Despertar

my screen name says i lie when i'm drunk

My grandmother wants to know what a screen name is. Peeping over my shoulder, she murmurs to herself: "I know lie. I know drunk. Only thing I don't know is screen, name." She says it like it's two separate things, not recognizing it for a compound noun.

I like her. I'm not sure she likes me.

*

My Uncle Flash sips Wild Turkey from a flask he keeps in a holster on his belt. A literal hip flask. He is completely lucid, even when it's all gone. He breaks into song, tells me to applaud if he successfully channels Louis Armstrong. "What a Wonderful World." As drunk as he is, he sounds surprisingly like Louis Armstrong.

He orders me to put on my leather boots, teaches me a time step from his days as a professional tap dancer. He makes me do it over and over, clutching my hand with avuncular frustration, convinced I am purposely getting it wrong over and over. He throws in all kinds of little flourishes, tells me to wiggle my hips more. He demonstrates the finale, pantomimes pulling up an imaginary skirt.

Once I've satisfied him by faking my way through the step correctly, he sits down, out of breath, and smiles at me. Then he says this awkward thing: "[My mom's name] still looks good, don't she? I'm gonna call [my dad's name] and tell him you still look good, girl."

Someone corrects him; I'm me, not my mom, and I look good because I'm twenty-three, not fifty-two.

"I know who it is," he insists after another swig. "I'm just saying, [my mom's name] looks real good. Built like a brick house." My grandmother, aunt, uncle, cousin and great-aunt all laugh. It is incredibly embarrassing.

We are not actually related, thank God. Uncle Flash is my uncle by common-law marriage, the live-in boyfriend of my grandmother's senile sister. He takes care of her, dresses her, drives her back and forth to the doctor and indulges all her weird hallucinatory outbursts. The time she thought she saw her geriatric neurologist prowling around at her barred second-story window, he pulled out a flashlight and pretended to run outside to scare him away. He's a good partner, a good provider. If he creeps me out a little, I'll get over it.

*

I cannot imagine how love will ever bloom with cybersex available. If ejaculation is possible using only a computer monitor and a keyboard, what will 2060 look like? A bunch of unmarried seventy-five-year-olds stationed at their microscopic laptops, half-watching internet porn, messaging each other virtual memories? My Aunt Ernestine was, at one point, a hot young thing, a wild chocolate-brown babe with thick hips and a taste for gin gimlets. My Uncle Flash was a stallion; he liked to deck out in chains and gaudy rings and hit jazz clubs, probably swigging every so often from his whisky flask. Who couldn't be tied down, never wanted to get married.

Those were the people they were when they met each other; those are the people they see when they look into each other's clouded old eyes now. They don't see the cataracts, the leaky Depends.

My friend Brittany, who has never personally met the guy she gchats before she masturbates, says there's nothing missing in their "sexual relationship." That when she needs an image, she just superimposes Christian Bale's head onto David Beckham's body, and imagines George Clooney's voice speaking the words on the screen. She and Ken go through a bunch of formalities, pretend to talk about their days, their jobs and classes, till they've each had time to lock their doors and spread towels on their desk chairs. Then one of them invariably goes "So...what are you wearing?" And the fun begins. He lives in Houston, she in the District. She insists there is nothing wrong with this.

And there isn't, really, except that dancing in the kitchen with a delightful old drunk man kind of opens your eyes as to what's real and what isn't. Uncle Flash went his whole life, fell in and out of love dozens of times, probably laid hundreds of women, and has no use for imaginary girls on the other end of an internet connection.

It's actually really frightening, the more I think about it.

*

Just to round out the relevance, I'm going to take Jenn's first survey under influence of Thanksgiving chardonnay.

1. Do you have the ovaries to take this survey?
I have the time, the desire and the slight buzz.

2. Weed, coke, speed, crack, heroin, oxy, acid, x, k, peyote, mushrooms...of these, how many have you done?
One, with disappointing results.

3. Ever been cheated on?
Yes. Highly overrated.

4. Ever paid for sex?
Only in little favors. I once cooked chicken marsala with the determined expectation that it would result in sex.

5. Ever been married?
Only the once.

6. Ever been divorced?
It was never consummated, so they were kind enough to grant us an annulment.

7. If you had to pick one, what's your favorite sexual position?
I can't pick one. My favorite when we both have a lot of energy is when he sits up on his knees, turns me on my side, pulls my leg up parallel to his torso--there is nothing like it. My favorite when we're both really tired is spooning, small rhythmic movements, my knees pressed together.

8. Do you own any guns?
Only dese ones. (Tina is laughing, maybe.)

9. Ever done more than thirty days in jail?
No.

10. Ever been in rehab?
No.

11. Have you ever had any sexual experiences with the same sex?
Yeah. I firmly believe a woman's sexuality has way more to do with the roles everyone plays than it does with the physical being of her partner. No man is really that good-looking.

12. Ever have sex with anyone that you met on MySpace?
I have never not had sex with someone I met on MySpace.

13. Truthfully...size matters?
I don't know. I have a limited body of evidence, but I'm going to go with no. Justin isn't the biggest, but he is by far the best.

14. Do you think Arnold could beat up Chuck Norris?
No. Arnold is in his late fifties and has heart problems.

15. What celebrity would you want to have sex with?
Stacy London, somehow. Is it weird that I occasionally pretend I am her, with Justin?

16. Ever been unemployed for over a year since becoming an adult?
No. I work every summer, at least.

17. How many states have you lived in?
Three, counting D.C.

18. How many countries have you lived in?
One.

19. Do you keep a weapon under or next to your bed at night?
A fireplace poker, which I am absolutely sure would be useless in a time of actual crisis.

20. What celebrity would you want to beat up if you had the chance?
I guess Nancy Grace?

21. Ever rolled into the harsh ghetto to buy drugs?
The harsh ghetto sucks, and so do drugs.

22. Ever cheated on someone?
No.

23. Ever been paid for sex?
Once, as a joke. Ha, ha!

24. Ever hired a SPY to follow someone?
No.

25. Ever bang your friend's man/woman?
Unforgivable!

26. What is your IQ?
Depending how much stock you place on those tests you find on websites, it is either between 147 and 152, or it is some other number entirely. I love those tests. I love all tests. If I could take standardized tests for pay, I would probably do it.

27. Do you think Mr. Rogers really was a pervert or do you think he just really liked kids?
Unless I'm remembering wrong, the only cohosts Mr. Rogers had were puppets. I don't think I have ever see him in the presence of an actual human child, so I'm not sure whence people are drawing their evidence of pedophilia.

28. O.J. Simpson...did he do it?
Probably, and even if he didn't, he is still the king of all bastards.

29. Fake tits or real tits?
Mine? Fake. Yes, I spent seven thousand dollars on A cups. Like them?

30. Ever watch someone die?
Once, when I worked at Verizon.

31. How long has it been since you had sex?
Four days. Still sore.

32. Name your favorite beer.
Woodchuck, which is really more of a cider. Beer is nasty.

33. If you could have sex with one person on your friends list, who would it be?
Having sex with friends ruins friendships.