On "Pretty..."

He approached the microphone ferociously and to everyone's surprise had placed a high speed fan at the foot of the stage on the floor. When the song hit the first chorus of "Since You Been Gone" his version of Kelly Clarkson would have blowing locks of music video hair as an exclamation point to the song's message.

The crowd went wild with screams and applause. The fan was the essential element to the performance, and it blew the audience away, sweeping them into the concert hall he had created in his mind's eye. His nerves slipped off of him every so smoothly and the remainder of the song's performance was a rousing success. As a matter of fact, he won. He wasn't aware the evening was a competition and not just a staff talent showcase, but by surprise he took his place in line while the audience decided the fate of he and his other talented employees. He was the manger of the club and politely claimed his title while handing over the top prize to his runner up. His debut in drag performance and a winner. Not too shabby.

He looked pretty. That's what everyone said, anyway. And if you could get past the idea that you knew who he was, he truly did. The makeup was done by a professional ex-Mac make-up artist turned Drag Queen of The Year! The hair was made up of two wigs piled on top of each other. What a heavy load that must have been. The outfit sickly replecated that of the Kelly Clarkson smash hit video. His body was lithe and lean with muscles lightly casting their lines along my exposed arms. There was work involved in this transformation to pretty. A few people crowned him as "K.C. Sunshine!"

But, It's all about the fan. His beauty and success wouldn't have such impact without the fan. The Fan solidified it for the audience. From the speck of glitter serving as a nose piercing all the way to the fan. This Queen was going all the way and leaving no detail unnoticed.

He didn't feel "pretty" per se. He felt funny. He felt frisky. He felt oddly sexy, but, not pretty. He accepted his accolades and awestruck looks with a flair of diva-ness and an air of modesty. He wasn't used to this attention regardless of how many people "knew" him. This pretty thing had it's perks. Being "pretty" was a good thing. People give you things. People dote on you. People fondle you. People even get out of your way.

It wasn't until a month later when he doned a dress again that it dawned on him that this is how it must be for the pretty boys too. He began to realize that the pretty boys he worked with everyday knew they were pretty and life was easier for them. For one imparticular; his right hand man. His right hand man was more like a left hand man. Awkward, sloppy, untrained, frustrating, difficult but less used and abused than the right hand thus...prettier.

His assistant is pretty to most people, sexy to some, hot to others, and icky to few.

But he is pretty to all the right people. He can get what he wants or better yet, get away with what he doesn't. It's infuriating to many but particularly the manager. It's as if this assistant has been blessed with the fan. A fan that works a lot like K.C. Sunshine's fan did in the performance. Just when you least expect it he turns on a switch and he looks radiant and beautiful to those he needs to manipulate. Everyone is blown away and swept into the land of distraction. Their heads nodding yes to questions they don't hear. Their mouths gaping open to eyes that can not see. People moving out of the way for him and giving him all that he wants and doesn't.

I do it too, sometimes. I see how the other's treat him and I follow suit.
My prettiness was put on. One shot deal. I have tried carrying around that fan. It does nothing for me.

His is part of his make up. He's increasing his personal load by carrying around a fan to help lighten his professional load.

What a lot of work being pretty is.

Stop. Change.

Sometimes, when two people talk long enough with one another (say hours) and thoughts are free flowing, bouncing of one another like the discussion is made of rubber, discoveries can be made.

She told me to stop trying to change. Stop trying to make the change happen. Especially with the intangible. Let it change on it's own.

Let it.
It.
My feelings.
My emotions.
My thoughts.
It.
My heart.

I have always been the guy, like so many others, who pushes forward, moves on, plows ahead, etc., etc. "Shake it off!" The phrase used by so many coaches in my childhood and adolescence.

My friends are my life coaches. They coach me to get up off the couch. They coach me to take a breather and plant it on the bench when it's time.

One of my favorite coaches is pushing me to stop forcing change. To relish. To languish in my state. The good, the bad, the beautiful. Until it or I change or not without force. She reminded me that we live in a society geared and focused on getting over, moving on, or as she likes to say-'push it to the wayside.' When something sad happens we have millions of suggestions being thrown at us as 'how to' move on. When tragedy strikes we have dozens of people and things urging us to remember to laugh.

I agreed.

I don't want to get over it. I don't want to move on. I'm not ready to pretend it didn't happen. It won't happen. It never happened. I don't want to force myself to go through some given set of circumstances to prove my life can go on. I don't want to make the "normal" bold strides with the expectation of a certain outcome that will only be false and contrived by me. I don't want to stop missing you. I don't want to stop dreaming. I don't want to stop hoping. I don't want to stop fantasizing. I don't want to stop feeling. I don't want to stop aching.

I want to brood, plan, ponder. I want to yearn, desire, reminisce. I want to long, laugh, and cry. I want to hold on. I want to keep believing. I want to toss and turn. I want to sigh.

Until it slowly evolves into something else. Until IT transforms from tears to laughter. From anguish to relief. From intolerable to consolable.

I am not ready to make anything happen. I am just letting "ME" happen. The most I can do, right now, is deal with IT, and the rollercoaster ride IT brings with it.

I need an Ace or a King

Recently, my friend joely posted on her blog with the title Solitaire. It was a haunting title for me. Lately, I have been passing my subway time by playing the solitaire game that comes with my Motorola Razor phone. I go through solitaire phases. Sometimes to kill the time I read, other times it's ipod listening, then there are the solitaire times.

Solitaire times usually come when my mind can't stay focused on a book because it will run back into the wilds of my racing thoughts. Solitaire times usually stay around a bit too long when my emotions can't seem to listen to a whole song with out using the song as a background track to the stories of my life.

The biggest issue I am having right now with the solitaire on my razor phone, is that I have yet to win a single game. I can't remember if I ever have won a game of solitaire on this phone and I have had this phone since October of last year. But, it has really begun to upset me in the past few months. The paranoid me thinks, "What does my phone have against me?" The perfectionist control freak in me thinks, "What wrong moves am I making with my cards? The self-deprecating me thinks, "Maybe I don't know the game of solitaire and it's not the game for me."

I want to scream at the screen of my phone when I have run out of options with my solitaire cards. I have to reluctantly give in to failing at this silly game. I flip my phone closed and open again to start a whole new game.

Somewhere on the other side of the technological world there is a dealer of those cards and this dealer has yet to deal me one workable hand of the simple game of solitaire.

Somewhere on the other side of the world there is a guy who is winning at solitaire. He may even enjoy the game. Maybe he was so good at solitaire, he's advanced to games with more than himself.

I am on the other side of this world losing. Playing day after day. Desperately trying to learn to win a game against myself. Equally frustrated and sad at each loss.

I don't think I am cut out for solitaire. I don't know how long I can keep up this losing streak before caving into my side of the world.

I am moving toward the acceptance that solitaire is not for me. I am not cut from a solitary cloth. I am not made to be solitary.

But, if I never learn to conquer solitaire, will I ever be ready for the games that are played at the next level?

"You gotta fast car"

I am not sure if Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" was as much a part of his youth as it was mine, but that song was so heavy with hurt. I remember not really knowing what it was about for the first few years after it was released. I remember later in college thinking it was such a weird song to have become so successful. Now, years later her self-titled album found it's way back into my life and I've discovered how many other songs on her album I love. The song "Baby Can I Hold You Tonight," which was later a shitty boyband cover. The song "For You," that only people who really gave the full album a listen will remember and love. As I sit down to try and recap the past week of my wild and crazy ride through my state of mind and California state, I can't help but think of that song. Although, the song's lyrics when you listen to the whole thing don't truly reflect my week in sunshine and bliss, a few of them will have to do for this post.

"We'll take this fast car and keep on drivin'" she would sing.

Rosas was a fast car. Rosas was the name he assigned her. Not for reasons you might expect. The car is not red or pink, it doesn't have a name similar to a flower or a petal, and Rosas owner was not of the latin or Mexican persuasion. In fact, the fast car is a sleek Mazda3. Black with a sunroof, and soft black leather interior. Four doors. Because he hates the idea of himself or anyone for that matter crawling in the back seat. Besides, the doors on two door cars are so much heavier and large. Rosas name was assigned shortly after he arrived in WeHo and met the numerous flower sellers that stroll the Santa Monica Boulevard strip at night approaching bar hoppers and restaurant goers offering "rosas." Except it must be typed phonetically so that you may see how it sounds when the short and stout Mexican mama offers them to you or when Carlisle, Rosas' corn-fed, white, southern boy owner speaks her name in an over pronounced Spanish accent.

"Rothath?" "4 dollath."

This is how he spoke to his car whenever referring to her. "Oh, look how pretty Rosas (rothath) is after her wash." Some would say it's childish. I called it charming. Because he said it with such earnesty. He wasn't joking. Mazda3's name was Rosas. Besides, I have aunts and uncles who still name their cars. We all have, at one point in our life, named our cars. I just haven't had one in ten years, so I forgot how much people really get into referring to their car by their new given name. By day 4 of 8, I was ridin' the Rothath (rosas) Band Wagon with the best of 'em.

I never could have imagined the view from Rosas while on the Pacific Coast Highway. I mean I knew it would be pretty and unique, but I had no idea it would be breathtaking and fantastical.
Every twist and turn revealed a different view of the sky, ocean, mountain. Just around the bend would be a scene from some movie about uncharted land or undiscovered country. I never tired of the next turn or bend in the road.

With the sunroof open and the music on just loud enough to be filler during silences and soft enough to allow conversation to be effortless, we drove the 8-9 hours. We stopped nearly two dozen times for yet another perfect photo opportunity. I remember Carlisle laughing at my fear of heights and brushing it off with the utmost confidence. Like a parent who let's go of their kid's bicycle seat when you first take the training wheels off. With a nonchalance that should be studied, he laughed at my dramatic display of fear and told me to brave it or stay in the car. So, there now exists a photo of me clutching a bridge that must have been 200-300 feet above a thin river of water branching out to meet the ocean. The look on my face after braving my fear (slightly) is that of genuine fear and dramatic interpretation of fear. It's priceless to say the least.

Rosas has a Bose sound system. She has been blessed with good, strong senses. The 80s collection CD I purchased in LA specifically for only one song comes up on Rosas' disc changer. I ask Carlisle if he minds if we skip to track 18 and then start the CD from the beginning. He is an easy type of guy, so, of course, gives me the okay. I know how crucial it is for the driver to like the music. Especially if that driver has driven the entire stretch so far. So, needless to say, Carlisle's best interest was at hand-not my need to hear "Hands To Heaven" by BREATHE. So, there its--the sun, the clouds, the breeze, the winding road, the edge of the country, the ocean and the song of all 80s love songs playing at perfect volume. Carlisle let's me sing along and doesn't say a word when I don't hit the high notes and turn to silent lip synch. His hand reaches across the gear shift and gently falls onto my thigh. Nothing else. No eye contact. No squeeze. Just a delicate hand draped ever so gently across my trembling thigh.

"Tonight I need your sweet caress..." the song belts.

His hands are beautiful to me in this moment. How have I never noticed the strength and beauty in his youthful hands? How have I never noticed his knuckles and the soft light hair on his wrist creeping slightly onto the back of his hand? The color of his string tied bracelet suddenly complements his skin tone on his hand and arm. His shirt is rolled to just below the elbow exposing the perfect amount of a forearm with soft viens appearing across the top and several more barely visible along the bottom of his arm. Like roads, they eventually intersect at the bend in his elbow. I feel this intersection with my first two fingers softly gliding over his skin then slowly back down to his hand and all the way out to his middle fingertip. I continue to sing the song. Again, I miss the high note and mouth the words instead.

"Tonight you calm my restlessness, you relieve my sadness..." the songs moves into the saxophone instrumental break.

The song. His hand. Bring me back to Henry's Skateland in Smalltown, USA. I asked Stephanie if she would meet me by the fir tree and kiss me on the lips. We did too. I relay a bit of my 80s past to my younger travel companion. He doesn't recognize the song. I don't mind. I don't bite back with a bitter banter about the good ol' days, or how old I never intended to be. I just give him more details about why I loved this song and why I still do. He nods his head a subtle yes and agrees it's a pretty song. He doesn't need to recognize it. He recognizes what it means to me. He doesn't need to think it's pretty. He thinks it is and because I do.

His hand makes it's way back to the wheel during sharp turns, but it eventually finds it's way back to my thigh. Never caressing. Never squeezing. Never sexual. Only intimate. Only soft. Only a reminder. Only a gesture. If I lift a finger his finger meets mine listening to the debate of whether they should intertwine or not. So available. So easy. So comfortable.

For months, I have been starving for affection. Taking it in brushed elbows and arms of strangers around the waist. Taking hugs from friends for a moment too long. For months I was convinced it was something I needed. Taking pats on the ass as compliments. Taking drunken thrusts as attraction. Taking drunken kisses as meaningful.

I begin to think of Tracy Chapman's song..."You've gotta fast car...is it fast to enough so that we can fly away...I gotta feeling that I belong....Aye, I gotta feeling I could be someone, be someone,...be someone."

All I needed was in that fast car, Ms. Rosas (rothath)! The surge of positive energy that came from Carlisle's gentle hand hit me like the waves that were crashing into the cliffs 300 feet below our winding road. I wasn't starving for affection. I was yearning for meaning, simplicity, and truth. Thank you Rosas for being that fast car. Carlisle, "just remember when we were driving, driving in your car speed so fast I'd feel like I was drunk, and city lights lay out before us and your arm...."

No words to say. No words to explain. This feeling inside. I have....

Airports

Even if I weren't sad. Even if I didn't miss him. Even if the vacation had sucked. I would still feel a grey, cold, chalky sadness in my throat and heart when climbing through an airport. I hate them. Airports.