how times have changed

Is she really going out with him? - Curtis Sittenfeld - Salon.com:

Back in 2004, when this Salon piece first came out, I and my friends thought it was hilariously true. We read it, commented on it and bemoaned being saddled with a fabulous girlfriend (or gay friend) who was wearing a dud boyfriend around his or her neck. I remember coolly assessing various couples I knew and dismissing them with the coldness of a Mean Girl hanging out in The Grove.

I scoffed and (as recently as two years ago) said that I would rather experience a full body waxing than be half of an Unevenly Cool Couple. If I couldn't have guy who could fit into the Algonquin Roundtable of my social set, then frak him!

How insufferably bitchy, shallow and vain.

Maybe I feel this way now because I'm with M- and what links us together isn't readily apparent to most folks. Yesterday, I dragged my ass out of bed and headed to his place for lunch. I hadn't seen him since Wednesday and I missed him. A lot. So, we bundled up, took a walk up and down Irving Park, holding hands in the cold and then ate a massive Mexican lunch. I got tipsy on a couple of margaritas, ate too many beans and took a nap on his couch while he went to a memorial dinner for a friend who passed last year.

Over lunch he told me about a dinner party he attended on Friday. A friend of a friend had brought his Japanese girlfriend from California with him.

'Did you ask her about internment camps?' I said.

'Of course!'

I opened my mouth to launch into a lecture about racial insensitivity and profiling and all the typical knee jerk liberal bullshit. But I didn't. I guffawed. He made me laugh a lot over lunch.

'We had a pretty good conversation,' he said. 'She told me about her parents, what it was like growing up in Hawaii, how everyone always asks what she is. You shoulda seen their faces; they were horrified I brought it up. But we had a good talk. '

'I don't know why they were horrified. The camps exist; they're a fact. And people were put there. Most of the Crenshaw neighborhood used to be Japanese until the war. Then it became German. Funny, huh? If we're ever on the west coast again, we should drive out to one of them. A lot of my Japanese friends from school had grandparents who met in the camps.'

He said, 'That would be a good road trip. Eat somewhere along the way.'

I said, 'We should do that.'

And that's my guy.

We probably are an unevenly cool couple (who's cool? depends on who you ask) but I don't give a fuck.

a marriage only dimmesdale would love

I have to give a huge thumbs up for non traditional family holidays. No long hours cooking, overly crowded house, a formal dining table, a wrecked kitchen or screaming children.

The holiday I spent in Los Angeles was a lovely combination of brunches, lunches, pedicures, dim sum, cocktails and visits.

Of course it was painful hearing my sister call her soon to be ex-husband to tell her children Happy Thanksgiving and overhear the eldest girl snipe and bitch at my sister in the best imitation of a bitchy 10 year old.

"Why is she even calling at all," my niece said to her father. "I don't want to speak to her." It will probably take years for my sister and her daughter to repair their relationship.

But the conflict is nearing a close; my sister and MABIL have a court date in January. As predicted, he is seeking full custody of both children, and she is seeking joint. I am praying my sister succeeds and her lawyer will smash MABIL's petition into the dust.

When I hear of MABIL's particular stream of crazy, I feel sad, humored and angry all at once. I don't think I've ever really known a man who steadfastly refuses to recognize reality. (Other than my father.) While he tries to project the image of a wounded, caring father, he has told their children their mother is gay and is abandoing them to marry her lesbian girlfriend and have sex; he interviews them on tape while they cry and plead for their mother to come back; and he tells them that gay people are sinful and are going to hell.

In other words, 'Your mother is going to hell.'  Is it any wonder the kids are terrified about their mother?

Is this really what a good parent does? These kids are 8 and 10 years old! My stressed out nephew tells my sister, "I don't like it when daddy talks to me about this every day. I don't want to talk about this anymore." My niece is seeing a counselor but who knows what effect that's having since she practically boils with hate toward my sister. In the face of all this, my sister is quiet, calm and forbearing. I honestly don't know how she does it. I wouldn't have the patience to be so...strong-minded.

And a hilariously pathetic picture of MABIL's view of relationships is growing clearer.

According to MABIL, love is:
...Not about pleasing one another.
...Not about being in love with the other person (because love eventually dies) but about loving what the person represents. (Thereby erasing the agency and subjectivity of the partner completely.)
...Not about personal happiness, either for yourself or your partner.
...About structure and community. (Which sounds about as appealing as catechism.)
...Never talked about, reflected upon or tended to.  (It's apparently just a misshapen troll huddled in a corner you ignore for years.)

MABIL's picture of love is the opposite of any lesson found in Corinthians; it is a vision of repression, unhappiness, dissatisfaction, and duty to others at the expense of the individual. Despite his obvious anger, he even has the nerve to say that he will forgive my sister and 'take her back.' I shudder to think of being forced to live with someone for any extended period of time who believes these things.

(And don't get me started on MABIL's views about the body, sex and pleasure. Let's just say that he and Christine McDonnell have a lot in common. The man should have been a priest rather than a husband.)

My sister is one step closer to her liberation and I can see her sloughing off the remnants of her wrecked marriage; this weekend showed me a sister who wasn't tense, silent, cautious, or angry. She was her old self: funny, affectionate, present, smart and loving.

Is having my sister back an even trade for the past year? Perhaps.

It takes three days to thaw a frozen turkey properly.

What a colossal misuse of time.

So I'm at the office instead of thawing a turkey, and girding my loins for the ordeal at O'Hare. I have this fantasy of grabbing a TSA officer's naughty bits in response to the overly-thorough pat down, but I suspect they'll interpret that as assault. I have no desire to be in airport jail.

So I'll cave to authority and go through the body scanner, hoping I don't get cancer and not caring one bit that my blobby naked bits will be seen onscreen by some stranger. Ten years ago, I had sex in a DJ box in Boystown; what's an airport scanner compared to that?

I'll be in Los Angeles for the holiday so y'all behave; eat moderately and try not to lose your mind during Black Friday.  I will be missing M-, missing my girls, meeting family members' various girlfriends, guzzling champagne as a coping mechanism, and perhaps getting in touch with a couple of friends I haven't seen since grad school.

Safe travels!

It's Me, It's Not You: Pt. 2

This weekend, M- brought tears to my eyes. In a good way!

We were having pints with some friends after dinner and catching a few minutes alone (if you can be alone in the middle of a crowded bar.) Over dinner I had told one of M-'s coupled friends that he and I were thinking about their neighborhood for a house rental. The guy gave me a look and said, "Yeah, I think our neighborhood is a good compromise for you but not for M-. It's not downmarket enough."

"Really?"

"Yeah; he feels a little uncomfortable in places that aren't working class enough." I don't know if he said this because we had just walked through my neighborhood and they got a gander at all the new condos and the gentrification in Ukrainian Village, but it made me take a mental pause and added another mental brick to the pile in my brain.

Fast forward a few minutes and M- suddenly says to me, "You know, we don't have to do this until you're ready. I know you've been talking about this alot but ... you're not ready, yet." And he gave me his wry, Dad-look.

I said, "But I am! Really!" Totally lying.

And this is when he made me tear up. He cupped my face and said, "You're not. But if you insist you are going to break us up. We'll move in, you'll try to please me instead of thinking of what it is you want and then we'll break up and I'll be stuck with a goddamn house. I want us to do this because it's right for both of us at the same time."

I was quiet for a bit. "I thought I was hiding this better. I've been a little tense and anxious about this --"

"I know, babe," he said. "But when you're anxious, it makes me anxious and I can't take the stress. Ever since I was a little kid, I've been sensitive to other people's moods like this. When there's a problem, it makes me feel bad -- literally. I get sick when I feel that you're feeling all weird about us. So we don't have to do this now."

"And I get anxious when things move too fast. I just wanted you to know I'm committed to us, this thing we have."

"That's great to know you're willing to do this for me, but I don't need that big a sacrifice from you," he said. "You like living alone, you like doing your own thing and I like seeing you when I see you. Sure, I want to wake up with you. Sure, I wish we lived closer to one another. But don't worry about making ME feel good - I'm in this for the long haul. So when you're ready, we'll do this and it'll be good."

So we kissed, had more beers and went home for a rambunctious frolic and then some mutually disruptive snoring.

The upshot of all this cohabitation navel-gazing: I don't think I've felt more for this guy than during this conversation. How can any woman resist a guy who will wait for her?

It's Me, It's Not You

When it comes to things between me and M- I would say that those things are going pretty well. Right now, we're juggling my increased work schedule (I now have business meetings, dinners and trips!) and I'm struggling just to wash the dishes in my sink.

I wouldn't say things are totally ok, though.  Conversations about moving in together have stepped up and are triggering GirlFriend Separation Anxiety (GFSA) and Boys Are Messy and Gross Anxiety (BAMGA), which is also related to Boys Hog the TV Remote Irritation (BHTVRI).  A friend who recently moved in with, and married, her boyfriend has struggled sharing her condo with him, his duffel bag collection, his sports gear, his records and his snoring.

She said to me today, 'Oh, that irritation and anxiety is real. It is not all in your head. Do not underestimate that.'

And what is interesting about this to me is how my anxiety bucks the female nesting stereotype. The image of the woman who can't wait to get her hands on some man's space and fill his drawers with her bras and panties is blown to pieces.  I don't want my hands on his space. That's his space. And this is mine!

The other night I actually paused while brushing my teeth thinking about how we will probably need an armoire and what if he hates going to Ikea to get one and what if I don't have enough closet space and what if his things clash with my things? And what if we can't find a place with at least two bathrooms? And I walked to my cramped bedroom where my bras, socks and various sundries were all  helter skelter, and felt a little sad.

Goodbye, girl space.

Of course, this is my Libra/Capricorn tendency to over-think.

I think I'll handle everything ok if I just keep myself grounded. And think of how my other coupled friends balance their together/apart time and how, generally, change is always good and moving in with a guy does not mean that I will never see my girls but that I'll have to be more intentional about seeing them on a regular basis, and that I've had two roommates before and living with them well always came down to open communication.

Then again, maybe I'll need to start seeing a therapist again once a month.

There is so much on my plate right now, I feel it should be Thanksgiving already.

So I am taking this opportunity right now to say that the month of December will be the month I say NO to EVERYONE.

Really. I can't take anymore obligations right now. NO.
Not another meeting, lunch, event, whatever.

In December, I want to crawl into a dark hole, watch movies, have sex and drink a lot of champagne.

Do Not Disturb.

My father is observing the same things in my sister's situation but he's looking at them in a very different way.

I look at MABIL's actions and see the desperation of a man fighting to keep what he's already lost; I see him flailing, desperately trying to hold onto the illusion of his masculine control and patriarchal authority.

My father, on the other hand, buys into the fear MABIL tries to drum up. He believes a man's moral anger will naturally supercede a woman's legal defense. I think that's interesting.

It's as if the world these men imagine is more real than the world actually in front of them. In the real world, California statute and practice limits what MABIL can do; but does he realize that? No. He thinks that the weight of his moral outrage and disapproval will be all it takes to punish my sister and keep his family the way he wants it. My father believes, to some extent, the same thing - that the wrong done to MABIL will necessarily require some sacrifice from my sister.

But that's not the way the world works.  In the real world, marriages fall apart and people walk away from one another all the time. No one is punished; no one is sacrificed. They pick up, go to therapy and move on. Or maybe they pick up a hobby, learn how to be civil, and then they move on.

In the real world, bad actors get away with their bad acts all the time.

There's even a real possibility that MABIL will get away with his bad acts, performed in retaliation for my sister's, whose own acts were created by the sinkhole of her own marriage and the immediate death of intimacy between them. So in this daisy chain of bad acts, intentional and otherwise, who deserves punishment?

Oh, what do I know about marriage and bad acts? M- won't introduce me to his family until my last remaining ambivalence about our relationship evaporates.

And, yet the very tiny pull and tug going on between me and M- (and my acknowledgment that he has a right to set his own limits and boundaries, even if it creates some pressure for me) seems more honest and realistic than creating an ideal world where everyone is set up for failure.

the patriarch has no vision

In the vivid fantasy in my brain, I am dressed in a well-fitted black suit with marvelous shoes and my asshat brother in law is being ripped apart in family court by my keen legal mind as my sister looks on, joint custody about to be given. As I lead him down a path that will expose him for the evil homophobic asshat that he is, I am cool, unrelenting and when I'm finished, not only does my sister have joint custody, the judge has recommended my asshat brother in law (MABIL) undergo serious psychological counseling for his anger issues and reliance on 17th century catholic codes of behavior.

In reality, I'm sourcing queer family custody lawyers for my sister, gritting my teeth, and refraining from sending MABIL the most incendiary email in the history of the interwebs.

Because what is a big sister supposed to do when a man is trying to make your sister look mentally unstable, counting on the hope that the world is still so sexist and woman-hating that a court would strip her of her ability to mother her children; when a man is hating your sister so much he'll stand in front of their children and slowly taunt her with, 'You are soooo craaaazy, you're craaaaaazy,' full well knowing my sister can't fight back or he'll use it against her?

So since I can't fly to Los Angeles and punch MABIL in his testicles and superglue his fingers up his ass, I will do everything I can - call every well-connected friend, find a pro bono queer lawyer, read up on California statute - to prepare my sister for the custody fight of her life.

After years of being a very distant big sister perhaps I should take this opportunity to thank MABIL for bringing us closer than we have ever been; for the first time, without her so-called perfect marriage sitting between us like a stinking turd to intimidate me and oppress her, we speak about real things and treat the other like a real person. There is real intimacy between us. I love her more than I ever have. And now we actually say it.

(Though she needs to get off her high horse about having a drivers license. I will have one -- soon! You'll see!)

As a feminist I have to chuckle at reading MABIL's 'plan' so clearly. Oh, I don't underestimate it. I know that our culture can easily strip a gay woman (or any woman) of her rights as a parent simply because she has a life that somehow doesn't match a 1950s stereotype. But I sneer at his puny thinking.  A man's word does not carry the legal weight it used to.  Thank god. What a man wants is no longer what a man gets, necessarily. The frustration and anger MABIL feels in the face of my sister's rebellion is the product of feminism and I couldn't be more pleased.

Feel that hot rush of heat to your face every time you see my sister at the soccer game trying to cheer on her kids even though you won't let her near them, MABIL?

Welcome to women's lib, asshat.

spending a rainy sunday night making a bolognese sauce (from scratch and from memory), finishing up a powerpoint for work and drinking a glass of italian white wine.

the only thing missing is my guy which is a very bizarre thing to think about right now, considering we spent all weekend together at weddings and usually sunday nights find me making some mental room for my self.

so, that's really different.

Believe it or not, I have another wedding on Friday!
What is going on??

I'm home. We're home.

And we're tired.

Weddings are exhausting, you know?

update: the road less traveled, iowa edition

I may have been harsher than I needed to be with M-. On the road yesterday, our crankiness got to such a level we inadvertently caused a beef with a waiter in a bad Mexican restaurant and went to bed huffy and tired.

When we slow down to talk, and listen, we can have complementary strengths. I pay attention to certain details and he to others. I could not have the patience for DJing a wedding and taking care of set up, logistics and whatever. This has been on his mind for weeks and it should be; it's a huuge favor for a good friend. If he screws up, he's ruined a wedding for everyone.

So he's had more than one thought in his head. He just hasn't had the thoughts in his head that are in mine.

But, to a larger point that was mentioned in comments below, there is Work that a lot of women do that goes unacknowledged. Especially married and mothering women - the work these women perform to keep a household running is largeley ignored, uncompensated and devalued. 

Since I must bring everything to the personal or memoir level, I'll think about my father.

As much as my father loved my mom, I don't think he really considered the amount of work my mother contributed to the smooth running of his home. Every morning, my sister and I were clothed, fed, prepared for school or church, food was on the table, clothes were clean and everyone was on schedule.

I think he expected it to happen naturally because that's what the gender roles dictated. But the actual details of that work escaped him and went completely unacknowledged, which made my mother fester. Now that mom is gone, I think he's had some time to think about it but during those years, at the height of his ministry, he had no idea.

He would plan dinners, invite people over, volunteer mom's time and it would be done without a thought. 'Oh, of course, Lucy won't mind making a huge Sunday dinner for 9 people; she is such a good cook!' As if her talent automatically translated into consent.

It reminds me of episodes of Undercover Boss. The CEO, or COO, walks briefly in the shoes of his frontline staff and he is astounded at the sheer amount of herculean tasks put in front of him - vaguely realizing that this labor represents a fraction of the work hundreds of people contribute to his bottom line. I wonder if most husbands are like that. (Though it's problematic to see wives as 'staff.')

M- and I don't live together; we don't have a shared household. We're still in the early part of our relationship so I'm not going to fly a huge red flag. Being present means you deal with what's in front of you, not spin out into fantasies of future disaster.

But it's something for us to think about as we take our baby steps toward living together. It means we have to consciously talk about expectations and division of labor - especially what we learned from our parents and what those triggers are.

Here's to having a great party and drinking lots of champers!

the road less traveled: iowa

Yesterday, I sent a message to my office: 'Delia will be on the road tomorrow to Iowa for a barn wedding. See you all on Monday!'

In other offices, my message would get some kind of snarky response: 'say hi to the corn for me!' or something like that.

This new office? Suddenly it's all 'Ooh! How fabulous! Bring back pics from the sustainable farm tour!'

So that's different.
...
When I think about how M- and I divide the labor of our relationship I think of two captains jockeying to steer a ship. He's used to steering his ship and I'm used to steering mine; together, we're in the wheelhouse, scuffling for control.

Like my dad, M- is convinced his way is always right. And, sometimes he's right. Except when it comes to wedding planning - even if it's a friend's wedding.

When it comes to that, I think of details that he hasn't: are there enough rooms in the hotel block? Are we really guaranteed a room (for some reason he thought we were but had never confirmed that)? What's the deadline for hotel reservations? What time is check in? What's their late check in policy? And what time is the wedding on Saturday? What are the events that we're invited to and not? (This is really important!)

I bet he's had one question in his head: am I going to be able to set up my DJ equipment on time and will the gig go well?

Once, I tried to ask these questions and he said, 'Don't worry about these things, baby. Everything will work out.'

And it's infuriating to hear because I instantly flash back to my mom and dad, standing in a restaurant lobby being told they can't be seated because Dad didn't make a reservation and my mom is humiliated and angry. All he had to do was think about How Things Are Done and make the damn reservation.  But no. He thought his manly brain exluded him from certain rules and expectations. And so we go back to the car, drive to Carl's Jr. and eat our burgers in silence.

So, I waited for everything to work out. And I was right. We weren't guaranteed a room, the main hotel was full and now we had to look for a room at a frakking Super 8 Motel. So I quickly made the reservations, paid for it and sent him the confirmation.

No 'told you so's'. No blame.

But goddammit. Next time, frak being nice and doing the 'managing up' crap. I'm just going to go ahead and make the plans because dudes may be able to move carriers around the globe but can't interpret a frakking wedding invitation correctly. I understand my role this weekend is to be the Pretty Girlfriend. I get that. I'm so brain dead, that's fine. But I really hate it when dudes ignore what I'm saying.

This mouth isn't just for giving blow jobs.

a straight ally roll call

Monday was National Coming Out Day and I missed it here.

But I didn't want to miss this chance to recognize some of the people who have gently, and not so gently, schooled me about my straight privilege and shown me how to be a better straight friend.

George - I have no idea where you are now, but introducing you to my family was a first for me and you were gracious, graceful and kind in the face of my father's blustery fundamentalism.

James - I remember sitting in Espresso Royale while you sternly pointed out to me that straight people asking gays and lesbians to not be 'too' gay or lesbian, or to ask why gays and lesbians couldn't be more like other people, was the height of homophobia and cultural ignorance. And you closed your books, got up, walked away and I knew I wouldn't be talking to you again until I apologized - and not just apologized but, in a way, repented. And so I did. That was when I got what it meant to be your friend. It was also when I understood that it wasn't enough to 'be ok' with gays and lesbians but to shut the hell up and listen.

The Michigan Crew: You all know who you are. You showed me a world of diverse thought, opinion, culture and patience! Oh, the patience. And some of you also publicly called me out when I said the most horrible things. And thanks for that. I remember leaving a GEO meeting after scorning some students who weren't as active as the rest of us and I used a word that was derogatory. Halfway home, a woman stopped me and told me she was offended by the word I'd used in the meeting and she explained why it was homophobic, damaging and wrong. I was abashed. Ashamed.

When I presume to get on my high horse to tell the gay community what they need to do in order to be accepted by us, I remember this moment. And I swallow my presumption.

(And thanks for the cocktails! Oh, the cocktails!)

Miguel and Fernando; James and Tomas - seeing you become parents has been awesome. Your hearts are so big; you have opened your homes to children who need to be loved, cared for and nurtured. I won't ever be a parent but I'm glad you four are.

John - the Boystown legal aid lawyer who did me a solid and kept me from being evicted when I first moved to Chicago and was awful with money.


(That was sort of a big deal, man.)


Sara and Elizabeth - whose wedding and marriage makes me wonder how people could say their relationship is any less valid than mine or anyone else's.

Aunt D-, dad and L- - you all have shown me that life is a journey.

We all deserve to live honestly, freely and equally.
One day, that ideal will be reality.

if only men read women's literature

[Note: These opinions are my own. I don't consult with others before having them and I don't ask permission before sharing them. This is my prerogative as the owner and writer of this space. Do I really need to say this?]

If only more men read more feminist literature the vast unknown-ness of their wives would be laid bare and life would be less confusing.

During the various ups and downs of watching my family 'find themselves' I'm struck at how hard it is for a woman to break free of social expectations. Like Lucy Honeychurch, my sister is bucking all the expectations of her class, gender, mothering status and perceived orientation and, in the process, making everyone around her freak out. Even I am stunned, watching my sister go through a process that makes me think of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own or Kate Chopin's The Awakening.

Her defiant refusal to remain in her marriage has apparently broken the rules of her little social community. In this community obligation to family (including friends) and church supercedes anything else, no matter if you're dying inside. But now, suddenly, relationships and identities are thrown into upheaval, children are endangered and all of morality has been upended and requires defense. Justifications must be made, core motivations must be plumbed and Someone needs to give a public accounting of how one has Betrayed Everyone.

Certainly, there was a betrayal. But which comes first? The betrayal of vows, or the desperate scramble for air that prompts the betrayal of vows? My brother in law asked me if I thought it was 'ok' that my sister did what she did. But I don't think in those terms. I try to put myself in her shoes and imagine what could have been done to facilitate the most immediate break in a marriage, deliver the greatest shock and bring things to an inevitable, and irreparable, conclusion. And then my sister's actions make sense.

But it doesn't make sense to the male members of her community. Their reactions are interesting. I think hysteria is accurate. There's also a degree of anger, seen especially in their demand for my sister to 'explain herself.'

All because a woman decided she wasn't happy.

What happens when men aren't happy? They can pull a Tiger, flaming out in a collection of hostesses and sleazy text messages. Or they can pull a Pastor C-, pushing everything down, only to release the unhappiness in bursts of furtive vacations. What do women do? We suck it up. We swallow our unhappiness until it turns us into the woman from The Yellow Wallpaper. Or we kill ourselves like Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary.

Again, I don't think men read a lot of 19th century domestic fiction. If they did, women's unhappiness would make a lot more sense.

A patriarchal society always inhibits a woman's autonomy and refuses to see her as an agent with a value system of her own. Her freedom, her independence doesn't exist unless some man authorizes it. And this is what I see. Men (very nice ones) demanding that my sister give an accounting of her actions because they're not satisfied with any of the answers they've received. These aren't bad men - they're just men. In defense of one of their own, they want to reassert control of a situation that she has set in motion.

For this, her journals have been secretly dissected, in an effort to find these answers when the woman herself is standing in front of them, repeating, "I wasn't happy. This wasn't me. I lied from the start. I never wanted any of this - wife, marriage. I was only that other person for everyone else."

Let's go back to literature (where all answers can be found, actually. At least humanist ones.) At the end of A Room With a View, Lucy Honeychurch is living in Florence with George Emerson, isolated from her family, even from her staunchest supporters like Rev. Beebe, because that is the price a woman pays when she betrays all expectations of her.

When a woman has defined for herself what her freedom entails, and she dares to take it, she finds herself cast outside of the castle walls. Imagine the Disney castle gone dark and quiet. The moat is filled and the drawbridge pulled up.

The only thing she has in front of her is the open world.

And it's worth it.

Eddie Long, the boogie man

I look at Eddie Long and I worry about my father. Greased, slick, and bloated with cash and power, Long is a cautionary tale. No, he’s more like a boogie man. He is what happens when the real essence of a person is pushed so far down, it bursts out in the most predatory, or harmful, of ways.

Over the summer, Mike and I visited my dad in Los Angeles. We shared a beer, pet the dog, talked about my sister’s divorce and, in the process, gave Mike one of the weirdest introductions to my family ever given to a suitor.

“So dad, why don’t you just say you’re gay and get it over with?’ I said. My father had been hinting he had an announcement to make to the family and, so far, no announcement had been made. So I thought I’d give a, um, nudge.

“Because I’m not gay!”

My boyfriend tried to play devil's advocate. “Yeah, just because a guy has one experience with another man doesn’t mean he’s gay.”

“Thanks, man!” my dad said. “You want another beer?”

I said, “It wasn’t one experience. It was an affair. Over a period of time.”

My dad turned to Mike. “People have always thought I was gay. I was married to her mother and we had a great family! Why are folks so into labels?”

I said, “I’m not into labels, but if this is who you are, maybe there wouldn’t be so much …. Bifurcation. And, besides, it’s not like the gay gene isn’t already running rampant through our family. Aunt D-, my sister and you! Maybe even Uncle B-. We are a very gay family!”

My father had turned musing. “I wouldn’t say I was gay but there was this time when I was 17…” And he went on to tell us a story that made me exchange a look with my boyfriend who was forcing his face into a studiously pondering expression.

Mike said, ‘Well, Pastor C-…we experiment a lot when we’re teens…’

“So that’s 2 experiences!,” I said.

“I’m not gay, Delia,” my dad said. “Sometimes I think that I just like certain things that …well, that your mother couldn’t appreciate. This is why I go to Las Vegas.”

Apparently, my father doesn’t really stick to the proscription ‘What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas’ because he went on to relate, rather opaquely, some of his vacation experiences.

And Mike, trouper that he is, said, “Well, by my count that’s at least 3, if not 4 or 5, experiences right there.’

When we were hugging on the porch, I said to my father, “I love you and only want you to be happy. And healthy. Please be safe. Please.’

On the way to meet my recently out, divorcing sister for a beer, Mike and I drove silently for a few minutes. Then he said, “That was awesome.”

“Thanks for not thinking my family is crazy.” I leaned over and kissed him.

“I think it’s sad that my dad can only feel free if he’s away from his home,” I said. “What if he was able to have a happy, stable, loving relationship with another man here instead of feeling he had to go to Las Vegas?”

And I wonder the same thing about Eddie Long.

Worrying Beads

I wonder if I will ever get to a place in my life where I can just relax and take a breath.

For the most part, my life has been about getting somewhere.
In grade school, it was about making it to junior high.
In junior high, I had my first anxieties about getting into college (a situation that was thrown into doubt because I failed a math test.)
And in high school, I worried about...everything. Even taxes.

(I remember standing in the hallway watching my father shave and, out of the random worry in my head, I asked him, 'Who will teach me how to do my taxes?? Or, will I naturally know how to do my taxes when I'm in college? Who taught you how to do taxes?'

And he said something like, 'Your mother.')

I've even managed to hit some benchmarks along the way: Grad school, degrees, corp job, moving to Chicago, living in Chicago, finally finding love, and having a grown up job at last.

Despite that, I feel like all the happiness I'm feeling can be taken away suddenly, as if to teach me a lesson.

You ever feel like that?

The Gradual Fall of an Independent Woman

Satuday night, randomly, Moving In Together popped up again. I like having my own space and doing my own thing (and being in control of my own finances) so I don't take moving in together lightly. We were at a local bar with a friend when I very very casually mentioned it.

'But I'd need a few things first,' I said. 'I want to be in a safe neighborhood, I don't want to be sooo far from my friends and there need to be things in the neighborhood to do.'

'Ok,' M- said. 'I want a few things: parking, enough room for us and our stuff, and a safe neighborhood for you so I don't worry about you.'

'Aww. Ok, one more thing. A cleaning lady. This is non-negotiable. I'd want a cleaning lady.'

He gave me a look that I took to mean 'Ok, my girlfriend is a snooty bitch' and I said, 'I've had one before and she'd only need to come once a month for a maintenance clean, so things don't get out of control. And it's not that expensive.' I named a price.

'Holy shit. That's it?? We should have her every week!'

So, sold on the cleaning lady.

When we were brushing our teeth, more 'must-haves' popped up.

'Babe, I need more towels. If we move in together, I want enough towels so we only use them once a day,' he said.

'Uh, that's a lot of laundry.' I imagined becoming a slave to laundry like my mother and sister. 'Ok, then I'd need an apt with an in-unit washer/dryer.'

In bed, before drowsing off, he said, 'We can move in together whenever you're ready. You like doing your own thing so if you want to keep your apartment a while longer, that's cool.'

'You're ok with the way things are going?'

'Yes. I love spending time with you whenever I can. I love you. So when you're ready, we'll do it.'  He flopped over. 'The only thing I hate is your mattress. When we move in together the first thing we're doing is getting a new bed.'

I kept my love for my mattress to myself. Choosing battles is important.

Our relationship has lasted a little over 18 months and I'm still waiting for this man to turn into a psycho and he hasn't. I might have to finally put my trust and intimacy crap to bed and embrace that M- is a normal, loving guy who only wants to be happy with me and for me.

Onward and upward

I'm moving on.

Last week I resigned from my position with the Large Women's NonProfit to join the Large Statewide Philanthropic Organization.

What am I feeling?  Relief. 

Relief that I'm no longer behind the Illinois state budget 8-ball, working for a direct service organization.  I know my coworkers are looking for some signs of sadness but I can't help it if indecorous spurts of glee leak out of me.

Relief that I networked my ass off, lined up my champions, searched strategically and interviewed smartly (after that initial phone interview that caught me unawares. Preparation, always preparation!)

Relief that I bumped my salary by $11k and can perhaps afford a new couch to replace the secondhand Ikea couch with the big dent in it, where my butt busted the springs after a frolic with M-.

Relief that, in such a tough competitive environment, I bore down, concentrated and won what I wanted. Did I do this alone? Nope. I had a whole team of people supporting me: my boss, my COO, my mentor, my contacts, my friends, my M-, and I thank God for all of them.  But ultimately I'm proud of what I did and how I did it. 

I'm so relieved it's over.  Maybe I can breathe now.

Day 1 of vacay and I'm doing my favorite thing: hanging out in a cafe before a business lunch.
Best thing?
I still fit in my Italy bathing suit!
Let's take that as an omen.