Barbra said to Tell Him, so I did.

What's the occasion?

Good question, because by me, timing is everything. So of course there's an occasion for new steamy posts. Today marks some number of decades since I first told a boy I liked him. He became my first boyfriend the day before ninth grade. Ya boi had a boyfriend on the first day of high school, back when boyfriends were rare and expensive because so many of my people were still in hiding. I hate that I'm proud of that fact (that's another post). Mais me voilà.

The point of this occasion isn't really the early-decision boyfriend. It's that in my first year of my teens, I'd sorted out enough of my shit through the raging hormones to understand that I liked boys, while everyone around me just wanted me to like the swarming girls back. And at thirteen, I found enough courage and enough imagination to bet on something much bigger: that plenty of boys liked me back, and that the risk of being openly gay would, against all odds, pay off. So this week, twenty years ago, I said it out loud. I let my heart go where it had been too anxious to imagine going just months before. I'd already come out as gay; great, so now I was figuring out what I wanted, all while the world was busy telling me not to want it. Turns out that exercise builds character. Really. Ask anyone who's worked with me.

So, twenty years later, you bet I have some shit to say about guys. I've lived with men in serious, committed relationships for more than twenty years. I'm in love with a man now, Chris (his name is another post entirely), and we live together in the healthiest relationship I've ever had with any guy, gay or straight.

Seriously, though: I've also dated, a generous term but not one lacking real intimacy, scores, not dozens, of men. I fancy myself someone whose brain finds patterns. So in twenty years, I've put some shit together. About myself. About commitment. About love. Certainly about sex. And yeah, about men. I'm not just a man myself. I've made a study of them.

All these years later, I'm reigniting my steamy pink blog. Not for Clayton Walker, my first boyfriend but rather for the chutzpah it took to tell the world to sit the fuck down and let me be me at thirteen. Even as an entry-level teenager, I trusted myself enough to bet that if I was weird for craving boys and men, I'd at least be in fashionable, hilarious company. So I led with my true self, and traveled from merely liking guys to tangoing with them.

This revival is going to chase one question: what is there to learn in twenty years of love, heartbreak, deception, a buffet of sex, commitment, and expensive therapy after choosing to live openly gay, and date, before high school even started?

Here's the thing, though. When straight teenagers make that same choice to risk loving openly, it's rarely called heroic the way it is for queer kids. But those straight girls are still dating boys and men the way I was dating boys and men. Their own epics resound with heroism too, even if no one's clapping for them. And I'm here for it as long as we tell our stories togayther. Queer men and straight women have a lot to learn from each other. Togayther, we're powerful, and, it turns out, a little frightening. At least to straight men. And a fair number of religious folks.

That power is useful. I'm not giving it up anytime soon. Tell your friends.

Greetings, Leaplings!

Two glamorous weeks in Paris and Bologna can really change a person. In this case, I'm just better rested having done some shopping. I am energized in the way that a strong coffee transforms a sluggish soul into a coked out champion. 

You can't make this up. After 14 years, I'm back on the Upper West Side. We moved here in 2022, and how ever did we make it back to 105th St? I chose to be back today, February 29, 2024! Where did time go?

Soon, I'll head over to a chic restaurant for Leap Day cocktails with a gf and my bf, Chris! This August, we celebrate ten years as a couple! We share a fabulous apartment and an even more fabulous job as the head of school of Schechter Manhattan, a progressive Jewish day school in the neighborhood.  

As the French say, "Plus ca change, .." I'll share more later. For now, I'm excited to be writing again. I'm thrilled to be doing it NYC.

Happy Leap Day!

 

Seeing is Belonging

For about twelve hours and two weeks, I have been Mr. Cool. I'd like to think that my fun-filled, fabulous (albeit overwrought) existence normally merits the designation of cool. In the most recent days passed, I have been extra cool. No, it isn't a new haircut, a new celebrity friend, or even traveling servants. No, this kind of cool is all about what I don't have. (No, I haven't lost any weight. That wouldn't make me cool; it would make me hot.)

It all started the Wednesday before Passover one hurried and unsuspecting morning on the crosstown train. Armed with a book as I am wont to travel when I do so solo subway-style, I ran into an UWS friend. As I noticed him coming my way, I closed my book and removed my glass from my face. That's when the shit hit the fan, or the frames hit the floor, whichever you prefer. My one pair of perfectly good glasses shattered before me and my commuting compadre.

As I made my way out of the Grand Central Station stop toward my office, I was disappointed by the notion that I might not have purchased insurance for the bastards. I have health insurance that includes dental. It never occurred to me to have an extra pair. It was hard enough to get the first pair.

They were five months old. How could they break?!? I had to lead a seder that weekend. I had to be able to read my email once I arrived in the office. I was scheduled to leave early that day. I made my way over to the optical store on my home. Luckily, it's in the hood. Once I got there, I was relieved to learn that the frames were still under warranty. But, my relief was quickly met with an odorous whiff of disbelief. In order to prove to the manufacturer that the frames were really broken, they had to be sent somewhere far way. I was promised a new pair in less than one week's time. An entirely new pair would take just as much time to arrive, the eyeglass frame-sellers claimed as they dance around the cauldron of my disappointment.

You have an imagination. I supplied the timetable in the first f***ing paragraph. It's no surprise that I am still waiting for my glasses. One store manager and two customer service people later, I haven't even received an apology. All I get is the run around. Until yesterday, no one would tell me what had happened. I'll have you know that I remained throughout a kind and understanding consumer, hoping in vain that it might help. I guess this is why other customers often exaggerate their ire when they make a complaint; it probably gets them somewhere.

The truth is that I do have somewhat of a back-up pair of glasses with a current prescription. They're in reliably great shape. The catch is that they're sunglasses, although I do appreciate the tint they provide on a world that I feel is already dark and despair-ridden. I figure that if I already look like an star with the shades, I might as well play up the melodrama.

This temporary "fix" is the worst in the office where I am forced to wear the sunglasses to see my computer screen. Many of my winner colleagues come up one by one asking, "What's with the shades?" When I see them approach, my instinct is to jerk them off and to save face by pretending that I wasn't wearing sunglasses at my desk. As they approach me, I fight the urge to retell the entire story so that I don't seem like the rest of the attention-grabbing characters that abound in the world of cubicles and copy machines.

Instead of cowering at colleagues who close in on me as I work, I play up the cool look. Maybe I've been crying. Maybe I'm stoned. Maybe, as many suggest, "I'm too cool for school." Whatever they might think, I prefer to keep them guessing. Until I clink glasses over my new pair of glasses, I will remain a cool cat who wears his sunglasses at night.

Now's the Time

"In politics if you want anything said, ask a man.  If you want anything done, ask a woman." - Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister of the United Kingdom.

So much has plagued me this week.  If it's not one thing, they say, ... I know; I know.  One of the many issues racing through my brain at random hours of the day and night is this Twiggy-thin election that has divided the American Left, leaving it weaker and, perhaps, paralyzed.   It's no secret that I'm enthusiastically in favor of Senator Clinton, but, for too long, it seems that I'm missing out on the secret that has fueled increasing support for her chief rival.

Perhaps the issue is more salient now that the Texas primary, an oh-so important one, is upon us.  While I haven't lived there in over two-and-a-half years, I visit often, and I will always have a connection to Austin, no matter where I reside.  Now, I look to Texas, a place not known for its thriving liberal and, when need be, militant population.  I'm looking toward Texas to restore the public's confidence in the Senator.  For too many weeks, the rest of the country's liberals have failed to unite behind its long-time standard-bearer at the end of eight years of life with the "Shrub," as he was known to the late great liberal, Molly Ivins of Austin, Texas.

Enshrined in the  person of Senator Clinton lives the realistic vision for the moderate liberalism that will redeem the country's plummeting economy, improve the quality of crucial American judges, safeguard the health of average US citizens, and dust off the West's image across the globe.  She is the timely hope for all Americans, those from the loopy left all the way over to the Religious Right.  So, you can imagine why I am puzzled at the seeming abandonment that she's suffered at the hands of liberal Americans.  If I didn't know better, I'd say that the Right is thrilled at the idea of a moderate Republican facing off with a far less moderate democrat than Senator Clinton.  

When Senator Clinton called out the current president on his hypocrisy surrounding his relationship to the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I was convinced that she was someone, along with her husband, who understood the weight of Dr. King's special mission.  She disclosed, "One day, after laying a wreath at the tomb of Martin Luther King, Jr., President Bush appoint[ed] a federal judge who has built his career around dismantling Dr. King's legacy."  

 As first lady and senator of New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton has demonstrated that she knows how to continue the work of civil rights for all Americans.  She has built relationships in minority communities that have, for example, won support of the African-American leadership in Harlem and the leadership of women's groups the nation over.   She's ahead of the empty rhetoric; she's already made the essential alliances.  Among the Senator's supporters are the lead chairman of the NAACP, Julian Bond, and the co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America, Dolores Huerta, who now sits on the boards of People for the American Way and the Feminist Majority Foundation.  Great liberals are behind her.  Why aren't you?

In certain circles, I have talked up the work of the Senator, and some have wondered aloud, "Just who do does he think she is?"  I can say with great conviction that she is a politician's politician, with all the power and baggage that comes with such a description.   She is a leader, fit to sit at the head of this nation's leading liberal political party.  Senator Clinton is the certain hope for political change on which every liberal must rely in twenty-first century America.

But, I haven't deluded myself into believing that the Senator is some sort of saint or even a figure of Dr. King's caliber.   As a person of deep faith, I must say that saints and ministers have no place in American politics.  Our soiled system will only soil their work.  No, these people, however revolutionary, belong in schools, synagogues, churches, temples, on television, lobbying and leading protests.  It takes a different sort of American to precipitate change in our current government.  Auspiciously, we have this political resource in Senator Clinton, a woman surrounding herself with wise and experienced liberals who compliment her own wisdom and work as perfectly as any voter could need today.

And, so, I beseech my fellow liberals in Texas, in Ohio, and in the rest of the nation, to place their votes, their time, their voices, and their hopes in the only liberal who can make history by effectively reversing the trends of Washington under the current administration.  Please reconsider what it means to be a liberal American today.  I entreat you to embrace the knowledge that Senator Clinton is our certain hope toward a powerful Democratic leadership which will begin the permanent change toward a wiser White House, filled with allies old and new.  If the Left does not support the Senator now with a thunderous voice, then we will fall divided.   A divided Left serves only the Right.

God save the distinguished Senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, liberal, feminist, mother, daughter, wife, and potential front-runner for the Democratic Party of the United States of America.

Waiting Room Woes

In our iPhone-filled, MP3-sharing world, I'm constantly amazed at how much we can get done from our laptops: bill paying, ancestry research, relationship-making, grocery shopping, arson, revenge of the sweetest kinds, etc.  But, I am most amazed when I learn of those tasks which cannot be done with twenty-first century technology. Can you think of any? Teleporting, giving birth, ordering a Slurpee®.

Having visited a couple of doctors recently (both tall, Jewish, with wonderful senses of humor, but not single), I was intrigued. While this post is not about the consistency of doctor's offices, I must write that it would be nice if we actually knew what to expect there.  Sometimes I'm humiliated by getting on the scale, even for a fucking eye infection!  Other times, I just breeze on through while the judgmental bitch nurse simply guesses my weight.  I wouldn't mind being weighed provided that they'd compensate me by giving me drugs that would warrant taking my weight.

Anyway, the point of the digression was to mention that the doctor's office is a lot like those machine-bastards into which you swipe your credit card at the grocery store at the register.   Just how many models of these bloody machines are there in existence?!?  And, they're all different!  These are pretty important machines! They charge us, using bank information, mothers' maiden names and shit, only to confuse us the moment that we approach them! Of all the things to produce inconsistently, why these? Of all the places to be kept on your toes, why the doctor's office?

But, as I typed before, I digress. Once I learned that I had to give up some blood, I eased out of the hyperventilation and into the chair of penetration wherein a needle was forced into my limb, extracting the very life force that I was seeking to preserve by coming to the doctor. And, then amazement fell over my thin self: why can't we, Americans, a people of innovation, of Diet Coke, and of liposuction, find another less barbaric method of extraction these life juices?!? We've put bastards on the moon for Christ's sake! How about helping out the rest of us?!?  Must they still puncture us like druggies?!?  Couldn't they just take a picture of you and, by extension, see the blood?!? SOMETHING!

This may sound juvenile (and I am very young), but it does really bother me. This is one of the primary reasons for which I stay away from the doctor's office. If I'm going to see a doctor, I prefer that he be sitting across from me at dinner. Other times, the doctors and their minions just want to know the most private details of my high-profile existence: my weight, past medical "issues," what other drugs I'm taking, how often I exercise, etc.  What ever happened to dinner and drinks before any of that info is disclosed?!?

Then there's the mutha' of all NOYB (none of yo bizzness) questions! Those nosey, triffling medical people want to know about sex. Who you doing? AND, how often? But the most brilliant part of all this is the range of choices they give you: yes or no! Oh, ho ho ... if only it were that simple! They should know better than that. At the very least, there should be a third option for the question of sexual frequency: in a relationship.  Not that I'm complaining; it's the natural course of things, I would argue, for which I'm extremely grateful.

Overall, I may have suffered more stress from the doctor's visit alone.  Waiting for the results of my blood work, ironically, had my blood pressure as high as it when I have to pay retail for something.  All ending well, I feel less horrible about putting off the doctor visits for as long as I did.  What came of it?  It all went exactly what I expected, no surprises.  In that sense, it was better than a date, except that I didn't walk away with a doctor.  You win some, and you lose some.

Mapmaker, mapmaker, make me a map ...

It's completely my fault. If I had logged in to this space before now, I would have caught this blog's third birthday in January. It serves me right. I used to blame Daniel and, by extension, the relationship, for my lack of time to write. But, for about two months, Daniel was doing research in Arizona, not around to distract. In the time he was gone, the holiday season, I partied hard and accomplished very little. So, for the first time this year, I'm back with much to say and little discipline with which to extract it.

The word of the season is "geography;" coincidently this was Daniel's bar mitzvah theme and one of our favorite subjects. Between the two of us, Dan and I flew a total of 14 times in the two months that he was away, none of those trips being any closer to the NYC than the great state of Texas. Among these trips were my first two visits to California, a place that I found utterly enchanting. But, it's like they always say, "The grass is always greener ..." Oh, it may be so true. As you can probably infer, I still feel the same way about the Nu York, ready to make the split. This time, however, it may actually happen.

I imagine myself as the boy who cried, "Relocation!" I feel that I've threatened to leave the City any day that the temperature rises above 50 degrees. In the face of long commute times and armed itinerant citizens, I have made a life with amazing friends in the Nu York. But, if you asked me to add to the list of amazing things I've done here, I wouldn't be able to speak highly about the educational or professional strides I've made; they've been negligible. Financially, I'm no better off. Personally, I've built up a relationship with Daniel while my family in Texas has been radically refigured.

[Enter seductive circumstance.] This summer, Daniel's work at Columbia will take him to the end of the Metro North train line, right into New Haven, Connecticut, to continue his research with his colleagues who are moving to Yale University. While the length of the move is unequivocally indefinite, we have remained largely undefined. We've been together for over two years, and we still live in two separate Nu York City apartments. His future and his investment in all of this is clear; mine are not.

Naturally, Daniel wishes that I could go with him. And, who can blame him? In addition to being quite the catch, why wouldn't he want to continue the relationship that has sustained the two of us, that has changed us? My moving, however, would require finding a new job and a new social group. In some senses, I'd be even farther from my family, with few flights heading directly to Texas from New Haven. Each time I'd fly home, I'd have to come back to the City just to get there. And, if I were moving anywhere at this point in life, why wouldn't it be back to Austin?

At the end of the day, this all boils down to geography, or the lack thereof. If the life we lived as decision-making adults came with maps, we'd all be better off. The rugged terrain of adulthood is no match for someone prepared for life's surprises, right?!? Without a clue about where North is, without a map or a manual, we're all just bumping around hoping that the next steps we take are the right ones for us. We grow up for twenty-something years with life's biggest decisions made for us. Then, we leave school, and I'm wondering how the hell we're supposed to be ready to make those decisions ourselves without living in constant fear and doubt that we're on the wrong path?!?

I've always had a great sense of direction, and even when I was lost, I had no problems asking for directions. But, now, it seems that asking my peers about direction is tantamount to the blind leading the blind. My elders know better than to give directions. Maybe the answer lies in evolution. Like early human beings, maybe I'll make my way to where the grass is greener, to where I'm hunting and gathering less. And, if I'm lucky, maybe I'll happen upon a ranger. Isn't it their job to scout out the wilderness? Plus, park rangers are usually really cute.

Four-Day/Three-Night, All-Inclusive

When I realized that I would not be able to make it home on Thanksgiving for another year, I felt that I had been beaten yet again. For the third year in a row, the Universe had conspired against me. I can find an affordable ticket home all year long, but this time of year is impossible. Hoping to make the best out of a potentially lonely holiday weekend, I found myself in the midst of an almost perfect paradise.

They always say that it usually comes to you when you're not expecting it. As a single boy, I found that hunk of wisdom as worthless as a starched shirt on a humid day. My faith in true love, however, was restored at the store when I met my magical girlfriend Beckett. We met up at the Fairway on 74th and Broadway ready to tackle the inevitable shopping experience that we'd otherwise face alone.

It was there that I made my way toward a time of true gratitude. All year, Daniel and I check the usually barren Entenmann's section for the ultimate holiday treat: a pecan pie. But, there it was, the night before Thanksgiving, waiting for me. I later learned that the pie was misdelivered to this location, alone among the pumpkin goodness. I tracked it down, which you can do on the Entenmann's website. I now have a date with the Food Emporium across from Kosher Marketplace on West 89th Street to pick up as many as I can fit into a cab!

Just before Shabbat, the holiday fairy drag queen performed yet another act of kindness for me. In a quick run to the local grocery store, my long-lived search for delicious, kosher, vegetarian stuffing was ended. I finally found a package that wasn't made of matzo-meal. That stuff isn't even edible at Passover, let alone the rest of the year. The happiness only increased when, after adding my own special touch, I ate it all over a hearty tofurkey that my special sista' brought over. The bliss was blossoming.

The best part of all was the solitude. I was afraid that I'd feel especially lonely this year, but I didn't. The City was emptier this weekend; it's a noticeable nicety of urban life. My roommates were gone. Dan was with the parents. I slept; I read. I ate; I read. I rolled around in my clean 600-thread-count sheets. I slept; I read. You get the point. Aside from being in Austin, I couldn't have asked for a more relaxing time away from the usual headache of schlepping through the City forever among its illustrious inhabitants.

Today, I finally had the energy to do my spring cleaning. It felt great. I'm almost ready for the week ahead. This'll be my last week with Daniel for a while. A few days into December, he'll be off to Arizona to work on some shhience shhtuff for an undetermined amount of time. We're guessing that he'll be away for at least a few weeks. It's sad; it's too much time away. he;s gone for all of Chanukah. This PhD better be worth it. He'll be missing all of the season's festivities. Grrr.

One of these days, I'll be able to derive pleasure by doing more than playing catch-up. Until then, I'm stuck with serendipitous nosh, one fabulous bed, and just enough national holidays to provide periodic pick-me-ups. I look forward to plunging into the work week as naturally as possible, with confidence and caffeine galore.