It’s been a very long time since I’ve written here. I talk too much, I write too little about the things that matter.

I’ve been trying, intermittently, to get my health under control. The long and short of it is that it isn’t working. There’s more to it than that, but that’s all you need to know to make this part make sense.

It’s a weird time of year. Something in the stars; friends falling out of love, and finding strange and creative ways to weaponize loneliness. It makes me worry about them, worry about me, and sort of backwardsly thankful that somehow I’ve been spared the gift of rational, legitimate intimacy. Maybe it’s harder to really cope with being alone when you know there’s an alternative.

Womp Womp. Moving on.

I had lunch yesterday with a friend, B. We don’t yet know one another well; mostly, we share pop culture, broadly similar builds, and the occasional matched perspective on an issue or three. We started lunch on the subject of tv shows we watched, bouncing over to music for a little bit, landing on movies and schedules for a few minutes, before tearing into the meat of two big items. The first is that B is in love with a wonderful girl; I’m pretty sure she loves him, he’s pretty sure of the same, but for the moment, it’s not working out. And I’m always a little bit amazed when a straight male friend opens up; it’s like I have a learning disability that makes me attach and pattern my horrific WAAAAUGHedness of emotions to my sexual orientation, when it just isn’t so. I respect that B seems to have this great balance of being both open and matter-of-fact about his feelings. I can’t do either.

We talked about him and her for a bit. I like them both. They’re a good fit, and they’ve both been good friends to me in their own ways. I choose to believe this will work itself out.

We turned things over to me; what I’m doing, what’s wrong with me, how my various ailments are adding up. I don’t have a lot of positivity when I get going; frankly, I don’t have a lot to be positive about. Blah blah, self defeating prophecy, blah. Yeah, I know. I finished up my cheeseburger and said, without much irony or preparedness, “I sort of feel like I’m preparing to end my life.”

He raised an eyebrow, just for a second. We both had sort of grinned our way through this meal; this moment really didn’t allow for that. I backtracked. I’m not suicidal. I’m not going to do anything to hurt myself overtly. I know that; I wanted to make that clear. But I also feel like somehow, I’ve made up my mind that this time around, this illness, these things I’ve done to myself, are not things I’m going to walk away from. It frightens me that I’ve settled into that. I sort of rationalize that it need not be so; I also have an odd feeling of acceptance of it. I’m unsure I can change. And if I can’t, this is going to be a shorter adventure than planned.

B and I talked a while longer. It was a good chat; we surfaced back to the brisker, lighter topics in which we’d started, and we were done. When the meal was over, he texted me that he felt bad chatting about his petty crap against all this health stuff. I sort of wanted to respond with “hey, you’ve got someone out there who cares enough about you to fight with you. I’m just a fat guy who’s wallowing in it, like a whale who refuses to get unbeached.” I didn’t, though. We traded some emails that night. Eventually, I ended on: “You keep using that word; none of this stuff is petty. You love her. That makes this important. It’s okay.”

I meant that. I feel like I’m severing connections from the people I care about in order to prep for the inevitable. It’s stupid and selfish and yes, petty, but I really am tired and I feel like surrendering for a while.

After lunch, I sat in my car outside a Barnes and Noble nearby. And then  I said it to myself.

“I don’t know how to tell people I’m about to leave.”

I’ve got it stuck in my mind that the problems with my body are going to end my life. And I don’t know how to communicate to people that I either don’t know how to change or am just completely past the point where that’s a possibility.

I don’t know what to do.

I don’t think I’d’ve started this project if not for Karger’s coming to national attention for this in the last week. I’m fascinated by his journey at the moment.

projectqueer:

 

Activist Fred Karger, who is eyeing a run for the Republican nomination for president in 2012, said he would return his party to the party that freed the slaves under Abraham Lincoln and advocated women’s suffrage and environmental conservation under Theodore Roosevelt.

While some may criticize some gays and lesbians for voting for Republican candidates, Karger said that the two classifications are not mutually exclusive, and that a handful of Republicans who rail against gays should not be seen as representatives of the whole party. 

“[The Republican Party has] gotten hijacked by a few far right individuals that have abused the gay issue to win elections and that’s wrong,” Karger said in an interview with BigThink. “And I hope to set that record straight by considering running for president myself.”

Last week, I had dinner with a good friend. We’ve been close for about seven years, and we’ve been pretty good at being there for one another. Things have changed lately, though. As happens as we get older, there’s been drift, confusion, reassessment, and erosion in our friendship. And maybe even a little contempt.

We both work in different areas of the performing arts industry; she (let’s call her R) is enjoying a fling with a professional who is charming, entertaining, crush-worthy…and emotionally unavailable. I witnessed a text exchange between the two that night, that ended with her, with a laugh, saying the title of this post.

Okay then. Backing up a couple of years.

I try not to talk politics with my friends; it’s a great way to lose the people you love, the minute they catch that you’re all not quite in step with one another. I work in an industry with an overwhelming liberal slant, and there’s elements I disagree with, sure. On my second scotch, I’ve been known to say “I believe in small government, I believe in massive affirmative action reform, my stance on abortion and birth control is complicated, and I’m…” and I’d rattle on and on about my vaguely conservative beliefs, and then end with—

“But I like to kiss other boys, so hey, I’m safer as a democrat.”

And generally, this would get a big cocktail-party laugh. And we’d all relax and talk about the weather or another sex scandal or an episode of LOST or something.

But the thing is…I wasn’t laughing. Or at least, not as hard as I should be.

I’m at a point in my life where I want to take a stand for something beyond rebellion and revolution. I want to build a life for myself, for the man I’m going to start a family with, and for the kids I’m going to have.

I think it’s time to talk about the fact that, while I came out at 17, there’s this whole other element of myself and my life that has been firmly, weirdly closeted by that.

I know I’m not an idiot. I know that, at least at this stage in my life, I’m not a liberal. And I know that I want to explore what all of this means, and what honesty amidst and between these two hemispheres of my life will and won’t do for my state of mind and my future.

I hope it’s interesting. I acknowledge that it’s probably going to be a little bit confusing for all of us. But I hope to be able to tell this story in a way that helps me, eventually, arrive in a place where who I am—all of who I am, including these two disparate parts—can be governed by something other than fear.

God, that sounds severe. There’s going to be plenty of fun here, too. Maybe that’s a lie, I don’t know. But there’ll be stuff worth talking about.

So, thanks for reading. Ask questions. Let’s chat. Please try not to yell; my ears are dainty.