COMING OUT V...SUPPORT? YES.GROUP? NO.

Every other week, in a city not too far south of here but closer to my mother's place, there is a support group for people coming out, and I decided to arrange my work search around the date, and then drive my kids over to see my mother -- it looked like everything was going to fit together for the greater glory of the Troll, and general improvement of prospects.

My first appointment was with my former dope-dealer friend, who it turned out was offering $15 an hour to do phone sales. There is an old saying in the theater: Never say "never" [ie, you will in fact need to work with So-and-so again, so just get over it now and don't pretend you have the luxury of being a diva.] So I swallowed hard, and allowed as to how it was a bit of a come-down in the scheme of things, but I would be happy to take his battery of tests to see if I qualified for the job...

Then I spent three quarters of an hour with a head-hunter who had all sorts of good advice, but no job prospects that would even pay $15 an hour, without industry-specific knowledge. My sister-in-law bought me lunch; that was enjoyable. At 2 I went to visit a family friend who specializes in the kind of graphics I did before I ran off after that Other Muse who has dumped me so unceremoniously; BH and her husband were extremely friendly, but didn't really have any immediate suggestions.

Then the second-tier temp agency blew me off, saying I had to take their on-line test before I could talk to anybody -- and why hadn't they told me that, or just e-mailed me the link for the test before??? There is no understanding some systems.

So there I was, mid-afternoon, and nothing to do until suppertime, when the support group met. So I took my butterflies and coffee-nerves out to a suburban Barnes & Noble and sat in an armchair with the local "alternative" paper, drawing boxes around possible apartments and equally cheesy job prospects.

Then at 5:30 I rolled back into the car and headed into town to the gay community center. A very nice older guy handed me a free copy of the Advocate, showed me the listings for gay-friendly doctors and a rack with about 50 flyers on how to deal with various different kinds of disease and death.

It's easy to get depressed sometimes. Sometimes just the thought of spending the rest of my life in latex is enough to make me want to hang it all up...

Eventually dinnertime rolls around, and there are just the two of us, the facilitator and me, and I was getting more depressed by the minute. I mean: it was bad enough having to come to terms with the fact that I was going to go into a room full of people and admit that the one thing I had in common with them was the thing I had prided myself on not having in common with them for over thirty years. That was no picnic. But when it turns out there is nobody else in the room, so no group and maybe a little too much support for one of me to absorb... Two other guys drifted through for a while, but basically it was this one very talkative older guy and me. Well, I can't say it was awful; he was great. It just wasn't a supportive group. Suddenly I know I need one.

It was just me and "Joe". Now why do nine out of ten of us decide to become "Joe" when we want to fly under the radar? There must be an explanation out there somewhere.

Time marched on, and I was happy to have someone to talk to. It turned out that we had a fair amount in common. Eventually it was time to head back north; so I did.

My mother had taken the kids out to a fancy Eye-talian restaurant. They weren't home when I got back to the house, so I made myself a morose salad, dunked some depressed bread in olive oil, and slathered it with self-pity. A glass of wine probably did nothing to lift my mood, and the second one certainly sank it. Then I proceeded to eat every non-soggy cracker in the house. This is not the behavior of a cheerful Troll, in case you were wondering...

Some days are just not cut out to be good days, no matter what you do.

A friend of mine asked me recently if I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. As if after three weeks everything should all be nicely buttoned up and settled. No, I said, at this point all I could see was tunnel.

And that about sums it up.