Dude, Sweet!

Today is a holiday unique to Boston. Marathon Monday and Patriots day collide to form a weird type of holiday that shutters businesses and schools within the Boston city limits. Sort of like Saint Patrick’s Day, because anyone can claim to be Irish or a Patriot and the only proof you need to display is consuming more alcohol than your body can process. Because I work in Cambridge, technically I do not get this as a holiday, but because I live in Boston, I decided that “working from home” for half of the day was due to me.


My husband Paul and I walked down the sidewalk to catch a glimpse of the race at mile 22 and it was clear that this was a par-TAY atmosphere. The normal Boston College student backpacks had all been replaced with twelve-packs and despite it being just 51 degrees; they were optimistically dressed in shorts and tank tops.

“Oh look, the frat house is open!” Paul exclaimed. It’s not really a frat house, but we affectionately call it that because at the hint of any warm weather, the decks and front lawn are filled with intoxicated college age men. And when you have a group of young intoxicated men, stupid shit follows. Today was no exception.

“Dudes, do you want a brew?” A young guy in plaid shorts and BC T-shirt asked us. “All-set, thanks.” Paul waved. On the front steps were two guys leaning over another young man, his right knee bleeding profusely. “Dab, don’t wipe dude, dab!” One of them was heatedly telling the makeshift medic with a bloody rag. And then we passed by another frat boy holding a plastic bag, with contents that looked alarmingly like urine, getting ready to take a sip, but in a neighborly way held it out to us for a sample. We declined. And this was 11:30 AM, mind you.

I can’t tell you how many times Paul and I have re-enacted the frat boy’s mannerisms and language, leading up to what Paul calls in his Borat accent, “Sexy-time”. “Dude, the coach really kicked my ass in practice today! Can you rub the kink out of my back, bro’?” You get it: Straight-acting. I hate that term. When I posted a profile on match.com before I met Paul, every other Gay man listed himself as “straight-acting”. To say that is to imply that being Gay is undesirable.

I have asked my friends, Sam and Cary what is so appealing about hooking up with someone that is straight-acting. Cary says it is making up for all of those years in high school when the college jocks made fun of us homos and now we get the upper hand by sticking it to them, so to speak. Sam really doesn’t give a shit what his hook-ups act like as long they keep their grimy hands off his fabric headboard, so he really was of no help.

I think that society wants unrealistic definitions and boundaries. Boys play with trucks and guns while girls play with Barbies and dress up. When an advertisement surfaced this week about a mother painting her five year old son's toenails pink, you would have thought that she might as well have been signing him up for sex re-assignment surgery. There were so many critics that thought this was “improper”. The mother and son were clearly playing and loved this; Kudos to the mother for not condemning the son to a life of “This is what boys are supposed to act like”.

If more parents allow their children to be who they are then one day, maybe we can get rid of the term “straight acting” in the Gay community. Who knows, maybe the straight community will advertise themselves as “gay-acting”. And Dude, that would be sweet!

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Flamer

Last night I attended a business event set atop a downtown hotel with dramatic views of the Atlanta skyline. One thousand miles from home and I did not know a single attendee. On top of that, the invitation noted that there would be hand rolled cigars and cabaret dancers (women) with fire. “Oh, yay” I thought to myself. It was a business event that was clearly planned by a straight man. And that’s OK if you are a straight man. But as a gay man I was thinking big yawn.


I have spent so many years in the corporate world pretending to be straight and because I don’t do that anymore, I was dreading the event just a little bit. But, here’s the thing. When you don’t care if people think you are gay, life is so much more enjoyable. You get to be yourself.

Before I was out, I used to worry that the little things I did or said would give me away. I would shop for Old Navy pleated khakis to go with a blue button down shirt. You know, the “Man uniform”. And no need to try them on for God sakes. Why would I care about the fit? I’m a man, we don’t shop, we buy!

Now, I spend time looking for the right fit and color. I will notice and comment on a woman’s (or a man’s) haircut and shoes. Does that make me Gay? No, but even if someone told me that was gay, my reply would be “Thank you!”

Back to the event: I have found that grabbing a drink and a plate of food and then finding a spot at a cocktail table with others is the perfect way to meet people. Opening with “Do you mind if I park here?” seems to be always met with “Not at all!” And that is how I met two attractive women from South Dakota.

While other men were clumsily trying to pick them up, I was being myself and having a lot of laughs with them. In short, the other men were acting like “men” and missing out. At one point, a guy walked up and asked the two women if they needed a refill on their drinks. Marcia, one of the women, turned to him and said "You betcha'! Bill needs a refill." I told him any kind of red wine would do and we watched the poor bastard stumble off to the bar in a daze, clearly bothered to be fetching a man a drink.  Marcia laughed and said “You’re not like the typical IT person, you’re a people person!” I think she got that half right. I am a people person and I am an IT person, but I do not act like the typical man.

As the three of us watched the cabaret dancers light different appendages on fire and prance around the floor we laughed and enjoyed the show. I thanked my drink fetcher for being a good sport and introduced him to Marcia and Stacey and watched the wall around him come down.  I began to think that really, I can have a good time anywhere because I have learned not to care what other people think of me. Straight men would do well to do the same.

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I am here

The other night, Sam, Cary and I met for dinner at Stella’s in the South End of Boston. It is a tradition for us to meet once or twice a month to discuss what is going on in our lives. Things you can’t discuss in e-mails and texts and the conversation is significantly enhanced by a few drinks and a gay friendly location.

Our conversations help to keep us sane, literally. We met in a “coming out” support group some four years ago on a cool October night in Brookline. There were more than the three of us. Six to be exact.  Five of us have stayed in touch but poor Bob, the sixth retreated back into the closet after the sessions ended.

It’s funny now to think of that first night. Each of us so nervous we could barely look at each other, carrying an armload of emotional baggage. I may have been the only gay virgin in the group, but that didn’t make talking about it any easier for Cary and Sam. This group was about self-acceptance, not self-admittance. And we all had big issues with that.

The group met for 12 weeks and somewhere around the middle, we were told that the next session would be the “sex” session. It was promised to be a frank talk that we were extremely interested in and also caused a certain amount of anxiety. Sam reveals now that he sent a three page e-mail of questions to our therapist beforehand.

“Bullshit. He didn’t answer a single fuckin’ question” Sam, still frustrated reveals. In retrospect, the “sex” session was extremely tame. Our conversations these days would make a hooker blush.

As we talk, it is clear that just talking to other people of like mind is cathartic. It does not matter if it is structured in a group therapy session or over drinks. The important thing is that we continue to talk. I would not dream of denying the existence of my husband Paul; Just as Cary would not dream of denying the love of his life.

When I came out to a friend, one of the first things he said was “It’s difficult, because I immediately imagine the sex act” This troubled me. I don’t envision he and his wife having sex and that is because heterosexual love is a part of our everyday vernacular. This is why it is so important that we all come out of our closets. Not being a majority is difficult, but pretending you are not who you are is deadly. Find someone to confide in. And if you need someone to talk to, I am here.

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Best Quality Heart

It is Sunday afternoon and I am languishing on the sofa in our Boston condo while my husband Paul, ever industrious, pieces together an Ikea dresser. Flipping through the TV channels I bypass “Real Housewives” and stop on “The Joy Luck Club”. Because we are scheduled to meet some friends for dinner in Chinatown, my thinking is that I can pick up some Chinese to impress the waiter.



Chinatown-Boston



When Paul mutters something like “Would it kill them to print one written word?” I reply “I know! Wouldn’t you have hated to be a woman in China during the 1930’s? : Although you do have to admire the fashions. Oh, sweetie, can you move just a little to the right, I can’t see the TV screen?” And then I realize Paul is standing in front of the TV screen for a reason.

After I make a huge display of climbing off of the sofa to help with the dresser, we watch the movie while piecing together our Hemnes dresser. I don’t pick up any useful “restaurant Chinese”, but I do begin to think about how parents can really screw up their kids. I am a pro, being a child and a parent.



My mother expected the best of me. Being gay was definitely not the best quality. At Nineteen I tried to come out to my mother. Her response was immediate and severe. It was not an option and a therapist would help me to overcome this. Life she assured me would be dismal if I “chose” this lifestyle. So, I chose differently.





Suyuan says to her daughter Jing-mei: “That bad crab, only you tried to take it. Everybody else want best quality. You, you’re thinking different.”

I married a woman and together we had two beautiful daughters. A choice I do not regret, but every choice has consequences. Eventually life became so numb that even a needle could not produce any pain. I was forced to make a seemingly impossible decision. Continue to fade away or step out of the marriage.



What is right is not always the easiest, but I learned that living authentically is the best thing that we can do for ourselves and our children. My mother had evolved by that time and had shrugged off those inherited prejudices. When I came out to her again, she begged my forgiveness and became my strongest supporter.





“You took worst, because you have best-quality heart. You have style no one can teach. Must be born this way. I see you”

Paul and I were married on a beautiful summer New England day last year, surrounded by friends and family. My two daughters and mother and Paul’s three children and parents stood by our sides. Later that day, my mother told me that I was a wonderful father, a good person and that I had chosen well. These are the simplest, sweetest  and most powerful words a parent can say.

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Life Happening

Sam sent me an e-mail and told me we were going to Keezer’s in Cambridge to pick up a tux. “It’s your run-o'-the-mill tux store. Fifty bucks, it’s where all the Harvard kids get their rentals and I’m built like a box so I don’t care about fuckin’ tapered lines”. He weaves the F-bomb into every conversation like it was a punctuation mark and discards all of the “R’s”. Sam is renting a tux for $50 and spending $300 to attend a fund raiser dinner. If you knew Sam, you would know that this somehow makes sense.

We meet after work and I know why I am there. Sam is color blind and doesn’t trust the Russian store clerk. “Dameron, don’t just stand there and look pretty, help me pick out a vest” he barks at me. At the same time he is talking to the clerk as if he has known him for years. “And I want a tie with a clasp, not like that Mr. Tux crap. I spent two hundred bucks on a tux and I had to use a fuckin’ paper clip on the tie.” The clerk chuckles and wanders through the floor to ceiling boxes to fetch a bow tie. Just then a cute young guy walks by in a rental suit and socks, Sam elbows me, one eyebrow raised and tilts his head towards the young man’s direction. “Nice suit” Sam says. The young guy smiles at Sam and blushes.

This is what I love about Sam. He says what he thinks and never apologizes. To me, Sam is Boston: Brash and outgoing one moment, personable and tender the next. When my husband, Paul and I bought our circa 1940’s mid-rise condo in Cleveland Circle I worried aloud that the Boston College student population might present a noise problem. Sam’s quick reply summed up his personality perfectly:

“That’s city life William, never bothered me. That’s life happening”

We are sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Harvard Square deep into our fourth Margarita after the tux rental. Sam is talking and laughing about an unfortunate man we call “Monkey Boy”, because the hair on his neck does not stop to meet the hair on his back. He grabs a tortilla chip from a basket sitting on the bar next to him. “They leave these appetizers sitting out for bar patrons” he says while crunching down on the chip. I grab a chip and say “Very nice”. Sam laughs and spits out “You’re so fuckin’ gullible”. But that doesn’t stop us from eating someone else’s left over basket of chips.

We could stay out all night laughing and drinking, talking about Monkey boy and pointing out the other “team members” in the bar, but Sam looks at me and says “It’s a school night, William”.

Sam drives me home. As we cross over Comm Ave, a green line T passes into the city night. I am struck with a wave of sentiment for the home I’ve chosen. As the T screeches around the corner Sam says:

“Life Happening, my friend”

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Insomnia

Three AM……I am eating salt-less pretzels and drinking Kahlua and Irish cream. The salt-less pretzels were bought in a fit of “no sodium because it’s bad for me” obsession and Kahlua and Irish cream because Nyquil is usually my alcoholic knock-out medicine of choice, but I did not put it on “The List” after it ran out.


Naturally, I open up Facebook to see what my “friends” are up to. It’s a Monday, so most of them have commented on “What a Monday” it was. This is worse than Joan Rivers and the “Bitch stole my look” segment on TV. Although I have to say Celine Dion looks pretty good for a 42 year old woman with twins. Poor thing, her husband is eighty years old and now she’ll have three sets of diapers to change.

I turn back to Facebook and look up my real friends. I say “real” friends because they are the ones that deal with my daily shit and insecurities, unlike Facebook friends that only see the good pictures of me and hear about my amazing day!: Insert LOL and smiley face here. Real friends get the short end of the stick.

The first page I look at is Sam’s. Sam calls it “Stupid Facebook”, never just Facebook. He says the only thing people post is the “stupid” stuff. His profile picture is two years old and he never updates his status. I think the only reason he has Facebook is to use it to pick up guys. As my honest friend, he will tell me things other people would not dare tell me. “Don’t get all concentration camp on me Dameron” is what he told me when I lost twenty pounds. After a new haircut his only comment was “Huh, I like you with more hair”. I respect and expect these comments from him. I am not surprised that he would hate “Stupid Facebook”.

And then there’s Cary. His status updates are obscure 1980’s song lyrics. Not surprisingly, there are twenty four comments of people finishing those lyrics. Cary’s profile picture is always handsome and current. On his page today, there is a carefully orchestrated wall photo of two glasses of champagne and desserts sitting on a porch surrounded by palm trees from his trip to Punta Cana. Sam and I have to laugh about Cary’s oh so gentle e-mail to us when we joined Facebook, telling us he was not “Out” on Facebook; an admonishment. I don’t like to stereotype, but I’m pretty sure he has already outed himself.; Exhibit A) Duran Duran lyrics and Exhibit B) Staged photos of champagne and desserts. But we play along with it. Cary is the empathetic friend that you talk to when you need some positive reinforcement. If he told me I was looking skeletal or had a lesbian hair-cut, it would kill me.

And to round out my trio of real friends, there is my husband, who is asleep somewhere in Canada on a business trip. I wonder if he knows how fortunate I consider myself to breathe the same air he breathes. So, I open up my e-mail and prepare to tell him this. Instead I type the following E-mail:

Subject: Olson Twins


Watching TV and wondering why Mary Kate and Ashley never show their teeth when they smile? Can’t sleep, thinking about you. Love you.
XOXO,
Willy


And that is enough. I don’t post anything to Sam and Cary’s wall. These are my “real” friends. They don’t need a status update to know what I am doing or how I feel and that comforts me. Now, maybe I can sleep.

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Puppy Training

Winters in New England are like boring guests, they just don’t know when to leave. So, last weekend Paul and I packed our bags and headed to Miami. This annual spring break is what gets me through the winter. While walking to the bus stop through piles of dirty snow encrusted with frozen dog poop I imagine palm trees, sandy beaches and sizzling night life. I hit the gym months ahead of time with my sole motivation being to look good in a swim suit. Shallow, I know, but as Paul always says to me. “It’s not what’s on the inside that counts, but how you look on the outside”.

This year we took a clue from the “Biggest Loser” recording our weight and keeping a log each week of the progress. We decided that a weekly weigh in was best, but because I like to obsess about myself, I weighed in twice a day and it always had to be after my run, fully unclothed and preferably after a bowel movement, to get my true weight, measured in pounds and ounces. My daily run on the treadmill increased from three miles to six miles a day. Two months later and twenty pounds lighter, I was thrilled when one of my co-workers said:

“If you don’t mind my saying, I think you look too thin. You look like a runner from Kenya”.

“Really?” I said with utter glee. I knew that I had hit my goal.

During those same two months Paul was able to shed exactly half a pound. He pulled up his shirt and extended his belly as far as possible; looking twelve months pregnant and rubbing his belly he said:

“Look honey, I think its twins!”

He had given up early and instead of hitting the treadmill, hit the tanning booth, saying only

“Fat looks better tanned”

And this is the difference between us. While I obsess about myself, Paul obsesses about everything else. A short while after we first met, I invited Paul to my apartment. He remarked at how well stocked my refrigerator was. Because I was a newly out gay man, he expected my refrigerator to contain a can of beer, ketchup and a stack of cheese, as any straight man’s refrigerator would be stocked. One month later he was still surprised at how well stocked the fridge was, until upon further inspection, he realized that it was all of the same ingredients. Holding up a clear container of two month old soup, he said in a slightly disgusted tone “Everything has separated into what it used to be”.

From that time forward, Paul would start each visit to my apartment with a garbage bag at the refrigerator removing expired items and making a shopping list for replacements. All of my different colored hangars were replaced with the same white hangars. When I moved into Paul’s house, the closet was re-organized to accommodate my clothes. Once, I “kissed” the back of the garage wall while pulling in my car. The next day marine bumpers where installed and a little stoplight sensor was mounted on the wall to indicate when I was getting too close to the wall.

Paul never complains about these things. As a matter of fact, he seems to revel in them. It is just a part of his nature to engineer his life around me and he is only too happy to do that. We have our roles and I was completely happy with the arrangement until my mother dropped one line:

“Paul treats you like a puppy”.

Parents are good at slipping in those one-liners that have to be extracted by trained therapists. Of course what she meant was that I was a grown man, fully capable of taking care of myself. This bothered me.

I was thinking about this when Paul and I were walking down Ocean Drive in Miami. I saw a man walking a puppy and people were smiling and admiring the pair. The puppy stopped, squatted and pooped on the pavement. The owner, prepared, stooped over and scooped up the pile with a plastic grocery bag, while the puppy licked the owner’s delighted face.

I smiled, turned to Paul and kissed his cheek. Paul smiled and looked at me

“What was that for?”

“That was for taking care of me” I said. And then I told Paul what my mother had told me.

He grinned and said, “You must be the puppy, because you’re the cute one.” He kissed me back, grabbed my hand and said “Pookie, If I am the one cleaning up shit after you, who really is the master?”

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