It seems like just yesterday (or nearly a month ago) that I complained about having too many appointments, and now we’re stuck in another of those holding patterns. Things kicked off on Monday with an early morning visit from a woman who restores old windows. A couple years ago she repaired a broken stained glass […]
“You Couldn’t Pay Me to Live Here” Read More »
It is a uniquely gay problem to routinely awaken to thoughts of Liza Minnelli, but here I stand before you, dark circles under my eyes, affirming that I’ve been afflicted by this condition for years now, since first listening to Results. Several times a year, sometimes for weeks at a time, I wake up with
The Promise of a New Day Read More »
There was a time in our relationship that everyone but Crankenstein seemed to be pregnant and it left her despondent. From inexperienced relatives in their early twenties to well-established married couples in their forties and seemingly everyone in between, our friends, family and colleagues were participating in a baby boom we knew would pass us
“We could not talk or talk forever and still find things to not talk about,” Jennifer Coolidge’s character says of conversation with her husband in Best in Show, and that is how I feel about most people. As a teen, my parents and brother often chided me for my (excessive, in their view) introversion and
Something About What Happens When We Talk Read More »
When you’re told enough times that you’re a worthless piece of shit, you unfortunately start to believe it — particularly when the person doing the telling is someone you love very deeply, who didn’t always treat you like garbage. By the end of my last relationship, I was used to having both insults and the
Coming Around Again Read More »
There are, to date, two people in my life I’ve loved so unguardedly that ‘the mere idea of them,’ to paraphrase Nat King Cole (or rather, Ray Noble), can almost instantly reduce to me tears if I’m not careful. My grandma is one of them. If Papa, Grandma’s husband and the towering influence of my
My dad was in his forties the first time I saw him cry. Jack Buck, the favorite baseball announcer he’d faithfully listened to since he was a child, had died. As I quietly watched him from across the room, it was impossible to discern whether his tears were for the broadcaster he never actually knew
Owner of a Lonely Heart Read More »
On our first road trip together, Crankenstein and I visited her parents. It was a trepidatious occasion for us both. She was worried I’d flee within five minutes of seeing their house or meeting her father, and I was worried about the effect being back home would have on her mental health. For the first
My favorite response to this week’s announcement of my Parkinson’s diagnosis came from one of my siblings, who said “First of all, it’s homophobic for this to happen during Pride month.” I don’t care much about Pride, which is currently little more than a soulless corporate celebration of a fictionalized account of Stonewall, but that
If C.S. Lewis was right that “The death of a beloved is an amputation” — and I believe he was — I lost my first limb in my teens or early twenties, when my brother disappeared. Corporeally, he still existed, and still exists today. He snored in the bedroom across the hall from mine, monopolized
Highway to the Danger Zone Read More »