today, molly's sixth and final question, from her to me to you...6. your life is a musical (perhaps filled with “jets and sharks” dancing, snapping of the fingers, silly fire-escape ballads-you know how i love west side story references) what would be the soundtrack to said musical? give me 18 songs or less that take us through your entire life-not just this year. explain what those songs mean to you and why you chose then. for example: one of my songs would be “jeremiah was a bullfrog” because throughout my childhood i remember my mother loving that song and it would come on and we would dance and sing at the top of our lungs. another would have to be the illini fight song as it reminds me of everything u of i…football block, nights at murphy’s, swaying with my friends in the stands of memorial stadium. another would be an italian song i know by eros, because it reminds me of my 8 months in italy, the places i went, the men i kissed (haha)…everything. so i don’t have all 18, but you get the idea and now you have to tell!i will attempt to put these in chronological order...1. beethoven's third symphony, "the eroica"when i was a very small child, my mother and i lived with my grandpa jack. just after my birth, my parents weren't in the most agreeable of attitudes, and so, my mother clutched to her newly born son and fled to the house of her father. for the 3 years between my birth and my parents' marriage, i spent my days in the company of my grandfather, a stubborn, brooklyn-irish former-coalminer. he drank. he smoked cigars. he said my mom's name as "law-ree" instead of "lore-ee" like everyone else. our days were simple. we watched what he wanted to watch on tv. we went where he wanted to go. but most importantly, because he really despised telelvision and his knees didn't allow us much mobility, we listened to what he wanted to hear. mostly classical music. a few old standards here and there. some dino. some ella. a bit of old blue eyes. but mozart, chopin, stravinsky, bach, and especially, beethoven dominated our ears. to this day, i hear the eroica and i also hear my grandfather cry out to lawree to bring him his cigars.2. wedding bell blues by the fifth dimension3. downtown by petula clarkboth of these songs remind me of my mother while i was growing up. whenever it was raining or one of us was sad or grandpa jack wasn't home to dictate what we had to listen to, she'd play these songs and we'd dance around the living room and sing at the top of our lungs. it's very much like the "ain't no mountain high enough" scene in "step mom". and, no, i don't think jumping around in my pj's singing "come on and marry me, biiiiiiill, i love you still. i always will!" has anything to do with me being gay today.4. judy garland's somewhere over the rainbow5. chim chim cheree from mary poppinstwo more songs from my childhood... both from after my parents got married and my brother was born. both from when we were poorer than poor. "cereal with water and a splash of milk" poor. "a cooler for a refridgerator" poor. my father, the now-medical-miracle, was born with a heart defect. at 13, he had open-heart surgery, a surgery that would last him until he was 30. it didn't quite make it. at 29, he started having problems, and keeping him alive kept the family bank account quite empty. the surgery he had at 31, not only saved his life, but put him in the record books... to this day, medical students study the procedure my father received, but none of them know the story behind it. anyhow, these songs were from 2 of the 3 records my brother and i shared as kids. we had the mary poppins soundtrack, a single of judy garland's somewhere over the rainbow (from the wizard of oz, which would later be the only movie we owned as kids), and the haunted house sounds record people would play at halloween (which my brother and i played year round). worth noting though, we knew all the words to the songs in mary poppins and somewhere over the rainbow without having seen the movies they were from. actually, we didn't know mary poppins was a movie at all. and the chim chim cheree we knew was slightly different because the record we had was warped, and chim chim cheree played much slower and sadder than it is in the movie. "now as the ladder of life 'as been strung, you may think a sweep's on the bottommost rung."6. the canticle of the sunyes, a christian song, but let's remember kids, brett was raised very catholic. i went to church twice a week while i was in grade school - wednesdays and sundays. my family didn't eat meat any friday of the year, not just during lent like all the other catholics i knew as a child. we prayed the rosary on a regular basis. i went to confession 4 times a year. we went to church for both easter and christmas vigils. grandpa jack would have it no other way. this song was always my favorite one to sing at church. it was so upbeat and happy about god. my favorite verse: praise to the wind, that blows through the trees, the seas mighty storms, the gentlest breeze, they blow where they will, they blow where they please, to please the lord.7. too sexy by right said fredduring my childhood, most my summer afternoons were spent at the manners park public swimming pool. my brother, the clark kids (my 6 cousins), and i lived at the pool during the summer. frying our skin, eating pizza, swimming 'til we were beyond pruny. they always blared a radio station out over the pa system, and i can't really remember much of the music, but i do remember this song. we'd catwalk the diving board. we'd snicker to ourselves because we said "sexy". we'd put our towels on like capes or dresses then whip them off to prove just how too sexy we were.8. zombie by the cranberries9. simon and garfunkle's mrs. robinsonjr. high. unlike most, i loved junior high. i think i was such a late bloomer that at the time i simply had no idea just how awkward i was. i look back now and wonder how i wasn't miserable, but i wasn't, so... go me! zombie makes me think of the countless hours my cousin megan and i would spend locked up in one of our bedrooms, creating... whether it be poetry, drawings, magazines, fall fashion lines, sculptures, collages, whatever. we were artists who hungered and who were pained, and our music needed to reflect that. thus, we reconnected with our tormented irish roots. the simon and garfunkle song just reminds me of the good times i had with friends in junior high. we loved "oldies", and this song was hilarious to us because we had a teacher named mrs. robinson. unfortunately, none of us were old enough to have seen "the graduate" and we were never sure why she was uncomfortable with us singing it to her.10. in requiem by i don't know who (i tried googling it, but couldn't find the song i know)11. an irish blessing by the taylorville high school madgrigal singersthese two ditties come from my four years at good old t.h.s. both are choral pieces because, well, i was very choral in high school. i was president of concert choir, afterall. the first reminds me of my two years in all-state honors choir, where i met lots of incredibly dorky people, and 6 truly wonderful ones. in particular, this song, though it's about death, makes me think of jenna. if i wasn't gay, i'm sure we would have dated and fallen in love. now, she lives in singapore with her husband i don't like. sad how life works like that. guess the song was appropriate afterall. the other, an irish blessing, has been the closing song for every t.h.s. madrigal performance ever. hearing or even reading it takes me back to the friends and experiences i had those four years. "may the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields."12. another lonely day by ben harper13. ciagarettes & chocolate milk by rufus wainwrightthese songs are my first two years of college. rufus singing about all the indulgence, and ben singing about all the pain. freedom measured with responsibility. excess tempered with need. it's all there.14. the alma mater by the other guysi had to include a song by the other guys, the acapella singing group i lived with for a year in college. thus, i picked the alma mater because while i loathed living with them, they do the school real justice with this one. it's football and the quad and late nights on green street and sleepovers with special and concerts at foellinger and going to class in your pj's and the union and working for orientation with my bestest friends and everything illinois. well done, boys.15. jane by ben foldsthis was the last thing beth (seen here) gave me during our friendship. after all of it kind of ended, she sent me one last birthday gift that following summer - a lovely glass bowl hand decorated, the lyrics to this song scrawled throughout the bowl's curves. and i had heard the song before, but i guess i had never really listened because reading the bowl, it was like hearing that song for the first time.16. tom tom club's genius of love"what're you gonna do when you get out of jail?" "i'm gonna have some fun." "what do you consider fun?" "fun, natural fun." hello, these are like the most phenomenal song lyrics ever written. for one and a half years, i lived with one of the greatest people i have ever met or ever will meet. forever, this song will make me think of drew and the amazing, super fantastic times we had together. me. drew. a glass door. a desk. and a room full of feminists. i'll have to explain this later.17. shiny disco balls by who da funkoh, the boys. dancefloors, booze, and my first gay friends. we were an inseparable pack of crazies. it was the first time in my life that i was truly friends with boys. i had never had that before. and it was good. now, we've all gone our own ways, but this song puts them in the room. applying body glitter. wearing red pants. donning the party coat. rocking sunglasses at night. and being generally fabulous.18. beautiful life by the fisher bandthis song is short. it's not even a song. it's a chorus for a car commercial. but it could not more accurately describe the 5 months i have lived in chicago. short. real. optimistic. hopeful."hey child... a big world is out there waiting... outside you will find, there is love all around you.... it makes you want to say that it's a beautiful life and it's a beautiful world and it's a beautiful time to be here."holy shit, as tara reid would say, that was long. sorry. it's a been a life.
if you saw the sisters simpson at the vma's on sunday, this is definitely worth reading...thank you, anne.
question number 5 coming at you...5. if you were able to take time off of work and sit down and write, barring all writer’s block possibilities and creative hindrances, what kind of literature would you produce? compare the style and content to that of a writer of which we are familiar. a autobiographical semi-fiction ala my husband dave eggers? a dark fiction much like christopher rice? light hearted chick lit? or perhaps a carrie bradshaw-esque column about life in chicago and boystown? something else? what would be your hook and how would you relate to the public at large? finally, tell me what you would title it…professionally, i would love to have the skill and reliability to write a column. about life. about living. about love. and all the other stuff that gets lost in between. it's an exhilirating idea, but i don't think i have the creative wherewithal to routinely come up with good ideas for a column. i've always said i'd be a much better editor.regardless, i have always somewhat secretly thought i would one day write a book. not a series of books. not two. just one.i think the style would be very similar to adam haslett's. he wrote a book called "you are not a stranger here", and it really rang for me. he's very real. nothing in excess but incredibly descriptive. the words have a real bearing that goes beyond the plot. more familiarly, i'd say the book's style could be likened to that of molly's future husband dave eggers... but i think i'd be a little less... fantastical. a little more rooted. less likely to fly off the handle. toss in a bit of david sedaris' "it's funny because it's true" humor, and we may have arrived at me.as for content, well, i'm a half-step ahead of you. it'd be a slightly to semi-autobiographical book, combining the humor, whimsy and light-heartedness of chick lit with the hearty realness of narrative exposition. the protagonist and i would have somewhat of a shared history... whether it be memories, likenesses, experiences, or simply perspective. i would want the writing to feel true to its audience, and i know i would accomplish that best by sharing what's true to me.it would follow a boy, a man, through the trials of having two great loves in his life: the one that got away and the one he has. i'd want to explore how we know we love someone. how we know when love has left. how we respond when worlds collide. and how we handle looking for, missing, and affirming love when it's not around. i think the hook, how i'd get the general public to be interested, would be getting my publisher to publicize it as "the greatest book of our time" ala "kafka's motorbike".nah, i think i'd really rely on word of mouth. i wouldn't want to be part of oprah's book club. i wouldn't want a lot of hype. i'd want people to like it and to share it. of course, i suppose it's easy to say that when you don't have big fatty checks rolling in because ms. winfrey said, "it's one of my favorite things."the title? easy."the other fish"i often find myself thinking about this idea that "there are always other fish in the sea". well, what happens when you're not ready to fish again? or when you're with an "other fish"? or you are the "other fish"? what if the sea is empty? or has an odd number of fish? is life really just one big sunday morning on tnn? with that many lines in the water, what're we really fishing for?i swear this isn't a lesbian blog.red fish, blue fish...only one question left... :(
question number 4...kinda sad these are almost done.4. disregarding all social mores, stigmas, opportunities, financial responsibilities, physical attributes what job would you like to have right now? if you could do anything...what would it be? a mobster? an nba basketball player? a model?honestly, i think part of the reason that i'm in a job i hate right now is that i never really decided what it was i wanted to do.sure, i have long said that my ideal job, my long-term career goal, is to be a trophy husband/philanthropist/socialite. in many ways, it always will be. i enjoy the idea of freedom and independence that this "career" implies; however, i think i'd rather retire to this than spend my whole life doing it.while i'd love to be a forensic psychologist, the white house press secretary, a nasa research scientist, a stay-at-home dad, a concert pianist, the spokesperson for japanese toilet paper, or yes, admittedly, a model (you know me too well, molly), i think the thing i would love to do more than anything else in the world, the job i'd be really happy with, is the host of a travel show on television.i just don't know how to get there.a little bit funny... i want to tell other people where to go but have no sense of personal direction.mostly, i just know i'd be good at it. i'm a good traveller. i don't mind going alone. i'm pretty capable of handling myself in foreign and daunting situations. i like adventure. i'm not scared of a little danger. i like to break the rules from time to time. i like to drink. i'm just attractive enough that people could relate to me, but maybe, just maybe still want to sleep with me. i know a little bit of several languages but not enough of any to really get anywhere... thus allowing for some fun translated subtitles. i'm non-threatening. i'm fun... at least i think so. and last but not least, i have a good sense of humor. oh, and really long limbs that love to flail about, making for some interesting camera fodder.but how does one get to be brook burke? pre inxs rockstar, of course.maybe i need to make contacts at networks. like bravo. or showtime. or logo. you know, the ones that like the queers. i have ideas for the show... it could start with a pitch and then a "hey... how about i host it, too?" they'd be all, "would you really? we were scared to ask." and i'd be all, "p-shaw, i'd love to."yeeeeah, or maybe i need an agent. like ari gold (jeremy piven, lust lust) on hbo's entourage. ruthless. commanding. totally dreamy. someone to get my name out there... speaking of which, i'll probably have to change that. the current moniker isn't too tv friendly... "breath mints" ain't getting anybody on tv. i'm not a certs commercial.brett... brett... hmmm...brett burke? 
brara reid, perhaps?
...so with this in mind, and it's funny how destiny works this way, i found out today that next week i'll be meeting with the producer of a very small local television show. i don't know what will come of it. if anything. but it's one step in the right direction... watch out, tara reid, there's a new drunk bitch in town! and i love to show my nips, too.
today's question from molly:3. if you could go back now, knowing what you know, disregarding all job opportunities, etc. what would you have majored in at u of i? if you could have done whatever you wanted, what would you have chosen?oh my goodness. this question has a million and one answers.going back knowing what i know now, i probably would have studied something that better prepared me to have a future. my background in film theory isn't really making my phone ring off the hook. my education in the study of gender and sexuality isn't quite the lure one would think it is for potential employers.so rationally speaking, i'd probably go back and double major in finance and marketing while taking as many advertising classes as i possibly could.but how boring is that... let me tell you, super boring.if i could do it my way and no one else's, i'd like quadruple major and really take my time in school.i'd have finished my degree in design... instead of dropping out of the program when it wasn't fun anymore.i'd have really pursued that degree in physics... because to this day, i miss math.i'd have taken french then rather than now... meaning i'd fluent now rather than never.i'd have seriously considered acting as a field of study... not letting my parents tell me it was silly.i'd have been a real communications major... taking classes in broadcast journalism so maybe i really could host a tv show one day.i'd have fewer reservations about being the only male women's studies major... over settling for the minor....and maybe, just maybe, if i had the time, i would have enrolled for 6 more hours of classical civilization, allowing me to get my degree in the subject i spent so much time studying but have nothing to prove for it.and i definitely would have taken that damn japanese floral arrangements class!
continuing on...2. did you have an imaginary friend? what were they like? describe them in detail and why they served a purpose in your life. i had 2, their names were louie and green dale. They were both girls and i can tell you what they looked like almost exactly. ryan [molly's younger brother] had a spirit of sorts named pineo and sean [molly's older brother... and oh, hi, sean... hope you don't mind i shared this bit of info] had a tribe of Indians...yes, a tribe.did i have an imaginary friend? hell, i have an imaginary boyfriend... of course i had imaginary friends. my very first imaginary friend was patrick nathan. he moved in with my family when we lived in a 1.5 bedroom, 1 bathroom shithole just down the street from my preschool. his parents were on "very long trips" so being his best friend, i offered to let him live with us until they got back. i was 3, and he was 3 and a half. this is a very important distinction at this age.patrick nathan had dark brown, straight hair and vibrant light-green eyes. where i was a dainty flower of a boy, he was the rough-and-tumble type. he always had a scab to examine or a bug in a jar to torture. it's obvious to me what role patrick nathan played in my life... he let me explore the parts of being a boy that i was very uncomfortable with. i hated being dirty, but patrick nathan loved to explore ditches and under porches and the darkest corners of my great grandmother's less-than-dry cellar. i avoided injury at all costs, but patrick nathan climbed tall trees and swung from their branches, he rode his bike really fast and sometimes with no hands, and jumped on the bed just like the 3 little monkeys. i feared everything from large dogs to clowns, but patrick nathan maintained composure in the dark, didn't even blink at the cockroaches or termites that staged a coup in our house, or worry that the milk in his cereal was just about to go bad.patrick nathan was the boy i knew i was supposed to be but couldn't figure out how to be.luckily, he was a patient teacher... i, his dedicated student of 23 years.the others... well, they weren't as emotionally involved as patrick nathan. while he was my best friends, the other cast members of brett's imagination were mere bit players, serving very distinct purposes in very specific situations. there was stacie. the angel who ran next to our car during long trips to softball tournaments or tennessee or disney world only taking flight during stretches of the trip with no fields or lots of fences... her long, blond ponytail whipping behind her. there was captain marshanks. i don't know if i thought of him as an alien, but it is certainly the best word to describe what he was... pink-skinned, very rotund, slightly gelatinous. captain marshanks wasn't a frequent playmate, but he never missed a game of "spaceship" or "mars". there was princess ingrid and maltanian, royalty from skelvania. mr. burbing, who owned a grocery store. mama jessop and her twins stell and germany. and chauncy, a strange friend who was both a monkey like creature and a robot, depending upon the game being played.all of my other imaginary friends never got the attention that i gave patrick nathan. i made my parents get him meals. he got his own pillow in the bed. i even recall buying him birthday and christmas presents a couple of years. he was real to me. and parts of him still are.
this just in from blog patrol --my blog can be found by googling the following items:"phobia of public places"tana munblowskyan invitation - derelict chicand through yahoo, by far the oddest:sharpie marker on privatesenjoy!edit to add:so of course i had to see what came up in the yahoo search and, well, here it is...18.
the journal: May 2005 ... a red
sharpie.
on its arms and legs phrases like "slave toy" and "doll of hell" were scrawled in black permanent
marker ... spitting distance of their pendulous
privates. while the ...hedrinksalot.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_hedrinksalot_archive.html - 91k -
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thanks to one very special birthday boy, i'm having a not-so-great looking day.
i'm very heroin chic. very derelict meets boho. very m.k. olsen.
here are some photos from my day:
early in the day, i took my little brown puppy named maddie jr. for a walk.
then i met some ginormous friends to watch them eat some lunch...
after stuffing my face with images of them eating, i grabbed some very nutritious java and headed downtown to do some hitchhiking...man, am i shattered.apparently though, and you've seen the photographic evidence, this look suits me because i have gotten more attention today on the trains and sidewalks of our fair city than i ever have...sunken eyes and dark circles are the new black!you heard it here first.
because i was having a very hard time coming up with something i could write about in snippets (stupid fucking job getting in the way of my blog time), i asked the roommate to come up with some questions she thought i should answer for the world. seeing as molly knows me best, i thought she'd come up with some good ones...she sent me 6 questions. since i think they're really good and deserve some thought, i'm going to answer one each day over the next 6 days.here goes:(molly's questions appear in the trebuchet font, and my answers in good, ole tnr)1. everyone has people that they wish were in their lives...people that they crossed and for some reason or another, never took the time to get to know. who are 3 people that you like a lot (for whatever reason) but never got to keep in your life or never took the time to know? (i.e. 3 people you know that you wish you hung around with)?this is a really difficult question for me because i hate acknowleding that i've just let people slip away from me.i think number 1 on the list would have to be monica. there was so much unsettled business in that relationship even though i was 8 when it ended. at 23, i realize how much i could have learned from and grown in that friendship if it had continued. this will always be one of my greater regrets.i miss beth a lot. we were unlikely friends, beth and i. an odd couple with entirely too much in common. we were different but the same. for the entirety of my sophomore year of college, beth and i were attached at the hip. there was very little we did apart. we'd visit her boyfriend at northern. we'd go to concerts together. we'd work my shift at the student organizations desk. we'd sleep at each other's places. we were a package deal.unfortunately, though, beth knew me during a terribly dark part of my life. i was finally coming to grips with who i was, who i had been, and who i was going to be. and i hated it. i would say that for that year of my life, i was an alcoholic. as much as i joke about it now, how i drink a lot, how beer is my kryptonite, how a well-made cocktail will always win in a battle of wills... that year. it was bad. i drank to forget. i drank to to forget i drank. i drank to stop feeling. i drank to stop having to live. i drank to kill the part of me i hated. and people will say that if beth was such a great friend, she should have seen this and done something about it. and to that i say, she did.despite what a mess i was. despite all my self-loathing. despite my horrible mood swings. despite the days when i refused to get out of bed. despite the countless nights i spent puking in my bathroom. despite all my lies and secrets and deceptions. despite it all. she was my friend.she was there. she answered her phone. she ate dinner with me. she walked with me to class. she observed the insanity that was my roommates with me. she kept me going. she got me up. she got my heart pumping. she made me live even though i hated it.unfortunately, as much as i wanted to kill a part of me, the only casualty of all my depression and loathing was my friendship with beth. eventually my lies took their toll. eventually my secrets weighed us down. eventually my shit got in the way.beth lives in chicago, now. i saw her once. we chatted. did the dance. it wasn't the same. i don't know that it ever will be.i miss beth.those are the big two. the two women i let go. one i can never get back. the other i don't think would let me or want to.as for the third.well, i miss having an archnemesis. in fourth grade, a new girl joined our class. her name was april hunter. she was from texas and had huge bangs. i hated her immediately. somehow she knew this and obliged by hating me back.we were constant rivals. making everything into a competition. jumping rope. buying lunch tokens. rolling our jeans. everything.in fifth grade, april moved again. her dad was in the military or sales or something. it was sad having no one to hate.i wonder if she missed hating me, too.
what the fuck?doesn't my employer realize that between the hours of 9 am and 6 pm i plan to read blogs and update my own?apparently not, since they completely failed to give me even 5 whole minutes to think about something to write about, much less to do the actual writing.i'm pretty sure i included this clause in my contract.i'm calling my lawyer.
"i swear he's not imaginary."
in the past 3 1/2 months, i've said this with regard to joseph more than i care to admit.
...but honestly, i swear my boyfriend is not imaginary.
i'm too annoyed for him to be imaginary.
you see, i do not enjoy dating a phone call. i've done it already. one of my very first relationships with another boy was long distance. he and i are still working through the emotional backlog on that one. needless to say, it wasn't pretty.
...and needless to say, i'm not looking to date over the phone again.
of the 3 1/2 months that joseph and i have been "together" (for yes, it is a slight stretch of the word's meaning), he has spent a week in hawaii, 3 weeks in asia, 2 weeks at his parents' place, and now, the next 5 days in cabo. so yes, that's more or less 2 months of our 3 1/2 months together apart.
oh, but wait, it gets better. of the 1 1/2 months that we have actually spent in each other's company. a solid month of that was from the end of may to the end of june. as in, yes, the first month we knew each other and were a pseudo-item. so since the end of june, we've spent 2 weeks together. yep, since the end of june, i've spent 2 weeks with my "boyfriend".
this is ridiculous to me. sheer ridiculousness.
how do i know if i want to be in this relationship if i'm never really in it? can i really be seeing someone without actually seeing him? in a relationship as fresh as ours (or really in any relationship), shouldn't a majority of your time be spent together?
furthermore, it's showing no signs of letting up. our current problem is that joe doesn't live in chicago. he lives in arlington heights with his parents because he's in the process of locating and buying a condo. as luck would have it, his search isn't going so well. he said to me just the other day, "i think i could keep living here for a few more months... maybe i'll have better luck then."
if i don't fit into a schedule now, how am i ever going to compete with his job and his commute home to ma and pa?
how do i decide when to stop waiting? do i stick it out until september, october, november? can i really let this be what ends it?
i like him, but do i like him this much, and how can i really know the answer to that if i'm never around him?
p.s. i in no way want to make joe out to be the bad guy. for that first month we were together, he was always coming to me. driving down from evanston, training down from evanston, even cabbing down from evanston. he was a real peach. he also had just finished school and had no job or other responsibilities, but that's beside the point because the point is i'm not sure what i'm supposed to do.
i'm being gang raped by spam comments!
-- see comments on previous post --
i like the one that says "verbiage in the blogosphere".
it's so inspirational and true.
thank you, linda staten. thank you!
at my office today, playtex is giving away free tampons.
who is the marketing genius behind this one?
i'm pretty sure that only if my vagina was literally shooting menses all over the place, would i use the tampon that someone handed me on the street... might i add, on the street right by cabrini.
that shit would not be going in my body.
so before the whole funerary thing, i got a haircut.i'm not sure how i feel about it.it's a little wafro, as my stylist isaac put it.
and in light of my recent events, i might start a new project.
"the little shoes" project will bouncing around in my brain. we'll see what happens.
monica died at 4 o'clock on saturday morning. across the state and some 15 years, i gave an unrelated testimony to the police.
it was right there in her final breath, the last beat of her weakened heart, that it ended. she was quiet. i was loud. she was somber. i was angry. forever closed were the doors to the super secret birthday barbie club.
in the summer of 1987, i turned 5. my parents, a mere 26, having mastered the challenges of boys in their early childhood, returned to the lives they had before my brother and i entered the yearly family photo at sears. they returned to softball. i returned to hell.
as a fastidious child with princely aspirations exceeding his pauper birthright, i was not the most popular child at the ballpark. kids didn't understand my lack of enthusiasm with regard to the sandbox, tire swings, and dusty dugouts. mothers, while envying my clean nails and clothing, wiping muck and grime from their own spawn, eyed me with sidelong, slightly suspicious glances. fathers, well, fathers could have really cared less.
regardless, i was lonesome. left to my own devices. uninterested in the game. even more so in the other children.
monica, however, was interested in everything. she devoured the softball game with famished eyes. she wanted to know every other kid's name and favorite color, favorite food, what tv shows they liked, and who their favorite character was on jem.
unfortunately, no one else was interested in her. where i chose to be an outcast, monica was given no choice.
she had muscular dystrophy, and no one was interested in the retard.
except me.
admittedly, at the age of 5, i did not immediately recognize how she was different. i only knew that she was and that for some reason i liked her. in hindsight, i realize it was one freak seeing himself in the other. monica's differentness on open display for the world; mine hidden in an emotional knot that would take years to unwind.
at that time, though, only upon hearing that she was 11 did i know that something wasn't right. still, i did not care. afterall, she had the rainbow brite zip-up carrying case, full of dolls and doll shoes and doll clothes but more importantly doll shoes. did i mention doll shoes? it was fantastic. she let me carry it all night long, and my mom was suddenly and surprisingly eager to let me (and monica) play with its contents.
soon after meeting monica, destiny brought her family across the street. once mere ballpark friends, we now could be full-blown besties. we spent all of our time together. a red wagon full of barbies. imaginations at full blast. and cartons and cartons of fresh blueberries. indigo-tinged fingers forcing midge into her latest purchase at barbie's store.
i enjoyed that i was allowed to play with dolls, and i'm sure she enjoyed having a friend treat her like she thought normal kids were treated. she would ask me what it was like to go swimming. i would ask her what it was like to know jerry lewis. she would tell me about how bad her school aide's breath was. i would tell her about the rabbit that kept pooping in our sandbox. we never spoke of our friends outside the super secret birthday barbie club. to this day, i am certain it was because neither of us had any.
we spent hours each day living out the lives we thought we should have had through barbie and her friends. in her bedroom, monica became a tall, busty blonde with long (working) legs. she could drive a car. she could swim and dance. she could go on dates with a boy. likewise, i became a bubbly redhead, a smattering of freckles across the bridge of my nose. the fashion icon, so long held inside, ran free. i was royalty and exhibited the spending power one would associate with "the princess of europe". in her bedroom, we were ourselves. the selves no one else ever got to see. our needs sated. our weaknesses exposed. our secrets shouted.
monica and i only fought once. it was the last time i remember talking to her. i am certain it had something to do with shoes. doll shoes were like gold to us. we'd have given up kool-aid for a year to get new shoes for barbie and midge. there was something cathartic about seeing shoes you could never use doing your bidding via the doll. as a boy, i'd never get to wear heels. as a semi-paraplegic, monica would never do them justice.
perhaps, she stole a pair of mine, or maybe i hid a new pair from her, but i know the fight had to do with shoes. after 3 years of intimate, undefeatable friendship, we fought over doll shoes.
i stormed out of her house. she slammed the door on me. i yelled at her from my window. she slammed her window on me.
furious, i swore into my pillow that i would not see her again until she apologized.
tuesday morning, i saw her for the first time in 15 years.
during the funeral, my mom would, from time to time, lean over and remind me of little stories from my childhood with monica. the smell of fresh blueberries. the sound of a red wagon jostling down a sidewalk. the touch of infield dust on our cheeks, where it kissed a glistening of summer perspiration. the taste of salty sunflower seeds and cherry snocones.
she brought up what she called one of her favorite monica stories, "the big fight". she recalled in perfect detail the argument and slamming of doors and windows. then, she added to the story... she said, "and then, not five minutes, not five whole minutes after she slammed that last window shut, she opened it back up and called out to her mom, 'do you think little brett can come over to play?' and baffled, her mom asked 'didn't you just fight with him, monica?', then monica, well, you know her, she said, 'yeah, i'm sorry about that, so do you think he can?' that was just like her."
it was, and i had never known. somehow, the message never came back to me, and i never went back to play at monica's.
she couldn't hear me when i said i was sorry, too.
i had gone to the funeral with every intention of making my peace with monica. this revelation made it all the more important. as i looked down at her, giving my apologies and smiling about the fun we had had, i gave them to her. two, small black shoes. a pair of tall heels with an open toe.
perfect for dancing.
...and in sadder news:apparently, brandon flowers heard about joe and i, as he got married this past weekend to his longtime "girlfriend" tana munblowsky (i swear i didn't make up that name).he was so heartbroken by my affections for another that, clearly, he has plumb given up on all men and moved on to the vag (and the horrendously named).i'm sorry boys; i guess i just don't always realize how strongly people feel for me.congrats to ms. munblowsky, though. mrs. flowers is so much less of a mouthful.besides, not everyone can go from urban outfitters manager to rockstar's wife... just we lucky few, tana... we lucky few.
i'm the new crack.this past weekend was one for the history books, kids. it is almost beyond the realm of my comprehension. defies description... but i shall try.in summation:friday = sunshiney porno coitus with the josephsaturday = blog friends to the rescue, judging a shower "contest", meeting the man who could rescue my career, and a sleepover on glenwood - the street that would not let go - at which i drank anything that came in a bottle and slept like a sandwichsunday = looking like a slut for $6 donations at the entrance gate that time forgot, having 2 men fall in love with me at the same time, stealing ferdie's pants, and the most insane walk home evergreatest quote of the weekend:"i spit in his ass three times, and then fucked him."- wally's friend chancegreatest catch phrase of the weekend:"mixed race babies, patsy... mixed race babies"-me, ben, jay, the glenwood duogreatest save of the weekend:finding jay's shirt in the couch-megreatest compliment of the weekend:something positive with regard to me and music-svendellagreatest discovery of the weekend:
seeing the highschool crush at a gay bar
-also me
greatest faux-pas of the weekend:
sticking your face in some guy's crotch to see his dick's earring with his boyfriend standing right there
-ben, jay, and i
greatest new friend of the weekend:
clearly ben... with mr. jay coming in a very, very close second
greatest regret of the weekend:
not having my camera there to document all the wonderfulness that was market days
high on life.
motherfucker!blogger deleted yet another of my posts.you stupid bitch, i hate you right now.i liked that post, too.
