Iowa, Pride and Step Aerobics

Veronique and I went to the moderately large Miami Pride on Saturday afternoon. I was already tired by the time I got there because I'd spent all morning at the beach picking up garbage with my girls and hollering at my girls to Stay-closer-pick-up-garbage-stop-climbing-the-trees-put-the-spine-down followed by an epic game of kick the can and parked a thousand miles away from the actual party. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but it was at least 859 miles away as experienced by my tired feet. It took me nearly 2 hours to walk around and meet up with Veronique.

We walked down to the park on the land side of the dunes where the party takes place. Somehow I've never been to an actual pride parade and I always miss the one in Miami because the organizers don't recognize that I have a standing commitment to take my girls to Baynanza every year. Veronique says that we should organize a Gay-Nanza to take place before the parade so that those of us who have to spend the morning picking up garbage won't miss the festivities. I think it's a good idea. Anyway, so I can't comment on the parade but I can say that the after party is kind of lame. At least around 4pm it's lame. There are a bunch of booths set up that are offering things like free-porn catalogs or an opportunity to sign up for email lists. Somehow these boring booths combined with $6 beers and $8 mixed drinks are a large enough pull to get a few thousand people to pack into the little sandy space between 14th and 13th street. And to take off their pants and shirts. Maybe it's the excitement from the parade that carries them over into the boring expo and keeps them hoping that something exciting will happen again. Whatever it is, I wasn't feeling it.

I was enjoying the preponderance of Lady Gaga that was being blasted from every available speaker. We were lucky enough to catch a dance troupe of women in bikinis acting out the hot moves from Lady Gaga's videos. I think they were called the Mmmgagas, but I could be wrong because a drunk guy told me that. Maybe he was just slurring.

We walked around the expo for a while and ran into a few people we knew.
"Oooh! Hi! What are you doing here?" Us.
"Oh, you know...walking around." Them.
"Us too! Isn't it crazy that we saw each other here?" Us.
"Yeah, Totally" Them.

Then we stare at eachother for a moment before,
"Uh, well okay see you later" All together.


My big adventure of the day was the public bathroom on 14th street. I think somehow the lady in the stall next to me was so drunk that she peed on my foot. I don't want to talk about that though, really. Veronique found a boa on the ground and wore it around for a few minutes before she decided that Drag Queen wasn't the right look for her and left it draped across a newspaper box.

We went and ate some tacos and bought Laura a keychain. Veronique told me that I had to because Laura was feeling bad about being left home alone. Laura over extended herself on her bike ride that morning. When I came home from the beach clean up she was passed out on the bed in her bike-outfit, twitching a little. She wanted to come to pride but couldn't get off the couch. She's fine now. Veronique knows a little bit about biking because she has ridden across the whole state of Iowa. We were trying to figure out if anyone actually cares about Iowa and my long time readers will note that Iowa and I have a longstanding love-hate relationship (see Hamburg). We decided that no one actually cares about Iowa because no one writes songs about Iowa. Except Ani and Dar, but I wouldn't say they're widely known as Iowa-Songwriters.

Here's the lyrics to the Iowasong by Ani.

"4th of july" by Ani DiFranco

you gotta have the right tools
for every job
so i invite myself in
through a hole in the fence
i am tripping through the junkyard
scanning over the piles
the thin cats raise their skin in defense
i know he's watching me
i can see him through the cracks
his eyes are small and shy on my back
he says his name is jason
he lives in the last trailer on the right
and he'll be seven
on the fourth of july

only the people who live here
know the name of this place
my path through iowa would be
hard to trace
all the adults in this town
try not to frown
when i walk by
but jason smiled at me
he met my eye

he don't ask me
where i'm from
or why i came
here alone
we all go looking for paradise
then we go back home
we cut out the small talk
go right to the way things are
he showed me his squirrel skull
i told him i locked myself out of my car

so there goes the only friend
i have in iowa
his hand flapping behind him
waving good-bye
his name is jason
he lives in the last trailer on the right
and he'll be seven
on the fourth of july

Ani DiFranco Lyrics brought to you by danah boyd since 1995

I really like the "We all go looking for paradise and then we go back home" line. This song is off Puddle Dive which came out in 1993. This song was probably written somewhere between 1991-1992 and I'm assuming that 1. The story is true and 2. the events took place close to the time the song was written. Based on those assumptions and these complex calculations "2010 - (Possible Year of Story - 7) = Age of Jason" I've concluded that he is turning either 25 or 26 this year on 4th of July. If he exists, he's approximately the same age as me. I have often wondered what happened to Jason, who lives in the last trailer on the right. Does he know that he is prominently featured in an Ani song about acceptance and innocence?

I'm sure Ani reads this blog. If you would be so kind Ani, please let me know which town in Iowa you were passing through and what year and then I'm sure it would be relatively easy to track Jason down. I'll interview him, get back to you, and then you can write the 20-years-later- update-on-Jason song. That would be neat

BUT I DIGRESS.

Sunday morning I went to Step Aerobics, as I am wont to do. It was the hardest step aerobics class I've ever been to. Not because it was actually hard but mostly because it was boring (you should hear the stupid music that Ms. Tuesday.Thursday.Sunday plays), I was exhausted and I had the misfortune of standing behind Mr. Shortshorts.

The rigors of my day Saturday had left me completely exhausted and every squat ticktock and jump shot was an exercise in pure willpower. This was compounded by the fact that one should NEVER do step aerobics in short shorts. There are a lot of lunges and squats and stuff, you know? I will spare my poor readers from a more detailed description..but lets just say it is super hard to do step aerobics with your eyes closed, which I was forced to do. Luckily Mr. Shortshorts left half way through. Maybe he felt a breeze?


That's all for today, hope you stuck it through to the end.