Strange Reunion

Last week, I got in touch with Big Laurel, a close friend from my pre-Katrina life. We used to spend a lot of time together, during those golden days when life was an honest breath taken in good faith. She was instrumental in finding me an apartment (where I'm still living) during that chaotic time in January 2006, when I discovered that my previous landlord was living in the apartment I'd planned to return to. She stayed here that Spring, after I'd had surgery and was forced to spend the semester recuperating in Hahnville with my grandmother. 

The last time I saw her, in late May of 2006, my mom & I met her for lunch and we had a nice time. I remember a lot of laughs and a good meal. I moved back into my apt a week or so later, and never heard from Laurel again. She stopped answering my calls, her voicemail got full, and I was left to wonder what I'd done wrong. I called her number from time to time, just to see if it was still connected, but I can't tell you when the last time is that I tried.  

We have a mutual friend named Amy that I occasionally chat with on Facebook, and Amy recently told me that Laurel wanted me to call & gave me her number. I called Laurel & all she could really say about not being in touch so long was that she "went crazy for awhile & didn't call anybody" which isn't really an explanation, but rather a faux-pology. During the course of the conversation, I found out that she'd been working at a bar room in our old neighborhood up until last year, and that she's not working steady right now, but she'd love to re-connect. I told her I'd be free on Tuesday, after 5 & we planned for her to pick me up & take me to her place. 

I was really looking forward to this. I got nostalgic, thinking of all the times we shared. She brought me to my first Peaches show, we watched foreign films together, she was just there when I needed her. Until she wasn't.

She picked me up from work, and as we were driving thru the French Quarter, towards her place in Mid-City, she got a call from this guy called Rory. This is when she told me that we had to pick him up. I asked, where are we bringing him? She said, well, he's staying with me, so we're taking him back to my house.

I was more than a bit taken aback by this. I was even more taken aback when she informed me that she has an old lady named Zelda staying in her spare room, and she'd be joining us for dinner. 

This seemed like a really strange way to re-connect, but I went with it. Rory was at a bar in Quarter, still having fun, so Laurel said she'd just pick him up later & we went back to her house & I met Zelda, a 60-something lady sitting on Miss Baby's couch in her housecoat, talking about cleaning the kitchen. Rory called again and said that he had left the bar and started walking towards Laurel's house, so Laurel & I took a ride to pick him up.

We got him from in front of the Esplanade food store on N. Villere & Esplanade, where he was drinking a beer from a can that he crushed & threw away, before grabbing his guitar case & putting it in Laurel's car trunk. He regaled us with stories of his day, watching gutter punks get money for panhandling while he played his guitar and didn't get anything. Well, I guess he must have gotten something, because on the way home, he asked Laurel to stop at another store so he could buy a big bottle of Skol vodka and a fountain cold drink.

Once we got in the house, I sat in a recliner in the living room and resumed knitting, while he sat in a loveseat across the room from me, with Laurel & Zelda on a couch to my right. Rory started taking alternating sips of his Skol and his fountain soda, and then he told that story about the gutterpunks again, but this time, the gutter punks got in a fight with some old man in a business suit, and Rory intervened and kept the peace.

I remember being really confused about what was going on here. Then he started questioning me about gay stuff--who is on top, who is on the bottom, who is the bitch, who is the butch. All of these ignorant personal questions that I really NEVER understand why people feel free to ask me. I refused to participate in this. I just kept responding, "Why are you so interested in this?" "You can look this stuff up on the Internet if you really want to know." and other sassy repartée, designed to deflect this sort of thing.

I remember telling Laurel a story, and he kept trying to derail me, but erry body knows that some quasi-homeless bastard sipping on a Skol Drink is no match for the Witty Knitter. I could see he was getting frustrated that he wasn't getting to be his Alpha Male Self with me, but eventually he & Laurel went into the kitchen to cook dinner & Zelda and I sat around, watching Helix on the DVR & chatting.

Laurel & Rory came up and served us dinner (after having to ride to the store to get more macaroni), and he was on what I'm sure he thought was his very best behavior. He even served me a Skol & Cranberry juice cocktail, but I opted to keep drinking my lil bottle of water. 

Dinner itself was simple but delicious! A green salad, fried pork chops, mac & cheese. Trailer-Tastic perhaps, but damn tasty. 

Ooh I just realized I didn't mention that Rory didn't eat, he just kept swiggin from his bottle & sucking thru his straw as the rest of us had our feast on TV trays.

After dinner, he was still playing the gracious host & picked up our plates and brought them back to the kitchen, before resuming his spot. 

At this point, Zelda & I are chatting and he & Laurel are talking & I'm not sure exactly what they were talking about, but I could see that he was getting sort of animated, and he got off his loveseat  and came across the room & stood next to me and proceeded to call  Laurel's name and say "What if I did this?" and grabbed me by the head. 

He put his hand flat on the top of my head, with his index fingers pressed flat on my forehead and his thumb over my ear. 

I froze. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to stab him with my knitting needles, but they were plastic & I didn't want to get blood all over my Blue Beauty 4th Doctor Scarf, and I just froze. I looked at Laurel, who was just looking at him, dumbfounded.

After...30 seconds? 45? He let go & crossed the room to Laurel & started telling her something about how he was trying to make her laugh & then he looked over at me & said "Sam I'm sorry I wasn't trying to disrespect you (oh how he made those words drip with falsehood) or invade your space, I was just trying to make my girl laugh. I wasn't trying to piss you off or anything"

"Well what reaction did you expect from me?"

He sorta mumbled something & then staggered out of the room, towards the kitchen. 

I started throwing my stuff into my knitting bag & I told Laurel, "I'm really ready to go now. Either you bringing me home or I'll walk to Broad St and get the bus, but either way I'm outta here in the next 50 seconds"

Zelda, in the tradition of Southern Women, acted like nothing had happened, and gave me a hug & said "Well, I hope we'll see each other again real soon! I'd love to introduce you to my gay nephew"

All I could say was "We'll see" and I walked out of the house, with Laurel close behind, keys in her hand.

We got in the car, and I honestly did not know what to say to Laurel. I could barely even look at her face.

"Baby, I'm sorry that happened, but he was really just trying to make me laugh," she told me.

"No. That is not the only thing that was happening there and if you don't see it, then you are stupid or willfully blind. He felt threatened and wanted to dominate me in some way to prove some point and he did it. And you let him. FYI, me being taken, by a woman I trust, into a situation that I did not create, without my consent, and some man putting his hands on me is exactly my childhood and I am not going to re-live it with you. Not with you, not with anyone. I love you, Laurel, but this is not ever going to happen again. Maybe I can deal with you socially or in my house, but this will. Not. Happen. AGAIN."

She said "I can't apologize for anyone else's actions, but I am sorry you got upset" and continued on with the litany of minimizing that I remember so well. We talked all the way to my house and she even came up & we hung out for quite some time, but I never really got what I needed. Not a real apology for 7½ years of absence, nor for putting me into danger. 

I had resumed my old role, as well, letting myself be pacified or talking about other things. There was even some talk of my meeting up with her next week for Fat Falafel Glam in Mid-City, but now I don't think so. 

I don't think so at all.

I'm angry that this happened. But I'd be angrier at myself if I let it happen again.

Unmanaged, not Unmanageable... So Far

Some of you may have noticed that I posted awhile back on Facebook about seeking counseling. Suffice it to say that lately I've been stressing hard & working harder, and found myself overindulging in past vices that have no place in my life today. I reached out to my so-called wife & she has been gracious enough to help me get to my appointments in the burbs.

I felt for so long that my life was at a crossroads and lately it's starting to feel more and more like a dead end.

Without the structure and accountability of being in skool, I feel as if I'm just treading water, like there's some other, more important thing I'm meant to be doing. I've never felt like this before. Even when I was raving hard I always felt like that's what was supposed to be happening. These days just feel like drifting from one job to the other, tired all the time and getting the blues behind it all.

But like Tracy Chapman used to sing: I'm not breaking down/ I'm not falling apart/ I just lost a lil faith/ when you broke my heart.

In my journey towards making peace from my broken pieces (no copyright infringement intended), I'm coming to see that I have to honor my gifts, my passions: specifically writing & knitting & Doctor Who. To that end, I'll be updating at least one of my four blogs every day this month.

So fasten your seatbelts, Gentle Readers, it's bout to be a bumpy ride!

To Teach or Not to Teach?

That was the question. Whether it was nobler to suffer the daily humiliation of low pay, ignorant administrators, and slacker students or actually pay my own bills, without having to rely on friends and loved ones to bail my over-educated ass out of financial despair.

Some of you may remember that a couple of weeks ago, I got a call from my former department head at the Colledge, asking me to teach 2 sections of Spanish from 11AM-1PM on MWF this semester. As I'd been unemployed since June & under-employed since January, I initially said yes. It was one of those "when it rains, it pours" type situations, as I'd just gotten back my old job at Olivier's Restaurant in the French Quarter and I was gearing up for Tuesdays & Thursdays at the Med Skool to get started. After 2 months of being unemployed and with all my bills having "PAST DUE" stamped all over them, it seemed like a godsend.

Then I gave myself some time to really sit down and think about what this semester would look like:
Taking 2 buses every morning on MWF to get to Colledge (while carrying a change of clothes for my restaurant shift, not to mention whatever supplies I'd need for class) and then a 3rd bus to go downtown and work at the restaurant, and a 4th bus to go home after the restaurant closed at 10PM. TTH would be a bit more relaxed, as it only takes 1 bus to get back & forth from the Med Skool, and my days there generally start around 1PM. Saturday nights would be tied up at the restaurant, as that is a big $$$ night, so that would only leave me Sundays for laundry, errands, and personal entertainment. I found myself feeling exhausted just thinking about it all, and that was before I remembered how much out of class time it takes to grade tests and homework.

I read back over my blogs from this time last year, and remembered how unhappy I was then. How many days I woke up and just stared at the cracks in my ceiling, hoping the whole damn house would cave in just so I wouldn't have to drag myself across town, wondering if this was why I'd put in so much work to get a Master's Degree.

I tried to be more objective. I wrote a list of pros & cons about working at the Colledge. It looked something like this:

Pros:
Looks good on a résumé (but does it, really?)
Respectable (but is it, really?)

Cons:
Takes at least 1 month (2 pay cycles) to get the 1st paycheck
It took over 6 weeks for the Colledge to give me the password for my email.
Colledge doesn't take out state taxes (this year I owe LA $150 bc of that)
Taking 2 buses to get there.
Not having an office or any place to meet with students outside of class.
Unpaid meetings and professional development sessions.
No benefits (insurance, etc)
Based on a rumor I heard about adjunct teachers getting a raise, the pay works out to be $138 (pre-taxes) per class per week.

I stopped at the last item. I was all sad and angry and irate at how little my time was valued by the Colledge (and the educational system in a bigger sense, this stuff is quite typical for adjuncts) and the decision wasn't so agonizing. I average just about $138 per NIGHT at the restaurant. There haven't been many times in my life that I've been in a position to turn down work, but  I was glad to be able to Just Say No to being exploited by the Higher Education System.

As I reflected on it, working as an adjunct teacher  at Colledge just seems like a really stupid thing for me to do. I'm a lot of things, Gentle Readers, but stupid is not one of them.

Muted, but Not Monochrome

As my 39th birthday looms ever closer, there is something, well someone really, on my heart. Someone I won't see. Possibly not ever again.

Faithful readers will remember how I got all verklempt in the grocery store last April, missing my best gay guy  friend, Jacky. He & I met at the restaurant where we worked prior to Hurricane Katrina. We had a lot in common, both having grown up gay in rural South Louisiana & running a bit amok in NOLA in our 20s, and by the time we met, we were both trying to come up. There was no sexual chemistry there, but we got each other, laughed at the same things, were equally ruthless Scrabble players. We were a dream team at the restaurant, a big favorite with guests & management alike.We fled Hurricane Katrina together, and remained very close afterwards.Once I moved into my current apartment, he visited pretty frequently for Wine & Scrabble weekends. My sister, Diana & Jacky & I even rented a car together & drove to Austin from NOLA to welcome my other sister, Sara, home from Japan a few years ago.

He was the closest thing I had to a brother. 

He unexplainedly stopped responding to my text messages in December 2011, and in early January 2012, he sent me a text asking me not to contact him again. No explanation. I figured he got sober or got sick of how rough I talk to people or both. I honored his request for no contact for over a year, as much as it ate me up inside. 

It hurt like hell. This black empty feeling in my heart felt like it was swallowing me and finally I broke down & sent him an email:

It has been over a year since you asked me not to contact you & I haven't. I still don't understand why. All I can say is, whatever I did or said, I'm sorry.

I miss you all the time. Every single day, at least 1 thing happens to remind me of you. Of our friendship.

I can barely get thru a trip to Rouse's without bursting into tears. I keep hearing in my mind some funny thing we said or did and once or twice I've even been just about to tell you something, and I go to say it and you're not there and I don't know why.

I don't know what else to say. Please forgive me for whatever it was.

Sam

About a week later, he responded:

Sam,

Hope things are going well for you.

I made a decision to become the healthiest (physically, mentally, spiritually) that I could be, and I had to make some tough choices. I have been sober since Dec 7, 2011, and at the same time, could no longer afford to embrace your negative and constant belittling behavior. After the last conversation we had when you repeatedly called me and my decisions/thoughts/etc. "stupid" and "dumb" for the 8000th time, I finally had the courage to remove that negative energy from my life. I also realized that the majority of the reason why I had put up with that for so long was because you provided a haven  for me to get drunk. So I owed it to not only myself to delete negative energy from my life, but I owed it to you to stop taking advantage of the situation to benefit my addiction. I wish the best for you. Thanks for checking up on me; I think about you often as well. Especially during these past seasons of Drag Race, lol. I have forgiven you and will never forget the good times!

Jacky

If you don't feel it, you can't heal it, they say. Well, I sure felt this, like a hundred rats chewing on my guts. I must have read those lines at least a dozen times, trying to analyze every single nuance of meaning like some neurotic teen, but all I kept seeing was "I would have talked to you about this, but you are too damaged to bother with. You are just too fuckin mean to people for them to stand you unless they are loaded."

Anne Sexton, the mad poetess,  said:
I find now, swallowing one teaspoon
of pain, that it drops downward
to the past where it mixes
with last year's cupful
and downward into a decade's quart
and downward into a lifetime's ocean.

And so it was. I felt that multiplying teaspoon  wake up feelings of abandonment ranging from unanswered text messages to my biological father, whom I've never seen, who must have known even before I was born that I would just be too much trouble. All I could do was just lay down in bed and just fucking cry it out, sobbing til I had hiccups, going thru the Stages of Grief merry-go-round over and over. Denial-Anger-Bargaining-Depression-Acceptance-Denial-Anger---oh you get it.

I fell asleep and dreamed of Jacky and me, singing along with Dalida, (he'd learned the French lyrics phonetically), playing Scrabble on my porch on Grand Route St John, he plays the word "EQUATION," hitting 2 Triple word scores and getting 164 points. "You bitch!!" I say and then I look up and he's just gone. His glass of wine half-empty and nothing and nobody in his chair. And all the color just went out of everything, just drained away, blue skies and red wine all just turning different shades of grey and Dalida is drowned out by the ringing in my ears.

But I wake up. The world is in color again. Muted but not monochrome. The people I have in my life are an amazing, eclectic, loving bunch and I am grateful for all of them. I know I'm surrounded by love and affection and good will. But somehow the snack cakes aren't as sweet, the triple-shot espresso isn't as strong, and when the next person doesn't answer a text, it's really not the end of the world, just one less bell to answer.

Another one gone too soon...

Over the weekend I found out that my old friend, Dorian Estevez, died. Not even a month after his 35th birthday. He had high blood pressure, diabetes & recurring bouts of pancreatitis, his brother (another old friend) was telling me.

I can't say Dorian & I were super close, but we were both on the scene. I remember him as sweet but troubled, like so many of us were, including me. I wish I hadn't been on so many drugs back then & could tell you some story that would explain to you how he was but that's not the case.

I know I should remember that the generation of gay men before me were attending more funerals than birthdays when they were the age I am now, but it doesn't help. Not really. I didn't really imagine I'd ever see Dorian again (he'd moved away along time ago & I am practically a hermit these days) but to know that I definitely can't see him again...feels like a kick in the chest.

There's another side of me that thinks all this upset is just self-indulgent claptrap, after all think of his brother, who suddenly has more on his plate than I can even imagine. Think of his 17-year old daughter. Think of their loss. Think of it & pray for them & stop playin the martyr & just get up already & LIVE.

Live for those who can't do it any more. Live & love for those who don't want to do it any more. Live even when you don't want to do it any more. Live for yourself, for tomorrow, for whatever, but for pity's sake, just LIVE.

Let yourself cry out your anger & heartbreak of the ungodly unfairness of it all but then when the crying is done and you can breathe right again, LIVE.

At the intersection of Synchronicity & Sadness...

  No, the title isn't some quaintly-named street corner here in NOLA but rather the temporal/emotional space I was in when I encountered a Trinity of Tragedies (a Triptych of the Triflin? a Troupe of the Tired?) and an Eerie Epilogue. Please keep in mind I am in the midst of a third knitting project, worked in the Trinity Stitch at this time.

This definitely qualifies as part of the ongoing saga I think of as “Crazy Hoes I used to Know”

Picture it:
Holy Week, 2013.

On Wednesday I get an email from crazy ass Mo Gumbo (*of whom more here), with whom I had a brief series of emails (she sent from a cell number I didn't recognize) in January, when I disclosed that I had been workin at that ungodly Colledge. Once I realized it was her I stopped answering. In this warped version of Holy Week, she can be thought of as the Unholy Ghost in the Machine.

Had first interview with historic New Orleans collection.  They just requested my salary requirements.  NOW, how do I find you Sam?  Can I just buy you dinner or something?
Maybe ill try you at Colledge.
MY CELL is XXX-XXX-XXXX

Fuck.  Now I have to find a house.

My first thought was, I remember this Ho getting an advance to write a book, why does she find it so difficult to use subject pronouns? Then I thought, maybe that’s why that book never got published. Does she seriously think I’m about to call her? At any rate, in my tradition of crossing the street when I see crazy coming, I didn’t respond to this email & went about my day.

On Holy Thursday, I was on the 10:30AM bus, knitting, heading to work at the Med Skool, and I see this guy I’ll call Scooter getting on the bus. We were boyfriends for a few days during the last few months of my Wilderness Years. This would have been in late 2001, after my quasi-literate dentally challenged transsexual roommate had moved out (AKA gotten arrested) and I was working a nightclub on Bourbon St. Scooter was a stripper at a nameless skeevy white trash gay bar a few blox away & around the corner. He was new to the scene & even though I knew I was on my way out, we had some fun while we could, but honestly our relationship was as plastic as the star shaped ring filled with glittery liquid & reflective hearts that I gave him.

I’m not sure when the last time was we saw each other, but it was definitely some time before my last hurrah during Mardi Gras 2002, and yet there he was, struggling to figure out where to put the money in the fare box. He looked pretty much the same, still slender and fair skinned and dressed to kill. Real Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses (I can spot a fake a mile away) a Gucci Belt, Versace Jeans. As he walked towards me, I looked up from my knitting & said “Scooter?”

To which he replied: “Oh my GAWD! Sam!! I remember you! We had sex!”

My eyes just got really big & all I could say was: “Yes, We did.”

“Did I just say that real loud on this bus?”

“Yes, you did, now sit down & let’s talk, since I can’t look at anybody else on this bus.”

So he sat down & we caught up a bit. He’s just move back from someplace else, looking for an apartment since whoever he is living with now is putting him out for not sleeping with him or some foolishness like this.

As he keeps talking, I realize he’s speaking in that super fast yet getting quieter way that ppl have a tendency to do when their minds are on fry from doing that nasty crystal meth. Of course, the fact that he started this whole conversation with the sentence “We had sex!!” prolly should have been my first clue that the child was on drugs, but there you have it.

He says something about wishing his mom would just give him the money for his apartment deposit without wanting to control him; he is 30 years old, after all.

(Yes, hoes, this means he was 18 when we were fooling around)

“Grrl that is the whole point. You are 30 years old, you shouldn’t need your mom to pay for anything, and if you do, you really ought to expect her to want some control since evidently whatever you are doing isn’t getting it”

He kinda got that faraway look that people get when they are all hazed out but hear the truth & can’t dispute it. Then he changed the subject, asking if we were at our bus stop yet. Since we were both going to the end of the line, we kept talking. He seemed really impressed that I’ve stayed off the scene and out of trouble for over a decade. He honestly asked “How did you do it?” and it really wasn’t something I could answer in the 5 minutes I had before I had to be walking into work. I really wanted to just call off & spend the day talking to this beautiful creature, to see where it all went wrong & maybe even share some hope with him. So we exchanged numbers. As he stepped away he said something that kinda shook me up. He said something about me getting some syringes from the med skool.

So I had this image of this gorgeous little thing hurting himself like this all day. It just made me so feckin sad. It isn’t what I wanted for him. I know I couldn’t have saved him but damn. He comes from a good family.

I texted him when I got out of work & he said he wanted to come over, so I told him which bus to take & everything he needed to know & he said he’d be leaving around 7:30.

7:30 came & went, no Scooter. Around 8 I texted “Are you still coming over?” & then around midnight I just sent “???” as I was wrapping up the dinner I’d cooked for us. I’d been too upset about getting stood up to eat anyway. No fool like an old fool.

At 1AM this man calls me & says, “Hey! Is it too late to hang out? You need to get a car”

“Grrl what happened to you?”

“Oh well, I got kinda trapped in the bathhouse & I couldn’t leave. I still wanna hang out with you though. When are you free tomorrow?”

“Grrl it’s OK. I’m OK. If the best thing you can come up with on a Thursday Night is being slung up in the bathhouse, I don’t think we really need to be hangin out.”

Silence for a sec & “Ok, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

We hung up & I was eventually able to get some (troubled) sleep. I meditated, prayed, whatever you wanna call it & on Good Friday, I sent him this text:

“Look. I can’t see you. You lied to me last night & that’s it. I don’t deal with liars or ppl who choose addict behavior over spending time with me. I’m not mad, but I have pretty basic rules. Living up to your word is a Big 1. I wish you the best & hope you can find a way to make better choices.”

I felt free after I sent this. I did some more praying & meditating & chanting & finally came up with something to tell Mo Gumbo. I felt like I needed closure & didn’t want to hear anything else from her, so I sent this:

I am not sure what it is you want from me, and frankly, I don't care any more. You and I are not friends. We are not going to be friends. It is not that you "hung up on me when you were having a bad time" it's that you called in the middle of the night, asked me to call up your latest baby daddy to tell him you were going to have an abortion & then when I wouldn't do it & tried to talk sense to you, you hung up on me. I am not angry about this any more. If anything, I'm thankful, it made my decision to end our friendship that much easier.

 You know why I didn't immediately start blowing up your phone, calling back? Because you didn't want what I had to offer. I couldn't see then (and can't see now) any good reason to continuously interact with you as you go from one self-induced crisis to the next.

 The fact that your next communication with me was an attempt on your part to take back some knitting needles (with no apology nor even mention of your frankly atrocious behavior)  was the nail in the proverbial coffin. That series of increasingly desperate phone calls were the clods of dirt covering the coffin & frankly this email is the headstone.

 Please understand that I am not angry with you. Just tired of all the lies and the drama and the nonsense. One of your messages said something like "I've seen you forgive ppl for lots of worse things" ---I do forgive you for being so out of control, Mo Gumbo. I honestly do. Forgiveness does not mean that I need or even want you back in my life.

 This is not just a goodbye to you, Mo Gumbo, but also to taking on problems that are not mine in some vain attempt to make myself out to be a hero. Goodbye to perpetuating a pattern of behavior that may have worked at one time but is now just exhausting.

 I pray you find peace.

All this spiritual cleansing makes a gal hungry, and my grrl Daniella & I had plans to visit our fave restaurant, El Gato Negro, with our re-usable signature cups! She came over to my place first and we talked for awhile & I gave her the full 411 about Mo Gumbo & Scooter & erry thang.

When we parked Daniella’s car & were heading to meet Nanette, I looked over at Daniella & said “Bitch I feel like I am on red alert for some other ghost from my past to come around some corner & accost me.”

We had a laugh & then a great lunch (as usual) and as Daniella and I were walking back to the car, about a block from where we'd parked, I saw this homeless man in a doorway, sitting next to a pair of crutches, telling some other guy that he didn’t wanna live past 40, and he was already 40.

As I was walking by, I glanced at him and my blood absolutely ran cold. It was Pablo. A straight guy from the Wilderness Years. He was at my 25^th birthday party. He came to my house. A real Latin Lover looking type, usually in a black leather motorcycle jacket with Morrissey hair, high cheekbones, a chiseled jaw, and naturally tan skin and dark eyes with a slightly crooked front tooth that flawed his perfection in such a way that it made him all the more beautiful.

All that beauty was gone, those cheeks & that jaw obscured by a layer of fat and that swarthy skin tone just grey, all grey and ashy. Hair all chopped off like a prisoner. That adorable crooked tooth now practically perpendicular to his gums and stained from smoking a billion cigarettes and Lawd knows what else over the last 13 or so years since we’d seen each other.

My 1^st instinct was to give him a hug & when I bent down to do it, I caught a whiff of 3-days-no-showering & misery. Unmistakable. Made sadder by him reaching for the cigarette butt I’d just thrown down and even moreso when he started grabbing at my re-usable (recently refilled) cup from El Gato Negro. I stood up and he was talking crazy to me, telling me that he’d recently tried to kill himself, he showed me fresh scars on his forearms and pulled up his shirt and there were bullet scars and other scars and then he pulled up his left pant leg & showed me his calf. Where there should be muscle and skin there is a huge scar like a big piece of his calf muscle has been ripped off & cauterized. I seriously could have burst into tears right then and there.

He asked for a sip, he asked for a smoke. I took the full pack of ciggies I’d opened on the way to the restaurant & tried to hand it to him. He wanted me to stay and talk and I couldn’t. He tried to enlist Daniella: “He’s leaving me! Make him stay!” and I just said, “Baby I can’t stay. I’m on my way someplace and honestly this is too much. Please take these cigarettes & let me get outta here.”

Daniella & I walked to the car in silence. As she was bringing me to Hahnville to visit my Grandmother for Easter weekend, the Trinity bit hit me. The Younger, Still Beautiful Young Man, The Once Beautiful Older Man, and the Unholy, Never Beautiful, Ghost in the Machine.

By the time I got to Geese’s house, I got not 1 but 3 (3 again?) emails from Mo Gumbo:

I get it.
You were wrong on multiple levels and right on others.
But given the overall purpose of your words, I am not sure that truth is an endeavor.

I've paid the prices and suffered enough pain to have HAD to change.

You were wrong about the needles.
Yes, I did want a few back.  And I did apologize for asking as i explained I had no idea my daughter would begin to knit.  Anyone with a heart would understand my conflict.  I asked for a few, or the bag.  Not both.  I wanted to giver her a piece of my grandmother, not the while kit and caboodle.

Based on this email, I see you may not care about that piece of the "truth."

You might have guessed that I got off the phone and sat upon examining your words, harsh as they can be.  I have more than once expressed my appreciation for the same.

Since then, much has changed.
I have no drama to share.  Have only done good.  Dug deep and found my worth.

I will send you some cash and an address.  If you choose to send some I'd my grandmother to my daughter, my soul will smile, exhale, and thank you again.

I will send it to you at Delgado.

I hope you are getting the rest that you need, from many things.  

Then this:

Oh.  My salary requirements could eliminate me from consideration.  Finally have a chance at the perfect job.  The one I would try to retire from.
But I may not get it.  I'm sure you are not the only to hope that I don't.

But I'm in a position to be good either way. And I think that may be part of the point.

If u are as repelled as you claim, you should not have a problem forwarding those things to my daughter.  It would be the good and right thing to do.

And finally this, with “My Husband Can Pick Them Up” as the subject:

Since you are more interested in having a whipping post and using me as a spring oars to work out your issues than simply being a better person than me and doing the right thing, Phil can come get the needles for my daughter.  Or since my dad taught there I can have someone from English department get them from you.  No need to say why.

I had no idea how much hate/contempt you carry.  But my grandmother and daughter have nothing to do with it.  I gave you those out of friendship.  If you are not interested in that friendship, in offering you cash to get them back.

If you didn't need the cash, just be willing to drop them by English department.

I'm sorry for the discomfort I caused you.  I've been a horrible friend.
But I don't deserve your shit, and from the words you wrote, you don't want mine.  So please be willing to drop off the needles/bag.  Dont do it for me.  Do it for my grandmother and daughter who never did shit to you.

I love you and that is that.

Ill pay a bill by phone if that will help.  Send you an amazon gift card, whatever.

Now, instead of being a friend and responding, how about just make it a business transaction?  How bout just tell me what a bitch like me has to do to get those back from the person who wrote all that venom?

So, please.  If you are willing to drop off with someone for any fee at all, please let me know.  If not, because of what they are....I will come see you myself if I have to.

Not one person you respect could possibly think it right of you to keep those, regardless of your depiction of who I AM.

DO RIGHT, even if you think I am incapable. 

Oh lawd bitch, Really?

I shared all of this with my lifelong BFF, Sandi & she was as appalled about this crazy ho’s off-the-hook emails as I’m sure you are.

So I took some time & dug down deep to try to make this Psycho Hose Beast understand. On Easter Sunday, I sent her this:

I'm not interested in having a whipping post or anything else. I'm neither angry nor contemptuous. I'm not doing anything to you or your child. I do not have anything of yours; the bag & the needles went to Salvation Army about a month after I gave you an address & never received anything.
Please stop contacting me. I believe I have been abundantly clear that I have forgiven you for all mistakes on your part and misunderstandings on mine.
I do not wish you harm or suffering, I just wish you would stop all of this madness.

She sent back “Wow. Have a great week.”

This makes me think she may begin to grasp what I was telling her here.

I was knitting a project in the Trinity stitch & I remember thinking, ok, that’s 3, but if you remember, you need 4 stitches to make the stitch (because you are making 3 from one & then one from 3) so I started to wonder what the 4th kick in the balls would be.

I had to wait about a week, before I got a call from an old school friend who told me that one of my students from last semester (the one whose eyes never tracked right & was always talking crazy & clearly on drugs) had been found dead at home. She was only 31.

Don’t get me wrong, I could see this person was on a bad path, but I really didn’t think it would end this soon. I don’t feel guilty, or that anything that I could have done would have stopped this tragedy but DAMN. So fuckin sad. Nobody has said what the specific cause of death was, but it clearly wasn’t murder & otherwise healthy 31 year olds don’t just drop dead from natural causes, so I’m guessing it was drugs.

I am just trying to figure out what does it all mean? Why am I coming across these people at this time, in this way? I am leaning towards “There but for the Grace of God/The Universe/Krsna/WhateverYouNeedToCallIt Go I”

GLOW:The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling

It is 1986. I am an effete 12-year-old, reading the Letters page of the TV Focus (the Times-Picayune's answer to the TV Guide, as the title might imply) and there is a letter of complaint about this new show called GLOW. Cheesy jokes & women in skimpy clothes wrestling on TV at 11:30 on Sunday nights? Oh the scandal! The decline in morals!

I remember the reply noting that GLOW's ratings were through the roof, and that the editorial staff seemed to think the letter-writer was rather overwrought. (Try sayin  that when you're drunk) There was a picture of Americana, a screengrab from one of the rap segments, in full  regalia, surrounded by other glamorously dressed women. Well, I had been mourning the loss of Wonder Woman on TV for several years now & I needed a costumed heroine or two in my imaginative life. I was not let down.

Four years later, The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling had been on tour, there was a magazine about the show, the GLOW girls were on talk shows, game shows, you name it and then one Sunday night, the girls were gone. I frantically scanned the TV Focus. No one was writing in to ask what happened to the GLOW girls. No one was talking about it on the news. I was scandalized & saddened. But I had lost Doctor Who in a similarly inexplicable manner &  had already learned that liking these two shows made me an outcast at school so I just kinda tucked GLOW away in a corner of my heart & got on with things.

Cut to February 28, 2013. I've been following the genesis of this documentary about the GLOW girls for what feels like ages, thanks in large part to Angelina Altishin, who played Little Egypt during season 2.. I contributed the few pennies I could to the project & the reward was a digital screener of the film. My hands trembled a bit when I got the email & clicked the link. My sister saw the film at a festival in ATX & had warned me that I would be touched by these women & their stories but nothing could have prepared me for what this hour & 14 minutes had in store 

This award-winning documentary is a great overview of the TV show in general and takes the time to give us glimpses into the lives of a few of the stars of the show, such as Matilda the Hun, Big Bad Mama,  Susie Spirit, and the Heavy Metal Sisters, but Brett Whitcomb's superb direction makes the unforgettable Mount Fiji the star of the story. You are one hard-hearted ho if you don't shed a tear when you watch the footage of Mt Fiji body slamming Bob Eubanks, host of the game show Card Sharks followed by Fiji today, unable to walk due to bad knees & diabetes, in a nursing home for the past several years, but still the same gentle giantess who can find it in her heart to worry if her former co-stars are OK, if they're eating, how their families are, in the face of her own raw-edged anguish.

Fans beware: You may experience shock when you hear Godiva, Matilda the Hun & Ninotchka all speaking in their real accents, I know I did. & on the topic of Matilda the Hun, she is a well-spoken, hard-working woman who knew how to really kick ass in her day. I mean, this bitch wrestled a bear when state wrestling laws wouldn't let her wrestle men (AKA the men were too damn afraid of her to mess with her & hid behind the law) & even though she has some health struggles these days, she still finds time to give a birthday slam-o-gram to a resident of her retirement community! It's a really big shame the film-makers didn't show the full version of the song "Nasty & Mean" so you could actually see this mad woman eating raw meat! Her dedication to the sport (at the very real cost of her own health) is far from sad. You can bet I'll be picking up her autobiography ASAP!!

As I watched I remembered being that gay adolescent with a big imagination & how I lived with violence & yet here were these women, these bewigged goddesses (to steal my sister's phrase) who made a living in violence & still found time to crack a joke or sign autographs for fans even younger than me! I remember thinking if they can do it so can I. Susie Spirit actually broke her arm in a match against a Headhunter & the 1st episode I saw featured a segment on the accident & her recovery & she could get through it & look good & so could I. As an adult, with all the g-strings & buns everywhere (OH LAWD BEASTIE), I can totally see where it would be hot for some guys my age but for me these chicks were like comic book superheroes come to life. It was a pure escape, part action adventure, part Hee-Haw, part Fabergé infomercial & I loved every single second of it. It was like nothing else on TV and made me think of the endless possibilities of the medium.

I have to admit, though, I know a bit more than the casual viewer about this film & there is a lot of information that gets left out in Bradford Thomason's effort to present a coherent, concise narrative. I imagine a large part of this is due to the fact that the show's co-creators, David McClane & Matt Cimber declined to participate in the documentary, but I'd have liked a more chronological approach to the show's 4 years, to say nothing of an explanation for Miles Headlock! The only other complaint that I have is that the GLOW girls are only ever identified as their character names & even the closing credits do not list their real names respective to the characters. OK so I guess that's really 2 complaints, but they are related.

I absolutely recommend this movie, even if you are not familiar with the era. It is an inspiring story for all of us. I give it 4/5 stars.

You can check it out here:
http://www.glowthemovie.com/

You can also wait for it to be shown on Logo as part of its What?! Documentary Season:
http://www.logotv.com/video/misc/882015/what-logo-documentaries-glow-the-story-of-the-gorgeous-ladies-of-wrestling-preview.jhtml

The DVD is scheduled for release on March 26 & is currently available for pre-order on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/GLOW-Story-Gorgeous-Ladies-Wrestling/dp/B00A6TMA0S/ref=reg_hu-rd_add_1_dp
(Clearly this is also on my Wish List, hint hint)

If you are interested in catching up with the GLOW girls, lots of them are on Facebook & Little Egypt has been an amazing advocate for the showing, arranging reunions & so much more & her page is a great clearing house to:
https://www.facebook.com/littleegypt

Of course you can always scour Youtube for old matches (sometimes in other languages), & Little Egypt has a great web series on there called Tagging with Little Egypt, where you can get some real behind the scenes scoop from legends of GLOW like Americana, Hollywood & Ashley Cartier:

http://www.youtube.com/user/angelinaaltishin

& if all of this still hasn't satisfied your appetite for spangly spandex & crimped hair nostalgia, you can also buy GLOW DVDs here:
http://www.gorgeousladiesofwrestling.com/

Thanks to the film-makers & participants for presenting us with such a compelling story, here's hoping there will be even more in-depth features (season by season, for example) in the future!