Sister, Sister!

San Diego Sunset

Well, uhm, I er, there’s this guy. It’s a bit of a long story actually, but I guess, you have to hear it at some point. Might as well be now! I bumbled, ever so confidently! All fake! I was freaking out inside! How in the heck am I going to tell this man that I currently live with another man and am serving a notice because he kicked me out? He is going to think me a freak, baggage! I told him the truth. He didn’t seem to mind, in fact, he seemed relieved. Weird, but I took it! It was better than what I had expected.

 He told me his mother was 88 years old, same age as Avon, remember her? New Jersey? Anyway, according to El, she wasn’t sick, sick, just old and mother of his was going to die in a nursing home. She used to have her own home in Long Beach, LA, but when they noticed that she was getting a little confused, he took it upon himself to take her in. He and his sister took turns looking after the mom, the sister’s shift started when El left for work and ended when he got home. Whenever he was day off, he would take care of mommy!

One night, he called and was like, “ugh, you know my sister! She can be so annoying, I told her I don’t want pop corn, she is forcing me to eat pop corn. She thinks she can tell me what to eat and when to eat it, I DO NOT WANT POP CORN!” I was like, oh, she’s still there? I thought she would have gone home by now! “Sometimes she spends the night here, she sleeps in the other room when she feels like it.” Oh and, how old are you? Who talks like that? I DON’T WANT POPCORN? How old are these people? Anyway, whatever!

He had this sound that he would make whenever he had throat or whatever lozenges in his mouth, you know when you have hard candy in your mouth and you roll it around from one side of the mouth to the other. The sound that it makes when it touches the teeth? Hated it! I couldn’t believe that a man his age would be doing that! I had to tell him it was annoying, he tried to stop. Emphasis on Tried. He has a course voice, which I love. I don’t think he likes it because he says that’s not his voice, he has bronchitis or flue or this or that, it’s always something. And I really like it. That’s one of the reasons he has all that soul for a white boy.

Speaking of voices, he continued to sing for me almost every night, mostly Ottis Reddy’s songs, which to me were Percy Sledge’s songs. Apparently Percy Sledge sang all of Ottis’ songs. Seriously, if like me, you never heard of Ottis yahoo him or google him or Bing him or better yet youtube him, you will see what I’m saying. You know that album of Precy Sledge’s with When a man loves a woman, Sitting on the dock of the bay etc? All those songs were done by Ottis before! I know!!!! Anyway, he would sing, then stop in the middle, and be like, no, no, wait, no, sorry, I think I am confusing the verses, that’s the first, no, that’s the. My eyes by then are rolled so far back into my forehead, I’m ready to pass out. Dude! You wanna sing, sing! Stop talking, what the heck! Nobody is forcing you to do this? I’m not your sister! Chill out! Either you sing the song or you don’t it doesn’t make any difference in my life, I’m still stuck in this brown house with this man who is beginning to talk like me and it pisses me the heck off.

My bed at Perry's (very comfy!)

One night while on the phone with El, in the middle of the night, I heard Perry cry for help in the other bedroom. I asked him to hold and ran over there, to see if Perry was ok. He was. He was dreaming. When I got back to El, he was like, listen to me! Don’t you ever, EVER do that again? I was like, huh? Why not? We’re roommates, we have to look out for each other, plus, I didn’t even think about it. He said that’s dangerous, this is a man, he should be able to take care of himself. I thought that was a very different reaction but ok. Still getting to know each other, right? Right!

Not far From Perry's

I remember one night we talked about The moment of truth, remember the TV show? He said, he already knows the first question he would make them ask me, “Did I ever sleep with Perry?” I was like that would be a fair question, I can see why you would want to know that and kept it moving. I would ask him about his sister, duh!

Perry's Bed, I made both beds every morning cos he never used to make his bed

I asked him if his sister is married, “no.” Is she straight? “Yes. Haha, funny you should ask that, I told her she should rather date women cos she hates men.” Does she have kids? “Yes, she has a son, the actor?” Oh yeah, him! This is the nephew he taught everything the nephew knows about the entertainment industry. Mh could this be his son? Time will tell. “I think you and my sister will get along. She loves women. She will do anything for women but men! Another story!” Interesting, I guess that means, I was going to get to meet the sister at some point.

Christmas was fast approaching. Perry had no plans. We still had the turkey he got for Thanksgiving and ended up dinnering (not a word, I know, but it is in Xhosa, my home language), at his sister’s with his family. He had promised to make me that for Christmas. He had never made turkey before, I guess that’s why he was stalling so much. He wasn’t so confident. Perry is a great cook, he can whip up anything even if he had never made it before, he has a passion for food. You should see him cook, everything is like a tv show for him. Since he found out I’m all about acting, and I like creative guys, he was making himself into somebody he wasn’t just so he could fit my type of guy. Relax dude, I’m here now. Chill! He would tell me all the time, how he is an artist, he designs houses therefore he’s an artist. I don’t know, that’s not really what I had in mind when I said I was into creative guys. But ok. He smoked marijuana, so I guess that somewhat qualified him as an artist? No? Ok, I tried!

Pirk, Courtesy of Perry

German Chocolate cake (I think that's what it's called. It tastes better than it looks. Perry made it)

I never told Perry about my plans for Christmas. He promised to decorate the house, he’s all about Christmas. He watched Christmas movies all of December. He watched two or three per day. It was really different for me, someone his age to be so into Christmas. But hey, at least he’s passionate about something. I tried watching one with him, in the spirit of Christmas, right? Couldn’t! It was cold that night, I had nice, warm clothes, sat on the comfy couch with the dogs all over us, I dozed off. He woke me up and told me how much he appreciated how great a sport I was for trying, but it was time for me to go to bed. Oops, I guess I fell asleep there! Am I bad! (read: my bad)

He was so into Christmas, whenever we went to the store in December (this is after he kicked me out, we were civil towards each other.), we would drive around checking out people’s Christmas decorations like creepers. He would drive really slowly, I’d be oohing and aahing because where I come from, they don’t go so all out Christmas time. I tried to take pictures but pictures of lights at night, didn’t come out so great.

See? They didn't come out so great but these are pictures of people's homes

I kept asking him when he was going to decorate his house as he had promised. Just like everything he had promised to do, he never did it. He told me to do it myself. I was like  I would but at my house, Christmas decorations means tinsel in the dining room, that’s it! WE never even got a tree. I had a small fake tree at my apartment that I got as a gift from a friend in Natal. So I would put that out in December and put my Christmas gifts under the tree, stuff I got from people and myself. Yeah, I buy myself presents for special occasions, doesn’t everybody? J

I asked Elvis if they had decorated their house, he told me yeah.... you guessed it... HIS SISTER DID!