Albany, I do actually love you kind of a little bit

The other day I was talking to someone about things to do and places to go in Knoxville, and they said, "You really love it here. Like, you really are excited about the Sunsphere and the gardens and stuff. You never talk that way about Albany, though. Did you hate it there?"

This is kind of a complicated answer. I was very happy to leave Albany when I did, as I was not happy working there. When I left, it was in the middle of the night under the cover of darkness less than 24 hours after my going away party, and I was 100% certain that there was nothing in town I would miss besides my friends and my comic store. It wasn't until I drove back for summer vacation a couple of years ago that I remembered that there were a few other things there that I appreciated:

1) The giant statue of Nipper:



I lived there for a couple of years before I even knew that this existed, and actually thought it was a hallucination the first time I saw it and had to be convinced by my friend Tiff that it was real. The conversation went something like this:

"OK, so last night Rich and I were leaving Jillian's, you know, after it closed, and we split a cab with these girls that Rich was trying to hook up with, and we were, like, all over downtown where all the warehouses and stuff are, and I was so drunk that I looked out the back window of the cab and I thought there was, like, a giant puppy on top of one of the buildings! And it was staring into the cab!"

"There IS a giant dog on one of those buildings."

"...What?"



The warehouse that Nipper sits on top of used to be an RCA distributor, which is why the statue is there. He weighs four tons, has an aircraft warning light on top of his ear, and there are only two of him in the whole world (the other is in Baltimore). He's no Sunsphere, but I guess he's still kind of cool.

2) Random vintage signs:







There are whole sections of Albany that don't seem to have changed since the 1960's and 1970's. Driving through them is like taking a brief trip back in time.

3) The Egg:



That's an amphitheatre downtown. Over the years, I successfully avoided attending a number of performances of "The Vagina Monologues" there, but the downside is that I never got invited to anything else there so I've never been inside. It is an interesting building to catch glimpses of from the outside, though:





and is near a random gigantic hole in the ground:



After six years of living in Albany, I still have no idea what that is.

4) Pride Fest:



Albany Pride Fest is the first one I ever attended. It's also the only Pride Fest where I've spilled wine on myself:



At least it didn't stain.

5) The SUNY Albany campus:



When I interviewed with the staff of the soul sucking vampire pit of a department where I used to work, I fell in love with their main campus, which was designed in the early 1960's by Edward Durell Stone and built on the grounds of a former golf course. It was unlike any other campus I'd ever visited or worked on because, being conceived all at once, everything matched:







In the minds of many of the students that I spoke to over the years the endless expanse of concrete (allegedly the largest poured concrete structure in the world) and tall, narrow windows:



(that one with the plywood in it was one of the bedrooms in my apartment) made it kind of prison-like, but to me the campus always looked kind of like dated sci fi:







It's the kind of setting that you would have seen Captain Kirk and the original Enterprise crew beam into on a random "Star Trek" episode.





I kind of forgot about how pretty it was while I worked there, but now that I'm gone and familiarity isn't breeding contempt, I see it again.

Albany, I kind of wish we'd been better friends, but yeah, I kind of love Knoxville more.

In Memoriam

I've always been told that coming out is a continuing process, something that you have to keep doing over and over and never really finish. From my own experience, I can speak to the truth of that statement, and from my other experience this week I can speak to another truth:

Saying goodbye to a friend is also a continuing process, and it feels like you just keep doing it over and over and will never really finish.

I've said goodbye to Bryan a thousand times this week, in a thousand ways, and I still feel the sudden pain of the knowledge that he is no longer a part of my life each time I do it. I was sending an email to the buildings staffs the other day, using my usual alphabetical by hall list, and there was Bryan's name at the bottom. I had to take it off. I found a voicemail from him on my phone this morning, an old one that for some reason I had listened to and not deleted, and realized that I will never get another one. When we were helping his family pack up his apartment, they gave me a box of canned goods and nonperishable groceries that they didn't know what to do with, and when I got it home I realized that he'd bought the can of chilis and the can of black olives so that he could make the wraps that he always brought to Ben and Elizabeth's house for the 4th of July cookout that he was too sick to come to.

Every time I find one of these things, sometimes in small out of the way places or sometimes in the middle of my living room floor, like the box of books that he and I got at the Boys and Girls Club fundraiser, I have to say goodbye again, and it hurts. People keep pointing out to me that someday it will hurt less, but that's like the people that tell me that someday my prince will come. "Someday" is as unreachable now as "yesterday" is, and yesterday (metaphorical yesterday, anyway) Bryan was still with us.

Yesterday we had a memorial for Bryan, for people to remember and try to say goodbye, and to celebrate his life. About halfway through, there was a spot for friends to share stories, and I stood because none of his friends were speaking. Other than a lot of sobbing, choking, and at least one snort, the only things I remember saying are that Bryan was my friend, and that I couldn't think of any stories to share. It was like my brain locked up and my mouth locked up and I didn't know what to say, but it was also kind of insane because my friendship with Bryan is all about stories.

Bryan is the friend that went on adventures with me. They weren't usually places that he wanted to go, or, sometimes, places where anyone in their right mind would want to go, but he wanted to make his friends happy, and if I wanted to go to Bizarro Philly or Parrot Mountain or on a road trip to the World's Largest Ten Commandments then Bryan wanted to be the one who drove the car. On the weekends we got in the car, we drove around, I took pictures, and somehow this was fun for us both.

I gave Aileen, Bryan's sister, a CD of pictures of him to include in the slide show she was making, and after the memorial she mentioned that they looked at the pictures and tried to figure out what was going on, what the stories were, so here's a brief rundown.

Picture #1:



This is from Kristin's birthday party at Tragic Mexican Hooters. Bryan was trying to explain to Kristin that he was planning to drive her home if she got drunk, not to get her drunk and then drive her back to his home.

Picture #2:



This is from a pool party at our apartment complex. About a minute after this picture was taken, Jeannie's baby peed all over the concrete patio because she had somehow fastened his swim diaper on wrong.

Pictures #3, 4, and 5:







These were all taken during the day trip Bryan and I took to the International Towing and Recovery Museum, the Lookout Mountain Civil War Battlefield, and the Bloodstained Crypt of Little Nina Cragmiles, where Bryan couldn't resist climbing onto the playground equipment.

Picture #6:



This is Bryan serving as a guinea pig, and being the first one brave enough to eat the Cheelows that I made. I adore Cheelows, and Bryan kindly ate a square or two every time I made them.

Picture #7:



That's Bryan holding up the tiny, tiny menu at the pizza place we went to lunch at after we toured the uranium enrichment plant and went to the Secret City Festival.

Picture #8:



That's Bryan impatiently waiting for the roller derby bout to restart after the sprinklers in the arena exploded. We waited for play to resume long enough for Kristin to have about half a dozen cigarettes.

All of the other pictures I gave her:











are from our trip to the Parthenon (of Nashville, not Athens).

Like I said, Bryan was my friend, and he was the friend who went on adventures with me. Even when he went into the hospital, we still treated it as another adventure, something that would be a really good story when he finally got out again. We made it a story about balloons and bitching about how the hand sanitizer smelled and that incredibly terrible apple cobbler because our stories were safe. They were fun, and they always ended the same way: everyone got dropped off at their apartment and we made plans to meet up again soon. Our hospital story didn't end that way, though, and instead of saying goodbye until next weekend we have to figure out how to say goodbye forever instead.

Bryan is still on an adventure, but he's travelling somewhere that we can't follow, and the story he is telling now will have to wait a while for us to catch up with him. I still have all these stories though, and I understand now why I was unable to pick one out to share.

Bryan Murphy was my friend, and in the end all the stories become that story. It's the story of who Bryan was and how he lived and who he was to all of us, how he taught us to be selfless, and brave, and to cherish our friends because we won't always have them.

It's a story that's not over, because now it's a story of how we have to learn to say goodbye.

A Hideous, Terrible Beauty

Art speaks to people, but it doesn't always speak to everyone. When you see something you like, though, it calls out to you. It strikes a chord somewhere, and you feel like you have to have it. You may not be able to explain why, or even want to, but you just know that some things are meant to be together, like peanut butter and chocolate or me and the hideous, terrible clock that I bought today:



Yes, I own that now, and am proudly displaying it on top of a bookcase in front of the window.

It's a little over a foot tall, roughly the size of a box of breakfast cereal. It's molded of hard orange resin, some sort of plastic, and the mold was filled with decorative gravel before they poured the plastic in. Also, it weighs a ton. As a rough guess, it feels about the same as three or four bricks taped together. I can't find a manufacturer's stamp on it anywhere, and have no idea how old it is, but it feels kind of 70's to me. Someday, if I have a fireplace and mantel, I will put this clock upon it, and be happy.

You're probably wondering how this happened.

This morning, Kristin and I decided that we would hit the flea market before grabbing lunch and heading up to the ICU for visiting hours. I haven't been to the flea market since 2008, although I've driven past a number of times, and I was really disappointed. There were hardly any booths, possibly because of the rain, and the things for sale looked even worse than usual. It was more depressing than interesting:



and Kristin wanted to leave before we even got halfway through. I was ok with that, as the comic book dealer that was there last time was now gone. In an effort to salvage some of our morning, though, I suggested we go swing by Nostalgia, a store that Elizabeth said we would like.

Elizabeth was right.

They had shelves and shelves of vintage, antique, and not quite either objects:











We stayed for about two hours, looking at the good, the bad, the odd:



the really odd:



and in the case of my clock, the strangely endearing. They had a clear one in one booth and the orange one in another, and as soon as I saw it I had to have it. Thank God it was cheap. Kristin agreed that I should buy it if I wanted it even though it is hideous, but she really has no room to talk.

She has this on hold:



I'm assuming it speaks to her, but in comparing it to my clock, well, I just don't see it.

Thursday Night Mini-Adventure

Last night, Kristin and I decided we needed to get out of town for a couple hours to escape work and blow off steam before we went to the hospital for ICU visiting hours, which are oddly scheduled from 9 to 10 PM. I drove over to meet her at her car, but she was running late, so I walked around the parking garage for a few minutes, taking random photos:







I really like this one, part of my ongoing black and white project:



After Kristin got there, we headed out to Pigeon Forge, so that she could pick up a gift certificate for the indoor skydiving place for someone's birthday. I have no interest in indoor skydiving, but there was a love machine in the lobby that seemed kind of interested in me:



Sexy, you say? Me? Hmmmm... maybe I won't die alone (in the rain, as I've always suspected that I will) after all.

After we picked up the gift certificate, Kristin decided we should stop at Mel's Diner for dinner. They have a pretty extensive menu for a vintage, tiny sized aluminum trailer-style diner, with many of the dishes named after famous people:



Once I saw the Bette Davis BLT, I was compelled by the knowledge of their legendary Hollywood feud to check the rest of the menu for a Joan Crawford dish, and discovered that there isn't one. No penne in vodka sauce or viciously slapped chicken, but the diner did serve Pepsi Cola, so maybe this particular matchup is a tie.

Or maybe somewhere up in movie heaven, Bette is enjoying a good, cigarette-raspy chuckle, especially after Kristin ordered her BLT.

Lacking a Joan dish, I instead ordered the fried bologna and cheese sandwich, with mustard:



and fries. It was crispy and melty and really, really good, and then, on the way home, this happened:



No matter how sad or tired or stressed I am, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg always find a way to make me smile.

A few things I've learned this week

My friend Bryan, who goes on random adventures with me and is frequently mentioned here, has been in the hospital for nine days. He is very, very sick and I am very worried. Several of us have been going to the hospital each day, but none of us every day. I myself have only made it seven out of nine days, but am trying to do better. Given the time of year that it is, though, this basically means that the last week for me has been "Work, Hospital, Sleep" and very little else.

I've managed to learn a few interesting things along the way, though.

1) Hospital food really is disgusting, and that's not just a punchline. The other night the staff made a mistake and brought an apple cobbler that Bryan wasn't allowed to have, and he and the nurse both insisted that I eat it rather than just letting the nurse throw it away.

They really did. This wasn't one of the deals where I stared longingly at it and mentioned how hungry I was.

No, really.

I wasn't even looking at it, and the nurse was like, "Bryan, you're not allowed to have that. I'm gonna throw it away. Wait, do you want it?"

I should have said no. Why?



That's me, holding the apple cobbler perpendicular to the floor, and that's the apple cobbler, not moving. Even more frightening is that it's the second photo. I held it up long enough to take a picture, check the camera while still holding the cobbler up and decide that I didn't like the first one, and then take a second picture.

Not only was it immobile, but it tasted like pure flour. I have no idea how they did it, but I even fished an apple out with my fork and tasted it by itself, and the apple tasted like flour. It was disgusting, but I was hungry, so I ate the whole thing anyway.

2) There's always something worse that could happen:



As tired and cranky as I may be, at least I didn't leave some of my groceries in the cart and then drive away, like some people.

3) The hole in the side of the music building never stops looking absurd, no matter how many times you drive past it:



It looks like the Tasmanian Devil exploded through the side of the wall. They're demolishing the music building right now, so that they can build a bigger, better one, but it looks like they took one swipe at the wall and then called it a day:



4) Spelling is hard.



On the one hand, I'm kind of giggly snickering and "Oh, hey, ICU Waiting Room, dictionaries are also available," but on the other hand I'm kind of wondering if I would entrust my medical care to people who can't spell. You read stories about hospitals amputating the wrong limbs or leaving forceps inside surgical patients and wonder how it happens, but the writing is, literally, on the wall: some people are not only ignorant, but are also willing to post their ignorance where everyone can see it.

I kind of think I'll stick to the other hospital nearby instead. They may have thought that I was a wife beater, but at least they spelled it correctly.

5) These exist:



Am I the only one who didn't know about Coconut M&M's? I saw them at the hospital gift shop and decided that I needed to try them:



They taste like little tiny nuggets of Mounds bars. I don't see any actual coconut in them when I bite them in half, but they are really, really strongly coconut flavored.

That's it for now. Bryan starts a new treatment tomorrow, so if anybody has any spare prayers around that they're not using, please offer them to the diety/dieties of your choice. Or just wish him positive energy and good karma, or whatever else you think might work.

Thanks, in advance.

Heterosexist Saturday at the ER

"I think I need to go to the emergency room. Can you drive me?"

It's odd how often I tend to get these calls. I don't know how it is for everyone else, but I tend to accompany someone to the emergency room every few years. I go for myself much less often, as the image that springs to mind when I think of the doctor's office is something like this:



I'm terrified of doctors, the byproduct of a childhood spent in surgery. While I have no problem self-diagnosing based on things on the internet ("I have a headache. I hope it's not encephalitis.") I have to be convinced that I am near death, or actually have to have blood shooting out of me, for me to voluntarily go to the hospital. I fully understand that while they claim to be helping me, all doctors everywhere are actually just waiting for the moment when they can knock me unconscious so that they can harvest my organs or perform medical experiments on me.

Or, worse, they're waiting to do it while I am still awake.

I have no problem driving other people, though, which I did today:



I have noticed, though, that there are definite differences between the way that medical staff relate to you when you drive a male friend and the way they relate to you when you drive a female friend. Male friends, in my experience, have other friends, and it is perfectly natural for their friends to give them a ride. Female friends, on the other hand, are only given rides by husbands and boyfriends. Don't believe me? Let me offer two examples from today's adventure:

My friend needed a ride today because she fell on some pavement last night, scraping her face and landing badly on her wrist. We weren't sure if both her wrist and her thumb were injured, but her thumb was twice as big as the other thumb and refused to bend, strongly suggesting that she needed medical attention. I brought along a book, as these visits are rarely short, and waited for the nurse to call her. When she did, I asked, "You want me to come with you?"

"Sure," my friend answered, to which the nurse immediately added, "He doesn't have to, you know."

OK, nurse? I know I just brought in a female whose face is all banged up and who can't move her swollen hand, but really? Shouldn't you at least have security around before you start provoking me and accusing me of domestic abuse? The nurse confirmed that she hadn't really thought this all the way through when she followed up that comment with this question in the intake room:

"Has... SOMEONE," she began, looking pointedly at me with the kind of subtle facial acting that's made Telemundo infamous, "been hitting you?"

"Yeah, the pavement," my friend answered while I rolled my eyes.

"I wasn't even there," I added. "All I did was drive her here."

As bad as the nurse was, though, the doctor was even more insulting and heterosexually biased. When he walked into the exam room, which was apparently designed for children:



he looked at my friend sitting on the paper-sheeted bed and me reading a book in the side chair and asked, "What are you reading, while your wife sits here in pain?"

"Oh, she's not my wife," I answered, holding up my book. "I have nothing to do with this mess other than driving the car."

But really, there it is, everybody. In the eyes of the medical profession, men have friends, and women have husbands.

And, also, my friend has a broken thumb:



And that was my Saturday.