Springalingadingdong, aka: spring time for ding-dongs... & pirates

So a lot of things have happened since I last posted, and I’ve really been wanting to post – but alas time hasn’t been on my side. I apologize to my readers for not posting sooner, but since summer is rapidly approaching, I feel that I should be posting more frequently. This one though, while slightly long, should be worth the wait…

So I’ve been trying to get out more, and this includes going on dates and hanging out with friends. It’s in an effort to be social, and not be some crazy bird person that burrows into his apartment and only leaves to buy groceries and go to work. I’ve been spending a lot of time at a new park downtown. I like walking by the water features and streams, sitting on the cut boulders, and sketching the buildings downtown. It’s also just nice to lie in the grass and feel the sun on my skin and the wind in my hair. I even went on a picnic with a good friend who sadly will be leaving Birmingham soon to go on tour. I hope to have at least one more picnic before she leaves, but that’s another story.

In addition to spending time at parks, I have been on four dates since my move to Birmingham. The first one back in the fall was rather a bust. We met on-line, through a dating service, and decided to go out for dinner. We were going to meet between 7:15 and 7:30 at a local Thai place. I texted him after I got off work and confirmed the date. Then I texted him again at 7:10 to let him know I would be arriving at the restaurant around 7:20. I lived 10 minutes from the restaurant, he lived 20, so I assumed he had already left. I was wrong.

As I was parking the car, I received a text stating that he had just gouged his face open with a tree branch and was just now bandaging it. It was 7:22. Doing the math, I realized he wouldn’t be arriving until 7:42 at the earliest, and then he needed to find parking. I assumed he would show up sometime around 7:45. 15 minutes late to the first date is never a good sign, but he had hurt himself, so it was at least understandable. I texted him back that I was getting us a table, and I’d see him soon.

I had gotten off work at 5:15. I rushed home, showered, and washed and blow dried my hair. (This is no small task with the amount of hair I have.) I then spent the remaining time I had left trying to put together a decent outfit. Being a gay man, I already had the outfit picked out, but being an easily distracted gay man, I had forgotten to make sure the outfit I wanted to wear had been washed. It was time for plan B. Plan B involved a nice black argyle sweater, nice jeans, and nice shoes. I looked polished, but not like I was trying too hard. I wanted to make a good impression.

He obviously had not felt the same way. I watched in horror as an unkempt gangly toothpick of a man walked in. I had seen a picture on-line, but he was far away from the camera and in full profile. All I knew from the picture was that he was tall, slim, white, and had dark hair. In the flesh, things were much clearer. At 6’5,” he had the body build of a 14 year old Chinese gymnast coupled with the height of an NBA player. Like the neck of a giraffe, he seemed very out of proportion, but unlike the neck of a giraffe, he lacked any aesthetic grace. He had all the colorings of a ginger without the cute red hair or freckles. His skin made me look tan, and I think I could have lost him if he fell into a snow bank. And while his complexion was uniform, it lacked life and almost appeared artificial. He clearly had not spent much time on his outfit either; he was in a worn grey polo shirt with darker pants, and a baseball cap.

(I had also expected to find quite the large bandage on his face, but instead I found a small dot band-aid - the kind you put over ant bites or bee stings. So much for being “gouged open.”)

I wasn’t attracted to him, but I was willing to give him a chance. I mean, it’s what’s on the inside that counts right? He introduced himself; his handshake was limp. In the early moments of our conversation he appeared uncomfortable. There wasn’t any comfortable shifting in his seat, but there was a forced fluidity to his movement, a distracted gaze, and eyes that were harsh and piercing. His personality was intense but as bland as his look. And his only talent seemed to stem from an uncanny ability to ask awkward questions.

Less than 10 minutes into our conversation he stared directly at me and asked:

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how do I rank in terms of what you were expecting?”

“I don’t really know how to answer that,” I began, trying to pull an answer from my ass while simultaneously trying to disguise my obvious disbelief at the question. “I didn’t really have any expectations. I mean I haven’t been on a date in a while.” I answered truthfully. It had been two years since I broke up with my boyfriend, and I hadn’t been on a date since. I was too busy trying to survive toxic work environments. “And I really couldn’t tell much about you from your picture.”

“Oh,” he replied. “I need to get a new picture, but I can’t post pictures with other people, and I don’t know how to edit them out.” His gaze then shifted to his left – focusing intently out the window behind me.

“Just out of curiosity,” I asked. “Where did I fall?”

“9 out of 10,” he said without missing a beat. “I even knew how you were going to talk.” His gaze once again shifted to the left – with laser focused intent. It was almost like he was disgusted that I met his expectations.

The subject was changed, and the conversation began anew. He picked at his food with a look of uncomfortable disgust. And about 10 minutes later:

“What religion or you?” he interrupted, his eyes piercing back in my direction.

“Christian,” I responded taken aback by the question. “What religion are you?”

“I really don’t know,” he replied, once again turning his gaze out the window and to the left.

“Well, I’m a very liberal person. I have a liberal interpretation of Christianity, and I’m not pushy with my beliefs, so don’t let that worry you. If that’s a problem, it really shouldn’t be.”

“Well maybe we believe the same thing then,” he returned.

But you just said you didn’t know what you believed? I wanted to ask, but kept my mouth shut. At this point I was just happy that I was on a date, and I had delicious Thai food in front of me. I was proud of myself for taking that step. I had gotten back into the dating pool. This date wasn’t working out, but there would be more. I just needed to enjoy myself, try to keep to non-confrontational topics, and not let his weirdness pull me down.

“Are you Aimish?”

“Excuse me?” I asked, cocking to my head slightly to the right in disbelief – not just at the question, but at the fact that he had said: AIMish.

“You look Aimish.”

I took a deep breath, looked down, and cocked my head further to the right. “I don’t know how to take that,” I stated looking up, matching his intensity. “What do you mean that I look Amish?” I emphasized the correct pronunciation, while forcing down the angry thoughts that were trying to make themselves known aloud. I was still trying to enjoy myself, and sliding into: “Well you look like a cancer patient, when’s your next round of chemo?” would probably have been counter-productive.

“You look Aimish,” he repeated. “With the hair, and the well…” he moved his hand over his mouth indicating facial hair. “Well… maybe not here, but you could be on rebellion or something.”

I looked at my plate, and looked back up, and began looking around for television cameras. I was certain I was on a reality show. I was hoping I’d receive a cash prize for not losing my temper. Alas, it was not to be. Sadly there is no visual record of this date, other than a quite vivid flashbulb memory.

The subject changed to movies. Movies were a nice, safe topic.

“You know what movie I’m really excited about?” he asked – his demeanor shifting from more of a judgmental Judy to that of a manic Charles Manson. “The new SAW movie.”

“SAW? Really? SAW?” I asked. I no longer cared about his feelings, so judgmental tones were back on the table.

“Yeah,” he returned, mellowing in his attempt to be smooth, “It’s playing around the corner from here. We’re going there after dinner.”

“No we’re not,” I said matter-of-factly.

Reading other people’s tones, body-language, and expressions is apparently not a gift of his. He stared back blank and confused, only then realizing that the date was not going well.

“I hated the first one,” I responded. “I fell asleep during it, and I’m not wasting my time watching another one. I haven’t watched any of the sequels.”

He became rather silent and continued to intently gaze in differing directions. He was rude to the waiter, which really upset me. And the date ended as quickly and as awkwardly as it began. We shook hands and left – parting ways for good.

I was still proud of myself. So what if my date was a pasty ill-proportioned judgmental abortion of a human being without any social skills… I had gone out! My dating life had started again, and sooner or later I would find a decent guy!

I went on two more dates after that. One was an immature 5th year college senior who changed his major right before he was supposed to graduate. I think he was afraid of growing up. He was also a little Queeny, and again I wasn’t attracted to him. He looked nothing like his on-line picture, and he seemed clingy. He wanted to text non-stop before our date; it was annoying.

The guy after him showed a lot of promise – at least on-line. He was from Chile, and seemed to be what promised to be a hot Latin lover. Third time, however, was NOT a charm for my Bargain Basement Dating Site, and I got a Latin Dudder. He had spent a lot of time on-line talking about how unhealthy American food was, and how unhealthy Americans were in general. He was adamant that in Chile the food was healthier and so were the people. I agreed, and said that the US is having a health crisis when it comes to food and nutrition and obesity. He followed with statements about how surprised that he was that there were skinny people in America. He didn’t understand how anyone could be skinny in the US. He had only been here for two weeks, and he was having trouble finding any healthy food options.

You can probably understand my shock then when I met him, and found my health obsessed Latin date to be an obese chain smoker with bad teeth. (And I mean England, pre-orthodontia, bad.) To top it off, his personality was boring, and we lacked any chemistry what-so-ever.

Anyway, my options seemed rather slim, and I had gotten quite a bit discouraged. I buried myself in work, as usual, so it wasn’t until my work load lightened significantly that I began to really notice my loneliness. That is when I was pulled back into the on-line dating scene. I returned to the same sites I had used to find the previous three people. The first guy was bad yes, but the other two weren’t so terrible. They misrepresented themselves on-line, and I wouldn’t date them if they were the last gay men on Earth, but they had okay personalities. Maybe fourth time would be my game changer.

I was right, in a way. It was a game changer. To quote Stan Smith, the protagonist of Seth MacFarlane’s animated sitcom American Dad, from the episode “Stanny Slicker’s II: The Legend of Ollie’s Gold”

“Epiphany isn’t just a name that black people give their daughters. It’s a realization, and I just had one!”

I will NEVER return to those on-line dating sites again. I will NEVER use bargain basement dating services. You get what you pay for; if you want quality – you pay for it; and if you don’t pay anything, you can’t expect quality product. I’ve had this epiphany before, but apparently I needed to really encounter the crazy before I took the realization to heart.

Fourth time started out well. In hindsight, it began almost too well. We had talked on-line quite a bit several months back, but nothing ever came of it. Out of the blue, the guy messaged me again, and we struck up a conversation. He said he’d still like to meet me if I had time, and I said that would be great. We decided to go out for coffee, and he gave me his number, so I could text him the next day to make plans.

The next day came, and after I had settled in for the night, we began what would be a long text conversation. We talked about quite a few things, nothing alarming – nothing that even raised any tiny red flags. It was normal, sane, and from his pictures on-line – he was clearly cute. I was excited, so when he asked if he could call me, or course I said yes.

If I were to sum up the phone-call in a sentence:

My potential date for Saturday drunk dialed me while he was driving to the gas station to buy weed from (insert racial slur that rhymes with "diggers" here), all so he could rant about how he hates women (they're all f*cking stupid), his father (such a f*cking asshole), gay sex (I'm never letting a man stick a d*ck in my a**!), his hatred of his former life in the Army (I f*cking killed people!), and how we should bomb the hell out of Libya and kill as many people as we can because America is the only country that values life.

Now imagine that with a thick Southern accent, stretched into a less than 20 minute conversation and you have my evening. I was scared for my life, and thankful to Jesus that he had no idea where I lived. I had won the lottery – the crazy f*cking jackpot! I had encountered the rarest of birds: the misogynistic ex-military racist drug addicted uber-patriotic homophobic homosexual with daddy issues in desperate need of anger management and a chill pill. In one conversation he managed to raise every red flag imaginable.

The worst part was, is that I couldn’t just hang up. You can’t just slam the door on crazy, because they come back with heavy artillery. You have to gently close the door on the psychotic. I attempted to challenge his views on women, but it wasn’t any use. He was looking for a fight. That’s when I started planning my conversation exit strategy. I call it: “Operation Enduring Crazy,” otherwise known as “make shit up.” Say you have a call on the other line, or there is a neighbor that needs your help, or that there is a problem with your pet, anything feasible or logical that will trick the offender on the other line. I picked the pet option, and looked for a window. When he dropped the “n” word, I knew I had to get out right then. I said Joey was fussing to go to bed. We said goodnight, and I quickly called Cara. I cut him out completely.

So dating has proved a bust, but fret not – I have locals looking for potential dates for me. I know I will find somebody eventually. Until then, I’ll continue to get out with other people, and go to the park. I will not, however, settle for a bargain basement boyfriend.

This weekend has been and continues to be quite eventful. Yesterday I went to a company picnic at Oak Mountain State Park. I hung out with co-workers and students, had some food fresh from the grill, and went paddle boating with four friends – we’ll call them Matt, Meredith, Sonya, and Mandy. Matt and Meredith are married. Sonya is my friend who is moving away, and Mandy is a senior at the university. We walked over to the boat rentals making the usual observations (i.e. how nice the day was, how we couldn’t wait to get on the water, how much fun we had at the picnic, etc). But when we got to the rental dock, all the boats were chained up and the rental station was closed. The sign said the station opened at 10am. It was 2pm.

While contemplating our options, we discovered that the boats, while chained, were only held by carabineers and quick links. Being in the design and tech world, these posed little of a challenge. The entire perimeter of the dock was enclosed by a padlocked chain, but the side dock held several paddle boats only quick linked to the dock. We picked our boat, and set sail. We paddled maybe 75 feet from the dock when we noticed the boat was sinking. We quickly did the math and realized we were over the weight limit. If we were going paddle-boating, we would need two boats.

Back to the dock we paddled. We docked the boat back at its station, and chose two new boats. The only problem was these boats were within the chained perimeter. No problem, we would just have one person captain the boat, while two people lifted the chain over the boat and the ducking boat captain. As we would later discuss: our job is to make things happen. We wanted to go paddle-boating; we made that happen. Once the boats were clear of the perimeter, and we all boarded, the lake was ours. We left the cove where the boats were docked, and rounded the corner into the larger area of the lake. We could see the remnants of our picnic, our friends, students, and co-workers at the tables on the hill as we passed. We were headed around the circular parking docks and toward the swimming area, when we were stopped by a park ranger. Apparently park rangers frown upon people stealing boats from the rental dock. He was very nice, and informed us that the marina was closed on Fridays, and if we could return the boats to the dock, that would be great.

We turned around and began paddling back to the marina. We were happy that as pirates we were only asked to take things back to the dock. How lucky were we? We bragged to each other about our pirate skills, but when we arrived at the dock we found the park ranger waiting for us. Sonya was the first person to talk to him.

“So did you find these boats around the lake, or did you take them from the dock?” he asked.

“We took them from the dock,” Sonya answered truthfully.

“Well normally there’s a fine and ticketing for that.”

“We we’re going to pay the rental, but no one was here. I suppose we can’t just pay the rental now?”

He didn’t seem amused.

Matt was the next person to encounter him; Meredith was docking their boat, and Mandy and I were busy docking ours.

“So why did you guys take these boats?”

“Because we wanted to.”

“Was there any other reason?”

“No.”

Mandy and I were now walking up the dock – keeping our eyes forward and toward the ground. We all realized we needed to look penitent.

“Next time wait until it’s open, and rent the boats,” he said sternly to Mandy and I as we walked ahead of him.

We kept walking – all five of us – up the dock, up the stairs, past the rental stand, into the parking lot, and right past his patrol car. He didn’t stop us.

Lesson learned: When you make the choice to steal a paddle-boat, be sure to paddle to the center of the lake, so it is difficult for park rangers to track you down or get your attention to return the boats. I think next time though the boats may actually be locked. I doubt they’ll make the same mistake again. We returned to our camp pirate heroes.

In the continuing spirit of pirating, Matt and Meredith invited Mandy and myself (say that a few times fast) to a local Birmingham tradition: Springalingadingdong. The invite promised dancing around a May-pole, a parade, and a ritualistic beheading of Marie Antoinette – all in the name of welcoming Spring! I was all in. It sounded like a wonderful opportunity to bear witness to what crazy rich people do when they have nothing to do.

We packed into Matt and Meredith’s car this morning and headed to English Village – just across the mountain from Southside. This is a trendy and well to do neighborhood, one of the three Mountain Brook Villages, where people tend to have more money than God. We were greeted by a rail-thin woman who must be in her fifties wearing a lacy tri-colored tulle tutu – bare legs to the world – topped with an ill-fitting sparkly sequin and glitter halter/bra type thing with an open back and plenty of side-boob. Add to this a hat that looked like a synchronized swimmer’s swim cap crossed with a beehive constructed from tissue paper and faux flowers, and it looked like an abomination Princess Beatrice would wear to a royal function. Compare for yourself:

In one word: Hatastrophe.
This I would learn was Carole, the woman in charge. The proprietor of the restaurant and bakery that were sponsoring – and have always sponsored – Springalingadingdong. In fact, Springalingadingdong was her brainchild. Meredith knew her, and has known her for quite some time, but Carole seems to always forget that.

“I’m Carole,” she said shaking Meredith’s hand after she had complimented Meredith’s outfit and given her a huge hug. Meredith, being the only one of the pirates (that’s what I’m calling us now) to have ever been to Springalingadingdong had dressed for the occasion. She was in a skirt made from faux flowers with a corseted camisole on top. When I first saw Meredith, I thought it was a crazy outfit, and then I saw Carole, and then I saw Carole’s friend… (At least I’m assuming their friends. Hell, they may be Conjoined twins attached at the crazy.) She looked like what can be best described as Bozo the clown does granny drag. She’s the one on the left directly across from the kneeling and horrified 12 year old boy in the pantaloons and gypsy kerchief. But neither of those could compare to the chicken lady. (As you can see, during the parade, she actually pulled around a chicken.)
The costumes would have been enough crazy to last for at least two days, but then came the parade. And how do parades always begin? If you answered with candy thrown from floats or marching bands or dance teams, you are sadly mistaken. At Springalingadingdong, parades always begin with the ritualistic beheading of Marie Antoinette.

They put a costumed and masked woman on trial as Marie Antoinette. Carole leads this trial, and there are plenty of references to school extending into summer, Wonder bread, and I think taxation. She holds up placards leading to crowd into participatory dialogue.
After she’s been sentenced, they prepare the guillotine, and a curtain is drawn over Marie so “children won’t see the beheading.” Then once the blade falls, the mask-less head is revealed upon a stretcher (it’s carefully concealing the woman’s body beneath it), and the reanimated zombie head of Marie Antoinette begins to sing. She is now the May Queen welcoming Spring.
The next thing you know, there’s a five person marching band playing, and Carole begins leading a parade singing: “Springalingadingdong Springalingadingdong we love you!” And if you put that to the tune of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” you win the prize. Anyway there are large puppets: a cloud, a satyr, a weird looking woman smoking a cigarette, and the two people from American Gothic. Remember this all makes sense in someone else’s brain.

Also remember, this may seem like a children’s event (I definitely thought it was primarily geared for children until we got there), and while children do enjoy it; it was clearly intended for adults. It is a chance for adult women – one in particular – to parade around town in ridiculous outfits while singing songs in high pitched voices, to participate in pie eating and baguette tossing competitions, and to behead Marie Antoinette. This year the event was divided into two: a ritual and parade in the morning along with a ritual and parade in the evening, sandwiching drinking in between. (We’re thinking the drag queens are probably attending this evening.) It is the epitome of “Why Not?” And it is terrifying. Truthfully, I’m still not sure what happened. But I do know three things: 1) I wasn’t nearly drunk enough (I was stone cold sober). 2) I’m pretty sure it’s against my religion. 3) I can’t wait to attend next year.