There is No Wife

There is no wife, plain and simple.

A comment in the Indy Star that was probably only half-joking asked me how Gary and I decided who the "husband" was and who was the "wife". I had referred to Gary as my husband in my post, which prompted his display of either his ignorance or what he thinks is humor.

Either way, I thought I would spend some time on this topic, which might actually be on the mind of even some otherwise enlightened people. In the above paragraph, I do not use ignorance as a pejorative. Ignorance can be a bridge if we want it to be.

Now how I'm going to explain things is from my view. That should be a given, but sometimes it isn't as much a given as you would expect. I do not represent Gay People but only my gay self. Still, I hope my perspective sheds light.

Usually when people are thinking of being a wife, they are meaning who is the "female". And, as is the mind of the typical American, that usually cashes out as who is the "female" when you have sex, which further cashes out as who is penetrated.

Sex and love reduced to penetration has an unfortunately rich religious history (Paul the apostle's writings, for example) which is probably why it is so maliciously pervasive. But there are a couple other erroneous reductions to roles that likewise contribute to misunderstanding of being gay that I think might make for a better first grasp than jumping headfirst into penises and where they go.

These other reductions typically lump distinctly different concepts together. They surely can be together, as many concepts can be, but it is the failure to mentally understand that they are indeed distinct that bring about ignorance.

The first, gender appearance.

Some persons are more comfortable to wear clothes more appropriate of the opposite gender. Now that is worth an essay in itself as to how "appropriate" gets constructed by a social group. But the point is, it is a commonplace enough notion that at our wedding someone asked us who was going to wear the dress.

I don't own a dress. Gary doesn't own a dress. We wear "men's" clothes as far as I know, as that is what we are comfortable wearing. This does not take a stand for or against men, gay or straight, who wear "women's" clothes. It is just to make the often lost distinction that being gay has nothing to do with the clothes you wear.

You can be gay and wear a dress. You can be gay and wear pants. You can be straight and wear a dress. You can be straight and wear pants.

Gender identity.

Some persons are more comfortable identifying with themselves (their societal "role", which again is another loaded word beyond the scope of this piece) as someone anatomically (by at least physical appearances) of the opposite gender.

This identity is separate from Gender appearance and sexual identity. An anatomical male who knows his identity is a female isn't necessarily attracted to men. He can be, or rather she can be, but the anatomy of the body's matching the brain's gender identification is wholly separate from sexual orientation.

For myself, and Gary's, our bodies anatomically match our gender identification.

The point is that all three distinctions -- sexual orientation, appearance, and anatomical matching -- can be present in any possible combination, and are. But they are always three separate components that have come together to make the whole person, rather than being automatically bundled up together.

So back to the person's remark.

I am a man, comfortable with being physically a man, who loves another man who is comfortable being physically a man, and loves me as a man. Could there be cases of "gay" that don't follow our form of being gay, and perhaps there is a "wife" present?

Sure. As I said all combinations are possible. Though the term "wife" itself is probably as loaded as gender-appropriate clothing.

And besides, I don't think the person making the comment was really trying to find out what my "combination" of identity factors was, but was simply confounding them into so much gay soup.

And as for the sex part of our lives...

Gary and I know where are parts go. And quite frankly, we're the only ones who need to know it.

And if you think you still need to know who puts what into which hole in order to understand what being gay is, I think you're still missing the point of all the words I've written here.

And I don't know what else I can say.

Feed Me

A simple click or two and on the above and you can "frequently updated information" available at your neuron tips. Well, not the above above, which is just a static image (sorry), but icons like it on web pages, typically nesting at the bottom.

It's a "Feed" button and one of the more popular feeds are RSS Feeds. Which I thought stood for Really Something Stupid, so never gave it much further thought than tonight when I was trying to decide if I wanted to put a Windows news gadget on my desktop.

Or rather, having decided, trying to get it in a fashion of news broadcasting that suited my needs. I first tried Google News and learned two things: RSS is actually Really Simple Syndication. Followed by this, I realized I was evidently Really Someone Stupid.

I clicked on the orange icon like I was supposed to do. According to Windows I would then see options for subscribing to the different feeds available. What I saw was:

I read and reread the Google instructions which informed me I could simply put the address in any reader... I clicked on the orange thingy again, hoping I maybe clicked wrong or something and still the above appeared. So I gave up on Google News (thinking to myself how good news would it be anyway) and went to the NY Times.

There after clicking the orange, and another "sub-orange" I actually got something that made some more sense to me, with the words "subscribe to this feed".

News at last and I could have stopped. But I thought science might be more my linking, so I thought I might subscribe to the Science Blog I have listed on my blog; but it would be through my desktop gadget. No such luck, as I discovered Its orange wanted me to use a host of different readers I'd never used before...

Meantime, I decided that aesthetically I didn't like gadgets on my desktop anyway and removed it.

I actually don't have anything on my desktop except the background; even the recyle bin is hidden. I use buttons on my toolbar for frequently used things and prefer a wide open, uncluttered desktop. The gadget idea was half-whim and half-thinking I should do a better job of keeping up with affairs of the world.

But on the other hand, is that even possible? I mean, even if I get the whole RSS thing mastered, and only get the feeds I'm interested in, how does one handle all of it? By handle I mean process, not just skim and sort as if by doing that we are actually turning the feed into nutrition for the brain. Does anyone have time to do anything meaningful with all this fed content?

And what about the content providers? Have you ever wondered who it is on the other end pumping out all that "frequently updated content" for you to ingest?

I mean besides that engineer guy who's written something like one million wikipedia articles.

Or are we all one in the same, just taking information in and regurgitating it back to one another with no  pause -- who has the time -- for digestion?

Wanting Willies

Okay, the title of my blog post here is a bit playful as a lot of fun things could be said about a certain kind of willy, let alone about wanting them. But here I'm meaning the kind of willy that for whatever linquitic reason always travel in packs.

It is the hair-raising kind of willies that can scare the bejesus out of you, which is yet another strange fear phrase we have. I'm not sure if Be is a twin to the Nazareth one or not, nor if Jesus stays when Bejesus leaves, but such things are for another blogpost.

Here, willies is not only a neat term, but also the title of a 1991 movie; an admittedly very cheesy movie and highly predictable if you're paying attention. But so what? It is still a fun one. And I love how it involves a story within a story: a story of boys camping out and trying to "outscare" (and outgross) one another with a scary and/or gross story that can top the previous one told.

Such a scenario isn't just situated in the realm of horror. Nor is it kept even in just the realm of fiction in general. Storytelling itself is the fundamental way we communicate, whether it is the fact-based storytelling of science, the faith-based storytelling of religion or the outright Mr. Roger's neighborhood full of make-believe.

It is an excuse to a boss of why we were late, yet also it is telling our spouse about the day we had, letting a friend know about a nice vacation spot, or letting others know about how you see the world; the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful.

We make up stories thoughout the day, some of us spinning truth with a little fiction, others of us with more fiction and a dash of truth, but the overall goal is the same with wanting the listener to share in what you have to tell, whether for a momen, an hour, a day, or a lifetime.

How incredibly wonderful and precious it is for us as humans to have such a device at our disposal. Every story we tell, even if just for a good scare, or to invoke a "gee whiz, that was lame" connects us humans with its common ground language that we are blessed to be able to interpret together.

"Dad, can you tell me a story."
"I always do son, I always do."

More than da Blues

I call it depression, for lack of a better term, when trying to describe it to doctors or anyone else on a short list of those who care either by choice or payment.  

But depression has always seemed too simplistic, too generic, of a term to me to fully capture the insidious miasma of melancholy that frequently pervades me.

For one thing, I usually  associate depression with sadness. And I guess sadness is often somewhere in there, too; but that is when there is a there for it to be. For me, when the darkness is at its worst, I feel gutted out, like there is so little there, a mild wind could scatter the remnants like so much ashes to ashes.

This is when I don't care whether or not I live.

Also depression seems restricted to mental, but the feeling consumes the  whole of my body. Its skin starts seeming claustrophobic tight and it suffocates me. The atmosphere becomes sulfuric and smothering, like I'm an astronaut on some strange planet without my helmet.

This is when I care not to live; not to die, mind you, as there is a difference here. But rather to somehow someway free myself of a mortal coil that chokes.

I usually can battle it by writing. Putting one word in front of the other helps, like putting a chink in a wall of a pit into which you might be able to set your foot or your hand for pulling yourself up towards the remaining light. I don't get writer's block, so if I choose to write I can.

But sometimes the feeling is so intense, so filled with meaninglessness, I can make no such choice. Such has been the case this past month with trying to work on TFK.

It sometimes presents itself in a façade of rationale: You're too tired, you're too busy, you've got too much on your mind.

All true things.

Other times it is more direct: Your writing is too crappy, too explicit, too amateurish, too fucking devoid of value (just like your pathetic life in general, it might add as a bonus taunt).

Which may or may not be true.

But that never is the point, is it? The point is…

Well, that's the buck fifty question, ain't it? If I knew the point I'd join Tony Robinson on the Self-help circuit. Instead, I know that buried deep inside a partial point for me is to keep on writing no matter what external or internal circumstances might bring.

So today I stuck my hand into my chest and pulled TFK back out. I shook off accumulated blood sweat and tears and put another 1,000 words towards completion of whatever it is wanting to be. And those words were probably too explicit to amateurish, and too fucking devoid of value.

But you know what? During the writing, I was able to keep the dark at bay. And the written words are still there.

And I am still here.

Volunteering at Indy Pride

Gary and I volunteered at Indy Pride today, doing a shift at the SGI-USA (a gay-friendly Buddhist organization) booth and also a shift at the Indiana Youth Group (the only state-wide organization focused on supporting LGBTQ youth) booth. We did the last shift there at IYG, so we helped tear down afterwards.

Large events like this pose some challenges for me:

I have some mild face-blindness (Thank you Oliver Sacks for my now having a name for what I thought was just me -- Prosopagnosia)  so people often will recognize me but I will have to embarrassingly ask "Who are you?"

My spatial-directional sense is frequently crappy, so I often get disoriented, having to repeatedly hunt for the same booth.

I dislike crowds and the nature of this event means a large crowd is a good thing.

And lastly I'm not a very social person (which shouldn't be taken for anti-social, which is a completely different thing (I hope)).

But nevertheless, I feel compelled to attend the event, work the event, and otherwise show my pride through action. For pride is not something static, but a way of conduct as a whole. As Aristotle put it, it is the "crown of the virtues" and rightly so. The Christian idea of it being a sin wrongly conflates it with arrogance, when really it is better understood as sister to worth.

For we should all feel a value in ourselves that allows us to be ourselves. As one of the T-shirts at the event proclaimed: Be Who You Are.

A high school boy came over to the IYG booth. He said he was so glad there was an organization like IYG and he's trying to get the word out to his friends about it. For a lot of them are gay, but the school they attend is private and the kids are forced to be closeted. He is trying to start a related group at his school, but he has to be discreet and call it something else, for in the administration's eyes the kids have no fundamental right to be who they are.

Pride is wanting to reclaim ourselves from those who would try to tell us we must be molded into their image. Pride is developing the ability to correctly point out to any number of arrogant fucks that it is they who have no fundamental right to tell us who we are.

Pride in the current age has to be more than: I'm here, I'm queer, get used  to it.

It needs to be: You see, I'm me, and frankly I don't have time for you to get used to it, so you better get out of my way. I am here, I am queer and I am here to stay.