Continuing the Dialogue

          Unlike many in the "gay community," I strive to avoid definition. I succeed in most respects; a lot of people tell me they would never have guessed. These people, either straight or just imperceptive (or both), don't seem to care one way or the other. For whatever reason - obliviousness, liberalness, or maybe they have a loved one who is gay - many people don't think it's such a bad thing.

          However, it's easiest to just ignore "the gay." People are more productive that way. There's less awkwardness and fewer uneasy moments. There's also the possibility of both parties making an effort to blot out such momentary discomfort, throw shining smiles on their faces, and continue the conversation...

          ...Continuing the dialogue is important, even if you start to notice the "tells." Some of the obvious, universal ones, such as staring, give us away immediately. I find staring disconcerting, yet sometimes flattering, and I do it more frequently than I care to. Since I haven't mastered the necessary stealth of this action, I'm often caught. My body temperature rises instantaneously, and, from one heart-pound to the next, I've made the decision to commit sepuku, for one has to save his honor even if it is a last ditch effort.

          But, what is honorable in my position? I conceal my homosexual "tells" in order to operate more seamlessly in this choked society. Yet, I also do so to avoid being categorized, defined, labeled. To a very concrete degree, I fear this imposed organization because I'd rather not be seen through a tinted lens. I'd rather the people I love not see me through a grayish haze or a yellow-brown sheen.

          So, I wonder, is wanting to be the same in this way really so dishonorable?

          No; there's no reason I shouldn't be the same.

          Kansas City's Gay Pride festival - celebration, fair, whatever they call it - is this weekend, and I'm going with a friend. But the "pride" part doesn't appeal to me. The overtness, the loudness, the drag - these are remnants of a movement for equality that isn't needed anymore. We are already accomplishing change (slowly) in the the higher levels of our society. However, we do need the continuance of dialogue. We need reasonable, contained, trailblazing dialogue that helps everyone find his or her place among equals because this is how we avoid trouble. From the micro to the macro, this is how we avoid cases of clueless kids who don't know who they are and suddenly find themselves with HIV. This is how we tip the scales in favor of marriage equality.

          I just want to be happy. I deserve to be happy, dammit.

Gliding with Grace

           There was never really anything quite like putting pen to paper. When everything before me was just right, the flow carried me. When I made sure I would be writing on the first sheet atop a ream of paper so that the tip of my pen could be cushioned nicely as it scribbled my words, I knew I could produce a work that someone other than me would at least consider. And if I used a sharpened pencil with a broken point on a single sheet over hard surface, my confidence was bolstered and my ego inflated. I knew the words spilling out of me would arrange themselves without much effort on my part. There were even a few times when I was convinced that "inspiration" had taken over my mind and body and had achieved something unparalleled to what I produced that came before it. There was a sense of evolving, if not improvement. I may have been naive. I may, at times, have felt myself invincible, and I was - all of the above. It was as if I were operating through the haze and with the clarity of a drug that either sped me up or slowed me down. Actually, the real drugs accelerated me in the short term and drained me in the long term. 


          Over this period of time, this "long term" when there was no writing, I witnessed the thoughts leak out of my head one by one like the dripping of a faucet whose fixing had been left for too long. The bills skyrocketed, and my heart began to niggle at me before complaining and then crying and then finally settling into numbness, idleness, and indifference. For a few years I turned to the coolness of math and science, in which probing, provocative thought isn't as necessary unless one has passion for these disciplines. I wrote with pens on sheets on hard tops and dull pencils hugged by beds of paper. The numbers and symbols meant very little. 


          I found this lovely pen last week on the sidewalk. My dog (Saffron) sniffed at it while I bent down and pretended to pick up his shit for the benefit of the peering neighbors across the street (it's not every time I have a plastic bag at my disposal, come on), and I thought, This could be genuinely useful to me very soon. There's no reason it shouldn't. But I have to find a way to shock my heart first. 


          It's gliding with grace now. 

The Strong Foundation of Our Earthiness

     I consider astrology a useful tool. It effectively organizes both the people in my life and their counterparts in my mind. This system thrives on convenient generalizations, but, even so, I like to make sure these people nestle against like-minded individuals. I comfort myself when I think of their mingling within the borders of their elements because then they, too, surely find comfort where and when they can be understood. And, for the sake of drama - ahem - for my own perverse (?) interests, it's always insightful to observe either scorched or saturated earth, the steam around a persistent fire, polluted and/or smoky air, etc... However, I take cover when mass exceeds volume, and the floodgates burst. (FYI, this last, tired metaphor is most certainly the root of whatever "daddy issues" I may have.)

     I read in a book once that, astrologically, I may be most compatible with people born on May 10 (my birthday being September 22). In a couple cases, I believe I've confirmed this ridiculousness. (For who are we, what are we reduced to, without beliefs?) This ridiculousness transcends the aforementioned practicality of astrology as an organizational system, but why stop the contradictions now? Best to stay consistent. 

     "Consistent" is how I'd describe my relationship with my now former roommate. His birthday, just a few hours shy of the magic date, is reason enough for me to put him on a pedestal. The easiness of our "give and take," the solidness of our regard for one another, makes me exceptionally comfortable. But the awkwardness I feel in using the present tense here mirrors the uneasiness I seem to have intentionally infused into our goodbye. I avoided eye contact, as I so often do. I slouched. I frowned. I mumbled. Then, with much self-awareness, I tried to fix it and spoke with transparent cheeriness of the next times we'd meet, and I heard the disappointment in his brief replies. He was careful to change his near-dismissive tone into one that pleasantly complemented my faux cheeriness, and by the time I slammed my car door, I was thankful to be escaping. Escaping the moment, not him. Because I love him. and we "mesh well together." I want for us to once again revel in the strong foundation of our earthiness as roommates. But I'll just leave that to the "powers that be."

Early-Morning Din

Composed on 5/28/12, approx. 4:30 am


   It's early morning. My window is closed, but the birdsong - the great early-morning din - still invades the room. I have a dull headache, and the inner corners of my eyes seem to itch. Seem, because I'm not sure what the feeling is there. My stomach growls, and the song changes, but suddenly Mosca's meows of greeting to Kenny startle me. The room is full of animals. Soon the dog will come, and then what? I'm besieged, and, really, it's my fault. Or, rather, my doing, for "fault" implies the situation isn't as it should be and that it'd be better if they (the animals) hadn't come to be with me at all. No. I sound like an unhappy, and unwilling father who didn't know what he got himself into. I should be championing their exceptional qualities, but it's just that those are too many to name, and, at heart, I'm really quite a lazy person. 


   Universally, laziness is a negative quality, right? Is there anyone who doesn't believe this? Maybe an Australian, for I read somewhere that Australia was the "laziest country" in the world - people can survive there just doing the bare minimum. Too bad they'd probably never accept me as a citizen. They have enough problems without adding more. Presumably. 


   Well. This meager endeavor isn't turning out as I'd wished. Now I'm really only trying to get to the end of the page. At least my humor seems to be intact. I tried to describe a tranquil scene, but I couldn't help using the word "din" because, you know, that's what it's like during these hours. Those stupid birds just remind you that you're not sleeping, that you haven't slept, that it'll catch up with you, and you might collapse during the day tomorrow when you're supposed to be doing something productive, something un-lazy. Good thing our un-lazy country is observing Memorial Day tomorrow. Today. Maybe I'll start a blog today.