Uncategorized – Page 3 – Yellow Brick Missives

June 17, 2014

For Whom the Wedding Bells Toll

I’ve learned a few things from attending weddings.

One: Never think an embossing gun is harmless.

Two: Just when you think it’s safe to unwind and eat, you’ll go into anaphylactic shock because you stupidly didn’t pay attention to the very obvious fact that there were sunflower seeds in the broccoli salad.

Three: Decorating is ongoing right up until the “I do.” Which usually leaves you sweaty and gross and covered in thready fabric leavings or glitter or snot from the sticky toddler running around.

I always thought a wedding wasn’t a big deal, and all of the fuss was over nothing. But what I’ve learned from planning a very simple, insanely tiny wedding, is that weddings really are just excuses to make fusses over nothing.

Now, I’m not saying that two people binding themselves together forever is nothing — quite the opposite. What I’m saying is all of the pomp and craziness and general tear-inducing errands and tasks that we put ourselves through in the process really aren’t worth straining your sanity during what’s supposed to be one of the happiest times of your life. You know, next to that dream sequence where Joseph Gordon-Levitt sidles up to you at a pool and offers to feed you some Nutella and grapes Grecian style.

Two weeks from today, Andy and I will have said those two magical words in our living room and we’ll be husbands. We’ll have switched the rings from one hand to another, smiled, and eaten dinner with our families and our wonderful officiant friend — all of whom will have met for the first time 24 hours prior. We’ll wave them all on and be generally exhausted but happy, and return to Toby and Pearl who will look at us expectantly, wondering who in the hell all of those touchy people were and why, oh why, we weren’t already going on a walk.

And then we’ll pack the last few things for our much needed vacation, and wind down with a glass of Merlot. After the dog walk, of course.

Because some things change, and others change less. And there’s happiness and fun to be found in all of it.

December 19, 2013

Nesting, Y’all!

Anyone who knows me — hell, anyone who has met me once in a bar — knows that, when it comes to nesting, I nest hard.

And I’m not a minimalist.

Which is why I’ve been on a crazy-long writing hiatus. (Alright, I’m also lazy.)

But, I like to think that I stand a better chance of getting some quality writing done when the house is a home, and this magpie is all finished prancing about the nest, adding bits and baubles and sparklies.

(And if y’all didn’t catch that reference to The Secret of Nimh, shame on yourselves! Go rent it now! I mean, buy it. I mean, download it. I mean…)

As I was saying, I love design. I love interior spaces. I love marrying all of it into something cohesive that reads like a place where I want to spend a lot of time. Or at least someplace where I can get completely bombed and maybe pass out on the floor.

And that’s exactly what we achieved in Raleigh.

But, it’s been a while. And Toto, we’re not in Raleigh anymore.

***

Suffice it to say I was more than a little nervous when we rediscovered a lot of our stuff — y’all know, all of that fun decor that’d been stored away for six months. Most of which was last seen getting loaded onto a semi in Raleigh.

And then unloaded on the other side of the country, into either our storage unit in a galaxy far, far away (Gardena)…

…or into our cramped Koreatown closet — a.k.a. our six-month studio. (Remember that adventure?)

But now, we’ve somehow managed to shoehorn ourselves into the neighborhood we’d coveted from afar…

have moved in…

…and have even adopted a little ball of joy — Toby (a.k.a. Jabba the Pup).

Still, stuff has to get stowed. Furniture must be moved. And you can only stand that cardboard smell for approximately three minutes before it becomes maddening and you’re running around in a cucumber mask demanding someone clean up this mess!

Slowly but surely — and with a few vodka chasers — we’ve managed to pull things together.

And rip down those horrendous vertical blinds.

And while we still have so much art stored in closets, we’ve decided that — since we can’t coat the walls in paint — we’ll cover them with paintings.

Because if we’re going to go all out — be one piece of furniture away from descending into “cluttered” territory, or one painting away from cray-cray studio wannabes — we have to do it up right.

So, bring on the oddball pieces — like Andy’s childhood desk. I had no idea where this was going to go until I just owned it — shoved that sucker at a diagonal, pulled it out, and made it something useful again. (Side note: being completely dazed by sinus infection medication helps.)

All in all, we’ve thrown everything into a pot, set it to boil, and created something that’s not too cold, not too hot.

But just right.

August 31, 2013

Identity Crisis vs. Artistic License

Right after I learn about resource guarding — watching the animal behavior specialist use a dummy hand to pull a laden food bowl out from under the snout of a rambunctious lab mix — we get into a conversation about the politics of blood sports. And then, lo!

“It’s always so difficult — to intercede, disrupt culturally-inculcated rituals — especially with many practices being so deeply socially conditioned. Everything is culturally relative.”

Silence. Cocked heads. My not-so-inner anthropologist reemerges.

***

Driving back, the social worker turned graphic designer chuckles from the passenger seat.

“I was totally thinking the same thing. You know, about cultural relativity.”

We stare ahead at stopping traffic, our banter lost to deafening fire engine sirens.

Two fish out of water and into the fray. But still laughing.

***

Describing life in Los Angeles is like creating a palimpsest — by the time I visually digest some entrancing detail, the whole scene before me gets scrubbed and repainted with new characters, new life. Every single day is a photographic cornucopia. Everywhere you turn, something catches the eye; it’s sensory overload at its finest and most vulnerable. And I’m right there, taking it all in — as creator, voyeur, element — wondering how I’m adding to the portrait of humanity stretched out before me. Feeling like one of Bob Ross’ happy trees — plunked down in some vast vista just for the hell of it.

Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” bleeds out of my cracked windows. The city is grumbling awake around me: the humming cars, echoing honks, socially acceptable running of red lights — all becoming more familiar than alien.

Sunlight diffuses through the early morning, smoggy haze, curling around a Korean church cross; it glances along the church-sponsored billboard that faces a Starbucks and reads “What path is right for you?” I consider the message, sip my coffee, then smile at the line wrapping around the tiny building like a fat man’s belt around a twiggy teenager. It seems more people are considering caffeine than the messiah. At least this Friday.

The retiree I pass every morning is just leaving with his towering venti something or other; I’m earlier than usual. Soon enough, the car crawls to a stop again; a man uses an old shirt to wash himself on the sidewalk; before the light changes, he tosses it into his cart, then stoops back inside a bamboo lean-to. A street later, I turn at the 76 gas station where the attendant is buffing the pumps, then pass the crumbling Art Deco radiator repair shop. The strikingly turquoise facade of Mel’s Fish Shack assaults my eyes, and teenagers with bright shoes and leggings lean against the building, rousing slightly at the approaching school bus. Blocks past Jan Ette’s Liquor Store — the broken, disjointed line made up of figures with hardened faces — I turned down an alley, and up to the back of the office.

Where I jot these observations down in my journal, turn a page, and laugh out loud.

Journeys do have a way of morphing you into someone else; not necessarily someone better or worse than who you were. Just another iteration of sorts; someone with a bit more mileage, courtesy of some life lessons.

***

At a manager meeting, the President is detailing the process they had to go through years ago before one of the shelters could be built.

“Well, they had a whole team of, uh, history people who made sure we weren’t building on a burial ground and whatnot.”

I smile slightly — mentally recalling all of ghosts of archaeology projects past and thinking how odd it is that, now, I’m completely on the opposite side of the fence. And how liberating that feels.

That night, I break a juice glass, then mend it — proclaiming, “We have a new bud vase.” As the glue dries, I think about how we’re always changing; figuring out how best to function. One minute we’re someone, somewhere; the next, we’re becoming something else entirely.

***

I’ve written repeatedly about how fun, strange, and bizarre moving across the country has been, and my fears, anxieties, and dreams of what will come on this coast. But it’s really just now starting to sink in that this place is our new home.

That we’re not on some extended vacation.

That my fieldwork days of wielding a trowel and shovel are over.

That this new chapter is as painfully hard to write as it is amazingly easy.

That life is as crazy as it is beautiful.

Even if it sometimes feels like everything around me is new and scary and transfixing and disturbing, it’s all part of the same world. Part of a place that I’m creating — like ripping apart Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, and pasting it over part of some untitled Keith Haring drawing.

It’s all a mosaic. And it works — the subtle control and levity, melding together.

The artist in a studio somewhere, contemplating.

April 12, 2013

Dear North Carolina: It’s Not Us, It’s You.

Y’all know I love letters.

And love letters.

But this one is particularly apropos as I watch, horrified, as North Carolina backslides into history through daily leaps and bounds.

Dear North Carolina:

I have mixed feelings about leaving you.

Mostly because I held you so highly for so long.

You seemed like a place where a southern liberal could find compatriots and a bit of that southern-style flair and hospitality I so cherish.

And, for a while, I thought you provided exactly that.

I grew academically in Chapel Hill.

I did my share of wine-fueled porch-hopping in Sanford.

I met the love of my life in Raleigh.

But the short time since the Republican majority took hold of both the House and Senate–the first time in a 100 years–you’ve become a shade of that state I personally held as the Southeast’s liberal scion.

Now, though, you’re being driven into the ground by nonsensical legislation and a hyper-conservative government that attacks me, my family, and chosen family; other minorities–women, people of color, immigrants; individuals’ religious rights; and the environment. Just to name a few.

You’re becoming the laughing stock among your Deep South cohort. And, as a native Alabamian, you should know that some folks in my home state are whispering to their Georgia and South Carolina relatives, “Wow, is that cray-cray transferred by osmosis?”

So, North Carolina, I have a question for you.

Are you worth the fight?

Because the past few years I’ve done nothing but fight, march for equality, speak out against bigoted legislation like Amendment One, and rail against an apathetic majority. And, sure, there have been victories. But the severe degree to which you’re backsliding into history makes me wonder what the future holds.

I’m tired.

I’m done fighting for rights that other states, and countries, recognize as they should.

A life spent fighting doesn’t seem like a life I want to lead.

I want to focus on living.

Every single day over the past few weeks, my partner and I have been reminded why we’re leaving you for California.

Sure, Cali has her own problems. But at least with her there’s probably less likelihood that we’ll be accosted and called “faggots” for merely holding hands in our car while stopped at a traffic light; that we’ll be shadowed and stalked on the road by pickup trucks plastered with Confederate flags; that we’ll hear our legislators repeatedly legitimize unconstitutional, institutional violence and bigotry against us and other minorities.

Maybe I’m just sensitive. Or maybe I’m a slighted Millennial who’s experienced the recession’s pitfalls since its inception, and constantly sees my fellow generational cohort continually screwed through economic and legislative (in)action.

But my partner and I can only defend you so long before we acknowledge that your base does not deserve our economic contributions nor our innovative spirits.

We’re tired of reinforcing Battered Citizen Syndrome. We’re not going to come running back, defending you every single time you punch us, expecting everything to be roses and rainbows afterward.

We’ll do what we can to support our good friends who continue to fight. But know that they, too, are getting tired of your repeated blows. And it’s only a matter of time before your tactics to regulate citizens’ social lives in lieu of effecting positive, beneficial political change backfire–when you find yourself quickly sliding down that “Most Desirable” list, being abandoned by progressive companies seeking a home base.

So, my partner and I will move gaily forward with our lives. In California. And we’ll hope you’ll soon find a brain like Dorothy’s scarecrow, and actually realize that you’re aligning yourself with the wrong side of history. And that, very soon, you’ll know what it feels like to be a minority.

Bless your heart.

March 7, 2013

A New Target? Because Gay Sexiness is so Passé.

Have y’all read the headlines lately?

Or have you had your Facebook news feeds inundated by gay marriage ads, the first lesbian couple to marry with Mickey and Goofy as witnesses, and young LGBT’s bringing class action lawsuits against their bigot-run schools?

Good. That means you’re supposed to be my Facebook friend.

Because those stories may mean that, sooner than many of us think, the large-scale disenfranchisement of LGBT’s nationwide will become a smarting blemish on our country’s history of civil rights violations.

(And yes, let’s go ahead and make that clear: LGBT inequality is a civil rights issue.

Don’t get me started about what skin color someone has to have to qualify as experiencing civil rights violations. LGBT’s experiencing inequality aren’t trying to uproot and appropriate the 60’s. Meaningful, long overdue strides were made then by incredibly talented, headstrong, and historically revered leaders; and they, and their cohorts, should be honored accordingly and their work appreciated.

LGBT’s have long endured inhuman equations to the lowest form of humanity. Whether starved and worked to death inside barbed-wire fences, dragged behind cars and lit ablaze, or tied to fence posts and left to die, LGBT’s have a history of having hate-centered violence directed at them.

So, let’s all stop the minority in-fighting and agree that hatred directed at anyone is wrong.

And anyone who stands against it is a pioneer in their own right.

Tangential rant over.)

***

With every new ad campaign, every high-profile celebrity that comes out or speaks out as an ally, every corporation that backs all of their employees, we all come a few steps closer to equality.

It won’t happen overnight, but it’s happening little by little.

But with so much happening so quickly, I’m left to wonder why.

Why now?

Is it because people are starting to see the light?

Is it because it’s trendy to back LGBT rights?

Is it because LGBT’s are pretty people?

Is it because it’s sexy to feature LGBT’s in ads?

In some ways, I think it’s a little bit of everything blended together.

Still, I think it’s odd that the sex-bent (ba dah bah!) ads are geared more to gay men than the rest of the LGBT community.

I know, I know.

Every advertising executive would respond with the whole “Not every ad can cater to every identity group.”

But I think corporations should try to diversify their LGBT ads.

Because, even now, much of mainstream society is getting many stereotypes reified with every hot, muscly gay couple happily traipsing down some exotic beach to a chuppah.

Not all gays are like that.

We don’t all shave our chests, have tons of money, work out non-stop, or eat 300 calories a day. I’m not trying to sound bitter–really, this time–because I know many gays who juggle crazy lives and have chiseled physiques; I’m just not one of them.

So, again, why the gay men?

In some ways, I think it comes down to some advertising-centric, decided on sexiness factor.

Because what sells ads?

Teddy bears and roses?

Nah.

But two muscle bears holding bouquets over their junk, the tagline reading, “Two bouquets for the price of one! He’ll be beary happy you did!”?

Perhaps.

For whatever reason, two men together ooze bizarre degrees of sexiness to some heterosexual demographics. Meaning: tweens staring at ripped abs (wishing their boyfriends had those, while said boyfriends are secretly wishing they had those, because then–then!–they might get to second base, whatever that is these days); and closeted men staring at those bouquets.

But, again, the proverbial WHY? of it all. Why would two guys be the most marketable of LGBT’s?

I think it’s because more heteros understand the mechanics of gay male sex.

Even if they think it’s ewwww, gross!

Even if they have problematic, subversively misogynistic thoughts like, “So, who’s the woman in all that?” (Clue: It’s two men. It’s nothing like heterosexual sex.) Or, secretly, “I bet they get less teeth.” (We do.)

So, while the Culture Industry is making a buck off your gay boyfriend’s abs, and letting those questioning kids know that they’re not alone, I’m still standing there watching it all unfold, wondering, “Who’s the next target?”

Cynical?

A little.

But let’s be realistic.

Because when the whole taboo against discussing LGBT issues–sex, love, civil rights protections, adoption–falls by the wayside and becomes less edgy, some other minority has to get thrown under the Not-So-Magic American Disenfranchisement School Bus. (Which I imagine being driven by an amalgamation of DuhW and Pat Robertson with Ms. Frizzle’s hair.)

***

My hope is that once LGBT rights are more commonplace than not, not only will there be a little less hatred and misinformation floating around out there, but nationwide LGBT equality will be one of the last civil rights hurdles our country has to clear before getting with the program, catching up with progressive nations, and realizing how ass-backwards we’ve been for far too long.

Because, personally, I’d love to live in a nation where a billboard featuring a gay male couple is looked at as just that–a piece of wood sporting those sporting wood, rather than another attempt by the wicked gays to lead The Children into fiery damnation.

I guess I’m just waiting for gay male sexiness to have less of a charged air about it than it does now. (Maybe then Andy and I can be in a gay-centric toothpaste ad, like a friend suggested after I posted this photo from last year’s NC Pride.)

That, and for more representative LGBT imagery in the media.

Whenever that happens, I’ll welcome the chance to pass the goth hipsters of the future–wearing those oh-so-alternative 2000’s fashions and ruminating about Life and Death.

Especially when they pass a few old gays at a bistro table, roll their eyes, and mutter in their misunderstood way, “That whole being gay thing is so passé.”

January 8, 2013January 9, 2013

A Gay, Man-infested Destiny: The Second Leg, AL to AR

Musing about the probability of patrons contracting hookworms from a fish and chicken restaurant’s “special” combo meal, we try to identify the gas station on the outskirts of Birmingham that’ll be the least likely to steal our debit card information.

“Let’s go ahead and fill up so my feet don’t have to touch the ground in Mississippi.”

“Alright. I’ll pump. You go pee.”

Andy disappears into the restroom on the other side of the pumps. But before I fill the tank, he’s back. (And since it takes approximately two minutes to top off a Prius, that’s saying something.)

“That was quick. How is it?”

“The door’s broken, the toilet paper dispenser’s busted open, and there’s shit smeared on the walls.”

“Anything else?”

“There’s no soap.”

*Cue Psycho music*

“Well, I have to pee. Good thing we brought the industrial-sized Purell.”

Here’s the thing: I loathe public restrooms.

And while I completely appreciate their First World luxurious utility, I still can’t quite ever recover from the horrors that often wait inside, or on, the character-depressed concrete block walls. It’s like all social etiquette disappears, and it becomes completely acceptable for your child to channel their inner Pollock and use a very natural medium to express themselves.

So, as I stand on my tiptoes to avoid as much floor-caked muck as possible, push one leg back to hold the door closed with my foot, and squint my eyes closed enough to fuzz out the inadvertent Gerber ad covering the wall while I pee, I realize I might’ve been able to play Bjork’s stand-in for Dancer in the Dark.

I pirouette to the door and nearly knock out another brave soul venturing into the abyss.

“Good luck.”

Andy already has the car started and is looking toward the bathroom. After I get in, he pumps a massive Purell blob into the palm of my outstretched hand.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Agreed.”

I stare out the window at another billboard and contemplate my need for pro laser liposuction.

***

As we near the Mississippi state line, it starts misting, making the desolate landscape that much more enjoyable.

“It’s no wonder these people cling to Jesus. I doubt there’s a Starbucks around here.”

“But, lo! The Mississippi Welcome Center. Do you want to stop and pee?”

“Not really. But I’d rather here than another gas station.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s shit on these walls, too.”

“And a strung up gay in the bathroom asking, ‘Is my Miata still in the parking lot?’”

We laugh at the problematically macabre mental imagery, park in the deserted lot, inhale, and jog up to the porch.

An elderly woman sweeps three oppressive leaves off the Spartan sidewalk and sings hymns.

Andy and I exchange looks and open the double doors.

We walk in and three voices chime in sync, stopping us cold.

“Well, hello there. Would you both like some apple cider?”

We turn to face three elderly blue-haired women smiling thinly from behind the courtesy desk. Each is bedecked in a Christmas turtleneck sweater.

“Laced with Jesus?” Andy mumbles under his breath.

“No, but thanks.”

***

On the road again, we start a riveting game of I Spy.

“I spy destitution.”

“I spy filth.”

And repeat until Memphis.

***

We pull up to a dimly lit gas station, with bubbas clutching forties streaming out into elevated pickups.

“Let’s be sure to turn down Celine before opening the door.”

“Good idea.”

Andy goes in. I punch the uncooperative machine’s buttons, muttering expletives at the repeated “Transaction cancelled” message. Bubbas start looking over at my conversation.

Andy returns right as I explode at the machine.

“Come on, we’re leaving. If this fucking place can’t get their shit together, they’re not getting our money! Turn Celine back on.”

A Jesus-centric billboard with the website IsHeInYou.com provides egregious fodder for the rest of the evening. And the sign for Catfish Chicken Chinese Restaurant staves off our appetites until Little Rock.

Johnny Cash queues onto the playlist.

“Did he just say ‘draining my eye’? Like, peeing?”

“No. That reminds me, though, I have to pee. I couldn’t back there. But I think I’d rather go in my Starbucks cup.”

***

Before long, we pull up to our hotel, succumb to the requisite valet parking, and go up to our room where I promptly redistribute our wet laundry from Alabama across every piece of furniture. (It’s a funny thing, the whole off-grid life: it also means your highly environmentally-friendly, green dryer doesn’t dry quite as quickly as regular ones.)

So as clothes dry in the room, and we curse Little Rock’s downtown establishments for not being open on Sunday, we compromise.

On a sports bar.

Tired and drained, we collapse into our seats and find ourselves actually watching football. But then we get melted cheese and bread and fried goodness and appletinis and everything is right with the world and we go back to judging the fifty-somethings next to us who can’t keep their hands off each other’s goods.

“Well, Jesus made the rounds tonight. I mean, really, He had to have been in a lot of people for this much to be closed.”

We laugh. Walk down the deserted street. Then settle down for the night.

With our sweet sacrilege to tuck us in.

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