Notes from the Road. Part Six: Palm Springs. One

Notes from the Road
Part Six: Palm Springs
One


When Monty was a baby I sang to him constantly. I had a set I did every time I put him to sleep. You Are My Sunshine, I Will (The Beatles), Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and a song that Kurt and I (but really mostly just Kurt) made up called Schreetz Times (“Sleep Time”?). Sometimes I would add One for my Baby, or What’ll I Do. There was a period of time where I sang Let it Go from Frozen every night. Kids go nuts for that damn song. Anyway, I don’t know when it happened, but at some point Monty was tired of being Pavolv’s dog and didn’t want to eat every time the bell rang, if you get what I’m saying. He associated my singing with going to sleep and for some psychotic reason, he doesn’t like going to sleep. So, he stopped letting me sing to him.
 
My last night in Seattle, two nights ago, he had the hiccups. I tried everything to help him get rid of them. I did this weird witchy thing where I rubbed his back and pretended to gather up his hiccups and pull them out of him. It didn’t work. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I am not a witch. I know, I was surprised, too. Finally, around 10:30 I started singing You Are My Sunshine, fully expecting him to stop me immediately. 15 minutes later, after Let It Go, he said, “I can’t sleep because you’re not singing enough.”
 
You guys. I sang my son to sleep.
 
Maybe I am a witch.
 
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I’m in Palm Springs for Dinah Shore. It’s my coming out ball. Minus the balls.
 
I scheduled this vacation in November. I was going to sleep with every hot queerie I could consensually get my hands on. And then I met Ryan.
 
The summer after I left my husband, in 2005, I reconnected with a guy I had met while I was married. I was living in L.A. and he was in NYC. I planned a trip to NYC to see him for a couple weeks and then started seeing a guy in L.A. who didn’t understand how I could go to NYC and sleep with someone else when I had been sleeping with him. More than that, he was incensed because I had sat on his lap at a party. Apparently in his culture (white bro culture) when a woman sits on your lap she is committing herself to you for eternity. Or until he finds a younger woman to neg into sleeping with him. Not for nothing, but the guy in NYC ended up being an immense bucket of garbage. He told me I had put a hook in him and he was considering relocating to L.A.. Not for me, but that I was there was definitely a draw. He was all about me until another woman who had been flirting with him turned 18. The day after her birthday he told me I was too clingy. No offense white bros, but you guys are kinda the worst.
 
One of the benefits of being in a relationship with someone who’s married is I can spend time with them on my vacation at Lesbian Prom, and also go play if the mood and opportunity strike. That is to say, this is one of the benefits of Polyamory. People who proclaim to be monogamous and have affairs can be awfully possessive. “Yes, yes, I know I have a wife and you’re my side piece, but you’re my side piece, damnit!” Attractive. Plus, I can be really shy, and if I were here alone I would probably spend most of the time buried in a book trying to not to make eye contact for fear that someone might actually…talk to me. “Did you see the woman with the amazing butt laying by the pool?” “You mean the one who literally read Jeanette Winterson and didn’t talk to anyone during all of Dinah Shore?” So, Ryan will be the chatty one and I’ll be the one sipping a pina colada and trying not to seem like a bulimic at a Vegas buffet. No offense to bulimics. Some of you are truly lovely people. Not my roommate in my first semester at NYU, though. When she wasn’t yacking in our only bathroom for hours, she was stealing my make-up, and talking about how smart she was. Jesus. She was awful. I got back at her by barfing all over the carpet one night when I’d had too much to drink. Oddly enough, she didn’t seem that phased by the barf.
 
Some day, when I have lots and lots of expendable income, after Monty’s entire school career has been paid for, I’m going to go on a vacation where I stay in a really nice hotel. Like, one with room service. One where the bed isn’t literally a murphy bed. One where there’s not stains… from hopefully pre-eaten food… on the plastic blinds. One where the bathroom sink will probably not rip away from the wall if you put any weight on it. One where there’s not a dirty washcloth left over from the people before you in the shower. One where someone was definitely not tortured and murder and stuffed into a suitcase. You know. A nice place.
 
And now off to see the lesbians! Maybe I won’t even bring a book…