And I Thought I Was STRAIGHT?!

Look at me in my turtleneck. No WONDER I never got laid!! God what a joke. Clearly I am now and have always been insane. And obviously gay.

Anyway, I got this picture from my Aunt, who I told y'all about in June. As she had described, she put together a tribute DVD to her brother Marduke and now I have a copy of one, so I captured a lot of screenshots and posted them as Flick'r pics. I tell a story in those pics, and some other, more upbeat self-discoveries at Flick'r so you might want to go give those a scan. In summary, it turns out that I'm a lot more proud of my family than I thought I'd be.

I went to see my aunt last night to make good on the promise I made her before I went off to the comics convention and Ned. Eliel, perk up--SHE LIVES (and has lived since the 70's) TWO BLOCKS FROM CARLTON AVENUE. She owns a brownstone that is EXACTLY like your old one in architecture. And I do mean exact, as in the steps are on the same side of the house, etc.

Eliel, when I went to visit you those times, my aunt was withoin walking distance all along. And not only that, but in the 70's she was able to purchase a brownstone, and she's been raising two boys in it for 30 years. Now, as you know Eliel, the neighborhood has become one of those trendy gentrified Brooklyn nabes. And my aunt is sitting pretty. I had no idea. Not many other, if any, can say they are as successfully adult as this aunt of mine. And I'm SO glad to be able to have another connection to that neighborhood because I was starting to REALLY dig it before you moved out of there, Eliel. Still mad at you for that!

Anyway, visiting my aunt turned out to be the best case scenario. She welcomed me as though I'd never left. Just like her mother did when I lived in Harlem the first time (happy to say, I found the original post where I mention her mother, and her brother Marduke). And she's doing better than me, but I'm doing okay as well, which means I can visit her again and there will be no agendas between us. I won't be trying to sponge off her, she won't be trying to sponge off me.

The only wrinkle right now is that I haven't disclosed my last ten years to her. Last she knew, and I reconfirmed that her memories are true, that I went out to Missouri to become a preacher. So she wants to know what church I "go" to. I tell her the last church I attended, but not the fact that I haven't gone back in years and that I'm trying to first come to terms with being "Big Gay Al" before I find a new church to start visiting/attending.

But this woman has seen me growing up. She knows I have no girlfriend now, in my forties. She HAS to know that I'm not straight. And I want to have that talk with her. I want the love of family in my life again, as I am now.

And it seems like I'm going to have it.

If my aunt accepts me ... well ... a gift of God, is what that is. And even if I'm NOT straight, God might still be working in my life.

Which is really REALLY okay with me.

So In The Middle Right Now

SO in the middle. Let's start with a downer. When I lived in Harlem, before my eviction, I lived on the street one block south of my closest (great)aunt. My mother's aunt. She treated me with love and affection. She had three children, and a bunch of grandchildren. Her grandchlidren are my age. Well, she passed away a few years ago and her son, who had once given me a 20 dollar bill on my birthday (with which I went flying off to see Star Wars in the movie theater to discover I couldn't get in by myself) had come to visit me in my Harlem apartment. He was the only real father-type figure in my family. The other men were older--they were my great grandmom's brothers. So this guy, let's call him Marduke, held a special fascination for me.

Marduke was the father of my closest cousins, so when I hung out with Marduke's son I'd watch Marduke too. What kind of father was he? What kind of husband? What kind of black man? What kind of adult? What kind of homeowner? What kind of American citizen? Clearly, whatever answers I found, I didn't pay attention to. I idealized him because he was in all those roles, and I thought position equated to capacity. Not so. When I was reaching my twenties, I discovered he divorced his wife, had several affairs, and moved down south to leave his children--my cousins. I activated my blind eye and went slogging through my own FUBAR'd life.

So the few years ago when Marduke visited me, he seemed like he had his head on straight. Enough, at least, to tell me a few things about himself. Like his drug peddling and subsequent habit, and his regrets, and his recovery and on and on. Still, I couldn't figure him out. I wanted him to be who I thought he was and it seemed that he now was, or was again. He had never lost his height or his manly stature. He had all his bright teeth and wolfish grin. He had my mother's eyes. But I didn't know what he wanted. He took me out to eat and he expressed interest in my life. He promised to keep in touch. I never saw him again.

On Monday, his sister called me. She had found my number in the back of her mother's address book, tucked away. Her mom had kept all the numbers I had over the years. The one I had in Missouri, the one I had in Trenton, and the one I've had ever since I moved into NYC and got my first cellphone. Marduke's sister is an intelligent, vibrant, verbal, outspoken woman who I've always been fascinated with as well as with her brother. This was another adult black person with children (my other two cousins, brothers, to whom I'm NOT that close with) and a home and a profession. She's someone who lived in NYC all her life and survived (with and then without a husband). I just never grew closer to these people because I grew up a few suburban culture borders away, across a river, and up a state. It was only 25 measly miles, but evidently it was like another continent. I'd take the bus into NYC to go find back issues of comicbooks at conventions, but not to find my relatives.

Well Marduke's sister was calling me to tell me that Marduke had died. I forget how long ago, but she described his funeral and how his kids, my cousins, had scattered his ashes on his mother's grave, and that she was upset that they did it all so privately without telling anyone else. But since this was Marduke's sister, she was going to have her own celebration of his life and draw the family back together before we were all lost. Yeah. Told you she was outspoken. And she's having it this weekend.

THIS weekend. My VACATION weekend.

Well, I'm not going to Marduke's memorial at his sister's house. I need and I want my Geektastic vacation and I'm taking it.

But here's the kicker. She described the details of Marduke's death as she learned them. Marduke was in a boat off the South Carolina shore with a friend. The boat capsized. His friend drowned. He tried to swim to the shore and almost made it but got tangled in the seaweed and lost his life too.

Now ain't that some shit. She told me this about fifteen minutes before my first client on Monday evening. Which, as the Great Scriptwriter In The Sky would have it, our session was on my client's fear of water and refusing to fulfill the sailing lessons from the weekend. I swear to God. There I sat listening to an alive person talking about capsizing a boat on purpose as part of a paid lesson while thinking of my dead cousin who's accidental capsizing cost him his life. Can't make this stuff up, people.

So Marduke's sister tells me he was in his early 70's. As she must be. Or in her late 60's. Either way, I can't get my head around any of this. How does my cousin die tangled in seaweed? How is it that he was IN HIS SEVENTIES?!? Was he seventy when he visited me? How is HIS generation in their SEVENTIES for crying out loud?

And I just can't. I intend on having myself a good time starting today at 4:00pm and not stopping until I report to work 8:00AM next Wednesday morning. Marduke's already dead. Been dead longer than I knew about it. And his children, the cousins I was closest to, didn't think or bother or want to share that information at the time.

And now that Marduke's sister called me, I'm going to go visit her next week and see this celebration of Marduke's life, and of our family, in a more private setting. And maybe what's left of our relationships will mend. And maybe the rest of my adulthood will have some connectivity to it, without the qualifier of religious reconversion to first achieve--in the absence of romance and in the distance between you and I, my internet intimates. Isn't that what family is, for better or worse? It's about being comnnected? Not feeling adrift and helpless and inhuman? I dunno. I guess I'll find out. Or not.

And that's the downer.

The upper is that remember the Day Job Girl? What did I call her? I forget. But she was the girl who used to drift by my office and say hello to me, and say other things like she heard there was this "nice guy who worked here" and blah blah blah, talking about me? And how I believed she did this because she liked me? And so I was to bring her flowers and ask her out, on Scott's recommend? And how I may have done, but now I can't remember? Well, I do remember leaving a few messages for her but she didn't respond, and so like I do, I dropped it.

Yesterday, I found her working in our corporate office! And she had these large braces on her teeth! It was as though I had caught her in mid-transformation! And when she saw me, it was very much like it was when she'd come by my office! She has this way of looking at me as if it's "Wow. He's so handsome!" I mean, she looks at me like she's 14 and I'm Elvis. I swear.

And it occured to me yesterday that all along, I could have just asked her out. No games, no notes, no phone messages left. Just, while she hovered in my doorway, trying to make small talk, sending me more signals than the NJ Transit MetroNorth line, that I could've said "Hey, you want to get some lunch?"

So yesterday I said, "Hey, you want to go get some lunch?" And she said, "That would be great!" And we went and got some lunch. Then after work I stopped by again and gave her a ride back to her place. Where I promptly lost my virginity and every ambivalence I ever had about my sexuality.

Now you know that last paragraph is not true at all. It would only be true if I were a normal person. I probably wouldn't even be a blogger if I could do the events in that last paragraph. I'd just be out living my life and not typing about how many different ways I cannot and have not lived it. And if my stops and starts frustrate you and make you turn away from these pages as it appears to have done the others, I do apologize. If it's any consolation, I wish I could do the same. But it's kind of my life, y'know? I don't get to unBookmark it and escape the frustration. I don't get to tidy it up with the "Age of Aquarius" playing in the background.

But the real kicker is that the Day Job Girl came back on my radar after I decided that girls weren't going to be for me. That because The Past Girl blew me off, that I was just inherently unsexy to women and possibly destined to have a relationship with a dude. And that if I'm to stay honest, the most electrifying sexuality I experience at first glance comes in this package;

And I've learned that there are non-penetrative ways for menfolk to do The Deed that won't drive me screaming from a given bedroom, and that if I'm going to Hell for being homosexual, then I'm going because no matter what I want to do or how I want to appear straight or live straight--no matter how much I want to avoid condemnation, judgment and scrutiny...no matter what I WANT WITH ALL MY HEART, my sexuality is its own entity. Whether this sexuality was forced on me or whether it got jumpstarted by an inappropriate and criminal adult, it just IS. It just is.

And when I face God, with all the layers of human culture and interpretation stripped away, I'm only going to open my heart and say "You know what this is and you know how hard I tried to do what I thought was Your will."

I mean what else can a person do?

Either way, The Day Job Girl can adore me. She can look at me the way I look at Jason Statham. It isn't going to change everything I'm struggling with. I might get to sex her, but it isn't going to make the 30+ years of my constant craving disappear in one puff of heterosexual coitus. Somehow I thought and hoped ... prayed ... that it would. But that just doesn't make sense to believe it will. And I guess my fallback plan was to live with the dichotomy. To have a woman know me and accept me and still be my wife. But how can I do that? Seeing Day Girl Job again, and seeing who she might be--what hopes she might have for her own life--her braces to make her more attractive, her new position to giver her a better life--am I what she deserves? Is that fair?

No, I don't think it is. Life's not fair, but I don't think I want to contribute to its unfairness.

And even as I say this, still I'd love to be able believe for the normal life. Still I'd love to fake my way through it. Still I'd love to pull it off.

I am SO in the middle right now.

But you know what?

I'm really not.

Yeah, So, How 'Bout Them Giants...?

Yay!

And now onto other news.

Yesterday, I actually went to My Friend The Doctor's daughter's first birthday party. Readers of more than a year here might recall how I had some angst when this child was born. And how, again thanks to this blog, and you readers, I was able to make an emotional adjustment. I still don't know who that Anonymous person was that gave me the kick in the pants, except that they were from Texas. MFTD and I share a friend from Texas who used to come and read the blog, so I hoped it was him. But whoever it was, I was glad for it.

I took a slow train out to Connecticut, just because it was a Sunday and I didn't want to put out much effort on my weekend. I had a stack of comics to read and I was content for the most part. I bought a $10 birthday card (from here) to enhance the child's life (lol) and off I went. Gladly, my comics kept me from realizing where I was actually going and what I was actually about to do.

MFTD's mother and father were there. And his four brothers. One of his brothers is back from Iraq, safely. Thank God. He won't be going again. But he is trying to join the NYC Police department. Clearly, he's found his calling. Walk softly and carry a big gun. His brother closest in age to him brought his wife--yes, MFTD gained a sister-in-law over the last year, and she is great with child. I mean Sherman-tank-great. They all said she was about to pop any minute. Wouldn't that have been special? The three unmarried brothers had girls on their arms.

MFTD's wife's mother and father was there as well, from the midwest (where he found her. If you'll recall, he and I went to the midwest together. He got a wife and a doctorate out of the deal, and I just got the hell out). They were there with their other daughter, who is turning out to be a nice young woman. She was unaccompanied by a partner, but she's younger than MFTD's wife, who is younger than him, and he's about nine years younger than me. So, no.

Then another school chum of ours showed up (who lives in Connecticut because he was raised in CT, although we first met him out in the midwest when we went out to school. Funny how things turn out.) He showed up with his new wife, and their two-month old baby boy.

You see where this is going right?

Oh, also, MFTD's pastor was there with his wife and three of his eight kids.

So I involve myself with speaking to MFTD's father-in-law, who I actually like, and I speak to MFTD's pastor and wife, and I hang out with our college buddy, and I chew the fat with the ex-Iraq soldier. And I coo and burble as MFTD's little daughter is plied with gifts and attention enough to set her up as one of America's intolerably spoiled princesses (lookout, Paris--you about to have some competition in a few years when you're raising the next Britney). And I stay almost busy enough not to think.

Almost.

You see, I was able to present myself in the most positive light I've ever done in my life. I live in Manhattan, I'm a full-time Assistant Director in an organization, and I do therapy in a midtown Manhattan counseling center. My sh!t is tight. So I got through the night pretty well.

Until MFTD took me back to the train station, and started complaining bitterly about his mother-in-law. Now, I love MFTD like cooked food, but enough is f*ckin' enough. That boy has more love in this life than I have ever known or will ever know. And he's never happy. Sh!thead! He made me so mad I could have slapped him.

Happily, I let none of it out. We all have a right to complain about whatever, and MFTD's experiences are his own. I just suggested that he not let himself get so upset about things that aren't that serious, because life could be a lot worse for him. He replied, "Yeah, I know. And I shouldn't be complaining about this to you." Which of course made me backpeddle 0 to 1000 mph because, oh hell no, you will not pity me, you lucky, loved, golden child bastard.

Upon reflection, it was better for me to be angry than to be sad. And I wasn't even that angry.

When I got back to NYC, I walked up 42nd Street from Lexington all the way to 8th Ave to get the A train, just occupied with thoughts. The lights and spectacle of Times Square went a long way towards keeping me from the darker spectrum of my emotions. And too, the facts are true--I do live in Manhattan, I am a full time asst. Director, and I do have five clients a week in a midtown Manhattan counseling center, for whom I am doing a lot of good. The look on each one of their faces this past week as they left my office was like a full-on hug from the dearest of you guys. It was like medicine to my soul.

So, my life could be worse. Hell, it was just last year when it was worse. Much worse.

So yeah.

How 'bout them Giants? :-D

Here's To Love ...

Through my comicbook hobby, I met a podcaster who won my heart today with his blog entry about his 5th year anniversary. I wanted to share it with you. He doesn't know that I blog, and I haven't told him about it because of all the Stuff I spill about me here. I just want to be a listener who gives him and his wife some well-earned support.

So, here's to love, and here's one of the funniest podcasts they've done to date (The links take you to The Comics Forums, where there are links to the blog entry and podcast).

A Father's Love

Well the week skipped by me with nary a "how-do-you-do". I'm not mad at it. I couldn't wait for the weekend anyhow.

The upcoming weekend promises to be snowy, however. Ever since the car accident, I've been driving like an old woman on the cold wet roads. It is most definitely post-traumatic stress that keeps me imagining my rear end will fishtale again and dance me into oncoming traffic--but this time I won't be action-hero enough to turn my swirling car passenger-first into the headlights. Therefore I keep seeing myself crushed in my car. I keep imagining what the impact will feel like --steering wheel collapsing my lungs, dashboard crushing my shoulders, engine block pulverizing my guts--and what that split-second of helplessness beforehand will turn into. Will I scream? Will I just gasp? Or will I lean into it with an acceptance that says, "Of course. How could it have ended any other way?"

Maudlin thoughts, I know, but it's "Worst-Case Scenario Man" from his perch in my head. I blame him, but he is me. He's the me that was created from the dominoes that have been toppling in my life since age six. Click click click click click click in rapid succession. A steady series of little devastations.

The second therapist that I went to in Trenton was the guy who gave me the identity of being "obsessively analytic". I wear it with pride, because I know how it has come to be. In order to get myself to my next level in life, I have always had to understand first what it was. In the absence of understanding, I needed blind faith. One of those two extremes, or I did not proceed.

Pretend you are a therapist now and try to answer why that would be.

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My answer; because my life has always been an unstable, terrifying mess. If you set a baby out on an ice shelf, and it keeps cracking under him, and sometimes gives way and dumps him into the soul-sucking depths of black icy water, he's going to grow up being a VERY slow walker.

That's me. The slow walker.

That's just me.

But now let me introduce you to a boy named Jackson who is not going to face these particular struggles that I face when he gets to be my age. (For one thing, he'll have a car that flies! LOL) The introduction I will give you comes in the form of his father's birthday letter to him. When you read the kind of love Jackson is receiving from his father, and the determined stability his father is carving out for him with his two powerful hands, you will be able to see the kind of man that Jackson will become. You guys know Jackson's father as my blogfriend Scott, with whom someday will be my extreme privilege to have a companionable slice of pizza here in my city.

"Happy Birthday, Jackson".

Despite the domino effect in my life, I found a strange improvement has come over me in the last few months. If I had read that letter half a year ago, I would have broken down, full of the lament that I wasn't Jackson and that my father wasn't Scott. And while a tear did mist in my eye, what I felt instead of regret and sorrow was a great swell of inspiration.

I'm going to be a father like Scott. I don't care if it takes me until I'm 65 years old. I'm going to give that kind of love to sons and daughters of mine. I am. I'm done lamenting my lost childhood. It's gone and it's getting me nowhere being all runny about it (Scott's phrase, 7 comments down, last paragraph).

Yes, therapy, and all of you, have been very, very good to me.

Thanks for sharing that, Scott.

Reconnection. Almost.

I jumped on the A train yesterday after being hit with a brilliant idea. I was going to South Street Seaport. I'd heard there was some nightlife going on down there and I wanted to see it. The sun was low enough to provide shade in the streets, so the heat was no longer an issue.

So I'm riding and people-watching, as I usually do. Standing out noticably to me was a man and his wife. She was pregnant. They were speaking in Spanish. And they seemed like the mainstream twentysomethings of North Manhattan. I couldn't understand anything about their conversation except the body language. The man had long wet hair and clean feet (yes, sandals. I've gone on enough about these peoples' feet). He wore a loose crepe shirt and cargo shorts. She wore a sunny, sleeveless dress the color of a peeled orange. She hung on his every word. She looked in love. Not slavishly devoted or co-dependent, but just admirably in love with the man. The man who had given her the baby she was carrying. The man was animated and spellbinding. Whatever story he was telling made her gasp with surprise. It seemed to have something to do with dancing or performing. I wouldn't call the man attractive, physically, but he was charismatic.

Then the train pulled into 145th and was being held at the station. The 145th stop is where I used to live. And during the 30 seconds of wait, I suddenly bounced out of my seat and dashed out of the subway car.

I wanted to see the "old" neighborhood.

When we last left our hero there, two luxury condo buildings were going up and I had been desirous of maybe getting an apartment there one day. Well, now they are up. They look very nice. One is across the street from the Hamilton. I believe it's called The Ellington, (edit correction: it isn't the Ellington. Or if it is, it doesn't have a website yet) and it borders Jackie Robinson Park. So does the other one, and it's on 147th and Bradhurst. And teeming around the both of them are the innercity culture who are not going anywhere. They will not be priced out and they won't roll over.

My people, my people. Gritty. Urban. Loud. I at once admire them and am a little repulsed by them. But mostly, I feel defensive of them. I love the new buildings. But having been divorced from the area now for two years, I think I'm seeing the place with an outsider's eye. (After all, I only lived there for 1.5 years.)

Those buildings just seem so wrong there. It's an obvious, glaring clash of culture. Am I saying my people don't deserve the finer things? Am I saying they aren't worthy?

No, but I am saying that they aren't rich.

(Edit: I've discovered the buildings at 147th and Bradhurst Ave. are called The Sutton, and they are made for low-income families! Now THAT'S good news. Somebody's got a conscience in housing and development.)

But my curiosity about the neighborhood was really secondary. Primarily, I wanted to see my cousin. She is the mentally ill daughter of the nurturing aunt who died during the last year that I lived there. I had sorely neglected visiting them when my aunt was alive, and then when she died, I stopped altogether. This mentally ill cousin has a daughter who I really was bonding with, (and had even lived up in North Manhattan at one time) but I lost touch with her too. I've lost touch with all of them. and when I say 'lost touch' I mean too phobic to call and visit.

So last night I thought I'd do it. Get it out of the way. After my exploration of the new new, I when to my cousin's apartment foyer and dialed her code so she could buzz me into the building. She answered. I told her who I was and she said "Who?!" just like my mother used to say it.

Then she buzzed me in, and I realized I didn't remember what floor her apartment was on. I re-buzzed her to ask where her apartment was. (The code to dial her does not reveal the floor or apartment address.) She answered again, then buzzed the door again, longer this time, but didn't speak. After all, maybe I wasn't who I said I was.

I called her daughter, (whose number I still have in my phone) only to find it disconnected. I considered calling another cousin (whose number I also have in my phone) but then I realized. I didn't want to do this. I haven't wanted to for the past four years.

I don't know why. It seems my family is the last hurdle to leap before I can consider myself "social" again.

So I left my old stomping grounds, bought some Jamaican food (ox tails--YUM), and headed back north.

I might try again sometime.

I might not.