About two weeks ago, I thought I had reached the midpoint of this blog. I somehow committed myself to the idea that June 15th, the middle of the month at the middle of the year, equaled the middle of the year itself. Turns out, not so, as a few people dutifully informed me. One guy helpfully (?) said, "Well, at least you don't have a bigger readership." Great, so I'm stupid and unpopular. Great.
But today, since it actually is the official midway point of this year (and I'm certain of it this time), I am tempted to celebrate by just referring to that post I had written back then and be done with it. After all, its sentiments still hold true.
Instead, though, I took myself out to frozen yogurt. Sounds random, I know, and it is, especially since I never do things like that. I eat Frosted Mini-Wheats every morning with skim milk, bring a sandwich for lunch (tuna or assorted lunch meats), and eat a banana in the afternoon. No more or less.
So shortly after lunch, I walked a few blocks down Market Street to the same frozen yogurt place my boss took my department to for my birthday. As I filled my cup with cubed kiwi pieces and mandarin oranges atop the Hawaiian Punch-flavored "fro-yo," as the cool kids call it, I thought to myself, "How odd. It's not my birthday anymore, and I'm not celebrating anything. Why am I having frozen yogurt?"
By the time I got back to my office, I had walked the streets of the Financial District for 20 minutes, broke a slight sweat under the warm sun, even managed to lift my head a few times and notice the clearest blue sky, no doubt turning invisibly above all the windows and rooftops of the city.
In those 20 minutes, I thought of how half a year has gone by and I have since stopped trying to remember all that I've written here; I practically forget the contents of each day's post as soon as I publish it. I wondered what I would feel when January 1, 2012 comes and goes and I no longer have to write, no longer have to think of things to write, to feel nervous as the day rolls on and I have yet to develop even an idea.
Oscar Wilde once said, "The anxiety is unbearable. I only hope it lasts forever."
The frozen yogurt was pretty tasty, more than I had expected it to, more because it was unexpected. I wanted it to last, too, a little while longer.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
6/29/2011 - when we talk about love. . .
This post will be about love.
I'm not sure if that is supposed to be a disclaimer, a selling point, or a warning, but I thought I should put it out there. I should probably also say that I have no idea where this is going (in contract to, you know, my other posts which are all so masterfully planned). Oh, and that I am not good at writing about love, and really, it's all been said before anyway (and let me count the ways. . .).
Of course, I am grateful for all the love in my life--the love of family, friends, partner and pet. But I've been compelled to think heavily on love in its romantic sense after a conversation I had with a 'sometimes-acquaintance.'
Jack and I met a long time ago at the gym (which seems to be one of the only places I meet new people). We get along fine, but I would never think to seek him out for conversation, and I haven't seen him in person for over a year, ever since we stopped going to the same gym. We probably chat through Gmail once or twice a month, usually when he initiates a conversation, and usually when he is caught in the throes of relationship turbulence.
Yesterday, his little orange chat window popped up on my Gmail screen late in the afternoon, and sparing any greeting, he launched right into the meat of his thoughts: "OK, Mr. Psych Major, I have a hypothetical question for you, just something I'm wondering."
Already, my mental red flag started waving; my bullshit radar beeped.
"Do you think it's possible to be in love with two people at the same time?" I didn't have to be a psychology major to deduce that this question was not hypothetical at all. "His name is Brian, and we met at a party," he explained after I pressed for details.
And I don't think I have to go into any more detail to really describe the situation at hand. Again, it's all been said before.
He wanted advice. I think. What he didn't know was that I hate giving advice on relationships. Who am I to even entertain the possibility that I might have an answer to love's constantly evolving questions? We talked around and around. Jack and his partner love each other, but neither are happy. They have trouble communicating, so neither wants to broach any sensitive subject for fear of chaos. They have an "open" relationship, where they are free to sleep with whomever they choose (within set parameters), and while it has been problematic, neither are willing to sacrifice this freedom in order to possibly fix those problems.
I "listened," toggled between my Gmail window and the in-progress business requirements document I had due by the end of the day. What I heard was a lot of talk about love: Jack's love for his partner, his blossoming love for the new guy, a love for himself, even, and the responsibility he feels to pursue his own happiness. He quantified love at various points of their relationship, how it measured less now than a year ago, which was less than when they first met. He described love as a desire to make the other person happy, but only to the extent that he would be mutually satisfied. To love, he said, is to make sacrifices.
I read through the transcript of our chat before I started writing this post, and it would seem that one of us knew a lot about love. The other did not.
I don't know what love means. The more I think about it, the less I can say with certainty that I ever had any idea. I don't remember the last time I told Sam that I love him, even though I do. I can't even think back to a time when I thought of myself as being in love with Sam;.what does that even mean? We live our lives together, come home to each other, care for a dog together, but is that love? We have sex; is that love? Fight, laugh, plan; love?
Raymond Carver wrote a short story called "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," and when I read it in college, I remember thinking that it disclosed nothing to me about love that I either could use to define love or didn't already know. Now, I wonder if that is all there is to love: unknown, and to define it, capture it in words is to slowly choke the life out of it.
Jack and I ended our conversation with no real resolution, and I had not expected to reach one. I asked him if he really loved his partner. He said yes. I then asked if he would consider leaving his partner for the new guy, and he replied, "Yes, if I thought it could be beneficial to the both of us."
Is that love?
I'm not sure if that is supposed to be a disclaimer, a selling point, or a warning, but I thought I should put it out there. I should probably also say that I have no idea where this is going (in contract to, you know, my other posts which are all so masterfully planned). Oh, and that I am not good at writing about love, and really, it's all been said before anyway (and let me count the ways. . .).
Of course, I am grateful for all the love in my life--the love of family, friends, partner and pet. But I've been compelled to think heavily on love in its romantic sense after a conversation I had with a 'sometimes-acquaintance.'
Jack and I met a long time ago at the gym (which seems to be one of the only places I meet new people). We get along fine, but I would never think to seek him out for conversation, and I haven't seen him in person for over a year, ever since we stopped going to the same gym. We probably chat through Gmail once or twice a month, usually when he initiates a conversation, and usually when he is caught in the throes of relationship turbulence.
Yesterday, his little orange chat window popped up on my Gmail screen late in the afternoon, and sparing any greeting, he launched right into the meat of his thoughts: "OK, Mr. Psych Major, I have a hypothetical question for you, just something I'm wondering."
Already, my mental red flag started waving; my bullshit radar beeped.
"Do you think it's possible to be in love with two people at the same time?" I didn't have to be a psychology major to deduce that this question was not hypothetical at all. "His name is Brian, and we met at a party," he explained after I pressed for details.
And I don't think I have to go into any more detail to really describe the situation at hand. Again, it's all been said before.
He wanted advice. I think. What he didn't know was that I hate giving advice on relationships. Who am I to even entertain the possibility that I might have an answer to love's constantly evolving questions? We talked around and around. Jack and his partner love each other, but neither are happy. They have trouble communicating, so neither wants to broach any sensitive subject for fear of chaos. They have an "open" relationship, where they are free to sleep with whomever they choose (within set parameters), and while it has been problematic, neither are willing to sacrifice this freedom in order to possibly fix those problems.
I "listened," toggled between my Gmail window and the in-progress business requirements document I had due by the end of the day. What I heard was a lot of talk about love: Jack's love for his partner, his blossoming love for the new guy, a love for himself, even, and the responsibility he feels to pursue his own happiness. He quantified love at various points of their relationship, how it measured less now than a year ago, which was less than when they first met. He described love as a desire to make the other person happy, but only to the extent that he would be mutually satisfied. To love, he said, is to make sacrifices.
I read through the transcript of our chat before I started writing this post, and it would seem that one of us knew a lot about love. The other did not.
I don't know what love means. The more I think about it, the less I can say with certainty that I ever had any idea. I don't remember the last time I told Sam that I love him, even though I do. I can't even think back to a time when I thought of myself as being in love with Sam;.what does that even mean? We live our lives together, come home to each other, care for a dog together, but is that love? We have sex; is that love? Fight, laugh, plan; love?
Raymond Carver wrote a short story called "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," and when I read it in college, I remember thinking that it disclosed nothing to me about love that I either could use to define love or didn't already know. Now, I wonder if that is all there is to love: unknown, and to define it, capture it in words is to slowly choke the life out of it.
Jack and I ended our conversation with no real resolution, and I had not expected to reach one. I asked him if he really loved his partner. He said yes. I then asked if he would consider leaving his partner for the new guy, and he replied, "Yes, if I thought it could be beneficial to the both of us."
Is that love?
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
6/28/2011 - take the car and drive myself. . .
Last night, Sam let me borrow his car so I could go to my Rapid Transit rehearsal in Oakland. As a snooty seasoned resident of the City, I hate going across the bridge, even more so when I don't have a car, made worse on Monday nights with rehearsals in the evening. Rehearsals as a whole can be tiring--completely, unequivocally rewarding, but tiring all the same, especially when it happens across the bay.
Sam and Grr have been driving me to these Oakland rehearsals, and though they never seem to mind (I'm fairly certain Grr even enjoys it), I feel guilty singing my 'doon doon-bah-doons' while they're sitting in the car in the parking lot for two and a half hours. So when Sam said that I could take the car and drive myself, I held back the excitement when I accepted. Though he acted all nonchalant about the whole thing, I imagine he offered up his vehicle with some degree of hesitation and more than a few prayers to the patron saint of driving.
I am a good driver in theory, just not so much on paper. In the 10 years of my life as a driver, I have collected a handful of moving violations, including one that got my license suspended for 30 days, as well as a separate handful of accidents, mostly minor in their collective impact but disheartening in their quantity. And after I dented Sam's rim and almost backed into a tree on the two separate occasions I've driven his car, I don't blame him for his trepidation.
Rehearsal was fun; we held mics. I stayed mostly in tune for most of the songs. I think. Really, though, the triumph came when I pulled into the garage with the car in the same condition as when I pulled out of the garage, and though I needed Sam to help me park it (he has this complicated way of doing it, which probably isn't all that complicated if I were to explain it, so I won't and spare myself further embarrassment), I still went upstairs feeling like a big boy who didn't need to be driven to school.
Sam and Grr have been driving me to these Oakland rehearsals, and though they never seem to mind (I'm fairly certain Grr even enjoys it), I feel guilty singing my 'doon doon-bah-doons' while they're sitting in the car in the parking lot for two and a half hours. So when Sam said that I could take the car and drive myself, I held back the excitement when I accepted. Though he acted all nonchalant about the whole thing, I imagine he offered up his vehicle with some degree of hesitation and more than a few prayers to the patron saint of driving.
I am a good driver in theory, just not so much on paper. In the 10 years of my life as a driver, I have collected a handful of moving violations, including one that got my license suspended for 30 days, as well as a separate handful of accidents, mostly minor in their collective impact but disheartening in their quantity. And after I dented Sam's rim and almost backed into a tree on the two separate occasions I've driven his car, I don't blame him for his trepidation.
Rehearsal was fun; we held mics. I stayed mostly in tune for most of the songs. I think. Really, though, the triumph came when I pulled into the garage with the car in the same condition as when I pulled out of the garage, and though I needed Sam to help me park it (he has this complicated way of doing it, which probably isn't all that complicated if I were to explain it, so I won't and spare myself further embarrassment), I still went upstairs feeling like a big boy who didn't need to be driven to school.
Monday, June 27, 2011
6/27/2011 - my first gay bar. . .
On slate.com this morning, I read an article about "first gay bar" experiences written by prominent members of the LGBT community. It got me thinking of mine.
---
Though I came out early, I was something of a dormant homosexual until I got to college. I had danced with a boy at a high school dance, had briefly dated someone in the months before I left for UC Davis, but I would say that it took college to really jump start my life as a gay man. And it possibly began on the night I went to the Powerhouse.
Weeks into my freshman year, I met Everett at a "kiss-in" event in the main quad of campus. I don't remember if we kissed or not (probably did), just that we became fast friends. And less than a month later, a few of his friends drove up from the Central Valley to visit him, and we all decided to go to San Francisco for the night.
Everett's friends knew San Francisco like a map, but only if that map consisted of nothing but gay bars. They laid out a simple agenda: drive to the City, go to the Powerhouse, come home.
The Powerhouse was described to me as a leather bar, and without further knowledge, I had no expectations, nor did I have a valid ID, which they all assured would be no problem. I sat in the back seat of a stranger's car with a friend I had only begun to know and wondered to myself, "What am I doing here?" all the way down I-80 and across the Bay Bridge.
By the time we found parking under an orange streetlight in an alley littered with trash and shopping carts, I wanted to go home. The neighborhood was miles away from the suburban cul-de-sacs I was used to, and I kept thinking that tomorrow would be Wednesday, and I had an 8:00 class in the morning, and this was not the kind of place I would like my body to be discovered.
(Ironically, Sam and I now live within blocks of this location.)
We walked a few minutes before reaching the Powerhouse. On the drive down, Everett had tutored me to act like I belonged there and to avoid all eye contact until we were away from the front door. But all we had to do was push through two heavy curtains, and we found ourselves inside. No security, no questions, just a sparsely populated bar, sticky floors, and porn playing on every TV in sight. We walked past the bartop and into a larger room near the back with a larger screen. A dimly lit doorway leading further back stood conspicuously in the corner.
Everett knew what was back there. His friends knew. I, however, did not, and naively followed them through the doorway, down a handful of steps, and into a narrow hall that reeked of smoke and echoed with the sounds of men.
I may have been naive, and possibly even a tiny bit stupid, but I wasn't clueless. When my eyes adjusted, I saw the rabbit hole for what it was: a space that bent all expectations I ever could have had on what happens in public and what does not. In my sheltered existence, I knew that what I saw should not be happening, could not be happening, yet there they were, and there I was.
I did not turn back, nor did I want to. I stumbled further, past men who leaned with their backs to the wall. I felt hands on me as I brushed past the bodies to which they were attached, but I still forged ahead. I did not know where I was going, and I had already lost Everett to a shirtless man near the entrance.
At this point, I probably stood no more than five or 10 steps deep, but I had clearly left all traces of myself far behind. Only when I felt someone firmly grab my arm did I turn around.
I don't remember much about him but two things: his breath, which smelled not unpleasantly like cigarette smoke, and the firmness of his chest when I put my hand on it.
But he knocked me out of this dream and made it real. No longer was it a pantomime of intimacy that played itself out before me; this man was real, rough, ready, and I was not.
I nodded at him, pried my arm out of his grip and walked back up the stairs, back to reality, or a reasonable facsimile of it given the circumstances, and stood in the larger back room as I processed what just happened, what could have happened, what did not.
In the other corner stood a man, probably in his 30s, wearing nothing but a neon-green jockstrap with a body that begged to be touched. And people did. Men, leery-eyed and far less attractive, molested him in unseemly ways, and I felt unseemly watching, even if he didn't seem to mind, me or them.
By the time Everett and company appeared out of the back alley, I had debated backwards and forwards, held caucuses with myself to try and muster up the courage to say something to this Adonis that stood before me, the likes of which I had never seen before, and never to such a degree of openness.
Everett asked if I was ready to go home, and though I was, tired and overwhelmed, I told him that I needed just one more second. Nothing would be lost if I made a fool out of myself, but how it would have haunted me had I not taken the chance. So I waited for an opening, walked up to this man in all his (more or less) naked glory with a list of things I'd say, from how I just wanted to say hello, didn't want to seem rude by staring, to how I hoped he was having a good time. All to what end, I still couldn't say.
I put my hand on his shoulder. It was warm to the touch, and taut, like palming a basketball. He turned to me, but he didn't really see me. I completely forgot my script, opened my mouth, and said, "You are really beautiful." Those were my exact words, I still remember, and I'd like to think that right then, he did see me, really looked at me when he smiled and said, "Thanks."
On the drive home, Everett's friend pulled onto Treasure Island so I could pee. I stood on the rocks against the water; it must have been two in the morning by then. I peed off the edge and looked out across the bay toward the City, home to my first gay bar. I could still smell the smoke on the man's breath in the back alley, hear his voice when he said, "Hey," gutteral and resonant. And memories of that lime green jockstrap took me all the way home and into my bed deep in the morning, where I proceeded to lay there, exhausted but unable to rest, until the sun seeped through my window.
---
Though I came out early, I was something of a dormant homosexual until I got to college. I had danced with a boy at a high school dance, had briefly dated someone in the months before I left for UC Davis, but I would say that it took college to really jump start my life as a gay man. And it possibly began on the night I went to the Powerhouse.
Weeks into my freshman year, I met Everett at a "kiss-in" event in the main quad of campus. I don't remember if we kissed or not (probably did), just that we became fast friends. And less than a month later, a few of his friends drove up from the Central Valley to visit him, and we all decided to go to San Francisco for the night.
Everett's friends knew San Francisco like a map, but only if that map consisted of nothing but gay bars. They laid out a simple agenda: drive to the City, go to the Powerhouse, come home.
The Powerhouse was described to me as a leather bar, and without further knowledge, I had no expectations, nor did I have a valid ID, which they all assured would be no problem. I sat in the back seat of a stranger's car with a friend I had only begun to know and wondered to myself, "What am I doing here?" all the way down I-80 and across the Bay Bridge.
By the time we found parking under an orange streetlight in an alley littered with trash and shopping carts, I wanted to go home. The neighborhood was miles away from the suburban cul-de-sacs I was used to, and I kept thinking that tomorrow would be Wednesday, and I had an 8:00 class in the morning, and this was not the kind of place I would like my body to be discovered.
(Ironically, Sam and I now live within blocks of this location.)
We walked a few minutes before reaching the Powerhouse. On the drive down, Everett had tutored me to act like I belonged there and to avoid all eye contact until we were away from the front door. But all we had to do was push through two heavy curtains, and we found ourselves inside. No security, no questions, just a sparsely populated bar, sticky floors, and porn playing on every TV in sight. We walked past the bartop and into a larger room near the back with a larger screen. A dimly lit doorway leading further back stood conspicuously in the corner.
Everett knew what was back there. His friends knew. I, however, did not, and naively followed them through the doorway, down a handful of steps, and into a narrow hall that reeked of smoke and echoed with the sounds of men.
I may have been naive, and possibly even a tiny bit stupid, but I wasn't clueless. When my eyes adjusted, I saw the rabbit hole for what it was: a space that bent all expectations I ever could have had on what happens in public and what does not. In my sheltered existence, I knew that what I saw should not be happening, could not be happening, yet there they were, and there I was.
I did not turn back, nor did I want to. I stumbled further, past men who leaned with their backs to the wall. I felt hands on me as I brushed past the bodies to which they were attached, but I still forged ahead. I did not know where I was going, and I had already lost Everett to a shirtless man near the entrance.
At this point, I probably stood no more than five or 10 steps deep, but I had clearly left all traces of myself far behind. Only when I felt someone firmly grab my arm did I turn around.
I don't remember much about him but two things: his breath, which smelled not unpleasantly like cigarette smoke, and the firmness of his chest when I put my hand on it.
But he knocked me out of this dream and made it real. No longer was it a pantomime of intimacy that played itself out before me; this man was real, rough, ready, and I was not.
I nodded at him, pried my arm out of his grip and walked back up the stairs, back to reality, or a reasonable facsimile of it given the circumstances, and stood in the larger back room as I processed what just happened, what could have happened, what did not.
In the other corner stood a man, probably in his 30s, wearing nothing but a neon-green jockstrap with a body that begged to be touched. And people did. Men, leery-eyed and far less attractive, molested him in unseemly ways, and I felt unseemly watching, even if he didn't seem to mind, me or them.
By the time Everett and company appeared out of the back alley, I had debated backwards and forwards, held caucuses with myself to try and muster up the courage to say something to this Adonis that stood before me, the likes of which I had never seen before, and never to such a degree of openness.
Everett asked if I was ready to go home, and though I was, tired and overwhelmed, I told him that I needed just one more second. Nothing would be lost if I made a fool out of myself, but how it would have haunted me had I not taken the chance. So I waited for an opening, walked up to this man in all his (more or less) naked glory with a list of things I'd say, from how I just wanted to say hello, didn't want to seem rude by staring, to how I hoped he was having a good time. All to what end, I still couldn't say.
I put my hand on his shoulder. It was warm to the touch, and taut, like palming a basketball. He turned to me, but he didn't really see me. I completely forgot my script, opened my mouth, and said, "You are really beautiful." Those were my exact words, I still remember, and I'd like to think that right then, he did see me, really looked at me when he smiled and said, "Thanks."
On the drive home, Everett's friend pulled onto Treasure Island so I could pee. I stood on the rocks against the water; it must have been two in the morning by then. I peed off the edge and looked out across the bay toward the City, home to my first gay bar. I could still smell the smoke on the man's breath in the back alley, hear his voice when he said, "Hey," gutteral and resonant. And memories of that lime green jockstrap took me all the way home and into my bed deep in the morning, where I proceeded to lay there, exhausted but unable to rest, until the sun seeped through my window.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
6/26/2011 - a flurry of stuff. . .
This weekend, Sam and I have been extremely busy, beginning with a poetry reading on Friday night for a friend who just published a collection of poems, to brunch on Saturday with our neighbor that lasted over two hours, to a dog play party to dinner with my family, all the way to this afternoon, standing under a hot sun (by San Francisco's standards) with Kevin and Gordon at the 41st annual San Francisco Pride event, listening to some retro disco band that I had never heard of, nor would I ever want to again.
This is unusual for us, as we both have a natural instinct to be anti-social, sequester ourselves away from everyone and hibernate. My friend Steve used to call me "Julie," as in the cruise director from Love Boat, though I never really understand how he saw that in me. Yet when I took inventory of all that we accomplished this weekend while waiting for the band that Gordon had wanted to see this afternoon, I surprised myself with the quantity.
Afterwards, Gordon said he grew up on this band, described how his sister introduced him to it when they drove to clubs and he would listen and think that this was "adult" music. I overheard a group of bearish gay guys talk about how the crowd in San Francisco's pride event seemed much more friendly than the event they attended in LA. Teenaged girls with their gay friends surrounded us and cheered and laughed and reminded me of the girl-friends I had in high school, the ones who took me to proms, talked to me about boys, hung out with me at lunch when I didn't know who else to sit with.
And now, Sam and I are home, sunburnt and tired. An evening spreads out before us with no other company but each other and Grr. And I'm simultaneously glad that we have no other plans or people to see, and that we had so many earlier, plans and people that took us outside of our house, our sometimes isolated lives, and into a world of activity, a flurry of stuff. It was good to be a part of it, and now, good to be home.
This is unusual for us, as we both have a natural instinct to be anti-social, sequester ourselves away from everyone and hibernate. My friend Steve used to call me "Julie," as in the cruise director from Love Boat, though I never really understand how he saw that in me. Yet when I took inventory of all that we accomplished this weekend while waiting for the band that Gordon had wanted to see this afternoon, I surprised myself with the quantity.
Afterwards, Gordon said he grew up on this band, described how his sister introduced him to it when they drove to clubs and he would listen and think that this was "adult" music. I overheard a group of bearish gay guys talk about how the crowd in San Francisco's pride event seemed much more friendly than the event they attended in LA. Teenaged girls with their gay friends surrounded us and cheered and laughed and reminded me of the girl-friends I had in high school, the ones who took me to proms, talked to me about boys, hung out with me at lunch when I didn't know who else to sit with.
And now, Sam and I are home, sunburnt and tired. An evening spreads out before us with no other company but each other and Grr. And I'm simultaneously glad that we have no other plans or people to see, and that we had so many earlier, plans and people that took us outside of our house, our sometimes isolated lives, and into a world of activity, a flurry of stuff. It was good to be a part of it, and now, good to be home.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
6/25/2011 - now. . .
The first gay movie I ever watched was in this little independent theater, steps away from the BART station in downtown Berkeley. I was 16 that year, taking a summer course in psychology at UC Berkeley and experiencing what college life could be like.
I first saw the purple-tinged poster in the window one morning as I walked to class, and I slowed down for several mornings after as I approached the window so I could get a good look at the three drag queens staring garishly into the camera and the two muscle boys dancing on a bartop right above the word Stonewall. Knowing nothing more, and needing no more details, I was interested.
So I cut class one morning and saw the first showing of it in an otherwise empty theater. Afterwards, I thought of nothing else for weeks. I found the poster and put it up in my room. I bought the soundtrack--a mish-mash of Judy Garland, 60's girl-pop, and a handful of contemporary songs. I read the book on which the movie was based and officially learned about the Stonewall bar, drag queens, and the "official" start of the modern gay rights movement.
And because of what I read, I thought for a long time that the '60s and '70s were the best time to be gay. Love was free and in the air. The movement had just begun, and with its humble inception, I imagined a tighter knit community and more opportunities to actually play a critical role in the fight. I wished that I lived in those times, sat in that bar on the night police raided its patrons, was one in the crowd who refused to budge when society came to stifle our collective voice.
I really thought I could have made a difference, if only I was in the right place at the right time.
Now, outside of voting and reading about all the rampant inequality that still exists for the gay community, I doubt I would have done anything worthwhile on that night in June some 40 years ago, even if I were sitting in the Stonewall bar and they had come to take me away. I just don't think I have it in me.
But I'm grateful that others have it in them, to tirelessly campaign and selflessly donate money so that our needs (and they are needs, are they not?) can be met.
I used to think that marriage was an ancillary concern, that civil unions satisfied this need, that I, personally, would never want to get married anyway. Turns out, I was wrong on all counts, and I think it is cosmically fitting that New York became the sixth, but by far the largest, state to legalize gay marriage on the 42nd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, almost to the day.
And it turns out I was wrong about something else as well: there has never been a better time to be gay than now. Or when I was 16, discovering gay cinema for myself. Or at 14, finally connecting dots and naming all the feelings I had inside. Or in 1969, when, in spite of all the adversity and conditions that encouraged criminalization of sexual minorities, a select few found their voices and stamped it all over our history.
There has never been a better time to be gay than "now," all the nows that came before and all the ones to come.
I first saw the purple-tinged poster in the window one morning as I walked to class, and I slowed down for several mornings after as I approached the window so I could get a good look at the three drag queens staring garishly into the camera and the two muscle boys dancing on a bartop right above the word Stonewall. Knowing nothing more, and needing no more details, I was interested.
So I cut class one morning and saw the first showing of it in an otherwise empty theater. Afterwards, I thought of nothing else for weeks. I found the poster and put it up in my room. I bought the soundtrack--a mish-mash of Judy Garland, 60's girl-pop, and a handful of contemporary songs. I read the book on which the movie was based and officially learned about the Stonewall bar, drag queens, and the "official" start of the modern gay rights movement.
And because of what I read, I thought for a long time that the '60s and '70s were the best time to be gay. Love was free and in the air. The movement had just begun, and with its humble inception, I imagined a tighter knit community and more opportunities to actually play a critical role in the fight. I wished that I lived in those times, sat in that bar on the night police raided its patrons, was one in the crowd who refused to budge when society came to stifle our collective voice.
I really thought I could have made a difference, if only I was in the right place at the right time.
Now, outside of voting and reading about all the rampant inequality that still exists for the gay community, I doubt I would have done anything worthwhile on that night in June some 40 years ago, even if I were sitting in the Stonewall bar and they had come to take me away. I just don't think I have it in me.
But I'm grateful that others have it in them, to tirelessly campaign and selflessly donate money so that our needs (and they are needs, are they not?) can be met.
I used to think that marriage was an ancillary concern, that civil unions satisfied this need, that I, personally, would never want to get married anyway. Turns out, I was wrong on all counts, and I think it is cosmically fitting that New York became the sixth, but by far the largest, state to legalize gay marriage on the 42nd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, almost to the day.
And it turns out I was wrong about something else as well: there has never been a better time to be gay than now. Or when I was 16, discovering gay cinema for myself. Or at 14, finally connecting dots and naming all the feelings I had inside. Or in 1969, when, in spite of all the adversity and conditions that encouraged criminalization of sexual minorities, a select few found their voices and stamped it all over our history.
There has never been a better time to be gay than "now," all the nows that came before and all the ones to come.
Friday, June 24, 2011
6/24/2011 - Sex and the City. . .
Shortly after I graduated college, while I indulged in a life of leisure, living in my own apartment with a boyfriend down the street and a restaurant job that allowed me to go home every night with cash in my pocket, I quickly established routines for myself that gave my otherwise static life some direction. I set a strict(ish) gym routine, took singing lessons, made myself a regular at a downtown piano bar, all to offet the lack of momentum I felt at the time.
I also discovered Sex and the City on DVD. Every Tuesday, my day off from work and classes, I would go to the gym late in the morning, pick up takeout from Chili's on my way home, and then binge on chicken tacos and vicarious trysts for the rest of the afternoon. Often, in order to pace myself so I don't blow through an entire season in one day, I would rewatch certain episodes, relaugh at my favorite scenes, and reconsider my identity: Am I Charlotte, the starry-eyed optimist? Miranda, the hard-shelled realist? Or Samantha??
But of course, no matter how I shuffled the characters, how I viewed their traits, I would always have the same answer. I was Carrie. Of course I was Carrie. I've dated the same men, asked the same questions of myself, cried over the same relationships.
Only later did I fully realize that everyone thinks they are Carrie simply because she is the embodiment of all the characters, designed to be that way and thus the most relatable. Nobody is always optimistic, always emotionally distant, always sleeping with the hottest and most eligible bachelors within a certain zip code, but we all can be at some point (with any luck). Carrie is the most well-rounded, the closest thing to a mirror that the show has to hold up to us; she is our sherpa, guiding us through what can be an uphill climb on our way to relationship bliss.
The show worked best when it was a love letter to singlehood, to all the people in the world searching for love. And though I grew further apart from the girls of Sex and the City as time went on (didn't even bother to watch the second movie, and I wasn't a fan of the first), and I stopped thinking of myself in terms of "which one am I?" (even though I am clearly Miranda), I still felt a faint pang of nostalgia when I stumble upon it on TV, as Sam and I did last night.
Though Sam swears that all he hears on the show is a bunch of women squawking at each other, he still managed to sit through two and a half episodes, even making insightful commentary along the way. I have often joked that if Sam were a Sex and the City character, he would be a "single-episode boyfriend," doomed to stand in for an old and familiar archetype of a person we all have met, loved, and lost at some point in our lives.
After all, he does not talk about love, nor does he take the time to really ponder the nature of it in his spare time. He boils his relationships down until all nuance has evaporated, and all that is left is "Do I like this person?" "Does he like me?" "Do I want to spend more time together than I do with anyone else?" "And does he?"
So truthfully, a TV show from his perspective would probably only last one episode anyway; what more is there, really, after all of his questions are answered?
Who knew he could be so insightful after all?
I also discovered Sex and the City on DVD. Every Tuesday, my day off from work and classes, I would go to the gym late in the morning, pick up takeout from Chili's on my way home, and then binge on chicken tacos and vicarious trysts for the rest of the afternoon. Often, in order to pace myself so I don't blow through an entire season in one day, I would rewatch certain episodes, relaugh at my favorite scenes, and reconsider my identity: Am I Charlotte, the starry-eyed optimist? Miranda, the hard-shelled realist? Or Samantha??
But of course, no matter how I shuffled the characters, how I viewed their traits, I would always have the same answer. I was Carrie. Of course I was Carrie. I've dated the same men, asked the same questions of myself, cried over the same relationships.
Only later did I fully realize that everyone thinks they are Carrie simply because she is the embodiment of all the characters, designed to be that way and thus the most relatable. Nobody is always optimistic, always emotionally distant, always sleeping with the hottest and most eligible bachelors within a certain zip code, but we all can be at some point (with any luck). Carrie is the most well-rounded, the closest thing to a mirror that the show has to hold up to us; she is our sherpa, guiding us through what can be an uphill climb on our way to relationship bliss.
The show worked best when it was a love letter to singlehood, to all the people in the world searching for love. And though I grew further apart from the girls of Sex and the City as time went on (didn't even bother to watch the second movie, and I wasn't a fan of the first), and I stopped thinking of myself in terms of "which one am I?" (even though I am clearly Miranda), I still felt a faint pang of nostalgia when I stumble upon it on TV, as Sam and I did last night.
Though Sam swears that all he hears on the show is a bunch of women squawking at each other, he still managed to sit through two and a half episodes, even making insightful commentary along the way. I have often joked that if Sam were a Sex and the City character, he would be a "single-episode boyfriend," doomed to stand in for an old and familiar archetype of a person we all have met, loved, and lost at some point in our lives.
After all, he does not talk about love, nor does he take the time to really ponder the nature of it in his spare time. He boils his relationships down until all nuance has evaporated, and all that is left is "Do I like this person?" "Does he like me?" "Do I want to spend more time together than I do with anyone else?" "And does he?"
So truthfully, a TV show from his perspective would probably only last one episode anyway; what more is there, really, after all of his questions are answered?
Who knew he could be so insightful after all?
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