PLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE
TEMPORARILY AWAY ON BUSINESS & PLEASURE.
I WILL RESUME POSTING ON or ABOUT AUGUST 2ND.
idea/okay KAT PARR
DALLAS. OH. MY.
I ran away, I admit it.
This weekend in Austin is Queerbomb, Gay Pride, etcetera dance parties and parades and debauchery. Usually I’m an eager participant; not this time. I ran away. I admit it.
Instead I am in Dallas, Texas. It is inching towards 100 degrees – it will go higher still – and the sky is cerulean blue. I am at a cafe because my parents’ house is a frosty 68 and Fox News is on every television set – and there are many television sets – and I couldn’t concentrate what with all the shivering and crazy talking heads. Hannity and Beck and their ilk rail against the liberal agenda and government takeover, and then wonder why the Obama administration isn’t doing more to stop the oil leak that is swallowing the Gulf like a coal-black Blob. Have we lost our ability to properly define irony to the point that it simply doesn’t exist anymore?
The cafe is quiet and I quietly contemplate living in here, in Dallas. I’d be close to my folks; I love my folks. I’d be less distracted. Austin is Vacationland. Every day is a party, is a Facebook invite, is an opportunity for a dip at the Greenbelt, a mojito on South Congress, a sunburn on my shins. I’m unaccustomed to the perpetual atmosphere of R&R and frankly I don’t like it, it isn’t me. I miss the subway and not owning a car and riding over the Williamsburg Bridge and being harassed by MTA cops and getting grumpy about the grime, or the winters, or the infuriating commute to midtown. I miss having to make advance plans to get away, go upstate or out to the beach. I miss a vacation being a vacation, not a constant state of being.
Does this sound insane to you? Perhaps it is. But if I am honest with myself than I must admit that I am not a good manager of my own time, nor am I good at saying No to fun things, such as a glass of pinot grigio at noon or being half-naked at a dance party until 3 in the morning. Not to say these things don’t exist in other cities, just that I think other cities make you work a little harder for the fun. And work hard is what I need to be doing more frequently. Or more like “all the time.”
So I ran away to the city of searing pavement, where I know no one and all conversations with my father eventually turn into blistering political debate. Things are ever so slightly unpleasant here and I like it. In fact, I may never come home.
FROM BENEATH YOU IT DEVOURS
courtesy Landslide Blog (links to)
I cannot believe I missed the news that on May 10th, a family of four was swallowed in a landslide because the clay beneath their Quebec home was of an unstable ancient variety – so fragile that “[e]ven a fly landing on the surface can set it off.” Instant liquefaction, instant entombment. The family golden retriever survived the tragedy; he was tied up outside. This “quick clay” is notorious in the region. The Times article notes that in 1991, the entire town of Lemieux was relocated because of the risk of landslide. Indeed, just two years later the old site went under.
Can you imagine this? One minute you are enjoying your favorite television program, perhaps munching on some popcorn, or maybe you’re updating your blog, and then the lights go, there’s a trembling, and then – what? a whoosh? a sucking sound? a roar as earth suddenly moves like water? But who has crawled out from the center of the earth? (Besides Buffy.)
At any rate more evidence that it really is a “step off the sidewalk and into a bus” kind of world. Chin up, eyes open, kids. Take your pleasures where you may, because you never know when the ground is going to get hungry.
IN THIS TIME OF CRISIS
we raise a glass to you
and your narrow-hipped swagger
your unflinching blue eyes your half-smile
your pacing on porches your small cups of comfort
the bile rising your steady hands your
swift feet ready to flee crime-scenes as yet
undiscovered your quick
violence your sordid past your
unwashed sheets and naked pillows
your heap of bathtowels your bravado
your sly flirtations and notes passed in the dark
your aversion to dark places and papercuts
the pretty faces you are quick to kiss and quick
to forget your stacks of paper, your infinite lists
your unreadable handwriting your bluster
the whole of the impossibly invulnerable you
who rarely smokes who has memory only at midnight
who cannot burn away sleep who takes pills
and photographs all the houses on the street
in the dark without a flash because the soft
edges and yellow cast comforts
your heart which beats too slowly and
therefore has sentenced you to
immortality
CONFESSIONS #3
I often fantasize about the life I might have had, had I not boarded the plane home from Spain. I love rose wine. I don’t know how to make the accent on “rose” in Linux. I fall in love too easily. I miss Savannah, but I don’t want to live there because I think I would never meet any queers and also it seems like too small a city. But it is desperately beautiful. I once accidentally shot a bird. When Judy Garland sings “The Man that Got Away,” I cry uncontrollably. Nine times out of 10 if I am moody, it has nothing to do with you. The memory of my motorcycle trip is fading fast; often I wonder if it happened at all. The happiest I’ve been in almost four years was while on that trip, I do not want to ever forget it. My cat is currently sleeping on my foot. My housemate and I are both lefthanded and prefer drinking our coffee out of tiny cups. I find her utterly charming. Sometimes I want to change my name. I haven’t finished a book in two months. If I catch you stealing my morning paper I will shoot you in the ass with my bb gun. I had to take a klonopin in order to sleep tonight. Therefore I am currently a bit drugged, and this would be an excellent time to play truth or dare with me. No one ever asks me the questions I want them to ask when I play truth or dare. I have a secret wish that someone taps on my door in the middle of the night and demands to crawl into my bed to snuggle. I like having things demanded of me, because I am usually able to follow through. A girl wrote me a song this week, and I am at once flattered and baffled. My landlady caught me sunbathing topless in the front yard this afternoon. But I think she thought I was a guy, so it turned out okay. I hate my car. I overcommit on occasion. I like the concept of open relationships but have not yet had a successful one. Sometimes I forget that candles are an option. I am addicted to running away. I am an extremely strong swimmer. I would like to live on a houseboat at least once in my lifetime. I fear tragic accidents. I need a job, but I don’t mind being poor. Austin is a lazy town and this annoys me. I own too many clothes and boots. Shining shoes is wonderfully relaxing. I think of Juliet Pennay every time I switch on my bedroom lamp.
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