Tyler Yoder's Blog, page 36

In Which We Learn To Waltz

I have been told, Gentle Reader, that every gentleman should learn to waltz. Broadly speaking, I think that everyone ought to. I was certainly very excited when I signed up for lessons. My friend Miss Thrush had urged me to; or else I urged her. I have trouble keeping track, when it’s the two of us; we’re both gingers and we share a birthday. At any rate, one or the other of us signed up for lessons and needed a partner, and then talked the other into joining.

We had both been to the Abbey Ballroom a time or two, for various functions. As the name suggests, it’s an old church, and hideously expensive to rent. The lessons were quite reasonable, though, and local. We parked next to some broken concrete steps leading to an empty lot, shrugged, and crossed the street to the Abbey.

Well, we were the youngest couple there by about forty years. No matter. I was a trifle cocky, having learned a very basic facsimile of a waltz, years before in theatre. It did not take long to reveal that I didn’t know the first thing about waltzing – but neither did Miss Thrush. By the end of the evening, we both had a shaky understanding of the form – which is far more complicated than you think it is – and homework. I was to improve both my posture and stride; do certain exercises to help with balance, coordination, and timing; stop being pigeon-toed.

I hadn’t realized that I was until I had to stop.

The next week, Miss Thrush had another engagement, alas, but at the last moment I was able to rope Miss Spectacular into joining me. She had a more solid background in dancing, but wasn’t entirely familiar with the intricacies involved. She joined me for two or three lessons; by the end of a few weeks, we had mastered something called the Rotating Box.

After dancing, we’d go get drinks at a charming little jazz bar called Sax, which offered live music and jazz-themed drinks – the Ella Fitzgerald was particularly good. Over drinks, we’d gossip about the other dancers – David and Myrne, incidentally – or our friends, and discuss the exercises we’d been given. We only kept it up for a few weeks, Gentle Reader, because I ended up breaking a toe – but on those nights when we danced, I could have danced all night!

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Tagged: Arts, Ballroom dance, Dance, New Experiences, Waltz

Tyler J. Yoder and the K.P. Culture

Oh, Gentle Reader, you know me well enough by now to know that I’m peculiar, pompous, and overly fond of formal dress – don’t mistake me; I have bad points, too. I grew up in a place called the Key Peninsula, and still spend a fair amount of time there. It’s a backward backwater. That isn’t to say that the K.P. is entirely   without merit, but it should suffice to say that I do not quite fit in there.

The culture clash between the KP and Gig Harbor itself is deep and firmly ingrained. The Harbor is firmly upper-middle class suburbia, comprised of gated communities and country clubs; the KP is mostly made-up of mobile homes and meth labs. The clear and sharp class divide is emphasised by the actual physical separation from the Harbor; the separate identity is reinforced by the outlook of individuals of both areas. It’s unfortunate that the bulk of the KP identity is tied up with racism, sexism, homophobia, and general fear of the Other.

I still attend a fair number of parties on the K.P., and I enjoy them. Despite the fact that you quite literally leave the law behind when you cross onto it*, there is nothing wrong with beer and bonfires. If you differ at all from the standard herd, though, you are almost forced to become an advocate for equality. Though the area is chiefly populated by a strange redneck/thug hybrid, there are many good souls, some really wonderful people; with a little persistence, persuasion, they can be brought to a point where they will even stand up for you against their ill-educated, ignorant, brethren.

The two fellas pictured, for example, have always been very kind to me. I’ve known them for years, and they’re good people. They have both, in fact, called out their buddies on using the word “faggot” on my behalf. However, those of us out here who are outside the KParadigm aren’t always lucky enough to have an inside man.

If you’re not an “inside man” and you call someone on their racism, you get the invariable response “But you’re not black.” If you call someone on their homophobia, you get “Hey man – I didn’t mean you” or “Figure of speech, bro. Suck it up.” If you call people on their sexism, it’s “C’mon, dude – I was joking.”

The trouble occurs when I show up at a function on the K.P. where I don’t know everyone. You see, when I’m invited to a party, I spend days or weeks designing my outfit. I can’t help it; I’m a bit of a clothes horse, and I have whims, like “expressing myself” and “refusing to apologize for who I am.” Whims need to be fulfilled. Therefore, I’ll show up at these casual, laid-back, redneck gatherings, looking like this:

Or, even worse, like this:

My friends out there have gotten used to me, and love me anyway – perhaps even more – because of my little peccadilloes. I’ve been told more than once that I class up the joint. Nonetheless, even when not at a party, I tend to be more than casually dressed. I’m particularly known for colorful velvet blazers. When shopping, or buying gas, or visiting a hick dive bar, it’s like taunting an already angry bull.

I can’t count the times that I’ve heard a slur or a threat hurled in my direction. Sometimes, I’m able to slink quietly away, and pretend it never happened, licking my wounds in the privacy of a friend’s home or car. These events can shake me to my soul. Other times, I hold my head high, and confront the fucker – I will not stand for  blatant, casual hatred, and racism, sexism, and homophobia are rampant, unrepentant, on the K. P. Despite the fact that I’m undeniably dapper, I don’t shy away from a fight. Of course, confrontation usually brings conversation – frequently, the instigator hasn’t meant offense. It’s all just part of the culture of the K.P.

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*I’m serious. If you telephone the police to report a robbery in progress, you won’t see them until the next day, at the earliest. It’s more usual not to see them for a week. You can’t rely on them.

Tagged: Beer and Bonfires, Fabulous Parties, Fancy Time, Homophobia, K.P., Key Peninsula, Redneckery, xenophobia

In Which My Grandfather Proposes To My Mother

Gentle Reader, hang on for a minute, because I’m about to piss off my grandfather’s ghost.

I probably shouldn’t be telling you this story, because those who are involved either swore me to secrecy or are my mother. To set the scene: my father has just died; on learning this news, my grandfather faints. It is the second of November; frost has already claimed the countryside.

Obviously, the family rushed to his side; he was rushed to the hospital. When he awoke, he screamed: his girlfriend, Anita, had been leaning over his face, checking for signs off life. She got one.

He didn’t wake back up for two weeks.

He was awake in time for the funeral, but wasn’t well enough to attend. The rest of my colorful family was there – the whole blessed lot of them. Our manifold dysfunctions were plain for the world to see, as whenever the Yoders are gathered together. We raged against going gently into that good night, as we do. The scene was a bit like this*:

That story will be told, though, in the fullness of time. This story leaves the funeral, and refocuses about a week later. Maman and I go to visit Grandpa, who is due to be discharged from hospital the next day. Grandpa was aware that we were having financial difficulties; I wasn’t earning enough to take care of both my bills and my mothers, and her hearing with the Union regarding her pension wasn’t for another few weeks.

It’s very sweet, really, the scene in his ward: the eighty-six year old man, struggling to get out of his bed, tubes and monitors going haywire. We stopped him – his hospital gown wasn’t tied – and asked him what on earth was so important that he had to get out of bed for.

A proposal. He wanted to do it properly, getting down on one knee and all, and propose to his daughter-in-law of twenty-six years.

“Nothing funny – no hanky-panky, you understand. So that you’d get my pension, and benefits.” My mother was very touched.

She declined, and they never spoke of it again.

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*Okay, so there wasn’t as much dancing, but there was some. Bonus points if you can name the movie the photo’s from, though.

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Tagged: Death, December-May Romance, Family Stories That Are Completely True, Grandpa, Proposals

Poetic Interlude XXVI

“Doctor, are you filled with fear?

Your look has gone a bit severe.”

“I had a premonition, dear.”

The learnéd man resumed his leer

And wiped away the lady’s tear.

“Doctor, I am filled with fear!”

He grasped her waist and pulled her near

Removing, thus, her black brassière.

“‘Twas just a premonition, dear.”

“Quiet, Sir! My father’s here

And I’m worried that he’ll hear.

Doctor, are you filled with fear?”

“Daddy, stop!” – the smell of beer,

A gunshot, and a sob sincere -

“Dad had a premonition, dear.”

She sees the grave but once a year,

The epitaph a souvenir:

“Doctor, were you filled with fear?

I had a premonition, dear.”

©2013 by Tyler J. Yoder. All rights reserved

Tagged: Angry Ghosts!, Fathers, Fear, Parenting, Poetic Interludes, Poetry, Tyler J. Yoder, Writing

Ukulele

Gentle Reader, it is a well known fact that I make terrible decisions*. It’s coming along, but I find that spur of the moment decisions based on whims can lead to a lot of fulfillment and creativity. Also, wine and song can lead to some very odd whims indeed.

Drunk Facebook Tuesday is a long standing tradition of mine. It isn’t just about drinking and social media, though; I like to post some sort of philosophical quandary, or interesting social phenomenon and watch the sparks fly. I also seek out friends, who I know will have some interesting arguments or debates roaring on, and join in. It’s a lot of fun. That, in conjunction with Fancy-Time – every night at seven p.m. sharp – led to scenes like this§:

How does this tie into ukuleles? Well, I’m sure you’re aware that ukes and uke covers of songs have exploded all over the internet in the last few years. If you’ve missed out, click on over to Youtube and search for “Ukulele Covers.” You’ll be inundated with hipster girls. I’ll wait.

See? Everywhere. I think that one in five of my vast acquaintance owns a ukulele. Well, one Drunk Facebook Tuesday, after copious amounts of crisp reisling,  I was listening to songs on ukulele, and happened to stumble across Ukulele Anthem, by Amanda Palmer (of course). There’s a line – “They’re only $19.95 – that isn’t lots of money” – and I couldn’t believe an instrument could possibly be so cheap. I dashed to Amazon straightaway, and my thought process went like this:

Damn. They are only $19.95.

They come in black? Oooh.

Did she just say vibrator? I need to listen to this song again.

Well, that’s the end of the first bottle. Corkscrew? Corkscrew. There we go.

FREE SHIPPING? Where’s my damned wallet?

The next two weeks were agony. All I could talk about were the songs I was going to learn, how I’ve never played a stringed instrument before, how I was going to bring it everywhere with me, and on and on.  I rhapsodized over names, and how I couldn’t possibly choose until I’d met her. I held forth at great length on how difficult I was finding tablature compared to standard notation. In short, I was insufferable.

When it finally arrived, Chordelia won my heart. I did nothing but play for days at a time, much to Ex-Husband’s displeasure. I didn’t get very good at it, but playing came to be a very soothing thing for me, able to calm me when I’m in hysterics or the chokehold of panic. I have to say that my Ukulele is the best present that Drunk-Tyler ever got me.

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*For some reason, this seems to involving drinking less wine. Who knew?

§ The question involved that evening involved Feminism, and also involved me vacuuming in high heels and pearls.

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Tagged: Amanda Palmer, Drunk Facebook Tuesday, Ex-Husband, Facebook, New Experiences, Ukulele, wine

Alaska

Gentle Reader, as is something of a tradition, as a young man I spent a season in Alaska, working in the fishing industry. My Grandfather was stationed up there for a time, with the civil service; my father and uncles from both sides fished for years; several of my cousins are fishing now.  I was fairly young, so I didn’t make it onto one of the boats, but I did work in one of the processing plants in Dutch Harbor. Apart from a couple of road trips, it was my first time alone in the world. I was just 18.

I touched briefly on my time in the north in Post the Sixtieth, but of course one can’t contain an entire season in a single post. I didn’t mention Minh C. Tang, my elderly Chinese friend, who come through the plant. He would refresh our buckets of scalding water, which we used to keep our gloved fingers from freezing together. For months, including socially, I thought that the only English he spoke was the phrase “Hot Water!” until, my last week before flying home, he told a lengthy story about not trusting whores in Singapore.

I didn’t mention the day that, while I was waiting for the packing line to catch up with us – we had worked so quickly that they were backed up, and we had to shut down production for a half-hour – a loose octopus had somehow found its way to the Roe Line, squeezed its way through a grate, and vaguely gestured at me. I motioned my boss over – a beautiful Filipino woman who was four-foot nothing and had an impressive mustache – wondering what to do about the curious purple creature. I gazed, aghast, as she produced a knife from nowhere and hacked its living flesh right in front of me, dividing the prize amongst those who had been working extra hard. I declined my portion, feeling slightly sick.

Rod, an older man who mentored me, had been working occasional seasons at the cannery for thirty-odd years. He introduced me to the concept of being a Soldier of Fortune, travelling and finding work as one goes. He had just spent a year camped clandestinely in the Grand Canyon, living as best he could.

The last week that I worked there, I was eyeing the trays of Mixed Roe – containing the deformed ovaries, the broken, the cancerous. As an amateur taxidermist, I was quite keen to get my hands on an ovarian tumor from a black cod, and they passed through the line frequently. I was waiting for just the right one; I finally found it, and somehow had to smuggle it back to my room. That night, improvising, I bought a jar of maraschino cherries and some rubbing alcohol, and my bunkmates watched in disgust as I preserved the thing. It’s one of the prizes of my collection.

All in all, it was a solemn, transformative winter. I learned realities of racism, friendship, violence and loss. I learned of cultural diversity, I learned of manhood, I learned of self-expression. I learned of jealousy, harsh beauty, and the utter ridiculousness of existence. I began to learn who I was.

Tagged: Alaska, Black Cod Ovarian Cancer, Dutch Harbor, Fishing Industry, Octopus, Tumor

A Misadventure in Deciphering Sexuality

Gentle Reader, I have something new and exciting for you today. I’m sure you all remember Miss K, who appears in numerous posts on this blog. I was asking her to remind me about an adventure we’ve had that I haven’t shared yet, and then I had the BEST IDEA. Miss K’s going to assist me in telling the story, because:

1. She remembers parts of it better than I do, and

2. She is hilarious.

I will be in red, and she will be in blue.

For several years, K and I – along with Ex-Husband – hung out with what we less-than-affectionately called the Jemilly Crew*. They weren’t our favorite people in the world, but they lived close, entertained a lot, and we had several friends in common – well, we did at first. Over time, more and more people that we would see at their functions would get driven away by Jem and Emilly’s atrocious behavior.

They were charming people, really, and in retrospect it’s just SHOCKING how many people they’ve driven away were jealous of their beauty and intelligence.

There came a time when we were essentially the only friends that they had left – well, except for my next-door neighbor, Mr. King,  who I’ve known since childhood. We’d been out of touch for years, though – until Emilly started bringing him around her place. 

It should be mentioned that Emilly had dated Mr. King several months prior. It didn’t last long, and they weren’t a great match – he enjoyed philosophical discussions, whereas intelligent conversation flew over the poor girl’s head, and after a month she just stopped returning his calls. He called her twice after that and she called him a stalker, but she was his first girlfriend and he was infatuated with her for a bit. When Emilly learned that Tyler thought Mr. King was attractive, she used this to get him to start coming around.

Over one of innumerable cups of coffee shared in that dingy, smoke-filled room, Emilly shared the latest word in gossip – Mr. King was questioning his sexuality, and found me kind of attractive. He was “very confused” by this, and “wasn’t sure of his feelings” about the matter; under no circumstances should I directly say anything to him. Everyone thought that I should subtly flirt, and see what developed.

Emilly continued to spend a lot of time with Mr. King alone, although I recall that she seemed to say that she spent more time with him than seemed probable, especially since I was over there often and she was never out with him or having him over during those times. I only saw him with her at social functions. I figured Emilly was probably exaggerating how often she spoke to him, but kept it to myself – Team Covenwolf* did not respond well to criticisms of any kind and tended to throw a fit whenever anything of the kind came up. 

This went on for a month or two. Mr. King spent more and more time in our little circle; people found pretexts to leave us alone together. We had some wonderfully stimulating conversations, I must say. I desperately tried to decipher the signals I was receiving.

Mr. King is a very intelligent young man but wasn’t great about picking up on other people’s social cues. He doesn’t have a lot of guile to him and prefers to ask people directly when he has trouble interpreting their actions. This is why Emilly’s mother, Jem, did not get on well with him, though she pretended to (badly), and led to her making the infamous remark after he left one evening, “He doesn’t have a lot of emotional intelligence. It’s like people who are too smart don’t have souls.” I should point out that this woman home-schooled her daughter, which is probably the reason why Emilly can’t grasp basic grammar or spelling, but can write runes (if she has a guide in front of her).

Things finally came to a head, the night of Emilly’s birthday. Mr. King’s behavior had been exactly as flirty as before, and after a bottle of champagne, I decided it was time to finally attack the matter directly. I was sick of being lovesick, and so, as the party started to break up, I took him outside to confront him, and ask him on a date.

Tyler notified me of his intentions and headed outside as Mr. King was leaving. Emilly was elsewhere in the house, probably redoing her make-up or changing outfits for the sixteenth time that evening. As I was gathering empty cups and other trash, she resurfaced and asked where Tyler was, so I told her that Tyler was asking King out. Her face dropped instantly and she began to panic and pace around exclaiming, “It’s too soon! He’s messing it up! It’s too soon!” I thought this was a strange reaction, but then again I prefer to deal with situations head on, as opposed to her method of dealing with people by talking to everyone else but the person involved (who needs their insight, anyway?). It was clear that she had didn’t think that Tyler would be successful – odd, considering the way she had gone on about King believing he was might be gay and found Tyler appealing. When Tyler came back in, he informed us that King told him that while gay people didn’t bother him, he found the idea of being with another man disgusting. Emilly immediately said, “That’s not what he told me! I’m mad because that means he was lying to me!”

I found her reaction rather off-putting – never once did she express regret for encouraging Tyler to believe that Wesley was interested in him, nor any actual confusion over what he said. She simply reiterated her anger over Wesley ‘lying to her’, as if that was the most important aspect. She claimed that she was going to call him later after we left to tell him off, although she had never shied away from making phone calls like that in our presence before. I would have thought the normal reaction would have been, “He told me he was interested in you, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” But all we got was, “I’m mad that he lied to me!”

Because his lies are what were revealed here, Emilly. His machinations, and his two-faced scheming. Yup. For me, this is when I stopped considering the Jemilly Crew actual friends, and started considering their home a den of iniquity. 

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*The Jemilly Crew and Team Covenwolf are one and the same.

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Tagged: drama, Full Disclosure, Guest Post, Jemilly Crew, LGBT, Liars, Miss K

Poetic Interlude XXV

I should note beforehand that this is a freshly written draft, and it needs a LOT of work. However, I did not yet have anything scheduled for today’s interlude, and I didn’t want to cheat, like last week – despite the fact that I got more page views than I have in months. It felt dishonest. Therefore, please bear in mind that this piece is in progress.

Andrew

I dreamt we stood at a crossroad

Of flimsy pre-dawn light.

You wore your hair like when we met

A piece torn from the night -

But different from the boy I knew

Your face was drowned in spite.

I knew in Life, I had no hope

Forgiveness wasn’t mine -

But if you only knew the truth!

So I poured out my crimes.

Before you could react, I woke

I shall await a sign.

Tagged: Poetic Interludes, Poetry, Writing

Family Snapshots

Gentle Reader, I am having a rotten evening, and have been suffering a fair amount of writer’s block lately. I do hope that, in lieu of a real post, you’ll accept a smattering of family snapshots, showcasing my bizarre, improbable family in all their crazy glory.

My Uncle George, though rich beyond the dreams of avarice*, was living in a one-room shack. One day, while coked out of his mind, a wild bill-collector appeared. He dashed out the backdoor, and leaped aside his trusty dirt-bike, fleeing into the woods. During the thrilling chase that followed, his bike hit an exposed tree root, sending him into a skyward spiral. On landing, he broke his neck – his cervical vertebrae. For six months, the sixty-year-old was nursed to health by his twenty-two-year-old ex-girlfriend, and at the end of it, enjoyed exquisite health.

My Great-Aunt Helen, the post-mistress of a tiny town in one of the Dakotas, was a firm advocate of free love – as long as one didn’t mention it in front of neighbors or children. On a visit out to Washington, to visit the relatives, she and my grandmother went out drinking, and ended up staying out until dawn with some fellows they met at the bar, going out with them to their yacht. My grandmother – far more prim than Helen – enjoyed dancing the night away with her fellow, but Helen and her fella retired for the evening, shall we say. It turns out that he was a pilot, and after she’d gone back home, he flew over her farm repeatedly. As she told my grandmother, she should have stuck with her prior affair – he was a priest, and knew how to keep secrets.

My Great-Grandmother, on my father’s side, grew up in a house with a name in England, somewhere around Salisbury. She left this privileged background as a plucky young Edwardian slip of a girl to run off to Australia. After a few years that are unrecorded, she emerges, triumphant, in Melbourne, where she owned and operated a brothel. There are letters that indicate she continued running it from abroad, after she emigrated first to Canada, and then to the States, in Seattle. No one knows what became of the deed after that. My grandmother – her daughter – refused to speak of it; most of this was discovered from letters after Grandma had passed away.

My father’s spiritual beliefs were gathered from many different paths and traditions; he was a sort of western shaman. When I was a child, he and my mother took me out to the mountains, where I was baptized in a waterfall, using a ritual of his own devising.

My mother comes from what passes for the privileged classes around Gig Harbor. When she married my father, she was thrust into poverty†. When I was a child, and we were living in our own one room shack – our shower was outside, and when it rained, you’d get a mix of hot and cold water – she was forced to use her expensive antiques for their intended, rather than their decorative, purpose. This includes washboard, wringer, and cast-iron wood-fired cooking stove.

There are many, many, many, more stories, Gentle Reader, but as I said, my evening is a little rotten. I hope these vignettes have proved entertaining.

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*Well, perhaps not avarice. He was rich enough to pay $20,000 a month in alimony, and still afford cocaine. This is because he owned fishing shares, back from when they were awarded in the ’70′s.

†Well, not poverty poverty. My father’s first wife, though receiving child support for both children from their marriage§ and having gotten the house without a fight at all from my father went after my folks to have the child support raised. Their was an appraisal of all of Maman’s antiques and jewelry; you can imagine how that went over.

§Yes, the woman was getting the payments for both children despite the fact that my sister was living with us at the time.

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Tagged: Affairs, Angry Ghosts!, Australian Brothel, Dating, Dirt Bike Accidents, Family Stories That Are Completely True, Full Disclosure, I almost died y'all, Practial Antiques, Rituals

The Tartan Ball

Gentle Reader, suffice it to say that my last place of employment was a trifle eccentric. I languished there, but I also flourished; deep friendships were wrought, and it was honest work. My boss was frequently generous; she would buy everyone lunch, from time to time, or bring in cookies and hot chocolate on a snowy winter’s day. One day, she invited the entire crew to something called the Tartan Ball. Her daughter had been involved with a Scottish pipe-band for a number of years, and L enjoyed their annual event.

Well, I have never been known to turn down the chance to attend a formal affair. Despite the grumblings of some of the crew – the Boys, actually, if you recall – about spending time with their boss and coworkers outside of work hours, I gently nudged them towards accepting the already-purchased tickets. Grudgingly, they did; when the day arrived, attired in our best, we piled into my van, Roosevelt*, and set out for the ball. To the strains of such subtle artists as Weezer and Lady Gaga we flew through the night, chain-smoking and taking nips from a flask†. On arrival, we met L and her husband and the tickets were handed around.  It turns out that our party was comprised entirely of happy heterosexual couples, with two lone bachelors – myself and Mr. Wise.

 

 

Oi. Naturally, it only took a moment before I asked the young straight man to be my escort for the evening‡. What’s more, he actually agreed, and behaved like a gentleman all night, despite being more usually a caricature of a twenty-year-old boy, with all the puerile humor that implies. He was very attentive during the supper, making sure that I had plenty of gin-and-tonics (merely waving the waiter over, of course).

When the performance itself began, none of us knew quite what to expect; I have heard a great deal of bag-pipe music before, but I had never seen them en masse. Frankly, for my taste, one is a little much, but I am always open to new experiences; I held back my reservations. I may have been aided in this by the aforementioned gin; I was getting fairly swiffy in front of my boss – I am unused to mixing work and pleasure. A vast caterwauling began amongst the tromping of boots; it was the first clan. I subtly indicated to my young man that I desperately needed a cigarette; would he be so good as to walk me out?

Subtlety is not Mr. Wise’s strong point. When I finally got it across, this happened.

There was quite a bit of slipping-out-of-doors for a quick cigarette over the course of the evening, but it was generally an enjoyable time. Our party collectively agreed to leave fairly early; some of us had work in the morning, and the evening was getting on. We posed for one last snap before the trip home, then dispersed into the night.

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* I still drove at the time. Named for both Franklin and Eleanor, of course.

†I still drove, but I was not driving that evening. Obviously.

‡For whatever reason, straight boys really dig me. This is a long-standing issue.

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Tagged: Arts, Bagpipe, Fabulous Parties, Music, Tartan, The Boys