Moments

Based on a recommendation from Brian I started reading this book the other day. I am really getting into it as Ms. Lamott has a great way of mingling the sacred and the profane in her essays. She writes a lot about the difficulty of being a writer. She also uses a lot of quotes and cultural references to flesh out the topic at hand, which also appeals to me.

In many of the essays she talks about her "up and down" relationship with her teenage son. Her descriptions of her son Sam have really triggered a flood of memories regarding my nephew Cody.

While reading this afternoon I was reminded of a really awesome memory involving Cody.

I could probably write an entire book of great memories with Cody and maybe in the future I will. For now, I should probably give a ridiculously brief history of how Cody came into my life...

My brother Paul began dating Cody's mom Julie 20 years ago this summer. Cody was a little less than a year old when they began dating and I vividly remember Cody being carted up to our family house on Knox Street. Paul and Julie married a couple of years later officially cementing Cody's induction into the Buell clan, but he was welcomed with open arms from day one.

My parents were happy to have their first grandchild to shower with gifts and attention. The fact that Cody was not biologically related to any Buell had zero effect on our affection for him.

I was sixteen when Cody came into my life and in the intervening years he has been my nephew, my "little brother", my student, my partner-in-crime...

I could go on for days relaying stories of the fun we have had...baseball games in his backyard, singing "Pump Up The Jam" in unison when he was 6, daytrips to Omaha to have Zio's Pizza when he was a teen...

One of the toughest parts of moving to New York City was leaving Cody and my nieces behind, especially since I had grown so much closer to them in my last few years in Lincoln.

For Christmas 2003 the Buell's hung out at this bed and breakfast in Lincoln. We had a great time chillin' in a beautiful old house and having nothing to do but enjoy each other's company (something that probably would not have had a few years previous).

On Christmas Eve, Cody and his sister Halsey, my dad and I were playing cards...we were having a great time...just hanging out. My dad got up from the card table momentarily, as he exited the room Cody piped up and said "Grandpa...can you get me a Coke?" It was literally nothing out of the ordinary, but in the split-second that Cody asked this question I was overcome by emotion. It was as if the Universe were giving me this intense view of the beauty of the world...

I had this instant moment of clarity on how there could have been all these obstacles to prevent this situation from happening...Paul could have never asked Julie out for a date, our family could have been less than welcoming to this outsider named Cody, etc. etc....But none of those obstacles did happen, instead the Universe had put in place a course of events that lead to the circumstance where this kid named Cody Williams was calling a man named George Buell "Grandpa".

Even thinking about this interaction brings great joy. As I grow older it seems to happen more and more often that the Universe opens up to reveal shards of gorgeousness in the most simple of situations. You just have to be in the right place at the right time and be open to the experience...

Stalked

Two times in two days in two different parts of the city...Savion Glover is obviously stalking me. Child, I didn't even see "Bring In 'Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk"...just leave me alone.

Portals

I began a rough draft of a post about my previous post about "passing" as straight the other night. That rough draft was deleted as it was even more obscure and tangential than my normally obscure and tangential thought process. But I do have some further thoughts on this encounter with this woman named Abby, which may or may not be any clearer.

By itself, passing as straight is not that extraordinary. The reason why this interaction resonated with me is that was a very strong example of a phenomenon that has reared it's head in my life. I really don't have the words to describe this phenomenon other that to say that over the past month or so I have had a few of these experiences where it feels like I am in a "portal" to another human's life, as experienced through my eyes and consciousness.

Yea, yea, I know shades of "Being John Malkovich". But the strange feeling I experience when this has happened has been quite profound.

In the interaction with Abby it "felt" like I was a typical "guy" flirting with her flirty comments. My comments to her were not fake or disingenuous, in fact they were quite natural. It felt like I was in the interaction, but the experience was not part of "my life story"...almost as if I had walked onto the set of a film and I was acting a part...

Just a few evenings previous to this, I was passing a nearly empty bar around the corner from my apartment. Looking through the front door I saw an older man who was sitting at a barstool with his back to me (so I wasn't even seeing his face). In the moment I saw this man, a thought zoomed into my head..."Oh! there's my dad...This is the bar where I was supposed to meet him for a drink"...and then I felt this strong compulsion to go in the bar and interact with my "Dad".

Other than having gray hair, the man bore no physical resemblance to my dad. Couple that with the fact that my dad has never had an alcoholic beverage in his life and that makes for a very strange scenario. With this experience I again felt like it was a "scene" from someone else's life that I had, somehow, inadvertently stepped into.

I guess the easy psychological analysis of this phenomenon would be that I subconsciously "want" these experiences to be true... that I have unresolved feelings about my sexuality, about my relationship with my father, about my relationship with cocktails. etc, etc...

Normally I love easy psychological analysis, but I swear that has nothing to do with the intensity that I experienced in association with these vignettes. I believe that in most social interactions we all present "personas" to the world. Most times these personas are true representations of differing facets of our personality...but in these experiences, not only was it not my "mask" that I was showing the world...it was a different body, mind and spirit as well.

...Boy, I am glad I cleared that up!

Gone In 60 Seconds...

After having had three awesome days off in a row, I returned to work today. My days off were so good that on my walk to work I was thinking that I was so relaxed and stress-free that I actually didn't mind returning to the job. Part of that was that I knew I would be seeing Ana and Heather. I always look forward to catching up with and kvetching with Ana, and Heather is such a diligent worker and a pleasure to converse with on the job.

So I get to work and things are going well for about 11 minutes until I find out that, unbeknownst to me, I would be training a new employee today...

One of my hugest pet peeves is being "unprepared" in social/ job-related situations. So here I am looking like a complete idiot when the new employee, whom I am thinking is a complete stranger, is telling me she was told to come in for her first day of training...Okay, no problem, I can think on my feet, so I get a paperwork file (I-9, W-4, etc.) for her to fill out.

While filling out her documents I realize that she is not legal to work in the States...which is annoying enough, but then I am confronted with the fact that my boss has explicitly told her that this is no problem...in fact, he suggests to her that she should just bring a fake social security number. Nothing but "pure class" in this operation...

Then, just when I think I can't get more stupefied..."New Employee" gets rattled when I inform her that, despite the shadiness that my boss has just revealed to her, we will be taking taxes out of her paycheck. After giving her the option to back out at stage one, she decides she will continue with the job. Which means that we will spend valuble time and money training her, then after she gets her first couple of paychecks, experience tells me she will quit. Which means that we will have completely wasted everyones time and effort.


All that to say that I was pissed off at not having a leisurely day with Ana and Heather...

Passing

On Friday night I went to this party at the Cooper Hewitt. Last year's event with Steve Travolta was amazing...and Steve turned it out again for this summer's edition. Despite having to actively avoid running into this guy Jeremy that was there I had an absolute blast.

Among other top-notch jams Steve brought out "Love and Happiness" and Inner City's "Big Fun"...I don't think the crowd was ready for 1989 deepness.

It was great hearing excellent house music in a garden-ish setting in the middle of the city. Trust it, most clubs do not have fireflies for lighting.

The party was going great, but I have this "thing" about leaving a party when I deem it right to leave a party...not a second before or a second after.
I was getting ready to leave and walking towards the exit when I stopped for a split-second to take in one last beat. In that split-second this woman came up to me and asked if I wanted to dance...

She was maybe 24 years old and cute...in J.Crew-ish sorority sister-ish kind of way.

Since I was about ready to leave I told her "thanks" but I was leaving so I couldn't take her up on her offer. She started making these flirty joking remarks about how I was "blowing her off". Not wanting to be rude and dismissive, I started conversing with her. She introduced herself as "Abby"and we started talking...about the party, the museum, the Upper East Side, etc.

About every 30 seconds she would make another funny reference about how I was dissing her by not accepting her invitation to dance. Slowly it started sinking in that this woman thinks I am straight or else she would not keep bringing this up in a decidedly flirty fashion.

I realized that other than my hot ass...there was no visual cue telling her I was gay. My wardrobe was very non-descript so I guess she just made an incorrect assumption.

I tried to think of a way to get out of the conversation without stating the obvious..."I'm gay", as she would probably take it as the lamest excuse I could come up to end the encounter. I could only imagine having to "prove" my homosexuality to her...

In the end I decided to politely end the conversation by saying that I simply had to go. I don't know why I thought it was more polite to let her think I was an uninterested straight than asserting what I assumed was plainly obvious to the whole world.

Return To Paradise

Went to the Larry Levan birthday party at Spirit last night. DJs David Depino and Joey Llanos were playing some serious shit. One segment was "Love Is The Message" into "Star Love" into "There But For The Grace Of God Go I" into "Shame"...that should tell you what kind of evening it was.

Other gems included "Walking On Thin Ice", "Situation", "White Horse" "Music Is The Answer", and "You Don't Know".

The song that killed me was "Voodoo Ray". This track has been on auto-repeat in my mental soundtrack for months, I never really thought of it as a Garage track, but in hindsight it makes perfect sense.

Withdrawl

So my styliste Betty has selfishly decided to spend the month of July in Italy. Therefore I am left in New York City without instant access to a haircut.

Before she left she gave me an extra short cut to "tide me over" until her return. It seemed like a good idea at the time but now I have that awkward "in between haircuts" look really disturbs me. My life is so self-centered that I have the brain capacity to literally count the days until she returns and I can get back to looking normal (gorgeous).

International Hillbilly

Noel made dinner for me last night...Falafel and black cherry soda...for some reason that is the most ridiculous combination of food that I can imagine. It was delicious though....

Buell Syndrome

I am currently suffering from a severe case of Buell Syndrome. This malady is characterized by the unceasing obsession with current political events...in the attempt to acquire so much information that you can destroy anyone in an arguement.

It goes without saying that the trigger for this outbreak is Rove-gate, Traitor-gate, or whatever you choose to call it. If I could get paid for reading AmericaBlog and following up on the countless links referred to in the articles, I would be as rich as a Rockefeller.

Until Rove is featured in a perp-walk, do not expect to hear from me...

Nocturnal Soundtrack

...Here is the playlist for my current urban beautification projects...

"Da Rockwilder"...Method Man and Redman

"Ace of Spades"...Motorhead

"Digital"...Joy Division

"It Wasn't Us"...Ludacris w/ I-20

"What We Do"...Freeway w/ Jay-Z and Beanie Siegal

"Death or Glory"...The Clash

"Ezy Rider"...Jimi Hendrix

"Money Ain't A Thang"...Jermaine Dupree w/ Jay-Z

"Full Moon"...Armand Van Helden

"Long Way Back From Hell"...Danzig

"The Bridge Is Over"...Boogie Down Productions

"We Gonna Make It"...Jadakiss w/ Styles P

"Dracula Mountain"...Lightning Bolt

"Heading Out To The Highway"...Judas Priest

"Silver Rocket"...Sonic Youth

The Night I Became My Father

A couple of weeks ago I had a discussion with Cain about my work-related anger issues. He suggested that I should only allow myself to "destroy" five customers per shift. That would force me to decide if a particular customer was "worth" using one of my self-described HatePoints on them.

I employed the method immediately with the addendum that any HatePoints that I didn't use in a shift could be carried over...in effect creating an account from which I could draw upon in the future. My reasoning for this addendum was that if I had an incentive to save HatePoints I would not be as quick to dole them out needlessly.

From the get-go this plan had it's desired effect. I had to scrutinize customer interactions in order to determine the value of spending a HatePoint. I believe on day one I spent only 4 HatePoints and since then my average daily usage has been around 2 or 3. In the process I have built up a healthy HatePoint bank account and have used that growing account as a source of personal pride...I am challenging myself to rein in the anger and frustration of this job.

Today, however, I thought I was going to go on a spending spree that would empty out my HatePoint account. A group of two or three families came en masse. There were three adults and around seven or eight children...all of them were out of control. The children, ranging in age from probably 6 to 14 were loud, rude, and demanding. The parents did nothing to curb the children's behavior and, in fact, seemed to be encouraging it.

Obviously, having been in the customer service game for many years, I have come across quite a few obnoxious families. The truly disturbing part of this group was the appearance and behavior of the young girls in this group.

Being an aquarian, I am a pretty laid-back, open-minded person. "Live and let live" is part of my philosophy. Having said that, I must add that I have rarely been more shocked than I was at these young girls...I am trying to think of a diplomatic way of describing these pre-pubesent females...

Since I can't think of a politically correct way I will just say the first description that came to mind...these young girls were dressed as "sluts". I am aware that girls are interested in make-up...hell, I was interested in make-up at age 8 or 9. I am also aware that there is the concept of "stage make-up"...anyone who has seen "Sportskids Moms and Dads" on Bravo knows that kids wear excessive make-up on stage whether it is for cheerleading, ballet, or acting. Trust me, these girls had not just come from a performance.

The make-up was over-the-top and let's just say that their wardrobe was that of an adult female. An adult female who works the pole at Flashdancers. The youngest girl, who was probably about six years old, had a mini-mini skirt and an American flag halter top (Happy Fourth of July!)

Needless to say, they instantly became "the talk" of me and my co-workers...when one employee noted the girl's were singing "Like A Virgin", I rolled my eyes and said "Yeah, right..". I mean that would just be "too perfect" for the scenario. Five minutes later I walked passed the group and I swear to God, the girls were singing "Like A Virgin"...without a single eyebrow being raised by the parents who were standing right beside them.

Over the past half decade or so I have become accustomed to joking about becoming an "old man". I would say "...Kids these days!" with emphasis on the irony of it. After this encounter the irony has dropped.

I guess the most disturbing aspect of this is not the children's dress and manner, but the parent's who stood idly by and allowed their children to look and behave this way. I mean, seriously, do you really not care if your daughter turns out like Britney or Christina...