Sitting By the River

It’s 7:30 pm as I am writing for this post. I’m sitting at an old familiar spot by the river. When I was young, I used to come here fairly often. There were times when I just had to be alone. I liked the quiet surroundings where I could just sit back and enjoy my own thoughts. I would walk out to this large boulder that jutted out into the water. It was my place. It’s gone now. The city took it and the other rubble out when they revamped the park quite a few years back.

The last time I was here, I believe it was in sixth grade. My friend Erin was going out with this boy named Sean. I came out to the rock to think. I was jealous. I wanted to go out with her. I wanted to be her boyfriend. While I had nothing against Sean before, I wanted to kill him. Hey-I was young. Now, I’m sitting here again, thinking about her. She’s got another boyfriend—Will.

I came back to the park partly because there was nothing else to do and no one to do nothing with. Erin is, of course, with Will. Season is off in NYC and is will arrive back here later tonight. I don’t really hang out with anyone else. I have been thinking about expanding my social base by joining one of the LGBT organizations here. But I don’t know how to approach it. Ideally, I’d like to take someone with me. The people I’d consider probably won’t. If I do, I’d be going it alone. Yikes.

On my way back to the Michiana area, I stopped by Borders to pick up a copy of The Full Spectrum. It also prompted me to come out to the river. I thought it would be good to review my life and see how it brought me here and yet, not have to worry how life will play out. So far, I have been reading only a little at a time. I’d like to go slow and appreciate what I’m reading. Restraining myself from turning the next page is hard!

It’s getting to be that time—the bugs are coming out. Summer is here.

And work improves

I’m excited. My boss hired three new people in the last few days. One of them, a guy, came in a few weeks ago to fill out an application. And I remember this because he walked in with his boyfriend. While he was filling out the sheet, I breathed a sigh of relief since it appeared, at the time, that we weren’t considering any new applicants. But he made it. When I found out, I was both excited apprehensive. But at Erin said, it may be an opportunity to make new friends. Last night was my first opportunity to work with him. Yes, I was nervous as hell before he showed up for his shift. But then I got to thinking. Why should I be nervous? It shouldn’t be any different than working with any other person.

So how did we break the ice? By talking about the musical, Wicked. That was great as I haven’t been able to talk to anyone other than Season about it. But after covering the subject pretty well, I found myself groping for another subject without success. I don’t know if it was because we don’t have many common interests or maybe he was a little intimidated. Even though we didn’t end up talking away the night, he does seem to be a very good worker and quite nice.

I won’t work with him for the next few weeks. His schedule is in opposition to mine plus I will be out of town for at least a week working at one of our branch stores down south. I hope that he decides to stick around.

I've got to quit watching that show

“Well maybe he’ll change now.”

“You can’t change your sexuality, Mom.”

I really hate that I am bringing up Desperate Housewives to make another post but. My mom and I watch that show every Sunday night and what you just read was a short commentary on the scene where Bree abandons Andrew at a gas station.

Bree had said that every child deserves to be unconditionally loved. I never doubted that she loved Andrew. Her fear of her son’s sexuality was based on her religious belief that he would not get into heaven. I am unfortunately familiar with that point of view and while I know that I may be loved by my parents, I often think that it is conditional. Can they bear to have a son that is incongruent with their view of the world? Would they be willing to make a substantial shift to accommodate me? While I hope that the answer to those questions is “yes,” I can’t help but feel that the real answer is a resounding “no.” In fact my biggest fear is the cut off. Where would I be without my family? Where is Andrew without his mother?

While my response was based on my mother saying that Andrew might change his sexuality, maybe what my mother was really saying is that Andrew might now change into a respectable son.