David W.rites

Blog Post - I Am a Sex Tourist Pig (Berlin, September 2011)

2011-11-21T20:23:00.000-08:00

The social code between a man and his Manhunt tricks can get murky. This became apparent to me two months ago in Berlin as I sat stunned, on the receiving end of an assault of text messages, trying to understand my obligation and assess my blame.

My phone had been vibrating and chiming at intervals that day, or at least since I had woke up at 2 o’clock in the afternoon to announce text messages from Brad. By 4 o’clock his pique had escalated to this...

WTF? Is this about your cock on your terms on your schedule??...Are you really a prick?

By an equivocation made up of white lies and delayed text responses (which I blamed on AT&T routing to the German carrier), I had tried to diffuse our one-sided dust-up. I’m sorry I missed you and I just got your text, sort of things.

Throughout the day the idea of sex with Brad again, for a second time in many, many months, had started to give me a dread. I wanted to creep away from my promise to meet up with him again.

By early evening, I had decided not to keep our “date” although I had not been that direct. I had suggested he come meet me at the bar rather than his flat. As I walked to PrinzKnecht, an unpretentious Berlin gay bar, to meet some new friends (friendly Parisians), Brad fired a fusillade that hit my phone as five separate text messages:

I am trying to hook up with yiou now. But the point is you dont want to meet now, right? Lets try some honesty here.

--2 seconds later--

Ok. You are a fucking prick. You send me a text telling me you are in a 3some! Then you want to blow me off tonight because you need to recharge. Then yo

--3 seconds later--

u only offer to meet on your time and your terms. And you lie about not seeing the text i sent you earlier. I dont think i've ever been so disrespected

--4 seconds later--

by a stranger. Guys should reduce you to your cock. Because you behave like a royal prick. Shame on me for feeling bad that i had to work last night and

--5 seconds later--

couldnt meet you. You are nothing more than a sex tourist prick.

I had met him in NYC many months prior through Manhunt, while he was in the States on a work trip. He was an American ex-patriot living in Berlin. He was an attractive man: forty-something, lean, sinewy, handsome, white, middle-American type of man. We had some good sex and light conversation in his hotel room one evening after work in the middle of a week. I added him to my “buddy list” so that we could hook up again should his work bring him back to Manhattan.

Folsom EU prompted our near reunion. Folsom in San Francisco is an annual celebration of leather and fetish that gives license for men to gear up and meet and play. This is the European sister event in the capital of Germany where kink is already unhinged at any time of the year.

After I had booked my travel I hit up Brad on Manhunt to try to reconnect. He jumped at the opportunity and, this is the moment when my sense of ick emerged, he insisted on having my first two nights in Berlin once I arrived.

I was going to Folsom EU alone and had no agenda other than to gear up and drop into the rabbit hole like a leather clad Alice. Not having plans or people binding me, it was difficult to defer to his pre-booking the two evenings. So I said sure. Hookups planned in advance always go into the calendar as tentative anyway. That’s the online sex experience and I don’t hold my tricks or my self to the standards I keep with friends or even acquaintances.

I arrived in Berlin the morning of September 7th, which coincidentally was my 41st birthday. Brad was MIA that night and that was a minor relief. The next morning, er afternoon, when I woke up I popped open Grindr (an app that uses GPS to establish proximity and immediacy at the moment of horniness) and it started to light up like a switchboard. A compact, muscly German with a shaved head and a goatee chatted me up: “Looking?” And soon after, “I’ll be at your hotel in 20 minutes....and can I bring a buddy.” I hadn’t been awake 20 minutes at the point. I dissolved a Viagra under my tongue for faster effect and showered and then my guests arrived.

They stayed for a couple of hours of sex with a few substances in the mix. The whole scenario was so debaucherous and immediate that it still pleasantly shocks me. In America there is a lot of negotiating about when and where (“host” or “travel;” everyone wants their sex delivered to them in NYC). The gay sex stateside just didn’t happen that easily. It could be easy but not completely without effort.

Maybe the European gays took their sex in stride or it had been a by-product of Folsom where kink and sex and fetish went to mingle and celebrate for a week. Also, Berlin was a city of non-stop sexual availability and indulgence. The bars all had backrooms and in many places it was more backroom than bar.

Brad re-emerged by text as I was “taking a break.” I told him how I was preoccupied, figuring the context of our acquaintance and the spirit of Berlin and Folsom would make that acceptable, treating us like members of a fucking brotherhood. Turns out he didn’t find my high-jinks amusing. Later when I tried to worm out of our meeting he let me know...

I moved heaven and earth to make sure I could be free for fucking tonight.

But I was sexed-out and he wanted me to travel to his place. I invited him to meet for a drink at PrinzKnecht and take it from there. He balked. (This was all by text. Never once did we talk.) And that’s when his condemnations went over-the-top.

Was I “nothing more than sex tourist prick?” Did I deserve that condemnation? I had tried to be polite albeit indirect. Folsom EU is sex tourism. It’s not just sex tourism. What is the norm where a week is spent dressing in leather; going out to bars and clubs where sex and fisting is not just available but anticipated and expected? Add to that excess depravity, apps on iPhones and iPads that made men available immediately in the intermission between sleeping and going out again.

To receive that kind of vitriol was upsetting to experience regardless of my culpability. To then feel mostly blameless somehow made the whole episode that much more confusing. I suspected that I was getting the sewage from other disappointments in his life. Still, I was rattled that night and intermittently for a few days after. Although I didn’t feel responsible for his bile, I did assume some guilt for having inspired the fury and hurt palpable in those messages. Instead of being nice I cold have been forthright, honest. Maybe that was my fault. I kept pondering about the etiquette and integrity we owe to each other in a realm that is purely or mostly just sex, largely virtual, and transitory.

The next night I saw Brad, across a bar, the next night at Lab.Oratory, a sex club spread out through a cavernous, abandoned factory building. The number “950” had been marked on my arm. It was meant for me to use when claiming my clothes later that night as I had stripped down to a leather jock strap. The club suspended admission at 1,000 men that night despite a queue a ¼ mile long outside.

We saw each other for a second before I could avert my eyes and look away. Lab.Oratory was large and crowded so avoiding each other was possible and, I felt, rationale. I turned around a moment later and there he was talking to a new friend of mine who was standing next to me. My new friend then turned around to introduce Brad us!? I didn’t know if they knew each other or whether Brad had maneuvered this awkwardness.

“Do you know....?” my friend said to me.

“No. I can’t. I won’t,” I sputtered out and walked away. I suspected that Brad wanted a reaction and I refused to satisfy his bad behavior. I spotted him again again that night, once-or-twice, but he kept a distance; lurking in corners and staring, or at least that’s how I experienced it.

I did not see Brad again the rest of my week in Berlin.

Two months later the episode nagged at me. A hook-up, a no strings attached tryst, was not a situation where I would have expected a blowup of ethical relativism. In the vapor of Manhunt and Grindr what do we owe each other? Nothing, except to enjoy each other and endeavor to please one another in our fleeting moments together. And everyone should have a pleasing orgasm if he wants one. Pleasing. Pleasant. Sexy. Fun. That is all we can expect and nothing is guaranteed. That’s all I will agree to...in this context. That is my social contract with the men I meet for sex through the Internet.

A Willful Act of Obfuscation

2011-07-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

Gay pride was ecstatic this year. The crowd was dense and joyful. New York's legislature had accomplished the impossible and legalized gay marriage the Friday before, just before midnight.

On that gay pride Sunday, my friend Eric and I stood behind a police barricade on the east side of 16th Street watching the flag twirlers, fags, fairies, and normal Joes and Janes parade and pageant past us with the thump-thump of a distant boom box creating a pulse for this extra ebullient gay pride march. There was a cloudless periwinkle sky above us with a warm, summer breeze adding to the perfectness of the day.

Eric and I have been friends for almost 20 years through boyfriends, lovers, and husbands. He can provide a dose of whimsy when I'm maudlin and sober advice that sets me straight (so to speak) even when I'm not sensible enough to ask for it.

In the midst of the reverie we were having a semi-serious sidebar.

"I had to do it. I 'hid' Mark on Facebook. I just couldn't see it anymore," I confessed.

Eric laughed. "I turned to Bob last week..." (Bob is Eric's partner and now his fiance thanks to Cuomo.) "...and I said, I'm going to 'hide' Mark. Then Bob got quiet for a moment and admitted, 'I did that a couple of weeks ago. I just couldn't take all that bear stuff. ' And then he shook his head."

Now there was moral support better than a hug. When a friend hides your ex-husband before you do, that's a gesture of love and loyalty.

I'm getting gay divorced soon. My husband moved out earlier this year. The persistent memory from the last year of my marriage was my husband on the sofa, watching TV in stupor. That was how I left him when I went to work and that is where I found him when I got home. That's how we spent our evenings.

Post separation, Facebook revealed a man I couldn't recognize or had forgotten. Checking in at an art exhibit, status updates from bars, "Mark is now friends with..."

"It's unbelievable," I said to Eric, "I couldn't get him to go anywhere, to do anything. Now he's everywhere, doing everything. I can't see it. Where was that guy last year?"

Eric had a theory: "Maybe its just post-breakup stuff. Where you just run around wild doing all this stuff."

I interrupted, "I wanted him to do things, make his own friends, have his own life."

"I know. I know. But maybe he couldn't give himself permission to do that while you were together."

A roar from the crowd brought me back into the present. A float rolled past with Linda Carter at the helm. It looked like Wonder Woman was texting. Or posting her status to Facebook. Or adding a friend. The gesture can be so easy, innocuous and fleeting.

My last marriage was in Massachusetts. I want my second marriage - with whoever that will be - inaugurated in New York City. For me, this happy advance in my civil rights means that I can get married again. Married. Divorced. Married. That's equality, baby!

Now I need to go notify my "friends" about this blog post. :)

Is This Romantic?

2011-07-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

Netflix has lumped some of its recommended viewing into a category named "Romantic Comedies About Marriage." This is based on my having recently watched "The Four Seasons" and "The Money Pit."

That I have seen these movies in recent proximity reveals, perhaps, a certain masochism as I'm nearly divorced and trying to figure out how to keep my underwater mortgage afloat.

Netflix suggests that Love Hurts and Send Me No Flowers. Are these representative of the romance in marriage? This is what the algorithm has learned about marriage based on the collective input of subscribers.

There is/was romance in the routine struggle to keep a marriage going. It's difficult to see that, to remember that, from my current vantage point.

Learning to But Out

2011-05-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

Last October, after ten interviews over four weeks I did not get the job that had started to feel like it couldn't go any other way. At that moment I had been severed/unemployed for 3 ½ months.

So I redoubled my effort and hours spent looking for a job. That included a 6 PM networking round-table for IT (Information Technology) professionals in early November.

These types of events all tended to follow the same format at the start and this was no exception. There were about sixteen men and women in business drag seated around a long, long conference room table on the 26th floor of the old MetLIfe building. (Or perhaps some people still remember it as the old PanAm building.)

A flip chart at the front of the room had the drill:

Name

Target job and industry

Former job and company

Target companies in your job search

If anyone around the table had any insight or connections in your industry or ideas about target companies, they were asked to interject on the spot.

When it got time for my elevator pitch about myself, a fellow across and down the table offered some ideas: “Have you considered...” (I do not remember the specifics.)

I replied, “Yes. I had thought of that, but...”

The moderator, a tall women who sat upright in here chair at all times like she was ready to leap up, stopped me with her forceful, sand-papery voice, “No no no no no no no no no no no! Did everyone hear that? The ‘but.’ He was offering you a gift, David. Instead of interrupting him, you - we all - need to sit back and accept the gift that is being offered to you. Hear him out; with an open mind.”

I sat their stunned; momentarily, mentally slack jawed. The fellow repeated his intended advice fully while I sat and listened. When he finished I said a simple, “Thank you.”

I have lived in New York city for 20 years. Someone taking a breath is an opportunity to interject yourself into the conversation. We anticipate the end of the other person’s sentences because we rush through many things here including conversations. So this piece of wisdom can feel counterintuitive although it runs adjacent to many other zen like principles that can lower your blood pressure rather than amp it up: Listen. Be present. Stay in the moment.

In the months since, I have made an effort to banish the buts. I listen to myself speaking and will try to edit myself on the spot if the “bbbbbbut” creeps in. It’s tough backing out of a point/count-point statement in mid-execution. I have tried to eliminate it from my everyday email. That’s tough because it prevents one from using the let me tell you about something I like before qualifying it with constructive criticism.

It feels like a worthwhile endeavor. The but not only disqualifies and dismisses the other person, it prevents me from discovering something I didn’t already know instead of interrupting with my pre-conceived knowledge. If I just shut up and listen I may find something new that I hadn’t considered before.

Looking for work required stalwartness that created unnecessary defenses. In that moment, I was reminded that I needed to invest in some humility so that I could get back to work. The moderator’s firm rebuke broke through that calcification. The rest of the meeting was uneventful but the lesson learned felt profound.

The continued application of this wisdom has been a work-in-progress. I still hear myself interrupt and sometimes talk right over someone like a bulldozer in action, enamored with my own opinions or feeling an urgency to be heard at that moment. (In the clusterfuck of conference calls, it’s nearly impossible to resist the urge to barge in.)

No great revelation has come of it. At least, I am no longer oblivious of courtesy. And I find that, when I listen and wait and respond, I feel calmer and I may find something new in myself that I had not considered before.

Sick of Sorry

2011-02-27T08:54:00.000-08:00

John and I met at a bar in Gramercy, not far from Union Square, on a prematurely dark December evening at the end of last year; a typical black-box kind of place.

I hadn’t seen John - a big jovial grizzly-bear of a fella - in months; not since I had been laid off at the end of July. The company we had both worked for was sold. John went with the acquiring company. I was severed.

At the moment we bear hugged hello, I had been out of work for a little more than four months.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

I assumed he meant my job prospects so I listed companies I had been targeting and the many interviews that showed positive progress.

As I talked I kept my tone and manner buoyant. That was intentional. Self pitying was not allowed. In order to stay strong throughout my job hunt I had assumed the position that I was stalwart so as not to admit those doubts and fears creeping around the corners.

I had also begun to anticipate other people’s well intentioned sympathy and so I reinforced my self esteem every time I entered a “hello, how are you?” conversation.

“So, how’s Mark?” he asked,.

“We’re separating. Planning to divorce.” I made a little smile. I had taken the stance that the unraveling of my marriage would have to wait until I landed a job. At that time, divorce would have been a dangerous distraction from finding a job that would pay my mortgage. I needed my focus and energy soly fixated on finding a job to pay the mortgage. For every interview I wanted to portray myself as strong and confident so I played that part.

John paused before replying. “Shit. Please at least tell me that your health is okay?”

We laughed and I patted him on the shoulder.

How are you? So what's up? I had dreaded those questions every time I heard it over those six months of unemployment. When I answered it in any detail, in any number of ways, the response was almost always: I am so sorry, accompanied by a slump and a sad sack look of compassion.

The good intentions were obvious and kind. That had not been missed. I just didn’t want any fucking sympathy. I didn’t need it. I didn’t want it.

A week or so after seeing John, a friend-of-a-friend laid another “I’m sorry” on me. And then these words popped into my head was: Don’t cry for me Argentina.

So I said that back to the friend-of-a-friend: “Don’t cry for me Argentina!” I said it with so much attitude that I almost snapped my fingers like a sassy black woman.

He just looked back at me baffled.

In that moment I found clarity and, in the weeks that followed, I ran the song and its lyrics through my mind and sometimes sang them out loud.

Don’t cry for me Argentina
The truth is I never left you
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I kept my promise
Don’t keep your distance.

The lyrics make no literal sense, even in the context of the musical (“Evita”) when Eva Peron sings it to her adoring mob. They have been chanting “Eva! Eva! Eva!” She comes to the balcony of the Casa Rosada and answers them with this ballad.

As I wrote this I began to realize that the “cry” wasn’t boo-hoo, weeping, but rather calling out. The crowd is crying out her name so she sings to quiet them while laying out some personal actualization as political theater.

It made no difference. The abstraction of the lyrics and killer melody allow anyone - me, for example - to project themselves into the song. As I puttered around my apartment, unemployed, yet defiant and rueful, I sang these lyrics again-and-again and I felt coherent and empowered.

Losing my job and looking for another had been aggravating and tedious, but it was also thrilling.

I found something clarifying. As I looked at my profession, my experience, and my value, I began to sell myself like a goddamn gold standard!

And more, I didn’t like the job I lost. The only thing that was going to make me quit was being asked to leave.

As for the end of my five-year marriage, that sucked. And I had a mortgage where I now owed more than the apartment was worth after it devalued. And my severance had dwindled and I was dipping into savings.

As each woe piled on top of me, I kept thinking that I could not take on one more problem and yet I did. I did not panic. I did not cry. Oh no, not I! Handling that level of responsibility in the face such adversity made me feel like a bad-ass. From the depths of my soul, the guts of my being, I felt like a Phoenix rising out of the ashes.

I had a plan:
1. Get a job
2. Pick the least terrible option for condo
3. Separate and divorce

By the first week of February I had accomplished #1, when I started a good job after fielding two other offers. Now my husband and I are working through tasks two and three.

I changed my Facebook “relationship status” to “It’s complicated.” That, without intention or malice, became a public declaration resulting in comments and messages from concerned friends.

What really tickled me was the friend who “liked” it with the wee thumbs up icon. Some people might think that bad taste or just a bizarre by-product of the Facebooking of our lives. I appreciated it. I liked my new relationship status too. It’s forward moving and leaves opportunity for someone new.

I appreciate every one's concern - friends, family, strangers.

“I still need your love after all that I’ve done,” but “don’t cry for me Argentina.”

Please like my status.

I’m good.

A Change in the Weather

2010-11-23T08:33:00.000-08:00

My marriage is ending.

The “ing” jumps out at me because ,not only does it place my predicament in the present tense, but it also puts me in the middle of a continuum rather than at the beginning of the end.

That statement - “my marriage is ending” - is a declaration and also a realization. The relationship didn’t just crumble one day. It weakened until it broke irrevocably. Sadly it is also not the end of the break up because - logistically, financially, emotionally - separation takes much, much longer than anyone can stand. But here I am; having to cope with life as it happens, rather than how I’d like it to transpire.

My husband, I believe, suffers from wanderlust - the impulse to wander, to leave. It is a gut feeling that a better, more exciting person or life is somewhere out in the world. Your present set of circumstances prevent you from finding it with an imaginary set of shackles; the old “ball-and-chain,” if you will. He longs for a more “passionate” partner and existence.
This is where musical theater comes to my aid with a song from a failed musical, “The Baker’s Wife.” The score boasts an exquisite set of songs by Stephen Schwartz (Pippin, Godspell, Wicked). It tells the simple story of an older man - the baker - and his younger wife. She leaves him for a sexy young man only to return, wiser, to her husband. She had wanderlust and recovered.

Late in the show a song comes along as a poignant counterpoint to wandering and as a beautiful cautionary tale: “Where is the Warmth?”

Since I grow feverish with the flush that comes every time he holds me,
naturally you'd suppose I'd be warm when I'm hot.
Well, I'm not.

But oh, where is the warmth?
The fire is there
But where is the warmth?

These lyrics have been looping through my mind a lot lately, especially “...naturally you'd suppose I'd be warm when I'm hot./Well, I'm not.” That plaintive conclusion comforts me. Don’t get me wrong. I like the burn, the fever that comes with some new couplings. We have had an open marriage so I have felt that rush and excitement that comes with inexplicable chemistry. I did wonder, in those moments, if one of those men held the promise of a better life than my man at home. Then my rational, reasonable self would kick-in to remind me that the heat is not sustainable.

But, ah, the warmth! That’s hearth that heats the home. It’s the concern and care you keep for one another, the dinners together, television watching side-by-side, planning for your shared future, telling your husband about your day, collaborating on what towels to buy, saying “I love you” at the end of each telephone call and before you go to sleep. The expression of that warmth can be subtle and easy to miss, or discounted as the “business” of running the relationship. Whenever I felt the heat with another man, I tried to remember the joint history of my real relationship so that I would not become tempted to squander it to chase a fleeting flame.

There are cold winds, too, that blow through a relationship: misunderstandings and miscommunications, hurt feelings, jealousies. Days pass with little said to one another. Or others when all that passes between us is the business of the marriage. He would retreat into himself to worry and fret and I no longer tried to get him to talk it out. Sex was had more often outside the marriage than within it. And there were a whole slew of real life hardships that two must either bear up against and traverse together. That quiet, creeping chill can cause the space between two people to erode, separating them further and further away from each other’s good will.

As my husband’s wanderlust metastasized, in that cold space that grew between us, my own imagination began to wander. I allowed myself to envision a happier, more simple, less complicated future - without him.

So what do you do when your spouse tells you that he wants to leave and you are also not so certain you want him to stay?

If my grip on the relationship is tenuous as he pulls away, then it’s not so hard to let go.

Looking for a Disorder

2010-09-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

"Perhaps we should explore David's drinking. The conscious and unconscious reasons for it."

So said our - my husband Mark's and mine - couples counselor Tony. I like him. Natty and trim. He uses his hands like an orchestra conductor to slow, start, and pause our dialogue. He has the kind of haircut that looks like it gets a weekly trim and he peers out at us through glasses with prominent black frames.

Mark and I sit close to each other, side-by-side, on a small leather sofa-ette, which I tend to slip lower and lower toward the edge of the seat. The room itself is carved out of an old New York building without any symetry in the walls, like an aimless parallelogram.

His statement was both a cross-reference to another session and also a nonsequiter within the session.

For context: Tony and I had a one-on-one session two weeks prior, as part of our course of couples therapy. He had brought up drinking then, which had made me uncomfortable.

"If we talk about this, I feel, it then becomes a problem and I don't see it that way."

Look, I drink, but I'm not an alcholic, I thought.

Tony is adept and empathetic so he'd reframed the discussion (which is something he does well): "Let's not talk about it as a problem. Let's just address it as a thing. Something to explore. Perhaps there is something there worth understanding without vilifying it. You do like to drink

"Well, yes," I'd admitted. "Some wine..."

"How much?"

"Mark and I may drink a bottle with dinner."

"And cocktails?"

"Occasionally and moderately."

(Watching "Mad Men" does give me the urge to pour a few whiskeys on the rocks, while I watch it Sunday nights.)

"It's funny. I don't drink to get drunk or even to feel anything. I just like the ritual of it. Wine with dinner, unwinding at the end of the day."

And...I'm not drinking alone. Mark is there too, so why why am I the focus on this investigation? I ponder.

"Do you think- and perhaps just consider this - that it serves any other purpose?"

I sat for a moment and let the quiet settle in my head to see if something would reveal itself to me...about me. It did: "Perhaps, maybe it is an effort to anesthetize myself, a bit. A little. Just to keep the lid on..."

What I then conveyed and we further explored was that the wine keeps whatever anger and frustrations I may have in my marriage depressed. Not suppressed. Let's say less than fully expressed, like a burner turned down to simmer so the pot never boils over.

* * *

My dear friend Angela sent me an email this week apologizing for having "one too many" at my 40th birthday party last Sunday. She had given me the loveliest of toasts but she'd felt as if it meandered and went on a bit too long. She was also holding a baby - not her own, who (true to his disposition) was named "Cool" - during the tribute and he seemed to weigh her down as she spoke. (To read this from her perspective, go to Angela's column on the Huffington Post.)

As I read Angela's email, I immediately thought, what is one too many? The threshold is individual and defined by the consequences. If no one gets hurt and you make it to work the next morning without neglecting your spouse and children then you're no drunk in my estimation.

That occurred to me again when another friend wrote to tell me that she'd sent her husband of 25 years packing after Labor Day because of his long-term alcohol problem. She wrote that she felt like a pot insulting the kettle because she can drink. We used to work together and we'd go out on outings where she would get blitzed. In those instances she was always more of the loveliest parts of herself - more affectionate, more complimentary - and always upright and able to walk herself out at the end of the night.

It is useful to understand that we were both working in a Sales organization where professional drinking should really be a skill listed in the job description.

Her husband has since joined AA for the residue of his past sins will keep him out of their house for the foreseeable future.

* * *

In an earlier session, perhaps a month ago, Mark and I were exploring with Tony an interruption in - shall we say - physical intimacy.

So there had been a break in that interruption. There was a discussion about whether it counted because it had occurred after a night out on the town where we had imbibed a considerable amount of booze.

"Look." Tony paused our quibbling with the flat of his palm. "Sometimes alcohol is a social lubricant right? We do things, or we allow ourselves to do things when we've been drinking that we would otherwise not. Are the circumstances ideal? Sometimes if you wait for the optimal place and time and vibe, you can die waiting. Let's just - and I'm only suggesting that we consider this - let's 'celebrate' this." (And he did make air quotes on "celebrate" god bless him.) "Perhaps alcohol got you to it, but it happened and that's a good thing."

We each sat there silent, considering this prospect that alcohol is not always the villain.

* * *

Wine, beer, cocktails. Alcohol. We pour it out. We bring it to our lips. And we set down the glass when we're done drinking. It can be a balm or an agent for action.

We are so eager to vilify our own behavior that we go hunting for disfunction or tease it out of the obvious suspects, like alcohol. Marriage can be tough. If I gave voice to every frustration or passing gripe, my marriage would have ended years ago. The danger, however, being that perhaps the glasses of wine leave my thoughts muffled indiscriminately - the mundane and the critical subdued into inertia.

After all that pot that has been turned down to simmer may never boil over but it is still filled with scalding, hot water.

The Soundtrack of My Severance*

2010-08-27T08:08:00.000-07:00

When something happens in my life of any significance - happy, sad, or otherwise - I cycle through the iTunes implanted in my brain and play snippets from showtunes to give words to my feelings. I never seem to know any whole song by heart so a few relevant (and remembered) lyrics start playing as a loop in my head. If I'm alone at home or in an elevator perhaps I will sing these bits out loud. I also would extract every recording I have of those songs from my computer to put them into active rotation on my iPod.

When I found out in mid July that I would no longer have a job, or that my job would soon cease to exist because of a pending merger with another company, lines from "I'm Still Here" started a rotation in my brain that lasted for days.

Good times and bum times,
I've seen them all and, my dear,
I'm still here.
Plush velvet sometimes,
Sometimes just pretzels and beer,
But I'm here.

Carlotta sings the song in Stephen Sondheim's "Follies." She's an ex-showgirl and a D-A-M-E. She's been around the block and - although her feet are tired - she is indomitable. She ends the song, which is really a "fuck you" anthem for indefatigable, with a defiant declaration.

I got through all of last year
And I'm here.
Lord knows, at least I was there,
And I'm here!
Look who's here!
I'm still here!

That mapped pretty well to my initial reaction to losing my job - rage. In fact, I didn't lose my job. That makes it sound like I misplaced my employment because I was careless. It was taken from me. Not that I loved it. It frustrated the hell out of me a lot of the time. I had gotten through re-orgs, product blunders, and clueless bosess and I still performed. I'd delivered.

To quiet that Eartha Kitt/Dolores Grey/Yvonne DeCarlo ranting in my brain, I came up with a simple mantra: Sometimes you have to be kicked out of something in order to leave it.

It's true in work and love. My last bad break up happened about six years ago. The guy dumped me. He was a tool but I would've stayed in that relationship and entertained delusions of longevity. So he did me a painful favor by ending it.

Sometimes you have to be kicked out of something to leave it

A couple of weeks passed between notification and the merger close date where I was still an employee although I had little to do except pack up my cubicle into boxes and shuttle them home. It was at that point that my accompaniment turned morose. That's when I reached out to Miss Peggy Lee and her version of a song that starts with a child's house burning to the ground.

I remember when I was a girl
Our house caught on fire
And I'll never forget the look on my father's face
As he gathered me in his arms
And raced to the burning building out on the pavement
And I stood there shivering
And watched the whole world go up in flames
And when it was all over I said to myself
Is that all there is to a fire?
Is that all there is?

I did not know that song very well and I didn't already own it, so I bought it. I made a Bloody Mary at the kitchen counter as I downloaded it. Then I played it. And re-played it. And re-played that song that was a lot like a dancehall dirge.

Is that all there is?
If that's all there is, my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

One might interpret this song as a cry of help. I see it as someone who, like Carlotta in "Follies," remains defiant although depression has replaced the anger. Also a level of acceptance has seeped into the message. If that's as bad or good as life gets then fuck you and pour me another drink.

Word got out and people would come by or telephone to offer condolences, which I refused by repeating my mantra to them: Sometimes you have to be kicked out of something to leave it. I said it to them. I said it to myself.

Sooner or later, I had hoped, my mantra would convince my emotions that what had happened was a positive thing.

The merger closed and I got a short email - pick up your severance package from HR and drop off your laptop with IT.

Best thing that ever could have happened

A good friend asked if, considering that I didn't have to work, if I would be taking August off. It had never occurred to me that I had that option. Meaning that I had the choice of not worrying about finding that next job. Adding up my severance and payout for unused PTO, I had four or five months of income to use up before my unemployment turned chronic.

There gotta be endings
Or there wouldn't be beginnings —

Right?

These lyrics from "Now You Know" (from another Sondheim show - "Merrily We Roll Along") overtook the other songs running through my head. This was when acceptance met empowerment.

It's called flowers wilt,
It's called apples rot,
It's called theives get rich and saints get shot,
It's called God don't answer prayers a lot,
Okay, now you know.

Okay, now you know,
Now forget it.
Don't fall apart at the seams.
It's called letting go your illusions,
And don't confuse them with dreams.

That day, after considering the question of "taking August off," I began a "sabbatical." After 14-15 years of uninterrupted employment - including two recessions and surviving a half dozen layoffs, I took a break. I have been going to the movies, reading books, and finally watching those old foreign films on my DVR.

Because now you grow.
That's the killer, is
Now you grow.

This last bit reminds me to remind myself that it's the hard stuff that makes you better if you can accept it, learn what you can, and move on. The alternative it that you dwell on the unfairness and the misery until that bitterness calcifies making that sadness a permanent aspect of your thinking. I do not want to hang out with that person, much less inhabit that body.

So I got shit canned. That made me angry then sad. Now it is just something that happened to me that has given me the opportunity to rest, relax, reflect, and - soon - find some new job.

[*NOTE: A "soundtrack" is different than a "cast album." The former is for films and that latter for recordings of theater scores by the original, revival, or studio casts. I only bring this up, as this distinction is very important to some enthusiasts. To me it's the kind of esoterica that is only interesting to the person in the role of correcting another.]

Today on "the View"?

2010-08-27T07:45:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit anxious that I'm missing "The View" at this moment.

I'm concerned that I'm anxious about missing "The View."

I've spent too many days and hours at home. It's time to get out.

An All Too Obvious Metaphor

2010-06-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

This morning I sat down to re-assemble a jigsaw puzzle...of me and my husband Mark putting in the final piece of another puzzle. (Mark's wee nephew Milo was looking on from the side.)

In June 2007, my mother-in-law, Helen, had brought together her three sons with two spouses, one long-term boyfriend, and three grandsons to a big house on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, to commemorate her sixtieth birthday.

I found a puzzle in the house and obsessively spent a couple of hours a day, over 3 or 4 days, putting it together. The others would walk through and comment as they passed by or wandered onto the porch, while I stayed dedicated to my self-imposed task. (I like to finish something once I start.) Mark has helped from time-to-time and Milo had often come in and stared on rapt. Someone took a photo to memorialize the finishing it. So we all got into the picture.

That Christmas Helen had the photo made into a puzzle, which has sat on our dining table in the box, unopened ever since.

Today I scattered the little pieces on the table and started to put it together. "Oh," I thought, "I'll work on this for an hour or so and leave it off." Of course, I'm not that person so I spent the next several hours putting the pieces together.

Separating the edge pieces from the others. I started with the most recognizable parts - which were Mark and my smiling faces. Milo came together in fits and spurts. Other parts of the picture began to emerge unexpectedly - like the puzzle within the puzzle. Edges of some pieces would give clues to their destination because they contained the hard outline of some object - a chair, a table.

After putting together the middle and center, the outer edges challenged me. The detail in the photo was fuzzy and the colors and shapes simliar. Then my friend John called to catch up and make plans to meet later today. As I listened to him I still scanned the pieces looking for something to come into recognition. As occasional but close friends do, he asked about the state of my marriage. "It's good. Solid. Sometimes stale. I tend to focus on what needs to be fixed - in any circumstance - so I have to remind myself that a stable, happy relationship is a good one; especially a marriage that is almost five years old."

Our cat - Mills - walked across the table, threatening to disturb the unassigned pieces. He was quite likely to nudge bits onto the floor. I picked him up and tossed him away. He returned to the table top so picked him up and set him further away. All the while John listened to me curse the cat - "goddammit Mills!" - as the cat squawked back at me. I said goodbye to John and Mills left me in peace.

I returned to the gaps in the picture and the scattered, unintelligible pieces. I stared at some and then the fuzzy details started to make sense; not entirely but enough to try them out with the grain in the wall that would line up a row or gradation in color and light that made a piece of the puzzle more appropriate to one place than another.

Flashes of success were followed periods of staring and seeing nothing. Sometimes I would take a bit and try it here-and-there and - not often - it would snap into place. I finished the last area - of blurry grasses and leaves in a sprint. With fewer pieces to consider each one found its logical spot quickly and in a neat succession.

The picture of two smiling men - married - and a little boy looking on had been reconstituted.

A Cry for Help?

2010-06-20T10:07:00.000-07:00

My husband sent me an email last Thursday with a subject line matching the title of my most recent posting.

ok so that made me sad again. We can go somewhere for the summer, just not while I have this job.

It just how passive aggressive a blog can be even if that isn't your intention. I hadn't blamed him or even thought much about him when I typed out my bit of melancholy.

It's nice to know he reads what I've written.

Where Did Everybody Go?

2010-06-16T05:37:00.000-07:00

I boarded the L train yesterday morning with no trouble; at 8 o'clock in the morning. Without having to push myself into the mob inside the subway car or wait for the next (or the next-after-next) to arrive, I walked right on to it.

The gym has been quiet too. Relatively. Yesterday there were only two people per lane in the basement pool at Equinox on Greenwich. Ah the luxury of it!

But I'm suspicious. The men at Equinox are getting fatter and hairier. Or the handsome, fit men have migrated to the next happening gym. It happens. Gay men who work out slavishly move from gym to gym every year or so like birds in search of the ideal nest. David Barton has a live DJ during prime time, so they may have set down their wieghts and relocated there...for now.

I've never been clued into the next thing. I always seem to pick up on a trend a little late, just as the bleeding edge has already found the next "it." Or maybe the A gays have gone off to Fire Island for the summer, having spent the Fall and Winter sculpting the perfect pecs for shirtless dancing in the Pines.

All of this relative emptiness has me feeling left out. I have no plans for the summer. No vacation to look forward to; no summer share.

I should appreciate the extra room in the pool, on the sidewalks, and the occasional seat on the subway.

In a city that suddenly feels deserted when it is still quite crowded, not participating in the summer rituals of sun and fun can leave you wandering around like a wallflower waiting for a dance.

A Younger Man in Dublin

2010-06-07T04:48:00.000-07:00

Last week I spent a few days in Dublin; mostly for work with a Saturday for myself tacked on to the end of the trip.

The last time I'd been in Ireland was the end of September 1997. I tried to resurrect those memories so I could compare the then to the now. My remembrances were more like flipping through a set of random snapshots. "T'anks a million," I heard that 100 times when the Irish would get off the bus. I took a lot of buses back then. The All-Ireland Gallic football tournament had filled the city to overflowing, so I had to stay at a bed & breakfast in Donnybrook, which is a suburb just outside of Dublin proper, but it made me think of the failed Broadway musical based on the "The Quiet Man." (I didn't know any of the songs or even the plot though a vague vision of the LP cover would flash into my mind each time I boarded that bus to Donnybrook.)

I met an Irishman in a gay bar and asked him to dinner. I had wanted a proper Irish dinner.

"You'll have to bear with me, but if I wanted to eat Irish food I could just as well go home to my mom and dad." I asked him what he'd like. "Mexican," he replied.

I remember pints of Guinness that had to sit and settle before getting topped off. It looked like black sludge but tasted piquant and creamy. That hadn't changed in thirteen years.

Mostly I had this sense of my 27 year old self compared to the man who will turn 40 this Fall. Dublin had been my third trip out of the United States in 1997, after Warsaw and London. I had a job that had sent me to those cities for a month or more at a time. Dublin was tacked on to the end of the London trip. Those had also been my first trips abroad in my life. Coming from New York I had felt so cosmopolitan, but my almost 40 self knows that I was really a young man, a boy perhaps, wandering into a world that was much, much broader than I had any sense of.

New York New York Makes You Feel Brand New

2010-05-28T16:10:00.000-07:00

I'm at a hotel in Dublin; near Temple Bar. That means I'm staying in the part of the city I would caution people against because it's overrun tourists. Dublin is so small in a way that you can't apply the same principles.

It's Friday night at midnight and through my open window I heard "New York! New York! Makes you feel brand new." Ms Alicia Keys. I'm home.

The place they aspire to is the place that I live...when I'm physically there.

NYC is a state of mind. I carry it with me as I place my foot onto each Irish cobble stone.

Who Cares What Happened in High School? Me. A Little

2010-01-10T17:33:00.000-08:00

"Carl thinks that you hate him."

Someone ran up to me, delivered the news, and ran away. At least that's how I remember it; like a poof of information from a crier.

Then just as quickly Carl was standing near me, in a small semi-circle of people.

"I'm gay," he told me. He seemed to tremor, in his voice, in body.

"Yes. I know." I must have sounded annoyed. We'd known each other since we were in elementary school.

Carl had been absent from the Dobson High School - class of '89 - ten year reunion and the retirement party for drama teach the year before that (1998).

He's one of the only people I rejected when I got his "friend request" on Facebook.

This was a grudge I had been intent on keeping. It had lost it's enmity and perhaps even it's purpose. Still it had a rationality that kept it preserved.

What had happened back in high school that twenty years caused me to still give a damn?

When I was 18, he and his mother had sat down a new friend of mine and told him that I was "evil." And they were serious. I don't think they had any justification or reason to support their claim. They thought I was Ouija board evil and wanted to protect other people from that. It had been a hard experience at the time because this was a new friend and he listened to them. Or at least my purported evilness cast enough doubt for him to dump me.

If I had to guess, I would suspect that Carl's and his mother's insanity had been born from toilet paper.

I was sixteen and driving around Mesa, Arizona in a VW Rabbit Convertible with my friends Stacy and Sean. We bought toilet paper and flung it all over Carl's house. Why him? Because we knew where he lived. We went back an hour later. Why? Because we weren't sure where anyone else lived so we went to revisit our work. The TP had been removed. So we TP-ed it again.

Then we drove around. Unable to find another target, we went back to Carl's house. It had been cleaned again. But this time they were waiting for us, in stealth. Then Carl jumped out in front of the Rabbit, causing me to turn it around on two wheels. He took off after us in his Mustang. I lost him on the freeway. But then we were determined to, well, to take it too far.

I dropped off my friends at their homes. Two hours later, well after midnight, I snuck out to pick them up in the same Rabbit and redecorated Carl's front lawn.

That's the only thing I can come up with. Carl's family had been deeply religious - Catholic, so I became a bogeyman to them.

So more than twenty years later, we stood near each other in a ballroom at a Hilton in Scottsdale with him coming out to me. I look down at a red string on his wrist. He noticed, tugged at it and said, "My partner Gary and I practice Kabbalah." Carl had always been a Madonna fan going back to Junior High.

I knew that Gary was his partner for close to twenty years. Jesus. We had friend in common for thirty years. Carl and Gary had been living together since college in a condo that Carl's parent's had bought for him, not far from the TP'ed house. Carl was a flight attendant who had been having an early mid-life crisis putting that relationship in jeopardy a few years ago.

I had all that information without having spoken to him once in twenty years. I had all that news without really even wanting to know.

So Carl was still worried what I thought about him. And I was still mad at him for being a weirdo dick to me a generation ago.

I didn't want to confront that. And I couldn't let it go.

That's what people do at reunions.

Ignominy

2009-10-26T16:40:00.000-07:00

This story is old. Maybe six or seven year old.

I was thrusting. I remember nothing about the man underneath me.

It was at this place that's no longer there - El Mirage.

"Houston, between Norfolk and Suffolk." I had that sentence memorized so that I could recite even if I were stoned and drunk, which was the state I generally arrived in.

El Mirage was the last of the New York sex clubs. You can still find a couple sad semblances of bath houses. At El Mirage, you would get past the doorman, M*, a gentle giant. "Are you a cop? Show me your dick." Apparently a real cop had to answer the first question honestly and couldn't oblige the second request. The health department reps that shut it down, after witnessing unsafe sex, must not have had the same restrictions.

Everything there was black - the floor, the walls, even the lights.

That night I had been there awhile. The guy beneath wasn't my first...or second.

I was thrusting. Then I started slowing down. Not consciously. I had wanted to keep a pace. My dick needed it at that point to stay interested, but my energy faltered.

"LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE RUNNIN' OUT O' STEAM!"

In a place where everyone spoke in whispers or grunts, this fellow next to me, watching, gave me his review in a too loud voice.

He was an older dark, black man, maybe sixty, who resembled a turtle. Round body. Little head jutting forward. I remember him wearing glasses. He used to wander around El Mirage watching. He seemed harmless. He was harmless. He never interjected himself, just sat back a little observing.

I was running out of steam. I should have pulled out and left.

More likely than not I stayed.

The Signs of Summer - Brooklyn Style

2009-06-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

"Sure. It's, like, summer...in theory!"

Last night friends and I were at dinner, commiserating at the lack of summer this June - endless bouts of rain with rarely a sunny day in between.

This was one of those "greatest hits" conversations that New Yorkers replay every year. Summer in New York City has never been demonstrated by the weather. The signs have always been more subversive. How can you measure a season by its temperature in a city that has the odd 90 degree day in January(!), between blizzards?

Manhattanites used to declare summer by the first sighting of a Mister Softee truck. A few years ago, though, the soft server ice creamery on wheels stopped hibernating, hanging out on the streets Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall.

I live in Brooklyn now at the corner of South Williamsburg, Clinton Hill, and Bed Stuy. Our apartment building sits just one block into the wrong side of the Whole Foods delivery radius. It's been almost four years since I made the migration from the East Village.

Summertime in Brooklyn starts with watermelons. A bunch of withered black men set up a folding table selling them on the corner of Nostrand and Myrtle. The watermelons have numbers written on them in black marker - 9, 10, or 11, denoting the price. They all look the same to me so what makes a melon a nine versus a ten remains a mystery to me still.

"Where do these come from?" I asked the first time I bought one.

"Georgia."

They're trucked up from Georgia and dropped at street corners of the ghettos of Brooklyn.

This year a new sign of summer revealed itself to me. As I rode my bike up Bedford Avenue to work on May 28th - a particularly cold and dark day - I made my way up through the Hassidic neighborhood that runs between Myrtle Avenue and the Williamsburg Bridge.

The Hassids are a peculiar and completely foreign culture. To live surrounded by them is to observe but never understand. They're a very introvert group, speaking their own language (Yiddish?), wearing a narrow range of garb, and milling around at all hours of the day and night in random zig zagging patterns, on-and-off sidewalks.

That gray Thursday was typical, bewigged mothers were leading their many children through intersections, pad-pad-padding along like ducklings. For all of their differentness and chaotic movements, however, nothing is rarely ever different in their behavior, so that when something changes - no matter how subtle - it's shocking.

As I peddled up Bedford Ave, I saw stations of folding tables with bunches of flowers and little potted plants. Small groups of Hassidic women stood by them as the vendors, which is also so odd that I nearly forgot to stop for the next traffic signal.

It was Shavuot. It's one of the many Jewish holidays that some Jews observe, and fewer pass without notice. Most goyim have never even heard of it. It marks the end of Spring and the beginning of Summer, in addition to its Biblical function.

That day, as I huffed and puffed my way up and over the Williamsburg Bridge I looked up for a moment to see a sign I'd managed to miss every other time I made this trip:

"Now leaving Brooklyn. Oy vey!

The Planet Spins, and the World Goes 'Round and Around and 'Round

2009-06-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

I had missed the G train. Worse, people were streaming up the steps as I descended into the station. For those of you who never traveled to the boroughs surrounding Manhattan, the G only runs from Court Sq, Queens to Smith-and-9th Street, Brooklyn. Living near the G means you're always at least two trains away from Manhattan. It also only run every 8 to 20 minutes, depending on the caprice of the MTA.

That morning my bad luck was soon erased by the subsequent G train that arrived a mere five minutes later.

Then I also missed the 7 train from Court Sq to Grand Central. I watched the doors close at a short distance and then it slipped away, onto the next station. Two minutes later another arrived. The ride home repeated my bad luck/good luck on the L to the G.

I have to say that missing a train by seconds cannot be healed by the balm of another train showing up soon after. It's hard to appreciate what you have when you're still mourning what you've lost.

Today I arrived at the airport to find myself eighth on the list for upgrades, despite my gold frequent-flyer status. (Seriously? Who are these eight people flying to San Francisco with more credibility?) Later I stepped out of the Balducci's made-to-order line to find the ready-made bins missing my favorite sandwich for in-flight consumption. Once I got onto the plane I was made aware by the attendant that I had somehow booked a middle seat!?! I've flown 40,000 miles in last six months. Never, ever have I intentionally booked an middle seat. The flight to San Francisco lasts six to six-and-a-half hours. The horror! The horror!

Still, it was an exit row, so my legs had room even if my torso did not. Then a miracle happened. The window, exit row seat next to me remained empty, even after the plane door closed. So now I have plenty of room length- and width-wise.

So now I'm on the plane from JFK to SFO. After a double-vodka bloody mary and a Xanax my woes are receding. Soon I will eat my only choice from the Balducci's ready-made bin - a chicken curry wrap. The remake of "Race to Witch Mountain" is playing on my in seat entertainment system. The day proceeds and the flight continues.

Life is full of these little wins and losses. Why any of them should feel personal is just a solipsistic exercise. (Isn't "solipsistic" a lovely word?)

My husband and I bought a lamp recently. The Flos Glo Ball floor lamp. It was a floor sample from Design Within Reach, where Mark works. After all discounts we paid 30% of its original price. Yesterday we rented a Zipcar to bring it home. We separated the hand blown glass diffuser (globe) from the stem and base, and packed it into the car. On the first turn the heavy base rolled from one side of the hatch to the other and shattered the diffuser. We stopped the car. I collected the glass and dropped it into the trash can across the street from store. We found a replacement online. It will cost more to replace the glass part than we paid for the lamp.

"It will take me awhile to order it," Mark told me. He needs to mourn the loss before accepting that we need to replace the glass globe or else abandon the lamp altogether.

I'm sure I could drudge up some real problems; the kind that gives one perspective on such trifles. Today, however, I will enjoy the luxury of sweating and celebrating the small stuff.

Oh Shit!

2009-04-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

Thursday morning I shit myself. Just a bit. At the Hyatt Regency on East Wacker, in Chicago.

It felt like a fart coming, a little relief from the tempest in my stomach. I was just waking and the king-sized hotel bed was clinging to me. But, let me tell you, once it became apparent that my gas had some substance I leaped out of the bed and into the bathroom, dropped trou, and sat myself onto the porcelain.

It was too late. The damage had been done. I wiped, washed, rinsed and tried to rehabilitate my sweatpants (by scrubbing with soap and scalding water, and blow drying and ironing).

I took some Imodium and then shaved and showered and dressed, trying to erase the ignominy and make myself presentable.

Due for a 'breakfast meeting,' I rushed out of my hotel and walked to another across the river. It was the wrong hotel. (The ABA Tech show had been there the last two times I went.) This is all the more confusing because the hotel, like any major hotel in Chicago on any given day, was hosting one or two conferences.

I got to the right hotel, only ten minutes late. After spooning some oatmeal, I worked our booth for half a day, then went to a meeting, then to O'Hare - where my flight to Harrisburg was delayed while its gate changed four times, all the while feeling like John Hurt giving birth to the Alien.

Friday I sat at a table in a table in a hallway outside a ballroom at a court reporters convention at the Sheraton Hershey. More Imodium, a mid-day nap, and cautious conservation of energy got me along until 5 PM when I presented to them a primer on the processes of electronic discovery.

After the presentation, I read through the comment cards. About half wrote that I had spoken too fast. That is something that makes a court reporter anxious, as quick talkers make their jobs more difficult.

Done with work for the week, at last, I walked across the parking lot to a Target, where I bought new pajama bottoms - navy blue pinstriped - for $9.99, along with saltines and several bottles of Smart Water (to restore my electrolytes).

Saturday morning I flew home.

The tempest has started to subside and my clothes are in the laundry.

Graham Norton Made Me Cry

2009-03-16T15:57:00.000-07:00

La Cage aux Folles was the second "Broadway" production I ever saw, or rather Broadway by way of a touring company to downtown Phoenix, in 1985. (The first had been 42nd Street starring a blowzy Dolores Grey.)

I didn't register the gayness, or didn't feel much for it. Odd considering I was a fourteen years old going in knowing each showtune. There was no "I Am What I Am" because I loved musicals without shame and no one told me that I should feel any other way. My parents and sister were with me, in fact.

Peter Marshall and Keene Curtis starred. (Turns out Keene was the first gay man to play Zsa Zsa, playing his first gay role, which I just found out while reading my program from a revival - nearly 25 years later, 500 miles away from Phoenix, on the bank of the Thames.)

Tonight I sat in the third row, on the far aisle, as Graham Norton sang "I Am What I Am" and then stormed off the stage, past me and directly out the side door of the theater onto the honest-to-goodness street.

As the lights went up for the interval I wiped away my tears. I had already been crying intermittently, involuntarily in that way that feels embarrassing for a grown man to cry at a Jerry Herman musical.

It's a brilliant production, don't get me wrong. It's been stripped of it's glitz and it's stopped apologizing for itself. The men don't rip off their wigs at the end of a song to shock a complicit audience. No self-respecting drag queen needs to trick the audience into believing she's a woman. There's no trickery necessary because a drag queen would be the last person to deny she's anything other than herself.

Graham Norton cannot sing so much, but he owned his part. His Zsa Zsa was not what we used to patronizingly refer to as courageous. He played his part with aplomb but, so much better, his performance was matter-of-fact. Thank you to Sean Penn for his courageous Harvey Milk, but no one except a gay man can sing "I Am What I Am" with the integrity of a real live homosexual. So, thank you Graham Norton for playing her with no more affection than one would expect from a French drag queen in a Jerry Herman musical...and no less.

When gay Arthur Laurents first directed La Cage, written by gay Jerry Herman and gay Harvery Fierstein, he said he couldn't have the leads kiss because half the theater would walk out. He wanted to finesse the audience into acceptance. This revival - some 25 years later, long enough for someone to be born and grown into an adult, this revival ended with a middle-aged gay couple kissing as the curtain slowly went down.

And the audience still leaped to it's feet.

Time Out New York - Letter of the Week!

2009-01-29T11:34:00.000-08:00

Click on the image to enlarge.

My Letter to the Editor of Time Out NY

2009-01-16T14:31:00.000-08:00

From Time Out New York / Issue 693 : Jan 8–14, 2009 /
What your personal trainer is really thinking

Worst breach of gym etiquette you’ve ever seen?

“Two people having sex in the sauna…but that’s a tie with the two people I caught having sex on a stretch table when I still worked for a facility.”

“Putting gum under benches”

“This dude smelled like a garbage dump. It was so bad, people would leave. The owner of the gym stepped in and actually suspended his membership. This guy smelled so bad, I’m getting sick thinking about it.”

“Too much unsafe gay sex in the steam rooms.”

“Guys wear very tight spandex shorts from the ’80s and you can see all the sweat coming from their ass and their penises sticking out. I even saw some members coming from the locker room and working out naked like nothing happened. The gym manager had to come on the floor and bring them back to the locker room.”

Dear editor,

Re: "Worst breach of gym etiquette you've ever seen?"

It's always fun to see gay sex show up in a list of something titled "worst." In fact, two of the five offending acts are attributed to the frisky gay men of New York's saunas and steam rooms!

Unsafe sex is never cool, I agree. But your garden variety mutual masturbation or oral sex in the steam room may be against the rules (and also the law), but it's hardly a breach of etiquette in New York City. It's the set up in a lot of porn, in fact. The proper etiquette would be to join in, look away, or take your uptight self out of there.

For me, as a gym-goer, the worst breach of gym etiquette usually involves a trainer and his/her client occupying too much space or monopolizing one (and ofter several) pieces of equipment at once. I once went up to a trainer at my gym to ask when she'd be done with a machine and she said, "Oh, we only have about a half hour more." They'd been using it exclusively already for 30 minutes.

Kind regards,
David
Brooklyn, NY

Liza Minnelli Made Me Cry

2009-01-15T15:09:00.000-08:00

Liza walked upstage to the piano and gripped it like a prizefighter going to the ropes. Tired and worn, she gathered her spirit - not her strength, wiped her face with a towel and came back downstage.

I had last seen Liza Minnelli during her last comeback, produced by her then husband David Gest. That had been stressful viewing. Back then, she would approach one of those big notes by screwing her legs into the stage, punching the air with her fist, while the voice would wobble out. "Please make it, Liza. You can do it," I would whisper each time.

Liza at the Palace was different, I had heard.

My friend Mitch emailed me: You have to see this. He'd never done that before. The show appeared on both 2008 top ten lists in the NY Times Arts & Leisure year-in-review. Then on Monday, Dec 22nd my best friend Bob called up to tell me that four seats, fifth row center had just magically appeared on Ticketmaster for xmas eve! We bought them, just knowing our husbands wouldn't want to miss this.

...and she was FANTASTIC! Her voice was no longer the clarion it had been. She sacrificed that too much pills and liquor. Still, she sang strong and steady. She danced. She mocked her age, making a shtick of it like a pro.

After twenty plus songs, she stood center stage, fingered the microphone with one hand and shook out her wet hair with the other. She quietly said, "A few years ago a terrible thing happened. Some people tried to hurt us, hurt our city. But, but they did not succeed. We came together as a city, as a county. Stronger. Yes. Stronger."

Tears had already starting rolling down my cheeks.

As she launched into "New York, New York," I cried. Steady streams released from my eyes.

I had been vulnerable, for sure. The holidays are hard - melancholy, demanding, tiring. My guard had been weak, but - to be true - I love New York City and I love a showtune. Liza created a pitch perfect storm.

God bless her.

LGA to ATL to DFW: a comedy of errors and mishaps

2008-12-29T10:40:00.001-08:00

Went to wrong airport.

Scrutinized at security.

Flight delayed.

Missed connection.

Left package with gifts in overhead.

Waited 30+ minutes on hold to talk to Delta's lost & found. They will call me if they find it.

Everyone tells me it could have been worse.

It's good to be here, nevertheless

Holiday Humbug Harumph

2008-12-13T10:01:00.000-08:00

Via email, from me to my mother:
Would you prefer something that smelled like Lavender or Lemon & Coriander?

Her reply:
No

My reply:
What do you mean no? That wasn't an option. It either or b.

She wrote back:
Still no

It's Nice to Be Noticed

2008-12-02T12:26:00.000-08:00

craigslist.org >> Missed Connections >> M4M

Date: 2008-11-30, 3:19PM EST

i was leaving the gym as you were headed in (about 2pm)

you: taller than i am, dark hair, red Coney Island tee shirt. possibly the hottest guy i have ever seen me: 5'11, dark brown hair, brown jacket, rushing out the door

if there is a chance your the type of person that reads these things any of it sounds familiar shoot me an email.

* * * * *

I am the type of person who reads these things.

That Saturday I had worn my "I Survived the Coney Island Cyclone" T-shirt that I had slept in the night before. A constellation of red splotches formed a mini-dipper across the right side of my face. (The effort to pop some pimples had left me worse off.) My hair looked good. I had gone to bed with Khiel's Drawing Paste on my forehead and the residue that got into my hair and made it look thicker.

When I shared the posting with my husband Mark, I pointed out that I am "possibly the hottest guy (this guy had) ever seen."

"I know that already. Why do you think I married you?"

Overheard at the Rally Against H8

2008-11-16T17:36:00.000-08:00

If it had rained, we might have skipped it. But by the time I got to my friend Clive's apartment, he had to agree: "The weather is too agreeable not to protest."

So we took 1 train down to City Hall and joined the Protest Against Proposition 8. Whiteknot.org organized several thousand gays around the country to simultaneously to protest the hangover after the revitalizing victory of Barack Obama.

We emerged from the subway, disoriented by police barricades. Volunteers instantly rescued us: "Walk ahead four blocks and cross."

"Thank you," I replied. I turned to Clive,"This is all post-Obama. In a week, they managed all this with protesters and volunteers and all by using Facebook."

We meandered our way across the street and into the crowd as people shouted into bullhorns indecipherable objections and waves of cheers swept along the crowd like a random wave. The police had siphoned us into a sliver of the sidewalk. Somewhere there was a focal point with speakers but we could neither make out their words or see them whatsoever.

We stopped and let the crowd parade by us.

Two young men stopped in front of us, happy to have found each other. (This scene would replay itself over-and-over with different casts for the next hour.)

"Oh my god," said one young gay to the other. "High School Musical 3. You. Are. Going. To. Love it!"

"Seriously?!"

"Totally! It's the best of the series."

"Thank god."

Clive laced his arm through mine and smiled.

He let go and took out his camera, trying to capture the homemade signs. It's one of the major bonuses of a gay protest, particularly in New York. There were the obvious "No H8" or "Separate is Not Equal." But better than that were the "Always a Bridesmaid, never a bride (by law)" and "Gay is the New Black" and "Hate Makes Baby Jesus Cry."

I hadn't gone to a protest since the RNC appropriated New York for their convention. The last time I volunteered for a presidential candidate, it was for Michael Dukakis, but I somehow ended up Richmond performing menial work for the candidate Obama.

I'm not dedicated or reliable when it comes to activism, but the ground has shifted and there is an opportunity for change. The rain had stopped that afternoon, clearing the way for our tenuous resolve.

An Ark without a Sail (Moscow, August 1998)

2008-10-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

The Moscow River passed before me so still and dark that it almost appeared motionless, as it stretched out in either direction. The office building was so close to the water edge that, looking out from a conference room window, I easily fell into the illusion that it was floating on top of its filthy waters.

Every time I looked out at the river, even for a moment, it lulled me into an inertia that felt particularly Russian. Perhaps it was the way the water darkly reflected the late-summer’s perpetual twilight. It anestitized the mind and imagination. The sun would not set till at least ten o’clock tonight, which made the day seem unending.

My work day had finished. From that conference room, I taught Russian attorneys and their secretaries, who worked for an American law firm, how to use Microsoft Word and email. I had come to Moscow three weeks before – in late July, after working my way through the Firm’s offices in Singapore and then Istanbul. It was my eighth month abroad.

I knew the curriculum by heart, and also every potential question my “students” would ask and my responses to them. That left lots of space in my mind to contemplate where to eat dinner, or what sights to see at the weekend, or to stare out the window.

On the opposite, and almost distant-seeming, shore I could see a Russian Orthodox church topped with baby-blue onion domes flanked by rows and rows of plain cement Soviet-style housing blocks. To me, this represented the tension of modern Russia, as a beautiful imperial-style church tried to coexist with those ugly relicts of Soviet utility.

Year before I had become fascinated Russia’s constant aching turmoil, to its almost absurdly poetic struggle. This attraction led me to study its history and language throughout high school, and then college. So to live and work in Russia, even for just four weeks, fulfilled a latent wish of mine.

Still I felt burned out, tired of computers and training, so bored repeating the same lessons every day, so I keep looking out the window at the Moscow River and writing email.

My friend and co-trainer Karen sat in the conference room adjacent to mine. I sent her an email:

“I am drowning in the Moscow River.
Are you ready to leave?”

(To read the rest, click here.)

Staycation - Oct 6-10, 2008

2008-10-12T10:59:00.000-07:00

This week I...

...went to Housing Works twice,
saw "The Duchess,"
went to the gym five times,
shopped at Sahadi's twice,
stocked up at Costco,
waited for FedEx to deliver thirty pounds of ground chicken,
waited for the contractor to examine the water damaged ceiling,
fasted while watching Exodus,
shook visibly while watching "An American Crime" and couldn't lose a feeling of dread the rest of the day,
fast-forwarded through Lifetime's Coco Chanel telefilm so I could watch Shirley MacLaine's parts,
cleaned out the cedar chest and took it to transported it to my brother-in-law's apartment in East Williamsburg,
finished digitizing the LP "Gone With the Wind modestly sung and played by the creator of its words and music Harold Rome" - bought via eBay,
digitized another eBay win - the LP "Gigi - Songs from the Motion Picture" as sung my Tony Martin and Gogi Grant,
went with Mark to buy his coveted iPhone (and lost him to it for the week),
had drinks with my friend Andy (at Musical Mondays at Splash) after not seeing him for almost two years,
helped my friend Evan celebrate his 40th birthday at his champagne party,
and said goodbye to [title of show] at it's third to last performance.

At the end of this week there were still stacks of books unread, a DVR full of movies captured from TCM, and many movies missed that I had intended to see.

My parents tell me they will never retire because "what would we do all day?"

Reconstruction (Warsaw: Late Winter/Early Spring 1997)

2008-09-28T15:56:00.000-07:00

Krzysztof sat next to me in the waiting area of the Okęcie International Airport. We had said almost nothing to each other all morning and well into the early afternoon. His English was as good as my Polish. That might have been frustrating except that we hadn’t been saying much to each other for almost two months.

The terminal had morphed into a purgatory after the first two or three hours of aimless waiting. My flight back to New York had been delayed by a spontaneous luggage handlers' strike.

Well, that’s Solidarity for you, I thought.

From the airport public address system, I heard “Nowe Jork.” Krzysztof tilted his head towards the broadcast in an expression that was both hyper alert and furiously concentrated. I looked at him, searching his reaction for good news. His face became apologetic, and that told me that my status had not changed. I offered a small smile to thank him for the effort.

I'd met Krzysztof at the Kozla Pub. I picked him out of the crowd because he looked like someone else, someone I was missing very much.

It had been the 1st of March, my third week in Warsaw. I was a young man, 27 years old, outside the USA for the first time in my life. The Kozla, unmarked except for a single lantern above the door, nestled into a row of 18th century looking, brick artisan houses in the Stare Miasto, or the “Old Town.” It was a misnomer to call the town "old," as it had been rebuilt from the rubble that was Warsaw at the end of World War II. The Poles used whatever money they could raise to make it as an exact replica of itself, as it once had been. Unlike the rest of the city, it presented an old European, fairy tale charm. Every cobble stone on the very dark and quiet street was a reproduction.

The door to Kozla opened into a shocking orange foyer followed by a curved staircase down into the basement. Handsome men squeezed up and out while others replaced them below. The “Grease Megamix” played loudly as I walked down the stairs and through the flirting crowd to the bar.

That was when I saw a ghost. Or I thought I so. Almost as a reflex, I reached out and grabbed onto his forearm.

(Read the rest of the story by clicking here.)

Do I Look Better in the Dark?

2008-09-06T16:06:00.000-07:00

He danced in front of me, for me.

I liked his white belt the most. As he swayed and slithered in front of me, I kept looking back to the belt. I should get a white belt. Except then I'd need white shoes. We've just crossed midnight into Labor Day, so is that okay.

He had a beautiful compact torso. He was shirtless. The white belt held up form fitting blue jeans. His skin was the color of coffee with cream. I reached out and felt his chest - smooth and soft - and let my hands slide down his sides, landing on his hips.

He leaned forward and maybe said something. It was so dark I couldn't guarantee that his lips had moved. The music drowned out any sound.

"What?" I asked and leaned my ear towards his mouth.

"How old are you?" He never stopped moving his hips.

"Thirty-eight."

"Per-fect."

Eclipse

2008-08-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

I passed my husband in the hallway, of our apartment. I had just returned from a week spent in Plantation, Florida, as Motorola, studying Six Sigma. He was leaving to meet his brother and his brother's boyfriend in Syracuse.

I will rendezvous with him there, after midnight tonight.

He has a cousin who has graduated from something, so his entire family is meeting there - mother, brothers, cousins, aunts, and such. It's the type of thing you sign up for unknowing when you pledge you marriage vows.

We will return Sunday.

Quotable

2008-07-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

"Give me a bottle of Bourbon and a half a chicken and I'll conquer the world!"

I don't know where I picked up this quote but it did manage to type it out after I heard.

Truer words were never ever spoken!

THE BOTTOM LINE - a coda

2008-07-12T09:15:00.000-07:00

Betty Buckley had stood ten feet away from my seat at the small theater in in Irving, Texas. I watched her in profile, singing "Over You" and I was. Over him.

That feeling came upon me in an instant.

James had sat next to me after his initial, jaw dropping shock. I had been better prepared. God bless the Internet.

James's current boyfriend/partner was of the accompanist of Ms. Buckley - Mr. Seth Rudetsky. I had known that. His column on Playbill.com had told me so. God bless the Internet.

I hadn't known I would end up sitting on stage.

That very week I had been visiting my sister and 3-year old niece in Plano, TX, which is the same thing as Dallas to those who don't live there. I had found out about Ms. Buckley's All Broadway, All Request show from Seth's column on Playbill.com. It was sold out by the time I determined to go. The box office had told me to come and present myself. That's how I ended up in the extra seats placed onstage. That's where James found me, just before the show.

My request, inked on a slip of paper had tipped him off. Who else could have matched "David Robinson from Brooklyn, NY" who wanted to hear Betty sing "I Remember How Those Boys Could Dance" from "Carrie - The Musical." When he came onto the stage to take one of the extra seats he found me. There was gap next to me that James's filled with a chair.

He reminded me, "You took me to see Betty for the first time. At that place by NYU."

"The Bottom Line? Did I drag you there?"

Betty Buckley used to perform sets there and I would drag anyone, everyone there. If you were dating me from 1992-2002, you went.

All of the rancor I had collected and could still resurrect from the village of the damned and dumped, evaporated in the face of James, innocuous and harmless. As Betty sang "Over You" I remembered repeating that track over-and-over 12 years ago. That when Michael called me to tell me he had AIDS. That he would die. And he would. He did.

"Over You." Yes for James. Not for Michael.

James provided closure in a minute, in an instant. Seeing him, talking to him, dissipated the worst. Water flowed under the bridge and shattered it. Talking to him I regretted nothing. We would have become a terrible couple. With Michael, I'll never know. I can speculate, but speculation is a guess that never trusts its own instincts.

James apologized after the show. He walked me out to my car, my sister's car.

I said, "Please don't." After a breakup everyone is guilty, everyone is to blame. Still it's beautiful to get that when you've been dumped. So I got that. Chapter closed.

So I said, "Look. Everybody gets a turn. Sometimes you're the jerk. And sometimes you're the one getting jerked upon."

He accepted that completely imperfect summary. Two hugs and we separated.

Contraband

2008-06-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia:

April 15, 1999

At dusk on Thursday, the call to prayer began. It's wailing chant permeated into my hotel room, declaring the end of the week and the start of another Muslim Sabbath in the Kingdom.

Alone on the bed, I sat tucked into the corner of my dorm-like room, and waited. It felt respectful, although I didn’t know when the prayer would end.

Forty-five minutes passed and that seemed good enough. I went to the window and closed the curtains, and then turned to the desk built into the wall and started my laptop. It whirred as it awakened, starting very slowly. I opened a drawer in the desk and took out a small candle. It wasn’t the correct candle for the prayer, but it didn’t much matter. I was a novice anyway, an aspiring convert to Judaism.

Then I got up and crossed the room, turned off all the lights except a small desk lamp. That and the glow from the computer screen helped me find my way back. Sitting in front of the computer I double-clicked the illicit document.

I started to read softly, not really afraid, but aware that what I was doing was illegal.

“Yeetgadal v' yeetkadash sh'mey rabbah”

(Read the rest of the story by clicking here.)

Wafting in from the Streets of San Francisco

2008-06-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

I can hear the theme from The Godfather from a solo saxophone is coming in through the window of my hotel room . It's rare that you can open a window in a hotel, or any window above the 2nd floor.

"Extra" or the "Insider"? I can't decide and I don't know the number for the channels so I scroll forward through the channels until I get one or the other, re-starting the rotation at each commercial interruption.

USA Today and an empty wrapper from peanut M&M's litter the empty side of my king size bed. I'm working my way through a half bottle of Clos du Bois merlot from the mini-bar.

Billy Bush is a douche.

Who is playing that music? Now it's "Memories" from Cats. No. Wait. It's the theme from the Godfather again. Or something like that.

Will Britney Spears get nominated for an Emmy? Stay tuned.

3 Years Later

2008-06-08T08:20:00.000-07:00

I met my husband Mark three years ago yesterday - June 7, 2005.

"I can't believe you remembered!"

Outlook remembers for me and reminds every year, 2 days in advance.

"You pushed me up against a dirty bathroom wall at The Phoenix!" He never leaves out "dirty" when he retells it.

"You liked it." That's my part when telling that anecdote.

I gave him his present, wrapped up in plain brown paper.

He laughed at it, like the laughing came from his toes out the top of his head.

"I love it!" He held it up - a DVD - and read out loud the title: "Paging Dr. Finger. It's exactly what I wanted."

I came up behind him as we looked at the cover.

"Do you think that's real?" I asked.

He scrutinized the photo for a moment. "Maybe. But he's a small guy."

Stop Worrying Where You're Going

2008-05-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

Seeing the 'Sunday in the Park with George' revival at Studio 54 last week - and specifically the song 'Move On', reminded me of a story I wrote 10 years ago. Taking another look at it now gave me a chance to see myself younger - not just in the facts of the story per se, but some of the unabashed phrases. See for yourself. This is vintage. As a fun fact, I performed this story at a Queer Stories reading, dressed as a 6'3" man in Little Orphan Annie drag - from red 'fro to red dress to shiny black shoes!

The Sun Will Come Out

I was walking my lamb “Cole” as I did every afternoon. I had named my lamb after Cole Porter. I was fifteen years old. Cole and I were walking through the deserted grounds of the Maricopa County Fair in Phoenix, Arizona. The ferris wheel stood still as the carnival rides sleep late into the afternoon. The sunset was still hours away as were the lights and the laughter and the screams. The Fairgrounds had opened at noon, but only the agricultural contestants and livestock were found before dusk.

I was a boy with his lamb surrounded by silent giants. We hadn’t passed a single person during our walk today. We were on our way back to the show tent when I spotted her. I had heard her before I saw her. In a cement band shell at a considerable distance a wee moppet in a red dress with a head full of red brown curls sang out with alarming clarity and volume. There were at least thirty rows of benches in front of the band shell, yet there wasn’t one person in the audience. In fact, I couldn’t see anyone else, anywhere else. There wasn’t even an accompanist. It was just me, Cole, and Little Orphan Annie.

“Tomorrow! . . Tomorrow! . . I love ya tomorrow!” she yodeled. Cole and I stopped and stared for a moment ...

(Read the rest of the story by clicking here.)

Pest Control?

2008-04-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

"Goddammit! She's back!"

Mark ran to the balcony doors, swung it open and shooed away the mama pigeon who had made a nest in our herb garden.

"I admire her tenacity," I said, although that wasn't supportive.

Mark had just thrown away the two eggs she's been sitting upon all week and hardly moved. Her dedication has been remarkable. We debated the termination of the unborn this morning as we walked aisles of Home Depot, looking for - and finding - a plastic owl. Our neighbor Ed swears the owls will scare away the vermin-with-wings. He got two. Today we got the last one left on the shelves. NY pigeons are tough, renowned for their persistence and disdain for the cars and people around them. A fat pest will fly up and away only a few inches to avoid us and then set back to scavenging or waddling.

"Oh. The other two pigeons are attacking her." He stood at the window providing me the play-by-play. "Now she's back and, jeesh, she's - yes she is - she is sitting herself down, probably to lay another egg. I give up!"

"Let me try."

I went out with a roll of irri-tape, scissors, and a stapler. By the time I added three or four more strips of the halogenic-metal, it looked like a mini-prom. She couldn't come back without walking through it and the light and sound has been designed to irritate the pigeons. Last fall I found a piece built into new nest. Still, there is nothing better, so I try again.

She didn't come back. Perhaps she lost her rumble or the deterrents worked or she had nothing to come back for.

When I came back inside, Mark was sitting on the sofa with his laptop in front of him. He had been searching for a second owl to mail order.

"Hey, look. This one has a bobble-head."

Reality Call

2008-04-26T10:44:00.001-07:00

The towncar pulled up across the street. I put myself into the backset.

"What is your car number?" I asked.

"25"

I took out my wallet and called the dispatcher from my Blackberry.

"Hellohello. New Bell."

"I'm in car 25 going to JFK. I'd like to pay with my credit card."

"You travel too much." Then he laughed. "You travel too much papi."

"It's all for work," I replied.

"It's a living, papi. It's a living."

Barking Hassid

2008-03-22T15:19:00.001-07:00

He started barking at our golden retriever as he passed us on the sidewalk.

First we looked at each other, amazed. The Golden barked. She's an old lady and easily provoked. Dogs, anyone wearing a hood, and wheels set her off. I pulled Maddy back while my husband tried to restrain our two other dogs, lest then join in the melee.

"What the f-ck are you doing? Jesus Christ. What the f-ck?" We both shouted back at him.

The man puffed out his chest and spread out his arms in some kind of macho gangsta pose. And he smiled back, self-satisfied.

I cannot imagine in what parallel universe, he seriously thought he could pull off that pose of bravado. He was tall and skinny and pale and covered in a black frock coat to his knees, where the white silk stockings took over. Thick, black rimmed glasses further withdrew his credibility in this stance, but the giant mink sphere on the crown of his head ruined any hope for tough guy posturing.

But he just continued his posing as he backed away from us smiling, as we shouted and herded the dogs away.

I turned to Mark, "Is it a full moon or something?"

Old & G(r)ay - NYC, June 2007

2008-03-11T12:19:00.000-07:00

I slipped my orthotics into the black boots I used to wear only to sex clubs, put on expensive jeans and a red “vintage” t-shirt with a white Target bullseye. It was a brilliant, sunshiny Sunday in mid-June. The temperature sweltered near ninety, as I left Bed Stuy for Chelsea, taking two subways before hobbling up 8th Avenue to 21st Street and into the Rawhide.

Feeling around at the air like some bad skit, I stumbled into the bar, blinded by pitch darkness: black walls, floors, bar, and stools. The Rawhide goes back 30 years, as do much of the clientele. We come here once a year for the proximity to Folsom East, the kitsch, and cheap drinks.

Clive called out: “Over here.” He emerged from shadow, next to the front window.

“How old do you think he is?” Clive pointed to a man outside.

“A hundred?”

“Not me, sweetheart. Him.” Clive stood up and we kissed hello.

Clive had two more years until turning forty himself. Today he sported an aging rock-a-billy look: black combat boots, white undershirt, red suspenders, with the hair on his head shaved to the length of his facial stubble.

"God bless him," said Clive. His English accent made that sound kind.

The gentleman we were discussing, stood off the curb, pretty far into the street. Scrawny and ridiculous, he was shirtless, with one hand akimbo on his hip, trying to hail a taxi. He had tanned his skin to the color and texture of a football. His ass hung deflated, gently undulating, out the rear of his black leather chaps.

"I hate getting old. Older."

(To read the full story click here.)

Epiphany

2008-03-01T13:40:00.000-08:00

Friend: You look tired.

Me: Shit. I don't mind being tired, but I don't like looking tired. I wish I knew of some procedure to get rid of the dark under my eyes.

Friend: There is. It's called 10 days someplace warm, away from your blackberry.

Me: Oh. Right.

I apologize for the brief interruption in service

2008-03-01T12:14:00.000-08:00

February
1. Trade show.
2. Dallas.
3. Flu
4. London
5. Recovery from 1-4

Deservedly Unsympathetic

2008-02-03T16:06:00.000-08:00

“My hand is old!”

“What?” my husband shouted back from our bedroom.

“My hand. It’s old!” I was lying on the sofa with an ice pack on my lower back. My sciatica had been creeping up on me for a week.

“What are you talking about?” He had given up the other room and now looked down at me over the couch, folding a bath towel. I would never have pegged him as someone who liked doing laundry, but then we bought a washer-dryer and I can hardly get him to stop.

“I have liver spots on my hand. I’m thirty-seven years old and I have liver spots.” Small brown spots flecked the part of my hand at nexus of the wrist, thumb and pointing finger.

“You do not have liver spots.”

He took up my hand and flipped it one way and then the other.

“Oh. Yeah. Those are liver spots.” With that he dropped it. “You can get those lasered off.”

That last sentence trailed off as he walked away. His reaction wasn’t unfriendly, just efficient.

Why I Hate Third Party Candidates!

2008-01-26T12:46:00.000-08:00

The endless news cycle around the presidential elections - 'change' anyone? - has reminded me of a story I wrote: "Exhilarated (New York City, October 2000)." It tells of my own personal reasons for calling Ralph Nader a 'spoiler.'

This story was effectively homework for a writing class I took at the New School in the Fall of 2004. The teacher gave me some really good criticism on the first draft: "Okay, we get it. Your ex-boyfriend is a jerk. So what? What was it about you that made you want to be with this guy? That would be infinitely more interesting." I took that to heart and turned the mirror back at myself.

There's an interesting coda to this story with respect to Seth Rudetsky - a very talented musician, performer, and writer. He cyber-pens a very entertaining, weekly, theater-related column on Playbill.com. Among the theater news and tidbits he introduces his new boyfriend James. Week-after-week he goes on-and-on about James and I just wish he would get back to the Broadway gossip. Then he suddenly drops James's last name into a column one week and I'll-be-damned if it isn't the same James from my own "Exhilarated (New York City, October 2000)!" He's a regular Nancy Cunard for the gay virtual blogisphere!

Never Make Eye Contact

2008-01-21T15:26:00.001-08:00

I heard the ring - a pulsating tone from one of those two way radio things. It came from behind me, at the front of the subway car. Knowing better and ignoring that sense, I turned my head to look. I hate those things. People end up shouting into them with every turn in conversation preceding by a thought scattering "beep-beep.'

"What're you looking at tall guy!" I had already looked away, so the shouter was anonymous. It could have been any of the kids.

"Yeah, I'm talking to you in the beige! What do you think you're looking at!"

It's not beige. It's camel. Why am I letting these black, ghetto, teenagers bother me? Shouldn't they be in school? Am I being racist for hating them so much because my own thoughts and conversation keep getting derailed by their nonsense. Maybe I'm just a classist. Does the volume have to go up as the family income goes down? Why is every sentence punctuated with "n*" this and "n*" that.

Mark shook his head and gave a disapproving smirk, an inaudible tsk-tsk. He stood opposite me, holding the same pole, as the L Train passed underneath the East River.

"What're you smiling about guy in the green! Something funny!?"

Poor Mark. He had wanted to board at the front of the train but I had insisted on this position, calibrated for a perfect exit at my stop.

Then I compounded one mistake by making a meager gesture of defiance. To stand my ground or not show fear or protect my husband, I tuned back and stared. I looked some of them in the eye and didn't look away. I still didn't know which delinquent had been the shouter.

Nothing happened. I turned back to look at Mark.

"What're you lookin' at tall guy! Yeah! I'm going fuck you up. Seriously. What the fuck does he think he's lookin' at?"

I thought for sure they would get off at 1 st Avenue. There are still pockets of those neighborhoods that are poor enough for these jerks.

The taunts continued, through third avenue and onto Union Square - where Mark gets off the train to go to work. It didn't escalate, but remained a banal, persistent menace.

"Get off the train with me here and change cars. Please." Mark is often the most practical person in our marriage.

At the Union Square stop, we got off and quickly kissed goodbye. We ran back a car and passed the conductor. Mark held the door open so I wouldn't miss it. As the doors separated us, he waived good-bye. The L train all but clears out at that station so I had most of a bench to myself.

Should I do something? Tell the conductor maybe. That could be a whole other thing. They'd call the police. Could I even pick any of them out of a lineup?

The train stopped at 8th Avenue, the end of the line. As I walked out, I glanced back at the offending car. Those same kids were sitting there on the idle train as it waited to go right back where it came from.

Above ground, I sent Mark a text message to let him know that I had arrived safe. He worries.

Crap Generosity

2008-01-12T10:12:00.000-08:00

"You've got to be more giving!" said Tracy.

I laid on the massage table, cradled to my left side in the fetal position. I turned my head over my shoulder to watch my own feces travel across a clear tube - no more than a few inches in diameter - behind a small clear pane. I felt like I should have waived good-bye as it passed by my window.

"You've got to be more generous!" Tracy loves poop, or more correctly the total elimination of it. She runs the M.A.R.C. Holistic Center on Spring Street.

"How many of these do you do per day?" I asked.

"Maybe ten."

"Seriously."

"Yes. It's very serious." Her voice had a subtle lilt to it of the Caribbean or some such balmy island. "I was studying medicine in college when a friend of mine died of constipation. The toxins built up and poisoned him from the inside. So I changed my focus and studied massage and colonic. People hold on to all this shit. If I can help them release all this crap that they hold on to, it can change their lives. It can lighten your mood, improve your skin, give you energy. You'll see."

She stood up and started to rub my belly very hard. Tracy is a bodacious lady. She used her full strength to loosen the inside of my colon from the outside.

"You're being stingy. Look. Do you see that? It's gas. You're full of hot air!" She made herself guffaw with that one.

I groaned. The pressure and pain indecipherable but total and overwhelming.

This first session (in my package of three) happened just before Christmas. Giving this year had become a task list rather than an act of kindness or love or appreciation. Maybe that was my own fault because I wasn't "giving." So preoccupied with myself, everything I was taking in was not entirely coming out, agitating my guts. As for Tracy, I didn't know how to give her was asking for. I didn't know how to trigger my body into releasing.

"Come on, come on. You can do it," she coaxed in a soft voice.

So I tried to stop doing anything physically. Thinking about "release" and "letting go" I suddenly felt the pressure drop out.

"Look. Now you're giving. I knew you had it in you!"

Waving Hasids

2007-12-12T11:53:00.001-08:00

"Do you think that they're gays?" asked Mark.

We were walking our three, yes three, dogs up Spencer Street around 11 PM last night, for they're final pee prior to our going to sleep. We live at the corner of Myrtle Avenue and Spencer Street at the North-West tip of Bed Stuy Brooklyn, in the land of Hassidic Jews and empty warehouses. It's an emerging neighborhood although it's hibernating from the look of it.

"What are you talking about?"

"There." Mark pointed at a min-van across the street, engine running, with it's light on, but going nowhere. "Didn't you always say that they hide out and meet in their cars?"

"Oh, right. I forgot. Who? Them?" I gestured by nodding my chin up and out. "What is he doing?"

The Hassid in the driver's seat, furthest from us was waving at us. The gesture had a "hello" format to it, but he was doing it frantically and furiously.

"Oh god. He's waving!" Mark panicked. "Ah! Now the other one is doing it too! Hurry. Let's go. He's about to roll down his window!"

To add to that pandemonium, our golden retriever, Maddy, started bark the gay Jews in the mini-van. She is an old, cranky lady. She barks at strangers regularly, especially if they're running or wearing a hoodie.

As I dragged her up the street, she kept barking. Usually she stops as soon as the irritant is out of range. Not this time. She kept pulling back and barking.

"She does not like them!" Mark had the other two dogs - Misha the mutt and Gabey the cocker spaniel. They hadn't noticed anything, sniffing and meandering along. "What do you think they wanted?"

"Maybe they are gay Jews and they were waving at us out of solidarity." I was glad to be clear but we still had to U-turn back down the block to get home. "I wonder if they are gay and have to hang out in their cars to meet. There's got to be a better way. They're the Internet for Christ's sake. I wonder if they have the Internet, if it's allowed."

"How're we going to get home?" Mark asked.

"Head down. Eyes forward."

My Stories

2007-12-01T12:00:00.000-08:00

Flora likes to tell this story. So much so that her version of it has replaced my own memory of it.

For some context, know that Flora and I met on our first day at NYU in the fall of 1991. We've been BFFs ever since. For a year spanning 1995-96, we shared my apartment in the East Village, as happy roommates.

Some night in January 1996, she walked into my half of the apartment - a living room separated by a cinder block and 2x4 bookshelf, with attached folding doors. As she tells it, I was sitting on my bed, watching “Friends” and inhaling a huge bowl of air popped popcorn. (Although we were both tall and thin and leveraging young people's metabolism, we had become obsessed with fat-free eating and emboldened each other in that pursuit.)

“Dave, aren’t you interested in travel?” She was curious because she loved it. She even lived in Italy for six months after college.

“Nope. I like New York. Why do I need to leave it?”

A year later, in January of 1997, Christine from my temp agency called. Her voice was sweetly adenoidal: “How do you feel about international travel?"

Six month prior to that, my agency had pulled me out of a Word Processing pool to try me as a computer trainer. I was still a little green.

"[Major international lawfirm] needs trainers to go out to their foreign offices. They're migrating from DOS and Word Perfect to Windows and Word. You interested? How do you feel about international travel?"

I didn’t feel particularly anything about it. I didn’t even have a passport to leave the United States.

My first assignment started in Warsaw, Poland, on Valentine’s Day 1997. Over the next three years the Firm sent me to London, Singapore, Istanbul, Moscow, Almaty (Kazakstan), and Riyadh. As part of a “Phase II” for the software conversion/migration, I made return trips to Warsaw, Istanbul, and Almaty. I also took several side trips and vacations in between: Brussels, Paris, Bangkok, St. Petersburg, New Delhi, Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Penang, Bali, Krakow and Gdansk, Prague, Dublin, and Edinburgh.

Overlapping this trajectory - and preceding it by a few years - was my involvement with a group called "Queer Stories for Boys." The group had formed out of some workshops Tim Miller had done at P.S. 122. I joined Queer Stories after one of Tim's workshops in the fall of 1992. We met every other Saturday at the NY Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center. I had just turned 22 years old. We would sit in a circle and tell stories, share our experiences. Some of the guys would take the material we generated organically at the workshops and put on a night of storytelling, usually at Dixon Place.

I watched those performances from the audience. I didn't feel like I had any stories worth standing up to tell a paying audience.

Amidst my travels I found some stories worth telling. I had this idea that I could write a story for each city I had visited. I had just returned from Almaty, Kazakstan. With that fresh in my mind, I wrote A Halloween of No Consequence.

My story frustrated some of the guys at Queer Stories: "Nothing happens!"

"Well, that's Almaty," I replied, "Nothing really happens there and you have to deal with that."

I broke with Queer Stories. They tended to fixate on tales of adolescent angst and unrequited-boy-crushes-on-their-gym-teacher. I didn't have any of those, so they didn't interest me much.

I went back out for another year and a half of work travel. Except for megabytes and maybe gigabytes of email, I didn't make any effort to further document my trips. In early 2000, I took a deep dive into a new position at the Firm. I even went into the office on 9/11 after the first plane hit the World Trade Center because I had a project meeting scheduled!?! I sat alone in the conference room for 15 minutes before I came to my senses and joined my co-workers huddled around the only television we could find.

In late 2002, the Firm fired everyone I worked with, including the smartest and most decent people I knew. Some of them had worked for the Firm for 15 years or more. Disillusioned and depressed I meandered through the next six months into the summer of 2003, when I realized it was time to create something besides work product. I signed up a course at NYU's School of Continuing Education, "Creative Nonfiction." (I also found another job, at another firm, but at least not that one anymore!)

Our closing assignment was labeled "witness to history." Our instructor Carol Bergman wanted us to write a narrative where we personally witnessed some event that was reported somewhere. Well that's easy. I had arrived in London the night before Princess Diana died. I witnessed all kinds of crazy as the reserved British public came unhinged with collective grief. I watch the procession as her casket moved to her funeral. I would write about that!

This story would become my personal rosetta stone as a writer. Carol was far more demanding than you would expect at an adult, elective education course. She poked and prodded and pulled a far better and more personal story out of my details. The resulting piece - Another Drop in the Ocean - juxtaposed that collective grief against my own lingering and persistent sadness. (You'll have to read the story to find out why!)

From that point forward, I took more classes and continued to write - slowly, with many gaps of not writing in between. I'm still writing those travel stories - one for each city visited, during those formative years. The table of contents exists, as an inventory of what's written or drafted or only thought of.

How would I answer if Flora or Christine asked again, "How do you feel about travel?"

I feel a lot of things about travel. Ten years later, I'm still working that out - one story at a time.

***To read what I've written and worthy of an audience go to "My Stories" on the side bar. ***

Dylan Jugger-what?

2007-11-27T18:25:00.000-08:00

"I can't imagine caring that much."

"That's a sad statement. It's all Britney Spears and who cares."

This exchange passed between me and my friend Flora post-screening of "I'm Not There" at Film Forum. Everything reduces to Britney Spears now. She's the litmus by which we measure our cultural degradation.

I knew nothing about Bob Dylan walking into the movie. That would account for the tedium I experienced during this otherwise spellbinding film.

That night I started with wikipedia. I wadded through the article, mystified by Dylan's constant "existential metamorphosis."

It all left me nostalgic for a time before my time when people would go ballistic because their favorite artist changed his genre.

Oh my

2007-11-19T14:33:00.000-08:00

My colleague and friend Mort Zachter suggested that I set up this blog as a venue to host my writings, in progress or otherwise. We'll take it from here and see where I end up...

p.s. Mort wrote a stunning memoir that was recently published, Dough: A Memoir.
Run, do not walk to your computer to buy your copy.

Don't take my word, read the review from last Sundays NEW YORK TIMES FREAKING BOOK REVIEW.