Strange Days

The Newbie
Originally uploaded by Tokyorosa

A photo of The Newbie sent via cell phone from my niece.

Strange

It's been a strange week, kinda. A couple of days ago--Monday, actually---I was walking Crunch in the park near Judi's house. The street was closed because there was filming for an upcoming TV movie going on, but the park was open. At the park, Crunch went to poop and I got a bag out of my pocket to pick up the poop and a big, tall transvestite in an ugly, blond wig and a mauve pantsuit got out of a nearby car and thanked me for picking up Crunch's poop. I felt like such a good little citizen after that. I walked home with visions of some government program that hires transvestites to monitor parks and make sure that dog owners clean up after their dogs. I was telling my fabulous workout partner Kelly about my idea and how I thought the transvestites would sit in the park in those chairs that lifeguards use and she said, "Yeah! And they could have air horns like lifeguards only theirs would sound like 'woop-woop'!"

That day at the gym, there was some guy working out in black short shorts (and I mean short shorts), a black t-shirt, black combat boots, and dark sunglasses. He had these dangly gold earrings in his ears and was so glaringly, flamingly gay that he actually scared off almost every straight man in the gym. (Or actually, maybe he did scare off every straight man in the gym. I don't know.) Seriously. Kelly could not look away from him, and she was, like, "Did you see that guy?" I was, like, "Yeah, that guy's a parrot and an eye-patch away from living the dream."

Then, let's see, strange stuff. Oh, yeah:

Then there was this roly-poly guy in chinos and a blue polo shirt and sunglasses in the park (this is today) with a metal detector and a goddamn little garden implement for digging up the park. He was like a human gopher or something, leaving little holes all over the place. I wanted to get a big glue trap and trap him. He was a little stranger than the old guy with the black standard poodle. The poodle was very cool, though. Very: I'm tough. I'm black. I'm a poodle. That's right, I'm a tough black poodle. She played with Crunch for a little bit.

And then on the way home, I ended up walking Crunch all the way around the block to avoid this guy who was at the curb, leaning over his bicycle, yelling strange things like, "Five more minutes!" Yeah. Not getting involved in an argument between a man and his bike. He did actually stand there for at least five more minutes. (I watched him through the window after we were home and safely inside.)

Then there was yoga, where everyone laughed at my butt, at a joke I made about it.