Tag Archives: God

Give us this day our daily gluten-free bread

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I wish there was a way to vacuum undesirable ingredients right out of food. I would pick gluten, dairy, sugar. I suppose other people would pick fat, calories, carbohydrates. I suppose other people would pick people. We have a lot more undesirable ingredients than food. Laziness, stupidity, craziness. We would all benefit from a vacuuming, especially me, which is what I’m actually, astonishingly, always, talking about.

When you do your self-deprecating before dinner, this is what it sounds like.

I shouldn’t call it dinner; I should call it breaklundinn. Because it is all 3 meals in 1. Not really the same amount of calories, or food, but it’s the only meal I eat. I should say I only eat dinner. But that sounds so simple. Or anorexic. Or prejudiced against breakfast and lunch. I am none of these things, dear brothers and sisters! None. I am poor and pretentious: I can’t afford to eat healthy food 3 times a day, but I refuse to eat unhealthy food 3 times a day. So, here I am. Rock you like a hurricane.

This is another in a series of spiritual grilled cheese sandwiches.

–Burn the outside to melt the inside? Well I won’t get laid for that metaphor.

Leaving half of my material possessions on the curb was the first. Glorious lamps, pillows, posters, chairs – locking arms with one another, glaring at me: you can’t do this to us. And then, when a woman stopped her car and picked them up: you’ll regret this, but we won’t. We’re going to the University of Chicago. We’re going to get a bachelor’s degree. Unlike you. All right, they didn’t say all that, they didn’t say anything; the woman picking the stuff up said she was going to give it to her daughter, who was starting at the University of Chicago.

And now tonight, a newcomer in a small community of Christian queers. “Is there anything you want to tell us about yourself?” “The floral arrangements make me uncomfortable. What is that? Burgundy seaweed?” The restless ache that leaves our heart and tries to stay in another’s heart, only to find it full, and trudging back, a bitter homecoming.

There is a truck stop between who we are and who God wants us to be. We can take a shower, and have a meal, and then several years later realize we haven’t gone anywhere.

She's Here

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Spring has swooped down and is sitting in the center of creation. Everyone stands around her, motionless, staring. She is unconcerned with the audience’s attention or unawareness. She’s used to it. I want to ask for her autograph. I want to be just like Spring. Whenever she arrives is right on time. 

Time! Philosophy, religion, these are just two-dimensional, all forced perspective. They seem so far, so sure, so straight. They’re fucking flat, all right? They’re flat.

You, Me – are three-dimensional. We weren’t made in the U.S.A., we’re not crap. We were imported, we’re quality.

And Spring! She’s trying to explain this to us with her presence. Don’t move. But do breathe – you must breathe – oh GOD, I don’t need anything else but Spring’s air. Then there’s a wallop of wind. Hair, skirts, scarves try to fly away, we stop them, they resent us for it.We start walking. Remembering our routines. If only we could forget them.

Theodicy

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God is good.

I rehearse this, in my mind, trying different readings. None of them are believable.

God is sometimes good.

Like a traffic light is sometimes green? How automatic, even arbitrary.

God can be good.

This seems better; after all, if you undercase the first letter and add an “o” in the middle, God can be good.

I have a conflict of interest. I have accepted gifts from God my whole life…an otter keychain (with real fake fur – I found it on the ground somewhere when I was a kid. I put it on my key ring – which at the time was all keychains and no keys – for a long while, at least as long as I refused to wear jeans because they weren’t comfortable), and parents to rejoice in my adoption of this miniature mammal, and enough food to feed him, and a bedside table to put him on, and a bed to fall asleep in as I stared at him, deciding the next day’s adventures.

What about the other ones. The ones who only see the back of God’s head as He’s watching a movie. A movie about their struggle. They try to tap him on the shoulder, but they can’t reach, they try to scream, but their voice is snuffed out. The prisoner who races in pale terror to tell a guard an inmate is trying to rape him, only to hear the vacant response: “just let him. Get it over with.” The young woman held captive by her father, physically, emotionally, sexually abused into believing that he is a godly man.

This is not “the problem of evil,” which makes it sound like something that can be calmed by calculators, or rational conversation. This is just incomprehensible. How can He watch this movie? How could He allow this movie to be made?

I don’t know. So I ask Mindy, a friend who’s done everything, and had everything done to her, and still came to the God conclusion.

“What do you think about God and evil?”

“God and evil?”

“Why does he allow it? How can they co-exist?”

She pauses, then mumbles thoughtfully, “God and evil. All right, let’s get to it.” She looks out the window. “If God…if God stopped people from killing and raping and stealing, then…we’d all be mechanics.”

I look at her. “Mechanical?” I ask.

“Yeah, right. And if he stopped people from killing one another, there’d be overpopulation.”

“Oh.”

“But it’s wicked,” she says, and her remaining teeth put aside their differences and work together to form a smile.

My Kind of Town

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My relationship with Chicago? It’s like Scottie and Judy in Vertigo. I keep trying to make her into New York. She tries too. What else are we going to do on a Friday night?

Now, I am not most people. I am not some people. I am not even those people. I am a person. A person who enjoys the pre- and post- more than the experience itself. Preparation and retrospection, these are the pleasures. So! A night on the Chi-town. I have taken out three potential sweaters and spread them flat on the bed. Which one will make heterosexuals, homosexuals and bisexuals want to get sexual with me? Or want to be me? Coveting is humanity’s only hobby.

The contestants are: a pink one with black French words and squiggles (100% acrylic, which means if I stand next to a heater I’ll start on fire), a green one with huge gray numbers on it (I’ve always said it looks like something a character in a 1992 Spanish textbook illustration would wear – his name would be Amador, don’t you think?), and a striped v-neck looker that belongs in a Patrick Nagel print. I’m not that international tonight, so I pick the third one. Actually I pick the second one until I’m about to leave; then I change into the third one.

It is fuckin’ cold. The weather is a spiteful monk who has decided everyone should be indoors meditating, not outside titillating. I walk the downtown streets, keeping my coat open as long as possible to give optimum exposure to my obscure style.

All dressed up and no one to be.

The more certain I am of God, the less certain I am of myself…a tall ladder leaning against a building, waiting to be used, but grateful for something strong to rely upon. I remember when this started: God squatted down, put his hands on my shoulders, looked in my eyes and said, “I’d like for you to come with me. Would you like that?” I was thinking about nodding when I spotted a box of donuts behind him. After eating them all and throwing up, he asked me again and I said yes that time. But now, two years after, I still tell myself I want the donuts, even though I don’t…I want to know what I am and what I want, and go for it.

I have been walking for an hour and a half, in steel-toe boots (which would be suitable if I was playing kickball with a bowling ball) and a v-neck sweater (my v is numb)…while the cold hunts down my body heat and has its way with it. Why aren’t I in bed, not dreaming about Chicago? 

It’s time to leave. I don’t like this city. It wants to be something it’s not.

Angela

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The door bell rings, and my dogs explode into a cycle of agitation and pompousness: “Who could it be? Jeffrey Dahmer? Billy Graham? Gloria Estefan? Who cares! We love the sound of our own voices!” It is a pitiful yowling hysteria, though they think it a thunderously dignified display. My dogs love the sound of their own voice (like humans), although I suspect if I recorded it and played it back they wouldn’t love it any more (also like humans). ShuddUP! SHUDDUP! I gingerly wade through the furry waves of dog towards the front door and open it.

It’s my cousin Angela. Her sweatshirt, earrings and eyeshadow are all turquoise – a color made for tropical waters and fifth grade girls. Angela is not a fifth grade girl, though sometimes it seems like it. She’s twenty-two, but doesn’t learn at the same speed as others her age. The condition has some repugnantly polite name, nearly as repugnantly polite as calling it a condition. But I prefer to imagine all her blood deciding to stay home, in the heart, and not travel to the head. This is better, really, I believe it makes her a better person. And she’s so beautiful. She’s a beautiful men can’t quite fantasize about, because they’d feel guilty afterward.

When we were young she was the only one with the mad imagination, farcical tendencies and preference for all forms of exaggerated feminity that matched my own. We wanted to be Vera-Ellen in White Christmas (She’s so thin because she’s always dancing. We must always keep dancing.) or Ariel in The Little Mermaid (Ways I Am Like Ariel: 1. Red hair! 2. Female-fish anatomy?) Within two minutes together, our jog pants and T-shirts would be converted to whorish hyperbole, including pink plastic heels and feather boas. Then we’d get out her tea set and promise to be careful with every intention not to be. Cups were filled with water (her mother’s idea) then tipped over/thrown/dropped as quickly as possible, then refilled again. We seemed to fall out of chairs more than we sat in them. We called it “crazy tea party,” adding an unwitting anti-British element to playtime.

This was all before Love blew a spitwad in her eye, which slid down her cheek, impersonating tears in a way that was vicious, not funny. You would think Love would pick a little man to be the pilot of that spitwad. She didn’t. He was tall. Taahll. Tuawwl. In any accent he was tall. A man who was much older than her. That much had a mouth full of years, a potbelly of years, pockets stuffed with years. The years were a dare; a do-it-now-or-you’re-not-alive dare. The years were a functional alcoholic:

  • I can do this.
  • I’m in control.
  • I feel fabulous.
  • I feel fucking fabulous.
  • I’m God.
  • No, I’m David Bowie.

I don’t know if that’s how she felt, but I know that’s how I felt, the first time I met him. Not her former him, my former him. He respected our age difference, respected me, respected himself. Respect is such a good strategy it doesn’t need a strategy. “I’m a lot older than you,” he said. “No you’re not,” I said.

Angela met her former him for coffee the other day, which made her father’s red face get even redder. So red that looking at it makes your heart beat faster, makes you want to eat more vegetables. Why so red, father? Because I’m Italian, and I have high blood pressure, and MY DAUGHTER TRIED TO KILL HERSELF OVER THIS MAN.

She tried to kill herself.

It was fantastically ineffective.

Thank God’s nose hairs, his eyelashes, his toenails for that.

It was phenomenally unsuccessful because of Angela’s boating accident in the birth canal. Her skull was hurt, so the skull took it out on the brain, and the brain took it out on logic. Anyway, when the time had come for trying to kill herself, she opted for drinking laundry detergent. Isn’t she spectacular? If she hadn’ t had that pre-birth business, she would have done something more logical and conclusive – perhaps leaning too far over a ledge…and I do appreciate her picking something outside of social acceptability, not to mention the determination. Her taste buds must have cringed with courteous disgust through the introductions: Oh, hi, Alkyl phenoxy polyethoxy ethanols, It’s nice to meet you, Xylene sulfonate. Ultimately, though, anything’s preferable to lying in front of a lawnmower (“What are you doing?” “Oh hi.” “Yes, hi. Could you move? I don’t want to run over you.” “You know it’s really fine. Just go ahead, you’ve got to get this lawn mowed.” “Your life is more important than grass. Anyway, it’s not that long.” “Well, it is. You almost didn’t see me. You almost didn’t stop.” “Uh, okay. Actually there’s a good twenty feet – were you trying to kill yourself or not?”).

Angela formed a business partnership with prescription medication, and they got through it together, ended up in the black. So she asked her former him to meet her for coffee. He treated her with an unfeeling friendliness, like you would a postal worker. Angela braved the pleasantries. They said goodbye, he indifferently, she intensely. This is how things end, she thought, with nothing at all. She came home to her mother. Her mother, who raised Angela like she was a full bowl of tomato soup being carried across white carpeting, careful, I can do this, carefully.

We do not talk about any of this, standing in the front hallway. My dogs are loving her now, with their tongues, paws, ears, tails. She is smiling at them, and at me, with big eyes that are even brighter than her eyeshadow.

Win, Lose or Don't Care

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“Don’t let the assholes win.”

I am so grateful he was eating a mushroom swiss burger when he said this, rather than salad or baked salmon. Beef always lends an aura of machismo authenticity.¹ Swearing does too, but it should be a special privilege, for it is a delicate poetry, requiring tender handling.²

I was admiring his command of traditional manhood when I realized I didn’t agree with him. I didn’t respond, because entering an argument with a man usually results in me realizing I’m not a man. I may be benefiting or suffering from years of not participating in athletics, but I don’t want to think about anything in terms of winning or losing. If I’m in control, I’m responsible. If God’s in control, He’s responsible. We could introduce pre-destination and free will into the discussion, but let’s not mix liquor and beer.

God’s in control. He’s responsible.

This looks and sounds like faith, but it is only fear doing a good impression (Like Cate Blanchett doing Bob Dylan† in I’m Not There, or Cate Blanchett doing Katharine Hepburn‡ in The Aviator, or Cate Blanchett doing…*). But – have you ever had faith that wasn’t preceded by fear? Aren’t they conjoined? How can you be seated in the certainty of your worldly circumstances and be filled with faith? Something has to be threatened** for you to even think about it. Ideally, difficult times create dependence on God, which is the definition of freedom.

So…the more you lose, the more you win?

 

A NOTE ABOUT THE FOOTNOTES: Since my writing is a manic secretary consumed with multi-tasking, the footnote is an effort to quarantine potentially hazardous thought processes. Should they have been ommitted altogether? Possibly, but do you want to be the one to tell them that?

1. Unless, I suppose, you’re a ravenously carniverous sissy; then the beef is petulant and will not lend its aura.

2. Like gluten-free products: “Keep frozen/refrigerated” “Best when toasted” “Microwaving not recommended” “Ask how it is doing before you eat it” “Do not open around wheat products as this creates an inferiority complex”

† That’s gross!

‡ No, that’s gross.

* Me. Now that’s not gross.

**Have a recession! It’s good for you!

I smoke as often as I clean.

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Tonight I’m doing them at the same time. I’m in the bathroom, which is the only room I ever clean, because the room in which you clean yourself should be clean. I put the ashtray on a shelf above the toilet, next to the smoke alarm. Oh. Must move that, mustn’t we. It’s the only thing in the apartment as dramatic as me – we’re both prone to screeching tantrums; mine are just internal. Usually it keeps quiet in the bathroom, though, because steam is like smoke’s sexy stepmother (second marriage; a trophy wife naturally), gliding into the room in a bathrobe that doesn’t hide she’s one hell of a woman.

What with the all-purpose cleaner (which smells like party punch made of Sprite and bleach), the Captain Black little cigars (“I’ve never seen anyone buy these, there’s dust on the pack” says the Walgreens clerk), and a logic-liquefying lack of sleep, my head is humming like a cell phone on vibrate deep in a woman’s purse _m_m_m_ I turn up Dusty Springfield, and she sings with a sentimental infatuation so sincere it seems like love. 

The bathroom door is closed, the window is open, and it’s at a 90 degree angle from the living room window, which is also open, so I can hear “I Will Always Want You,” “I Wanna Make You Happy,” “I’ll Love You For Awhile,” “Losing You,” and “You Don’t Own Me.” Yes, I am master and mistress…my virginity and sexuality…my loneliness and libido. The iPod battery dies, a temporary disaster, but soon it is resuscitated and I select Dionne Warwick (who unfortunately some only know as Whitney Houston’s aunt, or a spokeswoman for psychic friends network, rather than one of the finest female vocalists ever).

I feel like Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark when she tells Efrem Zimbalist Jr., “Just tell me what you want and that’s what I’ll be. I mean it.” She has such a frantic devotion; it’s so much my relationship with You, God. I’m only required to be Your child, but I’m convinced I have to be Your child star. You’ve given me so much, can I just give it back? I don’t know what to do with it. Show me. Show me.

Half the pack is gone, the bathroom is clean, the album is done.

Light another, start the dishes, play the next album.

Blood Brothers

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We are both named Ben.

“Ben!”

We both respond. People say my name the same way they say his name.

“Ben!”

It’s 3 letters (it’s almost like it should be a part of speech {the, an, a, ben – see? it’s right at home}), there’s no nickname for it (unless you get creative and call one of us “Beh” and the other “En”, but you’re adding a syllable, and it’s a nickname, for goodness’ sake; it’s supposed to be shorter), there’s no possibility of differentiating between us, two people with two eyes and two hands and two feet – God, we have a lot in common, don’t we?

No. We don’t. He’s a sex offender. I’m not.

I think about this, sometimes, when he’s sitting in my car, singing along with Chris Daughtry or talking about his Xbox. I think about him inserting things into his little sister’s little vagina. Was he rough? Did he say anything while he was doing it? Did she? What kind of men will she be attracted to? He did that, and now he can’t go to parties where there will be children and will always struggle to find housing and cannot have internet access in his apartment.

A co-worker once said to me, “imagine you had to write the most hideous thing you’ve ever done on an index card, and every job interview you went to, every apartment lease you signed, you had to hand it to the person and watch them read it. That’s what it feels like to be a sex offender.”

What would I write? I’m sure I’d use up the front side of the index card with excuses and explanations and emotional appeals. Then on the back, in the most modest and firm penmanship, I would write: “I thought my sin was better than someone else’s.”

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."

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I can go back and forth from acting to actually feeling without even paying a toll.

Ter-ri-fy-ing.

But the best acting is realistic, so this might be a good strategy. I act to accommodate others. Altruism is just a philosophical term for people-pleasing. I’m always so concerned about my ratings; is everyone watching. Are they being entertained. I’M DOING IT RIGHT NOW.

If I could go from listening to a favor to a compliment to a thank you card to a – and just never think about me. I’m not selfless, I have a self ThankYouVeryMuch, but it’s in someone else’s safe deposit box. That’s the only place for it. I don’t have anywhere to put it. I make a good pet, unlike jack russell terriers, which are quite crazy even if you feed them, which is unfortunate because after Frasier became such a big hit, everyone went to buy one and then regretted it. But they’re animals, after all, they’re animals, we can’t expect them to act…

My heart is sick. And my mind just looks at him and snickers, “you pussy. go to work. go do something for someone.” He’s right and I hate him for it. I hate them both and I hate myself for letting them live with me. Why did I spend twenty minutes researching pastor gay sex scandals. You can’t keep it together you can’t keep it apart and you’re going to get off and it’s going to get out there and you’ll be gone baby gone or going going gone or going for broke and if you’d Just Get A Grip You’re Not God He Just Gave You A Chance. I will start crying or yawning, whichever happens first.

I can’t be what you want do you understand that? I can’t be what I think you want.

I’m making an appointment with Paige tomorrow. She massagewashes my head with shampoo that smells like tree excrement (it’s superb to the hundredth power) and then cuts my hair one section at a time and is comfortable with long silences and asks me what I’m reading right now.

Pre-Bake

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My gender identity is something like a lump of clay that’s been sitting in a kiln, at a low temperature, for 24 years, gradually hardening (sort-of-pun-sort-of-intended).

I want to be a man.

You do?

I do.

You may kiss yourself.

I like my beard, I like my body, I like my…little boy below the equator. None of it needs to be altered or disguised or subdued. God’s been sending me fan mail. Really sweet stuff. Some of it doesn’t seem like the truth, but it is, and I’m starting to believe it.