Occasionally, I have trouble realizing whether I'm dreaming or awake. At least twice in my life (once last week), I've cried out in my sleep after convincing myself that I was indeed awake. Believe me, it scared the hell out of my boyfriend, and embarrassed me.
This morning, I thought I must be dreaming at the gym. I was doing what has always been the most humbling physical act I've ever attempted: stretching. I was roughly half-way through my "gym routine." I hesitate to say "work out" because I feel such a term is best reserved for the graceful, confident, and frankly beautiful movements of my fellow gymgoers, rather than the ogre-like trouncings I push through in an hour and ten minutes each morning. Plus, I associate the term "work out" with the physical act of getting fit. I think of my "gym routine," however, as an awkward attempt to delay obesity and improve my chances of staying on this Earth a bit longer, depriving my boyfriend his valuable inheritance of Star Trek DVDs and Jane Austen novels. I am nothing if not selfish, after all.
Those of you who have known me for more than five minutes have realized my inflexibility - body, mind, and soul. Inflexibility is actually a thrilling existence. You truly haven't lived until you've stood on your balcony in your underwear yelling at the weather, "Stop raining! STOP RAINING! I want to go to the zoo today!" The neighbors should charge admission. As I was raised to strive for self-improvement in all aspects of my existence, I would work to be more flexibile, except I can't fathom such a reality in my current body. If I could change my legs and arms for better models, and maybe get a deal on a new torso while I'm at it, greater flexibility could fall within my realm of possibility. But, as it is, the only improvement (body, mind, and soul) I can imagine is less inflexibility... which, to me, is a vastly different mindset compared to greater flexibility.
Thus, while stretching in my "gym routine," I open my raw, naked soul to the world. This is James at his most fragile, most humble, and least confident. If I could, I'd stretch alone - but, it looks like there isn't enough room to stretch in the bathroom stall. I've tried. Instead of solitude, I've tuned my soul to project, in as many metaphysical ways as possible, the message "DON'T APPROACH ME" while stretching. So far, it's worked. Even my closest friends have given me a wide berth when they see me stretching.
Thus, I thought I must be home, in bed, and dreaming when I heard a high-pitched and cheerful female voice while I was splayed out, humble and vulnerable, on a gym mat this morning: "Are you happy?"
"Really," I thought, "Dreaming about the gym lacks creativity, James." Earlier that night, I'd had a number of interesting dreams, and I was disappointed to find out that - sandwiched between a dream where my skin turned purple and a dream where Zach and I found our cat moonlighting as a substitute geometry teacher in Cal Anderson Park ("How unrealistic... I mean, all you have to do is look at her, poised proudly like a Greek statue, for two words to enter your head: algebra teacher..."), was this ho-hum snoozer about me stretching at the gym. I was hoping I could just partially wake up, move the cat off my feet, tear my fair share of the covers away from my cover-klepto boyfriend, and move on to more interesting dreams.
Except that I wasn't dreaming. I was laying out on a gym mat with my eyes closed, attempting to will my limbs into a state of less inflexibility, and projecting with all my mental will these metaphysical signs ("STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!"). And here was a bright and chipper voice: "Are you happy?"
I meant to say "What?" (followed by some four-letter words), but the best I could do in my surprise was a neanderthal grunt. Just ten days after passing my graduate school general exam, and here I was communicating at a level below, "Me Tarzan, you Jane."
Thoughts of Dolores Umbridge's sweet, terse voice swam through my head as the young woman standing over me continued: "Are you happy with your flexibility? Because I noticed that you aren't very flexible."
At this point, a man on an exercise bike nearby turned his head to watch and listen. He probably thought I was going to pull a scimitar out and slice this woman in two. Then, he'd go to work and tell his friends in the neighboring cubicle, "See what happens when you interrupt James while he's stretching? I hope she learned her lesson."
I, in the meantime, regretted leaving my scimitar in the car. Before I could muster a defence of my flexibility, the woman continued. It turns out she used to be a yoga instructor "back in college," and had decided this morning that my lack of flexibility was alarming. "You shouldn't be lifting weights and running, you should join a yoga class immediately." She put such a tense emphasis on "immediately" that I was jerked back to my Air Force ROTC days in high school, and nearly dropped and gave her twenty.
I rejoined the present and realized that she had paused in her criticism, waiting for me to respond. I was too busy burying my four-letter words, looking for something to throw at her, and rushing to improve my metaphysical warning beacon ("If you value your life, stay the f*** away from me!"). She shrugged, smiled sweetly, and purred, "Anyway, just wanted you to know that. It's really not healthy, and yoga from people like me can help you!" She skipped spritely down the stairs and out the door.
The man on the exercise bike broke into a sympathetic grin when he saw me flip off her retreating backside, and I mustered all the inflexibility of my soul as I hissed the greatest insult I know: "Damn hippie..."
After the rest of my "gym routine," I dragged my heavy, awkward limbs back home, hoping to find that I had indeed been dreaming. I approached my sleeping cat, placed my black-and-blue glasses on her face, and asked her to teach me the Pythagorean theorem.
Alas, she wheezed in response.
Zach: My back hurts.
me: Well, we all have our crosses to bear.
Zach: Oh? What's your cross, then?
pause
me: I'll give you a clue: its back hurts.
I've decided to celebrate the fact that I passed my general exam in three ways:
1. I've rushed gleefully back into lab shouting, "Yay! Now I can get back to research!" But, every day this week, I've stopped and stared at my desk asking, "What the hell was I up to anyway?" Apparently, I'm an evolutionary geneticist.
2. I've joined a gym, as the university's gym isn't meeting my needs. At this (new) gym, seasoned ladies old enough to be my mammaw always run way faster than me on the elliptical machines. Just between you and me, I kind of enjoy being humbled in such a blatant manner. My friend Ryan tells me that's something I shouldn't admit to very often, so don't post this on billboards.
3. I've been re-reading old, favorite books of mine. I decided to skip Green Eggs and Ham, but have recently picked up my much-used-and-abused copy of The Hobbit. Tonight on the bus, the guy next to me said, "Man, that's so old school!" The Gollum chapter doesn't scare me as much after taking my general exam.
I'm also going to my first "big" scientific conference in June - in Minneapolis. This'll be my boyfriend's opportunity to convince me that the Twin Cities would be a wonderful place to live post-Seattle. But, how do they treat asthmatic-and-defective-bladder cats and their gay dads?
me: Hey guys! I passed my general exam!
you: What does that mean?
me: It means that now I can stay in graduate school... for another 3 or 4 years!
you: ...
me: I also get to read books for fun again!
After hearing the members of the McLaughlin Group spend ten minutes this morning dicussing, in great detail, whether prostitution should be legal or illegal, I've decided that I want nothing to do with sex for the rest of my life. And I think that you, the viewer, would feel the same if you'd heard John McLaughlin, Eleanor Clift, and especially Pat Buchanan discussing sexual relations between two consenting adults.
Oddly, when I announced this decision to my boyfriend, he didn't seem that upset.
If I had a nickel for every time I've told my boyfriend "Never underestimate the Democratic Party's ability to shoot itself in the foot," then I'd have enough spare change to bribe my graduate committee into letting me pass my general exam this Thursday.
Of course, he'd never doubt me. But, just in case he is, here's what a little 4:30AM insomnia provoked me to dig up (all while I was playing with the cat, no less).
Mentally, I've started to prepare myself for the possibility that, for the third presidential election in a row, the winner may not be a commander-in-chief I want. Struggling with that mindset, I've apparently chosen the right morning for some insomnia-induced political junkie web browsing. For, even though I obviously favor one presidential candidate over the other two, I have to remind myself that the situation could be worse - much worse - and that the situation is indeed much worse in other locales on this good Earth.
So, bring it on, President McCain, President Clinton, and President Obama. I'm ready.
friend: "Hey, nice pants!"
me: "Thanks. I got them used this weekend."
friend: "Really?"
me: "Yep. Went shopping and everything."
friend: "Where?"
me: "My boyfriend's closet."
friend: ...
me: "I got five pairs of pants, some shorts, and a sweater."
friend: "So... your boyfriend basically cleaned out his closet this weekend, and you rifled through the discard pile, and you call that 'shopping'?"
me: "Well, no. I do that every time he cleans out his closet. It's all the 'shopping' I've done since I started graduate school."
friend: ...
me: "Plus, I get to drink cheap white wine while I shop."
No matter how many times I watch it, I can't quit laughing.
"I watched nearly the whole season of Project Runway while I've been in Olympia with Sarah."
Unfortunately, no photographer was nearby at the time to catalog the shocked expression on my face when my boyfriend said that to me this morning. Honestly, I would've been less surprised had he told me that he was leaving me to date women. Or that he had a cuttlefish fetish.
But, what really made my socks roll up and down of their own accord was his reason why he'd been watching Project Runway:
"I'd love to have that life... to just design clothes and have my eyebrows waxed and not have a care in the world - except to be as gay as I can."
Guilt, and a million little questions swam through my head. Have I been holding him back from his dream? His mysterious, out-of-the-blue dream of a career in fashion with waxed eyebrows and a string of flings among the Big Apple's gay elite? Did I back him into a corner, subconsciously chaining him to this life by labeling him as the short, politically-savvy, aw-shucks Iowa attorney who waltzed up to my cash register over five years ago to buy ties? Have I been repressing his inner gay man, particularly with my own habit of sniping bitterly at anything labeled "gay culture" and showering our apartment with ugly-and-worn hoodies and sweaters bought at the Ballard Goodwill? For God's sake, we don't even dress up our cat in little doll clothes (though I have read most of Jane Austen's novels and occasionally paint my toenails). I love my boyfriend, and I suddenly found myself shifting my life's direction: I had to help him reach his much-desired (though entirely unexpected) life goal. My grey matter scrambled to think up ways to help my boyfriend realize his dream, but the only models I could think of as templates for making us better gay men were Stefan and Scott from Best in Show. I wasn't looking forward to the idea of buying so many kimonos.
I was stunned. I felt like the man I'd known for over five years had just revealed his true self - peeling off layers of repression and conditioning that had kept him from his true dream of a successful and carefree career in fashion. And now, years later, he could only catch momentary glimpses of his dream deferred on a reality TV show. Like a closeted gay man trapped in a straight relationship, his most cherished desires could only be expressed momentarily in the dark alleys of anonymity. Only, in my boyfriend's case, his dark alleys are a duplex a few blocks away from the Washington State Capitol building, where he and his roommate lobbyists would gather and watch Project Runway. As we walked along the south end of Woodland Park Zoo, my mind slowly turned to the masks surrounding the separation and divorce of my own parents years ago.
My boyfriend, by this time, had noticed the pregnant silence that had covered our conversation for the past twenty seconds. Quizzically, he turned his head up to mine and, with an almost Betazoid-like clairvoyance, immediatelly knew where my overreacting mind had taken me. Gently, he pulled me back to reality.
him: "Of course, I could never live such a life."
me: "Why not?"
him: "Simply put, I'd hate myself."
I'd gone to hell and back in twenty seconds. I stuffed Freud back in his box, realizing I'd yet again misinterpreted my boyfriend's desire for a more simple existence within an increasingly chaotic human society.
him: "So, what are you doing this afternoon?"
me: "Reading about plant sex chromosomes. You?"
him: "Probably napping. And I have that concert tonight."
me: "Well, how about we go to that yummy Thai buffet place for lunch?"
him: "Yeah!... You're buying."
me: "Absolutely."
him: "Hey, is that my hoodie you're wearing?"
me: "Yeah. I stole it from you a year ago."
Every cloud has a silver lining.
Maybe this time, we'll have a party.