Tag Archives: love

Confessions of an absent-minded whatchamacallit

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What?
What?
I lose my keys, all the time.

Not just my keys. I regularly misplace my wallet, my phone, my glasses, my hat… Almost every time I prepare to leave the house, I spend a few minutes trying to figure out where something that I need to take with me is. Several times every week my poor, long-suffering husband has to help me figure out where I left something.

And I hate it!

I have tried to fix this for pretty much my entire life. My mom used to tell the story of the day she found me wandering the house in tears, looking under papers, inside drawers, under the furniture, and so on, because I couldn’t find my glasses. I was seven or eight years old at the time. I told her I had looked everywhere. I was angry at myself for misplacing the glasses. I was afraid of what punishment my dad might mete out if they were broken or lost permanently. I was nearly hysterical. Continue reading Confessions of an absent-minded whatchamacallit →

Confessions of a white homo devil

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Church sign in Harlem, Sun Feb 23
This is an actual church sign, not a Photoshop job.
The pastor of a church in Harlem put up a warning on his church sign last weekend, “Obama Has Released The Homo Demons On The Black Man. Look Out Black Woman. A White Homo May Take Your Man.” Some of the church’s neighbors aren’t terribly happy with the sign. And more than a few people have asked what Obama has to do with homosexuality. Of course, the same pastor caused some controversy in his neighborhood a few years ago with a series of anti-Obama signs, so we shouldn’t really be surprised.

As a 53-year-old white homo who has lived in liberal city for nearly thirty years, I will confess that I’ve dated a couple of black men. Neither of them were married to women, black or otherwise. And, thinking back on it, both of them pursued me, not the other way around. Of course, I dated the one guy in the late 80s, and the other in the early 90s, back when Reagan and the elder Bush were still in office… Continue reading Confessions of a white homo devil →

What’s the big deal about Valentine’s Day?

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dailyotter.org
Together forever.
We’ve never made a super big deal out of Valentines Day. I think we’ve both had more fun, the last couple of years, meeting up with friends to celebrate Jared’s birthday, instead of doing the Valentine’s thing. Nor have we ever been really over the top on any of our anniversaries. In fact, both of us frequently forget them altogether. It could be argued that it’s because we have too many. One reason we have so many is because for the longest time, we couldn’t agree on what constituted our anniversary, since we weren’t able to legally marry until very recently. I favored February 7, as the anniversary of our first date. Michael leaned toward Easter, because we first met (nearly three years before that first date) at the NorthWest Science Fiction Convention on an Easter weekend. There was also a strong argument to be made for the date we signed and notarized the domestic partnership papers and had a party with friends, of course.

Now that we are finally legally hitched (and given what a struggle it has been to get it legal here), shouldn’t our wedding anniversary be the one we observe?

Or course, it’s impossible to forget about Valentine’s Day. I know this because I have been told many, many, many times by various people how the way our society deals with Valentine’s Day amounts to oppression or even abuse of people who are not in a relationship… Continue reading What’s the big deal about Valentine’s Day? →

In the end…

love,

I had something else planned for today, but between being sick (again? still? I have no idea), and long hours, I’m going to leave it to others:

To truly master the Way
we must pass through all life’s hellish cycles;
at last, we reach the higher heights.
Only three things necessary for paradise after all:
endurance, alertness,
and a righteous heart.

from The Book of the Heart by Loy Ching-Yuen

Love is in the bear

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templeofcats.com
A kitty and his teddy bear.
I’ve written before about some of the disasters in my early attempts at dating. In some ways those disasters seemed worse than usual because most of them happened in my late twenties and early thirties. I didn’t date much in high school, and what dating I did do was with the gender I wasn’t actually attracted to, and while some things about navigating relationships are universal, there is a big difference between the awkwardness of trying to learn how to make things click with someone you’re attracted to, rather than the awkwardness of trying to make yourself feel desire for someone when there wasn’t any underlying physical attraction at all.

For a while I thought things were going so badly simply because I was playing catch-up. Other people had made these kinds of mistakes as teenagers, whereas I hadn’t. Other times I wondered if maybe the cliches about most gay men not wanting commitment had a grain or more of truth (this despite the fact that I was also hanging out with gay couples who had been together for many years). I wondered if I’d just had bad luck and kept meeting guys who only wanted a fling.

And then, eventually, I had to admit the truth: that the only thing all the failed relationships had in common was me, and I needed to figure out what I was doing wrong… Continue reading Love is in the bear →

How I learned to love the city

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cutestpaw.com
Just a kitty in the city.
This essay/article was posted several years ago, but it captures a truth about being open to change: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mountains.

There are many differences between my story and Dan’s (besides his being famous, and me not). Michael and I have not adopted, for instance. I have never, ever wanted to live in New York City (visits have been fine, but live there? Never!). And so on.

When people talked about how beautiful the mountains are, it was more of a “meh” for me than a “WTF.” I grew up in the central Rocky Mountain states. Mountains are supposed to always be there, being beautiful. It’s flat places (and how anyone can stand to live there) that always baffle me… Continue reading How I learned to love the city →

My new year’s wish for you

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Some years ago I wished everyone:

May you be wise when you need to be, foolish when it doesn’t matter, loved always, and ever ready to love.

And I can’t think of a better wish.

Happy New Year!

I now pronounce you…

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Same-sex couples wait in long lines to wed in Salt Lake City.
Same-sex couples wait in long lines to wed in Salt Lake City.
I’ve been expecting the New Mexico ruling. They already had a number of individual counties issuing licenses to same sex couples, and the state didn’t have a specific same-sex ban (unlike other states). There were a number of different laws related to marriage that included gender-specific clauses, but it seemed fairly obvious the state supreme court would rule in favor of equality. So, when the court issued its unanimous ruling on Thursday, it was worth cheering, but it wasn’t a shocker.

Utah on Friday was a big shock. Especially to me, since part of my childhood was spent in one of the most religiously conservative counties in that state… Continue reading I now pronounce you… →

Anniversary

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Michael is the handsome devil on the right.
Michael is the handsome devil on the right.
So, 365 days ago the sweetest, most capable, most patient, and most astonishingly funny man married me.

I really don’t quite understand what he sees in me. Whenever I ask him why he puts up with me, he just counters with asking why I put up with him. Which makes no sense at all, because I can be annoying and exasperating.

Continue reading Anniversary →

16 and counting…

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Cartoon showing the equality doesn't unbalance anything.
Freedom to marry doesn’t hurt anyone.
So, the Hawaii legislature has passed marriage equality, setting the Aloha state to be the 16th that will allow all citizens, gay and straight, say “I do” to love and commitment.

It has been an extraordinary year. Think about it, just 18 months ago, the citizens of North Carolina, a state that already had a law banning marriage between same-sex couple, approved an amendment to their state constitution prohibiting the state from performing or recognizing either same-sex marriages or civil unions. Then, 12 months ago, on election night, the voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington state all approved measures in favor of same-sex marriage (and the voters of Minnesota rejected an attempt to amend their constitution to prevent the marriages). That brought the number of states recognizing marriage equality to ten. And it was as if the floodgates had opened…

Continue reading 16 and counting… →