Am I the only one?

In my life, I've completed 20 years of education. I've thought a bit here and there about this and that. I've spent some time making lists of all the things in the world I think I might be able to do. And I've revised the lists. I have friends who do interesting things and friends who do other things and a couple friends who do nothing, but they like it. And as we all march on toward the great progress of age and wisdom, I watch a lot of my friends express themselves securely as someone who does what they do. And that's who they are.

But as I march, especially lately, I am finding myself less and less sure about who or what I'm marching for. And I certainly don't call myself what I do. I can't even call myself a marcher, to show that I am at least working toward progress. In fact, I feel more like a wanderer than a marcher.

The things I like to do? I enjoy my coffee in the morning, and my walks with the dog. I like to chat with the homeless folks who hang out on the alley near my work. I like to read the news and ride my bike. I even like to put together ideas sometimes.

The things I don't like? I can't stand long meetings where one or two people put the kabosh on a whole year's worth of planning because they can't figure out their place in the plan. I hate long periods of planning that are abandoned because someone got bored or simply forgot. I really dislike working in the absence of a plan, or a reason supporting the work.

Where does this leave me? I am never going to be what I do, I guess. I will have to be a dogwalking coffee drinker, instead of someone with a better title. And that may be okay, but this city is expensive.

Ring-A-Ling

At this time of year, I prepare myself for my annual eclesiastic adventure. The weird thing is: I don't go to church anymore.

From day one, I popped out to be a Catholic. Everyone in my family, from way up the generational stream, it seems, is Catholic. Or, they all composed themselves in such a manner that, were they not baptized during their infancy, priests probably hunted them down because their guilt and prudence and fertility was such that the Catholic God on the Council of Almighties would not let these sorely deprived fathers rest until their souls were confirmed.

So, the family is Catholic.

I'm not. And, really, I don't think I ever was. As a child, I attended church skeptically. First, I didn't understand what they were trying to get me to believe. As soon as I did, I didn't like it. Sunday mass always incited my greatest rage, and I cultivated my skills at lies and deceit to avoid attendance. Once my parents found the paddle and whacked me one, I took some comfort in the fact that you can always wear patent leather shoes to church.

Once I got to church, I spent most of my time considering the silliness of monotheism. Okay, I didn't call it that. But, I obsessed about my inability to believe fully in what everyone else seemed so willing to repeat. I took to worry. I worried about the position of my hands in prayer, wondering if a Communist God, again, on the Council, might smile upon me for my petulance, send kidnappers with poisoned Twinkies, cover my head in a paper bag and steal me away to Moscow. I could see the Soviet God giggling over his great acquisition, with one finger over the button of course. And, as soon as I collapsed on the pew in fright for my fate, and my absolute certainty in my parent's disinterest in the possibility, I would tempt the other Gods with various hand configurations. With only fingertips touching, I would think, "I am now praying to the God of Asian people." With fingers crossed like kindling and sticks, I would proclaim to the God of the Navajo people. The absolute scariest risk I took was the prayer to the God of Robbers and Aliens, which could only be effective if I twisted my palms outside and linked fingers in a really uncomfortable way, and got my thumbs to touch. I had to hold it. This God, the scariest God, was the God that I believed controlled the worst element in my world-- those who sneak into houses for evil reasons. There was absolutely nothing scarier in my world than aliens and home invasion robbers.

There is absolutely nothing scarier in my world now, either.

And now, it's Christmas. Last year, I officially stated to my mother and sister that I would never again attend Christmas Mass, unless I decided that I would, but certainly not that year. My mom was cool. My sister was bummed, but also cool. She tried to remind me of tradition, and I tried to remind her that tradition kind of freaked me out. No one else cared. My partner was elated. This year, I hold to that commitment. I am so relieved that I don't have to work up the nerve to state all the reasons, preoccupations and misgivings deterring me from established religions, and I don't have to lie. Anyone who knows me knows that I couldn't possibly believe in only one thing. And, they also know that I really don't like to lie.

Feliz Navidad Goofballs.

Assault

I have counseled victims of crime that they are supposed to talk about their experience in order to shed the fear that lingers after the event. To that end, here I go.

On Friday morning, I walked to get coffee at 11am. I walked on the sunny side of the street to warm my face. I was two blocks from my work and one block from coffee when I saw a group of 6 kids walking toward me. They had the whole sidewalk. I wondered for a moment why they weren't in school because none of them could be older than 17. And then I stopped thinking about them and kept on walking. As we approached each other, I moved to my right. They did too. All of them. I slowed down, and they did too. All of them. And then they surrounded me.

All six of them pressed up against me and one kid pinned my arm to a wall. Three boys were putting their faces into my face, and pushing against me. One kid backed away and told the others to stop. He said, "Quit it; you're harrassing her." Two more backed off, but the three closest to me stayed where they were.

I said, "Excuse me." Then I said, "Okay, enough." Then I said, "Stop it." Only two boys remained, but they wouldn't let me go. Finally, one of them pulled the kid who had my arm away, but he wouldn't leave. He held on to me and kept asking me to let him talk to me. "I just want to talk to you, baby," he said.

It was so irrational, and there is no reason for me to be scared of this happening ever again. But it was also so irrational that I don't know how I can't worry about what happened happening again. The boys surrounded me en masse. I know they didn't plan it, but they all reacted like a swarm does, mindlessly and powerful because of the absence of reason. There is no way to predict the direction a flock of pigeons might take when they all leave the ground at the same time. And there was no way for me to avoid walking into the path of these boys who pinned me to a wall on Folsom Street for no reason.

When I got my arm free and moved on, I didn't look back. I thought, "I just got assaulted by a bunch of kids." And then I stopped thinking about it until another group of people came into view on the sidewalk. Suddenly, I didn't want to pass them and I didn't want them to pass me.

I spent most of the weekend thinking that I would prefer to work in a field where I wasn't trying to help kids like that. But I do. I thought that I would prefer to say it was senseless and no big deal because I wasn't hurt and there's no harm done. If I didn't do the work that I do, at least I couldn't think that this must be the universe telling me that my direction is wrong, or that I am unwanted in my profession, or that my efforts are pointless because there is no changing the fact that senseless acts are frightening. But I thought, and continue to think all that.

I am not scared, but I am so sad that those boys had to take my security away for a moment.

Internet Dating for Married People

Um, okay, we got drunk and perused the listings on craigslist with a friend who is not married. She thought it might be fun to find someone who could be interesting and attentive and worthwhile. We thought it would be good for her to snag a man with all those qualities, and maybe more. She was drunk the first time she looked, and she only found one posting that seemed moderate. I never saw the posting, so I can't elaborate. But I am told it was free of photos of genitalia. That alone set the man apart and above all other offerings.

After some correspondence, our friend gained access to additional information. The correspondent offered pictures of himself in drag and a link to his personal website. Although I'm tempted to link here, I won't, because I just can't out people like that. Although I could. But I won't. Maybe later. And only if my friend says it's okay. And I think she will because their brief internet conversation has ended as of today.

Regarding the website: I uttered three words upon my initial introduction to it. Hmm. Wow. Really? I didn't use any enthusiastic punctuation in my speech either. Here was a man who knew how to tuck and roll. I wondered if this explained the absence of penis pictures. Maybe it was stuck way up high in the crack, inaccessible after too many bouts of binding.

There were other pictures too. Other women all dressed up like they were in drag too. Nothing natural or beautiful, to my aesthetic. It all looked like super-goth glamorama at burning man to me.

I suppose we all have our interests, idiosyncracies, reasons for existence. I told my friend, "well, it could be fun to hang with him." And I meant it. He was a heterosexual man with a few self-proclaimed talents that not everyone can own. He can apply false lashes, slide on fishnets without ripping them, and pose unabashedly spread eagle on linoleum floors for his own camera. I admit that I can't do any of that.

As it turned out, he was kind of funny. But it all petered out in the end. He started to talk about the color of his pubic hair, without invitation. When my friend decided to ditch him, he wrote back: "I am obviously decent; otherwise, why would all those naked women pose for me?" She didn't write back.

Over the Weekend

I had one of those noise-making, confetti-tossing, drink-slurping and smoke-smoking weekends. It was long. I ended up exhausted. By Sunday, when I couldn't sleep in because I felt dizzy and achy and anxious that someone would show up with another bottle of something or other, I was grumpy. As it turned out, we were invited to brunch.

The cab took us to Union Square, but the restaurant was not there. Not even close. I closed my eyes and took a call from my mother while the cab honked uselessly at stopped cars ahead. As I talked to my mother, I noticed the volume on the radio creeping higher and higher, until I could hear the 49ers and the Raiders-- the driver flipped back and forth-- more clearly than my worrying mom.

No drinks at brunch, but the talk wandered to sex, as it does when tablemates are not actually mating. I learned about a sex club and before I could ask enough questions to satisfy my prurient interest, the conversation turned to our next proposed outing. The table had conferred as I had let my mind wander, and suddenly, we were scheduled for a romp, or at least some romp observation, at a sex club.

Brunch ended nicely, with pleasantries and promises to discuss appropriate outfits. I said I would do laundry, and I got laughs for it. I meant, I would do laundry that afternoon, but I suppose I would rather be clean than stinky at a sex club too. Except that I had and have no intention of going.

Don't Pick

This is a cautionary shout out to all my peeps out there who chew, pick and otherwise mangle and mutilate the digits and nails of hands and feet. Don't do it. Don't nibble, bite, tear, rip. Leave your fingers and toes alone. Sound the alarm if you find your fingers crossed and inching toward an obsessive poke or pull of dead skin left dangling from a torn cuticle. Slap at your own hands. Sit on them. But don't pick.

I watched a train full of grown-ups picking and pulling and tasting and gnarling the tips of fingers this morning. As I watched, I counted. There was a grey-hair in an argyle sweater who kept his pointer trapped between his uppers and lowers. Do dentures have decent grip? He worked on it from Castro to Van Ness, when I stepped off the car. A woman with a weave and long nails sucked alternately on her ring finger and thumb, maybe cleaning the underside of her long nails or enjoying the rigid nail cave's feel on a cankersore? I took my own hands off the shiny aluminum bar and focused on balancing while I watched all these spitty fingers enter and re-enter mouths. I put my hands in my pockets and leaned heavily against the door until I could get off the train, climb the stairs without use of the banister, ascend the escalator with hands still stuck in the lint of my old rain coat, and get to work where I washed my hands, inspected my fingernails and got to work.

Don't pick. It's not healthy.

Accepting Candy from Strangers

We both carved pumpkins and lit candles inside them. I looped garlands of plastic spiders and rats through the banister and along the eaves of our front porch. I sprinkled our slate steps with creepy crawlies, purchased twenty bucks worth of candy and grabbed a beer. We considered playing music out the window, but the night was fairly still and crisp. The sound of children shreiking from house to house was sharper in the silence.

We waited on our porch with buckets of candy. And we waited.

We waited as we watched kids climbed stairs of neighboring houses, collected their bounty, and skipped past our house, parents in tow, to the house next door. What? We shook our pumpkin buckets of candy. We stood up and sat down. We walked down the steps to see the house from the sidewalk, confirm that it was well-lit, and walked back up, avoiding the plastic centipedes and skulls, to sit on the porch.

And we waited. Kids approached, considered and veered away. We had only four trick-or treaters demand candy, but many others who didn't even ask. I started to wonder, even if we are eager, and even if they don't know us, and we are strangers, isn't Halloween the night when we, as American children, bravely cast aside our fears to get the candy, no matter what the cost? When I was little, candy may have been laced with razor blades, arsenic, codeine, rat poison. But still, we went to every house, light or dark, and we begged for whatever they might give us because something was better than nothing. And if it was nothing, we could toilet paper the house later.

We ended up with two full buckets of Halloween candy that I didn't want to eat. We left the house and walked to the Castro with our dog. The seven policemen at the barricade told us that no dogs would be permitted inside the militarized zone, an area otherwise known as the Castro Halloween Party. It was also quiet, but eerily so. Two hundred thousand people corralled into the street, shoulder to shoulder, were making little noise because there was no music or entertainment to outdo. We tried to hand out candy to partygoers, half of whom accepted eagerly, the other half unwilling to accept candy from strangers.

Later, we learned that 10 kids between the ages of 15 and 25 had been shot after a minor altercation started. I thought about these kids, and wondered if they would have taken our candy with a smile like some people did, or whether they would have passed it up. I wondered if we could have just gotten to them, and given them the entire bucket of candy, whether maybe things could have been different. Maybe they could have just tossed leftover candy at each other instead of aiming and shooting bullets at others' heads. That's what we would have done, or, I guess, would still do. What a shame.