Dear John

"So what does that patch on your jacket mean?" I wore the patchwork-y jacket, the one i bought in Georgetown. The cashier of Commander Salamander had both a lip ring, lisp caused by said lip ring, and a burning teenage desire to cut a demo album. I love that store.

"It means I'm a hipster piece-of-shit."

He is amused.

We choose his place. Plus, I'm in a take-me-home sort of mood. This is unusual for me, but it's been a weird night. Early in the evening I'd nearly been arrested for sassing a police officer after blatantly (but skillfully) jaywalking outside the spice girls concert in dc. Perhaps it was the coquettish disco numbers that had emboldened me. Or the artfully lit stage show. Or maybe it was the shots of Gray Goose a cheerful Verizon center employee has sold my best friend and I from the back of a recently converted hotdog cart.

The alcohol allowed me to more privately define my own mental metaverse. Crowds of people become only chunks of urban noise. Moving cars become only challenges in my pedestrian olypmic tryout. And police who try to shake me down for jaywalking become nazi officers.

I am piece-of-shitshow spice. And i am on a reunion tour of one.

Confidential to officer rent-a-cop: Sorry i tried to bite you. That was not classy. At the moment, i didn't realize who you were. i've been a little on edge regarding people who grab me from behind since my recent mugging/assault. That being said, go after an actual crime, douchenozzle. Seriously... probable cause based on jaywalking 5th street? i would have kicked the charge faster than an on-stage costume change.

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John, trendy jacket aficionado and fellow intoxicee, doesn't know any of this about me. i choose to vacation in his drunken concept of me; the cute, quirky bar pick-up. Perhaps I'm amorous rather than drunk. Perhaps I'm eccentric rather than unstable. Perhaps I'm coy rather than cold. And besides, his neck smells nice.

We're now at his place. I steady myself on the granite counter as he opens two beers. Beer is a superb come down drink.

Clothes are flung, rather than tossed. We're both in an aggressive mood. This proves hazardous. The intricately faux hand crafted West Elm headboard is not suited for use as a prop or counterbalance, despite my best intentions.

We attempt what we refer to in the lesser regions of Brooklyn as "big boy sex". (Gentle hetero readers: That's the standard issue gay kind. Hint: It involves the pooper.)

To a culture that had never witnessed modern coitus, it would appear that we were performing some sort of party trick gone horribly awry. Rather than a drunken, post-Reagan administration session of gay lovemaking, it could have been construed that my penis was attemping to create a ballon animal. Perhaps a galloping albino giraffe or a fanciful swan. No less than five condoms were lost in the process. Only four were found. Dot dot dot.

In the end, we gave up and passed out.

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I wake up around 9 am. He's asleep, therefore, there's still time to escape. Socks and dignity are somewhere in the messy room. I can find neither.

And then he wakes too. He puts his arm around me. It's a nice arm. All of him is nice, actually. Naked and dazed, I realize that I have decent taste.

"So what's your story?", he says affectionately. The question is not rude. The moment is missing only a handshake.

We do a make-shift how-do-you-do conversation. He mentions that he works for the government, though does not specify the job. This is well known code in DC. It means that he either works for an agency secretive enough to give John Grisham a literary woody, or does something completely lucrative that's too boring to mention. We are making small talk. And small talk is not acceptable to me if one is doing so while able to see the other person's balls. We are beyond a point at which subtlety is comfortable.

I wonder where my pants are.

I say something awkward about last night's penile balloon animal debacle, feeling a slight need to apologize. He is cheerful, and with me on looking at the humor of situation. I suddenly like him much better. He seems to notice this, and pulls himself closer to me. He nuzzles me in a way one doesn't nuzzle a stranger. And I've nuzzled strangers.

We begin to have a real conversation. We talk DC, quirks and predilections of people we know and love, with the occasional mild declarations about who we actually are. He's charming and quip-pish .

I begin to look at him again, only this time examining is face. He's beautiful. Not just a shirtless, overprocessed phone sex ad aesthetic beautiful, but a real beautiful. Green eyes and tan skin and tousled hair. The boyscout and trickster character all in one, with magazine cheekbones. I photograph him with my mind.

He mulls the idea of taking the day off of work. Though I realize this may be a hangover related move, I'm flattered by the idea that he doesn't want to kick me out at the appropriate mid morning hour.

Between kisses he gets up to rehydrate, and I vomit in his roommate's bathroom. I conceal the noise, so as not to seem unsexy. We fool around again. Successfully. Very successfully.

We watch a fluff action movie in bed. We talk most of the way through it, each of us still having plenty to say. We're on to the less usual getting-to-know-you questions.

"When gay marriage is legalized, which nation do you think would have the best mail order husbands?"

He's funny, and well informed about fallen eastern block heroin chic. He is subtle and has real undertext. I tell him that his screen name for ordering gay male order husbands should be Johnorreah. At this point, I'm taking the day off too.

We sit across from each other on the sofa, eating take out noodles.

Unexpectedly, the "Why are you single?" question arises.

I am a fucked up, valuable piece of post-modern art, I tell him. I am giant red cube or bright pink nude. But I am well constructed, genuinely thought out, and fun in a way that's outside one's usual elements. Someone will take me home, and add me to their life. They'll enjoy me in the living room, but soon realize that I clash with everything. All the things you already have and love there won't match, and I'll only crowd the space. Rather than throw out the rest of the room to match, I'll end up having to go. And so I'll leave.

He gets up and walks across the room and hugs me. This is a not the weak, pacify-your-sadness hug that I've felt before. Nor is it the lame generic sympathy hug. He wraps all of himself around me, and we fold into each other on the modern green angular sofa. This is the hug that seems to say, "I have room for you". It's more connection than intimacy, but feels amazing in a way that I hadn't realized I missed until now.

I spend the next night with him as well. But not the two-night stand. I hope there will be other nights too.

- Twink Puppet

get out the moleskine!

i am sorry, dear reader, that you could not partake in the shitshow that occured between the hours of 8p and 2a in the avenue of puerto rico domicile we call "home." (with quotes, we do)

valentine is a wretched saint that brings about temper and plague every year it comes.

there was yelling, there was some yelling, and we all survived, and we made it through, but i am telling you, dear reader, that if we hadn't eaten a spinach salad with avo and sprouts and some organic balsamic paul newman spittle, but rather had had beefburgers with heinz and yellow mustard, that we wouldn't have ended so civilly.

we're okay. we're going to all get through it. and we plan to have a great time this potus w/e, dear reader, and we hope you can join us. look for the dancing white people at dc9 on sunday. you'll have a drink in each hand and we'll be the ones in the moose costumes.

Official Launch from the WEST SIIIIIIIIIDE

On Tuesday, January 29, 2008, a bilateral decision was made between myself, Queen Vagine, and Fatty to launch Fuzzy Mimosa from Benin. It was bilateral rather than quadrilateral; the latter sounding more geometric that diplomatic and since I hate math it seemed fitting.

Once we have The Hub (a 4 bedroom apartment-a work in progress), I assure that more quadrilateral decisions will be made. And if not, as Queen, I’ll just continue with the precedent of declaring martial law.

Until further notice and continuity is found for the blog, entries will most likely resemble a shitshow rather than a coherent and cohesive work of art. Whereas Tim (Fatty), a graduate student in creative non-fiction, will easily craft pieces with a common thread, it is more than likely that I will not. Too bad that my entries will not mirror my trip to Benin which has a clear beginning, middle and end.

Anyways, let us move on to the meat/seitan of the content…

Contrary to the popular belief of 97% of my college educated friends, Benin is in fact a real country.

And the tangible proof of this is that I am here. I will also confirm, as one of my friend’s astutely noted prior to my departure, this sovereign West African nation is shaped like an “untrimmed phallus”. This invisible boundary, as I anticipated, was notably girthy from the plane. Perhaps this is because a) I could afford to get me some phallus (although not necessarily of Beninois descent) and/or b) I hang out with an exponentially high number of gay men such that my quotidian landscape of peni penetrates my life daily in the most non-sexual of ways. The fact that I am geographically located in a phallically shaped Nation State will inevitably render my gay harem jealous and I trust that they will continue to read with baited breath. In recognition that this blog is as hot as the temperature of this country, I have activated the automatic scrolling mechanism found on all of your favorite porn sites to facilitate easy reading.

I should mention, however, that homosexuality is punishable by 3 years of hard, physical labor in many West African nations (January 2008 case in Cameroon being the most recent example). And to clarify, by hard physical labor I do not mean big boy sex.

I am here on the original “West Side” on business…if I can call working for my mom and pop primitive NGO ‘business’ when they have recently and unjustly fired my awesome friend/colleague. She ‘terminated her contract’ (got sacked) because, I quote, her “good morning’s were not enthusiastic enough”. I guess we hadn’t realized that we worked at Applebee’s. In honor of her, I am therefore proud to announce that The Analyst’s favorite not-so-fast-food chain, the aforementioned Applebee’s, is now the proud sponsor of Fuzzy Mimosa and will donate a lifetime supply of flare AND bloomin’ onions to the 100^th reader.

I am here, however, to co-lead a “Due Diligence” trip for Dutch Investors’ who have financed many of our projects in Benin. Follow-up on this aspect of trip will follow when the Dutchbags arrive.

Sometimes when I leave my niche and my habitual routine consisting of a commute between West Bushwick and Union Square, I forget that I find 96% of humans intolerable. For the most part, L-riders are civil. Even the surliest of hipsters clad in skinny jeans and ironic facial hair are relatively harmless and inoffensive. Sometimes I forget that I have a Master’s in human rights because there are just some members of the general public that don’t deserve internationally protected freedoms. Example: overnight flight from JFK-Charles de Gaulle. I was unfortunate enough to board a plane full of spray-tanned college students bound for their junior year abroad. Upper class exuded from their blackberries and their tangible sense of entitlement. These girls were parodies of themselves as the three seated directly in front of me were named Brittany, Lindsey and Tara. Some snippets of convo include:

Brittany: Don’t you love my sweater?

Lindsey: I love sweaters. (Honestly, think about the answer to this question. It’s brilliant)

Tara: Did you write down the address for the salon? Because I need a standard appointment twice a week for my hair. And like, mani/pedi too.

Brittany: Don’t worry, I brought tons of mousse.

Lindsey, clutching her stuffed elephant, cried during the turbulence and two flight attendants were required to calm her down.

We land after seven painful and sleepless hours of incessant ‘he said/she said’. Brittany starts to cry as her Verizon blackberry is not working in France and Tara confidently proclaims that “you can definitely sue for this shit. Seriously”.

Call me Judgey McJudgster, but exposure to such interactions frightens me. Brit, Linds and Tara were no more than 7 years younger then me, putting them into whatever our generation is called (Z?) If we blame the Baby Boomers for essentially fucking everything up, what have we got on our hands now? It seems that they will be, at best, a serious liability to a nation in which our sustainability is already questionable. At least the baby boomers got to blow off some steam with readily accessible illicit drugs and heaps of AIDS-less sex (of course if you go to my doc, Dr. Bruce Champagne, you can go on a Vicodate every night of the week…but clearly I’m not going to sleep with him to get the best of both worlds). Geriatrics are known for their ramblings beginning with “kids these days…” but what happens when the kids are proclaiming “kids these days”? I think we have reason to fear. The terrorists may have won.

But for now, I’ll just drown my sorrows in freshly squeezed pineapple juice, look out at the palm trees and the Beninois sun and take solace in knowing that you fuckers are freezing your skinny little asses off in NYC.

More concrete ramblings to follow…

Much love from Cotonou,

QV