Category Archives: General

We were all at the sixth grade dance – our very first dance at McNulty – and the girls were on one side of the room and the boys were on the other. We had split into such factions in about the fourth grade, and while my heart (and humor) were with the girls, my allegiance (and feigned loyalty) was bound to the boys.

The dance was painstakingly dull. Nothing was happening. A pathetic bowl of soda punch sat on a colorful paper tablecloth. Some stale, soggy chips went untouched in a bowl. Most of us boys stood with our arms folded, daring the girls to approach us. I don’t remember if any did, or if any of us said no, or what happened. There were no memorable embarassments, no life-altering snubs, and nothing of particular note. I only remembered the walk home.

His name was Craig. Well, that’s not his real name, but it will do for these purposes. Craig and I had been friends for a while, though he was from a completely different way of life. He wasn’t in the “gifted and talented” program that half of my class was in (what a wretched and unfairly exclusive group that was monikered). He didn’t wear nice clothes. He sometimes smelled of his parents’ cigarettes. But while rough around the edges, he didn’t mind my, well, attitude.

I did not like like him – he was a friend and no more. I did not have a crush on him, not in the least (and I had had crushes on boys by that time). I felt a certain tenderness toward him, and all that he didn’t have. We were friends – and that is all. I say this now to preemptively strike any notions of anything romantic between us. Craig was, and to my knowledge remains, completely heterosexual.

After the dance drew to its excruciating close, Craig and I walked a few blocks together. Beside us the land dropped off where a steep hill led down to the four diamonds. While the baseball fields below were level and meticulously mowed, this hill was wild and unruly with knee-high grass and a few shrubs that threatened to turn into trees. Craig and I playfully started pushing each other closer and closer to the edge of the hill, and as boys at play tend to do, we escalated into a friendly competition to see who could hang onto the upper ground for the next block or so.

Craig was about a foot taller than me (everyone was), and at least fifty pounds heavier, but I was scrappy, and though by rights I should have been down for the count, I managed to gain the top of the hill more than either of us expected. But that wasn’t my goal. My thrill was in being slung back down the hill, scrambling against someone more physically powerful than me, and meeting that force with defeat – and relishing it.

Beyond the sexual, beyond the sadomasochistic – somehow I felt that I deserved to be punished. And somehow I think part of me liked it. The martyrs, the downtrodden and the put-upon – is there not something exquisite about them and their plight? It goes deeper than simple gluttony for punishment, penetrating further into the recesses of the psyche than simple sadomasochistic pleasure.

Every time he threw me back down the hill a part of me thrilled in the brutality of it, in the raw act of aggression – all the while knowing that Craig would never really hurt me. It was play. What went through my head was the furthest from his, I’m sure, and that only added a secretive element of subterfuge to the game. All the time he thought he was the dominating force, I plundered his power for my own amusement and excitement.  I sought out the role of submissive, knowing full well that Craig never stood a chance at matching my wits or outsmarting me if it came down to it.

For that day though, it was enough just to have him fling me through the air, push me down on the ground, feel the force of his strength and the pull of gravity have their way with my little body. I knew it wasn’t the same enjoyment that other boys got out of wrestling or playing, and I knew enough to keep that to myself. I also knew that one day I would seek out excitement in other forms, far more terrifying and dangerous than a hillside tussle, and this quaint little game, for which I made Craig feel great guilt over his power, with feigned injuries, heavy breathing, and willfully injured pride – was but the beginning of a boy’s strange entry into adolescence.

The photo below illustrates a no-talking-zone. There is nothing so important that it can’t wait until I am finished peeing to discuss. I don’t even want to say “Hello” when I’m standing at the urinal. And yet the number of guys who think it’s appropriate and perfectly fine to talk to me while we’re peeing is insane. Whatever happened to simple urinal etiquette?

This has nothing to do with being pee-shy. I could pee on you if I had to go badly enough (and I know for a fact that I’ve peed for photos more than I care to recall). But I still don’t want to talk when it’s all coming out. It just feels wrong.

It’s the same feeling of minor discomfort I get when there is a row of ten urinals and someone comes in and stands at the one right next to me. Is this necessary? There will always be guys who are curious out of desire or who like to show off (and that’s a different level of discomfort entirely) – I’m not talking about them. I mean the ones who are there only to pee, and feel the need to stand next to you, talk your ear off while you both have a dick in your hand, and act as if it’s no big deal at all.

I like to observe what I thought was an unsaid rule in restroom etiquette: leave an empty urinal between you if at all possible. More than one and you run the risk of having people question your manhood, but when you go to the closest urinal and start yapping about dinner at your mother-in-law’s, no one is having a good time.

At my workplace there is no way around this, as there are only two urinals right next to each other. In this instance, silence is the only way to go, but not everyone goes that way. In fact, it’s not unusual for guys to be shouting over the stalls, urinal to urinal, and out into the hallway to keep the talk going, and it’s just insane.

The only way I can think of to combat this (because silence and dirty looks clearly aren’t working) is going to be to talk back. And trust me, the kind of talk I do with a dick in my hand is not what you want to hear when you’re going on about the game last night.

Up until the last year or so, I’ve never much minded the fact that Andy and I won’t have any children, adopted or otherwise. It’s not a secret that I’ve never been a big fan of the babies and kids, though with the recent addition of a niece and nephew that stance has certainly softened (and I’m still waiting for my brother to take me up on my earnest offer to babysit). At this point, most of my friends have had kids – and Suzie is already due for another one (in April). And again, none of it really bothers me.

First off, Andy and I are in no financial position to support a child. Second, neither of us has a lifestyle that is particularly suited for raising children – I would not do well being housebound for too long. Third, the adoption process for a gay couple is, from all that I’ve heard, a serious and sometimes difficult commitment that can take years to go through. And finally (and most importantly) I don’t know if I would want to bring a child into this world – or at least be responsible for a child in this world.

As I said before, it’s never bothered me. And if Andy really wanted a baby, I’d be willing to go through all of it, and probably end up being a pretty decent Dad too. (You don’t get to see my sensitive side, so you have a skewed view.) But the reality is, children are likely not in our future.

I haven’t thought about it much until recently. There will come a time when Andy and I will be old, and the only people we would have to take care of us will be each other. It’s hopefully a long way off, but it will happen no matter what. And being that Andy is a number of years older than me, it’s probably going to be me alone for at least a few years. Completely alone.

It’s a prospect that never really scared me until now, and in all honesty I can usually put it from my mind, but when the holidays creep around I am reminded that most people will have someone to look after them as they age. This is just one more thing that Andy and I will have to do on our own. And sometimes… it’s a little daunting.

No, not mine, believe it or not (I haven’t had time to get it laminated just yet). Right now I’m actually thinking of other people, and though I say the exact same thing every year to no different denouement, this time I’m doing my shopping early and mostly online so I can just relax and enjoy the season. I swear.

Being that we’re all in the poor house these days, I’ve decided to make a few gifts, much like I did as a kid, minus the sloppy execution and visible glue. I still remember one of the simplest, and most fun, gifts I ever made my Mom (though I doubt she does). It was one of those classic lined notebooks with the black mottled covers - completely non-descript on the outside (a travesty I would never forgive today, I don’t care how old anyone is) – and I was determined to fill it with little essays.

I started writing in it in November – and each day I wrote a  few sentences on a random topic (three-bean-salad, trees, yarn) like our third grade English teacher was having us do (the three-bean-salad was her topic of the day – I didn’t even know what it was so I faked hating it). Yes, this was the kind of crazy fun kid I was – getting off on a third-grade English assignment and turning it into a gift idea for my Mom.

For some strange reason, I hid the book under her bed so she wouldn’t find it. (?!?!) I figured it would be the last place she would look for a present from me – and I guess there’s a strange sort of logic to that, because to my knowledge she never did find it (or, and this is much more likely, she found it and simply didn’t say anything). I think I managed to fill about a quarter of the book with ramblings-on about coffee, colors, flowers, keys, and anything that drifted into the insane quagmire of my third-grade head, and by Christmas morning it was wrapped and under the tree.

While I don’t clearly recall her reaction to such a gift (I’m sure it was dutifully grateful, and I was probably too excited with my own gifts to notice (is that the stuffed unicorn I’ve been begging for?!) but I distinctly recall making the book for her, and hoping she would like it. This year, I’ll be doing the same thing (but don’t worry Mom, it’s not a book).

The bottom line is that this year the gifts are hand-made, so don’t expect much (even though my gluing skills have advanced markedly since the third grade.)

Believe it or not, there was a time when my John Fluevog-clad feet liked nothing better than to walk in the woods. As a kid, my favorite past-time was to disappear in the wooded area behind our house and travel the forested banks that ran all the way down Northampton Avenue.

As a kid, I was wedded to the forest, and all natural things. Plants and animals, streams and seas, flowers and fossils – they each thrilled me – and while my gaze could be captured by a fancy feather or glittering bead, my heart belonged to what was in my own backyard.

Somewhere along the way, I lost touch of that connection, though threads of it saw me through – gardening, potted plants, a tank of tropical fish – and every once in a while, a glimpse of the sublime. A stream running through the County of Kerry in the Irish countryside ~ a damp, gray afternoon of spotting waterfowl through the fog of Big Sur ~ or a simple walk through the fern-blanketed forests hidden in my hometown.

These photos were taken on a recent trip to Amsterdam, NY to visit my parents. There is a park behind an old elementary school that has trails leading down to a small stream. I used to explore these woods when my brother had baseball practice in the field next to them. (Though I don’t remember all these invasive horsetail plants taking over the watery basin.)

I got turned around only once, for a brief time, though I never felt truly lost, and if I had to I could simply follow the way from which I had come and re-trace steps – instead, I forged ahead and rejoined another trail that led me back to where I began. (The only real danger here would be running into the golf course that borders these woods, i.e. no danger at all.)

Sometimes the simple running of a stream is enough to calm the spirit. I need to remember that more often.