Something Different

Do you remember those worksheets in kindergarten where you had to pick out the thing that was different? 

That was you.  

Isn't it great to be different?

Gay as Hell

I continue to be amazed how ordinary it is to be gay.  My husband and I clean house and buy groceries. We go out to dinner and to a show and no one says or does anything.  We are just plain vanilla.  Just a couple of guys.  We don't look any different or act any different. 

But - Oh My - when we get home and close the door to our bedroom - that is gay as hell.

I Feel Like My Family Just Got a Lot Bigger

The call came Thursday at 11:00.  One of my partner's cousins called to say that his favorite Aunt had passed away the night before and that the funeral was going to be in a small town in western Iowa on Saturday.  There was no way to arrange to fly so we got in the car on Friday morning and drove for 12 hours. 

My partner was worried about how his family would receive me/us.  I have met some of my partner's family at his daughter's wedding four years ago but this weekend was going to be a lot of family that I have not met and it was going to be at a funeral in a Catholic church in the middle of cornfield-conservative-country.  I mean two hours drive from where we left the interstate let alone a big city.  Hell my cell phone didn't work. 

At the funeral service I was as nervous as a pregnant whore in Sunday School.  I felt like there was a big "Gay" sign on my forehead.  The fact that we are gay or partners or married is no secret.  But damn, I was sitting with my handsome partner in the fourth row of a Catholic church with the family.  I am six, three with silver hair.  I stick out!

After the service we ate dinner with my partner's family in the church hall and then went to the cemetery and then to the family home.  Then something wonderful began to happen. 

All of my partner's family went out of their way to make me feel welcome.  We talked and laughed.  We did the same normal stuff that every family does at these sort of things.  People asked about me and my job and my family.  When we said our goodbyes I was surrounded with hugs and kisses (many from men) and admonished to visit and promises were made to come see  us.

I sat in the passenger seat as we drove down the two miles of gravel road to get back to the road to our hotel  I watched the lush green fields of corn and soybeans slide by as the sun slid towards the horizon.  I thought how beautiful it was there and how wrong I had been about the people there.  They didn't give a damn if I was gay or green as long as my partner was happy.  They love him so they love me.

As a LBG (Late Breaking Gay) who has been out of the closet now for 8 years I still worry about being accepted.  An old bad habit I guess.  But the bottom line is that when you love someone you want them to be happy.  If someone doesn't want you to be happy, maybe they don't really love you...could be.

Talking to the Grandkids

It was the summer family reunion.  The kids had been chasing lighting bugs and my grandsons had come up to the porch to show off their jars of glowing bugs.  The two littlest ones (both four years old) fell onto my lap and the oldest (12 years old) sat across from me.  I chatted and laughed and they wiggled and giggled. 

One of them started to play with my chocker.  It is a bone and wood fish hook on a string that we got in Hawaii when we got married there in April.  They asked what it was and I told them that Mark and I had each gotten one when we were there and got married because we were "hooked on each other."  The little ones didn't think too much about it but I could see my 12 year old grandson's eyes get really big.

So after the little ones wondered away to release their lighting bugs I talked to my 12 year old grandson.  I asked him if he knew that Mark and I were married.  He said no, he thought that we were just friends.  We talked more and I answered his questions but he really didn't have that many.

Mark and I live in Dallas and my grandsons live in Chicago so we don't see each other enough.  But it didn't seem to be that big of a deal to my grandson.  I guess it is a matter of changes in attitudes from one generation to the other but I am grateful that my children and my grandchildren are good with me being a LBG (Late Breaking Gay). 

It always seems like it will be so hard to tell someone, especially people that you love that you are gay.  But in truth, it is the easiest thing in the world.  People who love you, love you no matter what and being honest with them just makes that love grow stronger.

"Ding-Dong! DOMA Is Dead"

Once there was a wicked law
In the lovely land of Oz
And a wicked old, wicked old, wicked old law that never ever was
It filled the folks in munchkin land
With terror and with dread
'Till one fine day from Kansas
A house fell on its head
And the court pronounced it dead
And through the town the joyous news went running
The joyous news that the wicked old law
Was finally done in

Ding-dong! DOMA is dead.

‒ Which old law?
‒ Well, uh,.. the DOMA law!
‒ Oh.

Ding-dong! The wicked law is dead.
Oh yeah, happy day
Wake up you sleepy head,
Rub your eyes, and get out of that bed.
Wake up, the wicked law is dead.

It's gone where the goblins go,
Below, below, below. Yo-ho
Let's open up and sing and ring those bells out.
Sing the news out.

Ding-dong, the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know the wicked old DOMA is dead!
Why everyone's glad,
It took such a crowning
Bein' hit by a house is even worse than drowning
Let 'em know the wicked old law is dead!

Figuring It Out

When I was in the closet I was by most counts a pretty conservative guy.  Married to a good woman, two children, house in the suburbs, a dog and two cars in the garage.  I went to church, I didn't drink, smoke or use drugs.  I was miserable!

Now I am married to the most wonderful man in the world, between us we have five children and five grandchildren, we have a house in the suburbs, a dog, two cats and a 27 year old child living with us. I go to church. I am happier than I could ever imagine.

What changed?  I acknowledged that I was gay!

By all standard societal measures my life wasn't pretty good.

As a LBG(Late Breaking Gay) I am glad I figured out life before I was too old to enjoy it.

Biblically Gay

 

I  have been told that the bible contains

six (6) admonishments

to  

homosexuals

 
 

and

362 to heterosexuals.

 

 

This does not mean that

 

God does not love

 

heterosexuals,

 

it just means they need more supervision.

And Then There Were Twelve

Today Minnesota became the 12th state in the union

to approve same sex unions. With those twelve states and  Washington D.C. there are now 56 million people living in states with marriage equality.

I am pleased.  I am hopeful. But 12 is not enough.  Look, I live in Texas and I am old enough that I really don't see Texas approving same sex unions in my life time.  I want to be wrong but the south in general and Texas in particular is stuck in another era.

The only hope I have for marriage equality in Texas in my lifetime is that DOMA gets repealed.  DOMA is unconstitutional on its face. DOMA is after all a clear violation of the constitutional mandate that requires recognition of contracts between states.  Hell I can drive my car in all 50 states because I have it registered and licensed in Texas but my husband and I aren't legal in our home state even though we are legal in another state.  That is bogus!

I am hoping the the Supreme Court will overthrow DOMA but if they don't I have a plan.  First we have all kinds of legal documents to cover us in almost any circumstances.  Second I want to get married in as many states as possible.  I would just love for someone to challenge me or my husband on the legality of our relationship and we can slide a stack of marriage certificates across the table.  Our relationship is recognized in 12 states - why wouldn't it be recognized here.

I get it that you can find passages in the Bible that condemn homosexuality.  I won't get into the ancient societal biases.  I won't get into the fact that Jesus was far more about love than condemning anyone for who they loved.  I get that some have an issue with homosexuality.  But they base it on religious values.  This country was founded on the need to protect people from religious values.    

As a LBG (late breaking gay) I got to say that this needs to be fixed!  Good grief I am over 60 - how am I going to harm society by going to bed with the man that I love?

I am pleased to no end by 12 states recognizing that gay marriage is totally legal.  But it needs to be fixed on a national basis.  

Wedding in Hawaii

I don’t know if it was the Trade Winds gently stirring the palm leaves or the Mai Tais or the wonderful man at my side, but it was certainly was one of the most perfect and romantic days of my life.

My partner (now I guess I can officially say husband) got to spend 5 days in Honolulu.  We did lots of touristy things like a trip to Pearl Harbor and a catamaran trip to snorkel with sea turtles and watch mother and baby whales playing in the ocean.  But the huge highlight of the trip was our wedding.  Technically a Civil Union under Hawaiian law but still significant to us. 

The day of the wedding we spent the morning on the cliffs below Diamond Head.  You can get naked up on the ledges if you are just a little discreet.  We met a couple of guys that turned out to be airline attendants.  It was really nice to lay out naked with a group of guys with the Pacific in the background and the son touching all over.

Then we went back to the hotel for lunch and to clean up and get dressed for the wedding.  The dressing took a little longer than anticipated – there were pictures taken in the shower.  But we made it to Magic Island on time.  I was in all white and he wore a black shirt and tan pants.  We looked fabulous!  It was just the two of us and the minister but with the harbor full of sail boats and Diamond Head in the back ground it was perfectly romantic.

The vows were simple but so moving.  I had never been happier or more in love in my life.  After the ceremony we just sat on a park bench and smiled and laughed and enjoyed each other and the beautiful world around us. 

We went back to the Hotel and had wonderful sex (we had to consummate the marriage!)   We cleaned up again and changed outfits and went to a huge luau.  The word had gotten around that we had gotten married that afternoon and we were congratulated over and over again by many in our group.

The evening ended with Mai Tais with friends and a walk along the beach.  Oh and of course more sex before we called it a night (or morning.)

When I came out , I never saw such things in my future when I came out.  I thought that a LBG (late-breaking-gay) I was going to be lucky to have a little fun.  I never imagined that I would fall in love and get married to a man that I know is my soul-mate.

If you haven’t come out yet – if you don’t ever come out – or if you have come out but haven’t found that soul mate – don’t give up – just be the best person you can be and you will make it.  It does get better when you come out and let you be you. 

The Other Side

One of my favorite artists is David Gray.  Actually my husband introduced me to his music and it really touches me.

One of David Gray's songs that I love so much is "The Other Side".  There is a certain mysticism about it (as there is with many of his songs) - I feel like there is this promise of meeting your loved one again after this life.  I believe in that very much.  In fact I am very certain this is not the first life I have shared with my husband.

I do have one problem with his lyrics - I do know what love is - I have it - now.

I would like to have this sung for my husband at my funeral.

Meet me on the other side, meet me on the other side
I'll see you on the other side, see you on the other side

Honey now if I'm honest, I still don't know what love is
Another mirage folds into the haze of time recalled
And now the floodgates cannot hold
All my sorrow all my rage
A tear that falls on every page

Meet me on the other side, meet me on the other side
Maybe I oughta mention, was never my intention
To harm you or your kin, are you so scared to look within
The ghosts are crawling on our skin
We may race and we may run
We'll not undo what has been done
Or change the moment when it's gone
Meet me on the other side, meet me on the other side
I'll see you on the other side, see you on the other side
I know it would be outrageous
To come on all courageous
And offer you my hand
To pull you up on to dry land
When all I got is sinking sand
That trick ain't worth the time it buys
I'm sick of hearing my own lies
And love's a raven when it flies

Meet me on the other side, meet me on the other side
I'll see you on the other side, see you on the other side
Honey now if I'm honest, I still don't know what love is

Bridge Over Troubled Water

As a "Late Breaking Gay", when I was considering coming out and even after I came out  I was afraid I would never find love again.  Indeed I was afraid that I would never be able to give love or be loved.

I felt too mortal: closer to the end than to the beginning of my life. I felt like I had wasted my life and there was no more life to be had and no more life to give.

But I was wrong. I have found the love of my life and have never been happier than I am with my husband.

When I was a teenager Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water was a huge hit.  It is a classic that many people respond to even today. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is the promise of being there.  My husband has truly been my "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and it has been wonderful.

I know that I can't promise to be there forever, but my spirit will always be there for the man that I love. 

I love you my husband - more than words can tell. 

When you're weary, feelin' small
When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all
I'm on your side, oh, when times get rough, and friends just can't be found

Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down

When you're down and out, when you're on the street
When evening falls so hard, I will comfort you
I'll take your part, oh when darkness comes, and pain is all around

Like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind

Sail on silver girl, sail on by
Your time has come to shine, and all your dreams will run their way
See how they shine, oh, if you need a friend, I'm sailing right behind

Like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind

Extraordinary Ordinary

Tonight is the night before Christmas Eve and we sat in the den and read books and listened to Christmas music.

What strikes me as so extraordinary is that my gay life is so ordinary.

When I was in the closet I thought that life would be so different if I came out and that terrified me.

But here I am living in a four bedroom house on a corner lot in Ozzie and Harriet land and it is so ordinary.  I take the trash out, wash the dishes, and bitch about all the crap in the garage just like I did when I was married to a woman.  The difference is that now I am married to a man. 

A man that I love more than I have ever thought I could love anyone.

It is extraordinary that ordinary is so wonderful!

(OK so the sex is phenomenal but the rest is extraordinarily ordinary.)

Merry Christmas to all

Getting Ready

Getting ready is just part of daily routine.

Getting ready in the morning or getting ready to go out in the evening. It is just routine activities: shaving, showering, combing hair, brushing teeth. Just ordinary stuff. Routine things until you are in the presence of another man. I don't mean like in the locker room at the gym (though that is special in another way.) I mean just one-on-one with the man that you love, the man you sleep with.

When we get ready to go out I love being in the bathroom with HIM, jostling for position with HIM at the counter, (I love seeing HIM naked beside me and watching HIM in the mirror) It is all so ordinary: checking to see if I should leave the shower on for HIM. In those few minutes there is a unique intimacy. There is something special about HIS steam coming out of the shower and the way HE shaves (he is either naked or pulls HIS pajama bottoms way down on HIS hips.) Sometimes there is the scent of HIS cologne or the moments when HE stands so close that I can feel the heat from HIS handsome body.

If we are going out in the evening we often stand in the closet and talk about what we will wear. Again it is a small thing but it is amazing to be so intimate as to pick out each others clothing (yes even sometimes underwear.)

Sometimes he is getting ready without me and I am at my desk and I will look over and see him naked, framed by the door to the bathroom. It is an image that should be in a painting.

As a late breaking gay (LBG) I have to say that all that time in the closet I never dreamt that I would have the joy of being with a man in such a loving and caring and sexy relationship that just brushing teeth together is pretty damn hot.

Matching Pearls

My partner and I got invited to a wedding a couple of weeks ago. Of course it is always nice to be invited to a party. But honestly I have never really enjoyed being a guest at a wedding.

For one thing I am a guy - a gay guy but somethings are the same no matter what team you bat for. Weddings are, and this is a fact, for the bride not the groom. It is the little girl who dreams of what her wedding will be like, not the little boy. OK - maybe some gay boys but not me.

That being said I had a wedding when I was twenty years old. It was suppose to be a church wedding but my folks didn't approve so we eloped and got married in a friends living room with a total of three people in attendance. For more than three decades I celebrated that wedding. Yet every time I would attend a wedding a part of me was struggling. As those vows were taken I was of course examining my own vows. It wasn't always pretty.

So to this day I am a sceptic at a wedding. Statistically 50% of all weddings end in divorce. As LBGs (Late Breaking Gays) my partner and I have both been divorced. Certainly we could ask :Why would anyone want to get married?" Of course the answer is Love!

When my partner and I got married (the one wedding I felt completely right at) we did it so that our friends and family knew how much we loved each other. Other than that nothing explains getting married.

When my partner told me about the invitation to the wedding I was a little conflicted. The happy couple was the daughter and fiance of his assistant at work. I had never met any of them and my partner is not out at work and I didn't want to get him outed at work.

Despite that I love to be with him and so, being as we are gay, three weeks before the happy event we stood in the closet to pick out our outfits. We choose light color suits for a summer wedding and on we went to what color shirts and ties we would wear.

There in the closet it suddenly it occurred to me that we might be the token gays at the wedding. If that was the case how modern and inclusive of them.

We should have worn matching pearls.

But that isn't our thing.

Don't Ask - Don't Tell

With all due respect to gay men and women who serve in our armed forces - this is not about them.

I have the utmost respect for the difficult situation that gay and lesbian military men and women find themselves in - they can't be honest about who they are because of an undeserved homophobia. That isn't right. Good God people - just because a person is gay doesn't mean he can't do his job - including pulling a trigger if he or she has to. I respect that and appreciate what the military does - I don't think I could.

I think the really big problem with the military and gays isn't about the fox hole, it is the bunk room, locker room and shower room. It is all about someone checking out their bits! The closest that I ever got to their experience was in the locker room. I see it to this day at the gym - some people are totally comfortable about being seen naked - but most are a little shy.

The most vivid and outrageous example I ever saw of this was in High School. I was a sophomore on the swimming team and we wore Speedos (nylon in those days) and had a gang shower. The seniors were so good looking but I looked like a refuge from a concentration camp. The seniors were also a horny bunch and would be very provocative. When practice was over the dive team would sometimes strip down (they had Lycra Speedos) and dive and swim naked. Some of the seniors would jack themselves in the gang shower (the better to show off how big their dicks were) in front of everyone. The coach would come in and yell at them. I was both fascinated and terrified by the whole thing. I wanted to watch but I would get harder than a rock if I watched. I would pretty much just run to my locker and get dressed as fast as I could and get the hell out of there.

Today I experience that whole "Don't Ask - Don't Tell" thing at work. I work for a very nice company that is owned by Christian fundamentalist. They even have a nice bible study every Thursday at lunch. If I came out I would get fired. Oh not for being gay - it would be for some other reason - but I would get fired.

So, despite a real desire, even a real need to be honest about who I am - I can't tell. I need the money. I take my lunch most of the time and people always ask if my wife fixed it. My answer "It was a joint effort - I cleaned up." That gets a laugh and they leave me alone. But the truth is: I would love to tell them "My husband is a great cook." But I can't.

Is it fair? No! But life isn't ever going to be fair. I am glad that we live a very open life style in most respects - but it is unfortunate that so many gay people have to stay in the closet when they go to work. I think everyone looses. Maybe even the military.

Cheating

What does it mean to cheat, to be a cheater?

According to Webster's dictionary cheating means:
1 : to deprive of something valuable by the use of deceit or fraud
2 : to influence or lead by deceit, trick, or artifice
3 : to elude or thwart by or as if by outwitting
intransitive verb
1 a : to practice fraud or trickery b : to violate rules dishonestly
2 : to be sexually unfaithful —usually used with on


So I was a cheater: I violated rules (a promise) and I was sexually unfaithful.

Yes, all of that. I made a promise to be faithful and I wasn't.

But if it is any consolation I guess my crime is intransitive, (Webster goes on to say that intransitive means: not transitive; especially : characterized by not having or containing a direct object). For me there was no object. I didn't care who I was unfaithful with.

Does that make a difference? Not in the narrow world that I married into when I was 20. But the world, at least my world was different then.

I want to make this very clear: I made a promise and I didn't keep it. Bad on me!

I think that is pretty important. I believe that if I make a promise I should keep it. I didn't! I felt very bad about that. Not bad enough to not do it again, just bad. As I have said before it came and went in waves. I would cheat, feel bad about myself, behave for some period and then repeat the process.

I am reminded that if you keep on repeating something and expecting the outcome to be different - that is the definition of insanity. So I guess I was insane.

It wasn't that I was trying to hurt or even cheat my wife. I was trying to find myself.

What was this passion, this desire? What was this feeling that I had that could get in the way of all the plans and hopes that I had for my life?

I loved men! They were hot! They had wonderful bodies and I wanted to see them naked. They were hung! I wanted to see their cocks! I wanted to see their balls! I wanted to see their asses! This was primal. This desire was at the very core of my being! All the civilized promises that I made could not damp the heat that burned in my loins. I wanted to be with men that wanted me.

This is not an attempt to excuse myself. If I had been a better person I would have understood what was going on in me and gotten a divorce and then moved on. But I wasn't a better person. I was weak and afraid and I denied what I was feeling. I will note, to my credit, I was trying to somehow make it all go away - or at least be manageable. I could not deal with the guilt. I could not deal with the lie.

After I came out my ex's sister emailed me. She wanted to know why I had cheated on my wife. One of the things I wrote back was that "it is better that I am honest about who I am than to live a lie." I don't think she or my ex got that.

That brings me back to where my partner and I are at: when we play with other men we are honest about it. We came into this relationship knowing that we both wanted men. Lots of men. We just happened to fall head over heals in love with one another.

To start a relationship like both had been in before would have only set us up for failure.

Bottom line is this: a relationship does not have to be built on the traditions that we are all use to. We decided that we could be partners, even married husbands, and still create our own rules.

Don't get me wrong, we don't have many rules: be safe and be honest. That's pretty much it.

Love takes care of the rest.

Gay Marriage

This is not about the fight for legal gay marriage. I may comment on that at a later time. This is about falling in love and telling someone "I want to be a part of you and you a part of me."

As I have mentioned, when I came out I just wanted to play. So many men so little time!

Then I met Mark. We are soul mates. I never knew what true love was till I met him.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the woman that I married when I was 20. But! I was young and didn't understand me.

It is funny that it can take so long to get to know yourself. There you are spending 24 hours a day with yourself and you don't know yourself. Why is that?

Anyway, when I met Mark I fell head over heals in love. Soul mates! Damn yes! I have no doubt that we have been together in previous lives. No - really! I know that sounds drippy and overly romantic - but that is the way we feel - deeply and madly in love - so we wanted to get married.

It wasn't about getting married legally - no need for that and Texas doesn't allow it. No point in getting "legally" married in a state that allows it because Texas doesn't recognize it (there is seriously something wrong with that in the United States of America - thanks to to the Defense of Marriage Act - DUMP IT!)

Getting married was about how we felt about one another and what we wanted our friends and family to know about that. So we got married at the Cathedral of Hope.

Gay and straight friends attended - most of a hundred people - we stood up there and pledged our love to each other before God and our family and friends. I can not think of a better way to say "I love you" to the man that I love.

You can just live with someone or you can live with someone and make it a very public commitment - which is better? You be the judge, but I know that having my family and friends know that Mark is my husband is exactly what I want - and it is wonderful.