Late Night Ramen

 
We've had many exploits. A good amount involve booze and drugs. They culminated in almost burning down the apartment thanks to late night ramen. We should have seen it coming. Well...he did. I just ignored it.

It was someone's birthday, and my partner was out of town leaving the door wide open for crystal-laced antics. We had a tiny amount and shared it among the two of us. It wasn't enough, so we chased it with cheap tequila. The music pumped either Janet Jackson, Madonna, or some random disco tune, and we danced through our Castle getting ready to gow out throwing feathers and glitter and leather all over the place. A drag queen exploded.

We left the apartment and began our crawl looking for trouble along the way. She stood across the street in a rainbow-silver mini-dress. It was the same as the one in my closet. Her bright red 5-inch platform heels didn't match. Emboldened by intoxication, I approached, my black mesh sleeveless shirt and black and red boa a perfect compliment to her outfit.

"Hey honey. How are you?"

"What do you want, sugar?"

"We're looking for trouble tonight. Know where we could find any?"

"Sugar, dressed like that touble'll find you."

We laughed, kissed cheeks, and went our separate ways. The search continued.

After a few bars, some dancing, and more tequila, vodka, and Jagermeister, we wobbled from Polk street to SOMA, hopeful our quest would be fruitful there. We prowled the backrooms of My Place and Powerhouse and a variety of alleys each time getting a little more drunk, obnoxious, and belligerent. We were on a collision course leading directly to A Taste of Leather and the man dressed in black, a cap shading his eyes, whispering, "K, e, speed, and coke. K, e, speed, and coke."

We pulled out our wallets and counted our change.

"What will $20 get us?"

"Here," and he handed us a small baggie of something transparent white in small rock form as he took our money. "Have fun." He moved on. We stayed put.

"What the hell is this?"

"Looks like speed. Only way to tell is to do it."

"Who's going first?"

"I will! It's my birthday."

We crushed it up, and it was gone in four quick snorts.

There was more booze, some anonymous backroom sex, and a couple of pinball games. Then, everything closed and we were forced to stagger back to our Castle.

"I'm soooo hungry!"

"Me too. We should've had dinner."

"Let's go get food."

"I'm broke. I spent everything I had on drinks and that random shit we did."

"Ho you feeling?"

"I just want to fucking eat! Other than that I am fucking FANTASTIC!"

"Let's go grab some Thai food from Osha. It's cheap. I'll pay."

"Only if we bring it back here. I don't want to sit in the fucking florescent lights."

We managed to call in an order, pick it up, and bring it back to the apartment. Our feast of pad thai, fried tofu, and larb sat between us; chopsticks in both of our hands.

"This is SO good! I have an idea!"

"Oh god no."

"No really. This will be fabulous. You gotta trust me."

"No...I don't trust you."

"Come on! Come on!"

My goading prodded him further. Our feast turned into a mess. Noodles stuck to my face and sauce dripped from my chin. I qwnr in to the kitchen, pulled out a pot, and filled it with water.

"We need ramen!"

"What? We already have food."

"I know. And what would go better with our feast than some Top Ramen?"

It was one of those ideas that drugs makes good.

"We don't need ramen."

"Yes...I think we do."

I put the pot on the stove to boil. We both promptly fell asleep.

He woke up to the stink of the pan burning some hour and a half later. I was still unconscious. He turned off the stove and went back to bed.

The next morning...

"What the hell were you trying to do to me last night? Did you want to kill us?"

"Huh," was all I could muster.

"Ramen...does that ring a bell?"

"Kind of. I think I amde some last night."

"Uh...You started to make some. You were unsuccessful."'

"Really? I could have sworn we had some noodles," as I pulled one still stuck to my cheek.

"That was pad thai. Take a look in the dining room."

Our feast covered the table and spilled on to the floor.

"Wow. That Thai food was really good."

"Then why did you have to make ramen?"

"Because it was a fantastic idea at the time."

"You forgot all about it! I woke up to the pan burning."

"Thank god you were here."

We laughed.

"Yes, thank someone."

I learned my lesson: never listen to that inner voice that says "make ramen" in the early morning hours. Unless your best friend is there to save your life.

Peace of J-Town

 
We wrestled him to the ground in the middle of J-Town Peace Plaza right in front of the pagoda. We were on a field trip to get ice cream. He was becoming defiant and violent, and we were afraid he would hurt himself and others. He was eight, and his meds affected his thyroid. He was large for his age.

"It's okay everyone...No really. We can do this....It is for your own safety. Please back up. He will hit you."

The crowd grew along with his temper and the five other youths' excitement. We were nearing a chaoric melee.

"Go! Take them all back to the Center. Walk back. We'll catch up." I said as I sat on top of him, his arms pounding the concrete, his legs kicking.

"You sure?" She replied.

"Yes. It'll only get worse if you stay. Keep everyone else safe."

The crowd continued growing.

"Really...I'm certified to do this. It is okay." I flashed my badge.

"No! It's not! I'm pressing charges. You wait and see, you FUCKER! Get of me. I'm going to punch you in the face!" He screamed.

Realizing things were okay-ish, the crowd dissipated. His audience gone, he calmed down.

"Everything's going to be okay." I said to him. "I just want to get home safely. You'll feel better there. I promise."

"I'm fine now. I've calmed down. See." His breathing was normal. His voice low. I stood and helped him up.

"Can we go now," he asked.

"Sure," I said. "We're walking back."

We made it back to the Center safely. I had to drag him a block or two when he realized there would be consequences when we returned. He apologized to everyone as a part of his consequences.

Whenever I return to J-Town, I hear his voice and see his face. Sometimes, I smile at the absurdity of the situation. Sometimes, I'm saddened recalling the story that put him in the Center in the first place. Always, I remember him.

The Scratched Cornea

 
I scratched my cornea dancing one night when my flailing arms ended up poking me in the eye. It was painful and sent me home immediately. It was the night before my brother's confirmation.

I awoke the next morning barely able to keep my eye open, tears dripping rhythmically down my cheek. It was going to be a long day. I thought about not going, but wanted to be there for my brother. I got dressed, and my parents picked my up.

"What happened," asked my mom.

I told her.

Suddenly, my accident was purposeful and meant to ruin the day. I argued back.

"Uh...no it'd not. It was a total accident!"

"You're going out wasn't an accident."

I didn't disagree.

We arrived at the Cathedral in St. Paul. Everyone piled in to the church. My family took a seat near the front. I didn't want to be that close. Still my eye kept dripping and madly blinking.

"Are you okay?"

"What happened?"

"That looks like it hurts."

"I'm fine...It was an accident...Yes, it hurts, but I'll be fine."

Mass started. The stand, sit, kneel, stand again commenced. I sat the entire time. My parents grew more agitated with my actions. They were deliberate.

Then came Communion. The entire row rose and proceeded to empty into the aisle. I still sat there. A tap and nudge ont he shoulder from my mom or dad, I can't recall, urged me to stand. A shake of my head responded.

"Come on. It's Communion."

"I'm not going. I'm not Catholic anymore."

"Don't ruin this for your brother."

"It would be disrespectful for me to take Communion."

They looked at me disdainfully and got in line. I was the only person still sitting in the first seven rows.

Gossip ensued.

I scratched my cornea again in a similar fashion many years later. The next day, however, all I did was stay home. I probably should have done that the first time.

The Damned Unite

Our favorite late night activity occurred on our balcony. We lived on Geary between Larkin and Hyde before the police cleaned it up. (I don't think they were too successful.) Our street was the battleground between the trans* prostitutes of Post Street and the bio-girl hookers of O'Farrell Street. There were lots of fights and yelling.

The activity was simple. We sat on our balcony and when the police came around yelled, "5-0!" They'd duck behind cars, hop in to the only open convenience store (it was only open from 11pm to 5am), try to pull down their non-existent skirts, start walking faster. We did it every weekend.

I miss those nights. It connected me to parts of life other condemn. I am comfortable there for I, too, have been condemned. And the damned must unite.

Library Pencils at Lush Lounge

 
Throwing things is a common theme in our friendship. It came up again at a bar: The Lush Lounge. We were there for a really terrible cabaret night with out-of-pitch singers and an arrhythmic piano player. The combination made it unbearable.

They were taking requests, so they put out pencils and paper at all the tables. It was our neighborhood bar and there was no way we were going to be the ones to leave. So we commenced a plan, something we do quite often, mostly with puckish intentions and wanton outcomes. Largely, our plans never see the light of day. Our martinis made this one possible.

I grabbed a pencil, the short kind you find in libraries, and waited patiently for everyone to turn their heads. He leaned in close and whispered, "Where did all these god damn carrots come from?" I chuckled and tossed. One. Two. Three. SMACK! The pencil hit the wall behind the performer. She looked around but didn't let it phase her.

Now, it was his turn. One. Two. Three. SPLASH! It fell into someone's drink. Everyone looked around for the culprit. No one knew it was us. A few more throws, all of which landed on the floor, and we were bored. We left.

We've grown up a little since then. We don't throw things anymore. We do still laugh uncontrollably. It's what keeps us young. Now, it's at our expense rather than others.

Where Did All These God Damn Carrots Come From?

 
We were bored and stupid and had a lot of left over carrots. We had been partying all night and were sloshed and high. Everything was funny. The night air was warm, humid the kind of summer night in July where mischief beckons. Everyone had left and the only thing to do was clean, so we said "Fuck that!" And went outside.

We smoke a little more on the porch with the bowl of carrots between us. They were not for eating. One of us started. One. Two. Three. Four. THUD. The carrot landed on the hood of a car. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nothing. The carrot only made it to the small patch of grass directly in front of us. Laughter errupted.

More carrots were tossed. Our goal: hit the tops of cars. The noise was hilarious.

This entertained us for hours. There must have been more than 100 carrots littering the city streets by the time we finally went inside. most of them landed in the same place: on or around a black sedan parked across the street. We had no intention of cleaning them up. We wanted people finding them in the morning thinking, "Where did all these god damn carrots come from?"

That became the mantra of our friendship. He's still my best friend to this day.

Dia de los Muertos

 
I haven't really lost anyone. There was my grandmother. She passed a couple of years ago. She was in her 80s and still full of life when she died. Or at least that's how I remember her.

We were close; she helped raise me as grandmas do. It is from her phone I dialed 976 numbers when I visited after work. We worked at the same retreat center. It was a short walk from her senior housing apartment complex to the center. I was the dishwasher, and she was the cook.

She was the one that got me the job that eventually led to me borrowing (or was it stealing) a Total Recall VHS tape. I got to watch it just once before my dad took it from me. I was in the eighth grade and not allowed to watch R movies, especially ones that showed boobs. He threatened to throw it away. He didn't. I found it in his underwear drawer next to the condoms.

My grandma and I grew distant when I moved to San Francisco. We weren't the best conversationalists over the phone, and I rarely returned to Minnesota. She visited California twice. We both still loved each other dearly. It just happened to be the quiet and rarely spoken kind.

The funeral was the first time the entire (or almost entire) family came together. It was good to see everyone and awkward. Besides blood and blue collars, there isn't and wasn't too much that holds or held us all together except empty promises to call. As in life, it was grandma that connected us. Such are mothers, regardless of gender.

I miss her. I miss her stories most of all: the ones about dancing in spite of Depression, how I looked like my grandfather who died when I was three, her unquestioning faith in God. She was life-blood to history.

It is because of her I tell stories. I want to keep my history alive.

Our Dance

 
We danced. It was simple and uncomplicated. I put my head on his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer. Antony was playing. We were in love.

We still are.

Moving to San Francisco on New Year's Eve

 
Thanks to sitting in the wrong seat and the flirting of two straight me to my right, I got free drink on my flight from Denver. It was the eve of 1998, and I was moving to San Francisco. I was very tipsy in the air and drunk by the time we landed. Somehow, I managed to grab my bags, hop on a Super Shuttle, and find my way to my ex-boyfriend's apartment.

No one was home as they were all out partying. I entered the apartment thanks to a key left discretely behind and set down my bags. A few minutes later gun shots were fired outside the window. The alcohol mixed with the anxiety of being in a new place, and I knew I wasn't leaving the apartment that night. A quick telephone call from my ex confirmed I wasn't joining them. They were in the Haight. I was in the Outer Mission, and I had no clue how to get there. So I settled in and laid down on his bed.

I awoke early that morning when he came home. He was high and drunk. He popped two ecstasy before entering the apartment. I got up to chat and flirt. We talked briefly. He welcomed me to San Francisco. I went back to bed. He jerked off in the kitchen thinking he was quiet, but the noise of the porn was loud and distracting.

When I awoke the later that morning, I was violently sick -- the kind of sick you catch on planes. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. My ex was pissed. I was ruining his day and his high.

He moved me from his bed to a futon mattress in the hallway. All I got was that mattress. I had to use my backed bag as my pillow and my winter coat as my blanket. I was shaking from my fever unable to get warm.

"Uh...where can I grab something to eat?" I asked.

Dismissively, "There's a grocery store across the street," he replied.

I stumbled there dizzy, sickness swirling in my head. I picked up some oranges and saltines that eventually found their way to the toilet. I almost passed out in the middle of the store.

I returned to the apartment, and he had taken off. I laid back down on the futon and passed out. A few hours later, I awoke crying and terrified. I was so ill I was hallucinating all the horrible possibilities of gun shots and missing people.

His roommate followed me around the apartment sanitizing everything I touched -- the phone I used to call home, the toilet, the glass from which I drank water.

"Sorry," she said. "You look like shit. I'm sorry he isn't helping you. Is there anything I can do?"

"No," I replied. "I just need to sleep and get out of here."

I was there only a day or two more. A call I placed to my parents resulted in my grandparents driving up from their home in Sun City West, Arizona. They picked me up, and we drove to the place I was moving to in a couple of days, a group home for severely emotionally disturbed youth ages five to thirteen that I was going to intern at.

We were greet by a woman wrapped in a bath towel, another intern who wasn't expecting us. She was sweet and told us where to find a hotel and the hospital. We left.

The doctor said I had bronchitis and the stomach flu.

I slept for two days in the hotel room my grandparents got for us.

That was my first week in San Francisco, and, thanks to family, I survived.

The Apology

 
He pulled me in to his office.

"Jason," he started, "you can't volunteer here or be a part of this church any more because you're gay. It isn't the message we want to send the youth."

"But I've been raised in this church. I went to school here. I teach Sunday School."

"I'm sorry. You can't do that any more. That's all I have to say."

Years later, he emailed an apology.

I still don't visit that church.

Smear the Queer

 
Smear the Queer was a popular game in middle school. It was simply played with a mob and a ball. Someone threw the ball in the air. If it landed in front of you, you had to pick it up and throw it. When you had the ball in your hands, you were the queer and the mob's job was to smear you.

I hated the game.

One wintry recess, everyone was playing. I had and have horrible hand-eye coordination. The ball landed in front of me. I picked it up and threw it hard. It landed directly in front of me again. As I bent down to pick it up, a sharp, hard kick connected with my tailbone. I fell to the ground reeling in pain, crying.

I ended up in the nurse's office waiting for my parents, hunched over and unable to sit. They picked me up and took me to the doctor. The doctor's diagnosis was a fractured tailbone.

I never played Smear the Queer again. I didn't need to. That damn brown doughnut cushion I had to carry with me everywhere I went was a very visible reminder that I was the queer.

The Coming Out Note

 

She was my best friend my senior year of high school and my prom date. She was new having moved from her mom's in South Dakota to her dad and step mom's in Minnetonka. We did almost everything together: church youth group, hanging out after school, babysitting her sister. We had lots of fun.
 
The night my parents found out I was gay I was supposed to get together with her. We hadn't seen each other since all of the bull shit in the seminary, nd I was eager to regale her with tales, especially the one about the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I needed to hear that everything was okay.

My mother called me upstairs. I was getting ready trying on a variety of sweaters and pants trying to find the most stylish combination. 

"What now," I thought but said, "Be right up!" I rushed upstairs.

It came out of the blue. "We know," they said, and left it at that waiting for me to admit it.

"Know what?" I replied fidgeting, thinking "I'm not getting out of the house tonight."

"I found the note," my mom said.

"What note?" My hands twisted behind my back.

"The note."

"Oh shit," I thought as tears formed in the corners of their eyes. "Something's about to happen."

"We know you're gay." I can't remember which one said it.

I was quiet. "I am not going to be able to go out," was the only thought in my head.

There were a few more exchanges. Something like: "We still love you." "We will need to talk to the priest." "We don't totally understand this."

It ended with "We know you have plans tonight. Go out and have fun."

I went over to her house. We didn't talk about the seminary.

Faggot on the Bus

 

My parents were going out of town or something, and we were all shipped off to different friends of the family for the night. I got to go to his house. He was a huge geek, and I was excited to spend the night. He had a Commodore 64. He and I had gone to school together and were friends since Kindergarten. We were now in the sixth grade.

My mini vacation started agter school. I had to take the bus home with him. It was a different bus than the one I normally took home. I knew how to handle that bus. This one I did not.  

I jumped on the bus and energetically took a seat next to him. "I can't wait til we get to your house. This is going to be fun!"

He looked at me and said, "Find another seat. I don't want you sitting next to me. And I don't want you spending the night."

I moved to an empty seat ready to cry but holding it in fearing I would be teased if a tear dripped down my cheek. The other kids overheard our exchange, and that tear wasn't needed for the teasing to commence.

Suddenly, the bus broke out into "Jason and xxx sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First come love. Then, comes marriage. Then comes..."

"There is no way I'd kiss Jason," he erupted. "He's a faggot!"

Everyone started yelling "Jason is a faggot. Jason is a faggot," in that sing songy tone of childish taunting.

I moved to the front of the bus trying to escape their jeers. They just got louder. The bus driver drove.

"Jason is a faggot," continued until I got off the bus with him some 30 minutes later. We walked silently up the driveway.

"Look. I don't mind you staying over. I just didn't want you sitting next to me on the bus. I don't need any more teasing than you do," he said as we entered the house.

I was on the verge of tears. Anger bottled up. All I wanted was the night to be over and to be home in the chaos I knew. I wanted to scream and punch and fight.

Instead, I said, 'It's okay. We can still have fun. You wanna play a game?" I followed him inside.

In moments of anger or teasing or harassment, I am sometimes still that little boy that ignores his feelings and justifies, "It's okay." Especially with friends, colleagues, and peers.

I Hate Principals' Offices

 
I was suspended for fighting, but I didn't raise a fist. It happened at recess during my seventh or eighth grade year. Everyone was outside playing in their cliques. As usual, I was alone or with the girls from the other school.

(Side note: My Catholic school merged with another Catholic school the summer before my sixth grade year. This created two sets of cliques. As I had few friends from the school I was in, I made friends with the outcasts from the other school.)

I had a scathing tongue and loved gossip. It was my defense against all of the teasing and torment the other students did to me. I must have said something that pissed him off, but I can't remember what. I do remember him coming at me, chest puffed high, hands in fists.

"What the fuck did you say about me," he demanded.

"Uh...what?"

"What did you say about me?"

"Whatever," I said.

He swung. For all the fights I had at home, I was not a fighter at school, but I was strong. I grabbed his fist and held on tight. He swung his other fist. I grabbed that too. I used my weight and twisted him around so his back was against my chest, his arms crossed in front, my hands holding his fists tight. He screamed and squirmed trying to get free.

The nuns spotted us, and we were both sent to the Principal. Each on talked to the Principal in turn. We were both suspended.

"But...I didn't even hit him. He was swinging at me, and I was defending myself. Why am I suspended?"

"To be fair," or some other fucked up excuse like that was given. It wasn't a real answer.

I still hate principals' offices to this day.

The Fight with the Knife

 
We fought a lot. Sometimes it was the friendly fight of brothers. Others it was the competitive and volatile fight of siblings. We didn't understand each other, each on thought the other got more attention, had more friends, or some other shit like that. We didn't realize how similar we really were. Often, our fights were epic.

One afternoon, we had a particularly vitriolic fight. It started with simple teasing back and forth that morphed into me chasing him around the house with a knife screaming, "I hate you! I fucking hate you! Everyone hates you!!!"

He avoided my slashes laughing and crying nervously. I pursued certain I would make contact; unsure what would happen next. Our two other younger siblings watching everything unfold. I was supposed to be in charge. Obviously, I wasn't.

When I ran out of steam chasing him with the kitchen knife, I ran to our room and started throwing his clothes out of this dresser.

"You're not wanted anymore. No one loves you. Mom and dad don't want you here," and I ran to the laundry room, grabbed a suitcase, and started packing his clothes inside. Once packed, I shoved it at him, pushed him out our back door, locked the door, and from the screen window screeched, "Go! Leave! Don't come back. It'll be better without you around."

I will never forget the tears of anger and sadness that streaked his red face. "Fine," he yelled from the driveway, "You want me gone? I'm gone! Tell mom and dad goodbye."

He walked down the driveway and into the street. Our two other siblings cried and pleaded with me to get him to come back. Something snapped inside me, and I realized I was making him feel the way I felt. I was ashamed. I was supposed to protect him. I was the older one, and I should have know better.

"Wait!" I yeled as I unlocked and opened the back door. "Come back. I didn't mean it. You can't leave!"

He kept walking. I followed. Tears streamed down his face; his shoulders convulsed. I caught up to him.

"I'm sorry," and I threw my arms around him. "Come home."

Eventually, he came back and we put everything away before mom and dad got home. All four of us made a pact to never tell our parents about the incident.

The events of that day changed all of us. I know we had more fights and arguments after that, but nothing that escalated to knives or packed bags. I think we all realized that we all were alone in our own way.

While I don't talk to my siblings often, I know they love and accept me. And I know that that feeling of being alone or an outside connects all four of us.

Thanks Anna Conda for the Inspiration!

 

This post is a comment to Anna Conda's post Yerba Buena Soap Box. Here is a portion of the original post:

The biggest problem for me in Queer culture today is two fold; first is the lack of knowledge of our history and second the fact that we feel that we need to include any gender variance into our numbers to make us have a broader platform. The truth of the matter is that not all gender variance is queer and mainstream society shunning something as abnormal does not make it part of Queer culture either. Most people; both gay and straight; believe that sex and whom we choose to have it with is the only thing that makes us queer identified and they have no idea what a rich and glorious past we have. In the 20th century things move so fast that we often find it hard to keep up with our past and the history that we are sharing today. This leads us to ghettoization and self loathing creating the need for everyone to accept us. This need to fit is and have as many people join our ranks is detrimental to the Queer or Gay agenda and serves only to make us look pathetic and needy. Everybody will not like us no matter what we do or how ever many people join our ranks. Bigotry does not work on a numbers game. It is a fear based reaction of people who are filled with fear and cling to that fear as if it was the very oxoygen that keeps them alive. My parents are born again christians who will never accept me and even after 42 years of knowing me and seeing what a hard working caring individual I am would turn me over to the Nazis if they asked them to. They believe that I am an abomination and nothing I do will ever cure them of that. However that shame is not MINE to take on. It is my duty to believe in my path and move on and work on educating people on my queer history and the fact that we have been around forever, with glorious results in arts, leadership, scholars, and spiritual abundance.

 Click here to continue reading.

***
Dearest Anna Conda:

Thank you for writing this and asking hard questions about our queer community. As someone who came out as gay at 18, fell in love with a woman at 22/23, and ended up marrying a man at 31, I, too, have grappled with the queer identity and what makes it such.

When I first came out, I believed that gay was the only way. However, this conflicted significantly with my actual orientation. I had numerous girlfriends in middle high school and not just the standard "I need to hide something so I'll date a girl" variety. They were women I loved (and still do). From 18 to 22/23, I had sex with and found myself sexually attracted to women, and I still identified as gay because the majority of my relationships and sexual partners were men.

Then, I fell in love with a woman. It wasn't something I was expecting. It was something that happened. We had an open relationship and I continued to have sex (a lot of it) with men (most of the time) and other genders (sometimes). I didn't and don't believe in a binary gender construct, and so I was at a loss for how to capture the totality of my sexual orientation, as identity politics is, and always will be, a huge part of who I am.

I came to embrace queer precisely because it opened the door beyond gay. To me, it wasn't about a watering down of identity. Rather, it was a broadening. It was a term that I could take on and be.

Now, as a man who is married and monogamous to another man, I still call myself queer. Yes, for all intents and purposes, I am gay, too. But gay is not the totality of who I am. It is too narrow and restricting especially when used in the LGBTQQIP moniker. In that instance, gay really only refers to men who have sex with men (almost exclusively).

Queer has become, and is, a HUGE part of me, one that I believe, as you mention in your post, is beyond just who you have sex with. It is about a broadening of identity. And that broadening comes into conflict with more narrow (and necessary) identity politics.

For my day job, I work organizing and training the professionals who work with or for youth (sometimes including youth in and of themselves). In this arena, I use both gay and queer. Initially, I use gay because it is just easier for people to understand. It matches their perception of me. As I get to know them or as the situation calls for it, I start talking about my queer identity. It confuses the hell out of people. They totally don't understand.

Similarly, when I say I am queer among gay men, they look at me funny thinking the two words are interchangeable. And to them, they may be. But to me, they are worlds apart. One speaks to a side (albeit a more predominant side especially since my marriage to John) of me that is narrow, focused, and steeped in oppression (not the same as shame, as I, too, see absolutely NO use in it). The other one speaks to a side of me that is uniting and liberating. And in this world, I need both to survive and thrive.

Thanks again for writing this. It has made me think deeply and intentionally about why I use the word queer. I appreciate the inspiration and challenge.

Much love,
Jason Wyman

Stolen Playgirls

 
B. Dalton carried Playgirl. I visited frequently and shoplifted copies. I would walk over to the magazine rack and casually peruse Home and Garden, Marie Claire, Vogue, and Women's Day, and when the clerk wasn't looking I'd grab a Playgirl and shove it between the pages of one of the myriad women's magazines. When the clerk turned away again, I would shove it up my shirt or down my pants and move to the sci fi or mystery section. Another ten to fifteen minutes later I left looking dejected that I didn't find what I was looking for, heart pounding hoping I wouldn't get caught.

The magazine was masturbatory gold and got tucked away between the mattress and box spring next to the naked men birthday cards I stole from the drug store. My stash was my fantasy and needed to be hidden between things. They invaded my dreams, and I woke up wet.

This continued until my mother decided to clean my bedroom or make my bed or snoop and found the naked men between mt sheets. She threw them away, confronted me, and I denied the whole thing scared that they would send back to a shrink to become straight like they did in the eighth grade.

"They aren't mine. It won't happen again," I said.

We all lived in denial for a few more years.

May Day Is for Kisses

 
I was in the park celebrating with friends on a beautiful May Day as the puppets danced and the protesters cheered. I saw him down the hill, his skinny black jeans, knee-high combat boots, and tousled  hair recognizable from a distance. I hadn't seen him in years. We both grew distant after our ninth grade year filled with horror movies and questions. I wanted to kiss him then, but thought better of it. He left for art school in the eleventh grade.

He saw me too and approached smiling. I walked towards him distancing myself from my friends hoping for privacy in the crowded park. His smile faded, and he raised his hands in greeting, threw them around me, and squeezed -- an action he never would have done in high school. I melted and sighed.

"It's good seeing you. It has been too long. What've you been up to?" I asked trying to start a conversation.

He didn't respond verbally. Instead, he looked at me, leaned in close, and kissed me. The blood rushed to my face, and I felt warm, almost sun-burnt. I kissed back.

We walked hand in hand around the park that afternoon for about half an hour in mundane conversation between waited for kisses.

Then, it was over. He kissed my cheek and said good-bye. I didn't want it to end. It wasn't supposed to be more than a kiss and a confirmation.

I still occasionally  search for him.

Writing Freedom

 
We built forts out of chairs, blankets, sheets, whatever we could get our hands on. They were magnificent. You could climb into the tiny spaces and be a king or an astronaut or a pioneer. You were who you wanted to be.

I still love that freedom. It is why I write.