Last Tuesday Night at Cass Cafe in Detroit

It’s dumb that I’ve come to this place to do real writing (like made up fiction about interesting characters who, through their made up actions, reveal truths about ourselves) and instead I’ve taken to reporting in real time the goings on of a gay date taking place at the table in front of me. I know the one in the green sweater is gay because he turns his finger into a teepee on the table when he talks, and then it’s confirmed when he starts speaking.

“So my father got laid off today.” He goes on to explain. “He’s in the auto industry.” It’s so topical I can hardly stand it. They talked to Detroiters in coffee shops about the crisis on NPR today, I felt happy to be alive to hear it. I want the boys on their date to start talking about the Proposition 8 catastrophe next. They share a dessert and continue the rest of the evening (prudently) in hushed tones.

A boy wearing a t-shirt, a ridiculous, mock basketball jersey, and a scarf tied just so around his neck has caught me staring at him, and he half waves, and now I realize that I know him from somewhere else. It’s Chad from another bar. Good lord. Is everybody gay?* I pause to tie my own scarf around my neck in the exact same fashion, as a way to say I’m sorry.

I find I can’t bring myself to do it. I take 4 action photos of myself attempting to tie the scarf around my neck in the hipster way my sister showed me to prove that I tried. My mind is sent into a dizzy of reveries regarding just what kind of person becomes paralyzed with fear/inaction at the simple act of tying a scarf around one’s neck with the faintest modicum of style.




*I ran into Chad later on this week where we discussed life briefly. Far be it from me to spread false and potentially devastating rumors about acquaintances sexuality on the Internet. Others swear up and down that Chad is straight, and uses his homosexual swagger extremely effectively to get chicks. The world is changing all around us.

And another thing about Mr. President Elect!

Look, I'm sorry Barack Obama is so great. I mean, there are other things happening in my life and I'm dying to tell you all about it, but I don't have all day for long, interesting prose about long, interesting things. I moved to Detroit where my new apartment has of yet no internet connection and everybody has an asymmetrical haircut (dangling modifier? Comment yes or no). It's bananas. I digress.

On Today's Agenda:
1. My Second-Boyfriend Elect is going to give us a weekly state of the union address on youtube. Here's a link to the first one. Democracy is back friends. Your Weekly Address. Swoon. I love the way he talks to me like that.

2. I added tags to all my posts, which may prove to be pretty un-useful, but it was a totally enjoyable process for me. I will try not to have a looong stream of tags with exactly one entry, with names such as: "lazy" "catharsis" "boobies" and "deceptively profound," unlike someone's blog who will remain nameless.

3. The Person who's blog I spoke of in item 2, My First-Boyfriend Elect, is heavily represented in the following conversation.

Tell 3 Friends? Do I look like I'm made of friends?

I've been told to share this link with three friends in a blanket effort to spread love and healing across the world. Whether the individual who sent this to me (who, as far as I know, does not read this blog) believes a mock newspaper will directly effect the future is at this time unknown.

The New York Times: June 4th, 2009

Why Obama's Presidency is a Big Deal

Why did we throw our hands in the air and go crazy on Tuesday night? Why did the entire world gather in community halls, pubs, and around their village’s one television set to celebrate the election of Barack Obama? Because Obama’s presidency is the greatest thing to happen to the country/world since fucking ever and I’ll tell you why.

I don’t know if we* realized just how sick and defeated we’ve all felt for the last eight years under W’s presidency. We suffered a stolen election, a war we didn’t believe in, and a closed off, entirely undemocratic government we couldn’t trust. Bush profited from a culture of rampant anti-intellectualism wherein curiosity, a healthy criticism of our leaders, and thoughtful, deliberate speech were demonized as un-American, elitist, un-patriotic and “cosmopolitan.”** We lived under this system for so long that many of us gave up on the idea that a better world was possible - until Tuesday night, when all of a sudden the sun came out and flowers picked themselves.

It’s not that Obama answers all of our liberal-commie-socialist prayers, because he absolutely does not. He’s a capitalist in a capitalist system. He’s not going to save the economy, end world hunger and put a hypoallergenic, animal-shelter puppy in all of our non-mortgaged living rooms. We weren’t celebrating because we believed somehow magically that America’s problems were over.

We were celebrating, and continue to celebrate because we finally found a candidate we can get excited about and trust. We believe that he is who he says he is, that he loves his wife and his family, that he loves his country, and that he plans on including all of us in the democratic process. We believe that the administration will be led under his tutelage in our name, and not by a committee of puppet masters.***

He represents the first step in an ideological shift in the nation’s consciousness. The antiquated model of Capitalism is crumbling in front of our eyes, and we need a 21st century model to tackle what lies ahead. McCain/Palin supporters represent a large subset of American culture, but theirs is an old-fashioned way of thinking. For an evangelical Christian the world is black versus white, good versus evil, man + woman versus perverted depravity. That may describe their reality, but it doesn't describe ours, and we are the mother fucking future. Love and tolerance is the new black.

When we elected Barack Obama as our president, we showed the world that we’ve finally learned from the mistakes of our past. We weren’t misled by the other sides attempt to control us with fear and hatred. We rejected the political party whose power came by propagating a belief that loving God means hating those that don’t.

So yes, it is a big deal. It’s a moment in history that we can celebrate without irony, where grown men can cry watching Oprah, and we can dance in the street instead of rioting. We can start tempering our excitement with cynicism next year. For now, we have every reason to be completely ecstatic and hopeful about the future.

Let’s not fuck it up.



*I use the proverbial “we,” as in “yes we can” and the modified “yes we did!”
**A prime-time television way of saying “faggy”
***And we’re ready and waiting to riot in the street if these beliefs proof to be foolishly naïve.

Love > Hate & Fear

I've been meaning to post this video for weeks. Horrifying, yes, but it's going to be okay. There are more of us than them this year, I can feel it. You know what always makes everything better? Animated Gifs!

Have you lost interest in activities you once enjoyed?

So after having spent the last ten years woefully uninsured, positively plagued from head to toe with various ailments, I received my very first insurance card. I immediately booked an appointment early last week designed to address the following concerns:
1. Q: I have been told by the knee and joint specialists that I need a referral from my primary care physician to confirm that my knees are in fact torn to shreds. Can your office please produce said referral?
A: You likely have meniscal tears in both knees, which will not show up on an X Ray, however, your insurance requires an X Ray for said referral to go through, so take this piece of paper and get an X Ray to confirm there are no Gremlins in your knees.
2. Q: Is this red thing on my face cancer?
A: No.
3. Q: I suffer from Chronic insomnia. You wrote my mom a script for Ambien and I must say, they really do the trick. Can I have some too?
A: You're 26. You're too young for that. Do you drink coffee, exercise at night, watch tv in bed? (Continued in script form...)
Me: My problem is of a psychological nature.
Cute Ukranian Doctor: Are you depressed?
Me: Well Yeah. (But, to be fair, I do live with my mother in the suburbs, work a mindless/pointless job, and am a citizen of this world, so...you know.) I see a therapist twice a week. (He agrees you should give me the prescription and shut up about it.)
CUD: Have you lost interest in activities you once enjoyed?
Me: (Uh oh, I see where this is going) Nah.
CUD: Are you prone to fits of crying?
Me: Well yeah (but have you met my boyfriend? ha ha)
CUD: Have you thought about hurting yourself or someone else?
Me: Nah.
CUD: What we have on our hands here is a clear case of depression induced insomnia. I recommend you take ELAVIL.

Remember that scene in Wayne's World where they do all the hilarious product placement gags, and at the end Garth is head to foot in Reebok gear and he says "it's like people only do things because they get paid. And that's just really sad."

Well, there was an Elavil clock on the goddamn wall. She was writing with a Nexium pen. I don't believe in anti depressants, but I love drugs, so this situation really tested my mettle. Really showed me what I was made of. I walked out of the office with a prescription to both Ambien and Elavil.

So I've been taking the Elavil since tuesday. Not only am I sleepy at night, but also all day every day. I feel light headed and apathetic, like, woooo, who the fuck cares? I remember I took Zoloft for a month in high school, and the only difference I noted was that I suddenly enjoyed pop music. "Oh my god, I'm a genie in a bottle!"

Let's all monitor my condition together and see where this magic carpet ride takes us, eh?

J/K Before, I do know how to read.

I was sitting in a doctor's office (more on that later) where I read this passage in a David Foster Wallace essay The Big Red Son. Here the author covers the adult film industry and the bunny slipper clad performers that comprise it. Having now brought you up to speed on the plot, let's have a quick read:

There is, first, the matter of having seen the various intimate activities and anatomical parts of these starlets in videos heretofore and thus (weirdly) feeling shy about meeting them. But there is also a complex erotic tension. Because porn films' worlds are so sexualized, with everybody seemingly teetering right on the edge of coitus all the time and it taking only the slightest nudge or excuse- a stalled elevator, an unlocked door, a cocked eyebrow, a firm handshake- to send everyone tumbling into a tangled mass of limbs and orifices, there's a bizarre unconscious expectation/dread/hope that this is what might happen in Max Hardcore's hotel room. Yr. corresps. here find it impossible to overemphasize the fact that this is a delusion. In fact, of course, the unconscious expectation/dread/hope makes no more sense than it would make to be hanging out with doctors at a medical convention and to expect that at the slightest provocation everyone in the room would tumble into a frenzy of MRIs and epidurals. Nevertheless the tension persists...

I just feel "to send everyone tumbling into a tangled mass of limbs and orifices" bears repeating*.