*
(part of me- though definitely a smaller part than, say, three years ago- is still quietly fucking terrified.)
*
(but then i remember that i walked to the appointment in the sunshine, and had no symptoms there, and i could feel when the doctor literally stuck a cotton swab in my eye (no high-tech neuro testing here), and i walked out afterwards with my typical swagger, a lozenge in my mouth and the humid heat leaving my bare skin slippery, and i think: i am doing absolutely fucking fine... i just might have a bit more perspective than most, that's all.)
*
as i was crossing the street away from the doctor's office, my mother rang. i hadn't talked to either of my parents in at least a month. they are going on a road trip to yellowstone and utah, 10 days with their prius "in the 4 reddest states in the nation!" as my dad said, "except for, you know, texas." my mother asked "have you heard the latest scandal?" i anticipated more gossip about my crotchety oma. instead my mother salaciously divulged that my cousin had come out to my grammie. "i've known that for years" i said, forgetting that my mother hates few things more than being deprived of a solliloquy.
"you KNEW?"
"well, yeah."
"carol wants her to leave that (all-women's, liberal) school. she thinks that's what caused her to... you know."
"she's fine. she's a completely poised and brilliant human being. she's having the time of her life. i wish i had my shit together when i was 19 like she does."
my mother was stammeringly trying to be more liberal than she really is. i love her for that. "i mean, i don't care if she loves women... or frogs!" (she actually said 'frogs.') "it doesn't matter to me."
"she's happy, mom. she's doing really well." i tried to change the subject then... "so when do you guys leave on your trip?"
later i thought to myself "i wonder if my parents lament the fact that they will never be grandparents." i wonder if they're proud of me. they told me tonight (via their prius speaker phone that i hate conversing with them over) that they are. actually, my father said that. but i still get the feeling that they wish i had evolved into someone else... someone with a spouse and a home with matching towels who hosted dinner parties and had white, heterosexual, precocious-but-not-obnoxious offspring. someone who wasn't dinking around in massage school (i had to correct my father tonight- 'masseuse' is not really an acceptable word' i said. 'i give no undercarriage action.' there was a pause. then my father laughed. 'a masseuse gives a massage with a happy ending!' my mother brayed in the background.) and cleaning beast-ass, who was in love with a clean-cut lad and owned a hairbrush and wore skirts and was earnestly sociological without being, you know, too out there.
i am drinking a gin and tonic in a bar of which i am the sole patron, listening to 'honky cat' and siphoning wifi. i wonder if they would be proud of me now.
*
i have a horrible habit of taking photographs of myself whilst operating a moving vehicle. but i wanted to capture this moment, as blurry as it is.
i see d again tonight. monday was... a night that is still riccocheting in my brain. i find myself smiling glassily into space. it is so easy to make me happy. this is my secret weakness that too few people have utilized. does anyone realize how fucking easy it really is?
today i also had my tb skin test for the bailey-boushay house. i start my advanced clinic there in october. it's hospice for AIDS and other chronically ill patients. i have been looking forward to this from the get-go. i had blood drawn to test titers for my measles-mumps-rubella; at some point i must get my first-ever flu vaccine. d is working bailey-boushay this term. most of his clients shoo him away: "i'm in the middle of my show" they'll say, or something. he's ended up wandering the halls of the building for hours.
four hours later, my arm has not yet tripled in size, so i must be fine for tb. i have to go back in 48 hrs, expose my forearm, and have an affadavit signed.
i am not used to it being 8:20pm and already dark. the sun was low and orange when i arrived. i love watching people in flattering light.
last night i lay on my trampoline and talked to b for nearly 4 hours. it feels so easy now. it only took 12 years. someday i hope to alter the nightmarishness of our last impressions of one another. at some point in the night i was playing 'marquee moon.' he said something about 'wonder what it would have been like if-' and i realized that if things had gone any other way than how they'd gone, i'd never have fallen in love again, i never would have sang along to 'don't fear the reaper' in the midnight sun, i never would have been educated about the wave sculpture while the heat from the metal radiated into my back, i never would have laughed until i cried about a tastee-freez in ashland, oregon. i would have never had the rich and ridiculous moments that put me here, right now, writing about it. i thought "how fucking dare you- how narcissistically arrogant. and ignorant." and then i thought "how fucking amazing that we can be having this conversation"- and it made me very happy.
"you're an idealist" b told me last night. he didn't sound terribly derisive about it. i think i smiled and said "yeah, i suppose i am."
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