What I Did On My Summer Vacation - 2006

So I took a month off. Suffer.

August has never been good to me. Since I was diagnosed in '98, every August - like clockwork, I've taken a dive. There were the August Kidney Stones, the August Mystery Fevers, the August Bell's Palsy, and the August "Hey Your Bone Marrow Stopped Working!". Ides of March, my ass.

Since last me met, I've been nipples-deep in church work (singing, playing the piano, etc.). I've also been re-discovering the joy of snake handling. No, we're not THAT kind of Pentecostal. We just have THOSE kinds of people. They don't handle vipers. They are vipers.

It thrills my religified soul to know that mean queens must have learned their craft at the knee of a slithering saint. We may or may not all descend from the same pond. But we all look alike when the lighting is right. As the great philosopher once said, "People are people. So why should it be (that) you and I should get along so awfully?"

I have had phone calls concerned that I had been kidnapped by Exodus, International and was being made to bake cookies for Promise Keepers events. One worried that I had slipped into self-loathing and had traded my chaps for a polyester leisure suit and a tendency to vocalize vowels where none belonged. "In the name-uh, of-uh JESUS-uh." I assured him my diction was unchanged from when last we spoke. G.W. sent out feelers wondering if I would stump with him in the mid-terms to turn out the anti-gay vote.

So we have no mistaking: I still love Jesus. And I still love men. It helps, of course, that outside of Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), I can picture Jesus as a man. The neutering of the deities, however logical and well-intentioned, never did sit well with me. Somewhere in the back of my mind it stuck with me that if they'll cut God's balls off, they wouldn't blink when it came to my own. I like my testicles. They're not terribly useful. But I've grown accustomed to the way my pants hang.

In my absence from this space, I still wrote. I had a letter to the editor of the Kansas City Star published (I'm convinced this is how Hemingway got his start). It was apropos of Fred Phelps and summarizes an early post on this blog. I exchanged emails with an editor from The Advocate (yes, that one) about republishing an interview we did for HIV-Plus Magazine. It may appear in The Advocate soon. Or he may have been hitting on me. Who knows? Today, I wrote another letter to the editor in response to one of those Bush Administration Form Letters every newspaper publishes. They hear from me often now. They'll either give me a column or cancel my subscription.

So yes, I'm alive. Yes, I've been getting laid. Yes, I'm still in church (because God knows there aren't enough heterosexuals to fill all the music posts in all the churches). We appreciate your concern. And we thank you for your support.

No More

I would like to go on record as being against procreation. No more kids. No more gap-toothed heterosexuals with a 4th grade reading level bringing up another set of what our President turned out to be. No more explosives-wielding, gun-toting, potty-mouthed, unruly, disobedient banshees whose parents look the other way like it's not their problem. You want a gay agenda? I'll give you agenda point 4, section (b), subsection (iii):

"Children, to the greatest extent necessary, should be eradicated from society along with those who created them."

This means no more American Family Association being worried about what's on my TV because it may negatively impact the children I don't own. Note to Don Wildmon: The dog has never once exhibited promiscuous behavior from my watching Days of our Lives. Nor has he ever used "cocksucker" in polite company after watching Deadwood. Perhaps it would help if you spay or neuter your children? I don't care to have my television options sanitized down for the consumption of a 4 year-old.

No More Children means that eventually there will be no more young homosexuals. We middle-agers will become attracted to today's 20 year-olds at the appropriate time. And that generation beneath us would never have their heads turned by someone 20 years younger...because they wouldn't exist. "But," you protest, "...eventually there will be no more ANYBODY if the breeders stop breeding!" Perhaps this is true, but once you die, tell me you're going to give a shit. It's like one final fling with Narcissism: No more after me!

No more young homosexuals will mean the eventual return of the only music handed down directly from God to Man: Disco. Soon, the thumpity thump thump of this lyricless mess of noise will dissipate into the bad dream it was meant to be (crystal trips notwithstanding) and we'll actually get words back in our dance music. They've taken the words out because younger homosexuals can neither read nor remember for long periods of time. I've yet to meet a gay man under 30 who could recite the words to both "It's Raining Men" and "I Will Survive". And I'm a little tired of having them look at me funny on Oldies Night at the bar. In time, today's young "queers" will be middle-aged and cranky with deteriorating joints and they'll long for the smooth, therapeutic dance therapy of Disco.

No more children means heterosexuals will have to stop using their kids as the reason they hate us. They'll have to hate us on their own two feet. Soon, straight women everywhere will have good reason to fear going to the beauty shop. Straight men will start guessing at their inseam length. All heterosexuals will have to eat at home for fear that the queens they've slandered will spit something toxic in their food. (And don't think we wouldn't.) Broadway will charge heterosexuals a Breeder's Premium to come see the gay folks they've pissed off: just because. Any movie with a gay actor - including the Mission Impossible series - will be Off Limits to straight people as reparations for the decades of shit heaped upon our heads.

Lesbians would turn their strollers into portable coolers. Gay men would turn their baby beds into uber-chic bars. Donna Summer will be forced to pick sides once and for all. Mr. Mapother would have to choose the closet or the crypt. Anne Heche-DeGeneres-LaFoon would spontaneously combust. Like fireworks. Which is where I had this idea in the first place.

Children with fireworks gave me a vision for the future. I will likely not live to see it fulfilled, but it was a beautiful glimpse of What Could Be. Will you join me, hand-in-hand, to build a better future for ourselves and our libidos? Imagine Jerry Falwell's head on a stick at The White Party in a sort of Taliban-cum-Circuit victory dance. As Tinkerbell told Peter, "Just close your eyes and think happy thoughts!"

Oh....and don't take the extra Klonopin when you go to bed. When they say two is the limit, they mean it. Two makes you happy and sleepy. Three gives you dreams of offing straight people and preachers' heads on sticks. Just two. No more.

(No children or heterosexuals were harmed in the making of this entry.)

I Hate This Crap

For 8 days, the town of Mayberry, KS shudders, thunders and crackles with the sounds of faux war. The mini-rockets' red glare in the sky intend to remind us of a great battle that won us our independence. Itty bitty bombs bursting in air should move our hearts to patriotism. Four year-olds stand in the middle of the street lighting fireworks as big as their head. Grownups flash a sparse-toothed smile at the gas station as they show the finger they lost in last year's foolishness. I really, really don't like the 4th of July.

I don't like that The Dalton Gang two doors down wasn't born with the collective sense not to shoot the Roman Candles they're holding in the direction of the 80 year-old wood-shingled houses in the neighborhood. It irks me that our City Litres (more drink than leadership) allow this booming annoyance for 8 solid days. When we were kids (I got permission to use that phrase for my 42nd Birthday), we got one day, maybe....and if we weren't old enough to vote or be drafted, we were stuck with sparklers and those little snakes that smoked and oozed like some sort of underworld miscarriage.

Now, I watch grown people with a high school education let their pre-school children light full-on firecrackers and run away giggling. I think I was 30 before my dad let me light a firework in his presence. Granted, I was a little goonier than your average kid, so you can't blame the guy for being a little leery of what I might do with explosives and the family home. But still. Today, that man has his pre-teen grandchildren glued to him as he lights Really Big Fireworks. Some of those tip over. Mainly, they tip over because they were never meant to be lit on a tilted picnic table by drunk people. When they do tip over, something in the manufacturing of these maiming devices makes sure they point toward the greatest concentration of people in lawn chairs.

I have a kink in my back from trying to outrun a rogue explosive device, dodge a campfire, and maneuver around several older people too slow to get out of my way. This is fun? Drinking I understand. Drugs I understand. I understand Bungie Jumping, Mountain Climbing, Fire Walking and that stupid Glass-Walking stuff they do. But I will never understand fireworks.

Murphy, the Yorkie in whose home I abide, does neither pee nor poop for the 8 days that the noise is present. Last night, we engaged in a battle of wills for close to an hour over whether he would pee outside with minimal fireworks distraction. He won. The day before, I drove him to the town square, where it was relatively free of explosions, and he promptly deposited all of his bodily holdings on the lawn of the court house. "Serves them right," I thought. I'm fairly sure he was thinking the same thing.

Today will be the last day, presumably, that we endure Baghdad Syndrome. Tomorrow, he will defecate with abandon and whizz on everything that dares stand still in his presence. It's not that we're unpatriotic, the dog and I. We just like our patriotism quiet...the way we like children and people who watch Fox News.
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A box arrived from New York City last week with the discarded contents of an over-crowded Hell's Kitchen closet. My friend, David, was making room for the latest child in love with whom he is. His temporary madness has resulted in my permanent enrichment. Surprised am I that Gray Pants are so big among the gay set in NYC. And the number of shades between gray and tan fairly boggle the mind. A surprising number of GAP items were in the box. I knew that Kansas gay folks shopped at The Gap because they tend to employ friendly fat girls who make good ha...err...friends. I had no idea it was apparently genetic and a habit on the coast, as well.

Valentino, Barney's, one lovely mint-green pullover (no tag, obviously synthetic, but still...), Banana Republic, Bergdorf Goodman (made in Italy), Giorgio Freakin' Armani, Calvin Klein, Jhane Barnes. This kid has been good for my closet. But every cloud, we learn on this journey, has its ugly lining. In the box, toward the bottom, was another human being's underwear and Speedo swimsuit.

Now, I am not averse to taking a bite off of someone's plate. And God knows, back in the years when inclination and opportunity met in a moment of Kismet, I have journeyed into other folks' underpants. But I have always been skeeved by the notion of actually putting them on. I was never an underwear snatcher...even at my lowest point. I eschewed the offering of underpants at garage sales, yard sales, barn sales, auctions and the like. I think that's because I was raised with Jesus.

Heathens...they'll steal your underpants. But nobody who's ever been to Sunday School will snatch your drawers...or want them. I paid $30 (a paltry sum for the treasures I was sent) to have them shipped here. It would cost me a third of that to have the underpants sent home, where they belong. They are, to a piece, handsome and probably far more pricey than my tight fist would have sprung for. I held them to my face, piece-by-piece, to feel what the natural fibers we grow 'round these parts become when they're made into clothing for the rich folks.

I stopped rubbing his clothes on my face when I spied the underpants. From then on, I stood back a step with a can of Lysol and applauded politely. I know people, though. I know people who would put on somebody else's underwear before the other person was completely out of them. So they'll go to good use. Somebody in this great Prairie Paradise will be walking around oblivious to the fact that they are undergirded by cloth that once supported a Manhattan demi-socialite who has sipped champagne with some of the better of the unknown people in society.

We are interesting, as a nation, since our independence was gained in 1776. Two hundred and thirty years later we hand explosives and a cigarette lighter to children who have been banned from touching the knobs on the stove, t.v. or stereo. And we ship our underpants to other people. I would have thought we might be more evolved by now. It must be the Republican influence: Blow something up, send your underpants overseas. I bet that's in their platform somewhere.

I Hate This Crap.

The Sweet Bye Bye

To put the dichotomies of my life in high relief, during Gay Pride Week I was asked to be the full time music leader at My Very Pentecostal Church. I said yes. Then I ran straight off to a booty call in the next hamlet over. No sense selling out to one side or the other too completely, I figure. The winds of change, they blow at the oddest moments. It seems unwise to be too tethered to either option when they do.

There is a wonderful family at the church that includes a little girl, named Sarah, who has Down Syndrome. Sarah's family sits across the aisle from me within my dwindling peripheral vision. I have on many occasions glanced across the aisle to see her grandmother trying, in vain, to coax her into clapping in rhythm to the music. Her aunt is a gifted musician and a wonderful lady, to boot. It's easy to clap in rhythm, play like a virtuoso and sing like an angel when you have the gift and the training. In my years, I have noticed that all three don't add to up to an ounce of true worship. My pappy taught me that.

Sarah's feet never stop moving. She claps on nonexistent beats to songs she hears but will likely never comprehend. "Victory in Jesus" means little to her, I imagine. But she claps and sways and belts out suspect lyrics with a gusto rarely seen in more self-conscious, pious grownups. When I need a reminder of what it really looks like to lose yourself in the moment, I glance at Sarah, accept the stinging rebuke she represents, and re-focus my attention heavenward in hopes that I might achieve what comes so effortlessly to her.

Sarah's family and I often meet at the Dairy Queen in town after church. She has a cheeseburger which she ritually pounds flat for easier consumption. It made so much sense to me the first time I saw it, that I pounded my own down as a show of solidarity. Ice cream cones pose a challenge beyond Sarah's ability to reason. She is delightful to watch as she happily chases stream after stream of wilting ice cream down first one side and then the other in a dizzying game of Ice Cream Tag.

It has been written many times over that children with Down Syndrome, in particular, are welcoming, loving, happy people who have much to teach the rest of us about unconditional acceptance. Knowing this, I was still taken aback when Sarah approached me in the church parking lot on Sunday with a request for the next service. She'd like us to sing "Sweet Bye Bye". I knew immediately that she referred to "In The Sweet By and By". But I liked her rendering of the title so much more.

It didn't take me long to connect the dots in my mind between her own condition which typically shortens a lifespan significantly = and my own. I wrote down the request and put it at the top of the list of what the congregation would sing the next Sunday. On Wednesday night, she caught me in the parking lot before the service and said that she wanted to sing "Sweet Bye Bye" that very night. I don't have any involvement in the Wednesday night service, but her gifted aunt and her grandmother noted, "She wants to sing it with you...tonight."

My people make a big deal out of hearing from God. Mockery comes easily when Oral Roberts has claimed that God would off him for want of several million dollars. Lesser known instances emphasize the point when you travel in these circles. I know that I've never heard the Burning Bush Audible Voice of God. But I also know that I've frequently been the second-hand recipient of a message from The Big Guy on any number of occasions.

God spoke to me this week through a little girl with Down Syndrome. We sat on the step of the podium Wednesday night - each with our own microphone - and we sang "In The Sweet By and By". Sarah sang the lyrics that poured out of her heart without regard to what was printed on the page. I stuck to what was written. And I sang an inferior song. That lesser song moved me as I sat shoulder to shoulder with my spiritual superior:

"We shall sing on that beautiful shore
The melodious songs of the blest.
And our spirits shall sorrow no more.
Not a sigh for the blessing of rest.

In the Sweet By and By,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.
In the Sweet By and By,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore."

My mortality drapes over my shoulders like a comfortable shawl that I forget I'm wearing. A little girl unwittingly altered my perspective with a song and a speech impediment. The Sweet Bye Bye, indeed.

Very, very sweet.

At 42

Today I turned 42. When I was 34, it did not seem at all likely I would turn 42. I plan to have a drink to celebrate. At least one.

At 42, I know that there is no point to picking up the phone book until I've located my glasses. I also know that unless I put the remote control in the same place every time, I will be 10 minutes late to see whatever is on the T.V.

At 42, my keys are always in my pocket. Not only can I go wherever I want, whenever I want, but I know that if I set them down anywhere, I will be homebound for two days until they reappear.

At 42, it seems I always have cash. I like that part. I am never precluded from going through the Dairy Queen for lack of funding. My income exceeds my expenses at 42. That's a very nice thing = and I'm grateful for my grandpa's harping on debt.

At 42, my hair is the same color it's always been - naturally - with a side note that I was actually born a red-head with kinky, curly hair. No kidding. Only up close do the white hairs that have begun to dominate my temples betray my age.

I've learned, at 42, that I only have crow's feet when I smile. So I don't smile as much as I once did. I laugh more. I just don't smile as much. I laugh from the gut more...the kind that hurts. I tell more revealing stories about myself...I think so people will remember me. I'm usually the butt of the joke in these stories, but it makes people laugh and I admit I think they're funny, too.

I don't think I'm cut out for a lot of things at 42 that I aspired to at 24. I know my limitations more intimately now than I did then. I spend less time wanting what I don't have and wondering about what might have been. The days are too full - even if just with laundry and house cleaning - to wonder about how they might have been different. I don't covet the way I once did. I used to dwell on the fairness of life. Now I chuckle at the very notion.

At 42, I own a 2-bedroom, 1-bath bungalow in a rural Kansas "town of 3,000 people, countless animals and one grocery store known by no name that is common among civilized people". That's what it says on the big sign when you enter town.

No, it doesn't. But it would be true. At 42, I love Molly Ivins and David Sedaris where I once loved Molly Hatchet and David Cassidy. At 42, I can avoid the president (and I recommend this practice) when he's on T.V. At 14, I never imagined such a wonder. At 42, politics inflame my passions like baseball once did. I know, at 42, that everything political affects my life directly or indirectly. So at 42, I shun people who don't engage in politics, at least as interested observers.

At 42, I don't let nonsense go un-noted. I'm not immune to the nonsensical utterance myself. But I took a cue from my 82 year-old grandmother and have begun calling a spade a spade with greater frequency. I might not see 82 and I'd hate to miss my "Say Anything You Want" opportunity.

Mostly, at 42, I know who I am. The birthday emails are so thoughtful. The cards will go on top of the T.V. for a couple of weeks. I'll appreciate whatever gifts show up and my time at the pool and the celebratory cocktail(s) with my One Drunk Friend. At the end of the day, though, the greatest gift I have at 42 is knowing who I am and who I'm not.

I don't have to listen to anyone explain me to me. I can discern whether someone's evaluation of me is accurate or not. I don't allow words to be put in my mouth because I know them all and use them freely myself. I dress how I like. If I like. I speak my mind - often. Always. And without regard to my surroundings or the consequences. At 42, I am a presence where at 24 I was merely present. And that, my good friend, is a present at any age.

Especially at 42.

You Asked For It

Inexplicably, there are people who want to know what I really look like. They even have the nerve to complain that my profile picture is too small (a situation over which I have no control). For the strong-stomached and the weak of eyesight, I grant you this one wish. And remember, you asked for it.

Where You Belong

If Gay Pride delivers nothing, beyond boobs on bikes (San Francisco, primarily) and queens in convertibles, you can't help but leave a parade with a sense of belonging. In the worst hungover, crystal crashing moments of a life, one can cling to the knowledge that they belong somewhere. That doesn't relieve the dehydration, cramping and that pleasant, lingering tingle down south....I hear. But it is nice to know.

I belong in Kansas. I lived in all the other places: Chicago (too cold for a skinny queen), San Francisco (too kinky for a squeamish queen), Des Moines (too rural for a suburban queen) and Omaha, where they sound like North Dakotans only without the charm or a movie to their credit. I also belong to a people....the queerly deviant fringe who only make sense in context. (e.g. The leather daddy with cod piece in line at Taco Bell is a juxtaposition that tarnishes both the subject and the locale.)

My Hell's Kitchen agent, however, has taken my name and work to the streets of New York City. NEW YORK CITY! This morning comes the report that he had strolled the sidewalks of New York (and not the nicer ones, if I catch his drift) with not one, but a bevy of drag queens with microphones in hand. They were, no doubt, mesmerized by his effortless Carol Channing impression that pops out anytime he gets excited or drunk. He does a lot of Carol Channing.

Said drag queens, whom we revere at Gay Pride Time if at no other, were recording for all posterity his drunken rambling about a blog (the one you see here) with which he was quite taken. Now I have been pimped to New York Magazine and the good people at The Occasional Fag (http://www.theoccasionalfag.com). I am a quiet, relatively serene homosexual on the prairie with an ever-burgeoning fan club on the streets of New York City. Whatever will I do when they realize I'm just a poor man's Garrison Keillor with a cock ring and a thing for Malibu Rum?

My point is, it's important to not only know THAT you belong, which I do, but also to know WHERE you belong. Many years ago, when I was young....er, my best and dearest friend was a Queen Under Nubian Transport (QUNT, for short). Her people had been traded for molasses in the 18th century and she ended up wearing a dress and high heels, lip-synching to Patti LaBelle in 1989's Kansas City. Who says progress doesn't march right along?

Ms. Ramona Baker, as she was known on the less tasteful stages of the Midwest, had encountered an unfortunate accident as a child that had left her mildly mangled on one leg. She could still dance, play third base, get to third base (wink, wink) and kneel for hours on end in bookstores of ill repute. But she was obviously hobbled in some unfortunate way. The pharmaceutical haze of the early 90's prevents me from sharing with confidence just how she came to be imperfect in her lower parts, but I believe it to have been from either a vicious dog or a car accident. It earned her the nickname La Gimp.

Upon purchasing my very first new automobile, the 1990 Ford Festiva, our QUNT informed me that she had a cousin in New Orleans who fairly insisted that we visit for an extended weekend - free of charge. Being young and marketable, particularly where the light was dim, I leaped at the invitation and drove the two of us to Nawlins for a weekend of debauchery. Somewhere around Memphis, La Gimp let it casually be known that she might not remember her cousin's phone number, address or name. At the Louisiana State Line, she confessed her sins and said she had never known anyone south of Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

There we sat - parked in the Not Nicest of The Not Nice Places in what used to be Nawlins. At long last, she revealed further that while she may never have had a cousin in Sin City, she did have the phone number, address and several schematics for the Bath House written on her bra. The queen was nothing if not resourceful.

We were, as she'd planned, past The Point of No Return and destined to sleep in a Festiva in New Orleans or trick our way in to a soft bed and a warm shower. While I was not born pretty, I can accessorize well. Suffice it to say I was not observed sleeping in a Festiva at Louis Armstrong Park. Ahhhh...the good old days.
I digress.

We debauched for 3 full days and headed back from whence we'd come when the QUNT decided that she needed - NEEDED!! - to stop at the rest stop near Columbia, Missouri - 2 hours from home - in order to change into her drag. Her hope was to catch one of the shows upon our return and be stage-ready by the time we hit the edges of home. I pulled into the Pretty Potty on the Prairie and she disembarked with drag bag in hand. I turned up the radio, leaned the seat back and had thought to catch a brief nap while she painted, tucked, and teased her hair into an unnatural shape.

I was awakened from my shallow slumber by what sounded like a bus bearing down on my petite, gentle Festiva. I squinted my eyes and confirmed that, indeed, we had been joined by a big, yellow school bus. That was a nice, pastoral tableau, particularly when the stream of little Webelos began to exit the bus followed by their fully grown and identically dressed Den Daddies. I smiled as I beheld the half-Aryan Dream, half-Prairie Paradise scene before me.

Until I realized that they were heading into the loo where La Gimp was fast changing genders.

I knew this was going nowhere good and fast. Me, in rural Missouri, with a black man dressed as a black woman trapped in a rest stop toilet with 30 little boys and 2 grown men in neckerchiefs, shorts and black socks. As my instincts are normally spot-on, it must have been the first uniformed tyke through the door who alerted La Gimp to the impending doom.

I started the car and revved the engine praying to Jesus that if they had guns, they hadn't earned their merit badges fair and square. Out the opposite door bolted our QUNT, waving her wig in one hand and her boy clothes in the other. Her Tina Turner fringed mini-dress was waving like the Kansas Wheat as she squawked, "Stawt the goddamned caw!" On a full run - in substantial heels - she caught me as I rolled along the parking lot toward the on-ramp to I-70. She caught the hatchback, lifted it and flung her belongings and herself inside.

Two grown men in neckerchiefs, merit badge sashes, and black knee socks were chasing after her as though her drag were any more egregious than their own. She lost nothing more than a pump in the chase. The men had left their dignity behind when they put on that silly uniform and enticed little boys into the woods with promises of iron-on badges and smores. As usual, the Queen was triumphant, even in the least dignified of circumstances.

And isn't that the real message of Gay Pride? Whether you're marching in the parade, fouling yourself on a float, or slinking out of a bath house at 6 a.m. on The Lord's Day, we do tend to triumph despite all. So should you hear of me on a podcast somewhere, sitting among the wheat fields, baring my ass to the world, figuratively speaking, remember that it's where I belong. And may you belong, too.

Happy Gay Pride Everyone!

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

This is one of those posts you make so that the most recent one doesn't include the term "pony tail butt plug". It occurs to me now that the preceding sentence defeats that purpose altogether.

I got so many hits (from Calgary to Phoenix to Belgium - really) from folks who had actually done searches on "pony tail butt plug" that I decided it must be something of a phenomenon. Mine did arrive in time to take to the campout. And that's all the information I'm giving on that topic. Although, it does bear mentioning that these items are not easily purchased with size-certainty. It really takes making a mistake once - or getting very, very lucky - to find out just what size of contraption is right for you. And THAT'S all I'm going to say on that topic.

Except that it was very popular. There. That's all I'm going to say on the topic.

Oh, and if you loop it through the waistband of your chaps, you prevent any projectile mishaps. That did not happen, for the record. I'm just saying. It's a handy idea that occurred to me on the 5th or 6th glass from the Box o' Wine. It was noted, as well, that this particular orientation of the aforementioned device makes it stand out very much like a pony's tail. And THAT is all I'm going to say on the topic.

At the ripe old age of 41 years and 51 weeks, I apparently still look hot in a pair of chaps. That was a nice surprise. I wouldn't have figured as much. I've never worn chaps very much. Thrice, in fact. This was the third time I'd been in public in a pair of chaps. Perhaps I missed a prime presentation opportunity during all those years gone under the bridge. These are things they should tell you when you're 22:

Whether or not your body is fit for a Speedo.

Whether or not you need to consider clothing-optional vacations.

Whether or not you should always wear jeans with your chaps.

And whether shaving your head will increase your dating prospects.

Why we make people figure these things out on their own is beyond me. It might sound cruel to learn that you're not among the Speedo-gifted at a young age. But what a treat to know that you can run, testes to the breeze, whenever the urge strikes. Vacationing with people old enough to have birthed you increases your appeal immensely, I learned. I am the Brad Pitt of the geriatric set, it would seem from last week's comments, pinches, pats and whistles.

Hey, when you're past 40 you take your cat calls where you can get them.

I slept in a tent for 3 nights. It rained the last night. I packed up the next morning. I know a warning sign when I see one. The tent survived nicely in the wind and brief downpour, but I know Kansas. If you get one night, you'll get two. I wasn't tempting fate. I once knew a drag queen who tempted fate and it did not turn out well.

It was a Gay Pride Parade of many moons ago when one of the more famous (and now dead) drag queens had prepared herself for her perch atop a float by consuming a medium-sized helping of cocaine. For the uninitiated, cocaine is frequently cut (mixed with) baby laxative - for the purposes of both fun and profit, I assume.

Having properly be-coked herself, she sat upon her royal perch and commenced to waving at the madding throng for the first several blocks of the parade route. Twenty minutes in (you can set your watch by this), she felt the urge that only baby laxative can give.

Myrna was not a small girl. She was truly round. She was like a globe with red hair, ankles the size of hams...and style. She was the only human who could do eyeshadow four inches up her forehead and make it look like she planned the whole thing. She assumed her perch on a folding chair at the back of the flatbed and commenced to waving to all who would gaze upon her. And, as mentioned, our old girl felt nature's call with an urgency normally reserved for cats in water.

Summoning her Ladies in Wading, she spied a bucket filled with a faux palm tree and, being in a flowing, hooped frock, proceeded to de-plant the palm and mount the bucket on the chair upon which tower she sat herself....to do her bidness, as we say in Chickopee. It took but one sudden lurch forward for our girl to tip just far enough backward on her precarious perch, that she, the bucket and the chair ended up in reverse order at the back of the float. Her gown above her neck, she could not see, but could only feel her public demise.

Her Ladies in Wading being of the entrepreneurial sort, took to shaking bottles of Co-Cola and pointing the spray in her general bottomly direction to relieve her of what most surely would stain. As only a Queen could do, with everything righted upwards, she resumed her perch and finished the Parade with only one block of homosexuals the wiser.

...And that is why I cannot drink Co-Cola at Pride Parades.

...And that is why I do not tempt fate by waiting for the second night of rain.

...And that is why I will never again buy a Pony Tail Butt Plug one size too small.

...And that is what I did on my summer vacation.

Inconveniently Erected

So a few months back I let myself be suggested into the notion of camping. I've camped. I grew up camping. We considered it a form of ritual abuse. In the 70's, our parents would make us sit on the beer in the back seat and keep one hand on the styrofoam cooler's top to stop its annoying squeaking as we barreled down back roads to a poor man's Nirvana.

"Take that hand off that cooler and you'll go through life as the only one-handed fiddle player in the history of Johnson County," my dad would say. I despised him as much for his inability to distinguish the violin I played from a fiddle nearly as much as I despised him for his cruelty. He would blow long streams of smoke from a Lucky Strike that served to get the rest of us just high enough to endure the ride.

We would tell each other stories about snakes and legendary carnivores that lived beneath the murky depths of Pomona Lake. Then we'd slip on our only pair of tennis shoes for what might well be our last wade ever. I think I saw one snake in all those years. We also saw a camper explode spectacularly when its propane tank issued the ultimate camping complaint. My mother pronounced this as evidence that God had never meant for people to camp with all the comforts of home.

"That's what staying home is for," she offered, blowing a long stream of smoke from a Kool Extra Long.

We dodged wasps in the nude in the communal showers that, to this day, seem like a spectacularly bad idea. We learned to survive on nothing more than ash-coated hotdogs, blackened hamburger and marshmallows stuck on sticks that harbored God-Knows-What fungus. Small wonder we all have cancer now.

Over the last 25 years, I have had the occasional urge to camp. I would get right on the cusp of my anticipated departure and realize that life without Central Air was not my chosen path. I have hair that is almost too short to brush, yet I go nowhere without a blow drier - just in case. I enjoy smelling like my deodorant. The plus side never outweighed the con side when I'd completed the analysis, so I never went. Tomorrow, however, I am going camping.

I had thought to dip my toe in the proverbial waters by renting space in a cabin at the campground. Yesterday, I was possessed by something dark and ugly and walked out of our General Store with a tent and a sleeping bag. I was so excited with my purchase that when I got home, I immediately unpacked the tent and made sure I had all the tools necessary - mentally - to assemble it. It would not do to be seen fumbling in public with my only means of shelter. I once made a complete fool of myself at Joe's Crab Shack with a pair of those nutcracker lobster jobbers. Since then, I practice everything that I can foresee happening before I get out among the general public.

I applauded myself aloud when I had erected the small 2-person tent in the living room of my bungalow. I had unwittingly walled myself off from the kitchen, however. It would take going outside, around the house, and back in through the garage just to have a sandwich until I took it down. I tiptoed around my triumph and called down the block to announce my new-found aptitude.

"I bought a tent!"

"Why did you buy a tent?"

"For the campout. And I put it together!"

"I thought you were staying in a cabin because you were 'born in the Western Hemisphere and felt entitled to walls'. Where is this tent?"

"In the living room."

"You have a tent in the living room?"

"I didn't want the neighbors to be witnesses for the next 18 years of this mortgage that I had tried and failed to erect a tent in my yard."

"People don't talk about those things," said my beloved sibling.

"I would," I said.

I checked and double-checked the list of things to bring to the camp and made trip after trip to the General Store to stock up. My Ford Escort began to groan either from the added weight or the sheer embarrassment. I'm not sure which. It hadn't occurred to me that a bright pink Escort might feel inferior among the cabal of camping vehicles we would encounter. I imagined if I were a Pink Escort that I would presume a life heavy on the Marriotts and light on the camping. Late in both our lives, we were going to bite the bullet.

My friend David called today while we were bundling kindling for the fire at camp. I had mentioned to him once before that I'd be gone for five days in the great outdoors. I've been trying to get him to read more so I wouldn't be friends with the only illiterate in New York City. To encourage him, I told him I'd be reading "Naked" (by David Sedaris) while away. I did not mean to tip my hand that I would be reading naked.

"You're camping naked?" he shrieked.

"Nude, I think they call it," I mumbled.

"I thought you meant you were reading a BOOK titled NAKED!"

"Well, I am. I'm reading Naked....naked."

"Oh darling, really! So this is about sex," he hissed a little too proudly.

David doesn't go to the grocery store unless it coincides with his libido's cycle. I firmly believe that when his sex drive leaves him entirely, he will be found starved to death on his kitchen floor. I believe David to be the sort who would sign up for group therapy just to meet men. He is dedicated where I am resigned.

"It's a little about sex, " I muttered. I am very comfortable with my sexuality and still fairly confident in my over-40 body. Nudity does not bother me. I think sex is one of the greater occupations we can undertake as humans. I just don't like talking about it with anyone other than the person (or persons - don't judge) with whom I'm having it.

"I didn't know it was a SEX CAMPING TRIP," he bubbled. I swore on my dog's life that if he said "You Go Girl!", I was hanging up and returning the tent.

"It's NOT a sex camping trip. But if sex happens...," I trailed off, hoping to end the subject on a muted, though hopeful note. I knew this was not the time to tell him that I'd bought the bright red pony-tail butt plug to wear to the Leather And Levi Cocktail Party with my black leather chaps, armband, boots and cock ring. It took me three days to explain to myself that I'd be dressing up at the All-Boy Naked Camp Out for a cocktail party. I knew I couldn't explain it to David with Candice Bergen counting in the background, "One minute...two minutes....".

The cock ring was a tip from one of The Boys. When I looked askance at the suggestion, they noted that, in their experience, they can be handy in avoiding unexpected displays of genital exuberance. I made a mental note of it on the spot and when I came home from dinner, made an actual note of it. It was the first item in the bag when I started packing.

I leave tomorrow with high hopes that the tent in the living room is the only inconvenient erection I'll have to report.

Back By Popular Demand

Every year when Gay Pride rolls into town, I make it to some parade somewhere. I believe I have been to parades from Wichita to Sheboygan to San Francisco and most parts in-between. It's usually the same routine.

We all know the drill: cat call at the go-go boys, give a shout-out to the drag queens, and keep an eye out for someone to take home apres-parade. My plan always goes to hell when the goddamned P-FLAG contingent strolls by beaming from ear-to-ear. I try to be in line at the porta-potties when I sense them coming. If I get caught on the curb, I'm a blubbering idiot by the time the second father strolls by with his bare-chested, nipple-clamped daughter dragging her bald girlfriend on a leash. That kind of love just turns me to mush. (The father's, not the other.)

Gay Pride is important to me. Our own legends invoke the harmonic convergence of Judy Garland's Funeral, the raid on The Stonewall Inn in New York, and my fifth birthday. It was my fifth birthday. So I have my very own very lavish bash courtesy of any city anywhere and most cities everywhere. Beyond my feelings of how important it is that we be seen and heard in our full spectrum of outrageousness, it's my birthday, dammit. I want a parade. And so I have a parade.

When I first relented and acknowledged that I was gay, I attended my first Pride Parade within 90 days. I also fulfilled the other three first-page requirements from the handbook:

I bought a Communards cassette tape.

I had my hair permed (just on the top).

And I made friends with a drag queen.

Between my fresh-faced pervert of a boyfriend and Ms. Ramona Baker, as she was known on the stage, my education was fast and complete. Jerry would drive in circles around a bar he wanted to patronize until I demonstrated that I could use "nelly", "butch", and "trick" in a sentence without betraying my gay youth. Ramona taught me that mascara can fill in the blank spots of a moustache. If you made me choose today, I'm not sure which of those was most valuable. The memories, at a minimum, are priceless.

Every year, as my birthday approaches, I think back on the people, places and things of my gay time on earth and remember with varying degrees of fondness some of the characters I have encountered. Many of them are dead. A lot of them are old. Some of them just got lost in the messy mixture of time and moving vans and storage units. All of them are alive and still talking over one another in the recesses of my memory - especially at this time of year. It's like Pride Day brings them all to life as a reminder of my provenance.

One night, after demonstrating my contextual knowledge of "bottom", "top" and "open relationship", Jerry and I went to dinner, dancing and a drag show for my birthday. My budding friendship with Ms. Ramona Baker got us very good seats and an after-show elbow-rubbing with the performers. We ended up bouncing from bar-to-bar with a contingent of men in women's underwear until we landed at Frisco.

At Frisco, we discovered that one of our contingent, Ms. Fritz Capone, had gone missing. Boys will be boys, even when they're being girls. So we assumed she had taken a shine to some fair lad and gone off to do whatever it is that girls who are boys do with boys. We continued to celebrate the occasion of my birth until the law required us to leave and the lights to be put out. We made our way home and were awakened the next morning at 6 a.m. by the phone ringing.

No one we knew would call at 6 a.m. unless there had been a death, so I jumped out of bed and answered the phone to hear Ms. Ramona Baker speed-talk me through the events of the previous night.

"Grrrrrrrrrl.....your face is gonna fall off when you hear what happened to Ms. Fritz Capone," she hissed.

"Is she dead?" I asked.

"Well....", Ramona could milk a story the way Sam Harris would squeeze every drop of life from Over The Rainbow in the old "Star Search" days. You would have to sit on your hands to keep from applauding as she rounded the final turn of a story.

(It is at this point that I want to disclaim any actual knowledge of the ensuing events on the slim chance that the central figure is still alive after decades of impressive alcohol consumption and all the other things that tend to happen to gay people to prevent us from hitting old age.)

As repeated down through the years, the story goes that Fritz had over-consumed at some establishment and escorted herself outside for fresh air and someplace nice to lie down. She settled on the hood of a Buick outside the local dinner theatre. The location of the dinner theatre always provided for interesting interaction between the well-heeled heterosexual sect of the city and the high-heeled homosexuals that patronized the adjoining bars. Fritz did two bars of "Now I lay me down to sleep..." and was discovered some time later by the well-heeled owners of the Buick who did not remember having left a portly woman to guard their hood ornament.

They reacted the way heterosexuals always react when they find a body on the hood of their car: They called the police. Before any straight people get their back up, you should know that this is not our first response. We would first roll the body over to ascertain how cute the body is and then decide whether to take it home and call the police or to call 911 on the spot. There is no dismissing the value of an official record of a cute man having been hauled out of your flat.

The police arrived at the scene of the Buick and did their dead-level, 3 a.m. best to feel a heartbeat from the lifeless form still balanced on the car's hood. Feeling no heartbeat through seven layers of undergarments, 2 layers of foam, 2 extra-large breasts of indeterminate material and enough sequins to cover The Louvre, they did what all policemen do when they think somebody might be dead: They called the coroner.

The coroner, having been trained to detect a pulse from various other sources or, mayhaps, having previously encountered a passed-out, pancaked He-Lady, quickly determined our beloved Fritz to be Not Dead But Drunk. She narrowly missed a trip to the morgue and wound up, instead, drying out among the lower, yet living, caste of society. Upon her waking, she reclaimed her wig from a hooker, her shoes from a pervert and made her phone call to be picked up and restored to her former glory.

And these are the things that make me proud every June. I have inherited the indomitable instinct to survive from queens who woke up in jail for all the right - and wrong - reasons. I have buried, married and carried my share of men from point-to-point in my years. The best and worst in each of them gives me cause to smile when I remember who and where I come from. I am a man with a culture worth celebrating.

Whether it's Langston Hughes, Harvey Milk or the Fritz Capones we've all known in our day, it's the smile or the wince upon remembering that infuses this time of year with the pride of affiliation. For better or for worse, I am not alone. I may be in Kansas, but I will never be alone so long as the voices of decades past come to life each June and cause me to giggle late at night when I'd rather be sleeping. It's mid-June and the parades are popping up all over. My birthday is right around the corner - 42 this year. And all of the old gang is back to have a drink and to tell the old, old stories. Even if it's only in my head, they're back.

Back by popular demand.

Everybody Ought to Know

It was high entertainment when my dearly departed friend Randy would drunk-dial me from deep in the heart of Dallas every-other-month or so. The laws of nature seemed to argue for the practice. We would hoot and whistle and stomp our feet over many irrelevant miles of fiber optics when he would get all liquored up and decide I needed to participate, if only by proxy.

With Randy, getting cocktailed and picking up the phone was as sensible as picking up your racket and hitting tennis balls. What would two or eight Bourbon and Cokes be without someone to call? Those long, raucous descents into the basest topics of conversation are marked indelibly in my memory. I treasure them the way you would a torn pair of panties from the first time you had really good sex. If I could scotch tape them into the book, they'd sit next to the dinner napkin on which we doodled at the Senior Prom in 1982. I have high expectations, therefore, when the drunken masses stumble upon my number in their little black books. Be entertaining or suffer the consequences.

When David called from the comfy confines of his Hell's Kitchen condo to announce his love for someone whose middle name likely escapes him, I pegged the drunk dial up front. David calls for three reasons only: He's in Love, He's Suicidal Because He's No Longer In Love, or He's Going To Make Me Famous. I keep picking up the phone when I see the 212 area code on the off chance that the latter might be true in time for me to have B-listers at my funeral. Hope springs eternal and all that.

"Dahling," he mumbled, "You're going to be published!"

"Published by whom?," I asked, after running through the who/whom rules. I had no intention of screwing this up over a misappropriated indirect object, even if he was just drunk and over-exuberant.

"New... York... Magazine," he stated emphatically. I think it was emphatic. He could very well have been slowing down the pace to remember all three words. Sometimes you just don't know. From the stature of the publication, I knew he was over-exuberant and over-liquored.

"Really. New York Magazine. Hmmmph," I snorted. "What the hell would New York Magazine want with the ramblings of somebody like me," I challenged.

"Dahling," David huffed, "I told them all about you. How you're gay and you used to live in appropriate cities and how you have AIDS and now live in Kansas and have become a writer."

I lowered my forehead to my lap. On the off-chance that he had actually told someone I was a writer, he had told a lie of biblical proportions. He'd also put me on the hook to fulfill one of those dreams that I'd assumed would be on my Last and Final Regrets List at my passing. It's lodged in between having sex in the Tuilerie Gardens of Paris and lying naked with my newly minted partner on a beach in Greece. And making a loaf of bread that weighs less than my bicycle. Writing would be a kick. I'm just not sure I'm the schmoe for the job.

"I met a woman at a cocktail party," he continued with all the exuberance that intoxication would allow. "Her name is Lana."

"As in 'Turner'," I chimed.

"As in 'Turner'," he confirmed.

"She's a manager or editor or owner of New York Magazine. Or she was serving the crostini at the party. They had a very nice spread..." And he was gone. My literary future took a quick back seat to the quality of the booze and bruschetta at not one, but two NYC cocktail parties. I remember that one of them was in honor of a new camera. A camera.

"They give parties for cameras now?" I poked.

"Dahling, that is not the point. The point is I mentioned you to Lana and told her that you were fabulous and MUST be published immediately,"

My David is an architect. He speaks with authority on literature in the same way that your average plumber might critique your couture. Since the day I started jotting down thoughts, David has seen a book, a column and a movie starring Meryl Streep and someone who approximates my appearance without all the nasty flaws. I'd say Eric Roberts, most likely.

And that's what he does. He calls, all be-liquored and in love, and digs at my Lost Opportunity List like it's his mission to have me die sans regret. I thrust and parry and deflect and blush all the while wondering in the back of my mind, "You think so?"

"Put the boy back on the phone," I told him.

"Hi!," said the child. How the hell he manages to lisp where there is no 's' is a remarkable talent, I thought.

"He met someone at a party tonight - a literary type. She was from New York Magazine," I repeated. My hope was that the kid was more sober than the 50-something demi-socialite and would set me straight as to my publishing prospects.

"Right....," he drifted off. He was either lying about remembering this or someone was fiddling with his belt. I hurried along.

"He said her name was Lana....as in Turner."

"Who?"

"Lana Turner."

Nothing. You could hear a hairpin drop.

"Tell me you've at least heard of Lana Turner," I sighed.

"Is she old," he asked.

I'd had my fill of the child. "EVERYONE IMPORTANT IS EITHER OLD OR DEAD!!" I ranted.

"Put David back on the phone," I snapped.

"Dahling, you wouldn't believe how beautiful this man is," he purred.

"He'd have to be," I sniffed. "You found the only homosexual in New York City who hasn't so much as heard of either Carol Channing or Lana Turner. Where ARE you shopping nowadays?"

"Now don't be mean, dear. He's from Connecticut," he said. Now, I have never lived in New York City. I visited once when I was 18 - for part of a day. I assume that "He's from Connecticut" is the equivalent to our sweeping dismissal of "He wasn't raised In Town". If one was not raised In Town, chances are they will misuse your indoor plumbing or ignore it altogether in favor of your lawnmower shed. Not being raised In Town means an acceptable lack of social graces, such as they exist in this pleasant oasis of deprivation.

"Still," I pleaded. "You gave a ring to someone who doesn't know from Carol Channing" I implored.

"How long have you known this person?" I repeated the question the way a teacher would on a final exam - just to make sure you hadn't gotten lucky the first time.

"32 days." He stuck to his story.

Fine with me. In the space of ten minutes, I'd managed to sit in rural Kansas and feel culturally superior to a gay man in a recently renovated Hell's Kitchen condo who had just been to TWO hobnobbing affairs. I let the thrill of shaming an urban twinkie roll over and over my tongue like damn good wine - the kind with a corked bottle.

I walked outside the house here on the corner by two churches in a town through which no major road passes. My neighbor was outside, my parents drove up simultaneously and I triumphantly announced to one and all,

"I'm talking to someone in New York City who's never heard of Carol Channing or Lana Turner!"

"Don't be ridiculous," said my John Deere dad.

"Everybody knows that."

29 Days

When my cosmopolitan friends from sea to shining sea bother to contemplate my move to rural Kansas, I'm sure they shake their heads and cluck their tongues. It must seem like one of those moves people make to prepare for an imminent demise. And in a way, it was.

"Kansas," I can hear them whispering behind their hand at cocktail parties I should have been attending in Chicago or San Francisco. My mostly anonymous years in both cities were replete with opportunity and carnal education. I moved in circles that were but orbiting universes of even better circles. Far from the exotic allure of an Englishman in New York, I was a Middle-Aged Kansan in Chicago. No ring to that whatsoever. Not even a tinkle.

When time and circumstances converged, I made my way back to the flatlands to this town of 3,000 people, countless animals and one grocery store known by no name that is common among civilized people. Financially, I'd be comfortable for the rest of my numbered days. Socially, I'd be entertained - if only in the delight of observation. Sexually, I'd be challenged beyond all the limits intended for human endurance. I adopted a life without capital letters. This life would be so lower-case that t.s. eliot would shit himself. k.d. lang would re-capitalize if she knew what lower-case really looked like. I am the Little 'Mo on the Prairie.

I live in a time and place where the nicest of 78 year-old ladies thinks nothing of calling up and asking if I can play piano at the Brush Arbor Revival meeting two counties over for "the real nice colored man" who will be singing. The lack of palpable animus in the worst of racism makes for challenging moments when I'm glad the phone doesn't transmit the dropping of jaws. I've stopped doing double takes at men who carry transparent spit cups through the grocery store. The Mennonite waitress on roller skates with her bonnet and ankle-length dress at the drive-up hamburger joint doesn't register as odd anymore. I'm still all me. I'm just all here.

Today I watched with muted glee as the Senate failed to muster even a simple majority to condemn the curious notion of Gay Marriage. Those who work themselves into a dither over the matter - on both sides - should know some of the people I know. They'd find more important things by far to occupy their time, I assure you. I tip my hat (John Deere nowadays) to those ubiquitous uni-gendered couples who have managed to endure each other's company for decades. I haven't managed to maintain brand loyalty to a potato chip for that long. I know that I'm not designed for Gay Marriage. I hope everyone gets what they want in the end. They should know my friend David, however.

David is the unwitting poster child for the absurdity of Gay Marriage. He is smart, funny, cultured, educated, well-employed, housed exquisitely and he possesses poise beyond the prediction of his upbringing. What's more, David is a resident of New York City. New York City! Only if the baths went condo could his socio-sexual options be any better. The best of the gayest at least drop in for a visit every few years, giving him a shot at some of the finest available deviants this planet has to offer. On the day that Congress dismissed the dissing of our Holy Matrimonial Future, my phone rang at 10 p.m. Eastern (9 p.m. Central and Pacific).

"Dahling," he slurred. "I'm in love."

Two parties...maybe three, I thought to myself. He's half in the glass, if not the bottle. This isn't the first time I've gotten this phone call from David - or someone like him. It's not even the first time this month. To wit:

"David?"

"Yes, dear?"

"How long have you known this person?"

"That's not important."

"I know it's not important on the scale of hangnail to Apocalypse, but I'd still like to know....How long have you known this person?"

A long, slightly slurred pause ensued until he coughed up,
"More than a month."

"32 days?"

"Yes, 32 days."

I was trained as an attorney, so I know when to concede a point. Thirty-two days is, indeed, more than any month. He had me there.

"We've exchanged rings," he gushed.

"You what?"

"Rings. We exchanged rings."

"Oh sweet Jesus on a Triscuit," I muttered

I allow myself the indulgence of a second date with the same frequency that Haley's Comet makes a cameo appearance in history. This was as true during my years in Chicago and San Francisco as it is today. It's just more easily explained today. The excruciatingly quick pace with which my people tend to couple and un-couple has in no small way contributed to my steadfast solitude. It's the Davids in my world who confirm at every turn that I'm not cut out for the hustle and flow of whirlwind romance and crashing defeats on the rocks of love.

"Here, talk to him," he insisted.

"Oh dear God no, don't..." I pled to no avail. Before I could inhale twice to clear my head, I was speaking with Him.

"Hi!," He managed to lisp and lilt simultaneously.

Well, at least He's homosexual, I reasoned. That's never a given with some of my Davids. My people have been known to poach from the other camp in ill-fated and worse-advised shopping excursions for husband material.


"So how long have you known my friend," I asked.

"In two days it will be a month!" He gushed.

"So you don't mind that David sounds like Carol Channing when he gets excited?"

"Who?" He asked.

"Carol Channing. Hello Dolly??"

Nothing. Dead silence.

"Tell me that you know who Carol Channing is," I ordered. I picked up the Gay Hotline and put my finger on the Revocation Department's pre-programmed speed-dial number.

"No idea," he blithely admitted.

"He gave you a ring?" I asked.

"Oh yes!"

"So tell me," I jabbed "is it good jewelry or cheap jewelry?"

Forever etched in the annals of my memory will be this unlikeliest of responses from the New York City Homosexual:

"It's in the middle."

"Put David back on the phone," I barked.

I heard the tell-tale clink of ice in glass and the not-quite-silent splash of something which reminded me that I lived in lower-case letters and not the outsized cursive of coastal homosexuality. To argue the absurdity of this charade with my most cosmopolitan of friends would be like debating the origins of the universe with my Yorkie. There would be barking, licking, and eventually someone would have to pee. But there would be no meeting of minds and no talking sense where sense could not be heard.

David had let himself off the hook of temporary madness by laying claim to more than a month of coupled happiness. Mathematically, the beautiful young boy wearing David's ring had copped to a maximum of 29 days. That, I told myself, is the difference between us and them. We're so damned anxious to rush toward ordinary that we'll make 29 days into 32 days just to be that much closer to 'Til Death Do Us Part certainty.

You have to give us that. At least we're sincere. We mean well. No harm, no foul. David will enjoy the delusion for the few more weeks that it lasts and will call in waves of grief at The Decline and Fall of Gay Civilization when one of them moves on. And that boy with the ring? He'll be gone by the time I forget that I knew this. That's how I comfort myself on the prairie, to be brutally honest. They think me deprived of all that is good, gay and right.

Some days, I grant them all of the above. But it passes.

In about 29 days...give or take.

Bingo Bizarro

So my old buddy who razzes me weekly (and who I firmly believe is hitting on me, bless his heart) had himself some palpitations at The Bingo Hall last night.

Since this is Mayberry and everybody knows everybody - or at the very least knows somebody who can make something up about somebody - it just so happened that the lady who was waiting to get her hair cut after me Chez My One Drunk Friend caught my eye last night at Bingo and alerted me to the palpitating problem during Bingo Intermission. Ol' Paul is in his late 60's and double my size, but informed me that he had swallowed four nitro pills and was still having angina. I only knew what to do because I sat with one of The Boys during the bypass surgery of late while we watched a video of what to do when you take the 4th Nitro Pill (Answer: Call 911.)

I quickly alerted the Nurse-in-Training and figured she could at least act Nursish while all I could do is fix my hair and hope the paramedics were cute. (Just because you can't help doesn't excuse you from looking your best, I figure.) I helped him ease his way outdoors and into a chair and stayed long enough for the paramedics to get a good look at me. They whisked him off after doing all the things paramedics do when they're not taking note of the well-groomed bystanders.

Back inside, having noticed her grab Ol' Paul's wrist once he was seated, I asked the Nurse in Training (across My Mama):

Me: "Did you feel a pulse?"

Mama: "Well, of course he had a pulse."

Me: "Were you able to feel his pulse?"

Mama: "Well, OF COURSE HE HAD A PULSE!"

Me: "I KNOW HE HAD A PULSE! HE WAS ALIVE! LIVING PEOPLE HAVE PULSES! THAT WASN'T MY QUESTION!"

Mama: "You always get that way."

Me: "Was it fast or weak?"

Mama: (NOTE: Still no opportunity for the Nurse-in-Training to respond thus far.) "Don't talk to me!"

Me: "I HAVEN'T BEEN TALKING TO YOU! I'M TALKING TO THE NURSE-IN-TRAINING!"

Mama: (Sit down for this one.) "Fuck you."

Me: (Lie down for this one.) "Fuck YOU!"
(Pause...Mama will pout for the remainder of Bingo.)

Me: "So, were you able to feel his pulse?"

N-I-T: (Finally) "Yes, it was strong and a little fast."

Me: "Well, that's good, I suppose."


Now...that might have been concluded in the matter of two lines without a single Fuck You. But nooooo.....That's My Mama.

I had a mystery number on my Caller ID from here in town that made me curious, so I called down the block to see if they knew who it was. I related the abbreviated portion of the swapped Fuck Yous - more as a warning than anything - and got, "You two....."

"US TWO?" I gasped. I refrained from heaving a Fuck You in his general direction fearing that might confirm the label to which I'd already been assigned. Again, this morning, when the Nurse-In-Training and I recounted the events so that I could be sure I hadn't dementedly twisted them to suit my own agenda, she said, "We're going to have to seat the two of you at opposite ends of the table!"

"ME?!" I gasped. Now how the hell do you figure I'm the bad guy in this - or even marginally culpable, I wondered? As I told her, I might be among the 5 or 6 people on this planet to whom she should never utter a Fuck You. But I am the only one of those half dozen or so people who will absolutely, guaran-damn-teedly return it even harder than it was served up. I don't play. You talk nice or don't talk. And if you want to get in the gutter and roll around, you'd best know I have spent more time there than most. And I know allllll the words. My only role, if I have one, in what transpired at Bingo is that I didn't bow my head and take my "Fuck You" like a poor wounded lamb. Well, this is what she raised me to be. Now she can enjoy it.

And to top it all off, I didn't even win.

Bingo, that is.

You Just Have To Wonder

Every once in a while you see something pass by the TV screen that seems plausible at the moment. As it germinates in the back of your consciousness, though, it evolves into something patently ludicrous. Take this inane and wholly unsubstantiated example: (All names have been left intact to preserve the name-dropping effect.)

In day two of my fevered state (102.1 at its top, so no records broken), I caught part of Oprah and forced myself to remain conscious because the lovely and talented Nate Berkus (interior designer extraordinaire) was on the couch. I have loved Nate from afar since first I laid eyes on him - right there on Oprah's couch. I love the nice remodeling jobs he's done for both poor folk and rich folk alike. I loved when he made the Out Magazine's "Out 100" of openly gay people. I had weeks-long fantasies about Nate rummaging around in Jerry O'Connell's bedroom during that make-over, courtesy of Oprah. I was heart broken for him when he lost his partner in the tsunami. And I wept openly from the gut when I saw him insist that they would rescue a man's dogs from New Orleans in the hours following Katrina.

I believe Nate Berkus may be one of the finest looking humanitarians on our planet. This should be a lesson to future Mother Theresa types. You do not have to look like a Shar-pei puppy to be a good human being. That said, what I saw of Nate on Oprah yesterday made me giggle a little...but not until today.

Nate was having control problems with his two dogs who gave every appearance of having been bred for the dog-fight rings of rural Alabama. Enter The Dog Whisperer, as Oprah calls him. This very nice Hispanic man has made his nickel by walking into Bad Dog situations and leaving Good Dogs behind. He's a Super Nanny for those of us who don't choose real children. Within minutes, by the magic of editing, Nate's dogs were as well-behaved as though they attended Her Majesty, Elizabeth II, The Queen of England, herself. The diagnosis of the problem made perfect sense to me, as a dog owner.

Mr. Dog Whisperer said that Nate was not viewed by the two canines as the Pack Leader. He was not the dominant one in the relationship. No top, he, to put it in words we might use in our own little ghetto. I feverishly made mental notes on how to display my dominance to my own occasional terror (Yorkshire Terror, that is) without actually using a weapon or raising my voice.

Not until today, however, when I recounted the episode on the phone did it occur to me that these dogs may have known full-well all along that they were dealing with a hoity-toity interior decorator: a breed more known for their bark than their bite. I think the dogs knew something we didn't. I giggled a little when I thought about the dogs now being made to act cowed by a man who hauls around paint chips and fabric swatches for people who have people that wash their underthings. Sometimes our true characteristics are more on display to those around us than we care to believe - even to the dogs.

You Just Have To Wonder why more of us don't know that.

The Right Hand of Fellowship

The phrase comes from Galatians in the New Testament. I got it today...the right hand, that is. I stood before God and my fellow Assemblians of God and was accepted into membership at the Mayberry Assembly of God. It's not the first time I've done so. I was a member at my church in Omaha, Nebraska once upon a very long time ago. I also joined the Nazarene church to spite my grandpa right out of college.

The brief, rote ceremony was touching this morning. The Lady Pastor had a few kind words to say and then every-single-person in the church got up and walked past..extending that right hand of fellowship to me as a new member of their congregation. It was nice. There's still a lot of revelation to be had between us all, but as starts go, it was a good one. I had pressed and starched my best white shirt, put on my only suit pants that are now at least a size too small, donned a tie and dug out the tie clip that belonged to my Great-Grandfather (my Pappy's father). It was a symbolic gesture, obviously. My Great Grandpa and my Pappy had both been in the front row of the Assembly of God church in about 1969 when I first embraced Christianity as my own. I was five. They were convinced. Who was I to argue?

I had gone earlier than usual this morning to catch Sunday School. I hadn't been to Sunday School in eons. I mean decades. Even during my revived days over the last many years, Sunday School was never on the agenda. I had a great time sitting and pontificating with the handful of us around the table. I listened closely as one-by-one, the mostly older folks laid out their struggles in being true to their hearts on a daily basis. That was encouraging. I felt a real sense of peace and was prompted in my innards that the point is not perfection, it's the process. It's the striving toward, not the achieving. There are no untroubled waters. But there are expert navigators who don't get rattled when the waves get testy. I walked away from Sunday School with something I hadn't expected. That seems to happen a lot lately.

I was asked to help take up the offering - twice. One was the usual offering for the support of the church and then there was the once-a-month missions offering. THen I stood at the front of the church and greeted every person in the sanctuary. Then I sat through church - in the same place I've always sat: second pew, first seat on the center aisle, right side. I think the combination of activity was too much or the duration was too long. My body began rebelling against the basic requests I put on it by service's end. Someone noted, "You're really hurting, aren't you?" And they weren't talking about my spirit. My hips, knees, ankles, wrists, shoulders, elbows and fingers were all starting to lock up and throb. I just wanted to get home.

I didn't slip onto the piano bench at the end of the service as I'd been prone to do lately. I was afraid my hands wouldn't respond. I was hot, very hot. I got into the car and had to shake the cobwebs out of my head to make sense of the 4 or 5 blocks home. I got home and disrobed down to shorts and a t-shirt and was immediately freezing. I put on a sweatshirt and got under 2 afghans on the couch with the dog on my chest for added warmth. Three hours later, I awoke a little worse for the wear and was reminded that I am no longer a man of boundless energy and ability. I have limits. Just like the older folks in Sunday School had coughed up their own, mine manifested against my will at the least convenient of times.

I became a member of my church and had my first "Aidsy" day, as we call it, all at the same time. I hadn't had an Aidsy day in quite a while. The timing was unfortunate. I was glad, however, to have an extra right hand to help steady my way home.

I'm still sweating eight hours later and I don't feel all that well. But I have high hopes that this third hand will be a reliable and helpful one as things unfold. Who couldn't use an extra hand?

In 1969, I took my grandpas' hands and walked to the altar to accept the Lord. Today I walked on my own and took a stranger's hand. I made the experience my own today. Thirty-seven years and a lot of water under - and over - the bridge came together today. It might not pan out in the end. But it was nice today. And that's enough...for today.

Thanks, But....

I turned down an offer last night. Go figure. Five months of therapy and God only knows how much prescription medication and I finally got an invitation. I said, "No." What am I gonna do with me?

I think it's progress, truthfully. I wasn't interested. It was merely convenient and I was a little off my game (to be polite)...and yet I still declined. I demured, in fact. I didn't just defer, I deflected and dismissed the very notion. I came home at an appropriate hour and alone. All this...and more...without the benefit of a paid professional. I couldn't be prouder. I think.

Tomorrow I'll be received in to membership at the Mayberry Assembly of God. I figure I've touched their piano enough and complimented the ladies appropriately, so in I go. No questions asked, interestingly enough. I did have a spill-the-beans conversation with one of the other pianists, however. In Dairy Queen. How 1950's is that? She related that the evidence of her imperfection was running around us in a little pink outfit with bright red hair. I thought that was nice of her to offer. She also offered this...

When she discovered that she was pregnant (and un-wed), she went to the pastor of our church a few years ago to lay her cards on the table. The pastor, to my horror, had her get up in front of the congregation on a Sunday morning and tell the story. I almost threw up right there in Dairy Queen. The story continues, though, that the Lady Pastor then picked up a box of rocks from behind the pulpit and made her way through the pews offering one to everyone with the instruction that Jesus had given in the New Testament: "Let you who are without sin cast the first stone." She said she's never heard another word about it since.

Of course, having babies isn't the same as sodomy when we talk about church circles. We all know that. For all our protestant protestation that there is no one sin greater than another, we very quickly turn our nose up at - and our back on - some sinners more quickly and completely than others. We all know who tops that list. And it's not the murderers. It's the mo's.

Sister Piano Player advised to be judicious about sharing The Story. I took that as a warning shot across the bow...in the nicest possible way, of course. I wonder if they'll do the "If anyone has objections to the acceptance of these persons into membership..." sorts of things. I might cause a commotion. Folks might jump over pews to be the first to tell this old, old story. Nothing like a little competition to get the saints out of their seats, you know. I'm not worried. If they don't do right by me, I'll leave. I've done it before. I know the way out like the back of my hand.

But for now, it's sooo good to be there. I feel like I'm contributing what I have and helping out in a way that was needed. The fit feels good. I know what they say about All Good Things, but I'm sticking with the 12-steppers on this one: One Day At A Time. If it's good today, I'm good. I don't know if that's the disease or the years talking. Maybe it's both. I don't care for the building drama beneath the surface of this experience. And I don't think I'd survive the whole Throwing Stones object lesson. But for right now, I like it very, very much.

(Notes to Various Readers:

Dear Pittsburg...If you only read the Proust entry repeatedly, you run the risk of looking exceedingly odd...if only to me. I appreciate your voyeuristic interest, but that entry is among the least interesting of the Blog. I'm thinking of taking it down just to see what you might read in its place. Still...thanks for visiting...so often...daily...)

Sham on Me

No, that's not a typo. I think 75% of the last session with My Therapist was a sham. As my decreasingly photographic memory continues to call up details of the eventful denouement of our psychoanalytical moment in time, I am increasingly of the opinion that my Free and Final Session was rife with ulterior motives.

As I left the office, I noticed a device in his chair. Perhaps it was a cell phone. Perhaps it was a small tape recorder. Perhaps it's paranoia, but I don't think so. I think the entire Final Fifty may have been for the sole purpose of absolving himself of any professional consequences, should I have chosen to raise Homo Hell beyond these humble pages about what I perceived to be an inappropriate advance in the guise of psychoanalysis. I think it's entirely plausible that the device was a tape recorder semi-concealed so as to capture my granting of absolution and thereby indemnify himself against any possible future consequences.

It wouldn't be the first time someone had mistaken a doctor's intentions and rushed off to the courthouse to have their new pool financed by someone's malpractice insurance. And I spent enough time in law school to know that it wouldn't be the first time someone had invited the possibly-aggrieved to a sit-down (free!) while wearing a wire or otherwise taping the exchange that would grant them immunity in perpetuity (they hope).

I'd like to think that none of this is true. I'd like for it not to cross my mind. But it did. And that, dear reader, is what I meant when I told him that "the sanctity of this office and this experience has been cracked for me." Even after the Final Fifty, I'm questioning the authenticity of what went down. I know full well I'd never, ever be able to open up unedited again. I'd be looking around the proverbial corner for the hidden motivation to make itself manifest. It's bad enough that I think I may have been taped without my knowledge or consent. (I probably signed some sort of waiver allowing the taping when I first agreed to be seen. Not that it matters. Legal action was never even close to making my list of responses. And in retrospect, it would have been wholly inappropriate, not to mention ineffectual, if it had crossed my mind...which it didn't.)

I insisted that he understand just how demeaning it felt to be offered a one-sided romantic, erotic relationship in which I would portray for him all of my boyfriend tendencies and he would parrot nice things back to me at arm's length...all for the low, low price of $110 per 50 minutes. The money, I noted, isn't just a boundary. It's a Deluxe-printed, bank-processed insult of mammoth proportions when you couple it with the offer of a pseudo-relationship. And let's not forget, I ranted, the whole point to my being there was that I was prone to one-sided relationships. So now My Therapist was doing exactly what all the others had done.

The light bulb went on - for him. Or so it seemed. He acknowledged that I was so good ("star patient") that I had sucked him in both against his will and without his knowledge. Sucked him into my "drama", he said. My drama. He suggests what he suggested and I sucked him into my drama. Now that, my good people, is what the Texans call "chutzpah". I asked for clarification on just what an "erotic relationship" within the bounds of appropriate psychoanalytic practice looks like. He explained that I would have sexual dreams about him, as most patients do (!). Then I would share them with him (!!). I would also daydream about him sexually (!!!). I'd share that, too (!!!!). He would, in turn, say nice things to me and remind me that time is up and that I owe him money. (My self-serving paraphrase, not his exact words.)

It does not escape me that I phoned a therapist I'd met and asked for a recommendation to one of his colleagues specifically because I'd already had the dreams, daydreams, etc. about him. I strongly suspect that if it had been him who'd made the same therapeutic suggestion: an Almost Relationship for 50 minutes once a week for the low, low price of $110 a shot, I'd have said OK. I'm pretty sure I'd have jumped at the chance to enjoy 50 minutes of fantasy with someone who should not, could not, would not reciprocate it. Not really, anyway...and not fully. And I'd have written my check and started counting the minutes to the next time. And I wouldn't have felt demeaned in the least.

Even though it would have been a complete sham.

Appomattox

If you don't know from Appomattox, go look it up. And never admit to anyone that you didn't know from Appomattox.

So My Therapist and I met in his office (free...still 50 minutes) to discuss the events of our previous session in which I heard him offer an invitation to develop a "....romantic, erotic relationship" with him (for 50 minutes, once a week at the rate of $110 per 50 minutes). To be fair, he would point out that this was in the interest of "transference", a psychological term of fluctuating definition, evidently. The afore-mentioned invitation was, in his words, issued to invite me to lavish upon him all of my romantic, erotic (short of sexual...go figure) behaviors and tendencies and he would, in return, affirm me as lovable, kind and good. This would, admittedly, be a switch from past dating scenarios. Then again, they didn't cost me $110 per 50 minutes.

During this free session, My Therapist offered an apology for having freaked me out. (I tried writing that sentence three different ways so that it wouldn't end in a preposition. It reminds me of the old joke:)

A Yankee lady and a Southern Belle met on an elevator. The Yankee asked the Belle, "From where are you visiting?" The Belle responded, "Mobile, thanks for asking!" A moment of silence passed and the Belle inquired, "Where are y'all from?"
The Yankee huffed, "Where I'm from, we don't end sentences with prepositions." The Belle didn't miss a beat and rejoined, "I'm so sorry. 'Where are y'all from....bitch?"

My Therapist also noted that I am SO good at being a therapeutic patient that he was unwittingly and against his will "sucked into your(my) drama"...degrees and all. Never let it be rumored that I lack suction. I am so good at getting men to treat me poorly, the explanation goes, that I accidentally got HIM to treat me badly without him even noticing it! It took me a cocktail afterwards to realize that I had just been blamed for his having freaked me out - apology notwithstanding. Once again, I'm too good for my own good. I'm too good at being screwed up to get a pretty good therapist to help me without sucking them down into my own dysfunctional abyss, evidently. If I'd known I had that kind of power, the things I might have accomplished over the last 25 years...

My Therapist complimented me and said that he, perhaps, was so narcissistic in his pride at having such a "star patient" that he pushed too far in the psychoanalytic vein. For this, too, he apologized (and later blamed me, I think).

I understood his professional explanations and am no longer 100% convinced that there was an inappropriate advance made in the name of mental health. I explained, however, that The Relationship Thing is sacred, hallowed ground for me and I don't go there lightly (certainly not for 50 minutes once a week and $110). So it is inconceivable that I would play house, in whatever sense, for all but 6 days, 23 hours and 10 minutes a week. He got my point. I got his. And I'm still taking the summer off. I'll decide in August whether to resume the practice.

He asked me what I thought about a patient who, for 15 years or more, had been in psychoanalysis four days a week. I said, out loud, that I thought that was ludicrous, self-perpetuating and clearly lucrative...for someone. Privately, I thought "That's crazy." But even inside my head, I knew that the humor would be lost in this setting.

I asked, "What, exactly, does this 'erotic' relationship look like?" He said that I would have sex dreams about him, for example and then tell him about them. Or that I would find myself fantasizing about him, sexually, at various times of the day....and tell him about them. I thought that sounded on the outer limits of narcissism. I said, aloud...again, "That's just creepy." I also noted, for the record that I'm not sure is kept, that I have not ever had a sex dream about him. I added that if I'd had one, I would not ever have told him so. (Again, for the record, I haven't.) I did, however, have a dream about one of my doctors in California the first time I was given Vicodin in the hospital. I also once had a dream about Matt Damon the first time I took Sustiva as part of my AIDS cocktail. So I am capable and prone to erotically-tinged dreams about people. But none about him.

I thanked him for the progress and the skills I thought I'd acquired in our time together. We settled up the bill, I wrote the final check, and we shook hands.

I had read, in June's O Magazine in the waiting room, that an anthropologist had held forth on the history of loneliness. His theory was that loneliness had survived a Darwinian-like challenge of existence to be passed through to today's man. The logic goes that it was loneliness that called the Neolithic hunter-gatherer back to the cave where they would share companionship and their meager possessions. The man who was not prone to loneliness, kept going up the mountain and was discovered a jillion years later, caked in ice, and on his way to the Smithsonian for thawing and probing.

I'm done with thawing and probing for the summer, at least. I'm heading back to the cave with my meager possessions and we'll see what the autumn brings. In the meantime, I'll continue to write for my own enjoyment and that of the bewildering number of folks who keep coming back here to gawk. (I'm happy to have you gawk, don't get me wrong. It just amazes me that anyone finds it of interest.)

After Appomattox, I'm sure even Grant took time off to decompress.

Quelle Surprise!!

So My Therapist Says (when he phoned this morning) that he would like to meet - no charge - to wrap things up.


I said I would check my calendar and walked from the bedroom, where I'd been folding clothes and had the phone next to me, to the kitchen (where the calendar hangs on the wall). He asked, "Are you just being glib? Or are you really checking your calendar?" I thought I had issues. I assured him I was, in fact, making the trek to the kitchen to check the physical calendar hanging on the wall. I also explained that this is Forensics season and that I sometimes have obligations related to judging that make Fridays a little dicey. That was a lot of explanation for "Let me check my calendar", I think. It sounds a lot like most of the break-up conversations I've had, in fact. Everyone is one jab shy of unleashing a lifetime of pent-up recriminations and analyzes every sigh and crossing of the legs for signs of a fight. Oy gevalt! I was checking the friggin' calendar already!


He also asked whether I had received his reply to the entry "Boundaries". I did. See the entry "Equal Time". I explained the moderating function for comments on the site and that I did not allow it to attach to the entry that tweaked him enough to reply. I explained my reason: That his anonymity would have been fully compromised. I also noted that I copied and pasted it verbatim in an ensuing entry so that he would be "heard". He was marginally horrified. He said it was For My Eyes Only. I think that rather defeats the purpose of replying to a Blog on a Blog. But there you go.

He asked if I could take down his commentary. I said that I would, but that it formed the basis for a subsequent entry - verbatim. He sighed, "Oh god..." and had to run right off to be with a patient. So we're on at my regular time this Friday at 4. I think it will be interesting. I'm going to do a little meditation avant-therapy to open all my chakras and be able to receive everything with an open mind. Who knows? I may yet decide that getting pseudo-schtupped for $110 an hour (fifty minutes, if you've been paying attention) is a great idea.

God knows no one else has offered.

Done

I'm done. My Therapist will say no more. (Mostly because I have no plans to return to therapy at this time.) I will make the call on Monday to remove myself from the patient roster, at least for the summer.

I plan to continue writing for my own titillation, enjoyment and edification, but it will no longer hew closely to the blog's title. That's unfortunate. But c'est la guerre, as the French say. There are a few reasons for my impending holiday from psychology. They are not mysterious, but they're all true. I'll leave the weighting of them to each one's mind as a Rorschach Test of my own design.

As recently noted, I am not comfortable with the suggestion that My Therapist and I develop an "intellectual, emotional, romantic, erotic relationship" at the rate of $110 per 50 minutes once a week. That conversation actually began with my questioning the efficacy of the process - which was thinly veiled code for "I think this stopped being helpful and just became entertaining." And there's nothing wrong with that. I just have lots of people I can talk to for free when it comes to knocking the rough edges off of life from time to time.

Therapy was a lark, in a way. And I didn't have anyone else around me objective enough to talk me through the whole Rooster thing. I thought I might be crazy, or worse. Therapy got me over that hump, and for that I'm eternally grateful. I don't expect that it will ever take me over the next hump - finding a Forever Somebody. Mostly, I'm not sure Somebody exists. Partly, I'm not sure I'm well-suited to the Forever thing.

Summer is fast-approaching. I'm enjoying my time with The Boys in the cool of the evening on Friday nights. Going to town 3 hours early for the doctor's appointment meant leaving town 3 hours early to get home before I crashed and burned 80-some miles from home. I passed up a lot of quality time with people I need in order to do the doctor thing. That's not a trade-off I'm happy making any longer.

I would like to buy myself a new car and pay cash for it come Christmas. That's a possibility if I pare back a little here and there and buy one of those micro-mini roller skates with a hood that get 45 mpg. Therapy alone will save me a few hundred dollars a month. Between now and Christmas, that's $2,000 - about 20% of what I expect to pay. So there's a financial incentive to telling my troubles to a tipsy friend instead of a bona fide doctor.

Would I have made this leap without having reacted so negatively to My Therapist's suggestion? Probably not as soon, although the thought had begun to percolate. So everyone can think what they will. If you're given to name-calling, now is the time to do it because I intend to pay little mind to this topic beyond the next few days.

I wish him well, My Therapist. He did me no small amount of good when I needed some good done. I had hoped that over the course of a couple weeks, a romantic, erotic relationship that I pay for - literally - might have become an attractive option. It didn't. And it's not going to become one. So on we go. As the wise man said,

"Regrets? I have a few. But then again, too few to mention."

We're just done.

Carts and Horses

I live in a very small town in Kansas and while we've evolved past widespread use of horse and buggy, here in "Mayberry", we have a noticeable Amish and Mennonite community who still saddle up as a matter of daily transportation. One is given to a giggle the first time one sees a buggy parked at Dairy Queen, or trying to manage the car-hop environment of Sonic. But the Mennonites laugh hardest when we pass them on the highway with our $3.00/gallon gas guzzlers. Hay is, relatively speaking, cheap.

The point I'm making is that I have a near-daily opportunity to remember the object lesson from kindergarten of not putting the cart before the horse. I ended up at a city-wide gospel sing last night and was encouraged to jump up and do a song for the gathered Methodists, Brethren, Baptists and Pentecostals. My initial inclination to re-enter this game with a low profile was losing steam fast. I declined, politely, but was flattered by the attention.

I heard a bell choir for the first time in decades and it was, surprisingly, moving. I'd been working at home on a song I'd heard on a video and was able to scratch out a passable arrangement on the piano. I had tucked it in my briefcase along with my Bible and a songbook. When I arrived, one of the ladies asked if I was moving in. I told her, good-naturedly, that if she'd ever been to church with My Pappy, she'd carry a suitcase into church, too.

I learned years ago that if you're given to the speaking, singing, playing of anything among Pentecostals, you need to be ready on a moment's notice to get up and do your thing or suffer the slings and arrows of having missed the Spirit's (and the sisterhood's) wooing. My Pappy and his train of pastors thought nothing of turning to me pre-, mid- or post-service and saying, "Tommy! Sing something!" On many occasions, one of the pastors would collar me on the way into church and explain that "The Lord told me you had a word today." That's Pente-speak for "You're preaching and I hope you prepared." I got to like the spontaneity of the opportunities and thrived on being blindsided. So...I don't go anywhere without one passable sermon, one good song and a book of options.

I still get the nagging feeling, though, that My Pappy's years of admonition to "Know those who labour among you" is in play here. No one has called on me yet - at home. That will come. I have the autobiographies of each Clinton on my mantle, flanking Al & Tipper Gore's book. I have a framed photo of Bill and Al at the 1996 Victory Night celebration with a form-letter thank you note attached at the bottom, including my name, for helping with the campaign. Armistead Maupin's complete works are on the bookshelf, along with most of Rita Mae Brown's writings and an autographed copy of The Front Runner. The piano is laden down with gospel music. The bookshelf is a Stonewall memorial. There's a small wine rack next to the piano. This will all be taken in when The Visit occurs.

At Sunday night's sing, I had gone without the intention of contributing, but was prepared, as I'd learned to be. I had learned the song "He Saw It All", which I'd first heard sung by The Booth Brothers a few days earlier on a CD. It was cocked and loaded, but my powder wasn't quite dry, as we say. I sat through several enjoyable contributions of talent and felt more and more comfortable in my environment. I thought the lyrics of the song I'd been preparing would fit the scene. The song tells the story of a man who bumps into someone who just witnessed the healing of the lame man, the mute man and the deaf girl. It's catchy - and meaningful.

I sat on my hands, figuratively speaking, for an hour or more until a lady got up and played a song on the cassette player. I wasn't sure you could still get cassettes - and that's not being funny. She is a shy woman who lit up like a Christmas tree as she signed (American Sign Language) and ran around the podium to the Cathedrals' "Standing At The River". Next up was a young blind man who sang a song that I can't recall. I can't recall because I had a muscles spasm in the back of my head that felt like I'd been hit. I figured if a deaf girl, a blind man and a slap on the back of the head weren't enough of a sign to get up and sing the durned song, I probably didn't need to be playing church. So I sang.

I got invited to join the Methodist, the Baptist and the Church of the Brethren congregations after the service. That was nice of them. And it was affirming. But again, I had the nagging feeling that we were moving quickly down the road of minor celebrity without anyone having uncovered or spilled the beans yet. And I know that changes things. We haven't come THAT far, baby. So I tempered my excitement and was silently grateful for one more chance to indulge myself in what I've missed so desperately for so long. I felt a little more whole afterwards.

And I thought that the two-week hiatus from My Therapist was a little short-sighted. I'm thinking that I may take the summer off instead. I haven't felt the need to completely subordinate myself to this experience in church like I did in the past. Not yet, anyway. The incorporation is going rather nicely. Maybe that's maturity. Then again, maybe it's willful and inexcusable naivete. Time will tell.

"My friend, if the burdens and struggles you carry
Are heavy and dragging you down.
You've tried everything you can possibly think of,
But there's no relief to be found.

That very same Jesus who altered the future
Of the blind man, the deaf and the lame;
Is still reaching out in your hour of trouble,
One touch and you're never the same." -- He Saw It All, by Daryl Mosley

That's where I come from. That's part of who I am. I'm cleaning the closet all the way out this time.

I may need a cart and a horse.