Residue

Sunday, Nov. 9, 2003 -
Ap�sl�min ida corbalanyrtne 'ls�o rohl'daathi�m v� nen�a iroyss�rd.

Last night I dreamed I was trapped on the wrong side of the San Gabriel Mountains�the wrong side for me is the eastern side. Fires in the San Fernando and Cajon passes had closed the highways and I couldn't get home. But then, in one of those effortless shifts in time and space that seem entirely natural in a dream, the Fiend and Jer were with me and my anxiety evaporated. Since we couldn't get through the passes, we decide to look for a place to live. This made perfect sense because we would only be a few miles from Jer's college. In the real waking world Jer is going to Cal Pollo Del Mar*, which is located on the Central Coast, but no-one in the dream fretted over a geography that situated a California coast east of the mountains.

While Jer and the Fiend looked for a house, my job was to go home and pack our stuff into the horse trailer I was hauling. The journey over the mountains was by way of a narrow and twisty highway, with twisted trees close on both sides. Their branches overhung the road, interwoven into a scraggly roof. Twigs scraped the top of the trailer. The road shrank to one lane. Lots of sharp, blind curves in the road had to be negotiated at a snail's pace. No other cars on the road, but I was oppressed by the constant expectation of them. The air itself was dark, even though it wasn't night.

I came around a curve and there was the fire. At that moment it wasn't close, but I could see it was near the road I would have to travel. Could I make it? Should I go back? The prospect of turning around in a very narrow road with a 22-foot trailer was daunting. I'd be stuck if I jackknifed.

I was so fuckin' glad to wake up.

~

*My pseudonym for the college where Jer will be studying music and "some sort of earth science" for the next four years. Paleontology, meteorology (picturing Jer as the Channel 5 weatherman makes me giggle), seismology, geomorphology and oceanography have all been mentioned as possibilities for his major.

The windows are still decorated with pumpkins. Twenty-three pumpkins made out of orange construction paper, according to the technique perfected by generations of American schoolchildren. The orange construction paper usually comes out two weeks before the holiday, and friends and passing strangers are coerced into cutting at least one Jack-o-Lantern, although no one ever cuts less than two. I'm not sure why. People are often awkward and tentative on the first one, and apologetic about the result.* Maybe they need to cut that second one for the restoration of their self-respect. Of course, we don't limit anyone to just two, you can cut as many as you like, the more is truly the merrier. Last year, when I introduced the Fiend to this long-standing family tradition, he went out and bought some black paper, and spiders and bats were added to the orange throng of grinning and grimacing faces. This year, because of one thing and another or three things and another five, I didn't get out the paper till the eve before the hallowed eve and the orange crowd is not as thick as it should be. Only the mater, the Fiend, Jer, myself, and the UPS man were the cutters this year, and Jer's weren't added until the day after Halloween. Jer didn't drive down until Saturday morning. He was obligated to attend two parties on Friday evening, one thrown by his roomies and the other by his immediate neighbors, the family of four that rent the other half of the duplex. Neither party was particularly raucous, the family of four includes two children, a boy and a girl, who are age eight or nine or maybe ten, and I've noticed that if you're a civilized human, the presence of children will make you sensible.

The essential ingredients of my Halloween costume were my Tony Lama boots, my Tyrone Power flamenco jacket embroidered with blue pansies, my She-Ra, Princess of Power belt, my oxblood leather stirrup pants�, a red gaucho hat with blue feathers, and a red velvet thong. I was America's Cowboy Sweetheart. I wanted to do something with blue convoluted foam for my Halloween costume this year but I ran out of time. That idea came to me when we were packing up the studio of an evacuating ceramicist. Convoluted foam for the glazed pots, 100% recycled packing peanuts for the greenware and bisque. Listening to the radio while we pack. "Love Shack" by the B-52s comes on between bulletins about the fire. Suddenly I'm thinking of making a tight sheath out of the convoluted foam, then I'll douse it with spray adhesive and throw a bucket of glitter on it. Hang it on my bod with spaghetti straps, cinch in the waist with my She-Ra, Princess of Power belt and accessorize with black tights, go-go boots, chunky turquoise-colored Tiki earrings, and a beehive wig. Yep, sadly enough, all those items are in my possession, except the go-go boots. Go-go boots don't come in size 13.

But it didn't happen. We didn't start putting together our costumes until Halloween night. Trick-or-Treaters were arriving on our doorstep between bouts of rain (the count was approximately fifty of the brats, slightly below average for us), I was laundering summer's cotton sheets and changing the bed into its winter set of aged flannels, wool blanket, kapok-filled quilt with an optional afghan�temperatures dropped into the low forties that night�and The Fiend was foraging for inspiration in the depths of our closets. He already had his costume, he was looking for mine. He squealed with delight when he resurrected the flamenco jacket. Hearing the bleat of my mate, I flew to his side and squealed too. Hey, you would've squealed if you saw it. It's that kind of jacket.

The rest of my costume easily fell into place. The Fiend kept his costume simple�he dressed all in black and wore very pale (but not white) make-up. He shadowed his eyes to make them appear deep but not cavernously Goth. With his pale strawberry-blond hair, he looked stunning. Which was his whole purpose. When I asked him what he was supposed to be, the little cumsucker said, "I don't know, but whatever it is, it's gorgeous." Most people guessed he was Lestat. One person thought he was a blond Neo. I dubbed him The Amnesiac because whenever anyone asked him what he was, he said "I don't know."

~

* The results are always charming, there are no bad pumpkins. After all, this is a craft that can be mastered by kindergarteners.

� Would a straight man ever confess to owning a pair of stirrup pants?

<~>
Ap�sl�min ida corbalan� 'lse nesgla ugar�-cham sa cru ogrulho bat�oltha al�mv�sde.

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