March 2004 Archives

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When the Life You Want is Not the Life You Have

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When You Get the Life You Want and You Discover it Sucks

I’ve been keeping a journal since I was 18. This little webforum here has provided me an opportunity to spout off on numerous things – but the core “stuff” – ya know, the deep examinations of life, bitchy notes to ex-boyfriends that never got mailed, my weight and food journal, my loneliest times, exist only in written form, in my journals. It’s easy to blog about happy days or interesting controversy. The rest, is private, for some obvious reasons.

Today was one of those days when I needed a few hours to contemplate my life – so I turned to my written journals. An entry, from about a year ago, went like this:

Years go by and nothing seems to change – except my weight (and that’s not a change in the right direction.)

Unhappiness and uncertainty are still confounding me. The feelings of being out of sort, disconnected, unattached, uninvolved – are still here. I try to keep those feelings at bay by revving up on Dayquil, cigarettes and caffeine -- plowing through work, freelance projects, volunteering, etc. It seems like I’m so busy trying to do things to make other people happy, fulfilling their expectations, meeting their deadlines, that I never have the time to think about what I fundamentally need in my life.

There’s a mantra in AA and other recovery programs that insanity is doing the same destructive thing over and over again, yet expecting different results.

I wonder if my gadfly lifestyle isn’t, quite frankly, insane. Do I really care about going to parties and openings and gossip and knowing who to call when this, that or the other happens?

Certainly it’s an image I portray. But is it fundamentally, me?

Same things I was thinking about today, I was dwelling on a year ago. Not exactly encouraging, huh? Maybe it’s because it’s Sunday. I used to vicariously associate with the gals on Sex and the City - take my own personal demons and neatly resolve them around a TV show. Granted, that is a pattern I’ve done all my life. Life is better in TV and books. Real life and real feelings are wretched and confounding, when you feel fundamentally alone and very lost.

I’ve watched a few classic films this week. To Kill A Mockingbird, Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (twice). There are a few lines from the latter that provoked some thought. I don’t fancy myself much like Holly Golightly, but she had a few utterances that struck home:

"It's a mistake you always made, Doc -- trying to love a wild thing... You mustn't give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get….."

”You know the terrible thing, Fred darling? I am still Lulamae. Fourteen years old, stealing turkey eggs and running through a briar patch. 'Cept now I call it 'having the mean reds.”

I have a tendency to try to love wild things and it always ends up the same. Mister Wild Thing is fascinating and marvellous. I fall head-over-heels. My heart gets broken. I get very sad and a little more bitter. I act up (in numerous and sometimes, pathetic ways). I turn to writing.

March is almost over. I’ve been ridiculously over-committed all month. Lots of parties, events, networking functions, freelance projects – the whole nine yards. I tried to do too much and lived too little. I’ve ignored friends. I haven’t taken a walk. I haven’t even read a magazine, or slept late, or had fun that didn’t involve work in one way or the other. Work always looms in the background. And by work, I mean the need to make money in some form or fashion. The boundary between my own life, separate of the newspaper (and in some ways the gay community), my freelance work and my volunteerism has grown so thin that there is no seeming separation from who I am and what I do.

And as time goes by, I’m finding that very draining, tiring and exhausting.

So that’s today’s post. Sometimes the life you thought you wanted is a life you’d give up for some peace and quiet. No cell phones, no false small talk, no bullshit. Gimme a book, some hot tea, a clean house (laundry done and put away), and a few moments to myself.

That’s my goal for April.

Oh, and fewer posts like this – they’re annoying as fuck…but if it doesn’t get said….it only exists as an idea. Now I have something to gauge my success. That’s a little work-related thinking, but in this case, I’ll give it a bye.

So, the editor of Stuff magazine admitted that he contrived the story about “gancing.”

Gancing?

Here’s a recap from the New York Post:

MALE-DANCE FEVER: JUST KIDDING, GUYS!

Jay Leno mocked it in a recent monologue. Ryan Seacrest confessed to his radio listeners that he had done it. But it turns out that "gancing" - the guy-on-guy dancing trend that's supposedly sweeping the clubs - was a hoax cooked up by an editor at Stuff magazine. After the mammary-obsessed monthly ran a two-page spread in its April issue, with pictures of straight guys engaging in choreographed dance moves like "The Lumberjack" and "The Diana Ross," the term "gancing" was suddenly on the lips of clueless commentators everywhere. "It's so blatantly false," says Stuff features editor Bill Schulze. "I thought it would be a funny way to kill two pages. But I did about 10 morning zoo radio interviews the week after it came out. Every single one of them bought it."

So….this boils down to two issues for me:

1. Media Responsibility
2. Straight men are fine the way they are – as long as they’re not bashing me

My dad, a straight guy

I’m not gonna tackle media responsibility at the moment. Good God – that’s a book. But as for straight boys, I think it’s time for this homo to say this:

LEAVE THEM THE FUCK ALONE!

I’m really glad that my dad and my older, straight brother taught me how to change a tire on my car and replace the brakes on my car. I’m glad that I didn’t spend my summers on the farm with my dad learning how to manicure my eyebrows, instead I had chores. Granted, I bitched the whole time, and I would rather have been drawing rather than doing farm work, but I learned the value of hard work and responsibility. I’m not saying that my mom didn’t instill those values in me, too, but learning about responsibility and hard work from my dad was different.

After I came out to my dad, he helped me tune-up my car. He told me, “There’s gonna be people out there who won’t like you for who you are. You’re young and you’re gonna go out – and you might meet folks who don’t like you ‘cause you’re gay. If you get into that situation… I want you to be able to get out of it damn fast.”

That’s the way my straight dad dealt with my being gay. He tuned up my car.

That’s the kinda straight men that are all right by me.

Here’s some late breaking news from the venerable St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Women insist that Gays make great boyfriends!

I think I want to pitch a story for the Everyday Section:

Maybe… All Blacks aren’t scary – some even have jobs!

or maybe Jews – a lot of fun at lunch!

Apparently the Post draws a line when it comes to their own content, considering this review a few months ago:

Gay-themed movie heads straight for cliches

Tonight, my new downstairs neighbor celebrated her birthday in grand style.

I popped downstairs (it felt so Melrose Place) and met her glam friends and co-workers. The gals were really dolled up. Fancy dress, earrings, makeup, hair extensions, falls and champagne! Woo hoo! I was in heaven with all that girl power.

I have to admit that the stripper left a little bit to be desired. When asked if he’d do lap dances for the fellas, he said something about “this not being San Francisco….” Well, duh. In San Francisco, strippers:
1. Are Hot
2. When they say “cop uniform” it’s actually a cop uniform and not some white ensemble with lame accents on the pants. Don’t get me started on gold lame, either.
3. Cash is cash is cash. Who cares who’s tucking it in your g-string.

So we gays just made snippy, hateful comments about his lame purple underwear.

Nevertheless, it was still totally giggle-worthy.

Then we went to the Upstairs Lounge, where sushi and cake (in the shape of a high heel shoe!) and more champagne awaited us. Oh! There were also yummy egg rolls – which I enjoyed with my Diet Coke (champagne gets me into trouble).

I am really getting used to life in my new apartment! There’s still a ton of crap to unpack and so much that I’d like to get done (finish painting widows and the pocket doors) – but it feels like life is slowly getting back on track. Granted the tracks are new, and who knows what direction they lead…but the outlook looks promising.

On Wednesday, my co-workers and I boarded a bus and headed off to Jefferson City, the state capitol. PROMO organizes this annual lobby day so that our legislators can see and meet their GLBT constituents and look us in the face and, sometimes, call us disgusting.

Senator Delbert Scott called these two men "disgusting."

I’m not kidding. Senator Delbert Scott told some of his constituents, “what you (gays) do is disgusting.” The day before, my state Senator, Pat Dougherty, voted for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. Two years ago, he marched beside me at the Gay Pride Parade. Guess we’re good enough to get him elected, just not good enough to marry.

Fellow Vital VOICE staffer Pamela Merritt and Robin Wright-Jones

Not everyone is so evil or hypocritical. My new Rep, Robin Wright-Jones said that discrimination is discrimination is discrimination, and she wasn't having any part of it. I wanted to hug her after feeling so disappointed and down-right angry with the way so many of us were treated by our elected officials. Some Senators and Representatives flat-out refused to see us.

If you live in Missouri and you don’t know who your Senator or Representative is, you can look him or her up at PROMO’s website. Give ‘em a holler. After all, your taxes pay their salary.