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Pleasantly Disengaged

It was sickeningly satisfying to hear that, from Andy’s HR perspective, I had reached the “Final Stage of Disengagement.”

I imagined it in all caps.

“What comes next?”

My eyes sparkled at the prospects: fame, fortune, a heretofore unknown 401k payout?

“Resignation.”

Buzzkill.

Disengaged

Flirting with resignation is slightly sordid. At least in my mind. Because “resignation” is personified as Jesse Bradford.

So I keep pushing the envelope. Because I want my supervisor to ask why I’m not performing to my usually high standards. Mostly so I can tell him that his hands-off approach and piecemeal “resolution tactics” are for shit.  

Sure, I could be the better person: pick up where others fail; shield my supervisor from my coworkers’ incompetence; carry more than my fair share.

Meh.

Been there, done that.

When things are allowed to get to this point, there’s little I can do. Other than sit back and watch the ruins crumble. Preferably with a soy mocha in one hand, a pumpkin scone in the other, and an “I told you this would happen” smile plastered across my face.

And I’m completely fine with it. Because, as one wise friend who got the hell out of here once told me, “The only way to show people what a fucking wreck this place has become is to let things fall apart.”  

Before working here, I never subscribed to that sort of thinking. But it makes complete sense. And it gives me a reason to cut myself a break or two—not beat myself up over work minutiae.

Instead, I redirect my energies to something much greater than work: living life.

And I’ve been doing plenty of that.

The types of laughter and meaningful conversations I had with Andy and my friend Amanda this past weekend are paramount to my sanity. Because who wouldn’t enjoy a weekend peppered with comments regarding sweater nipples and taxidermied animals?

Especially when I laughed so loud that I couldn’t hear the protracted beep of my flat-lined work ethic echoing in my head.

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Won’t You Be My Future?

I wholeheartedly assumed tonight was going to involve a tumbler, a few ice cubes, and a splash of Grey Goose. Then again, I must’ve misread the day’s ominous, plague-like signs: a mouse, a frog, a coworker crying over the phone to her mother.

Or maybe, just maybe, I’ve grown up a little.

That’s not to say ye olde after-work cocktail won’t occasionally be conjured out of a few bottles. Rather, it’s me acknowledging that, sometimes, it’s harder to whine and drink than it is to thicken my skin.

Life is messy, so I might as well get used to it.

Pollocked Facade

And adulthood is hard. Sometimes, it’s entirely overrated. But there’re times when I look around and think, “Huh, maybe I’m not such a lazy sack after all. Maybe I can do this.”

Then I rally for a short time, conquer some menial task peripherally related to this, and veg on the couch, assuming I’ve somehow convinced the universe—or at least my gullible self—that I deserve some downtime, a reprieve from the work I’ve accomplished.

But winching my wagon to a dream, and pulling it out of its current rutted path, isn’t going to be easy. And I’ll never experience a cathartic payoff if I don’t take the first steps to change my course. Unless I want to continue hitchhiking along the Bitter-Bitchy-Catty-Queen Highway, arriving everywhere but my desired destination.  

I’ve always succeeded in psyching myself out of going for the proverbial it. After all, it’s been easier to fall back on an anxiety-stuffed, disconcertingly comfy emotional cushion instead of failing hard and busting my coccyx.

Then again, the fall might not be as painfully hard as I think, and failure often has an annoyingly silver lining.

Plus, I might not fall at all.

But the only way for me to know is to stop circling the “Maybe” on the mentally-scrawled, sixth grade-style “Will You Be My Future?” note that arrives in my frontal lobe after every temper tantrum.

Better yet, I should stop writing it in the first place.

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The Great Unknown

The irreverent wrapper-crinkling garnered a glance from a nearby conference-goer. Seconds later, mid-way through my foodgasmic rendition of an Herbal Essences commercial, I got more than a few consternated stares and even more furrowed brows.

So maybe a church wasn’t the best place to indulge my slightly sordid, truffle-inspired culinary ecstasy. Still, it wasn’t my fault that the little blobs of joy were eyes-rolling-back-in-my-head good.

Plus, the whole venue was a little repressive, and the guy on the cross was a major buzzkill.

While my sweet, sweet sacrilege left the more pious in the crowd exasperated, my taste buds thanked me. Actually, if they had little knees, they’d probably get down and praise the cacao gods.

Alright, enough religiosity. I’m beginning to have flashbacks to my altar boy years.

And we don’t want that.

***

The night before—somewhere between eating part of a Playboy Roll and realizing I was having a really, really good hair day—I found myself banging on a parking garage pay machine, yelling, “Where the fuck is my money?!”

That is, until I looked down and realized the dispensed change was peppered with Sacajawea dollars. (Yes, they’re still used as legal tender. Who knew?) So, that particular anger mismanagement moment was wholly unnecessary. Especially since it caused the Prius driver behind me to lock her doors. Then again, if I’d reserved a room at a downtown hotel, I wouldn’t have had to accost machines and demand their papery tribute.

Or scare eco-conscious drivers.

Instead, I ended up at a quality establishment approximately 500 miles away. There, along with my room keys, I received a handout listing area attractions. And there it was, directly beneath Biltmore Estate: Super Walmart.

Because when you go to Asheville, you go not for the Smoky Mountains National Park or the revitalized historic downtown, but the quintessential marker of American consumerist consumption.

You decide to which I’m referring.

***

Regardless of my far-flung accommodations, I made the most of it. Because when a conference is held in a trendy, historic area, there’s no shortage of foodie places for hanging out and getting bombed. I mean, er, networking.

And while the pumpkin-spice tortellini and chocolate crème brûlée and champagne-bookstore were amazing, the most poignant moment came at the end.

And isn’t that always the way? Right when you think you can mentally pack your bags and hit “Shuffle,” something smacks you across the face and shakes your shoulders.

Like a random, passing statement between two strangers.

“It’s very frightening to me, the whole unknown of it.”

I know, I know. What’s the big deal? It wasn’t some ad hoc sonnet or poem–nothing earth-shattering. 

But isn’t it bizarrely beautiful? And with such perfect delivery.

In her mid-forties, the woman sat on a stairway in a tailored suit, one hand massaging her neck and the other gesturing—her fingers entertaining a nearly spent cigarette–to a tall man in a worn tweed suit and tie. Her eyes sparkled, yet conveyed defeat. The sun beamed, and the air carried a chill, along with a few withered, colored leaves.

Albeit fleeting, the exchange jarred me to such a degree that, after I passed by, I pulled out my journal and jotted everything down, along with the time: 4:35 PM.

And why is the time important, you might wonder? Well, it’s not.

At least not right now.

But when I’m flipping back through my journal years into the future, years into the unknown, I can know that, at that particular place and time on September 20, a stranger reminded me that I’m constantly flirting with the future.

And I’ll never know what relationship I’ll have with it, nor how it will curl around my life’s edges like wind around leaves–coloring it with experience, carrying it along a new path.

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Then, Him

Children were screaming. Bounce houses were deflating. Rain was pouring down. And my hair looked like the sad leavenings of a Chia Pet porn scene.

And then I met him.

***

With thirty minutes of sleep under my undone belt, I steeled myself for the big day. And convinced myself that, no, I wouldn’t vomit after all.

Sidewalk chalk, a duffle bag stuffed with clothes I knew I’d never change into, and a few water bottles I knew I’d never drink were thrown haphazardly into my car. After all, when the LGBTs overrun one of Raleigh’s busiest downtown streets, there’s no time to do anything. Except do it up right.

Meaning, by the shebang’s end, we’re completely exhausted, dehydrated, and cattier than usual. A year in the making, the festival was the second of its kind in Raleigh’s history. There’d been attempts at other Pride-like events, but this one was different.

Not only was it larger this time around, but it had the fortuitous placement days before a critical vote in the state regarding LGBT rights. Everything had to run smoothly, and every person involved had their liver to remind them just how much vodka-laced logistical mess was involved to pull everything off. Each of us knew there was much more at stake than a few balloons and carnival games. Civil rights, it seemed, hinged upon our ability to garner support in any way that we could. In the eleventh hour. On thirty minutes of sleep.

And I looked fantastic.

My shirt dripped with sweat before the first visitor arrived, and I had Louis Vuitton bags beneath my eyes—minus the classiness. Dried-out contacts demanded tears as tribute for their aggravation at such an hour, while my gut reminded me that Nutella and Salt-n-Vinegar chips contain little nutritive value. An olfactory bouquet of restaurant refuse, cigarettes, and body odor from the previous night seemed to cling to the sidewalks until sweeper crews blew everything into the street and onto me.

So as I crinkled my nose and directed the inflatable bounce house delivery truck to various drop-off points—past the frantic production coordinator slapping paper numbers to the asphalt and crying out “We’re not ready!”—visions of little Gertrude pulling a chicken bone out of her foot skipped through my sleep-addled mind. By the time the puppeteers arrived, I’d come to some realizations: (1) Such sleep-deprivation should only occur if one finds themselves sandwiched between Frank Iero and Sam Trammell; (2) No amount of deodorant will compensate for rotten potato juice splashed on your shirt while moving overflowing garbage cans; (3) Toilet Bowl Basketball is never just like Ring Toss, regardless of whatever the responsible delivery driver emphatically suggests; and (4) No amount of product will tame curly hair when humidity, heat, and the impending presence of hyperactive children conspire against you.

Several hours into the melee, rainbow flags were whipping in the wind, performers were entertaining crowds with their singing and dancing, protestors were reciting our collective sins from behind explicit and color uncoordinated signs, and I was repeatedly convincing parents that, if they tilted their head slightly to the right, the inflatable sea creature crevices out of which their children happily sprung looked less like labias and more like Nessie’s lips.

The wind picked up a bit more, and then the deluge engulfed us—no drippy, misty foreshadowing, just an all-out fallout. While the protestors held their hands aloft and proclaimed the rain to be the work of God, I channeled my inner lifeguard and pulled kids out of the slopping messes the inflatables had become—being the collective buzzkill and nearly inciting riots among the tiny warriors, all the while mentally reciting two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.

Between phoning the rental company and holding up my waterlogged pants, two of the inflatables came down. Sidewalk chalk renderings of families washed with tobacco chew and disintegrating cotton candy into the overwhelmed drains, and I pretended to be elsewhere as I felt my favorite shoes fill with the disturbing soup.

Before long, even God’s wrath became too much for the protesting zealots, and they ran. With wind funneling through the high-rises and whipping the vendors’ tents like spaghetti, OutRaleigh 2012 was called a few hours before its scheduled end time.

But not before my curiosity was piqued. An infinitesimally short amount of time separated the opening showers and the subsequent deluge. But sandwiched within this respite from the maelstrom was a brush with a yet unknown future.

***

With suspicions of an early close dancing somewhat gleefully in the back of my mind, I relieved a volunteer of his post at the massive Screamer Slide. Kids slicked by rain couldn’t get enough of it, and I steadied myself against its outer edge right as two kids crumpled into a wet, laughing pile at my feet.

More than bedraggled, I glanced up and past them to the opposite side. And there was this guy, whose eye contact was far deeper than the puddle at the bottom of the slide, and whose shoes could’ve easily been paired with a technicolor raincoat. He had a slightly mischievous, ear-to-ear smile plastered across his face, and just nodded his head at the kids descending into a rambunctious welter between us.

And then the sky opened up—not for an apropos rainbow or angelic music, but rather fat drops that splattered across our faces and settled the minor feud unfolding at my feet. Man X and I ushered the kids out, and began deflating the slide. And somewhere along the way, he mentioned his name: Andy.

“I like your shoes. They’re really bright.”

As my inner tween made an “L” sign on his forehead and rolled his eyes, I slipped and fell on my stomach, into the float. Andy looked down with another smile, and raised an eyebrow.

Hook.

Line.

Sinker.

***

Months later, I’m sitting on a mid-century-modern sofa he’d purchased on one of our antiquing excursions and surveying my pneumonia-clouded mind—retracing how I’ve ended up here. So many details in between that soggy day and this moment have been etched into memory—the hikes, the ice cream, the brunches.

But I wave them away to appreciate this moment: the fleece he brings me to quell my fever-induced chills, and the chocolate-covered pretzels and gummy worms he spreads across the coffee table before me. He clicks on the complete Daria series, presses “Play,” and gingerly rests his hand on my knee, giving it a slight squeeze.

And I know this snarky cynic is finally home.

Warm, fuzzy feelings and all.

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Edge of Twenty-Seven

He woke me at midnight. I bolted upright, the force of which nearly toppled the carefully arranged historic doors I’d erected as an art installation turned headboard.

“Travis?”

His voice was slurred a bit, but comprehensible. Perfect, he’s liquored up, which means everything he’s soon to divulge about how much I mean to him will undoubtedly be true. Grey Goose: the real litmus test of reality.

“Hey, yeah, it’s me.” Soft and heavy.

I loved that “it’s me”–so comfortable, so familiar: so something boyfriends say to one another. Warmth enrobed my body.

Well, part of it.

“So you know that game we were playing…the other day?” Ice clinked in the background.

I gasped. How could I have forgotten?

We’d just stopped for an ice cream break after walking around campus in our camouflage shorts and tight tees. Much to my delight, we’d spent most of the walk talking about “us,” how we’d make a good couple. I almost hadn’t needed ice cream to make the day better.

Almost.

After he’d asked about “my type” and me his, I was rewarded with the proverbial cherry on top: “You fit.” All I’d needed to make the sundae perfect was nuts.

“You there?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. You mean the ‘My Type’ game?”

“Exactly. And you asked me what my type was. You remember?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well…”

If I’d been on the rotary phone with the long manila cord my parents had had when I was growing up, I’d be twisting myself into a tangled mess.

“…your friend Andy…”

Or hanging myself with it.

“What?”

“You know, Andy. On Myspace.”

My mouth was dry, the darkness all-consuming. Ice clinked again.

“He’s my type for sure.”

Of course he is.

I felt physically ill–the anger bubbling up from my gut the strength of a thousand lava flows. Why Andy? Why my best friend? And then it clicked. But Travis wasn’t done; the vodka had lubricated his lips and the barbed testimonials to come.

“And you know the other night, when you couldn’t make it out to Michael’s with us?”

I just hummed.

“Well, that night I met this hot Latino gardener.”

I had to sit down.

“And I took him back to my place…”

I covered my eyes.

“…and fucked him.”

I hung up, threw the phone into the dark room, and fell into my bed dramatically, hitting my forehead on a doorknob in the process.

The next morning, my lump-headed self walked into Masterpieces of Spanish Art, the art history course we had together. Our friendship had begun a semester prior, across the quad in The History of Greece, then progressed over the months from a kiss to a few copped feels and plenty of bedroom eyes. But here it would end, as El Greco as our witness.

“Good morning,” he smiled thinly, disguising his forked tongue.

I glared at him. We never spoke again.

***

When I think of Travis, a number comes to mind. “Twenty-seven,” he’d said, “that’s when your brain is fully developed.”

Dubious as I was, I figured he was making shit up to offset the eventual burn from his deflections. And, to an extent, he was. At the ripe age of twenty-one, I’d mentally abused him, demanded what he knew about the world–a late twenty-something just now getting his bachelor’s degree.

Pah! I’d thought, he knows nothing.

But here I am, a whopping six years later, past the cusp of twenty-seven, nearing twenty-eight, and things are just now starting to make sense. They’re still a bit fuzzy, but focusing a bit with each day, each revelation I find in the random bits of conversation, experience, and life that compose my days.

So, I’ve acknowledged that, maybe, Travis was right. At least a little bit.

It’s in the trite clichés, the moments of teeth-clenching retrospection that I understand the value of perspective–how we change. And while I still don’t see the value of his picking-up-a-trick-and-fucking-him penchant, I’ve acknowledged that Travis might’ve been trying to do something good–teach me something.

That’s why I write: to figure myself out through each typed word, watch myself change through paragraphs, and, ultimately, become a different person than I’ve been–one who marvels at how consumed I’d been with a particular thought or person, and how, now, I couldn’t care less.

Self-deprecation has become a fragile truth to which I cling like a sponge, wringing it out every so often to see what parts of me stay trapped within its webbing, and which parts wash away. Life is spongy–it’s porous, and always changing. There’re some things about me that’ll stick and others that’ll stray, and there I’ll remain: forever changing.

And in a few years when I read back through this, I’ll probably roll my eyes, realize how misguided, how full of hubris, and how completely out-of-touch I am currently.

I hope so.

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The Roads We Travel

To my fellow I-40 drivers, I’m an in-process PSA—a future, grisly slide for a Driver’s Education course. With a massive mid-century modern leather sofa–nicknamed Betty–completely obscuring the right half of my Matrix (Trixxy), I try to play it cool. Nothing to see here, police. Just a gay on the road to decorating bliss. With some additional badonkadonk in Trixxy’s trunk.

A muffled observation comes from the floorboard behind my seat.

“Wow, you have two cup holders? Perfect for my Evian bottle.”

Cloaked in a microfiber throw, Andy shifts, kneeing my back and pushing my face into Betty’s leg.

“If I was a lesbian, my hips would be too wide to fit back here. Then again, we’d probably be in a Subaru Forester. Which would mean I’d actually have a seat.”

I try to hum my agreement, but gum Betty’s leg instead.

***

This morning, right as I’d contemplated dropping Andy’s IKEA plates, he materialized in the kitchen doorway as fast as that girl from The Ring. He had an announcement.

“I need your measuring tape. I’m going to see if we can do something.”

Intentionally obscure comments always grab my attention. And, apparently, also transpose IKEA plates from potentially destructive hands to safe cabinet space. Next to my beloved Fiesta ware, no less.

“I’ll be right back. I’m going to see if we can get Betty into Trixxy.”

Smart man. With our apartment in full-fledged disarray—my eyes darting from overflowing boxes to precariously stacked furniture—Andy knew the one thing that could possibly delay me from assuming the fetal position and channeling my inner Nell. No, not chocolate.

Aesthetic congruence. 

A few minutes later, the front door slammed.

“Get your pants on! We’re going to get Betty.”

I smiled. Then narrowed my eyes at the Campbell’s Soup mug-bowls peering out from the cabinet. “Count your lucky stars. You’re safe. For now.”

***

Flash-forward through disassembling Trixxy’s interior and stuffing Betty inside. It’s dusk; Trixxy’s undercarriage occasionally groans from sofa rearrangement. With a few final expletives, we get the driver’s side seat angled enough for me to accelerate and brake relatively safely, while leaving a small space in the back floorboard.

A young family approaches. As I subvert my envy of youth’s bodily plasticity, I reconsider the space between Trixxy’s steering column and driver’s seat.

“This is going to be tight. I hope I don’t end up with an impaled face.”

“Don’t worry. If anything happens, you’ll die instantly. But I’ll probably be okay.”

Fears allayed.

Once the family disappears from view, Andy folds himself into the floorboard and covers his head with the throw. And we’re off.

***

Only one driver induces a life-flashing-before-my-eyes moment, but I narrate that close call out of my running commentary.

“Say something every now and then so I know you haven’t suffocated.”

“I’m glad I brought my water.”

He shifts again.

“Oh, much better. I should tell you I’m claustrophobic.”

“WHAT?”

“Well, as long as I can move my limbs, I’m okay. Otherwise, I’ll freak out.”

A few more bumps and curves later, we pull up to the apartment. Removing Andy from the floorboard reminds me of the images I’ve seen of Saddam’s extrication from his bunker.

“Take a minute and breathe. Let the blood flow back to your feet.”

“I’m a little dizzy.”

Andy totters up to the front door and I open Trixxy’s trunk. With a few heaves and close calls with narrow doors, we get Betty upstairs. She’s home.

“I can tell you’re excited.”

And I am. So much so, I barely notice the blood seeping from my battered thumb.

“Don’t get blood on Betty!”

***

About an hour later, Andy and I spread our celebratory Whole Foods loot across the coffee table and sit on the floor with Betty at our backs. Avatar begins streaming through the TV, illuminating the darkened room between Isaac’s intermittent lightening.

And it’s in that moment that I realize, seven years ago today, I came out to my family.

Andy rummages his hand through a gummy bear bag. I look down at my overflowing plate. And grin at the metaphor.

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Wankers, Wankers Everywhere…and Not a Drop [of Vodka] to Drink

There seems to be no shortage of underemployed or unemployed peers of mine attempting to stay afloat in this rancid soup of an economy. And it’s that unfortunate fact that keeps me from entertaining protracted rants about my shitty work environment. Because, yes, while it might be a horrible place, it’s a job, a steady paycheck—even if said check could be a bit more substantial to make the end of the month not appear so far away.

Still, this gay has to let his hair fro out every now and again—casting aside the conditioner and wide-toothed comb for a bit of old-fashioned vitriol and finger snaps to keep my hair curled. What exactly could be bad about my work environment you ask? Well, I work with a bunch of wankers. On a military base.

I know, I know—me, in a military compound? Hilarious. But it’s tragically true. Never did I imagine I’d be in cahoots with Big Brother. But when an unfortunate event—yay, job loss!—conspires with one particularly inane life choice—yay, I’m an anthropologist!—my work life becomes a real life version of The Office. But instead of a funny or attractive cast, I’m stuck with the unfashionable dregs.

At the get-go, I had three wonderfully fun, informed, and competent friends around me—balancing out the crazy in a precise four-on-four split. But then, one by one, they left me high and dry. (Okay, that’s not really true. They each left for better jobs or for their own reasons—meaning: preserving what little sanity they had left.) And the minute the last one left me—with me screaming from inside the barbed-wire after her, “Run, bitch, run!”— the orcas started circling the baby seal.

Then, it got Animal Planet in this motherfucker. And while this baby seal may be outnumbered and torn apart, I intend to give the bastards the runs. It’s the very least I can do. Especially for the leading whale herself, whom I’ve dubbed McNutterpants. I even wrote her a note.

Dear McNutterpants:

I know you despise me. Don’t act like you don’t. Perhaps this is because I stand up for myself and can back up my arguments with actual facts, rather than the nut baggery you constantly pull out of your vapid head. Or perhaps it’s also because: (1) I’m proficient and competent in my job duties; (2) I can speak like an adult, and not the disturbingly high Disney character you so often channel; (3) I can actually use a computer to perform intensely difficult actions like, say, printing off an entire PowerPoint slide without assistance (I know, it’s hard); and (4) I don’t obsess over minutiae or interject myself into every conversation in a tragic attempt to make myself appear relevant.

So, do you think you could, I don’t know, fake a bit of professionalism?

Kisses,

Matt

But since I have yet to cast the last vestige of professionalism asunder, I’ll just leave that note unsent and add it to the pile.

Until I find myself in the middle of my resignation speech at some future staff meeting—and pointing to each and every person, and relaying my true opinion of them—I’ll just enjoy staring blankly at their incompetent selves while turning up the volume of Emeli Sandé’s “Next to Me,” then shrugging at their exasperation.

Can’t. Hear. You. Wankers.

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MOmentum

So, it happened: I finally met a genuinely good guy who can tolerate my quirks, including more than a touch of OCD and ADD. Having been an ace at crashing and burning online, I was absolutely stunned that (1) I met Andy in person; (2) Andy wasn’t a cocaine addict (Boyfriend Number 2, I wish you well); and (3) Andy thought I was cute.

Like most new couples, we kept a bit of distance at first—meeting once or twice during the week and then having a weekend of intense…coupling. But then a month was gone, and I’d roll over and he’d still be there: he wasn’t a figment of my imagination! With us hovering near the two month mark, we’re trying to break his lease, extricate him from his disturbingly Stepfordian cookie-cutter apartment, and move him into my historic downtown digs.

Now, if you haven’t yet started your eye-rolls and catty commentary, go ahead and get it out of your system.

I’ll be the first to write that I’m not an easy person with whom to live. And while I hardly ever quote my maternal side of the family—save my mother—my maternal grandfather was right: “Matt, you want to know the fastest way to become bitter enemies with your friends? Live with them.”

Score one for Papa.

I think it was the hamburger burned into my cookie sheets—or maybe the mounds of food-caked dishes constantly cluttering the sink, or the laundry detritus scattered around—that instigated the Chernobyl-sized meltdown with my roommates during our sophomore year of college. After a probable case of beta fish poisoning—R.I.P. Artemis—and many subsequent cold shoulders, I stormed out, never to speak to them again. We’d known each other since sixth grade.

Flash forward through eight years of living alone to the moment Andy said, during our second fight (the first was about iced versus hot coffee), “Well, I don’t like that!” Following his outstretched arm to my 1940s Art Deco inlaid sideboard, I bit my lower lip and had a momentary eye-twitch. Then I said, “Okay.”

I know. I surprised myself.

But there we were: on the floor (don’t ask), compromising on décor. And the scariest part for me: actually envisioning parting with the sideboard to bring in a piece of furniture he preferred. Even that dresser thing in his bedroom that I planned to accidentally burn. Sure, some people may think we’re channeling our inner lesbians prematurely, but we’re both realizing that this thing has a good shot of lasting far longer than even Queer as Folk.

And I have to say, it’s oddly liberating for me to come back and not have everything in its place. He’s not remotely messy, it’s just that some things aren’t where I put them–my apartment is no longer a museum, but a home. And with every one of his additions, I become more endeared to seeing his stuff around. Knowing that he’ll be back after work to fill his empty shoes means more to me than where he tossed them. Plus, I don’t mind doubling my wardrobe or tripling my DVD collection.

So, while I pull myself out of my “dark, slightly depressing” color story, he’ll work on not stepping out of the shower until after he towels off his feet. And while I will part with the industrial megaphone–it added just that necessary touch of whimsy–I’ll gain a beautiful mid-century sofa and chair, not to mention their owner. Little compromises and open communication at the outset work wonders.

Farting around each other also helps. That, and lending a hand to shave those embarrassingly random patches of light back hair. Because once you pass that particular threshold, you’re pretty good to go.

Plus, he actually likes the sideboard. He was just being spiteful.

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Moving Gaily Forward

A little over six years ago, I sat my parents and sister down at our large antique dining room table in an incredibly dramatic fashion and announced that I had something to tell them, something that’d been eating away at me, eroding my relationship with them. I’d informed my sister of my plans, and she stood by me stoically.

Being gay in a small Alabama town isn’t easy. It’s not easy anywhere, really. But watching others who identified as members of the LGBT community being persecuted at my high school made me close the closet door tighter, shove a chair under its knob even. But I always knew, just like you always hear. From the time I was about eight or nine years old, I knew I wasn’t like other boys. Contact sports were never my thing, but I craved the attention boys would give me, even if they were about the tackle me because I actually caught a football (this happened exactly once, and I ran to the wrong end zone). But then we got older, and any semblance of prolonged contact was automatically suspect. Either tacit or explicit, the assumption was clear: he’s a fag.

I wasn’t called a fag until high school. I even used it in my own jeers among peers. Because that’s what you do when you’re desperate to hide a part of yourself, when you see other, prouder, braver people demoralized in front of the lunchtime crowds. I became grateful that, somehow, I passed. But everyone’s time comes due. And then you become the fag people laugh at when you walk down the hall, the fag people impersonate with overly embellished, lispy inflections and limp wrists. But you deny it; it’s the only way you know how to cope.

And then you graduate, and move away from the small town to a bona fide city, still in Alabama. There, you make life-long friends during heartfelt conversations and experiences, and leave others behind in quintessentially angsty tirades. You grow a little over the years. More people come into your life: first crushes, first exes. You realize through these experiences that who you are at your core isn’t problematic or immoral; it’s just a part of you–not the whole shebang, but a crucial building-block to use as a basis for constructing your future self.

And then you prepare to tell the people who’ve been there from the beginning, and hope they accept you. Because, during the ride back to that small Alabama town, you steel your nerves for the potential fallout–what you’ll grab and leave with, how hard you’ll try not to let them see you fall apart. You stay as distant as you’ve been for the past few years during those first few days back, trying to wrap your mind around the fact that this is it: the moment of truth.

Then we all sit down. We’re all here, at the table. And I stare at my plate. I trip over my introductory blurb–memorized for months now, but as distant as Pluto. The silence becomes palpable. I glance up every now and then to make sure they’re still there, that I’m not still in my Tuscaloosa apartment talking into the dark. And then my voice cracks at the precipice of that final phrase. But I fall in, the words following me down and out.

“I’m gay.”

Silence. I look up, straight into their eyes, catch a tear or two. And I want to scream. But then, another voice breaks the silence.

“I hope you know that this doesn’t mean that we love you any less.” Mom: the champion.

Still, it takes time for it to sink in. There’re more tears and questions, and all the typical things that follow. And there’s a bit of distance. But then, gradually, there’s more acceptance and interest in my romantic life. There’s the usual prodding about “getting out there” and questions about “seeing anyone.” They express an interest in becoming more involved, educating others. They want to make a difference for others like me. They talk about opening their home in the middle of the Alabama woods to disowned, homeless, or threatened LGBT youth. They are no longer the “them” against “us.” I’m immensely proud.

And I think to myself, and say aloud, “I’m fucking lucky.” I’m out, proud, and loved.

And I love each and every one of you.