Dear Governor Lingle

And all you other homophobic straight people... it's time for this gay to be angry.

I have held my tongue for far too many years. I have watched on the sidelines disappointed in the loss of our marriage rights here in California in a false campaign led by virtucrats who scared people into voting to take the rights of a minority for the first time in the history of this great nation. I was mad, but quite frankly I didn't have anyone I wanted to marry and so with the crush of life I let it go.

Well now, now it matters. I know, I know, it should always have mattered, but now there's the Irish Bear, and I'm tired of having to explain to my family and heterosexual friends how difficult it is to be together because we are two men who love each other. So here we go.

If we were a heterosexual couple, we could obtain an engagement visa for Jonathan to come to this country after only having visited each other twice in TWO years; we've seen each other three times in six months and after next week it will be four times. If we were heterosexual, we could get married in any ofnthe 50 states or the UK or Ireland and Jonathan would be automatically on the road to US citizenship, AUTOMATICALLY.

And that's just small potatoes in the face of the MANY other rights we do not enjoy as a committed homosexual couple.

Governor Lingle this week vetoed CIVIL UNIONS, in Hawai'i, the generic substitute we, as homosexuals are supposed to accept so we don't contaminate the hallowed MARRIAGE word. FUCK CIVIL UNIONS! It's time we got full CIVIL RIGHTS, including the right to marry and the right to immigrate. It has yet to ruin the UK, Sweeden, the Netherlands, Spain and Canada to name a few. Why do I have to emigrate from the country I love to enjoy the love I share with the Irish Bear?

It's time to be angry and not stop till we've won the war.

And Then There Was One

So while my best friend and housemate Kenneth wrote a beautiful piece about Peety, I thought I might give it a shot as well because it helps me too to work through these things on paper, even virtual paper.

So Monday for me, started off like other sick days. I dealt with the office and made sure as best as I could that things would function “normally”. As is often the case when I am home I fed breakfast to the goofy goober Peety and our curmudgeon Chipdog, and the day began.

Peety bounced into my life two and a half years ago, one summer afternoon at the County of Santa Clara SPCA. Chipdog wasn’t so sure, but I think Peety won the human hearts almost instantly. And so our journey began.

Peety didn’t walk or run through life he bounced. In the evening when I came home, I often found him and Chipdog in the garage, and Peety would always be hopping. I began to say “who’s hoppy to see me?” What joy that hopping gave.

There were beach trips, too few. Lots of licking. Secret snuggles on my bed. And hours of loving.

This afternoon was my first afternoon coming home, to no Hoppy Dog. There had been so many tears last night that I really didn’t think there were more, and yet, turning the key in the door and opening it to an empty entry hall with no Hoppy Dog, triggered yet another flood.

I know in my heart Peety will always live, and I have been down this road before with Aroshka, but it all happened so quickly. If he had been visibly sick maybe it would have been easier… but there he went his bouncy self, off to another adventure, never to return to Del Vale Avenue and bring his brand of joy to our days.

I will miss you always Hoppy Dog.

And then there was one.

What Am I Doing?

I find myself skipping merrily down the path of having met a new guy online, and it’s new because not many guys have ever come after me, it’s just a fact of life. I am usually the one who has to show interest, or I miss it when someone is interested in me. So when it happens, it is almost euphoric in nature. I get, I don’t know how to describe it other than, high. And I have to admit I like the feeling.

This guy is HOT. Probably the hottest guy I have ever realized is interested in me.

BUT… the warning signals are there. He lied about his age, a little thing. His initial response to my post said he was 40, he’s 47. I’ll over look that.

He lives in Southern California, geographically undesirable. Not horribly so, he’s not in another state. He comes to the bay area, and lived here. I can manage that.

He says he owns a house. Come to find out he owns a house with his partner of 4 years, their situation is tenuous, unclear. WOAH.

And yet, like a moth to a flame I am drawn. We have great conversation; the easy kind that you don’t have to work at. There’s witty repartee. He’s HOT. He thinks I’m hot.

Am I so desperate to be loved? Am I so unloveable by an available man? Are there no men who represent themselves clearly from the start? Do I have no clue how to find a man who is right for me?

I don’t understand why it’s so complicated. What am I doing? Can I manage to keep this on a physical level where it MUST remain? I fear not.

What am I doing?

And so it goes

It is fascinating to me how my life can be so circular at times. I try very hard to learn and move on always improving who I am with each new lesson. I have come to understand that I am a very relationship oriented person. I have deep abiding friendships, not many, but I cherish them all.

I deeply love my family. They have stood by me through success and failure and have never once said what I imagine must have been on their minds. I am fairly self aware.

So why is it I can never seem to escape the feeling that I am fundamentally handicapped when it comes to dating?

I have tried to watch other men around me and pick up what is apparently a complex code of what you can and cannot say to a man you are dating. I have tried to observe where men meet in hopes that I might go there and meet someone who would like to spend time with me. I have tried to just be present in situations and not care if a guy likes me or not. I have tried to ignore the feeling that all those around me, straight, gay, bi, transgendered, or whatever, are all in relationships enjoying the company of someone that they like, love or simply enjoy. And I fail miserably.

This is admittedly self-indulgent of me to write about, but it sometimes helps me to write it down. It works something like a moment on a retreat weekend that changed my relationship with God when I laid things on an altar and walked away. It isn't always totally successful, but it does work sometimes.

So where do I go wrong? How do I escape what seems to be the inescapable feeling that I will be alone for the next 50 years?

I have thought about reading a book or books. I have tried talking to other gay men and no one seems to be able to say more than, "when you least expect it, that's when you'll meet him." Well after 9 years of being single and only dating what amounts to a handful of men, I couldn't expect it any less than I do right now. I have begun to think it impossible.

I have no answers, and I am frankly tired of thinking about it, and yet I seem to be able to do nothing but think about, another birthday, another Thanksgiving, another Christmas and anothe year with no one to share intimacy with.

Cheesecake Factory

Okay, so normally I avoid the Cheesecake Factory. Not because I am afraid I will end up face down in a cheesecake devouring it, but because I think it represents everything that is bad about popular American restaurants. Portions are HUGE and everything is filled with fat or fried in it or both.

So a dear friend of mine agreed to have lunch with me today while I was here in Seattle, and he suggested the Cheesecake Factory, I resisted the urge to say HELL NO and agreed to go. So we sat down and I started to peruse the menu... let me back up...

As an architect I was first assaulted by what passes for interior design. Holy god, it was a horribly bad Disney movie set. wow. Then comes the menu... I don't think I have ever seen a menu that has advertising for other products, that's right, other products. Not only is it PONDEROUSLY long, but it has advertising like a magazine.

But wait, we haven't even gotten to my real bitch yet... towards the back of the menu I find the, and I quote, "Weight Management Salads".

Now first of all, it is a well known fact that I am on Weight Watchers. I have to date lost in the vicinity of 80 pounds and am proud of it. So in the midst of getting a separate menu that listed the nutritional value of all the entrees, and let me tell you, that is a SCARY read at the Cheesecake Factory, I find something that is aimed at me. I want to say thank you for that much.

BUT... each of the salads, has "Weight Management" in it's name, FORCING the patron to say Weight Management Spicy Chicken Salad to the server. Now I shortened that to Spicy Chicken Salad when I read all the other salad names and assured myself there was no other Spicy Chicken Salad, but then when the food runner brought the salad she made sure to announce for all those around that I was having the Weight Management Spicy Chicken Salad. How nice for me.

The Cheesecake Factory has only managed to shoot their good deed in the foot, and the corporate office can expect a small note from me outlining that misstep.

I'm never totally successful

So once again I find myself back here in the circle that is my fickle adoration with men. I don't know if any other gay men experience this same feeling; that there is simply no way to fit into the community in an appropriate or acceptable manner. And worse than that feeling is the feeling that no one will ever show up in your life that wants to do more than have sex and leave.

When I first came out and moved to San Francisco just over 9 years ago, my first boyfriend (I apply that term generously to him) introduced me to the bear community. I thought to myself, "if I had only known these gay men existed I would never have hidden in the closet. They look just like me." I had such high hopes of being accepted into the "club". I had spent my entire teen years looking at what the few public images of gay men were, and of course porn images of what gay men were, and well, at 6'5" tall and over 200 pounds, I didn't look like them. Even when I was swimming, I didn't look like them. So I decided, how can I be gay? No one will ever want me.

Flash forward to being in my latter 30s in San Francisco, recently divorced and recently out and here are big hairy men, who happen to enjoy the company of other men. Wow, JACKPOT. Or so I thought. It seems that as I was coming out the bear community was becoming more like the rest of the gay community. If you weren't the perfect belly, the perfect amount and pattern of hair, otterish, muscle bound, or some other derivative, you were no longer an "acceptable" bear.

Recently I have taken to saying I am on the F-list of bears hoping some day to be a D-lister... move over Kathy Griffin.

But here I am again this morning back to feeling sorry for myself. A friend told me to snap out of it last night, and he's right, I should. I have a wonderful group of friends, two men I consider my best friends, and a family that loves and accepts me. Why do I need some lug in my life, messing up my sheets and making me compromise. Because I need, no, I crave, the intimacy and complexity and challenge and love that is unique to a relationship.

Steven Sondheim says, "alone is alone, not alive". Sometimes, like today, that feels oh so very true.

Dear fellow facebookers...

You might want to take a moment and watch this hysterical youtube on how to successfully navigate the waters of relationship etiquette on facebook. I violated office etiquette rule number 3 "Don't laugh outloud while watching youtube videos at your desk."