a post

I have been very busy lately.

I say this not as an excuse, but as an explanation.

I have a hundred things to talk about, to share; thousands of words to rush out to explain the wonderful things I’ve been doing – the things off my life list, the exploits of my hobo and his lady friend, the party with the guy in the dress, crafts. I want to explain how crappy work is being, and how good at the same time. I want to tell you about the thing my sister is doing, and the way the ManBear looks at me. I want to tell you how I feel fat and beautiful and tired and clever. I want to tell you how much I love my life, my man, my cat, my friends, the world.

Instead, for now, for this brief moment i have to breathe and collect, I’ll tell you about all the things I want to tell you about.

Life is really, really good.

Trying to explain Nate, My Hobo, My Brother.

Nate: dear Kat

I’m seriously considering joining the French foreign legion

What are your thoughts?

Me: you don’t speak French

—

Nate is a boy. In every sense of the world, Nate is a boy. At 22 he hasn’t grown past the age of 13 mentally. Not in the idiot sense, because somehow Nate is really smart. But no, Nate is 13, still trying to look up skirts and down shirts, valiantly struggling to find a “centering experience” and his drive. He has been homeless and broke, worked as a photographer, a ski-lift operator, an escort. He choreographs and costumes elaborate dance routines with his best friends. He violently rejects the Mormonism his family (tried) to raise him in. He tries to hide the white-knight complex he devotes solely to people he decides are worth loving, but doesn’t always succeed.

Luckily for me, I’m one of those people. The day I realized that’s what he was doing, my heart was happy because I knew that no matter what happened, I would have Nate forever.

—

Our relationship is one of the weirder ones I’ve had in my life. The quick and dirty of it is that I met him at a party and he was my rebound the evolved into something all the more odd due to his prior rebound status. Nate and I used each other physically and emotionally and we both knew it.

I got over the ex, and Nate moved on as well. And lost his housing. And moved in with me. My Hobo. The Hobo of My Heart.

Around the same time, and partially because I felt Nate having a place to live was more important that my housemates xenophobia being respected, I had a huge falling out with my best friend from college. She refused to acknowledge her depression had anything to do with the fact that we were spending less time together (read: ANY), and I was less than delicate. (It didn’t / doesn’t help that she works for my ex either.) So I looked for places to live while Nate looked for places to work.

And I found an apartment with a housemate ok with the fact that I had a hobo coming with me.

And I started dating the ManBear and Nate continued dating an odd collection of women with dreadlocks and lesbians, of co-op living hippies and bitch-faced blondes.

And we went out to the bars. And we drank and we laughed. And Nate took pictures, and I bought his alcohol and food. And he got a job and brought home pie, and discovered the wonders of Bourbon. And I had a fight over nothing with the ManBear and drunkenly cried at the bar on a Tuesday, and went to the bathroom. And the bartender asked Nate if his sister was ok.

And then I had a brother.

And people tell us how much we look alike (we don’t) and how they can tell we are great friends (we are). They don’t flinch when I mention I grew up in Oakland minutes after Nate finishes stories about growing up in Utah’s winter. They never make the connection.

And we grin at each other, sharing in our private joke, and continue on our way.

—

Oh his birthday, I baked him a Chocolate Bourbon Cake, drenched in bourbon glaze. He ate almost half of it and was tanked.

“I didn’t realize you meant it had that much bourbon in it.”

—

Some people who know us think our relationship now is creepy. “You’ve slept together and now you’re siblings?”

But it’s different than that. The important points of our relationship aren’t the sex. Our relationship is about being there for each other, and we are. I go to him with problems as often as I go to the ManBear or to Meghan or my actual sister. He comes to me more than his family.

We are a little, odd, incestuous family of our own.

—

I had a dream, months ago. Before Nate moved back to Utah, dated a girl he found on craigslist, and launched a career-based website.  Before he decided he needed a centering experience in his life and that the best option was the French Foreign Legion.

I dreamed that Nate was in my wedding, years from now. He was one of my bridesmaids, dressed in a lovely gown, tucked at the end of the line. He picked it out himself.