Time Fries!

by Fay Jacobs

  However, there I was, and this column is about queer things (“adj. odd from a conventional viewpoint”), like this author passing up the conference rate at a Four Seasons for a campsite.

  We drove in the RV, towing the Tracker, down the Eastern Shore of Virginia (Yay, Temperanceville!) across the foggy, rainy Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (what scenic view?), through a thick slab of Virginia, into North Carolina, turned right and headed across the state.

  A pea soup fog descended as we threaded our way up Black Mountain, past the Eastern Continental Divide—which I determined to mean you couldn’t see a thing in either direction for an equal distance from sea to shining sea.

  Bonnie at the wheel, Fay with her laptop Schnauzers, made the ten hour trip, forgoing attractive temptations like the Daniel Boone Family Festival, a roadside gun show, the museum of tobacco, and the plethora of convenience stores flying the confederate flag.

  Obeying our GPS, we turned left at the sign boasting camping/prison facilities. Not encouraging. Then we saw MapQuest warning, “You’ve gone a little too far if you get to Banjo Lane.” They had to be kidding, right? Or should I be, as Ms. GPS said, recalculating?

  So we turned, saw the campground sign, and began a chug straight up a perilously steep incline on a skinny, hairpin turn-strewn road, with sheer drop-offs on either side. Depending on your point of view, the posted signs, either snarky or encouraging, kept us going through the terror with phrases like “You can do it,” “Just a bit further,” and my favorite. “You made it!”

  Frankly, I almost did. In my pants.

  But once at our site we couldn’t believe our eyes—a stunning vista to the valley below and more mountains across the way. A flock of wild turkeys greeted us, strutting around the RV with their tails fanned out, like colorful paper cutouts for Thanksgiving table centerpieces.

  One look at a lunging Schnauzer and the birds showed us the origins of the phrase turkey trot. And then, to our surprise, they took off in gorgeous flight…who knew? I’d heard that Ben Franklin wanted our national bird to be the turkey, and I always equated that idea with his ill-advised key and kite thing, but no, these turkeys were stunning in flight. I’m not so sure that adopting the turkey instead of our mean-spirited current national bird is wrong in these mean-spirited times.

  I awoke in our comfy RV Friday morning, April 1, dressed for my panel appearance, and ventured outside to find a lacey dusting of snow. April Fool, indeed. I navigated the car, carefully, very carefully down the ski-slope mountain, to the school.

  I have to say it was a little jarring to pull onto campus and see big signs announcing “Queer Conference This Way.” The program of speakers and topics just floored me. Hundreds of students and visitors signed up to attend this great big gay conference, with people filing into the registration area, acting as if it were no big deal.

  But for me, it was a big deal. When I was in college people smoked grass in the open but whispered the word lesbian in the closet—and nobody majored in it, socially or academically. Holy Hasheesh, look what 40 years can do. It’s queer, it’s here and apparently this whole campus is used to it.

  My conference packet included a dashboard parking permit with four inch letters shouting QUEER CONFERENCE! I looked back at my car with its proud windshield declaration and laughed, recalling, for some reason, my first drive to a gay bar.

  I’d parked my brand new 1979 vehicle in a dicey DC neighborhood, preparing to slink to the bar. I panicked upon realizing that my vanity license plate spelled Fay J. Furtively, I took a t-shirt from the car and draped the license plate in a self-loathing shroud. And I was 31 years old at the time.

  Today, the students walked into this conference holding hands, sporting pink hair, piercings, leather leggings, and all manner of funky out-of-the-closet attitude. But the best part was that they were really smart, curious, and thrilled to be learning about all things literarily Queer (see, I’m getting used to the word).

  Well, I had a blast. In addition to the academic endeavors, we saw wonderful comic Jennie McNulty perform, had an evening at an eclectic downtown bar called Tressa’s (the ethnic mix and combo of gay and straight rocked), and I learned that Asheville is often spelled with the first A dropped, as in SHEVILLE. It seems it’s a fantastic city for lesbians. Much as Rehoboth sports a mighty contingent of lesbian retirees, Sheville has the younger ones. It stands to reason, as it’s a city, and there are real jobs there.

  We were sad to say goodbye to our weekend home, leaving our turkey friends behind and rolling up and down the rolling hills toward home. At least we thought we were going home. I pushed the button for home on the GPS and about ten minutes down the road saw the sign Welcome to Tennessee. Recalculating? Hope the bitch on the dashboard didn’t think we said Dollywood instead of Delaware.

  Turns out we took a new route, through true banjo territory, toward Virginia and home. We did not stop to buy fireworks, attend one of a dozen mega-church Sunday gatherings, or purchase Raw Peanuts along the roadside.

  But it was all very queer, as in “adj, odd from my conventional viewpoint.” I loved it. Camping OUT, wild turkeys, mountainsides, queer conferences, and all. Even at my age, I’m recalculating.

  May 2011

  EAT WHAT YOU WANT IN THE BIG EASY!

  May 11: As I write this, it’s National Eat What You Want Day. Honest. It was on the internet. For me, however, there shall be no celebrating this calendar creators’ phony holiday.

  I’ve got a stomach ulcer, and I’m surprised. I’d always thought of myself as a carrier, giving others roiling stomachs. But no, for some reason my system has rebelled. I am gobbling antacids and staring at a medical version of the NO FLY list. In this case it’s the NO EAT list.

  That I’ve been warned away from all coffee, alcohol and spicy or fried foods, (did I mention alcohol?) two days before I leave for New Orleans is as cruel a twist of fate as I can remember. The good news is that on this, my seventh annual trek to NOLA, I may be able to recall, for the first time, what I did and who I met.

  May 12: Off we fly to my annual Saints and Sinners LGBT literary festival, choosing saint rather than sinnerhood when offered a cocktail on the plane. While gastric issues partly motivated my decision, saving a few bucks was key, too. I’d already paid an extra $20 for my suitcase’s plane ticket. And by the time we checked in, there were only middle seats left, so Bonnie and I each paid another $20 to sit together in an exit row with more leg room.

  “You are in the exit row, ma’am, are you willing and able, in case of emergency, to remove the heavy exit door and place it on your seat?”

  “Yes,” I said. Frankly, I would like to remove the heavy exit door and place it on top of the AirTran CEO.

  After checking into our Big Easy hotel we went directly to the Acme Oyster House, where dinner was big but not easy on the stomach lining. Gumbo. Fried Shrimp Po’ Boy. Abita beer. Hopefully my doctor does not read this magazine. I won’t tell him that I fell off the ulcer wagon twenty minutes in. But I had a theory. If I could keep my stomach full, the spice and alcohol would hurt less. Rationalization is such a gift.

  So it did actually turn out to be Eat Anything You Want Weekend. The ulcer diet could kick in Monday.

  May 13: First thing: Café Du Monde for beignets and chicory café au lait. I hoped the au lait would protect my stomach from the au coffee.

  From breakfast I went to a master class given by social networking and promotion guru Michele Karlsberg. With a barrage of terms, from tweeting, tagging, and widgets to blog tours, RSS feeds and embedded buttons, the whole thing gave me the vapors. By the end, the only thing I learned for certain was if I wanted to do this stuff I had to hire the teacher to do it for me.

  By mid-day, in this city where you can walk in the streets with a drink in your hand and there are food choices everywhere, I learned something. If I ate every two hours, I could keep the belly pain at bay. It was tough, but oh po’ boy did I manage! The jambalaya lunch with a mid-afternoon hush puppy cha
ser did the trick. I bet you’re not surprised to learn that on Decatur Street, lamp posts have little cocktail shelves attached so you can hang out, sipping Hurricanes and listening to street entertainers. From washboard bands to big “second line” jazz combos, as long as you are upright and have a to-go cup the night is young.

  Sadly, I am not. There was only so much I could take before heading back to the hotel for a nightcap of Tums Smoothies and Nexium.

  May 14: It’s a conspiracy. They served complimentary mimosas at the morning conference sessions. I asked for plain champagne. Alcohol I can handle; it’s the orange juice that will kill me. While my spouse was off on a swamp tour I was happily alligator-free at the conference sessions.

  I was delighted to be asked to sit on a memoir panel with some outstanding writers, including pioneering gay author Felice Picano and a delightful newly-published memoirist Aaron Anson. But, lesbian theatre queen that I am, I was happiest sitting next to actor Bryan Batt (Sal on Mad Men, the original Darius in Jeffrey) who wrote a truly hilarious and moving memoir mostly about his mother, but with tales of growing up in New Orleans and his theatre career. He calls it a “Momoir” and, reading it on the flight home I laughed out loud, enjoying his honesty and heart. Read it. It’s called She Ain’t Heavy, She’s My Mother. The man can act, sing, and write. Hardly seems fair.

  To be honest, I was so flattered I was struck speechless when Felice Picano told me he thought the column I read was a terrific piece of writing. I’m still floating, but perhaps part of that is all the gumbo.

  On Saturday late afternoon we went down to see the mighty Mississippi, mightier than usual with the portent of horrid flooding thundering toward the Bayou and New Orleans. Where in past years we could stand at our favorite spot near Café Du Monde and see the tops of ships passing by, this time we could see their hulls. The water was almost up to the riverside promenade and it was scary.

  So we retreated from the waterfront and spent Saturday evening on Frenchman Street, an area with authentic live music by local musicians as opposed to the commercial touristo hoopla that is Bourbon Street. We stopped into several clubs, and I ate more verboten food and drank more prohibited cocktails. We ended the evening coming upon an outdoor wedding celebration at Jackson Square, complete with a New Orleans brass band and a sing-a-long with the wedding party and hundreds of strangers to “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Quintessential New Orleans.

  And the good news, at least for downtown New Orleans, was that by this time, the Corps of Engineers had opened the spillways and floodgates upstream, flooding the bayou, farmland and tiny towns to save the cities. It was a Sophie’s Choice, but one that needed to be made. It turned out that we had gotten to see the river at its most threatening that afternoon.

  Sunday morning was for farewell beignets and chicory coffee, and I was dumb enough to wear black pants for a meal guaranteed to cover my clothes with powdered sugar. If anybody in the restaurant so much as sneezes, it looks like a white Christmas in there.

  On the ride to the airport, our wonderful cab driver was worried about his home in the bayou, expecting the spillway water to inundate his community. It made us sad, and reminded us that the delta has been terribly affected by global warming and things like this are going to continue to happen. We wished the cabbie well and tipped big.

  So we’re home now after a marvelous book event and an acidic food binge. I have sworn off all liquor, spicy food, coffee and other things bad for my stomach. Beignet, done that. Time to heal.

  May 2011

  EXERCISE IN FUTILITY

  It’s getting to be bathing suit season, so I’m pumping iron. Again.

  Up to now, I’ve been the kind of customer gyms like as I eagerly join and fork over my money. Now there’s irony for you. If there hadn’t been so many forks over I wouldn’t have to do this at all. But my modus operandi is to pump iron for the first few weeks and thereafter get most of my exercise just writing a check for the monthly dues. Now, with online bill pay, even my wrist is flabby.

  Once, back in the day, I bought a life-time gym membership, meaning I could drop out that year, the next year, and every year in perpetuity. As it turned out, the deal was for the gym’s lifetime, and it was cut down in its prime.

  Then, at a place called Spa Lady, I signed up for water aerobics.

  “Ladies,” said the instructor, “leap out of the water onto the side of the pool and using your arms pretend you are a seal. Honk and balance a ball on your nose.” I felt like a walrus not a seal and almost drowned when I realized that the mirror was actually a picture window to the gym lobby. Orca the exhibitionist never went back.

  Next, I joined a snazzy urban club, with high-tech apparatus. The hybrid rowing machine/video game talked. “Keep up, keep your back straight, pull through the entire stroke,” droned a snarky robot while I struggled to keep up with the digital pace boat. “You are two boats behind,” it warned. Stroke, stroke, I’m rowing away…and the news got worse “You are four boats behind.” I kept rowing, ignoring the mounting tally of phantom vessels whizzing past.

  “You are twenty-seven boats behind” the voice smirked, registering Calories Spent: 31. That’s one bite of a Hostess Snowball. On my last stroke, praying I wasn’t having one, I had an itch and removed a hand from the grab bar to scratch, capsizing myself onto the floor like a tanker in a squall. Getting my behind off the gym mat should have counted as my requisite squats.

  One time, I was intercepted by a fitness counselor.

  “Do you take your heart rate after rowing?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Don’t you want to know if you’ve reached the cardio rate for burning fat?”

  “No. Whatever my heart is doing while I’m losing the regatta is better than what my heart is doing when I’m watching Jeopardy and eating cheese doodles.” She left me alone.

  Then I tackled the weights. On my first day I could lift the equivalent of a box of Kleenex. In four weeks I worked my way up to the bulk of a bag of Dunkin’ Donuts. It occurred to me I could just as easily do this for free at home.

  Then my pal the fitness counselor walked by.

  “Are you making progress?”

  “I bought a work-out outfit.” She left me alone.

  So there I was, in my new Nike Just Do It T-shirt and evil elastic pants cut for Cher, not me, tackling a machine called the Gravitron. Invented by rocket scientists, the machine jacked me up like an old Studebaker and propelled me to do far more chin-ups than was wise.

  As I was flung toward the ceiling, pumping myself up and down in a frenzy, I worried I’d sprout biceps like Conan the Barbarian. I also realized that the waif who installed me on the machine didn’t discuss disengagement. I got off before becoming Popeye, but I should have had them foam the runway.

  A week later, my progress mentor spied me again.

  “How are we doing?” she asked.

  “I bought an iPod.” She left me alone.

  And before I could go back the following week and show off my new finger-tip-less work-out gloves, this gym, too, expired.

  Better it than me, I said. And by this time I was living at the beach and starting to realize the value of exercise. Wanting to get in shape and, come bathing suit season, not frighten the tourists, I had a fleeting flirtation with yoga and did some power walking.

  I’ve tried boardwalking (early morning, before funnel cakes and fries are born), peddling my home exercycle/towel rack, mornings at Curves, evenings at aerobics and all manner of other ultimately unsuccessful work-out regimens. I’d attempt running but I know my only strength in that arena is running my mouth.

  But just when I feared that last season’s clothes were thrift shop bound, I heard of a group of my peers working out three mornings a week. I up and joined them. No fancy video machines, no Disney rides, no trendy exercise accessories but a small room with recumbent bikes, weights, and a versatile machine for crunches and leg presses.

  Oh, and on that piece of equipm
ent I can stretch my legs out, pull at a bar tied to an upright and be on the rowing crew again. I’m actually having fun. It’s amazing how much better I do without a digital jerk warning there’s a coxswain creeping up my butt.

  And I certainly don’t miss orbiting on a Gravitron, chins flapping from the G-force or doing pool tricks like Shamu the Whale.

  I’m lifting weights, stretching, laughing a lot and checking my heart rate. No lifetime membership needed. Is happy a heart rate? Pumping irony. I think I finally feel the burn.

  June 2011

  SOMEBODY STOLE MY DONUT…

  I feel it’s only fair to let all my readers know exactly how clueless, unbutch, and ignorant I am when it comes to motor vehicles.

  Perhaps it was the poster I once saw on New York’s Christopher Street that said, “If it has tires or balls, you’re going to have trouble with it.”

  Maybe that sentiment steered me away from cars and toward the lavender brick road, who knows. But in any case, this story involves a donut, and not the jelly kind. The donut in question is the kind nestled in the trunk of your car in case of a flat tire. I learned the term some time ago as we suffered a blowout in the boonies of Delaware. Smyrna. Where it happened is not germane to this story but I love the name Smyrna.

  Anyway, I learned of my donut ownership from my spouse who was cursing a blue streak and heading to the trunk for the aforementioned cute-looking little mini-tire for use just as far as the nearest gas station. But I guess that you, unlike me, already knew that.

  So, one morning a couple of weeks ago I came out to the garage…let me rephrase that…I went out to the garage. I didn’t need to come out to the garage. It already knows I’m a lesbian who doesn’t know my carburetor from a frou-frou valve.

  So I went out to the garage and found a flat tire. At this point I will tell you I had a friend with me, whose name I shall not mention lest everybody know that she didn’t fare so well in donut 101 either. You see, I opened the trunk, lifted the protective mat and saw what looked to me like a donut hole without a donut in it.