2558. Notes for a novel

It was the start of a new academic year. There were so many exciting discoveries to be made. Who would people share their friendship with? It was the first proper break away from home! Who would meet who? What does the future hold?

There was Michael. Michael was gay and parents supported the choice. Michael was instantly attracted to Anthony.

Anthony was pansexual, also known as omnisexual or gender-blind. Anthony noticed Michael but was mainly attracted to Josie who was lesbian. Josie wasn’t just exciting; Josie was mysterious.

Imagine Josie’s disappointment upon discovering that Hazel was asexual. Hazel was interested in cuddles but little else. That is until Aiden came along.

Aiden was heterosexual but open to other possibilities. It is so disappointing when one discovers that the person they are attracted to is not normal. That didn’t stop Aiden from being attracted to Grace who was polyamorous. Aiden would have to share Grace with Andrew, Abigail and Landon.

Oh the disenchantment! Landon was heteronormal, that is, heterosexuality was considered the norm. What a bigot! Many questioned how anyone like that would ever make it all the way through primary school.

1974. Fallen off the edge

That bull outside our window has mooed ceaselessly all night and now it is horse.

Hoarse, son, not horse.

Same thing.

No it’s not. It’s spelled differently.

I’m saying it, not spelling it.

Typical youth of today. You can’t read. You talk talk talk. Or failing that, you text everything and spelling doesn’t matter.

Aha! Aha! Aha! I’ve been proved right!

How so?

That bull just had a baby and it’s a foal. So there!

There’s only A difference between foAl and fool. And bulls can’t have babies.

I give up. You’re just an anti-transgender racist. Totally illogical. And you are homophobic and use plastic. Xenophobic ageist! Come back when you can think straight about gay people and the legalization of maruwanja marjuieguiba maruawana canabas pot.

At least I’m not hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobic.

1889. Award 22: Mystery at Te Popo

How wonderful to be nominated for The Mystery Blogger Award by Dumbest Blog Ever. The Dumbest Blogger ain’t as dumb as he makes out so go have a peek. He’s also going through a bit of a no-job patch, so see if you can have a read. He’s a good friend too.

Te Popo (in the title of this posting) is the name of the area where I live. It means “The Black Night”.

The award was established by Okoto Engima. She (apparently) is your everyday writer who turned her boredom, love for fashion, and passion for writing into something productive. So, being a fashion icon in my own head, I’m delighted to provide a link.

I’m meant to answer the five questions asked, and then say TWO THINGS ABOUT MYSELF. Of course the very things that some would want to know about me shall remain a secret. Oh! What the heck! Why not expose all? Read on!

Then I’ve got to nominate other bloggers, ask them a similar number of original things in the manner in which I was asked, and finally skedaddle off to bed.

Here are the five questions:

1. Where do UFOs come from?

Three weeks before my fourth birthday (i.e. 21 days before) my parents put a dozen eggs underneath a broody hen. I didn’t know, but they were due to hatch on my birthday. Then on my birthday eve my mother told me the hen was going to hatch out baby chickens tomorrow for my birthday. I went to the chicken coop and watched. Being on a farm I knew that babies came out of the mother’s bottom – like calves and lambs and things. I also knew that chickens came out of eggs. But how did the mother hen get her babies into the eggs after they had come out of her bottom?

I was going to solve this mystery once and for all. I watched all day, and not a thing happened. The next morning the hen had twelve chickens. I do not know how the hen puts the chickens into the eggs, and nor do I know where UFOs come from.

This is my faverolles rooster in my later years!

2. Do you like Mexican food?

We don’t have Taco Bell within a thousand miles of where I live, so all Mexican food has to be hand-crafted – a skill which I have developed to a high standard, especially when opening the can of kidney beans. So yes, I like Mexican food. Once, a couple of years back, the farming neighbours asked me to look after their farm for three weeks while they went away for a vacation. (They had never had such a capable neighbour before, and I said yes because they had lots of farm bikes and I was able to roar around all day on motor bikes here and there – it could have been interpreted as testosterone but it was simply post-adolescent inanity).

By way of thanks the neighbours invited me over for a meal, and we had Mexican. I was foolish enough to declare that one cannot claim to have eaten Mexican tacos properly unless one takes a freshly stuffed taco shell and eats it while jumping up and down in a white shirt on a trampoline. That’s what I had seen Mexican children do.

Some idiot actually photographed it

Who cares? The shirt was old anyway. Of course, those of you who want to see me with my shirt off will have to wait until the TWO THINGS ABOUT MYSELF later. I don’t like to reveal everything all at once.

3. Do you believe in life after love?

I’d like to say yes to this question, but basically I’m a bad loser. I don’t know how many times I’ve fallen in love, or even fallen in infatuation. But each time when the saga is over I turn into a complete wreck. I’m trying to select an example…

Once, when all possibility of romance dissipated, approximately around one in the morning, I screwed up an entire packet of cigarettes and threw them into the fire. The nearest in-the-middle-of-the-night cigarette selling place was about two hours walk away and I didn’t have a car. By the time I got home at five o’clock it was sunrise and I was in a ripe state.

No, there’s no life after love. Or, yes, perhaps there is, but it’s a different life – I have subsequently discovered.

I know it’s confusing but this is not me. These are actually models.

4. What’s your theme song?

I’m a bit “yesterday” when it comes to choosing a theme song. I guess it would have to be the song my father banned from us playing on the (back-then) gramophone. It was the flipside of Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren’s “Goodness Gracious Me”. The song was called “We’re removing Grandpa’s grave to build the sewer”. I absolutely loved it back then (and still do). I suppose part of the appeal was that Dad had banned it and it could only be played when he was out of the house. Apart from that as a ten year old I got given a collection of recordings of music by famous composers and I thrashed Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” to death. Mum would say, “Turn that horrible music down” but I didn’t.

I still get immensely excited by every note of it, and sometimes take the score to bed with me to read like a novel. But for the time being, if you’re hoping to get an insight into my excitement you may have to wait until you hear about the TWO THINGS ABOUT MYSELF towards the end of this reflection.

Getting ready to take Stravinsky’s Rite to bed.

5. Would you rather eat rice or potatoes?

I had two great-great-great grandmothers die in the Irish Potato Famine, so it would be treachery to claim a preference for rice. Besides, I associate rice with China, and they’re not my favourites at present.

There’s so much more one can do with a potato. Rice one can boil or throw over the bride and groom at a wedding. What a waste! Imagine throwing boiled potatoes at a bride and groom. It could be the harbinger of awkward things to come, especially if the groom got bits of mashed potato on his black tuxedo.

TWO THINGS ABOUT MYSELF

At last we have arrived at this most revealing section. Some of you have been faithful online friends for seven or eight years, and some just a few weeks. Some know things about me that others don’t. Anyway, here are bits of me in no particular order and for no particular reason:

1. I was a catholic priest for nearly thirty years. Those years, plus the eight years of training, were an important part of who I am. Sometimes, when people hear of my past, they say “Good on you for leaving”. I always get a little hurt by that. It was almost forty years of my life! I don’t think there was much wrong with what I did!

2. I have had a chronic heart condition for 25 years or so. Apparently I need a heart transplant but I’m not going to be given one because there’s a paucity of hearts about and I haven’t made a big enough contribution to society to be very far up the list! I said to the heart specialist when he told me that, “as long as the heart I would’ve got goes to someone younger who has a life ahead then that is fine”, and he said that no one had said that before and he burst into tears. I thought that might’ve improved my chances but it made Sweet Fanny Adams of a difference!

Anyway, it’s just as well that this wonderful award asks for only two, otherwise I’d be talking about myself all day.

I now have to ask five questions and nominate others. Well, this is the sad bit. I should’ve said it at the beginning. I don’t nominate, but I mention the blog addresses of other bloggers I follow that I like and maybe you miss out on. If I don’t mention you, know that I don’t NOT mention you to make you feel bad.

a). Passing on the flame. This is an archive of poetry translations (Medieval/Baroque/Modern/etc) from the German, by Peter Lach-Newinsky. I like this site because it exposes something to me that I wouldn’t have a clue about otherwise.

b). Observation Blogger. Lifelong learner and blogging enthusiast. Matthew is an Australian who lives in Colombia with his family. I think he’s currently in permanent lockdown – the poor bugger. He posts interesting stuff about music and things. The bits I like most are his introductions to Latin American music, singers, and songs.

c). Lisa of arlingwords blogs about a number of things, but mainly about her communal garden in Washington DC where she creates produce for the poor and gets eaten out by wild and pernicious rabbits.

d). European Origins. As a (lily) white Caucasian I enjoy Marcel’s blog and dream about my European ancestral lineage! I hope I’m allowed to…

e). Sweet Life Kitchens. Noel presents country-style cooking and baking. I like it because it gives a few ideas and shows how to cook things without a million pop-ups and ads that have now taken over recipe sites. This is good stuff!

Now I have provided no questions because these are not nominations but recommendations. But if so desired then recommended bloggers can answer the same five questions no doubt more satisfyingly than my response!

Thanks again to The Dumbest Blogger for his kindness in nominating me.

Here’s a picture of my washing to let you know that despite all I’ve said, it’s a cow of a life.

1629. Drop dead gorgeous

Savannah and her three sisters were dead keen on fashion. They presumed, of course, that that’s why they were invited to a Retro Festival. Those of us born a few years before Savannah and her three sisters don’t really regard relatively recent days as being Retro. But Retro the invitation over the phone said, and Retro it was going to be.

Savannah and her three sisters were way ahead of their time. They had come out of the closet very early in the nineteen eighties. All four of them. They had endured ridicule and distain. These days life was easier for the sisters and their partners. No longer were they abused and scorned, but accepted for who they were. When Savannah took the phone call inviting her and her sisters to the Retro Festival it seemed to Savannah, for she’d always had trouble with the issue, that they were at last part of the day-to-day ordinary fabric of society.

All this is part of the reason why they went to so much trouble, and expense, to do the best by the invitation that they possibly could.

Of course, a phone call is a phone call. Sometimes things can get muffled, and muffled they got. Needless to say, they didn’t stay particularly long at the Hetero Festival.

1571. An organized proposal

Adrian and Alan had been in a same-sex relationship for just over three years. Adrian decided it was time to propose. It wasn’t quite clear in such a relationship as to who should do the proposing, but Adrian decided he had waited long enough and so took the matter into his own hands. It was to be a special occasion.

Adrian planned every second of the event. Really, it was all rather exciting! First they would go to the go-cart track (they loved doing that, it was how they met), hire a go-cart each, and race around for half an hour or so to determine who was the superior go-cart driver.

Next, they would go for a wander through the botanical gardens. It was the tulip season and every year they had celebrated tulips by strolling through the gardens at the very peak of flowering. In fact, they so loved the tulip celebration that they had selected two tulips as a symbol of their relationship and had devised a monogram to go on their front door.

After the tulips they would go to a fancy restaurant; not too fancy mind you, because they weren’t exactly made of money, but fancy enough to make things special. They both especially liked “The Plucked Auk” – which ironically never had auk on the menu. Not to worry. Both would inevitably order a hearty steak, rare, in fact, blue.

Finally they would wander down to the estuary and stroll along the winding river path in the evening light. The stars! The moon! It would be then that Adrian would propose. Let’s hope the weather was fine. The forecast said it would be.

Adrian announced to Alan, it being some not particularly important anniversary of something or rather, that he had planned a special afternoon and evening. Such regular celebrations had always been part of their living together.

Well! Would you believe? They were about to leave home when Alan went down on one knee, produced a ring, and said to Adrian, “Will you marry me?”

Some people know how to stuff things up.

940. Off to the movies

Janni had invited Josie to go with him to the pictures. Josie’s mother was not pleased. She took Josie into her confidence:

“Look,” she said, “you do know that Janni’s father is gay, and his mother reportedly is a lesbian. I’d always thought Janni himself was gay. I’m not at all happy that you’re going to the movies with him.”

Josie thought that perhaps now was not the time…

To listen to the story being read click HERE!

596. Out

© Bruce Goodman 29 May 2015

Vince didn’t know how to tell his parents he was gay. He was seventeen. He needed to be free. Yet he invited Kathleen from his class to the school dance. Then he invited her to the movies.

His parents were delighted. They really liked Kathleen.

Two years passed. Then Vince and Kathleen broke up. Vince blurted out to his parents that he was gay.

“We know, dear,” said Vince’s mother. “Just don’t parade your sexual preferences around like a veteran’s insignia. We heterosexuals don’t. Just be who you are and get on with it.”

Vince burst into tears.

“Yeah, that’s what we’d expect from a bloody namby-pamby limp-wristed powder-puff,” said his Dad.

135. Formal formality

There was no doubt that Ashleigh and Peter were in love. They were inseparable (some said “insufferable”) at school. They walked hand in hand. They were constantly together. So much so, that when someone in class talked about The Love Birds everyone knew it was Ashleigh and Peter.

It was inevitable that, when it came to the annual senior school formal, Ashleigh and Peter would go together.

Not so. Gay couples were not permitted to dance at the school formal.

86. Phoebe’s Uncle Jason

Phoebe no longer believed in fairies. Her mother, knowing that the truth had been whispered around at school, sat Phoebe on her knee and explained that fairies were not real.

“But,” said Phoebe.

“No buts, darling,” said Phoebe’s mother. “Fairies are wonderful. They live only in our imagination. They don’t exist outside our head.”

It was therefore a little strange when it was announced that Uncle Jason was coming to stay. Phoebe overheard her father say to her mother, “He’s a bit of a fairy, isn’t he?” To which Phoebe’s mother said, “It’s no good pretending it’s not true.”

“Ah,” thought Phoebe, “they are trying to hide something from me. Uncle Jason is a fairy in disguise, and they don’t want me to know about it.”

When he arrived, Phoebe followed Uncle Jason around, watching, waiting. At night he went out and didn’t come back home until very, VERY late. Was he out doing fairy things?

Then it was the night of the big parade! Phoebe’s mother and father took Phoebe to see the great parade. THERE HE IS! THERE’S UNCLE JASON! He’s with lots of other fairies! He’s wearing glitter and has fairy wings! He’s wearing a fairy crown! He has a wand! UNCLE JASON! UNCLE JASON! HURRAH! HURRAH!