The Garab Chronicles

Mommy, What's a Garab? (Part: Ten Gay)

When I was in the 5th grade, Jimmy asked me if I was gay. He made it sound so good, that my fresh-off-the-boat ass replied with an enthusiastic yes before I had the good sense to go and find out what this strange new person in the strange new land of Riverdale, Georgia had just asked me. When I went home that afternoon, I couldn't wait to ask my mother what I'd just claimed to be at the tender age of 10 so that I could understand why all my classmates suddenly hugged the walls and giggled when I passed by them.

It took me a second to decipher the look on her face when I first asked the question. At first I thought she didn't hear me, so I asked again.

"Mommy, what does gay mean?"

I knew things were serious when she turned off the television in the middle of a "Days of Our Lives" episode, especially mid-week when Victor Kiriakis was on track to put an end to Hope and Bo Brady's love forever.

"Where did you hear that word?" she asked, her mind racing to catalog 10 years of "Dallas", "Falcon Crest", and "Knots Landing" episodes for any reference to something that may have conspired to set me off on this dangerous inquiry. "The boy knows," she must have thought. "Allah damn it, I thought all those hours of G.I. Joe and He-Man cartoons had infused him with enough machismo to drop balls on a eunuch."

I beamed as I told of Jimmy's query, and then Stephen's, David's, Billy's, Allison's, and every other kid in class who lined up to learn more about their exotic new classmate that afternoon. I'd been missing my friends back home terribly since school started, but now I stood on the precipice of new-found popularity, and all I had to do for it was utter a new word in American code. "This must be what they call the slang," I'd thought.

"What did you tell them?" she asked, desperation rising in her immigrant eyes.

"I said yes!"

My mother said nothing. Her eyes widened as she reached for the phone and dialed my father's beeper. 

"It means happy," she kept repeating in monotone. "You're happy. You're happy to be in America."

"But Mommy, what does it mean?"

"Wait for your father," she said, and then went back to the TV.

"Ooh, what's Victor Kiriakis up to today?" I started, in a naive attempt to lighten the mood.

"Nothing! He's not doing anyhting..."

"But Mommy, why's Hope crying?"

"She's not crying! She's happy. Those are tears of joy!"

"So she's gay too?" I quipped.

"Go to your room! Play He-Man!" she shrieked.

I don't remember much from my conversation with my father that evening, but birds and bees were specifically invoked, as were marriage in the animal kingdom and God's irreversible wrath. "What a cocktail," I remember thinking. "How the hell does a bee put it into a bird, and why on earth would that piss God off more than all the other crap Victor Kiriakis pulls on the Brady's in a typical week?"

I was instructed to go to school the next day - only because I didn't have the telephone numbers and addresses of my classmates on me that very night - and find every single one of those kids, starting with Jimmy, and tell them that what I meant to say was that I was happy. I was happy to have come to America; I was gleeful that we'd landed in this sprawling piece of Americana, South of the Atlanta airport at the crossroads of the world. I was so full of joy that only one word summed it all up, and despite my prowess of the English language as a freshly arrived pre-pubescent future American citizen, I hadn't yet encountered this magical, life changing adjective.

Years later, when Ellen Degeneres posed for the cover of Time and proclaimed "Yep, I'm Gay", my first thought was this:

Bitch stole my thunder.

Happy Coming Out Day, everybody.

Who You Calling a Hoe, Thundercat?

Somewhere, a studio development exec whimpers for the dream that was...

Disgusting Thought of The Day

Two Girls, One Cup: discuss.

Bling Bling Went the Pocket

I have cell phone envy. "Have you driven a Ford lately?" is about to regain punch line status, sane people  everywhere are still trying to wrap their heads around the insanity that was Mumbai last week, and Britney Spears has unleashed yet another salvo against a society striving to regain some modicum of taste. And I, when not downloading and dancing naked to every remix of "Womanizer" available in the mega disco that is my bedroom, lust for ye, iPhone.

Sweet, sweet iPhone, with your limber rotating screen and elegant user-friendly touch screen, you tempt me to distraction. I long to sheath your sleek, black body in the plastic womb that will distinctly designate you as my very own. You will be my iPod, my Blue-Tooth enabled link to civilization, my solace and my status symbol.

I too will get to share the frivolous YouTube brilliance emanating from your crystal clear display...at work. When I pull you out of my back pocket at the movies, the people shall marvel at my discriminating purchasing power play in an uncertain economic universe. The peasants shall gape in awe at your arrival in their midst, the swift flick of the wrist that takes you from rectangular jeans pocket bulge to in hand technological wonder at the speed of $150.00 a month. And oh, to own the wrist that does thy flicking.

I curse your newfound rivals, Blackberry Storm and G-phone, hackneyed hacks to your design whore satisfying 3-G magnificence. Glitch free art thou, second generation and tried by fire at the threat of full-refund returns and stock value ruin. I spit upon the Palm, and gnash my teeth at any and all slide panel technology. You, iPhone, mine but for thy sticker shock inducing price-tag, share a love that will not be compartmentalized.

I dream of thee, my beloved. I wait for thee, and trust that the chosen moment of your well-timed arrival will relieve me of Sanyo flip-phone, non-camera inclusive depravity. And then, I too shall be deemed "hipster", inducted into the magical tribe of Facebook-update-by-iPhone exclusivity.

Sing, Britney. Sing, that the gadget gods in a strobe-lit heaven will hear my lament, and my prayer. But for now, I weep...I weep in the solace of the desperate longing of my tech geek heart.

Thought Of The Day

Moe Sixpack: discuss.

Meditation On Pain And Humility, Or What Happens When You Run Out of Prescription Pain Killers Right Before The Stitches Come Out

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

box of epsom salts, bath tub, 400 mg of Aleve, numbing creme, more numbing creme.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAASWEETFUCKINGJESUSAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

salt, tub, 600mg, squeeze tube of numbing creme dry, apply and perform non-denominational prayer to the Holy Earth Mother, take nap.

AAAASCREWTHEEARTHMOTHERI'MGOINGCATHOLICAAAAH!!!!!!

epsom salt free pour, bottle of pills, realize there's no more numbing creme, curse profusely, cry a little, dance because keeping both feet on the ground at the same time feels a rectal blow torch.

AAAAAAAAAAAAH!

build an altar.

AAAAH!

kneel before said altar and attempt communication with spirits in another dimension.

AAH!

climb commode, wince, clench eyes shut and find something to bite on.

hold breath.

attempt daily "evacuation".

see god.

rinse, rinse, rinse, scream, rinse, scream, rinse, repeat.

The Blow Job(Part 2)

   It was late summer.  MJ, The Bastard King, was all but a distant memory.  Instead of dialing  *67, then his number 7 times a day, I’d reduced my stalking itinerary to a single anonymous attempt in any given 24 hour period. It was me, and not some desperate telemarketing house-wife in Bombay that dialed his home number from a blocked ID several countless times every afternoon when he might be home since his blue hussy-mobile Honda Accord with the driver’s side dent was clearly parked in front of his Eastern exposure Studio City apartment. But he didn’t need to know that. By not picking up the telephone, Ass Face unwittingly preserved my memory as the non-needy, non-clingy, non-psycho that he agreed to go on that ill-fated first date in the first place.
   But I wanted closure, dammit! The first season of Sex and the City that I’d started watching to get over my last stalkee was all about closure – at least that’s what I told myself as I sought that magical moment when MJ and I would sit across from one another and he’d say the magic words that would allow me to release him into my sordid past and advance to my next hapless victim. This was well before the questionably fucked “He’s Just Not That Into You” philosophy that would appear somewhere in season 3 or 4 in the TV show I’d substituted for the trained psychologist I needed but couldn’t afford, and I just wasn’t there yet. Closure was what I needed, and by God I was gonna get some fucking closure, even if my impending phone bill threatened to kill me.
   One warm afternoon, I succeeded. MJ, the illusive white elk, picked up his phone.
“Hello?” he crooned, as if he were some innocent virgin who didn’t deserve the guillotine for severing the strings to my still beating heart.
“Hi,” I generously offered…”it’s Moe.”
“Moe…?....Moe…? Oh, hey!”  The nerve of almost earnest enthusiasm was too much to bear. I wanted to scream, to bleat like a lamb sheered too close and too young.  A homo scorned, hell and fury, rage and bile - if MJ had been vaporized right then and there it wouldn’t have been enough because I wouldn’t have been present to see it. My heart yearned for a web cam…
“Where’d you go?” I asked.
   MJ just wasn’t that into me. He felt no spark, no umph, no je ne sais quoi. He didn’t want to do me in a utility closet at the airport. He – gasp – felt no attraction to me. Not only that, but the jaded pessimist destroyer of love said he was leaving for graduate school in less than a month and didn’t want to date me, get engaged, and have a shotgun wedding in Vegas before he left.  Dear sweet baby Jesus, would there be enough cake to heal this wound? Was there enough gateau on the planet that I could rub all over my body and make the pain go away?! I set about to find out.
   First I marched to my car, and then I drove it over the hill. I fought traffic all the way up and over, before circling 4 blocks 7 times for a parking spot, and then I found an expired meter. I jay walked across the street and heaved my exhausted, humiliated body through the front door to the café of drowning sorrow. I stepped up to the counter- the same counter I’d made googly eyes at MJ over- and I settled into my perch atop the uncomfortable high chair by the cash register. This place was mine. It was mine before MJ, and it would be mine long after he left for grad school to study psychology and go on to help the rich and mentally disturbed.
   MJ wasn’t there. Content with giving me the fucking closure he had no idea I sought like a detoxing heroine addict, he’d cut his shifts back to prepare for his impending move across state lines. I’m still convinced he was fulfilling a parole requirement that he was too embarrassed to talk about.  Either way, he was gone, and there were sweet cakes to be had.
   BJ greeted me, as he usually did these afternoons.
“Sup?” he said, as he placed the largest broken and therefore unsellable piece of apple pie I’d seen in my life in front of me. An intimidating tower of apples and cinnamon goo stood before me, sandwiched between thick dripping layers of baked buttery crust. Something was off today. My best new straight friend BJ never gave me this much pie – not even when I’d come in near tears after one of my shifts at the infamous deli. Ours had been a friendship in name only, and even that was purely in my own lonely head. I was the guy that came in with a sketch pad and tipped 300% on cake and coffee, and BJ was the cute straight guy behind the counter that took my money and spoke to me in 2 word grunts. And he had always, always given me the standard portion. This mountain of pie was a statement, a turning point. Dare I say it – it was flirting!
   I sat there, stuffing bite after ever loving bite of straight to your hips goodness into my mouth. Every consecutive morsel sliding into the abyss of my gullet brought me a little closer to closure-apparently deeper and more cavernous pit than I’d first anticipated.  Half chewed apple bits said he didn’t love me. Spiced sugar tingled on my tongue that he probably didn’t even like me, and butter dissolved into tiny bits of “what the hell were you thinking, you idiot?” I was felling ten times better, and the pie was almost gone when BJ shoved a mound of molten lava cake before me. Steam billowed from the top, and liquefied chocolate oozed between the crevices of solid cocoa walls under the weight of half a can of whipped cream.
   “Eat,” he said.
   I obeyed, though I had to request a spoon for the undertaking when my fork proved too porous and too apple slimed for this new endeavor. Whatever my emotional state, I had standards, and the purity of the chocolate had to be preserved. That, and it’s easier to shovel lava cake into your mouth that way. I took a breath, said three Hail Mary’s, and took the plunge.
   Three minutes in, and I’d numbed the pain. Though something altogether new was moving into that hollow space in my chest- Intrigue, and the tiniest bit of ill-advised lust bathed in chocolate. A couple more bites in, and that tiny spec of lust had turned into half chub. I was grateful for the high counter top at that moment, shielding my excitable nether region from prying eyes and unfortunate commentary. I clung to calm dignity with a facial expression that betrayed little, if any of the circuit party that commenced in my pants while I chewed, and watched straight, T & A loving BJ working across the counter.
   I finished off the pile of chocolate death as slowly as I could, savoring every moment its presence afforded me with my new BFF and caloric enabler, BJ. When I finally remembered the ill-used sketch pad I carried in as camouflage, it was already dark outside.  I’d pissed my muse off enough by ignoring her for three hours while I gorged myself on sugar and dirty thoughts. The effort that should have gone into creating an immortal masterpiece in blue ink was instead spent mentally undressing BJ’s sweet Adonis body.  I traced the muscles I knew lurked under his bulky t-shirt with my eyes. I imagined him with a better hair cut and three day scruff that would have taken him a solid month to grow had he the taste or the inclination. I put him in designer jeans with the top band of 2xist briefs showing above the low rise belt loops. 
     Panic set in. I had to stop eating lava cake immediately if I had any hope of retaining the waist line that might confuse him after the 6 pack of beer I’d use to lure him over the short fence to the land of happy homo bliss. Sure, I’d sworn off conversion therapy after those three guys in our college theatre department that never saw the light and left me sexually frustrated, but this time would be different. I was now armed with years of self-knowledge and Carrie Bradshaw wisdom. This time, I would succeed. This time, my wounded heart would heal. This time, the straight boy would go gay…

The Blow Job(Part 1)

   Best Friends are forever, until they're not.

    When I was 24, I met BJ at a cafe where I frequently drowned my ever present loneliness in coffee and chocolate cake. I patched up fresh emotional wounds with pineapple upside-downs, forgot mean boys at the bottom of sour cherry tartlets, and washed my dying thespian career down with enough double vanilla lattes to induce a diabetic coma in the average grown man. I averted that happy fate, though inadvertently, by matching a daily consumption of refined sugar with a caffeine intake that made me shake like a crack baby. A true sadist, I preserved my screaming liver by shifting the destruction to my knees and lungs in the 6 mile runs I'd devoted myself to in morning rush hour traffic. Nothing like bad shoes on pavement and fresh vehicle exhaust in the crisp morning air to put one in an early grave, but my six pack was showing and I was getting to eat with all the abandon of a very unhealthy 4 year old.
   On these frequent jogs to oblivion, I often passed my cafe of drowning sorrow. I'd even reward myself after a sweaty hour of workin' on my fitness by stopping inside and replacing the few hundred calories I'd just incinerated with a few thousand that might keep me company for years to come. On one of these magical stops at the sugar depot of death, I met MJ.
   And MJ was cute. When MJ smiled, the world opened up and seemed full of magical opportunities. MJ's smile melted the icicles forming around my heart and replaced them with little pink bunnies that whispered "You just found your husband."
  I almost forgot that MJ had just handed me an over priced chai latte with chocolate syrup and was waiting for me to cough up the cash for it and get the hell out of the line I was holding up and stop fucking up his prospects for decent tips. But he'd smiled at me, and that made him mine. The pink bunnies had told me. So, I began to stalk him.
   For a whole week, I went to the cafe of drowning sorrow at every conceivable opportunity, gorging myself on some tiny, massive something or other while jolting my system with four packets of sugar darkened with a splash of coffee and balanced to a sweet beige with artificial creamer. I met everybody that worked behind that counter with my beautiful MJ, as I slowly pieced together his work schedule from my perch by the cash register. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the chai and chocolate combo he'd suggested a few days before was one of the most disgusting things I'd ever put in my mouth, so I kept sipping on them and moaning in fake ecstasy as he poured one after another of the sludge that had somehow become my regular beverage. I should have known then that ours was a relationship based on lies and doomed to failure. Oprah would never preside over our wedding, and I might find death in a bath tub with a bad perm and a gun shot to the head like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, but it didn't matter. The pink bunnies nestled in my heart, right above the six pack, told me to persevere.
   I finally worked up the courage to ask MJ out, scrawling my query on a piece of scratch paper that I pilfered from one of his co-workers one day while camping at his counter. I'd done some reconnaissance, mind you, extracting enough information from the scratch paper providing co-worker to make sure that MJ was single and that he liked boys too. MJ smiled when he read my witty note, and slid his phone number across the counter on the same piece of paper, which I would one day frame and show to our great grandchildren while recounting the greatest love story ever told. Oh yes, he would be mine.
   My precious and I met for lunch on a beautiful day in Los Feliz, at a charming 24 hour diner famous for its quality organic ingredients and surly shitbag service. My baby was 30 minutes late, and golly love him he didn't call to say that he would be. That was okay, My-J was sure to have all sorts of lovable quirks that were going to be a veritable treat to discover over the course of our life together. Besides, we had a lovely time, munching on fried macaroni and cheese balls doused in ketchup and chocolate shakes blissfully devoid of even the slightest trace of chai powder.
   I can't remember a word of what MJ said that golden day, but I do remember his lips moving alot, and that clearly meant that he loved talking to me. We hugged our good-byes and I made plans for us to go see a movie later in the week. Perhaps a thriller so he could hold my hand during the scary parts. I just knew my little angel would be adorable when he was frightened, tossing his popcorn into the air and jumping out of his seat, then giggling at the genuine humor of the moment when he felt my presence and knew that everything would be okay. We'd lock eyes, then he'd lean in and we'd experience that magical first kiss. I'd one day tell the grandchildren about that too.
   But I had to contain my excitement. I wasn't psycho, after all, and I didn't want to scare my little shnookems off with talk of the future.  For now, 15 minutes after he drove away in an apparent hurry to make a very important engagement, I'd just call and tell him what a wonderful time I'd just had, and give him the list of movie times I'd looked up in the soiled newspaper I'd picked up off the sidewalk - a newspaper that fate had placed there for my convenience. I'd content myself with the sound of his soothing voice on his answering machine, where he spoke to me and told me to leave my message at the tone, and that he'd get right back to me as soon as he was able.
   A couple of days passed, and MJ hadn't called back about our second date. He'd clearly said on his answering machine that he'd call me right back, and if he waited any longer I was afraid I might have to look up new movie times. I was mildly annoyed, but since I had lied when I told him that I liked his chocolate chai vomit in cup creation, I decided it was okay if he fibbed a little too on his outgoing voice-mail. Just another one of those cute little quirks that my adorable little snuggle bug would have to change if we were going to have a mature, loving life-partnership.
   By the third day, though, I'd had it. I'd left 5 messages and called 8 times from a blocked number, and MJ was nowhere to be found. I knew the lying dirt bag's work schedule enough to be sure he wasn't there. What on earth could he be doing if he wasn't talking to me?! Who else was he seeing? What slut faced harlot was my beloved rendezvousing with that he was too busy to pick up the telephone? I knew that if I was going to call the authorities to file a missing persons report I'd need his home address, which I admonished myself for not getting during our first joyful outing. What kind of lover was I if I didn't even have a list of MJ's emergency contacts this far into the relationship?! I was shit...useless, unworthy shit.
  But then, sanity kicked in. MJ was at work. Maybe one of his co-workers, perhaps Scratch Paper, had taken a fall in a horrible kitchen accident and MJ had to step in at the last moment to provide CPR and cover the rest of her shifts for the entire week. Maybe he was at her bedside in the burn unit at Cedars Sinai, holding her hand while chanting Om, and valiantly holding off the cocky resident who's trying to pull the plug on her life support. There was only one rational thing to do if I was going to get the answers I needed and provide the moral support that my baby needed in this difficult time. I went to his work.
   I was shocked when Scratch Paper greeted me at the door. She said she missed me the last few days and was wondering when I'd be back for my chocolate chai. The crazy bitch should have been in intensive care, being comforted and nursed back to health by my brave, exhausted MJ. What the fuck was she doing standing here, babbling about a stomach turning beverage that gave me gas?
   "Is MJ here?" I managed in my best non-jilted lover casual.
   "Nope" said the guy behind the counter, a guy named BJ who I'd stopped recognizing as cute when my initial investigation turned him up as straight months prior. BJ almost seemed smug...he was smug as he delivered the status of my non-present one and only.
   "HOMOPHOBE!" I wanted to scream.
   BJ told me to have a seat and asked me if I really wanted one of those nasty drinks that he'd watched me half consume for the past couple of weeks.
   "I didn't think so," he said when I shook my head no. And then he poured me a black coffee and asked how the running was going, at which point I remembered that I'd stopped running when I met MJ. I lied and told him that the running, along with everything else in my life, was going great.
   "Uh huh," said BJ, though it he wasn't smug this time. He was almost...catty. Could it be? BJ told me the coffee was on him and went on to help the next poor sap in line. This was the nicest homophobic smug bastard I'd ever met.
   I stumbled to a nearby table to spice my coffee with 4 sugars an a pint of half-n-half. I automatically reached for the packets and shook them to make sure I'd get every last granule when I ripped them open. But then I stopped  and did the unthinkable...I sipped my coffee, black. And in that moment I knew that MJ would never call me back. He was dead. I executed the pink bunnies one by one, and as I pulled their limp bodies from my chest, I realized that they were actually a pack of hungry rats with a bad dye job.
   I cried over MJ for a whole 2 minutes, 60 seconds for each week that I'd known him. And then I used my hard won knowledge of his schedule to avoid his shifts altogether, which was just fine since I was getting to spend the time with my new friend, BJ...

In the Lap of It

   Sublime news! Today I discovered that my roommate and I live in a luxurious apartment home. This, mind you, is the same two bedroom, beige carpeted apartment in North Hollywood - nay, West Toluca Lake - that we've inhabited for the past two years. And said carpet still gets soaked through every time it rains here in sunny Los Angeles, thanks to the impressive leak in the brand new roof on our Pepto Bismol pink palace. Why, just the other day, we figured out that we could make the faux fireplace in our living room work by simply kicking the gas valve while chanting "Work, you goddamn motherfucker!" three times. Ah, to live in comfort, finally extracted from the mundane cares of the every peasant. As an added bonus, thanks to the heroic efforts of our building's handy man and his trusty cordless screw driver, the handle to the refrigerator door doesn't come off in my hand when I go to open it anymore. Four star accommodations indeed.
   You might be asking yourself, "Why Moe, how daft are you not to have realized that you've been living in such splendor?"  Well, I must have been distracted by the four story companion building that's been slowly erected outside my window for the past 11 and a half months. That silly view of Vineland Avenue that provided ample natural light to the cave that has become my bedroom must have been clouding my judgment.
   Now, as I bathe myself in a symphony of jackhammers every morning, I too can revel in the fact that I have, at last, arrived. It only took me seven years to get here, but the brand new sign in front of my building, shining like a beacon and heralding an impending rent hike, is all the proof I need that I am, at long last, doing all right. It's enough to trigger a nostalgic flashback...
   Once upon a time, I lived in a house with a psychic, a pair of casting directors, a die hard neo-conservative, and two cats. There was one bathroom. There was no water pressure. If you took a shower at 7am, you learned not to attempt flushing the toilet before 9, sometimes PM.
   The neo-con lived out back, in a little guest shack behind the main house, from which he emerged sporadically to taunt the psychic and do the occasional load of laundry. The psychic shared a queen-sized mattress on the floor with one of the casting directors and the cats in one of the bedrooms. The other casting director, now one of my dearest friends, had the only real bed in the place. I slept on a gray couch in the living room, right under a window remarkable only because it beamed in the scorching valley sunlight for 12-13 hours out of the day. Now, I've never dropped acid before, but between the heat of trapped valley smog, the cat dander, and the convenient lack of air conditioning, my sinuses went on a magical journey that I myself am not completely convinced actually took place. It was like having an out of body experience, watching it all happen to some poor schmuck and praying for someone, anyone to put him out of his misery.
   My favorite memory of living in that house is the day I forgot the rule about not trying to flush the toilet in the one bathroom shared by 5 people less than 3 hours after one of them had taken a shower. Perhaps it was the delirium brought on by working the graveyard shift at a certain infamous deli made popular among the locals by frequent drive-by shootings. Maybe it was the urgent need to evacuate the previous evening's meal of over-sized meatballs, made lovingly from the psychic's secret family recipe, from my body that hastened my march to the commode. Whatever the case, I was alone in that house at three in the afternoon, and all I knew was that I had to go #2, and I had to go #2 right then and there.
   So, I did. Everything came out just fine, another important issue of US Weekly was complete, and the only thing standing between myself and a very late breakfast was a simple flick of a simple silver handle. I flicked, indoor plumbing came to life, water swirled...and it swirled. And then nothing moved.
   I had a bona fide conundrum on my hands. I was locked in a bathroom between the two empty bedrooms of three people who were due to arrive in less than two hours, at which time the first thing that any of them would do was march into the no water pressure chamber of doom for a bit of US Weekly time, only to discover my floating toxic shame. Standing there in horror with my pants around my ankles, I considered closing the lid and blaming one of the cats. But then I remembered that the psychic didn't feed them meatballs.
   I was beginning to panic. But then I lit a match, took a deep breath, waited for the tank to refill, and flicked the little silver handle again. Rumble, rumble, swirl, swirl, NOTHING! Shit - literally - shit!
   Thankfully, I have a good, level head on my shoulders, and logic stepped in to save the day. I could pack light and live like a Spartan, leave a little "whatever you do, don't go in there" note on the couch, and be in Texas by the time the psychic flew in on her broomstick that afternoon. But given my luck, the beam of light coming in through the window on that scorching day would have ignited the note I'd have delicately placed on the sofa and set the entire house ablaze, cooking the tender morsels left afloat in the room where I now stood, ready to climb the walls.
   There was only one thing left to do: I would have to dig. Praying to any and everything I could that no one would come home, I pulled up my pants and ran past the psychic's cats in the living room and to my little blue 1991 Honda Civic parked out front. There was a fresh parking ticket in the windshield - Street cleaning.
   I dashed to the nearest grocery store.
   "Please don't come home. Please don't come home."
   I walked in, panicked, half asleep, matted hair, and made for the hardware isle.
   "Please don't come home..."
   I counted the cash in my pocket, blood money earned in tears the night before as I served Pastrami on stale rye bread while dodging insults and hoochie mammas. Somebody's 8% tip was about to pay for a pair of rubber gloves. The 6.5% tip I earned on that $100.00 check would cover the scented candle and the plastic shovel(slotted). Visa, cause it's everywhere you want to be, would cover the garbage bags.
   "Please don't..."
   I parked the Honda in the same lucky spot where it got a ticket tacked to its windshield earlier. Perhaps a beam of light would hit the thing just right an set it ablaze so I could collect the insurance and  buy something that was built during Clinton's second term. But no matter now, I had to get inside and get to work.
   I darted inside, plastic bags rustling past confused cats as I snapped the gloves onto my hands. I'd made it. My prayers had been answered; I was alone in the house with my soon to be erased excretory mess. All I had to do was make my way through the first bedroom, lock myself in the bathroom with the scented candle, and...
   I stopped dead. What was this strange, whirring sound? It almost sounded like the steady rhythmic tumble of an automatic dryer. Fuck, the neo-con! He'd been here the whole time, plotting against me from his dark guest house lair while he sorted his laundry. He'd been in that bathroom, and he'd seen what no man's eyes should see. If he wasn't already dead, I'd have to kill him and stuff his body in the trash bags with my poo, then bury everything out back with a plastic shovel, and cover the whole thing up with Citronella candle.
   But then I remembered, the neo-con had his own bathroom in the dark guest house lair. Fate had smiled upon me this glorious day. Not only was I safe, but I didn't have to resort to second degree homicide.
Neo-con poked his head in from the kitchen.
   "Oh, hey Moe, he said. What're you up to today?"
   "Nothing, fascist scum!" I quipped, before sprinting inconspicuously to the back.
   I was here, at long last. This was my moment to make right what had gone so terribly, horribly wrong. I lit the candle, I said a prayer. And then, I took a shallow breath, held it in, and suppressed my gag reflex as I went fishing...
   I didn't live in that house long after that. Neither did the psychic, who went on to ride the other dimension reality TV wave of the day before discovering that her mentor had hexxed her with black magic, at which point she vanished into the ether. My friend, the casting director moved on to live with sane people and became a successful screenwriter. The other casting director moved to a building that doesn't allow pets, across the hall from the neo-con, who went on to vote for George W. Bush when he ran for re-election.
    I went on to live in a studio apartment with no parking for a number of years, where I became the darling of the local meter maid and paid a small fortune to the City Of Los Angeles Parking Violations Bureau. After I was mugged and my septic tank exploded, I decided to move, and ended up in the luxurious apartment I find myself in today...
    Which just happens to be right next door to that same house where I shoveled my own droppings seven years ago. They've demolished that old house now. I watched them bulldoze it from my bedroom window, right before they started building the four story monstrosity that's been rising next door for the last year, slowly blocking out the sun.

When Worlds Collide

   Every time I start thinking that maybe I'm not a complete slut, reality sends me a little check and reminds me not to be so hard on myself. Sure I've been a perfect little angel for the past few weeks, but my hard earned title as West Coast Slut Sultan remains firmly intact. Thanks, reality.
   Recently, I was talking with my friend Blank. Blank and I go way back, and though he's just a couple of years older than me, he's one of the original pioneers of Slut City in my tight knit circle of loose friends. We'd both returned from our respective trips home for the holidays(we're from the same town), and thus had some catching up to do regarding New Year resolutions and conquests.
    Blank, I have to say is a reformed slut. Poor guy had to retire early due to a heavy work schedule and the inevitable realization that the physical affection of all the boys in the world can't make up for the affection of a single man who will love you as much as you love him. Dating in LA can make anyone senile.
   We were nearing the end of our conversation when Blank offered, "Oh I forgot to tell you about the ?? random guys I hooked up with recently."
   I thought we'd gone back to talking about me for a second. I was the reigning floozy in this relationship, and I didn't remember granting Blank permission to return from his self imposed exile to the Kingdom of Sluts. I made a mental note of it and proceeded with the inquisition.
   "Spill it."
   I was proud of him. Offering up the gory details of his ?? conquests, I could just feel Blank's glee. It is just like riding a bicycle, I thought. Once you learn, you never really forget.
   Not to be outdone, I decided to chime in with the details of my own vacation.
   "What were their names?" asked Blank.
   "No f'ing way. I don't kiss, screw in the back seat of a car, and tell."
   "What did they look like, at least?" returned Blank.
   I decided to tell him about the most, um, interesting...of my experiences. I began describing the guy, careful not to reveal details about Interesting Experience(IE)'s job, residence, or trademark physical features - Well, except for that one thing of course.
   But Blank is good. As a reformed slut who's quickly reawakening to his own power, he knew exactly which leading questions to ask. In the time it took me to realize I'd given away too much, the truth became painfully evident. I'd met IE ten years ago, right before Blank took him home and boinked him. Dirty comes full circle.    
   Ours is a small world, but you don't get to meet all of its inhabitants without working really hard at it. On at least the two coasts of this great land, it seems that I have accomplished as much.