Where's my Scottie?

If you have been reading my main blog, you should already know that I am becoming a fan of Brothers & Sisters, the new show on ABC. One of the reasons it is becoming addicted is the relationship between Kitty and her mother. Liberal mother clashing against conservative daughter. It is fascinating to watch. But another important reason why I am watching it is because of the character Kevin.

Kevin is the gay middle child of the pack who is also a lawyer. The character has been in the background of the series. From the looks of things, he is mild-mannered and gets along with all members of the family. Yet at the same time, his relationship doesn’t seem to be very strong perhaps with the exception of Kitty, whom he always goes to for gossip.

Kevin’s thread so far is limited but here’s what has happened. He was working on a case which called for him to have contact with one of the witnesses named Scottie. In one episode, he is interviewing Scottie for the case when he is stopped. Scottie comes to realize, “You’re a gay.” Kevin is clearly thrown off his tracks but doesn’t deny it. Scottie basically tells him that while he may be out, he is not proud. He calls Kevin a conformist.

During another interview, one of Kevin’s sisters runs into Scottie as he was arriving. She invites him to her and Kevin’s mother’s dinner party. He eagerly accepts much to Kevin’s annoyance. He brings cupcakes to the dinner and in the closing moments of the episode, Kevin smiles to himself and bites into one.

The next episode I missed half of, but from what I could gather, Kevin asked Scottie out on a date. Kevin’s mom however wants to go out that night and Kevin feels that he must accompany her so he cancels his date with Scottie. When Kevin and his mother arrive at the theater, he runs into Scottie with his date. Kevin is disturbed when he sees Scottie holding his date’s hand. Although an offer was made for the four of them to sit together, he nixes it.

In this last episode, Scottie confronts Kevin and beats a little sense into him. They set up a dinner date. During that dinner everything seems to be going well. They are connecting and Scottie leans over and kisses Kevin. After that Kevin shuts down. During the walk back, Scottie asks what happened with that kiss. Kevin says that he isn’t comfortable with public displays of affection and that he wouldn’t be even if he was straight. Scottie calls him on his bullshit and says that the real issue is his own homophobia—that he was really not comfortable in his own skin. Kevin shoots back that if Scottie knew him so well, then he would know that kissing him in public was the wrong thing to do and he should let people mature in their own time. The next day, Scottie shows up at Kevin’s door to apologize. Kevin admitted that Scottie was right, kisses him in front of a neighbor, and invites him in.

In some ways, I feel like I am Kevin. I am that guy who will stand in the back, content not to be noticed. I do have my own homophobia. I’m not comfortable in my own skin. I’m lost in this gray area where I don’t feel gay, straight, masculine, feminine, right, wrong, or anything. There is a disconnect in my life where I don’t know where I am or who I should be. And I don’t want to bring anyone else into this hell or in a lot of cases, let them even know what I feel. Sometimes, I think I need a Scottie to shock my system and to call me out on my BS.

On Kids

I went to see Ethan yesterday. My friend, Sara, had him a few days ago and I wanted to see the little tyke for myself. As much as I would like to, I won’t be blogging much about him. There are things that the whole world doesn’t need to know about. (Even though I’m getting the feeling no one is reading this anymore. Ha.) But there is something about me that you should know about. Hey, I know you want to know about the baby but this blog is about me and I will fulfill my need for self-promotion.

I want to have children. I tell everyone that I won’t have them because it deflects those questions that I most dread: “So, when are you going to find a girlfriend?” “When are you going to settle down?” “When can I expect grandkids?” Also, it serves as a sort of prophecy. I may not have children. Time is fleeting and I’m not keeping up. I fear that by the time I get my act together, it will be too late.

I fear babies. It seems kind of odd that I would want to have children and yet I would be so afraid of them. When I looked at Ethan, I wanted to pick him up and hold him. He is a creation—a new life. I knew his mother before he was born. I knew his father before he was born. I knew life without his existence and it is a wonder to see something new come into this world and be loved to such a degree. All I could do was sit there, watch him, and touch his cheek. Sara asked if I wanted to hold him. I couldn’t. My fear of upsetting him or even hurting him in the slightest kept me paralyzed. There are few things in this world that petrifies me to that level.

On the ride over, I wondered how I would react to the baby. Would he be just another baby that looks cute? Would he be more important than that? Sara isn’t in my life. She hasn’t been for a while but I still consider her my friend. Certain things have caused us to drift apart but I will always feel a connection for her. I mean, there has been no child or mother whom I have been so eager to see in my life (with an exception of my mother when she gave birth to my sister). I don’t know how the future will unfold for Ethan, Sara, or me. But I would hope that I can at least look in on them from time to time.

Lean on me...

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night. Once I’m awake, it takes a while to get back to sleep again. As I stared up past the ceiling, my mind wandered to a good memory. It’s one that I’ve kept to myself for a while now. It’s one of those few moments where I did something despite my fears of being “gay.”

Last night I thought about Joe H. Mr. H and I were in AFROTC. He was in the year ahead of me. I’ll say this now: I have never had any attraction to H. He is, though, one of the greatest guys you could ever be fortunate to meet. He was one of my primary motivators that got me as far into the program as I did. Sometimes, I wonder what he is up to.

In 2001, the cadre arraigned a Spring Break trip to Washington D.C. It was only for a few days. Three if I remember right. Cheap too. Think $40 or so. To get there, we would be taking a chartered bus which is where that moment happened.

After a few hours of talking and me being introduced to “Office Space,” most of us settled down to catch some sleep since we had left East Lansing at absurd time in the morning. I can’t sleep very much when I’m on a road trip. There’s too much to see and I don’t want to miss it so I took a window seat. H took a seat next to me and eventually he fell asleep. A little while later I felt a thump on my shoulder. H made himself comfortable by leaning on my side as he slept. I let him. Believe me, my mind was going a million miles and hour in the one second it took for me to decide to let him rest.

Should I shove him off? My first reaction was to do just that. It was “gay.” I couldn’t let some guy lean on my like that. Guys didn’t do that. Doing anything that would seem gay was something to be avoided—even amongst cadets. Should I let him go on? He wasn’t making me feel uncomfortable. In fact, I was happy that he was able to become more comfortable using my side ‘cause those seat back really weren’t designed properly.

So then I start running the scenarios. If I shove him off, he’s going to wake up and possibly feel embarrassed. If I let him stay there, he’d eventually wake up on his own and most likely correct the situation. Then that would go two ways. He would either say nothing or he would say, “why didn’t you wake me up?” My solution was to doze of myself. Worse case scenario in which he or anyone else confronted me, I could say that I didn’t even realize it.

The whole thing wasn’t some sick idea of getting close to a guy. I don’t have any sexual attraction to Joe and I never had. But for once, I wanted to do something for him. Even if really was nothing it was still that one small thing that would happen for just a short while. One guy could lean on another for comfort without it having to be all… slimy. It was back to a time when siblings in a car would sleep on each other.

He slept there for a while. I felt him wake up and like one of the scenarios I thought up, he moved himself off my side and fell back asleep using the seat back. Inwardly I smiled. One day, I hoped, someone more important will come into my life and they would be able to lean on me and be completely okay with it. So would I.

Here, a few of us broke off from some other groups to go tour the Capitol Building.

In every photo that was taken from me, I have a wicked case of Kim Jung-il hair.

I like him?

They say that you can’t help who you fall for. For the past few months I have been crushing hard for the Centennial guy that works at the other end of the mall. I’m not lying when I say that they guy is Grade A Hunk. Although he still provides plenty of eye candy material, I’m over him. Today it dawned on me that I have been attracted all this time to another guy. And it’s an insidious attraction—the kind you aren’t even aware of.

Since starting to work here, I’ve gotten to know a lot of the workers at this end of the mall as they come in for drink and snacks. One of our regulars is Ryan. He works across the hall and two stall down. He’s got this lopsided grin and his left eyebrow arches when he talks. He also comes off kind of bashful at first but as you get to know him and you get to know him, he opens up. He’s no model, but he’s hot in the way that really matters. I don’t know, I never really gave him much thought but today he came in and bought a pop like usual. A few minutes after he left I caught myself going to the front of the store to see if he was visible in his. He was. He looked up and saw me looking at him. We both nodded in acknowledgement.

Wow. I like this guy. I have for a while. And it’s so cool that I see him almost every time he and I work. But if past precedent means anything, he’s probably straight. How does one play the are-you-gay dance? Other than saying, “hey, are you gay, cause if you are, I’d like to ask you out,” I wouldn’t know what to do.

I swear there needs to be a homo help book or something.

*

I don't know what's wrong with me. I feel like I should be happy. I have to constantly tell myself that things are better now than they used to be. I've got regular people coming to my blog. Things are going great with my friends and my relationships with some people are growing. Yet, I can't help but feel so alone. Day after day I try to put on some front where everything seems okay--that I'm okay. Maybe I'd believe it.

This blog has seemed empty lately. I suppose since opening up the main blog, it seems natural that everyone would want to head over there. For the most part, Tangled Thoughts does reflect me a little more completely than Peering Out. But my pain is here. For once, I'd like someone to take it away. Everything that I can't express, that I can't acknowledge, that I can't give to someone else. I cry for that one person to notice but I'm too stubborn or stupid to let anyone really know what's going on. 'Cause in my head, if anyone cared, they already would have.

No one likes a downer.

Why were we talking about that?

So it was great to see Karl again. I wasn’t expecting to see him until Erin and I made our way up to Grand Rapids. Last year, when Erin told me about him, she right of the bat said he wasn’t my type. It was true but he is a bundle of fun all on his own. He looked happy to see me and we made sure to get a picture which I am currently trying to get a copy.

The last person that I outed myself to was my sister. Since then, the only way people have been finding out is through conversing with me. I’m a little sick (not quite the word I’m looking for) of having to sit people down in order to explain it to them. I’d much rather just take it like everyone knows. That’s how Stacey found out who then told Kraig. So even though I knew that he knew, I never talked to him about it. But it definitely was confirmed when we playing 4 Kings. There were things said there that he could not possibly dismiss and I knew that he got it. Boobs don’t interest me. Boxer briefs do look good on guys (well fit ones anyways). And hell yes, I’m going to cheer on Kevin and Bobby having to take off their clothes (not that they were going to anyways.)

When we went out the bar, it became the thing to talk about the gays. I don’t know, Karl and I probably didn’t let it die. But while we were there, Kraig seemed to be a little mad that it was only recently that Kevin (Kraig’s brother, not the one at the party) actually went up to him and basically confirmed that he was gay. He has known all this time. Well I never told him that I was gay either. But it got me thinking, what is our obligation to out ourselves? Was he expecting the same thing with me?

Kraig pretty much says that he’s got a good gaydar on him since he has lived with his brother. So he’s got a ten point list to match people against. If a subject scores at least a six, then he knows that person is gay. I wanted to know what the list was and he never did get around to naming them all but what he did name out such as cleaning/decorating, they didn’t apply to me.
Intrigued, I wanted to know if he ever suspected me. He nodded his head yes, and I knew he was probably lying. I was right. He quickly retracted saying that he really didn’t since he grew up with me. He grew up with Kevin.

I wonder what Karl was thinking all that time.