For Frying Out Loud Read online

  After fairly universal agreement that making up events out of whole cloth and deceiving readers with fake exploits was heinous, shades of grey started to emerge. Author Mark Doty, who has written a splendid memoir called Firebird and many other delightful books was ready to give a whole lot more artistic license to writers than some others on the panel. He spoke of memory as recalling both the real and the quasi-real, exploring where the mind might take us.

  Robert Leleux, author of Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy, a current best-seller, seemed to add his voice to Mark’s point of view.

  I respectfully disagreed. “I believe what we write has to have happened. We can add color, exaggerate for effect and craft words for humor. We can shape time lines to make stories less confusing and more readable. But stories have to be true to call it memoir,” I said.

  “Absolutely!” shouted a woman in the second row. “I agree! You have a contract with the reader, asking them to believe what you write!” She was taking no prisoners as she continued to engage Mark and Robert in a debate, citing truth as incontrovertible, with others on the panel agreeing with her, then Mark, then me, then others. But above all this dynamo in the second row kept us returning to truth as sacred.

  It wasn’t too many minutes into the melee (again, a verbal melee, no upper cuts to the chin) that I realized it was memoirist Dorothy Allison, author of the astonishing and brilliant Bastard Out of Carolina who was taking my side in the debate.

  Wow. For a minute I was too humbled to speak again.

  I got over it.

  Pretty soon talk shifted to Augusten Burroughs whose five memoirs and essay collections have been New York Times best sellers. His memoir Running With Scissors was positively heartbreaking and hilarious all at once, but its veracity has been challenged in the courts. The loony (according to the author) psychiatrist that Burroughs went to live with after his mother abandoned him – the shrink who purportedly predicted good or bad days by the positions of his turds in the toilet – sued the author for defamation and falsehoods and the case was settled out of court. When I thought the memoir was all true, I was much less disgusted by the telltale turd story.

  In the final analysis, everyone on the panel and in the audience that day pretty much agreed. Truth matters. The controversy is in the degrees. And I guess that’s what makes horse races and good memoir.

  It’s a pity Scott McClellan’s book about the Bush administration hadn’t come out yet. The former press secretary’s scathing indictment of his White House days has members of the Bush team shrieking “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” Somehow, I am certain that McClellan subscribes to the Dorothy Allison theory of memoir – shirts, shoes and truth required.

  Meanwhile, back at the conference, we all partied together – and how it gets retold in memoir will surely be very different for each of us.

  In my case I was thrilled to be sharing stories and cocktails with Dorothy Allison, mystery writer JM Redman, and the many friends I have made over the years in New Orleans. When I get around to writing about the adventure I will not leave out the part about my spouse sleeping it off in the bathtub, yours truly knocking over more than one Hurricane at the Good Friends bar or hanging out with our boyfriends at a tavern where scantily clad boys cavorted on the bar. And you can bet your sweet Hurricane, I may change the names to protect the guilty and leave out a boring incident or two, but the gist of the tale will be: we were fried and it was true.

  Memoirs are made of these.

  July 2008

  APOCALYPSE IN 2012?

  The headline on my computer screen said “Thousands expect apocalypse in 2012.” That’s right, according to various survival groups, and based on a millennium-old Mayan ritual, the world will be kaput in less that four years – specifically on December 21, 2012. I hope Hanukah comes early that December so I get my presents.

  And frankly, if my political party doesn’t take over the White House come November I tend to agree with the timetable.

  Listen to this: in 2006, a book called 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl was published and has sold thousands of copies a month. That beats As I Lay Frying on Amazon by, well, thousands of copies a month. And while authors disagree about what the heck to expect on that day in December I’m sure we will be easy prey as we all sit around trying to pronounce Quetzalcoatl.

  Gee, if the schedule holds, no retirement for me. I just turned 60 and I’m officially in the first wave of 78 million baby boomers – a huge demographic bulge (not me, personally, but there are days…) that will, hopefully, age better than our parents and grandparents did. At least we hope we will.

  In fact, not to be mistaken for a fuddy-duddy, I partied on my recent birthday like I was 30. The sad truth hit when I woke up the next day feeling every bit of 90. From what I understand, I was led out of my favorite watering hole and deposited into a taxi. My own personal Armageddon. Why wait for 2012?

  And, although it happened five days later, I considered it a belated gift when Senator Jesse Helms passed. On the same day fireworks went off in Rehoboth. Coincidence?

  When I wasn’t reading about the end of the world, I was enjoying my birthday cards. Like the one that said “Anything Worth Doing is Worth Over-doing.” See Armageddon paragraph above.

  Forget about Last Comic Standing – I think the most hilarious comedians are now at Hallmark. For example, “What do older women have between their breasts that younger women don’t?”

  “A belly-button.”

  Birthday cards have gone hi-tech. Knowing my youthful indiscretion of marrying an accordion player, my friends delight in watching me twitch and squirm at accordion humor. This year I got a musical card featuring a song on the wretched instrument.

  I loved the talking card. On the front was written “I was looking through cards trying to find one for your birthday and I was laughing so hard I …”

  You open the card and hear “Clean up on aisle 6….” Ah, Depends humor.

  I have to admit, though, a disturbing thing did happen on my birthday. I found myself driving in the middle lane on Route One with my left blinker on for no apparent reason. I knew I’d eventually become a doddering old fart but I didn’t think it would happen this fast.

  But there seems to be good news on the horizon. Today, on CBS News online, another article on the aging of baby boomers, or in my case gayby boomers reported “…signs suggest…that boomers will enjoy not just increased longevity but better health as well. Boomers may be aging more slowly than previous generations because of healthy habits, such as less smoking and more exercise. Maybe 60 really is the new 50.”

  Gee, I hope so. But that brings me to the next question. If we are going to live longer lives, how are we going to pay for them?

  If I positively knew that the Mayan doomsday was coming, Mamma Mia could I have a great four years. Bring on the wine, women, song and Hostess Ho-Hos. But Quetzalcoatl, even if you could pronounce it, might not happen, and in that case, I have to figure out how long my money is going to last.

  Perhaps as a result of this big birthday, or the fact that I’d put it off long enough, I spent an evening last week with a friend who understands the mysteries of Microsoft Excel. Despite the accompanying Margaritas, it was a sobering exercise.

  Since CBS News told me there was a damn good chance of achieving it, we did a spread sheet with the assumption that my spouse and I would live until 100.

  But according to the increasingly annoying CBS News article, boomers who retire at 65 need to have enough money to support themselves for 20 to 30 years, and in some calculations that means having $2.5 million in the bank.

  Holy Quetzalcoatl, Batman! Don’t make me laugh. Or there will have to be cleanup on Aisle 6.

  Best we can figure, we can live pretty well until our mid-80s and then, like those Grey Garden gals, it’s cat food in a ramshackle house on the shore for us.

  I can see us now, sitting in our rocking chairs and staring at the navel between our breasts. With any luck I can still look at he
rs and she can still look at mine.

  Although, if 60 is the new 50, maybe I can just wait a decade until I’m 60 aqain and worry about the spreadsheet.

  In the meantime, if you hear proof of doomsday let me know. And remind me to keep that left turn signal from blinking.

  July 2008

  ADDING INSULT TO INJURY

  I felt like Yogi Bear, hibernating. Bonnie had knee surgery June 12 and I spent a week in the house, telecommuting and playing nurse.

  I loved the hibernating, For an inveterate flit like me, generally juggling dozens of tasks in multiple places, you’d think being homebound would be akin to life without parole. No, I loved it so much it scared me. Truly not leaving the house for six days except to get the mail made me very, very content.

  And I actually got a lot of work done between my medical rounds and watching coverage of California’s gay weddings. Frankly, the reporting was shockingly positive.

  Watching 80-somethings Phyllis Lyons and Del Martin be legally wed in the U.S. – and then seeing their smiling faces, in a photo 6-inches square, on Page One of the News Journal capped it. How I wish my mentors, Anyda and Muriel were still alive to bask in this. They became a couple two years before Phyllis and Del.

  While the respectful coverage was a delight, it masked a scary new tactic of the homophobic right – they are being nice. And saying things like, “We congratulate the marrying couples, but our fight is against activist judges.” Yeah, right.

  The positive coverage contrasted completely with our surgery day in Philly. First, we arrived at the hospital armed with a weighty folder containing every notarized piece of paper we owned, attempting to prove our spousehood. Second, Bonnie had to answer the insulting ritual question, “married, single or divorced?”

  “Partnered,” Bonnie said. The clerk smiled. A decade ago it would have been an accusatory look. Snail progress.

  We arrived at the hospital at 6 a.m., for 6:45 surgery, only to discover that the private hospital was missing a key piece of paper from the Veteran’s Administration granting permission for the operation. My mate is a vet and due to our nation’s health care crisis, the VA is her only health insurance option. Thank God for that safety net. But…there are issues.

  Bonnie was already hooked up to the IV, wearing the little surgical hat, and surrounded by a flock of medical personnel, and we were on hold – both in the OR and on the phone with the VA.

  “Just go over there and get what they need, Fay,” the patient said. “It’s only a few blocks away.”

  “Wait,” said a nurse. “You better take your documents, and maybe we should sign something telling them you’re allowed to get the information. You know the HIPPA privacy rules.”

  “Oh, right, we’re not legally married. Crap.” Whereupon no less than six doctors and nurses, all held up by the snafu, scribbled on a note pleading for me to be considered worthy of the patient information.

  With a giant plastic bag filled with Bonnie’s clothes and our voluminous legal dossier slung over my shoulder, I raced to the lobby and hopped a cab to the VA hospital. I will spare you the details, but I was shuttled around to three offices and on hold with several non-compliant people as I frantically pictured a gaggle of expensive health care workers loitering by Bonnie’s gurney. At one point I was on hold from the lobby to the business office, listening to an educational tape about the seven signs of a heart attack and I was having eight of them.

  Finally somebody agreed to call Bonnie’s surgeon and set things right. Heart pounding, I ran back downstairs and saw a shuttle bus. “Does that go by Penn Presbyterian?” I asked.

  “Yep. It’s for the vets. Are you a vet?”

  “I’m the spouse of a vet.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “It’s a her.” Shit. What was I thinking? Toto, we’re NOT in Rehoboth.

  “Then you can’t be no spouse.”

  Bet me. I may or may not have said a very bad word, swung my big plastic trash sack over my shoulder and, channeling Lily Tomlin’s bag lady, marched out the door and huffed and puffed uphill six blocks to return to the operatory.

  Amazingly, the surgery finally happened a scant seven hours late, all went well and we headed home the next day.

  Just let me say this about the past week. There’s a reason I work in public relations, not health care. I tried to be a good nurse, really I did, but it just isn’t in my skill set.

  Bonnie came home with a 36-inch leg brace to prevent knee bends and the thing is held together with a thousand strips of industrial strength Velcro. You have to be the Incredible Hulk to unstick it (which, I might become after spending a week as Clara Barton) and when you do get the Velcro open it instantly sticks to everything in the vicinity.

  I’ve spent whole days peeling it off rugs, furniture, and pajamas. One time Moxie got up in Bonnie’s recliner when the thing was undone and we thought she’d be spending the next few weeks dragging a schnauzer around by his beard. I stepped on a Velcro strip in my socks and took the appliance with me like toilet paper on a shoe.

  Then there was the dressing to change and the blood thinning injections, not to mention the matzoh ball soup to prepare. I don’t know whether this house was more like House, ER or Nip/Tuck (me taking a nip of Grey Goose after tucking the patient into bed), but somehow we did all right.

  I survived the nursing rotation, Bonnie started getting back on her feet, and no schnauzers were injured in the making of this column. Well, except for a little fur flying when we snipped it off the Velcro from hell.

  But in our hibernation, as we watched the evening news and its giddy coverage of same-sex couples tying the knot on the West Coast, I unpacked our thick file of papers notarizing our coupledom. And I still had the scribbled emergency letter to the VA, signed by Dr. Kildare and his entire surgical team.

  Hell, according to the front desk guy at the VA, for my civil rights I didn’t have to go to the back of the bus, I couldn’t even get on the bus. Which tells me we have a long way to go.

  Code Blue, voters. And stat.

  August 2008

  I WILL NOT BE ERASED

  Lots of people, most recently gay conservative (oy, an oxymoron) Andrew Sullivan, have been speculating about the death of gay culture.

  I say, not so fast.

  Yes, it’s true, as Sullivan reports about Provincetown, “No one bats an eye if two men walk down the street holding hands, or if a lesbian couple pecks each other on the cheek, or if a drag queen dressed as Cher careens down the main strip on a motor scooter….”

  It could be Rehoboth.

  So too, like in Rehoboth, does Sullivan report that the “realestate boom has made Provincetown far more expensive than it ever was, slowly excluding poorer and younger visitors and residents…beautiful, renovated houses are slowly outnumbering beach shacks…the number of children of gay couples has soared…bar life is not nearly as central to socializing as it once was. Men and women gather on the beach, drink coffee on the front porch of a store, or meet at the Film Festival.”

  It could certainly be Rehoboth. It’s also true that our separate and formerly underground gay culture did develop, in most part, to combat, mask and soothe the twentieth century attacks against us.

  That being said, the vicious attack part may not be so evident anymore in Provincetown or Rehoboth, but how about Oklahoma? I saw a lunatic Oklahoma County Commissioner candidate on TV showing off his official campaign mailing piece – a homophobic comic book showing gays as pedophiles (spelled wrong in the piece by the way) and Satan affiliated with his opponent’s campaign. The candidate defended his despicable homophobia with the calm righteousness of a defender of tax policy.

  Also this week I heard about the latest Bush administration boondoggle. They have instructed the tabulators for the 2010 census to take the forms of couples who self-identify as being in gay marriages and change them to read “unmarried partners.” That includes legal gay marriages from California and Massachusetts. I don’t know
about you, but I will not be erased.

  But it was last week, at the Blue Moon Restaurant, when I realized our gay culture will be everlasting. I was there, a lone lesbian in a sea of guys (further cementing my odd reputation as an honorary gay man) to see comic actor Leslie Jordan do his hilarious and amazingly poignant one man show.

  I knew that folks of my generation related to Jordan’s tales of surviving youth as an effeminate young man and transitioning from suffocating shame to celebratory pride – but I was surprised that so many younger men in the crowd laughed so easily and applauded so enthusiastically with recognition.

  Jordan himself, noting his work with The Trevor Project in L.A., referred to our continuing need to have safe places for teens and young adults who are being attacked, shunned or in despair because society has told them to be ashamed of themselves.

  Heck, it’s not just young people. All over the country, even here in Sussex County, some gay men and women expect less of their lives and less of themselves because they have been instilled with shame and internal homophobia.

  As long as youngsters are still being ostracized because they are presumed gay, and as long as teens are attacked, physically or emotionally for being gay, and as long as jobs and lives are at stake unless gays remain closeted, there will be a need for gay culture – a safe family, a safe place to be and a special culture of our own.

  This is why CAMP Rehoboth is so important to our community. Sure, some of us, in our, ahem, maturity are less inclined to stay up to the wee hours dancing at the July 4th LOVE Dance. We may not need the library of LGBT books or spend quite as much time as we did in the courtyard, but whether we know if or not, we still need it. Whether people who have NEVER participated in a CAMP event know it or not, they benefit from CAMP’s existence, too.

  CAMP is the reason we can be comfortable in this town and its vigilance is the reason Rehoboth will continue to welcome all kinds of families. CAMP’s police sensitivity training helps our summer officers be more comfortable interacting with our community; CAMP’s support of the women’s golf league has helped more than one golfer tell me that joining the league made her feel part of the community; CAMP’s advocacy for LGBT citizens is the reason local and state governments respect us as a constituency; the welcoming atmosphere created by CAMP has helped a variety of religious organizations, nonprofits and clubs open their doors to the gay community. Oh, and CAMP’s successful publication has gays and non-gays alike advertising and reading.