Jonathan's POZ Blog

Current T Cell count – negligible
Current Viral Load – Lottery winning
Current mood – Cool with that

So I’m at the Party Store, browsing. I do this a lot, wander through places like that, planning, getting ideas, for dates I don’t go on, parties I do not throw, movie-driven menu events that sometimes happen. But it’s an afternoon, and it gets me outta the house.

So anyhow, Party City. Afternoon. I finish up at the themed Birthday aisle and wander to the back, where the Halloween SuperStore has taken hold. I save that for last, always. It’s my favorite part of the store. It is the cinnamon sugared icing in the very middle of my Pop Tart Day. Nibbling around the edges just makes it sweeter.

And though I am tempted to be a hobbit (again) this year, or maybe a vampire (again) or a Star Trek character (again and again) I find myself drawn to the extensive make-up aisle. And a chimp face. You know, the really GOOD ones, the ones that are latex with a hinged jaw, and hair and stuff? Looks JUST like Roddy McDowell from PLANET OF THE APES.

Which I have sort of decided I want to be for Halloween.

Not just any chimp. I want to be Cornelius. I want to be a slightly effete British actor playing the part of a chimp scientist in a 1970’s movie. That’s the thing about my costumes and characters. They are specific. Seriously, scarily specific.

So I have until next month to find fifty bucks for this latex appliance (I can’t really call it a mask, per se. I mean, it is glued to the face and painted and everything). I decide that I made the right call, proclaiming the advent of the Halloween Season early this year. Because weekend after next is the Atlanta Horrorfest (movies, scary-themed bands, and a zombie walk through downtown) and I am dragging my friend Richard along with me. The next weekend? We are thinking a corn maze (maize, heh) in North Georgia, hopefully with a group of people, and hopefully at night. The next weekend? Adam and his friends hopefully, and a haunted house.

Don’t have time to be sick. A lot of stuff to do. And it’s great to be in a place where I can look forward to things. To anything. To being Roddy McDowell.

Wandering in a dark cornfield with people I like.

Dry ice bubbling in strong drinks, while a scary movie plays.

The smell of burning pumpkin.

A season of unrelenting fire and scorching heat, giving way to the natural chill of autumn, winter. Being here for that. More than simply “here.” Being present. Being a part of it. Being. Becoming. Something more than I was six months back.

Like I told my Mom, just surviving pneumonia really does a fellow a world of good. Forget immune restoration and T Cells for a second. Just the absence of being seriously sick makes all the difference in the world. I do not for a second regret despairing when I was sick. I learned a lot from the notion of giving up. Mainly that it’s perfectly okay to do so. So long as you, at the end of the day, don’t.

Fall down three times. Get up four.

Someday I won’t get up. None of us survives this trip. But not today, I don’t think. Not when I have this chimp mask to save up for. Not when I have words in my head, that long for the page. Not when I have ideas in my head, that need the body to make them happen.

Not yet. Not yet.

Despite my bouts with sadness and depression, I will never, ever claim that it is anything less than a wonderful world. Not always well cast, and the staff is often rude and unresponsive. But the world? Worth the inconveniences.

I watched a science program tonight on public television. About black holes, gravity, and the gentle, constant warp of space and time and reality in which we spend our existence. And I know that there are, to quote Stephen King, other worlds than this.

We are standing on a planet which might well be a sub-molecular structure, sitting in an atom we call a universe, which is itself a part of a cell in a blade of grass in a parking lot. We are part of a universe impossible to comprehend. That’s scary, and also reassuring.

With so much not to know, it is good to know the few things we do.

I know there will always be a cool side of the pillow. But I also know it’s up to me to turn that pillow over and find it. I know I can find love again, if only I can stop hiding from it with such passion. I know there are no smells on this planet better than the perfume of my mother when we hug, or the musky muzzle of a pet longing for affection.

I know I want to be a chimp for Halloween.