Least Gay Great Day Ever

Whenever Vancouver Men’s Chorus stalwart Len Cousineau delivers the announcements at intermission, he begins by telling the crowd “You are the Best AUDIENCE EVER!” 

Over the years I’ve heard numerous other people try versions of the same schtick. No one pulls it off like Lenny. You hear it, and you believe it – because you’re convinced Lenny believes it, too. 

Every performance gets the same treatment. Regardless of the artistic or technical fiascos that occurred in the first act, and no matter how catatonic the audience seems so far, we all believe today’s performance still might turn out to be Vancouver Men’s Chorus’ best ever. Really. Lenny – and therefore the chorus and the audience, too – remain supremely confident that somehow tonight’s magic can pull it off once again.

The Peace Arch border crossing between Washington and British Columbia is closed for the first time since 1814. Vancouver Men’s Chorus cancelled all our performances and rehearsals for the foreseeable future. Wednesday’s weekly Showtunes Night in Canada is also on indefinite hiatus. Meanwhile, I’m trapped in the wrong country with three kids, two dogs, and no school. Obviously I’m going through withdrawal. 

It’s not just me. The rest of the men of VMC have similar chorus-sized holes in their lives. All of us miss the music and the hugs. (Even the introverts in VMC are huggers. It’s weird.) Increasingly desperate for a big gay fix, we’ve started Zoom meeting online on Wednesday nights at our regular rehearsal time – just so we can hear a few boring administrative announcements, then sing a shockingly atonal “Happy Birthday” to all the guys with birthdays this week.  

The coronavirus pandemic leaves huge holes in everyone’s lives. We’re filling them with old and new vices like Doritos, alcohol, and Tiger King episodes. All of us who thought we’d whipped our iPhone addictions are again wallowing in a sea of indignant anti-Trump editorials and BuzzFeed personality quizzes. 

Last week someone in the chorus challenged us on Facebook to identify something positive from the quarantine experience. I found myself grasping at straws. Does the cheapest unleaded gas price in decades mean we’ve reversed climate change? Were both of the new Star Trek television programs truly bingeworthy? Do I really need this much quality time with all three of my children, and both dogs? Will you be allowed to have favorites in an actual Zombie Apocalypse?

Then I read about the perilously low blood supply. After three decades of homophobia and bad science, coronavirus desperation finally loosened the FDA’s irrational ban on gay blood donors. It’s been four weeks since I was trapped with my children fulltime as a result of the closure of the schools, border, businesses, etc. I’m looking forward to becoming a first-time blood donor very soon. 

FDA reduces one-year celibacy requirement 

for gay and bi men to donate blood to three months....

Any challenge to identify the best impacts of coronavirus quickly turns my thoughts to the pandemic’s worst consequences. Not that I’m a pessimist – it’s just that there are so many more bad consequences to choose from.

Right now my worst-impact vote goes to my seething frustration with how quickly everything unravelled. As I wrote in my previous Rock Bottom essay, “Better-Ish,” on a personal level at least, things finally seemed to be going well in 2020. After several terrible years in a row, all the important stuff in my life was going better. I was doing better.

Now lots of new and old stuff aren’t going well at all. My rage is prepared to combust at any moment. But I can handle it. Because I was doing better.

Every gay man from my generation bears the scars of AIDS. In an eerily prescient burst of inspiration, I took a break from writing about kids, brains, and dishonest lawyers in January, and for the first time wrote about the experience of coming out of the closet into a world dominated by AIDS. As I wrote in “Avoidant,”

I’ve never endured physical or sexual abuse, war, or a serious accident. Instead, like too many other sensitive Mormon youths, I was the victim of emotional abuse from a pervasively homophobic and authoritarian message that denied our very existence. Those unhealed wounds reopened thirty years later, when I experienced “unrighteous dominion” at the hands of ignorant employers and dishonest bureaucrats.

But there’s a sixth common cause of PTSD:  “Witnessing/Experiencing a Mass Disaster.” A big gay mass disaster, which resonated with and amplified the horror of the closet. 

Now we’re all living through the stress of a “Mass Disaster.” Not everyone emerges from war, abuse, disaster, or other traumas debilitated by PTSD. But for some unknown percentage of us, our traumatic experiences during the coronavirus pandemic will result in lifelong wounds.

In the meantime, everyone must endure continuing major stress. Human brains “react in predictable ways in unpredictable situations.” For example, stress can make us scatterbrained. Many people have weird dreams. But we all respond as individuals:  even in the small sample of our household, I’ve observed certain of us sleeping, exercising, reading, or eating more than usual, even as other family members sleep, exercise, read, or eat less. 

Even though I’m a stress-and-trauma veteran, life has been a struggle lately. Some of my most effective coping strategies remain unavailable to me, such as hugging Vancouver and Vancouver Men’s Chorus. Ordinarily my adorable children are an asset; when they remain in my hair full time, the kids frequently become liabilities instead. Meanwhile, my feverish attempts to impose order on chaos have only made things worse.

Eventually I stopped fighting. Frankly the house feels less crowded when half of us get up by 7 am, and the other half get up at noon. I’ve also accepted that true “home schooling” only works for anti-vaxxer fundamentalists. The arrival of spring helped, although Bear and I are wearing out Buster with our long mindful walks. (Buster is an overheating fur ball who thinks dog grooming should be considered an “essential service.”) 

It took a few weeks to get here, but last Friday we finally had a Great Day. I did what I could, and endured everything else with my family and a smile. I finished a blog post, plus some other legal and nonlegal writing. The dogs and I frolicked in our favorite parks. I read a book and stared at screens in appropriate ratios. I took a shower, even though I didn’t need it. The whole family made it outside with minimal wailing and gnashing of teeth. Back indoors, we tidied the living room before watching the new Pixar movie Onward. 

I even got some good news. A couple of weeks ago I published a blog post, “Have Fun!,” about how my Mormon mission started with traumatic drama. My friend Todd was sent home from our mission in disgrace when an overzealous BYU sanitation employee found incriminating letters in a garbage can from Todd’s secret gay lover.

Decades later, “Have Fun!” concluded with a happy gay ending:

A few years ago, I got an email out of the blue from Todd. I was still a frustrated lawyer/single dad in Seattle. Todd revealed that after facing a few more challenges in his twenties, he got his life back on track. Eventually Todd became a gay English professor. 

Damn. Isn’t that the definition of a happy ending?

I lost touch with Todd after moving to Bellingham and encountering mental illness, but I still had his email address. Because my blog post included preposterously gay photos from our youth, as a courtesy I forwarded him a link to the essay. Last Friday he responded with an email updating me on his life. Excellent news – Todd no longer is a gay English professor. Instead, he’s now a gay academic administrator. In my experience, that’s a huge demotion.

Quarantine still sucks. And life isn’t a competition. But if life were a competition, I’m back in the running.

A big part of my improved mental health in the last year came from transformations from a “fixed mindset” to a “growth mindset.” Being forced to deal with one disaster after another eventually taught me how to bounce back from repeated failure. 

So a big part of my frustration with pandemic living was the fact that the sheer suckiness of everything suddenly made it impossible to plausibly tell myself things will be getting better any time soon. However, on our walk last Friday I finally regained my ability to tell Bear and Buster, “yes we have lots of challenges, but today still could end up being the Best Day Ever.”

One more pandemic bummer:  I’m currently suffering from my worst bout of carpal tunnel and tennis elbow ever. I wish I could say it’s because I’ve been writing too much. Screen time on my computer is indeed up 685% over January. But phone usage is up an exponential 7,080,500%.  

So here’s one of the numerous handy BuzzFeed items I’ve run across: All The Disney Princes Ranked From Least Gay To Most Gay.  (at #10, “Aladdin is the Nick Jonas of Disney princes.”) Sadly, just about everything else in my life is less gay than ever. It’s like all the “gay” has disappeared from “Gay Sitcom Dad.”

Nevertheless, today still could be the Best Day Ever. If so, odds are today will also be the Least Gay Great Day Ever.

 
Previously in Rock Bottom Stories: “Better-Ish.”   Next: "I am Karen"

Click here for more entries from Roger’s Plague Journal

Do Gay Androids Dream of Electric Brunch?

Yesterday in “Artificial Emotional Intelligence,” I described how the intersection of social anxiety and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has resulted in a strange phenomenon:  in my memory, the images of most other gay guys I know are saved as something like cartoon Muppets. For example, the piano player at Showtunes Night looks like a non-green Kermit the Frog. 

To keep things interesting, my memories aren’t limited to fuzzy gay puppets. I get other fantastical creatures, too. One of the other Americans in Vancouver Men’s Chorus tends to be a bright blue Disney character, but with Frank’s Latin features and black glasses. Usually Frank resembles the Genie from Aladdin. Sometimes he’s more like Dory the fish.

Last Wednesday at Showtunes Night I ran into a Second Tenor I hadn’t seen since December. We’ll call him “Chard.” I barely recognized him – Chard got a fabulous new haircut while he was away visiting his family in China. (I told him the corresponding trim at Supercuts for straight eleven-year-olds on a budget is called “The Bart Simpson.”)

While I sat listening to songs by Gershwin and Sondheim, I observed Chard fiddling with his phone nearby. Interestingly, whenever I looked away he remained a real human in my mind. So I conducted an experiment. I closed my eyes for a few minutes, opening them briefly every twenty seconds. While my eyes were closed, I remembered an actual human face – but a different face each time. Every time I opened my eyes I thought, “Who’s that cute Asian guy? Oh, it’s just Chard.”

The Muppet-memory phenomenon mostly applies to gay guys I already know, such as the men of Vancouver Men’s Chorus and the other regulars at Showtunes Night. They give my subconscious something to work with in order to generate each image. In contrast, as I confessed in “Artificial Emotional Intelligence,” most gay strangers don’t look like cartoon Muppets in my memory. They’re human. But they all look the same.

However, last week I realized the buff bearded bartender at Pumpjack also appears to be an actual human being, even when he’s not in the room where I can see him. Because I’ve interacted with him every Wednesday for ages, my initial hypothesis was that he must be straight.

That left me confused. At least on a subconscious level, I have preternaturally accurate gaydar. I asked my friend Trish for her opinion. In my experience, nice straight girls who’ve hung out in musical theatre for too long either have infallibly protective gaydar, or they cluelessly fall in love with all the boys in the chorus. Trish said she assumed the bartender is gay. So we had one and an half votes against my heterosexual non-Muppet hypothesis.

As a parent, you’re not supposed to have a favourite child. To compensate, you can have other kinds of favourites. Everyone knows I prefer our dog Bear over the shaggier, fatter, and dumber Buster.

The singer in our section of Vancouver Men’s Chorus with my favourite voice is Zack. He’s also a talented musician. Zack arranged the Sinead O’Connor number for our June concert “R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Celebrating Women’s Music.” The Second Tenors have the best part in the song.

While chatting at Pumpjack last week about the upcoming concert, I realized that in my mind Zack is a human being rather than a Muppet – but he looks exactly like the similarly buff and bearded bartender who works on Showtunes Night. So do several other guys I know.

Apparently the kaleidoscope in my subconscious is convinced there’s an infinite number of cute gay Asian guys out there. But only one cute gay lumberjack.

More Showtune Night Stories:

"Missing Marie's Crisis" (5/6/17)

"Get Out and Stay Out" (10/18/17)

"Six Degrees of Kristin Chenoweth" (10/31/18)

"Comfort Animals" (4/24/19)

"I am Third" (5/29/19)

"Spongeworthy" (6/13/19)

"Maybe I Love Showtunes Too Much" (9/17/19)

"Artificial Emotional Intelligence" (2/25/20)

"A New Brain"  (5/5/20)

Artificial Emotional Intelligence

Four years ago, abusive treatment by the State of Washington and its tools triggered a debilitating case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Among other things, PTSD weirdly amplified many of the anxiety symptoms I’d successfully coped with for years. My insomnia and teeth-grinding intensified. My mild case of trichotillomania (compulsive hair-pulling) became a painful distraction that has only gotten worse over the years. 

When it came to social anxiety, PTSD had the effect of moving me several notches further away from “normal” on the autism spectrum, particularly in my interactions with other gay men. I’ve lost much of my already dubious ability to read ordinary social cues. Faces are a blank. Nowadays I can’t tell if someone is hitting on me, or challenging me to a duel.   

My Bellingham physician diagnosed me with PTSD in November 2015. I joined Vancouver Men’s Chorus two months later, just as my legal career was falling apart.

During my first six months in VMC, I was in such a state of shock that I was essentially catatonic. At break time I would either remain in my chair, or stand clutching a wall. VMC being VMC, and Canadians being Canadian, of course everyone was terribly nice. But I was completely paralyzed.

Gradually I got to know a few other Second Tenors. I also learned some simple coping mechanisms, many of them adapted from the experiences of people living with Aspergers Syndrome, like Temple Grandin and John Robison. For example, I generally only to talk to someone after he initiates the conversation.

After I’d been singing with VMC for a few months, I realized I hadn't become friends on Facebook with many guys from the chorus, because I couldn’t tell whether we had that kind of relationship. Then I figured out a trick:  I could draw rough comparisons between the folks I met in Vancouver and the guys I’d sung with for fifteen years in Seattle.   

Obviously Vancouver Second Tenor “Chris Lam” corresponds to Seattle Second Tenor “Christian Tam.” That’s easy. But I was also able to match each of the friendly bearish Baritones who sit on the far side of the room during VMC rehearsal with his counterpart across the room in Seattle Men’s Chorus.

After four years in VMC, I still can barely speak to most of the guys in the chorus. Although I’ve been single the whole time, I haven’t been on a date or kissed anyone from VMC. (TMI, but that may be ten times longer than any comparable period of drought while I was single and singing in Windy City Gay Chorus or Seattle Men’s Chorus.) By the way, Fabyo doesn’t count – he’s a Brazilian personal space invader, married, and kisses everyone. 

I do have a small quota of hugs available for special occasions. Actually I’ve made a lot of progress, particularly when social interactions occur in a comfortable setting or with the benefit of musical or chemical enhancement. However, I can’t talk to folks during break at rehearsal yet, other than briefly chatting with someone I already know well. But that’s because the snacks are served in a crowded room with low ceilings – the kind of noisy environment that immediately overwhelms me. 

Every time I think I’m getting better, I realize how far I still have to go.

Over Winter Break, I decided it was time to shave off the beard I’d worn since Labour Day. I wondered whether shaving would place me in a majority or minority of the chorus. Then I had a startling realization – after a few weeks without seeing them, I couldn’t remember what most of the VMC guys look like with enough level of detail to determine whether they have facial hair.

I’ve written before about the quirkiness of the human brain’s ability to retain and process visual memories. As I slowly emerge from the fog of PTSD, the vague blur of gay faces has reached the point where, in my memory at least, everyone in VMC looks like a cartoon Muppet.

Most of the guys are very individualized Muppets or similar cartoon creatures, reflecting my subconscious’ weirdly filtered perception of their actual personality and appearance. I know my contemporary John has a beard, because in my mind he looks sorta like Groundskeeper Willie from The Simpsons, with a kilt and a wild white mane. Conversely, I know young Dawson is clean shaven, because he’s a Hummel figurine with alabaster skin and hand-painted rosy cheeks. With most other guys in the chorus, however, I’m left with a vague impression they could be either a smooth Muppet or one with tastefully trimmed gay facial hair. 

To test the phenomenon, I took a chorus roster and tried to quiz myself – shaved or unshaven? When I got to rehearsal and compared my results with the real live men of Vancouver Men’s Chorus, I realized I might as well have flipped a coin. 

Perhaps it was the showtunes, or the medicinal ginger hard cider, but the gay Muppet effect was particularly intense when I went out to the pub after VMC rehearsal two weeks ago. Throughout the evening, my friend Trish would gleefully listen as I closed my eyes and described what I was seeing:

·         Sean, the piano player, resembled a non-green version of Kermit the Frog.

·         One of the tenors was Freddy from Scooby Doo, ascot and all. By last call he was still Freddy, but drawn in anime style.

·         During the evening Trish introduced me to one of her friends I’d seen at the bar before. After he left, all that remained in my memory was a pair of clunky cartoon glasses.

·         Yogi was made of dough, like the dutiful son in the Pixar short “Bao.”

·         Luke looked like The Count from Sesame Street, but with glasses and in a tan colour palette. I’m not sure whether Luke has facial hair – I’ll have to check next week.

Back at Pumpjack the following Wednesday, I focused on the men who weren’t cartoon Muppets. I deduced that the phenomenon mostly applies to gay guys I already know, because they give my subconscious something to work with as it generates each image. (If I force the mental process, everyone becomes a faceless pastel drawing. If I really force it, they become stick figures.)

During the evening I noticed a cute gay couple at a table across the room. Even with my eyes closed they looked like human beings. Later their cute friend came and joined them. Also human. Then I noticed the same cute couple was sitting at a neighboring table. Later the same cute friend joined them. Soon all six cute gay guys started chatting with each other. Some had hoodies, some had black-framed nerd glasses. Whatever – apparently cute gay strangers are human but interchangeable.

Many of VMC’s cartoon Muppets are cute too. Which led to this horrifying revelation: either way, unless a cute gay guy is standing in my physical presence, in direct lighting, with my eyes open, I can’t tell you what he actually looks like.

After four years of PTSD-amplified social anxiety, I continue to figure out life hacks. Recently I realized the gay Muppet effect only applies to still photos, not to mental video footage. If I try to remember what a guy looked like while I observed him doing something, he’s blurry but human. Meanwhile, if I recall a specific photograph of him from Facebook, my brain applies something like an Instagram filter – rendering him as a Flemish oil painting, or in stained glass, or as a psychedelic poster. This allows me to triangulate enough data to generate a useful composite image. Now I can almost tell the bearish Baritones apart, even when I’m not over on their side of the room. 

Overall, my mental health is slowly improving. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to endure the noise enough to join the rest of VMC for snacks and conversation at rehearsal break. I’ll know whether someone is challenging me to a duel. Maybe someday I’ll meet a cute guy for coffee. Maybe I’ll even remember what he looks like. 

But I’ll miss closing my eyes and listening as Kermit the Frog plays the piano and sings Billy Joel songs on Wednesday nights.

Up tomorrow:  Do Gay Androids Dream of Electric Brunch?

More Showtune Night Stories:

"Missing Marie's Crisis" (5/6/17)

"Get Out and Stay Out" (10/18/17)

"Six Degrees of Kristin Chenoweth" (10/31/18)

"Comfort Animals" (4/24/19)

"I am Third" (5/29/19)

"Spongeworthy" (6/13/19)

"Maybe I Love Showtunes Too Much" (9/17/19)

"Do Gay Androids Dream of Electric Brunch?" (2/26/20)

"A New Brain"  (5/5/20)

After the Fall

Photo: Dee Pool

After my recent post “OK Boomer,” I was accused once again of being too harsh on members of the Baby Boom generation. [Ed. Note: As if that were possible.]

I want to make it clear that I don’t blame the gay Baby Boomer cohort for destroying the planet and my dreams. That was their straight male Republican brothers. Some of my best friends are Boomers. For example, I sit next to some perfectly nice Baby Boomers during chorus rehearsal.

Nevertheless, as I suggested in “OK Boomer,” I have a complicated relationship with the gay Boomers. Trust me, it’s not a sexual thing. The only Boomer I ever dated was a girl. (That’s what we called women back in the 80s. At least in Utah.) 

It’s not me, it’s you. 

Michelangelo (1511)

Exactly what kind of relationship do I have to the Boomers? I figured it out when I was 

doing theatre in Utah at Palace Playhouse and the Hale Center Theatre:  I’m doomed 

to be type-cast as the Baby Boomers' nerdy gay little brother. 

Remember, however, I’m also an eldest child. I have three younger, quintessentially Generation X brothers. This whole “kid brother” relationship with the Boomers messes with my wiring.

Thomas Cole (1828)

Being born in 1964 actually makes me part of a power cohort of Gen X icons:  Michelle Obama, Laura Linney, Janeane Garofalo, Courtney Love, Lisa Simpson, Keanu Reeves, Matt Dillon, Jeff Bezos, Rob Lowe, Joss Whedon, Lenny Kravitz, Stephen Colbert, and my fellow Utah Mormon L’Wren Scott. Plus sardonic gay writers Dan Savage, David Rackoff, and Bret Easton Ellis.

Maybe we didn’t have the same shot at paradise as the Baby Boomers. But we got a great view.

Salt Lake Temple Garden Room (1892)

This month I read in the college alumni magazine that my first English professor died. Karen Lynn Davidson was also the director of BYU’s Honor’s Program. She was a quietly feminist role model in a patriarchal desert. I still rely on the literary tools she taught me in her introductory criticism seminar. And I can still recite from memory much of the poetry we studied. Like this sonnet by Robert Frost:

He would declare and could himself believe
That the birds there in all the garden round
From having heard the daylong voice of Eve
Had added to their own an oversound,
Her tone of meaning but without the words....

Never again would birds’ song be the same.
And to do that to birds was why she came. 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that singing in a choir is good for your health. Especially for gay men. Not only do we desperately need a welcoming community after escaping from our families of origin, but everyone also knows we’re musically inclined. 

In Fall 1978, several gay men in San Francisco posted flyers around the Castro inviting folks to join in organizing a chorus. In response, one hundred men showed up at a middle school gym on the night before Halloween. They enjoyed fellowship and sang songs including “If They Could See Me Now” and “Stouthearted Men.” On the day of their fourth rehearsal, openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk was assassinated. The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus made its public debut that night when they sang at the spontaneous candlelight vigil at City Hall. [Ed. Note: This paragraph foreshadows and encapsulates four subsequent decades of LGBT choral history.]

In 1981, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus went on an eye-opening national tour. Seeing SFGMC perform inspired the formation of gay choruses in numerous cities, including Chicago, Seattle, and Vancouver. 

Windy City Gay Chorus, GALA Festival 1996

In 1995, I moved from Seattle to Chicago to take a job as Director of the ACLU’s AIDS & Civil Liberties/LGBT Rights Project. I immediately found a welcoming community by joining then-fourteen-year old Windy City Gay Chorus.

I was part of the choir’s second generation. Quite literally – the organization had just acrimoniously parted ways with its founding artistic director, so I began singing with WCGC the same year its young new conductor took the baton. 

During my five years with WCGC, we traveled to Tampa, San Jose, Indianapolis, and Wisconsin. We regularly sang at memorials services for each other. However, with the arrival of protease inhibitors and combination therapy, AIDS became a longterm diagnosis for many patients. HIV began to fade from view.

Seattle Men's Chorus singing “Happy Birthday”

 to Debbie Reynolds on her 77th birthday (2009)

Although I’d already been an audience member and supporter of Seattle Men’s Chorus for over a decade, I didn’t begin singing with SMC until I returned from Chicago in 2000. 

By then, the Chorus was both a beloved community institution and a well-oiled arts machine. We regularly sold out Benaroya Hall and the opera house. We sang with artists like Kristin Chenoweth, Debbie Reynolds, Tituss Burgess, and Frederica Von Stade. We performed in Montreal, Berlin, and Yellowstone National Park. 

While I was in Seattle Men’s Chorus, we regularly wore red ribbons, and we displayed the SMC AIDS memorial quilt in the lobby. Occasionally the chorus sang at memorial services, or reminded the audience and each other that HIV was still here. But what I remember instead from those years is the wide variety of other issues that raised our voices:  queer youth, marriage equality, mental health, sexism, bullying, anti-discrimination protections, trans rights, and the worth of all families.

Vancouver Men’s Chorus (early 1980s)

This is an early photo of Vancouver Men’s Chorus. Or, as we call that bygone disco era, the “Vancouver Mustache Chorus.”

The year I moved to Bellingham, Dennis Coleman finally retired after conducting Seattle Men’s Chorus since 1981. Dennis’ departure made VMC founder Willi Zwozdesky the longest serving conductor in the gay choral movement. When I joined VMC, I told Willi he had to stick around for another fifteen years to keep me company, just like Dennis had. Eleven more years to go.

Like its Seattle counterpart, Vancouver Men’s Chorus combines a vibrant gay community with a successful arts organization. An increasingly diverse array of gay men fills the risers, including a bevy of young gay boys who marvel at their elders’ stories. We are all witnesses and survivors.

VMC recently learned of the deaths of two veteran members of the chorus. In contrast with the plague era, we gather to remember our brothers’ lives with joy and sadness, not terror and rage. 

Vancouver Men's Chorus (2018)

Like the Baby Boomers, my generation of gay men remembers a world where HIV was an automatic death sentence. Unlike the Boomers, my generation came out into a world where we knew AIDS was already waiting to kill us.

I’ve never been jealous of the Boomers for their prelapsarian paradise of free love and sexual liberation. I already know what hedonism looks like. Instead, I wonder what it would have been like to show up for rehearsal with a newly-organized San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, or Windy City Gay Chorus, or Seattle Men’s Chorus, or Vancouver Men’s Chorus – to build a gay community with no plague on the horizon. I wish I could remember singing together before all those memorial services for ravaged young gay men. 

That’s the real reason I envy my gay Baby Boomer brothers: I never got to grow an innocent gay mustache.

Previously in “AIDS is Not a Picnic”:  “Set Theory”

Next:  “Avoidant”

Set Theory

Everything I ever needed to know I learned from Anne of Green Gables.

Of course, the question is which Anne of Green Gables – the original novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery? Or the classic CBC miniseries from the 1980s that I’ve already gushed over?

For example, in the television show Anne’s delightful schoolteacher mentor Miss Stacy is the one who delivers this inspirational line:

“Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it... well with no mistakes in it yet.”

In the 1908 novel, however, the corresponding dialogue actually occurs after Anne serves a fresh-baked cake to the new minister’s wife. Anne accidentally replaces the vanilla called for in the recipe with arthritis rub. 

Even though the scene isn’t in the television series, when I run the dialogue in my head I nevertheless hear Megan Follows playing Anne and Colleen Dewhurst as foster-spinster Marilla:

“Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?"

“I’ll warrant you’ll make plenty in it,” said Marilla. “I never saw your beat for making mistakes, Anne.”

“Yes, and well I know it,” admitted Anne mournfully. “But have you ever noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same mistake twice.”

“I don’t know as that’s much benefit when you’re always making new ones.”

“Oh, don't you see, Marilla? There must be a limit to the mistakes one person can make, and when I get to the end of them, then I’ll be through with them. That’s a very comforting thought.”

Like classic children’s literature, the sporting world provides a variety of mixable metaphor alternatives. When do our missteps haunt us forever? Or when can we cut our losses, close the books, and make a fresh start? 

In most ball games, like basketball and football, scoring is cumulative. When you’re down 50 points at halftime, they still make you slog through and finish the game – even when everyone knows you’re never going to catch up. This is one of the many non-gay reasons I abandoned Little League and turned to the theater at a young age.

On the other hand, sports like tennis offer a stark contrast to cumulative-scoring ballgames. 

A tennis player who wins a substantial majority of individual games or even most of the individual points can nevertheless lose the match. Regardless of whether the score is 6-0 or 7-6 with a three-hour tiebreaker, all that counts is the up or down thumb at the end of each set. That's the elegance of Set Theory for English Majors.

This week a friend noticed I’d been writing about AIDS and HIV, and asked what today’s blog essay would be about. I realized the answer was simple:  it was time to come out as HIV negative.  

I became an activist in an era when HIV was associated with brutal medical outcomes, horrific discrimination, and crushing stigma. I don’t think I’ve internalized that hostility myself. To the contrary, I’ve always been surrounded by friends on both sides of the HIV divide, regardless of where we landed by “luck or circumstances,” as David France puts it in How to Survive a Plague. I’ve dated men with either sero-status. I am always honest. But I seldom discuss HIV publicly, mostly because I’m burned out. Plus I’m actually quite shy. (Strangers reading this blog might be surprised by this assertion.)

One of the overarching themes of my writing is the tyranny of the closet – regardless of whether unhealthy secrecy involves sexual orientation, mental health, or other important aspects of one’s identity. Various recent experiences have chipped away at another layer of writer’s block. So when I was inspired to write about AIDS, I knew I couldn’t approach the truth without addressing this particular issue.

Once in a while, life offers you a new beginning. You can fake your death, transition genders, or join the French Foreign Legion. Bankruptcy lawyers like Nevada’s “Fresh Start Law Firm” can help you crawl out from under a hopeless mountain of debt. Perhaps this is the year when Valentine’s Day or the arrival of spring will usher in your personal season of renewal.

In my gay life, the most vivid experience of closing the books has come from regular and sometimes irregular HIV testing. As I recently wrote in “OK Boomer,” my generation of gay men was the first to come out into a world where we knew AIDS was waiting to kill us. We were years away from an effective treatment for the virus. Untreatable opportunistic infections still ravaged weakened immune systems. All we had was a primitive blood test for HIV antibodies, an inexhaustible supply of condoms, and a deafening safer sex message.

I got my first HIV test in the late 1980s, at a public health office in New Haven, Connecticut. I still hadn’t had “sex” yet (at least as the word would be used by a gay male epidemiologist, then or now). But I was very earnest, the counselor was very polite, and none of us knew very much about how the HIV virus works. 

Back then they sent your blood sample out to a laboratory, which added two or three weeks to the process. Half of the people who chose to test anonymously never returned for their results.

My most remarkable HIV testing experience occurred in Chicago in the mid-90s. Three weeks after getting tested at Howard Brown Health Center, I received the result:  “indeterminate.” At the time, that essentially meant a 50/50 chance of either a recent HIV infection, or a lab error. The “expedited” follow-up test involved a mere 48-hour wait. Interestingly, during those two days I experienced all the nasty flu-like symptoms that most patients get when they seroconvert. My symptoms disappeared as soon as I got the reassuring results. Hmm, perhaps my melodramatic hypochondriac daughter has inherited something from her father after all – a heightened placebo effect.

Nowadays my Bellingham physician Dr. Heuristic usually just includes an HIV test as part of my routine bloodwork. But I prefer to also make an appointment with the excellent STI folks at Seattle’s Gay City. As soon as you arrive, the punk receptionist sends you to a interactive computer terminal. You get to answer nonjudgmental questions about what you’ve been doing since your last visit. (Try not to fudge your numbers too much, it messes with their statistics.) I usually get the same experienced counselor. We chat about life, then take some samples. He puts a drop of my blood into the well of the plastic rapid test device. We watch together for the unsurprising but nevertheless reassuring result. 

I’ve never been Catholic. But every time I walk out of Gay City to finish the rest of my Seattle errands, I feel like I’ve been to Confession. And received gay Absolution. 

Previously: “A Lifelong AIDS Walk and Picnic”

Next: “After the Fall”