Ticket in the Thames

I feel like I’ve written lots about my uncomfortableness with the gays lately. I stumbled upon the fact that the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival is going on this week and it triggered this little memory and figured I may as well share.

My decision to study abroad had nothing to do with academics. The International Studies advisor lobbied hard for me to take advantage of our partnership with Oxford and take an intensive course there. I declined. I didn’t want to spend my time abroad with my nose in a book. While the boyfriend tells me the libraries in Oxford (he took the Oxford route, being far more responsible than I) were fantastic, I wanted to see more than just that.

I’d also got it in my head that I needed to get the heck outta Dodge. I was feeling so much pressure. My family seemed to have a lot of expectations about who and what they wanted me to be. I was just starting to come to grips with being gay and realizing that I wasn’t ever going to be what they wanted. So, I decided I would take a semester, leave the country and get away from all of the pressures. I figured that if I could strip away all of the expectations and be somewhere where literally everything was foreign, then I could see how I reacted, see what I felt and thought and then, figure out who I am.

Before I left, I was out to one person. I wasn’t out to the friend who went to England and shared a room with me. My best bitch didn’t even know. However, as part of my learning process while in London, I decided that I was going to do something “gay”. I didn’t really even know what that meant. Every week we were there I bought the “Time Out” and instantly flipped to the “Gay” section to see if I could find what my gay event would be. It finally showed up.

The front page said “London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival”. I decided I would go. The only night I could make it work without anyone else in the house wondering where I went was the night they were showing “Queer as Folk”. It was even the American version. They were basically saying “look at how the Americans screwed up our show”.

I made up some excuse about why I was leaving the house and took the Tube into Central London. I remember actually starting to shake from nerves when the train was at the Hammersmith stop (about halfway into Picadilly Circus). I forged on and walked to the National Theatre and got in line to buy my ticket. I felt flushed. I was alone in a crowd of people who would assume I’m gay just by virtue of my standing there. The line was about 100 people deep.

It sounds dramatic, but I swear it’s true. I was the next person in line to buy my ticket when the guy on the other side of the glass said they were now sold out. I was both relieved and pissed off. I’d gotten my courage up and now all for nothing. Just as I was about to turn and walk out someone yelled, “Hey, do you need a ticket?” I turned around and there was a man extending a ticket out to me. I said yes and he handed it to me and walked away. I didn’t pay him and I don’t even remember what he looked like.

But I wondered inside, took my seat and watched 6 back to back episodes of “Queer as Folk.”

I’d saved all of my tickets from the 30 something plays I’d went to in London and wanted to save my ticket for going to this. However, I didn’t want to risk someone finding it. So, given my flair for drama, I let it fall from my hand down into the Thames as I walked across the bridge back to the Tube station. Given my Mom’s flair for drama, she called my pay as you go phone as I looked over the bridge and watched the ticket fall. She heard the choke in my voice and asked if i was ok. I told her I was fine, I’d just left seeing a sad movie.

Lifestyle Choices

I’ve never liked going to gay clubs. This has as much to do with my being homo-phobic as it does with just not being the “go out” kind of guy. I’m much more content with ordering a pizza and playing a rousing game of Phase 10. I know that the clubs and “going out” are part of the gay experience. It’s just something that you have to do and I’ve done it a few times. I’ve just never much enjoyed it.

I’m sure there are a few things at work here. One is my aforementioned homo-phobia. Also, I think people associate the clubs with the “gay lifestyle,” a term to which I take a great deal of issue. I don’t know about you, but I’ve yet to figure out what the “gay lifestyle” is. I know gays that live all kinds of lifestyles and as best I can tell, my lifestyle isn’t terribly different from the straights that I work with. It’s just that gay clubs seem to be the example of where someone would go to live the “gay lifestyle.” Especially, if they were using the term pejoratively, what with the go-go boys, booze and drag queens.

I know something like that was on my mother’s mind during our conversations after the coming out process. She was SO upset that I would now be living the “gay lifestyle.” Now granted, this is the woman who can count among her first responses to my coming out “but you don’t even like MAYONAISSE”. So, her judgment might be dismissed as unsound. However, it was some desire to prove to her that my being gay didn’t mean anything different than her being straight that’s also played a role in my avoiding clubs.

My aversion continued until about 2 months ago. The boyfriend and I planned a “Big Gay Night Out” with 3 other friends. We carpooled up to Louisville, got dinner and then hit the club. We started at the drag show and then moved on to the dancefloor. We all had a blast. There may even be photos of my girl, Bluebelle putting dollars bills into the mouth of a go-go boy in a shower. I also learned the boyfriend can work it like a rap video dancer.

We had so many friends respond to our tweets from Big Gay Night Out 1 that we had to set up another. So, Big Gay Night Out 2 was this past weekend. We ended up with 13 people in 3 cars. We had almost as many straight women as gay guys in attendance. We even had the one hetero male in the party. (Though, some of us have our doubts…).

As I was sitting in the passenger seat while the boyfriend commandeered Marco back home, it occurred to me. This was fun. Lots. I also spent no time wondering or caring if anyone else in the place was judging me. I also didn’t feel like I was a part of any other lifestyle. I was with my best friends in the world, living life, making memories and laughing then dancing our asses off.
So, maybe I’ve made one more step towards curing my homo-phobia, but I should probably get in a game of Phase 10 before going back.

Quick Note: Nothing Special

I've been up since 5am. I'm sitting in the waiting room at Central Baptist while my grandmother gets the battery on her pacemaker swapped out. Nothing terribly serious, but apparently something that must be done at an ungodly hour. My aunt brought her up, but she has her own round of doctor's appointments today. So, here I sit. Thankfully, they have Wi-Fi.

However, while I'm here I'm working on updating the resume and applying for a job at UK. Wish me luck!

Thunderstorm Warning

I’ve always loved storms. Something about the charged atmosphere, the smell, the excitement that the TV meteorologists transmit and the sound and fury of nature makes me want to stand outside and watch rather than cower into a basement and hide.

I know that storms can be violent and deadly and since I’ve never experienced that firsthand, maybe I’m naïve. But when I hear that thunderstorms are rolling in, I get kind of excited.

My first experience with a big storm was when I was about 5. We lived in Loyall, KY (still the place I consider “home”) along the banks of the Cumberland River and across from the L&N Railroad tracks. My sister and I had been outside playing when Mom brought us in because “the storms were comin’”. I was only 5 so I may not have the best memory, but what I recall is that we had just walked in the house when all hell broke loose. I remember running to the picture window in the front of the house and a sunny sky had turned coal black. Thunder was causing the big Combustioneer furnace in the living room to rattle and some of the toys we’d left in the yard were now blowing down the street.

Mom had no sooner shut the back door and demanded that my sister and I get into the bathtub when she remembered she’d left blankets out on the backporch to dry. When she ran back to the backdoor to grab them, the door wouldn’t open. Even at 5 years old, I’d heard that tornadoes sounded like the horns on the trains that would run behind the house and as my sister and I left our station in the bathtub to watch Mom fight with the door, we heard the deep whistle. And it was getting louder.

Within about 2 minutes it was over. The bright sky came back and the day became sticky humid making me want to stay inside with my Transformers instead of going back outside. Oddly enough, some of my Mom’s blankets were still hanging on the backporch. However, the deck on the back of both our neighbor’s houses were torn completely off with big chunks of wood bobbing in the river. I remember thinking how cool it would be that our neighbor’s decks were going to go over Cumberland Falls.

That day started my love affair with storms. Since then, I’ve stood outside during a hurricane in Florida just to watch the clouds swirl and the palm trees bend over. I’ve seen a tornado blow the roof off of a K-Mart in Corbin and I’ve scared the bejesus out of my college roommate by opening our windows to listen to Moby while it hailed.

So, I’ll be religiously checking the forecasts and watches and warnings today. And while I certainly don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone, if it does, I may be the guy who is too stupid to get in out of the rain.

Scared Straight

For about 15 years now, I’ve had a rule: no one with a penis gets to cut my hair. This harkens back to being taken to a barber when I was 13 or so. I’d been leaving my hair fairly long in the traditional “bowl cut” for years. There was a delightful lady at a salon who had been cutting it for a couple years since we’d moved to a new town. For some reason, my mom decided that I needed to go to a barber instead. Without any consultation from him, my hair was instantly shaved off. There was no discussion. I remember him saying something about how he had just assumed that is what we wanted and that was pretty much all he knew how to do. I cried. Lots. Thus, the rule was born. Penis possession = no scissors coming near my hair.

I broke the rule today. The Faerie Princess had heard me talk about having to drive out to the middle of nowhere (Palomar) to get my hair cut and my ungrateful (not so much a thank you for at least 10 regular and maybe 10 more occasional new clients) stylist. With enthusiasm and with assurance that he “does good boy hair,” she encouraged me to see her Hair Gay. It took a couple of months before I could finally get up the courage to break the rule, but I made the appointment last week and went today.

I can’t say enough great things about him. The haircut was spectacular. While my “style” may not be terribly different than it usually is, it’s more finished, more polished. The little things that make my hair what I’ve always kind of wanted, it now is. Nevermind that the Hair Gay is much closer and appears to understand the value of repeat business and referrals. I actually can’t wait to get up in the morning, just so I can “do” my hair. Seriously, it’s that good.

So, I think the rule will be amended. Penis possession + penis appreciation = perfectly acceptable. You’d think that being gay I might have already figured this out. It’s just that there is another truth at work here. Gay guys scare me. Like seriously freak me out.

It’s just that the gays tend to have high expectations. The hair should be perfect, the clothes perfectly styled, the skin should be flawless, the teeth straight and whitened (even if you smoke), the stomach should be flat and the perfect witty response to everything should always be on the tip of your tongue. It’s pressure. It’s also something that’s just not within my capacity to attain. I always feel like I’m depleting the fabulous of the room, like the other gays are wondering how I managed to get into their club.

This is all to say NOTHING bad about the Hair Gay. He was fabulous, welcoming, personable and again gave a FANTASTIC haircut. I’ll be going back. And now that I’ve broken the rule, maybe I can work on getting over my own little homo-phobia one appointment at a time.

C'mon Vogue

I’m a fashion gay. Not in the Christian Siriano way, but more in the absolutely captivated by all things fashion sense. I religiously read GQ, W magazine (cuz it’s not just the men’s lines that I like) and I’m always looking at the video and pictures of the runway shows during Fashion Week. It’s just I always feel like I have to add a disclaimer of “don’t judge, I can’t dress myself” when I say that.

I have plenty of friends who actually won’t go clothes shopping unless I go with them. One of my few talents is the ability to look at someone, make a quick assessment and then make them look the best they’ve ever looked. It’s a gift, I don’t own it. (Points if you get the 80’s sitcom reference)

One of my favorite recent moments was a co-worker asking me to take him and 3 other straight guys shopping for clothes before they went on a group vacation to New York City. They didn’t want to look like Kentucky hicks in the club in New York. So, I took a fellow adjuster, a soccer coach, a police officer and I’m not honestly sure what the other guy did to the mall. Granted, we aren’t doing high fashion at J. Crew, but I had a blast having conversations about various cuts for jeans and showing them how good they could look if they’d frickin’ wear a shirt that FITS!!! Not to mention the delight I found in the conversation with one of them about how we had to be mindful of his “substantial endowment” when going for the low-rise jeans. Seriously, y’all…I got a little ferklempt in the Guess store.

It’s just that when I try to shop for myself, my super powers instantly go away. When I look at myself, I see a very overweight, out of shape, disproportionate blob. I actually made a list of 100 something things that I dislike about myself when I was in college. Most of those are things that I can’t change without a Michael Jackson-esque reincarnation under the plastic surgeon’s knife. I don’t really have the money for that.

So, I’m sitting here today at work in what I feel like would be a very cute outfit on some other guy. The ensemble consists of gray herringbone pants, dark blue striped button up and a blue military inspired wool sweater with fantastic button details. I don’t usually care about what I wear to work. I work with a group of straight guys who wear pleated pants (and the occasional lesbian), so nobody really pays much attention to me clothes-wise. But today, I’m thinking about going home for lunch and changing. I feel like flubber. The sweater is bunching in all the wrong places and I guess I’ve gained weight since I bought the shirt, because that last button was just a little tight this morning.

I know we all obsess about how our appearance, our weight, etc. I also know that I don’t eat right and don’t exercise as much as I should. So, really the onus is back on me if I’m not happy with myself. But, when you have a list of 100 things, it kind of makes it seem pointless to try. About a year ago, I weighed almost 20 pounds less than I do now and even then, I was the same level of unhappy with myself.

I didn’t want to turn this into a pity party and my apologies if I did. But if you see me today in the blue sweater, don’t judge, I can’t dress myself.

A Case of the Mondays

Typically, my favorite day of the week is Monday. I recognize that may seem like a foreign concept to most people. I work Tuesday through Saturday, so Monday has became my day of rest. It often feels like I have a little bonus day. When everyone else is getting up and starting their work week, I'm getting up in time to make coffee and re-snuggle up on the sofa to catch The Price is Right. It's just every so often that I feel like I'm missing something.

I was supposed to do several things today. Get up at 5am and go volunteer for WUKY's pledge drive, get back home about 10:30 and maybe grab a quick nap, lunch at noon, meet a friend to catch up (and learn that he is moving away) at 2 and then get back home in time to do dinner with the boyfriend. Also, I need to pay bills, do laundry, ideally clean a little and if I was good, run by the car dealer and try to get them to reattach the shield I broke on my most recent trip to Harlan. Those are just the things that require my immediate attention.

In a perfect world, I'd also like to work out some, spend some time with the boyfriend (that isn't diverted by eating and staring at TV), read the Book Club book for Wednesday, talk to my Mom for a few minutes to let her know I still love her, try to repair an obliterated friendship, and maybe, just MAYBE spend some time working on this "what I want to do" question.

I don't suppose that it's any revelation that people get too caught up in the "have to-s" on any given day. I just don't know how to find the balance. I also know that I'm already physically and mentally exhausted and I still have a few things on the "have to" list. I don't have a clue how to work in the second list where I not only make time for myself, but time for the people that I love. However, one of the things that I took away from the conversation with the friend earlier today is that this stagnation has gone on far too long. I just seriously don't know how to stop it.

"O let not Time deceive you,

You cannot conquer Time.

In the burrows of the Nightmare

where Justice naked is,

Time watches from the shadow

and coughs when you would kiss.

In headaches and in worry

Vaguely life leaks away,

And Time will have his fancy

To-morrow or to-day".

excerpt from "As I Walked Out One Evening" W.H. Auden