Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Exotica

Cornshake and I are making plans for a reading tour together. We're going to call it Hyphenated and Handicapped: an Evening with the Exotic. Highlights will include, but not be limited to, the following:

  • Strangers praying over me, the laying on of hands, spontaneously, without ever asking if I mind.
  • Fumbling interrogations on what I can, you know, feel, by which they mean to ask: can you have sex?
  • Asking whoever is with me if I can talk.
  • Being patted on the head like an adorable puppy.
  • Being asked if I can "catch a wheelie."
  • Being asked if I want to race.
  • Offers to "supe up" my wheelchair.
  • Being asked if I'm that guy that greets you at Wal-Mart.
  • Being told it must be nice to not have to walk around in this heat.
  • Being asked if I wear underwear.
The readings will be scheduled in places like underwater grottoes, buildings without working elevators, Neptune, Crawford, Xanadu, fetid bogs, Gorilla City, the corner of Fortwood and Fortwood, the Mariana Trench, an undisclosed location, Intercourse, Pennsylvania, and Wal-Mart, where I don't work, ok?

For the other half of the spectacle, read here.

10 comments:

Ginger Heatter said...

Ok, but like *do* you wear underwear? ;-P Who would even think to ask such a question?!

Amanda Auchter said...

Please add me to your tour. I'm 4'10 and people ALWAYS say things like: where's your mom? Oh, I though you weren't a real person (I am a fake person? Made of plastic? Ceramic?), Are you a hobbit? Once, a woman in Wal-Mart (why always Wal-Mart?) held up a size 2T dress and said "this is cute, honey. It would fit you." Nevermind the fact that I wear a size 6 ahd have boobs. God.

But people asking if you wear underwear? Yikes. . .

Paul said...

To be fair, only one person ever asked about underwear and they were a fairly obviously unwell person. But the other questions/comments are fairly common.

shanna said...

what is WRONG with people?! more than i thought, apparently.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe you left out the all time classic..."You ever see that movie Silver Bullet?"

Paul said...

Oh my God, you're right. How could I forget the all time #1 most asked question?

It's age, my friend.

Emily Lloyd said...

Oh god: "not to have to walk around in this heat." Oh, god god god. Ohhh dear lord. My choice for most warped.

marybid said...

Well, I'll be sure to attend...not for the poetry of course, but for how good I'll feel about myself upon witnessing such an event of personal triumph.

Aaaaaaaack! :)

Alison Stine said...

My number one comment--not nearly as awful as the list above,geez people--upon learning of my hearing loss, a woman said: But you speak English so GOOD!

nolapoet said...

To both you and Cornshake... Ohhh...DUUUUUH!...Who ARE those people?!?!?!

Appropriate self-defense tactics:

1. Empty the fake contents of a fake colostomy bag in a sudden "seizure," then apologize profusely.

2. Say, "I solly. No speek Eengleesh. Only lead and liiiite."

Robin