This weekend I’m going to do some sidewalk art with chalk. It would be totally cool to be able to pull something off ala Julian Beever, he of sidewalk chalk art fame but, alas, I don’t think that’s in my skill set at the moment. But I may give it a try. Something simple. We’ll see what happens.

Last year, in April or May, I took the queen’s lead and offered up a ‘Gratitude Gift’. The first five people who responded to the post would get a handmade ‘gratitude’ gift sent to them by the end of the year. Uh, yeah. How fitting it was last week our friend Patti sent this poem -

last Tuesday in February

and it’s raining, predictably. These past weeks, my front door has swollen so much I’ve had to use my whole body weight just to close it. Then, too, is the disproportionate number of hours I’ve spent sleeping, wooed by the soft, somnolent hums of winter. The metaphors are not lost on me. Strength and surrender: this is how a life must dip and crest, our fervent plans posing, occasionally, an ill match for reality. How what we’d thought would be a race begs, instead, for rest. Or what we’d pictured needing pause in fact requiring more force. Sometimes the way to stay on track is to wander off the course.

-Maya Stein

Ah yes, “our fervent plans posing, occasionally, an ill match for reality.” But sometimes if you just keep at it the plans and reality start to meet on the road from Procrastination to Productivity. Which means I am closing in on the final stretch of the Project Gratitude.

I should know better by now. Next time I won’t give a time line. To thine own self be true.

We had the good fortune to be part of a quilting project with a gaggle of other lesbians led by head quilting lesbian, Sue. Ours was the effort from afar as all the other quilters live in northeastern US. The queen’s piece is here. Mine is here. And together they are here…

It’s quite lovely and will be donated to someone who needs a fabulous, queer quilt.

Click on the pic for more scenic p0rn

Various scenes around the Cape. Beautiful views. Not much more to say except my camera has this spot on the reflex lens inside. It’s distracting but not debilitating. It all seems like a dream now.

Whilst cleaning out the garage today an unexpected visitor dropped by – my next door neighbor. He talked to me. My neighbor talked to me. My immediate reaction? I am in a David Lynch movie. Surely Dennis Hopper would show up with an oxygen machine. It was beyond surreal. It was, to quote my nephew Mickey, ‘Weeeeeeeee-rrrrd.’ I call him Fidel, because he looks like Fidel Castro.

Now, you may ask, what could be weird about your neighbor talking to you, eb? Neighbors talk to each other all the time. No! They do not! Not this neighbor. Ever. A little back story -

The house we live in was built in 1959. My parents bought it in 1976. When we moved in, the neighbor who spoke today was already living next door – he, his wife and his son. My ex-husband and I bought the house in 1992. The whole gay thing happened (among other strange stuff), the queen arrived, much tumult ensued then she and I moved in, circa 2002, with our three sons and two dogs.

Let’s do a little math, shall we? 2010 – 1976 = 34. Effectively my family, or some variation of such, has lived in this house for 34 years. That’s a long time, yes? In all that time I have never spoken to the man. Ever. I don’t think anyone in my family ever spoke to him. It’s very rare to even see him. More people have seen Bigfoot. Sometimes I see him when he goes to work. Every once in a while he’ll be out in his front yard raking leaves. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen his wife. Oddly enough, I saw her a few weeks ago. She has probably lost 200 pounds. Last time I saw her, maybe 6 or 7 years ago, it looked like she weighed close to 400 pounds. I haven’t seen their son in about 15 years. I assume he moved away.

A couple years ago I drew a picture of Fidel as he was raking his leaves. The thing about that? After he gets done working in his front yard, it looks no better than when he started. The yard has very little grass and yet he ends up with about 10 bags of yard debris when he’s done.

So there I am, lost in my own garage cleaning zen. I didn’t even hear his truck drive up or hear the door close. I look up from sweeping and there he is. Fidel! Fidel is in my driveway. And he’s talking to me. Oh shit! W. T. F?

He asked me about my family, my brothers, my sister. He asked about my mom. I told him she died about 10 years ago. He tells me he remembers my father as a drunk (good memory, Fidel) and how my dad used to yell at him when he worked in the yard. It was so strange. This is a guy who never talked to us yet he knew so much. Maybe my mom talked to him a little. He had fond memories of her. But I don’t ever remember seeing her talk to him and she never said she talked to him. It was really, really weird.

Then, it got annoying because the dude wouldn’t shut up. The conversation moved from my family to the Muslims who have moved into the neighborhood. And how he believes in George Washington and the United States. And how Barack Obama is a ruining the country (Little Baby Jesus help me!!!!!) and how the United States is the greatest country on earth and how we only go out in the world to establish democracy, and did I tell you that he believes in George Washington and the founding fathers? And that the Muslims are indoctrinated to be terrorists and they will be cool for many years but then they’ll be asked to suicide bomb some place and they’ll do it because some doctor in Los Angeles did that. And did I tell you he believes in George Washington and how this is a great country because of George Washington. And how the founding fathers believed the country should be governed by the Bible?

Holy
Fucking
Shit!
And all I want to do is finish cleaning the garage!

Then he starts in about the liberals this and the liberals that and now they’re calling themselves progressives and remember country music? In the seventies some country artists called themselves ‘progressive country.’ Ooookay. Is that supposed to be significant?

Then he started talking about Africa (is it a coincidence that I was just there?) and how the white people went to Africa and brought industry and technology and how the blacks kicked out the white people and now Africa is in turmoil because the blacks are the lowest of the low. This is when I had to tell him I was gay and my wife, who was at one time married to a black man, has a son who is black. I told him he was saying that my stepson was the lowest of the low. Fidel didn’t skip a beat. He told me he had a brother who had a sex change operation 35 years ago and he’s had to accept that so he’s not so closed minded because of his brother. I, of course, corrected him and said, ‘You mean your sister.’

Did I tell you how he believes in George Washington and that the United States is blessed by God? Sorry, maybe I missed that one.

This went on for about 45 minutes. Good thing I didn’t have to pee or nuthin’. He finally left. Now I’m wondering if it was a figment of my imagination.