Jonny Appleseed

        Jen and I were smoking in her bed talking about tampon applicators and famous people.  She asked if I was related to anyone famous.  Usually people ask me if I'm related to Star Trek star, Walter Koenig, to which I usually say, "yeah, he used to take me to the T.V. sets and watch him practice his lines." I don't know what's better, the fact that people believe me or the fact that I actually kind of look like Walter Koenig, but people are amazed to find out my fake relation to him.  They don't don't ask questions either, as if the thought that there may be more than one person with the last name Koenig  never crossed their mind.   But I can't lie to Jen, so I told her the truth, "I'm related to Johnny Appleseed." 
     "Johnny Appleseed isn't a real person Ryan, are you related to the Easter Bunny too?"
     "What the hell?  He is to a real person, I'll call my mom and prove it to you."
     "Your mom is about as credible as you are I wont believe her anyway."  It didn't matter, I called my mom and put her on speaker so Jen could hear.
"Mom, Jen doesn't believe me, but we're related to Johnny Appleseed right?"
"Yeah, we're related to Daniel Boon too."
"Shit I forgot about that, we are related to Daniel Boon."
Jen was laughing so hard nothing was coming out, she didn't believe myself or my mom, and made it quite clear she thought we were both crazy, "you are so goddamn stupid."
        It really bothered me that Jen didn't believe me, I mean for Christ sake I did a power point of my family tree in middle school and put Johnny Appleseed on it, of coarse he's a real person.  I decided to investigate via google search and it turns out my entire life is a lie.  Jen got under my mom's skin too apparently because about an hour later I got a call from my mom, "So, I called Grandma and she looked in the Boon Book, and we are actually related to him, she said Johnny Appleseed isn't a real person, but we are related to a famous stripper," she said confounded. 
     "Boon Book?  Famous stripper?  Are you serious?" I asked, choking back laughter.
     "Yeah, I remember Uncle David telling me when I was a little girl that I was related to Johnny Appleseed and I guess I just always believed him.  Then again, David once told everyone he was related to Sara Vaughn until he realized she was black.  Sally Rand was very famous burlesque dancer who made the feather dance explode, and your related to her." 
It's all making sense, all these years I've believed I was related to a man who spread the joy of apples across the continent, when I'm actually related to a stripper and some guy that wears dead animals on his head.  That sounds more like my bloodline to me.  I googled pictures of Sally Rand, and my God is she beautiful, one picture in particular jumped at me and I could see how her blood is in me. The caption said, "Burlesque queen with her famous ostrich feather fans," she held the fans in front of her naked behind them.  I googled Daniel Boon, found out his name is actually spelled Boone, and that the only thing I like about him is the fact that Fess Parker played him in a Boone television series and I would deffinatly sit on Fess Parker's face.  Not now though, he's dead I think, but definitely the Fess Parker on the box set cover.
        I've never worn a dead animal on my head before but  being related to a burlesque dance reminds me that I too have taken my clothes off for money.  My dear departed family member, Sally Rand probably rolled over in her grave as I destroyed the art of stripping on a rusty pole in a trashy gay bar at age 18.   I'd always wanted to strip since I was a kid and stayed up watching  a gangster movie that seemed to be shot entirely in a strip club.  I used to strip out of my basketball shorts and loose tee-shirt in front of my full length mirror as a kid.  I remember stripping to the Tony Braxton album when I was 12, and wanting to be on a stage when I was older.  It wasn't a serious aspiration of mine but it was something my mind wondered to often.   Turns out, when I finally got the chance to strip, that it's a lot less glamorous than the gangster movies made it out to be.  There wasn't a lot of money, wasn't a soft curtain that raised for my entrance, or a slow sensual song to move to, come to think of it, the only thing that went as I thought it would was the free drinks that were bought for me afterward.
        I had a fake ID that I bought from my doppelganger who was coincidentally also named Ryan.   I frequented a gay bar called Missy B's because it was a place where I could get sloshed for free and complemented even when I wore crappy flip flops and beer stained shirts.  One night I quit my job at Kohl's because in the same day I was told I had to clean up human fecal matter and blood out of the fitting rooms, human excrement is the tipping point for me so I walked out on my shift and right into Missy B's where I ordered a glass of vodka and a glass of water.  Somewhere between my glass of vodka and the four shots of whiskey, I found myself venting about my unemployment to a really hot guy who could give two shits about my situation, in fact I was probably just talking in his direction as he ignored me and watched the dancers.  He must have been listening somewhat because he finally decided to talk to me he said, "you don't have a job right?  Well I bet you would make some money up there," he pointed at the poles. 
        Next thing I know I'm hanging upside from the rafters naked, getting dollars shoved into my underwear which, I swear to god, had pee stains very obviously plastered on the front.  After the song was over, Hung up by Madonna, I stumbled into the bathroom and counted $48 bucks, and dropped one of the dollars in the toilet.  Picking it out with my finger tips I decided it would be the tip for my next drink.  
        I wish I could say that was the last time I was nearly naked in that bar, but just this year I was pulled on stage by an obese drag queen and given the choice to jump on a mini tramp for five minutes naked and get a free drink, or sit back down and buy my own drinks.  The choice was simple, and as I flew through the air I saw the crowd from a new perspective.  People were laughing, having a good time, and throwing money at me.  There was a moment while I was doing an impressive split in the air that I saw someone taking a picture of me, and for a second I was ashamed.  That feeling went away about as quickly as my free drink.  The way I see it, I had fun, people had fun with me, and I got 16 bucks for jumping on a trampoline with the coordination of a blind baby cow.  It's not the Sally Rand show anymore.  It's the Ryan Koenig show, and I don't have ostrich flower fans.

I have mini trampolines and rusty poles.

Sober

I was talking to a coworker yesterday who just finished the Master Cleanse, which basically means she drank lemon juice for 10 days and lost a bunch of weight.  I've always thought of the Master Cleanse as a gateway cleanse to eating disorders, as it requires you to not eat for over a week. Where was this cleanse when I was passing out in gym class because all I was consuming for weeks was juice and slivers of apples?  It would have been easier to just say, "Back off, it's called the Juice Cleanse and it's a really healthy way to loose weight."  Instead I was stuck identifying with the ugly word, anorexia. 
But I need to get my body back in balance, and the Master Cleanse sounded like a really good idea until I learned that I can't drink or smoke for an entire ten days.   As this information was stabbed into my ears by my co-worker who is so thin she looks like a walking back scratcher, it dawned on me that I can't for the life of me remember the last time I spent an entire ten days sober.  I think I was actually 17 and that was 5 years ago.  I don't drink daily nor do I smoke pot daily, but for five years I have not gone 10 days without doing one or the other, and that is startling news to me.  For now I'll chalk it up to it being my early twenties, and not my inclination towards a chemical rush and confusing it as mental clarity. 
Last night I was talking with Jen over the passing of a pipe loaded with plush green herbs, explaining to her that I'm really going to try and do the Master Cleanse.   Jen just laughed and said, "Have you met you?  Every bottle of booze I've bought since we moved in together has vanished within a day or two, I'm not optimistic about this cleanse Ryan." 
"Yeah, well I've had a really rough year," I said handing her the pipe and holding by breath.  As I ex-hailed, I let my body fall backwards onto her bed, pulled my feet behind my ears and cannon balled a fart towards Jen.  "That is the only mental Clarity I need," I said laughing until tears fell.    Maybe Jen's right, I thought to myself, I have met me. For now, I'm going to have a glass or two, maybe a bottle, of wine every other night and not feel bad about it.  It takes a true friend to talk you out of a cleanse and sobriety at the same time.  I'm going to miss her and I am going to lean on her harder than I ever have, and she will lean on me, because soon were going to fall on our ass's when we move to separate sides of the continent.   
I've been sleeping with Jen for about a month now.  In a totally platonic, I'm gay and she's a roller derby dyke, sort of way.  This morning I woke her up be screaming her name, and then pestered her for two hours while she got ready for the day.  I think she takes longer when I annoy the shit out of her but it's so much fun.  "Eat shit and die bitch," I might yell while sprinting past the bathroom to throw a wadded up old sock at her face.  I can't imagine what our neighbors must think when they hear her scream at me and call me a a dried up bag of diseased dicks, but I know she really means I love you, you beautiful man you.  And when I call her a smelly vat of putrid vagina's, I really mean, I love you and there are literally no words in the world to adequately tell you how much.