It Ain't Truth If It Doesn't Hurt

The Man of My Dreams...Is A Woman...

23 October 2005

This weekend I returned home to Minneapolis for the wedding of Nicole Harris to Eric Something Polish.  I was really hoping that Nicole would keep her last  name, seeing as I find Eric's impossible to pronounce let alone spell correctly. But, alas, she is now a black woman with a Polish last name. Somewhere a dead Pope is turning over in his grave in a cavern deep below St. Peter's Basilica (which, previous to being the seat of the Papacy...was a Shrine to Apollo....again..why not?).   

I met Nicole Harris fifteen years ago at Patrick Henry High School in North Minneapolis. She was a year older than I, and I hated her. We had a sculpture class together my first trimester of high school, and she and another Nicole (McGill) made it their mission to traumatize me each and every seventh period for 13 weeks. Nothing was sacrosanct...they told me that they were sisters that had the same Dad and different mothers. They made fun of my clothes. And they poked fun at my abstract ode to Rapunzel in her tower (which, incidently, was purchased by the school librarian for her grand children). Never mind that I never harrassed them for their lesbionic project...which involved Nicole Harris creating a real life plaster model of Nicole McGill's naked body...which sat in the art room for three of the four years I was in high school. Nicole McGill's bosoms done up in dry plaster...causing a hormonal frenzy in just about every straight male that entered that classroom. That sculpture...along with some junior year antics...earned Nicole McGill the nickname NicHo McGill. I call it karma.

Anyway, Nicole Harris and I didn't really and truly start our friendship until my sophomore year of high school when I joined the speech team. At the time Nicole was the darling of the high school speech team. She was poised, elegant, and had big hair.  She competed in the category of great speeches, which challenges the contestant to memorize a great speech from history and to recite it with a certain level of interpretation...Nicole...was...flawless. I was in awe. Over the next couple of years, we became close friends, and then in the fall of my junior year the impossible happened...Nicole was crowned Homecoming Queen over a very angry Delora Freeman (who had passed out victory party invitations prior to the coronation...and who threw her roses on the floor when Nicole was crowned)....and...at the moment Nicole was crowned...I realized that I was in love with a woman for whom I had absolutely no physical attraction. I spent the rest of the school year writing her poetry...which...I hear...she still has to this very day. It was Nicole that helped me to understand that I was a big old 'Mo.

If Nicole were a man...she'd be my ideal. She is funny, humble, outrageous, talented, and brilliant. She attended Notre Dame on a full scholarship. She had an article published in the Washington Post at the age of 20. She was Sam Donaldson's personal intern. She's traveled the world...or at least the mountains of the Ukraine....she attended grad school at Syracuse on a full ride. And...she has a great wrack...translate that into pecs...and I'm ready to go.

For the last fiteen years, she and I have seen each other through a myriad of good and bad times. I was there to listen to her when she had her one and only girl on girl action experience. She was there for me when I checked myself into the looney bin in the grips of a paranoid hallucination (thanks crystal meth). And, we've been through thick and thin...good and bad...and I'm still totally and crazily in love with that woman. But it's a different kind of love...that I would do anything for you simply because you are you sort of love. It is the kind of love that made me cry like a little girl that just had the head ripped off her favorite doll, when she got married this weekend. She was gorgeous.  I thought I would be jealous of Eric the Pole...but I realized that the relationship I have with Nicole and the one he has with her are complimentary...separate...and inviolate...plus....Eric's hot...and if I had the guts I would totally secret a camera in their honey moon suite and hawk the photos on the internet.

Alas...Nicole is not a man. But she is family. And I guess in the long run...that's better. I still get to go to family Thanksgiving's and Christmas' with the Harris Family. Her parents still adore me as they always did. And there will always be a place for me on Russell Avenue in North Minneapolis when I come home. Congratulations Nicole and Eric...may you have many happy years together...and at least two children named after me.

Going Home Is Hard To Do...

20-23 October 2005

So this morning I woke up bright and early...still on a poetry high from a the slam I attended the night before...stumbled out of bed...looked at my suit case and my pile of dirty laundry....made an executive decision that I would pack only one pair of jeans and my toilitries for my five day excursion home...and the rest I would simply buy when I got there. Of course...this is all simply a manifestation of absolute laziness...I should have done laundry last night instead of sitting in a coffee shop drinking bad chai and gettin' my ass whomped in a poetry slam...but you're only young once...right? Or is it more than that...is this really indicative of the over-consuming behavior that has Americans consuming more energy and creating more waste per capita than about 2/3rds of the rest of the world combined. Yup...probably that too. I am hanging my head in shame as I think about my own internal hypocrisy...fighting for justice on liberation on one hand...and secret plans to raid the GAP and spend inordinate amounts of money unnecessarily. The Revolution will not be televized and our fatigues will not be made in maquiladoras. But until then...it's off to RagStock I go to purge my conscience with trendy yet tasteful consigment goods.

But I digress...after "packing" this morning, I hoped on I-25 and headed towards the Sunport. I sat down on the plane...eyeballed the ridiculously butch 6' 5" male airline attendant...daring him to play straight in front of me...to which he casually tossed one foot up against the wall and flexed his massively sculpted buttocks...I then snuggled down in my seat and let the engines vibrations lull me into catatonia for the next 2.5 hours. I hate going home.

Now...I actually love Minneapolis. This is perhaps my favorite time of year in Minneapolis. This city is beautiful. It has been planned exquisitely. There are 22 lakes within the city limits. The Mississippi river twists and turns throughout the city and divides it from its cock-eyed neighbor St. Paul (once named Pigs Eye). And the city is awash in fall colors. It wasn't until I was older and started travelling that I realized that not every city was built inside a forest. My favorite game in New York is called Count The Trees. I did. There are exactly 9 trees in all of Manhattan....excluding Central Park. But, no matter how beautiful Minneapolis is...nothing can calm the anxiety of making sure that you at least make superficial contact with all of the people that you have ever shown any care for in your entire life. So, of course, upon getting to the home of the friends with whom I am staying...I pulled out my cell...put it on vibrate...and took a nap.

I love my friends and family. But in the past, whenever I've lived away and come home and failed to call each and every one of them...I have gotten the wrath of the Neo-Valkyries...these descendants of Vikings in the upper Midwest have loaded up their long boats and set off to destroy my self-esteem by railing against me in that oh so subtle Minnesota way..."Oh...I understand...you are very busy...I mean we've only been friends for 15 years...and I gave you that kidney...but you know...we'll see you on the next trip."

But this weekend belongs to Nicole Harris (see the other blog entry today...I started this three days ago...but have only gotten around to finishing it today). I have actually been very proud of myself this weekend...I have done something that I have almost never done in my past. I have taken a vacation. I have spent at least 60% of my time here sleeping...much to the amusement of my dear friends Andrea and Kandace with whom I am staying...and much to the chagrin of Homely Dog (see the forthcoming b log on Homely Dog)...who gets very sad when I go into my guest room beyond the nibbling of her puppy teeth. Last night, at the wedding, I hung out with the utterly amazing Amy Melquist...she and I went to high school together, and while we were friendly in high school we never really hung out together. Well...I love her. She is fun and exciting...wooohoooo Amy Melquist! Anywho...this vacation...I have given myself a break. I have gone with the flow and spent some quality time with a few friends....and really...I'll be home again in two weeks...and for at least a week at Christmas...these chumps can back off, slow down, and let this Queen take a break. So have I spoken...so let it be ;-).

I'm not the Whore I Used to Be...

19 October 2005

I'm a little worried that I am starting to do something obnoxious...like act my age...whatever the hell that means. For all intents and purposes, I was a late bloomer when it came to just about everything. I didn't really start puberty until well into the 8th grade (I was taunted horribly in junior high by folks that couldn't figure out if I was a boy or a girl...the sad thing is that I recently found a picture of me from the 8th grade...and my first thought was...who is this tranny in the banana yellow sweat suit).  I didn't have sexual relations with a man or a woman until I was 17, and I didn't get drunk until just before I turned 19 (I managed to make it through my entire freshman year of college without getting drunk!!! I bet that is proof enough to get me canonized). 

During high school I became terribly addicted to fantasy novels and all the romanticism that they engendered. And, so, when I left Minneapolis and the closet, I was sure that just around the bend I would find my studly elf prince who would soar into my life on the back of a magnicifent golden dragon...who was fresh from eating the knight in shining armor and his stupid white horse. Our love would be eternal, and we'd live happily ever after in an enchanted forest where the other elves would sing improvised songs to honor our love immortal.  Then I had my first one night stand...which was totally unintentional. I'd been out at Scandal's (the local gay bar in Asheville, NC) with some friends, and I met this studly football player/cheerleader (why not?) named Brandon from Appalachian State  University. To say that he was hot would be an understatement.  He spent the night in my dorm room, and we did things to make the RA angry (serves her right...I don't know how many times I had to politely go up to her room and ask her to uh...turn down her "music" at 3am).  Well, the next morning I just knew that this was it. This was the one. By the following day I wasn't so sure. And when he hadn't returned my phone calls by the third day, we'll...I ran to the nearest lesbian...laid my head in her lap...and denounced men and their man-whorish ways.

Little did I know that experience would shape a callous over my young queer heart and set me on the path to the Man Whore Period of my life.  Somehow, that experience (following a tragic breakup the year before) destroyed my fantasy of happily ever after. The dragon was shot down.  The elf was decapitated, and they clear cut our enchanted forest. I had obviously fallen into the Bitter River and been tainted by its foul magics.

I decided somewhere between the age of 20 and 23 that love was something that happened to other folks. So I decided that I would go the traditional route of the male species and do what I needed to do to get my rocks off, fuck love and relationships, and go on about my business. Unfortunately for me, I have never had much luck at being an Evil Queen or at being able to divorce my emotions from physicality or my emtions from anything for that matter. But I did my damndest...more or less, except for a year and a half relationship with my ex-partner Rich (wonderful man that put up with WAY too much shit from me that he neither deserved nor earned...he works now for the National Institutes for Health...if anyone sees him...tell him that I'm a shmuck and I make public penanence for everything...except the fight with the drag queen...she deserved that one), I had basically written off most men and set myself inside an internal gated community that requires a certain dick size to access...and then it's only for an overnight pass.

But somewhere...in the last six month...something has changed. By no means have I been celibate. And to the outside world it probably seems as if its bidness as usual with Brandon the Easy...but really...I'm finding that occasional hook-ups for sex are not what I want. Not at all. They have been fun when they've happened...but...really...when its time for the trick to go (or time for me to go home)....I'm left realizing that I want something more. Now this is in no way a condemnation of sex or frequent sex with lots and lots of people. I believe that sex is a wonderful thing...that you should have sex as much as is good for you...and that anyone that tries to judge you or guilt you for having wild passionate monkey lovin' jungle sex...should get a clue, a dildo, some lube, and sit on it.  But for me, at least for now, sex without something more has started to run its course. Somehow...the dragon has been resurrected, the elf prince has found his head, and through an aggressive reforestation process the Enchanted Forest has been regrown.  But this time there is something different at work. In the past, I thought I needed the elf and his lizard in order to be a whole person. I'm secure in  knowing that I am a beautiful...ummm..maiden...that is a righteous princess in her own right...and any elf that thinks about stepping to this better have a two dragon garage...cuz Mama is packing her own fire breather.

I may not be the whore that I used to be...but neither am I the 13 year old androgyne waiting to be swept off zer feet.  Watch out world...I was dangerous when I thought love was just for other people...I'm down right hazardous now that I believe it is out there and waiting for me.

P.S. I've been informed that you may be required to enter Friendster in order to post comments on the  blog. If you have comments, and you don't want to join friendster...feel free to email me at camposvive@hotmail.com.

Nothing Like A Man...Except Maybe a Fat Pug

18 October 2005

So last night I was at home, getting ready to pass out after a day of emotional exhaustion, when I got a text message from this guy that I met a few days ago through that website that brings queers together...gay.com. Of course when we met...we talked about philosophy, current events, and dreamt a dream of a better tomorrow...and all largely without words...and only a few exclamations now and again.  Well, last night he invited me over to his quaint New Mexican adobe style house...just a short jaunt from my own lovely largely unfurnished abode. When I arrived, he was wearing the sexiest pair of boxer briefs along with an unassuming baseball jersey style t-shirt...(what's a blog without color commentary?) Anyway, I got there, laid down on his bed, and promptly started to talk about the letter to my dearly incarcerated step-father (see yesterday's blog for more details). And he, graciously, listened to me as I rambled along...sweet guy...in his place I'd have said..."ummm...that's nice trick...now bend over."  Actually...probably not...I like to  pretend I'm a callous bizatch...but really...I'm from Minnesota...I would have just thought "ummm...that's nice trick...now bend over," but what I would have said was..."that's sad...can I get you some coffee...and maybe a lemon bar?"

After a good 15 minutes of diarrhea of the mouth, and then listening raptly as he talked about the nano-research he is doing...about which I comprehended the only the word "magnet," I laid down and he put his arms around me. Now...I like to think of myself as this sex-positive cool player that doesn't need a man for shit...but at the moment...I was like...ummm...oh yeah...this is what I'm talking about...now pass me a lemon bar.  I won't go into the details of the next hour or so of the evening, but let's just say that if the boy had asked me for my wallet, my keys, and my social security number...I'd have said here ya go...buy something for me while you're out. But instead we laid there until sometime later, after a post-coital conversation on the need for an immediate revolution in the U.S., we fell asleep (no thanks to his cat that decided that two men in one bed equals nighttime amusement park and hiking area).

This morning, I woke up to the sounds of the Muslim call to prayer blaring from an alarm clock in the shape of a mosque (I couldn't make this shit up if I tried). My nose was stuffed up, so I had breathing through my mouth all night, and I had so much hair in my throat that I swear I must have been rimming the cat in my sleep, but even through all that...and the constant waking up due to sleeping in a new place and the tabby's nighttime shennanigans...I felt relaxed...with a cute (and smart...and politically aware) man's arms around me. Who knows if anything will come of the last couple of days...but that isn't really important...what's important is that I realized that my basic need for human compassion and interaction is still present and accounted for...and responds (and BOY does it respond) to kindness...passion...and understanding...and a hot ass in striped  boxer briefs.

P.S. This blog entry is dedicated to my canine niece...Roxie. Roxie is the world's fattest pug. She belongs to my Non-Romantic Life Partner Jason...who is currently living with his partner and his extremely obese and fetid hound with bad dental hygiene in Washington, D.C. Jason is doing research at the Smithsonian for his PhD...and Roxie is slowly eating her way through the Natural History Museum.

To Move Forward Sometimes You Gotta Go Back...

17 October 2005

Sometimes I want to meet someone that can say..."My childhood was perfect! We had three square meals a day, new clothes every school year, two parents, a dog, a cat, two hamsters, went to Disneyland, Disneyworld, and even took a trip to EuroDisney for shits and giggles." You know the kind of person that looks at you as if you were just caught making out with Karl Rove when you relate that you sometimes went hungry, thought food stamps were the national currency (and very colorful back in the day might I add), and that a coke-head step-father that beat you now and again was just part of growing up in middle America.

Unfortunately, most of my friends have stories from childhood that far more resemble the Karl Rove making out story than the idyllic version mentioned first...where you may have a caper now and again...like Webster gets caught inside the clock and is found just in time for dinner by a very cross M'am who takes away his dessert only to bring him a pudding just before bedtime thereby healing all wounds and fighting mischief with love.

Let me say that growing up my life was filled with much happiness. I never doubted that I was loved. That is very important. Even through all the bullshit...I knew that there were people around me that loved me. That is key...because so many people I know grew up in a situation similar to mine where it was every tranny for theirselves and god help you if you try to get on top of my crate as the Titanic goes down. Having said that...from the age of 3 until about 13 my life was impacted greatly by my step-father. Though he ceased legally being any relation to me by the time I was five, he was my primary father figure and was the biological father of my younger brother Jason. One of my earliest memories involves this man beatng my mother unconcious while she was pregnant with my little brother. He knocked her out in front of our house, and I remember thinking that a car was going to run her over. I lived in constant and total fear of this man who was in the grips of a powerful cocaine addiction. As an adult I now understand what it means to be an addict (being one myself) and how that controls every aspect of your life. I also know now what it means to be a black man in this world. These things don't excuse his behavior but at this point I have some perspective. At the age of three, I wanted to kill him in his sleep.

During my childhood my step-father went through periods of sobriety when he was a genuinely caring man. To this day I have met few people that can sing as well as he can. I remember watching him in church and listening to him sing and being so happy that he was my Dad. I truly believe that God can be found in music, and God was working something powerful througth my step-father. I would know that everything was going to be allright when he was singing. Because when he was singing he was someone else. I remember when he was leading the church choir at Temple Baptist Church in Brainerd, MN and he thought he could get the redneck country kids to sing God Is Trying to Tell You Something. And I would pray that he would just keep singing because I was safe then, and he was happy. I remember thinking that I just wanted him to be happy. How co-dependent crazy is that.

At 13 my step-dad largely vanished from my world. He had been sober for three or four years, but then he went on a binge, left his wife (who is one of the greatest gifts he gave me...Melanie is a tremendous woman) and kids, and pretty much exited from our lives. At that point my fear had turned into a deep seated loathing, and I tried to erase him from my memory. Since then I have seen him one time. Magically, he showed up to my high school graduation. To this day I have no idea how he knew what high school I went to or when I was graduating, but he walked down onto the grass at the end of the ceremony, gave me a card with $400 in it and walked away.  Shortly thereafter I left for college in North Carolina.

While I was gone in college, he resurfaced again to wreak havoc in my little brothers life for a short period. Taught my brother neat useful skills...like...how to smoke crack. Hey...it ain't the Boy Scouts..but it'll do in a pinch. But for the last five years no one had heard from him or seen him. On the day I left to move to Albuquerque, my little brother told me that he'd found his Dad through the MN Department of Corrections and that he was in the fifth year of a seven year sentence for conspiracy to sell powder cocaine. My brother mentioned that my step-father wanted to call me...to which he and I both giggled and rolled our eyes.

Since my brother told me that he'd found our step-dad, I have been thinking a lot about him and the role he has played in my life. In all honesty, I probably paid for my therapists recent multi-nation trip to Europe with all the sessions we've had in the last couple of years related to my step-father. And now, just when I thought perhaps he'd found Jesus and joined a reclusive mountaintop monastery in the Kalahari he goes and shows up again. I shouldn't be surprised...that has always been his M.O. I'm just surprised he managed it from a 6 by 4 cell in Lino Lakes, MN. I'm not even sure where the hell that is.

Yesterday, as I sat...bored...in my office...on a Sunday afternoon (I live a fast paced glorious life...don't be upset...with a little work...this could be your future)...I decided that it was time to send him a letter. In the very beginning of the letter I was clear that I wasn't sure where the letter was going to go...and it went lots and lots of places. I basically gave him the one page "here's my life for the last 10+ years..." and then I started to talk about my memories of him. At first I thought that there was nothing good...I couldn't remember anything at all. And I'm glad that I decided to type the letter because I started crying so badly that I was wishing my contacts came with windshield wipers. In the end, I was also able to recall some of the good things that he had brought into my world, and I made an effort to share those things as well. I thought really hard about why I was writing the letter. Was it to make him feel badly...maybe a little...but it was more about releasing the demons that I'd let run amok inside my body for way to long. I had let myself villify my step-father. He had become to me the epitome of everything I never wanted to be. As a matter of fact, when I hit bottom with my addiction to crystal meth...and I was laying on my bedroom floor--hysterical...crying to my Mom on the phone I said to her that I was just like my step-father. That I had become the person I hated the most. She almost pulled a Ghost Dad and came through the phone on that one. But now, with some distance from that evening last spring, I finally understand the gift of having gone through my own battle with addiction...it has allowed me to forgive my step-dad. If it weren't for my own addiction, I would never have the space for empathy. It doesn't mean what he did was right. But it does mean that I can start to let go of it. I was talking about all of this to someone recently who asked me why I can't just let it go...it happened...it was in the past. He was white. And white people often have a hard time understanding that time does not exist in a straight line. What happened in the past has life, meaning, and power in the here and now. Indeed, for many of us that is crucial to who we are...the ability to see ourselves and know ourselves in relationship to our ancestors and our history. The trick is learning from the past, acknowledging its presence and force in the present, but shaping its potency in a way that enhances who we are instead of letting it rule us.  I can't hold on to the pain of my relationship with my step-father. I've been holding it like some kind of crazy security blanket for so long. It's comfortable. Well worn. And I'm familiar with it. But continuing to hold on to it keeps me prisoner to a memory. I think my letter to him is the first step in letting the pain go.