The Whole Truth, Truth be Told

Memory is awfully convenient. I'm a real artiste at having it serve my purposes, whatever they are.

For example, I've always sworn up and down that I'd never slept with a woman.

Well, that's not completely true.

See, I was sitting in my 12-Step meeting this morning when another gay man started to share about how drunk he used to get... so much so that one time he woke up in bed with a .... gasp... woman.

And I was sitting there just nodding my head in identification when all of a sudden it hit me. "YOU DOPE" I said to myself, "YOU WOKE UP IN BED ON NEW YEAR'S DAY IN 1977 IN SEATTLE WITH DAVID W. AND ROBIN W." (not related), all of us naked as the day we were born.

About an hour after the meeting I remembered that it wasn't New Year's Day, but rather the morning after a rather wild night of drinking, sometime in the late fall of 1977, when this happened. David and Robin were part of a crowd I had joined in the summer of '77, after I'd jilted yet another boyfriend who'd served his purpose and I'd started hanging around in gay bars and discos once again.

The point of this is that even after nearly 10 years of sobriety, the truth is still leaking out, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, sometimes with a bang. Like today.

Then I started wondering what motive I might've had for denying such a simple thing for all these years. Was I afraid of it for some reason? Did it make me feel "less gay" to acknowledge it?

Sexual identity is a fluid thing. Look at the Larry Craig's and Roy Cohn's of the world. "I AM NOT GAY, I JUST HAVE SEX WITH MEN" is their mantra. Because to them being gay means 1) shacking up with a guy and 2) decorating the shit out of the place for the holidays.

Ergo sum, they are not gay because they shack up with women who do the decorating for them (Larry Craig -- I don't think Roy Cohn ever shacked up with anybody).

But me? The act of having sex with a man identifies me (to myself) as being gay. I do not decorate the shit out of the place for the holidays (I barely run the vacuum as it is) and I am not (currently) shacked up with a man. [CLARIFICATION: It is not merely the act of having sex with a man which defines me to myself as being "gay"... it is equally as important to understand that men have been and are the sole objects of my desire and also have been and remain the focus of my romantic feelings.]

Therefore, I can only and logically and in total denial state that I must be straight.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

And I am Marie of Romania.

AugTober

Hot enuff fer ya?

It's sure as hell hot enough for me and I LOVE summer. My fellow blogger, Jake over at NoFo (and his huzband-to-be, Justin), had a heck of a time during the Chicago marathon yesterday, along with 100's of others, until the race organizers finally called a halt to the damned thing.

Now Chicago's weather has arrived here in NYC. It was hot last night. I had the a/c blasting in my bedroom all night long. I was still hot. When I got up it was hot (the house is an old Victorian, so only select rooms have window units). The bathroom was like an oven.

I can take this weather in July, but it's the middle of October, fer cryin'-out-loud, and although I'm no great fan of winters in New Jersey, I do the like the certainty that when the weather gets wearisome, no matter what the season, it will change in just a few months. But these days I'm starting to wonder.

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I sat down at my desk this morning and my cellphone immediately "dinged" to let me know that somebody had sent me a text-message. Someone, who shall remain nameless but she's spending today with her mother and cousins, had awakened in the dead of night (as is her wont) and, in a fit of boredom, couldn't get her iPod to reboot and wondered if I'd send her the instructions for rebooting it. I located the instructions (all 4 paragraphs of it) and realized that it would take me an hour to key it into my cellphone. Throwing caution to the wind I called her (6:30 a.m. PDT)and talked her through it (thrown the little switch on top. Hold down the "Menu" AND "Select" buttons simultaneously for about 10 seconds until the Apple logo appears. Lather, rinse, repeat if necessary. By then, though, her mom and cousins were up and they were all apparently ready to dive into the sauce (so I believe) so it was pointless to try to have a coherent conversation with any of them. These so-called "Cousins Days" of hers seem to me to be little more than excuses to get hammered and to card-shark the hell out of each other.

I hope they're having a good time today. (They usually do!)

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Whilst websurfing this ayem I came across an item (the Huffington Post?) about Bob Novak (remember him? Valerie Plame's outer?) saying he'd alleged that most of the Republican membership of the Senate (and probably the House, too) had always known about Larry Craig, not just that he was gay, but that he was a notorious tearoom queen, too.

Not to be outdone in terms of co-signing Larry's denial bullshit, another item alleged that Idaho has proposed to induct him into their Hall of Fame. I only wish I were kidding.

Apparently the Roy Cohn Memorial "Whatever the fuck it is that I am, I'm NOT THAT" Club in Washington (and Idaho) has a huge charter membership on both sides of the partition, er, aisle.

Nowadays.

Well of course it is. Homo Sex is a threat to national security, naturally. Or unnaturally. Probably just as big a threat as Osama. Or Milk Duds. Or something.

And Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania.

Is it just me or are the crazies out in force these days? George W. Bush's Iraq War now appears poised to last until I'm dead. Hillary's trying to flog yet another healthcare plan that doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell. Some student in Florida got tased by the cops (and don't think for one minute that I believe HE's as pure as the driven snow, either... I smell a great big, publicity driven rat behind that story). And tased? Puhleeze. In my day the National Guard invaded your campus and shot four of your classmates dead for shit like expressing your opinions regarding war. Tasing is for pussies. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young will NOT write a memorable song about some publicity-hound getting tased.

Meanwhile, President George W. Shitforbrains forces generals and ambassadors to kiss Congress's ass on his behalf.

Greenspan finally starts spilling the beans. So does Rummy.

Over half the people under 30 think that the US and Germany were ALLIES against Russia in WWII (what the fuck planet have they been living on?)

Some dumbbell on The View thinks the world is FLAT.

The Senator from Idaho may like to suck some cock or get butt-fucked on the DL now and then, but he is MOST EMPHATICALLY NOT GAY!

And denial, apparently, really is just a river in Egypt.

Sometimes I wonder when Jeebus is finally gonna come and get me out of this madhouse?

Fantasyland!

When I was a kid, watching the grand opening of DisneyLand in Anaheim in living black & white on channel six out of Philly (ABC), I was enthralled to find out that they had various "theme areas" to the park. There was Frontierland (because Davy Crockett was a Disney franchise), Tomorrowland (with it's sleek RocketShip), Adventureland (with it's Pirate Ship) and Fantasyland. When my imagination turned, as it often did, to the subject of my rescue, when the Knight in Shining Armor (my father) rode in to rescue me from the clutches of the Evil Queen (my mother), he and I were then always torn between riding off into Tomorrowland or Fantasyland. Generally, though, we came down in favor of Fantasyland.

I got enabled (a lot) by people who wanted to control me over the years. The adults with whom I lived while I was raising myself, the Navy, some well-meaning but totally controlling friends in college, lovers, bosses, et al. President Shitforbrains got enabled a lot, too, by the finest politicians and institutions that his daddy's money could buy. Eventually I hit a bottom and had to face a lot of realities, real fast. There's nothing like waking up in a jail cell on a Sunday morning with a DUI and no bail to get your attention.

And there's nothing like a quick trip to Iraq to give Assahola Bush a slap or two in the face, regarding the "real life" he's been ignoring for years now.

There's a wonderful piece in The Huffington Post about it today. Go check it out, here.

It's a funny thing about Fantasy. It can be whatever your pea-sized brain needs it to be. Whatever serves your immediate and unbending, unyielding, needs. Fantasy. Great word that. It implies a total denial of current reality.

Speaking of that, one of my favorite moments of all times in the theater comes in "Angels in America" when a doctor confronts Roy Cohn with the truth about his disease. Roy absolutely, vehemently, denies that he is "gay." Oh, he may have had sex with men, but he is not gay. He threatens the doctor with ruination if the doctor even utters the thought that Roy might be "gay." Roy sums up his feelings about it thusly, "whatever it is that I am... it's NOT THAT!"

And that was the end of that. Oh yes, he took it up the butt from a string of handsome young men (proteges all), but he was NOT THAT.

Pacino was (well, wasn't he always?) over the top in his performance of the scene. But he definitely captured the essence of what Cohn was all about. Absolutely controlling and dictating what people even thought about him. Or, at least, he tried to.

That's why, slightly later in the play, as Cohn lay dead of AIDS in the hospital, one of the most breathtaking pieces of sheer theatricality I have ever seen in my life occurs when the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg (played by Meryl Streep in the HBO production) steps out of the shadows to say Kaddish over his corpse. It brought tears to my eyes and spoke volumes regarding the subject of forgiveness.

Anyway, Dubya is a lot like Cohn. Controlling. Pigheaded. Absolutely Right and everyone else is absolutely wrong. A dictator. Cruel. Self-centered. Egotistical. Completely unsolicitous of others unless he's gonna git sumthin' outta it.

There are two types of people in his world. Himself and all the little people.

He should only be so lucky as Roy Cohn when the time comes for someone to say Kaddish over him.

And speaking of denial, see also the latest on Larry Craig. He's still hiding his queerness behind his children. As though he were the first gay guy to get married and sire kids as beards.