AUSTIN, TX-

With the 4^th of July upon us, my neighbor screaming from a lost extremity at the hands of a Black Cat and enough potato salad in my gullet to occupy Paris, I got to thinking about America. And American institutions. Well, people, the hallowed institution of marriage is under attack in America, not just from Communists like Barney Frank and the state of Iowa, but also from other insidious forces both seen and unseen. So, in the interest of preserving the kind of marriage that God and Texas intended, here are some things to be especially mindful of:

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA-

In 1988 I was fourteen years old, five-foot-nine, skinny, flat-chested and at least four more years away from any proper evidence of puberty. To compound all of this luminous adolescent joy I was also morbidly shy and horrifically self-conscious. In short, I was a child. A bloody tall child, but a child nonetheless.

My hair was long and brown, my eyebrows heavy, my cheeks full. I was so thin, and so tormented by my thinness, that I ate as much as I could to try and gain weight. I ate all sorts of crap. Nothing happened. I remained, despite all efforts, a wisp of skin and bones, stumbling when I ran, blown hither and thither by gusts of strong wind and glances from strangers. The sad truth is that I come from a family of stick insects, and the physique I would later be grateful for was a thing of shame and sadness in my formative years. Victimized and scorned, I was teased mercilessly about my stature by other children. My nicknames were, amongst others: Olive Oyl, Bean Pole, Stick, Twig, and, my personal favorite, Inverted, a name given to me by the boys in my neighborhood in honor of my invisible breasts. Humiliated by my non-existent chest, I covered my body as much as I could and engaged, whenever possible, in the bust-increasing exercises I read about in Judy Bloom books.

These were not my glory days.

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NEW PALTZ, N.Y.-

The Gloved One is dead.

No big surprise, given his mental and physical health, but tragic nevertheless.

I liked Michael Jackson, but I was never a rabid fan. My little brother was the one with the red jacket. But there is one moment that, in my view, represented the zenith of his career.  A moment when I jumped on the Jacko bandwagon, white glove and all.

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BALTIMORE, MD-

My mother gave my father a Diane Arbus photo book for his birthday the year I was ten and he was thirty-four. The entire family (Mom, Dad, my older sister, Becca, and my younger brother, Josh) gathered around and slowly waded through it, picture by picture. The pages were thick and glossy and smelled remotely of plastic. Almost all the photos were portraits—people whose entire lives seemed exposed through the simplest physical details. There was the terrorizing image of the boy holding a toy hand grenade, the stoop of the Jewish giant who stood beside his small rodent-like parents, the overly-shadowed nasal-labial folds on the middle-aged woman cradling a baby monkey whose face is identical to hers.

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BEND, OR-

I just licked that big, all-consuming yellow envelope that holds, in its hopefully safe confines, my newest poetry manuscript. To be sent to an interested publisher in New York, a land almost as far, far away as Paris.

These are the first poems I’ve written in seven years. The first poems I’ve written that seem like grown-up, adult poems. (No, not adult in that way.)

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BEND, OR-

It’s been a crazy month. I am working right now on a new novel, a poetry manuscript about Paris, freelancing for the local arts paper and co-writing a script about the Thai sex trade. I turned 36, watched the complete season of American Idol (fell in love with Adam, finally, when he wore that gorgeous outfit of Kiss boots and metal wings), sold a few poetry books, took a class on baking with chocolate, went on a ghost hunt in rural Eastern Oregon and watched a handsome waiter in my favorite local restaurant bring me a piece of pecan pie with a candle on top. (more…)

BOULDER, CO-

Grandma wanted a red bikini.

She said it was because she wanted to take up swimming again, but I suspect it had a bit more to do with a “sunset-of-life” crisis. And anyway, just because when the rest of us looked at her we saw a wrinkly old woman who looked like she might blow over if you forgot to cover your sneeze…Grandma was a sexy bird.

At some point.

Possibly circa the climax of the women’s suffrage movement.

I’ve seen pictures, anyway.

Before the gray. Before the Depends.

Before “the girls” made a permanent move south.

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SHANTOU, CHINA-

One thing that makes me sad about the prospect of one day not  living in China: nothing will ever seem weird again. I’ve spent so many of my favorite Sundays walking about, having dispensed to me, by my companions of necessity, such Midwestern subsidized corn kernels of observation as ”holy shit-troopers!” upon the sight of a Chinese abortion ad that describes the process as, ’seven minutes in a dream,’ or the strange pronunciation of, ”Look at them’ens!” when the rare and lone Shantou punk rocker presents himself, or even just hearing it stated plainly, ”That’s weird, like R. Simmons weird!” when the old man makes the finger of one hand in the hole of the other gesture everytime we pass. I’m not sure who he’s trying to sell us, though I’m hopeful it is not himself.

I am all but certain that China has been the apex of my favorite pastime: walking around and listening to the loosely tethered ramblings of the hungover and displaced that spring up in the tired and unguarded mind of the expat suffering from his or her own self-inflicted wounds. One day I will miss my Sundays in Shantou. (more…)

NEW PALTZ, N.Y.-

You’ve heard of Twitter. You either use it, have friends who use it, or you’ve read about it in snooty op-eds. It’s like heroin, in that way. That and it’s addicitive as hell.

Another way it’s like heroin: it doesn’t come with an instruction manual. You either have to have a junkie explain it to you, or you figure it out as you go. I’m not a Twitterholic, not yet, but I thought it might be beneficial to dish what I’ve learned about this odd new medium to the TNB community.

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BROOKLYN, NY –

It surprises a lot of people to learn that I am not a redhead.

I am extremely fair-skinned, my grandfather was a ginger-haired Irishman, and I touch-up my roots religiously, so it’s an assumption most people make naturally.  

So much so, that I get asked certain questions non-stop:

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NEW PALTZ, N.Y.-

This past February 11, Jennifer Aniston turned forty.

I am aware of this milestone because it has been covered in the celebrity tabloids with a ferocity usually reserved for moon landings and presidential assassinations. Another week, another Aniston-over-the-hill story. This past Friday, for example, in the “Celeb Crisis” section, Life & Style did a two-page story entitled “Jen’s Struggle With Aging.”

Aniston, to the tabloids, is a tragic figure. Has been since Friends went off the air five years ago.

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SARASOTA, FL-

Janeane Garofalo is almost 45 years old and wants you to know, “I don’t give a shit. I’ve mellowed.” We’re seated in one of L.A.’s most popular vegetarian restaurants, but I can’t give its location lest it becomes less popular. Nevertheless, Garofalo seems at ease with the diners trying to figure out just who she is, but she has an answer for that. “The Truth About Cats and Dogs,” she says. Why? “Because I don’t believe in having pets, but beyond that, it was a slam at me, a typical role. I was the dog. And the only reason the guy fell in love with me was my personality. Yeah, right. That’s a bunch of fucking bullshit. Never happens. You see me with Brad Pitt? No, I’m eating with an unknown writer and watching people trying to remember having watched The Truth About Cats and Dogs. And to tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit.” (more…)

BERLIN, GERMANY

I seem to be carrying on the family tradition of tool-wielding women, albeit reluctantly.  My mother has long been gifted every Christmas with an addition to her tool set and although I am all for self-sufficiency and stepping outside traditional roles, the call of the tool belt never quite reached me.  It is, however, being forced upon me these days as drippy faucets and non-functional washing machines pervade my world and I have now come to know the inside of the Bauhaus the way I used to know Sephora.  (more…)

COLUMBIA, MARYLAND -

There’s something in my eye.

Well, technically, there’s something in both of my eyes and the very attractive optician I go to tells me they’re called contacts and that eventually I’ll get used to them, but for now I prefer to think of them as being something in my eyes.

That’s right…I got contacts. Insert the surprised gasp of all my friends and family [here].

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MIAMI BEACH, FL-

I was really looking forward to seeing Dubai because I had heard so much about it. I had heard it was ultra-modern, the gigantic buildings, the man-made islands out in the ocean.   Let me tell you a little about it since I’ve been there to see it and you can decide what you think about it yourself.

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SARASOTA, FL-

Since nearly every interview with Sean Penn immediately notes that he lights cigarettes with the regularity of old women on prune juice, Sean Penn lit his third cigarette before our interview had begun. He spent that time gazing at me as if I were some sort of fantastic form of quartz. He is, and will always be, one of Hollywood’s foremost geologists, digging up jewels of roles, which he then polishes like a rock tumbler. He lit a cigarette before finishing the other one and smoked the two simultaneously. Soon, he was smoking fifteen cigarettes at the same time. He put on his sunglasses, took them off, and put them on again. It’s a useless actor’s ploy, and he was being ironic, I’m sure of it. (more…)

GULF BREEZE, FL -

In seventh grade my identity was cemented forever when I was approached in the school hallway by a girl who was Head Cheerleader, daughter of the high school Home Ec teacher, and, by virtue of these qualifications (or so I supposed), part of the ruling elite of the school.

“So, Dawn, can I talk to you for a minute?” HC said, sauntering over with her vacant stare.

“What is it?” I asked, squinting suspiciously, not to mention myopically, up at her.

“Well, some of us have noticed that you don’t wear a bra.”

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BOULDER, CO-

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Earlier this year, the woman who holds the world’s record for the longest fingernails…lost them in a car crash.

Lee Redmond, a Salt Lake City, Utah resident, had nails totaling 28 feet in length. On February 11th of this year, she was ejected into the road from the passenger seat of an SUV in which she was riding.

Of course she was riding.

Her longest nail was her left thumb, which measured 2 feet, 11 inches. All 10 of them broke in the crash.

3-foot long nails severed in a violent crash. Three days before Valentine’s Day.  (more…)

BERLIN, GERMANY

I just used my boyfriend’s shaving cream to shave my legs and now they smell like a man.  On the one hand, I’m still shaving my legs which I consider a coup in the war against the loss of my beauty regime.  On the other hand, my legs smell like a man’s face.  Sometimes that’s okay, but better when you’re lying in bed with oxytocin rushing through your veins and the sheets rumpled beneath you rather than fresh from the shower.  (more…)

PALM SPRINGS, CA-

I’ve long wanted to write a memoir on hair.

I already have a title: “THIS BLOWS: A LIFE IN HAIR”

It would be about how our hair defines us, from birth to death … the hairstyles over time … our infatuation with our stylists … the incredible time most women and gay men spend on our their hair, for first dates, school photos, job interviews, speeches. I can remember my time with each and every one of my products, my brushes, my blow drier, my styles intimately.

Hair, like clothes, define an era. Moreover, I think our hairstyles defines us as people … our willingness to take risks, be individuals … or not.

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