Oh! Snorkel lament!

I am moving into the most excellent bedroom: windows on three full sides, just like my last house in Newark, whose sunroom addition I appropriated en boudoir. In this case, for no discernible reason, there is a narrow, semi-enclosed walkway outside the room along all three window walls, with exterior half-walls rising maybe six inches shorter than my windowsills. I recall having traversed this walkway as a child, but this is the first time I've been in the room it circumscribes.

Elsewhere in the same house is a library, which Fomo and I have recently finished filling with books. Unlike my new bedroom, this room has no windows at all; it is 100% shelf. Shelving covers every square foot of wall; there's a support beam running the length of the room that weirdly bears shelves on either side; and—strangest of all—the ceiling is covered with shelving. And somehow Fomo has managed to fill those ceiling shelves with books.

I am just getting around to wondering how he managed to do that with, ahem, no visible means of support, when suddenly one book falls abruptly from the ceiling. The first thing that occurs to me, of course, is "How suspicious is it that that book just fell the very second I started wondering how these books stayed up in the first place?" This, I gather, is unusually clear evidence that Brain lives in a vat on the counter of an evil scientist's lab (or is a computer program, or some such).

And then another book drops, and another, and another, and several more, including now books flying off the wall shelving, books that have visible means of support, which gravity ought not molest. It's a Flying Book Bonanza. It's a horror movie telekinetic nightmare. It's raining books hallelujah.

We (a really non-specific other person, not Fomo, and I) call Maintenance to report the book disaster. Nobody can tell me how books were successfully shelved on the ceiling in the first place.

Later, Tom Lenk shows up outside the elevator bank. He is in a wheelchair. I am amazed and delighted that he recognizes my face and calls me by name. I have been writing a play (screenplay?) especially for him to perform; fortunately I do have some good news to give him about some producer's success in moving the project forward, and with that news I am able to obfuscate the embarrassing fact that I haven't quite finished writing the damned thing. (Sound familiar? Hahahaha.)

Tom is on his way to a gig; it is not clear to me whether his wheelchair is medical or thespian. I accompany him so we can chat along his way, into the elevator, out of the elevator, along hallways and open public spaces bustling with executives, artists, techies. I guess it is a TV studio; while it's mostly the same sort of office building where I've worked for the last 20 years, it is certainly not my workplace and no reason was presented why I should be in the elevator lobby to begin with. The meeting with Tom was fortuitous, not scheduled.

Anyway, I am a starfucker and Brain knows it: as we part company, Tom gestures for a hug. We embrace and air-kiss each other's cheeks.

Omg omg omg I touched Tom Lenk!

The Wilde West

The movie is something along the lines of Parting Glances with a side of Wilde—slice of life, humanizing queer people, but also with a "taking culture to the Philistines" theme. But toward the end I'm not watching a movie anymore. Instead I'm watching live humans; I'm at the back of the stage for some reason and I am watching the main gay character from the movie perform. Maybe he's Wilde reciting a Shakespeare soliloquy; but really he's everyfag reciting humanity.

This is a documentary film and a reenactment and a deeply personal tragedy all at once. I know what happens in this story. Indeed, the bully hecklers in the audience, loud and rude, are already calling our hero out. It's a frontier saloon and a modern barroom all at once, and a mean drunk is picking a fight: nothing ever changes. I know what happens in this story.

One of the bullies runs out the front door while the other is haranguing our hero, something from the "That queer stuff may fly in Paris or wherever" clade of bigotry; "but here in Ferguson..." (Yes, Ferguson: Brain thinks you are all indistinguishable bigots and assholes.) By this time the second guy is back and he's brought a gun. This was always going to happen. It is Shakespeare after all, and we all know what happens in this story: the faggot dies bloody.

Then I am home. Mom is Joyce Summers (Kristine Sutherland) and she says, "Oh, honey. Are you ok?" I tell her I'm fine and I start up the elaborately curved stairs. In this case I am both walking upstairs and playing with a plastic childhood puzzle toy in which you have to manipulate ball bearings up a "staircase" (which is just a painted image); if your hand shakes the tiny steel balls go everywhere and you have to start over.

But in any case I don't get very far up the stairs before my breath catches and I break down, sobbing. It is now the case that the guy murdered in the saloon was my brother and the whole family, including Joyce, is grieving. Our brother, our son, was violently taken from us. We are all just trying to cope, to ride out the immeasurable tragedy that is the human species.

And then I wake up. And resume trying to ride out the immeasurable tragedy that is the human species.