Today is National Coming Out Day. If Ray were still alive, it would also be the day we’d be celebrating the twenty-first anniversary of our commitment ceremony (he promised to stay with me for the rest of his life, and he did).
Since I am still occasionally surprised to learn that someone I know or work with hasn’t figured out that I’m gay: my husband (Michael) and I are both men, and we’re very much in love with each other and happy together.
I have written before about odd encounters with people through social media. One problem is that since some of the places I hang out online are forums and services that cater to specifically gay people, I wind up running into folks who are looking to hook up, but more vexingly, assume everyone else is also looking to hook up.
Consequently, my profile on all of those sites mention, as prominently as I can, that I am married to a wonderful man. My profile also always mentions my interest in science fiction/fantasy, that I write, and that I live in Seattle.
I’ve noticed a very specific phenomenon the last few years: guys who will initiate a conversation, making a comment about either the fact that I’m a writer or that I’m a sci fi fan, but who manage to completely miss the parts about my being married or living in Seattle. Seriously, at least once a week someone will chat amiably for a few moments, then start asking questions about what I am looking for in a boyfriend/long term relationship. When I point out that I already have a husband, they either get confused or flustered.
If they continue the conversation, they usually switch gears to explaining that they don’t have many gay friends, and ask if maybe I and my husband would like to hang out some time. At which point I usually ask, “Your profile says you live in Los Angeles/Jersey City/Houston/fill-in-the-blank; that might be a bit difficult.” Which leads into the part of the conversation where they didn’t realize that I wasn’t local to them.
I try not to be too snarky when I suggest that they might want to look more closely at someone’s profile before chatting them up. But I also try to cut things off, because by this point it’s clear that they either have extremely poor reading comprehension or some sort of memory/attention deficit issue.
Or maybe they’re just really, really dim.
On the day itself, Michael left two presents for me to find while I was getting ready to go to work: a polo shirt with the Tardis embroidered on it, and the War Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. There was also a very sweet card that made me a bit teary-eyeed. He knows me so well! When I got home from work there was a much sillier card, and two more presents: a string of Tardis lights (we might end up doing another science fiction themed Christmas tree, at this rate), and in a plot twist I didn’t see coming, a pair of Princess Bride pint beer glasses.
I had invited a bunch of our friends to meet us at AFK Tavern (where so many of our group outings happen) on Saturday afternoon. Since I needed to make reservations before everyone had time to let me know whether they would be there, I had to guess. We wound up with three more people than my upper-end guesstimate, so you will notice in the first picture we’re a bit squeezed in.
I had a lot of fun. This was the first time at AFK for Julie, Julie’s Mike, Jon, Sheryl, Chuck, and Mark, I believe. I only had three Fluttershy Mai Tais, plus a pint of Swill (which is actually a really delicious ale).
We were there about four hours.
I got a bunch of presents. A cool plant (which is going into the office, I think; I’ve had a window for over a year and keep saying I need a plant or two, so here goes!), a set of Tardis & Dalek salt & pepper shakers, the Firefly edition of Clue (which I didn’t even know existed!), a Seahawks stocking cap, two pairs of dark maroon/purple fuzzy socks (in men’s size!), iTunes gift card, not to mention some really cool cards.
My big present from Michael is still on its way. After years of me being unsuccessful at finding a Smith-Corona Silent-Super model manual typewriter in pink with white keys (sometimes called the “Easter Edition”) that was in at a price I could afford or had not already sold to someone else, he found one. It’s not in pristine condition, but the place that sells it does a lot of manual typewriter restorations and has a good reputation, so when they say it is in working order, that they’ve cleaned and serviced it, et cetera, I believe them.
I had a great time. I was so glad that so many folks could join us.
It was a fantastic birthday!
When we’d met, he’d been this tall, thin (skinny, really) grinning goofball with a mop of curly hair usually dyed in multiple colors. As his illness had destroyed his lung tissue and caused painful lesions to erupt on his bones, making movement ever more difficult and painful, he’d gained weight and lost all that manic energy. The chemo didn’t make all of his hair fall out, but it got very, very thin, and he hated how it looked. The pain had slaved his sleep schedule to his pain pills. During that last year he would take his pain pills, wait for them to kick in enough to let him sleep for a couple of hours, then wake up and try to occupy himself for about four hours until he could take his next dose, sleep for two more hours, wake up and wait, et cetera.
Some mornings I wake up, it’s dark, the clock radio may have started playing NPR’s Morning Edition, which means the alarm will be going off soon. Which does not fill me with joy, because I’m never quite ready to wake up and get out of bed.
But about then my husband comes back into the bedroom. He goes into work earlier than I do, needing to leave before my alarm even goes off. Anyway, he walks into the room, he may turn on the lights because he’s looking for something, or he may just need to grab one thing. The important thing is he walks into the room, and a fun thing happens.
I remember that I’m married to that man.
It’s not like I have amnesia or something, but there’s a part of me that is always pleasantly surprised to remember that I’m not alone. Not only am I not alone, but I have the best husband in the world. He’s smart. He’s funny. He’s sweet. He’s cute. He’s sexy. He’s very practical. One of my friends once described Michael as the most capable person he’s ever known. He can fix things—all kinds of things!—and he likes doing it. He can take a pile of fresh vegetables and turn it into several very neat piles of very nicely sliced vegetables in the amount of time a normal person would spend deciding which knife to use. He cooks. He cleans. He puts up with me (not exactly the easiest person to get along with). He puts up with all my weird hobbies and projects. He’s cheerful, even after living with me for over 16 years. His response to any disaster is not, “how can I fix this,” but rather, “I have a plan to deal with this.”
And did I mention that he’s sexy?
As if having this wonderful man in my life wasn’t already more good fortune than I deserve, my life has also been graced with a large assortment of wonderful friends. It’s hard to know where to begin, but here goes: Continue reading Feeling lucky
So I clicked on it…
First, I didn’t say hatred, I said bigotry. Bigotry is formally defined as “obstinate and unreasonable adherence to an opinion or idea.” Depending on the context it can shade into narrow-minded intolerance, or blind and excessive zeal, as well as dismissiveness of other ideas. But the central meaning, and the meaning I intended was that “unreasonable adherence to an idea.”
The unreasonable idea (the idea not supported by facts), is not even the obvious one… Continue reading …but I don’t hate anyone!
This year’s hay fever season started out really awful in March and April. So bad that I had been bracing myself for a horrid summer. While I had almost non-stop mild hay fever symptoms for the entirety of May, June, July, and August, I only had moderately bad days every now and then, only really bad once or twice.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were all moderately bad. Then I had trouble sleeping Sunday night/Monday morning. Thank goodness the third time I woke up to get a drink of water (I always wake up thirsty several times in the middle of the night on bad hay fever days… but also when I have a cold), I became conscious enough to take some extra decongestant. Otherwise my sinus headache would be much, much worse than it is.
My husband is on an earlier work schedule for summer, so I’ve tended to get up when he leaves, which is before my second alarm. This morning I barely woke up when he kissed me good-bye. I had trouble getting out of bed to stagger to the alarm clock to turn it off for the second alarm. And similarly had difficulty staggering across the room to turn off the third alarm.
While I was trying to force myself to wake up enough to take a guess as to how many hours it had been since I took the decongestant (so I could know when I could take something else) I looked up the pollen count.
It’s low. Very, very low. And has been for the last couple of days.
And I have a low grade fever.
Damn.
I think it was January 2000. Michael and I were attending an anthropomorphics convention in the Bay area. As I was walking to our hotel room I passed a room that reeked of a strange smell. It was a scent I had encountered before, but I had never learned what it was.
When I got to the room, I told Michael about the smell. He described a part of the hallway and asked if that’s where it was.
When I confirmed, he smiled and shook his head in a manner that clearly indicated I was a silly person.
“Honey,” he said very gently, “that’s pot. Someone is getting extremely baked in a room there.”
“Oh!”
In other words, I didn’t learn how to recognize the smell of pot until I was 39 years old.
I’ve never been one of the cool kids… Continue reading Not one of the cool kids
I’ve been called both a hopeless romantic and a hopeless optimist.
Neither is true. I’m ever hopeful, not hopeless.
Which is not to say that I’ve never been dejected or depressed, never felt defeated, never feared that I was doomed to failure. I have felt all of those things. Throughout my teens and well into my twenties I periodically had depressive periods.
I’m not saying that I merely felt sad. I had more than a slight understanding of the clinical definition of depression…
Font Folly 