Coming Out Again

I came out today!

Huh? I thought you were already out. Well, not to my coworkers. Until today.

In the month that I’ve been at my new job, I’ve bonded with some other new people. There are several of us who have just started working there, all in our 20s. Six of us eat lunch together every day — four women, two guys. Today at lunch we wound up in this really animated conversation about relationships and the women started bitching about how it’s so hard to find a guy. I sat there, nodding, laughing, contributing to the conversation, but not in a first-person way.

Finally, one of them asked, “What about the guys? Do you guys mind being asked out, or do you like to do the asking?”

I didn’t say anything. Instead I let the other guy go on about what he likes in women. He was humorous. Everyone laughed. Okay, maybe they’ll forget about me, I thought.

“What about you, Jeff?”

“Yeah, you haven’t answered.”

Oh, what the hell, I said to myself.

“Well actually, I’m usually looking for guys,” I began.

I’m not sure how the “usually” got in there. I think I threw it in as a buffer.

Anyway, they just nodded, smiled, took it as no big deal, like, “Hey, cool.” It was much easier than I’d expected. And I’m proud of myself for just tossing it out there like that — not making a big deal out of it, not being proud of it or apologetic. Just another fact about myself. I like Frosted Mini-Wheats. “The West Wing” is a great show. Well actually, I’m usually looking for guys.

A few minutes later, one of the women looked at me with a smile on her face, nodded at me knowingly, and said, “I know plenty of people I can introduce you to.”

That’s kinda cool…

In the meantime, I’m still waiting for the Piano Man to get back from his two-week vacation. I don’t really know what to call him, but I think Brendan suggested The Piano Man because he has a piano in his apartment. I’d call him Barrage Boy, but he’s not a boy, and anyway that sounds too generic. I’ll think of a name for him eventually.

Whatever his nickname is, I’m looking forward to seeing him when he gets back. We hung out three times over the course of a week, and then he went away for two weeks. He’ll finally be back on Monday, but next week I’ll be busy moving, so I might not see him until next weekend. I can’t wait to see him again. He’s such a sweet, intelligent, slightly neurotic, Jewish, theater-and-movie-loving, piano-playing, UVa-graduated cute guy.

After work, our little work gang went out to a bar for Happy Hour. It was a straight bar. I reminded myself not to cruise anyone.

I had one beer, just one beer, and even some chicken fingers, and my head’s still swimming a little. That’s what you get when you weigh just 125 pounds.

So hey, I had a good day with my coworkers, and, uh, I’m out of the closet! Again! Who knew?

Protect me

I’m going to acknowledge something and move on, because I don’t want to dwell on it. Current Events have had me scared shitless since yesterday afternoon, when I read an old New Yorker article online. I’m fucking scared that the disease that the World Health Organization officially declared “eradicated” in 1979 or 1980 is going to return in weapons form. I read a description of its effects, effects that began occurring when the virus first entered the human race approximately 12,000 years ago and that have not been seen since the virus was “eradicated” 20 years ago. As described, the effects are absolutely awful. If, God forbid, I ever get this virus, I hope someone will flood my body with anesthesia and put me out of my misery. Last night I had unsettling dreams, and I woke up this morning totally anxious, and I felt that way throughout most of today, interrupted only by lunch at a Greek restaurant with some coworkers.

Sometimes, when I get a thought that really troubles me, I find myself unable to stop thinking about it. I can’t control the anxiety, and this makes me feel like I don’t control my own mind.

I used to be scared of getting HIV until a very nice testing counselor calmed my fears back in March and reminded me that HIV is not a form of punishment for gay sex or even for promiscuity, and that if you are always safe then you should have little to worry about. So in March, even before my test results came back a very thankful negative, my fears had gone away, and from March through September 11 I was feeling pretty good. And then the world changed, and now I’m afraid of getting a horrible disease that is completely out of my control. Okay, so it’s completely out of my control, so why bother worrying about it? I wish I could stop. I wish I could turn my brain off.

You could die at any time, though. You could get hit by a car, you could get struck by lightning, whatever. My parents’ friends’ 19-year-old daughter just died of leukemia last week. Anything can happen. This is something that TV commercials never tell you: someday you will die. Most definitely. The reason they don’t tell you is because they want you to think that if you buy things, you will live forever. But you won’t. You will die. Even if you buy a Toyota. You don’t know when it will happen, though, so all you can do is maximize your daily happiness, find something to enjoy every day.

I know that if I should happen to die suddenly, I will leave behind this body of writing. It’s what I’ve always wanted to leave behind — my words. Through words, writers achieve immortality. Shakespeare lives today. So does Plato. So does Mary Chesnut. So does someone’s random deceased grandfather whose diary is stored in his grandson’s attic.

There was once an episode of “The X-Files” in which a woman hoped to achieve immortality by uploading her soul onto the Internet. I didn’t quite understand it, plot-wise. But anyway, her action wasn’t necessary. All you have to do to achieve immortality is create something. Keep a diary. Write music. Make people happy. Give people fond memories. Aggressively promote your humanity.

And hey — if you happen to keep a blog, then you really have uploaded your soul onto the Internet.

In other news, tonight my mom and I saw Neil Simon’s newest play, 45 Seconds From Broadway, which is still in previews. We sat in the very front row. The play wasn’t great, but it made us laugh, and that’s important. There were a couple of dead-on portrayals of middle-aged Matinee Ladies, and Marian Seldes (whom I last saw in “The Play About the Baby”) was comical as usual. The play didn’t really stick together and the plot was minimal and unengaging. I think that Neil Simon today just cranks out a play a year without trying very hard. I mean, it’s not like he has to put in any effort anyway; his name is enough to get a play produced, no matter how so-so it is. But these days you go to a Neil Simon play for laughs, and that’s what we got, and I was very grateful for it.

It was also nice to spend an evening with my mom.

After the show, outside the theater, I gave her a big hug and we parted ways. I felt a pang of sadness. I wanted to go home with her, take the bus back home, back to my parents’ house, and sleep there, sleep in my old room even though it’s now a guest room, stay there, forever, protected from this big, awful, horrible world.
—–

Another Entry Without an Overriding Theme

I’ve begun to read books again. Since September 11, I’ve read almost nothing but the newspaper. In fact, a few days after the attacks I finally decided to stop reading the New York Times online and finally subscribe to the damn thing and start reading it on paper. I used to read it online every day at work, but I figured that once I started my new job I wouldn’t have that luxury anymore.

The only problem is that now I pick up the paper on my way out of my apartment building and I wind up reading the news on the train to work. Besides the fact that the paper is big and unwieldy and comes in eight million sections, by the time I get to work my head is filled with horrible scary unnerving things.

So this morning I started reading books on the train again. I’ve begun reading Hornito, by Mike Albo, which I picked up from the new paperbacks table at Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago and which is pretty darn funny. The protagonist is a neurotic, sex-obsessed 28-year-old gay guy who lives in New York. Hmm, I wonder why I like the book…?

Last night was pretty depressing. Sundays are sometimes like that, but I felt utterly slothlike yesterday. I spent most of the day indoors, wasting my time chatting away on the Internet. There were two aborted attempts at sex. The first was with a 44-year-old guy who had a nice picture, in a rugged sort of way. Neither is usually my thing, but I decided, what the hell.

I was supposed to meet him at a nearby park. I got there, I saw him, I was totally turned off. I quickly left before he saw me.

About an hour later I found another guy online. We decided to meet up at a nearby location. I went to the location and waited about 15 minutes. He never showed up. I went home.

What goes around comes around, I guess.

(I should interrupt here to point out that I’m still really psyched about Barrage Boy. The only reason I haven’t mentioned him lately is because he’s away, in the middle of a two-week vacation.)

(Why is it that whenever I meet a guy, he winds up going on vacation?)

Anyway, eventually it got dark — earlier than I expected — and I realized how fast the weekend had flown by. Here it was, Sunday evening, and I had to go back to work the next morning. It seemed like I’d just been with my parents, having dinner on an optimistic Friday night. And now I was feeling kinda down and lonely.

Fortunately, an instant message from a guardian angel and semi-kindred spirit appeared and cheered me up. After chatting with him for a while, and then talking on the phone with CanadaGirl, I suddenly felt motivated to go grocery shopping and then come home and do some cooking. I hadn’t cooked in ages, except for boiling pasta, which doesn’t really count. So I decided to go to the supermarket. It worked; as soon as I walked out the door, I felt better — a man with a mission.

I wound up buying the ingredients for chili and came home and made a big batch of it. I also made a salad (except I forgot to buy lettuce) and had some cheese and crackers while the chili cooked. By the time I ate the chili it was after 10:00 at night. I had two bowls, so I had no room left to eat one of the Entenmann’s donuts from the variety pack I’d bought.

Hey, folks: next Sunday’s the end. No more Daylight Savings Time. Ugh. In exactly one week, it’ll be dark when I get home from work. I’m not looking forward to that. I used to love winter… I used to like being indoors, all cozy and warm. I hated the summer because I didn’t like being outside. I was more of an indoor-introvert type of guy. But these days, I much prefer warm weather. I think I began to grow more comfortable with warm weather around the time I began to grow comfortable with my sexuality. Interesting.

Several days after we return to Standard Time, I move. I’m moving on Halloween Night, in fact.

Yeah.

See, my lease starts on November 1, but that’s a Thursday. I’m not paying for a moving company, so I need some friends to help me move, but they won’t be able to take Thursday off from work, so I’ve rented a U-Haul for the night of the 31st and I’m getting my friends to help me move all the furniture (which isn’t much anyway) that night. That’s nuts. Who ever thought of moving on Halloween? That’s gotta be the strangest day of the year to move. Maybe we can dress up in costumes and move my stuff.

And what will people think? Remember when you were a kid? All those rumors about the creepy guy who’d drive around in a U-Haul on Halloween Night, kidnapping little children?

Oh, wait. He didn’t drive a U-Haul. He drove a black van.

Anyway.

Time for some links. It’s been a while.

First off, we’ll miss you. Yeah, you’ve left… but entries like this make me glad that your blog’s still around.

Second, I’ve been meaning to link to a college friend of mine, a brilliant and creative guy who’s currently in grad school at MIT. He found my blog through that Associated Press article. (As far as I know, he’s the only person who’s found my blog that way. Newsweek hasn’t called, and neither has the New Yorker. So much for fame and glory.) Anyway, check him out.

Also read Art Spiegelman on his recent, instantly classic New Yorker cover.

Finally, be careful when buying Broadway tickets! Wow.