Somebody seriously needs to do this mashup. I wish I had the skills.
They're even in the same key, for god's sake.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Are Our Politics Born of Immutable Principles, Or Are They Subject to the Caprices of Our Own Biographies?
Since we plan to move in together, C, being more traditional than I am about these things, took me home to meet his family. Besides his mom and dad, his brother, his sister and her husband and baby were there. And his aunt and her two adult children with their spouses and, between them, four teenagers. For a Super Bowl party. C’s father is a retired Air Force pilot, taciturn but obviously thrilled that his whole family had come to watch his beloved Green Bay Packers win.
To recap, I went to North Carolina for the weekend for a Super Bowl party with a military family who are for all practical purposes now my in-laws. Can we count the words in that last sentence that blow my mind?
I don’t know how it came up, but Saturday night someone mentioned C’s dad’s “Kringle,” which is a pastry he’s famous for, made, I believe, from his mother’s recipe. I took an interest, so he decided to make it for Sunday breakfast. It’s basically a rustic tart filled with canned pie filling. That night, he mixed up dough for two crusts and put it in the fridge to rest overnight. When I got up the next morning, he had rolled out one crust but was waiting for me to get out of bed so he could roll out the second one and fill them while I watched. He reminded me of my own father, the way he warms up when he has something to show you.
(He sent us home with 4 quarts of home-canned tomatoes from his back yard garden. Today, the apartment smells like fennel and sweet tomatoes. I have a cold so I stayed home from work, but I walked down to the Italian butcher, bought sausage, came home and made a big pot of tomato sauce. Feed a cold.)
The week before our trip, C texted me at work to say that the trip was off, he’d just had a fight with his mom over sleeping arrangements. The married siblings and cousins would be sharing beds in various rooms, but C and I, along with C’s single brother, would be sleeping on air mattresses on the basement floor.
He asked his mom why his sister and her husband would be sharing a bed and not us. She said, “They’re married.” Yes, she understood that her argument was weak because we don’t have the option of being married, but “you’ve only known each other for two months. You’re just dating.” “So when can we share a bed?” “A year?”
I told C I didn’t think we should make a big deal of it. I didn’t want my first encounter with his family to be a showdown. (And C had taken one of my CDs with him for a Christmas visit and his mom told him that I sounded like James Taylor “but better,” so I was inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt.) Maybe this was not homophobia. It looked to me more like the old “not under my roof” argument that must have appeared at least once a month in Dear Abby in the late sixties/early seventies when “shacking up” was the frontline of the culture war.
The weekend was chaotic, wonderful, exhausting. I think I made a good impression. I think they trust me with C’s heart. I hope they believe that I will try my best to make him happy. We arrived at 3 a.m. on Friday, got to sleep at 4:30 and were awoken at 9 when the second batch of cousins arrived. I am not a morning person. Meeting new people, any new people, is for me stressful and draining, but all those parents and siblings and cousins and kids and everyone sizing me up because they adore C and he’s never brought anyone home before, at times it felt like an initiation ordeal, a rite of passage.
Shortly before the game started, a friend of C’s mother arrived with her husband and C’s mother was introducing her to the crowd packed into the basement den (where C’s brother had hooked up two very big TVs over a table crowded with snacks and a big pot of chili): “…and you remember C, and this is his boyfriend Steven.” “So nice to meet you, Steven…”
At that moment, I suddenly realized how unequipped I was to understand this world. Like most military families, C’s parents are Republicans. “This is C’s boyfriend, Steven.” No special emphasis, no slight lowering of volume like when my grandmother used to say “colored.” Just boyfriend, like it’s just what you’d expect. Whereas I practically choked. I must carry such a deep, rarely-conscious shame about my sexuality, such a wincing fear that a world where C and I would be folded naturally into this family doesn’t compute.
I have railed here and elsewhere about the danger of assimilation. And, yes, I believe that saying “we are all the same, we are only asking to be treated equally” ignores, thwarts, distorts what is essentially different about our queer lives and creates just another kind of closet, with all the pain and danger of the old closet. Yet, there I was watching the Super Bowl in North Carolina with Republicans and on the verge of tears just to be welcome.
I am proudly and adamantly queer, radical, and, most importantly, critical of a status quo that creates so much unfairness and injustice, a status quo that privileges certain people and leaves certain people out. And my unwillingness to conform, to compromise, is based on core principles. Like freedom (no one should have the right or the power to dictate how I express my sexuality) and fairness (access to housing and employment and healthcare should not depend on one’s wealth, class, race, sexual orientation, or gender identity), etc. But can we acknowledge that, to some extent, the passion with which we fight assimilation is also about our own pain? That we are wounded creatures lashing out? That we want no part of the status quo because it has abused and rejected us? And, knowing that, knowing that not just our emotional lives but our political convictions have been shaped in response to that abuse and rejection, what do we do now, when the world that has hurt us begins slowly, fitfully, to extend a remorseful hand?
I wonder if we, as a community, are capable of such profound forgiveness. I wonder if I’m capable of it myself, personally.
C and I this morning took the A train down to City Hall and registered our domestic partnership. This status will give us access to a few benefits from New York City as well as some benefits offered by the firm he works for. After we had shown our IDs to the guard and been given a number, we walked by a newsstand on the way to the clerk’s window and C bought me a bouquet of 6 yellow roses.
Almost every time I criticize the gay marriage campaign, someone responds with, “If you don’t want to get married, don’t get married, but some of us want to, so leave us alone.” The most frustrating thing, the saddest thing, about that response is that it sets me up as someone who is against love, against the possibility of a deep, permanent commitment based on love.
I have had deep, lasting relationships with men as lovers, partners, friends. Two, in particular, lasted several years each -- both were men I thought I’d grow old with -- but eventually ended when, in different ways and for different reasons, the partnership was no longer fulfilling. Neither relationship carried a promise of sexual exclusivity.
I wonder if all the qualifying language -- “we’re emotionally monogamous, but not sexually monogamous,” etc. -- is just an attempt to preclude disappointment. If fidelity is not what he promised, then maybe I won’t be devastated when he’s unfaithful. But is it the looseness of the commitment which lets it unravel?
Until this relationship, I did not think that self-actualization could be possible in a monogamous relationship. Monogamy was all about limitations, about narrowing possibilities, about shutting down desire. But now I see that not only is it possible but that an exclusive relationship might even be the cause of becoming my best, fullest self. Rather than expressing over and over with many men a tiny part, a small aspect, a glimpse of who I am, I feel myself unfolding with this man. Letting him completely in. Letting him see more and more of me every day and, in so doing, discovering those aspects of myself.
C and I have talked about marriage. He appreciates my oppositional view, but he’s more conservative than I am. He supports the campaign for same-sex marriage, seeing it as a crucial move toward the legitimizing of same-sex relationships and the equality of gay people. But he’s not sure he wants to get married until, and unless, same-sex marriage is widely accepted and equal to opposite-sex marriage. He doesn’t want his wedding to be a political performance.
I’ve always had a distaste for weddings which now I’m compelled to try to make sense of. As a feminist, I’m suspicious of marriage because it has, historically, not been great for women. But that objection doesn’t hold up to the many ways in which marriage has been reformed in the last 40 years to make it more equitable. As an environmentalist, I’m put off by the extravagance of weddings, the orgy of consumption, the money spent on clothes and jewelry and flowers, but certainly one doesn’t have to have that kind of wedding, any more than one has to have a certain kind of house or car. And the cynic in me distrusts the whole naive fairy tale which, let’s face it, usually ends badly.
So. Maybe I’ll get married. Maybe I won’t. I know if I do I’ll take some flack for it -- “Yeah, you’re all counter-culture anti-marriage until you fall in love, then everything changes…” -- but my own marital status will have no effect on my criticism of the role of marriage in our society and the priority of the marriage campaign in the gay rights movement, except possibly to strengthen my critique.
Eight months ago, I was living in Austin, Texas. I had been looking for work for months but couldn’t find a job. A brief, intense relationship had ended and I was heartbroken. An old friend invited me to come back to New York and stay with him until I got on my feet. Two months later, I met a man in the neighborhood who happened to need a roommate. A week after I moved in, I placed an ad for sex on craigslist, something I’ve only done maybe 5 or 6 times. My roommate’s friend who lives in the same building happened to answer the ad. I was hesitant, not wanting to create drama in my new home, but horniness prevailed and I went across the hall to meet C. We immediately found a sexual compatibility, then a musical affinity, and a similar sense of humor. As we’ve gotten to know each other over the last 3 months, we’ve discovered similarities in our ethics, our taste, and our attitude toward life and friends and family. He lets me cry about silly things and then reassures but does not coddle me. He laughs at my neuroses in a way that doesn’t hurt but lets me laugh about them too. He loves my cooking. He is unwaveringly considerate, direct, honest, clear. He perfects me. I have not had a moment of uncertainty of him.
The breathtaking unlikeliness of this ever having happened renews my conviction that essential benefits like access to affordable health care should not be dependent on something as miraculous and rare as finding someone you want to, and are able to, spend the rest of your life with in an intimate and domestic relationship and that, because it is something available to such a small percentage of us, we should put our energy and money into reforms that affect more of the community, like ending employment and housing discrimination.
To recap, I went to North Carolina for the weekend for a Super Bowl party with a military family who are for all practical purposes now my in-laws. Can we count the words in that last sentence that blow my mind?
I don’t know how it came up, but Saturday night someone mentioned C’s dad’s “Kringle,” which is a pastry he’s famous for, made, I believe, from his mother’s recipe. I took an interest, so he decided to make it for Sunday breakfast. It’s basically a rustic tart filled with canned pie filling. That night, he mixed up dough for two crusts and put it in the fridge to rest overnight. When I got up the next morning, he had rolled out one crust but was waiting for me to get out of bed so he could roll out the second one and fill them while I watched. He reminded me of my own father, the way he warms up when he has something to show you.
(He sent us home with 4 quarts of home-canned tomatoes from his back yard garden. Today, the apartment smells like fennel and sweet tomatoes. I have a cold so I stayed home from work, but I walked down to the Italian butcher, bought sausage, came home and made a big pot of tomato sauce. Feed a cold.)
The week before our trip, C texted me at work to say that the trip was off, he’d just had a fight with his mom over sleeping arrangements. The married siblings and cousins would be sharing beds in various rooms, but C and I, along with C’s single brother, would be sleeping on air mattresses on the basement floor.
He asked his mom why his sister and her husband would be sharing a bed and not us. She said, “They’re married.” Yes, she understood that her argument was weak because we don’t have the option of being married, but “you’ve only known each other for two months. You’re just dating.” “So when can we share a bed?” “A year?”
I told C I didn’t think we should make a big deal of it. I didn’t want my first encounter with his family to be a showdown. (And C had taken one of my CDs with him for a Christmas visit and his mom told him that I sounded like James Taylor “but better,” so I was inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt.) Maybe this was not homophobia. It looked to me more like the old “not under my roof” argument that must have appeared at least once a month in Dear Abby in the late sixties/early seventies when “shacking up” was the frontline of the culture war.
The weekend was chaotic, wonderful, exhausting. I think I made a good impression. I think they trust me with C’s heart. I hope they believe that I will try my best to make him happy. We arrived at 3 a.m. on Friday, got to sleep at 4:30 and were awoken at 9 when the second batch of cousins arrived. I am not a morning person. Meeting new people, any new people, is for me stressful and draining, but all those parents and siblings and cousins and kids and everyone sizing me up because they adore C and he’s never brought anyone home before, at times it felt like an initiation ordeal, a rite of passage.
Shortly before the game started, a friend of C’s mother arrived with her husband and C’s mother was introducing her to the crowd packed into the basement den (where C’s brother had hooked up two very big TVs over a table crowded with snacks and a big pot of chili): “…and you remember C, and this is his boyfriend Steven.” “So nice to meet you, Steven…”
At that moment, I suddenly realized how unequipped I was to understand this world. Like most military families, C’s parents are Republicans. “This is C’s boyfriend, Steven.” No special emphasis, no slight lowering of volume like when my grandmother used to say “colored.” Just boyfriend, like it’s just what you’d expect. Whereas I practically choked. I must carry such a deep, rarely-conscious shame about my sexuality, such a wincing fear that a world where C and I would be folded naturally into this family doesn’t compute.
I have railed here and elsewhere about the danger of assimilation. And, yes, I believe that saying “we are all the same, we are only asking to be treated equally” ignores, thwarts, distorts what is essentially different about our queer lives and creates just another kind of closet, with all the pain and danger of the old closet. Yet, there I was watching the Super Bowl in North Carolina with Republicans and on the verge of tears just to be welcome.
I am proudly and adamantly queer, radical, and, most importantly, critical of a status quo that creates so much unfairness and injustice, a status quo that privileges certain people and leaves certain people out. And my unwillingness to conform, to compromise, is based on core principles. Like freedom (no one should have the right or the power to dictate how I express my sexuality) and fairness (access to housing and employment and healthcare should not depend on one’s wealth, class, race, sexual orientation, or gender identity), etc. But can we acknowledge that, to some extent, the passion with which we fight assimilation is also about our own pain? That we are wounded creatures lashing out? That we want no part of the status quo because it has abused and rejected us? And, knowing that, knowing that not just our emotional lives but our political convictions have been shaped in response to that abuse and rejection, what do we do now, when the world that has hurt us begins slowly, fitfully, to extend a remorseful hand?
I wonder if we, as a community, are capable of such profound forgiveness. I wonder if I’m capable of it myself, personally.
C and I this morning took the A train down to City Hall and registered our domestic partnership. This status will give us access to a few benefits from New York City as well as some benefits offered by the firm he works for. After we had shown our IDs to the guard and been given a number, we walked by a newsstand on the way to the clerk’s window and C bought me a bouquet of 6 yellow roses.
Almost every time I criticize the gay marriage campaign, someone responds with, “If you don’t want to get married, don’t get married, but some of us want to, so leave us alone.” The most frustrating thing, the saddest thing, about that response is that it sets me up as someone who is against love, against the possibility of a deep, permanent commitment based on love.
I have had deep, lasting relationships with men as lovers, partners, friends. Two, in particular, lasted several years each -- both were men I thought I’d grow old with -- but eventually ended when, in different ways and for different reasons, the partnership was no longer fulfilling. Neither relationship carried a promise of sexual exclusivity.
I wonder if all the qualifying language -- “we’re emotionally monogamous, but not sexually monogamous,” etc. -- is just an attempt to preclude disappointment. If fidelity is not what he promised, then maybe I won’t be devastated when he’s unfaithful. But is it the looseness of the commitment which lets it unravel?
Until this relationship, I did not think that self-actualization could be possible in a monogamous relationship. Monogamy was all about limitations, about narrowing possibilities, about shutting down desire. But now I see that not only is it possible but that an exclusive relationship might even be the cause of becoming my best, fullest self. Rather than expressing over and over with many men a tiny part, a small aspect, a glimpse of who I am, I feel myself unfolding with this man. Letting him completely in. Letting him see more and more of me every day and, in so doing, discovering those aspects of myself.
C and I have talked about marriage. He appreciates my oppositional view, but he’s more conservative than I am. He supports the campaign for same-sex marriage, seeing it as a crucial move toward the legitimizing of same-sex relationships and the equality of gay people. But he’s not sure he wants to get married until, and unless, same-sex marriage is widely accepted and equal to opposite-sex marriage. He doesn’t want his wedding to be a political performance.
I’ve always had a distaste for weddings which now I’m compelled to try to make sense of. As a feminist, I’m suspicious of marriage because it has, historically, not been great for women. But that objection doesn’t hold up to the many ways in which marriage has been reformed in the last 40 years to make it more equitable. As an environmentalist, I’m put off by the extravagance of weddings, the orgy of consumption, the money spent on clothes and jewelry and flowers, but certainly one doesn’t have to have that kind of wedding, any more than one has to have a certain kind of house or car. And the cynic in me distrusts the whole naive fairy tale which, let’s face it, usually ends badly.
So. Maybe I’ll get married. Maybe I won’t. I know if I do I’ll take some flack for it -- “Yeah, you’re all counter-culture anti-marriage until you fall in love, then everything changes…” -- but my own marital status will have no effect on my criticism of the role of marriage in our society and the priority of the marriage campaign in the gay rights movement, except possibly to strengthen my critique.
Eight months ago, I was living in Austin, Texas. I had been looking for work for months but couldn’t find a job. A brief, intense relationship had ended and I was heartbroken. An old friend invited me to come back to New York and stay with him until I got on my feet. Two months later, I met a man in the neighborhood who happened to need a roommate. A week after I moved in, I placed an ad for sex on craigslist, something I’ve only done maybe 5 or 6 times. My roommate’s friend who lives in the same building happened to answer the ad. I was hesitant, not wanting to create drama in my new home, but horniness prevailed and I went across the hall to meet C. We immediately found a sexual compatibility, then a musical affinity, and a similar sense of humor. As we’ve gotten to know each other over the last 3 months, we’ve discovered similarities in our ethics, our taste, and our attitude toward life and friends and family. He lets me cry about silly things and then reassures but does not coddle me. He laughs at my neuroses in a way that doesn’t hurt but lets me laugh about them too. He loves my cooking. He is unwaveringly considerate, direct, honest, clear. He perfects me. I have not had a moment of uncertainty of him.
The breathtaking unlikeliness of this ever having happened renews my conviction that essential benefits like access to affordable health care should not be dependent on something as miraculous and rare as finding someone you want to, and are able to, spend the rest of your life with in an intimate and domestic relationship and that, because it is something available to such a small percentage of us, we should put our energy and money into reforms that affect more of the community, like ending employment and housing discrimination.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
I Won't Grow Up.
This article about the juvenilizing of American speech has been making the rounds on Facebook, mostly among people around my age, of course.
Why are Americans unable to grow up? We no longer change the way we dress when we become adults. What's weird about that, though, is that American men and boys wear the same styles because men dress like little boys (oversize t-shirts, sideways baseball caps, basketball shorts) but American women and girls wear the same styles because girls dress like mature women (sexy dresses, makeup, fancy shoes).
The same is true of the way people eat. Taste in food doesn't mature. Grown people eat pop-tarts and Cap'n Crunch and prefer everything sugary and insipid.
I know I've made some massive generalizations here, but isn't there something true in it? I also know that I'm dangerously close to making some kind of class judgment (arugula vs. iceberg, etc.). And I don't mean to grumble, too much. I like that I can wear jeans and sneakers pretty much everywhere and don't ever have to put on a coat and tie.
I'm curious if all these trends are related or share a common source.
Why are Americans unable to grow up? We no longer change the way we dress when we become adults. What's weird about that, though, is that American men and boys wear the same styles because men dress like little boys (oversize t-shirts, sideways baseball caps, basketball shorts) but American women and girls wear the same styles because girls dress like mature women (sexy dresses, makeup, fancy shoes).
The same is true of the way people eat. Taste in food doesn't mature. Grown people eat pop-tarts and Cap'n Crunch and prefer everything sugary and insipid.
I know I've made some massive generalizations here, but isn't there something true in it? I also know that I'm dangerously close to making some kind of class judgment (arugula vs. iceberg, etc.). And I don't mean to grumble, too much. I like that I can wear jeans and sneakers pretty much everywhere and don't ever have to put on a coat and tie.
I'm curious if all these trends are related or share a common source.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Gap.
Dammit, I broke my first rule of blogging. I said when I started doing this that if there were gaps -- because I was away from my computer for a few days or super busy or things had happened that I didn't quite know how to write about, whatever the reason -- I would not be required to fill them in, that I would just keep going. That was what had always derailed me when I kept a journal. I'd stop writing for a while and then feel like it was impossible to go back and catch up. I wanted to avoid that pitfall, and I did until recently. Not sure why.
So ... I've been busy, I've been away from my computer a lot, and things have happened that I don't quite know how to write about yet, but I am going to plug ahead. Just so that I am not continually referring to things that you don't know anything about, here's a quick time line of the last couple months (some of which I've chronicled here, some of which not) with minimal commentary and analysis, and then we'll just forge ahead:
1. Early December, I moved out of T's place into an apartment farther up in Inwood with a new acquaintance. A few days after I moved in, I met my roommate's good friend who lives next door and fell in love.
2. Gradually over the last 2 1/2 months, I've begun to spend more and more time at his place and less and less time at mine.
3. He's a former actor turned attorney, loves theater as much as I do and makes more money, so he can afford to actually see it. We go to lots of plays.
3. He's got me watching American Idol and loving it. I tried Survivor but couldn't work up any interest. I turned him on to RuPaul's Drag Race, which he loves. Of course.
4. We drove to North Carolina to meet his family on Super Bowl weekend.
4. He took me to a very expensive restaurant for Valentine's Day. I gave him a dozen red tulips, and he gave me a heart-shaped box of chocolates. There was very little irony involved. I think.
5. At the beginning of April, I will move next door completely.
5. Mostly for practical reasons, we decided to register as domestic partners in New York City. I was surprisingly moved. He was, maybe not surprisingly, less moved. (He's a little more conservative than I am. For him, domestic partnership, though it will provide us with a few benefits, just points out the fact that homosexuals are second-class citizens. For me, it reified my commitment to him, which is a more stringent promise than I've ever made to anyone in my life.)
I am still working on that longer post about my new relationship in relation to my political philosophy. I think it's pretty close, but things keep happening -- in the larger world, such as Obama's shift regarding DOMA or Facebook's new relationship status options -- that I want to include.
So ... I've been busy, I've been away from my computer a lot, and things have happened that I don't quite know how to write about yet, but I am going to plug ahead. Just so that I am not continually referring to things that you don't know anything about, here's a quick time line of the last couple months (some of which I've chronicled here, some of which not) with minimal commentary and analysis, and then we'll just forge ahead:
1. Early December, I moved out of T's place into an apartment farther up in Inwood with a new acquaintance. A few days after I moved in, I met my roommate's good friend who lives next door and fell in love.
2. Gradually over the last 2 1/2 months, I've begun to spend more and more time at his place and less and less time at mine.
3. He's a former actor turned attorney, loves theater as much as I do and makes more money, so he can afford to actually see it. We go to lots of plays.
3. He's got me watching American Idol and loving it. I tried Survivor but couldn't work up any interest. I turned him on to RuPaul's Drag Race, which he loves. Of course.
4. We drove to North Carolina to meet his family on Super Bowl weekend.
4. He took me to a very expensive restaurant for Valentine's Day. I gave him a dozen red tulips, and he gave me a heart-shaped box of chocolates. There was very little irony involved. I think.
5. At the beginning of April, I will move next door completely.
5. Mostly for practical reasons, we decided to register as domestic partners in New York City. I was surprisingly moved. He was, maybe not surprisingly, less moved. (He's a little more conservative than I am. For him, domestic partnership, though it will provide us with a few benefits, just points out the fact that homosexuals are second-class citizens. For me, it reified my commitment to him, which is a more stringent promise than I've ever made to anyone in my life.)
I am still working on that longer post about my new relationship in relation to my political philosophy. I think it's pretty close, but things keep happening -- in the larger world, such as Obama's shift regarding DOMA or Facebook's new relationship status options -- that I want to include.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Life Happens.
No, I haven't given up blogging! I am blogging almost every day lately, just never finishing anything. What started out as a post about Super Bowl weekend with C's family in North Carolina (I know!) is turning into an essay about discovering that political convictions are shaped by circumstances and history just as much as by values and principles, maybe even more so. About how love changes everything. It's tricky, and I want to get it right before I share.
C and I went down to City Hall this morning and registered our domestic partnership. Stay tuned.
C and I went down to City Hall this morning and registered our domestic partnership. Stay tuned.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Pigs Fly.
I’ve been reluctant to write much about this new relationship I think partly out of some vague, superstitious fear of jinxing it but, I think, too, because I want to hold it close, keep it to myself, protect it. It feels fragile -- though less so every day -- and sacred. So forgive me for ratcheting back the level of disclosure of my intimate life, those of you who are used to that from me and enjoy it. (Don’t worry, there has been no lessening of the pleasure I find in talking about myself.)
Another reason that occurs to me, for not writing much about C. and me, is that I don’t feel at all up to the task of describing just how good it is: I could never get it right or convey how happy I am or how wonderful this man is. Even going back and reading that last sentence disappoints me, how thin it sounds compared to what these days are like.
I will share this, though. I -- the original love skeptic, the anti-marriage crusader, the free love tutor, Mr. Monogamy-Shmonogamy – have, for the first time in my life, made a vow to be sexually exclusive.
The notion that this would be something I might want, or want to try, didn’t strictly arise out of my feelings for C. I made a lame stab at it with M. in Austin. But that promise was more like, “Let’s be monogamous until we don’t want to anymore and at that point let’s be honest as we renegotiate.” The fact that M. betrayed that promise (not the promise to be exclusive, which of course we hadn’t made in any meaningful sense, but the promise to be honest) is what makes me both scared to try again but also eager to give it another shot because it wasn’t me who fucked up.
So I was ready. But I wasn’t sure how to implement such an arrangement. The problem I have with this type of vow is that it places expectations on another person. It seems to place conditions on affection. This is about me. I want to try this. I want to make this promise. But the promise loses it power if it is not mutual, so how do you start? I decided that I would just keep these thoughts to myself for a while, that I would make this vow for myself but not ask it of C. yet. It seemed like unnecessary pressure so early in the relationship. C. and I had only known each other for a month or so.
But then he said to me one evening, “I rejected someone for you today.” He told me that he had hailed a cab after work, and, as he was getting in, the driver asked where he was going. A man standing at the curb heard C. say, “Inwood,” and said, “I’m going to Inwood, too. Do you want to share the cab?” Since Inwood is an expensive ride, C. said sure, and they rode up together. Some time in the course of the ride, the man asked C. if he could call him and C. gave him his number. The man called as soon as C. got home, but C., I guess having given it more thought in the meantime, said, “This isn’t a good time. I’m seeing someone.”
That night in bed, I said, “I’m glad you rejected that guy for me.” It seemed unnecessary to keep my recent thoughts to myself after C.'s story indicating that he felt similarly, so I told C. that I wanted to be exclusive but was hesitant to make demands of him. He said, “Let’s do it,” and I said, “Okay.”
My argument against monogamy, a big part of it anyway, always had to do with what I felt was an unnecessary loss of freedom. Why put restrictions on a natural, healthy desire? It’s repressive.
But with that sacrifice, which at least so far does not feel at all like a deprivation, I’m experiencing a kind of freedom I never expected, never considered. As soon as we had that conversation, as soon as we made that promise to each other, I felt unburdened. I felt energized and open and free. I wasn’t sure what this feeling was about, but after mulling it over for a few days, this is what I think:
One, I feel free to be myself, to share the aspects of myself that I worry may be unattractive. I don’t feel constant pressure to be impressive, worrying that if I show C. a side of me that repels him he’ll leave me. The promise is not provisional. It can bridge those moments when we don’t connect. I am free to be unattractive because the option to look for someone else to fill those moments is removed. Yeah, yeah, nothing is certain, nothing is permanent, I know, whatever. But it’s certain enough. It’s permanent enough.
And, two -- and this may be more the cause of this feeling of relief, this feeling that I am breathing deeper and easier than I have since I was about 12 years old -- I am free of the relentless, grinding search for sex. I’m not going to have sex with the cute guy in line at the grocery store, or sitting across from me on the subway. It isn’t going to happen, so I don’t have to yearn for that encounter to be any more than it is: just noticing someone attractive. I can’t describe how much lighter I feel having released myself from that. There is someone at home who wants me. Someone who knows me, and wants me. (Even porn is boring. My boyfriend is sexier. My sex life is hotter.) I never imagined that it would feel so good to have fewer options. To know. I never imagined that it would feel so good.
Another reason that occurs to me, for not writing much about C. and me, is that I don’t feel at all up to the task of describing just how good it is: I could never get it right or convey how happy I am or how wonderful this man is. Even going back and reading that last sentence disappoints me, how thin it sounds compared to what these days are like.
I will share this, though. I -- the original love skeptic, the anti-marriage crusader, the free love tutor, Mr. Monogamy-Shmonogamy – have, for the first time in my life, made a vow to be sexually exclusive.
The notion that this would be something I might want, or want to try, didn’t strictly arise out of my feelings for C. I made a lame stab at it with M. in Austin. But that promise was more like, “Let’s be monogamous until we don’t want to anymore and at that point let’s be honest as we renegotiate.” The fact that M. betrayed that promise (not the promise to be exclusive, which of course we hadn’t made in any meaningful sense, but the promise to be honest) is what makes me both scared to try again but also eager to give it another shot because it wasn’t me who fucked up.
So I was ready. But I wasn’t sure how to implement such an arrangement. The problem I have with this type of vow is that it places expectations on another person. It seems to place conditions on affection. This is about me. I want to try this. I want to make this promise. But the promise loses it power if it is not mutual, so how do you start? I decided that I would just keep these thoughts to myself for a while, that I would make this vow for myself but not ask it of C. yet. It seemed like unnecessary pressure so early in the relationship. C. and I had only known each other for a month or so.
But then he said to me one evening, “I rejected someone for you today.” He told me that he had hailed a cab after work, and, as he was getting in, the driver asked where he was going. A man standing at the curb heard C. say, “Inwood,” and said, “I’m going to Inwood, too. Do you want to share the cab?” Since Inwood is an expensive ride, C. said sure, and they rode up together. Some time in the course of the ride, the man asked C. if he could call him and C. gave him his number. The man called as soon as C. got home, but C., I guess having given it more thought in the meantime, said, “This isn’t a good time. I’m seeing someone.”
That night in bed, I said, “I’m glad you rejected that guy for me.” It seemed unnecessary to keep my recent thoughts to myself after C.'s story indicating that he felt similarly, so I told C. that I wanted to be exclusive but was hesitant to make demands of him. He said, “Let’s do it,” and I said, “Okay.”
My argument against monogamy, a big part of it anyway, always had to do with what I felt was an unnecessary loss of freedom. Why put restrictions on a natural, healthy desire? It’s repressive.
But with that sacrifice, which at least so far does not feel at all like a deprivation, I’m experiencing a kind of freedom I never expected, never considered. As soon as we had that conversation, as soon as we made that promise to each other, I felt unburdened. I felt energized and open and free. I wasn’t sure what this feeling was about, but after mulling it over for a few days, this is what I think:
One, I feel free to be myself, to share the aspects of myself that I worry may be unattractive. I don’t feel constant pressure to be impressive, worrying that if I show C. a side of me that repels him he’ll leave me. The promise is not provisional. It can bridge those moments when we don’t connect. I am free to be unattractive because the option to look for someone else to fill those moments is removed. Yeah, yeah, nothing is certain, nothing is permanent, I know, whatever. But it’s certain enough. It’s permanent enough.
And, two -- and this may be more the cause of this feeling of relief, this feeling that I am breathing deeper and easier than I have since I was about 12 years old -- I am free of the relentless, grinding search for sex. I’m not going to have sex with the cute guy in line at the grocery store, or sitting across from me on the subway. It isn’t going to happen, so I don’t have to yearn for that encounter to be any more than it is: just noticing someone attractive. I can’t describe how much lighter I feel having released myself from that. There is someone at home who wants me. Someone who knows me, and wants me. (Even porn is boring. My boyfriend is sexier. My sex life is hotter.) I never imagined that it would feel so good to have fewer options. To know. I never imagined that it would feel so good.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Who Am I?
Today I set about recreating my identity from scratch. Or, I should say (knowing full well there’s no such thing as any sort of fixed identity), my official identity.
Somewhere, somehow, in my move from Austin to New York last fall, I lost a small file case containing every one of my “important papers”: birth certificate, passport, Social Security card, and the title to my car, among others.
I should say, hoping not to sound too defensive, that, in spite of the instability that has characterized my adult life (or maybe because of it), I am not one to lose these sorts of things. I can’t remember ever losing my wallet, or keys, or credit cards, or plane tickets (back when there were plane tickets). I haven’t kept much stuff over the years, but the important stuff I don’t lose. And by “important” I don’t mean significant in any real sense. I just mean those things that are a pain in the ass to replace. So I’m baffled. I had the file case when I was packing in Austin, and I don’t have it now.
I left a few boxes in Austin, boxes of unsold Y’all and Life in a Box Soundtrack CDs. (Don’t ask me why I didn’t just throw them in a dumpster on the way out of town, except that they cost a lot of money to have made, a fact which, unfortunately, doesn’t make them valuable. It just makes me laughably optimistic.) But J looked in M & J’s house for the file case. It’s not there.
I left a few boxes with my parents in Indiana, to be shipped to me when I got settled, which is, more or less, now. Mom looked through those boxes. No file case.
I left the “Y’all Archive” with a friend in Austin to store. He was a Y’all fan before he was a friend. He’s also an American Studies scholar, and I think a bit of an amateur archivist. When I told him how for years I’ve dragged around all this Y’all memorabilia (posters, letters, master tapes of our recordings, videotapes, etc.) in and out of less than optimal conditions for preservation, he was visibly worried. When I couldn’t fit everything in my car in September, I called him, frantic, and he offered to take care of the boxes. He’s in Cambridge for the year on a fellowship, but he had a friend go to his house in Austin and look through those boxes. Not there, either.
So, having turned over every rock I can think of, this morning I submitted an application to the Lake County, Illinois clerk’s office for a certified copy of my birth certificate, which I will need to start the process of obtaining a Social Security card, which I will need to apply for a passport. Next I need to contact the Texas DMV to get a duplicate title for my car. So I can sell it.
The legwork is annoying, but not difficult. Just lots of phone calls, web sites, lines to wait in. The only possible hitch I anticipate is the issue of my last name. In my twenties, I started using my father and mother’s names hyphenated, at first only professionally but then I decided I wanted to use that name for everything. I didn’t change it by court order -- a lawyer friend told me that New York is what they call a “common law state,” which means that one can change one’s name simply by stating that one has changed one’s name. So, he prepared an affidavit stating my new name, which I took to the Social Security office and got a new card with the name “Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer” instead of “Steven Jack Cheslik.” With the new Social Security card, it was easy to get other documents in that name: passport, driver’s license, etc. But my birth certificate will still have the old name -- that is, provided they don’t give me a hard time about even getting a new birth certificate, since they require proof of identity in the form of a driver’s license, which has my new name on it. Because of course I need proof of identity to obtain proof of identity. I will postpone worrying about this little Kafka scenario until it actually happens.
So, who the fuck knows who I even am anymore? or who I will be once I have gone through this very surreal process? I sure as hell don’t. Essentially what this is all about is proving that I am still the same person that I was when I was born, that I was when I was 14 and got my first Social Security card, that I was when I got my first passport at 25. A lot of effort to prove something that I know is not true.
Somewhere, somehow, in my move from Austin to New York last fall, I lost a small file case containing every one of my “important papers”: birth certificate, passport, Social Security card, and the title to my car, among others.
I should say, hoping not to sound too defensive, that, in spite of the instability that has characterized my adult life (or maybe because of it), I am not one to lose these sorts of things. I can’t remember ever losing my wallet, or keys, or credit cards, or plane tickets (back when there were plane tickets). I haven’t kept much stuff over the years, but the important stuff I don’t lose. And by “important” I don’t mean significant in any real sense. I just mean those things that are a pain in the ass to replace. So I’m baffled. I had the file case when I was packing in Austin, and I don’t have it now.
I left a few boxes in Austin, boxes of unsold Y’all and Life in a Box Soundtrack CDs. (Don’t ask me why I didn’t just throw them in a dumpster on the way out of town, except that they cost a lot of money to have made, a fact which, unfortunately, doesn’t make them valuable. It just makes me laughably optimistic.) But J looked in M & J’s house for the file case. It’s not there.
I left a few boxes with my parents in Indiana, to be shipped to me when I got settled, which is, more or less, now. Mom looked through those boxes. No file case.
I left the “Y’all Archive” with a friend in Austin to store. He was a Y’all fan before he was a friend. He’s also an American Studies scholar, and I think a bit of an amateur archivist. When I told him how for years I’ve dragged around all this Y’all memorabilia (posters, letters, master tapes of our recordings, videotapes, etc.) in and out of less than optimal conditions for preservation, he was visibly worried. When I couldn’t fit everything in my car in September, I called him, frantic, and he offered to take care of the boxes. He’s in Cambridge for the year on a fellowship, but he had a friend go to his house in Austin and look through those boxes. Not there, either.
So, having turned over every rock I can think of, this morning I submitted an application to the Lake County, Illinois clerk’s office for a certified copy of my birth certificate, which I will need to start the process of obtaining a Social Security card, which I will need to apply for a passport. Next I need to contact the Texas DMV to get a duplicate title for my car. So I can sell it.
The legwork is annoying, but not difficult. Just lots of phone calls, web sites, lines to wait in. The only possible hitch I anticipate is the issue of my last name. In my twenties, I started using my father and mother’s names hyphenated, at first only professionally but then I decided I wanted to use that name for everything. I didn’t change it by court order -- a lawyer friend told me that New York is what they call a “common law state,” which means that one can change one’s name simply by stating that one has changed one’s name. So, he prepared an affidavit stating my new name, which I took to the Social Security office and got a new card with the name “Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer” instead of “Steven Jack Cheslik.” With the new Social Security card, it was easy to get other documents in that name: passport, driver’s license, etc. But my birth certificate will still have the old name -- that is, provided they don’t give me a hard time about even getting a new birth certificate, since they require proof of identity in the form of a driver’s license, which has my new name on it. Because of course I need proof of identity to obtain proof of identity. I will postpone worrying about this little Kafka scenario until it actually happens.
So, who the fuck knows who I even am anymore? or who I will be once I have gone through this very surreal process? I sure as hell don’t. Essentially what this is all about is proving that I am still the same person that I was when I was born, that I was when I was 14 and got my first Social Security card, that I was when I got my first passport at 25. A lot of effort to prove something that I know is not true.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
