Of everything I saw, there is one thing about that morning I can never forget: the weather was perfect. The summer had been difficult for me. I lost my job, and I had sunk into a deep depression, and my relationship with Andrea was getting rocky. The weather was full of peace, the sky was blue, and the leaves were still green. My step picked up a spring. I sat down at my desk and stuffed envelopes with energy and panache. That day started out so full of hope.
I was having coffee in Union Station recently, at one in the afternoon, enjoying the little market that I didn’t know they had every Saturday, when she entered. She wandered out of the part of the station where the commuter trains came in (though it could have been anywhere in the building), and she was tipsy.
She may have gone to one of the nice restaurants and had a liquid lunch. She may have been with a friend in Maryland or Virginia and had a few drinks before hopping on the train. She may have still been drunk from the night before.
She was happy, flitting from table to table, trying on jewelry and talking to the vendors about what they’re selling. She was charming to watch. She eventually wandered over to the coffee kiosk near me and stood in the line for people waiting for their drinks, and that’s where I left her when I decided to head home.
On my way to the Metro, I nearly collided with her, but she didn’t notice. Halfway to the turnstiles, I decided to get some Gatorade, so I headed downstairs to the drugstore. Immediately ahead of me in line, there she was, buying the largest bottle of water you can find, as well as a 16-ounce can of Red Bull.
I don’t know what happened to her after that, but I’m assuming it was fun.
Fourth of July weekend, Owlman and I went to the National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian American Art Museum, which share a building. It’s in Chinatown, so we had to take the Metro.
This is our stop, Fort Totten. Independence Day revelers still weren’t out of bed.
We arrived fifteen minutes before the museum opened, so we had to hang outside.
Our first portrait was abolitionist John Brown. Owlman is evil, but he agrees with me that owning another human is bad, so he was happy to see him.
Owlman says, “Keep practicing, you’ll get it someday.”
Like Thomas Edison, Owlman fancies himself an inventor… of death traps and lethal gadgets.
Owlman remembered to bring his camera today.
I told Owlman that this was my favorite painting in the museum, by John Singer Sargent, who is my favorite painter. He memorialized it for me.
Owlman has a thing for redheads.
Owlman knows full well he’s not supposed to touch the sculptures, but he’s evil, so he wants to do it anyway.
Owlman, what did I just tell you?
Owlman wants to know if the TV art installation can get the latest episode of Real Housewives, which he watches because he’s evil.
He terrorizes the streets of alternate Gotham, but this statue from Clover Adams’s grave is really scary.
Tuckered out from our big day, we headed home.
This year, for TYSTWD, I invited Owlman. Owlman comes from an alternate reality and is essentially the anti-Batman. He was thrilled to see what I do when I am not home.
I like to come to work early and do some sketching before I begin my shift. It’s nice to have the place to myself.
As you can see, Washington DC is still sleeping.
We took a tour of my desk, where I had to relocate my owls once Oscar started being feisty. (The glass cat on the hammock is the gift my boss gave me when Newcastle died.)
Same goes for some of my toys. (The red guy is the mascot for the American Society of Hematology.)
And my miniature painting, which has Owlman contemplating the meaning of beauty.
I hang up my art up at my desk because I like looking at it, and it’s a great conversation-starter.
Owlman works from home, so he brought in his laptop.
He had to go to the storage room to take an important call.
Now it’s break time. I don’t like Starbuck’s, but he insisted on going, and he’s evil so I don’t want to get on his bad side.
I recently stumbled upon the Facebook status updates from my first year living in Doha, Qatar.
2013
4 February: I’m moving to an exotic, foreign country this afternoon! Holy shitballs!
5 February: I’m here.
6 February: I am not digging this jet lag shit at all.
7 February: I am enjoying the evening (those of you in the States might know this as “morning”). I am not enjoying jet lag.
8 February: I’m confronting the first challenge I must face while being a foreigner in a land far from home: electrical outlets. God help me.
10 February: I now live in embassy-issued housing, which is about quadruple the size of my apartment in Alexandria. It’s three floors tall, and all of the floors are tiled. And so, when Andrew decided to vomit his first vomit in the Middle East, he chose to do it on the bed—you know, one of the handful of places where I wouldn’t just have to wait for it to dry and then sweep it up. Andrew is an asshole.
12 February: I have been here about a week, and I’m already calling it a carpark.
13 February: Most of Doha is shut down for National Sports Day today. Seriously, America, between this and restroom libraries… you’ve got some catching up to do.
15 February: I’m learning that folks here in Doha, folks of all nationalities, shop like they drive—that is to say with extreme prejudice.
22 February: I am so unbelievably relieved that Doha has a doorknob store.
25 February: I got up, got Kate fed and ready for work, looked at the time (7:00 a.m. in Doha, 11:00 p.m. EST), and big fucking surprise, the Oscars aren’t even close to over.
27 February: I don’t yet know how to replace the giant bottles on the water cooler with any sort of dignity.
28 February: Going dune-bashing tomorrow. So if you’re a dune, get out of my motherfucking way or you’re gonna get motherfucking bashed!
1 March: I had the kind of day that, were he in the States, would require a waiver.
5 March: I moved in a month ago with the drizzliest of dribbly water pressure. It made showers an exercise in patience and sadness, and the time it took to fill a coffee pot or tea kettle was just enough to fall back asleep. He thought, “Well, I’m living in a desert now. Between that and the plugs, this is just one of the things I’ll have to get used to.”
Yesterday, a handyman came over and gave it Red Bull or something, because washing bowls and cups now leads to drowned counters and floors (and cats if they get too close), and a simple shower covers your body in bruises.
This is my life. These are the things I worry about.
6 March: I spend at least fifteen minutes a day dust-busting locks of cat hair that tend to gather on white tile floors. Through the process, I keep missing clumps here and there, which is kind of frustrating. Today, however, after I vacuumed up a corner, fresh fur appeared in moments at that exact spot.
And then it all became clear: Those little assholes are gaslighting me!
10 March: I get to keep my hour.
12 March: Ispent the morning dust-busting and hand-scrubbing his stairs and his kitchen floor, because I live for futility.
19 March: I have only been behind the wheel of our beloved Stella for the past week, and I’d like to take a moment to talk to you about driving in Doha.
Every place I’ve ever lived (except for Nebraska) has claimed to have the worst drivers on the planet. Traffic in Florida is responsible for 29 percent of Dave Barry’s entire career as a writer. The spectacular car chases on the California freeway in every Michael Bay movie are actually mini-documentaries. And the things I’ve seen on the streets of Ecuador still chill me to this day. They’re all amateurs.
Driving in Doha is the only excuse you need to drive like an asshole.
From what I’ve learned during my stay, nothing on the roads is illegal, and that includes vehicular homicide… well, there is one exception: red lights. Nobody runs red lights in Doha. Nobody. Hell, if you cross an intersection on a yellow light, even the Qatari locals will call you a dick (keep in mind that the locals have been known to ram people from behind for going too slow, and too slow for them is anything less than twenty kilometers above the speed limit).
And yet, there’s something civilized about the it all. See, back home, if someone cuts you off, you unleash a stream of expletives that would make Richard Nixon tell you to take it down a notch, even if there’s kids in the backseat. Here, if someone cuts you off, you say, “Well played!” In the States, letting someone take a turn in front of you is an act of kindness. In Doha, letting someone take a turn in front of you means you lost the battle with honor. I have seen more people use their blinkers here—even when they’re signaling right while going left from the center lane.
Long story short: the Asphalt Thunderdome of Qatar is oddly relaxing.
28 March: I am not surprised–however I am amused—that even kids on tricycles in Doha are dangerously shitty drivers.
31 March: I’m slowly getting used to the metric system, but there are still setbacks. For example, I still feel a little weird going up to the butcher’s counter and ordering things by the gram. Today, though, was the biggest hiccup: when I tried out the compound’s treadmill for the first time, and I was running at 9.0 for two minutes without running out of breath (recall that, for the past year, I’ve had sometimes-crippling asthma), and I was thinking, “I must be Superman!”
Until Kate reminded me of that whole kilometer-versus-mile thing…
6 April: I was greeted as I entered the grocery store earlier today by the monstrous stomping of “We Will Rock You,” which is exactly the state I needed to shop there.
13 April: I’m learning that my favorite part of driving in Doha is that you frequently find yourself thinking, “I wonder if that was legal.” *shrug* “Well, no one died, so…”
9 May: I expected many changes when I moved to Qatar, but the one thing I hadn’t counted on was the ubiquity of bendy straws. Fast food joints, five-star restaurants… They’re everywhere.
12 May: I was driving tonight, really fast, as is the custom in Doha, when suddenly, from out of nowhere, a Miata about a third the size of my FJ Cruiser roared up from behind, going much, much faster (calculating from metric, that comes out to about… um… Warp 6) and flashing its headlights before engaging in nonconsensual vehicular buttsex. In the native language of Qatar, this means, “Move.”
Considering how a tap of the brake could squish that Miata like a can of Keystone Light against a frat boy’s forehead, I wanted to ask the other driver, “Dude, is this really how you want to die?”
But then I moved out of the way, because I was bringing chocolate shakes home to my sick wife, and it was hot outside.
17 May: I love so many things about the Middle East, but the best, of course, are the majestic mustaches.
18 May: A funny thing about Qatar is they don’t seem to do change here; and by that I mean everything is sold in whole riyals (which makes sense, because a riyal is equal to $0.27). There is change, and occasionally you’ll get to a cash register and you’ll owe, as I did recently at the grocery store, 612.75 QAR. Rather than give me a 25 dirham piece, the cashier just handed over this pack of gum. Because that’s the way Qatar rolls.
30 May: I fear that, if “No U-Turn” signs were ever installed in Qatar, there would be a coup, thorough collapse of law and order, and much bloodshed.
2 June: I came face-to-face with my first gigantic desert cockroach. And when I say face-to-face, I mean, I walked into the room, opened the door, and we both froze when we saw each other, and it was essentially eye-level with me. Not quite Madagascar horrifying, but still pretty damned horrifying.
And so now I need to figure out what to do about pest control. Nerds, say it with me, on the count of three. One… two… three: “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit—it’s the only way to be sure.”*
* Would you like to know more?
13 June: I made it home after a typically long, fraught-with-peril journey through Doha streets, and was cruising slowly through my compound, careful not to run over kids, when this four-or-five-year-old boy on a bike stops pedaling for no discernible reason, scowls, and shakes his fist at me. Out of all the traffic disputes I have had in my life, this is easily the cutest.
20 June: I spent over an hour surviving endless hordes of selfish, erratic drivers; sitting at every single red light (in Doha, each light can literally take five or more minutes to turn green, making this particular five-kilometer drive last almost a half-hour); dodging careless and rude shoppers; and having my heart broken by poorly stocked grocery shelves. And yet, all it took was one tiny act of kindness (“You only have a couple of items; I have a full cart. Why don’t you go ahead of me in line?”) to turn the whole thing around. Something to keep in mind.
22 June: I am not the least bit surprised—amused, but not surprised—to see a man on stilts wander in and out of the food court with no explanation whatsoever. This is, after all, Doha.
23 June: I am sitting in a cafe, at a table next to a couple and young lady with a binder, chattering in a language that is neither English nor Arabic. My theory is that they are planning a wedding, an assumption bolstered when one of the women very clearly said the word, “Bridezilla.”
7 July: I am sitting in the same coffee shop where I overheard the “bridezilla” conversation a couple of weeks ago—in the very same seat—and at the next table is another couple planning their wedding. What kind of coffee shop is this?
8 July: I learned in high school physics class (that makes it, what, five, six years ago?) that matter cannot occupy the same space; this does not, however, apply to turn lanes in Doha.
10 July: I am so not looking forward to driving again in the States. Because in America, the following series of events is unacceptable: “Oh, man! Dead end! I don’t feel like backtracking!” *drives over curb, through empty lot, onto the sidewalk, bounces off the other curb, cuts off oncoming traffic, arrives shortly at destination, no sleep lost* In Doha, this is the only rational action.
The same sequence happens when you find yourself saying, “Man, this traffic is moving too slow. I don’t want to wait in it anymore.”
24 July: I received the following e-mail yesterday: “You can expect a refrigerator sometime on Sunday.”
10 September: I’m taking a cardio-kickboxing class. I am the only male student. This class involves punching and kicking in time to techno-ish music while an instructor named Vicki yells at you. This is not functional punching and kicking. You will never win a fight with this punching and kicking. This is actually more like dancing—in fact, there is a stretch that resembles a very flamboyant bow. This is not a particularly masculine class.
The whole thing is super-exhausting, which is why, about a third of the way through each session, the uppercuts and roundhouses are really kind of… sad. There is no dignity left for anyone involved (except for the instructor, who, I suspect, is not human), especially for the only male, who, being male, is not supposed to be moving this way in public.
I tell you all this because, at one point in the routine, during the bow/stretch maneuver, there is a double-clap before getting into position, and this is where I draw the line. I will pump my hips and simulate some kind of march thingie and perform a move that resembles loading laundry into a tiny washing machine, but I will not clap twice.
I don’t know why this is. I don’t know what about clapping twice is anymore ridiculous than what’s come before. Nothing about this makes any sense whatsoever. It doesn’t matter, though, because the double-clap is going too far.
29 October: I have been having a tough week, what with the car dangers, one-eyed cats, the stray dogs who stalked me this morning as I was walking to Dance Fu, the air conditioning being broken in the gym in a 38 degree morning, exploding doorbells, etc.
And then, this evening, the dentist poked around his mouth and exclaimed, “Oh my God!” It turns out he was impressed that he couldn’t find a single thing wrong with my teeth. Which is a nice change of pace.
2 November: A mysterious, white, gaseous substance has appeared in the air over Doha. I have the inkling of a memory of it from my past in the States. What was it called? A “klod”? “clowt”? “clood”? Whatever it is, it has devoured the sun, and is very frightening. May the gods have mercy on us.
3 November: I am astonished by the news that, due to a glitch in the space-time continuum, most of the United States experienced the same sixty minutes twice. Most of the country had slept through it. Of those who didn’t, I can only imagine the ungodly horror you had to endure as the laws of physics were torn asunder while you watched, helpless, only for everything to suddenly return to “normal.” For you, it is the present, but to the rest of the world, it is an hour into the future.
There are some who call this event “Daylight Savings Time.” I call it what it truly is: a perversion of the natural order.
7 November:
I want you to sit on back while I tell you a tale. A tale I like to call, “The Return of Tom the Trampoline-Jumping One-Eyed Wonder Cat.”
Today, I had a number of errands and a lunch, which took up six hours, about four of which—I am not exaggerating—involved sitting in the car. The parts of my path that were not blocked by construction were clogged by the detours from other construction projects.
During this time, Tom the Trampoline-Jumping One-Eyed Wonder Cat escaped the confines of his home, with his usual, cartoonish panache. This time, in the process of descending the wall between his yard and ours, turned on the garden hose. This had happened a long time before I got home.
And therefore, even though I opened our garden gate so that he could free himself without damaging me further (something both of us wanted more than anything), he refused to leave, because Tom the Trampoline-Jumping One-Eyed Wonder Cat did not want to cross the flood he created on top of our stone tiles.
And I said to him, “You know what, Tom the Trampoline-Jumping One-Eyed Wonder Cat? This is not my problem. You can take off whenever you want.”
Eventually, Tom the Trampoline-Jumping One-Eyed Wonder Cat did.
The End
9 November: I spent the day at the Gulf—Arabian or Persian, whichever—with a pair of couples and their combined five and two-thirds children. While we were enjoying the sun and warm sea, fish began suddenly popping out from the waves and skipping along, really, really close to us. I am no marine biologist, but I’ve come to understand that this means a bigger fish is coming for them, and it’s hungry. (I like to imagine what they’re saying as they surface: “RUN!” plop “Help!” plop “It’s right behind us!” plop “Save yourselves!” plop “NOOOOOO!” plop “It got Frankie!”).
This went on for a few minutes, and as it died down, Vicky’s seven-year-old daughter waded over to me, her eyes enormous, her mind blown, and she says, “I know why the fish are jumping out of the water. There’s a predator…” She paused and leaned in close, her next words as serious as a child that age make them (and that’s pretty dang serious), and she spoke in a low voice, “… and that predator… is us.”
16 November: I sit, reading a book in the backyard of the house that belongs to the two cats I’m serving while their live-in staff takes a well-deserved vacation.
The garden behind the house where I cat-sit is green and a little breezy, and clouds are splattered lightly across the room-temperature sky. Over the walls around me, through the calm afternoon, children are yelling at each other in languages I don’t understand—though, to be fair, I don’t understand what playing children are shouting even when it’s supposed to be English.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt this way; though, to be honest, I probably hadn’t felt this way before. The mood and details are familiar, like déjà vu, only without the confusion. It’s the welcome memory of a peaceful afternoon that had never actually existed.
3 December: I had the pleasure today of sitting in stagnant, Doha traffic, and hearing Kate mutter, as she looked in the review mirror at the jackhole behind us, “You be honkin’; I ain’t movin’.”
7 December: I circled the packed car park like a patient shark, waiting for the right moment to beat the feeding frenzy and shove his way into an empty spot.
Suddenly, I saw a space, near the entrance, not marked for the handicapped. I looked around; not one pushy SUV was attempting to compete with me for it. Not one.
There was only one explanation: it’s a trap!
I took the spot anyway, because admit it, you would too.
2014
2 January: The Five Stages of Dune Bashing:
1. This is a beautiful and exhilarating drive!
2. The view from the top of this enormous dune we’re climbing will be amazing!
3. What the shit is this driver doing!?
4. This is it. This is how I’m going to die: in a skidding, rolling, crushed 4×4 in the middle of the desert, probably on fire.
5. Again! Again!
3 January: Iwould like to tell you a story about how much more entertaining it is to shop in this part of the world than it is back home in the States. And so, let’s all go down to the auto parts store, where our hero enters, on a quest for a tow cable and an air compressor.
I am greeted at once by an older man in a brown suit, clutching a cigarette I never actually see him put to his lips and speaking English with a thick regional accent. After we sync up our vocabulary to determine what I’m looking for, he shows me several cables and we pick the best one. He glances at the sticker and tells me, “Says 130. Give it to you for 100. Special price.” I agree that this is indeed a special price.
We now look at air compressors. He and his assistant, who speaks no English, remove an air compressor from the shelf, unpack it, and demonstrate how to assemble it. “Is Chinese, so it maybe get too hot…” He shows me where it might overheat. “… So turn it off and on. No problem. You know Chinese things. Good quality, though.” He directs his assistant to remove a car battery from behind the counter, hook up the compressor, and turn it on.
“Looks good,” I say.
The old man shrugs. “Good quality, even if it is Chinese. You know Arabs. They see it’s Chinese, they don’t want.” He shrugs again and flicks an ash off of his cigarette. “Box say 450, but for you, 400. Special price.” Once again, I have to admit this is a special price.
While his assistant boxes up the compressor, the old man and I work out whether cash or credit is best. We go with cash. He punches a number into a calculator and he sends his assistant out to my car with my purchases before I can stop him. I pay up and hurry out.
And it’s not until I get home that I realize I’d paid 580 for both items, which is not really that special of a price. I’m not 100 percent sure what exactly happened there.
4 February: I left the United States a year ago to come live in Qatar, located in the Arabian Gulf, next to Saudi Arabia, about 275 kilometers from Iran. In that time, I’ve acquired some habits I’m going to have to overcome when I return to America. Here are but a few:
– Tipping no more than 10 percent.
– Not recycling.
– Free valet parking.
– Fearing the wrath of custodial staff if I try to dispose of my empty tray at the food court.
– Driving on sidewalks (this is not an exaggeration).
– Wearing, at most, a fleece while walking outside in January, even at night.
– Expecting full-service at all petrol stations.
– The phrase “petrol station.”
– Paying fifty riyal (13.50 US dollars) to fill the tank of a gigantic FJ Cruiser.
– Assuming that every driver on the road will not obey traffic laws, thus freeing me to do the same.
– Going out for Lebanese fast food.
– Abandoning grocery carts in the parking lot wherever.
– Paying for everything in cash.
– Dropping 300 on a fancy, schmancy dinner for two and thinking that’s a really good deal
– Spending four hours at a table during dinner.
– Cutting in line, not out of rudeness, but out of sheer necessity.
– The metric system.
6 February: I was running along the Corniche this afternoon, enjoying the sight and smells of the Gulf, when I happened upon at least two or three dozen wandering pigeons. As I barreled down on them, they took flight en masse, leading me to believe I’d accidentally stumbled into a John Woo movie.
12 February: I don’t know if it’s Qatar, or the region, or the non-American world, or just this petrol station. All I know is that here, they don’t call it “patching your tire.” They call it a “tyre puncture.” Leading to things like this:
ME: I have a slow leak in my back tire.
ATTENDANT: You want tyre puncture?
ME: I already have a punctured tire.
ATTENDANT: So you want us to puncture your tyre.
ME: What?!
ATTENDANT: You are here for tyre puncture, yes?
ME: Yes, a punctured tire.
ATTENDANT: Come, we will puncture it for you.
ME: But I don’t need another tire puncture!
ATTENDANT: Puncture or no?
ME: Well, it is punctured…
ATTENDANT: Come.
And this is why I prefer to let Kate book reservations or call for takeaway. Because, when I’m in charge, there’s no guarantee things will work out how we wanted.
STAFF: That will be fifty riyal.
ME: This is a pepperoni pizza with extra cheese and olives.
STAFF: Yes. Fifty riyal.
ME: I thought I ordered schwarma.
I honestly don’t know how the service staff in this country puts up with me.
13 February: Most of Doha is shut down for National Sports Day today. Seriously, America, between this and restroom libraries, you’ve got some catching up to do.
14 February: I was nearly sideswiped today by a local man in a speeding Toyota Land Cruiser, taking a left turn from the right-turn lane of a crowded roundabout and shaving.
I’m not even a little bit fazed by this. It’s Doha, and I live here now.
Last week, I got a text from Sophia telling me where we’d meet for the protest, but not when. The day of the protest, she texted me a time and a list of things I should leave behind (phone, Apple watches) and bring (sunglasses, mask). I would leave my wallet behind too, taking only my four-hundred-dollar SmartCard and praying to the Almighty Bob that I wouldn’t lose it.
Later that morning, Sophia texted that we were going to a different protest just over the Maryland border, at a different time. I somehow made the twelve-minute walk to the Metro without music and I caught my train pretty quickly. I arrived on time and waited for her to show up.
This took some time. My only means of telling time was the Amtrak departures/arrivals billboard. It occurred to me that she could have been running behind or canceling the trip altogether, and there was no way she could tell me. I watched the board for a while, deciding when I’d give up, then moving the goalposts.
She made it, apologetic, and I didn’t care because she was always late. The train line we took was the one we used to take when we lived closer to each other, so we traded memories. Even without the protest, this was a really good day.
We met up with Chuck at our stop, and he was carrying a standard-sized American flag and collapsible pole. I brought a five-pack of art boards and acrylic pens, so Sophia and I could get our sign on. I’m not satisfied with how mine turned out. You’ll see why that’s so funny in a bit.
Sophia went Minimalist, but profound.
I went with something that needed to be said.
An old man with a walker asked if we’d make him a sign, and I said of course. Sophia wrote a poignant saying, with green paint this time, and this made him really happy. His name was Neil, and we saw him later in the afternoon when he passed us by. He was excited to show us how he’d taped it to his walker.
We masked up and left the station. Sophia and Chuck had some very real concerns about surveillance and the vindictiveness of the Trump administration. Honestly, I went into this expecting to get arrested. I informed my boss I’d be at a weekend protest, just in case. But there were no heavily armored police with batons and shields. There were no police at all. It was five blocks of people standing on each side of the Wisconsin Avenue, waving signs around.
Chuck and Sophia looked like they were going to lob Molotov cocktails at passing cars. I started out masked as well, but between the pleasantly warm humidity and the fact that not a single other person at this entire protest was wearing one, I let my face breathe. They were off in my own little world, and I decided to explore.
Luckily, there were people in orange vests keeping part of the sidewalk open, so I was able to walk the length of it without throwing elbows. The ubiquitous honk took some getting used to, but it was clear that most people in the metro area are on our side.
I realized that, if I got lost in this crowd, there was no way Sophia could find me, so I found my way back, and I couldn’t see them anywhere. I took advantage of the ample seating and attempted to think my way out of this—oh, there they were, exactly where I’d left them. They didn’t even know I was gone.
This was a social event for many of the protestors, who shuffled themselves corner to corner, gossiping like schoolgirls. That meant they passed back and forth between us and the rest of them, giving us a chance to read all the signs.
The most popular message was “No Kings,” and their variations (“No King since 1775”), followed by “fascist,” and “Hitler,” and “TACO,” including “TACO Trump,” which literally means “Trump Always Chickens Out Trump.” I saw some really good ones, but without any means of recording, I’ve forgotten every one of them.
Some people wrote in marker on the back of boxes. Some went after them on poster board. Some pasted art onto their boards. Some professionally printed their signs in foam. One person constructed a sculpture of a taco that he wore as a hat. One person held up their sign with a tennis racket. A lot of the cars had signs of their own.
Later in the afternoon, when we changed location, I noticed a family. Mom held up a sign I couldn’t read. Brother, about thirteen, broadcast his boredom on full volume. Dad was hanging out with Sister.
Sister, about eight or nine years old, and blessed with the most adorable black curls you’ll ever see, was deeply into the protest. She whooped, she yelled, she waved her arms around. She wrote on the back of a plate with a ballpoint pen and made sure everyone driving by saw it.
I had two art boards I couldn’t wait to get rid of and acrylic pens that were going to waste. I offered them up the family, the girl went nuts. I had four colors: black, white, red, and green, and she used them. At the risk of boasting, I think I made that girl’s day, and I feel pretty great about it. They returned my pens, and we found the guy giving away free pizza.
Passing by were hoards of older ladies who would leave the safety of their group to photograph interesting signs. One of them snapped Sophia’s and moved along. I said it was okay because my sign wasn’t very good. Sophia, always the cheerleader, told me it was.
The first one was rushing past, and she did a double-take and backed up. She said, “I really like your sign.” She looked at it again. “I really like your sign.” She walked away and came right back. “Actually, can I take a photograph?” The other three women who took my picture didn’t hesitate. They asked permission and snapped and kept going.
We lasted a little over two hours, and we did not get arrested. Now that we have signs, we might as try a few of these out. Hopefully, they can be the positive experience this one was.
I’ve never been to a Pride parade before, even though I’d lived for a long time in cities that had big ones. I was never interested, to be honest. I have always been pro-LGBT, and I’d outgrown parades since I was too old to fight children for candy (thirty-three).
This feels like an important year, though, so I should show my support. Besides, I am part of the LGBTQIA umbrella. (It might surprise you to know this, but the A doesn’t stand for asexual. It stands for ally.) I also need to be in crowds sometimes. Did I need to be in the crowd this will likely be? What if I have a meltdown? I went back and forth on this all morning Saturday, until I decided to go for it. I took my four-hundred-dollar SmartCard and left my wallet behind (the credit cards for the pickpockets, and the ID in case the gestapo show up.)
The parade started at two, so I left and noon to beat the horde. I was not expecting what I found when I arrived before one o’clock. I assumed it would be several blocks from the start before I could even see the parade route. I arrived to an empty barricade. That meant I could get closer to the start, so I headed in that direction, until I felt like. I could stand anywhere I wanted.
Since the only place to cross Fourteenth was at the start, I did so and explored the neighborhood. This was 12:53.
There was an awkward, failed attempt to buy weed and a very condescending bookseller. Otherwise, I found nothing of interest. On the correct side of the street, I found a place in perpetual shade to camp out in. I checked my phone. It was 1:06. Fifty-four minutes until the parade, and gays were always late. [Editor’s note: I don’t think this is true.] This was going to be a long wait.
Facing the parade route let me observe the “PRIDE IS OF THE DEVIL,” “JESUS SAVES,” and “REPENT NOW” signs. With my back to the route, I could ogle the partygoers of all, and I mean all, genders as the crowd filled out. Some wore rainbows, and some did their makeup special. They were mostly normal people.
The swamis baffled me. While they hovered nearby, I tried to think of the best way I could ask them what was up with their clothes. “What’s up with your clothes?” was not the way I wanted to do it.
That was how I almost missed a young, cocky woman with purple hair, bouncing by. Her sleeveless top was also purple, as well the 25 percent of the flag rising from the back of her head. The flag also had white, black, and gray. “Hey!” I shouted at her. She was too far away, and it was getting loud.
I returned to the empty parade-lude to see a tall, black woman emerge from a limo to thunderous applause. I feel like I should have known who that was, but I couldn’t tell. She looked bored, but I could barely see her to tell for sure. Even though I was the first person here, a large area had been set aside in front of me for disabled people, mostly the hearing impaired. I watched them converse excitedly with their hands, talking over each other. Everybody was having a great time.
I decided to get back to people-watching and turned around, but that opened me up to the attention of the guy on the other side of the sidewalk, selling Jell-O shots. He was a salesman. He knew, if he could get me to come over there and talk to him, he would get a sale. He would not take no for an answer.
To free myself, I turned back around, and there she was, the asexual woman! Displaying the lack of fucks it’s taken me a half-century to build up, I tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Hi, I’m ace!”
“What?”
“I’m asexual!” I shouted at her.
She devoted her full attention to me.
“I didn’t expect to see any asexuals here!” I shouted.
“Here I am!” she shouted back.
“I figure it out late in life, so I don’t know any people like me!”
“You know me! I’m Rachel!”
“Jeremiah!”
We learned a lot about each other for the next hour. She was born in Minnesota, but moved to Maryland when she was seven. She’s thirty. I asked her if she remembered anything about Minnesota, and she told me school, sledding, mostly the winters. We talked about art. We talked about music.
“I thought gay bikers were extinct,” I said, not referring to motorcyclists themselves, but of the leather daddy stereotype from the seventies and eighties.
She loved ASL, so she translated some of what I was seeing in the disabled area. Where I thought they were talking over each other, one was making the gesture that meant “Same.” Another gesture indicated that they were paying attention. “Like I’m doing now,” I said. She didn’t think it was funny.
She worked for the Maryland Parks department, and she also planned out their PR. If I’m ever in Silver Spring for a parade, she will be one of the mascots. The owl is the most comfortable suit, and the beaver sags in the crotch. I suggested a harness.
She told me that the day before was a convention for the Asexual Alliance of the Mid-Atlantic, which she’d only just found out about.
She said someone next to her was getting too intimate with her, and she was about to ask me to trade spots.
She wore a cross-body bag across her hip, so I thought it was an enormous fanny pack. Whatever it was, it was bigger in the inside than it was on the outside. She has to check for her watch, wallet, and keys periodically, and this took over a minute of digging.
I noted, after we’d been chatting for a while, that we were brushing up against each other. It was kind of flirty, but not in a sexual way. It was flirty in a cozy way. My personal bubble is a demilitarized zone, which is a strange thing for a man who likes crowds so much to say. She was pulling in close to me not because she had to, but because it felt safe.
“I like to do stuff like this alone!” she shouted. “If I had been with a group of friends, I never would have met you!”
The parade started, and it took a long time to get going. Each group pulled onto Fourteenth Street and waited, and waited. When it did get going, the main attraction at the beginning was an organized group hauling a large rainbow flag. And there was more flag. And there was even more flag.
“How do they clean that?” I asked.
She laughed. “It’s a flag you can measure in minutes.” It took four minutes for the flag to go by.
The celebrity from earlier was waving, half-assedly, from the back of a Corvette. This was Laverne Cox, whose name I recognized.
The gay bikers drove by.
After that, it was just another parade. There were banners, marching bands, fire trucks, and floats. Instead of candy, they threw balls into the crowd, which seemed to me to be a bad idea. Rachel almost got one in the face. Compared to bacchanal I was expecting, it was really wholesome.
When the parade stalled out again, Rachel told me she was going to see the vendors and figure out how to cross the street. There was a concert she wanted to see. And that was it. That’s what a one-night-stand looks like to an ace like me.
She was delightful, and she made an impression, and I wish I had gotten her number. But I didn’t because making friends at this age is like dating. You are just as likely to get ghosted as you are from someone you met on Tindr. What would be the point of making this into a disappointing memory? I just had an enchanting afternoon with someone interesting. She wasn’t asking me for my number.
The reason I didn’t go with her was because I was exhausted. I had been standing since I got off the train, and I had to walk ten blocks to get here. It was another ten blocks back, plus another mile home when I got to my station. In fact, I didn’t last much longer, and within an hour, my feet were propped up on my bed.
I’m glad I went. It was a little disappointing, to be honest, but I ended up connecting, however briefly, with a kindred spirit. I hope she tells her friends about this cool old person she met at the parade, so my spirit is floating out there freely, among the thirty-year-olds from Minnesota in Maryland.
I don’t like to make a big deal of my birthday, but I still have three iron-clad rules:
Here’s the thing with cake and myself: neither of my parents were chefs. The food wasn’t terrible, but, they managed to collapse a Betty Crocker recipe every year. We called them Charlie Brown cakes, and I wish I could have one again.
Monday, I posted my portrait, I shuffled around my apartment, nowhere to be, and I had some cake. The rest of the day, I worked on my project. My friend Emily tells me people-watching is addictive, and I’m inclined to believe her. I needed my fix.
Luckily, I had accepted an invitation to the Blood Editors’ Retreat Dinner. The choice of cuisine meant I was having Indian food on my birthday, and I wasn’t paying for it, so happy birthday to me. The best part was that they served entrees tapas-style for sharing. Usually, I just order Tikki Masala (the Official Dish of England), but this dinner introduced me through so many exciting new dishes.
I took my seat at the end of the table, and the two people closest to me were Dr. Mario, an Italian, and Dr. Erica, from Australia. Dr. Mario’s accent was very thick, and the room was so loud as editors caught up and had a good time that I struggled to understand. He is from Pavia, which I’ve heard of, probably through Shakespeare.
Dr. Mario was very interested in where I’m from. I usually tell people I was raised in New Mexico and leave it at that. But that skips over Nebraska, Indiana, New York adjacent, Oklahoma, and Central Jersey, Qatar, etc. I stuck with the Southwest, and he told me how much he loved Ansel Adams.
I’m not entirely sure why I went off on a rant about Italian drivers in the presence of Dr. Mario and the Editor-in-Chief, but I committed to it once I did. “These guys will drive up what are clearly pedestrian walkways,” I said, “where there is not an atom between the car and the wall.” If they were serious about catching Vin Diesel, they’d send Italian cab drivers.
Dr. Erica did not want to talk about work, so she talked about me. These editors are academics and science writers, and they think fiction is magic. When Dr. Erica found out I’d written and (almost) published a novel, she had to tell everyone.
Blood publishes research papers, and when they find one that’s really good, they ask one of the peer reviewers to write a brief commentary on why the paper is worth reading. I tell you this to put some context into the following conversation, which took place among several accents.
“Which one of us is going to write the commentary for his novel then?”
“We can’t publish one in Blood without a hematology angle.”
“Jeremiah says it’s about a werewolf.”
“Do werewolves suck blood?”
“No, that’s vampires.”
“It’s a shame your book couldn’t be about vampires, Jeremiah.”
“Wait. Werewolves turn people into werewolves by biting them.”
“A pathogen then?”
“More of a transfusion.”
“I’m a transfusion specialist. I can write the commentary!”
I do have my limits, and I reached them shortly after the last course. I retreated home to enjoy a second slice of cake before curling up, while Oscar did the same, just out of arm’s reach.
Another self-portrait.
For more on the history of my self-portraits, look here:
I read this to my dad on the occasion of his eightieth birthday.
***
Edward “Murf” Murphy is a man who is not afraid to ask for directions. This alone says a lot about him. He doesn’t even need to ask directions to talk to strangers. Sometimes, it’s because they have Jersey plates. Sometimes, it’s because he has to tell someone something, and his family ran away while his back was turned. Sometimes, he’s just saying hi.
I don’t know much about my dad before I came along. He’s dropped hints about his past, like when he told me he’d been to jail more than I. He’s also writing his memories out for his kids, but it’s been a long time since the last chapter. Hurry it up, Dad—the clock’s ticking.
I’ve seen photos when I was very little, and my dad was a cool guy, with his hat and shades and an aversion to shirts. He had the bare minimum of fucks to give, through fatherhood, the empty nest, and retirement.
He had no idea what he was doing, but he took to fatherhood with the same focus that he put into everything. He worked a number of jobs to support his family, my favorite being the pizza parlor. When I showed up, we were living hand-to-mouth. Thanks to Mom and Dad, we always had clothes and stuff to play with. We never went to bed hungry.
I didn’t always like my dad. Like all young adults, I disagreed with how much I should be allowed to do. I never appreciated just how much I was he was allowing me to do. The kids I was arrested with pitied me because my dad was a tyrant, and I had been sentenced to fifty-to-life. Even back then, at my most rebellious, I pitied them because their parents didn’t seem to care enough for discipline.
A big part of our difficulties was mental illness, setting in at a time when we didn’t know very much about it. Poor Dad, our primary caregiver, had no idea what was happening. It must have felt like he was losing his son. The more time I’ve spent learning about my illness, the more I understand how hard it must have been to live with me. Bipolar disorder has taken a lot from me, but my teen years with my dad, when I needed him the most, might have been the worst.
I know everything I know about comics because my dad is a big ol’ nerd, and I spent countless hours going through his collection of Marvel books from the seventies and eighties. One of my favorite childhood memories was when the girls were all out, and Dad let my buddy, Alex, and me watch Star Trek from the dinner table, feasting on spaghetti and meat sauce. It was the episode with the alien who looked exactly like a plate of spaghetti with meat sauce.
Dad was at the forefront of the personal computer, and he was a Mac guy before Macs were cool. He tried out exciting new software and games and learned how they worked. He eventually built his own. I remember how awestruck he was when he saw Uncle Ralph’s Museum of Obsolescence.
During that same visit out East, when Uncle Larry and I waited for him to show up, Larry stressed the importance of not letting Dad get bored. “When Murf is bored, things happen.” For example: the furniture in the living room getting reshuffled every few months.
There were the home improvement projects, like how he converted a carport into a toolshed using an old fence and some plywood. When he couldn’t fix something, he repurposed it, meaning he had one of the only junk drawers in the country that actually saw use.
Dad has a sense of whimsy, which didn’t show up more than it did with our vacations. Yes, we visited family, and yes, we did take a trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios each, but mostly we hit the roadside attractions. I know they were Dad’s idea because Mom wouldn’t have dragged us to Tombstone, Arizona.
I could go on about how stole the show in Gallup Community Theater, or volleyball, or his affinity for old, foreign, working-class cars, or how he always has a book with him because you never know when you’ll be waiting, or how he’ll smuggle in a bag of hard candy to the movies, how he never accepts violence as a solution. or how there is never any doubt that he loves us and will do anything to give us a better life.
My dad’s not like other dads, and for that I’m forever grateful.
Jeremiah Murphy 