Essays
The wanting often gets the better of us – more, different, if only, maybe when. The words, these phrases familiar because the longing, the missing pieces and inadequacies in each of us ache to be mended.
When you love something so much, whether it’s chocolate, or reruns of ‘How I Met Your Mother’, or blue heeler puppies, it’s hard to take when others don’t share the same affinity for the object of your affection.
It was snowing that day too, and awfully windy in Lincoln, Nebraska, and as I walked into the office I read ‘Shelley Rochelle Johnson’. That was the name at the top of the sheet, written in round, friendly cursive.
I’ve never seen Star Wars. Maybe let’s start there. So when, at Hutchmoot, late on Saturday night, as I was sitting next to Jennifer Trafton-Peterson watching a reader’s theatre Shakespearean adaptation of the beloved science fiction classic, ‘Verily, A New Hope,’ I was bit lost.
When you move and are made to pack up your entire life into cardboard, you begin to discover how much crap you really own: black lace-up Vans with suede flames stitched to the sides, half a dozen old film canisters carefully and insanely filled with pencil ferrules, two copies of the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ soundtrack.
It’s not a bad view, and often I just try to ignore the errant glimpse of the gravel lot sitting adjacent to the grass and the knowledge that just beyond the painted wooden fence bordering our yard is the back alley of the an abandoned BBQ joint and the local Shell Station.
It’s been nearly two years now that I’ve been out of the closet, all the way out, I mean. I was acutely aware of the truth that I was gay as a 9-year-old boy who loved spending his afternoons watching ‘My Little Pony’ and making homemade strawberry cupcakes to bring to school.
My friend Ben spilled his beer all over me tonight, all over my jeans, soaking my left leg in barley and hops. His cup, nearly full, had enough in it to sufficiently douse my pants and to leave a sizable puddle beneath me, making it look like I was an excited puppy or a nervous 4 year-old after a urine failed sleep over.
He was named Griffin James Fetter, same as his dad, same as his granddad, but his father was called Finn, and long as he could remember, everyone called him ‘Cheddar’ (except his mother who called him Jimmy, then later Jim).
It’s just Hank and I at 577 W. Jefferson this week. The roommate is in San Diego for work doing some sort of engineering. To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure what kind of engineer he is. Mechanical? That’s a kind of engineer, right?
When my mother was a nursing student, she did one of her papers on the health effects of homelessness. During her research she actually met and developed casual relationships with some of the local homeless.
There’s an amazing view of the Three Sisters Mountain Range from the guest room and second floor balcony of my house. On a clear day they look like sentinels, standing watch over the Central Oregon plains dotted with sagebrush and juniper.