Sorrowful Buddha

There is a legend of the Sorrowful Buddha. While walking, Sorrowful Buddha came upon a tigress who was starving and too weak to feed her cubs. In an act of compassion, the Sorrowful Buddha cut himself in two, allowing the tigress to eat and her cubs to live.

For some reason, the image of Sorrowful Buddha came to me. I was sitting with my hands covering my face, just blocking out the light and noise and intrusions. I became aware of how my hands felt and how holding my own face was an act of comfort and compassion. And I became aware that I am exhausted.

I don't think that I am depressed. I don't think that I am hopeless. I don't think that I am self-destructive. I am, maybe, sorrowful.

Not in the sad sense, but in the sense of consumed and enervated. I am tired like the tigress and consumed like the Buddha.

People regularly describe me as larger than life: flamboyant and forceful and big. It may be that the largeness of being me - large ideas, big energies, enormous appetites, grand outputs, huge presence - is just tiring and I naturally seek balance by shutting down and resting. In the past, I would have used whatever energy I have in one of these periods to self-demand that I produce a reason for my listlessness. There simply had to be something causal.

In this one, though, I want to let it be uncomplicated and natural and sweet. I'm allowing myself this as an act of compassion. In the Gestalt of it, I am the Buddha - compassionate and giving, and I am the tigress, famished and weak and in need. The allowing will be an experience of growth and difference, but will be healing and is necessary. I commit to allowing it to happen, not forcing it or manipulating it, just holding my head in my hands and being.

Open Share

"The ego seeks to divide and separate. Spirit seeks to unify and heal." A Course in Miracles

I have a group of people that I meet with monthly. The purpose of the meeting is to coalesce faith-based organizations and people that are interested in social ministries - support groups, recovery supports, and the like. Given my typical suspicion of Christians in groups, I would generally be very wary.

But these people are really different. They are loving, and accepting, and real. They share their experience, and strength, and hope in a way that NEVER happens at churches and is practically anathema to evangelicals. I am real with them. I am out with them. I love them.

I was sharing with a friend that I would really like to have a regular group of support people where I can just relax and talk and listen. He attends a Celebrate Recovery group that he likes a lot. He recommended it. Unfortunately, no. I reminded him that gay is a rule out in groups such as that. Sadly, he totally agreed.

Celebrate Recovery is a 12 step recovery group started by Rick Warren and his Saddleback Church (I can't say that name without snickering). Warren is well known for his purpose-driven homophobia. There are days I just CANNOT get my head around how silly and hurtful and energy wasting the anti-fag frenzy is - it defies any logic and is a ludicrous drain on our humanness.

Another friend recently posted this on his Facebook wall:

"If you truly own who you are, no one can use you against you."

Shazaam! I can list hundreds of times when people used me against me. What a tragedy. I've always been a smart and creative and sensitive person. And because I was not able to own my identity, I allowed people to use my own personhood to bully me, make me anxious, depress me, and wound me. Thankfully, I really believe most of that is behind me.

The irony of programs like Celebrate Recovery (which has been touted as a reparation recovery program for people "recovering" from homosexuality) is that they purport to move people to an honest acceptance of who they are in the context of acceptance from God. And simultaneously, they inculcate their members - reinforcing their willingness to keep entire groups of people from doing exactly that.

It's clear to me, that left to develop in their natural state, without the intervention of the Rick Warrens of the world and all of his co-conspirators, most people would be decent or at least disinterested. My group this morning proved it. They are decent and real. I have no idea how some of them feel about people who are gay, but somehow, it just doesn't matter there. They, not the rest, are the church.

Long Time, No Blog

A friend from Facebook put out a call for blogs - who has one? Which ones do you read? Wanna read mine? So I gave him the link. With a caveat: "It's a bit dark - read at your own risk".

The best thing about my blog - and probably the best thing about me - is that it IS - I AM - a bit dark. However, most days my humor and general zestiness collar the black dog with a ravishing fuchsia leash. I have always been able to see the hilariously absurd in situations that would otherwise be without any possibility of survival.

I haven't written because I have lacked focus. I have been lensing everything else in my sphere of existence and spent very little time on introspection. I've just had too much to do.

And if I hadn't had too much to do, I probably would have created something just to divert my attention from all things interior. Sometimes, it's just too much.

My father used to say, "boy, you're a 220 wire in a 110 world". He's right - although he had and has no real understanding of what that means. And for the past few months, introspection would have been like wading through a puddle bisected by a downed power line. Electrifying, but not necessarily in a good way.

Dating has been completely unproductive. I had a torrid bout with a screaming male borderline - a crazy-rapid undulating of love me/hate me bullshit that was diagnosable in its intensity. I can't tolerate that - I almost projectile vomited him out of my driveway and my life at 4 am. Plus, he dissed my dog.

That kind of leaves me untethered right now. I have decided that I value autonomy and low acuity drama more than the idea of a relationship. I have great things in my life - great career, great friends, great home, and so much else. So why mess with the things that are working?

The remainder of this year, through the holidays, I want to redirect, reorganize, regroup. I need to relax and enjoy the intensity of my job, experience the peace of my home, and manage the many moods that come with family and holidays. I would like to go into the new year and my next birthday with a refocused perspective and hopefully some new direction. Maybe my new blog buddy can loan me some wisdom.

Riding the Shortbus

Not a fun time right now.

I have been loathe to admit it to myself, and would never admit it to anyone else, but I'm depressed.

Not horribly-hopeless-hang-yourself-with-your-belt depressed, but more like listless and disinterested. More like a low-grade depressive fever that makes everything seem shitty.

I would like to think that it's the weather and that the sunshine predicted for the end of the week will make a big difference.

Meh.

Maybe it's just a lot of things catching up with me - big losses early in the year, tons of budget cuts, mud puddles, no relational prospects emerging.

And of course, the coach. He's back even though I gave him the brush. He's persistent. I'm easily swayed. I know that he's unavailable but I still can't help thinking of us in matching Ralph Lauren suits pledging our undying love to each other at an uber-tasteful Massachusetts wedding. More on that later.

So, my approach to this malaise is simple: sleep a lot, eat tons of simple carbohydrates, and concentrate on sad things like Old Yeller and Kate Gosselin. I don't know how long this tour on the shortbus will last, but it seems to be persisting longer than I anticipated.

Maybe the Jamies will help. I'll watch it again.

I'm such a whore. At least there was no car seat in the minivan.

Truly, Madly, Deeply

This may be the gayest post on this blog.

This may be the most self-disclosing post on this blog.

It is certainly the most pathetic post on this blog.

If you abhor gushing girliness, or loathe faggoty fantasies, then perhaps you'd better click here - NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION.

Even if you do find school girl crushes cloying, you might just enjoy a musical romp through the silent passions of the District Superintendent. This post is meant to be accompanied by a musical score of various songs and videos, so read and listen as directed. It's complicated, but then life is complicated. Oh shut the fuck up and just read it.

Here goes:

I never expected him to be so handsome. There was no picture with the profile and usually that's a deal killer, but I succumbed and I'm reeling from it. If I were going to anthropomorphize my grown-up Christmas wish, Troy would certainly be the incarnation.

He's very tall, and thick, and just furry enough - not fat at all but 6'5" of solid, masculine man. He has liquidy blue eyes that look down on you like nuggets of aquamarine embedded above the granite of his jaw. He has no idea how handsome he is. He has an "awww shucks" self-consciousness when you bring it to his attention: "Whatever...", he mumbles, his blue eyes rolling as if you were trying to sell him the Golden Gate for buck. In his mind, he's just a dude.

In his mind, he's a just dude that likes dick. And it's intoxicating. He's everything that I want in my fantasy husband: powerful, sweet, awkward, small town, voracious.

And. He's. A. Bottom.

Ah, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you. He asserts that he's bisexual - of course, as a jock and a footballer, there is no other explanation. He is married after all. Yet, when the family is tucked snugly in their beds, he finds me and despite clutching at decency, I relent.

Well we all know that isn't quite accurate. I'm the exemplar of the sure thing. Now I've been a guy who has claimed to be bisexual and have been with scores of other "straight" dudes who just wanna get off or press their noses up against the plate glass windows of gaydom, their bicuriosity driving them to take just one look at the store display. One thing these guys have in common is they don't kiss you, at least not like you want to be kissed. This guy - my coach - has the most passionate kisses I think I've ever experienced.

Cue Song Number One

So let's add this up, shall we?

1. Handsome - check.
2. Tall - check.
3. Crystal blue eyes - check.
4. Kisses like I ain't been kissed - check.
5. Great (no really, I mean great) sex - check.
6. Bottom - check check.
7. Completely unavailable - check check check.

I am making the conscious decision to love him with all my heart. It's absolutely perfect. I get an amazingly hot shag once or twice a week - however many times he needs to do a nocturnal grocery run - AND he can be my fantasy husband. We'd surely be together if things were different, if times were different, if we were different. The potential for melodrama is irresistible.

So this is where the girlie part comes in. In my mind, he's my only source of sustenance. When we're not together I can't breathe - and when he holds me I'm breathless. I'm the other woman, waiting guiltily in the hotel lobby, swathed in a stole of arctic fox, my furtive, waiting eyes obscured by Jackie Collins sunglasses. And I love him - truly, madly, deeply.

Cue Song Number Two

So here we are, entwined in a cheap hotel room - one eye on the LED alarm. And I want him desperately to be mine forever. I want to inhale him, the smell of ball sac and ivory soap and hope, and I want to be the woman who finally understands him. Oh fuck.

The allure here, other than the obvious, is of course his total unavailability. We can't go out to dinner or just spend the weekend Netflixing. I'm left to pine away until he calls. I can't call him, she may answer. I can't demand anything of him - he's not mine. I have to be the noble one, sacrificing everything for slivers of enthrallment - those stolen hours that leave me both sated and empty. This is what gay men LIVE FOR!

If only...but no. He's conflicted. Our trysts, he tells himself, are dalliances - diversions from the orthodontist appointments and Webber grills of his life in the light. His DL encounters are only meaningless releases, he self-affirms. But I KNOW that he loves me and I will wait, knowing that clandestine moments with him are better than a lifetime of loveless regret. I know, after all, that he is drawn out of his mundane days into my passionate nights.

Cue Song Number Three

I imagine myself strong enough to withstand it. To take it one moment past excruciating and then proving to myself that I can endure it. I must think of him, of his family, of his happiness. I must resist all temptation to seduce him with my charm and cooing attention. He has a wife.

What would happen if I encountered her? Maybe I'll go mad with jealousy and pretend to be the Avon lady, ringing her doorbell and greeting her with an Amy Fisher-style spray of lead in the eye. Or maybe I'll see them in the park, all together a perfect family, and slip away crestfallen, knowing that I must leave him to his life of vapid coitus and carpool nagging, drinking beer after beer to drown her out and try to forget me.

My favorite scenario is a frantic knock on the door of our no-tell motel. Panicked, we stage whisper frenetic instructions, all options seeming terrifying. Finally, I open the door, clad only in an outrageously sumptuous bathrobe (Egyptian cotton, his monogram). She stands there, mealy and nondescript. With grown out highlights and reddened eyes, she begs me:

Cue Song Number Four

I hesitate. Should I give him up? Would his sweaty t-shirts, now a heady swath of manliness and foreplay get tedious if I had to pick them up off the floor day after day, no chance of sodomy in sight?

Probably. Okay princess - he's yours.

Dating in the Data Funnel

I haven't posted in a while. Okay, more than six weeks. A lot has happened and a lot has changed. The BF and I have parted, amicably thank goodness. He moved out the same day my grandmother died. It wasn't intentional - on either of their parts - or at least I chose not to take it personally.

My grandmother was a Nazarene pastor's wife for more than six decades. There is a lot to say about that and those posts are still formulating in my skull. Too early, I suppose, to really talk about it. I loved her.

But I can talk about men. The departure of the BF was appropriate. There's really not a lot to say other than he was too young, too confined, too unready to be in a relationship. I don't blame him, I wonder if I was either. I miss his fun and his sense of humor and his love of song talking and inside jokes. But I gained tons of storage space so it was about a wash.

Meh.

What it does however, is catapult me into the dating scene. Gay men dating is a mishmash of sweat and tragedy. Most first "dates" are hook ups and most hook ups aren't first dates. Not that I mind getting in touch with my inner skank - I'm almost always a sure thing - but at some point, there has to be some way to narrow the field.

Here's what I've had so far (names have been changed because in some cases I don't remember them.)

1) Pedro. Nice Mexican guy about my age. Passionate and attentive, he was a surprising connection. I liked his sense of family (at first) and he seemed to want something qualitative. We went out about two weeks. This being my first initiation into seeing a Latin man more than once, I was bowled over by his intense interest - something that quite frankly was less than available with the BF. The interest became a bit intense rather quickly however. I know it shows my total whiteness, but I don't think I have the constitution for a full-blooded Latino. Perhaps if he had been cross bred with say, a Presbyterian, I could have managed. As it was, his crushing attention was more than I needed and I chucked him like a wet pinata.

2) Tony. Met online, chatted. Some mutual interests - both Catholic, musical, and he seemed smart. A tad reticent but he was some sort of left-brained hacker or something so that's to be expected. Okay, let's meet for lunch. The reality of Tony was significantly different from his grainy pictures (shock) by about 10 years and 50 pounds. That often happens in online dating situations. I, however, ascribe to the entirely OPPOSITE philosophy: Honest weight plus 10 pounds and crappy pictures. I'd much rather have them be pleasantly surprised than run screaming.

So back to Tony. Turns out he's VERY conservative Catholic. I also noticed that his license plates said "4FAIRTX". So I inquired. Apparently, that is the cornerstone doctrine of the Tea Party. Now gays have tea parties all the time but this kind refers to the gun-toting bailiwick of Sarah Palin and her ilk. Uhmmm....no.

But, wait for it.....wait for it....IT GET'S WEIRDER. He says, "yeah, I thought the political thing would be a deal breaker. It was when we talked two years ago." Apparently, in a conversation that was less than memorable we had conversed before.

"Do you know how creepy that is that you didn't mention that we had talked before?" I queried.

Buh bye.

3) Psychologist guy. Nice, attractive, smart. Obviously similar career interests. Mid-bang he asserts that perhaps he isn't gay. That was new. It seems Dr. Freud has some psychosexual biz to manage. Nope.

Okay, you get the idea. There have been more - shags mostly - but nothing even remotely interesting. So I turned to my academic training, hoping that application of more empirical methods would bring me, if not success, then at least understanding.

I am considering this period to be a meta-analysis of available dudes. I will survey widely, noting habitats and habits, endearments and annoyances, and dump them into a data funnel to be distilled until my husband drops out. Certainly, even through just sheer volume, eventually the unwashed hordes will be cooked down, reduced to something palatable and ultimately partner material.

I am refining the data so at least all is not lost. This is hardly a randomized trial, however. There are some (and really only some) criteria to be admitted to the study.

1) No one under 35. No one under 40 is preferable but I will enroll those between 35 and 40 if they are mature and/or hot.

2) No one over 80. I've decided to stretch the upper limits of the life span - having learned my lesson for over-fishing the waters of junior high in my last two relationships.

That's about it really. A mustache would be nice, but that is of course an optional accessory that could be added at a later date. For now, however, I will continue to serially matriculate potentials - until I find someone interesting or at least tolerable.