Big Fat Hairy Living

I saw some geese on the way home from work and they reminded me of Mark. He left this morning for a vacation in Palm Springs with some family, and I’m alone without him for two and a half weeks. How can I miss him when he hasn’t even been gone a day?

•

Fat Chick for President posted a reply to my second post on the whole heterosexual gay village invasion thing. In her response, she asks

If you lived next door to me and could have a conversation with me about Mark and your open relationship… if we went to Ikea together and shopped for home furnishings or if you let me bother you with my newest homemade cookie recipe… would it matter that I was in a heterosexual relationship?

It wouldn’t, and her comment gives me a lot to think about.

Last week one of the other engineers, an American engineer who telecommutes three weeks a month and flies into Toronto one week a month, dropped by my cubicle to chat with me and get to know me a little better. At one point in the conversation he asked me if I had any kids or was married; I started to reply to him, but all I got out was “No, no kids. I’m seeing some—” when another engineer interrupted him to ask him something. He ran off and we didn’t resume the conversation, so he never got to hear me tell him that I was seeing someone special, my partner Mark. Coming out never ends. I’m constantly reminded that I’m an outsider by a million little things the people at work — this one and the previous one — do every day without even realizing it.

When I get home from work it feels like such a relief to come home to a safe place where I can cruise guys without getting odd stares back, where I can be publically affectionate with Mark in an elevator without getting sideways glances, and where all I have to do to see myself reflected in my surroundings is look outside the window. Is my desire any different from the desire of a homesick Canadian stuck working in Japan who wants nothing more than to get his hands on a juicy bacon double cheeseburger? Do I want anything that the thousands of new Canadians who came here from India and now live in Little India don’t want? I just want to feel like I belong somewhere. That’s all.

For me, right now, that somewhere where I feel like I belong is the gay neighbourhood I live in. I don’t want to lose it and not have this place to live in. But when Fat Chick for President asks me how I would feel if I had heteros in my building who accepted me exactly as I am, I know that the answer would be that I wouldn’t be bothered. But would I feel like I belong just as much as I feel like I belong when I’m cruising guys outside Timothy’s? I don’t know. Probably not.

Time to sleep.

Personal reminder: Stop writing blog posts when tired, irritable, and up late at night.

In response to my recent post on the number of heterosexuals moving into my apartment building, an anonymous commenter writes:

Your sexuality is only a portion of who you are. Why must it dictate who [sic] you live next to?

and Andrew Hime responds:

You know what? I’m with him. Why do we have to close ourselves off from the rest of the world?

bruno_bt eloquently answers both of them:

Because the rest of the world wants to deny that we even exist. Unlike virtually all other religious and ethnic minorities, there is no place where we are the majority except a few small overpriced neighbourhoods in a handful of major urban centres. Many of us grow up thinking that we are deviants and that we’re completely alone. A gay community gives us a sense of normalcy that the rest of the world never will. There will never be a queer nation, so for the het majority to take over what few blocks we’ve carved out for ourselves (and often paid extortionate prices for the priviledge of this comfort) amounts to an invasion.

To understand the absurdity of the commonly asked question “Why do you define yourself by your sexuality?” and variants like “Why must [your sexuality] define [whom] you live next to? Why are you closing yourself off from the world,” just imagine asking the same question to a heterosexual couple who’s just moved to the burbs to raise their family. Would anyone ever ask them that? Of course not. Heterosexuals have the luxury of not having to worry about moving somewhere and feeling like they’re out of place.

Just last week one of the engineers at my new job stopped by my cubicle to chat me up and get to know me a bit better. He lives in the suburbs with his wife and children, and most of the conversation was about his wife and his family. Would anyone listening to him talk about his opposite-sex spouse and children ever think to themselves “boy, this guy really defines himself by his sexuality?” If I talked about Mark and about how we have an open relationship, would it be received as casually and nonchalantly as a straight engineer telling me indirectly that he’s shot at least three wads of sperm into his wife’s vagina? How come it’s about sex and my sexuality when we talk about it, but not when heterosexuals talk about it?

The answer, of course, is that it’s just as much about sex. Heterosexuals simply have the benefit of being the overwhelming majority and of therefore having their sexuality so common as to be invisible.

Incidentally, I found out yesterday that an acquaintance was gay bashed on Friday. Right in front of the 519 Church Street Community Centre. We’re not even safe in our own neighbourhood.

Update: Angus responds at his journal.

Update #2: bruno_bt responds to another comment from Andrew Hime on the original post. Bruno_bt expresses what I was trying to express much better than I was able to.

How an internet rumour starts:

1. Joe, a red-headed guy from San Francisco who bears a passing resemblance to Jamie Hyneman from the TV show Mythbusters decides to dress up as Jamie Hyneman for Hallowe’en.
2. He submits his pictures to the Daily Bear web site.
3. The picture is posted.
4. Bears everywhere, thinking that Jamie Hyneman has just come out, drool.

Joe does look a tiny bit like Jamie Hyneman when he’s wearing that outfit, and Jamie Hyneman is cute, so it’s understandable that some bears would be ecstatic to learn that he’s gay. Unfortunately, boys, he’s straight.

I’ve had my limit. While I have nothing against anonymous comments per se, obnoxious people who write anonymous comments are annoying and I’m tired of people posting without even a pseudonym so that I can track who writes what. Because Blogger is lame and doesn’t have an option to force people to sign their comments, from this point on I’m restricting comments to people with Blogger accounts. If you can’t bother to spend three minutes registering a screen name, I don’t care to hear your rude opinions on how I should run my life.

It takes only a few minutes to register, so if you want to comment, sign up to get an account.

Claude moved into a new apartment a few months ago and he’s been taking pictures of me helping him. All when I’m not aware, of course.

You’re welcome, Claude. And thanks for taking good pictures of me!

There are too many heterosexuals in my apartment building. I’m getting tired of it. They have every other neighbourhood in the city. Can’t they leave us this one?

Goody’s Livejournal has been updated with information on his wake. The wake is scheduled for November 19.

ABC News:

They may remind you of another famous pair of singers, the Olsen Twins, and the girls say they like that. But unlike the Olsens, who built a media empire on their fun-loving, squeaky-clean image, Lamb and Lynx are cultivating a much darker personna. They are white nationalists and use their talents to preach a message of hate.

Known as “Prussian Blue” — a nod to their German heritage and bright blue eyes — the girls from Bakersfield, Calif., have been performing songs about white nationalism before all-white crowds since they were nine.

The epitome of white trash.