Turning White

I'm not vain. I mean I obsess about my hair and it needs to look perfect everyday, but that's it. I don't even own a full length mirror to stop myself from obsessing about my skin. See, I was diagnosed with eczema at the age of seven in a horrific event. My mom was forced to cut all of my hair off. I was already a tomboy and this did not help at all. I did everything the doctors told me to do and I still looked like a reptile. In seventh grade, there was a white spot on my cheek the size of a nickle that would not go away. By the time it went away, it was eighth grade. I kept my hands shoved into my pockets because the skin on my hands and feet peeled the entire year. That's no exaggeration. It wasn't until I was 19 that I realized all of the stress and depression was wreaking havoc on my eczema. I went completely through adolescence trying to be invisible. I never got to try on make up or perfume. I wore gigantic clothes to hide my horrendous skin. I thought I would never be in a relationship because of it. That is until I did find my ex at 18. She was super patient with my skin. She kissed my breakouts which is gross and kind. I began to feel less stress. I combined everything the doctors told me with research we did together and my skin was clear within a year. I was very grateful for her. It's the nicest thing I can say about her, but that's another story. To this day, you would never know I have eczema. I try everyday to stay healthy and it's working. Happy ending right?

Now in my thirties, when I have everything down to a system, I'm developing vitiligo. The worst thing about it is I'm losing pigmentation all over my legs. They are all splotchy and I am already yellow as it is. The best thing about it is it is progressing so fast that I should look like Michael Jackson by next year. I went to a dermatologist last year who not only told me that I had syphilis [despite my loud protest that I'm not sexually active], but also said it wasn't vitiligo. Needless to say, I never went back to that crackpot again. I spent so much time getting good with my skin and now I feel like that little kid again. Every time I see my legs, there are more white spots. Every 95 degree day begins with a debate about whether I want to wear shorts. I'm stressed again. My friends say there is nothing to be ashamed about. Every shower is punctuated by tears after the discovery of more fucking spots every fucking day. So I have to ask myself "Am I just vain?". It's funny how you never see something until you have it. I literally see people with vitiligo every single day and they seem fine. So what the hell am I crying about? I am fortunate that I am fair skinned. I can see positives. It doesn't hurt. At all. By next year, I will be the white person with the best looking dreads. My eczema is not acting up and eventually I'll be good with turning white. I just wished that day was now.

I Want A Do-Over

I just met 22. She is gorgeous, vibrant, exploratory and fun. I got nothing out of 22. I mean, except a college education that I insert into casual conversation like I have Asperger’s. I can tell you what drugs do your body, but I can't tell you how they feel. I spent 22 in the lap of some girl while my mom was dying. A girl who clearly had that Sunshine thing cause she pretends like she never knew me. She erased ten years of her life including my 22. My 22 was like being in a locked room with the Joker constantly asking "Why so serious?" I spent 22 collecting wounds you can't see. The scars are now so faint there are no stories to tell.

I want a do over. I want to make allegedly regrettable decisions. I want to get invited. I want to go to parties and actually get drunk. I want to make career altering mistakes like tattoos in the middle of the night. I want to collect new wounds with stories that make me want to sing. I want to do 22 all over again.

The Fiancee

My best friend is someone I met as an adult. I say that to clarify any misunderstandings based on an assumption that I have known this person ‘all my life’. Not so. We met as a sum total of all who we had been, and who we struggled to be as ‘nontraditional students’ in grad school (that means we are old).  We share a strikingly similar past, our birthdays are merely two days apart, and her mom is a big ol lesbo. It was a match made in heaven.

I credit her with challenging me through grad school, saving me throughout my gay divorce, and never ever judging me for showing up at her house with several water bottles full of jungle juice.  I have seen her through several breakups, always with guys nowhere near her caliber of being. Then she met The One. She met The One late one night at our favorite bar, probably three sheets to the wind. I wouldn't know because I was six sheets to the moon and back by that point. All I know is that some short guy with a bandanna introduced himself to me and I thought he said ‘Hi, I’m Matt’. I had no idea why he was talking to me until I saw her beaming behind him with The Look. Oh shit. Even drunken me knows how that goes. It turns out they talked and danced all night (while I threw back cosmos that were actually martini glasses full of vodka with a slightly pinkish hue) and as we left he asked for her number. I was suspicious from the get. He said he frequented our bar. I said no way; we would have seen him at some point. He said his friend’s band played there all the time. I said no way; we would have heard them before. This would be indicative of their future where he was always hyperbolic and she was insanely sensitive to his absolutes.    

Long story short, my bf descended into madness for a bit, ‘Matt’ and I tried to hold together the pieces of her sanity, I was extremely overwhelmed and overwrought and he was just broken down. It was an extremely hard time and he handled it like a champ. She hated him in the end and gave up. He walked away injured, afraid, and lonely. I picked up the pieces. 

My bff and I went to a city street fair several months after the break up. She was still disillusioned and looking for answers. She mused about how crazy it would be if he was there, knowing he had no business hanging out in the city. Low and behold, as we walked down the crowded street, dodging rain drops, he appeared like a goddamn movie. We chased his stupid cowboy hat through the masses until his hand was on a door handle, about to walk into a restaurant, “Wait, Matt” she screamed desperately. He turned and the moment crystallized and I saw The Look shot across the throngs of people, only with eyes for each other, I knew that he was The One. I stepped away, half embarrassed at their abandon, half deflated because I had just spent months helping her piece things back together. She was fragile, she was impressionable, she was not going to walk away from him again.

After that day it was only a matter of time before they were boyfriend and girlfriend again, reporting that they had been together two years, as if the 5 months apart had never happened. And you know what, maybe it didn't.  Just like that year I spent traveling with my own emergency kit of cocktails seemed like it was someone else’s life – maybe the breakup had never really happened. Maybe in life, sometimes, you could ignore the difficult and painful parts and only focus on the contrived joy.

Last weekend they got engaged. My best friend is now Matt’s fiancée. This means we will plan her wedding, her future, her kids’ names, everything we will never really share because she will have a husband and he will be her closest friend.  

The Gay Husband

The Gay Husband 
I had the great displeasure of introducing Jess to an old friend of mine during the pride parade. We were very close until we had an argument about MY gender expression. He somehow thinks that being a gay man in the closet gives him the authority or knowledge to tell a lesbian who she is. He insisted, to the point of an argument, that I am butch. Whatever. I explained to him it really isn't about what he thinks I am and since we haven't had and never would have sex with each other, he really is in no position to call me butch. We stopped speaking for two years over this. I didn't consider being butch an insult at all. He was stereotyping and judging me and every other lesbian for that matter. I really didn't expect to experience that judgment from a gay man. I thought that was the point of Pride. I am proud of who I am as a person and I respect all other people for their strength in just being who they are. I invited him out because some of our friends were worried about him being so isolated. So the first thing he says to me on Pride Sunday at a gay bar was that he is no longer talking to our friend because she is a white girl [he's a white guy] with blond hair and blue eyes who is all of a sudden dating a Puerto Rican guy, like she knows what that's about. What the hell? He is a closeted white male who specifically prefers our brown brothers, judging a friend we have known for ten years, who happens to enjoy the same spectrum of men. Wow. While he, Jess and I were sitting and drinking, he started with the Home Depot shit. He has a habit of calling me a "Home Depot" dyke, derogatorily I might add. Jess sat there aghast. I was thinking "Wow, this is why I stopped speaking to you". He kept going. I futilely tried to tell him what he was doing wrong and not to talk to me that way. He said "Well, that's the way I see you". I was sitting there thinking "I'm being gay bashed at a gay bar on Pride Sunday, the holiest of fucking gay days, by a gay man". I was done. I tried to steer the conversation to something more jovial before I beat the shit out of him or Jess blew a gasket. I tried to tell him vaguely about a project Jess and I are working on. He proceeded to tell me and Jess, whom he just met, that we are not funny and basically what we are doing won't work. Wow. He then proceeds to show me some art he was doing. I cheered him on. You go boy. I was very reserved and contained my complete and utter anger because Jess didn’t come here for that. I was upset and the next day I was embarrassed. If I told Jess what happened, she probably would not have believed me. She was witness to the last straw of patience in what was a fruitful friendship.

My Person

My best friend wishes nothing but the best for me. That is to say as long as my best isn't better than her best. Truthfully, her best isn't that great right now. I have never met anyone who wished unmitigated, swift and abrupt misery on EVERYONE. I get it. She pumped out three babies back to back "accidentally" before the age of 30. I say “accidentally” because she wanted to join the FBI and she ended up pregnant with my goddaughter. But by God, she kept sitting on that toilet seat, getting pregnant. Again and again. She is just the latest and most painful example of what I call the "7 Year Itch" between my friends and me. We grow apart, but more adeptly, I grow away. I lost my patience with her because of her sister. She hates her sister. I can't even accurately nail down why. Her sister, who was a devout heroin addict and a devout lesbian, became a devout Christian and married some dude named Tom. We really still don't know why. Well, her sister informed their dad that Tom began beating the crap out of her. I was floored by my bestie relaying this story with such glee. I informed her that her sister, living in a state with no familial support, is a victim of domestic violence. I asked simply "don't you care about your sister being abused?" She said "allegedly". I said simply "I think that's fucked up". I needed a break. I needed a break from her wishing all of the people we know would suffer heartache. Unprovoked mind you. One day I told her I was going on a date and she asked me why. I responded "Why??" She said "Yeah, why bother?" I didn't get it at all. Her level of misery is that which I cannot comprehend. She lives in Kansas for God's sake, so I get that part, but why do I have to be miserable? My sympathy all but dissipated when she told me the paternal grandfather of her children has terminal cancer and she really didn't give a fuck. On the other side of the country, I am happy, I am good. There are joys I just can't share with her and that's sad. A few months ago I wanted to talk to her as my best friend. I needed counsel and looked to her. She was foaming at the mouth with absolute delight that I was having a difficult time. I was done. I told Jess I wasn’t going to talk to her until Flag Day. Jess replied “What’s Flag Day?” The months fly by and Flag Day finally comes. I texted her “How are you?” and she answered with some despondent ass story and I thought “Yup”. 

The Quickest Courtship Ever

I have always believed in Chosen Family. For me, and a lot of people like me, it was best to choose which people I allowed in my life. I didn't get along with my mom and she died when I was 23. I vowed then that I would be cautious as to who I allowed into my inner circle. It has worked out pretty well so far. I know and love a merry band of misfits and we do not judge one another. We call ourselves the Strays and support each other in the best ways we can. We are all different. We are all a mess. We all love each other without fail. 

I was recently reminded of the last time I told a friend about the Chosen Family choice:

My neighbor growing up in Queens now lives in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. One day, I was walking by and saw her talking to a dude on the corner. I basically grew up with this chick, we went to the same schools, she was raised with an adoptive brother right next door. I was concerned, seeing her with this dude.  I am always in mom mode. I announce it and never apologize for it. It is what it is. I called her over to me and asked her if she was ok. She said yes and explained that the dude is her biological father. She found him. Or he found her. Either way, I left her with one piece of advice. I said "I want you to remember, you are an adult now. You are choosing people and situations in your life. Be ready for them and be careful. At any time, you can say no and call me if you need to." She never called and I assumed everything was fine until she ran into me some time later and told me that dude was rearrested. Oh, I forgot to mention, he was in prison her whole life. She said she soured of the fatherly bond when he began to dangle the "I know where your birth mom is" carrot. She explained to me she didn't actually want to meet her Mother. Even so, I know it affected her. Most adopted kids would be affected. I am not most. She also explained Dad was making up for lost time by sending her a shopping list of all of the things he insisted she buy him so he could be comfortable in prison. She had had it. I was reminded of this story when recent events with Michael made me think "Why am I letting this happen to me?"

A lil about me. I don't do stress. I don't stress about money or work like normal people stress. I have a coworker who stresses about money every minute of the day. That is no way to live. If I get pissed, I devise a solution to alleviate my pissed-off-ness and I'm over it. I'm easy breezy. I like to read. I like independent films. I enjoy my solitude way more than would be considered healthy. I have patience for old people and children and absolutely no patience for stupidity. This, you all know as the reader. This, Michael refused to learn. My temperament  . . So when Michael used my gov'ment name as his alias, I needed time to think. His use of my name doesn't just affect me. It affects my brother, my sister and nephew who are all legal possessors of this name. Not Michael. His complete lack of responsibility in this situation was jarring. When I called him on his shit his response was "you are my sister." I tried to emphasize that his choice of "petty" crimes [his words] will probably result in my getting fired from my State job. He insisted what he did was not illegal and he had to use an alias. I was done. While I was trying to have this serious conversation with him about how utterly fucking violated I felt, he interrupted twice to hit on some young ladies who were passing by him on the street. Fuck. That. Shit. I hung up. I thought about what he just said. He told me in a span of two minutes 1. It's only petty crimes. 2. In reference to using my legal name and address he said "he had to" "he didn't" "oh yeah" and that I'm pressuring him too much. 3. He also said I don't give him credit for not committing felonies and/or being arrested already. He has been out a month.

After this exchange, Michael proceeded to leave me very curious voice mail messages. I'm choosing this? To have this clown in my life who is jeopardizing my job on a daily basis? Who has no fucking care in his body about how he is violating my hospitality, and MY NAME AND ADDRESS! Yeah, that's done. I thought about this long and hard and realized for the last 12 years of my life I chose not to have crazy in my life and in my fruitless efforts to get to know this dude, not only is this crazy, it is dangerous. I told him to come get his shit one day when he called me, quite unapologetically, asking to come over. He made excuses about needing to make two trips. I said absolutely not, thinking back to the voice mail he left which basically said I should praise him for not taking some criminal up on his offer to make $3,000/ day to do god knows what.  He came. He said his shoulder hurt. I told him "I am telling you my feelings [when I spoke to him previously he said I only care about my feelings pertaining to my anger with him using my name. My feelings?] You cannot come here anymore. If I see mail with my name in my box for you, I will burn it. You using my mailbox is not good for me. You coming here is not good for me. When you get your shit together, call me. We can have lunch, but you cannot come here anymore."

So that's how I broke up with my brother. I imagine it was somewhat like having a date from Craigslist. You have no idea what you are getting and it’s not at all what you bargained for. He stalled; he made excuses; he needed to make a second trip. He left a fucking bag full of utter garbage in my house that I just threw away. I could have many emotions at this point, but I don’t. It is not my way anyway. I walked him out. I walked him to the corner. He said "is that all you have to say to me?"  Not an ‘I'm sorry’ in sight. I said “yeah, what do you want me to say?” I knew at that point I was validated in what I needed to do. This dude has been in my life a month. A month where I was paranoid about everything he could think of in his criminal mind to jeopardize my career. It was a month not of my choosing. I reaffirmed to myself that my philosophy is ‘I choose who to allow into my life.’ I would never choose the utter chaos this stranger brought me in the span of 30 days. My actual brother called me and I told him what happened and he said it was all my fault. I knew it was because I chose it.