02699cam a2200361 i 4500 975948492 TxAuBib 20231004120000.0 230311s2023||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2023009188 9780593496268 HRD 27.00 0593496264 HRD 27.00 TxAuBib rda Thomas, R. Eric, author Congratulations, the best is over!. Essays Selections. Congratulations, the best is over [BOOK] : essays / R. Eric Thomas. First edition. New York : Ballantine Books, [2023] xvi, 222 pages ; 22 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Introduction : the middle -- This is wudder -- Maybe going back again -- Oh my, this soup's delicious, isn't it? -- The greatest city in America -- You said you outside, but you ain't that outside -- You rock -- Clap until you feel it -- Break room cake communion -- Another person in the room -- Congratulations, the best is over! -- Jericho -- Hostas negotiator -- Determined to enjoy myself -- Soft ground: an interlude -- The invitation -- God in the machine -- Rainbow connection -- It's called hope. After going viral “reading” the chaotic political news, having one-too-many awkward social encounters, and coming to terms with his intersecting identities, R. Eric Thomas finally knew who he was and where he was going. He was living his best life. But then everything changed. In this collection of insightful and hilarious essays, Thomas moves back to his perpetually misunderstood hometown of Baltimore (a place he never wanted to return, even to be buried) and behaving completely out of character. They say you can’t go home again, but what if you and home have changed beyond recognition? From attending his twenty-year high school reunion and discovering another person’s face on his name badge, to splattering an urgent care room with blood à la The Shining, to being terrorized by a plague of gay frogs who’ve overtaken his backyard, Thomas provides the nitty, and sometimes the gritty, details of wrestling with the life he thought he’d left behind while trying to establish a new one. -Provided by publisher. 20231004. Thomas, R. Eric. Authors, American Biography. African American gay men Biography. Middle age Humor. Baltimore (Md.) Biography. Essays. Autobiographies.