Oak Cliff optical adventures!

I think it was Thursday (all the days are running together lately).

In need of contacts since I curiously misplaced my last leftie, I had arranged a 10:30am appointment at the Optical Clinic off Saner.

Now the Optical Clinic has long been where my family gets its eye exams. The place is only surpassed in age by the tottering old optometrist who apparently resides there. He was the same man who examined my father's eyes as a boy and who now presides over his tiny shop shuffling about, all hunched over, and mumbling the exact same spiel about covering the right now the left and tell me which looks clearer.

When his mind finally goes entirely, he will be asking his Jamaican social worker which line looks clearer. Regardless, he's the cheapest show in town and the result of visiting his moldy clinic with the bright blue plastic folding chairs is vision for approximately one year.

Only not this time.

Upon arrival, I was dismayed to be informed by an obese woman in scrubs that the doctor had not come in. Unsurprising.

Nevertheless, could I reschedule? I was directed to another installation deeper into Oak Cliff at 1:30.

Now, Oak Cliff is the neighborhood of Dallas directly to the north of our South Dallas suburban towns. Throughout my entire childhood, the place loomed large in my imagination. It is a very old, very large neighborhood, which at one time was comfortably affluent - I think about the 50's.

But when I knew it, it was the place for authentic Mexican food, YMCA baseball and deal hunting at the Red Bird Mall. I suppose what fascinated me was the pleasant hills, the ancient beautiful trees, the old houses. The place had such a look of memory and belonging - as if I were walking through a dilapidated, but picturesque version of my dad's adolescence.

Unfortunately, this was because no one had enough money or initiative to update anything. Furthermore, there was a real sinister side of the area of which even as a child I was cognizant. The widespread gang troubles and drug traffic made it the "lock your door, sweetie" area.

Now I'm back, walking up and down a street that looks more like Nogales than Dallas. I was reflecting on how fractured Dallas communities are. Gayborhood, little Mexico, the Hood, Asianland, the various Breadervilles, Yuppyland, Highnose Park... I suppose it's like this all over the U.S., but it still makes me sad the boys on the corner smoking weed regard me as such an interloper. "What the hell is he doing here? Let's stare at him menacingly."

I wandered in and out of shops as I waited. I spoke Spanish to most and was alternately regarded with delight or even more confusion. When 1:30 rolled around, the Optical clinic remained impassively closed. Immensely irritated, I strode across the street to an even shadier dive.

For a couple bucks I finally got my eyes examined by a goofy-shaped spider of a man with tired hair, a rubbery, slack face and spindly arms and legs. His "resting demeanor" was silent and brooding, but when he did talk, his voice, bizarrely affected, slightly patronizing, weirdly effeminate, would attack your consciousness like a bored flight attendant droning on about where to jump when the plane bursts into flames.

As he swayed his entire body about to emphasize his dire warnings of contact over-use, I began to doubt the security of the situation. When he peered at my retinas from half an inch of distance from my face, the only light in the dark, closed room coming from his hand held eye-looker thingy, I had to resist the urge to break into hysterics.

I'm just glad they put jalapeños in my French fries at the restaurant where I ate lunch. It´s the little things that make these ordeals all worth while.


Don't eat here...

Transitions... feel the burn

Sorry about the long absence... To say the least, the past few weeks have been tumultuous.

I moved out of College Station to deposit my belongings in a bedroom of my parents' house. I do not envision having an apartment again for quite some time. I have no job either here or in Brazil... which is unsettling.

I rarely worry about that sort of thing due to a bizarre sense of optimism, but you can tell the stress of uncertainty is beginning to weigh on me. I've started having nightmares every night at about three or four in the morning. They aren't scary either... they're accusing. Some person from my past troupes up to express his or her contempt for me. It's as though my subconscious were tying my penury and continued joblessness to every failed relationship or mistake I've ever committed.

Geez louise...

Nevertheless, there have been bright points in my time of waiting. I got to escape with old friends and new ones to Arkansas. Rigorous physical activity amid spectacular Ozark scenery will always be good for one's soul.

Also, I've been enjoying reconnecting with Dallas - a city I grew up in, but seem to be seeing for the first time, as it were. Everything's changed so much since I last lived here... as have I.

So here I am... waiting on calls and trying to find ways to make friends and stay occupied. I look at this time as a challenge to remain smiling despite the continuous stress ball at the pit of my stomach. With a little bit of grit, I will pull, punch and duct tape an amazing adventure in Brazil together that will provide you with delightful reading/viewing (that's right! viewing!) material for months to come.

Official leave date (as of now): June 27th... let's keep our fingers crossed.

p.s. These posts will not turn into a whiny David's journal, I promise. There's Dallas to explore! Here's a teaser for tomorrow's post - Dallas Chapter 1: Oak Cliff optical adventures!!

Peace, love and laziness in Hippie Hallow

Today I packed up most of my apartment.

It's unsettling, really: bare bookshelves, rooms suddenly filled with space, my cat chasing huge dust bunnies unleashed from dark corners by the hubbub.

Hippie Hallow has now been my home for over a year.

Upon moving in, much to my dismay I discovered a gelatinous goo covering much of the stove and cabinets. But we learned what we were really up against when we found the [used] condom, which had melted onto the window sill, eventually fusing with the paint over time.

Mass graves of dead fruit fly carcasses rotted on every shelf of the refrigerator. They were presumably lured in by the uncovered stick of butter left there God knows how long by the previous tenant. Roaches scurried in all directions whenever you flipped on the lights in the kitchen. One time, one of them paused, craned its neck around slowly to face me and audibly hissed, "Our name is Legion, for we are many."

Undeterred, armed with paint and Pinesol, I set to work. After an extensive fumigation, I filled the rooms with furniture scrounged from a dusty warehouse. Sitting in my office chair (a product of that raid) I look around now at a relatively clean apartment, free from significant insect life, the walls bright colors of my choosing.

When I moved in, a giant mirror leaned against the carport. It used to reflect our legs on the porch usually hidden beneath a forest of empty beer bottles that set the rhythm of countless drunken summer conversations. It shattered during Hurricane Ike because no one thought to secure it.

Recently, inspired by the surging vigor of spring, the hippies started construction of a rock-lined garden - abortive like all their attempts at productivity. Pretty much all they accomplished was uprooting my thriving cucumber plants and installing a border around this year's freshly sprouting crop of weeds. Yep. It's time to go...

I will miss neither the cold-shower-already-sweating-in-the-dark-ceiling-fan-drowning AC-less summer heat, nor the rub-your-fingers-before-the-pathetic-space-heater-so-you-can-keep-typing cold of winter.

I will not miss the doghair-cathair-hairyhair-lint-and-leaves laundromat that costs two dollars a load even if you mess up. I'm still irritated it didn't burn down in that dryer fire.

I will not miss the bone-thin, squirrelly-eyed meth heads who lived across the way and used to shriek at me (really there's no other word for it) when I sat on the porch alone. They finally got evicted when a flaming pillow went sailing out their front window. I'm glad I didn't have to clean that apartment...

I feel I can honestly make myself comfortable in any setting - no matter how woebegone, there is a way to bring beauty and comfort with you. You can't romanticize poverty, but there is a certain honesty here that made me really face my middle-class mediocrity. There's also a sweaty, alcoholic apathy here that has converted me into an almost manically ambitious person.

Whatever Hippie Hallow has done for the formation of my current psyche, it saw me through the most exhilarating and difficult period of my life so far. I made my first real home here. I became an adult here.

I will miss the sunlight filtered through a hundred different shades and shapes of green waving in the breeze out my front window - ineffable shine that gilds my (uniquely) audacious youth.

Hairless and Fearless!

The horrors of my experimental period of hair removal are long tales of suffering and woe, which I will mercifully spare you.

Imagine, however, razor burn on your ass, a million in-grown hairs, itchy itchy itchy private region, super sticky do-it-yourself wax all over your hands, legs, bathtub, sink... and stubble reappearing within a day regardless.

I finally conceded to the fact that I am hairy and so shall I remain. The past year, I have even received compliments to the effect that it accentuates my manly aura. Nice.

So the compromise has been whenever it starts getting curly I take a pair of clippers to it. A day or two slathered in moisturizer (let's just say I'm very conscious of the presence of my underwear against my skin), and we can then enjoy approximately two months of tasteful, unobtrusive body hair.

I sure hope no one walks in on me performing this maintenance. I stand in my bathroom naked, atop a mound of coarse black Jew-hair, doing acrobatics in front of the mirror trying to make sure all regions are evenly attended to. Comical, disturbing.

It's a good thing I chose today too. For later that night, I went to "Fairy-oke" at Halo.

Ah... Halo. The scene of so many nights of drunken homoerotic debauchery, bad decisions and insecurities.

I haven't been in well over a year (a fact widely commented on upon arrival) at first because I was working every weekend, then because I had a boyfriend, then because... well, I really don't miss the place at all.

In one sense, it is a little nice to be openly gay and not worry about it... oh but wait. That's me all the time, isn't it?

See what I mean?

When you leave a place and come back after a long absence, you have perspective.
Why are we gossiping about the hot, disdainful straight guy that everyone wants, but no one will talk to?
Why on earth would I hook up with someone that I just met and that I am not even really attracted to?
I thought we came here so that we didn't have to be insecure and self-hating.

The answers to all these questions and more can be discovered by a healthy dose of "myth-busting." Not the cool Discovery Channel kind either.

1. Human beings sequester themselves into groups and subgroups rallied around a cause, a religion, or commonalities.
2. If left to their own, these groups will develop a culture that is supported by officially sanctioned "myths" - shared understandings and interpretations that prescribe behavior and thought.
3. Everyone in the group takes these for granted and perpetuates them when need be.
4. Acceptance in the group often requires acceptance and support for these myths.

This is all fine and good. In fact, everyone is going to do it... that's not the problem. The problem is when you only ever listen to your own group's myths. You start repeating yourselves and buying into bad ideas simply for acceptance. BOO!

Respectful dialog with people from different countries, different backgrounds, different religions sharpens beliefs and can eliminate or modify stupid behaviors. DISAGREE WITH ME! PLEASE!

I don't have this all figured out and I'd love to hear your input!

Imagine a gay man and a conservative Evangelical in a loving friendship. One might learn something about the value of love and family; the other might learn the value of letting loose a little and start [maybe] even loving and enjoying the company of people outside the Jesus bubble.

Or maybe even about the value of hair removal!!


David says, "Well, of course I do my ass! No one wants to be pulling hair out of his mouth!"