tequilacon '05

Dude. They were going to kill me. Really. Tear-me-to-shreds kill me. But I was high above them (Them, who? I don't know. Maybe my co-workers? They didn't have faces.) on this platform, a platform with a grate in it and I could see them looking up at me but I knew that I was okay. I knew they couldn't touch me. I think I actually yelled the word, "HA!" as I swung off the grate via this chain and then. . . and then I started walking the walls and swinging about ala the aerial acrobats of Cirque du Soleil or Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider. It was ridiculous fun. And then before I knew it all my faceless didn't-get-around-to-killing-me-co-workers were swinging on the chains ala Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider too and I was crowded out. Back on the ground, I saw a door. So I left.

"Well, yeah," Sadie said after I finished telling her the dream.

"Well, yeah, what?"

"That's what you do."

"What's what I do?"

"You find something you enjoy doing and then you find out that you're not the only one on the planet to have ever done it, or that others also enjoy what you enjoy and then you quit."

"I do not."

"You do to."

"That's a crazy-person thing to do."

"Oh, sweetie," she replied, "you thought you weren't?"


* * *
I make it a habit to avoid other people who write. I don't join discussion groups and writers' circles. I don't go for the open mic readings or poetry slams. When someone wants to introduce me to this writer guy with a book or that other friend with a freelance career, I tend to do the uh-huh thing. The uh-huh thing that says, whatever. The whatever that means, forget it. Because he's published, so he's automatically better. And when you say she's a really good writer, do you mean better than I am? Because I'm a really good writer, right? Different? Different how? Forget it. I don't want to know. Okay, yes, I do. But only if she's a poet (for hire?) or, you know, writes instructional manuals. And regardless, I don't want to meet them -- him or her. Ever. Because a little of me maybe hates them for being better. And yes, I'm that small.


* * *Note retro-fitted to last week:

Hey. You. You reading this. You, who I've never met. I have a secret for you. You're not real. You think you are, but I know better. I'm sorry to tell you like this and I don't mean anything untoward by it, but it's important that you know this, so you'll understand. You'll understand why going to Chicago to meet unreal people very much like yourselves seems the fool's errand.


* * *I go to Chicago.

Jenny and Brandon are real.

And so are the Romanians.

Crap.


* * *
I could recount for you our adventures together, but the benefit of posting late and slow is that Jenny and Brandon have already done all the heavy lifting. The narrative of the weekend you can read here or here. And they've done such a fine job that it would be difficult for me to add more physical detail.

So I'll skip all that and tell you this:

Brandon gave us each a box of candy -- chocolate covered cherries for Jenny, dark chocolate covered almonds for me and he pegged our likes perfectly. Brandon, you should know that slowly consuming the entire box in one sitting upon returning home to Atlanta was a decadent treat for me and the perfect way to end the weekend. The rest of you should know that he's just as sweet and perfect as that candy. With just the right touch of salt.

Jenny's apartment (even down to the contents of her fridge), reminded me of my grandmother's place in Rego Park where I spent a great deal of my childhood. Walking in the door was a little bit like going home, but happily, without the ghosts. Jenny, you should know that I'm inspired by the way you live life, with your care for the small details and the lovely touches. That one of my favorite moments of the weekend was when you suggested, "Let's go buy some books, get a cup of coffee and read." Were we separated at birth?

The three of us could have met in a café in Kabul, in a tent in Tanzania for all I cared. On Pluto, even, as long as we had air. Because as we sat around the little table in Millennium Park and watched a wedding walk buy, imagined a monkey in diapers, dreamed up a history for an elderly couple in comic glasses and yes, discussed several of you -- you invisible people -- it was nice to get and be gotten. It was fun to share the adventure. Compare notes and anxieties and secrets and tricks. And I'd forgotten how delightful it is to be adored by your peers. To adore right on back.

I didn't think I'd be much for writing after this trip. It's what I do. Or rather what I don't. Typically. But I think they may have helped me turn a corner, my two new friends. My two new friends as real as you.

May I just say thanks? Thanks to Jenny and Brando, for being SO SUPER FECKING COOL?! (Sorry, you had to be there.)

* * *And then this.

In high school, Katrina and Stephanie and I, we were "the writers," and it occurs to me that these girls are the only writer-friendships that before now I ever truly fostered. And until recently I'd neither seen nor heard from either of then in more than ten years.

A month ago, I saw Stephanie at another friend's bridal shower. A shock, a surprise, a surreal delight. She's teaching theatre and English. She's moved back to the South. She's writing a book.

And when I came home from Chicago, I found this, a comment left last Thursday:

You know, in high school, a bunch of good friends got together for Christmas and gave each other gifts of poetry. One girl, gave us each a bottle of rain. Do you still have yours? I do, but half of it has evaporated and I'm pretty sure I see something growing in the other half.

Katrina

* * *

Sometimes, I really love the way life works.

* * *

"HA!"

dispatch from dallas: this is what happens when you run out of holy water

My cousin Allyson emailed me this morning:
Just know that last night the holy water my friend gave me that I didn't know what to do with finally evaporated, which was great because the little bottle sat on my counter all summer long and I was obsessed with checking it. But then this morning my car wouldn't start. Now, we have two cars and Matt's state truck (thank GOD) so I took the other, but there was no gas. I drove to the gas station, but the pump didn't work. I went to another pump and it worked, but bees were EVERYWHERE. So there I am pumping gas and trying not to get stung. I hit every light (of course) and then a Pepsi truck was sitting, not moving, and blocking traffic. Needless to say, I was late for work.

I wrote back:
So you'll be asking for more holy water?

And she responded:
Yes, and this time, I'm going to request a keg of it. (Is that sacrilegious?)

Me:
Only if you drink it with pretzels.

stripping it down & working it out

My friend Sellers may be only twenty-five years old, but she's still the smartest girl I know. And not only is she the smartest, but she's also the best kind of smart too -- subversive smart, so you don't see her coming with her smart smartness as it's wrapped up all pretty-like in great shoes and that unstyled style you only ever see in movies or magazines. I'm telling you, she's got her act together in a way that takes most people several lifetimes to achieve. (For instance, I've been born a relatively directionless, middle class, American of Irish Catholic descent for at least the past three go-rounds or so. Last cycle, Sellers was a very clever mollusk. 'Nuff said.)

Delightful catch that she is, Sellers is getting married sometime next year. The date has yet to be decided, but she and her fiance figured the pre-wedding celebrations (also known as the bachelor and bachelorette parties) needn't hinge on such a pesky detail, so a couple of weekends ago, we had a party. And by party, I mean week-long, all-out, out-of-town beach event, complete with two houses (one for the boys and one for the girls), food, drink and much frivolity. Not to mention bocce ball and strippers.

Let me say, I was in for the beach. I was down with the frivolity. A nice, chilled beverage while swinging on a hammock, rocked by a cool ocean breeze is always welcome. I can take or leave the bocce ball, but I was adamantly, stridently even, anti-stripper.

"Do you think we should get a strip.. . "

Me: No.

"But, it will be. . . "

Me: No.

"It'll only cost us. . . "

Me: No.

No, no and no. I practically posted signs and hired lobbyists to state my case for NO. See, I've been at parties where they've been hired before. It's always awkward. The room always seems somehow too small, the lights too bright and the aforementioned frivolity, free-flowing before, becomes suddenly forced when a man in a police or fireman's get-up enters the room. Plus, I'm sorry, but handcuffs are not a toy.

[Aside: Once on a date, this guy named Yuri handcuffed me and then couldn't find the key. It was horrible. There were tears. . . some minor hysterics. Eventually, he had to call his dad who had to use bolt cutters to free me. Of course, we were only four and it was a play date. They were the plastic so-called toy handcuffs he'd gotten for his birthday and so it was Yuri who was in hysterics because he didn't want his gift ruined, my liberty be damned. If it were up to Yuri, I'd still be shackled to his bunk bed. I'm telling you, it left a deep and as-yet-unresolved emotional scar. I ask you, am I the one getting married next year? Again, 'nuff said.]

But I was out-yesed (by everyone) and "Kyle" showed up, complete with cop costume and handcuffs. And I would have been mortified, except that I'd forgotten one, important fact: Sellers.

Sellers, the smartest girl I know. Advanced. Evolved. And more than capable of handling a nineteen-year-old in a teal g-string. (He said he was twenty-three, but the blush wasn't off his pride in his high school state championship wrestling title. If he was twenty-three, than I'm America's Next Top Model.)

So rather than the completely mortifying experience, past experience suggested it would be once again, it was wonderfully laughable and incredibly entertaining with Sellers playing the role of Gracie Allen to Ocifer Teal's George Burns. Seriously, it's a bizarrely apt analogy. She bumbled and obfuscated, acquiesced and assisted in such an hysterically funny way that poor Kyle's nudity was almost (almost, mind you) an afterthought. And all the while, she oh-so-carefully tucked dollar bills wherever she could. Needless to say the options were limited. When she attempted unsuccessfully to fold some of them under his necklace (the one he very probably got as a confirmation gift from his grandmother not so long ago), she suggested helpfully that perhaps he should invest in a studded collar -- the better to hold his tip money.

It wasn't until all was said and done, however, until the poor boy, completely upstaged by Sellers, was mostly dressed again, ("No, not the pants!"), that someone noticed his tongue ring.

"Yeah?" Sellers said, "I've never been with anyone who had a tongue ring."

"You should," Kate said.

"Really? Oh. Okay. I guess. . . " she demured and turned to Kyle, offering gamely, "You want to lick my forearm?"

But Ocifer Teal had had enough of being George Burns. "How about your neck," he suggested.

"Oh, okay," Sellers said and cooperatively turned her back, tilted her head and lifted her hair out of the way.

"Hmm. . . okay. . . alright. . . yeah?" She pondered, unaffected. "Try the other side," she proposed. "Right. . . I get it . . . uh-huh. . . ." she said thoughtfully before she abruptly jumped away, struck by a thought. "Ocifer Teal," she asked, suddenly serious and with obvious concern, "is this okay?"

"Yeah, it's fine," he said, confused by the sudden change.

"Okay, good," said Sellers, visibly relieved, "It's just, I wouldn't want to make you feel uncomfortable or anything."

Only Sellers.

But you see, that's what makes her so smart. So special. She never forgets the people behind the costumes, the make-up, the masks we all wear. She always responds to the mollusk in us all, vulnerable to the elements, struggling to survive and not nearly, by far, as clever as she.