Why I Appreciate My Mother
Clicking around tonight I have read more than a few
Mothers' Day posts. A lot of them are not happy stories at all. It has really served to remind me of how lucky I am to have the relationship that I do with my own mother. It wasn't always that way. We have had our rough times over the years. But there was a period of time that she stood by me that changed that forever.
When I first was "coming out" as it were I was going to school in San Francisco. I had started there continuing the patterns I had while closeted in high school, like hanging out with the smoker girls and being all introverted or whatever. But then these two wonderful girls took me under their wing. A club kid with Bettie Page bangs and a very petite lesbian biker. They took me to my first gay clubs, the
Castro district, and introduced me to boys. During this time I was never at home and my father was beginning to see what was going on. My mother kept him relatively calm.
Soon I had my first "boyfriend". He lived thousands of miles away in
Los Angeles, however, and we communicated only by phone and mail (I know, tragic huh? I was young!). Anyway he used to send the most amazing love letters and poems. Really gushy and romantic. One time he sent a beaded necklace that he made where each bead meant something in the poem. It had torn in the mail, giving my parents (who would otherwise have never stooped so low as to open my mail) the perfect opportunity to see why I was getting all this mail from a guy in LA. I wasn't home, but apparently my father went crazy with rage. He didn't want a faggot for a son, and all that. The plan was that I would be thrown out the next day...
I had gotten home late (again) and didn't see either of them. The next
morning I was eating breakfast before school when my mother handed me my open mail. She told they knew what was going on and warned me to avoid my father. She told me that he had wanted me gone but she got him to agree to let me stay six months (or something). She then threaten me that I'd have to leave immediately if I "flaunted" (being gay) in front of my brother, or if any relatives found out.
Later that day when my father got home I was there. All hell broke loose. He said the most amazingly cruel and disgusting things. He may have hit me too. I don't remember. It's like recalling a blurry nightmare.
It seems like a bad time, and it was, but from there my mother and I got closer. It was as though she was just showing rage to warn me about how upset my dad was. We began talking. Really talking and doing things. She helped me to talk to my dad. They visited after I moved. When it was time to graduate, both parents and my brother came to the ceremony. I never really saw my family all at once those first two years on my own, but I saw my mother all the time. When I moved in with my friend Patrick she asked if we were "more than friends". We weren't, but she didn't believe me for a while...
She had met
Richard (and knew who he was to me) before any of my family. She finally got so comfortable as to talk to her friends about me, and her mother and sister. All the relatives who were to never find out! And she slowly brought my father along with her in her quest for acceptance for me. My parents are now my closest friends. They have us (
Richard and I) over all the time, and they visit us. We go to dinner often, day trips, they were supposed to go to Mexico too.
Richard has even met my grandmother!
It really is an amazing thing to have the support of my whole family for my life as it really is, with out "hiding things" from this relative or that friend, or any of that drama that I know is usually the reality in a gay man's life.
It is all because of my mother.
Marauding Drag Queens
I am sorry, but all I can think of is a plot twist to "
To Fong Woo, Thanks for everything! Julie Newmar" Or perhaps a sequel.
(Birmingham, Alabama) When a queen goes to a gala she wants to arrive in style, and that say Birmingham police is what led a gang of marauding drag queens on a crime wave that targeted exclusive car dealerships in five southern states and Michigan.
Drag Queen Gang Terrorizes South via
Uffish.
It’s Stopped
It looks like
Richard and I won't be getting married anytime soon:
SAN FRANCISCO, March 11 -- The California Supreme Court on Thursday ordered San Francisco to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples after lawsuits by the state and conservative groups. It ordered hearings within three months to decide the legality of the unions.
Support and Annoyance
While watching T.V. tonight:
It's an amazing thing to see on the
news. All the couples waiting, camped out over night on the street, for something that seems so basic. Something that so many take for
granted.
via
Shades of Blue.
It's rather disappointing to see commercials for "
The Littlest Groom". This totally annoys me. Not only is it
yet another reality show, I question the intentions behind it. Well, to be truthful,
this annoyed me too... but in the end I got addicted, even though I hated it. Regardless, I won't be tuning in to "Littlest Groom"
A Good Cause
I saw the link at Rambling Webgirl and thought it funny that I hadn’t posted it yet. I don’t even know that I had signed yet (although I have signed similar, I think, I have NO memory today!) Anyway, go show support if you wish…
I’m So Gay
Can anyone tell me why I can tell you the title of any Cher movie based on her hairdo??
Yikes!
Oh, yeah! If you must know, it was Mermaids.
