The Anatomy of a Beautiful Day: Part 2

While I walk the streets over to the bus stop, a rare occasion occurs: I get to talk to my sister Ashley for a while. See, me and my youngest sister are only 5 years apart, where my other 2 sisters are each at least 16 years older than me. So although I enjoy talking to them when I can, it is almost second nature for me to go without hearing from them for somewhat long spans of time. We barely even grew up in the same house, maybe for a year or two before they were off in college, living entirely separate lives from me, while I was back in Indiana undergoing potty-training and learning what play-doh tastes like. Me and Ashley are close enough in age that we always felt like siblings, complete with slumber parties in tents made of old sheets and bedroom furniture, heavily prepared for and outlandishly dangerous “expeditions” into the far reaches of our basement (yes, we called them that), and of course, an exceedingly healthy dose of sibling rivalry (we each have the scars to prove it). But despite that (or perhaps because of it), we are always there for each other. So, now that we are both adults, working and fighting our way through this spinning orb, we don't really get to talk as much as we used to. For a long time it was physical time that worked against us: I live in DC and she was living in San Francisco, so for the longest time our few free waking hours never seemed to match up. Nowadays, though, we have other obstacles in our way. I am working or recovering from working, and she is not only working, but she now has a husband and stepson to boot. So, on those rare occasions that our free time aligns, I like to bask in it, just take a moment and look into the life of a person that for so long I shared a bedroom with. Unfortunately for me, my sister chooses to talk about whatever is on her mind. Normally, this would not be a bad idea, but this time she's educating me on a tragic story regarding a man who moved in with a woman, slept with her and impregnated all of her daughters, and then brainwashed them all, only to end with a crazy suicide pact. Let's just say that our conversation ended with me feeling less than heartwarmed needless to say. As excited as I was to talk to her, I wasn't that sad when I got an opportunity to end the conversation; she was on a roll and there wasn't going to be any stopping her. From there, I trudged up 7th Street, and although my legs were hurting so bad that I was ready to leave them there on the street and crawl up the damn hill, I made it to the movie theater where I was meeting my friend Steven for a matinee. When I originally planned my day I had no idea that I would spend my morning rollerblading only to then see a film about a girl who joins a roller derby. But when I realized it, as I was on the bus headed to the National Mall, I figured that it was ironic enough to be awesome. We both thoroughly enjoyed the film, and from there, planned to head home; him to his boyfriend and me to my.......yeah.......
So instead, I decided that to stall going home for as long as I could, so I convinced Steven to come with me to DuPont Circle and we got some frozen yogurt and chatted a while about how we spent our Saturdays. Steven told me about his adventures in the Big Apple, and I told him about my epic journey, spending the afternoon with my oldest sister who lives out here and her 2 yr old, trying to find her some new pants. I think that it was clear who had the more exciting day.......I'll give you a hint: it wasn't the one with a bottomless 2 year old and her mother.

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Later that day, I headed out to spend the evening at my friend Ricky's house for his innagural Game Night. So, as I packed the two board games that I own into my bookbag (with Ricky, you never know) and headed out to catch the bus when I got a call. It was Ricky. For a brief moment, I was actually nervous that he was calling to ask where I was; it was about 5:40, and it was scheduled to start at 6. “hey, what time are you planning on leaving for my house?” “I'm headed to the bus right now” “Ok, well don't go to my house, because I'm not there. *insert silly grown man giggle*” “Ok, so where are you?” “Up the street from you at Target getting stuff for the party” “Alright, I'll come meet you there.”
So I begin to walk up the street, with game board pieces jingling in my bookbag like unidentified suspicious contraband. When I arrive at Target, he tells me that he's on the second floor. Ok, I tell myself, let's check the electronics section. Not there. Kitchen appliances and utensils. Not there either.I basically try to rule out all options before I go to the place where I already know where he is: it's 6pm, the time that his party was scheduled to start, on the night of the Game Night Party. So where is he? At Target, buying the board games. When I run into him, he is buying busy trying to find out which games to buy. So we do a little party shopping and a little boy cruising (the Target in Columbia Heights is alwas good for that) then head out to arrive fashionably late for his own party. We meet up with some of his other friends and eventually sit down to begin the evening. After spending a few minutes discussing the fact that he keeps his porn collection intermixed with his regular films (“How can you keep Thugzilla next to Life is Beautiful??”) we sit down and decide to watch Fame instead of playing games, seeing as how it's now 8:30pm, and we all have to work tomorrow. Later once the lesbian quotient arrives we switch to playing Taboo – insert obvious joke about lesbians loving to use their mouths – but for that short while, it was just us guys (gay black men) sitting around on a friend's bed watching Leroy straddle the line between 80's manwhore and obvious queen. We laughed when a girl pretends to kill herself and instead just switches her course of study, and become annoyed with the sad lonely gay boy (“If I see one more movie where the solitary gay boy either dies of AIDS, suicide, or is just sad all the damn time I'm gonna choke someone!”), and just enjoyed eachother's company. It was just nice to feel like this was the usual for us. And I secretly hoped, since I'll be around more, that it would be.