Once in Spain, while touring Roman remains and rubble, I found myself in the sleepy small coastal town of Tarragona, where plenty of historical sites, albeit small and poorly curated, abounded in the former Roman capital.

I remember being startled the first night by fireworks over the beach.

I remember sitting at a café in the middle of a hot afternoon and watching a local, a white haired fellow looking like he was smuggling a cannonball under his shirt, drink beer alone at a table before slowly nodding off to sleep in the shade of his table's umbrella, ironically displaying the name of a brand of espresso.

I remember gaping at some of the largest and most beautiful mosaics I'd ever seen in a nearly empty museum.

And I remember my language lesson.

While my Spanish had improved since arriving, it was still wobbly and dependent on my understanding of French and Latin cognates. After a long day of tramping around dusty old ruins baking in the sun of late July, I ate at a charming restaurant across the square from where I'd watched the local man fall asleep in a chair. I proceeded up to my room and decided to clean up and then plan my mañana.

Grabbing my tiny travel toothbrush, I rifled through the fraying wicker basket with the usual bathroom freebies. In my haste, I grabbed the tube that said crema and read no further; thinking, hello, cognate for cream or paste, as in toothpaste. Had I done so, I would have seen crema de afeitar.

ya te gusta la broma, amigo?

The taste resembled what I imagined an otter's anal gland fluid would taste like. For a moment, I thought that perhaps the Spanish had a different idea of how toothpaste should taste instead of minty and refreshing. Perplexed and slightly nauseated, I stopped brushing, set down my toothbrush, and took a closer look at the tube I'd just used to lather up my mouth. I found another tube still in the wicker basket labeled crema de denta, and then voilà: I had my two cognates: cream of tooth. So what the fuck had I scrubbed into my gums?

A quick scan through my travel dictionary (this was in 2007, mind you) uncovered the truth: crema de afeitar was, indeed, shaving cream.

On a trip to Spain to visit ancient Roman sites (because I'm a big history geek), I stopped in the town of Caratagena. I'd traveled south from Barcelona to Tarragona, then on to Valencia, and finally Cartagena. After leaving the train station, I blundered out into the city, only to find that this city had no street signs posted anywhere. After an hour of dogged wandering and asking for directions in Spanglish, I finally found my hotel.

As you probably haven't been, Cartagena has a distinctly Muslim presence and influence to its culture and architecture, as it fell under Muslim control after the fall of Rome. Not that I felt threatened, per se; every person I met was kind and helpful. I still felt like the whitest person in the city though. One day, during siesta hour, I decided to venture out into the city so I could see it without the usual crowds, and I was rewarded with a spectacular unobstructed view. As I wandered down a wide, empty street in the hot midday sun, looking like a typical tourist, I smiled, looking around to wonder at the tall buildings on either side of the street. Then I heard it.

Someone was whistling a catcall at me. I'm gonna die.

I felt alone, vulnerable, and helpless. My eyes darted around, scanning from window to window, searching for my potential assailant, feeling my heart pounding, my stomach wrenching, my brain spinning.

I heard another catcall, low and slow.

I was nearing panic. No one was on the street, not a soul. The hot cobblestones seemed to be baking me, along with the rising fear threatening to overwhelm my senses. Then I heard a different sound altogether.

Caw-caw! went the parrot.

On a trip to Spain to visit ancient Roman sites (because I'm a big history geek), I stopped in the town of Caratagena. I'd traveled south from Barcelona to Tarragona, then on to Valencia, and finally Cartagena. After leaving the train station, I blundered out into the city, only to find that this city had no street signs posted anywhere. After an hour of dogged wandering and asking for directions in Spanglish, I finally found my hotel.

As you probably haven't been, Cartagena has a distinctly Muslim presence and influence to its culture and architecture, as it fell under Muslim control after the fall of Rome. Not that I felt threatened, per se; every person I met was kind and helpful. I still felt like the whitest person in the city though. One day, during siesta hour, I decided to venture out into the city so I could see it without the usual crowds, and I was rewarded with a spectacular unobstructed view. As I wandered down a wide, empty street in the hot midday sun, looking like a typical tourist, I smiled, looking around to wonder at the tall buildings on either side of the street. Then I heard it.

Someone was whistling a catcall at me. I'm gonna die.

I felt alone, vulnerable, and helpless. My eyes darted around, scanning from window to window, searching for my potential assailant, feeling my heart pounding, my stomach wrenching, my brain spinning.

I heard another catcall, low and slow.

I was nearing panic. No one was on the street, not a soul. The hot cobblestones seemed to be baking me, along with the rising fear threatening to overwhelm my senses. Then I heard a different sound altogether.

Caw-caw! went the parrot.

There is nothing more important in the world than shit.

Shit is life, shit is culture, shit is language.

Shitting means you have eaten, a sign your body still wants to live.

Not shitting for a long time is fiercely painful. Shitting too much chaps your anus raw.

If you don't shit, you die. If you shit too much, you also die.

If animals didn't shit, plants would die from no fertilizer, causing a collapse in the food chain. From no shit.

Not shitting where you eat is sound logic in both senses, literal and metaphorical. You are not meant to eat shit, and its smell and exit point are meant to prevent coprophagia. And unless you work at Trader Joe's (allegedly) you shouldn't shit where you eat (meaning don't fuck your co-workers as it can cause drama if things go to shit). No shit.

Your shit can indicate if you're healthy, and varies according to your diet and exercise.

People who do not eat vegetables shit for longer, less often, and more painfully than people who do eat roughage.

Shitting in your pants is the most embarrassing bodily fluid release one can suffer from socially. Tears, earwax, mucus, piss, even sex fluids, all pale before a big brown shit stain leaking through your pants.

In English, the word has become a noun, a verb, and has an adjectival and adverbial form: shit, shit, shitty, shittily; and its usual exclamatory function: Shit! Shit! Shit!

I shit you not.

Growing up queer in 1980s Ohio, my entire sexual world was in my head; I was pushed into the closet of my minds, where I enjoyed freedom.

We all thought Shawn Kiely was sex in a Speedo the summer of ’87. Adults openly clucked tongues while whispering about the Adonis on the local pool swim team.  We were less subtle; when he walked by the lounge chairs, still wet and glistening in the golden light of late morning, girls would close their eyes and take a long, slow breath, trying to capture his sweet smelling skin over the chlorine; boys would watch too, with mixed parts of jealousy, awe, and a hidden desire to be him or naked next to him in the shower, pulling the cheap white plastic curtain shut, ignoring the metal scraping as the grommets screech across the rod, if only for a brief, tangy, mind-melting kiss. Yet he was either unaware, uninterested, or unwilling. By summer’s end, we came despite brutal heat for one last glance, sigh, and poolside fantasy before the first sprout of hair on his shaven legs popped out, heralding the end of our time with the sensuality that remained ephemeral and palpable.

The pioneer town trembled as the tornado advanced, howling like a ravenous, demented djinn.

Tearful parents hunkered down in dank cellars with speechless children and prayed fervently.

Husbands hugged wives as though Ragnarök had arrived.

As they heard the hellish cacophony descend to earth, every man and woman and child prayed to be spared: not me, not me.

In the wake, the survivors crept out to see that the only house demolished was the preacher’s, who had prayed for the protection of the village.

The pioneers, in their heart of hearts, had all wished for it not to be themselves, and so everyone’s wish had been granted.

I saw brown throw up on the floor.

Don't remember the night before.

I try to sit up and get the spins

Hold on to my bed but vertigo wins.

Tacos and tequila and chocolate pudding

On the floor, walls, bed, and me, all my doing.

Still drunk, head a-spinning, and I smell like ass

I crawl out of bed, clothe myself, and get to class.

Hour late and reeking of barf, booze, and pickled ham

I had no recollection later of even taking the exam.

Classmates told me later that I'd earned an A

But only 'cause I'd shit my Hanes on that day.

When I was studying abroad during college, I spent a year in Bordeaux, France, where I lived with a lovely family: mother, father, brother, sister, and a cat named Apricot. The mother, a former translator who spoke better English than most Americans, was also a fabulous cook; my first meal there was so good that I fought off the heavy fatigue of jet lag, as they cracked wise, offering me a toothpick, then explaining that it was to prop up my eyelids. Being less of a stereotype, she taught both her children to cook. Her daughter, Ariane, who ended up being one of my closest friends, took after her mother in this regard; cats don't make dogs, after all. Arnaud, the history buff who spoke German, English, and French, took after his father in this area, save for his mayonnaise.

It was an opus for your taste buds.

Even his mother and sister stood aside, perhaps a little jealously, perhaps a little reluctantly, but always very gratefully, to let him make it. And make it he did while they stood by, like two race car drivers watching a kid speed around the racetrack on his Big Wheel at 180mph, all the while thinking: but we trained him!

How he turned raw egg yolks, olive oil, white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, and table salt into a condiment worthy of everything from ambrosia to tacos shall also remain a mystery. After a lifetime as the Dellu family's reigning Mayonnaise King, Arnaud succumbed to cancer on the 22nd of November, 2021, and the secret, one of many, died with him.

Ave atque vale, frater.

I found my prince on our first date.

You made me feel that you would be

A husband always worth the wait.

You brought our dog's new mate,

A pup, into our home, I could see

I found my prince on our first date.

Our tiny place, a grand estate

Seen with eyes as you see me

A husband always worth the wait.

Clouds grew dark, and life a weight,

Then I'd for you and you'd for me.

I found my prince on our first date.

When sticky grief would not abate,

Safe in your arms I'd long to be,

A husband always worth the wait.

A pup put spring back in my gait,

At last, anew a family;

I found my prince on our first date.

I thank the stars for my bad fate

It brought me you and made us we

I found my prince on our first date,

A husband always worth the wait.