O CHRISTMAS TREE

Throughout adulthood, I’ve had mixed feelings about Christmas. I’ve spent the holidays alone many times over the years, part choice, part default. It can be hard walking by every storefront and many a home, getting blasted with Christmas displays and messaging. Sometimes I just want a Wednesday in December to be like a Wednesday in August, only colder and, fingers crossed, maybe with a blanket of snow. 

 

I’m not a total humbug. I smile the first two or three times I hear “I Want a Hippopotamus” each year and I’ll never click the remote away from “Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer.” Not even on a Wednesday in August. (Thanks, YouTube!) It also amuses me that some Proud Boy in South Carolina sang the line, “Don we now our gay apparel” today. I’m picturing a rainbow tie-dye tee and a Queer Eye baseball cap while the MAGA hat finally gets a run through the wash cycle. If the colors bleed, causing all the Fruit of the Loom undies and t-shirts to turn pink, so be it. Sugar plum faeries can be downright impish.

 

I haven’t decorated my home because I turfed all my decorations in early 2020. It wasn’t specifically a Christmas purge; rather, I pared down my possessions as I planned to move 4,400 kilometers from Vancouver to Toronto. Five days before the movers arrived, COVID shut down the world. The big move was off. I’d unnecessarily Marie Kondo’d my home. Whatever. 

 

The next two Christmases past without any thought of restocking stockings, twinkly lights or tinsel. I complied with COVID protocol, spending the day alone, trying not to react as people I knew posted Christmas dinner photos, a dozen smiley faces gathered ’round the table. They seemed to be saying, “Ha ha” instead of “Ho ho.” I rejoiced, knowing my credit card had been spared a spike on account of gift cards and travel expenses. Different things make different people jolly.

 

I surprised myself a couple of months ago as a Christmas decorating impulse popped in my head. I was walking by a park a block from home. It’s nothing more than a sliver of land, an empty lot next to a bridge, the grass trodden over, leaving mostly mud. I looked past the one dead tree, nothing more than a slim trunk and two barren branches, and stared at a blue spruce destined for a similar demise. It was twelve feet tall, but all its limbs had been cut off the lower half. It reminded me of a taller though somehow sadder version of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. Yes, maybe I would decorate it come December if there weren’t a humbug infestation first. 

 

Graffiti on a wall at the tiny park

I walked by the pathetic park patch daily, the tree rarely registering since tents occupied by the homeless pulled focus due to their colorful tarps and people. Sometimes folks sat at a lone marked-up picnic table, rarely eating, more often looking drugged out or simply fatigued. I’ve read and heard plenty of judgment about people choosing to be homeless, as if living off food banks and a once-monthly measly welfare check is the high life. No work! What a gig! 

 

What a crock. I’ve lived in this neighborhood for nearly six years. It’s clear that life without proper shelter takes its toll.    

 

I’ve seen people in tents shuffled around, booted from one street or park to another without any longer-term solutions in the works. Many people fear or shun the homeless, but I see important social connections and “regular” ways of life...as regular as they can be while on the street amid mental health and addiction issues. 

 

I’m 100% safe walking through my neighborhood. As I observe interactions—laughter, chatter about the weather and gut-driven political rhetoric—I see people who have made connections in these clustered homeless communities. They’re making do with what they have…and don’t have.

 

When the first cold spell of winter hit Vancouver a few weeks ago, I was in Key West, appreciating the town’s efforts to get in the festive spirit with a Christmas parade and lawn signs like the only-in-your-dreams “Let It Snow” and the playful “Seas and Greetings.” My mind flashed to nameless people in tents only blocks away from my home. I don’t have the means to create permanent change to improve their lives; the problems are so complex. Still, maybe that blue spruce would brighten someone’s day or night. Maybe I could buy some simple decorations and spread a little holiday spirit.

 

The day I returned from Florida, I hit the local dollar store, bought some simple ornaments and garland, dragged out a ten-foot ladder from my building’s garage and made a tree so dreary a little bit cheery. 

 

It looked like the creation of some fourth-grader who wasn’t afraid of heights. I’d underestimated what I needed so only the front half of the tree was adorned. “A little bit cheery” can turn out sadder than what was there in the first place.

 

I made another trip to the store, stocking up on more garland and adding a treetop star to my shopping bag. After lugging the ladder another time, the Charlie Brown tree looked merry enough for me to hear the Peanuts gang perform “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” in my head. Maybe the tree would stir a happy Christmas moment in someone else’s mind, too.

 

Passing by a week later, the decorations remain in place, except for the lowest garland. I'd like to think someone reached up and tugged it down to adorn the winter jacket they picked up at Goodwill or retrieved as a treasured find from an alley dumpster. Maybe it hangs inside someone’s tent or is draped at the foot of a cot in an emergency shelter that opened when the temps dropped once again. 

 

That decorated tree makes me smile more than any display I could have created in my own home. When I see it, my Christmas wishes extend far beyond my own circumstances. I’m hoping there will be moments of joy for those who truly struggle, not just during the holidays, but throughout the year.

 

  

 

 

PONDERING PRONOUNS

It was bathrooms, then girls’ sports programs. Drag queen story hours remain a red-button issue, but pronouns are the new battleground. For people who neither understand nor support trans rights, new objections must be stirred up to keep the wedge issue hot. Haters can get bored, after all. In an atmosphere where politics has become an arena sport, tossing the villain to the mat loses its wow factor; you have to add a new move tantamount to throwing the enemy out of the ring. “They” is the latest buzzword to cause an all-out smackdown. 

 

I’m going to focus on another pronoun though: We. By that, I mean all of us in the queer community. We have got to get it together. We have got to speak up. We have got to be united.

 

I could provide a historically focused testimonial about how the LGBTQ community was far from united as I was coming out in Texas and California in the 80s and 90s. (That’s right, I needed two decades to come out. Such a drama queen!) Back then, it was gays and lesbians first. Bisexuals were widely disparaged and dismissed since wanting to have it both ways came off as clinging to a safety net. They were whom we spoke of as in transition. Per thinking of the time, eventually they’d grow their full faerie wings. 

 

Transgender people were an afterthought at best. I recall highly political gays regarding them as a distraction. If America didn’t know what to do with its fags and dykes, how would they ever get their heads around people who claimed to have the wrong genitalia? Some rationalized turning away from transgender rights by saying lesbians and gays were defined by sexuality while trans issues pertained to gender. At best, it seemed that a fight for trans rights would come later.

 

As objectionable as that was, it’s how things have played out. Conservatives are foaming over trans rights because it’s the last queer frontier. Yesterday, President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law. Political and legal fights regarding gays and lesbians are slipping away. Rather than concede, conservatives are rallying against all things trans.

 

The fears of men claiming to be trans infiltrating women’s restrooms haven’t materialized. I haven’t read about ten-year-old kids born as Wayne or Chuck winning blue ribbons in girls’ potato sack races or taking the final spot on the girls high school basketball team. Waynes and Chucks don’t change gender willy nilly for the sake of a faux bronze medal that’ll be stuffed at the bottom of a sock drawer in three years’ time. 

 

Trans resisters oversimplify things to ridiculous levels because their disciples don’t know anyone who identifies as trans. Saying little boys want to take over girls’ sports gets digested as easily as telling them unicorns eat honey lavender croissants. (Wow, unicorns have good taste! That should be a thing…for non-unicorns, too.) Suddenly, a swarm of people who’ve never bothered to watch a single WNBA game or women’s soccer match feign concern over girls’ athletics. Hogwash. 

 

So it’s pronouns. It’s so easy to stir the pot. It doesn’t even matter that too many people don’t know what pronouns are. Yesterday, someone named Brigitte Gabriel tweeted, “Gender pronouns are just another form of communism.” Um, what? She didn’t stop there. “My pronouns are Impeach/Biden.” Oh, Brigitte. Political humor? My side is not splitting. So off the mark. She—oops, not her pronoun—Impeach/Biden could easily be dismissed as a random kook on Twitter, but Impeach/Biden has 741.9K followers. Her tweets got 9,897 and 19.3K likes, respectively. (Incidentally, Impeach/Biden also identifies as a National Security Expert. I’ll leave you to process that on your own.)  

 

This could devolve into a post about grammar. I must focus. 

 

We must focus. I believe we’re at a point in time when 99% of the LGBTQ community supports trans rights. Sometimes, however, we meander down unhelpful pronoun paths, especially those of us who are older. I used to criticize old cranks who couldn’t change with the times, but now I’m having to check myself more often. I’m aging into the Old Crank Zone. A few cases in point come instantly to mind: (1) I’m not going to call Facebook Meta; (2) Sorry, Johnny Depp, but Gene Wilder will always be Willy Wonka; and (3) I’m never having pumpkin-spiced coffee. Others may muck up their coffee if they so choose. (Don’t even get me started on matcha.)

 

Note to self: Breathe. Shake it out.

 

I’ve sat around too many café and pizza joint tables listening to gay guys my age resist the expanding menu of labels to consider regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. The basic argument: “In my day and time, I walked ten miles in the snow to school, got bullied as a plain ol’ faggot and finally came out as gay. I figured things out just fine without any demis, pans, aces or other cards. I was he/him, but friends could call me she or her after a couple martinis. It was always a good laugh…mostly because of the martinis.” Yep, my guys are sounding old.

 

Some of the newer terms may very well fit me better than the basic GAY label. I’ve been reading and processing things, but I may stick with “gay” simply because it was the only term that made sense when I went through that prolonged work and angst in coming out. I came out many times to various people with varying results. Coming out anew with some clarifying modifications feels exhausting. Maybe that’s the age thing again.

 

I will admit that I initially tripped up on having to announce my pronouns during Zoom meetings and during in-person events. It even brought back bad memories. I imagined myself back in high school in East Texas. If I’d had to state my name and pronouns during one of the many classes taught by disinterested football coaches, there’d have been unchecked snickers after I identified as “he/him.” I can even picture my nemesis, Keith, raising his hand once a week and saying, “Coach, can we sit in a circle and reintroduce ourselves with our pronouns again. I’m real bad with names.” It’d be a setup for the old he/him joke again. Almost more hysterical than someone fake(?) farting to Keith and his gang. As a highly anxious/sensitive kid, fear of pronoun putdowns would have been to blame for acne breakouts. (Surely it couldn’t have been all the Diet Dr. Pepper.)

 

I also struggled for a moment with “they/them,” not because I wanted to deny someone’s trans, nonbinary or gender-fluid status, but because of the grammatical adjustment. It was about singular versus plural. Long before some queer people adopted they/them, I denied a growing acceptance for “they” representing a single person. I clung to the awkward “he/she” instead of “they” in sentences like, “If someone wants a pumpkin-spiced latte, he/she can at least drink it without slurping or resorting to orgasmic moans.” I can now admit that “they” sounds better than “he/she” in that sentence. We’ve been using the traditionally plural pronoun “they” to refer to a single, unknown person of either or any gender for a long time now. Why does everyone forget that?

 

Language evolves, grammar changes and, yes, pronouns aren’t static either. I don’t think I’ve used “thee” or “thou” in conversation all year and I’m hoping the royal we continues its slow death. (Ah, yes. Another example of a typically plural pronoun taking on a singular persona. I wish for its demise not on the basis of a singular versus plural stance but rather due to the stuffy arrogance it conveys.) Personally, I’d have preferred that the pronouns ze/zir gained more traction for trans, nonbinary and gender-fluid folks. New pronouns, new recognition. Why co-opt an existing pronoun, causing added confusion and overwrought resistance? Alas, I’m not the pronoun police. Furthermore, even though I’m not much of a he-man, I’m not typically viewed as someone who might check “Other” for gender on a questionnaire. Regarding their preferred pronouns, it’s not my choice to make.

 

When we continue to bitch about the awkwardness of using “they/them” for people who don’t identify as cisgender, we play into the hands of trans haters and, more broadly, queer haters. A conservative who flatly rejects the possibility that God may have bestowed the wrong genitalia at birth, will cite the cranky fifty-year-old gay who purports to be frazzled, inconvenienced and even affronted by “they/them” as chosen pronouns. “I’m not a hater,” Vern will say. “The gays don’t like these pronoun contortions either.” All the while, nonbinary, gender-fluid and trans individuals remain subject to cheap shots, ridicule and far worse. 

 

Make the change. Practice during commercials while “The Andy Griffith Show” each afternoon. For fun, pretend Opie is nonbinary. Or Barney Fife. Maybe Auntie Bee. Heck, refer to each of them as they. It’s a way to add some zing to watching reruns.      

 

Recognize you’ll mess up sometimes. You’ll be corrected, sometimes in a manner that seems to be delivered with impatience and contempt. I seem to recall taking a similar tone when my mother would suggest I try dating girls. When we flub, they may very well view us as being contrary or not trying hard enough. 

 

I’m certain that any offense I take in being corrected for a pronoun flub pales to the hardships they have encountered and will continue to encounter. I’ll strive to get it right more. Much more. I know using “they/them” represents acceptance. Let only the true haters bemoan pronoun updates.

 

To those of you who identify as queer or an LGBTQ ally, it’s time we fully support them, a pronoun in this case I’m using both singularly and plurally.

 

  

 

   

THE SHADOW THAT HATE CASTS

Strange time to be in northern Colorado. I made it through the whole Meet the Parents week which included an open house and a Thanksgiving dinner. I could feel the scrutiny, every move and non-move being analyzed. Most of the time, I think I passed muster; a few times, I came off as disinterested or passive. Although Americans and Canadians are similar, there are subtle differences and my classically Canadian reserved nature, mixed with neither wanting to intrude nor being able to shake bouts of introversion, seemed a potent recipe for baffling friends and family who so love my boyfriend. Evan has no problem filling a room with his sense of style and his ability to keep people engaged. So what could he possibly see in me? They may never get it. Still, Evan loves me and that’s what matters.

 

I was in my head a lot, not so much trying to figure out Evan’s upbringing, but instead trying to make sense of the current state of being gay in America once drifting beyond the Left/West Coast. As Evan’s parents drove us from the Denver airport to Fort Collins, I saw a sign for Laramie, a town in Wyoming, only known to me as the place a young, gay man, Matthew Shepard, was beaten and left tied to a fence outside of town. He died six days later at a hospital in Fort Collins. This was a notorious hate crime before anti-gay attacks could be designated as such under federal legislation or Wyoming state law. That was long ago, I told myself. 1998. So much has changed. 

 

Two days later, however, news broke of the shootings at Club Q in Colorado Springs, another town not so far from where we were staying. In an instant, it felt like not much had changed at all. Queer people remain the object of hate for, not the majority of Americans, but still for millions of them. Politicians and news personalities play up hate, fueling fear with misinformation comprised of vial lies and cheap shots. 

 

I wanted to go to a vigil. I wanted queer people in Colorado Springs to feel supported and loved. Selfishly, I suppose I also wanted to feed off that communal love to push me to call out hate and shake the complacency I’d fallen into, holding hands so freely with Evan when we’re in Seattle and Vancouver. Our obligations didn’t allow time to attend. We hadn’t left space on the social calendar for events following a mass shooting. Go figure.

 

After a couple more days, we took a break from Evan’s family and friends, staying at a place in rural Wyoming, not far out of Cheyenne but, under the circumstances, feeling too remote. During a morning jog, the cold wind whipping my face as I headed along a road leading to a hamlet, I wondered who was in the pickup trucks that passed me. Was my stride too gay? Maybe my blond highlights were a dead giveaway. Rather than peer into the trucks, I glanced at tumbleweeds caught in wire fencing that paralleled the road. This wasn’t Laramie, but it was the same state. Matthew came to mind again.

 

When we left Wyoming and pulled back into the driveway at Evan’s parents’ home in Fort Collins, I noticed a sign in the front yard. Had it been there before? Had I grown too accustomed to the message so it hadn’t registered? 

More EQUALITY

More HOPE

More HUMANITY

More PRIDE

More ACCEPTANCE

More LOVE

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

            --MLK

 

The next day, I did another run, this time noticing a more common sign, one that I’ve seen in Bellingham, Seattle and Portland over the past several years. While initially heartened by its display in windows and on lawns of homes and shops, I’d gotten to a point of taking it for granted just as I do a security sign sticking out of someone’s front garden, a rainbow sticker on a store’s door or a going out of business banner dangling below a rug store’s awning. When something nears the point of being omnipresent, it becomes meaningless.

 

Until its meaning feels urgently important once again. These were positive signs in Fort Collins.

 

I suppose I’m an alarmist. There was reason to be more aware of my surroundings, but I’d been too infected by the culture of hate that plays in the news and on social media from the state that turned away from Liz Cheney and the land of gunslinging Lauren Boebert. Colorado was fine, Wyoming was fine. In fact, everything was better than fine. While Evan and I walked the relatively empty streets of downtown Cheyenne, we stopped for a selfie under a shop sign that depicted cowboys riding horses. As I stretched and strained, holding out the camera to get everything in the frame, a real cowboy rushed toward us. “Do you want me to take your photo?” he said. It was a simple gesture, offered in the friendliest tone. Kindness trumps, well…Trumpism. If anything, people I came across during my stay were more openly warm than in either Vancouver or Seattle.

 

In Canada, we rarely talk politics and certainly not with acquaintances. I don’t know who my friends and relatives voted for in the last municipal, provincial or federal election. We stick to other mundane topics like traffic, weather and where to get a good cup of coffee. (We mostly agree that it’s not Tim Hortons.) I feel things would be better in the U.S. if people’s political views were kept more private as well. At present, it’s a reflex action to shun and even ridicule people who align with The Other Party. Humanity takes a back seat to the blood sport of political potshots.  

 

Unfortunately, there is no sign of Americans turning down the volume on politics. As long as anti-gay rhetoric is spewed, it must be challenged and refuted. Hopefully, we can forgo responding to hate with our own hate. Queers coined Love Is Love. Let’s spread the sentiment beyond marriage equality. We can be thoughtful and strategic in working to make hate crimes a thing of the past, once and for all.

 

SECOND THOUGHTS

I’m shaking my head again.

 

I’m fuming, I’m frustrated.

 

I am so tired of the Second Amendment protecting guns, not people. I’m astounded that classrooms of schoolchildren, churchgoers, mall browsers, grocery shoppers and concert attendees put their lives at risk, doing normal things while killers slaughter them with AR-15s and other firearms. It floors me that walking about while toting a gun is considered an equally normal thing. I’m incensed that LGBTQ carnage didn’t stop with the Pulse massacre in Orlando. I’m deeply troubled that five more people have been gunned down in a gay bar, this time in Colorado Springs. 

 

All of this, it seems, is just the cost of preserving the hallowed Second Amendment. Guns are as sacred as the Bible in the God-blessed United States. It’s pure insanity.

 

Once again, NRA members and NRA-funded politicians will say it’s people, not guns, that are at issue. It’s unchecked psychoses and neuroses. Let’s demonize people with mental health conditions if we must; anything it takes to keep guns at the ready in case of emergency.

 

Drag story hour protesters

“Emergencies” like last month when protesters crowded around a gay bar in Oregon, objecting to a drag queen story hour. Yes, reports are that protesters felt a need to carry guns. Drag queens are scary apparently. This warps and contorts the concept of peaceful protest and assembly. It’s blatant intimidation. I can’t even get my head around the fact someone would take a gun to a protest of any kind. Signs and yelling aren’t enough to make a statement. Gotta pack the gun. This is legal. This is America.

 

There are 20 million AR-15 guns in the United States. That’s just an estimate. There isn’t a gun registry in the U.S. Only six states have any kind of gun registry. So 20 million…ish. How is any kind of screening measure going to get it right in processing that many gun sales? If only 1% slip through the cracks, that means 200,000 of these ultra-destructive weapons are in the wrong hands. Even if 0.1 percent of AR-15s get in the hands of people who weren’t or couldn’t possibly be properly screened, that’s 20,000 guns in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. How is that acceptable? How does that instill a sense of safety? The answer, to gun advocates is to buy more guns. Fight fire with fire.

 

Love guns, not people.

 

That’s what it comes down to. 

 

When grade one students were wiped out at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut ten years ago, I thought that would finally be the turning point. Americans would come together when their youngest citizens are no longer safe in a public school classroom. 

 

Nope. Alex Jones denied it ever happened. It was a ploy, he said. Actors pretended to be parents of dead kids. How heinous is that? And yet that’s what had to be done. People needed to latch onto conspiracies and fabrications instead of reflecting on how to balance gun rights with public safety and in lieu of grieving the loss of children and supporting the parents whose grief will always be with them.

 

Again, insanity.

 

Worse: depravity. 

 

Banning books seems
a greater issue than
banning assault weapons.

Now lockdown drills are standard procedure in schools. School nurses are a thing of the past and instead we have police or security guards in place. When I was in high school long, long ago, I heard about drug-sniffing dogs checking out student lockers. Talk now is about weapons detectors. If someone is shot in a school, the focus is on faulting security systems—the people, the checkpoints—instead of looking into gun control legislation that might make schools, churches, malls, grocery stores, concert venues and bars safer. The concept of limits on guns for the sake of the greater good is flatly rejected. What could possibly be greater than the Second Amendment?

 

The LGBTQ community must not be complacent when hate is spewed at school board meetings, in state assemblies and in Congress. We must push back—hard—on politicians and candidates who foster fear and hate to fill campaign coffers and get their base to the polls. The old playbook of portraying queers as freaks and perverts must be shredded. Our dignity is at issue but, more immediately, our safety is at stake. There are vulnerable, hateful citizens who hear the rhetoric of “respected” or at least elected officials and see it as a call to arms…and worse.

 

Political activism is embedded in LGBTQ history. It must continue. Take a break from posting gym selfies, get informed and make your voice heard. I don’t want to read about “the next Colorado Springs” and yet I know there will be another tragedy if nothing changes. 

 

Retweet this post if you think it’s worthy. Write your own or tweet your thoughts. Speak up when you hear misinformation. Question people who defend access to assault weapons. We must do all we can to stop the insanity. 

 

 

 

 

  

TOO MUCH GINGER (Part II)

 Too much ginger?

Apologies. This was supposed to be a humorous post. I don’t know what it will turn out to be now. Anxiety has a way of taking over everything.

 

A couple of nights ago, I had a miserable sleep. It wasn’t much in terms of a sleep at all. Call it a miserable, prolonged awakening in lieu of sleep. I blamed pumpkin pie. It’s a seasonal scapegoat. (Really, when was the last time you ate pumpkin pie in February?) I figured I’d eaten too much pie over the course of the evening, but there were other possibilities too, if I broke the pie down into the particular ingredients. (This is the kind of thing I do during unwelcome, prolonged awakenings.) I’d gone heavy on the ginger which probably wasn’t great on the stomach. Too much nutmeg and cloves as well. The pie shell’s expiration date was two years ago, the egg whites’ Best Before date was five weeks ago, maybe six, and it’s possible both the pumpkin puree and the sweetened condensed milk were outdated, too. Maybe this was the type of pie TikTokkers eat on a dare after they get bored swallowing cinnamon. (Yes, I’d been overly generous on that spice as well.) I wasn’t, however, in the mood to make and post a video at three in the morning after wrestling pillows and sensing that dark circles had settled under my eyes. They’ve taken up permanent residence, but surely they were undergoing a fresh paint job for that football player look, only sad and scary.

 

Pumpkin pie probably didn’t deserve my late-night or next-day wrath. I’ve had four nights in a row with sleep taunting me. 

 

You sure you want it? 

 

Isn’t flopping, tossing pillows and wrestling with sheets and blankets much more fun?

 

All that movement burns calories, you know.

 

If sleep taunts, anxiety bullies. It’s been having great fun at my expense. I’ve been downing aspirin to subdue a headache that keeps popping up, today crossing over into the migraine zone. My stomach has been busy shooting pain and clenching innards to cause constant discomfort. My brain won’t slow down.

 

Sometimes there is no clear cause for an anxiety visit. It just shows up. No call ahead. No text. Quite rude, in fact. I’m here. You’re gonna want put on a pot of coffee. Maybe one of those big urns. 

 

This time, however, I know why it’s here. Evan and I are off on another trip, this time for three weeks. While I always get excited about travel, there are always a few matters that give me the worries beforehand. As I mentioned in my prior post, the one where I viewed pumpkin pie as a nemesis (sorry!), I don’t have a big enough suitcase for either the length of travel or the weather variability, with current temperatures ranging from a low of -15 in northern Colorado to 95 in Miami. I’m going suitcase shopping tonight.

 

The bigger issue is that I’ll be meeting Evan’s parents on this trip. It’s not just going to be a pleasant lunch at the Olive Garden wherein I search for more intelligent, conversation-extending ways to say, “Mmm, breadsticks!” We’re staying with them for a full week. And not just any week, for those of you familiar with the American calendar. We’re there for Thanksgiving, a much bigger to-do in the States than in Canada. Bigger than the Fourth of July, bigger than Groundhog Day—seriously, Hallmark, why haven’t you exploited that?—sometimes bigger than Christmas. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, star billing goes to the one your grown children show up for. Evan’s Colorado visit makes Thanksgiving the big one for 2022. 

 

That would be big and stressful enough since the boyfriend of nine months—Me!—is in tow and, good god, he’s a vegetarian. “But it’s Thanksgiving! He’ll at least have a little turkey, right? What do you mean he won’t eat the stuffing if it’s cooked in the bird? What the hell is mushroom gravy?”

 

If too much ginger is at play, the ginger is me, a big redhead who likes a few blond highlights. Call it a hunch, but I think they’re really excited I’m crashing Thanksgiving. 

 

But there’s the Open House first. I got the invitation on a group text. “Come say hello to Evan and James!” Evan later texted that his mom had selected “green jade moss and grass” for the color theme. My colors. I had to ask if he was serious. He wasn’t but my sense of humor suffers rapid decline when anxiety lurks. And Evan may need to learn when it’s the right time to joke around.

 

Open House, no joke.

 

Evan’s mom has stated she’s invited all Evan’s friends, but Evan insists they’re her friends. No matter to me. A houseful of strangers sounds like all kinds of fun. I’m an EXTREME introvert, by the way. 

 

Among the guests are Evan’s stepbrother and wife, driving in from Wyoming…or maybe the tip of Argentina. I don’t know. I’m only hearing half of what Evan says at this point, which happens to be the half that included him saying, “They’re MAGA people. But nice.” Hopefully there’s a hat rack in the front hall for them to hang their red caps. I will politely excuse myself to go to the bathroom if they mention Mar-a-Lago, the My Pillow Guy or start an impromptu rally, chanting, “Build that wall!” I may have to lie and say I’ve got overactive bladder syndrome. And diarrhea. 

 

Often at house gatherings, I drop to the floor and play with the dog. I’m in luck when it’s a slobbering golden retriever that rolls over and insists on a three-hour tummy rub. “Yes! Yes! Who’s a good boy?!” The nifty thing is that Evan’s mom is partial to miniature schnauzers like me. She’s had four, I’ve had three. But none of them will be available for a paw shake, much less a belly scratch. They’re all dead. Making the boyfriend’s mother cry is not cool at an open house. 

 

So…no dogs to keep me occupied. Evan’s parents have two cats now. I love all animals, but some not as much as others. Cats are clearly in the “not as much” cat-egory. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) I admire cats from afar after getting scratched up by neighbors’ felines as a kid and cat-sitting a devil cat for one very long week in my thirties. “Yeah, I think she’s possessed,” my friend said after returning from his trip. No chance I’m going to crouch down and allow two Himalayans to draw blood from my face and arms during my big debutante affair. My sudden screams may cause a lot of troublesome red wine spillage.

 

Speaking of wine, Evan told his parents I don’t drink. He clarified by tagging on the word “much.” Critical add-on. But his brevity had already incited panic in his mother. “No turkey? No alcohol?! Is your boyfriend a mannequin?”

 

I drink. A glass, sometimes two. No one’s going to mistake me for a hardcore partier. I would think that’s a positive, especially at an open house. Wouldn’t want to break the Waterford crystal or Evan’s second-grade pottery collection, a charming set of ashtrays displayed on the living room hutch. (I too made ashtrays in elementary school. Such were the seventies. Did Philip Morris fund our arts programs?) If I have to, for the sake of making a good impression, I’ll allow generous pours to refill my wine glass and then dump the Chardonnay in the bathroom sink when I’m making another of my runs to duck out of a conversation about guns in churches. 

 

I just double-checked the open house invitation on my phone. It’s four hours which initially makes me think, FOUR HOURS?! Damn. But then I feel thankful. There’s an end time. That’s something. Seems like I’m shifting to glass-half-full territory. May there be no spills, no overconsumption causing me to diss about Melania and no serious cat scratches causing me to bleed too profusely. After a week of meeting the parents and half of northern Colorado, I’m sure I’ll enjoy sunny southern Florida. I’ve had melanoma but worries about skin cancer are nothing when put in the big picture of the trip that lies ahead. A sunburn might make cat scratches blend in nicely.

 

But then, Evan did say I needed to pack high fashion clothing for going to dinner with his client in Key West and more trendy, arty wear for when we hit Miami to see his best friend. There’s a fancy schmantzy weeklong art gala that’s in Miami while we’re there. Events galore!

 

WHAT?! 

 

So, once again, I should apologize for disparaging pumpkin pies. They probably don’t cause restless, sleepless nights of tossing and turning. Any correlation with unrelenting tummy aches and constant migraines is likely coincidental. It seems there may be other factors. Still, I’m not going to pack my Ativan. Even if it helped me refrain from heated MAGA debates, kept the wine steady in hand and allowed me to make nice with the kitties for a few minutes, I don’t think I’d make a great impression if I curled up on the living room sofa and finally fell into deep dozing during my big debut. 

 

I’ll handle all of it. Or I won’t. What’s three weeks anyway?