Shakesthegrounds Rumblings

[Shakesthecoffecan]

I am sitting acorss the table from the best margarita maker in the world......

[CellarDweller]

Truman!

How are you, buddy?

[Shakesthecoffecan]

A sunny afternoon and a cat nap on the sun porch, the windows are open and a breeze is aided by the ceiling fan.
I sit across the coffee table from Paul's smiliing face, lap tops on every thigh in the house, we read to one another from Milli's birthday thread, the comics, the weather, which is wonderful, just like I ordered.

This has been a trremendous week, I have the callouses on my feets to prove it. From my arrival in Boston on Monday night, to our ferry ride back this evening, it has been a joy to spend time with Paul, seeing his world and his life first hand.

If you ever get a chance to visit Provincetown, please do so. It is the sweetest little town out at the end of the world. Narrow one way streets, old houses, gay people everywhere. We get off the boat and are greeted by Ellie, a 76 year old transvestite with a kayoke machine in a radio flyer, living her dream. The big draw this week is the Provincetown film festival. If you have never been to a film festival before you should check one out nearby. We saw Madonna's directorial debut, Filth and Wisdom, which I highly recommend, and got to have a q&a with one of the actresses.

Yesterday we travelled from one pole to the other, depending upon which way you think your sailing. In the morning we saw Be Like Others, a film about transsexuals in Iran, not all of whom probably are trans, but take this difficult route to try to find some place for theirselves in a nitch the koran does not address.

In the vening we saw If The World Were Mine. OMG, talk about ooposite end of the spectrum! It was brilliant! I so hope it wins the award, being given tomorrow, as I am waiting for my bag at the Raleigh airport. Jim Gallagher has posted a nice piece about it in the culture tent.

And just so nice,being around your own kind. Meeting a nice 23 year old lesbian bartender from Cork, Ireland whose mother cannot even say the word. What brought her here? The gayness.

But what I would like to solidify in my mind as artless and charmed happiness is two huckleberry friends shlepping across the moors to the sunny beach. Two drifters off to see the world, there is so much of it to see.

I'll put War and Peace back on the shelf, and ask Paul if he is ready to go down to the beach one last time.   

[Shakesthecoffecan]

P.S. and did I mention John Waters rode by us on his bike, not a lot unlike Elmira Gulch?

[Shasta542]

P.S. and did I mention John Waters rode by us on his bike, not a lot unlike Elmira Gulch?

Really? Cool! Could you see his slender moustache? 

Sounds like you all are having a great time -- the day seems nice and relaxing. Good.

[jstephens9]

I have always heard good things about Provincetown. I got some brochures of it one year and almost planned a trip there. I still have it on my list of places to see. That is a long list.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

So the flights back were decent, little planes with two seats on one side and one seat on the other, no way to stand up. I had the seat to myself going to LaGuardia, staring out the window at the islands in the east river, one of which used to house a big hospital, now ruins, and Rikers island, and thank gawd at the last second the runway appears under the landing gear.

I checked for M.R.'s flight and it was actually arriving a head of schedule, cool, I settled in with me book and text messages and shortly she was calling me! "Meet you at the baggage claim."

And hour later, I still waiting with that cart I was so fortunate to grab with out having to pay for.....I knew she had to go thru customs but WTF?! I kept my eyes trained on the escalator, looking for her blond hair and black Johnny Cash out fit and suddenly, finally, there she was, black blouse andOrange skirt.

"And how do you plan to get to Martinsville?" Customs asked her.

"In a car" she said.

The ride home seemed short, driving thru one thunderstorm. We past the eastern city limits, "why do we stay here?" She asks me, "Because we can afford it" I smiled back at her. Lynn was at her house, sweeping up the cat litter her cats had strode about the place.

I finally reached home about 6 pm, the birds were singing, and as I put my key in the door, a crow flew down the road, calling a song I had never heard before. It sounded like something from the jungle.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

For exactly a week she had been cooped up in a cage, but she did not know what weeks were, or days, only the cycle of eating and sleeping, as much as she dared in this place, the dark coming suddenly with the exit of the people from the room. Her initial terror had given way to a general warriness that danger was all about her.

They had stuck needles into her, repeatedly. Had made her sleep and when she woke she was in pain, the fur gone from her belly and the sense that something, she knew not what, was irrevocably changed. Still she was here, still in this indoor place cut off from all she had ever known. Her mind searched in tightly wound circles for answers, but there were none. Kind tones from the strangers and the intonation of the sound he made to her was the only comfort that came her way.

And as strangely as it had began, the tall boy with the ball cap woke her and reached into her cage. This was it, no doubt, her life was about to end or return and she was powerless to stop him, no where to run, nothing she could do. His rough hands guided her into the box as she recalled its smell, like old dankness in the room she rarely ventured, vaguely like other cats and a hint of something else, too far gone to tell when whoosh! up and away from the table, her claws could penetrate nothing, she faltered and cried out, she hated this.

Down the corridor her wide eyed terror tinged with the essential need to find out all she could, look for any out, any crack in the system that would allow her to get her head thru. If she could get her head out she was half way, where? The sounds all around her, animals she could not see or smell correctly, there, he is.

A cry, a wail, please, be real, don't be a dream, please undo this thing and put me back the way I was, she cried, long and hard. The familiar face bent down to the wire door and cooed, a familiar finger reached thru and she touched her nose to it, it was. It was.

Thru the door, into the heat, into to the box he put himself in to every day to leave, the air suddenly growing cooler and the sound of engine. The sky over head moved, she felt herself this way and that and she knew, it was almost over.

Meow? he said.

Meoooow! She replied, and reflexively, from deep within her, she relaxed and squinted her eyes as she let out the softest coo.

[loneleeb3]

Poor Cry Baby!
 

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Coming back into consciousness from the dream world I found myself this morning searching for a metaphor.

A waiter came with one of those hand brooms that has no handle, sweeping the crumbs from the table so I could see what was my food and what was my utentisels. Nah, not quite right.

The curtains pulled back so I can find my shoes.....no, but getting closer. I lay their a while and then it comes to me:

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKaT5uG80Ts[/youtube]