “We’re almost home!”
He could be headed back to my old place, or at least somewhere I spent the night. But the thought is interrupted by my Blackberry coming back to life, albeit with a screen full of water droplets. I answer and catch Preppy up on the day’s events, walking away and leaving my old street to a new crowd.

Since U Been Gone

“Go. Point. Four. Miles and… Turn right. On. South. Atlanta Road.”
I’m driving in Roswell, which is so not my neighborhood, and that makes me very nervous.

I have a disastrous sense of direction, and I’ve only had my driver’s license for six months. Somehow the suburbs confound me twice as much as downtown streets- Downtown is on a grid, but outside the Perimeter streets twist and turn endlessly, changing names without warning.
When Preppy’s in the car, I can keep my panic in check. He navigates, and bolsters my confidence with words of encouragement. But alone, I teeter on the edge of a nervous breakdown. He knows this, having patiently talked me through hysterical phone calls from Marietta and Buford. But he can’t be with me all the time, which is why he introduced me to my new traveling companion.
“Continue to. North. Atlanta Road.”
I call her Vera, and she knows where everything is. When Vera is giving directions, I keep the windows rolled up and the radio off. I don’t talk on the phone.

Vera is in control, and she is a wise and patient leader.

She can even tell me where the nearest Starbucks is. She does everything Preppy does except hold my hand and tell me I’m a good driver. I have every reason to believe future versions of her will do that.
Preppy’s out of town, joining his family at the beach for a few days. I can’t go because I’m in a play, and my free time is being spent rehearsing a dance number for the Atlanta Cotillion Cabaret. In heels. My feet hurt.
Last night I couldn’t sleep, so I built a little fort next to me in the bed- a Pillow Preppy, if you will. It didn’t help, and it took me forever to figure out why. Then I realized: Pillow Preppy doesn’t snore. I’ve grown so accustomed to his nightly symphony of grunts and mournful moose sounds that without it, the bedroom was entirely too quiet. Creepy quiet, just the distant thump of the nightclub behind our house, curiously located between a plus-size clothing store and a 24-hour day care center.

Actually, the more I think about it, that makes perfect sense.
Anyhoo, I laid there in the dark, next to the eerily silent Pillow Preppy, wondering if for his next gift he could locate a device that would replicate his sleeping noises. Then when he goes out of town, I can just throw on the virtual sleeping fiancée and drift off without incident. Then it hit me: I used to be a fairly independent person. I didn’t require GPS navigators and fake bedmates made out of pillows. I didn’t even own a cellular phone until after Desperate Housewives premiered. I didn’t need such things. I made my way on my own just fine. Somehow, being in a relationship was turning me into a puddle of inactive goo, no longer capable of taking care of myself.
So back in the car, I decide to exert some of that old energy- a little of that self-sufficient can-do attitude that used to define me. I turn off the GPS. I’ve been to Roswell a few times, and I have the address.

I don’t need Vera or Preppy. I can do this.
A half-hour later, I pull over and turn Vera back on. I’m in Dunwoody. Don’t know how that happened.
I realize I have romanticized the old me quite a bit more than I realized. I knew I always picture the old me as thinner and less awkward- apparently I also fooled myself into thinking I was competent. I was never competent! I have always been just as bumbling and neurotic as I am now. The only reason I’ve noticed it so much while Preppy’s been away is because since he came along I’ve been ever-so-slightly more honest about it, and he was willing to help prevent me from getting lost or accidentally setting something on fire. He made it okay for me to admit that I can’t do everything on my own. Which is why he needs to come back, before I accidentally drive to Tennessee in a sleep-deprived haze and can’t get myself home.
“Please wait,” says Vera. “Calculating new route.”
You do that, sweetie. I’ll just sit here and wait for further instruction.

Why We Fight

Here’s a little pointer on European travel: Until George Bush is out of office, just tell people you’re from Canada. I learned that lesson in Ireland, when upon hearing my American accent, locals would accost me and demand answers regarding Dubya’s general incompetence. For a while, I tried to defend myself and my country against their tirades, but then I discovered the Canada solution, and my situation improved considerably. Everybody likes Canada- Good old genial, non-threatening Canada. It’s like the Ellen Degeneres of nations.
So I spent a summer lolling about the Irish countryside as a fake Canadian, never having visited the country I called home, and not actually knowing anything about it. But here’s another pointer: Nobody else knows anything about Canada either. I’ve wondered in the intervening years if any of the Irish people I met later traveled to our northern neighbor, and if they were surprised that the main thoroughfare in Quebec City is not named Celine Dion Boulevard, as I’d claimed.
In the village of Clonmel, I found a pub with internet access and quickly set up shop at a corner table, where I would end each day uploading photos and writing over an endless stream of pints.
It was in the pub that I met Danny, the owner of the local pizza parlor. He was around thirty, and the only gay man in town. He sniffed me out with relative ease, using that beautiful sixth sense that every homo in a small town has: Attuned to every gesture or pop culture reference, any indication that they’ve crossed paths with one of their own kind. He invited me back to his flat, to see the view. It was good to know that closeted or not, regardless of culture, every gay guy had the same few cheesy pick-up lines.
Danny wasn’t out. Not to his family, or his employees, or even the guys with whom he shared this flat. The concept of living a life where he could be out to everyone, even strangers, was beyond his imagination. When I tried to describe my experience of marching in Pride Parade, he couldn’t picture it.
“But you’ve seen movies, and TV shows, right?” I asked.
“That’s just Hollywood fantasy,” he said.
I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation. In an age of the internet and gay marriage debates, people remain who cannot begin to fathom the concept of living their lives honestly. It made me profoundly sad, and a little angry.
“It’s not fantasy, Danny. It’s my life. And all my friends, too.”
“Lucky for you,” he said, and the subject was closed. I returned to my vodka tonic. And then he kissed me. It was startlingly intense- forceful and hungry. I followed him inside, careful not to disturb his roommates.
“You don’t have to hide, you know,” I said later as we lay on his bare mattress, naked in the orange light of dawn. “You could have this every day if you wanted.”
“Let it go, pally. My shop’s doing well here. Not a bad life.”
I rolled over and rested my head by the little V-shaped thing below his belly button. I forget what it’s called.
“But if you know something is a part of you- something that defines you… don’t you owe it to yourself to live honestly, and fight for it?”
Danny gave a heavy sigh.
“Some things you can’t fight by yourself.”
“Then move! Sell pizzas someplace else! You’re a great guy. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’m used to it,” he said.
“You shouldn’t settle for getting used to it.”
We meant to exchange e-mail addresses, but it never happened, and I left the country a week later. But he never left my mind, and serves as a consistent reminder whenever people ask why Pride festivals are necessary. Pride is necessary because there are some things you can’t fight by yourself, so wherever and whenever we can gather to show the strength and validity of our lives, we are called by conscience to do so. Because there’s guys like Danny all around the world who believe that the life we have is some unattainable fantasy. It isn’t. It’s right here in front of us. And if we demand to be recognized, support each other, and are willing to battle for the lives we deserve, eventually people like him might feel strong enough to join us in the fight.

History Lessons

It’s Preppy’s ten year high school reunion, and we’re in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Preppy was class president his senior year, so he was responsible for planning the festivities. That was a little learning moment for me, by the way: I had no idea the responsibilities of class officers continued after graduation. Now he’s a dignified former president making an official visit, like when Jimmy Carter moderates peace talks. And that makes me, in a way, the former first lady of Porter’s Chapel Academy. I should totally be wearing a sensible suit and heels. Maybe a scarf.
At dinner, we’re seated between Jen, Preppy’s best friend from high school, and a girl named Betty, who was expelled her senior year. Betty was the wild child- she could always get liquor or cigarettes, and ditched her prom date to take the limo driver instead. It seems everyone at the table has a Betty story.
“Betty,” says Preppy. “What was the name of that guy you ran off and moved in with junior year? He had a trailer with a big screen TV?”
“Oh, shit, what was his name?” says Betty, sipping her White Russian and peering into the haze of her memory. “My mama wanted to have him arrested. Jim? Tim? Somethin’.”
“I remember that!” shouts Jen. “We went to visit you and you just threw a porn tape on while we were sitting there talking. I’d never seen some of those acts before. Scared the hell outta me!”
“I just wanted y’all to see the big TV,” says Betty. “Everybody knows the only reason you get a big TV is to watch porn life-sized.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say. “Preppy, did you know that?”
The conversation continues in this vein for a while: the teenage adventures of Preppy, Betty, and Jen, most of which involve small crimes or choices that would have shamed their families. So they sound a lot like my high school stories. Good times. Eventually, I start looking around for the cocktail waitress, and I notice Jen’s husband. He was amiable and animated earlier in the evening, but for at least the last half hour, he’s been sitting two chairs down, observing the conversation silently. There’s an expression on his face I recognize, and it does not bode well for Jen when they leave.
Several months ago I met a few friends of Preppy’s from his life in another city. As the alcohol flowed, so did the stories. And there were quite a few that somehow had never come up in our conversations. I tried to maintain a placid expression as my stomach tightened. My laugh became more forced and my glances at my fiancée grew increasingly severe. We did not have a pleasant drive home.
So when Jen’s husband stands and makes it very clear it’s time to leave, I know exactly what’s going on in his head: “Why haven’t I heard any of this before?”
The next day, Jen reports to Preppy that she did have a rather strenuous drive back to the hotel, which left her confused even after they’d patched things up. These events were a decade ago, when they were babies. What’s the big deal?
Maybe it’s just me, but I think there’s a protective instinct which kicks in when we hear tales of wild nights and bad choices from our significant other’s history. We wish we’d been there, to steer them away from a guy who treated them like shit or something they drank, smoked, or snorted. And there’s a small part of us that wishes they’d been there to do the same for us. It’s the part of you that really means it when you say “Where have you been all my life?”, and knowing you can’t change that can be frustrating.
You probably have to be a total control freak to really appreciate this.
Preppy advised Jen to tell her hubby the same thing he told me: Every choice they made before led them to become the people we now love. Not all of them were good, but they were all necessary. And the past we had apart pales in comparison to the future we have together.

Role Play

Preppy and I are in The Gap with my cousin Nelson, helping him pick out clothing that actually fits. Nelson, like many of the other straight guys I know, tends to wear shirts and pants three sizes larger than he needs. Somehow wearing your proper waist measurement has been associated with being Metrosexual, which I just don’t get at all. Nelson used to be a cross-country runner. Despite his habit of eating an entire large pizza for dinner several times a week, Nelson weighs about twenty pounds soaking wet.

He has the metabolism of a hummingbird. We hate him for this.

But some of the women in his life have told him the same thing I’ve been saying for years: He looks like he was either recently hospitalized, or doesn’t know how to dress himself. I say it, nothing happens. A chick says it, and we’re on our way to the mall. Go figure.
“Go try this on,” says Preppy, holding up a knit shirt.
“I’m not wearing purple,” says Nelson.
“It’s not purple,” I say. “It’s… Merlot.”
“That just made it gayer,” he says.
We manage to wrangle him into a dressing room with a few selections, then stand outside the door so he can’t escape. A woman with a very bewildered expression emerges nearby, wearing a little white summer dress with a flouncy skirt.
“Aw, that’s pretty,” I say.
“Is it?” she says, her desperation leaking from every pore. “I don’t know anything about this style. Is this cute? My hips are too big for this. I feel like a dust mop.”
“No, darlin’, it’s great!” says Preppy, and he’s off assisting her.
Then another woman is at my side, brandishing a pair of madras shorts.
“Excuse me,” she says. “What shirt would go with these other than white? My husband always gets stains on white shirts.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t work here.”
“I know,” she says. “I just wanted your opinion.”
Welcome to Queer Eye for the Straight Gap.
I’m always hyper-aware of scenarios like this. I can’t begin to count the number of baby showers, bridal parties, or lingerie shopping excursions I’ve been asked to attend over the years. At least once a month Preppy calls to say he’ll be home late because one of his girlfriends needs help picking out a dress or cute pair of shoes. For my friend Katie’s wedding a few years back, I did the makeup for the entire bridal party.
I am not a trained professional, and frankly there’s nothing about my wardrobe that indicates I have an excess of taste to share with the world. When someone hands me a bouquet of flowers and says, “Do something with these,” my only instinct is to throw them away. Somehow, somewhere, a list was compiled of traits everyone assumes you have if you’re a guy who likes to kiss other guys. It’s this damn chicken/egg scenario I don’t have a clear grasp on: Did I have a natural instinct about what shade of lipstick looks best with which skin tone, or is this something I cultivated because everyone kept asking my opinion on the subject.
Is this the by-product of integrating into the culture?

By increasing our visibility and relevance, we’ve been assigned tasks which all of us are expected to perform? Not once, ever in his life, has Nelson been asked for his opinion on what color to paint a room or where to hang a picture, although he’d have just as informed an opinion as I do. But he is consistently asked to help move furniture or change the oil in someone’s car, tasks I can perform just as easily, but I’m never asked. Which is just as well, because I hate doing shit like that.
I suppose the nature versus nurture debate is irrelevant, because either way here we are, playing fashion consultants to the dressing room. When Preppy walks away from the girl in the flouncy dress, she’s got a big smile on her face and a healthy boost of confidence, as does Nelson when he walks out with his bag of new clothes.
And that may be why I don’t resist the role the world at large expects me to play sometimes: When I’m approached and asked to pick out a shirt for someone’s husband, they’re identifying me as someone with authority to share. It’s an opportunity to forge a small connection and be the person who made their day a little brighter.

And that’s not a bad role to play.

The Tipping Point

I found this YouTube video, taken from a security camera, of an office drone working in a cubicle maze. Some guy comes along and accidentally knocks a bunch of papers off his desk. The drone notices, and he makes the guy pick up the papers. And then, for reasons unknown, the drone takes his computer keyboard and smashes it on the guy’s head. Thus emboldened, the drone throws his computer monitor across the room. And then he really cuts loose. He leaps from desk to desk, wreaking mayhem on various pieces of office equipment for three minutes, until someone finally tasers his ass, and down he goes. And the whole time I was watching it, I kept picturing the drone, sitting at his desk thinking, “If Glen knocks those profit and loss statements off my desk one more time, I’m gonna go fucking psycho.”
Then Glen knocked the papers off, one last time. The tipping point. I’ll bet it was a really freeing moment for the drone.
I watched it again and again, following the individual reactions of the drone’s co-workers during the flipout. Some made a run for the door, but a large number stayed. With their camera phones. They didn’t intervene; they just… documented. The drone’s breakdown became more explicable- He worked with assholes. It’s the little things that really define your day, you know? Then you hit the tipping point.
“I’ve figured out what causes a nervous breakdown,” I tell my sister Shannon on the phone.
“That’s a hell of an opening statement,” she says. “Go on.”
“Everywhere I turn, people tell me I’m not doing enough. No matter how hard I work, something gets left out or overlooked, and then people say I’m letting them down. Preppy says I don’t clean the house enough, my boss keeps finding things I didn’t do, I gotta raise money for Cotillion… last night I decided to stay in to get some sleep, and two people called me from the bar all pissed off. Even drinking is an obligation now. And I really want a miniature cow! And the batteries in the TV remote are dead, but every single time I go to CVS I forget to buy new ones. For three months!”
“And that’s what causes a nervous breakdown?”
“I think a breakdown is just your brain saying fuck it all,” I say. “Forget work, cleaning, batteries, just go to the nut hut, sit in a padded room and play Connect Four.”
“They wouldn’t let you play Connect Four in a psych ward. Choking hazard.”
“Oh, great, Shannon. Way to ruin my breakdown.”
“I don’t like all this conversation. Are you planning on having a breakdown?”
“It’d be too much work for Preppy. And I could never schedule a psychotic break.”
“Good for you,” says Shannon. “You figured out two things. Breakdowns are caused by constant nagging, and prevented by schedule conflicts. Now, if you really think you’re about to go on some sort of Tatum O’Neal downward spiral, say so. Otherwise, I gotta wake up my kid or he’ll nap all day.”
“Go. I’m fine.”
So she does. I’m not fine.

For the rest of the day, I wonder if the little things just add up, the demands and e-mails and voicemails under the general heading of “Not good enough”, until one cannot help but throw a fax machine for a little release. I wonder what you’re supposed to do keep that from happening.
That night, Preppy and I go out for drinks, and he tries to make me laugh, but I’m too close to my tipping point to let go and have fun. So on the drive home, he removes his shoes. Followed by all of his clothing.
“What are you doing?!”
“I’ve been trying to make you smile all night, but nothing’s worked. So when we get home, I’m going to jump out of the car and run around naked until you get the front door open. And if that doesn’t make you laugh, there’s no hope for you.”
He’s as good as his word, and I try to unlock the door, but I can’t stop laughing long enough to get the key. As I cackle, I feel myself tipping back in the right direction. Like I said, it’s the little things that define your day, and this day is no longer defined by everyone barking demands at me. It’s defined by the image of my fiancée’s ass in the moonlight, and me wondering if the neighbors are up.

Nesting

My fiancée Preppy and his best galpal went to a house party in Smyrna, where Preppy learned that he may never become a Guitar Hero. It was his first time visiting the house where the party was held, and apparently he took exhaustive mental notes. When he got home, he had grout on the brain.
“You know, between the tiles in the bathroom,” he said. “Their house is just as old as ours, but their bathroom had beautiful grout. So I asked about it, and she said they’d re-grouted the whole thing right after they moved in. I was really jealous of their grout.”
He’s telling me this while sitting on the edge of the tub in the master bath, examining the floor, which was just fine yesterday but now is dingy, embarrassing, and simply won’t do.
“All you need is a little saw and a chisel and you’re in business,” he says, surveying the expanse of tile in front of him. “Why aren’t we doing more stuff like this? We’ve had the bedroom paint picked out for two months. We could crack stuff like this out in a weekend.”
“Because we rarely have weekends. We’re busy people. I’m proud when we manage to fold the laundry.”
“We’ve been in the house for six months. We need to nest more. Help me nest, Topher.”
“If I agree to help nest, will you let me have Clarabelle?”
“No.”
Clarabelle is my fantasy pet. She is a miniature cow. I caught less than a minute of a segment they did on Animal Planet about exotic pets, and since then I’ve been desperate for a miniature cow. I keep a picture of one on my Blackberry, so I can show others unfamiliar with, as far as I’m concerned, the greatest animal ever.

It’s a cow the size of a German Shepherd.

They’re very loving and come when you call them, and they produce up to two gallons of milk a day. We’d never have to buy milk again! I’d build one of those cobblestone walls, like you see in the rolling hills of Ireland. She’d live there. Sometimes I’d walk her in Piedmont Park, beaming with pride as everyone ignored Dalmatians and bulldogs, fawning over Clarabelle. Even that guy with the pig would be jealous. I could charge for photos.
“She’s no trouble,” I’d say. “She’s a contented cow.”
At Christmas, I’d send pictures out of Preppy, Clarabelle, and me, all in Santa hats. Cute. I know, I used to say the same thing about dogs until I had to live with two of them while we were closing on the house. But this is totally different from that. A dog is just a dog, but a miniature cow is… well, there are no words. Plus, they live outside.
“I love that you claim not to have time to fold laundry, but somehow you’re going to build a wall and work daily milking into the schedule.”
“I could do it before work,” I said. “It’s just a few gallons.”
“Topher, you grew up in Mississippi. You know what cow pastures smell like.”
“That’s if you have lots of great big cows. But Clarabelle is just one tee-tiny perfect cow. And she can learn tricks.”
“Really? Can you teach her to keep you warm at night? Because you’re gonna need someone for that if I come home and find a goddamn cow in the yard.”
“Okay fine. But if I don’t have time to take care of Clarabelle, I don’t think I have time for grouting, either.”
Later, Preppy was online, Googling various home improvements. Just to tempt me, he went to a site that sells truckloads of rock.
“Ooh,” he said. “Those are pretty rocks.”
“Stop teasing me.”
“What if we buy your rocks, and build that Irish rock wall you want so badly? No cow, just the wall. And in exchange, you help me with a few projects around the house?”
I could live with that. I agreed to assist in painting a few rooms, and to do my part in chiseling away at the bathroom tile. He would help me lift rocks on Sundays, building my wall. It served as further proof that we could both budge a little and compromise, which was satisfying. Especially to the part of me that could still hear a faint cowbell in the back of my mind.

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.

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.

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.

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.