Side Effects May Include...

My fiancé Preppy had a friend in from out of town, so a group of us headed out to a pub to toast her visit. The liquor we managed to stockpile at our recent engagement “stock the bar” party has kept the two of us close to home of late, so being out in the world was a lovely change of pace.
“Gimme your shot glasses,” our friend Janet instructed after we’d all done a round. She pulled a bottle of Jagermeister from her purse, and passed overflowing shots to the table.

I can’t do that anymore.

At some point in my mid-twenties my reaction to shots of that sticky sweet evil licorice liquor abruptly changed. It went from being a guaranteed night of delighted debauchery to a guaranteed night of blubbering and hugging the toilet. But I’ve made my peace with it- I had fun while it lasted, at least according to the vague, fuzzy memories I have of those nights.
But everybody else was doing it. So, okay, one shot. Or four. Preppy reminded me that I haven’t drank much since I started taking meds for my ADD, and I should be careful. I dismissed this. I felt fine.
Time and experience eventually reveals what kind of drunk you are. I am not a mean drunk, for which I am grateful. I am a sappy, silly, chatty drunk, which is fairly benign by comparison. As long as I’ve got a ride home, it’s not a big deal. But sitting in the pub that night, I was feeling neither sappy nor silly. I was feeling concerned.

I was becoming increasingly certain that Janet wanted to sleep with my fiancé.
As I watched the two of them laughing and hugging, I wondered how I’d never seen this before. My guard must’ve been down because she was a girl. But just because he’s not attracted to females doesn’t mean a female wouldn’t make a move. I realized, sitting there fuming, that I must be able to spot the warning signs now thanks to the magic pills. I couldn’t focus on these little details before, because of all the bright, shiny objects distracting me. Fuming, I did another shot and considered what else I might have been missing.
Preppy works retail, and has to do a lot of overnights at his job. But what if... WHAT IF… All those times he said he was doing overnights he actually had this whole other life I didn’t know about? What if while I’m on the road he’s living it up, having a blast? And here I’ve been looking like an idiot, feeling awful because I thought he was working so hard?

I decided not to say anything, to keep my own counsel here because I’m so much more perceptive than I ever was before. I could talk to my sister about it, except… I realized when I call her for advice, she’s secretly mocking me. Sitting at home with her little perfect family, her little perfect life, making fun of her faggy brother and all his faggy problems. I thought I had this amazing support system, but the more mulled it over, I realized I was totally alone in this world.

Why had I never seen this before?
At this point, I’ll go ahead and note that the most common side effects of mixing my new drug with excessive alcohol consumption are paranoia, anxiety, and psychotic episodes. But I did not consider that at the time. Nor did I think about it in the three hours that followed, after we’d returned home. I was enraged. I revealed everything I’d figured out to my very confused fiancé. I knew I sounded insane, and he certainly reinforced that point. He suggested this might be a drug/alcohol thing, but I dismissed it, because everything I was saying made so much sense in my head. I felt it so deeply. It had to be true. When I was too tired to scream anymore, I fell asleep.
The next morning, I remembered every word I’d said. I. Was. Mortified. I called my aunt, a doctor.
“I had the strangest experience last night,” I said. “We went out and had a lot to drink…”
“Oh no,” she said. “You shouldn’t do that on your meds. Did you go crazy?”
It’s an odd feeling, knowing I’ve surrendered my brain to a drug. In the last few weeks I’ve experienced so many of the intended results; it stands to reason that I’d also experience the worst-case scenario side effects. I never believed that would happen to me. I thought I would have more control, and be able to spot trouble before it hit. Never mind that the whole reason I started taking the drug was because I thought I was maintaining a level of control I didn’t actually have.
A major step in improving yourself is establishing boundaries. That night I learned a very clear one for me is when the bottle of Jager comes out of a purse. But beyond that, the harder lesson that has nothing to do with the medicine or the booze is that sometimes the people who love you can see you more clearly than you see yourself, and you have to learn to trust that.

They don’t make a pill for that one.

Interview with Topher

A little off topic from the usual posts- An interview from darynkagan.com (great website, you should go see.)

Earning My Keep

“I came up with a great way to make some extra cash before I go back on tour,” I tell my sister Shannon on the phone. “You know how I had to study massage techniques back when I was in school?”
“No, I did not know that. You went to art school. Why on earth would you study massage?”
“Dance classes, movement classes, we had to learn massage. It was educational.”
“Your school was so fucked up.”
“Will you please listen to my idea? Preppy went to massage school, years ago. He’s still got the table and all the supplies up in the attic. I could be a traveling massage therapist! Spend my day going to houses, helping folks release their tension.”
“Topher. You have to be accredited to do massage therapy. Even on Craig’s List you gotta put your license information in the ad.”
“That’s only if you’re claiming to be a certified therapist. I think they call it something else if you’re not certified.”
“Yes. Prostitution.”
“Well… crap. Okay, then I don’t have any ideas. It’s a shame, too. I think I’d be really good at helping folks get rid of tension, even if it is illegally. I have large hands.”
“And you’re creative enough to be a good drug mule, but I wouldn’t recommend that either. I know times are tough, baby bro, but let’s stay inside the law here.”
I’m home for another month before the play I’m in goes back on the road. I’m enjoying being back, but the delight is dampened by the fact that I’m earning virtually no money while I’m here. I’ve managed to pick up some odd jobs here and there, but these are harsh economic times. I’m competing against people who have things I don’t, like education and experience.

I always meant to get those.
So I’m at home with plenty of time to write, which is fun but not a quick way to earn cash. I also have my schedule clear to closely observe the effects of the medication I’m now taking for Attention Deficit Disorder. And lemme tell ya, that’s been an adventure. Three days ago I decided to clean the bathroom, which I never do, and I noticed how dingy our grout is. After scrubbing the floor with pure bleach for twenty minutes, it was still a yellowish-gray. Puce, maybe? I forget what color puce is, but I think it was puce. Undeterred, I found a white paint pen, and for the next four hours, I repainted every line of grout on the bathroom floor. It looks fantastic in there now. I mean, that floor sparkles like it’s in a Pine-Sol commercial. I can’t decide if I was admirably thorough, or dangerously unhinged.

I suppose it’s possible to be both.
The next day, I accidentally left the back door open, and a squirrel got loose in the house. Let me repeat that: There was a goddamn SQUIRREL in my house. Thing one, those bastards look three times bigger when they’re not outside. Thing two, even though it was the squirrel’s choice to enter my house and it could have easily left the way it entered, it began to freak out run amok in my very clean kitchen. While I was profoundly disturbed by the event, I still was able to formulate a plan for its departure by building a maze out of Christmas decoration boxes and suitcases, then shooing it out the door with a broom. I was impressed with my own level-headedness. I think my little orange pill might be working.
Another benefit is that I’m rarely hungry on the drug. I feel this is me contributing to our financial state, since now it costs much less to feed me. And thanks to a recent engagement party where the theme was “Stock the Bar,” Preppy and I have enough vodka from our friends to last us the entire Obama administration, including if he’s re-elected in 2012.
So I am doing my part, as best I can. Granted, it’ll be better if I can figure out a revenue-generating enterprise soon. But in the meantime, I keep the grout clean and the house rid of squirrels, don’t eat much, and try to be ready with a cocktail whenever my breadwinning fiancé comes home.

If I can’t help strangers alleviate their tension, I can still try to reduce his.

On a Very Special Supernanny...

My fiancé Preppy will tell you it’s no cakewalk trying to live with a writer. Every moment of our shared life holds the threat of becoming art. Preppy has endured the surreal experience of watching actors reenact our arguments for paying audiences. He has discovered his supervisors at work read about his sex life in a weekly magazine. He has sat smiling at book signings as I demonstrate what his snoring sounds like.
Dating a writer ain’t for sissies.
In my defense, he was warned. Early in our relationship, I gave him a binder containing all of my columns, with the explicit understanding that he’d be signing up for a life of full disclosure, told from the perspective of a crazy person who would always cast himself in the role of the hero. That’s an important element to consider: You’re always getting my side of the story, where every action is, if not defensible, at least explicable. I don’t pretend I’m faultless, but I suppose I’ve reached a point where I accept there are things about me that aren’t likely to change. I am well-intentioned, yet hopelessly scatterbrained. I’m devoted, but unreliable. Caring, but self-centered. My mind works funny, but the positive spin is that it helps me see the world in an interesting way.

And isn’t that worth the hassle?
It was a Friday night, and both of us were on the sofa with laptops in front of us, working. I’d disabled the wireless internet on my Dell so I couldn’t fall in a Facebook or YouTube K-hole and inexplicably lose six hours of my life. Supernanny was on. I love that show. A solidly-built British nanny named Jo is calls upon American households, where she observes for a few days and then explains in a stern but loving voice why the parents are unfit to raise children. It’s delightful.
In this episode, the parents had the most severely ADD child ever to walk the planet. They’d chosen not to medicate him, which is fine, but they also had made no provisions whatsoever to deal with raising a hummingbird on crack. Nanny Jo found this “totally unacceptable” and commenced working her stern but loving magic.
“You know, I was diagnosed ADHD when I was in my teens,” I said.
“I do not find that at all surprising,” said Preppy. “Were you on meds?”
“Yeah. Ritalin. High dosage.”
“Again, not surprising. Did it work?”
I thought back for a moment.
“You know what?” I said. “It did. That was the only time in my life I was a good student. I made it through Chemistry and Spanish II in a month of summer school, with A’s. Then I got back to school and by the end of first semester I realized I could sell it and make some decent cash, especially during exams. So I stopped taking it, and then I dropped out…”
This gave me pause.
“Do you think I still have it?”
“Yes,” he said without the slightest hesitation. “You absolutely still have it.”
“Well, even if I do, I’ve found a way to deal with it.”
“I guess so,” he sighed. “God knows I’ve had to.”
It’s been thirteen years since I sat in a psychiatrist’s office, sobbing in confusion and frustration over my impatience, procrastination, and insecurities. I remember the overwhelming sense of relief my parents and I felt when the evaluation gave it a name, something we could examine and attack. I still had that assessment in a box of old paperwork from the 90s. I found it, and re-read it.
Every word of it was still true.
I went online and started reading about Adult ADD, how it can impact everything from communication in your marriage to car maintenance. I felt violated reading the personal accounts- every one of them seemed lifted from my own life. I considered my last desk job, where I would sit in my office paralyzed by inaction and never able to understand why. My boss and I would fight constantly. He saw me as unconcerned. I knew how hard I was trying, yet had little evidence to show for it. I’d have the same conversations at home, when it took me nine hours to clean the kitchen. I cannot count the number of times people have come to me bewildered, wondering why a seemingly capable man could not accomplish the most basic tasks. I’ve been accused of not caring, of being lazy, of being unreliable. Deep down, I feared it was true, despite my intentions.
And all this time, I had an answer. I’ve had an answer for thirteen goddamn years, and I’ve done nothing about it. I was too ADD to deal with my ADD.
Three days later, I took care of two long-overdue tasks: I wrote a letter of apology to my former boss. I didn’t go into an explanation of my psyche. I just told him I was sorry, and that for the first time, I could see his side. And then I made a visit to my doctor.
There’s a lot of things I’ve asked Preppy to accept in our life together, and he has done so with grace and aplomb. Living with a man who has given up on improving himself shouldn’t be one of those requests. The little orange pill is just a tool- the work falls in my hands, and I intend to try. I believe Supernanny would be very proud.

Sick Day

As difficult as it may be to imagine, it’s actually much harder to take a sick day when one works from home. It’s enough of a challenge for me to convince people I’m actually working when I’m at the house, because I get to wear my jammies and take lots of smoke breaks.

Also because no one actually pays me TO write, they pay me when I’m FINISHED writing, the pressure’s always on to get to that completed product as quickly as possible. It’s a dicey proposition. My friend Steve Yockey, a very successful playwright, appears to have a new script ready for production every month. I average about one a year. And it’s not like he’s writing crap, they’re really good plays, which makes me hate him. I’m trying to become more prolific, devoting a minimum of five hours a day to being imaginative. I’d been making fairly decent progress on a romantic comedy this week… and then I got sick.
I woke up this morning around four, all sweaty and icky, so I went to the kitchen wanting peanut butter and some milk. It’s a habit my sister and I share- an unexplainable need to get out of the bed in the middle of the night and have peanut butter and milk, naked in the light of the refrigerator. Just to be clear, we’ve never done this together. Neither of us even knew the other did it until she was oversharing on the phone one day and I fell over from shock.

I had no idea anyone else in the world did this, let alone that it was a family trait. She squats on the floor while having her snack, but I stand. If I squatted, my balls might touch the linoleum, and that would be cold. I’ve warned Shannon that she has to stop this before her children get old enough to go wandering late at night. If I’d ever seen my mother crouched naked on the kitchen floor with a spoonful of peanut butter and a glass of milk, I would have blinded myself with the nearest convenient sharp object. I expect her kids would have the same reaction.
Normally my little late night forage does the trick and I feel right as rain, but I had an inkling there was trouble brewing in my body. I woke up at seven feeling like I’d been hit by a train. Coughing, hacking, fever, pounding headache, the works.
“Ugggggh! Baby!” I called out, but there was no response. My fiancé was already at work. Damn it. Don’t you hate it when you feel like hell and there’s no one around to watch?
I stumbled into the bathroom, searching for the leftover mega-strength Ibuprofen I’d gotten from my dentist a few months ago. I found it, choked down four, and laid on the bed, waiting for sweet release.
That’s when I remembered we’d run out of those Ibuprofen back in October.

So what the hell did I just take?
“You’re up early,” said my best galpal Slutty Mandy when I called.
“I think I just took a drug overdose. Tell Preppy I love him and I didn’t do it on purpose!”
“What are you talking about?”
“I thought it was Ibuprofen! Quick, get some paper, I have to tell you how my romantic comedy is supposed to end. Make Steve finish it. He works quickly.”
“What did you take?”
“Four muscle relaxers.”
“Oh, please, Topher. I could take four muscle relaxers and go to a spin class.”
“I don’t have your freaky drug tolerance!”
“You survived chemo. You’ll survive this. Just get back in bed and sleep it off.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’ll sleep like a rock. Oh, make sure you pee first, you don’t want to deal with the consequences of that one.”
I fell into a fitful sleep and dreamed about the play I wasn’t writing. I wish I could remember details, because then at least I kinda would’ve been working. When I woke up a few hours later, I was groggy and it felt like a muskrat had taken up residence in my mouth. I was floppy and couldn’t move. This happened to me the last time I smoked pot. We had a houseguest who broke out a gravity bong, and I wanted to show I was hip and could be part of the fun. I lost a whole Sunday as a result, lying on the bed convinced that I had actually damaged part of my brain. The room swirled in and out of focus for an entire afternoon, as I slowly returned to sobriety and accepted that I’m simply no longer a party boy.
Now the bedroom was once again spinning, but I’d painted since the last time, and the green made it much more pleasant. I tried watching TV, but abandoned it when I couldn’t take Kathie Lee Gifford for one more second. When and why exactly did they unleash her on the public again? She’s a horrible, horrible woman. I think she really tries to make her guests feel uncomfortable. I’ve got a cousin who does that. I thought about calling her and telling her off. The cousin, not Kathie Lee. I don’t have Kathie Lee’s number.

And it’s a good thing I don’t.
I drifted off to sleep again, and dreamt of Kathie Lee Gifford interviewing me while I ate peanut butter. This had nothing to do with my play, but was certainly imaginative, which was all I’d wanted out of the day in the first place.

Total Turnaround

I’m staying outside Tulsa, Oklahoma in the Will Rogers Inn, mere days away from my homecoming. My fiancé and I are having a phone date, which I’m totally ruining by watching CNN and screaming. The topic? Reverend Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life, recent presidential inauguration invocation designee, and a man who casually lumps me with pederasts, polygamists, and men who wanna bang their sisters.
“Oh no,” he says. “Listen here, Topher Payne. You were supposed to calm down after the election.”
“I was hoping I’d get to,” I say, feeling my audacity of hope losing its gleam.
So here we go.

2009 is off to a rousing start, with President-Elect Obama choosing one of America’s most revered Evangelical pastors to participate in the celebration of all the efforts of the presidential election. Look him up, if you haven’t gotten the goods on this guy yet. I’m seriously beginning to question Obama’s taste in ministers.
You will hear that this is a strategic move on Obama’s part, and that it’s all part of his master plan. That may be true.

As my friend Jo pointed out, the highways are littered with people who underestimated Barack Obama. Maybe opening the speech with Warren and closing with Lowery is some sort of changing of the guard- One last time, here’s the crap you’ve been hearing for eight years, and now on to the good stuff. Or maybe he’ll have a whole roll call of hatemongers, with a few words from a jokey Anti-Semite or a mannered misogynist, to show how far he’s willing to go to unite us all. But the last time a verbose, gay-friendly president told us to trust him and watch things play out, we got stuck with Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell and DOMA. Those are two disasters we’re struggling to overcome a decade later. Actions speak louder than words, and the action here indicates that those who seek to deride us, to promote misunderstanding and panic, have a place at Obama’s table. That is not okay.
If Warren had made equivalent remarks demonizing single mothers, African Americans, Dairy Queen employees, or Methodists, we’d call him a lunatic. But say it about gay people, and people defend the man. Why is that? If one of my straight friends, for even a moment, defends Warren’s comparisons, I am going to go over to their house and break something pretty. Nothing too expensive, but enough to express my frustration.
I do not begrudge Rick Warren’s right to believe what he wants within the context of his church. I will defend that right. If I disagree with him, I will not go to his church. When I was growing up, the Southern Baptist church in my town didn’t allow dancing. My family loves dancing, so we became Methodists. Ain’t Freedom of Religion great?
There are plenty of people in this country who don’t support gay marriage. Members of my own family do not, but I love them still. President Elect Obama does not, but he still got my vote. We’ll keep that conversation open and hope hearts can be turned. But Reverend Warren doesn’t just oppose gay marriage. He has mobilized his support base with misinformation and fear-mongering. He has said that the difference between his ministry and the incessant nightmare that is Focus on Family is “A question of tone,” but not belief. He has stated that legalizing gay marriage would lead to hate-crime prosecution of ministers who believe homosexuality is a sin. By this logic, pro-lifers should also be prosecuted since abortion is legal. Rick Warren knows this is patently untrue, but it’s an effective sound bite.

For those of you up on your Ten Commandments, God calls this “Bearing False Witness.”
The outcry has been justified and satisfyingly loud. But they’ve already sent out the invites and everything, so it looks like this one is a done deal. That is why I am asking you to make a very simple, basic gesture on Inauguration Day. When Rick Warren is presented, turn your back. If you are at home, or work, or a party, or in D.C. watching it in person, just turn around until he is done speaking.
Out of respect for the President and the event, I wouldn’t want to see people yelling or protesting. But we can show that our community and its supporters are capable of a more graceful act of objection. We needn’t spread hate or fear. We don’t have to follow their example. We can simply turn our backs. Imagine how proud we’d feel seeing that on CNN. Or, I guess seeing it played back later, since our backs would be turned at the time.
People will say that Rick Warren represents a majority. The narrow majority which passed Prop 8. The majority that prevents us from adopting or marrying in state after state. The majority who refuses to call this an issue of civil rights. There’s a quote I love which addresses that pesky ol’ majority.
"Bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
It’s from another Inaugural address. Thomas Jefferson’s. The guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence. But what the hell did he know?
On January 20th, turn your back on Rick Warren. Pass it on.

Let Nothing You Dismay

My birthday was a quiet affair, celebrated at a hotel in North Carolina. There was an indoor pool and a hot tub, so I spent a few contented hours wandering from one to the other until my hands were as wrinkled and pruny as a pre-facelift Cindy McCain. Afterward I stopped by The Food Lion for some sandwich stuff and beer, and on impulse bought myself a slice of coconut cake.

Back at the hotel, I made a little picnic on my bed and watched 30 Rock in my underpants.
I’m not sure when hangin’ out in my underwear became the pinnacle of decadence for me, but now it’s really a benchmark of quality in my mind.

If I got to perform everyday tasks in my Ginch Gonch, it was a damn fine day. This is even more bizarre because it’s not something I’m comfortable doing in my own home. I fret that the UPS man or Carlos the lawn guy will stop by. In hotels, you needn’t worry because you’ve got the “Do Not Disturb” to ward off all potential pests. If I put that on the front door of my residence, I know folks would pay no heed and disturb me anyway.
I was really happy with my party for one until three days later, when my beer-and-cake splurge caught up with me and I ran out of money long before my next paycheck. I pulled all the small change from my backpack and managed to work a little magic at the McDonald’s dollar menu, but then that money was gone too. I might’ve flat-out starved if there hadn’t been a shining beacon to give me hope:

Our Hilton in South Florida had a free Continental breakfast.
I set my alarm for ten minutes prior to its start the next day. I wanted full selection and few watchful eyes. I took my computer bag down with me, which I set next to my chair in the corner. I started toasting English muffins and bagels, which I would bring back to the table and using my computer as a shield, I’d wrap the baked goods in napkins and drop them into the bag. I made four trips to the counter using this method, helping myself to oranges, bananas, waffles, handfuls of Splenda, boxes of Honey Smacks, whatever they had. It was after the fourth trip that I aroused the suspicions of a steel-jawed Hispanic housekeeper with long hair and a short fuse.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said, approaching my table. “You cannot take food to your room.”
“I’m not,” I said, closing my bag and hoping she didn’t have the right to search it.
“You have food in your bag.”
“No I don’t. I have various kinds of documents. I am a writer. Nothing but my documents in there.”
“No more, sir,” she said, and walked back to a corner with her arms folded, watching me.
I wanted to say, “Look, lady, show some fucking charity, I’m poor and it’s Christmas,” but I’m guessing a middle-aged hotel housekeeper wouldn’t be moved by pleas of poverty from a twentysomething guy holding a Blackberry and an I-Pod.
Even so, we had a standoff for like thirty minutes before she finally pushed her cart away, at which point I tossed six Danishes in my bag and filled an Aquafina bottle with apple juice. I’m not letting one Scrooge cause me to go hungry.
It was our day off, so I had my lunch of bagels and bananas on the beach, wondering if perhaps the Christmas spirit eludes those who get no cues from the weather indicating the holidays are upon us. I know I felt much more Christmasy last week in snow than I did sitting in my swimsuit at the ocean. Even Atlanta has our traditional slightly-frozen rain to signal Santa.
The unexpected lesson from touring America for the last two months has been learning what I can live without. There’s the big stuff, like the house, or my fiancé and friends, that I saw coming, but the little stuff has been very instructive. This is how one eats on ten dollars a day. This is how one spends twenty-four hours in a hotel room without putting on clothes. This is your life when it’s simmered down to just you, without all the clutter.
I talk less than you think. I listen to podcasts for hours on the bus, and then I’ll leave my headphones on and pretend to listen to music while I think in silence. And you know what I think about? Clutter. I miss the clutter of my life. Making a home, loving someone, maintaining friendships, it’s messy. And I think I’m at my best when I’m in the midst of that mess.
When I’m finally home again after Christmas, there won’t be presents under the tree, and I’m okay with that. My present to myself this year is a new appreciation for the home I have. I know that’s so stereotypical and sappy that I can’t even muster the energy to mock it, but it’s true. When you take a step away from your life, you’ll often find you’ve got most everything you need.

And then all you really want is to get back to it.

For Richer, For Poorer

“How have you never seen this movie?” says my fiancé Preppy, marveling at how delighted I am by the antics of Will Farrell’s Anchorman.
“I just plain don’t trust Will Farrell. He’s like Sandra Bullock. That woman has burned me too many times now with shit heap movies. I simply cannot take the risk anymore.”
“This is early Will Farrell, though. You’re safe with the early works,” he says, sifting through a pile of snacks on the bed. “Hey, you got a Hershey bar! This night keeps getting better!”
It’s almost my birthday, so Preppy took a little road trip to join me on a tour stop. Now we’re piled up on the bed in a Comfort Inn watching Will Ferrell movies in our underwear, drinking Cokes, smoking cigarettes, and eating candy. So basically I’m spending my twenty-ninth birthday acting like I’m sixteen, which is just fucking awesome.
I’ll be home for Christmas soon. I haven’t done any Christmas shopping, because in my off time I have only seen hotels and fast-food restaurants, and because there really isn’t money for material expressions of devotion this year. Lately having money for keeping the lights and water on at our house is an impressive feat, so we’re not really the target market for a plasma screen.
“I thought of what you can give me for Christmas,” I say, dumping the ashtray and pausing to check out the haircut I gave myself with a pair of sewing scissors earlier in the week. It’s amazing my hairdresser still talks to me. All I ever bring the woman is repair work.
“Homemade dirty movies,” I continue. “I can watch ‘em on the road. You can e-mail them. That’s my dream gift.”
“That’s exactly what it is, because your dreams are the only place those movies will exist. You’ve seen homemade flicks. The lighting’s always awful and people get caught at weird angles. Nobody needs to see that.”
“I’d do it for you,” I say.
“Of course you would,” he says. “You’re a total exhibitionist. You’d get naked for free sandwiches. I would not.”
He’s only half-right. It’d take a really good sandwich to get my clothes off.

Like a Panini or something.
“Fine,” I say. “Then you can pay for the save-the-date cards as my present, and I’ll pay for the stamps as yours. The next six months have to be devoted to wedding expenses anyway.”
His face hardens. I’ve said something wrong. I quickly review: Will Farrell, dirty movies, stamps, wedding expenses. I go with the most likely offender.
“I know you’re worried about the cost of the wedding. But we can totally scale back. Make the reception B.Y.O.B, or maybe have some carnival games they have to buy tickets for. I’ll have Jennifer make homemade Twinkies. Just gimme a budget.”
“This is beyond budget. I’m trying to pay property taxes. Insurance for a house, two cars, and a former cancer patient… Darlin’, I think we need to reschedule the wedding.”
“No! We already did that once for the theatre tour. If we reschedule again, people are going to think that you’re getting to know me too well and it’s never gonna happen. I can’t hold back my neurotic side much longer.”
“Are you saying what I’ve been living with the last few years WASN’T your neurotic side?”
“See? Now you have doubts.”
“I don’t have doubts about anything but our ability to pay for this thing.”
“Okay, well what if I could find someone to sponsor our wedding? Like, Coca-Cola presents Preppy and Topher’s Wedding, followed by the Delta Airlines wedding reception?”
“I don’t think Coke will pay for our wedding.”
“Why not? They’re real gay-friendly.”
“Topher. I am serious. We need to let the church know, and call people. There is no way our big wedding is happening in June.”
In my mind, our beautiful little chapel in Candler Park bursts into flames. Our attendants run screaming from the building as the reception tent falls to the ground. There goes my mother in her cream-colored suit. George’s flower arrangements. Slutty Mandy and Preppy’s girlfriends in complimentary dresses. I watch in open-mouthed horror as the dream wedding slips from my grasp. Little laser beams taking it all out, making little Pew pew pew sounds while they vaporize my fantasy. Goddamn it, I didn’t even WANT a wedding three years ago, now it’s ripping my heart out that it won’t happen. We were on our way toward being real grown-ups having a real wedding. Now we’re just a couple of poor people in some random city, eating candy in our underwear.
And that’s not so bad.
Because the day after our wedding, we’d still just be destitute candy-eating homosexuals, with nothing to show for our efforts but photographs, once we could afford to buy prints. We wouldn’t even have a marriage license. Which gets me to thinking.
“How much you think it costs to file a marriage license in Massachusetts?” I ask.
“I have no idea,” he says. “Why?”
“What if we just drive up to Provincetown this June for a long weekend and get married at the courthouse? If our friends want to come, they’re invited, but we ain’t payin’ for nothin’ but some Uncle Ben’s to throw at our heads?”
“Hm,” he says after some thought. “That sounds possible.”
“There. Problem solved. We’re eloping.”
We shake on it, and then I settle in next to the fella who so help me Baby Jesus, I will be married to this summer. And when it comes down to what actually matters, the only people I really dream about being there are already in this room eatin’ candy.

A Little-Known Fact

“Greeneville, Tennessee is the only one with an E on the end,” I report to my colleagues on the tour bus. “Every other one in America spells it ‘Greenville’, without the E.”
“Well, that’s pretty classy, isn’t it?” says my costar Jef. “I wonder if they add random vowels to anything else in their town.”
“Ooh, I hope so,” I say, looking out the window at the snow-covered town, hoping for a Texacoe or a Tacoe Belle.
It’s a travel day, meaning we’re just driving for twelve hours before checking into another hotel (a Hiltone, perhaps?). My i-Pod died a few hours ago, and I don’t think I can beat my new high score of 6500 on Brickbreaker, so I’m entertaining myself by looking up historical factoids on my Blackberry about the towns we’re driving through. It’s fun and educational, and since everybody else’s electronics are also in need of a re-charge, they have no choice but to be educated as well.

They’ll thank me later, when they’re smarter.
My fiancé Preppy has expressed concern of late that I never have much good to say about being on tour with the play, and I gotta admit he’s right. Other than the actual experience of doing the play, I’ve really been pushing the whole “glass half-empty” mindset, much to my own frustration. The nomadic spirit I possessed at a younger age was carefully beaten into submission in the last few years of nesting, and now I’m just supposed to pick up and enjoy being rootless again. Preppy encouraged (ordered) me to start finding the good things about being away from home.

Funny thing is, there really are advantages when you start looking for them.
Case in point: Last night the whole company went to one of those Brazilian restaurants where they give you the little coaster that’s red on one side and green on the other. When you want more meat, you flip it to green. When you can handle no more meat, you flip it to red. I gave those gauchos the green light for an obscene amount of time. As I dug into the better portion of a side of beef being served to me in myriad appealing preparations, it struck me that this restaurant would be my vegetarian fiancé’s notion of Hell.

So there’s a happy little moment right there. I don’t have my man, but I do have a dazzling variety of beef. That’ll do for now.
And now there’s this new history-of-unknown-cities hobby, which means I’ll be coming home with a better understanding of America.
“Greeneville is the former capitol of the state of Franklin,” I announce to no one in particular. I get a lot of furtive glances from the group, but no one takes the bait. “Doesn’t anyone want to know what the state of Franklin was? Gina? Calvin?”
“Oh, fine,” says Gina. “What was the state of Franklin, Topher?”
“I’m glad you asked. In the late 1780’s, a few western counties seceded from North Carolina and formed their own state, but the U.S. government refused to recognize it, and they made them go at it on their own for a while. And when the Indians realized they didn’t have military support, they started attacking Franklin like crazy.”
“And then Franklin became North Carolina again?”
“Nope. The governor borrowed money from Spain to keep it running, but he didn’t read the fine print and accidentally placed it under Spanish rule for a minute. To get out of it, they said they’d come back to the union, but only if they didn’t have to be part of North Carolina. So Franklin got tacked on to Tennessee.”
“Topher,” says Jef. “Will the history lesson end if I let you borrow my i-Pod for a little while?”
“Y’all be nice to me or I am seceding from this bus and declaring my seat a separate state.”
“Hope you got rich friends in Spain for when the Indians attack.”
I retreat to my own research. Poor Franklin. They wanted to venture out on their own, but eventually learned that sometimes it’s best to stick with the group and work your shit out. I can relate. I’m trying to find that nice moment when we all connect, but you can’t force that sort of thing. Friendships and alliances build slowly. One must be patient. I continue my Googling, and then hit upon a new idea.
“Hey Gina!” I say. “I don’t know it it’s your kinda scene, there’s a couple in Wheeling, West Virginia looking for a hot female to spice up their love life. Oh wait, they said no brunettes.”
“What the hell are you looking at?”
“I got tired of historical factoids, so I switched to Craig’s List. I’m checking out the sexual fetishes in towns we drive through.”
“That is twisted, Topher,” says Gina, returning to her book. Then she looks up. “What the hell do they have against brunettes?”
“The other girl is probably brunette,” says Wes, who I thought was asleep. He sits up. “She’s probably really insecure.”
“Then she shouldn’t be doing a threesome,” says our driver. “That’ll mess with her head.”
“Insecure people are always the first ones to agree to threesomes,” says Gina. “And the last ones who should. Let’s find one for Wes! See who’s looking for a skinny guy in Illinois next week!”
And just like that, united by a common, filthy cause, we finally begin to form a more perfect union.

The Road Worrier

I’ve been at my parents’ house all of ten minutes, and I’m wandering around outside in the dark, calling for a cat. I don’t even know this damn cat. It’s my Uncle Big Bub’s ancient feline, a calico named Calico. As soon as we walked in the house, Uncle Big Bub was on the doorstep, asking for assistance. How do you turn away an elderly man missing his kitty? So we grabbed the flashlights and headed into the night.
“Calico!” I call out, trying to sound warm and inviting, watching other beams of light bouncing in the distance.
This isn’t really Calico’s fault.

He lived his entire life in the same house until last week, and now he’s just confused. He keeps trying to go home. Uncle Big Bub (father of, you guessed it, Little Bub) and my Aunt Barbara recently built a house on the same land as my parents and my Aunt Merry, meaning we now have an actual family compound. You know, like the Kennedys. Only instead of playing touch football, we play flashlight tag with a semi-feral cat named for his physical description.
The tour of my play is performing in Louisiana tomorrow, and as a favor to me, they adjusted our travel route to spend the night at a hotel near my parents. That way, I could stave off homesickness a little with a family meal and a bed that isn’t at a La Quinta Inn. That last part is really appreciated, because I keep having terrible dreams in hotels. Is that normal? I can barely remember my dreams at home, but on the road it’s been vivid, detailed visions of large animals chasing me, my nose falling off, my parents divorcing for no reason, and me getting my foot caught in a bathtub full of quicksand. This crap stays with me the next day. I’m assuming it’s standard anxiety about being away from home and all that, but I wish my subconscious would let me get some decent rest.
Other than while I’m sleeping, I’m adjusting fairly well to life on the road.
That last sentence was a complete lie.
I’m fine as long as I’m WORKING, either performing on stage or getting ready to be there. But as soon as the show ends, I launch into my new hobbies: Overanalyzing phone conversations and worrying about what Preppy’s eating.
“I worry he’s not eating vegetables,” I told my best gal Slutty Mandy a few days ago. “He’s disinclined to have them when I’m home cooking, and I’ll bet he’s given them up altogether. Do you think he’s just eating microwave popcorn?”
“Yes,” said Mandy. “Of course he is. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it from hundreds of miles away, so just deal with it, sweetie. You’ll be home for Christmas. You’ll make green beans. Feel better?”
“No, I don’t feel better. And Preppy told me today our washing machine’s broken, too.”
“Well, shit,” said Mandy. “I guess you’d better quit the damn tour and come on home. Come fix the washer, steam some broccoli for your fiancé, and forget all this acting crap.”
I got it, I got it. It takes getting used to. The smart choice is to just keep looking forward, accept that the life you had before is not your life anymore, and adjust.
My sister Shannon and her husband got a call last week from my nephew’s birth mother. They’ve kept up with her over the years, sending occasional photos and updates regarding his growth and inherent genius. Birth Mama called to alert Shannon that she’d accidentally gotten pregnant again, and would she be interested in taking this one too?
They hadn’t really planned on adopting again- certainly not soon- but they couldn’t turn down the opportunity. They agreed, only to discover she’s due in SIX WEEKS. This would be shorter than usual. Most people, you might have heard, get nine months. Shannon’s taking it all in stride, and adjusting. I envy her malleability.
“I got him!” hollers Aunt Merry with triumph, and everyone cheers.
“Damn! That little so-and-so just scratched the hell outta me!” she then shouts, throwing the cat away from her, and we all give chase, which is a stupid thing to do when trying to catch a skittish housecat. I take a break for a cigarette and a phone call home.
“Hey baby,” says Preppy, sounding like someone beat him up.
“What’s wrong?”
“Sick. Possibly dying. Might be flu. I’ll be okay.”
“We’ve got Theraflu in the master bath. And get some orange juice. Drink lots of water.”
“Already doing that.”
“And you should eat better. I think there’s tomato soup in the pantry.”
“Topher. Darlin’. Have you forgotten I took care of myself for a long time before I ever met you?”
The man has a point. But it made me feel needed to problem-solve. He simply refuses to sink into any kind of obvious misery over my absence. Not one tear shed, not one freakout, and frankly, I’m kinda disappointed. I was fully prepared to reassure him and hold him lovingly, telling him all will be okay. But he hasn’t required it.

God, nothing makes you feel more neurotic than a conversation with a sane person.
My Aunt Barbara walks into the light, smiling broadly and holding the cat tight to her chest.
“He’ll be fine,” she says. “He just needs to adjust to his new surroundings.”
I’m right there with you, Calico. Right there with ya.

We Gather Together

Two days after Preppy and I moved into our house last year, hooligans broke in, trashed the place, and made off with a good portion of our electronics. Welcome home.

We were still a little shaken from the experience the following week, so I decided we needed an event on which to focus that would give us happy home memories as quickly as possible. So I announced we would be hosting an Old Fashioned Thanksgiving at the house.
My childhood Thanksgivings were well-intentioned events that never came together exactly as planned. There was the time two of my cousins locked themselves in the laundry room and fought like peacocks in a pillowcase until my Aunt Barbara went in and had a come to Jesus with ‘em.

And there was the year I came home from boarding school and got so stoned with my sister and cousin that we ate an entire pan of dressing, leaving the table a little bare the next day.

The prize for “Most Awkward Thanksgiving” went to the year we travelled to the somber home of my cousin Paula, a stern and utterly humorless woman who ironically owned a party supply store. In keeping with her profession, Paula operated under the belief that if you followed the instructions on any party theme kit, a good time would be had by all- so she broke out the deluxe paper pilgrim wall decorations and accordion-fold tabletop turkeys, handed out prepackaged favors to the kids, and instructed us to play quietly. It was raining that year, so we sat in the garage fiddling with noisemakers we weren’t allowed to put to use, while her older daughters witnessed to us on Jesus’s behalf, as they did at every family gathering.

Their house was an endless source of confusion and fascination for me. Paula’s family was undeniably devout- they would pray over their food until it was stone cold- but I’d never seen anyone made so seemingly miserable by their own religious beliefs. I often tried to picture Paula at work, proselytizing to anyone foolish enough to come in seeking paper streamers.

I really hope she sold balloons better than she sold Evangelicalism.
My Old Fashioned Thanksgiving would not fall victim to any of that nonsense. My guest list and menu would be carefully planned, and nobody would be allowed to get high or attempt to convert guests to their chosen religion. We would all be healed by the power of turkey and pumpkin pie, and our house would become a home at last.
At the time, my cousin Nelson still lived with us. Nelson is known for his meat- it’s what God put him on this Earth to do. If it had four legs and once roamed the earth, Nelson can braise it to perfection for all to enjoy. So the deal was cut: I would prepare breads and sides, and he’d handle the bird. Two days before Thanksgiving, Nelson came home with the largest turkey I’d ever seen. He dumped it in the kitchen sink in a cold water bath, where it remained until the night before Thanksgiving.

I kept waiting for step two, but it never happened.
“Nelson,” I said at last. “Thanksgiving’s tomorrow. Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, prep the bird in some way?”
“I got it,” he said, opening a beer. “I’m gonna get up at five and put it in the oven. It’s gonna be great.”
On Thanksgiving morning, I awoke at nine to that elephantine bird still sitting in my sink, and Nelson passed out in his room near an monumental tower of beer cans. All hope was not lost for my Old Fashioned Thanksgiving, however. I just rolled up my sleeves and schlepped the waterlogged 22-pound Butterball into a roasting pan.
It was still very, very frozen. I grew concerned. Guests would be arriving at noon. So I threw the bird into a trash bag and tossed it into the front seat of the car. The two of us drove to Kroger, where I purchased a pre-cooked turkey.
Now, what to do with the giant frozen bird sitting in my front seat wearing a seatbelt (it kept falling over)? I drove around to the back of Kroger, located a dumpster, and swung the bag with all my might, letting it fly.
But I’d forgotten to tie the bag closed.
The turkey, freed from its Hefty bag constraints, struck the side of the dumpster with a satisfying smack, landing in the parking lot. I ran over and grabbed it by the legs, swung again, and was successful in my second attempt. I went home, made the switch, and popped the bird in the oven. When all was said and done, everyone was very complimentary, even Nelson, who woke up in a panic around noon and was impressed with my work. Though he couldn’t figure out why the bird seemed to have lost about eight pounds during roasting. I explained that they pump turkeys full of water to increase the weight, and it all evaporates in the oven or leaks out during cooking.

That’s where gravy comes from. Everybody knows that.
I’ll be on the road in North Carolina for the holiday this year, breaking bread with new friends in a strange place, just like the pilgrims, without the buckle shoes or cholera. But when I am home for my next Old Fashioned Thanksgiving, I’m going straight to the pre-cooked bird, which involves a lot less work and panic, and seems to make everyone perfectly happy. I'm not very domestic, I’ll grant you. But I am creative in a pinch. And I suppose that’s something for which I am very thankful.

The Outsider

It’s Friday night in Columbus, Georgia. I’m on the top floor of the opera house, waiting for water to boil. Apparently I’m doing something wrong. All the water keeps evaporating out of the pot before it starts to boil, which defies my understanding of how this works. It’s moments like this I wish I’d finished high school, so I’d have a better grasp of science stuff. Or Home Ec. Whatever class teaches you about how water boils.
I give up after a second failed attempt, toss the water, and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. My roommates (which I have three of now, we’ll get to that in a minute) have gone out dinner. But I had bad luck the last time I ate at a restaurant, nearly choking to death, so I’m a little gun shy. Plus, I’ve got myself on a pretty tight allowance. I have to send money home to help with bills, just like the dishwasher at the restaurant where I used to work. Only I’m sending it to Atlanta, not Honduras, and I don’t have four children.
Now, about those roommates. My first week here I lived alone in a room with four twin beds. I pushed them all together, envisioning the wrestling arena-sized SUPER BED I’d always wanted. Unfortunately, it made more of a mattress runway, where I could roll endlessly left or right, but my feet still hung off the end. I then tried a two-by-two configuration. I then realized I had entirely too much time on my hands, and moved the beds back. Two days later, the occupants arrived- the technical crew for the touring play.
The crew has worked together before. It’s a straight couple named Wes and Gina, plus a guy called Calvin who I’m pretty sure plays for our team, but it’s hard to tell because he likes video games and fantasy movies. With that set, the fanboy tendencies override any obvious clues about sexual orientation. The same is true of Wiccans, in my experience.

Don’t judge, I’m just telling you what I’ve observed.
On their first night, my roommates set up a Wii, then stayed up ‘til three watching a Harry Potter movie. I was the grump curled up on the twin bed in the corner, covering his head with a pillow and praying for sleep. It’s not that I don’t want to stay up and play Wii or watch fantasy flicks, it’s just that… Okay, that’s actually exactly it. Fine, I’m a wet blanket. I’m the mean ol’ fag who brought his own bedding (never know who’s slept on strange sheets, not taking chances on crabs), and lies around reading books and staring at a picture of his boyfriend. I’m fun too, dammit, but I came here to work.
I’m still fun, right?
The more I think about it, somewhere in the last six months I kinda stopped going out. For a while, on the rare occasions Preppy and I showed up at a bar people would act like we’d just returned from overseas. But the last time I went to Burkhart’s, I didn’t know any of the bartenders OR the drag queens. All my old bar buddies were gone, too. Time passes quickly in social fiefdoms, and if you’re not consistent, you fall out of the crowd so fast it’ll give ya whiplash.
But just because I’m not a barfly anymore doesn’t mean I can’t be fun. I can stay up and play. I decide to prove this, so I finish my peanut butter sandwich and head over to Club Questions, the one gay bar in Columbus. It’s only open on Fridays and Saturdays, which is usually a good sign. It creates a phenomenon I call “Two-Day Gays,” the people who have to wait all week for the gay bar to open, then really cut loose when it does. It’s the type of bar most of my friends started out in, before they moved to Atlanta and became full-time gay, which requires a lot more outfits.
Club Questions very recently changed its name to the less-fun Club Odyssey, a fact most people in the bar have chosen to ignore, calling it Questions or The Q. I sit at the bar, waiting for someone to chat me up, but also apprehensive about that possibility because I’ve never hung out in a gay bar alone when I wasn’t looking for love. I don’t know how one strikes up a conversation with a stranger in a gay bar without it seeming like flirting. Everyone’s arrived in groups and talking to each other, though some people cast curious glances my way as I smoke the better part of a pack of Marlboros and down four beers. There’s people dancing. I picture myself dancing alone, which I used to do all the time, but now seems a little sad.
Shit. Maybe I’m not much fun anymore.
After about ninety minutes, I come to accept that I am a visitor in a social fiefdom, and nobody’s gonna break rank to say howdy. I make my way to the door.
I know I have a clique back home- the group I feel safest with who’s always up for a good time. But I like to believe we try to meet new people, make them feel welcome. Is this what the next seven months is gonna be like? Finding one closed circle after another? Because if it is, I’m gonna need a lot more books.
I enter the apartment, and my roommates are watching TV. I head for my bed, and then stop. What the heck, sometimes ya gotta make the first move.
“What y’all watchin?” I ask.
“A really unfunny home video show,” says Gina. “Wanna watch?”
“Yeah,” I say, settling on the floor next to them. “That sounds like fun.”

Table for One

I’m sitting in the Cannon Pub in Columbus, Georgia, trying to look busy. Eating in a restaurant by myself always feels a little awkward. Should I bring a book? Make conversation with my server? Eat my food as quickly as possible and get out? My solution tonight is to sit here writing on my little spiral notepad, which is serving a dual purpose: It gives me an activity, and also makes me look like a food critic, so my service is AWESOME. The manager has already come by my table to check in.

There’s a free dessert in my future.
I’ve been in Columbus for a week now, though I haven’t seen much of the city. My play rehearsals and my little apartment are both inside the opera house. If I didn’t smoke, I seriously doubt I would’ve been outside at all. My apartment is designed to handle a constant influx of artists coming and going, and is stocked with set dressing from past stage productions. It kinda looks like a state college dorm room furnished with a bunch of stuff from your grandmother’s house.
Speaking of college dorms, I’ve been talking on Facebook a lot with my friend Ames, who’s in her freshman year of college. She hates it. The girls are bitches and the unsympathetic professors are shockingly different from her supportive high school teachers. I’ve been talking her off the ledge quite a bit. Because she hasn’t made any friends (nor should she, from the sound of things), she spends a lot of time on her own. I’ve been trying to sell her on the idea of the pleasure of her own company. It’s a tricky skill to develop, but necessary for survival in any number of awkward scenarios. I’ve had to tap into that myself these days, away from my fiancé and friends. When not in rehearsal, I’ve been sitting in my room reading and watching that YouTube clip of a cat eating spaghetti.
I told Ames that there’s much to be gained from taking yourself out to lunch, or going for a walk, and I determined I should follow my own advice. I’d already celebrated the Obama victory by myself, and had too many meals sitting on my secondhand sofa from a Noel Coward play. I’ve found myself longing for a familiar face- not just Preppy, Mandy, or George, but Roberta at Suntrust who always gives me a hug when I come by, or the cashier at Kroger who knows my cigarettes. I apparently need some human contact. So today I decided to break out of the opera house and get to know Columbus a little better.

I went to Burger King.
I’d passed this Burger King on my drive into town, and it’d drawn my interest. It was such a pretty restaurant, and it was huge. Once inside, I had to pause and compose myself. It was the nicest fucking Burger King I’ve ever seen. There were quotes from Mark Twain and Orson Welles on the walls, leather lounge chairs, and a variety of cozy dining nooks. I knocked on the brick wall, expecting it to be faux, but found actual masonry. This is the Burger King that only exists in the company’s commercials- filled with sunlight and happiness, where everyone is polite and near-orgasmic over the taste of their fries. I wanted to move out of my opera house apartment and live here. It’s so damn unfair, because this is not the experience I have at the filthy Burger King on Memorial Drive, where “Having it your way” means “Not getting shot,” and you should count your blessings if you manage to get that.
Thus emboldened by my fantastic fast food outing, I took myself out to dinner, which is how I ended up here at the Cannon Pub, impersonating a food critic for free desserts. Because Preppy is a vegetarian, meat is a rare guest in my refrigerator at home. It’s just too much effort to make two different meals for dinner. So whenever I go out, I try to have a celebration of meat. If there’s a Meat Lover’s option of any kind, that’s what I’ll get. Bring me a burger with a side of bacon.

And a slice of ham. And sausage. Mmm.
My server brings my brownie topped with ice cream, much to my delight. I dig in, enjoying every bit of my date with myself. It’s not bad at all. I might have dived into my dessert with a little too much gusto, because a pecan sticks in my throat and I choke a little. I grab my beer and try to wash it down, but this maneuver backfires and I start hacking like a cat with a hairball. I am drawing curious glances from other tables. I reach for my napkin, trying to preserve dignity and failing miserably. Oh God. This is how I will die. Alone in some nameless pub, like so many of my Scottish ancestors. Who will the restaurant call? How will they know to call Preppy? The first name in my phone book is “Adam,” my friend in New York. He’ll call Mandy, and she’ll call Preppy to report my death. After she stops laughing.
And then my server appears and gives me a firm smack on the back, dislodging the pecan and assuring he gets a generous tip. I collect my things and head for the door, enjoying one more aspect of spending time alone: When you make an ass of yourself, there’s no witnesses to remind you later.

Domestically Disturbed

“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”
-from The Importance of Being Earnest

I know it’s a little highbrow for me to open with an Oscar Wilde quote, but that line has been running through my head all afternoon. I’m standing in the kitchen preparing a casserole for tonight’s dinner, in honor of Preppy’s parents visiting from Mississippi. It’s their first viewing of the house, which of course required a week’s worth of scrubbing, rearranging, dusting…and now cooking.
As I stand at the stove in my apron, stirring the sauce for baked mac and cheese, the image of my mother tending to company settles in my mind. My sister and I always go batty trying to convince Mama to just SIT DOWN when we visit, but she just acts like she can’t hear us and keeps right on cooking. Now I’m doing the same thing. I wonder what Wilde would say.
I’m down to my last few days before I leave town and begin rehearsals for the play I’ll be touring around the country, officially marking the death of Topher the Househusband. The last few months of domesticity have been really informative for me- I’ve discovered I have no actual capacity for it. Don’t get me wrong- I can wash, I can fold, I’m a perfectly competent cook. Cleaning requires no talent beyond the basic willingness to do it.

You can train a slow-witted child to scrub bathroom grout, it’s not what one would even call a skill.
Here’s the damn issue: I’ll throw all this energy into going to the grocery, preparing a lovely meal, doing the dishes, and I get the proper brownie points for my labors. But the next day, you have to eat AGAIN. Sometimes TWICE. So you gotta cook more food. And then there are more dishes. I don’t know why nobody ever explained that vicious cycle to me, but it’s a real drag. Same with laundry. I’m convinced my fiancé is somehow wearing four complete outfits a day without me noticing, because there’s no rational explanation for the turnaround on our wash rotation.
Since Preppy gets up and goes to work daily, he naturally assumes that I’ll be performing my domestic tasks every day. But there’s a key difference- Preppy has a boss. If he doesn’t do his job, someone will fire him pretty quickly. If I leave laundry piled up while I write plays and watch baby animals on YouTube, I don’t have a supervisor lurking around my office busting my balls about it. Well, except for Preppy, when he comes home. So then it’s like my future husband is my boss, and that shit never works out because everybody secretly can’t stand their boss. It’s what makes the world go ‘round.
And worse, for reasons I can’t explain, Preppy can clean the entire house and fold three loads of laundry (including fitted sheets) in the time it takes me to scrub the toilet. I have no idea how he does it. But then he stands there in the sparkly kitchen and asks sincerely why the hell these things take me so long. And I want to answer that I would clean faster if I didn’t keep getting distracted by the voices in my head, but I have yet to figure out how to say that without sounding crazy.
Is this a gender thing?

When Wilde said no man becomes like his mother, did he mean no man succeeds in becoming his mother, despite his best efforts? Is the ability to multi-task household and career management something only women can do? Or, more likely, am I just prone to sloth and easily distracted? Oh well. I suppose some things are meant to be a mystery.
On the plus side, I’ve grown very skilled with gravy and sauces lately, which is a skill I can use in the future. That’s what Autumn 2008 was for me. My book came out, I did a lot of laundry, and I learned how to make gravy.
Two days later, I head to The Springer Opera House in Columbus. I’ll be living on the top floor for the duration of rehearsals, which thrills me to no end. Living in a hundred year-old opera house! I wanna take to wearing a half-face mask while I play the pipe organ and roaming through the catacombs late at night. Surely they have catacombs.

If I grow weary of that, I can head up to the street to the local gay bar, apparently called Club Questions. Don’t you love the names of gay bars in smaller cities? No offense to Blake’s, Mary’s, or Oscar’s, but gimme a gay bar name with some story behind it, like Boneshakers, Rumors, or Please Don’t Tell My Wife I’m Here.
Upon my arrival, the stage manager gives me a tour of the Opera House. It feels good to be back at work in a theatre, doing what I do best, or at least do better than laundry. We round a corner and face a wall of fame featuring all the legendary performers who trod the historic stage- everyone from Ma Rainey to Burt Reynolds. And, on his first American tour, Oscar Wilde. I stop and stare at his photo. The smug dandy stares back at me, smirking. It’s like he somehow knows about the day I accidentally set a loaf of French bread on fire.
Alright, Oscar. This man couldn’t become his mother, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. I’ll hang up my apron and get back to work now.

Some People

I’m visiting my sister Shannon in Mississippi for a few days, getting some quality sibling time in before I hit the road with my touring play next week. It’s always fun to throw my brother-in-law and me in the same room right before an election. Shannon has warned that if the conversation turns to Obama/McCain at any point, she will throw herself on a steak knife. This is a particular challenge since Sarah Palin announced this morning that, you betcha, she wants to write some discrimination into the U.S. Constitution, gosh darn it.

I am, thus far, holding my tongue on how much I’d like to see that folksy hokum harridan tarred and feathered.
My sister and I tend to bond over finding something on television and providing running commentary. A few Christmases back we stayed up ‘til sunrise watching “Love Can Build a Bridge: The Naomi Judd Story” on Lifetime Movie Network. The goddamn thing was a 4-hour miniseries. We couldn’t tear ourselves away, chiefly due to the fact that Wynonna appeared to be portrayed by a preoperative male-to-female transsexual who didn’t quite pass. I’m not saying there’s a thing in the world wrong with that, I’m just letting you know it sure as shit made for good TV.
Tonight the Learning Channel is doing a marathon of programs about people with peculiar medical maladies, much to our delight. We’ve already seen a man whose arms look like trees, and a middle-aged woman whose abdominal pains turned out to be the fetus of her unborn twin. These people are all mild-mannered, sympathetic folk who just want to return to a sense of normality. The viewer is expected to feel awful for them, and root for a happy ending.
And then there’s the story of Jose.

Jose’s facial birthmark somehow went haywire and now his head looks like the underside of an octopus. He is cared for daily by his beleaguered sister, who keeps encouraging him to give up his favorite hobby: Going to the town square every day and singing to himself until he draws a crowd, then standing up screaming at people, waving his arms. You see, unlike most of the subjects of these documentaries, Jose is an asshole. By all indications he was an asshole long before he looked like Dr. Zoidberg from “Futurama,” but now that he does it’s just brought out all of his worst qualities. Jose is never satisfied with anything- the quality of his cheese sandwiches, the comfort of a train ride, the speed of a guided tour of London, the options his doctors propose for removing his nine-pound facial growth. He bitches about EVERYTHING. This endears Jose to us all the more, because it serves as verification that no matter what horrors you may endure in life, you’re still you.
Back when I had cancer, I would see the same group of patients when I went in for treatment, and eventually got to know a few of them. Veronica was a mother of two who was really pissed about how chemotherapy cut into her busy schedule, and we connected on how inconvenienced we were by disease. The only bright spot we could find was that our treatment schedule let us watch “Starting Over”, which was like “The Real World” if all the roommates had been malcontented housewives. Toni Braxton’s sister was on the show at the time, and that girl was BITTER.
Anyhoo, our nemesis at the treatment center was this old man who had lost all is hair like most of us, but the top of his head looked like a carton of eggs. Nobody could figure out what caused it. If Egg Man made it to the waiting room before Veronica or me, he’d tune into a rerun of “Matlock” and position himself two feet from the TV. And if we tried to change the channel, he’d yell, “Hey, I was watching that!”
One morning I arrived, and Veronica was seated on the sofa, watching “Starting Over” with an expression of triumph. I asked where Egg Man was, she turned to me beaming.
“He died! The son of a bitch DIED!”
“Oh my God, Veronica!”
“Oh, don’t act upset. It’s survival of the fittest around here. Now sit down, Bitter Braxton’s writing a song about how much she hates her family!”
You don’t really see those depictions of life-threatening illness that often. When Meryl Streep played a cancer patient, or Neil Patrick Harris was dying in “Next Best Thing”, they were presented as noble figures whose disease gave them powerful insight from which the protagonists could benefit in some way. I’m sure those people exist, but damn it, not everybody is gonna go that route.

The truth for some people is, if you were a dick on a good day, you’ll really be one on your worst day.
Shannon and I are supporting Jose all the more because of that fact. It’s easy to get on board for the life of the blind paraplegic who saves abused greyhounds, or the nun who needs a kidney, but to look at an absolutely horrible person and hope they live to be nasty another day requires sincere compassion.
Which brings me back to keeping mum on Sarah Barracuda. We are days away from hopefully sending the whole Palin clan right back to Alaska. My vote has already been cast. So I will simply stare at the image of her on my television screen in much the same way I’m watching Jose wave his arms and scream in the town square: With a mix of horror and sadness, recognizing that some folks will be appalling no matter what, and hoping that someone out there can fix whatever the hell’s wrong with them.

Do-Over

It’s my buddy George’s birthday, and we’re delivering his artwork to a gallery show. I haven’t seen him as much lately, because we don’t live near each other anymore, and we’ve both been busy as hookers at a Shriner’s convention. Playing delivery boy will be the extent of my present to him, demonstrating that the most valuable gift you can give is your time. That’s convenient, because it’s all I can afford. I’m also making him pay for gas.
“Wow,” says George. “What a birthday. Can I buy myself lunch, too?”
“That’s a splendid idea! I want barbecue. I mean, if you do. It’s your birthday, so we’ll do want you want… You want barbecue, right?”
“That’ll be fine, darling,” he says.
I navigate through yet another maze of traffic cones and road band-aids, grunting in frustration.
“Didn’t they just re-pave this like three months ago? Why’re they doing it again?”
“It’s the utility companies. They don’t talk to each other when they have to do repair work, so you gotta rip it up once for gas, once for power, once for pot holes… I may have the details wrong but it’s basically lack of communication.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Funny story. You remember the one time I rode on a motorcycle with a trick?”
“When you got back to his place and it turned out he had a slave? Didn’t he chain you up?”
“It was straps, not chains. Anyway, he was in road construction, and he explained it all.”
“When? While he and his slave were taking turns whipping you?”
“The slave didn’t GET to whip me, Topher. God, you’re so naïve. And no, this was later, over coffee and eggs, while we were all talking about work.”
“Coffee and chitchat? Not how you picture an S&M fantasy.”
“Oh, it never is. People don’t consider how much fucking energy it takes to discipline someone. Eventually you just want a glass of water and some rest.”
There’s a lot of truth in that. I’m sure that even people who have entire basements dedicated to their myriad fetishes still hang up the latex once in a while to pile on the couch and watch Desperate Housewives. It’s all about pacing yourself, I suppose.
After lunch, we share a piece of cake, and I wish George a happy 28th birthday.
“Twenty-seventh,” he corrects.
“No,” I reply. “You and I are always the same age for two months, and I’m turning twenty-nine in December. You’re twenty-eight. Happy birthday.”
“I am aware of my birth date, Topher. But this year sucked, and I deserve a second shot. So I’m doing twenty-seven again.”
“You can’t do that! I turn thirty next year! You’re not hanging out in the twenties while I face that crap on my own!”
“Darling, I guarantee Mandy will stall out at thirty for a few years. She can keep you company.”
This is so unfair. My older sister has already started telling people she’s younger than me. Just you wait- five years from now I’ll be the only one of my friends over thirty, wondering how the heck it happened. Besides, if you’re going to the trouble of a do-over, twenty-seven seems like a waste of effort. I’d redo twenty-one, which was just a shit heap of a year for me. My boyfriend wasn’t old enough to join me at a bar, so I spent that birthday drinking my first legal beer in our living room. It really set the tone for the whole year, which had me in chemotherapy a few months later. I totally deserve another twenty-one.
My grandfather went into a nursing home on my thirteenth birthday. I was supposed to have a roller-skating party, but my parents weren’t able to do it. Feeling ignored and abandoned, with that level of self-centeredness you only have at thirteen, I made myself a cake and ate the whole thing. I was fat, hopelessly in love with a boy in my class, teased mercilessly every day by Will Albee (who is now in prison, I never tire of mentioning,) and my wish was for my life to magically be completely different than it was.

Thirteen sucked. Damn it, give me that year back.
In two weeks, I’ll hit the road with the touring production of a play. According to my schedule, we’ll be spending my birthday in beautiful Washington, North Carolina. I don’t know anybody around there, and my fiancée and friends will be back in Atlanta. Apparently my options for celebration locales are limited to Bill’s Hot Dogs off Main Street, or a nearby fossil museum, but I'm doing my best to remain optimistic. Every birthday holds the possibility of being the best one yet.
The more I think about it, that’s my strongest argument against a do-over. If you barely survived the last year, your birthday can be a resetting of the clock- a chance to refresh perspective and attack life with renewed vigor.

The hope is always that your best times still lie ahead of you.
Because just like we learned from George’s long-ago S&M trick: sometimes you’ll get whipped, sometimes you’ll get coffee and eggs. Occasionally both. But the only way to find out is to learn your lessons and be open to possibility, and keep looking ahead.

As I See It

Preppy was digging through his closet, pulling out pants he hasn’t worn in about a year. I watched from the bed as he performed a sequence of stripteases, shimmying into a series of slacks. After three months of portion control and refusing all foodstuffs after eight in the evening, he’d slimmed down to his old pants. This made him positively giddy, greeting garments like old friends.
“Hello pinstripe pants!” he said, clutching the trousers to his face like he was in a fabric softener commercial.

Then he was back in the laundry basket, foraging. “Where are my Gap khakis? You know the ones, flat front, made me look like I have an ass?”
“Look in my closet. Top shelf.”
He went to my closet and grabbed the khakis, then paused to consider the stack of pants and pulled a few more.
“Hey!” I said. “You gave those to me!”
“No,” Preppy retorted. “You stole those from me.”
“See, that’s your problem, mister. In my version, you’re loving and generous. In your version, I’m just a petty thief. That proves I’m a nicer person than you.”
“You are a thief and a liar, and I’m taking back my damn pants.”
It’s moments like that when I fully comprehend the difference between my fiancée’s worldview and my own. He has an obnoxious tendency to remember events exactly as they happened. I am not encumbered by this trait. I will rewrite history without pause, casting myself in the role of the hero or victim as the story requires. My entire family does this, and most of my friends. My best gal Slutty Mandy and I will share an anecdote, and Preppy will politely wait until we’ve finished before quietly correcting a few major details that have been altered for the purpose of good storytelling. We’ll express legitimate surprise, saying, “Wow, is THAT what happened?”
Among my relatives, there’ll be nine or ten different versions of a single event, depending on whom you ask. God forbid a group of us ever witness a crime. They’d declare a mistrial after my Aunt Merry Ellen told the court all about the perpetrator’s earrings, and I recalled with fair certainty that the victim had been reading a copy of my book.
But if I’m a notoriously unreliable witness, Preppy is just as bad, despite his own sincere intentions. Because as long as I’ve known the man, he’s been pretty much blind. I’ve tried dropping hints about how sexy he’d look in glasses, but he doesn’t bite. With Hillary Clinton-level stubborn ferocity, he insists he sees just fine. And then he squints at his computer screen like Mr. Magoo. The color of our master bathroom has been a subject of heated debate between us for almost a year. I, along with everyone who has ever entered our house, say it’s green. Preppy declares it’s gray.

Because he can’t see.
While I was never so deluded to think that I would end up with a man who shares my love of rewriting history, sometimes even as it’s happening, there are still moments that leave me stunned by how different our vision of the world really is. Yesterday we had a little Extreme Makeover of our house, turning the den into my office because I wanted better light and more room. Then Preppy took over my former office, finally giving him a room of his own to do work, or get the hell away from me when the situation warrants. I spent the day setting up my new room, and he did the same. Late last night, we presented the results of our labors.
My old office had been transformed. To fully appreciate this, you have to understand that before Preppy was Preppy, he was Hippie. Hippie followed Phish on tour, selling burritos and handmade stash bags to the unwashed masses. Hippie wore tie-dyed everything and spent his days blissfully spinning around like Stevie Nicks. But that was a long time ago, so I don't judge.

I used to wear vinyl pants in public. We all have history.
What I didn’t realize was, under Preppy’s sweater vest-clad, hardworking exterior, Hippie was in deep hibernation, waiting to stage his return. And Hippie woke up in a big way, with posters on the wall, record player back in business, and a tapestry-covered sofa for lounging. There may have been a lava lamp involved. If there wasn’t, there should’ve been. I stifled my gut reaction, because I could see how delighted he was.
“Well,” I said. “How about this!”
“You hate it,” he said.
“I don’t… hate it. It’s very… young. It’s a happy room. A happy hippie room.”
“God, it’s been killing me having all this stuff in the attic. And now I can just come home, put on my records, and relax. This is awesome! You know when Lori and Coralie come to visit we’re just gonna spend all our time in here.”
This was likely true. Most of Preppy’s closest friends are former hippies themselves, now with careers and mortgages to maintain. But when they come to our house, they can step into the time capsule and remember the best parts of another time. And that’s important to have. As Preppy went over to arrange the Fraggle Rock dolls and Grateful Dead bears on his shelf with a spring in his step, I softened to the notion.

To my own surprise, I started to see things his way.

But I’m still right about the bathroom.

I Approved This Message

I was at my friend Jennifer’s house, babysitting her kids. Jennifer’s son recently entered the world of politics, running for representative of his fifth grade class. In his stump speech before the classroom, he promised to be responsible and represent his fellow students to the best of his ability. His opponent then stood and pledged, if elected, his mother would bring McDonald’s French fries every Friday.

The landslide victory went to French Fry Fridays.
Jennifer’s son was stunned that such a cheap ploy, which his opponent’s mother would never honor anyway, cost him the election. I told him that this experience was actually excellent preparation for the real world.
I took advantage of early voting this week and cast my vote in the Presidential election. I am one of those slightly begrudging Hillary converts who have thrown my support behind Barack Obama because I do believe he’s got solid strategies for fixing the current national insanity. I even considered putting an Obama-Biden bumper sticker on my car, but those look so strange after the election’s over, and I don’t want dated catchphrases junking up my vehicle, whether it’s “Yes we can!” or “Where’s the Beef?”
My father is less concerned with such things, so he didn’t hesitate to slap a McCain/Palin logo on the back of his truck. He’s never shown such specific support of a candidate before. I actually don’t know who he voted for any previous presidential election, because we generally don’t discuss politics. But the McCain sticker, as far as I’m concerned, means he’s willing to defend the principles of their campaign. He’s also saying that these people speak to his values, which I wasn’t expecting. And I was really surprised by how much it hurt.

I feel like my parents are falling for promises of French Fry Fridays, and I don’t understand why.
So I wrote a letter.

Dear Mama and Daddy,
I am writing you because I need your help. I don’t need money (well, I guess I’ll always need money, but right now I’m not asking for it), and I’m not in trouble. What I’m asking for may seem very trivial, but this is one of the most important requests I will ever make, so please just hear me out.
I am asking you not to vote for Senator John McCain.
I do not deny that Senator McCain has dedicated his life to the service of our country, first in our armed forces, then in elected office. I believe his decision with his wife Cindy to adopt a child in need of a stable and loving home speaks well of his character. His continued financial support of his first wife’s medical expenses resulting from a car crash, even after their divorce, was a noble gesture.
Unfortunately, John McCain does not believe I should have the right to make any of those decisions in my own life. He does not believe I should have the right to serve openly in the armed forces. He believes that if a homosexual is willing to fight for their country, they should keep their identity a secret. And if the truth is discovered, they should be sent home. Members of our own family have fought in the current war and said the unit already knows without discussion which members are gay or lesbian. Picture how much more pride those soldiers would have in serving their country if they could keep a picture of their partner back home, as a reminder of who they’re fighting for.
McCain does not believe that I should have the opportunity to provide a safe and loving home for an adopted child. And I wouldn’t be making medical decisions on behalf of my spouse, because he doesn’t support any sort of government recognition of same-sex partnerships, and worked against it in his home state of Arizona. Do you believe that despite finding a healthy, loving relationship with a man you have come to know and care for, I should not deserve to have that legally recognized? Is my relationship less genuine in some way? Do you believe I could not care for a child?
Sarah Palin has stated her belief that homosexuality is a choice. You know me better than anyone. You know the challenges we have faced as a family as a result of living my life honestly. Do you agree with her? Do you believe who and how I love is a choice?
Do you believe that hate-crime legislation is unnecessary, even as men no different from myself are beaten or killed just for being who they are?
When I came out to you, you said your greatest fear was of the hatred and mistreatment I might face that would keep me from living a happy life. Well, that’s what’s happening. I am being relegated to second-class status, and if you put a McCain sticker on your bumper, or cast your ballot for him in November, you are endorsing that.
Please, please do not do that.
I hope in my lifetime to see a day when I can vote for a president based upon their economic strategies, or defense plan, but that’s not the case right now. One candidate believes in the authenticity of my life, and one does not. I do not have the luxury of choice. You are my parents, and I don’t think you have a choice either when it comes to what is right for your child. When I was growing up, I could count on you to defend me when someone tried to bully or belittle me. Will you do that again?
Asking you not to vote for John McCain is not me campaigning for you to support Barack Obama. I am asking you to have the courage to support me.
I love you so much.
Your Son