Tyler Yoder's Blog, page 14

Poetic Interlude LXXIX

Richard Cory

By Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him.

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

 
And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said

“Good-Morning,” and he glittered when he walked.
 
And he was rich – yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head. 

 
Tagged: Edwin Arlington Robinson, Poetic Interludes, Poetry, Richard Cory

Post the Ninety-First: In Which We Explore Online Dating

Gentle Reader, are you familiar with online dating? I’m sure that you’re aware of its existence, and that people have hilarious stories about the photos in profiles being decades out of date, but have you experienced it? Within minutes of setting up a profile for my mother, for example, she was messaged by a 93-year-old man with a diaper fetish. No joke.

I’ve repeatedly talked about the fact that I really don’t date much*, but for years I kept a profile up on OkCupid, just in case. I ran into a few of the fellas from there once or twice – out at the Mix, we’d recognize each other from the Internet, but mostly I just used it to talk to people, find out that the guy was looking for one thing, and it wasn’t exactly romance.

Typically, if this is the gent’s profile picture, he doesn’t want to meet for coffee.

Well, I finally found a gentleman who was interested in conversation, and with similar interests to mine†. We wrote back and forth for ages, and he was pretty much exactly perfect. After three months or so of this, we decided to meet in person.  We arranged to meet on a Sunday; I took the bus to our meeting spot, and got into his car.

You might be tempted to think that this is the part where he turns out to be an absolute lunatic and I end up getting axe-murdered or something. You would be wrong; that part comes later. What happens at this point is that we drive down to the St. Helen’s district of Tacoma, which is one of my favorite parts of town; the historic buildings are gorgeous, the theatres are nearby, there are interesting local shops and breweries and independent bookstores, and statuary litters the sidewalks. In the pale cool sun of a spring afternoon, we strolled, hand in hand. Though tepid at first, our conversation warmed, and soon we were chatting away as we did online.

Best photo of this part of town that I could muster. The clown is not my date.

We immediately conferred the title of “boyfriend” upon each other, and went up to the Mix, where – after discovering that he was a psychologist, I spent the rest of the conversation thinking that he was psychoanalyzing everything that I said. He laughed when I confessed that, and reassured me that he was off the clock – unless there were things that I wanted help working through?

Well, if you get a few drinks into me – which he did – and invite me to open up, you have only yourself to blame. It wasn’t long until I was discussing my family’s dirty little secret of mental imbalances, and it’s not such a long step from there to self-medication, and at that point it just seemed natural to disclose my rape. There was a break-down, and some tears.

Then he got into his car and left. Not because I was some crazy guy that he met on the Internet, but because I had friends who were coming to meet me, and he had to go to work that evening, and it was the agreed-upon end of the date. As I struggled to compose myself, I wondered if I’d ever hear from him again, after that. I did, as it happens.

It doesn’t take much to make me run from romance, though. After entering into any sort of romantic situation, I begin to panic, to struggle, to attempt to flee. This case was no different. Despite the fact that he contacted me right away, and we talked as we did before, and the fact that he’d helped talk me through some of my severest issues and hadn’t run – despite all of this, I still began to edge away. I can’t help it. He was a nice guy, fairly attractive, and willing to help me, and I slowly stopped contact.

This is what it looks like in my head, when someone wants to get to know me better.

At this point, I hadn’t heard from the young man at all for about two weeks. I felt guilty, as one does when one apparently has to shut out kind, understanding people, but I consoled myself by feeling that I was freeing him to date people who aren’t emotional wrecks. I was taken completely by surprise one evening, then, when I received twenty phone calls from him in thirty minutes, completely out of the blue. Further, this is the quickest way to hit my panic buttons.

The texts began: cajoling, pleading, eventually threatening. I explained via text that he was triggering me; he didn’t care. He began to get angrier and angrier, and his previously eloquent words – which are what attracted me to him in the first place – became weapons. He announced that he was going to hunt me down; he told me that I’d better be dead in a ditch somewhere, because that was the only acceptable excuse for not taking his calls; on, and on, and on. He knew that I’d be at the Mix, because it was Sunday; he said that he was coming to find me.

I hightailed it out of there as fast as my designated driver could drive.

I have since lost access to my OkCupid profile, which is just as well, because every few months I still get a message from him. He’ll sometimes track me down on other sites, like Facebook, but I always block or ignore him; he has created fake profiles to get around that on a number of occasions. Here I was, thinking that I was the crazy one.

*********

*I really don’t date much, but apparently I have a million stories about dating, somehow, that end up here. I don’t understand it, myself.

† Fortunately, these similar interests were more along the lines of poetry, and did not include the taxidermy. Who knows what might have happened?

Tagged: Boys, Crazy Stalkers, Dating, I almost died y'all, LGBT, LGBTQIA, OkCupid, Online Dating, Relationships, ReRuns, The Mix

Post the Seventy-Eighth: The Floor Show

In the early days of Mimosa Sunday, Gentle Reader, before we gathered a larger following, we’d sometimes go on excursions and field trips, rather than staying strictly at the Mix. On one such occasion, there were only the three of us – Auntie R., myself, and young Mr. Hasbrook. We were three gay men of an age range that spanned from Maiden and Mother to – well, the other one.

Picture us on tall stools, against red walls and corrugated tin. After a pitcher or two of Mimosa, Auntie asked if we wanted to take in a show. Mr. Hasbrook and I readily agreed.

It was in the winter, long after Pride was over, and long before next year’s Pride would begin. As we piled into the car, overcome by a spirit of camaraderie and kinship, we cranked the radio to maximum volume, and played everything from vintage Judy Garland to the very latest Lady Gaga‡, singing at the top of our lungs, spanning generations of gay men who have come before and who have yet to come†. We cruised through the dark city streets, in the less savory parts of town, spreading light and life wherever we went. Like Nyancat, we left a rainbow trail in our wake.

Just like this.

Now, the show that we were wending our way to was at the Airport Tavern, which is in a seedier part of town – South Tacoma Way. A curious place for a gay bar, but they’ve stayed in business for years, catering to the older gay crowd.

For Years

Young Mr. Hasbrook had never been to the Airport before, and the older gents lapped him up like candy. I even got compared to a young Robert Redford, myself, and Auntie entertained a caller or two. Being the youngest men by far in the bar does have its advantages.

The Airport is also home to weekly drag shows. A curious thing about Auntie, no matter what community you’re a part of, he knows the principal players in it. Chances are, if he doesn’t know someone, they’re not worth knowing. It therefore came as no surprise that not only was he a member of the Imperial Sovereign Court of Tacoma, the local drag group, but he was also close friends with all the performers.

Vivian LeCher, ladies and gents. Used without permission, but Auntie Viv is usually good about things like that.

As we watched the exquisite performances and enjoyed the attention from the older gentlemen, all was right in the world. To the standard eye, the evening was campy, over the top, and more than a little queeny, but to me? For once, I felt comfortable in public, as though I belonged, and safe – nothing I said or did would single me out as a target for violence. Nothing could hurt me there.

As I demurely slid a tip to Auntie Viv and accepted a jello-shot from a man who looked like my father, I basked in the comfort and community that is so rare for my kind. While I’m never entirely at ease in the broad heterosexual world, I wouldn’t trade these blinding, bonding moments for a general sense of security. As we turned up the Madonna and headed home, I breathed a happy sigh of satisfaction, and hugged my companions. Together, we’re a force to be reckoned with.

*********

†Oh, get your mind out of the gutter.

‡It was a few years ago, after all.

Tagged: Drag, Drag Shows, Gender Issues, LGBT, Pride, QUILTBAG, ReRuns, The Mix

Music Monday: Except Not Really

Gentle Reader, I apologize. I had intended to make a video for you today, but I am sick as hell. Also I got called into work, and then was sent home because I’m too sick. This is ridiculous.

Any road, I’m not singing or playing for you today. I hope you can forgive me. Enjoy this instead.

Tagged: Cher, Music Monday, Not a Real Post

Poetic Interlude LXXVIII

The Red Dress

Dorothy Parker

I always say, I always said

If I were grown and free

I’d have a gown of reddest red

As fine as you could see,

To wear out walking, sleek and slow,

Upon a Summer day,

And there’d be one to see me so,

And flip the world away.

And he would be a gallant one,

With stars behind his eyes,

And hair like metal in the sun,

And lips too warm for lies.

I always saw us, gay and good,

High honored in the town.

Now I am grown to womanhood…

I have the silly gown.

Tagged: Dorothy Parker, Poetic Interludes, Poetry, The Red Dress

Post the Hundred-and-Twenty-Third: Beauty Secrets of the Reverend Doctor: Halloween Edition

As I feverishly enter my third day hand-beading for twelve hours straight, I present to you last year’s Beauty Tips, Gentle Reader. I should finish the bodice-beading today and will be able to begin on the embroidery, which will surely be a less arduous experience, right? Right? Any road, here’s a rerun from last Halloween Season.

Gentle Reader, it is a truth universally acknowledged that I am an enchantingly gorgeous creature. Today, I’ll be giving you some handy makeup tips for use on your candy-and-poor-decision-fueled rampage tomorrow night.

Step One: Sit down at your vanity.

Step 2: Swaddled in your favorite dressing-gown, try to decide whether it’s better to do your makeup first, and mess it up when you put on your costume, or put your costume on first, and get makeup all over it.

Step 3: Realize you forgot to shave earlier; contemplate your rapidly advancing age.

Step 4: Begin on your best eye. Change the filter settings on your camera so that your loyal readers can see what the hell you’re doing.

Step 5: Realize that you used the wrong color of silver and that you’re going to have to start all over because this one just blends into the black. Do-Over!

Step 6: Get it right this time. Begin on the other eye and fail to match the first eye, because getting them even is way too hard. Don’t realize it yet.

Step 7: Realize it.

Step 8: Just finish the first eye already, and worry about the second one later. That’ll work, right?

Step 9: BAM! Instantly finish the second eye, and pretend on your blog that it didn’t take an hour to get them to match.

Step 10: Time for lips – and obligatory duck face!

Step 11: Right, so you’ve got your lipstick on, and a thing of glitter. There is no way this will end badly.

Step 12: Dab it on with a q-tip until all the red is hidden by your glitter. Realize that you meant to put glitter on your eyebrows as well. Put lipstick on your eyebrows, dubiously.

Step Whatever: Glitter those beauties up. Get glitter in your eyes. Leave it, because otherwise your makeup will smear. Try not to cry or rub your eyes. Seriously. Pretend that everything is fine.

Step Something: Briefly contemplate this idea that you saw on Pinterest, involving feathers and eyelash glue, and realize that there is no possible way that you’ll get it to look like it did in the picture. Abandon hope.

Step The Last: Give up on taking photos for every step because your camera battery is almost dead. Restore filters, and finish the look off-screen with no help whatsoever from anyone. Be gorgeous.

Have a safe and happy Halloween, my loves! Make terrible decisions, and debauch yourself to the fullest! Cheers!

Tagged: Advice, Beauty, Cosmetics, Entertaining, Fabulous Parties, Halloween, Makeup, ReRuns

Post the Hundred and Twentieth: Lavender Marriage

My mother’s parents were not passionate people. Kind, hardworking, good people, but not passionate about each other. Theirs was a marriage of convenience that lasted more than fifty years, and did develop into love – well before I was born – but it was not the sort of marriage that my other grandparents had, still frisky after a lifetime together. Both my Nanny and my Poppo, though they were devoted to one another, had already met and lost the loves of their lives by the time they met.

Poppo was a farm boy, from a large family. He had hopped a train – quite literally – at sixteen, to come live with his sister Mildred in Tacoma. When the war came, he was married to a ravishing woman. When he spoke about her at all – which was rare – it was brief, and simple. “You should’ve seen her – she should’ve been in the pictures.” He volunteered for the service, and was gone for years.

She was waiting for him, in the airport, when he got home from the war. She was eight months pregnant, and he walked right past her.

My Nanny, on the other hand, was a glamorous woman, especially when she was young. During the depression, as the daughter of the only grocer in town, her parents were still able to spoil her rotten. She met a man every bit as glamorous as she was, and she fell in love, and hard.

Wayne was always dapper, always immaculately groomed and dressed. He had a lot in common with my Nanny: they both loved dancing, and flowers – and men.

It was a different sort of convenience, and a different sort of arrangement. Here was the passion that she lacked in her latter marriage, and the sex just wasn’t important to her. They traveled together, they went out nearly every night, they wined and dined and danced – lord, how she loved to dance. They enjoyed all the benefits of being young and in love, and to the world, that’s just what they were. They didn’t need to know Wayne’s little secret.

He was a pilot, in the war, and his plane was shot down. Nanny refused to believe that he was dead for years; she kept writing the government, the air corps, and anyone she could think of to try to find him. Eventually, she was forced to admit that he was gone.

When I came out of the closet, Nanny never batted an eye, being far more familiar with “the homosexuals” than her children knew. She gave me a ring, silver and opal and heart-shaped, that had belonged to Wayne, and a photograph, to keep his memory alive, and to carry on in the traditions of my remarkable family.

Tagged: Family Stories That Are Completely True, Lavender Marriage, LGBT, LGBTQIA, Love, Marriage of convenience, QUILTBAG, Relationships, ReRuns, WWII

Music Monday: La Complainte De La Butte

Rufus Wainwright I’m not, Gentle Reader, but I do so love this song.

Tagged: La Complainte De La Butte, Moulin Rouge, Rufus Wainwright, Ukulele Vids

Poetic Interlude LXXVII

Don’t be deceived, Gentle Reader. D. H. Lawrence doesn’t actually think the English are very nice at all.

The English Are So Nice

The English are so nice

so awfully nice

they are the nicest people in the world.
And what’s more, they’re very nice about being nice

about your being nice as well!

If you’re not nice they soon make you feel it.
Americans and French and Germans and so on

they’re all very well

but they’re not really nice, you know.

They’re not nice in our sense of the word, are they now?
That’s why one doesn’t have to take them seriously.

We must be nice to them, of course,

of course, naturally.

But it doesn’t really matter what you say to them,

they don’t really understand

you can just say anything to them:

be nice, you know, just nice

but you must never take them seriously, they wouldn’t understand,

just be nice, you know! Oh, fairly nice,

not too nice of course, they take advantage

but nice enough, just nice enough

to let them feel they’re not quite as nice as they might be.
Tagged: D. H. Lawrence, Poetic Interludes, Poetry, The English Are So Nice

Post the Sixty-Sixth: In Which I Ramble Incoherently, And You Learn Illuminating Facts About Why I’ve Been Disctracted

Another re-run? My apologies, dearest Gentle Reader. Fresh content next week, I promise. In the meantime, please enjoy this glorious mess of a post. It’s one of my favorites, and very silly.

Guten Abend, Gentle Reader. The last week or two have been absolute chaos, and I’m afraid the pre-scheduled posts that I was so proud of ran out before I had an opportunity to write some more. That’s actually what I’ve been doing today*, but I’ve been awfully distracted by this. This woman is hilarious and I love her, and possibly want to be her, but only in the not-wearing-someone’s-skin kind of way. Um.

I should clarify, because I found out last night that they made a musical out of Silence of the Lambs and yeah, it’s great. Terrible. NSFW. But it’s also not what I want to do to the lady who writes that blog. I just want to admire her.

It’s just possible that by writing this post she gets a free restraining order, and now I won’t be able to visit Philadelphia. If there are any NSA goblins reading this, I’m really quite harmless, I assure you. Alors.

While I’ve been at my mother’s (all this last week; before that I was at a friend’s wedding across the mountains in Cashmere, Wa – the home of Aplets and Cotlets! We’ll address that in the next post) she has agreed to purchase a ticket to Munich for me so that I can visit Ex-Husband. There were some developments that have led me to believe that it will be possible for me to subsist quite well – luxuriously, elegantly even – as an European Hobo. Clearly that is my dream job, and it may come to pass. I’ve been consumed by the amount of exciting research I’ve been doing to prove it possible, and it seems likely. So that. I think European Hobo is a promotion from Penniless Unpublished Author Who Needs To Finish At Least One Of His Damned Books Already, Well, One That He’ll Allow People To See, Anyway, although really it might be more of a sideways move.

Hey, look! Published now!

At any rate, it is absolutely necessary for me to immediately improve my French and to learn any German at all. I keep trying to learn the German, but I am awful at being my own task-master (I am far too lenient. I’m a terrible boss.) and the only thing that I seem able to retain is “Ich bin ein betrunken wütend geist,” which is really not the most useful phrase in the world, although I think it might result in free drinks, were I to say it to a bartender. I’m pretty sure.

Ich bin ein betrunken, wütend, geist! Rawwwr! Gin und Tonic Ficken, bitte, Scheiβkerl!

The drunk, angry ghost above has been brought to you in part by Google Translate.

I’m going to truncate this very rambly post, because apparently, I am in a very peculiar frame of mind just now. The kicker? I’m sober, but I feel as though I’ve been drinking today. The only clear solution is to have a glass of wine and see if that sobers me up. We shall see. As I said before, I am terrible at making myself do things, but I will say that I’ve been very strict regarding my daily writing exercise and my daily skin regimen (which I may do a blog post about as well, later; I want to write fifteen of the damned things because the next couple of weeks are rather busy).

Alright. I’m actually ending the post here. Cigarette and a glass of wine, and maybe I’ll be competent to write real posts for the next few weeks. Maybe.

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*That is to say, that is what I set out to do today, what I’m supposed to be doing today, but not, in fact, actually what I’ve been doing today.

UPDATE: So I’ve edited this post possibly sixty-six times since I first published it, maybe ten minutes ago, and while I was having the aforesaid cigarette and glass of wine, I came up with THE BEST JOKE. Ahem.

How do you make a drunk ghost angry?

By taking his drink away, asshole.

And in German:

Wie macht man ein Betrunkener Geist wütend?

Indem sein Getränk weg, Arschloch.

You’re welcome, everybody.

Tagged: Angry Ghosts!, Betrunken Wutend Geist, Ex-Husband, Not a Real Post, Rambling on and on, Re-Runs