BAE BOY

10

If you have a family, be glad, is all I'm saying. No matter what. Because I lost mine. And I'll always be a little bit nuts because of it. Maybe seriously psycho, some would say, but I'm working on it.

That day, I did feel pretty crazy, though. Because I realized I almost couldn't stand being alone with my own thoughts. I tried watching TV, but...forget it. I'm just not a TV sort of guy at all. And being forced to try just out of boredom was torture.

I finally watched this one soap opera for a few minutes just because I couldn't believe anyone else ever did. I mean, it's so totally fake. And everything's a big effin' deal. Somebody sneezes, it's like, "Oh, my God, do you think it's...a brain tumor?"

I made a mental note to scare the shit out of everybody by talking the way they do when they came back later. You know, all dramatic, like my life depended on every sentence.

Like, "No, don't! Don't touch that pillow! If you touch that pillow, I'll die! I swear I will!"

That's how stir crazy I was. Coming up with stupid ideas like that.

But then, God answered my unspoken prayers.

The only other person in the world who could upstage gold ice cream and make the world it came from seem "prosaic" swooped in with a loud, "Ho, ho, ho!"

And lobbed a whole handful of glittery confetti in the shape of teeny little red and green Christmas trees into the air.

I laughed and sat up and said, "Who you callin' a hoe, bish?"

And Joie—DiVivre is the rest of the name—gasped and said, "How dare you? Santa's watching!"

That was kinda over the top, too, actually. But not soapish. And I was too glad to see her/him to care.

So I threw my arms open real wide and s/he came over, planted a big red lipstick kiss on my nose and said, "And how dare you be sick at the worst possible time! My Christmas show is ruined!"

I was about to reassure her/him—let's end this all this gender confusion and just go with "she"--I got a glimpse of her fingernails. Which were little Christmas ornaments. Seriously, like someone had cut wee little toy ones in half and glued them to her nails. And each one was different, too. And absolutely perfect.

So I caught a hand and said, "Wow. Even for you, this is wild."

And she said, "You love?"

"I'm...speechless."

I shouldn't have been. Except that Joie's sort of two people at once. Three, actually. And you never know which one she'll show up as.

Like, by day if you saw Joie at some restaurant with business people or something, she'd just be a remarkably well-dressed woman having a spirited, multiple martini lunch. She's always snatched. Head to toe. Turns heads wherever she struts.

But around close friends and at her club—more on that later--the Queen comes out. And that day she turned it up to "stun" because she knows I like her campy side. She's another "mother" in my "adoptive" family. Worse than Aisha sometimes. Very protective and handsy.

However, just to confuse you even more, she's David Bowie fine in male mode. I love that, too. When the girls need a male "escort" to some big adult entertainment event, they take "Beau."

Her real name is Beauregard Prendergast. I wish I was kidding. She had to change that shit, right? But anyway, she's rock star hot as a guy. All the women stare and sidle up. It's ridiculous.