The who knews about approaching 30

In my last few months of my twenties I have found myself in a cathartic state. Where was the fortune cookie a few years ago that said "At 30 you will be in therapy". Thats one to get on a date I'm sure. I've reached the oh so important point in my life where I am confronted with the Oroville in me. No, I am not losing teeth, and no, I am not subsisting off of payday loan check cashing places. I am a flourishing addict. Not unlike a caterpillar emerging from the cocoon as a butterfly and taking to the sky only to fly into a beer bottle and drown in beer. Heaven? yes, and no. I am apparently a red flag for a beginning problem drinker. I'm sure if you know me, then you probably are nodding as you read this. My waspy jokes about "everything is better with a cocktail" can only suffice as a gay novelty for so long I suppose. We all have to see the valley around us, dolls or not. So yes...I have to control how much I drink. It's something I have struggled with...well...since I started drinking. Knowing that I don't wanna be that guy. I wanna have some wine while I cook or 2 bottles of champagne...you know....keep it loose. Doesn't everyone go out 3-4 times a week? How many margaritas is too many? 6? that seems like a rational number. Who knew therapy would confront you with shit. Isn't is it supposed to just point out how fascinating and epically troubled you are? Isn't is supposed to be masturbatory for the self serving. "Tell me more about my troubles and how wouuuuuunnnddeeeed I am". Right? Nope...What I now know is that I am on the path to puffy-ness. Drunken sloppy sad faced drunkard. You can sometimes tell yourself that its part of the creative process. "Well maybe I wanna be that guy thats all fucked up and makes shit thats all Nina Simone like". Even though all you're making lately is hashbrown sandwiches. But they are damn soulful hashbrown sandwiches. So its 2 am...christmas...and I am a bottle and half deep in cava. I am supposed to only be having 4 drinks at a time, 3 times a week. So I am supposed to be boring. However....thats not as boring as "Have you seen my 90 days sober coin...its pretty shiney!". Therapy is great, don't get me wrong. But at the end of this, do I get to be the Dali Llama or something? I am gonna be so serene that I hover? If not...At Least I will be the only bum under the bridge with a bottle of Gruet under my arm, and penchant for Truffle butter. What I will have to do for that Truffle butter....remains to be seen. YAY 30!

Gladys

I do so fear the reaper. I find any reason I can to assume that I am dying. A mosquito bite is the flesh eating bacteria. A bit of indigestion is a heart murmur. And a bit of toilet paper stuck to the tip of my penis is herpes. I found that once I moved to Portland and a lot of things that I never had, fell into place. A good amount of love around me, the whole not being alone thing, and great food. At that point I started becoming a hypochondriac, or, as I like to call, a realist. Of course my sore leg is because of the on-coming testicular cancer. One ball is just not o.k. Not even enough to fill an espresso cup....well....maybe not enough to fill an espresso cup with a nice foam and cocoa leaf design. Cancer is this thing that lives in your cupboard that you have to at some point eat because there is no more zatarans. You can't avoid it, and it will eventually make its oh so salty presence. I remember when my grandma lost her eye to cancer. Saying it like that makes it sound like she lost a bet. Like a spoon should be involved. She had her eye removed, and I feel like just last night I started to realize what terror that would be. Sure, when you are forced to go to Walmart (because in my hometown, there is nothing else left) you don't have to see as many pok marked tube topped crack heads about 2 stone over the "ugh" mark. You will only see the ones to the left. When she had her eye removed, there was no question in mind of her mortality. My grandma is tough as nails. An alabama country girl who could probably sew a lopped off tractor/turkey deep fryer accident back on in a jiffy. She did quite well. I used to have to put antiseptic drops in her eye..... well... where her eye used to be. However, there was a coral ball there, so it wasn't a macbeth thing. I didn't see the future or anything. I saw a white ball and it wasn't that scary. But no one else would do it. Then I would sit across the room and we would toss a tennis ball across the room back and forth so that she could learn a new depth perception. It was such a normal thing for me. But so was dancing in drag for the rest of the family with my cousin to the soundtrack for dirty dancing. Hungry eyes? Doubtful. We got through it, cause no one puts grandma in a corner. I haven't dealt with a lot of death in my life. I have dealt with a lot of loss. It's like I've shopped the K-mart of life. Not complete loss, but a whole lot of markdowns and empty aisles. No matter how many blue lights flashed on surprisingly bright and fresh mumu's. The first death I ever dealt with and actually the one that had its biggest effect on me was Gladys. Well aside from this cat or that hamster. Prince Nemo was a tough time for me, and Sadie left me melancholy. I will never watch "where the red fern grows" ever again, cause thats some fucked up shit. Why you gotta make me hate ferns? Gladys was an older woman when I met her. I think I was around 6 or maybe 8. I had to go to bible school in the summers. It was at my grandma Azevedos' church, that she worked at. It was really probably just a chance for parents get a few more lines in by day end. Took a lot of energy for my mom to hold up those shoulder pads, they're real heavy. Needless to say I didn't relate to other christian kids. I did however find the developmentally disabled girl quite interesting. Only cause my parents told me "she talks that way cause her tongue is too big for her mouth". Thats right. They said that. So of course I found this girl with some superhuman tongue fascinating and terrifying. It could have wrapped around my neck like an anaconda... you don't know. But one person was sweet to me. Gladys. And older woman, probably in her sixties. She took me under her wing, and I would sit on her lap. I never interacted with other kids. They didn't get me like she did. The two of us understood things they didn't. I was beyond my years. there has to be something so deeply sweet about the friendship of a 5 yearish old boy and an old woman. I did so love her. And we were methodist, not catholic, so it wasn't dirty. Almost like an instance of time travel, the next memory I have of her is going to chico memorial hospital to visit her. apparently she was sick. But it was o.k. I knew she had changed into something she didn't want to be, but what was a hospital to me at that point? A place you went to with the flu, and you worked it out. But she had hair that didn't say "flu" to me. It wasn't gone...it was just....an old christian woman versian of Dianna Ross. She needed a hot comb. And she was so happy to see me, this boy who was just some shy kid she had let sit on her lap here and there. Some boy she protected from the in-justice of children in groups. I saw her that time and it was sad. It was a spazzy introverted boys first taste of true sadness. I was told soon after that she had passed away. I Knew that that meant she was dead. I understood all of the terms. And I knew I would be going to a funeral. that old stuffy brown methodist church with yellow stained glass. The church that I sat on her lap in. I did so love Gladys. I wanted to let a balloon go with her name and address on it like we did at the end of every bible school summer. That was the best part of that church, as far as I saw it. Shoulda done it.

This blog will give you cancer

How did I end up in such an un-flattering color of yellow, or gold...I'm not sure which it really is. I have now worked for IKEA for 6 years. 6 years and in two different states. 6 years is one of those tough numbers. I got a swiss army watch for 5 years so that was kitchy...I'm gay so I like kitch. But what do I get at 6 years? Reverie. At 6 years old I certainly didn't have aspirations to point people toward a bathroom they will never find. I believe at that age I wanted to be a fashion designer. Actually I think that was 8 when I came to that lofty goal. For a couple of weeks I drew dresses I would make. I would show them to my mother, she would say they were good. Just good doesn't cut it though. She did however assure me that men who designed women's clothing were usually not gay. So she could really read me, yeah? One of those moments where a parent thinks they can get all subliminal and plant that, in my psyche, making me not gay. In all honesty I think I asked if most designers were gay, and she had a gentle way about her, so her response was to re-assure. So I decided soon after that I would be a landscaper. A manly way to play with plants. There were not a lot of mexicans in Oroville, so the market was ripe for the picking. A gay kid with a flair for the avant totally has a place in a town where most of the vehicles are actually parked on the lawn....making my job easier. Needless to say, I didn't pursue that dream.... I realized by watching people do it, it was sweaty and dumb. I also spent a summer working for my uncles construction business and that fucking sucked. Even as a child I would have described it the same way. The last day I worked that awesome gig, my uncle said I was "making a career out of digging a hole". I was 8. I then said I was sick and left and got mcdonalds with my aunt kunt, I mean...Kim. She's not all bad....but a little Kunty. I then spent a few years...wandering..un-decided on my future. Not unlike kerouac. Until my sophmore year of high school. I was to be an actor. It was my way out. I was let in to Theater. I didn't have to take the pre-requisite course...drama. I was so gifted. The teacher saw the fag in me and said "let him in, HE is the future". That or.. "you can audition later". A star is born? I was in theater. I did many many plays. I ended my career as the lead in the little shop of horrors. done, not through the school, but through the Oroville community theater. I was great. But I was too skinny to lift adrian into the plants mouth...so the love affair bit was a bit of a stretch. I did however have to strip my undies between scenes and my classmates had to dress me in a minute and half. Including my first boy crush Ole. A german/arabic exchange student. I wrote many a Tori Amosy poem about that one. My Senior year I left the acting world for the prestige of MacFrugals. My first real job. You know, it was big lots, and pic -n -save. Till it became all big lots. Gnarly. I remember once when I was a working a register and big samoan guy asked me if were a drag queen because of my sparkly orange glitter nail polish. I was so offended and told him no whilst thinking "ugh, you just don't GET rave culture".  I soon left that job and Oroville to move to glorious San Diego.  The big city. I was around homosexuals and I hung out at a coffee house. I was doing everything the 90's taught me to do. I was however working at Payless shoes. I would like to skip over all my Payless time....so.....2 and half years later...I was back in San Diego.  I was jobless, and living off of jack in the box tacos. I would get two for a dollar.....lunch and dinner. So I applied at IKEA. Got the job...talking about green peace and believing in their business model. I worked in Lighting. Then Frames. Then textiles. Then Activities (seasonal). And then got a job offer in Portland, OR. I came here. I made the best choice I have ever made. I met my wonderful mexi-boyfriend. I met friends that love to drink as much as I do (and they are wonderful, but lets be honest...the drinkin is a big plus). And I love my life. For the most part. I  still work a pretty much blue collar job in retail. I stagger along, above the poverty line but below what I am capable of. I subsist as an inferior to people who can't spell the sedatives they take daily. I never wanted to be blue collar-ish. I think of blue collar and I picture a man with a blonde swoop of a hairstyle and an un-attractive blue button up. Something that someone who loves calvin klein would wear. I'm sure it would be covered with something made of fleece. I wanted to work with rocks, or work with music, or take beautiful pictures of hungry models. I want to cook food for people who want to eat it. I don't want to be expected to convince people that Teflon wont give them cancer. It will, so will everything. This blog will give you cancer, and I don't have the energy to convince you otherwise. I have the capacity to make a lot of money at my job. I am however stuck in a store that has the backbone of a tadpole. So I must continue to pretend I am stupider than I am. I have to pretend that I am nicer than I am. and I have to pretend that I want to lead people out of the IKEA labryinth so that they can hobble to wallmart to buy a tinkerbell folding card table. Some day I will work for myself and the worst abuse I will have to deal with from myself is masturbation. And that is a job downfall I can deal with. 

Saw-una

There is nothing quite like working during a sale at IKEA. The different levels or "shades" if you will of the lowest common denominator is quite thrilling. Amazing and breathtaking like an aurora borealis, except try not to breath too deep, you might not like what you taste. I will admit, IKEA is not Target. It is not Walmart, it is not Sears, or Home depot. It is "Japanese right?" a customer asked, semi aggressively as they usually do. No, it is swedish, which would explain why I have been asked if carry wooden clogs. I am sure you would picture the swedish wandering through their tulip fields which miraculously grow near the arctic circle. A favorite food of the arctic fox I'm sure. As far as the majority of our customers are concerned, the swedish are basically a combination of every other culture that is strange, but white. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect people to know about the swedes, or IKEA, or the concept of near and far. I get that IKEA is confusing. I do not however think it is so ambiguous that I would be asked where the baby strollers and car seats are sold.

"I'm sorry, a baby stroller is not really considered a home furnishing. That and the swedes eat their children soon after birth with pickled haring in a festival known as FanterSKoppen. I know, I know... weird swedes".

I have been asked for luggage, portable fireplaces (this sounds not only real, but safe), diapers, tennis rackets, car parts, and industrial meat slicers.

However, the best question I have ever had, in 6 years, I was gifted from god this weekend.

As I stood at the computer trying to avoid all eye contact with anything with eyes. I was approached by a couple, no older than mid to late thirties. So very Idaho, they practically left a trail of potatoes and mormons (Yes, mormons. Utah isn't the only holy state). The scruffy baseball capped, dirty flannel clad husband asked me a low, manly tone (be sure to apply accent):

"Huay, Whur you guys got stuff fer my saw una?"

"What"

"Whurs the stuff fer saw unas?:

"Huh"

This is where the very long haired pregnant wife chimed in.

"You know....Sawunas?"

She had a bit more of a sophisticated way of speaking by not making sawuna, two words.

"Oh..... Saunas....no, we don't sell things for your sauna."

It's almost as if he has owned a sauna, but just before showing up at IKEA, read the name of this bubbly water box for the first time, because he was indeed in need...of things for it. Now I came for semi bumpkin beginnings.... but... saw una? Thats just precious.