Bring Your Own Chicken

Okay:

So, I work at a level 5 special education school. The student body is one hundred percent black and brown. The staff is a bit more diverse, but not much. One of my white co-workers--a coffee-guzzling, marathon-running, cute little blond from Ohio--invited the entire staff to her birthday party on Friday.

The water cooler was all a-buzz: who's going to the white girl's party?

My homeboy Gill and I, adventurous progressive black men that we are, were among the first to RSVP. For the most part, we were looking for free beer and a good laugh. We got heavy doses of both.

Having worked in restaurants for five years, I had been to many a white party and felt confident that I knew what to expect. Gill, on the other hand, had had limited contact with white people up until this point and was curious to see how the other side lived. I appointed myself his unofficial tour guide and translator of all things white.

"They don't party like us," I warned. "You'll see."

The party was at her house in Arlington, minutes away from the Pentagon. She shares the house with two roommates. None of them are over thirty, but the place is clean and maturely furnished as if a real family lives there. Upon entering her living room I remember thinking to myself, "Wow, my apartment is a real shithole."

Of course there were dogs. One boxer and one Labrador. They both had beds in front of the television. "This," I whispered to Gill, "is definitely a white thing. We make our dogs sleep outside or in the basement."

Then we were led outside to the backyard, a spacious open field complete with tiki torches, a hammock, a swing and a stone fireplace. There was a table with an assortment of chips and dip, but no hot food. I remember being slightly annoyed by this. "What? No chicken?!" I thought, but was glad I hadn't said it out loud.

I wanted to though. For "some reason" I was famished.

There was a drinking game going on at another table. It combined beer shooters with some sort of physical challenge involving plastic cups. Even after our host explained the rules twice, the second time very slowly, for "some reason" I still did not understand and declined to participate. It just seemed like a very complicated way to get drunk. "Where is the keg?" I asked.

Gill and I found the keg and a private corner of the party from which to sit and observe. It was noted that we were the only black people there and that the white people there all looked healthy and happy. No one was overweight or belligerent. Everyone was getting along famously. If someone had been grossly obese, missing a limb or shouting obscenities, I think we would have felt a lot more at ease. But this group was so goddamned homogeneous and friendly. It was like an Abercrombie & Fitch photo shoot. Although there was a lot of shouting going on at the drinking game table, which we enjoyed.

Eventually some people people from work showed, but they were white too so they just kind of blended in.

"Hello, have we met?" I asked.

"We've been working together for two years."

"Oh," I said. "You look different without your glasses."

"I don't wear glasses."

"Yeah, well I'm kinda fucked up and there are just so many of you here."

There were some other interesting moments. At some point they played "Pour Some Sugar On Me" which I guess is to be expected. The police came responding to a report of loud music. There was a twenty minute conversation about eighties hair bands in which I learned that the drummer from Def Leopard lost his arm in a tour bus accident but continued to play with the band until they broke up. Other things happened, but, you know, the beer was free.

We made it back to Washington safely and the next morning the host sent me a text message thanking me. It said simply, "Thanks for coming" but I read in the subtext "Thanks for being the only black people at the job brave enough to come to my party."

I texted her back: "If u wnt mre blk ppl 2 cme nxt tme hav chkn."

Thanks for reading.

Tip of the day: Do not wear condoms made in China. Apparently, they have been using lead-based spermicidal lubricant.

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5000.

The Modern Dating Scene's Dirty Little Secret

Okay:

So, those of us who are single are fairly familiar with this phenomenon. Those of us who are not may shake our heads in collective dismay at this startling reality.

Herpes is really, really, really common.

Why am I writing about this? I was with a friend of mine yesterday. This friend of mine is an adult film enthusiast. According to him, one of his favorite starlets announced recently that not only does she have a scorching case of herpes, but that ninety-some-odd percent of the adult film industry is infected.

He was expecting my jaw to drop. He was expecting me to be in shock. Instead I shrugged my shoulders and offered an apathetic, "hmpf."

In disbelief he barked, "Did you hear what I said?"

"Yeah," I said. "And?"

"Are you serious?"

"Are you serious? These people have unprotected sex for a living. It stands to reason that they probably also have a lot of unprotected sex off-camera. Do you have any idea how common herpes is?"

In spite of all of those Valtrex commercials with happy people on swings in grassy meadows, giving testimonials with their uninfected lovers, he still was unaware of the epidemic that is a reality for single people. See, he has been dating the same woman for 15 years. The subject, luckily, has never come up. I have been single for most of my adult life and have come to accept the fact that lots of innocent, clean-looking people have The Bumps. I have been lucky enough to remain bump-free, but some of my friends have not been so lucky.

I learned this valuable lesson in college. I once dated a woman for a few weeks who, to her credit, told me about her condition before we slept together. Subsequently, we never slept together, but she is to commended for her forthrightness. Which brings up another interesting point.

The people I know who are infected, for the most part, continue to have casual (and sometimes unprotected) sex without letting their partners in on their little secret. Unless you're prepared to hang up your spurs on account of what amounts to a minor, rarely seen, and eventually forgettable inconvenience, what are you supposed to do? Tell every casual acquaintance about your condition? You might as well put an ad in the paper.

The flipside of that is slightly curiouser. The one friend I have who has all but quit the casual scene is always faced with the anxiety of when to tell that special someone, and how that special someone will react after being told. Surprisingly, never has anyone (and I do mean anyone) said, "It was nice getting to know you, but I don't think I can handle that."

This, I imagine, is how it spreads. But, really, what are these people to do? Join a convent or a herpes anonymous group and mate with other bumpers and make super bumps that are resilient to to the various pills, salves and ointments on the market? That might make my friend feel safe, but the reality of being single and "hooking up" in today's post-sexual revolution society is a bit darker than that.

So, for the record, I do not have The Bumps. Not that anything is wrong with that. It would be a disservice to those friends of mine to make it seem dirty when that simply isn't the case. But I guess it's like defending gay rights initiatives. The curious and simple-minded will always pose the question. These are the same people who read InTouch Weekly and watch reality television.
My friend, on the other hand, is distraught and is contemplating cleaning out his hard drive. I tried to explain to him that herpes is not that contagious, but, like I said, he's distraught.

Thanks for reading.

Correction: In my last blog, I mistakenly and ignorantly listed Jalal Talabani as the president of Iraq when I was in fact referring to Nouri al Maliki, the current prime minister. I was trying to be high-brow and made a boo-boo. I am humbled.

Tip of the day: Don't pick your nose while you're driving. You never know who might pull up next to you.

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Adios.