Walking into a room...When do I stop thinking about being gay?

Who's gay?

A fellow blogger on Equality 101 recently posted this article Roleplay in the Classroom about a lesbian who recently came out, and was asked to role play in her college class. She was uncomfortable and please read her article for her whole story and reflect.

But she posed a question that I'd like to discuss. When I ever not think about being gay? When I enter a room, I do think about if I'm the only gay one there. I wonder if someone here might throw out a slur aimed directly at me. Will some one be offended by my present they'll want to do physical harm to me? When I'm on a date, are we being judged by the wait staff? Are they treating us any differently because we're gay? Are the parents of my students going to pull them from my class because they think homosexuality is wrong?

And that's just the tip of the ice burg.

Grant it, 5 years ago, these were on my mind all the time, when I was in undergrad, like this blogger. But as time has gone on, I've really learned how to prioritize these "ramblings." First, I decide if I'm in a safe place, and if I am, then sucks to the rest of the questions. I am me, glitter and all, and if someone has a problem with it, they'll just have to deal. I'm not on this planet to make their lives comfortable. I'm here to challenge their version of normal.

So is it my sexuality and gender that I'm thinking about, yes, but it's not all I think about anymore. It has just become one of the lenses that I see out of - like a series of binoculars, while when I was younger I only had a monocle and could only see things in a gay way.

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When is it time to break up?

Here's a scenario:

You meet in college. And immediately hit it off. The two of you were outcasts from one group and socialites in another. You spend hours a day together. You can see yourself spending the rest of your lives together. Then as time goes by, you grow apart a bit. Not able to spend as much time together as you used to, but still, the time you do have together is impressive.

Then the unthinkable... graduation and "real life." The two of you try the long distant thing, and it seems to work fine, for a while. You see a lot of each other during those few years. Then, when you both are back in the same city... nothing. Almost two years and no contact. Every time plans are made, they get canceled.

Is it time to call this relationship as dead? But why can't I?
  

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"Gotta Sing, Sing..." Why Musical Theatre is the best...

Ok, so I know that I'm pretty gay, but this is one stereotype that I'm proud to have!

Musical Theatre, particularly American Musical Theatre, has changed my life.

Let's begin as a child. I watched 7 movies over and over as a child. 6 of which were musical theatre: Mary Poppins, Hello Dolly, Grease, Grease 2, and Wizard of Oz (and Saved by the Bell Hawaiian Style is the non-MT one). (Look soon for a post on Saved by the Bell). Musical Theatre encompassed a lot of my life.

I would watch these movies over and over and over again. I love the way these movies would make me feel and how I could easily relive the movies by just thinking of the music. As I grew older, you know, like 5, Disney reached it's Animated Renaissance with Little Mermaid, and I found out something important about musical theatre (particularly the Disney genre): Ariel wanted something, she needed it, she had to have it, and she went for it (as with the other movies above). I've since come to realize that my love for Ariel has come from my homosexuality, because she wasn't excepted by her family for the person she loved. I can empathize with her, because I'm ostracized from some of my friends and family because of who I love. So as a young boy I saw myself reflected on the screen in a female mermaid!

Then there came other movie musicals. Best Little Whorehouse! OMG. MAN ASS. That's not the only reason I loved it though. I found this musical by the time I was 6. Again, I found something in the musical that I wasn't getting from the rest of the movies I saw: Adult themes and exposure to things that would matter later to me in life (like female prostitution).

Gypsy came next. We never had this on tape, but I saw this on AMC once and loved it. Mom and I stayed up past midnight to watch it all. Again, this musical was about being something that you're not. Changing who you are and why you do what you do. Louis was being forced to be her sister (which younger bother has never felt like that). And once she found something she was good at (stripping) she finally became confident.

Then I rediscovered Grease and Grease 2. This time, it was Grease 2 that really stuck on me. Just like the original, it has great music, but this time it was a male lead. And he hid in his "Charades" pretending to be the cool rider, while being the "nerd." By the end, after his reveal, he was some sort of combination of the two. Many years later, I auditioned for my high school musical theatre program with his song and little did I know that I had been playing in my own charades and it was only musical theatre that allowed me to confront those issues (discussed later). [BTW if anyone has a motorcycle and a leather jacket, I'd love to reenact the scene when Stephanie gets taken away from the gas station by "cool rider"]

Then something amazing happened! I went to see Beauty and the Beast on Broadway! That opened a new door. When I saw musical theatre live, I finally understood something. You can't lie when your in a musical. You can't lie when you sing. The need for singing comes from you soul and you can't lie from your soul (unless you truly believe what your singing). But look at RENT, despite all the deception that happens it's only when Roger and Mimi sing to each other, does all the truth come out. Sweet from Buffy the Vampire Slayer's musical episode even says something to that effect (and is the point of the episode that Buffy can no longer hide the fact that she is living in hell because she was in heaven)

My "charades": It was when I was performing in Little Shop that I realized I was gay. Because of the accepting environment of the cast of MT, I was able to accept myself for who I was, and just like Seymour, come to terms with who I am (I just hope I don't get eaten by a big plant).

Then came Wicked. Taking one of my most beloved stories from childhood (I had even dedicated the month of May as a child to the Wizard of Oz), and giving it a new twist. The musical explores the friendship of GaLinda (The Good, of the North) and Elphaba (The "wicked" witch of the West). I found this musical when my own friendships were being tested and tried! When I finally saw the musical, I felt like I could never be the same person, because the story was so soul searching, that I can't even describe yet how it has moved me.

Granted, some musicals are purely entertainment: Legally Blonde comes to mind right away, but most have truly struck something deep within me. And in the words of Ariel, "Watch and you'll see, one day I'll be, part of your world!"

 

(As Always, these aren't my pictures)

Top 10 Things I miss from my Childhood

I've been reading a lot of lists today, so I've decided to make my own. This is a random list of things I miss from my childhood... spurned on by the fact that I'm broiling food for the first time in over 10 years!

They are counting down, but not in any order. (None of the pictures are from my childhood though)

10. Wall Oven. My parents' double wall oven with the broiler on the bottom. I used to make the best tuna melts in that thing!

9. The Front Stoop. Playing on the stoop. I had a few neighborhood friends (two next door and one across the street), and we used to play in front of our houses (despite me having a giant back yard and a pool and a basketball hoop). We'd bring out indoor toys (action figures, comic books, etc) and just play on my stoop. Now by stoop I mean two steps. Occasionally we'd play ball games and running games, and we had a strict limit placed by our parents (or at least my mom). We could go down to the corner (about 100 feet away) and up to just past the factory (50 feet).  Mrs. Broken was the house on the "corner" (not really a corner at all because the cross street didn't go through 67th but started on 68th (my block)), and her dog Penny! BTW, there was never adult supervision unless Mrs. Broken was gardening in her front yard!

8. The Penny Club. My grandma used to have a jar of pennies. HUNDREDS of pennies, so on rainy days she'd pull it down and we'd go into the hallway and build pictures. Giant, complex pictures. Art of pennies. My cousins and I now call ourselves the penny club!

7. "Sick Days" My mom was an awesome mom (still is). When we were younger, she would allow us to play hookie from school one day a marking period! We would have to let her know the night before and it just couldn't be on her day off AND it couldn't be a "test" day. These sick days were just great rest days.

6. Christmas. Now I know that Christmas is still around, but it doesn't have that magic like it used to. When I was 5, it took 1/5 of my life to get to the next Christmas. Now it's only 1/26 of my life. That's significantly smaller! So the magic of Christmas time (although it still brings me great joy) is lost because it seems to happen more frequently.

5. Weekend Trips. My mom used to take my brother and I on weekend trips! They were educational (Like Williamsburg) and random (like Caves in North Carolina) and fun (Day trips to the beach). Of course I still take weekend trips, but nothing will beat the red "Taurus" with Joey in the front (because he could read the road signs - he does have 4 years on me) and me laying in the back with my Highlights Magazines.

4. Movie Nights. My dad worked late hours often, but about once a month, I was allowed to stay up late and wait for him to close the restaurant. He'd call before he'd leave and ask what snacks I wanted (always a Cherry Coke). Then he'd come home and we'd watch a movie of my choice. (I seem to remember many showings of Mary Poppins).  Dad and I revisited these in High School on snow days (when we'd watch Sopranos all day).

3. Night Swimming. Again, my dad worked late, but in the summer, I could stay up much later. And when dad would come home, Joey and I would be in our bathing suits hoping Dad would want to go swimming. He'd pull our legs and pretend he was too tired, and we'd get disappointed, but then he'd run down the hall in his trunks and jump into the pool, with us trailing behind him!

2. Bergenline Avenue. When I was younger B-line was (and still is) a few miles long shopping district with discount stores. Mom, Joey and I (in a stroller) would start at 68th street (our block) and just walk down; generally to the 30th street bus depot (when the district would dissipate). If Joey and I were well behaved, on the way back Mom would let us buy one thing. We'd walk into the discount store and pick out a toy (usually under a dollar!) and be happy for weeks with these toys. (God I had hundreds of toy "collections" from these stores. I had so much fun with them!) (P.S. That is actually a pic of B-line, after the modernization with black street signs and that cool clock)

1. Gift Budget. On those weekend trips with Mom, we were always on a tight budget (this was before cell phones and atms) so mom had X amount of money and that was it. But no matter how tight the budget was, she had a rule (again as long as we behaved) that we had a gift budget of $5 a place! (She even used to say, she'd pay for the tax, so we could get up to $5). So at every place we visited (even if there were multiple places in a day, when we got to the gift shop we had $5 to spend! I remember I'd always buy post cards and maps and then any money I had left went to a toy or guide book (yeah I was a looser). Sometimes our budget would be extended, or we could carry over the $5 to another gift shop, but we were in charge of keeping track of how much was left in our budget.

So those are things that I miss from childhood.