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I’m so queer that…

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I had sex for the first time on National Coming Out Day.

Actually, it was 11 October 1980, and there wasn’t really a National Coming Out Day yet; that didn’t happen until 1988.

But it was good enough for me, anyway.

I was 16. My parents were doing something that night and I had the night off from McDonald’s, so I drove up High Point Road to the neighborhood dirty bookstore. Somehow, without being told, I instinctively knew that was a place where things might happen. Maybe it’s because the place was called “Dudes.” Once illegally inside, I browsed the literature that was on display, much of it more photographic than textual. And older guy (he must have been thirty) approached me and somehow coaxed me into one of the video (actually 8mm film, I think) viewing rooms in the back. Things happened. Surprisingly many things. I was not as shy as I might have expected.

It was not really all that enjoyable. I wasn’t really excited by the guy. I was just excited by the fact that it was finally happening. There was a certain inevitability about it; it was something that just needed to happen with whomever happened to be handy. I have no idea what the guy’s name was. I didn’t really care all that much. I still don’t. To be brutally honest, I just sort of needed to get it over with so I could (a) know for sure it was what I was supposed to be doing, and (b) start focusing on doing it right with people I was actually attracted to.

I may have done it at that bookstore one more time, but I quickly graduated to the tearoom scene, because the mall was ultimately a safer place for a high school kid (especially one with a fairly recognizable car) to hang out than the dirty bookstore. I had fun with it. I regret nothing.

As an adult, though, despite the fact that I had sex in some fairly lurid and semi-public places, I never really did the bookstore scene again. It always kind of gave me the willies.

My first time was a checkbox on a list, not a romantic scene from a movie. And I’m really OK with that. I think the number people who hear angels playing harps or whatever the first time they have sex is probably not very great.

And just to complete this romantic story, Dude’s Adult Books became a sketchy used tire store several years ago.

Turkeys, etc. (2020 edition)

So for Thanksgiving (U.S., observed), I:

  • Tried unsuccessfully to sleep late.
  • Texted greetings to several friends.
  • Finally ponied up for a full paid subscription to Newspapers.com since there’s a sale and it will have tremendous benefit to my research (and it’s cheaper and more useful than Hulu or Netflix).
  • Made disparaging comments about Lutheran sushi egged on by Andrew Turnbull.
  • Went for a drive downtown and in the surrounding area and took pictures.
  • Spent some quality time with Perry Mason (on DVD rather than on the aforementioned Hulu or Netflix).
  • Did a load of laundry.
  • Killed off some leftovers.
  • Tugged the turkey for a bit (inside joke).
  • Did not resent for a single moment the fact that lining up to get into Walmart later tonight would not be an option.
  • Considered (and then thought better of) trying to fix my bathroom sink.

It was actually just the day I needed.

And you?

A productive pandemic

When I get overwhelmed or start wondering where the last year went, I remind myself that since March I have:

  • Co-authored a book that should be published later this year
  • Migrated one of the largest library digital collections in the state to a new content management platform (link later)
  • Participated in the salvation of American democracy
  • Added a bunch of new cities to Groceteria
  • Eighty-sixed Facebook
  • Rebuilt a friendship that had been dormant for almost thirty years
  • Watched at least a hundred vintage episodes of “What’s My Line?”
  • Become disturbingly conversant in the MODS metadata schema as well as several new XML tools
  • Supervised three student capstones and independent studies
  • Managed to avoid getting a COVID-related illness
  • Done a few pretty good media interviews (radio, national magazine, well-trafficked blog)
  • Read many good books (and bought way too many more)
  • Never hoarded toilet paper and also never run out of same
  • Managed three big grant projects simultaneously and remotely
  • Only gained about five pounds and actually ended up with better labs than last year
  • Stayed reasonably sane

Try it yourself. It helps!

Ten years as a solo act

Ten years ago today I ceased to be partnered.

It was pretty devastating at the time, both because it happened so fast (trouble started in late August, nine years down the tube in March) and because it was so unexpected, at least on my end. It didn’t help matters that it also coincided with a major career change and a brewing family issue that would redefine the next seven or eight years of my life.

I didn’t talk much about the issues at the time and I’m not doing to do so now either except to say that if I’m ever in another relationship, two mistakes I hope I never make are:

  1. If things get to a crisis point before you even bring them up with your partner, you have a communication problem that’s probably much bigger than whatever the specific issue at hand may be.
  2. If you’re going to force a major change in the relationship, the second worst thing you can do is to ask your partner for his opinion and then basically inform him that he really has no say in the matter anyway and that you will ignore any objections he has–or even temporary mitigations or compromises he suggests.
  3. The worst thing you can, though, do is to follow this up by also telling him what emotions he is allowed to have about the whole process and what reactions are appropriate in your eyes.

I’ll just say we probably could have gotten past Number 1, but Numbers 2 and 3 were insurmountable and were also probably evidence that the outcome was inevitable from the start.

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about today. The big deal is that I got through it (and all the related bullshit that was going on in my life) and ten years later, I’m happier than I’ve ever been. The shitshow that was 2011 and 2012 was a wakeup call for me, although the alarm didn’t really go off until 2013. It made me realize that I was depressed, that I had been for some time, and that I needed to do something about it. All those “bad things” didn’t cause my depression. Depression is a physical thing that afflicted me long before any of this. What they did was make it so intolerable that I finally had to get some help. And I did.

I think anyone who knows me would probably find me to be a much more tolerable person than I was ten or twenty years ago. I like my life better and I like myself better. I’m more secure in the fact that I’m a pretty OK person and more inclined not to give a fuck if someone disagrees. I tend to focus on things I like now rather than things I hate. I don’t spend all my time pissed off about things that don’t matter. My sense of adventure has returned, if in a slightly more grown-up version. Everything is just … better.

Maybe I was never suited to be in a long-term relationship, which I’d pretty much always believed anyway until I found myself in one. I like spending time with myself better than anyone else, so a lot of my friendships suffered when it became necessary for me to spend so much of my time with one other person. I like calling all the shots in my life, and I’m willing to take the consequences. I also really fucking hate traveling with someone else, but that’s a whole other story.

As for the ex? He and I don’t really talk much anymore, and that was largely my doing because I kind of needed it to end; we’ve actually only seen each other in person once since 2011 and I didn’t find it an especially pleasant experience. There’s no animosity involved. We just went our separate ways and it just doesn’t feel like we have that much to say to each other anymore. I’m guessing he’s as relieved about it as I am.

Will I ever find myself in another long-term relationship? Probably not. At this point, friendship is more important to me than sex and romance (though I have to admit the “friends with benefits” thing has its charms). I have good friends, but I could use more. I have a job that I love, but I could probably have a better life-work balance. Nothing is ever perfect, but everything is pretty damned good!