Grandma took this picture of me when I was three or four.I’ve written more than once about names: the names I’ve been known by, or the names people I’ve known have used. Each time I’ve at least circled around the question of what, precisely, do we mean when we talk about someone’s real name?
You will find a number of people who insist that only one’s legal name can be considered the real name. But being a person who has legally changed his name (and having known a few other people who have done so), I can assure you that there are also a significant number of people who insist that a legally changed name, while certainly legal, is not real. They insist that only the name given by one’s parents at birth is real, and all the rest are counterfeits… Or nicknames, or something. I confess I have trouble understanding their reasoning, because anytime I tried to discuss it with one of these people, they always reverted to insulting or dismissive language. “You’re just changing it to rebel against your parents,” or “So you didn’t like your name? grow a little backbone and embrace it.”
Picture taken at my Aunt Silly’s house circa 1999.I don’t remember the exact moment I fell in love with Michael.
I remember meeting him, at the Northwest Science Fiction Convention, in 1996. I remember meeting him at a room party I was co-hosting. He tells me we actually met the day before, at a panel discussion. I do remember discussing the cute, shy guy from Missouri with Ray after the party. I remember meeting him again, a year later, at NorWesCon. I remember him showing up for a Red Dwarf Marathon Party Ray and I hosted a couple months later, and because by the time the party ended there were no more buses going back to Tacoma, he crashed at our place and we drove him home the next day. By that point, he and Ray had bonded like they had known each other for years. So we started seeing him a lot more often.
When Ray died suddenly (only days after the doctors had given a cautiously optimistic report on how the second round of chemo had gone), Michael was one of many friends who kept me from falling completely to pieces in the aftermath…Continue reading I remember…→
I’m the kid in this picture. The man standing beside me on the old street-sweeper is my mom’s biological father, who is not my grandfather.I’m the first to admit that I have more than a few buttons that people can push to send me off on a long rant. One of them is the use of the term “real father” (or mother, or virtually any other familial designator), particularly when it is used to refer to someone’s biological-but-absentee relative. And sometimes I don’t just rant, sometimes I’m barely suppressing an urge to punch someone in the mouth over the use of the phrase. More than a little of the blame for that irrational reaction rests solidly at the feet of the man pictured here with a very young me. A man named Ralph.
The story can get a little convoluted, so I’m going to first sum-up, then unpack a bit as I also explain why I get so ticked-off about the use of the phrase “real father.”…Continue reading What do you mean, “real” father?→
The other night while I was walking home from work (which takes a bit over an hour) I had this brilliant idea. For a while last year I participated in Throwback Thursday (#tbt or #Throwback) by writing a blog post inspired by one of the large collection of scans of the contents of Grandma’s old photo albums. It was fun. It was an easy way to make me write about something other than politics or the news.
But it isn’t something I really wanted to do constantly. Particularly since I was trying to avoid posting pictures of living relatives without their permission—or at least to minimize it. So that limited which pictures could be used. There’s also only so many childhood memories that I can make at least potentially interesting to other people.
So I took a break, figuring I would do it occasionally, or maybe pick a month next time, or something. Anyway, there I was, walking home in the drizzle, listening to music on my headphones, cars zooming by in the dark, and I had an idea of something else that I could do on Thursdays; make it the usual Thursday thing. It was a topic that could include Throwback Thursday. So I would have the benefits I get from having a weekly scheduled task, that could sometimes be a Throwback Thursday post, but most of the time would be something else. And that something else would, I hoped, be of slightly more interest than just another walk down memory lane with Gene.
It was brilliant! I even thought of a cute name that had the same initials as the short hashtag (tbt). I resolved to start my first post as soon as as I got home.
When I walked in the door, my glasses fogged up. I heard my husband call to me from upstairs, but I couldn’t understand what he said because I still had my headphones on. I had to turn off my headphones, take off (get myself untangled from) my backpack, peel off my wet hat and coat, hang up the coat and the hat, get out of my shoes, get the rest of my damp work clothes peeled off and tossed into the hamper, then pull them back out to check the pockets which I always forget, figure out where I set my glasses down when I came in the door, put on some sweatpants and fuzzy socks—all the while as Michale and I babble at each other about dinner and/or our days or something else that one of us thinks is important—check the mail, collect my phone and iPad and watch and headphones to put on their chargers…
And finally I sat down and woke up my laptop. I jumped to WordPress right away to start the first post in the new Thursday idea…
…and I couldn’t remember what the nifty notion was. I don’t just mean that I didn’t remember what I meant to start writing for today’s post, I mean that I couldn’t remember the umbrella topic/personal meme that was going to be my new regular Thursday thing. The thing that had the initials T B T and could include Throwback Thursdays as a subset.
I remember having the thought. I remembered the entire internal conversation about how I’d do it. But the idea itself? Gone.
And it’s still gone, days later. I haven’t got the slightest idea what it was. None.
Cousins David, me, Tom, Trudi, and Chip, plus Aunt Silly, Great-uncle Lyle, and Great-aunt Viv (I’m second guy from the left).When I was 14 years old I went on a road trip with my Aunt Silly and her family. They lived in Phoenix, so I was sent on a bus from the tiny town in northwest Colorado to Arizona. After spending about a week in Phoenix, we were all loaded into a big station wagon and drove to California where, among other things, we visited my favorite Great Uncle and his wife and youngest son, after having spent several days visiting with the same Great Uncle’s older daughter and her family, then up to Washington were we visited Grandma and Grandpa P, then back to Colorado where everyone visited my folks and our Great-grandparents and a few other relatives from my dad’s side of the family, before Aunt Silly and family got back on the road to return to Phoenix.
It was a big family trip. Our misadventures were nothing like anything one would get in a road trip movie, but there were a few.Continue reading Cousins, part 3→
Me at age seven, being photographed by Mom’s biological father.I hang onto things. Being a packrat from a long line of packrats, this should come as no surprise. And it’s something I’ve done for as long as I can remember. Take the photo I’ve picked for today’s post. If you look closely, you’ll see that the striped shirt I’m wearing is actually several sizes too small. I kept wearing that shirt, not caring that it would no longer cover my belly, for several years. I vaguely recall the argument that arose one time when I wanted to wear in to school (I think it was early in first grade). I loved my blue-striped shirt, and since I could still pull it over my skinny shoulders, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t wear it!
Several times over that years I have found myself in a conversation with an acquaintance or friend about one of my collections. I collect (or have collected in the past) a lot of things: Continue reading Haven’t you outgrown that?→
This picture was taken when I was four.I mentioned previously that one of my uncles declared, when I was a child, that the reason I was a sissy was because my parents let me play with G.I. Joe action figures. Except, of course that he didn’t call them action figures. He called them “dolls.” Again and again he repeated the word “doll” during his rant. And he said it in the same tone of voice that he said words like “sissy,” “pussy,” and “girlie.”
When I came out at the age of 31 (yep, it took a while), more than one relative on that side of the family repeated the theory that the reason I was a homo was because of those G.I. Joe dolls I had as a kid.
People who understand the medical science know that a person’s sexual orientation is determined sometime before the age of two (it is almost certainly earlier, but it’s much more difficult to measure before then), so toys I received as presents at the age of seven didn’t have anything to do with it. But the claim is wrong in another way.
I never owned a G.I. Joe action figure as a child.
What I had, was Captain Action.
The original G.I. Joe was created by toy designer Stan Weston. He licensed the idea of his articulated action figure that could have a infinite number of costumes and accessories to Hasbro. The deal wasn’t an exclusive license, so Weston took Hasbro’s money and formed his own company.
Once he saw that Hasbro was going with only soldier accessories, he secured licensing deals with D.C. Comics, Marvel Comics, and King Feature Syndicate to produce a similar action figure, but one that was a something of a shape-shifter.
Captain Action’s exact shape differed from G.I. Joe in several ways, the most noticeable being that his head seemed a bit small for the body and the facial features are a little weird. The reason was that, thanks to all of those licensing deals, among the accessories you could buy for Captain Action were kits to transform him into characters such as Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Aquaman, Steve Canyon, Buck Rogers, the Lone Ranger, Flash Gordon, and so on. Each of those kits included a “mask” that completely covered Captain Action’s face, giving him the face of the character in question.
The Christmas that I received Captain Action, I also received the Superman kit. Note that there is no action figure in the box. That is a full-head face to go over the Captain Action figure’s head, a costume, and other accessories, but no action figure.
The thing I remember most about the Superman kit is that when I put the Captain Action clothes back on the figure, I often put the red Superman boots on him. I even remember explaining to someone why I thought the red boots looked better with the Captain Action costume. I also remember that another kid swiped my Krypto the Superdog toy. And I never got it back.
The following Christmas, several relatives got me G.I. Joe accessories, because they were easier to find (and probably most of them didn’t realize that Captain Action wasn’t a G.I. Joe). They only kind of worked. Captain Action’s chest was just enough bigger than G.I. Joe’s that I couldn’t fasten the shirts and jackets that came in the G.I. Joe kits. So when my Captain Action was dressed up as a marine or a sailor, he also had his shirt open, showing off his hyper-muscled chest. It made him look like a member of the Village People—except that the band didn’t exist until ten years later.
Now that I think about it, maybe that was part of the reason that one uncle was convinced the action figures were making me gay: my Captain Action was always baring his chest!
There was even a Captain Action comic book. I owned a copy of this exact issue, and it was still part of my comic collection years after my action figure had fallen apart.My uncle wasn’t the only person who had misgivings about boys playing with dolls. When Hasbro introduced the first G.I. Joe, they invented the term “action figure” to label and advertise it precisely because their marketing research indicated that a lot of parents were reluctant to buy a doll for a boy.
While I remember seeing figures for Dr. Evil, Captain Action’s nemesis, I don’t think I ever saw the Action Boy figure in stores. I know, from reading collectors’ web sites, that there were Action Boy figures and there were accessory kits to turn him into Robin (to go with Captain Action in the Batman kit) or Superboy.
It’s probably just as well. As I recall, my Captain Action was laying in my toy box completely naked most of the time. Whenever I wanted to play with him, I had to spend a while tracking down enough clothes and accessories to dress him up as someone. If there had been a naked Captain Action and a naked Action Boy lounging about in my toy box, that uncle would have probably had a stroke!
I’m 3 years old in this picture, taken at my maternal grandparents’ house.I mentioned earlier about one set of Christmas pictures showing me with cowboy toys, even though that was apparently the first year I started begging for an Easy Bake Oven. Several of the toys in the pictures are related to the television show, Have Gun, Will Travel, which I was told years later by my grandmother was my favorite show at the time. I don’t remember the program, at all. I only found one picture from that Christmas, which I’ve posted here. This is taken at my maternal grandparents’ house, so I suspect the only presents visible are from those grandparents.
My mom has a picture of me in the same “Have Gun Will Travel” shirt, along with a cap gun and a couple of other cowboy-related toys, taken in front of our Christmas tree in our own living room. But I don’t seem to have a copy of it.
Chuck Connors as the Rifleman and Johnny Crawford as his son in a publicity photo. Chuck was shirtless in a lot of episodes.While I have no recollection of Have Gun Will Travel, the show I do remember, which was on the air those same years (both of them aired their final episode in April of ’63) was The Rifleman. I have a lot of very vivid memories of that show, even though I was only three when it went off the air. I don’t remember the plots of any episodes, but I have a lot of memories of the star, Chuck Connors, and the many times he appeared shirtless on the show.
While there is still some debate about how much genetics play in sexual orientation, the overwhelming evidence has shown for a long time that what arouses us emotionally and sexually is pretty much set in stone by the age of two.
Let me repeat that: by the age of two.
This seems weird and a little creepy, but it makes sense when you remember that we are fundamentally social creatures. We are definitely hard-wired to form various kinds of bonds with the people around us. When a little boy exhibits the signs of having a crush on a girl or woman in his life, we think it’s cute and adorable and a nature precursor to other feelings that will come along later in life. That’s all we’re talking about here, except the fact is that for some of us we developed crushes on males.
Congressman Shock has a great anti-gay voting record, but posts pictures of himself to Instagram like this, has never married, and has lived with a string of similar male “roommates” for over a decade.And if the adults around us noticed, they freaked out and tried in various ways to redirect those impulses. That redirection is doomed to failure. The closest anyone gets to success at that is that some non-heterosexual kids become fairly good at faking it later in life (though most seem to be pretty bad at it, cf Aaron Schock or Marcus Bachmann).
I have wondered why I don’t recall this show that my parents and grandparents all say was my favorite, while I do have memories of the other show. It’s possible that the adults around me noticed that my enthusiasm for Chuck Connors wasn’t the same as the way I talked about the other show, and so they were discouraging my interest. I suspect that it is more likely that Have Gun… was also the favorite show of one of my grandparents or parents, so the shared enthusiasm made it a stand out. I have some vague recollections of Dad commenting disparagingly about Chuck Connors when one of his movies came up on TV a few years later, so maybe I only got to watch the Rifleman occasionally, and it was safer not to talk about it around Dad.
I don’t know when my parents first began worrying that I was queer. The Easy Bake Oven wasn’t the only toy that I got told I couldn’t have because it was a girl’s toy… But I should point out that when I finally did get the oven, I quickly converted it to a device for amateur chemistry experiments. And the toys I most remember loving to play with in those early years were my Tonka trucks—especially my bright yellow steam shovel. So I wasn’t that gender non-conforming.
Publicity photo from the television show, the Rifleman.I have previously said that I think my first celebrity crush was Race Banon, a character from the cartoon series Jonny Quest. But I suspect that it was more likely Chuck Connors’ character in The Rifleman.
I’m about 5 years old in this picture of myself and my sister.I can’t count how many times I’ve been asked a variant of, “When did you realize you were gay?” or the more exasperating “When did you decide to be gay?” For the latter question my response for some years has been to turn it around and ask when the person asking decided to become straight.
But there isn’t an easy answer to the first version of the question. I can remember very vividly the first time it was made clear to me, without a doubt, that I was different in a fundamental way from most of the people I knew. And furthermore that that difference had something to do with the meanings of the words “boyfriend” and “girlfriend.”
I and my cousin as babies, being held by our moms, with our great-grandma in the middle, our grandma in the back left, and my paternal grandma in the back right.My almost-twin cousin spent an incredible amount of time a couple years ago going through all of our grandmother’s photo albums. She scanned in every picture, transcribed notes on the photos or on the album pages themselves. She tried to track down people who could identify unnamed people in pictures, and so on. She burned discs with all the pictures and sent one to everyone in the family for a Christmas present. Continue reading Relativity→
Font Folly 