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Last night I dreamt that I was having coffee at the Planet with Bette and Tina (do not even pretend like you don’t know exactly who I’m talking about). I asked Bette where Jenny was and she said, “Oh come on, she knows you hate her.”
I was so embarrassed. I looked at both of them and said, “No, no, I don’t hate her. I don’t even know her!”
Bette leaned in, with that Julia Sugarbaker posture that she has, right before she says something serious, and said, “Well, obviously your lack of acquaintance was not a prerequisite in forming such a strong verbal opinion.” (what a Bette/Julia thing to say, don’t you think?)
Besides being a little turned on, I felt awful. I thought about how many times I had told people that I hated Jenny. But I don’t. I don’t even know her. And when I thought of her just sitting there in her poorly lit shed, writing sad and twisted carnival stories all by herself because Shane was at work cutting some rich MILF’s hair, I felt really, really bad. I asked Bette if I could catch a ride back to her place so I could go next door and talk to Jenny.
And then Tina said, “Um, maybe you haven’t heard or something, but that’s my house again too!”
And then my alarm went off, reality started to filter back in, and I realized something:
It really is for the best that there is only one more season.
8:45 a.m. Sunday morning:
Violet hollers upstairs: “Jesse! Come here! Guess who’s finally back!” I knew. I ran.
It was my guy, our raccoon, Marcus. I hadn’t seen him in a week and had started to worry. But there he was, on our pouch just sitting there, kickin’ it like a lazy cat, scratching himself and licking our compost container clean when Violet noticed he was hurt – really hurt. I didn’t actually see it because she warned me not to look. But from what she said his tail was pretty much no more. Yuck and Ouch.
He’s a big ol’ guy, fat and cute as all get out. I’ve gotten use to seeing him every day or so around dusk. Last weekend he was limping a little but still managed to strut through our open back yard in plain day, like he was our little dog, like he does, and toughed out whatever was ailing him to climb our tree to the tippy top.
Yesterday I watched him from a distance, as our back door is all glass, as he sat there scratching and biting at his ex-tail. My heart fell.
I got on the phone to get him some help. After calling several wild animal institutions, shelters, vets and emergency clinics it turns out that Marcus totally fucked up by getting hurt on a sunday… and with no insurance to boot.
At one point I talked an emergency wildlife clinic, three counties away, into coming to help us by offering to pay for the animal ambulance. (I am well aware of the fact that this could all sound ridiculous. None the less, Marcus is my raccoon and damn if it doesn’t take a village). As soon as I hung up the phone, having finally convinced this woman to get someone to drive for an hour and a half to pick up a pissed off, bleeding raccoon, Marcus just stood up and wandered off. I didn’t follow. I could tell he was in no mood.
Violet made a few more calls to see if we could find anyone to come and help us with this guy. One of the several underfunded nonprofit animal rescue places in Seattle said they would help Marcus if and when we caught him ourselves and brought him to them, “like, with a cardboard box or something”. White tall femme!?! Are you kidding me?!? He is hurt and pissed and scared… and a raccoon!
Several phone calls later we finally got a competent, knows-everything-about-raccoons woman on the phone from the fish and wildlife department who said that he probably had distemper, which can cause sores, and that raccoons were pretty remarkable at dramatic recoveries. She said it might look really bad but that he could fully recover.
So, that’s what i told myself all day as i paced around, peering out our windows, waiting for him to reappear, and that’s what i told myself before i went to bed… that, and that sometimes all you can do is throw your hands up because even the simplest of relationships get really hard sometimes. But so long as Marcus is in our trees I got his back. And I’m sure if his tennis-ball sized brain completed thoughts like that he’d say the same.
Walking down the street in Atlanta this guy yells at me from across the street:
dude I’d never seen before: “Fuckin’ dyyyyyyyke!”
me: “Fuckin’ really tall guy with cool shooooooes!”
Gotta call it like you see it.
CHER.
1. Can you believe I waited this long to incorporate the Goddess of all things sparkly and fabulous onto my blog?
2. If there is one single person that can get through this entire video and not succumb to the incredibly irresistible urge to jump on top of your desk/table/workbench/counter top, grabbing the nearest sharpie/screwdriver/brush/spatula to sing along with her at the top of your bloody lungs then we should talk. You might be depressed. Cher can help. You just might need a higher dose.
It’s interesting to be so incredibly immersed into my queerness that my immediate response to seeing a picture of a pregnant guy, like Thomas Beatie, makes me ooh and ah at how sweet his little tum looks. A sort of cultural relativism maybe?
When I was traveling in Mexico, people there thought that eating fish out of a tin can mixed with mayo on bread (with celery, pickles and onions) was the weirdest thing ever. I listened to this claim again and again while drooling. After having spent several months living off of corn tortillas and white cheese dishes, my internal dialogue sounded much like Homer Simpson, “mmmm, tuuuuuuna.” But yeah, I get that this could sound yuck.
Regaining/renewing/reinventing perspective on perspectives makes my head spin, and I like it.
In my first Atlanta pub I asked the bartender what the light and dark beer selection looked like and she said, “Bud liiiiight… or Buuuud. What’ll it beeee darlin?” Many of my friends there also considered Chalk Full of Nuts to be coffee.
Walking around in France I spent my time with my head down so not to step in the dog shit… that is everywhere. The French think that we are ridiculous for picking up our dog’s poo. “I mean, who owns who here?” I heard one Frenchy explain. And when I thought about it that way, yeah, picking up your pets crap is kind of strange. But here of course, I would (if I had a dog!)…and if I lived in France, I wouldn’t.
Janet J’s bare boob is just another boob for most of Europe and probably a lot of the bluer states here. But the majority of the US says, “Pure blasphemy!” That big devilish tit poked a lot of Americans right in their Christian crossed eyes without warning. And damn her for infecting their pure thoughts with her naughty, naughty titty! (It was Justin that unveiled the nip, but what’s a guy to do? I mean, it was right there in front of him, and he is a guy after all, and she didn’t say no)
I know tuna fish sandwiches, dog poo, Bud Light and naked boobies don’t hold quite the tour de force that a man having a baby does… but the point is I always get excited whenever we have good reason to re-evaluate/reinvent/create new definitions for what is normal, or should I say, acceptable in the physical location that defines your social norms for you.
So much of this is about time and critical thinking. Time for the folks that really, really like the way things are to join in with the critical mass of collective conscience that wants to make room for new ideas and change.
Maybe I’m an optimist that way, but I feel quite sure that if you have kids under five, by the time they’re adults they’ll find it just as strange that two women couldn’t get married as I find it ridiculously strange that white people used to have their own drinking fountains and bathrooms.
Speaking of bathrooms, man, the day I walk into a public restroom, with Thomas’s wife in the corner using the diaper changing station, with all of the other women giving me the same head nod hello thing that women give each other while in the waiting space for a stall… instead of gasping at me… because they naturally assume that I am an adult who is aware of her gender and not some pervy 16 year old boy… what a relaxing pee that will be.
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