INTERMISSION:BAD ART and GOOD ADVICE...

I realized yesterday, or the day before, or some day beyond that (life's a blur, and then you die), that I had stopped walking, stopped doing sit-ups, and stopped blogging. Somewhere along the line, I also got really depressed. OK, so what's the chicken and what's the egg? [The correct answer, for those of you who give the proverbial hoot, is: "Who cares?"] But, as I have posted before, laughing out loud is the best medicine. See links in post below...

I once asked a wise man what the difference between melancholy and depression was, and he said that if you are just feeling down and your best friend calls up and asks you out to dinner, you'll probably go and even have a good time; if you are clinically depressed, you won't even be able to entertain the suggestion. He went on to say that every psychiatric illness has symptoms that also present in people who are having a perfectly sane response to an unbearable experience. So I think that what is going on here is not in fact depression, but a relatively sane response to a pretty bad trip: the death of Little Me as I knew him.

This is the day that I drive the third vanload of stuff off to the Weird Little House Far From the Prairie. It is crammed with stuff, although this time I was a little more careful to allow a mostly unobstructed rear view... How I wish all the people who told me to find a cute guy to do the heavy lifting could deliver the guy... [disease- and drama-free, of course...] or were just going to be here today or tomorrow to help me carry the bureau up the stairs themselves... What a great way to meet all the commentators, or at least my fellow-bloggers, which I do hope to do someday: invite them over for a furniture-moving party. Any takers?

I did once organize a loft-cleaning party in NYC at which an entreprising friend of mine [the only friend who had responded to my offer of free beer in return for cleaning help] noticed that the street garbage can we were stacking stuff up against was right under one of the big windows, three floors down; the next thing I knew the previous tenant's heavily impasto-ed paintings, some of them on 4 foot sheets of masonite, were sailing through the air onto the pavement below. As luck would have it, a cop car came along the deserted avenue just as one piece sailed down, but all they did was bullhorn a pretty serious warning at us and let it go at that. Pierre couldn't see what the problem was, but the Good Little Boy in me was actually glad to have an excuse not to risk braining a chance passer-by with Really Bad Art. What a way to get into the paper..

My psychiatrist, the beloved Dr. Feelgood, has often been late recently, so before my appointment the other day, I went and got a coffee before heading upstairs to the not-quite-OK-Corral to check in and make my co-pay. I had gotten to know the desk personnel really well during the three months I was coming in weekly to see my underage therapist [at times I thought they were the people I saw most of, socially], so I thought I would take the opportunity to say "goodbye." I had begun to make my peace with the fact that I was going to have to give him up once I moved -- and the thought of the effort of finding another relatively sane psychiatrist was almost as daunting as the effort of finding Mr. Right. Ms. X_____ at the desk allowed as how I was lucky to be seeing Dr. F, and as long as I only went to see him every six to eight weeks, what difference did it make that I had to drive an hour or two more? Well, it made sense to me. One less task for me, so I curled up around my coffee and waited for the word that he would be "a little late."

But he showed up right on time. Dr. F said something that really brought me up short: he thought I was much more myself than I was a year ago, and he said that largely because I answered questions without prevaricating or looking at everything from two or more sides, or intellectualizing the question. Well, I guess that's progress. I insist it's all the fruit of necessity, but maybe the necessity is deeper than even I have acknowledged. I am certainly getting nowhere trying to share the blame with other people... not that I have COMPLETELY given up trying. So you see how much of my own advice I am taking.

A friend of mine, in the closet but with a good grip on the doorknob, wondered recently whether other people could tell he was gay. Depends on the efficiency of their gaydar, I suppose, and the extent to which you let down your guard enough to send a micro-signal [buying water-based lubricant, for instance, is often a tip-off].

But what has been occupying me is a little different: after years, decades, of hoping that no one would notice the extent to which I was gay, of trying to pass, as it were, I am now in the business of actually telling people I am gay -- which is an oversimplification, hurtful to many, but where I am after all these years of inner, then only outward, denial. I have to admit, it hurt to have to ask every land- lord and -lady if they minded renting to a gay guy, but it was probably good for me. It was just weird to think that I was entering a world where this was the first thing people knew about me, instead of the last. Actually, it was harder to go to my first Gay Social Event and look at the men with whom I supposedly had most in common, and swallow it. Although of course, to the extent that I hadn't had sex with a man in thirty years, I didn't have all that much in common with them -- some of them behaved as though they couldn't wait thirty minutes -- but the stress was there anyway. We all survived.

Hang in there.

Oh, and this for the blog referral services:
Depression, gay, divorce, "married gay men", "divorcing gay men", "alive and well", Tagame, "Tom of Finland", Francois Sagat, Augusten Burroughs, and Jane Austen.

Sorry:

I just found out that my proposed personal ad requesting Francois Sagat minus the head tatoo was sending this blog referrals. It made me laugh. Any other suggestions?