This week I have been working at a desk made of buffet tables. You know them as folding tables, used for multiple purposes, but I know them as feeding platforms during weddings, funerals, Christmas dinner and graduations. I was raised in a house full of them, always lining our walls like paintings during the mass-eating off seasons. And now that I am back to working in a career that is built for portable tables and limitless sugar and crispy salt chips of varying degree of spiciness, I have been hyper aware of my former life.
There was a time in a former life when I worked at a Buffet table as a TV producer, because on set they're the cheapest and most mobile way to set up a workstation...but in this case it really did hold a buffet. I'd get to the set of a show, Dog Eat Dog or Weakest Link or Meet My Folks, sit down and start making calls.
"Can she bring 13 stuffed penguin costumes," I'd ask in between bites of a rainbow-sprinkles glazed doughnut, "And can one of them be Salmon colored?"
An hour later, with a box of animal crackers next to me and my friend Erica, a chubby girl who wore tons of makeup, I'd promise myself only five more cookies, times five. That's twenty-five cookies over a conversation about petty cash. "Should we pay the Black Cheerleaders From Compton cash or have production cut them a check?"
"You can't call them that, it's racist." Erica said.
"No, we are using the Latino Cheerleaders From Compton in episode 104. I want that to be clear."
"Well, if you give them cash, they'll assume it's because you think they don't have checking accounts, so no."
"I don't care about that right now," I'd yell. "I have to make sure the script that we're making the Mom say during the elimination vote doesn't sound too hoity-toity." By then my Pizza had arrived. I liked Round Table Pizza's Meat Lovers Marvel. "There's too many 'However's' in this script. "
"You have Cheese in your hair, Sean."
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Writing that trails off
I am an Atheist, I think. And most days I feel guilty for that because I know how disappointing that must be for my grandmother, who is dead, and is probably looking down from heaven shaking her head that I don't recognize her seat next to Big White God. But she's probably also shaking her head at how much technology has progressed in the last 10 years since she died--that I can write about her and that people in Turkey and the United States Armed Forces in Germany can read about it, and that most of them are gay guys and straight girls who are dieting in some way.
My grandmother was big on praying with me, and though I never believed in God, the nightly ritual of hanging out in a dark room kindly talking to ghosts and asking them to take care of each individual human, pet, and He-Man toy I ever knew was a practice that I liked almost as much as hula-hooping to the Footloose soundtrack. My grandma taught me kindness, and mercy, and connection, and gratitude. She knew at as Jesus. I knew it as...well, I knew it as her.
In 1998, about three months after my 350 pound grandpa died of a stroke waiting for Grandma Ginnie to finish preparing his turkey sandwich with extra cheese and iceberg salad for dinner (also with cheese), my grandma got the news that she had terminal pancreatic cancer and would die within six months. Boo! I went back to college about a month later, but Grandma Ginnie moved in with Mom and Dad right away, and I got to spend a few weeks with her during the initial weeks of her diagnosis.
I had no mercy, no kindness, no compassion. Just anger and fear about why shitty things happen to good people. I didn't want to hug her. I didn't want to acknowledge what was happening. She got itchy from the infections in her digestive system caused by the cancer. She turned yellow. I made a lot of jokes about nothing, to anyone who'd listen. If there had been Facebook or Twitter then I would have posted an update every 6 seconds, from a cellular phone the size of a giraffes neck, just to avoid dealing.
I worked at a restaurant then that served gourmet pizzas. I ate a lot. I used to steal sausage and go sit on my spot on the top of Lexington Hills and pop cold pork balls in my mouth watching the moon--anything to not be in cancer house. I didn't know how to fix it and I felt like a failure, and I was afraid of being caught for being that big failure.
It wasn't until we weren't in the same room anymore that I was able to get to know my grandmother again and deal with what death really is. Back at college, I called her every couple of days and we'd talk until she was in too much pain to talk, sometimes 15 minutes, sometimes an hour. I learned about our history. I understood how she felt going through the end of her life. I saw what grace really is, in knowing it's almost over, and remaining positive.
On the day Grandma died I was in Nashville at school, and it was in September--the 21st I believe. My Dad put the phone to her ear. I spoke to her and listened to her breathe, unable to respond to me as I begged her to stay tough. That night she died, and Dad called to tell me that my last grandparent was gone, and I suddenly felt very alone--because I had no one to make-believe pray with.
I pretended she was still alive, though. I prayed every night, just to her. I talked to her on the street when I was alone. She helped me through finals by encouraging me to cheat off of my neighbors macroeconomics test.
I've gone off the path here from what inspired this message. On Christmas Eve that year, my Dad walked over with an envelope after I'd opened all my gifts. It was from my grandma, who knew she wouldn't be around, but wanted us to have something to open from her on Christmas.
The outside of the envelope had my name, and it was my grandma's writing. Instantly, she was alive. She had never died. She was just hiding in the other room like a new bicycle when I was five-years-old. I opened the envelope, and there was a check from her that had been filled out half-way by her, half way by my dad because she didn't have the strength to finish writing out her fucking checks. That's how sick she was. Then it was real. She was gone, and she would never be back--and this check and her writing that trailed off proved it.
And sometimes, even though you know it's over, or dead, or lost, you have a dream once in a while that it's still there. Or you see a picture that makes you wonder how it ever could have stopped, because you were so happy there on the Staten Island Ferry. And now you need proof to remind you that there came a point that it all stopped working properly, or broke, or burned into gaseous air that made it impossible to ever recover, and though the half-written check was the saddest thing I've ever seen, it's what let me let go and move on.
I thought about never cashing that check and saving the last shred of Grandma I had left.
Instead I used it to pay for the books in Microeconomics so I could graduate and make things better.
My grandmother was big on praying with me, and though I never believed in God, the nightly ritual of hanging out in a dark room kindly talking to ghosts and asking them to take care of each individual human, pet, and He-Man toy I ever knew was a practice that I liked almost as much as hula-hooping to the Footloose soundtrack. My grandma taught me kindness, and mercy, and connection, and gratitude. She knew at as Jesus. I knew it as...well, I knew it as her.
In 1998, about three months after my 350 pound grandpa died of a stroke waiting for Grandma Ginnie to finish preparing his turkey sandwich with extra cheese and iceberg salad for dinner (also with cheese), my grandma got the news that she had terminal pancreatic cancer and would die within six months. Boo! I went back to college about a month later, but Grandma Ginnie moved in with Mom and Dad right away, and I got to spend a few weeks with her during the initial weeks of her diagnosis.
I had no mercy, no kindness, no compassion. Just anger and fear about why shitty things happen to good people. I didn't want to hug her. I didn't want to acknowledge what was happening. She got itchy from the infections in her digestive system caused by the cancer. She turned yellow. I made a lot of jokes about nothing, to anyone who'd listen. If there had been Facebook or Twitter then I would have posted an update every 6 seconds, from a cellular phone the size of a giraffes neck, just to avoid dealing.
I worked at a restaurant then that served gourmet pizzas. I ate a lot. I used to steal sausage and go sit on my spot on the top of Lexington Hills and pop cold pork balls in my mouth watching the moon--anything to not be in cancer house. I didn't know how to fix it and I felt like a failure, and I was afraid of being caught for being that big failure.
It wasn't until we weren't in the same room anymore that I was able to get to know my grandmother again and deal with what death really is. Back at college, I called her every couple of days and we'd talk until she was in too much pain to talk, sometimes 15 minutes, sometimes an hour. I learned about our history. I understood how she felt going through the end of her life. I saw what grace really is, in knowing it's almost over, and remaining positive.
On the day Grandma died I was in Nashville at school, and it was in September--the 21st I believe. My Dad put the phone to her ear. I spoke to her and listened to her breathe, unable to respond to me as I begged her to stay tough. That night she died, and Dad called to tell me that my last grandparent was gone, and I suddenly felt very alone--because I had no one to make-believe pray with.
I pretended she was still alive, though. I prayed every night, just to her. I talked to her on the street when I was alone. She helped me through finals by encouraging me to cheat off of my neighbors macroeconomics test.
I've gone off the path here from what inspired this message. On Christmas Eve that year, my Dad walked over with an envelope after I'd opened all my gifts. It was from my grandma, who knew she wouldn't be around, but wanted us to have something to open from her on Christmas.
The outside of the envelope had my name, and it was my grandma's writing. Instantly, she was alive. She had never died. She was just hiding in the other room like a new bicycle when I was five-years-old. I opened the envelope, and there was a check from her that had been filled out half-way by her, half way by my dad because she didn't have the strength to finish writing out her fucking checks. That's how sick she was. Then it was real. She was gone, and she would never be back--and this check and her writing that trailed off proved it.
And sometimes, even though you know it's over, or dead, or lost, you have a dream once in a while that it's still there. Or you see a picture that makes you wonder how it ever could have stopped, because you were so happy there on the Staten Island Ferry. And now you need proof to remind you that there came a point that it all stopped working properly, or broke, or burned into gaseous air that made it impossible to ever recover, and though the half-written check was the saddest thing I've ever seen, it's what let me let go and move on.
I thought about never cashing that check and saving the last shred of Grandma I had left.
Instead I used it to pay for the books in Microeconomics so I could graduate and make things better.
Monday, October 19, 2009
My New Kindle...
I got one for my birthday! I'm such a European Yuppie! I want your recommendations. Funny memoirs, fast-paced fiction. Strong women characters, multi-dimensional gays move to the front of the line!
31
That I would be good even if I did nothing
That I would be good even if I got the thumbs down
That I would be good if I got and stayed sick
That I would be good even if I gained ten pounds
That I would be fine even even if I went bankrupt
That I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth
That I would be great if I was no longer queen
That I would be grand if I was not all knowing
That I would be loved even when I numb myself
That I would be good even when I am overwhelmed
That I would be loved even when I was fuming
That I would be good even if I was clingy
That I would be good even if I lost sanity
That I would be good
Whether with or without you
That I would be good even if I got the thumbs down
That I would be good if I got and stayed sick
That I would be good even if I gained ten pounds
That I would be fine even even if I went bankrupt
That I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth
That I would be great if I was no longer queen
That I would be grand if I was not all knowing
That I would be loved even when I numb myself
That I would be good even when I am overwhelmed
That I would be loved even when I was fuming
That I would be good even if I was clingy
That I would be good even if I lost sanity
That I would be good
Whether with or without you
Friday, October 16, 2009
I Was Never, Ever Good Enough For Him Part 2
This is Part 2. Part 1 is here.
His name is Josh or John. I can't hear and his breath is so nasty that I don't want to ask him to repeat ANYTHING for clarity. We dance. I have 6 moves.
Crayyyy-zzzzzyyyy.
He's entranced by me. He's paying attention to me. The boys in junior high gym class never did. I am winning. Finally, someone is paying attention. Fuck, yeah they are! I'm 172 pounds and wearing stretchy pink fabric.
I got that sump-in what can he do?
I'm smiling. I'm drunk. I'm dancing. He leans in to kiss me with that moldy cheesebreath. His Jew-ish nose hits mine and I back away. I'll make out with him, sure. Fine. I'm only a week from having been a fucking child-abused heifer with a Skinemax addiction. I just need a second to fantasize about someone else, like Harrison Ford circa Empire Strikes Back or William Katt from Greatest American Hero. Then I can make out with anyone, maybe even a girl.
He squints his eyes and frowns noticing my pause. "You don't want to kiss me," he asks. "Really?"
"Huh?" I say, guilty, embarassed, guilty again. "No, I like you." I say. I lie.
I'm a SLAAAAAAAVVVE For You.
He grabs me my by stomach. Uh, what happens now. This is weird. Should I laugh? He looks like a vulture now. Angry, but smiling, about to eat a dead snake. There are fat deposits and loose skin from my weight loss that have not gone away. He feels them. I feel him feeling it. I cringe.
"I wouldn't wear a form fitting shirt to a club with a body like this."he says as he squeezes the rolls of my past.
"I just lost 100 pounds, so there's a little..."
"Dude, you are so out of my league anyway." He lifts up my shirt and flaps at my skin on the dance floor, and shakes his head. Gaysians everywhere look at me. I feel myself cry and I hope, like a rape victim that he'll feel bad and let go of me, and walk away, and find someone tougher than me. Tears and hiccups fill my face. It's probably because I'm drunk. It's probably because I'm guilty. I resisted someones affection. I leave, and I drive home to Sacramento, across the bay bridge totally drunk and defeated. It's the most unsafe thing I've ever done, allowing a boy to define my worth by comparing it to his own.
Jew-ish John/Josh lives in LA now. I see him sometimes at the grocery store and the gym and even at a bar once in a while. But mostly, I see him in the mirror, everyday since that night six years ago. And when I see him I don't think about his cheesebreath, I think about how he told me the truth about where I fit in the single world, the gay world, in his drunken, "how-dare-you-not-fuck-me" world, and I scramble to find some way to make everyone love me so that I can prove him wrong.
Yesterday I saw him at Trader Joes. I panicked. Is my shirt loose enough? Do I look fat? Can he tell I just went through a horrendous break up? Do I look like the used goods that I feel like? Am I just a walking fucking Lifetime movie or worse, am I Ruby? Do I look like RUBY? He cruised me and then asked me if he knew me from somewhere. I lied and said I didn't know. We chatted for a few minutes and laughed about croutons (I can make anyone laugh about carbs). Then he asked if he could have my number.
It would be so nice to right this wrong, to show him that I'm great--better, skinnier, more toned then that night at Badlands. That after my break-up I have a certain Whitney quality about me, that I'm fresh, that I'll slap you on the head with a cell phone if you spit on me. I would be so nice to feel sexy again, to feel like someone wanted me and just me and my jokes and my face and my calves, you know, the good parts. But it would also be nice to stop chasing the man that I was never, ever good enough for--and who smelled like moldy cow.
I smiled and said, "That's really nice. But, no thanks."
He didn't yell at me. I paid. I got in the elevator, and I heard the end of the megamix.
My loneliness ain't killin' me no more.
His name is Josh or John. I can't hear and his breath is so nasty that I don't want to ask him to repeat ANYTHING for clarity. We dance. I have 6 moves.
Crayyyy-zzzzzyyyy.
He's entranced by me. He's paying attention to me. The boys in junior high gym class never did. I am winning. Finally, someone is paying attention. Fuck, yeah they are! I'm 172 pounds and wearing stretchy pink fabric.
I got that sump-in what can he do?
I'm smiling. I'm drunk. I'm dancing. He leans in to kiss me with that moldy cheesebreath. His Jew-ish nose hits mine and I back away. I'll make out with him, sure. Fine. I'm only a week from having been a fucking child-abused heifer with a Skinemax addiction. I just need a second to fantasize about someone else, like Harrison Ford circa Empire Strikes Back or William Katt from Greatest American Hero. Then I can make out with anyone, maybe even a girl.
He squints his eyes and frowns noticing my pause. "You don't want to kiss me," he asks. "Really?"
"Huh?" I say, guilty, embarassed, guilty again. "No, I like you." I say. I lie.
I'm a SLAAAAAAAVVVE For You.
He grabs me my by stomach. Uh, what happens now. This is weird. Should I laugh? He looks like a vulture now. Angry, but smiling, about to eat a dead snake. There are fat deposits and loose skin from my weight loss that have not gone away. He feels them. I feel him feeling it. I cringe.
"I wouldn't wear a form fitting shirt to a club with a body like this."he says as he squeezes the rolls of my past.
"I just lost 100 pounds, so there's a little..."
"Dude, you are so out of my league anyway." He lifts up my shirt and flaps at my skin on the dance floor, and shakes his head. Gaysians everywhere look at me. I feel myself cry and I hope, like a rape victim that he'll feel bad and let go of me, and walk away, and find someone tougher than me. Tears and hiccups fill my face. It's probably because I'm drunk. It's probably because I'm guilty. I resisted someones affection. I leave, and I drive home to Sacramento, across the bay bridge totally drunk and defeated. It's the most unsafe thing I've ever done, allowing a boy to define my worth by comparing it to his own.
Jew-ish John/Josh lives in LA now. I see him sometimes at the grocery store and the gym and even at a bar once in a while. But mostly, I see him in the mirror, everyday since that night six years ago. And when I see him I don't think about his cheesebreath, I think about how he told me the truth about where I fit in the single world, the gay world, in his drunken, "how-dare-you-not-fuck-me" world, and I scramble to find some way to make everyone love me so that I can prove him wrong.
Yesterday I saw him at Trader Joes. I panicked. Is my shirt loose enough? Do I look fat? Can he tell I just went through a horrendous break up? Do I look like the used goods that I feel like? Am I just a walking fucking Lifetime movie or worse, am I Ruby? Do I look like RUBY? He cruised me and then asked me if he knew me from somewhere. I lied and said I didn't know. We chatted for a few minutes and laughed about croutons (I can make anyone laugh about carbs). Then he asked if he could have my number.
It would be so nice to right this wrong, to show him that I'm great--better, skinnier, more toned then that night at Badlands. That after my break-up I have a certain Whitney quality about me, that I'm fresh, that I'll slap you on the head with a cell phone if you spit on me. I would be so nice to feel sexy again, to feel like someone wanted me and just me and my jokes and my face and my calves, you know, the good parts. But it would also be nice to stop chasing the man that I was never, ever good enough for--and who smelled like moldy cow.
I smiled and said, "That's really nice. But, no thanks."
He didn't yell at me. I paid. I got in the elevator, and I heard the end of the megamix.
My loneliness ain't killin' me no more.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
I Was Never, Ever Good Enough For Him Part 1
I have officially reached my goal of losing 100 pounds, come out to my parents, given my first blow job and tonight I made my first dollar, 50 of them, actually as a comedian. And it is Tuesday, and the previous events have happened in the previous 10 days. It is December 16, 2003, I think, but I am drunk. It's the first time I've over-drank in 13 months,unless you count last Friday when I went to a hotel with a deaf Abercrombie and Fitch model visiting from San Diego and gave toothy head at the Holiday Inn Express Downtown Sacramento.
I learned quickly what Sign Language is for "Ouch!" It actually involves a smack on the head, and a drooly vocal rendition of the word, um, "OUCH!"
I am pulling into a parking space in San Francisco's hilly, flaming Castro District after being the MC at the San Jose Improv's private corporate Christmas party for Starbucks. On the car ride up to San Francisco, from San Jose, which was a drive from Sacramento earlier, I think about my set. I opened the show by asking a woman in the front row if she knew what it meant that I have a size 14 shoe. She smiled and looked away, then I put my crotch in her face and said it meant that I was gay. It was a weird bit, I admit. But I got paid. And that money is going to buy my drinks at this bar called Badlands. And I am going to look hot in this pink shirt, newly thin, and newly out. I hear music in the club as I show my ID.
Outrageous
(My sexy body)
Outrageous
(We On A World Tour)
I am so this song. I buy two drinks and scan the room over and over and over. Is anyone looking at me? I'm a working comic. Does anyone recognize me? Does my ass look hot? Can they all tell I'm a virgin, a 25 year old anal sex virgin? OMG. Is this the Megamix?
Tock, Tock, Toxic.
Oh, It is.
Vodka Soda. Vodka Cranberry. Sprite and Rum. $3 left. 1 Beer.
Done.
Dance.
My lon-li-ness is kill-in me.
I'm grabbed from behind. This could be hot. . Eh, not really my type. Big nose. Beady eyes. White. Skinny. Jew-ish. Not Jewish. Jew-ish. He asks me my name. "Steve," I say. Huh? Did I just lie about my name?
His breath smells like Blue Cheese Dressing. It's after midnight, so that's just unacceptable. What is he a Gremlin? But who am I to be picky? He'll be my second ever out-gay hook-up. You gotta build up!
I learned quickly what Sign Language is for "Ouch!" It actually involves a smack on the head, and a drooly vocal rendition of the word, um, "OUCH!"
I am pulling into a parking space in San Francisco's hilly, flaming Castro District after being the MC at the San Jose Improv's private corporate Christmas party for Starbucks. On the car ride up to San Francisco, from San Jose, which was a drive from Sacramento earlier, I think about my set. I opened the show by asking a woman in the front row if she knew what it meant that I have a size 14 shoe. She smiled and looked away, then I put my crotch in her face and said it meant that I was gay. It was a weird bit, I admit. But I got paid. And that money is going to buy my drinks at this bar called Badlands. And I am going to look hot in this pink shirt, newly thin, and newly out. I hear music in the club as I show my ID.
Outrageous
(My sexy body)
Outrageous
(We On A World Tour)
I am so this song. I buy two drinks and scan the room over and over and over. Is anyone looking at me? I'm a working comic. Does anyone recognize me? Does my ass look hot? Can they all tell I'm a virgin, a 25 year old anal sex virgin? OMG. Is this the Megamix?
Tock, Tock, Toxic.
Oh, It is.
Vodka Soda. Vodka Cranberry. Sprite and Rum. $3 left. 1 Beer.
Done.
Dance.
My lon-li-ness is kill-in me.
I'm grabbed from behind. This could be hot. . Eh, not really my type. Big nose. Beady eyes. White. Skinny. Jew-ish. Not Jewish. Jew-ish. He asks me my name. "Steve," I say. Huh? Did I just lie about my name?
His breath smells like Blue Cheese Dressing. It's after midnight, so that's just unacceptable. What is he a Gremlin? But who am I to be picky? He'll be my second ever out-gay hook-up. You gotta build up!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
I Promise You...
...A new post this week. Thanks for the kind emails over the last few weeks asking for more. I feel very loved, lucky, and excited to turn the big 3-1!
XOXO,
Sean
XOXO,
Sean
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