I have one rule: don’t post when you’re mad. This is one of those times when my rule doesn’t matter. It’s Pride month. And the celebration is hard-won. The glorious riot of people who’d had enough of indignity and cruelty. We are a community that celebrates the families we have made, and the truth we …
I knew I was gay when I was five. In my family, it was the worst thing you could be. My dad called it the dark place. At the same time, he liked that I was good at sports, thought it was hilarious that I was constantly mistaken for a boy, and actively encouraged me …
Nine years later, I’m still a fixer in recovery. For me, the most difficult thing is that I am paid in my professional life to fix all the things. To manage literal millions of dollars a year and abide by all the variable state and federal mandates. I’ve told you before that I’m a Faux …
I got uveitis for Christmas. My optometrist described it as a charley horse in your eye. But it’s worse than that. Your eye burns red. Your vision is blurred day in and day out. There is radiant pain throughout your sinus and eye socket. Light hurts you. Sunlight is terrible, but indoor lights are worse. …
1. When were you safe in your relationship? A rubber tree cloaked us from the shoreline. Her bikini soaked into mine as she straddled me. I remember her hair in my mouth. The heat glimmered. That summer that I skipped nearly every mandatory basketball practice. That summer that I slipped down two flights of stairs …
In February, I tore the attachment between my hamstring and calf. In April, the outer toes on my left foot started to go numb on long walks. The nerve was compromised. In June, I aggravated the tendons in my foot and was sent, at last, to physical therapy. Physical therapy taught me that I have …
We’d lost count of the bars. Nine? Thirteen? It was impossible to say. At first we had a pint per pub, but then there were shots. And now mayhem. I’d piggy-backed a man who had run shirtless through a parking lot, and dumped both of us onto the highway. We had bicycles somewhere. Hopefully nearby. …
The horizon filled steadily with smoke, and I put my arm around your shoulders and walked into the afternoon with something akin to joy. You, my best running mate. My most diabolical partner. Nobody. Anywhere. Stands a chance against us. Seven years. You tell the most terrible puns. Leave laundry wet in the dryer for …
I’ve been working indoors all afternoon, and find them afterward sitting on the driveway painting. The grandkid has a swatch of orange across her forehead. “You’ve got some orange paint on your forehead, kid,” I tell her. She wipes her hands across her face several times. Now her forehead, bangs, and eyelids are smeared with …
I. Sylvia Beach Hotel Fifteen years ago, this was your surprise for his 30th birthday. You’d hoped to book the Edgar Allan Poe room, but had ended up in F. Scott Fitzgerald, decorative gin bottles on desks and shelves. Late May, lonely and ill, you still had no context for your symptoms. You thought being …
