Posted: October 30th, 2002 | Filed under: Uncategorized, daily | No Comments »

Today’s fortune cookie: “You will be advanced socially, without any special effort.”

Posted: October 28th, 2002 | Filed under: daily, depression | No Comments »

Fugitive

Oh my God I saw your slice of Heaven and really, I’d like to stay there for a little while. Will you commit crimes with me and run away? Oh, yeah, you have a girlfriend. Well, next time maybe.

Won’t someone out there commit crimes with me and run away?

I was pulling out of the Best Buy parking lot yesterday when a car of boys pulled up nearby. The two hotties in the front were checking me out. It was five pm; beer bust time at the nearby Eagle. They were going out, I was going home. This has been my life. I am currently spending too much money on home electronics, DVD’s and searching the Internet for movie posters. Also spending lots of time with women classmates and co-workers. I will soon be in the “gay” Hollywood Square, making you laugh while desperately covering up my sexually neutered status. And failing. I will live vicariously through all your sex lives while pretending not to understand what “punch my kitten” means. I will write closeted “fan mail” to various San Francisco Giants, hoping they might want to “hang out” during this difficult time. Also I will build a shrine to Paul Wellstone in my bedroom and hang roses upside down from the ceiling so that they dry the right way. At the grocery store I will hide the Enquirer in my underwear while buying lots of frozen dinners and making inappropriate remarks to the bagboy who won’t understand English anyway. I’ll channel surf for Law and Order reruns while wearing a flannel bathrobe and fall asleep before eating the vegetable portion.

Unless you become my partner in crime.

Posted: October 24th, 2002 | Filed under: daily, father, gay family, mom | No Comments »

It’s clear we’re above the East Coast. Sprawling green farms dotted with white farmhouses and honest-to-God red barns slide below us. Everything’s lush; it’s like looking down on the broccoli section at Safeway. Thick emerald tree cover and drizzly wisps of cloud slowly burning away in the rays of the emerging sun. I press my nose against the glass; eyes devouring the architecture of another world.

If it weren’t the closest airport to their house I might have avoided the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (“Everyone still calls it ‘National’”, my transplanted barber told me earlier). I stand with my bag in the D.C. dusk, waiting for my father who is unusually late. I call his partner at home.
“Where are you?” he asks.
“I’m at the airport.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I’m looking at the sign now. It says ‘National Airport’”.
“Hmmm.”
“Actually,” I say, “There’s kind of a new shiny building over there that looks more like an airport.”
“Oh! Oh, you’re at the old terminal.”
“It figures.”

My father is waiting for me in the baggage claim of the new terminal. I see him a hundred yards away; a hesitant figure scanning the crowds for my face. He’s never had the natural ease of other fathers, other men in the world. He’s always seemed stiff, reserved, pleasant. Like there’s a layer between him and emotion. His unease reflects mine; my emotions constrict in his company. When my mother would get angry with me she’d say “You’re just like your father”, knowing it would sting. I am quiet like him, shy like him. But I was her, too…, her passion and her temper and her selfless abandon. Her generosity and her need. I am both of them, but her death has made me value the part of me that is her more than the part that is him. In missing her I seek out what she left in me. When my father told me he wanted us to be closer because she was dying and soon he’d be my “only support”, I ducked my head, resenting his presumption. I didn’t want his support; I’d done well enough without it. I am here under obligation but driven by something else. Three weeks ago he had dreamed about her, dreamed they had been going through papers together. The next morning he had searched for her name on the Internet, and found me instead, found my site. I know my mother is orchestrating forgiveness. She’s pushing us together and because I love her so much I’m letting her push.

He sees me coming; his eyebrows raise and he smiles nervously.

Posted: October 22nd, 2002 | Filed under: daily, gay family | No Comments »

I spend $3.60 for a coke and a pack of gum at the gift stand in the Minneapolis airport. The coke for the caffeine, the gum to clear the coffee paste from my tongue. I’ve been up since 4 am, hovering uncomfortably on the edge of sleep ever since. The cashier doesn’t acknowledge me. She’s at least 60, blonde and pale like almost everyone here. I wait with my wallet in my hand while she fishes a pack of kleenex from her purse. Her fingers pluck at the corners of one tissue, tugging it away from the pack. She wipes her nose, sniffs, balls the tissue and tosses it out. Then she rings me up. “Thanks”, she says, in that false nasal pleasantness I’ve come to associate with my hometown. I turn away, watch a studly little daddy marshall his wife and kids away from the candy counter. I watch him almost wistfully, force myself to look elsewhere. Exhaustion intensifies my sex drive.

At Gate C4 I’m surrounded by more families. A plain-faced woman with breasts that lay like a broad pillow across her chest examines the food her husband’s brought to her. “The Cinnabun looks good but it’s awfully messy,” she tells him.
“That’s why I brought a fork, dear,” he replies. Their son reaches for the vanilla shake. He’s dressed up in a black button-down shirt and slacks, shiny loafers and a maroon tie. He wears a bright red baseball cap. His father, in a three-piece suit, stands as their rows are called. He pulls on a cowboy hat as his wife struggles to her feet, wiping frosting from the corners of her mouth. I follow from a distance, pull out my driver’s license, hours from my own family.

Posted: October 21st, 2002 | Filed under: daily, father | No Comments »

Miss me?

I didn’t get shot. But let me catch my breath.

Posted: October 15th, 2002 | Filed under: daily, father, shelter | No Comments »

Sigh

I’m in a bit of shock and very, very sad…my boss was laid off today; a warm, generous, intelligent, compassionate woman who has quite simply been the best person I have ever worked for. Period. I don’t think the Board of Directors has any idea the amount of work she’s done for this department. I don’t know what we’re going to do without her and really I wonder how long I’m going to stay. Not that I have a lot of options for jobs that will support my writing habit, but you know.

I guess I’m glad I’m going out of town tomorrow, even if the sniper killed someone two miles from my father’s house. I’ll take my chances.

Posted: October 14th, 2002 | Filed under: daily, father, sobriety, writing | No Comments »

Control: Or, no my name ain’t baby

“I really admire your strength; two years of sobriety, that takes incredible will power,” he says.

But will power is the red herring; sobriety isn’t about will power or control; it’s all about the opposite; the surrender, the release. Two years of will power is doomed from the start; a crack, a hairline fracture will spread; the whole affair will come crashing down.

You don’t build it up, you tear it down, day after day. You strip away your will, you strip away expectation and control. If you don’t you’ll die. You’ll get fucked up again, and you’ll be taken (no control) to the edges of life; jailed, hospitalized, homeless. And it’s either kill yourself quickly or do it slowly, gutlessly.

There’s not much we can control. We can’t control lovers, parents, bosses, presidents, public transportation. We can’t control their approval, their acceptance, their love. We can’t control corporations, traffic, disease. (Manage, maybe, if we’re lucky, but not control). We can’t control editors, publishers, arts councils. We can’t control people with guns or bombs.

We can kill them, sure, but do we wipe them out? What about their friends, their children, their lovers? Don’t we just welcome revenge? I don’t think killing stops killing; I think it begs for more. You can’t stamp it out like a fire; it’s more like water, running, dripping, pooling. It escapes confinement.

All I have are my actions. Naive as I may be, I choose negotiation. I choose olive branches and compromise. I choose who are you and how do we get this to work. If you don’t want that, guess what, I can’t control you.

I started this with a mission, a message. A thesis statement supported by facts and figures. But it’s come out forced, clunky, self-conscious. All I know is to try and learn how to love more. And to strip away everything else. To love and then surrender. To screw it up one day and try harder the next. To look for the spark and sugar in others. To scratch my dog more often.

And yet, in spite of all this it feels okay to take a break from the Love Bomb this week. I don’t know what to tell you except that I’m spread thin and I couldn’t do a target justice; it would sound half-baked. Ultimately though the Love Bomb is not my creation, not really; it’s more than the sum of it’s parts. It’s also all of you who participate; that’s what makes it a bomb. So choose your own; someone in your life, perhaps, that needs to know they’re loved.

I’m off for a few days on Wednesday to D.C. to visit my Dad and his partner, to dodge sniper bullets and to hopefully connect with at least two other bloggers while I’m there. There’s much to be done before I leave; I better get moving.

Posted: October 11th, 2002 | Filed under: daily | No Comments »

Dear Mister Latino Daddy:

Finally! How long have I been working out there? It’s about time you fastened your gaze on me. Your sweet smile when asking how many sets left is today’s happy pill, and I do appreciate the boost. Perhaps one day I will be able to do 160 on the seated row instead of 120 but at least it’s more than 100 which is what I was doing. Perhaps you can spot me next time on the incline, I wouldn’t mind looking upside down at you and your chest and the slick gold chain around your neck. No, I wouldn’t wear one but you can certainly pull it off. If that was your boyfriend with you last month buying groceries then we’ll have to talk, perhaps over a Peenya Colada Jamba Juice with two protein boosts that we’ll sip overlooking the Safeway parking lot and the swooping flocks of pigeons. Perhaps Ray the Jamba barista will upgrade you to Power size for free, like he does for me. If you haven’t noticed, the Human Bullet’s super mutant powers are growing stronger, and people can’t help but give me things for free.

Posted: October 9th, 2002 | Filed under: daily, sobriety | No Comments »

What, didn’t the president tell you the truth?

He’s shorter in person, handsome in that learned, distinguished fashion. Gray hair and glasses, oxford shirts, slacks, a gleaming Mercedes parked out front. His voice is deep and familiar, one you’ve probably heard before. He gives us the prime time news. In promo spots he grills the governor, the president, Yasser Arafat. You get the idea.

I’m asked to talk about the twelfth step; a humbling affair since it suggests I know something about the other eleven. I talk about my two-year anniversary, about the two men who asked me last week to be their sponsor, about my father and truth, about my weekend in Palm Springs. That night on that stage in that ballroom, the five hundred men, the shell around my heart breaking open; that night, Bearbait said, when people started calling him.

“You should see your sponsee,” they said.

And what he told me, what I couldn’t believe: that my night, my experience in the desert, gave others something resembling hope.

“Someone was going to drink, and they saw you and decided to stick around a little longer.”

So I talk about that, about the people who watch us when we never realize we’re being watched.

He approaches me afterwards, doesn’t hug me like the others but he says in that deep, television voice, “I want what you have. I want that honesty.”

I look at him, look for the joke, but there is none. He means it.

“It takes practice,” I say. “It’s like diving off a cliff. If you think about it too long, you’ll never do it. You have to just jump.” I don’t tell him what else I know: people like you when you tell the truth, more or less. Unless you’re talking about them.

Posted: October 7th, 2002 | Filed under: daily, sobriety, story | No Comments »

Gratuitous Gay Boy Soap Opera, or Why Men Are to be Avoided, Mostly

Scene: A bright, unusually hot day in a city by the sea. A crowded street fair in the gay ghetto. Odd assortment of booths: beer tents, art galleries, politicians, porn studios. Four men saunter slowly up and down the streets.

Handsome aka  Swivel-Head : (watches a group of campaign supporters hand out fliers on their candidate) :   Look at THAT one: He’s so cute…and he’s political!

Michael aka Your Reliable Narrator (and the only one wearing a shirt): (makes a  tisk  sound)

Hottie #1 aka Tony:  Did you just say ‘political’?

Hottie #2 aka Daddy-o:  He did.

Handsome (head swivels again):  Ooh, look, there’s T.J. He works at that cute store, you know, the one with all the candles and the rusty Buddha statues.

Tony:  He owns it, actually.

Handsome:  He DOES?

Michael:  Suddenly he just got much more attractive

Daddy-o:  And interesting.

Michael:  Look, that guy is naked.

Tony:  Talk about letting it all hang out.

Michael:  It’s never the ones you want to see naked.

Handsome: (swivels again as a barely-legal boy passes)  Ooh, pretty eyes.

Daddy-o (to Michael):  He likes em young, doesn’t he?

Michael:  We never have to fight over the same guys.

Daddy-o then performs for Michael a thirty-minute dialogue on the kinds of boys he likes, why San Francisco will be better for his sex life than Los Angeles was, and the fact that he didn’t feel the need to shave his back this morning because body hair is more accepted here. During this monologue Tony and Handsome fall back and Michael hears them whispering to each other.

Handsome:  I’m just staying out of it.

Both Tony and Daddy-o wander over to the chicken skewer tent while Handsome and Michael stand in the shadow cast by the leather-vest booth.

Handsome:  Tony’s sad now.

Michael:  Why?

Handsome:  He’s quite taken with you. And you’re spending all your time with Daddy-o

Michael:  Oh.  (sighs)  I’m not DOING anything. I’m just listening  (pause as he watches the two men order their skewers)  Tony’s adorable, just not….my type. I guess.

Handsome:  Heartbreaker. Do you want me to leave you and Daddy-o alone?

Michael:  No. He’s trouble.

Handsome:  Why?

Michael:  He’s a player. I want someone who’ll pay attention to me, not every other boy who passes. I hear he’s already broken three sober boys’ hearts in the two weeks he’s been here.

Handsome:  Well, when it’s over I’ll tell you my perception.

Michael:  You knew him in L.A.?

Handsome:  Yeah.

Michael:  Oh, come on. You can’t tease me like that.

Handsome:  Shh, they’re coming back.

Tony quickly devours his chicken.

Tony:  All right, guys, I’m out of here.  (he looks at Handsome as he says this, hugs the three men, then slips off into the crowd)

Michael watches somewhat guiltily.

Handsome:  Onward?

Daddy-o:  Onward.

They press forward into the crowd.

Daddy-o:  Look at that one.

Handsome’s head swivels up and down the block.

Daddy-o:  And that one.

Handsome:  Hello!

Michael: (interior monologue): I am hitting the wall. This is so not what I want to be doing right now. Men are pigs. Am I a pig? I need a nap. Are my expectations too high? This shirt is too hot. I’m not going to take it off. (glances sideways at Daddy-o’s chest) Yum. Why are the wrong ones the hottest ones? Is this how I have to find a boyfriend? I don’t want a boyfriend, he’ll just cheat on me. I just want someone who’ll treasure me. Oh my god that is the ugliest stained glass rainbow triangle I have ever seen. Who buys this crap?

Daddy-o:  I want some coffee, you guys want some?

Handsome:  No, thanks.

Michael:  We’ll wait here for you.

Daddy-o wanders off.

Michael:  Okay, talk.

Handsome:  Okay, okay. I was in L.A. when he started visiting from Houston, and it was just like he did before he moved here; he visited four or five times. Then he moved in with a couple who were in AA. And two weeks later one of the guys fell or was pushed off their balcony and he died.

Michael:  WHAT!?!

Handsome:  I know.

Michael:  What’d the police say?

Handsome:  They said he could have just fallen backwards off the railing. But then, I swear to God, less than three weeks later Daddy-o and the other boyfriend started dating. It was so creepy.

Michael: (watches Daddy-o approach, coffee cup in hand)  Oh my God, I’m never dating again.