Tag: 1980’s

Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires

Wednesday Pay-the-Bills day, and I am awake and slurping coffee, which is truly hitting the spot this morning. I slept well last night, and I think I am actually getting used to getting up at this ungodly, abhorrent hour. When I sleep well, I have no problem getting up in the morning (although I always long to stay in bed longer) and I am pretty well conscious, for the most part. (The coffee will do it’s job indubitably before I have to leave the house for the office, which is lovely, as always.) Yesterday wasn’t too bad. I did run uptown to get the mail on the way home (there was exactly one letter; my copy of All the Sinners Bleed, the new S. A. Cosby, won’t arrive until tomorrow), and I wasn’t terribly tired when I got home. I unloaded the dishwasher and cleaned out the sink, revised another chapter, and just chilled out for the rest of the evening. I’ve got a couple of nonfiction reads going at the same time (Hi Honey I’m Homo by Matt Baume and The Way They Were:  How Epic Battles and Bruised Egos Brought a Classic Hollywood Love Story to the Screen by Robert Hofler–I do love books about the making of movies! And of course I am still reading The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough) so I finished the Hofler last night (cannot reiterate how much I love books about the making of classic films. The Way We Were, however flawed it may be, it probably my favorite Barbra Streisand movie–either that or What’s Up Doc.

I have a ZOOM meeting tonight as well, so I’ll probably come straight home from the office today after work. The excitement never stops, does it?

I was also thinking some more about my Pride writings, and whether or not I really want to talk about the homophobia I’ve experienced in my career. I do think these things need to be addressed–absolutely no one should have the false impression this kind of shit doesn’t still go on, isn’t still happening–but at the same time, it’s hard to write about those things without getting angry, or becoming THAT Gay Man (similar in some ways to the Angry Black Woman, I think; a trope that is easily dismissed by the dominant culture rather than examined in the ways it should be; if a Black woman is angry, why not find out why rather than being dismissive?) who people can easily stop listening to. Homophobia sucks, and being on the receiving end of it is no pleasure for anyone. It’s even less pleasant to experience and write about. But these things happen, and not shining a light on these unacceptable behaviors allows them to fester and grow. I like to believe sometimes (when feeling more charitable than usual) that people aren’t aware sometimes that what they are saying or writing is homophobic because that shit is baked so deeply into our society and culture; if you never examine yourself, you never learn and grow.

It amazes me how many people think they already “know enough” and don’t need to continue learning and growing. I always want to keep learning, keep modifying myself into the best version of myself that I can be (thank you, Ted Lasso), and growing into a more compassionate, empathetic person. It would be nice to talk about gay joy, you know?

For me, coming out was like a rebirth of sorts. I was absolutely miserable before I started living out loud as a gay man; I kind of led two different lives in which I had two different sets of friends that knew nothing about the others. But the real life was the closeted one, even though hanging out with other gays and going to gay bars was like a breath of fresh air after being stuck in a smoke-filled room for hours. I was keeping so much from either set of friends that I never really felt super-close to any of them; I loved them all dearly, but felt disconnected from them because they didn’t really know me. I was thirty when I started merging my two lives together, and believe me, coming out didn’t solve much for me, either. I felt freer, but I also had to start learning how to navigate being gay all of the time instead of having a few brief hours of freedom every week. I didn’t make many gay friends, and most of the gay people I knew were my co-workers…and the last thing I ever wanted to do was get physically and emotionally involved with a co-worker. There was still a lifetime of self-loathing and self-flagellation stuffed into my head as I started to reeducate and reevaluate myself and my life. The lovely thing about coming out at thirty meant I wiped the slate clean and had to start really figuring out who I actually was. It also makes sense that my writing never went anywhere while I was closeted; I wasn’t a complete person,. so how could I write and create compelling characters that are fully rounded when I was still under construction?

The weird thing is that thirty-one years later, I still feel like I’m figuring out who I am and what I want from my life…as the sands in the hourglass continue to run out. But while there have certainly been difficult times since I waltzed out of the closet, I’ve also been happier and more content and at peace than I ever was before. It might be age and experience, I don’t know, but I believe that I could have never reached that point while living in the closet. Had I continued to deny my true self, how miserable would my life have turned out? It was already going down a dark path already; the 1980’s and HIV/AIDS still cast a long shadow over my life.

But I’ve also known joy in the second half of my life; joy I never experienced or felt in the first half of it. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything…I’ve never regretted it, not once, not even when all the forces of the religious right and their useful idiots in elected office have arrayed themselves against people like me.

On that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll talk to you again soon.

Run Wild

And here we are on Monday morning again: lather, rinse, repeat.

I ran out of steam yesterday while I was organizing (instead of writing, of course) so there’s still a mess around my workspace this morning, but I did get a new file box sorted and organized for all my New Orleans/Louisiana research and ideas–mostly based on true things or legends, really–so that was a major accomplishment. I also went to the gym yesterday, which felt marvelous and I am glad I got back on that horse again (during the cold spell I didn’t go at all; it was too cold for me to be walking five blocks in sweats, and the hassle of changing there is too daunting for me). It was also kind of lovely out yesterday; I was a bit suspicious of the cold so wore tights under my sweatpants and a T-shirt beneath my sweatshirt, and walking there made me a trifle warm….as did walking home after the workout. I could sense that it was one of those days when forcing myself to write wouldn’t take, and the work I might force myself to do would have to be redone, so I just kicked back and went to work on the organizing and so forth. I had also made groceries yesterday before going to the gym, so that was part of it–groceries and the gym wears me out; I simply don’t have the energy and stamina I once did (which is about the only thing I really miss about being younger–that and not feeling the cold so much). I will also need to empty the dishwasher when I get home this evening and reload it with everything piled up in the sink; it wasn’t a very productive day, quite frankly, but I think sometimes you need to have a “down” day to recharge and recuperate…I never used to need such a day, but I also didn’t used to be on the cusp of sixty, either.

I continued watching Sons of Liberty while Paul worked yesterday; it’s actually very well done (although I did comment, rather cynically, to myself that the the founding fathers weren’t young and hot when all this was going on) and I also like that it’s not being all flag-waving; it’s pretty clear that John Hancock’s revolutionary fervor was all about business and making money, while the Adams cousins are a bit more about rights and the law (I also kept thinking it would be interesting to write a murder mystery set in pre-revolutionary Boston, sometime between 1770 and 1775, with perhaps John Adams as the attorney/investigator–a British officer is murdered, etc etc etc). Then when Paul was finished working we watched the first three episodes of It’s A Sin, which I was both looking forward to and dreading at the same time. It’s wonderful, done beautifully and written so well and the acting is stellar—but it’s also heartbreaking; I braced myself as the first episode began, realizing it’s the 1980’s and a show about gay men so most of the characters are probably going to die so be prepared. I cried a lot during the first three episodes, the first death was precisely who I expected, to be honest….but the second one was like a throat punch; just like it would have been back then–unexpected, the last person I expected, and the dying was so awful and so undeserved. My heart broke all over again, like it used to fairly regularly back then until I became inured to it, numbed; each new sickness meant death, meant another light going out, meant that with another one gone my own clock was ticking. Maybe when it’s finished, when we’re done watching, I’ll be able to process the experience more and perhaps it will prove to be cathartic; maybe it won’t. I’ve done a really good job of sealing off that part of my history and my past in my brain…even though I’ve never forgotten what I–we–went through back then and I’ve never forgotten their names or the good times…

I guess we’ll see how it turns out.

Although every time I see someone lamenting what the current pandemic is doing–to young people, to children, etc. and how their lives are being changed–I kind of exhale and think you’ll be very surprised at how well they adjust and adapt and move on–we did. And you don’t have a choice.

I think the most heartbreaking part of it was, now, seeing how young they are in the show, remembering how young we were back then, so young and hopeful and excited about the future. This was why Pose was hard for me to watch; all those beautiful young people, so talented and gifted and smart and energetic, ready to make their mark on the world, and knowing what’s coming. This, along with Pose, is the first time I’ve ever seen the pandemic from the point of view that I most associate with; the generation of gays who came out and begin living their gay lives so young. Usually, like with Longtime Companion and the execrable Philadelphia, the point of view was older–these were the gays who came out in the 1970’s or even as early as the 1960’s, as opposed to those who were so young and coming into the community and world, having to deal with something so impossible to understand. There’s one awful scene where the friends all go in to get tested for the first time….and one of them doesn’t get up and go get his results when his name is called…he waits and once the nurse leaves the waiting room, he gets up and walks out because he doesn’t want to know. It was like having my heart ripped out all over again; because that was me with my very first test. I didn’t stay for the result, I checked in, they called my number–it was done by number–and I just sat there before finally leaving because I wasn’t strong enough, emotionally, to handle a positive result. (I remember that every time I have to give a positive result to a client at the day job, and this was the first time I’ve ever seen a scene from my actual life in a television show or a movie..it was a real gut punch.)

It’s going to take me a while to get over this show, I think, and we have two more episodes to go.

And on that somber note, I am heading into the spice mines. Wish me luck.