May 18, 2004
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gay like that •
link-tastic!
This made me feel all special and romantic...
I cannot speak for all married people, but I can speak for myself. Marriage has been so good to me that I cannot imagine not sharing it with anyone who wants it. I celebrate your weddings, and I offer the greatest gift I have: That you receive in your married life the joy I have had in mine, and that you share that joy, every day, with an open and loving heart. You're about to be married. There is nothing better.
It's meant for all the same sex couples in Massachusetts, but great advice for anyone.
A Quick Note to About-To-Be Married Gays and Lesbians via
Uffish.
May 10, 2004
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family drama •
gay like that •
remember me
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.
April 08, 2004
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link-tastic!
K’ this is pretty funny even if you don’t follow politics that close!
You’ve seen Queer Eye... Are you ready for the Right Wing Eye?
via chrisafer.com, and jessemcpherson.com.
March 28, 2004
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anger management
I have found out the most disgusting thing at work. Well, disgusting to me at least. In my position the kids are always telling me their personal stuff, and I am always trying to “be there” as best I can within reason.
Anyway, one of the girls had been pretty upset for a while. It turned out she has some pretty homophobic parents who did not approve of her having a gay male best friend. They were accusing her of being gay, and grounding her. Of course she loves her friend and didn’t think what they were doing was right, so she continued to see her friend (who also works at the store).
So she tells me all this, and what can I do but listen, and try to cheer her up. She didn’t really want anything other than to vent. It’s not my place to get involved in her family life. Everyone has their own level of tolerance, so whatever. Well it turns out that as a bribe (for lack of a better word) her parents bought her a car, on the condition that she sever ties with her gay friend.
What kind of lesson does this young girl get from that? I am just amazed and disgusted.
February 07, 2004
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blogging •
remember me
Tonight I had the opportunity to explore some gay weblogs that I hadn’t visited before. Obviously not anyone on my blogroll, I enjoy, and recommend those folks! These I had dug out of blogrolls of others’ blogrolls, of other… well you get the idea. I have to say some were very depressing. A lot of stories of random drunken sex, sex in odd places, drugs… It is always a little jarring to read such accounts when your own life could have taken such a different turn. I was once in with a “bad crowd”, doing the drugs and hanging with dealers. It was all about the VIP room at the clubs, looking fantastic, drinking, and well, doing more drugs. I really don’t want to talk about my lowest moments here. I was just very lucky that my living situation blew up before I got into real trouble. My parents took me back in without ever really knowing what happened, and I moved on from that life. Luckily still healthy, and smarter. I guess years later to read what could have been is, well, a downer…
I don’t judge those people for doing what they do. It is all up to them how they live. I’m happy that I figured out that type of life wasn’t for me.
January 30, 2004
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link-tastic!
Here’s a little test for those who aren’t sure.
via Queerday
