june 2021
We started the month off still in Brooklyn, NY, awaiting a deluge of visits from family members anxious to get their New York City fix one last time before we departed. I'm writing to you now from the couch in our new temporary apartment in Minneapolis, Minnesota and boy, are my arms tired.
That's not my shitty phone camera, that's the heat blasting the color off of NYC.
Abuelita, daddy Jose and Diego's step-mommy, Alessandra, visited us for the first weekend of June and that weekend stands out because it was fucking hot and we didn't have an air conditioner. Still, we made the most of it and it was really nice to spend time checking out Brooklyn Flea down by the Brooklyn Bridge park, and watching Abuelita befriend the Salvadoreño who worked at Superfine. On Monday morning, after sweating all night and waking up at 5am, I proceeded to Lowe's Home Improvement to buy an air conditioner that we would have for exactly 23 more days before leaving in our apartment hallway on June 30. More on that to come!
Titi, Idela, Diegita
The following weekend, Diego's mom and sister visited and it was not 100 degrees, which made everything a lot more enjoyable. We continued on our food tour of Brooklyn by eating everything in sight.
I found out I passed all 4 of my exams necessary for my teaching license in Minnesota, which is good news because having a job is apparently important! And having a teaching license to do that job is ...also important.
On June 16, we realized it was Tito's 2 year adoption anniversary and we celebrated by realizing it was June 16. You don't understand - we aren't terrible pet parents - we were just very busy.
Tito's reaction to stress 99% of the time. The other 1%? Explosive diarrhea.
In between the visits and license tests, I was packing about 2 boxes a day before being "too exhausted" to continue. Diego was still working full-time and I had finally gotten in my long-awaited Moxi Rainbow Rider Roller Skates and was using all my remaining free time alternately roller skating at LeFrak Center and sitting my aching, old, out-of-shape muscles on a couch.
Our last night out in Brooklyn for the drag show!
On June 17, we went to eat at one of my all-time favorite Brooklyn restaurants, Bunna Cafe before going to see a Lady Gaga tribute drag show at the Sultan Room. The Sultan Room was the last place we went to in 2020 for an Adeline show on my birthday before the world shut down. It would be the first, only, and last place we went for a night out in Brooklyn in 2021 and it was perfectly fitting because this show was e-v-e-r-y-THING, henny! Our main priority was to see the Charlene Incarnate, a drag performer so legendary I command you to YouTube her and see for yourself. Also, if you've seen the documentary Wig, you've seen Charlene. Not only did I hear over 50 Lady Gaga songs blaring, in an actual club, without actual masks (fully vaxxed crowd), I saw 6 tremendous drag queens lip-sync to every one of them! This sober old granny does not go to bars much anymore, but this one night seriously filled me up for the next 20 years. I am so glad we got to go out for that night, it was legendary!
That weekend, we met up with Alex and Lindsay and Tom for the first of our goodbyes. Life has been so busy and we've been in this panorama panini pandemonium pandemi for so long, it was more of a catch-up than a goodbye, but I think that suited us all well because goodbyes really suck. More on that later.
I went up to Cold Spring, NY to see my high school bestie who moved upstate recently from Portland. I figured I'm leaving New York, so why not twist the knife a little harder? It was so amazing to see her and to pick right up where we left off and just talk and share and be there with each other for a few hours. I felt so restored by it, and doing all the reflecting I've been doing about the friends and folks who have come in and out of my life in New York helped remind me that friendship never ends, if that's the way you want it. I hope we stay connected more closely after this visit.
Mom loves a Pride t-shirt!
Then, my mom came to visit one last time under the auspices of helping us pack. But she really just wanted to wear her Pride t-shirts and eat at Red Hook Lobster Pound and Brooklyn Crab. I was happy to oblige because mom always picks up the check! But seriously, she did help us pack so much. Without her, the literal nightmare of moving would have been...probably death-inducing. My mom likes to gawk, and I mean truly gawk, so as you can imagine she loves New York. I realized once and for all that I am truly a New Yorker because I'm so desensitized to the scenes that I'm more offended by her gawking than say, a person freely peeing on the street. We are grateful to Libbie and we are always learning to accept and love her for the precious angel she is, gawking and all.
That Friday, I drove her to the airport and then drove to Coney Island for a final goodbye picnic with my students and Kassie, my teacher friend. When I say goodbyes really suck, this is what I'm talking about. Those brats held me to my promise that I'd do a backflip at the end of the year (video evidence below!) Everything was going fine until all my defenses were finally ground down and I just completely lost it when I realized that I wouldn't be seeing them again, in-person, and I wouldn't be seeing any of my other New York loved ones, either. I full-on sobbed, and then I got in my car and played the Spice Girls Goodbye and I sobbed some more. Then, I drove home and I sat on the floor and I sobbed for two more hours until Diego came home and looked at me and said "Are you okay?" I was okay, and I like to say "in full possession of my feelings." That's what I do these days, I sob instead of drink, and it works for the most part.
For our final days, we were able to visit Lindsay and Tom and their daughter Bea one last time in their brand new Brooklyn home which we won't get to enjoy except as visitors. It was so nice to be able to play with Bea and wish each other well on the next step in our lives journeys.
Then, we saw Alex one last time in our last night in our apartment before she flew off to the UK to start her next step. We commiserated over how much moving sucks and we wished each other well on the next steps in our journeys. It was all real happy and sad.
Trying to decide if it's too late to back out of this decision.
Then, moving day was here and it was Hell on earth. Not only was it 96 fucking degrees, but we realized that not everything was going to make it with us, despite U-Haul's advertisements that a 10' truck could fit everything in our apartment AND having an entire car to fill up and tow on our cross-country trek. We both were in catatonic stupors by the time 3:30pm rolled around, almost all of my beloved plants on the sidewalk, abandoned, as well as multiple items of beautiful and precious furniture collected and treasured by Diego over many years at the store. We had to leave them all, and then we had to drive in rush-hour traffic through New York City to get the hell out and into Pennsylvania.
And we did, somehow. We made it to Pennsylvania, but we didn't make it to the city where I had booked a nonrefundable room, which was still 3 hours away at 9pm. I knew we couldn't make it so we needed to find somewhere closer. How did I know? Well, this was all decided after stopping a few minutes earlier to let Tito continue his stress-induced explosive diarrhea-spree on the side of highway I-80. When we lifted to return him to the U-Haul, we noticed at least 12 ticks on his stomach and legs. And a few on our legs. So, we really went out with a bang, and maybe even some Lyme disease! So, we settled for a Red Roof Inn in Goddess knows where. That was June 30, 2021.
Would we wake up alive? Would we make it to friggin Ohio, let alone Minnesota? (I guess I already spoiled that in the first paragraph of this entry...) The rest of our journey and the status of our new lives in Minnesota will have to wait until next month's entry, because as I said before, boy, are my arms tired.