Dining Out for Life


After a couple of hours of volunteering for people suffering from HIV and AIDS, I couldn't have felt happier or more alive.

I went to Bi-Rite and bought a fresh spring salad and a bright orange tangelo because a sign over the pile of tangelos said "tastes like candy".

The lesbian at the counter asked, "ATM or Debit?" and I paused in a coquettish manner as if I was a stunningly beautiful schoolgirl who was just asked if I wanted a Diet Cherry Coke or a Diet Vanilla Coke.

I became small, slender. My elbow melded to my hip and my wrist moved in time with my mouth.

"I don't know," my wrist and mouth said. giggle. Debit?"

She grinned.

I noticed her short, spikey, greasy looking, honky-tonk hair-do.

"I like your hair," I commented.

But, I think what I really wanted to say was:

You look really fucking gay with hair like that. Plus, you're pushing overpriced citrus and overly presented produce. Yes, I know I'm wearing a striped belt and a red AIDS ribbon on my well developed left pec. Perhaps I look just as fucking 'gay' -- whatever that means -- as you, but I'm not. Which could mean you're not 'gay' either, and I'm just a fucking 'asshole' for being super judgmental.

So, I offer you an affirmation. By affirming your seemingly gayness, I also affirm mine.

Now, may I move on so I can look at myself in the storefront glass as I walk by?

Then, I went home.

I saw Molly in the hallway. She's super prego, as in really fucking pregnant. Her skin's all shady. Amy's skin gets all shady too sometimes when she takes birth control pills. People will tell her, "You have newspaper print on your nose."

Once someone spat on their fingers and tried to rub it off. But, it didn't rub off.

Molly showed me her blow up birthing jacuzzi. It didn't have any water in it yet and was only half inflated. It reminded me of the one isle of jaccuzis for poor people they used to sell at the Oregon State Fair when I was a kid.

I asked Molly if she leased or bought. She said she rented it. I was disappointed she didn't use the word lease.


INTERMISSION

***

(Please, take a few moments to ponder the ramifications of sharing birthing jacuzzis with strangers. I did.)

***


The salad tasted like dandelions and the tangelo tasted exactly like the no-name navels at Safeway. Yo-Yo Ma and Bobby McFeron played in concert from the strereo as I dined and read from my roommates massive Smithonian Earth Book.

Facts:

Water is densest at 39 degrees Farenheit.

The dunes of the Thar, or The Great Indian Desert, are created by the prevailing winds of that region.

Only 0.3 percent of the Earth's fresh water is viewed above ground as lakes, rivers, and streams.

I saw a picture of a bug hanging upside down, that is, upside down under water from the top of a pond, thus illustrating the amazing phenonomon known as surface tension.

Tension.

Tension is not knowing what to think in check out lines. Tension is not knowing how to hold your arms when you talk. What CDs to buy. What to do with your afternoon.

So, you write. And now, the tension is transformed into words, feelings conveyed to friends and absolute strangers.

Tension is formed the moment right before you don't say something you shouldn't say. It's not knowing how the story will end.

Today, I spent a couple of hours of volunteering for people living with HIV and AIDS and, right now, I couldn't feel any happier or more alive.