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ENTRY #2: SITA
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This week has been one of crazy transitions and deep contemplation. As serious as that all sounds, I think I’ve just really been doin’ some empty navel gazing and bullshitting myself. I always imagine that I’m this deep thinking, yoga contorting, diligently chanting, loudly ooooming Buddhist. If that were really true, I wouldn’t be dealing with the same shit that damn near made me want to blow my brains out 5 years ago right now in this moment in time. Where the fuck did all of the personal enlightenment and serious soul searching go? How the hell am I back here yet again?!!! It’s about a girl…always a girl! And the shit hit the fan at my sister Lil’s welcome home party. I knew something crazy was going to happen at that party. For some reason I was dreading it all day. Whenever I get fretful I find “butch” stuff to do around the house. The day of Lil’s party I decided that the part of the roof over the garage needed repair. I don’t know shit about roofs, but there I was up to my elbows in hot tar in 90 degree weather. I'm a genius...NOT!
I’m very angry and
disappointed with myself right now. Add
that to the depression that this situation naturally creates and what you have
is one messed up life. I spent the better part of my early and mid-20’s trying
to not be either of my sisters: from Lil’s always and forever flights
of fancy to Leah’s constant push to be in the spotlight.
They really should have switched avocations, my sisters.
Lil is more the writer and Leah more the performer.
And where does that leave me? After
the
Boston
nonsense I want out of the middle! I’m
tired of being simultaneously pulled in opposite directions by those two.
There’s never any time for my stuff, not that I would ever really
burden either of them with the finer points of my fuckin’ life!
I mean, they’re both too self-involved and Leah is the consummate
narcissist. I can’t even deal…
To be fair, though,
Lil does try to listen and to be supportive, but she
actually does have too many heavy things going on at once.
The problem is that she’s always got deep shit going on. I think she
does that on purpose in order to not have to deal with herself or with people
other than ‘Sela in any meaningful way.
Jisela
and I have become close over the last 3 years or so and talk regularly, but she
can’t be objective when I’m plagued with “sister stuff”, nor should she
be. I expect her to put her
wife’s feelings first. Otherwise,
I’d have to kick her ass for not having my little sister’s back.
Plus, those two have been together so long and are so close that
they’ve taken on each other’s personalities in some ways. Talking to Jisela can be just like talking to
Lil and that
both irritates and unnerves me at times.
Leah, on the other hand, is a cottage
industry of DSM-IV codified neuroses and grandiose self-perceptions.
I swear that girl should have been an actress instead of a medical
reporter. Maybe she shouldn’t
have spent so many years writing about mental health issues ‘cause her life
has started to imitate her occupation on a grand scale.
Before I even got done saying whatever about myself, it would all be
turned around and ass backwards and all about her and her goomba husband and her
mixed up kids. I love my niece and
nephew, but they will indeed be some messed up people with Leah as their mom and
a Tony Soprano Jr. wannabe as their father.
That’s mean, I know, but the shit is true. Why even take all of this
time and space to complain about my sisters just being who they are?
I mean, they’re not ever gonna change significantly.
It’s not as if I haven’t been living with their idiosyncrasies, their
selfishness and their emotional garbage for three decades.
Again, I’m passing the buck and sublimating.
My mom used to say that what I really wanted was for some one to rescue
me even though I always seem to be the one playing the superhero.
There’s a reason why that’s so.
Everyone else is too fuckin’ self-absorbed to put on those gay ass red
tights and the pimp daddy cape and be superman.
I’m the only fool still tryin’ to do it.
Okay, anyway...so the
party...Just when I think that my life can get no more complicated, in a matter
of 20 seconds or so all of the hard work I put into making peace with certain
aspects of my past goes up in flames. In
walks karma-- real name Nia-- and she is the great love of my life.
I use the present tense purposefully and it depresses me that I still think
of her in those terms. I just have to get over it, she’s THE ONE!
I compare every woman I’m interested in to her and the others always
come up short. Mere mortals, they
are, compared to her. We went to the same high school, but she was two years ahead
of me. She was like down with the
“really pretty girls” crew and I was down with “the jocks/destined to be
dykes” crew.
Shante knows her.
Shante and I were just friends back then and she was actually my eyes and
ears when it came to Nia ‘cause they were both tight with the pretty girls
clique. Shante used to tell me what
she was like in an up-close sorta way because in the beginning I couldn’t even
bring myself to talk to the girl. I
was all teeth and knobby knees around her.
Embarrasing! From
Shante
I’d find out what kinds things she liked, what boy she was trying to date…
I started a rumor that Brian Coleman, some dude who went to our brother
school, had one nut sack just ‘cause I found out Nia thought he was cute.
They never did end up going out. That
punk ass mofo was not even worthy of 2 seconds of her time anyway!
I wanted to scream at him every time I saw him lurking about the grounds around
our school at dismissal time, "you're not worthy, bitch; you're just not
worthy! Now step!!!" I never did and that's probably
a good thing. I think they would have locked me up at that point.
I heard Brian has like 8 kids with 5 different baby mommas now. I did Nia a favor; she might have been one among the 5.
Nah, she was as brilliant and as driven as she was beautiful.
She wouldn’t have given him any serious play.
So clearly, I was obsessed with this girl. I even had Shante ask her to sign a random piece of paper. I wanted the girl’s autograph. I used to stare at it and try to glean things about her psycho-emotional make-up like handwriting analysts do. What the fuck! Is that crazy or what? Shante, to this day, laughs at me about that. I used to make Leah write poems for me to give to her, anonymously at first, and then I started just handing them to her claiming that I wrote them myself. I made Lil write a song incorporating some of the things I wrote about her in my diary in the lyrics of the song. Lil did a good job on that song. It’s called “Dance with Me.” Lil made a major production out of it. The tape copy I have that she made has the works: piano, drums, guitar, bass. She went all out. The kid was like a child prodigy or something…outrageous! That’s the copy I eventually had Shante give to Nia, but when I was in college I decided to teach myself to play guitar. So, I bought this old beat down acoustic and re-did the song with just my voice and guitar. I felt like Blind Lemon Jefferson and shit. I just knew I was authentically singin’ the blues. BB ain’t have shit on me, I was thinking. I even changed the lyrics a bit imagining myself an able songwriter at my advanced age of 19 or 20. There are a lot of sloppy chords and missed notes in that recording that I made of myself (as Lil so thoughtfully pointed out to me when I called her from school to let her hear it. She was like, “ you gotta actually tune the fuckin’ guitar, you silly git!” Lil went through her phase of thinking she was British hence the English slang. Ah, how I love my very strange little sister.). Though, I love my version most because it’s real and imperfect and me. I still sing that song sometimes. When I sing it, I feel 15 and desperately in love all over again.
Anyway, while we were
still in high school, it became so obvious to everyone that I was lovesick for
the girl. I was a sophomore and she
was a senior by the time people really figured it all out. So, since people were
talking anyway I just bit the bullet and stopped the whole hiding behind Shante
incognito thing. I was just real
bold about Nia being my girl, in my own head, at least.
The thing is, people were less scandalized than I thought they would be.
I mean we went to an all girls high school, so I know for a fact that
girls were romantically coupled up even within the pretty girls crew.
I think Nia’s friends gave me less of a hard time because they knew
Shante was my best friend and that she was privy to who was doin’ who in that
group. Nobody wanted me to start
running my mouth. Too, Leah had
serious cred there even after she graduated.
She was Miss Popularity. I
think people mostly left me alone because of those two things.
I think Nia, in particular, tolerated me mostly because I was Leah’s little sister.
I always imagined that I was starting to wear her down, that she was
starting to see how incredible my love for her was.
But really I was just a fuckin’ stalker.
Let’s be real. She really
should have gotten a restraining order against me.
Teenagers are out of control. The
thing that should have made all of my pining away moot is the fact that the
girl was not gay (yet)!
Nia went to this all female college on the East Coast and people (my sisters, especially) were telling me that first summer, “yo, your girl came back from school all gay. You’d better make your move.” I mean everybody was in my damn business. Everybody knew. Shit was playing out like a soap opera. People who graduated before me and before Nia were calling home from college trying to stay current on what was going on with a bunch of high school girls. Crazy! Just crazy... So, I ran to into Nia the summer after her freshman year at the gas station of all places. I think she saw me first ‘cause when I happened to look in her direction she was looking dead at me and smiling. What the fuck? She never used to smile if I were within 20 feet of her. She never wanted to seem in the least bit encouraging of my madness. The most I ever used to get out of her was a lot of exasperated eye rolling. “This is different”, I thought. Then, she did the unthinkable: she waved me over to her. No fuckin’ way! As I was walking over to her all I kept telling myself was , “please don’t trip, please don’t bump into anything, please remember your name, please remember that English, and not pig latin, is your first language...” And then, just to prove my parents hadn't wasted their money sending me to grade school at St. Benedict's, I started praying..."Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee..." I'm thinking, "I hope the Virgin Mary has my back this ONE time, man" as I approach the girl of my dreams..........
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(ALL ABOUT HAIR)
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I think I'm in love with my hairstylist, Marisol. Okay, maybe love is a bit too strong, so I'll use my father's phrase, "I'm drawn" to her." My Dad is so hokey! She's a bit younger than me but she's not like any 23 year old I've ever encountered: she's centered, confident without the bullshit bravado and she's ever optimistic. She's a joy to be around even if only for a couple of hours or so every other week. Of late, I've been staring at the calendar over my desk in the TA's office eagerly watching the days roll by...waiting, and then waiting some more for Tantalizing Thursdays. That's what I call my hair days. I think I'm losing my mind. Seriously, I don't even know her very well, although I've been going there for like 18 months. We keep the conversation light and unobtrusive. I usually grade papers from the students in my undergrad seminar when I'm there. And she's usually joking around with the other stylists. My appearing to be busy is really a ruse because I'm listening very intently to what she says and how she says it. Her voice is beautiful, equal parts mezzo-soprano and alto. No, wait...that doesn't quite cover it all... I want to say more, but what? Her voice has no bottom. Sounds just hang in this netherspace. I listen to her words... waiting for them to land and scatter into disparate highs and lows, but they never do. It keeps me at constant attention, arrested...barely breathing...listening for their dulcet resting place. If listening to her is all I ever did day in and day out, that'd be alright wit' me! She has a magnificent way of caressing her rrr's. They're a nearly unbearably perfect meeting of harmony, melody and meter. Of course, that makes sense because she's Mexican, born in Mexico City, raised in central Texas: first in El Paso and then in San Antonio (yeah, I listen closely when she's talking about herself). She's got that sexy, lilting, but twangy melisma thang in her speech. It's adorable and pretty infectious, too. I have to catch myself sometimes. I don't want her to think I'm mocking her. The thing that really overwhelms me is the way she smells. It's glorious!!!! It reminds me of lilies and sugar cane. Having spent every summer since I was ten in the South with my grandparents, I know of what I speak. Doesn't seem like that would be a great combination, but on her person, it is divine! Her scent creeps up on me, but it's funny because I walk in the door of the shop breathing a bit more deeply, anticipating...waiting...hoping...and then...it washes over me. And even though I was looking for her assault on my senses, I'm surprised and caught off guard that she's in fact there, in the air... to be taken in...over and over. What a blessing! And I swear I die a little every time I leave the shop because it's another two weeks until I'm filled up by her. There are no words for the grief that inspires in me. She's a woman's woman, too. I mean...a real girly girl. Gamine is how I'd describe her. Wait! Let me look that word up again to make sure that's what I mean...Yeah...Gamine is right. I think she spends a good deal of time on her appearance, but she isn't vain or shallow. She doesn't wear it that way at all. She just takes time to properly cover that body and oh, what a body it is! Zaftig, she is ( The Oxford English Dictionary is beautiful thang!!), with curves that go on forever...beautiful posture...a faultless neck... And that smile, I would kill to wake up everyday and be greeted by that smile. The list of things to adore about her just goes on and on. She seems as if she feels very comfortable in her body. And as well she should 'cause that body is a gift to us all!!! She has this peasant shirt ensemble that she's worn twice or so, that just SPEAKS to me in at least a half dozen languages. It's brown, she's brown...brown...brown...soft and endless spirals of brown. My new favorite color. She's the kind of feminine I used to be until I decided like 3 years ago that that kind of gender performativity conflicted with my newly found dyke politics. I was reading way too much Judith Butler and Sue Ellen Case at that time. Too, I was falling in love with my French Literature professor. I do mean real love this time. See I felt as if I had to play über-dyke in order to set an example for her. She was newly out of a marriage and just out of the closet. I am exaggerating a bit, though, on one level. Jacqui was never my professor when I was at school; I never had a class with her. Too, when we getting to know each other in earnest, I had already graduated. It's a bit sexier, though, to couch it in those terms, don'tcha think?. And I did work very hard to make her my professor, if you get what I mean. Sex with much older women perplexes me. I've only had two partners who fit the bill and both had come out as lesbians relatively late in life. Both of them, though, had been intimate with a few other women before me. And still the sex felt a bit stilted and resoundingly one-sided. Maybe it's harder than I think to undo decades of heterosexist sexual indoctrination. But I would think that the opposite would be true, that they would be so fed up with those roles after all of those years that they would totally open themselves up when the opportunity presented itself. What do I know? I'm only 26 and I've been gay my entire life. I can't really imagine coming out at 40, 50... I know I should be more compassionate when it comes to Jacqui's situation, but I'm fed up and I'm ready to ask my hairstylist to have ice cream with me. Yeah...I said ice cream. I love ice cream and I'd like to eat ice cream while sitting across from the 8th wonder of the world!!! Marisol is, for me, the 8th wonder of the world. Of course, to even ask her out is bordering on sacrilege. You just do not fuck with the stylist-client relationship! So much could go haywire, man. Then, I'm shit outta luck with my hair. It's not like there are that many salons that really know what to do with my hair. I had hair nightmares for a few years before I stumbled upon my current shop. I may very well be gay as hell, but I still spend an inordinate amount of time on girly stuff like hair and couture. I've been easing up a bit on the anti-girly (read: straight and hetero-normative) worldview that I adopted when I met Jacqui. I like being a girly-girl in some ways. And I ain't ashamed to say so anymore, academic and dyke credentials be damned! I don't know that I'm going to do about Marisol, though; she's haunting me...everyday...all the time! What is a gay girl to do? I can't ask my homegirls 'cause it's such the cliché to kinda love your stylist. I mean, come on! I'll never hear the end of it from them. Where is Dr. Phil when you need him? Though, I don't know how comfortable he'd be with the gay. He doesn't cover queer topics that much on his show, but I say if the gay isn't his cup of tea, then he should just leave those topics for someone who has a real affinity for them. I do like, though, how even-handed, clear-speaking and no-nonsense Dr. Phil is about meting out advice. That's how they do it in Texas where my Sweetie is from! Oh God, no I didn't just write that! Maybe I should call Oprah then, or better yet, her wife, Gail. I know Gail King would waste no time telling me what to do. You know she really runs things is their household, including Steadman. Poor fool! Yeah, I need Gail on this.
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