Stormy Weather

Note to avid readers: this was written several days ago. I only yesterday regained access to my internet connection and only had time to post it today. Love you like lovers!

As I am writing this, the last (I think: although I retained power, other than a few flickers, my cable service and therefore my Internet connection have gone the way of the dodo) of Hurricane Jeanne is passing over my house. That makes four hurricanes to hit Florida since August 13, with 5 more weeks left in the season. Hurrah! Seriously, though, I would like to put a shout out to the divine forces that conspired to keep my power flowing this day.

I suppose that Jeanne qualifies as my first real hurricane experience, and even then I was not what I consider to be “directly-in-its-path-oh-my-god-its-coming-right-for-us” because the eye (around which the most severe weather occurs) passed well to the north of us. Don’t get me wrong: I am more than grateful to have been spared yet again. The winds were quite brisk, but I didn’t lose any trees (yet: the winds are still blowing, but it is dark now, so who knows what the morning may bring?). It was hard to resist the temptation to go outside, not to experience the raw power of nature, but just to get outside. I don’t like it when my options are taken away. I watched three movies and some TV, ate, took a nap, and played computer games. Which, honestly, is mostly what I would have done on a lazy Sunday anyway, but since it was all I COULD do, I became restless. So, flouting all the conventional wisdom, I went outside. Just for a little while.

We could be heroes

<>Okay, I know I just finished bitching big time about my dad. But as I was mowing their yard on Sunday, I was thinking (I often do that when I am engaged in a physical task that requires minimal attention). I was thinking about how when the first hurricane was approaching, seemingly hell bent on destroying our area, dad was Johnny-on-the-spot, Mr. Plywood plan. He was a hero to me. If Charley had gone on to make land fall here, my house would have been ready to handle the winds. Granted, it would have ended up four feet under water, but that is a minor detail. In serious times, for friends in need, my dad is a great guy. That doesn’t mean he sucks the rest of the time, just that he likes to take his ease. As I was mulling all this over, I was suddenly struck by this vision of an ancient hall, filled with men, burly men, garbed in kilts and leathers, sporting beards that make ZZ Top look like prepubescent boys, armed to the teeth and then some. The men were by and large passed out either from sleep or with drink. It was a heroes hall, a place where the men who do great deeds reside. They are at rest, having completed their latest feat, waiting until the next challenge arises. All the rest is unimportant, for there are women to tend to things like cooking, cleaning, child rearing, harvesting, and so on. The blood of those heroes flows in my fathers veins. It flows in mine, too.

Incompetent Boobery

I have been thinking about my dad a lot lately. That makes it sound like he’s dead or something. He’s not. Anyway, I have been thinking about him. My mom says we are so much alike that it is a wonder we haven’t killed each other yet (of course, she’s also said that I am a lot like my closet-queen Uncle David. As yet, no one has made my much longed for comparison: Eartha Kitt). Allow me to spin you a story about a recent interaction with my dad. <>Slightly more than a week ago, in preparation for the last (?) hurricane to put its sights on my area only to turn aside in fickle disdain, my mom and dad purchased this “plymate” attachment system for those of us povs who ain’t rich enough to buy them fancy hurricane shutters. It’s actually kind of smart: you drill holes in the plywood slightly bigger than the screws, put the plywood up on the window, put wingnuts on the screws and voila! You are safe and protected. Then you simply twist the nuts off (ow!) when you need to take the plywood down. Works like a charm! Except, of course, when your father doesn’t listen to you and leaves out the hole drilling step and screws through the wood directly into the wall. Then, also of course, he miraculously decides that it was an important step when it comes time to put up the plywood on their house. No, I don’t see any bitterness here. Let me check in the back room.

The upshot was that I could not remove the plywood from my house with the ease of a 50’s era housewife, as subliminally advertised on the product. I needed instead a power drill and the bit used to put the screws into the wood in the first place. Since that resided at my parent’s house, I had to wait for it to be brought to me, along with assistance from my father (since I am apparently still not to be trusted with power tools). I communicated this to my mother on Thursday, while I vented a bit about my ingravescent case of rickets. My father was supposed to come up Sunday morning supplying said tools and assistance. He arrived… WITHOUT THE FUCKING DRILL OR THE BIT. I am okay. He expressed surprise at the fact that I required those items, to which I inquired if he had not conversed with mother regarding this topic, and whether he thought I was such a pussy I couldn’t have taken the fucking wood off the walls myself. I then explained my (futile) attempts to remove the screws with a ratchet. He expressed surety that he had drilled the holes, to which I could only point out the incontrovertible proof of the glaring lack of holes. He complained about having to make an hour round trip from my house to his and back. I then asserted that I would gladly drive to his house, mow his yard (I don’t know what possessed me), pick up the power drill, and remove the plywood myself. His response was to climb into his truck. I raced over, to inquire where the fuck he thought he was going and had he not heard what the fuck I said (sometimes you have to swear a lot to get through to him). He said he was going to Home Depot and returned anon with vice grips. After spending twenty minutes to remove seven screws, I told him that I could drive to his house and back and get done before he had one sheet off the walls. He acquiesced to my original plan and left.

I arrived back at my home at approximately 5:30 p.m. and promptly (after another application of Deep Woods OFF) began removing the plywood. I finished at about 7:15 p.m. after which I took a hot bath and imbibed an adequate amount of tequila so as to relieve the ache in my right arm. I went to bed, woke up, and attended what I hope to be the first week of work where I will not miss a day due to one circumstance or another. God speed.

Bowling Queens

No, it’s not a take-off on that ABBA song we all know and love: I’ve joined a gay bowling league. I’m actually rather surprised myself. For a long time, I have been thinking that I need to get out and do stuff. Stuff that would allow me to meet other homos. So that I might not be alone. Forever. It was really kind of a lark (inasmuch as something, anything, to stave off incipient depression and crushing loneliness can be called a lark. Maybe a darker bird would be more apropos?) Anyway, I am part of a team.

Picture three older men, men who could comfortably (in terms of age) be my biological father. Now, imagine that they were reared at Swishy Pete’s Camp for Feminine Boys. Oh, and give them all moustaches. Then add another guy who can actually bowl okay, but who is still just outside my age range and (let’s be brutally honest) not really my type at all. And there’s me of course, who has not bowled in at least three years. Yes. I know you can see it now.

Add to this the fact that this is a REAL bowling league. I suppose I must have been channeling Jack, when he joined the gay soccer team. I thought it would be more fun, more casual, bowl a couple of games, hang out, etc. I thought there would be drag queens. No.

Instead, you must bowl three games. You cannot play two games, you can’t “skip” anyone, you have to play by the league rules. Since we have five players, and we can only play other teams with five players, and two of the fucking queens on my team have to sneak off for a goddamn smoke break every six seconds, that means that the whole bowling experience takes about three hours. When you consider the fact that we don’t get started bowling until about 8:30 p.m., that it takes me a half an hour to get home, that the old queens named our team “CIA”, which stands for “Cock Inspectors of America”, that I cannot bowl worth a shit (I didn’t even break a hundred in the three games I bowled; for those of you who have not experienced the zeitgeist that is bowling, that is REALLY bad), and that I didn’t even see very many guys who I thought were cute or even kind of cute, I think you can understand why I am going to quit.

Nuts

I have almost run over and killed two squirrels in two days. Now, you know for sure that I would never in a trillion years purposefully aim for those squirrels. However, these two rodents seemed hell-bent on their own destruction. Both ran out in the road TOWARDS the large object that I drive. This is most contrary to typical prey behavior. Just ask any of the birds that fly off whenever I get closer than fifty feet away.

In addition to being traumatizing to the squirrels, it has shaken me up as well. You know, because I am the kind of person who catches bugs and releases them outside. I decided a long time ago that I could not be responsible for causing suffering (well, of animals anyway. Fuck people; they get what they deserve). That’s why I quit eating meat, why I quit wearing leather, why I only buy free range eggs, and why I really should quit eating dairy (I’m working on it).

The only exception I make to my “no cruelty” rule is parasites and disease vectors, such as mosquitoes. The recent weather conditions have facilitated a boom in the mosquito population such that could only be described using biblical phraseology. And, of course, I’m delicious. Consequently, Deep Woods OFF is my new fragrance. And since the little bloodsuckers are so determined to sup from me (would that be the blue platelet special?) that they will fly up into my clothing and worm down into my socks, I have developed a new morning ritual. It’s really something to see, if you relish terrifying sights. I stand nude in the kitchen, aiming the hissing mist of the OFF down each of my extremities, down my back and up my chest. The mist is cold, so I squeal a little (no, not like a pig) when it makes contact with my back. Then I work the OFF in, wash my hands, get dressed, and ponder the indignities of existence as I drive to work.

Life is a drag

I love nothing as much as a good drag show, except a bad drag show, which out of sheer perversity, I love even more. It’s not something I can explain, or even want to.