Out of the Locker Room, Out of the Closet

I read this morning that ex-Utah Jazz play John Amaechi has come out of the closet. That's some pretty cool news.

What's sad is that he is only the sixth former professional male athlete to do so, and that he still continues the trend that only former professional athletes feel comfortable acknowledging their homosexuality to their teammates.

Reading through the article, it's clear that all the interviews are meant to reflect a "eh, it's no big deal", laissez-faire, live-and-let-live attitude on the part of the reacting players. But I don't think it worked.

Check out Michael Wilborn's take on the reactions of other basketball players. I think he's got some great points. If I can, I'd like to try to add to them:

While LeBron James's response is spun as a trust issue, he places the burden squarely upon the wrong shoulders. Says James:

With teammates you have to be trustworthy, and if you're gay and you're not admitting that you are, then you are not trustworthy. So that's like the No. 1 thing as teammates -- we all trust each other. You've heard of the in-room, locker room code. What happens in the locker room stays in there. It's a trust factor, honestly. A big trust factor.

Wow. James does a great job of blaming-the-homo there. "I can't trust you if you're hiding something like that from me," he effectively says. Never mind that it's wholly unclear whether Amaechi could have trusted him (or any other player) to not let any prejudices interfere with the game upon such a revelation. (I speak as if they were on the same team; it's just easier that way. I'm referring to any hypothetical gay player on the same team as James.)

And why would any pro player think that it wouldn't change the dynamic and affect the game and the team? Shavik Rudolph's comment -- "As long as you don't bring your gayness on me I'm fine" -- may seem innocuous, but buried in that comment is a mistrust in and of itself. What, precisely, constitutes "bring[ing] your gayness on" someone else? The mind boggles at all the tiny little things that Amaechi would do from then on which would be tagged as "bring[ing] your gayness on" him. And the "awkwardness" in the locker room? That's your problem, not his.

Comments like this are rooted in the popular misconception that gay men will screw anything with a penis between their legs. Get over yourself, Rudolph. You ain't that hot. I wouldn't do you. I have no sexual desire for you whatsoever. There, does that help alleviate the awkwardness in the locker room?*

By the way, thought patterns like that have also generally formed the basis for many a hate-crime. Remember Matthew Shepard and the "gay panic" defense? Quick refresher: "Gay panic" is a "defense" (I use the term loosely) against hate crimes that says, basically, "the defendant did what he did because a gay guy may have hit on him, and he's not gay." (I say "may have" because sometimes it's based the mere perception of being hit on. "The faggot looked at me the wrong way, so I beat him up.") Yeah. So when Rudolph is saying to keep your "gayness" away from him -- well, it's just puts the edge on. Watch your step, Gay Man, because everything you do from now on will be filtered through the "You're Gay" lens.

Besides, if someone were to keep their "gayness" to themselves, what the hell is the point of coming out of the closet at all? Would this mean that Amaechi wouldn't even be permitted to talk about his dating life in the locker room? I can imagine the conversation:

"What are you doing tonight?"
"Nothing, me and my boy are just chilling at home."
"Dude, why'd you have to mention 'your boy'? Don't go bringing your gayness on me!"

If that's the case, hell, it might be easier just staying closeted.

And what's up with Steven Hunter's comments?:

As long as he don't make any advances toward me I'm fine with it. As long as he came to play basketball like a man and conducted himself like a good person, I'd be fine with it."

Okay, I've already addressed the whole "don't make any advances toward me" line of "reasoning." (By the way, you ain't all that either, Hunter.) Your criterion is that he play basketball "like a man"? What, because gay men are sissy queens?** Here's a hint: a really good trey usually requires a limp wrist. Look at your hand after you've tossed your last free throw. You'll see what I mean. Besides, if you're worried about someone prancing around the court in high heels and a dress, you needn't -- the NBA actually does have some standards in terms of ability to play.

And "conducting yourself like a good person" is, I would hope, a standard you attribute to all players, not just the gay ones. And yet it doesn't appear that you've bent over backward to condemn any of your fellow players who have had repeated run-ins with the law, nor have you really said much about on-court bench-clearing scuffles that involve sucker-punches.

Orlando's Grant Hill probably had the best response, recognizing the significance of Amaechi's decision and reflecting on its impact: "The fact that John has done this, maybe it will give others the comfort or confidence to come out as well, whether they are playing or retiring."

* Comments like this echo the military's "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" policy, which suggests that openly gay people can't effectively serve in the armed forces because it would affect morale. Again, though, the burden is placed on the homosexual: stay in the closet, because we can't expect your colleagues to get over their irrational prejudices and we'd just as soon let them cling to those prejudices than let you serve openly as any other soldier would.

** Though I have to admit that, if the straight world's knowledge of gay life is limited to what they see during news coverage of gay pride parades, I can somewhat understand this unfortunate stereotype.

Not So Smart.

So I had Jeopardy! on in the background tonight -- well, the first part of it, the part that comes before the lame contestant interviews -- and I found myself answering a bunch of the questions. Wow, I thought, this is easy. I can be on this show.

Then I realized they're in the middle of the Teen Tournament, and suddenly I felt all stupid again.

He Also Had Perfect SAT Scores.

I was sitting around at Caribou Coffee this afternoon, reading and listening to my jukie (read: people watching and looking for cute boys). Even though there was music being piped directly into my ears, I could totally overhear the conversation taking place two tables away from me. Evidently, it was a college interview: sprite, peppy, cute little 17 year old was busy telling a nice young professional woman about his interests and goals so that the nice young professional woman could decide whether he and Princeton University were a nice fit. (Yeah, I really did hear quite a bit.)

The nice young man was, of course, quite academically talented, with his interests skewed toward science. Advanced education was definitely in his future -- like, an M.D. or a Ph.D. -- in a science-related field.

Then the following exchange took place:

Lady: So tell me more about your coursework and your interests.
Kid: Well, while I'm interested in science, I like to keep myself well-rounded, so I take a variety of classes [couldn't hear rest of this sentence, but I presume it was the standard bullshit about "I'm totally well-rounded and multidimensional and perfect and not a completely one-dimensional science geek" stuff]
Lady: Oh, well that's cool. What instrument do you play? [Okay, clearly he just mentioned his musical talents.]
Kid: Violin.
Lady: Of course. [Interview continues.]

Here's my question: Would the lady's "of course" have sounded just a little less racist if the high school kid wasn't a little Asian boy?

Rakes

I think poor Ken Jennings (well, okay, not so poor) got hosed on this one:



"Hosed" -- hey, that's an accidental pun on the garden implement theme.

Of course, the right answer naturally brings to mind this clip:



(Someone actually edited that -- there's not that many rakes in the real episode.)

** Speaking of the real episode, here's the real scene from the show. Actually much funnier in the original.

Hissy Fit

I had a minor hissy fit this weekend. Not that it was determinative of my actions, but I generally had unpleasant thoughts through much of Saturday night for it.

Scenario:

I texted* a friend of mine (let's call him "George") on Saturday afternoon -- around 2:00 -- to ask what he was up that evening. This is a pretty good friend of mine with whom I've hung out quite a bit in recent months.

I got a response from him about half an hour later: "Heading to a party with [new boyfriend] et al. Want to join?"

Needing some details, I texted back: "Hmmm. Whose party?" I didn't really want to just randomly show up at a party where I would know no one, after all. It's important to get a sense of who the host is.

Response: "Friends of [the new boyfriend]. [Three other friends of ours] are going too."

And that, for some reason, floored me. George had already asked three people to go with him to this party... and I was only getting invited to "join" because I happened to send the text asking about that night.

Only in small part due to the principle of the matter, I decided not to go to that party. First, it wasn't clear whose party it was, and I generally don't like being thrust into a party filled with strangers. But another part of me did think that I didn't particularly care to hang out with George if his inviting me was something of an afterthought. "Eh, I didn't think to call you, but if you want to come, sure, come along."

I'm sure this will all blow over soon enough, but for some reason, that whole confluence of events riled me. "Bill," one of the three mutual friends was WAS invited to go, actually called and texted me later to ask when I was heading over and if I wanted to share a cab. Afraid that I would bite his head off for no good reason, I declined to take the call or return the text, and just disappeared from the face of the planet for the night.

So in the end, I spent Saturday night alone in my apartment. Which was GREAT, by the way, because I managed to a HUGE slew of LONG-overdue cleaning. My kitchen is now amazing.

Now I just need to work on my bathroom, living room, and bedroom.

Then I might have a party and forget to invite George. Kidding!


* I actually can't stand that this is a verb now, and I'm not a fan of using it as a general mode of communication. However, I have given up and added a plan to my phone for text messaging because so damn many of my friends use it with alarming frequency.

WWW-What?

Random rant:

Why, oh why, is it that some websites will work ONLY if you type in the "www" in the first part of the address? Most competent, reputable websites will get to where you're going without the lead "www." Why can't they all do this?

Good Example: washingtonpost.com and www.washingtonpost.com both take you to the same place.

Bad Example: The District of Columbia bar's web page is at www.dcbar.org. But if, for whatever, reason, you don't type the "www", you get a missing page error.

Wassup widdat?

HRC 2008?

Hillary Clinton as formally announced her bid for the 2008 presidency.

If the Democratic party has any lick of sense whatsoever, she will not survive the primaries.

Don't get me wrong, I respect Senator Clinton and the work she's done, and I think she would make a fine president. And, of course, if she makes the ballot, it would take a miracle candidate to make me vote for a Republican over her.

But she's a lightning rod. Republicans hate her, and I don't just mean hate, I mean hate hate. I think it started when she had the audacity to step outside the traditional figurehead "First Lady" role (consisting of tackling some pet charity projects and looking pretty) and actually attempting to tackle some substantive issues like health care. Since her time living in the White House, she successfully moved to New York (making her something of a political carpetbagger) pretty much exclusively for the purpose of getting herself elected to Congress.

Remember how much Republicans hated former President Bill Clinton? It was pure vitriol. There was nothing President Clinton could do which didn't raise hackles with Republicans, which was particularly troubling when they controlled Congress. Do I even need to mention the impeachment again? Do I have to draw the comparison between impeachment for sexual encounters and impeachment for drumming up a phony war and causing the deaths of tens of thousands of people?

Hillary Clinton on the 2008 ballot would undoubtedly drive scores of Republicans to polls for the sole purpose of voting against her. Whatever divisions and disagreements may exist among Republicans right now, one thing will unite them: their blinding hatred of Senator Clinton. They will run straight to the polls to vote for "Anyone But Hillary." Even Republicans who might otherwise be tempted to stay at home due to their ambivalence over any Republican candidate would rush out there to keep Senator Clinton out of the White House.

Say, for example, John McCain made the ballot. It strikes me that Senator McCain has some liabilities which work against him; the core conservative Republican base may not be terribly happy with his "maverick" image (not that it's terribly accurate) or that he has been known to publicly drift away from the party line from time to time. With him on the ballot, Republicans may very well be tempted to skip the election completely: the logic being, the only thing he has going for him is the "R" after his name, and that's not enough to affirmatively vote for him.

But if his ticket is the only viable thing standing in the way of another Clinton in the Oval Office, you better believe that rank-and-file Republicans would run to the polls to prevent that from happening.

If Democrats have any lick of sense, they will not put Hillary Clinton on the national ballot. Irrespective of her qualifications as a lawmaker, a lawyer, and and politician, she will never make it to the White House. And frankly, Democrats need to take the White House in 2008. We can't afford another four years of Republican rule.

Defying Convention

Today I decided to be a rebel.

As I got on the elevator to leave the office for lunch today,I decided I would defy the social mores and stand, the entire time, facing away from the door.

And I did.

I am such a rebel.

Unfortunately, there were no other people in the elevator for the entire ride down.

Sing-Along

Hot on the heels of my last post – and I swear I am not making this up – I had the most fun experience walking to work this morning.

Having reluctantly pulled myself out of bed and conducted my regular morning ritual, I was dressed and on my way to work. On 14th Street, I passed a pair of black women who were also, I presume, on their way to work, heading in the same direction as I was. Thought nothing of them (well, except for the fact they were both carrying plastic bags containing what I assume to be lunch, including one which contained a mini-bag of Munchos, which I LOVE and which made me instantly crave their oh-so-salty goodness), walked past them, left them in my dust as they strolled along.

With the women no more than 20 feet behind me, a car slowly drives by us and situates herself at a red light. The driver's stereo is loud and her sunroof is opened just a tad, enough to broadcast to a decent hearing range that she was listening to the Jennifer Hudson version of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going." (Really. I kid you not. The day after I post about this. I can't escape it, I tell ya.)

Unable to help myself, I sing along softly to myself because, despite what I said in yesterday's post, I do like the song itself. "I'm not living without you. I'm not living without you. I'm staying...."

At around this point, I realize I'm not alone. Sure enough, one of the two women I passed not ten seconds before has chosen to join in on this impromptu karaoke, but with a lot more gusto than I would have mustered. (I'm guessing it was probably because she was with a friend which made her look like less of a freak.) "I'm staying," she sings out (as in "Sing out, Girlfriend!"). "And you, and you.... YOU'RE GONNA LOVE ME-E-E-E-E-E-E-E!" she lets out. Not as good as J-Hol or J-Hu (I actually hate those abbreviations) but with enough of a vibrato voice as to make it pretty impressive.

I wanted to join in, but I thought that would be weird, so I just kept my own singing to myself. Instead of singing along to just a car stereo, I ended up joining in with a nice young woman on the street. It was a nice way to start the morning.

***

I think it would be fun, as Chrisafer suggests, to do periodic sing-alongs in the city. Dreamgirls, West Side Story, Grease, The Sound of Music, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.... the possibilities could be endless!

And I Am Telling You -- I Don't Know What I'm Talking About.

So I saw Dreamgirls recently. I loved the show -- not so much because of the plot and the pacing could be a bit off, but more because of the music and energy. The Effie (Jennifer Hudson) character successfully steals the show for the first half of the movie, and Beyonce blends into the background as the inferior singer in the trio. Effie unfortunately moves into the background for much of the second half of the movie, but, as I say, I just enjoyed the music and the excitement. Besides, when something like Dreamgirls shows up at the Uptown Theater in Cleveland Park, there's bound to be a fantastic mix of gay boys and black women which always make for a fun time.

Having never seen the original stage version, all I knew about from it was what I had heard previously -- mostly, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," by Jennifer Holliday. That woman has got a powerful set of lungs on her, and her performance is therefore completely breathtaking. I'd heard it a million times and it just sounds beautiful:

And I am telling you
I'm not going.
You're the best man I've never known!
There's no way I'll ever go!
No no no no no.
I'm not living without you.
I'm not living without you.
I'm staying.
I'm staying.
And you, and you -- you're gonna love me!

If you don't believe me about the power of this woman's song (though why wouldn't you believe me?), check out Holliday's performance at the 1982 Tony Awards:



[Obligatory spoiler alert! -- Don't read further if you haven't seen the movie and still want to.]

So the song is great and strong and all -- "You're going to love me, dammit!" -- and in a vacuum I love the romantic concept of swearing that you'll devote your life to earning the love of the one person you feel destined to become your true love...

... but in the context of the movie you quickly come to realize that the song is tremendously ironic at best, sad and kind of pitiful at worst.

The song comes at the point in the movie when Effie realizes that she's been replaced as one the Dreamgirls. (She's replaced by a skinny chick -- because it's all about what will sell.) Feeling betrayed, she turns to the manager (with whom she had developed an intimate relationship) for an explanation, only to be told that the decision had been made, and she was out.



Then Effie launches into it: "I'm not going!" she cries. "I'm staying!" To Curtis (the manager), she belts out: "You're the best man I've ever known! There's no way I'll ever go!"

But Curtis is now not only the man who has cut her out of the show, he is also that man she has just accused of sleeping with Deena (Beyonce) -- and we later find out either that she was right, or she was prescient. Is he really still the best man she's ever known if he can be such a cad?

"I'm staying! I'm staying!" she cries. "You're gonna love me!" I always thought those words meant she was do what it took to redeem herself in the eyes of someone who had fallen out of love with her. But that's not what happens in the show. She's resolving to stay -- whether in the act or in the relationship -- from which she has been forcibly booted.

In fact, none of her predictions and resolutions even remotely come close to coming true. "I'm staying," she resolves, but she doesn't. From all appearances she drifts off out of the limelight, has her child without telling anyone, burns through the half a million she had earned until then and ends up living on public assistance in less-than-luxurious digs with her daughter.

"You're gonna love me!" she insists... but she doesn't fight for the man (not that she should, seeing as he wasn't a very nice man anyway), even though he was her baby-daddy.

Sad to say, the song now has taken on a whole new meaning now that I've seen it performed in the context in which it was created. It's no longer a demonstration of determination and will with regard to a lost love. It's more of a swan song -- the dying wail of a beautiful creature. It's not about empowerment and overcoming love's obstacles -- it's about saying you will, and then rolling over and letting Cupid sucker-punch you.

But how completely awesome was it that Loretta Devine, one of the original on-stage Dreamgirls, made an appearance in the movie? Sing it, girl!

El Espacio Mio

I have given in and created a MySpace page.

I must say, it is wildly addicting.

I've already added a slew of friends to it and they have taken over my comments section.

And yet it's so much fun. I've uploaded a song to the page as well as a few videos. I've also started posting up a bunch of photos on my friends' pages.

And I've added a few of the people from my blogroll to my MySpace page, completely shattering the semi-anonymity that this blog used to provide with respect to my readers. (Both of them!)

So if you're on MySpace, drop me a friend request!

Hi, My Name is Dennis! But My Friends Call Me Shaun.

I have no timed haircut schedule. I don't have a standing "every X months" appointment to meet with Chris, my hair guy of over five years. (I often joke that the longest relationship I've ever had with a guy who runs his fingers through my hair is with Chris.) I usually just give up and make the appointment when my hair gets exceptionally unruly. Oftentimes this coincides with when my hair reaches past my eyebrows in the shower.



I've been growing my hair out for the winter this year. My records (I have records!) show that the last time I got a haircut was in August. No particular reason; I just haven't felt the need to do it yet. The winter provides a convenient excuse, as head hair helps trap some heat in the body (even though this winter is thus far exceptionally mild).



I've been fooling with the style as long as I have the hair now. All through my formative years -- including through a good bit of college -- my hair was always parted on the left side. This for no other reason than that's how my parents combed it for me before I could do so myself. In grade school I remember thinking some of my friends looked good with a middle part, but I wasn't able to pull that off. My high school senior photo makes me look like a prototypical Asian guy, complete with unflattering glasses. (I have since given myself the gift of contacts, though I wear the glasses from time to time to give my eyeballs a break.)



I've been diddling with a middle part lately, but it's hard because apparently my hair continues to be trained to skew in the direction of the left side-part. So the middle part looks like of retarded; the two sides aren't balanced, because the half of the left side feels the need to fall back toward the right.



Last night, in an effort to fight my hair's "natural" inclinations (also known as "trying to break my hair's almost-thirty-year grooming styles), I went the other way completely, and combed my hair into a right-side side-part. This was met with more success than the mid-part, and I think I kinda like my hair today.



As I sat down to dinner last night, my friend looked at me and commented, "So, Shaun Cassidy, what's up with the long feathery hair?" I don't know if she meant it as a compliment or not, but seeing as Shaun Cassidy was quite the cutie-patootie in his day, I'll take it as a compliment.



For the more Shaun Cassidy photos than you can possibly shake a stick (nudge nudge wink wink) at, click here.

And just for the hell of it -- here's one of four Cassidy brothers with "Mom" Shirley.

Does Anyone Else Get that Feeling?

Lately my life is just like this little bunny rabbit. I love him.

But then he's cuter than I am. So it's quite likely he's probably getting more sex than I am.

Then again, he is a freaking bunny rabbit. There's a reason someone coined the phrase "fuck like bunnies."

The Worst Part About a New Year: Reset Deductibles

A play in ridiculously few lines, let alone acts.

Dramatis personae: Pharmacy customer (played by me); pharmacy guy-behind-the-counter (kinda cute, actually); pharmacist.

Date: January 2, 2007, approx. 8:30 p.m.

[Curtain Up.]

[Customer is standing at Pharmacy Counter looking to retrieve some prescription medications.]

Customer: Picking up, please. Last name is [redacted]. [Spells name.]
GBTC: Two prescriptions?
Customer: Yes, please.

[GBTC scans Customer's CVS Card and then scans the bar codes for the two prescriptions. Customer reaches for his credit card. Preparing to swipe his card, he looks down to see the total charge for his two medications.]

Customer: Holy crap! $120?!?
GBTC: Looks like it. Yeah, you know, new year comes around and the deductibles go back up again....
Customer: Holy crap man!
GBTC: [Shakes head] They'll get you one way or another....

[Customer swipes his credit card and signs the digital screen. Upon approval, a very long cash register receipt spews forth from the machine.]

GBTC: [Briefly looking at receipt] Well, you also get $2.50 in CVS ExtraBucks!
Customer: [only slightly sarcastic] Oh, well, I'm doing my happy dance now! [Does not actually do anything resembling a dance.]
Pharmacist: [filling out other orders all the while] [grins to herself]

[Curtain Down.]

Sadly, this is the coolest I'm going to get in terms of a "New Year" post. But Happy New Year all!

Merry Christmas...

Or whatever holiday you celebrate right around now. Or if you don't celebrate a holiday... well, happy day off.

I got you a present!



Enjoy this holiday season, folks.

It's Better Than Drinking Alone

The holiday season is wearing me out. Not because I'm this big social butterfly with all these "events" to go to or anything. It's because I feel like I need to go out a lot more than usual (just because it's the holiday season) and then I end up drinking more than I should and getting home later than I should (like now!) and fucking up my work situation more than it's already fucked up.

Tonight I actually walked through a particularly bad thought process with my friend at JRs. It went something along the lines of "I've seen that guy here three nights in a row now. Kinda hot... I'd do him... but what a lush. He's been here three nights in a row!... Of course the only way I'd know that is because I've been here three nights in a row...."

Yeah, it's been that kind of holiday season.

I bought several new jeans the other day then realized I need new pants for work too. Why do the crotches always seem to wear out faster than any other part of the pant? While we're at it, how the fuck do I stop my ever-expanding waist size? It's hard to buy pants for short fat people like me. I need an inseam of 28 or 29. No one makes those except for people with, like 26 waists. Take a waist my size, and people assume your inseam is something like 33 or 34. No one seems to make the waist/inseam combination for me. I'm short and fat, and now shopping is becoming a challenge.

I'm not sober. Drunk blogging is fun!

Good night folks! I'm here all week. Maybe not blogging, but I'll still be here.

Giving Up the Ghost

Dear C---,

You probably don't know this -- or if you do, you're deliberately putting it out of your mind -- but I have an immense crush on you. Huge. You're sweet, and smart, and very handsome, and I love the time I've spent with you.

You possibly don't know that every time I hang out with my friends, I ask whether or not you'll be joining us.

You possibly don't know that whenever I see you, my heart skips a beat.

You possibly don't know that when we hug -- whether it's hello, or goodbye, or anything in between -- I wish it would last forever. Your warmth, your scent, your smile, your eyes: I could get lost in that moment for an eternity.

I've teetered on the precipice of falling head over heels for you for a while.

But it seems like you haven't yet gotten over your last relationship, which ended several years ago. You're still apparently quite wounded by its dissolution. You've told me and our friends explicitly that, having had the love of your life once already, you're really not interested in ever finding anyone else. And it seems like you're not going to be ready for another relationship with anyone any time soon.

I'm sorry that you've been hurt. I'm sorry that you're still hurting. But most of all, I'm sorry that everything that I can offer you, everything I want to give to you, everything I could bring myself to feel for you, won't be enough for you. I'm sorry that you're unable to accept what could be a great thing.

And I'm sorry that I find myself deciding that I'm just going to have to move on, and put what I've felt about you for a long time in the past.

Happy birthday, C---. I loved you.

Dennis!

Shop Shop Shop

IM Conversation:

Me: You interested in doing a Target and/or Costco run this weekend?
Friend: HAHAHAHAHA! You're kidding, right? Target the weekend before Christmas?
Me: Uh... I'll take that as a "no."

Symbolism

An open letter to [name redacted]:

Let me get this straight (no pun intended): You are a guy. Your life partner -- whom you call your husband -- is another guy. You are committed to each other as if you were legally married; you own a house together; the whole shebang. You had a commitment ceremony before friends and family and there you exchanged proclamations of love and fidelity with your man.

And you exchanged rings. Specifically, you wear what can only be referred to as a wedding band. On your left ring finger. And your husband wears one too.

I have no problem (obviously) with any of this. Heck, some day I'd love to be able to present a man to my family and friends and say, "This guy's the one. The rest of my life, this is the guy for me."

What strikes me as odd, though, is when you kvetch about people who see your ring -- again, it's on your left ring finger, and it's a wedding band -- and assume that you have a wife somewhere out there. You complain that this is an invasion of privacy. And you claim that it is an unwarranted conclusion to draw. You get upset that such comments, when you have to respond to them, put to you the choice of either (a) retreating to the closet by referring to your man-mate as a "wife", and switching pronouns accordingly, or (b) "outing" yourself by telling a stranger that the band represents a husband, not a wife. Neither option seems very appealing to you.

You claim that the ring is a private reminder, to yourself and your partner and to no one else, of your commitment, and it's no one's place to draw any inferences from your hand.

Honey, with all due respect, you need to face the consequences of your life choices. And by "life choices," I do not mean a choice to be gay, because I don't believe that's a choice. I'm referring to your choice to wear a wedding band, and to wear it on your left ring finger.

Let's face it: You've adopted the universal heterosexual symbol of commitment. The fact that it means something entirely different to you than it does to anyone else is of ZERO consequence here. I mean, none.

Yes, yes, yes, the issue of gay marriage has made headlines for a few years now. But with the exception of Massachusetts, no state has legal marriages. (Vermont, as I'm sure you know, created a civil equivalent to marriage for gay couples.) And every state that has since considered the question has voted to add to their state constitutions provisions that restrict marriages to a male joining with a female. So while gay marriages have, in fact, been making headlines, that doesn't exactly mean that it's been a successful P.R. drive, or that this country happily accepts men-whose-wedding-rings-represent-another-man.

Your ring is in clear public view. If you wanted a private reminder of your commitment to your man, you could have had his name tattooed across your ass. Or you could have discreetly put a ring on a chain and worn it around your neck (tucked inside your shirt). Or you could have worn a cock ring or inserted a butt plug (every time you shift in your chair, you'd think of him and smile). Hell, you could have discreetly stenciled his name on your fingernail. Each of these would have called less public attention to your union and could still have the purpose of affirming to you and your man that you are each other's life mate.

But no: you put on a ring. And by doing so you have made a public proclamation that's no different from wearing a crucifix around one's neck or a yarmulke on one's head. It's an outward manifestation pretty much compelling the viewer to reach one conclusion.

You simply cannot fault anyone for accepting your invitation to reach that conclusion.

Let's put it this way: You see a yarmulke, you're going to assume the wearer is an observant Jew. (Let's face it, yarmulkes aren't terribly fashionable among the non-Chosens.) Anyone sees a wedding ring, they're going to assume you're heterosexually coupled. Heck, if I were to put a wedding band on my left ring finger tomorrow, I'm sure strangers would think I'm hitched to a woman, despite the objective facts that I'm gay and I'm not actually coupled. The objective facts behind your ring matter only to you, but the signal that ring sends out doesn't necessarily track those objective underlying facts.

So get over it, [redacted]. Either be out and happy and prepared to talk about the unusual significance of the ring you wear, or quit bitching about having to hide the gender of your partner from people who draw that conclusion. I suppose the third option is to remove the ring completely, but even I would hate to see that happen.

The Closet

I thought that by this point in my life I'd be done with the closet. Of course, I also thought that my non-heterosexuality was kind of obvious, but I'm told it's not.*

Every Tuesday night I make my way to a local bar for poker night. It's a free night, and it's amusing and entertaining (except when I bow out ridiculously early), and I'm pretty much a regular there now. I recognize faces; I know some names; and I know who I prefer not to play against and who I enjoy playing against.

To these people, I apparently come across as "one of the guys." Which is great. And none of them come across as hatefully homophobic, which is also great. Over the past few months, I have been treated to such comments as "check out pink sweater," referring to a lithe young woman at another table whose breasts were, frankly, unbelievably perky. On another night, the men at the table shared ogling rights to an attractive, thin Asian woman who is becoming quite the regular.

Table talk has included (thankfully brief) discussions of which female celebrities are hot and which ones wouldn't be kicked out of bed. Remember when Keith in Six Feet Under starts that job in private security, and all the guys stand around and talk about chicks, and Keith is so afraid of revealing his sexuality that he even says "Yeah, I'd tap that" about one woman? Yeah, it's kinda strangely like that.

I generally play along with these discussions. No, I don't go so far as to mention which woman I'd love to tap, but I do comment that some women are attractive. Hey, I'm allowed to notice beauty. (Yes, that's a rationalization.)

But the funniest moment was one night when a gay social group decided to hold its happy hour at the bar on the same night as poker night. This made my table-mates quite nervous, from what I could tell. As we played, it was inescapable that there was an unusually large congregation of men at the bar. Not only was their sheer number noteworthy, but the total disproportion in the male-female ratio was stark.

One player at my table commented that "not one single guy playing poker tonight wants to lose early tonight of all nights." Meaning: Unlike other nights, losing early doesn't mean lounging at the bar and talking to attractive women. (Kind of a shame, actually, because the guy who said this was really very attractive. I definitely would not kick him out of bed.)

The straight boys seemed uneasy about the whole situation, though thankfully none of them spewed any hateful rhetoric. Some seemed in denial about the men at the bar, preferring to believe that it was some post-work professional networking scene. (Perhaps my gaydar is more attuned to it, but just by scanning the faces of the men, I could tell it was most decidedly not that.) One seemed unwilling to even use the word:

Me (joking): You could go get a drink with the gay guys up there.
Him: You really think that's what it is?
Me: What what is?
Him: You know... those guys up there.
Me: Do I really think that's a gay mixer going on up there? Yes, I do.

Inexplicably, I stopped myself just short of saying that I would join them when I was done, or that I was going to a different gay bar after the game.

I suppose it just never comes up in conversation, but a part of me does wish that I could "come clean" with the guys at these poker nights. When I first started going, there was this cute lesbian couple who were also regulars. They stopped showing up several months later. They never, oh, made out or anything, but it was pretty clear they were together. There are usually one or two cute guys playing with us, one of whom I think may be gay, but we never talk about it.

At some point I'm sure it'll work its way into conversation, but until then... I'll keep my queens in the pocket. Which is, again, a shame, because some of these boys are really cute.

* Recently, at a gay bar, I realized why it's somewhat unclear: there are men here who are WAY gayer than I could EVER be. I randomly made a comment to a stranger while waiting for my drink and the 23-year-old just oozed homosexuality in his response. I was actually kinda taken aback. Me, straight-acting? Go fig.