Me Gusta: May 13th, 2023
Purple House Poppers (or, My Friends And I Keep Going On This Made Up Retreat)
It’s a time-honored tradition (and by that I mean it’s happened once before): the weather gets warmer, the rejection emails pour in, and my friends and I decide to give the middle finger to gatekeepers by admitting ourselves into our own made-up retreat. Yes, that’s right: Purple House came back for 2023, baby!
“But Francisco, I’m looking at the house in this cover picture and it is decidedly not purple,” you note, a stickler for facts. And yes, true. Purple House actually took place in a blue house this year; and if you’re gonna be such a Details Denny about it, you should also recall I actually found us free housing last time, but we couldn’t make the dates work. This time we planned in advance, though, so instead of going back to good ol’ nail-eating Jeffersonville, we headed up to Mt. Vision to stay at the Bird House on Aunt Karen’s Farm fo’ free.
(Why, then, did we keep the Purple House name, you ask? Because it’s iconic by now — and by that I mean we renamed the group chat Purple House after last time and we can’t keep renaming it ad infinitum. Purple House is not the color of a lodging, but a state of mind.)
The old gang was back—for those of you who are not PH stans, it includes Adam, Charles, Lilly, Nikki, and Salma—and for this new edition, we welcomed a freshman, Noelle Viñas, who was also invited last year but couldn’t make it then (cut to reality show montage in which Noelle introduces herself by saying she always dreamed of being part of Purple House but is not afraid of ruffling a few feathers, and people better not mess with her). The addition of Noelle meant an extra car, which in turn meant Lilly and I did not have to brave it on the train like last time, on our journey to a non-existent Port Jervis (we did take the train to come back, though, because Noelle had to leave early, but let’s not skip ahead).
The Brooklyn Car, as Noelle’s vehicle was quickly dubbed, lived up to its borough’s fame by being an environment with no preps or posers, terms that we learned from My Immortal, a Harry Potter fanfic that Lilly read to us out loud for most of the trip. Why? Because it’s generally considered the worst piece of fan fiction ever written, and it’s hilarious — it has only the most tenuous connection to Harry Potter, as most characters are flat-out renamed to fit the goth vibe (Ron goes by Diablo, Hermione by Bl’oody Mary) and act in completely incongruous ways (Dumbledore yells out “you motherfuckers!” at one point). Plus, we tried to seriously make sense of its plot, which only made it funnier! And it made the journey go by quickly, even though it wasn’t — we left around 1pm and got there at 6 (with a stop for lunch at a Burger King where I finally tried their chicken sandwich, which was aggressively fine. I’ve never bought into the BK Burgerverse; so far, the only concrete reason I’ve been given to do so is their chicken fries, and that’s just not enough) (Also, is Burger King the unofficial sponsor of Purple House?)
The Manhattan car, which was clearly way more poser/prep, beat us there, but we were not too far behind. The house, which had two floors and a balcony, was gorgi, though of course the first thing we noticed was that the wifi didn’t work — we are, after all, millennials (Adam says he’s Gen Z, but that claim has not been thoroughly investigated). Unlike Jeffersonville, where the wifi was strong but the 5G was weak, our hotspots became our best friends (and by “our hotspots” I mean Lilly’s). Other than that, though, we quickly made ourselves at home, before heading over to the not-quite-local (30 minutes away) grocery and liquor stores in Oneonta.
It was during that first grocery run that I realized that my brain was completely disconnected; any attempts by group members to engage me with questions like “Is vegan yogurt okay with you?” resulted in blank stares that clearly communicated “The number you have reached is not in service.” The months weeks that preceded this trip were quite intense for me, involving the negotiation of a contract for my first production, finding—and signing with—an agent, putting together the marketing for a whole reading festival, presenting a new play as part of my Princess Grace residency at New Dramatists, and more — including some big, big news that will be revealed at the end of this edition. So: I was TIREDT. My brain was running on Battery Saving mode. I could not make a call on vegan yogurt!
More than a retreat, this was to be a proper vacation for me, which meant that while others worked on their artistic projects, I:
Woke up only when I was ready (it also helped that my cat was not there to act as a fur alarm that rubs itself all over my face as soon as the sun is up);
Took post-lunch naps on the communal couch (I went as far as asking other people to move so I could lay down, something I perhaps wouldn’t do if my brain functions were normal);
Went to sleep at whatever time my body told me to, regardless of whether the night was still going for others;
Did not exercise — though I did take daily long walks with various members of the group, during which we usually threw around crazy script ideas we’ll probably never write;
Ate bagels, a Mendoza staple of vacations (they are too big and doughy for me to eat on a regular day);
Drank wine early and often;
Ate ice cream directly from the carton, regardless of whether others were gonna eat from it as well;
Spent countless hours talking with Lilly and Salma about our cats and showing each other pictures and videos of our babies.
It’s not like I didn’t do anything; I did read a bunch of plays I had promised people I would, I put together a strategy document for my agent that allowed me to do some blue-sky visioning for my career, and I worked on an ill-timed grant for my production. Also, as the appointed Daddy of the house, I kept track of the three house keys (“Where is the other key?” is a question I asked frequently), loaded and emptied the dishwasher several times (I am a progressive Daddy who shares house duties), and taught Salma house to use the Concatenate formula on Google Sheets. But still, overall, it was a pretty low-key week for me.
What did others do? I have no idea! It sounded serious. But I completely lost track of them during the day and was reminded of their presence only at night, when Salma opened the wine and we held our communal dinner (which, per Purple House rules, was cooked by one of us each night, and that person would then not do the dishes—unless that person was Nikki, who could not be stopped). After dinner, we’d move things to the couch, (since we no longer had a fire pit booo), and that’s where most of the Purple House 2 memes were born:
Adam asking “What is a skunk?,” which led to a 10-second silence from the entire group as we tried to ascertain from his expression whether he in fact did not know one of the most popular species in the animal kingdom (he didn’t)
Doing recreational poppers (I found it to be a letdown, sadly) and brainstorming ways in which we could make money with them. My idea: vegan poppers! (Are poppers already vegan? Maybe, who knows — but that shouldn’t stop us from labeling ours as such)
Related: me thinking that a piece of couscous had fallen into the poppers bottle, since I did not know that, apparently, all poppers bottles have couscous-like balls in them to keep them fresh (I think?)
Noelle correctly guessing everyone’s zodiac sign except for Nikki’s, who preemptively cut her off with a “I’M A VIRGO, NO NEED TO GUESS”
A round of Heads Up where we gave Charlie the clue “what all of us are” so he’d guess “artists,” and instead he guessed “family” (awwwwww)
Sadly, unlike the bottle of Zirtec gelcaps that Lilly provided for communal use, the retreat eventually came to an end. First, Noelle left us, because she has a life; then, two nights later, the First Class headed to Cooperstown (the rich village to Oneonta’s Middle America) for a goodbye dinner. We tried to make a reservation for an Italian spot, but they didn’t take them; when I asked whether they thought they’d have space for 6 people in the next hour, the hostess told me she “couldn’t predict the future,” which was rude AF. But we went anyway, and ordered a ridiculous amount of food, gorging ourselves on every flour byproduct known to man — when we were done, I said I needed to take my fiber or I’d never shit again in my life, which made Nikki laugh out loud (the highest of compliments).
The trip back was not without its drama. Since Noelle had taken the Brooklyn Car with her, the plan was for the remaining six of us to cram into Charlie’s vehicle; he’d drop Lilly and me at the Albany-Rensselaer train station before driving everyone else back to New York. It was a fine plan, but one we derailed by stopping for breakfast at a vegan cafe where we talked loudly about our future poppers business in front of a horrified family who was just trying to enjoy Mother’s Day with their little girl. As we cracked jokes and posted sappy Instagrams about how sad we were to leave, Charlie suddenly clocked that we were now late and would probably miss the train, so we all jumped back in the car and raced the rest of the way, while Nikki refreshed the AMTRAK app every few minutes to see if we would make it. Thankfully, we did!
It was a lovely trip, and I will repeat what I said while toasting at one of the communal dinners: I am incredibly impressed at us for making this happen not just once, but twice. Millennials are a notoriously flaky generation, because we were told to dream big but then only Mark Zuckerberg and Taylor Swift made it, leaving the rest of us childless and broke, wondering where it all went wrong as we bite into our avocado toasts (or in my case, avocado bagel). So while it’s totally expected that a group of millennials would say “Let’s make our own retreat,” it is a MIRACLE that we actually did it, and then did it again.
I am very thankful for this (as Charlie put it) family of ours. Here’s to many more!
And now the big news:
My motherfucking green card petition was motherfucking approved!! This isn’t the end of the road just yet—I have to file an adjustment of status (since I am here under a different visa) then have my fingerprints taken and prove that I don’t have gonorrhea or TB (seriously)—but the hardest part, which was to convince the government I am extraordinary enough to stay in the country permanently, is over.
I am too exhausted to unpack what all of this means; I’ve now easily spent over $30K on visa stuff, and it feels off to have “won” at a game I am fundamentally against (for more on this, I point out to my many articles about immigration). But all I will make space for right now is the gratitude I feel—to God, to everyone who supported me along the way, and to my fans, without whom none of this would be possible—as well as the promise to continue advocating so that this road is not as hard for those who come after me. Hopefully, I’ll have more to announce on that front soon!