Happy Birthday, Me
Today is my 51st birthday and I’m stuck in the airport in Cedar Rapids on this tour trying to get down to New Orleans. We’ve all got our nightmare travel stories so I’ll spare you my latest one. I just hope I get to New Orleans by 10 p.m. tonight. (Update: I made it to New Orleans at 12:43 a.m. and walked into my hotel room at 1:09 a.m.) I left my hotel this morning in Iowa City at 9:30 a.m. Do the math. Though math is the last thing I should be doing today as my years on this earth just added up to, yep, 51. But it’s a blessing. As is this tour. I keep repeating that as my mantra today as the announcements keep being made about our flight not taking off and my missing my connection in Chicago. (Another delay was announced just as I typed that last sentence.)
Let’s see. What’s happened since last I posted. I went to Fairhope, Alabama, to read at Page and Palette bookstore, a wonderful store in a wonderful town on the gulf. Fairhope was founded in the 1890s as a socialist uptopian experiment and it retains its artsy fartsy allure for a certain sort of southerner. The owners of the store there and the people who came to hear me read and buy books could not have been nicer. It’s a beautiful place and I suggest you check it out - and Page and Palette as well - if you’re ever in the vicinity. It’s a very welcoming place.
The next morning I got up to fly to Iowa. It’s my first visit here. As my plane approached the airport in Cedar Rapids, the quilt of farmland laid out beneath me was quite beautiful, the landscape dotted with silos and old farmhouses. Iowa City could not have been lovelier - on lots of levels. The town itself is quaint and funky and the town seems to be a campus since there are so many students roaming around from the University of Iowa located there. I was flattered to be invited to read at Prairie Lights Bookstore since the Iowa Writers Workshop is like a mecca for serious writers and I always fantasized as a young writer about being accepted there. (All you Christianists out there hold your fire - I’m using the word mecca as a figurative compliment.) An old boyfriend of mine, Steve Nelson, went to Iowa Workship and lived in Iowa for a while and I couldn’t help but think of him when I landed here. Steve came out of the closet in the early 1990s when he arrived in New York City. I was one of the first men with whom he’d ever been physically intimate. He was an amazing playwright who was influenced by Albee and Beckett. He died of AIDS before his 30th birthday, an ending that Albee and Beckett combined could not have written in the tragic absurdity of such a loss. (And no, I didn’t infect him. I didn’t convert to HIV positive until many years later.) I’ve thought of him so much these last two days while here. He was a gentle spirit and so talented and, yes, sexy in that corn-fed way of folks around these parts. I miss him every time I go to the theatre in New York. And I’ve missed him, achingly so, these last 36 hours while I’ve been in Iowa. Thinking of Steve, made me say a prayer this morning for Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow and all the brave souls who are not as famous as they are who are battling all kinds of diseases with dignity and strength. It puts a book tour and Amazon numbers in perspective. (My Amazon numbers, alas, are losing traction but I trust you’ll keep telling your friends to order my book there or keep ordering it yourself - or buying it at your favorite local store - as a gift for other people. That would be the best gift you could give me: giving my book to others.) Speaking of numbers that are more important than those on Amazon, I got my blood work done before my tour started - those who’ve been reading this blog since I started already knew that I’m HIV positive even before I mentioned it above - and my meds are still working, thank God. Literally: thank God. My viral load is still undetectable and my t-cells are up around 700. All the other blood work proved I’m really, really healthy for a now 51 year old man. Each day is a blessing. Though when you’re stuck in an airport on your birthday it’s hard to think of this particular one as such. But it is.
Oh: I had a nice time last night with some of the people who came to my reading at Prairie Lights. I was getting some cash out of a ATM machine when I heard my name called. They asked if I had plans - I didn’t - so we went to a local coffee place and visited. They could not have been nicer to me and fun to hang with so a shout out to Anne and Alan and Rory and Jay. Jay is a great photographer - Google him at Jay Diers - and see his work. He’s got a sexy book out called Raw Youth. Buy it and see some of the local talent he’s discovered here.
I went back to my hotel last night - the Hotel Vetro owned by the Moen Group, a real estate concern run by the goodlooking blonde-headed Bobby Jett, who also came to my reading. A shout out to Bobby. The Vetro is an oasis of chic in Iowa City; it’s beautifully appointed with a great sushi restaurant downstairs. The Vetro had the most comfortable bed I’ve had on my tour so far and I fell fast asleep - the first time I’ve rested well this whole trip - and dreamt of Archie, my dog. Steve Nelson was holding Archie and looking happy and healthy and wholesomely sexy - in the way of all Iowans it would seem - just like he looked the first time I ever laid eyes on him in New York back in those gay ’90s all our own when he waited on me at The Bagel on West Fourth Street in Greenwich Village, lingering next to me after I ordered scrambled eggs and bacon and I felt my heart race faster the first time I noticed his presence. I can feel it race faster right now remembering that moment. I can still feel his presence. You rest well, too, Steve. Rest well.
March 28th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
KS,
Best wishes to you on your special day. Try not to feel too bad about spending - or wasting? - it in an airport. (A few years ago I spent - or wasted - mine in surgery.) Celebrate tomorrow.
The Iowa Writers Workshop is where my Emerson College freshperson poetry professor whom I quoted in an earlier comment on your blog (”The world is not waiting for your poetry.”) studied. His name’s Peter Shippy - mayhaps you’ve read some of his work?
By the way: Have you received the couple of e-mails I sent you in response to the couple of e-mails you’d sent me, or do you receive only comments posted on your blog? I responded to your e-mails right to you personally because I felt uneasy about posting the somewhat personal contents as comments on your blog for public consumption.
May you have many more sets of 525,600 minutes, measuring your life not in Amazon or t-cell numbers but in love…
RS
March 28th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
It was a delight to meet you and be simplistic. thank you.
here is annes blog
http://zorahenry.blogspot.com/
Jay D
March 28th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Claim those birthdays, Kevin. Celebrate them fully. You are just getting your second wind. I am sorry you have the extra challenge, healthwise, which you told us about today and earlier, in a February blog. So grateful, though, that there are meds which work so well for many people, and that they contributed to the good numbers you related.
Bummer about the airport and weather. Happy landings to you in New Orleans. The Tennessee Williams Festival…that sounds exciting, and the presenters are some of the great ones, right along with you. A request: share as many photos from the tour as you are able to do. We love them. We love you. Don’t sweat the milestones. We are all aging at the same rate. One breath at a time. I happened to get almost a quarter-century head start on you, but those stats are insignificant.
March 28th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
I would first like to thank you again for putting our lill’ I-O-way town on your schedule of book tour stops. Also, how nice of you to join us for coffee (juice, ice-tea). It will truly be remembered as a highlight of my young adult life. To be able to say that I once sat at the same table as a great American writer, you are an inspiration. Sorry for having my nose in your rear (maybe you don’t mind!), but truly I believe this. This book could not have come at a better time for me.
As a young gay man growing up in a conservative small Midwestern community it was easy for me to fall into a cycle of self destructive behavior which ultimately led to a deep depression. Slowly I’ve been climbing back out of it, and for good reason, things in my life are really turning around and I feel as if I owe some of this new found elation to you. I have read a lot of books in the past, but none have spoken to me as much as this one. I sound like a cliché but really I was blown away, and devoured your story in just a few short hours. Your overwhelming since of survival and hope will be something I can look up to as I try and find my own voice through art, and life. (I’m a painter and art history fanatic)
Last night lying in bed I thought of all the things I was after, and not achieving and how when Matty-May was out picking cotton or doing chores she used the mantra “Poitier-Poitier-Poitier”, now stop me of this sounds a little to indulgent, but I came up with something that can help me along, and use your story for inspiration. I started saying Sessums-Sessums-Sessums. I’ve never really had a gay male role-model, and well you are now my 1st! (You took my role model virginity!)
Mr. Sessums you give me hope, and show me that there are bigger things out there to obtain. That I can go after my goals again. Life is as painful as it is pleasurable, and we all experience this at different ratios, but the thing we have in common is that we all have the ability to heal and grow. You taught me that. After so long of feeling isolated, lost, and pigeonholed your spirit and story has finally given me motivation to change, and get on with my life, and go after what it is I want. I can’t wait, and again much thanks. There are so much more things I’d like to say but I should actually get back to work. Thanks and I wish you safe travels!
Ps… and please come back when you write your next book! ….oh and my boss didn’t find out!
March 28th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Happy 51st, Kevin! And stop calling yourself old. Imagine how it makes those of us who are your senior feel.
At your suggestion, I did order a copy of MS for my closest friend, who lives in New Orleans.
I was in Minneapolis over the weekend and recommended the book to several people there. They were already aware of it.
March 28th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Crap i forgot… HAPPY BIRTHDAY! hope you get out of our airport with your sanity.
March 28th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
I have you so many birthday presents you wouldn’t believe it.
March 30th, 2007 at 9:57 am
happy new year
March 30th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Happy Bday kiddo!
April 12th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Happy belated b’day. It was great seeing you in Jackson a few weeks ago after all these years. I bought a copy of your book and have finished reading it now. Your narrative gives me a deeper insight to the Kevin I once knew so many years ago. I still have a copy of the French song we did once upon a time if you’re ever interested in listening to it again and reminiscing. I know you’re a busy guy but you also seem very down to earth and true to your roots as well. Rapellez tous les souvenirs! Bonne chance and best wishes to you in all your endeavors. I would love to hear back from you again some time.
April 7th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Your warm, touching, funny memoir touched my southern heart. I could wait not to leave North Carolina, and did so in 1980. I was heading to Seattle but visited with friends in San Francisco and decided to stay. Although I have been away from the south for a long time, I always take great pleasure in reading other southerner’s memories of south. Although their life experiences are always different than mine, there is always an essence that touches my heart, and triggers memories of a past life. Your memoir in particular had that effect. I was a southern sissy too, just not so assertive and with a later start date for my sex life, damn it.