A Lot to Cover

It's been a minute, so there's a whole lot that I need to cover.

Alone at Xmas

I've long heard that the holidays are a very lonely time for many people. Depressions is often at its highest around the winter holidays, and, though I understood intellectually, I could never truly wrap my mind around the depths of the depression that these times can garner.

Now that I'm a bit older and more apt to have friends who are involved in serious relationships, it is much clearer. It is really nice to give and receive gifts with a special someone on X-mas. I know that very often I'm out shopping and see things that I would love to buy for someone else, but...it's just not a possibility right now. As much as one of my boys could probably appreciate a 300 dollar leather jacket, I just can't imagine doing that right now. (Now this isn't to say that it won't happen ever, but it'll likely be the case after we pass 25 and we all have a much higher account balances in the bank.) And I can only imagine how nice it is to cook Thanksgiving dinner with th eone you love or lie down with them on Christmas eve and then wake up together to exchange gifts that following morning. I've past the age of rushing downstairs to open gifts, so there has to be something else to highlight the joy of Christmas. Eh, maybe next year.

Bookstore Kid

Okay, so catch this. Sunday, after church, a friend and I went out to lunch and then stopped by the Christian Bookstore near the restaurant. Now my friend has 2 daughters, a 1-year-old and a 7-year-old. So the 1-year-old runs off and I hear her sister run after her. Then I hear another girl's voice in the next aisle over talking to them. As I round the corner to stop the running child, I don't see the source of the other little girl's voice. I just see a little boy with his grandmother. So I wonder, Is this the kid I heard? Well, his grandmother tells him to go put a book back and then all is revealed. Playboy had the sassiest walk of any little boy that I've known and I knew some FLAMERS when I was growing up. The wrist was at work and all that and he definitely did have a lighter voice. And the first thing to cross my mind was, I know his grandmother probably gets really tired of all the whispers at church (cuz you know how black folks in the Church do). Then, more poignantly, I thought, This boy has a long, hard road ahead of him, particularly given his possible relationship to the Church and what kind of psychological damage it can wreak upon a young SGL man.

But there was at least one ray of light in this story. So later on, the boy was playing with my friend's two daughters and the oldest daughter says to him, "You have a girl's voice." I wasn't sufficiently close to tell her that's not something you say to people. But, as we do, he shut her down...and quickly. He responded, "Umm...no, I don't. Different boys have different voices. I thought EVERYONE knew that. Duh!" LOL. I laughed so hard inside but I also smiled, because, though he will have a difficult time ahead given his effeminate ways, he is not afraid to defend himself from the ignorance of heterosexuals.

Shedding Skin

So there are quite a few people that I've grown out of since I finished high school. More specifically, the stark difference between my surroundings growing up and my environment during my college years caused me to grow in interesting sorts of ways (Shout out to Dr. Eddie Glaude; that's his favorite phrase). And these changes have put me at odds with people who I had previously considered close friends. This is not to say that I have changed and now feel that I am better than them, because I find such valuations to be ego-based and subjective. However, I am arguing that the exposure to more views of the world that I gained while in college have changed how I view things and now former friends and I see the world and therefore our places in it very differently. With that said, I present to you the following three situations.

Ummm...Is that Syphillis?

So there is one friend that I hadn't seen since I've been home (almost 5 months). Supposedly, he and I were close, yet he had been unable to make time to see me. He spent his time, instead, with this guy or that guy and actually cancelled on me once because he was at a nigga's house. So, long story short, I was quite done with that situation, but he decided that he would do better and make a concerted effort to see me. (Hooray for me...*vomits*) So he comes by last week. We hug, as we do usually, and sit down to watch television. Back in the day, he and I had a romp or two, so the possibility of that happening this day was there in theory. However, I wasn't necessarily looking for that nor did I have any real intention of it happening. But before I knew it, he was trying to lay up on me.

But quickly...I got my confirmation that nothing could, should, or would go down this night. His hair looked odd...thinner than usual in some places...almost like patches had fallen out. A bit odd, right? And my first thought was "This motherfucker has syphillis." But that could've been anything, so said, "I'll look at his hands. If they are dry and spotted, he definitely has it. If not, he probably doesn't." Well....he did. And it took everything in me not to get offended. Nigga, you have syphallis yet you are trying to be all laid up with me. Even worse, you have the nerve to start touching my leg as if you're going to touch my dick. Come on, man. We are better than that. Spreading STD's is not cool, particularly when you have CLEAR signs. This isn't like someone having an STD that is lying dormant and they accidentally pass it on. This is an STD in stage 2 and you are trying to lay up with me.

Now this definitely annoyed me because it put my health at risk. But, more important to my point, when did we become sexually reckless? Contracting an STD is bad. However, people make mistakes. People close to me have made the mistake and I don't think they are bad people. However, regular testing for STD's is a necessity and checking out any odd body changes is surely part of the lifestyle when you are sexually active [particularly if you don't know the STD status of your partner(s)], and the fact that he could've given me an STD because of his own negligence scares me and makes me wonder if we really view sexual health and the responsibilities that accompany physical intimacy in the same way.

Christians

I grew up in the Black Church. Originally, I was a Baptist. Then I attended some cultish charismatic church for a few years, and then I found myself in the Church of God in Christ. Going point by point through the hypocrisies and psychoses inherent in each would be more writing than I am willing to do at this moment, but suffice it to say that I saw my fair share of moral superiority, hate-filled rhetoric, and small-mindedness. And, in that time, I made some friends who were brainwashed into this sort of thinking...the sort of thinking that decries White racism but looks past Black racism, the sort of thinking that sees fault in lying and fornication but advocates hatred and looks past violence against homosexuals, or even the kind of thinking that blames gays and other sinners for the downfall of America.

So, anyway, being around these people is increasingly difficult given the fact that I've been exposed to people who think much differently, people who are much more concerned with what one is doing to better himself than how similar one is to him/herself (though I have found my fair share of intelligent people who fall prey to the same pitfalls). I find it so difficult to sit around these people as they spout shit they haven't put any real thought into and simply regurgitate what this person or that person has told them. I was never really able to think like they do, but now I can barely even stand to be around them when they start to speak.

Moral Differences

There are certain things I don't believe in, because of my commitment to the equal and just treatment of people. I believe in forthright communication, honest interactions, and many other ideals which seem odd in our culture of deception and semblances of the truth. Therefore, I have a serious problem maintaining friendships with people who are dishonest or deceptive. More to the point, I find it difficult to be friends with people who mistreat their romantic partners (e.g. cheating, lying, etc.). For many people, this isn't sufficient cause to end a friendship, but how can you trust someone who cannot be honest/decent with someone they claim to love? Feel me?

Focus

So I'm applying to grad programs, which means that I need to clarify for these people what I want to do and what interests me. Therein lies a major problem. In graduate school, you are generally paired with a professor, and, more often than not, you two should have similar interests so the professor can be of a substantial help to you in your research (and vice versa). However, the majority of my interests fall outside of the normal range of interests. I could study how race affects clinical diagnoses, but do I really give much of a damn about that? Maybe I could study how societal constructs of normative behavior affect diagnoses cross-culturally. This is particularly interesting to me, given the former classification of homosexuality and current classfication of transgender identity as psychological conditions in the DSM-IV, but I guess I could also look at the differences in psychotic diagnoses in the context of certain religious practices. I don't know though, because I really want to study the effect of perceived homophobia on rates of depression in black gay male adolescents, but it's difficult to find a professor at a notable university who does such research, cares to be involved with such research, or is willing to help with such work. Sigh, I don't know.

7 Days Late

Sunday Night
So the plan was actually to write this Sunday night/Monday morning, but better late than never...I think. LOL. So yeah, Sunday night was turning into a typical boring night. I was chilling, talking to the annoying guy I'd like to be free of when my ex called me on my cell. So I picked up and I could tell he was kinda down. I proposed we go out and do something, because I knew he could use the company and I could use the escape from my house. It was such an emotional shift, going from talking to the annoying guy to my ex. With the annoying guy, I kinda just sit on the phone as he talks about himself and whines about my refusal to play into his self-congratulatory rants. But when my ex called, I was genuinely happy to hear from him and we made plans to hit up BoysTown.

So, after I end the call, I go back to the other call and the guy says "Oh, so you and your man going out tonight? I don't want to impede your good time." Mofucka please! 1. That whole "your man" business is hella childish. Don't try to tell me what the relationship is between me and someone else, because you aren't getting what you want out of me. I'm sorry that you are emotionally void and therefore uninteresting and someone else actually has a personality and a heart. 2. You coulnd't impede my time if you wanted to. I'm notorious for ending calls and subsequently turning my cell phone off.

Anyway, I quickly ended that call, so I could freshen up and make myself presentable for some time in the gayborhood. My ex was teally going thru it apparently. He was going thru some things or, probably more accurately, ending some things with a person he had been involved with. So things were somewhat tense initially, but he can't keep that up with me. Our bond is one that makes both of us happy, so 15 minutes into the trip, we were laughing and smiling as usual. We hit up the IHOP on N. Halsted ("the gay IHOP") and did a combination of enjoying the fuck out of our meals (pumpkin pancakes for me and banana cheesecake for him) and people-watching. We had a really good time and I was especially happy to see him happy. The trip home was faster than I would have preferred, but it's cool. We still had an amazing time. MUCH better than sitting on the phone and someone talks about how great he thinks he is.

Another Ex
In March 05, I met a really cool dude that I was really feeling. Light skinned, 5'9, amazing body, beautiful smile, trained tenor voice, plans to teach music, amazing kisser. Anyway, we liked each other, but we couldn't date, because he wasn't over his ex. Fast forward to the present and they are living together. Things are going moderately well for them, but it's a relationship so things go wrong from time to time. Anyway, I was talking to the guy and we just really started to talk about the joy that can come from a truly honest and giving relationship. Before I knew it, he was on the brink of tears and it was really a reassurance that I am the sort of man I had believed and it really reinforced that a good man can be appreciated. :-D And that made me smile.

...Fresh in from Church

So...I'm just getting home from church. And, while I was there, I remembered why I used to avoid the place. And, no, I wasn't afraid of condemnation and I wasn't afraid that somebody might know that I dealt with men. I wasn't tired of the old church ladies talking to me like they didn't have any good sense. But the thing that made me very wary about going into the church was...church boys. And I'm referring to two specific sorts.

First, you have the guys who have been in the church for God-knows-how-long and they managed to sneak under the radar. So now they are free to do their dirt because everyone knows Brother So-and-So is saved. They may be on the praise team or part of the band (as they usually are) or they may even be a minister now, but you know that they are freaks on the low. These guys are always loved by the pastor and ministers. They are held in the highest esteem by the congregation at large. They are usually fairly attractive and well-built. They have dated or may be currently dating one of the pretty saved girls, but you ran across them one time in the gay chat on BlackPlanet and they've been trying to serve you dick/ass ever since. Or worse, if you grew up in the church, they tried something with you once when you shared a room at the regional church conference. But, at the end of the day, they are wayyyy to confused about their sexuality for you to consider anything long-term with them.

Second, you have these really sexy guys who are also really devoted to the ministry. They are the right hand men to the ministers, but they are so fucking sexy. Dark, beautiful eyes. Smooth skin. Full lips. Bubble butts. But they are the emissaries of God, so lusting for them is REALLY bad. And, if you do manage to get one, you have pissed off God and that's never a good idea.

Oh, church boys, why do you taunt me?