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CHEAP EATS Bones are supposed to decompose, right? But sometimes, for the sake of archaeology, they don’t. They pile up behind you in the cave until, if you eat as much meat as I do, you eventually have to live outside.
It’s like naming a band. The old ones don’t go away, so it just keeps getting harder, which is why many musicians my age either give up or rejoin their old groups and go on reunion tours. Or they switch genres, simply so they can recycle the old names but with z‘s for s‘s. A short-lived solution (if it has any life at all), as evidenced by the almost immediate fizzle of The Bee Geez, Harry Nilzzon, and the Mamaz & the Papaz — heavy metallic flops all.
Soon we will begin to see (and hear, and feel) the effects of a generation of rising rockers whose parents announced their births via e-mail. Brace yourselves. Here comes U2000, Prince2009, and, my personal favorite, AbbaLoL.
Recycling is good. It’s decided, right? Without it we all die and have no music to listen to on our deathbeds. I save the bones. So do lots of people, Mountain Sam to name just one. He makes sculptures out of them. I make soup, then I scrape and dry them, wrap one end with rubber and/or felt, and re-reuse them as steel drum mallets. So that’s food, food again, then music. Then they just pile up in my cave and stay there, waiting for future archaeologists to wonder about a chicken-like creature that wore socks.
I was babysitting the baby I babysit (I’m not allowed to say her name) and the TV was on because the mama and the papa hadn’t left yet. This is what distinguishes me as a babysitter: no TV. None. Absolutely not. TV is not harmful enough, in my opinion. Instead, we do truly dangerous things together, like tasting mysterious plants, staring into mirrors, and rock climbing, me and this one-year-old.
But the parents hadn’t left yet. The TV was on. Food Channel, so I was interested. Mesmerized. Appalled … because what they were talking about was barbecued spaghetti, some joint in Tennessee, and I have to say it looked delicious. I was appalled because here I’ve been trying to invent a thing that has already been invented.
Hey, there oughta be a saying about this, something like, I don’t know, reinventing the … uh …
Never mind.
You people who live your whole life without ever changing gender — not even once. Frankly, I don’t know how you do it. I mean, it takes all kinds, I suppose, but I personally would have died of boredom by now.
In the coed soccer league I play in, I’m an average-size girl with average speed and average skills. I’m slightly above-average agewise, and slightly below-average butchwise. No matter what, though, there is always one thing that distinguishes me from the other girls on the field and it is this: as far as I know, I’m the only one out there with balls.
And I’m not speaking figuratively. If anything having balls, in this case, makes you chickenshit. You know how when guys line up in front of a free kick, they place their hands over their crotch? I can’t do that! So I run away. Nobody knows I’m trans. At least that I know of, nobody knows. I’m not sure about league policy on this.
I’ve always wondered what would happen … what I would do, what my body would do, if and when I took a ball to the balls in one of these games. It was a matter of time, and in the first half of the second game of my third season as a girl, there it was. A guy unloaded and I jumped but didn’t twist, and, oof!
Guys know what this feels like. Now I know what it feels like to feel that feeling and not be able to go down, not even to one knee. To have to turn and run like nothing much happened, without even a look on your face, breathless, hating life but just generally playing on.
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My new favorite restaurant is Mary’s Place in Novato, where I’ve been camping out a lot on account of car problems. Mary’s Place is a way to kill time over delicious crepes, hash browns, and coffee, coffee, coffee. It has a counter. It’s kind of a diner-ish feel, but with way better food. And, oh yeah, a bar.
MARY’S PLACE
819 Grant, Novato
(415) 897-9761
Tue.–Sat., 7 a.m.–9 p.m.
Sun.–Mon., 7 a.m.–3 p.m.
Full bar
MC/V/AE