Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut

The first time I visited The Evolution Center, I knew it was a little nutty. I met with the original owner who opened this yoga and tai chi studio in 1973. The place was worn down and the mats were made from dirty black foam. The owner asked me about myself and gave me the okay to start teaching at his place though he was handing the ropes over to Frieda, another teacher. She would be taking over the center so he could retire in the Alpes full-time.

The second time I went was for a teacher’s meeting. My friend Katrijn was going to start teaching there too. She was dressed nicely and looked clean and organized. It was our first interaction with the other teachers. We arrived and the old dirty black mats were on the floor with bolsters on top and a make-shift table in the middle. It was an attempt at “cozy” I imagine.

All the teachers sat barefoot on the bolsters. Since Katrijn and I were the newbies, we had to introduce ourselves but no one else told us who they were. One man with a big honker and a short silver beard tried to talk about India. He later introduced himself as Olivier.

Frieda cut him off. She was the woman in charge. Tall, big-boned and bug-eyed she spoke quickly. She made it clear she was running the show. Frieda began to talk about the process for signing up new students. She gestured to the wall behind her. There was a sort of exposed card catalog that would have made a librarian’s head spin. A metal rack held little cards in alphabetical order. The entire wall was filled. Each card belonged to a student. It was like the Dewey Decimal System and probably created in 1973 when the room opened.

“Now,” Frieda held up a card showing us as if we were children, “when a student comes to your class, you will need to get their card from the wall and stamp it. Then you will need to write their name on the attendance sheet. You need to make sure you fill out the attendance sheet every time you teach or we will have no way of knowing who came to your class.”

Frieda showed us the different cards and repeated the important stamping process at least three times as if this was one of the most important things ever. It sounded like it would take us longer to take attendance then to give a class.

A young pregnant woman who had wavy blonde hair explained how she wouldn’t be able to give massages much longer, she gestured to her stomach. Just then, the door opened and the third new teacher, who was very late, strutted into the room. She wore loose black jeans and a flannel shirt. She had shaggy hair. She climbed onto a pillow and sat with her legs apart. “Sorry I’m late” she smirked with a rough voice. She was sitting close to me. She had a faint blonde mustache and very thin lips.

Frieda stared and then said, “Why don’t you introduce yourself to us?”

“Okay,” she wore a sly grin, “I’m Rhianna and I’ll be teaching a style of gym and stretching that is a mix of yoga and Tai Chi. I created my own routine with traditional Western movements for people who find yoga scary or too hard.”

Frieda stared at her and then at the group. No one said a word. Rhianna’s appearance frightened me. I couldn’t imagine going to her for any class of any sort.

Frieda spoke about the cards and stamps again. She put down her pen and said “Okay, for those of you who want to stay and eat, the meeting is over.”

Each person ruffled in his or her bag and brought out little salads, cheeses, cakes and we passed out plates. Olivier began speaking about India again. “I go every year. It is such a magical place.” He said while scooping some kind of grains onto his plate.

A teacher in her late 40’s with curly reddish hair and huge glasses said, “I just did China and it was such a hard country to visit…the language, getting around, it really was difficult. I prefer India.”

“India is filled with so much culture and history,” he added.

I thought back to my trip in India with my husband. Images of open sewage, a woman lighting cow dung and then waving the vapors into her face, lepers, half-naked skinny children tugging at our clothes…but my favorite image of all is of me hanging out the side of a moving rickshaw and puking.

“Holy Shit,” my husband had commented at the time, “you looked like a fucking alien!” We had laughed but it wasn’t so funny when I puked another ten times, (though my stomach looked damn good for about 24 hours). I made a comment about my dislike for India. I don’t know why I said this in a room full of India lovers. Everyone stared at me.

Luckily, Katrijn piped up and said she had met her boyfriend in India and that is why she is now in Marseille. That was a good transition and Frieda then announced, “Baba Gunji is coming to Marseille. Are any of you going to go see him?”

“Oh, he’s amazing. I’ve heard him before,” said Olivier nibbling on his rice salad mixture.

“So have I! He is so real, no masks, he’s just himself and he makes you feel like you can be real too. He helps you get closer to yourself.” Frieda was always so intense.

“Yes. I don’t know how he does it. Just being in his presence makes you feel like it’s okay to be who you are,” continued Olivier.

“Exactly,” she picked at her bread and cheese, “he helps you accept yourself, know yourself better, get closer to yourself…” she said waving her bread in the air.

I listened to all this feeling like an outsider when Rita covered her mouth and said in my direction, “Get closer to yourself? I wanna get distance from myself. Heh heh heh.”

The voice of reason had spoken. I burst into laughter. She started laughing too, her eyes all squinty like someone who had just smoked a doobie. I liked her.

Two weeks later we had the Open House. Basically this was our biggest chance of the year to attract potential students. It was a sunny September morning. Frieda was going to make Chai that morning.
I say this because it had been decided that Chai would only be served in the morning, not in the afternoon. Also, the tea cup was to be filled to a certain level.

She was really into her Chai and had even printed it on the flyers as part of the Open House. She spoke about it during our meeting: The Chai in the morning, how she would offer Chai to people…in the morning. How people would come to our Open House, and if they came in the morning, they could have their cup of Chai.

Well, I arrived around 9:15am to help set-up the place. Random objects were on the shelves in the entry way, bathroom deodorizer spray, for example, which made no sense and was a total turn off. I mean, the first thing I think of when I see deodorizer spray is, "Cool, if I need to take a fucking shit, no one will know because I can spray this fantastic spray!"

Getting back to the Open House day, a massage therapist, Anne, was also helping set-up. She had short brown hair and was putting out flyers on the table in the entrance. The big yoga room had some tables and flyers too but was mainly empty so that we could give workshops.

“How can I help?” I asked looking around.

“You can help me hang these pictures,” Frieda wanted to hang pictures. I don’t know why it was a priority when so many other things needed to get done. She handed me three brand new canvases still in their plastic wrap.

“Okay, just tell me where.”

She came over and handed me a hammer and nails and then pointed to three spots on the wall that were way above my height. When she realized I couldn’t reach that high, she handed me the nails and I become her nail holder servant. It was a very inefficient way of using an extra set of hands. And then the two of us hung pictures.

“You’re hanging pictures…now?” asked Anne. We were expecting loads of people and it was just the three of us getting the place ready.

“Yes! Yes! Now!” she said as if this made perfect sense.

Soon a horrible burning smell began to enter the hallway. “Oh, no! Is that my Chai?” Frieda shrieked.

“I don’t know. It smells like incense,” I remarked.

Frieda fled to a little room in the back. “Oh, no! Oh, no! My Chai. It’s boiled over onto the wood floor.” She ran to get some towels. I followed and did the same. She started slopping up the mess that had boiled over from the electric kettle. “I forgot this kettle needs to be watched or this happens…” Then she disappeared before cleaning the floor properly to do something inefficient again. I took my time cleaning up the mess and wondered if I was on Chai duty or if she was coming back.

Soon Katrijn and a couple other teachers arrived. Katrijn took a look around and smiled at me. “So,” she asked me, “what are we supposed to do?”

I looked over at Frieda and then back to Katrijn, “Just do what she says.” I said somewhat under my breath. The two of us giggled.

Soon the door rang. It was our first potential student. A thirty-something woman, pale and chubby, stood in the doorway holding a plastic bag and her Open House flyer.

“Come in! Come in!” Frieda said over-enthusiastically with her bug eyes.

“Hello!” everyone chimed in.

“Hello,” she paused and looked at each one of us slowly. “I’m here for the Open House.”

Frieda made her way quickly over to our potential student. The woman held the flyer in her hand. Frieda towered over her, “Okay, which workshop interests you?” Together they studied the flyer in utter concentration.

Frieda left for something else and the lady approached me in slow motion and spoke to me in a monotonous tone, “Can yoga hurt me? I have some problems…” She asked me lots of questions, the same question just worded differently each time. “Will yoga help me?” I tried to comfort her and told her soft yoga would probably be good for her. Nothing I said seemed to soothe her, she just stood there looking lost.

I went back to Chai duty and moved some random objects into the back. Each time a student would arrive, Frieda would monopolize the conversation and none of the other teachers would get in a word.

“I might as well leave,” mentioned Katrijn with wide eyes, “she isn’t letting us talk to anyone.”

As 10am approached, people started gathering around for a Soft Gym class that Rhianna was going to lead, however, she was nowhere to be seen. Frieda’s eyes starting shifting left and right. She kept looking at the round clock on the wall. At least 4 people were waiting for Rhianna. Frieda started thinking out loud. “Where is Rhianna? It’s 10 o’clock. These people want to try Soft Gym. We have to start. What should I do? It’s 10 o’clock…”

Katrijn offered her help, “I teach Soft Yoga so I could give the workshop if you want?”

“No! No! No!” Frieda started pacing the hallway. “I’ll do it. It can’t be just anything. It has to be something similar. I know what she does.” Katrijn looked shocked at her response.

Frieda brought the people into the big yoga room and Katrijn turned to me, “Wow! This woman is really awful. I’m trying to help and she acts like that? She really wants to do everything!”

Then we spied on Frieda who was leading a group in auto-massage. She briskly rubbed her arms up and down, then her legs. She encouraged the workshop students to do as she was doing. The others began to rub their arms too. Katrijn and I looked at each other and started laughing.

“What is she doing?” Katrijn asked me.

“I think it’s Do-In a type of auto-massage…” They were in fact doing something quite legitimate, but it looked ridiculous and Frieda teaching something that is supposed to relax people just made it even more absurd.

About ten minutes later, Rhianna entered. Her hair was matted on one side and sticking out on the other. She must have literally rolled out of bed and thrown on her jacket. Her eyes were tiny and sunken into her head. The sight of her made me start laughing. “Tired?” I asked.

She raised her eyebrows at me, “Why? Do I like tired?”

“Yep.”

“Do I normally look energetic?”

“Nope,” I answered and we both laughed again.

“Frieda started teaching your class, did you want to do part of it now that you are here?” asked Katrijn.

“Nah, let her do it,” She chuckled.

Ten thirty was coming up. It would be time for my workshop, Dynamic Yoga with Suny. Yep they spelled my name wrong on over 15,000 flyers, I was disappointed with that. Frieda was to blame, but what are you going to say to that broad?

As Frieda and her students left the room, she said to the next group, “Now for Dynamic Yoga with Sunny.”

I scanned the crowd of about 8 people. The slow chubby lady was part of my group! She began asking me a bunch of questions again and I noticed a wart on her finger. Not just any wart, a mushy dangly one. Eww. I made a future mental note: Do not adjust her hands.

I entered the yoga room and began to set-up mats, people just kept on pouring in. A tall man in a bright blue construction suit, the kind you have to zip up, was one of my students. A red-eyed man who probably found our flyer in the dumpster he sleeps in was also part of my little posse. He had whiskey breath and was wearing black jeans and a black long sleeved shirt that reeked of nicotine. (Sound like a potential yoga student to you?) A couple women looked dressed for a marathon and a couple others looked like yogis who were just seeing if I was any good which made me nervous.

My class was full so I shut the door, ready to begin. Supposedly, Frieda panicked and repeatedly said in an ugly tone of voice, “What? She closed the door? This is an Open House... The doors stay open in an Open House.”

It was a hot day in Marseille. Our room had no fans and no open windows. I began the class and it heated up a little too quickly. I hadn’t anticipated any sweating during a 30-minute yoga workshop and thus I had put on make-up and worn a normal non-absorbent bra. But soon, sweat was running down my cleavage and my face was dripping. I had to sneak a couple peeks in the mirror to make sure I didn’t look like Alice Cooper with mascara melting down my face. I looked out at all the workshop participants, people whom I’d most likely never see again: slow wart lady, construction man, and drunken dude. One or two people’s yoga practice was almost too good. I felt like they must have been there specifically to investigate me on behalf of some undercover yoga teacher committee. Would I pass their test?

I watched the clock and timed the class perfectly. We were just coming out of our relaxation when Frieda burst open the door and banged on a bronze bowl repeatedly, “Time’s up!” she chimed like one of the evil step-sisters from Cinderella. Could she possibly be any more obnoxious? The truth is, she is an unaware obnoxious person so you kind of feel sorry for her. I do not think she knows she is so awful but…still…I kind of wanted to slap her.

As we exited, steam left our room and drifted into the hallway. The next big group filed into the room for the Tai Chi workshop. Katrijn was standing in the hallway. She told me she was leaving. For a while, I stood alone feeling invisible and uneasy. With the other workshops going on and Frieda talking to everyone, there was little for me to do. Luckily, I had to participate in another Open House on a different side of town. I glanced around the room one final time.

“I have to go,” I said to Frieda while opening the door.

“Oh…you’re leaving already?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said without any explanation, “Good bye,” I closed the door behind me and exited the building. I smiled as I felt the city air and sun on my face. I felt relieved. It was as if I’d managed to escape a different dimension. I was back in my world again. I was safe now. I exhaled a sigh of relief. And I happily walked down the street, leaving the nuts and the squirrels behind.

Give A Hoot. Don't Pollute!

Give a hoot. Don’t pollute!

Remember this message growing up? A long time ago, the US decided littering was bad so they came up with an anti-littering campaign. I don’t remember what it was like before this campaign. Was the US messy and dirty? This cartoon owl sitting on the branch was a part of my daily TV life, “Give a hoot. Don’t pollute.”

Do you think the US was like Marseille is today? Strewn about papers, broken glass, gum, lumps of foamy spit every two steps plus men washing their ass in public fountains? (Jeeves and his wife can confirm this latter appealing snippet)

And my sister Diane and I once saw a man drop his pants, spread his butt cheeks while standing upright and unload a splashing mess onto the sidewalks in Toulouse. We both thought he was going to whip out his penis. No, he had diarrhea and it was so shocking we ran as fast as we could to my apartment and when we felt safe, we stopped, doubled over laughing and Diane said, “Only with you, Sunny. Only with you!”

“Oh, my God. That was fucking disgusting” I said. My heart was racing.

“That was awesome! That was hilarious!” Diane had a high. She loved stuff like that.

Somehow I doubt the US was ever in bad shape like this even during the “Gangs of New York” days it still was probably better than Marseille. My mother grew up in NYC and claims to have seen a man crossing the street with nothing more than a newspaper tucked under his arm. He was just strolling along as if everything was perfectly normal, naked and a paper tucked under his arm. This is so mild in comparison, a nice summer breeze. Well, if we are going to go in this direction, crazy people we have seen in our lives, I’ll never get to my wonderful litter theme, so let me try and get back to that.

First, let’s revisit the American campaign. I imagine the reason why they used the word “pollute” is because nothing really rhymes that well with “litter” but we humans are not a bunch of cars sputtering exhaust, so why refer to us like that? Is it just because the person in charge of the project was uncreative or maybe lazy?

I can come up with something good. The Hoot campaign was an owl. Well, why not something like “Save us critters, don’t litter” and you could have a really cute animated hedgehog with bits of paper stuck in his quills? Wouldn’t that have been brilliant? I mean, that would have sent a nice message, much better than an owl sitting pretentiously on his branch preaching to the pulpit.

Even though I saw the owl every day, I think I littered as a child. In fact, I remember my turning point when I realized how awful littering was. I was with some friends, most likely Sydney and Kayla, and we were with a new guy named Mario. He had long black shiny hair and said he was Aztec. Yes, you heard me right, he was Aztec. Are you thinking, “There are no Aztecs, what the heck is she talking about.” But Mario referred to himself as Aztec. Clearly, he was embarrassed to say, “I’m Mexican”. It was much better to refer to himself as part of a people who no longer existed. Mario belonged to a people who built some pyramids and then disappeared inexplicably.

Getting back to my turning point from littering to cleaning up after myself, we had been sitting in some tall grass in a park smoking weed. We were dancing in the sunshine and eating chips and candy bars. We decided it was time to leave and so we all stood up and started to head out.

“Hey! You guys are gonna leave this garbage here?” cried out Mario in disbelief.

We looked down and saw our wrappers. It looked ugly and instantly I was filled with a consciousness whereas before I had been operating blindly without a clue. I felt guilty. I was going to leave that mess behind in the pretty prairie?

Quietly we all bent down and gathered our mess. Twenty years later, I still do not litter, it is one of the worst things I can think of doing…until recently.

Please, don’t judge me. I can explain. It’s awful I know but somehow these past days I’ve been littering. I feel a tremendous relief as if my non-littering was building up inside me for years and has finally been unleashed into a city that understands. Marseille, you understand me, don’t you?

Every time I teach yoga, I have to walk up the dirtiest street I have yet to find in my life. I don’t think Jeeves or I have managed to walk up or down it without some kind of comment every time:

“Christ, this is disgusting!” Jeeves says with enthusiasm every time.

“Oh, my god, I have to walk in the street, this sidewalk is impossible!” I say knowing damn well that attempting to walk on the sidewalk never pans out.

“That’s human shit. Oh, God! It stinks!”

“Hurry, walk faster, I can’t stand it here!”

“This is the worst street in Marseille.”

“It really is! This is the worst street in Marseille!”

It is not possible to keep our overwhelming thoughts to ourselves while walking on this street. I even take my girls to yoga on Wednesday morning and they say things like:

“Mommy, are you breathing yet?”

“No, I’m still holding my breath.”

“It smells really bad, Mommy!”

“I know, I know. Watch out! Take a big step, that’s pee from a man!”

“How do you know, Mommy? How do you know it’s from a man?”

“Because there’s a lot!”

“Girls, hurry, hurry, this is awful! Breathe out of your mouth.”

“I don’t know how. I still can smell it. Mommy, it’s really bad!”

We’ve been doing this walk almost daily for over a year now. But, it is just such an inspiring street and to top it off, listen to this, it is called Rue des Héros! Do you know what this means? You must have an inkling. It translates to Hero Street! Isn’t that exciting?

This street is home to the prostitutes, drunkards, homeless, and druggies. Sometimes I find needles on the yoga door stoop, empty beer bottles. I watch older and experienced prostitutes stand in the street and younger ones getting into cars with African men. There is a dumpster at the top of the street and at the bottom of the street. Behind the dumpsters serves as a public toilet plus all the trash that people throw alongside the dumpster instead of inside it.

The other night, I was eating a chocolate on my way down rue des héros (have you ever eaten a chocolate while breathing in shit and urine stench?). Feeling overwhelmed and rebellious, I looked left, I looked right and then I threw my wrapper under the dumpster so it could hang out with the other litter and I swear, I felt so fucking proud. It was my Baptism, my rite of passage into Marseillais-dom!

Later that evening over dinner, I told my husband and he was annoyed. “Why do you have to be such a rebel?” he asked.

I thought about his question. “Look, this city is so dirty. It felt good plus my wrapper just joined a pile of wrappers on the street anyway. I’m just adapting…” I explained.

“No,” he corrected me, “you are giving in because it is easier to litter.”

He did have a point, it was easier to litter. But, something about putting my wrapper in a dumpster seemed absurd. There are times when I feel like I’m just standing in a huge wasteland with reminisces of an ancient city, buried somewhere. So, I basically repeated what I had said, “It’s not that I’m rebelling or that it’s easier. But, no one else gives a shit and now I don’t give a shit either.”

“Exactly” he said smiling, “you’re giving in because it’s easier.”

“Whatever,” I said. I knew the truth. I was morphing into a true Marsaillaise.

A few days later, in my little neighborhood, one of my students brought me fresh apricots from her garden. After our yoga class, I walked happily down the street stepping over plastic bags, random shoes, cartons, while eating apricots with my friend Silver.

I held the pit in my hand hesitating whether or not to chuck it. “I know it’s awful, Silver, but hey, it’s Marseille so I’m going to litter like everyone else,” I said and carefully tossed my apricot pit alongside the street as if I were skipping stones on a lake. Then I ate two more apricots and did this two more times. She is from here but bitches constantly so I figured she would be proud of my littering though I don’t really know. Truthfully, I found my behavior a little over the top and uncalled for. I started feeling a little guilty. How far am I going to go with this?

Just yesterday, I started getting sick of my chewing gum. Chew, chew, chew. I reached the point when my gum became god damn annoying and I started thinking, “Why the hell is this gum in my mouth? I need to get rid of it!” So, I got rid of it, right on the side of the road. Of course I made sure to throw my gum close to the edge of a sidewalk where cars park, not smack in the middle of the sidewalk.

I haven’t reached complete and utter disrespect. I’m a respectful litteresse (I just created this personage) I never toss my trash directly in a walking path. (Though I just had an excellent day dream: I’m standing in the street with my garbage bin filled with papers and banana peels. I just stand there dumping it into the street in broad day light. That is what I’d really like to do while shouting, “What do you think of this? Is this how you like it? Want me to go back home and get another bin for ya? Is this how we do things here, huh? I’ll show you litter!”) And, I always make sure no one is behind me before chucking something haphazardly over my shoulder. On the contrary, I have dodged many lit flying cigarette butts.

Littering comes in degrees. I’m a mild litteresse, like someone who smokes a cigarette socially, I litter when I’m among my fellowmen. The worse the litter around me, the more I am inspired to join the party. And if someone just happens to walk in my gum, do you think I really care? No. Because that person could quite easily be the one who let his dog take a shit in front of our door the other day, right?

How did I reach this point of hootlessness? Maybe I’ll come around. Maybe it’s a rebellious phase all people go through at some point in Marseille. I don’t know. But for now, I don’t give a hoot, I pollute.

Dude Looks Like A Lady

Twelve year-old Maxim entered the living room wearing a long blue wig, lip gloss, black pantyhose, black knee-high boots and, the killer, a stuffed bra under his dress.

“Wow!” laughed my husband not sure what kind of comment was appropriate.

Eva was bedazzled and stared with a big grin on her face. Claire pulled on his sleeve “Hi! Hi!”

“Mommy, why is he wearing that?” Eva pointed to his long blue locks.

“Oh, just for fun,” I tried to explain, “do you like his wig?”

Eva nodded yes. Long hair is one of her preoccupations.

Maxim stood in the entrance. He held his head back exposing his neck. Then he doused it with woman’s perfume. “Voilà,” he breathed. The final touch. He was now ready. He went around the room with pursed lips, kissing the cheeks of all the dinner guests with his shiny peach lip gloss.

It wasn’t the first time he had captured the crowd’s attention. Several months earlier, he had shown up to our house in a white Mozart shirt, ruffles down the chest and long swooping sleeves. This seemed more like a fashion statement and I actually liked it. I had no doubt he was homosexual and his mother being somewhat macho and provocative seemed like a perfect mother for a homosexual child to have. She would be open-minded, tolerant, and let her son express himself to the max. Wouldn’t she?

Trying to break the ice a little, I turned to her after Maxim left the room and with the intentions to proffer a compliment, I said jokingly, “Maxim is lucky to have a cool mom like you.”

Her eyes widened and she stepped in a little closer to me. Her gray spiky hair just inches away from my face. “What do you mean?” she was waiting for a special response, one that I wasn’t tough enough to give.

“Well, not many mothers would be okay letting their son dress like that,” I instantly regretted having opened my mouth at all.

“It’s totally normal for children to dress up,” big brown eyes bore into me. “It’s okay for girls to dress like boys. My daughter used to wear suits and ties and no one thought there was anything wrong with that. But when a boy dresses like a girl, it’s not okay?”

I held her stare. She wasn’t going to intimidate me. However, I dared not say what I was thinking:

“Your son is wearing a bra stuffed with tissues under his dress. Did your daughter stuff her fucking pants with a sock to look like a man with a dick and balls? Did she draw a mustache on her face and wear men’s cologne? Because that my dear is fucking weird. And I highly doubt your daughter looked like a man. Your son is not just wearing a dress or just a wig, he is in drag. How many teenage boys willingly and solo, dress up like women at parties? Zero boys, that’s how many because it is NOT normal. And I don’t care what your son wears, but if you think it’s normal, you are fucking blind.”

That’s what I wanted to say. But, I couldn’t say that so I said, “Yeah. I suppose you’re right…” and hoped it was enough to remove whatever pole I had accidentally rammed into her ass.

As more guests arrived to the dinner party, I watched people’s expression as Maxim sashayed into the room, shriveled sausages dangling from a fork in a dangerous way as he asked who wanted one. (His father put him in charge of the BBQ. “I don’t care if you look like a woman, you are my son and males are always in charge of the BBQ whether they wear dresses are not,” could have been one of his reasons.)

“Are we going to find melted blue hairs in our food?” Joked my husband as Maxim flung a sausage onto Claire’s plate. I laughed. No one else did.

People wore plastered smiles. I observed each person as they said hello to Maxim. Some said, “Bonsoir, Mademoiselle,” in a light-hearted way. But I have telepathy and I could hear their thoughts, “Holy shit! Smile. Look normal. God damn! I’m glad my kid doesn’t dress like that! What the fuck? Smile, pretend it’s totally normal!”

“Where did you get those stockings?” asked my husband. Maxim obviously could not have borrowed them from his sisters or mother considering he was much taller and, shall we say, a “plus size.”

“Did you buy those for him?” my husband asked Maxim’s father. My husband was treading in dangerous waters. I wanted him to shut up. Maxim’s father chuckled, but did not share. I laughed nervously. A vision of Maxim swaying down the pantyhose aisle in a luxurious department store flashed in my mind. Did his mother take him? Did he go alone? What about his enormous boots? Did he buy those too in the women’s department or does he actually, miraculously wear the same size as his scary mom?

More families arrived with more children. Some other boys around the same age as Maxim entered the house. They were the same age, but they were from different planets. They had messy hair that was slightly dirty, boys who liked being boys. No interest whatsoever in how they looked or what they wore. No identity crises going on in that corner. They saw Maxim and laughed. Boy, that Maxim! He sure was funny. They were too young to realize Maxim was most likely having gender issues and probably wanted to be a girl.

Later in the evening, all the children were upstairs. I went up to see how things were going. All the children, ages 3-12, were spread out on the floor playing games, smiling, innocent wide eyes, and crumby faces. Who do you think sat by himself at a console in front of a mirror? You guessed it. Enraptured with his own image, Maxim sat with his long blue wig and a curling iron in front of a well-lit mirror as if he worked at Burlesque and was preparing for his next act. The scene was mind-blowing. One could say, “Oh, he was just having fun.” Yep. He sure knows how to get into a role.

After the party, back at our home I lie in bed watching my husband hang up his clothes. “It’s more than just being gay,” I said to him. “I’ve had gay friends and they were happy to be men. They had no desire to be women at all except on special occasions when everyone dressed up together.”

My husband listened to me. “Well, we don’t know what his parents think or if they have tried to talk with him. It is very delicate and I’m sure they are not going to talk to their friends about this. But, what is sad is no matter what, Maxim is going to deal with gay crime at school and in life. It’s a fact.”

I thought about this. This made me sad. “You know, it’s more than just being gay,” I said again.

“What really freaked me out, Sunny, is not the dress or the wig, it’s the fake boobs,” said my husband.

“I know. I wonder if deep down Maxim feels like he should have been born a girl, you know?”

“Well, I don’t want to think about it.”

We were both silent for a while. An image of Maxim’s mother sitting on her couch alone watching a transsexual on TV popped into my head. A woman with manly hands is being interviewed. “I always knew I was supposed to be a girl”, she says in a husky voice, “It wasn’t a choice really. I had to have the operation. I have always been a woman inside and now I am finally one on the outside.”

You hear a bell toll once. The camera pans in on Maxim’s mother. We see her eyes widen as the camera goes in closer and closer. Her hands begin to shake. Quickly she covers her mouth. She shakes her head in denial, disbelief. And. Cut.

Or maybe I’m just being dramatic. Maybe Maxim is normal, just checking things out. There is always the possibility he’s doing it to avenge his parents. Let’s assume his parents act cool when guests are around but when they are alone, they rip into him. “Do you realize how embarrassing you are? Christ!” they scream. “Cut this faggy shit out! Can’t you just be a plain old regular teen?”

“Fuck you,” he mutters to himself as he marches up to his room and hatches a plan. The next morning before he leaves for school, he swipes 50 bucks out of his mother’s purse. Instead of going to school, he hops on the bus to Les Galleries Lafayette. He heads straight to the hosiery section and chooses a nice pair of black tights in XL. Then, he tries on numerous pairs of boots in the Women’s shoe department. He hides his loot under his bed and waits for D-Day. Saturday evening finally arrives. His parents are busy setting out bottles of liquor and wine, paper napkins and bowls of chips. Maxim finds his sister’s wig and curling iron, puts on his outfit and waits until he hears the voices of guests.

“Show time,” he says into the mirror with a smirk. He comes down the stairs and sways into the room flinging his long blue tresses over his shoulder. “Good evening, everyone,” he says as he rearranges his bra a little. He catches his mother’s eye. Her stare burns a hole through his heart. He winks at her enjoying every moment. It’s as if someone is spoon-feeding him chocolate mousse.

Or, there’s always the simple explanation that he’s just a drama queen and loves the attention. If it is just a taste for the thespian life, then next time we see him he could be dressed like the Hobbit or even Yoda, right? And years from now, just after he takes a bow from a stunning performance and the curtain goes down, his parents who are sitting in the audience will turn to their friends and say, “You know, for a moment there, we all thought our Maxim wanted to be a girl.” And his parents and their friends will all chuckle heartily and yuk it up. “Yeah, that sure was a scary time…ha ha ha!”

And is it true that girls dress-up like boys? Besides wearing a suit and a tie, maybe some masculine looking shoes and a short haircut, I’ve never seen a woman dress like a man to the same extreme as a man dresses up like a woman. Have any of you out there seen a transvestite woman? I mean the whole thing: flatten her breasts down to nothing with some kind of tunic, stuff the crotch of her pants, fake five o’clock shadow? Yes, women may dress in men clothing, but it is more of a fashion statement or even a feminist statement, like “Hey, I don’t need to show my tits and ass to be a woman.” It’s not intentionally done to make people think they are men.

And now, I must sidetrack because this gets really interesting! I have a Tantric explanation to this whole gender issue. Science has shown that all embryos are first female and then some become male after certain hormonal and developmental phases take place. In fact, if you cut an embryo bunny’s gonads, the embryo will automatically revert to a female which proves all life is female in the beginning; the male species develops from an original female state. Therefore, (this is the Tantric part), men often feel this desire to go back to their feminine side and this is why sometimes you see men dressing as women and these men can be heterosexual. On the contrary, it’s rare that a man finds his wife secretly trying on boxer shorts and shaving her face or that she has a special suitcase filled with men shirts and pants that she wears when he is out of the house. Isn’t this fascinating?

Well, to come back full circle, back to the humor in it all, I don’t think any of it is good or bad, right or wrong, it just is. Maxim made a big impression on me. He obviously got me thinking. Maybe his identity and gender issues will work themselves out in time. But today, dude looks like a lady.

Sunny & Sydney

During my teen years, I pushed my limits north, south, east and west, towards the heavens and towards hell. Only a handful of people were willing to go there with me. At this critical developmental phase of my life, one person with whom I felt an enormous sense of freedom, albeit at times fearless and invincible, was my friend Sydney.

I met Sydney in junior high school during English class. He had a distinct walk as if striding on his tip-toes. Sydney and I got along wonderfully. All of my creative ideas jived with his and we laughed incessantly. Sydney had large flat lips my sister once referred to as “mashed potato lips” and Bart Simpson green eyes. Sydney dared to speak what others kept to themselves.

At home in the evening I would think about how much I liked him in an almost desperate way. Any time we had a class together, we would get thrown out for disrupting the class. If you weren’t laughing with him, you could be sure he was laughing at you.

We would tease the “uncool” kids and then laugh like two monkeys. Some people started hating us. I even got a taste of my own medicine when I came to school in shiny new silver ballerina shoes.

“Hey, Dorothy! Hey, look! It’s Dorothy,” someone hollered down the hall. “Hey! Where’s Toto?” This went on for weeks.

“Dorothy had ruby shoes, dumb shit!” I replied every time. And Sydney would show his support with high pitched hoarse laughter.

One day, I got a phone call after school. “Hey, Sunny. I’m on my way to pick you up,” said Sydney. Ten minutes later, a big blue van pulled up in front of my house. As we were only 14 years old, no driving license or experience, my heart began to race. I fled from the house and climbed into the van.

“Sydney! Oh, my god!”

He chuckled, a menthol cigarette dangling from his fingers.

“You stole your mom’s van?” I was in disbelief.

“Yeah”, he began to drive out of my neighborhood. “My parents are gone this week.”

“You know how to drive?” I couldn’t imagine driving, especially a huge van.

“Yeah, it’s easy,” he glanced into the rear view mirror as if he had been driving his entire life.

I lit a cigarette and tried to relax but it was so far from anything I had ever done before. With the radio turned up, we drove down the streets, windows down and our hair blowing wildly. We came to an intersection and as we pulled up to a red light, Sydney started to light a new cigarette. Then, he rear-ended the car in front of us.

“Oh, shit!” He froze in his seat unable to react.

“Sydney! What the hell?”

A large woman got out of her car, walked around the back of her car and observed her bumper. She came up to Sydney's window. He sat petrified, his cigarette burning in his hand.

“You’re lucky there’s no damage, young man,” she glared at Sydney.

“Oh, my god! I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” His cheeks had patchy red marks.

“You should probably get back home and tell your parents,” she shook her head and got back into her car.

I looked at Sydney. As soon as the light turned green, he brought me back home. Our ride was silent. When we got to my house, he got out to check the damage. “Oh, shit,” he put his head in his hands. “Oh, no!” He stood there staring at a small dent in the front bumper.

“What are you going to tell your parents?” I gasped.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I better go home. Oh, shit.” He got into the van and drove off.

I was terrified and didn’t say a word to my parents that evening.

We finished junior high and started high school, the place where I reached my height of metamorphism. Sydney followed me all along the way ratting his hair up as high as possible. My curly hair was dyed eggplant purple. The cowboys called us “Chicken Heads” as we walked down the halls together.

On the weekends, we began to perfect an act at liquor stores. It was during a time when neither one of us could be seen without a long-sleeved shirt tied around our waist. It was an essential fashion accessory. It was known as our “dick thing.”

I wore bright red lipstick and thick black coal under my eyes. No one could miss our duo walking into a store nor think us innocent but we were too naïve to know this at the time. Thus, we would pretend we were brother and sister and ask for help from the sales person at the liquor store.

“Hi. Yes. We were wondering if you could help us.” I’d say. “It’s our parents’ anniversary soon and we wanted to know what your best Champagne is so we could buy it for them.” As I talked to the shop keeper, Sydney would peruse around and slip bottles into his baggy pants.

I’d note down the best Champagne and smile. We’d say thank you and steal away into the night with our Root-beer Schnapps or whatever we’d manage to steal. The two of us would find a dark alley and drink the entire bottle. Then we’d emerge stumbling and laughing and louder than ever. We’d find our way into a teen club and dance all night. Sydney had a fabulous way of prancing around the dance floor and smoked in an effeminate fashion.

One evening, we chose a very small liquor store. As we entered, I noticed high mirrors on all the walls. They had hidden cameras. I tried to tell Sydney not to take anything but he shoved a huge bottle of vodka into his pants in an alarmingly conspicuous way. As we headed towards the exit, a short sales clerk with a mustache grabbed Sydney’s arm.

“What’s this?” he said tugging on the shirt sleeve tied around Sydney’s waist.

“Oh, that’s just my “dick thing,” he said yanking on his loose shirt sleeve, though the sales clerk had no idea what a “dick thing” was.

“And, what’s this?” he said pulling out the huge bottle from Sydney’s pants.

“Oh, um…”

“I’m going to call the police,” the man began to make his way over to the phone behind the cash register.

“Please don’t,” pleaded Sydney. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Please,” I said trying to sound pitiful. “We’re sorry. We’ll never do it again.”

“My dad’s a doctor. It will ruin his reputation if we get caught,” said Sydney.

The man looked at me. Then he looked at Sydney. He hung up the phone. He grabbed both of us by the backs of our shirts. He dragged us to the door like two naughty kittens and then launched us into the cold winter night. “Get the hell out of here!” he screamed.

Frightened, we ran as fast as we could. Suddenly, I hit a patch of ice and slipped on the street. I flew forward scraping my hands and knees on the pavement. My black tights ripped around the knees.

Sydney bent over to help me up, “Here,” he grabbed my hand while laughing hysterically.

“Damn it!” I said embarrassed from falling and still high on our adrenaline rush. “Let’s get out of here!”

We continued running until we made it to a nearby teen club. I pulled out a tiny bottle of Kahlua I had miraculously managed to steal. I downed it in one gulp.

Soon we moved onto weed. We smoked it in the video game arcades of a big teen club, in my car, in the back of the school; anywhere that was slightly sheltered. We’d spend hours taking apart the lyrics of songs.

“Oh, my god! This song is about a transvestite!” Sydney once gasped as we listened to The Kinks’ “Lola” in my car.

“Huh?”

“Listen! Listen!” Sydney said rewinding the tape and replaying the lyrics a tad louder.

“Oh, my god! You’re right!”

An innocent song, after a good analysis, was never the same again. We had endless theories and solved lots of problems. We ate lots of Ranch flavored Doritos and Sydney had a thing for Butter Finger candy bars.

Getting stoned became part of our daily routine like brushing your teeth in the morning. It became a fundamental part of who we were. Sydney would take the longest hit imaginable and then holding his breath he’d eek, “Come here.” We’d place our lips together and he’d exhale the glorious smoke while I inhaled it all in. Smoking pot habitually also meant that we frequented kids who lived on their own or who were completely neglected by their folks. We’d get stoned with them and then wish we weren’t at their abandoned homes.

“Life is a living hell,” began one girl with whom we shared a bong while we sat on a dirty futon couch in a tiny apartment.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she flipped her long feathered hair and turned up her stereo that was playing a Heavy Metal song. “We are already in hell because the only way out of this world is up…”

I tried to understand what she was talking about. “But, Earth is in space…we can go up or down or side to side.”

“No,” she disagreed, “you can only go up. There is no down. This is down. Therefore, we are in hell.”

“Totally,” agreed another chic with shaggy hair and a torn black t-shirt. These chicks were buzz killers.

Sydney gave me a sideways glance. With deception on his face he mouthed, “This is awful.”

I nodded in agreement but we had no excuse to free us from the chains of these Head Banger losers. We felt as if we were being punished. That was the downfall of being a desperate pot-smoker; you smoked with anyone who had it.

One weekend Sydney’s parents were out of town. He invited me over. We sat in his kitchen and he pulled out two minuscule red paper squares.

“You got acid?” I asked wide-eyed.

He laughed. “Here, take it.”

I stared at the palm of his hand holding the little squares.

“Take it. Come on! I planned the entire night for us.”

That sounded promising so we both put the papers onto our tongue and sat quietly waiting for it to work its magic.

We went down to Sidney’s bedroom. His bed was made. Everything was in its right place. His room had blue carpet. Little boats covered the walls. Marine décor? This sailor wallpaper could not have been his choice. We might as well have been sitting in some stranger’s room. Surely his mother had picked it out thinking he was a traditional little boy or maybe trying to convince herself of this. Or worse, he had picked it out as some cover-up of his true colors.

His famous vacuum was parked in the corner. The first time I saw it, I asked, “Why is the vacuum in here?”

“Because I need it in here,” he responded.

“Why? Do you vacuum every day or something?”

“Yes,” he replied is if this was a totally normal thing for a teen to do.

We sat on some pillows in Sydney’s closet. He had created a lounge area amongst his wardrobe. Sydney lit a long black stick of incense. It smelled sweet and musky. We watched the smoke whirl its way up into the air and mingle with his hanging clothes. We lit up cigarettes and inhaled pensively. Twenty minutes later, Sydney looked at me, his pupils as big as saucers. He stood up and took a drag off his cigarette with large sweeping gestures and laughed.

After some free flowing movements, he came over to me and cupped my chin in his hand. “When I look into your eyes, darling”, he paused and waved his arm around like a magician. I waited for him to say something like “You are beautiful,” but he said, “I see… myself…and I look marvelous, darling, simply marvelous.” Hoarse laughter erupted from him and then he sat down and quietly puffed away.

“Should we go out?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’ll meet you in your car. Give me a minute.” While he began airing out his room and disposing the cigarette butts, I went out to my car. My acid trip seemed in control for the time being. I sat behind the wheel in the darkness. I opened my moon roof, put on some music and stared at the stars. They were swaying to the music for me. I don’t know how long I remained like that but at one point I realized Sydney was still inside. I got out of the car and walked into his house. He sat on the couch staring at the TV which was turned off.

“Sydney? What are you doing?”

He turned to me. His lips looked bigger and flatter than usual. A look of fear washed across his face. “My father,” he said into space, “I was having a conversation with him.”

“What? What did he say?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you,” he shook his head, “it was really awful though.”

“Well, let’s go.”

He followed me silently to my car.

“Look, the stars are dancing,” I showed him the sky as we sat in my car.
We lit up some cigarettes and reclined our seats and watched the stars that were pastel shades of pink, yellow, and blue.

“I’ve gotta get home. It’s getting late.” I said. “Come back with me.”

“Okay. But, what will we tell your mom if she finds me?”

“Um. We’ll tell her your parents are away and you didn’t want to stay home alone because the Skinheads have been threatening you again.”

I gave myself a brief pep talk before driving us back to my house. "Okay, you can do this. You can do this." And we were off on our way. Everything was going just fine until we stopped at a red light.

"Oh my god!" Sydney started pointing at the car next to us, "That lady! Look at that lady!"

I glanced over. A woman was seated soberly behind her wheel. Her dress was caught in the car door and she did not know. When the light turned green, we both drove at the same speed. Her dress was flapping in the breeze.

I doubled over laughing. I could barely breathe. "Oh, my god! Look at her. She is so serious. But, her dress...her dress is caught in the door. She has no idea. How can she remain so serious?"

Sydney and I could not contain ourselves. We shook so hard our stomachs hurt. We tried to communicate with each other through our laughter but only gasps came out. This woman and her dress happily tailing alongside the door was the funniest thing we had ever seen. What a mad scene, the two of us bent over in laughter in my car. Though I doubt anyone perceived us driving in the night like that.

Soon we were back at my house. It must have been around midnight and we were in full trip mode. We quietly walked into my house and went straight to my bedroom. I pulled out a stack of white paper. “Let’s do some algebra!” I proposed. Feeling like a challenge, I created an algebraic equation that needed to be calculated to the 35th power.

We must have gone through 20 sheets of paper each. We worked up a hunger so we sneaked into my kitchen. We left with Frito Lays corn chips, a bottle of ketchup and some paper plates. We went back to work in my bedroom with paper plates and ketchup spread out among our math pages.

My walls were covered with posters of Rock bands, faces that had become very familiar to me. Sydney stared up at them for a long time. “Don’t you think it’s weird how we hang photos of people we don’t know on our walls?”

I thought about this for a second.

“I mean, you don’t know these people at all. Why are they on your wall? Wouldn’t it make more sense to hang posters of all of your friends on the wall instead?”

“Yes. You’re right. It is weird that we do this. Humans hang famous people on their walls. I mean, these rock stars, they don’t know us. They don’t know we even exist.”

“I think I’m going to have my friends’ pictures blown up into poster size and put them up in my room. Wouldn’t that be cool?” Sydney asked.

“I guess,” I responded though the idea of my friends’ faces big and shiny hanging on my walls sounded scary.

“Hey, wanna paint?” I asked. I set-up everything and we began painting. Soon afterward, my door burst open and my mother came in.

“What the hell is going on?” she wore her little black night gown, her hair tangled. “It’s 3 in the morning!”

“Umm, we’re just doing some math,” I said pragmatically.

“Sunny, I need to talk to you. Now!” said my mother and left the room in a huff.

I nervously glanced at Sydney and then at my bedroom. The floor was covered in pages of impossibly long math equations, paper plates of ketchup and chips, strange paintings. I looked at Sydney who sat uncomfortably on the floor chewing his thumbnail.

My mother stood in the kitchen waiting for me.

“What is it?” I asked innocently.

“Are you two on something?” she looked very upset. My mother's face kept morphing into a witch. She kept staring at me. I couldn’t look at her. I felt like crying. Did I know this person? Was she actually my mother? Act normal! Act normal! You can pull it off!

“What’s going on?” she scowled, her eyes cringed at the brow.

“Nothing, why? Sydney was scared to stay at his house alone since the Skinheads said they were going to get him. His parents are out of town and I told him he could stay with us and we aren’t tired so…”

“Look at me!” she grabbed my face and held it under the light. “Look at me!” She stared into my eyes. “Don’t tell me you aren’t on something.”

“Mom, I’m fine. I promise we’re not on anything.”

“Then what is that mess in your room? Don’t tell me you aren’t doing drugs! What is it? Pot?”

“I promise. We’re just hanging out.”

“That’s enough already! It’s 3am! Get to bed. Tell Sydney he can sleep in the guest room.”

I walked out of the kitchen and back to my room.

“Your mother is super scary. She turned into a witch. I have to go home. I can’t stay here,” Sydney was trying to clean up our papers.

“Don’t be silly! Sydney, everything is fine. You can sleep in the guest room.”

“Your mom looked like a witch, Sunny. She’s evil. Your mom is super evil.”

“I know. She looked really scary but we’re just fucked up so don’t worry. Everything will be fine in the morning. Just be sure you tell her you came here because of the Skinheads, okay?”

Sydney silently walked into the guest room. The wallpaper was salmon colored with huge white sea shells. In the morning, Sydney said he heard sounds of the sea calling him the entire night and couldn’t stop staring at the walls. I don’t think he slept. And I don’t think he laughed too much either.