Adjusting

A conversation this weekend has helped me to think through some of the priorities in my life. As regular Auto-Gratification readers have no doubt noticed, my posts lately have been severely lacking.

This has been unavoidable, as my life lately has been rather crazy, particularly with my job in a company that is in a tailspin it is unlikely to recover from. Consequently, I am trying to balance the demands of a very full-time job with the fairly-urgent need to find a new job in a more stable situation.

As a smart friend reminded me this weekend, I need to make sure I am dedicating the maximum amount of effort possible to my occupation situation and not allow myself to use other things (such as blogging) to be used as an escape from the stress I have been under for far too long. For, when I spend my time on things less important, I ultimately only will increase my stress and delay its resolve.

So, today Auto-Gratification is going on an indefinite hiatus. Although I have every intent to return to blogging at some point, I cannot today tell you at what point that will be. I will keep the blog up, and perhaps I will be able to give an update along the way. But at this point, I don't plan to post again until my job situation has settled down and I am comfortably-settled into whatever new opportunity awaits.

Thanks to all who have been so kind in your comments and visits. I do hope that I will be back here again soon....keep checking!

Hope You've Enjoyed the Conversation Thus Far

One year ago today, on Friday, February 24, 2006, I began Auto-Gratification with a post titled "Talking To Myself." This was my third or fourth attempt at maintaining a blog (each of the others dying after a few short posts). But this one seems to be sticking. I have found that the reality of life keeps me from daily postings as I might like, but looking at my stats shows an average of slightly more than 3 posts per week, so I suppose that is adequate.

As is fairly common for new bloggers, it took me a bit to figure out what I wanted to do with the blog, so some of my early posts are rather boring. But, if the response from friends and acquaintances is any indicator, eventually things improved, and I hope I will continue to entertain or inform or slightly amuse you as the weeks go on.

For those who may not have been here the whole time, here's a few of my personal favorite posts that you might want to check out...

• Mardi Gras Origins (February 27, 2006) - My account of the year I attended the Mardi Gras celebration in the village of Binche, Belgium, where many of the traditions of the day originated.
• French Sex (April 30, 2006) - As I mention in my blog header, I am half-bilingual, so back in April, I decided to produce a brief guide de terminologie sexuelle française. Even if you don't speak any French, it is a fascinating (and sometimes amusing) look at the way Francophones express themselves in the bedroom.
• How to Help a Friend Who is Dealing with the Suicide of a Loved One (May 8, 2006) - Because of the tragedy that I have experienced and survived, I have posted a number of times over the past year on the topic of suicide. This post I wrote in the hopes of giving some practical advice in the event someone finds themselves trying to comfort a friend who is grieving the suicide of a loved one.
• Sometimes It Rains (June 28, 2006) - I occasionally write poetry in my journal, but I almost always use poetry to express things that are deeply personal, so only twice have I ever shared something I wrote in that realm publicly. This poem was written as a reminder of the value of friendship when the storms come.
• The Pink Letter (July 2, 2006) - I had probably more fun writing this post than nearly any other I have done. Being a fan of classic literature, I often am humored as I run across terms whose meanings have changed over time, a wonderful example being the word "queer." This post illustrates a number of classic literature passages in which they\ author employed that word, never realizing the new, humorous meanings their words would have decades later.
• Rice Queen, Part 1 and Part 2 (July 6-9, 2006) - Some thoughts on interracial romance in the gay community.
• My Coming-Out Story (October 11-December 10, 2006) - This ended up being a five-part series on my own personal coming-out story. I still intend to write an epilogue as I promised several I would do...perhaps that will be the post to start off my second blogging year.
• Choosing Our Battles Wisely (February 21, 2007) - My most recent post prior to this one, but something I feel very strongly about. I lived in Africa for a while and love the people there, so it saddens me to see so many critical of people who are sacrificially giving of their lives to help people they do not even know in lands far away.

Well, thanks to all who have read, commented, complimented, and even criticized me over the past year. I hope you will continue to visit my blog (and link to it!). I will try to make your visits worth the time you give to me. Cheers!

The Brown Dragon

On September 10, 2004, I got my first tattoo. It speaks of the lessons I learned from my "coming out" experience. I wrote about the first tattoo previously on this blog, and you can read about it here if you like.

Now, if you read that post, you will see that I planned out the tattoo's timing and meaning to the extreme. It was a very important reminder to me of a milestone in my life that continues to shape me to this day. After I got the first tattoo, I did not necessarily intend to get another one. For one thing, I did not foresee another event that would be as life-changing as my “coming out," so it seemed that any new tattoo would be somewhat trivial in comparison to the meaning behind the first. Little did I know how wrong I was.

As I have mentioned on this blog before, I lost my boyfriend to suicide on October 13, 2005. And, compounding the loss of my boyfriend was the trauma of being the one to find him hanging from a rope in his bedroom. This sent my life into a turmoil that could have easily become a tailspin. However, through the aggressive love and constant support of amazing friends and family, I survived even through pain deeper than I had ever known.

We are approaching one year since we buried Alfred. Due to circumstances surrounding government regulations and transporting remains out of the country (part of his remains buried in his home town in the Philippines and part at his adopted home here in Chicago), we did not have the burial service here until February 15, about 4 months after his death. As I was thinking about this today, I decided I would share the story of my second tattoo. I have told it to a few close friends, but I think it would be good to share here in hopes that perhaps it can be an encouragement to someone else going through a dark time in his or her life.

I think it is natural, upon the loss of a loved one, to desire to do something to keep his memory alive, perhaps to convince oneself that the person is not forgotten. Even as I was slowly beginning to face the reality that Alfred was gone from my life forever, I knew that I wanted to do something that would remind me of him and the wonderful memories we shared during our all-too-brief time together. I’m not certain exactly at what point the idea of getting another tattoo entered my mind, but certainly by early December 2005 I was seriously considering it. And, the more I contemplated, the more I realized how meaningful a tattoo could be in this situation. So, on December 29, 2005, I received my second tattoo. Here, as concisely as possible, is the meaning and significance of the tattoo:

The design of the tattoo was much easier to decide upon than the first one I got. I knew I wanted something that would be a good memory for me of Alfred, yet I was level-headed enough to know I wasn’t going to inscribe his name on my arm or anything like that. Also, on the slightly more shallow side of things, I kinda wanted a tattoo that would be a little more “exciting” than my first. The idea that quickly came to mind was Alfred’s nickname which I often used, “Brown Dragon.” I am not certain where he got that nickname, but it was one that I thought would be a great memorial idea. A brown dragon would be meaningful to me, yet it would avoid potential awkwardness in future relationships both because the significance would be muted apart from my explicit explanation and because it would just look like a nice tattoo (so I hoped and so I believe).

I intentionally chose to have the size of the tattoo be much larger than my first, symbolizing that this was an experience that overshadows even the most difficult moments of my life to this point. The pain I have gone through is beyond anything I have ever imagined, or imagined being able to endure. And it is this pain and its results that add the most meaning to the tattoo.

The process of getting the tattoo applied took about 2 hours. During the application, it feels as if the artist is taking a knife and cutting you open. It struck me that, out of this rather intense pain came a thing of beauty. If I had not gone through the pain, I could not have seen the beauty of the artwork. As with the tattoo (though on a completely different scale), Alfred’s death has brought intense pain into my life. And yet, I have seen beauty emerge even from that pain. I believe the experience has made me a better friend, son, brother. Where I have had a lifelong tendency to be somewhat self-absorbed (perhaps not actively selfish, but just so much in my own little world that I don’t notice the needs of others), I have found myself more actively looking for ways to show kindness, friendship, and love to those in my life. Relationships that had been strained I have sought to restore. I have written letters to my family for no other reason than to remind them that I love them and am thankful to be in their lives. The experience has helped me to re-evaluate my life, and goals that had faded have come into sharper focus. I have determined to make major changes in my career, aiming to return to school to enter a profession that will help people and make a difference in a way that marketing and advertising never could. And, I remember daily the preciousness of each moment I have in this life and attempt to make the most of the time I have been given. None of these beautiful things would have happened had I not gone through the pain.

When I look into the mirror of my life, it will not be the pain I see; it will be the beauty that has resulted from the pain.A tattoo is permanent. It becomes part of who I am. In a sense, it changes me. If I bleached my hair or had a nose job, I would in some way be a different person. The tattoo is similar. For the rest of my life, when I remove my shirt, people will see something different that was not there before. It will become an element that, combined with the rest of my body, defines me. In this case, the size of the tattoo causes it to be a quickly-noticeable element of who I am. However, its location (on my lower torso) makes it so that it will only be seen when my shirt is removed. I will go through much of my life with nobody seeing it. When I am dressed up and the “real” me is covered by colorful clothing, those around me will not see the tattoo. But, when the shirt is removed and I am at my most “real”, unhidden moments, it will be clearly seen. The parallels to my recent experiences are easy to see. I am a different person because of Alfred’s suicide. That is permanent. This trial has been so deeply imprinted upon my soul that I have been forever changed. Sure, in much of my life, I will go about my business without those around me noticing the change. But, in those “real” moments of life, when I have the opportunity to help a hurting friend, when I can reach out to someone who has lost hope, when I express to my future lover how much he means to me and how much I value every moment with him, the impact this has had upon me will be as clear as the tattoo on my body.

The first several days after the tattoo is applied, that area of skin is very tender. Just slight pressure would bring back the pain of the application. For a week or two, it is even ugly, as the area scabs over while the body heals itself. For the first month or so, the tattoo is thought of often, both because of its novelty and because of the pain that is felt. But, as time passes, the skin heals, the pain fades, and the novelty wears off. Active thoughts of the tattoo diminish. Yet, although I will think less and less often and long about the tattoo over the months and years to come, it will still be a part of me. As with my first tattoo, the subconscious reminders will continue long after the novelty wears off. Again, the comparison should be clear. The initial days and weeks of dealing with Alfred’s suicide were extremely painful. It took almost no pressure for me to feel the pain and fall into tears. There have even been some very “ugly” moments, where I have made decisions that were hurtful to myself and others, allowing the scabs to obscure the beauty that would eventually emerge. But, every day, as I learned to stand the loss, the pain lessened, and even became bearable. Now, my thoughts are less and less consumed by the heartache, but the reminders will always be there, and they will come to mind on occasion for the rest of my life.

But, as time passes, when I look into the mirror of my life, it will not be the pain and scabs I see; it will be the beauty that has resulted from it. Certainly I will never be thrilled about the pain I went through, but I will grow to be grateful for the beauty that it produced.

For my friends and family, I trust it will be the same. The reality of my losing a love to suicide is a permanent part of my life and who I am. Alfred, my love for him, and the loss I have felt will have an influence upon the rest of my life. But this does not have to be a “scab” that repulses or holds people at arm’s length. Instead, I hope they will see the beauty that has resulted.

I hope they will understand that, when I express my concern over their pain, heartache, and struggles, it is no longer the casual, flippant words that we so often toss about with our acquaintances. Rather, I really want to know how I can be an encouragement, and my concern over my own convenience has lessened dramatically.

When I ask “How are you?”, I actually want to know. I don’t ever again want someone I care for to think he is alone, or to be without hope and in despair. I want others to know that, if nobody else is there, I will be a true friend.

This is not any sort of self-aggrandizing Messiah complex. Rather, it is just a perspective change resulting from a deep, dark trial that I am determined to see ultimately result in beauty.

Re-post: A Desire to Travel

Today, we in America celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. So many blogs today are writing eloquently about the importance of this day, and I could not hope to add to what has been said in any significant way. So I thought a good way to note the day is to rerun a post I wrote in May 2006 concerning some of the important formative events of my life in regard to understanding prejudice that can so easily creep into our thinking without our even realizing it. And I hope that I can, in whatever small ways from day to day, be a part of the solution rather than the problem: by cultivating respect and dignity for all people, whether they are close and familiar to me or distant and perplexing; by recognizing that different is not inferior, but that beauty is found in all cultures and peoples; and by humbly realizing that I can learn from every person I meet if I will take the time to look past the shallowness of externals, cross the line of cultural discomfort, and celebrate rather than denigrate those things which make each of us unique.

From May 24, 2006:

Tonight I got my photos taken for my new passport. My first passport expires on June 4. It's hard to believe that just 10 years ago I was preparing for my first trip ever out of the country, but now I have traveled extensively through nearly 20 countries on 3 continents. That even increased my desire to travel in my own country, and I have been to 43 of the US States, 40 of those within the past 10 years.

I hope I can cultivate respect and dignity for all people, recognize that different is not inferior, and realize that I can learn from every person by looking past externals, crossing the line of cultural discomfort, and celebrating those things which make each of us unique.If you were to ask me what have been the most significant forces in my life in a positive sense to make me who I am today, there are a couple things that would quickly come to mind. First would be parents and a grandmother who showed me by example what it means to learn and change and not assume I know everything, to live by a strong moral code of unselfishness and giving to others, to not be afraid to admit I am wrong, and who, in spite of differences and disagreements (sometimes very sharp) have always loved me unfailingly. But outside of the direct influence of my family, perhaps no other force in my life has so radically affected my outlook on life than my international traveling.

For travel is not just about getting the snapshot from the top of the Eiffel Tower (spent weeks in Paris and never did that....the Arc de Triomphe view is far better). It's not about bringing back t-shirts and key chains and making family members sit through hours of slides of your trip to Thailand on New Year's Even when they would rather be just about anywhere else besides listening to you drone on and on about the....oh, sorry, I think some bitterness against my uncle just came out there.

Traveling internationally will give you a perspective on life and culture and politics and belonging that you cannot get any other way, I am convinced. This is something that starts from the moment you leave the airport of your home. There's a big difference from a Los Angeles-Chicago flight than a Chicago-Accra, Ghana flight. It took me 24 hours of travel with a layover in Europe to get to Africa, and suddenly, I started to comprehend how big the planet is and how small my little world had been to that point.

I saw my thinking transform from that scourge of Midwestern Mentality and American superiority to understanding how much I could learn from other cultures and peoples. I began to understand the subtle undercurrent of prejudice that ran through my beliefs and opinions. During the six months I lived in Africa (in the country of Togo), I experienced something that very few American-born white guys have the privilege of experiencing, and that is to get a glimpse of what it is like truly to live as a minority. For there were times in Africa when I would go days without seeing another person with white skin. Admittedly, the Togolese people are very kind and welcoming to the "yovos" (white-skinned people), but just the feeling of being on the "outside" has never left me. And I think (and hope) it has helped me to be more sensitive and understanding since I have been back in the States.

One of the coolest things I have noticed which shows me that perhaps something fundamental changed in my mind from traveling is this: 10 years ago, without exception, every one of my close friends was a white American of western-European descent. Today, however, through no conscious choice or intention to make it this way, I have been blessed to have one of the most international group of friends of anyone I know. And stop chuckling, they are not all from Asia!

So, I am thankful for several things tonight. First, I am thankful for the privilege I have had to travel--simply for the amazing places I have seen and things I have experienced...

• from the historic grandeur of the Coliseum in Rome
  
• to the happily-endured heartburn from the little greasy fajita stand in Mexico
  
• to the silent awe at the breathtaking Cliffs of Moher in Ireland (where I did the most insane thing I have ever done in my entire life)
  
• to the ingenuity, beauty, and hospitality shown to us at the mud castles of the Tam Berma people in Togo.
  

Second, I am thankful for the way traveling has changed my perspective on the world, trusting it has made me into a better person. And finally, I'm so thankful that it's time for me to get a new passport so I can get rid of that picture with those huge glasses. What was I thinking?

A Flattering Way to End the Year

Well, I have certainly been out of the loop with the holidays, because I just noticed today that on December 22, Best Gay Blogs, the best directory on the internet for gay blogging, wrote a long and very kind review of Auto-Gratification. Now, although I tend to be somewhat skeptical about internet accolades (any geek with a copy of Photoshop can make an internet "award"), it is gratifying to read such a kind review, since it reflects a real effort to read through my blog and "get" what I'm writing about. Plus, being featured on the premiere gay blog directory is slightly more significant than winning "Billy Bob's Sites That Give Me a Boner" award. So thanks, to Best Gay Blogs, and best wishes to all in 2007! I hope that, as I continue to pleasure myself with this blog, each of you will get turned on as I shoot a little bit your direction as well!

No Big Surprise

Klein Sexual Orientation Grid

I scored an average of 5.19

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Heterosexual

Bisexual

Homosexual

Meaning

This result can also be related to the Kinsey Scale:


0 = exclusively heterosexual
1 = predominantly heterosexual, incidentally homosexual
2 = predominantly heterosexual, but more
than incidentally homosexual
3 = equally heterosexual and homosexual
4 = predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally
heterosexual
5 = predominantly homosexual, incidentally heterosexual
6 = exclusively homosexual

Summary

The idea of this excercise is to understand exactly how dynamic a person's sexual orientation can be, as well as how fluid it can be over a person's lifespan. While a person's number of actual homo/heterosexual encounters may be easy to categorize, their actual orientation may be completely different. Simple labels like "homosexual", "heterosexual", and "bisexual" need not be the only three options available to us.

Take the quiz

My Coming-Out Story, Part Five

Note: If you have not already done so, be sure to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 of my coming-out story so this part will make sense a bit more.

My Coming-Out Story, Part Five: Not Exactly as Planned (Conclusion)

I had a plan. Perhaps it wasn't perfect, but it certainly seemed workable.I had a plan. Perhaps it wasn't perfect, but it certainly seemed workable. I was returning to the city of my childhood--Los Angeles, California. My cousin was to be married, and I was the piano player for the wedding. So, my parents (who had recently moved to Kentucky) and I would have the opportunity on the Monday after the wedding to sit down and talk. I knew they wouldn't be happy about my coming out, and I was prepared for the questions and emotion that would come, or so I thought. At the very least, I anticipated that we would have a profitable discussion, where I could explain to them that I wasn't going to start dressing in drag and having public sex, but rather I was just going to be honest about who I am.

We all gathered in southern California around mid-week. Friday night was the wedding rehearsal and Saturday the wedding. My parents and brother joined me on Thursday for a day at Universal Studios, and we had a great time together. According to my plan, we would have the wedding events on Friday and Saturday, a nice day to relax on Sunday, then on Monday I would have "the talk" with my parents. Then, even if it was difficult, I would fly back to Illinois on Tuesday morning, and life would be good.

But it was not to be so. Friday evening, we had the wedding rehearsal and dinner. Our entire extended family on my dad's side gathered in the church building to walk through the events of the next day. I sat up on the stage playing the romantic piano melodies I had prepared, trying not to be too obvious as I looked at the hot friend of the groom who was in the wedding party. Eventually, they came to the point where they were going to discuss the vows and charge to the couple, and all the other non-musical items of the service. So, I decided to step off the stage for a bit and sit next to my mother, who was just watching off to the side.

As we sat there and chatted a bit, my mom asked how things were going at church. Now, if you have read the previous sections of this story, you know that church is a big deal to my family. My parents' primary reason for moving to the place they now live was the church they attend. And they had visited my church in Illinois on a couple occasions and loved it. However, they had no idea that I had been kicked out of the church for being gay and that the pastor had treated me shamefully. So, it was not an unusual question for my mom to ask, but it certainly was undesirable timing.

I tried to delay the answer at first, telling her that that was something I was planning to talk to my dad and her about after the wedding events were completed, and that it was a discussion that would take too long to begin right then. Rather than calming her, though, she became concerned and started pressing me further. So I said that I would explain everything on Monday, but I wasn't planning to attend that church any longer, and I planned to move to Chicago the next month. But I said I didn't think that my cousin's wedding rehearsal was the best time to discuss this.

Now, what happened next is the strongest example I have ever seen of a mother's intuition. Keep in mind that my parents, to this point, did not know of my strong attraction to guys. Even when I was forced to return from Europe (see part 3 of this story), they thought it was because I had violated the missionary agency's pornography policy. But sitting there in that church, my mother turned to me and said, "Are you gay?"

If there is one thing I cannot do well, and which I hate to do in the first place, it is to lie to my mother. When I was in elementary school, I lied to my mother once and said I ate the apple she gave me at lunch when I had actually thrown it away. It bothered me so much that I couldn't sleep that night, and I woke her up in the middle of the night to confess and apologize. I have said many times that, if it were not for her opposition to my sexual orientation, I would have the perfect mother.

So, I said, "Yes, I am gay."

Oops.

I knew that coming out would likely be an emotional experience. I anticipated my parents being upset, but I envisioned it happening in a hotel room where we would have privacy and a discussion about it. I planned on both parents being there, because they do a good job of keeping each other calm in strained situations. But I never planned for this.

For a moment, my mother went silent. Her jaw was very tight, a look I had seen before when she was very upset. Her eyes started to appear moist. Then, attracting a lot of attention from our entire family standing around the church sanctuary, she stood up quickly and left the room. Hoping to calm her down, I followed her outside and tried to talk to her.

What happened next was a couple hours of pure emotion coming from my mother. She was crying almost the whole time, trying to convince me I wasn't gay, that I shouldn't move to Chicago, that I was going to ruin my life. She was so upset that, within a few minutes of each other, she made both of the following statements:

• "You will die of AIDS before you are 30."
• "You will grow up to be a lonely old man."

The two of us missed the remainder of the wedding rehearsal and the entire dinner. And even worse, we were in the corridor between the church building and the dining hall where the dinner was held, so all of our family members walked past us seeing my mother crying and our intense discussion.

The following couple months were pretty rough between me and my parents. I moved to Chicgao in October, by which time I was often not answering their calls because I couldn't handle the crying (of both parents) and pressure all the time. Finally, in the early part of November, my mom asked me if I was going to be with them for Thanksgiving. I told her that, if the trip was just going to be four days of them trying to convince me not to be gay, I could not handle that. A couple days later, my dad called, and I saw the first very small step my parents took toward calming down. My dad told me that he knew they had made it very clear what they thought about my sexuality, and their opinion had not changed. However, he said that, more importantly, I am their son whom they love, and they would not bring up the subject again.

Thanksgiving was very tense and uncomfortable, but they kept their word. Then Christmas was slightly better, and each visit afterward has improved. Three years later, I have seen my parents make amazing steps that I never would have imagined. They still hold to their belief that gay sex is sinful, but they are much less dogmatic about so many other things. They no longer believe I "chose" to be gay or that I am gay because they were bad parents. They realize that I'm not out on the weekends participating in S&M drag gangbang orgies. They don't make my "sin" to be somehow a big sin worse than all others. They have met a number of my gay friends and are thoughtful in their comments about issues that we discuss. And they have kept their word and have not gotten on my case about it ever since.

After moving to Chicago, I did not attend church for nearly a year, but then I found a church that seemed to have a good balance. As time has progressed, I have found it to be a very welcoming church and actually look forward to services there. I know I'm in the minority when it comes to gay guys and religion, and I must say I find it very hard to be critical of gay guys who want nothing to do with religion, because it seems most religions don't want anything to do with us. But for myself, I have found it to be a source of encouragement and stability, and hopefully people can see in me someone who is working on a balance in faith and sexuality, someone who takes my faith seriously but doesn't take myself too seriously. And most of all, that I will be a person of faith but never of judgment. I think that church should be a place where people go because we realize we are not perfect, not because we think we are. My attending church is a statement that I know I have things to improve on, not a statement that others are worse than me. Perhaps if more church people understood that, we would have less antipathy between the gay and religious communities.

As for me, I'm probably still a little messed up in the head. My friends could vouch for that. But coming out was the first of many important steps that I have taken to be real and who I need to be. It's still a process, for sure, but I am at a point where I can honestly say I hold no anger toward those who have wronged me in the past, nor do their opinions and judgments hold me back from being myself. Hopefully, I will continue to live in a way that will show the critics that stereotypes are distortions of reality, and a gay man can indeed be someone who is kind, self-disciplined, and someone worth calling a friend.

World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS Day, and many others have spoken or will speak of it far more eloquently than I ever could. I do think it is wonderful that, each year, the tragedy that this disease has caused worldwide becomes more and more understood and responded to. Slowly, we see foolish assumptions and myths about HIV/AIDS fading away, as politicians, physicians, and the general public are realizing the importance of addressing the issue with compassion and honesty. I love how celebrities like Bono are choosing to leverage their popularity to accomplish great things in this realm. And a day like today is excellent for helping to increase public awareness, education, and compassion for those who live with HIV/AIDS.

But I also think today is important for a reason that those of us in the gay community are probably aware of more than most; that is, for those of us who are HIV-negative to remind our friends and family members who are living with HIV/AIDS of our love and support and total acceptance of them. I have known many people in my life with HIV/AIDS, having lived in West Africa where it was very prevalent, as well as knowing numerous HIV-positive friends and acquaintances here in the States. But it hit home more directly than ever this year, when within three months of each other, two people very close to me tested positive. Suddenly, it wasn't just acquaintances that I would see occasionally at a club or party; it was people who I would interact with regularly, people who I loved and looked to for help when I faced difficulties in life.



And, as my loved ones have progressed on their journies through this new challenge, I have been so happy to see them both moving from a very low place to paths of hope and happiness--anticipation of lives that will be full and satisfying, perhaps even more so than before, since they have faced a challenge that gives them an appreciation for life and health and love. And, I think that is a wonderful message for World AIDS Day... HIV/AIDS does not have the power to crush the human spirit or to fracture hope or to restrain love. It cannot suffocate laughter or silence creativity or shatter true friendship or stifle compassion.



Have you ever had a really bad day? One in which you just feel like your are overwhlemed by your circumstances? Where you are on the verge of tears or just want to hit a wall or scream into your pillow? But then, a friend or loved one comes into the room and, with a clever comment or well-timed joke totally diffuses the tension. I don't mean a careless joke that indicates your problems are not real nor important. But a gentle humor that communicates they love you and that they know you are going to make it through this trial. When this happens, at first you don't want to laugh, or even smile, because in a perverse way, we sometimes jealously hold on to anger or frustration. But when the laughter overcomes us, and we are forced to release the anger (since anger will not co-exist with laughter), we physically and emotionally feel that knot in our stomach begin to loosen and the load on our heart to lighten. It doesn't eliminate the problems we are facing, but it gives us the perspective to know we can make it through the valleys in life because we are loved.

Today's Holidays:

• World AIDS Day
  
• Day Without Art Day
• Bifocals at the Monitor Liberation Day (I don't know what it is, either)
  

My Coming-Out Story, Part Four

Note: If you have not already done so, be sure to read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of my coming-out story so this part will make sense a bit more.

My Coming-Out Story, Part Four: Personal Exposure

When I returned to the States from my abbreviated time in Europe (see earlier posts for context), I bounced around aimlessly for a bit before finally landing in northwestern Illinois in May 2003. It was that month when I would finally begin to make choices that would help me to move in a new direction away from the cycle of frustration I had been in for so many years. I would indeed begin a new life. But, as with any new life, there is inevitably some birthing pain.

When I moved into my new Midwestern apartment, I did two things almost immediately. First, I found a new church to attend. Call it force of habit or whatever you will, but I had attended church my entire life, and the thought still had not occurred to me that not attending church could ever be an option. Instead of being an active participant in a pastoral role, however, I took much more of a spectator's position in the new church, not really wanting to attract any more attention to myself. And second, I decided I really needed to figure out this whole "gay thing" through some method other than by going to church people for advice or by just ignoring it and hoping it would go away.

The problem was, I had no idea how to meet gay people. I was two months away from my 28th birthday, and I was still one of the most sheltered people you would ever meet. I had never knowingly associated with another gay person. I had never entered a bar of any kind (much less a gay one) except once in Wisconsin to call for assistance when my car broke down in a blizzard. I had never danced. I had never tasted alcohol, smoked a cigarette, or done drugs. And yes, I was a virgin (to all sex, straight or gay-- I never even had a romantic kiss!).

Fortunately, technology was advancing quite nicely by this point, and I remembered something I had observed when checking my e-mail on Yahoo. I saw this fascinating site called Yahoo Personals, in which you could say whether you were a "Man seeking a Woman" or a "Woman seeking a Man." But, amazingly enough, you could actually change the option to be "Man seeking a Man." Simultaneously terrified and aroused, I went to the site and, for the first time ever, saw personal ads for gay men.

I looked at the ads and pictures for a week or so, and finally, I worked up the courage to reply to one. Looking back, I am amazed at my good fortune in that first tentative contact. Any of us who have been on an online dating site know that, when you are contacted by someone with no picture posted (which was the case with me, as I was terrified someone I knew would find out I was on a gay site), more often than not, the person is ignored. But the guy that I e-mailed actually responded. He was a handsome college student, just a couple years younger than me, and he was at a university about 45 minutes from where I was living. And, to show you how blessed I was to meet this particular guy, a quick fast-forward to today, November 2006, finds that that same guy is one of my dearest friends and lives just a few doors down the street from me here in Chicago, nearly two hours from where I was living when I first e-mailed him!

When my friend responded to my e-mail greeting, I explained to him a bit of my situation, that I was completely new to all of this and absolutely terrified (I think I worded it as "kinda nervous"). He kindly corresponded back and forth with me several times, but it being May, he was just finishing school and was, in fact, graduating. So, in early June, he moved two hours away to Chicago, before we ever had the chance to meet in person. But, by that point, we decided we did want to meet, and so one day we arraned to have dessert in one of the Chicago suburbs about half the distance between us. I had a great time and was amazed to find a normal, attractive, masculine gay guy who I got along well with! I was thinking that he must be the only one of his kind, and I just got lucky!

That first meeting was followed up only a couple weeks later by the night that would change everything for me. June 27, 2003. Friday night. Pride weekend in Chicago. Exactly one month before my 28th birthday. My new friend invited me to drive into the city and stay at his place. He would then give me a tour of gay Chicago. I had to leave Saturday afternoon for a business trip to Dallas, but I agreed to hang out with him on Friday night and see what it was all about.

Now, try to picture this in your mind. As we left his apartment to head out to the gay clubs of Chicago, I was braced for the most extreme situations I could imagine. Because my exposure to gay people was essentially what I saw on the cover of Focus on the Family magazines, I naturally assumed that my friend and I would be the only two gay guys there who were not dressed in women's clothing, and I was certain that these "gay clubs" would be full of men having sex together. I had never been in any bar or club, so I didn't even have straight clubs to use as a reference point in my mind.

So, when we walked into Spin and Roscoe's and I saw these places full of handsome guys, some of whom even smiled at me, I was completely overwhelmed. I experienced a range of emotions that night that I have felt very seldom to that intensity. It was that same night that I tasted alcohol for the first time, that I was knowingly around more than one gay guy at a time, that I danced for the first time, and that I stayed the night at another gay guy's house for the first time.

It was at some point when I was with my friend on the dance floor at Roscoe's, awkwardly attempting to dance but having no idea how, that I experienced something that probably all of us who have come out have felt at some point. Bonnie Tyler was singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart", a song I had never heard before but knew I instantly loved. And it hit me. For the first time in my life, I was real. This was me. I wasn't suppressing what I knew I felt. I wasn't trying to be what everyone else expected of me just to keep them happy. I was just being who I was. And it was the most freeing, most satisfying, most relieving feeling I had ever had. For a moment, I just closed my eyes, and soaked in the sound and atmosphere, and I knew nothing would ever be the same for me. To this day, when I hear "Total Eclipse of the Heart", I feel a little bit better and smile a bit more.

That weekend began a summer of exploring this new world that had opened up to me. With perhaps only one or two exceptions, I would drive two hours to Chicago every Friday night and go out with my friend, then drive home Saturday evening. I could not have asked for a kinder, more easy-going, more patient friend than he. We got along famously, and he would let me go out and explore on my own, always keeping his door open to me anytime I needed a place to go.

Oh, and I won't kiss and tell and say with whom or when or where, but by the end of the summer, I wasn't a virgin anymore. And I found out I am a big fan of kissing.

Summer began to wind down, and near the end of August, I concluded that I needed to be honest about who I was with the people in my life. The very first person that I came out to was my roommate, a very hot straight guy. If all my other conversations went as well as that, I would have been the luckiest guy ever. My roommate could not have been more supportive. I think he knew the difficult times that were going to be on my path soon, because he went out of his way to make me comfortable and to let me know I could be real around him. He knew that I thought he was hot, and I think he loved the attention. The first time I met his girlfriend was when I arrived home to find the two of them making out on the couch in the living room. My roommate introduced me to his girlfriend and then told her, "Eukolos wishes it was he who was on the couch making out with me!" He would walk around the house after a shower wearing only his towel and say, "Eukolos, I bet you wish this towel would fall off, don't you?"

The next situation, however, did not go as well. I knew that, if I was going to be real and stop faking, I would have to change churches, because the church I was attending took a very clear stance against homosexuality. However, I naively hoped that I could leave quietly, explaining to the pastor that I appreciated his kindness to me, but that I needed to move on. Well, after writing a very kind, non-judgmental letter to the pastor, he completely freaked out, and as I mentioned in part 3 of this story, he told me he was going to pray that God would kill me, then he kicked me out of the church.

That was the breaking point for me. In a short time, I had seen unconditional acceptance and kindness from my gay friend in Chicago (and a growing number of other gay guys I was meeting there), but then I had seen flat-out mean-spirited and angry responses from church people. I figured that, since every church experience when I was real about my sexuality had been so bad, I no longer wanted anything to do with church. So in September 2003, for the first time in my 28 years of life, I stopped attending church. And I decided to move to Chicago.

By the end of August, I knew the inevitable could not be postponed much longer. I needed to tell my family. And it happened that our entire family would be gathering in Los Angeles in mid-September for my cousin's wedding. So, since it was only a couple weeks out and my parents and brother and I were going to stay a few days after the wedding, I thought that would be an ideal opportunity to explain things to them.

Well, once again I am a bit long-winded. If I have not built up enough anticipation for this next part of the story yet, I don't know what will. But to do this justice, I will have to extend the story a bit further into another post, which I will attempt to write quickly.

However, if your patience will indulge me a bit further today, let me conclude this post by sharing something that has been foundational in my life ever since 2003.

On September 10, 2004, I got my first tattoo. For many years I had been fascinated with tattoos, and in recent years that fascination had grown into an interest in getting one myself. However, after having observed many tattoos, I determined that, were I ever to get one, it would have to be very meaningful and significant to me, something that I won’t mind having on my body when I’m in my 70's. As cool as I might think it would be to have the Tazmanian Devil on my forearm in my mid-20's, I knew he wasn’t going to make the cut.

As I explained in this post, major life experiences culminated in September 2003, resulting in my moving to Chicago, Illinois, and beginning a new chapter in my life. During the following year, a number of lessons started to gel in my head that would become guiding principles for me in the days to come. At their core, these lessons were about kindness. Beginning early in 2002 and continuing through the fall of 2003, as I grew in my determination to resolve the issues concerning my sexuality and my faith, I saw extremes both of kindness and unkindness. Sadly, much of the unkindness came from those with whom I often aligned in my faith, but gladly, I saw amazing kindness from those with whom I found common ground in my sexuality. While my pastor (whom I had previously considered to be a close friend) called around to “out” me to people he did not even know and told me he would pray for God to kill me, some of my new gay friends surrounded me with kindness and showed me unconditional acceptance at a time when I desperately needed friends. In particular, two or three of my friends in Chicago, all of whom are Asian incidentally (perhaps signs of an incipient rice queen tendency?), helped me make it through that very difficult time in my life.

So, in September of 2004, I decided to get a tattoo to represent and remind me of the lessons I had been learning and the principles to which I would hopefully adhere as I continued on my journey.



I wanted every aspect of the tattoo “experience” to be significant. First, the timing of getting the tattoo was almost exactly one year to the day from when I had come out to my immediate family. I selected a tattoo that included Chinese characters as a tribute to my Asian friends who had been such an amazing help to me. The characters are the word “kindness” which, translated literally (assuming I have been told correctly), is “good at heart.” In 2004, this became the goal to which I determined to be most dedicated--to be a kind person, someone who indeed strove to be good at heart. The tattoo was both a reminder to me of the hurt that can be caused by unkindness and of the help and hope that can be infused by a kind word or action.

In addition to the characters, I included a small rabbit. This was partially a continued tribute to my Asian friends, as I was born in the Chinese year of the rabbit. But also, the rabbit is a symbol of kindness in some Asian cultures, so it seemed to fit with the theme of the tattoo. The location of the tattoo is over my heart, to illustrate to others (and to remind myself) that kindness is something that I endeavor to keep close to my heart.

More than two years later now, I can say that the tattoo has accomplished a good purpose in my own life. Because of its location, I see it every day as I get dressed, and although it may not always be a conscious thought, it is at least a subconscious reminder to me that I should strive to be a kind person. And, although I know I fail more often than I care to admit, I have been encouraged to see that, many times, my natural reaction to a difficult situation (one in which many would tell me to react in anger or to write someone off), is an almost-instinctive urge to show kindness. I say this fully aware that I have far to go before I could consider myself to be a wholly-kind person. But I hope that someday, as I continue this journey, people will be able to look back at my life and see acts of kindness scattered along the way.

Well, stay tuned shortly for what will hopefully be the last part in this story that is beginning to make Tolstoy jealous for length.

Today's Holiday:

• Travelers with Disabilities Week (Nov 26 - Dec 3)
  

National Survivors of Suicide Day

As I have mentioned previously, on October 13, 2005, I was inducted into a rather exclusive club, one which I had no knowledge of before and which I had no desire to enter; yet membership was forced upon me. When I found my boyfriend dead by his own hand in our bedroom, I became a "suicide survivor."

This term has caused confusion at times, some people thinking a suicide survivor would be someone who made an unsuccessful attempt on his own life. But it actually refers to those who are left behind, the loved ones, relatives, friends who have to try to make sense of a supremely-senseless act.

Nearly a decade ago, thanks largely to the efforts of US Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada), who lost his father to suicide, the Saturday before Thanksgiving each year has been designated by US Senate resolution as National Survivors of Suicide Day in the USA. It has become a powerful day of information, hope, and healing for people who have been thrust into an unimaginably-painful situation, one in which you find yourself grieving for the murderer of your loved one (I put it in such stark terms hopefully to illustrate the extremity of emotions a survivor must deal with, ranging from anger to grief to guilt to confusion).

I try to keep things from getting too heavy on this blog most of the time, but this is one area for which I am willing to dedicate time and space to discuss on occasion. For most of you, this has never struck close to home. But for many, it may touch someone you know, and I would encourage you to keep both this blog and other online resources in your mind, as you may be able to offer help and hope beyond what you can know to a future inductee into the "Suicide Survivors Club."

For further reading on this topic, see these previous Auto-Gratification posts.

My Coming-Out Story, Part Three

Note: If you have not already done so, be sure to read Part 1 and Part 2 of my coming-out story so this part will make sense a bit more.

My Coming-Out Story, Part Three: The 28-Year-Old Virgin

The fall of 1993 found me at a compound college campus in northern Wisconsin, about 30 minutes from Iron Mountain, Michigan (which had the closest McDonald's). I make the "compound" reference in good humor, because it was what many thought of the college I attended. What else would explain this large campus in the north woods in a town of about 1,000 people? You may wonder why I ended up at this school, so I shall give a bit of background.

My parents both attended Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. For those who may not be familiar with that school, it is the place where George W. Bush spoke during the 2000 election campaign which caused great controversy because of their policy prohibiting interracial dating (and what about someone who is from a multi-ethnic heritage? they had to state their preference for which ethnicity they wished to date upon arrival and stick with it through their schooling). It is also a campus that does not allow gay people to enter (with the exception of visiting their sacred art gallery, which is admittedly quite impressive).

When it came time for me to choose a college, my parents wanted me to attend BJU. I knew that there was no way I would attend that school, so I begged them for another option (since they were threatening to give me no support whatsoever if I went somewhere they did not approve). After much cajoling, I convinced them to allow me to attend the Baptist Bible College in northern Wisconsin. The president of the college and much of the faculty were Bob Jones graduates, but they seemed to have left some of the goofier extremes behind (i.e. - no interracial dating prohibition). Still, it was very very conservative and definitely not a place where a gay person would feel welcome.

This was not a problem for me, I thought. Because, as an idealistic college freshman, I was convinced that I would now be able to put these gay feelings behind me and live as the heterosexual I was supposed to be. With these grand intentions, I began to unpack my bags in my new room in the all-male dormitory with community showers.

Yes, it took about 2 minutes for me to realize this gay monster had followed me to college. I mean, you can say a lot about the Baptists, but they have some hot guys! Very quickly, I fell into the cycle of jerking off to thoughts of my dorm-mates and then feeling extremely guilty about it. By the time I reached my sophomore year, I was an emotional mess. Here I was with these intense emotions but terrified to tell anyone about them and convinced I was a horrible person for having them.

It was during my sophomore year that I began a journey that was incredibly difficult but, considering my background and years of mixed-up thinking, a very necessary journey. I will summarize this briefly, lest I make this far too long. On four separate occasions during my second through fourth years of college, I worked up the courage to ask someone for help with my "problem." Remember I was still thinking that I had done something wrong to have this attraction to other guys. I went to the Student Body Vice-President, my dormitory hall leader, the Dean of Men, and the Vice-President for Student Affairs, asking each of them for help. In each case, I was disappointed. The first one prayed a prayer for me and never spoke of it again. The second freaked out and told my boss, causing me to lose a campus job I loved. The third was kind but didn't really want to deal with it, so he quickly pronounced me "cured" and moved on. The last became so uncomfortable around me that he never spoke to me again my entire time at the school.

Now, perhaps here is where you will start to get irritated with me, and perhaps I should have caught on, but I graduated from college still trying to figure out what was wrong with me. In desperation, I decided to go to graduate school, and I earned a masters degree in theology. This was followed by my being ordained as a Baptist preacher and working as a missionary in Africa and Europe for nearly 3 years. I kept thinking that, if I did all the good things I could do, this one bad thing would eventually go away.

So I found myself working as a pastor in Europe, nine years after graduating from high school, never having touched a guy the entire time, but having these overwhelming urges and thoughts constantly. Finally, I hit bottom, or so I thought. I felt that, if I did not get this thing figured out, I could not go on any further. So, going to the head pastor of our church, I told him of my dark secret, hoping that perhaps he would show kindness where others had not. Instead, I was reported to the missionary agency through which I was working, fired that day, and told I would receive nothing further from them. So I was stuck in Europe with no job and no way to get home. With help from family, I finally made it home, where I was publicly rebuked in front of my entire home church. I moved to a new town and attended a new church, but when the pastor there found out I was attracted to men, he told me he would pray that God would kill me and had me kicked out of that church as well.

You might be surprised, after hearing all this, that I am not a church-hating, anti-religious gay man. At some point, I will write about my reasons why I do not hold a grudge against those who treated me wrongly and why I still consider myself to be a person of faith. But I will admit, by the point I was kicked out of that church, I had arrived at a place where I wanted nothing to do with church or anyone related to it.

However, during this turbulent time, something else was happening that turned out to be beautiful and life-saving for me. That, as well as my recounting of coming out to my family, will be in the next part of my ever-expanding, yet always-intriguing coming-out story.

Side Note of Interest: Baptists believe that it is God who ordains someone as a preacher (a calling that is for life) while the church merely recognizes that calling. Thus, I am technically still an ordained Baptist preacher, since, if they are consistent in their theology, those churches would have to admit they have no authority to revoke the ordination. So I can still perform marriage ceremonies and the like. Somehow I don't think I will be invited as a guest speaker at my college's chapel services anytime soon, though.

Today's Holidays:

• World Kindness Week (Nov 7-13)
  
• National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week (Nov 7-13, US)
• Pursuit of Happiness Week (Nov 8-14)
• Kristallnacht Memorial (9-10)
  
• Vietnam Veterans Memorial Day (US)
  
• Return Day
  

Shifting Gears

If you are a regular reader of this blog and happened to miss yesterday's post titled "Fresh Sheets", be sure to take a look at it! Thanks!

My Coming-Out Story, Part Two

My Coming-Out Story, Part Two: Sorta Like a Lesbian Pollyanna

Note: If you have not yet read Part One of my coming out story, I would highly suggest you do so (by clicking here) before continuing. Otherwise, this part will make even less sense than it will for those who have read the first part.

A quick reiteration from the first part of this story.... Lest I appear to have an over-inflated view of the significance of my own coming-out story (since I am dividing it up over the course of four posts and going into extensive background information), allow me to restate that this is the first time I have ever written out my story in a disciplined manner, so I am doing this for my own posterity and will include this in my personal journal. I do hope that you will find it to be entertaining, though, as I share some unique experiences I had.

Part one ended with my ultra-conservative Baptist Republican parents determining that Los Angeles was the Gomorrah to San Francisco's Sodom and deciding to pluck my brother and me from the fire (they didn't notice we were already flaming) and move us to the wholesome, values-driven Midwest.

The way they went about telling us brothers that we were moving from everyone and everything we had known since birth and going to a place where snow fell from the sky was classic. During spring break in 1988, we flew to Chicago to visit some friends who had moved to the northwest suburbs the year before. At least this was the cover story. One day, while my brother and I thought our parents were driving us to lunch, we instead pulled up to a newly-completed house. This, our parents said, was our new home. I kid you not. That was the first inkling we had that we were leaving California. Within a week of our return to California after our "vacation," my dad had flown to Chicago to start a new job, and when school was done a couple months later, the rest of us joined him.

My parents said that the move was to protect us boys from the bad influences of California. Ironically, about a month after we moved to the suburbs of Chicago, I saw a pornographic magazine for the first time. It was a Playgirl magazine, and someone had put it behind the MAD Magazine that I had intended to read. Now, by this time I was in high school and was self-aware enough to realize I felt emotional connections to guys and attraction toward them, but I had never really seen guys naked before. If this sounds unbelievable, remember the first part of my story, that my entire life was centered around the church. The church school I attended frowned upon guys seeing each other unclothed, even in locker rooms, so the few times I saw another guy naked were so fleeting that it didn't register. So, looking at that Playgirl, something clicked in my head that finally made sense. The feelings I felt around guys were physical. And if the mental connection wasn't enough, my body made it very clear, requiring me to quickly hide the porn and buy the MAD Magazine to use as a shield in front of my pants.

Shortly after this, I asked one of my new Chicago friends (who I thought was quite cute) if he had seen guys naked. Turns out that Chicago church people haven't become quite as paranoid, because when I started attending my new church school that fall, I found what my friend told me to be true, that community showering was the norm after Phys Ed class. So there I am, not only just beginning to be aware that I am gay, but also never before having ever been around naked guys, when suddenly my entire class is naked in front of me after getting all hot and sweaty on the soccer field. I thought I would die (and didn't care where I would go). It took almost a month before I could walk into the shower room without a large washcloth strategically placed until I could stand under the coldest water I could tolerate.

Well, the conversation with my cute friend must have caught his attention, because not long later he brought up the subject again. I was so overwhelmed with what was happening, that I honestly do not remember exactly how things developed, but I do know that he and I ended up touching and groping until I came with a guy for the first time. That began ongoing encounters that lasted for nearly 4 years til I graduated from high school. Both of us were so sheltered that we did not know there was even anything to do beyond jerking each other off, but we knew we liked that a lot and did it at every opportunity.

This created a problem. Suddenly, I found myself on the express train to hell. Every time I sneaked away with my friend, I was certain I would drop dead within moments. After all, I was committing the worst possible sin, being gay. I knew there was something horribly wrong with me, but I didn't know what I had done to be this bad of a person. I would daily lie flat on my stomach with my arms outstretched begging for forgiveness and for God to fix me.

If it seems that the answer should have been obvious to me, that I wasn't a person whose evil character brought this judgment of homosexuality upon myself, keep in mind again how sheltered my life had been to that point. All of my life-forming influences had been from my church and parents. My TV-watching was strictly limited, consisting essentially of Little House on the Prairie and Captain Kangaroo. But I had never been confronted before with anything that would make me doubt those influences in my life. After all, the vast majority of what my church and parents taught me was essentially good stuff. It is a worldview that, while sadly blind in certain spots, is overall not a bad system. I was taught respect for others, kindness, honesty, playing fair, being willing to sacrifice my own comfort for the good of others--all things that I try to honor to this day. My parents demonstrated a love for each other that I hope to emulate in any relationship I have--a love that messed up on occasion but admitted fault, asked for forgiveness, and above all, stayed together. Obviously I see the glaring blind spots now, but as a high schooler, all I saw was that my life had been pretty decent compared to others I saw who didn't follow the rules and guidelines I was given.

So I thought the "gay" problem was with me. But, as I finished high school, I thought that going to a Christian college would help me figure out the problem. Surely, this was just a temporary thing, and now that I was going into college, I would find a nice girl who I would be attracted to, and we would have the same perfect life my parents seemed to have. I said goodbye to my jerk-off buddy on graduation day, and I never saw him again. The next fall, I left for school with a determination that I would never do such a thing with a guy again. And, for 10 years, I never did.

But that will be explained in Part Three of my coming-out story. Click here to read.

Today's Holidays:

• National Traffic Directors' Day (USA)
• Plan Your Epitaph Day
• National Men Make Dinner Day (USA)
  

Fresh Sheets

I have thought about this blog considerably in recent days. Since I began my second blog early in August, this, my original blog, has sorta become the neglected stepsister. The great reception many kindly gave my other blog was good motivation for me to give it a lot of attention, to the detriment of Auto-Gratification.

But, my reason for blogging in the first place was not to build up my ego through the praise of strangers; rather, I wanted a forum in which I would be "forced" to discipline myself to be creative and to write on a regular basis. One of my major life goals is to become a published author, but the writing opportunities of my current marketing job (in which I work on the management side of the company rather than the creative side) consist primarily of responding to e-mails about problems with grocery store displays. Not particularly inspiring stuff.

Yet, as things have developed, this blog has become more of a photo collection than a space for me to write, and I find the pictures controlling the writing far too often. Additionally, it just is a very time-consuming process to come up with pictures to post regularly that are not over-used or copyrighted (the latter, of course, being almost impossible to know much of the time). Trying to do that with two blogs has stretched me far beyond the time resources I have available.

So, today I'm putting fresh sheets on this bed. From now on, I may include photos of hot guys when the occasion warrants; certainly, I will try to include something graphical each post to spice things up and keep it interesting. But the focus of this blog is going to return to its original intent: to give me a place to write and interact with others on ideas, to entertain if I am able, and hopefully to give you, my readers, a place to take a break in your day and find something worth reading.

My Asian blog fills a niche that is not found many places on the web; but pictures of guys of other ethnicities are found everywhere. If you're afraid you might miss my pictures, check out the blogs on my links list. I am hoping to update that soon, and I will try to keep it current with plenty of suggestions for you. But I hope you will find this blog to have actual content beyond the eye candy--content that, I trust, will be worth your while to read.

Come back tomorrow for the (far-too-long-delayed) second part of my already-started coming-out story! If you have not done so before, check out the first part for an example of what I hope this blog will contain on a regular basis (minus so many pictures).


Today's Holidays:

• All Saints' Day
• National Author's Day (US)
• National Family Literacy Day (US)
  

Just Like Clockwork

I should have seen it coming. All the signs were evident if I had been paying attention.

It's October. Bad things happen to me in October.

Due to unresolvable computer problems, I had to do a complete reformatting/reinstall of my computer this week, resulting in what would be a minimum of 2 days of little real work being accomplished.

The owner of my company called at the start of the week and said he would be in town later in the week and wanted to meet with me (I see him maybe once or twice a year, so these meetings are significant, plus, hey, he's the owner! Not someone to get on his bad side).

Several things happened this week in my job that generally happen maybe a couple times a year, but this week several happened all at once.

So, if I had been paying attention, I would have known that I would wake up in the middle of the week feeling like I had been hit by a truck. Yes, the annual Chicago flu bug has arrived, and I once again volunteered to be part of the official welcoming committee.

Today is about the first time I could even sit up in bed for any length of time, though I still feel like crap. But, thanks to wireless internet, I can bring my laptop here into my bedroom and still let you all enjoy pictures of hot guys.

I hope you will forgive the fact that, since I am operating on limited mental energy, there is absolutely no attempt with today's pictures to follow any theme or topic. And, for those who are readers of my other blog, OYGA, apologies for the obvious post repetition. Don't worry, though, I am sure I will be back to my typically witty and erudite self soon. Meantime, here's some guys who are hotties, regardless of the randomness.

Thanks in advance for all the kind expressions of sympathy and offers of sexual favors that I am certain many of you will give when you read this post ;-).









































Today's Holidays:

• Internet Day
• Reformation Sunday (yes, ironic they are the same day)
  

A Day of Special Memories

Today I am going to take a day off from posting pictures of hot guys, though this post contains the photo of one of the beautiful ones who has impacted my life. One year ago today, on October 13, 2005, my boyfriend Alfred, one of the most loving and gentle people I have ever known, took his own life in a moment of deep despair. I wrote about his passing a while back on this blog, and you can read that post by clicking on his picture above.

The year that has passed since last October 13 seems like a lifetime...or perhaps a few days. As one of my blogging friends expressed recently, sometimes loss can make you feel that something as frivolous as pictures of hot guys is silly or even inappropriate, and it's true I have days when I just don't feel like doing anything except feel bad (though thankfully those are becoming less and less frequent).

But I am learning to look at loss from a different angle. Of course I miss Alfred, and of course today is a melancholy day for me. But it is a day in which I remember his amazingly full adventuresome life. I focus on his wonderful 36 years in which he infused his enthusiasm and love into the lives of so many he touched, rather than focusing on the few days surrounding his untimely death.

When someone passes, it is traditional to give gifts to those closest to him. But when we lose someone in death, we receive gifts that last far longer than the flowers and cards of sympathy. I have received the gift of appreciating the amazing network of love and support of family and friends that was always surrounding me but which I had never noticed until tragedy struck. I have been given the gift of gaining a new perspective on the importance of grabbing life for all it is worth and never looking back with regret. And I have been blessed with an experience that, although the pain has been unimaginable at times, has changed me at my very core so that now, as I am emerging from the darkest depths and find that I am still able to breathe, I will be able to help others in a way I never could have before. When I say to someone who has experienced deep loss, "I understand," it will carry new weight. And I trust that I will be able to share hope when I find someone who is in that dark place where Alfred was and perhaps even help someone to see that suicide is always a permanent answer to a temporary problem.

Suicide affects millions of people every year. In America, every 18 minutes someone dies by suicide. And it affects the gay community at a higher rate than the rest of the population. This is something each of us should think about. For those in America, a great place to educate yourself concerning this problem is the website for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. For those friends in other parts of the world, many countries have similar organizations that I'm sure you can find by doing a Google search. It's a worthwhile investment of your time and thought, I promise.

So, thanks to everyone for bearing with me as I share a personal moment. I hope it will not be a downer to you but rather perhaps it will encourage you to hug your loved ones a little tighter, to write that letter to diffuse the anger in a tense friendship, or to call the person you know who needs a simple word of kindness. Don't live today in a way that will produce regret tomorrow!

National Coming-Out Day

We here in America have a bit of an obsession with creating special observance days for just about everything you can imagine. These observances can range from the significant (yesterday was World Mental Health Day) to the humorous (Monday was National Kick Butt Day) to the bizarre (this coming Saturday is Be Bald and Free Day). Today is a day of several notable observances. For example, today is Emergency Nurses Day, so be sure to thank a nurse you know. Today is also the International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction, but the parade was canceled due to unexpected meteor showers. Finally, as I am sure many of you know, today is also National Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work and School Day (seriously...I promise I'm not making this stuff up!).

But probably most significantly to me and many of the readers of this blog, today is National Coming Out Day. So, since I've already come out, and since I have never taken the time to write this out before, I figured I would begin to share my own coming-out story. I think it is probably unique enough to provide a bit of entertainment, for though I was smart enough not to come out to my parents while one of them was driving the car, the circumstances were yet far from ideal.

Now, I understand that blog posts ought not be too long, but I do want to take the time to write out the story thoroughly, so this will be the first of a few installments of my story that I will post in the next few weeks. Perhaps that will make the story more "bite-size" and thus possibly people will even read it! So, fasten your seatbelts, and prepare to be mildly amused.

My Coming-Out Story, Part One: Not Yet Old Enough to be a Congressional Page

Imagine a family whose roots are all from the South as far back as we can trace. Then add the fact that 3 of my 4 grandparents and my step-grandfather all served in the military during World War II. Finally, note that while I was growing up, my family attended (at least 3 times a week) a self-proclaimed "fundamental independent Baptist" church (1611 King James Bible-Only, naturally). By now, you have probably drawn the conclusion that my family was pretty much the Cleavers of the red states (is it mere coincidence that my mother's name is Donna Reed? I think not!). About the only time I ever saw my dad more upset than when I came out to him was when I said I thought Bill Clinton was a good president.

Yet somehow, this family that bled Republican red ended up in a very blue state, and that is why I was born in Los Angeles, California. From nine months before my birth, I was in church constantly. The church we attended, while not quite to the point of referring to their property as a "compound," did have a locked fence surrounding the entire grounds. It was in this nurturing environment that I began to learn how things were "supposed to be" in the world.

Now, it may be difficult for some of you to relate to my experience growing up. While being slightly facetious about the "compound" reference earlier, the church I attended did indeed share some characteristics of such a place. Though it would be a stretch to call it a cult, some things that happened there were borderline cult-ish. For example, nearly every aspect of my life (be it education, religion, social, or political) was centered around our church. I attended the church school (where my mother was a high school teacher), so my schoolmates were primarily from the church, and all our classes were infused with the church's view of the world. Even my friends in my neighborhood were mostly kids from my church who lived nearby. We watched very little television, NEVER attended movies in a theater (gasp! for shame!), and generally had very little to confront us with anything other than what we heard from our pastor at church (helpful things, like denim was evil, music with drums in it was from the devil, and everyone who did not use the King James Bible like we did was going to hell).

To give you an idea of how sheltered I was, I had absolutely zero awareness of the existence of sex until my dad sat me down and had the classic "birds and bees" talk with me when I was 12 years old. I did not even know at that point that girls and boys had different equipment (my only sibling was my younger brother). The only reason I found out then was because my penis had started to get hard on occasion, but I was so completely un-self-conscious that I didn't notice, and it was causing some embarrassment for my parents. So my dad figured it was time for "the talk."

So, especially as a younger child and into my teen years, because I was so isolated from the reality of the world, I had no reason whatsoever to question what I was being taught (because nobody and nothing in my life contradicted it). Thus, I accepted as truth what my church said concerning homosexuality. As my pastor explained, homosexuality is caused by one of two things (again, I promise I'm not making this stuff up!)....

• The first way a man becomes a homosexual is by being sexually molested as a child. This may cause him to become gay when he was not before.
• The second way a man becomes a homosexual is through prolonged exposure to pornography. You see, the first time a guy looks at straight porn, it is very exciting for him. However, over time, he needs more and more variety and extremes to arouse him. Eventually, women just don't do it for him anymore, and his only option is to look at pictures of men. And thus he becomes gay.

Confusing to me at the time, this teaching revealed to me the first-ever crack in my pseudo-idyllic existence. I was never molested and I had never seen pornography of any kind, but as early as the third grade at age 9, I felt an attraction to other boys that I did not feel toward girls. It was nothing sexual at that point, for I was still three years away from even knowing what sex was and several years away from comprehending that gay guys put it where????? But I knew that my best friend Marc was someone I felt good being around, in a different way than others. Looking back, in spite of the warped circumstances, I can kinda smile at the innocence of those incipient attractions I was experiencing.

Well, my parents, ever vigilant against things that might corrupt their sons, soon became concerned that the warm weather of southern California would force us to gaze upon the muscular torsos of young, blond surfers guys, with their perfectly-shaped biceps and their ripped, six-pack abs cascading down to the little trail of hair that vanished beneath their swimming trunks, drawing our attention to the beautifully-shaped bulge beneath their.....oh, sorry, got distracted for a moment....

Anyway, the best way to avoid naked people is to move somewhere cold, and thus the decision was made by my father (and submitted to by my mother, as was her place according to our church) that we would move to the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.

And that part of the story, my friends, will be told in Part Two. Click here to read.

And finally, for those who just came here for the pictures....