There is no way we are making this flight. 

Vasco hasn’t even showered yet.

That means he hasn’t moisturized, which means he hasn’t decided what he’s moisturizing with. That doesn’t get decided until he’s done listening to Mary J. Blige  in the shower… which, as you know,  he hasn’t done yet.  Vasco is by far the most extra person I have in my life. And I cannot imagine my life without him. 

“I’m almost done,” he says, as he goes into his bedroom closet for the third time. He thinks I don’t know he hasn’t  packed yet.

“Take your time,” I yell back… not meaning a word.  But there is no reason to get upset at this point. Chicago traffic will be Chicago traffic , TSA will be TSA… if we make it, we make it. I don’t know if Vasco

Prologue

Ten Years Gone

In April 2015, Secretary Hillary Clinton announced she was running for president, and Bruce Jenner invited Diane Sawyer into his home for a sit-down interview.

Since winning Olympic gold in the decathlon in 1976, Jenner has been in the public eye. Since 2007, that meant starring as the patriarch in the wildly popular reality TV show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”. Before the interview aired, Jenner made it clear his pronouns were he/him. When Sawyer asked the Olympic legend, “Are you a woman?”  he took a beat to reflect. Then the 65-year-old Jenner looked Sawyer in the eyes and said, “Yes, for all intents and purposes, I am a woman”.

For Pride month in June, Jenner introduced “Caitlyn” on the cover of “Vanity Fair

Most of my childhood was spent on the east side of Detroit—Mack and Van Dyke specifically. It wasn’t a safe area by any means but typically people looked out for one another.

Typically.

The day I was mugged wasn’t typical.

My mother sent me to Mr. Clark’s party store to buy a gallon milk. We didn’t have a lot of money, so I needed to take two large bags of recyclables to help pay for it. Michigan offered 10 cents for each aluminum can. In the hood, those two plastic bags were good money. I’m not making excuses for my attacker, just adding context. He was an adult, and I was in elementary school. Pretty sure he could’ve just taken the bags without holding a knife to my face. But then again, if he were clear-headed, he wouldn’t be mugging a little boy