Time Fries! (2 page)

October 2010

O
LDER
, W
ISER AND
C
LIMBING
E
VERY
M
OUNTAIN

I do not feel old. But apparently I am.

The other day I went to buy tickets for the RB Film Fest. It's one of my favorite days of the year, standing in line with the regulars outside the Film Society office on the first day of sales. I get to see people I haven't seen in 365 days, picking up conversations like it was yesterday. This year, the society staff handed out numbers to us early birds and put out a bunch of chairs.

So there I am, walking up to the throng, and a woman seated in one of the chairs looks in my direction and asks, “Do you need a seat?”

I looked behind me to see who she was talking to. I was alone.

Okay, the woman may have been a few years, or perhaps decades younger than me, but did I really look like I couldn't loiter upright for a half hour? Hell, I once stood in line for eleven hours for Billy Joel tickets. The operative word is probably “once,” as in “upon a time.” Crap.

Later, the UPS truck pulled up with a package from Bonnie's doctor. It was an inflatable device to be used in the bedroom. Now before you start gagging and hollering TMI, listen to this: it's a blow-up wedgie for the head of the bed to help with digestion. That's right, an anti-Reflux device.

To be clear, I only have reflux in two situations—first, drinking a Mimosa. It's not the bubbly, it's the acidic juice. So now I just have straight champagne, no problem. The only other time I get reflux is when I see Karl Rove on TV, and who doesn't?

However, my mate does suffer from the occasional bad night caused by food and beverage. Hence, instead of putting unsightly phone books under the legs at the head of the bed, we've installed an unsightly inflatable airplane chute.

I'd like to say that the last time I inflated something at bedtime it was a blow-up doll, but I was never that naughty. Now, we pump up the wedgie to raise the head of the mattress and try, just try to get into bed. With half the length of the bed propped up by a beach ball, you have to be a gymnast to get into the sack. The first time we tried, it was like high jumping onto a waterbed. Then we had to figure out how to sleep sitting up and laughing.

But that was easy compared to what happened when I got out of bed to turn off the hall light. Bonnie, remaining somewhat prone, saw her side of the wedgie mattress suddenly deflate, while my side shot up like Space Mountain. I'd have to pole vault to get back in. I suggested that my spouse roll to the middle to give me a fighting chance. A rope and mountain climbing crampons might have helped, but I finally hoisted myself back aboard.

Unfortunately, the incident repeated itself when Bonnie got up to pee at 3 a.m. With no warning at all, my side of the bed went limp and a Schnauzer rolled off, followed closely by most of me. It would have been all of me but I grabbed the headboard and hauled myself back up Pike's Peak. Doing chin-ups on the headboard is not my idea of bedtime relaxation. Okay, so there will be no more “now I lay me down to sleep at our house.” It's like spending the night on K2.

My being a mountain goat aside, I refuse to believe I'm actually as old as it says on my driver's license. I mean Bonnie complains that I still have more energy than the Washington Redskins. Although I don't think she's referring to how well they run the ball, but how well I run my mouth.

Even so, there are insidious reminders of my biological age cropping up everywhere. Today in Walmart I didn't recognize any of the singers on the CDs labeled just released, but I found Simon and Garfunkel dumped in the bargain bin. Then I saw that most of the stuff in my shopping cart said “for speedy relief.” Would I remember where my car was in the parking lot? Would
|I drive home with my left turn signal blinking the entire way? Could this really be happening to me?

Well, the answer is yes. And no. While it's sad but true that in an antique store the other day I heard myself say “I remember these,” I maintain that I am not your typical aging boomer.

I dressed up for Halloween, I do not eat dinner at 4 p.m. (okay, there is the sushi happy hour where you have to order by 6 p.m.), and nobody has to worry about calling my house at 9 p.m. and asking “did I wake you?”

Also on the plus side, the criminal amount I've paid in health insurance is my only investment that's starting to pay off. The other day a comic said old people have it pretty good–in a hostage situation we're most likely to be released first. That's comforting.

But the real trick is having the best of both worlds. I may be retired from 9-5, but I'm working harder than ever as a full-time writer and publisher—and loving it. It also doesn't hurt going to the mailbox once a month and getting a government check.

But the trick to navigating this getting older thing is knowing exactly when to cave. Recently, a great big truck backed into my driveway (shameless plug alert!) and delivered thousands of copies of my book,
For Frying Out Loud—Rehoboth Beach Diaries
. In preparation, using age and experience to advantage, I contracted with several strapping young women to move cartons around while I stood and watched. I even sat in a beach chair to ogle. Although, I repeat, nobody needs to get up to give me a seat on the subway or anywhere else. Ask, and I'll slap you.

I'm off to grab a Sherpa guide Schnauzer and scale Mount Kilimanjaro on the way to bed. “Hey, Bon, roll to the middle.”

February 2011

T
HE
B
OOK
F
AIR
T
HAT
G
OT
M
Y
G
OAT

With my book publishing business I can go from sublime to ridiculous in a flash.

Since my three books all started as columns, I feel like I'm talking to family when I report how things are going. And they are going great. The reception I've gotten here at home for the new book has been wonderful. Books are flying out of my garage warehouse from sales, both online and in line at local bookstore signings. I'm humbled and happy.

But possibly to ensure that my head doesn't bloat I have been treated to some matchless experiences hawking the books—and a book tour, however delightful New York, Chicago, or P-Town can be, has its ups and downs.

Literally. I've traipsed up and down creaky staircases lugging cartons of books until I've actually screamed “for frying out loud!” And I've survived readings for just a handful of hardy audience members, filled out, fortunately by my own blood relatives.

And all the travel isn't exactly glamorous. Thank goodness for GPS when I found myself careening through the narrow streets of Staten Island, NY, seeking a tiny LGBT bookstore sandwiched between Household of Love Church and Our Lady of Pity Ministries. Loved the owners, loved the crowd, can't say much for the neighborhood.

Not that I'm having an Our Lady of Pity party. It's been a real blast networking at book conferences and meeting readers in bookstores, signing and selling lots of books. Gay Days at Disney was a hoot, and at some readings I get laughs like I was doing stand-up. Of course, Women's Week in P-Town was grand.

Then again, it's sobering to be partying with readers and selling books Saturday night to find myself reading on Sunday in a dark, dank, mostly empty bar, still reeking of the previous
night's beer blast. Oh, that would be the bar reeking of beer, not me. Then again, it was Women's Week P-Town, so who's to judge?

But it wasn't hard to be judgmental about a book fair in Dover at the Delaware Agricultural Museum, a place, as you can imagine, I had no idea even existed. It houses antique tractors, cotton gins, and all manner of rural artifacts. And it sits across the street from the NASCAR track, which might have been a clue for urban me.

I arrived to discover I was to set up my display in front of the museum's goat breed exhibit, which I found instantly hilarious and appropriate. After dragging a six-foot folding table, a lawn chair, and several book cartons from the parking lot to the door, I felt pretty much like an old goat myself.

As I unpacked, I noticed I was underdressed. There were authors in full Civil War garb, writers who appeared to be dressed for a White House state dinner, and a couple of women who might have been palm readers and/or still dressed for Trick or Treat.

The man next to me boasted of having published 30 different volumes about Hessian soldiers in the Revolutionary War, though his plastic spiral-bound books seemed to have been published by Kinko House.

I was surrounded by authors peddling badly bound copies of books with titles like
Last Chance for Jesus
and
Sex with Unicorns—How I Talk to God
.

A young woman came up to my table, read a blurb about A&M Books and asked, “What exactly is a feminist press?” I sized her up. She seemed to have most of her teeth and wasn't dressed for a Rebel encampment so I took a chance.

“Actually, it's a lesbian press, but in the 70s no printer would touch a lesbian book,” I answered. The woman said nothing but actually took a giant step back, apparently afraid to catch, as Rachel Maddow says, “the gay.”

Once everybody was set up, a dribble of patrons came through the doors. People would walk by, pick up my book,
smile at the cover and turn it over to read the back. I could tell the exact moment they got to the word gay. They plopped the book down like it had cooties.

Instead of twiddling my thumbs waiting for somebody to come up and insult me I spent time checking out the goat display. Goats are kept for milk, meat, or hair, and some are also kept as companions. All goat breeds are very hardy, curious, and intelligent. Hey, maybe they'd like to read some essays or at least eat the book cover. Nothing else was happening.

One woman flipped through my book, stopped, looked up and said “You wrote ‘pray for Obama Care', I really can't talk to you, you're a Commie.” She slammed the book down as if it contained Anthrax. It made me want to back up and get in the pen with the intelligent taxidermied goats.

One bright spot had a man picking up the book, oohing and ahhing at the photo and then saying “Wow, that's a beautiful dog. Cocker Spaniel?” If he couldn't tell the difference between a Cocker and a Schnauzer, what hope was there for his understanding a lesbian smartass?

I was buoyed by a man making a beeline for my table but it turned out he wanted to read about Nubian Dairy Goats. Then I got nervous when the Civil War author unsheathed his sword brandishing it about for people to admire. I'd only been there two hours, and had a stupefying two more to go. I considered grabbing the sword and falling on it.

Finally, a lady came by, picked up the book, turned it over and read the entire back of the book and said, “
For Frying Out Loud
. Um…Is it a cookbook? What do you fry?”

Exit cue.

I came back to Rehoboth to discover that while I was sitting on my butt trying to peddle books to homophobes and religious zealots, I'd sold 20 books here at home at Proud Bookstore. It's so nice to have a niche to come home to.

Next, I'm off to Giovanni's Room, a LGBT bookstore in Philly. I expect my experience there will be a welcoming one. While we can't always count on patrons or book buyers to be in
good moods, if anybody is grumpy or gruff, at least I'm fairly certain nobody will be Billy Goat Gruff.

At least I hope not.