back from the dead

halloween update:

having just finished a rousing 45-minute-long office "fall festival," aka potluck luncheon where we stand around in the semi-dark eating seven-layer dip and cupcakes, i'm really in the mood to go out for halloween tonight. hilary, ashli, cory, and george are all going out--as are the guys from gay life and probably stephanie from my office. so it should be fun.

we're going to the hippo, which suckily costs fifteen dollars but always promises insane costumes and faggotry of the highest order. i've decided what i'm dressing as: the dead reluctant receptionist. that's right--dorky outfit, hopkins ID badge, and a noose around my neck.

sweet.

recitalzeit!

the recital was yesterday. the recital that i've been planning since june, that tom and i have been throwing ideas around about since we sat on his deck at the shore, drinking beer and planning, months and months ago. and it's over. it's always a weird feeling, a kind of brook sheilds-ian post-partum depression, when a performance is over. it's as if you have this thing to work towards, to look forward to for so long, then it's over. it's a little piece of history and how you've done is how you've done, for better or for worse. luckily, yesterday went pretty well, so i feel like it's for better. i also have this bach gig at st. david's coming up with hilary (we're singing together a lot lately. it's fun. and we always seem to get in trouble.) so i have something to look forward to again.

what was so amazing about the recital, besides the fact that tom and i got through the whole thing without falling all over each other, especially on the song "fury," which is basically the 20th century version of die erlkonig without the nice schubertian vocal line, is the turnout we had. a nice handful of tom's parishoners came, and a ton of people from baltimore, including some nice surprises: most of the ladies from my office and ron and scott from gay life. i'm sure that people thought i was just being corny when i told them, "thanks so much for coming; thanks for your support." but really. i had horrible visions of the audience being comprised of hilary and tom's mom. not that they wouldn't be a good audience; we just could've done the recital in our living room and saved everyone some driving. but that didn't happen. people came down to bethesda and sat through my sometimes-difficult-to-listen-to recital (not difficult because of the way i sang it, thank you, but because some of the music was a little out there). and for an afternoon i felt like a singer again.

karen came up to me after the recital, smiling, and said, "i don't think i'll ever look at you the same way again." funnily enough, it's the same thing that ron said to me. and it's true, i guess: you know someone in a certain capacity, be it as a columnist or as a receptionist, and then you find out they can do something if not incredible then definitely bizarre. and your view of them is tinted. so now the people in my office have seen what i do, really, besides answer phones. and i think that maybe they're a little closer to understanding me.

your loving dad

my father just wrote me this email and i wanted to share it:

"sounds like you're busy----which is good. you know we are always here for you, not because we are your parents, but we signed a contract and can't get out of it. Your loving dad."

i've said it once and i'll say it again: crazy runs in the family.

cock

if it's 10:45 am, it must be time for some pervy IM conversations!

robert: i just tried to tell michael that i'm staring at the clock
robert: but typed
robert: i'm staring at the cock
hilary: ahahahaah
hilary: i have to remember to get change for the bus
hilary: but i dont know if it's an express bus or not...and express is like 3 bucks more
robert: change for the bus?
robert: oh like the ny bus
robert: i was like
robert: chinatown bus takes change?
hilary: ya..didn't specify, sorry
robert: oh it's ok
robert: just get a roll of quarters
robert: then walk through the west village with them in your pocket
robert: you'll have a bf in five minutes
hilary: ahahaha
hilary: good idea

think of the childrens

i actually saw the broadcast where this woman (a local baltimorean, of course) spoke these delightful words:

"The events at Pikesville High School drew the attention of both local and national media.

'Children shouldn't tease them because of what they choose to do, but morally, it's wrong for them to be out here and parents to supporting them,' Flores Chappele, a parent, told WBAL-TV.

'If everyone was to turn gay – every man was to sleep with every man and every woman was to sleep with every woman – where does the children come in?' she added."

thank you, ron and scott over at gay life, for not correcting her grammar. it's true--where does the children come in?

read the whole article here.

dirrty laundry.

it's already that time again! enjoy. please.

Taking it back.

By Robert

“Melissa wants to know if you’ll go out with her,” the voice at the other end of the phone told me. She hadn’t told me who she was. She didn’t have to. It was Amy, Melissa’s best friend. They were hateful girls. Tough girls. Or, I guess, as tough as you can be in an upper-middle-class school in Ponca City, Oklahoma.

“Uh, no,” I stammered, my heart beating, not knowing what to say.

Amy giggled. “That’s ok,” she said. “You’re probably a faggot anyway.” I heard laughter in the background before she hung up.

I stood there with the phone, not sure what to do, holding onto the receiver. I didn’t want to make a scene.

“Who was that?” my mother asked, coming into the living room.

“I don’t know,” I lied.

“Well, what did they say?”

“I don’t know,” I lied again.

“So what? They could’ve just been speaking Russian for all you know?”

“Yes,” I told her. I knew that telling her what Amy said would upset her. I knew that my mother already suspected that I was different. The torment I was enduring at school had now come into my house and it was only a matter of time before it happened again. Next time my mother might be listening on another extension. She might hear it herself, and then what? She’d know what people were saying about me; that I wasn’t just quiet or bookish or effeminate. She’d know everything.

“Ok,” my mother said, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel and walking back into the kitchen to continue reheating dinner (my mom doesn’t cook). I hung up the heavy, beige phone with its tangled cord.

It was the first time I can remember being called a faggot. I was in second grade.

There are plenty of people who say that when children call each other “faggot” that they’re just mimicking what they’ve heard their parents or the television say; that they have no idea what it actually means. In my case, though, they were dead on.

I hate to admit it, but it’s something I can’t seem to forget. Early on it colored my idea of myself, of how I appear to other people; of how obvious it is that I’m not, deep-down, like everyone else. Even at nine I wasn’t fooling anyone, no matter how quiet I was or how stiff I tried to keep my wrist. There was a reason that I lingered in music class or kept to myself at the edge of the playground, where the trees were, near the houses. There was a reason I was different, and if Amy, a girl not known for her upbringing or her intelligence, could see it, anyone could.

I can’t remember my father’s birthday; I can’t remember the combination to my lock at the gym; I can’t remember to put my new proof of insurance card in my wallet. I can’t remember to take out the trash or to change my windshield wipers. But I remember every time I’ve been called a faggot.

And that pisses me off. I decided a long time ago—it’ll be eight years this coming May—that I wasn’t going to take it any more. I wasn’t going to be called a faggot and then blush, embarrassed; I wasn’t going to pretend that I hadn’t heard it, hoping that my friends (mainly Southern Baptists back then) wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. I decided to take all of the anger and hate that I was pointing at myself and use it for something else. I was going to use it to fight.

As soon as I was able to say, “Yeah. I’m a faggot. Is that a problem?” I took control. I call myself a faggot because I’ve reclaimed it. If I call myself a faggot there’s not much left to hurt me. It describes my culture’s experience; it snaps people awake. There are people who think that being called a faggot is the worst possible insult; that being called gay is humiliating. But I’m not ashamed. My people have been derided and spat upon, kicked out of families and churches. But we’re fighting back.

When I say I’m a faggot, I’m saying I’m not going to take any more insults. Call me what you will, but this is me standing up for myself.

I’m taking this word as my own, writing it a new history. I’m not letting people forget. Yeah, I’m a faggot. Is that a problem?

Robert is a classical singer, writer, and secretary who's proud to live in Baltimore, the gem of the bay. Learn more at http://reluctantreceptionist.blogspot.com.

let's not have our bosses over our shoulders for this one, k?

you're welcome. again.

something good happens to america

THANK you. finally. the problem is, she didn't withdraw because she's wildly incompetent, she withdrew because bush bowed to pressure from conservatives. if anyone ever tells you that dubya isn't a puppet of the religious right, they're lying. or stupid. or a member of the religious right so don't listen to them.

18 year olds. damn them.

again, you're welcome.

morning.

what did i wake up to at 6:50 this morning? it wasn't mice scratching around in the walls, squealing with delight. it wasn't traffic, nor was it my bathtub faucet, which has gone from dripping through leaking and is now just on. no, dear readers, i woke up to a steady, rhythmic thump thump thump coming FROM THE DIRECTION OF MY BACK DOOR.

now, if you read this blog regularly (i mean, how could you not?) you'll know that one of my main (yet least rational) fears is that someone's going to try to break into my apartment via the back door in my bedroom. i have nightmares of waking up to see a shadowy figure through the glass, of hearing the doorknob jiggling. so i wake up to what sounds like a rhythmic thudding on my back door. yeah. my eyes POP open, dart around. it stops. i stop breathing, look at the backdoor. no one there, no one i can see through the glass, anyway. immediately every urban legend i've ever heard goes through my mind: stories about boyfriends whose girlfriends wouldn't let them back into cabins even though they'd scratched themselves bloody on doors, boyfriends whose decapitated hanging heads made thudding noises against car roofs. i turned on the lamp. i went to the humidifier and turned it off. still the thudding.

but it wasn't coming from the backdoor--what was it? it was coming from a box, one of the two boxes that still sit in my apartment from my move nearly three months ago. i figure, at this point why unpack it? god, i thought, a fucking mouse has fallen into this box and i'm going to have to do something about it. i looked into the box and found no mouse, no roach.

the heater, which has just been turned on this week, was blowing against the side of the box and making its lid thud against its side.

goddamned imagination.

*a sidenote: while typing this blog i actually just called someone "sallie goatvoice." wow, that's like...college-age-robert bitchery. hilary's response was, "when i first read that, i thought, what kind of italian name is that?"*

pretty

i've just posted pictures from hilary's recital last saturday. i'm not in any of them, but they're still pretty.

the great equalizer

so, dear readers, why is there no post until nearly one-thirty in the afternoon? why have i chosen to disappoint the one or two of you that have stopped by my little dent in the robert net universe? well, it wasn't because the shuttle was late (though it was. again. and i had to stand outside in the cold for 35 minutes waiting for one. yet i digress), and it wasn't JUST because i sat through two and a half hours of lab meeting this morning. that's right. two and a half hours. if a meeting requires a bathroom break, it's just too long, people! it's because blogger's been acting up. naughty blogger. blogger needs to be disciplined. blogger needs to be spanked.

what was extremely entertaining about this morning's meeting, however, was that apparently every woman on my floor lusts after the same elevator repairman that i do. i've blogged about him before, maybe a couple months ago. he's hot. i wrote something about having lust in my heart every time i saw him walk by my office, which is true.

so i'm in this forever-long meeting that was only attended by a bunch of married women and myself. we're talking about what we want for christmas, and this woman (who will remain anonymous so that i can keep my job) goes "i'll tell you what I want for christmas--that elevator repair guy wearing nothing but a bow--a strategically-placed bow!" another lady was like, "oh yeah!" and another: "he's HOT!"

i was just sitting there thinking to myself, i'm not so different from these people after all.

i'm feeling a little german

so, as i was standing outside in the rain waiting for a shuttle for thirty minutes (don't worry, this isn't going to be another one of those I HATE THE SHUTTLE SO MUCH blogs. even though it's true, i do.) this morning, i saw something you don't see every day: a certain person who doesn't talk to me any more's car went by me. but this certain person wasn't behind the wheel. oh, no. this certain person's luxury car was on a tow truck.

i was anticipating that glorious little feeling, that gleeful, hateful, smirk. call it schadenfreude. if you can't call it that, or you don't feel particularly german, call it secretly taking pleasure in another's misfortune.

the thing is, i just didn't care. it sucks to have your car towed, it sucks trying to get it out of hock (you have to either carry around two hundred dollars cash or let them charge you a like 50 dollar credit card fee), and it's really gonna suck walking to the impound lot in the rain.

ok, so maybe there's just a little schadenfreude. nicht zu viel, zwar.

madge

having just read that our dear gay icon madge made appearances at both misshapes and the roxy this weekend, i decided to email scott in nyc to get his review. i had a hunch he'd be in the crowd at the roxy. i was right:

"Ok, I wasn't going to bring it up since you couldn't
have come. But since YOU mentioned it...

holy crap! I went with Chris and a bunch of friends
because we found out through several sources that it
was pretty much a done deal - that she was going to
make an appearance, but that she wasn't performing.

We got there at like 11:00, which is the earliest
we've ever gone by like an hour (doors open at 11),
and the line was already around the block. Plus, the
weather was like Katrina/Rita/Wilma - complete
torrential downpour and all I had was a cheap $5
mini-umbrella. So I was semi-soaked. It was complete
chaos getting in and took forever. Once we finally
got in, I took half a pill...so I was feeling all
dandy by 2:00 when she was schedule to show up. She
took the stage and of course everyone went completely
ballistic. She said some crap about how she had to
come to Roxy because new york is where she started,
and blah blah blah, and that she wanted to dance with
all of us fags. She pulled out the vinyl record for
the remix for Hung Up and gave it to Peter Rauhofer.
Then she proceeded to dance with everyone for
literally half an hour. I couldn't believe how long
she stayed there. There were people onstage who were
part of her clan, but then she allowed these two fags
to get up and dance with her (omg - can you imagine?)
Chris and I had kind of situated ourselves relatively
close... So when she came over to our side of the
stage I was looking up and she was literally like 10
feet from me and looking completely flawless.
Basically, at that point I thought my face was going
to fall off. I don't think I can ever really top that
one. Between that and Beyonce's ridiculously amazing
appearance at the Roxy, I think I've sort of hit the
zenith of possible clubgoing experiences. I was
freaking out after she left - I was like - I cannot
honestly believe I just saw Madonna at the Roxy???
Totally surreal..."

somehow seeing christine w at the hippo just doesn't compare.

a break

ok, people. it's time to get creative. i've used the last three brain cells i had left writing this week's column (that's still not done...GACK) and i need a funny idea for a halloween costume. and it has to be easy. like, so easy that i can put it together and still sing a recital the day before halloween. so easy that i can buy it with the $39 that i have in my bank account.

the ideas that have been thrown at me are:

1. taking part in ron's group's "highlandtown prom 1988." while totally a funny idea, i'm too tired to do drag, too broke to buy a funny dress, and too vain to just wear a tuxedo.
2. being the mallet to hilary's box of ol' bay and ashli's crab. while also a very funny idea, i told hilary that if i were going to be a hammer i'd have to be a "sexy hammer" because we're going to the gay club halloween night. though it's true, as hilary told me, that "you don't need to worry about it--they all know you there anyway," i insist on being at least a little sexy, at least one night a year. that doesn't mean that i have to be waxed and shirtless wearing glitter and white angel wings (GAG). or does it?
3. the reluctant receptionist herself. this is the one i'm leaning toward because it'd be the easiest and funny.

but, dear readers, what are your ideas? help me out here. my brain hurts.

good morrow!

robert: so i wore the gayest outfit ever today.
hilary: oh lord
hilary: sequins?
robert: and a tiara
robert: actually it's:
robert: my burgundy abercrombie v-neck
robert: with my red gingham shirt and my crazy pink paisley tie
robert: it's in line with my new fall look: old man gay punk
hilary: in order to be a punk you would have to have a knife, creepers, or some sort of alcohol stashed in your bag
hilary: along with the intent to set something on fire later
robert: well, since it's GAY punk, what i have in my bag are poppers, pornography, and a can of pink spray paint
hilary: hahahhaah

toe tappin

i knew i didn't trust the aryan nation. (via gawker)

flames at the side of my face

it seems as though as i hit "publish" on my last blog--you know, that semi-funny but mostly serious one about random bands and shit trying to add me to their myspace pages--that i got THIS HATEFUL REQUEST.

you're no friend of mine, hateful hateful place.

Dear All of You Bad Local Bands and Straight Party Promoters,

please, please, please stop trying to add yourselves to my myspace page. "baltimore screamin' brainz," i don't want to be your online friend. that goes for you too, "johnny rogers band" and "soapbox soldier."

yours truly,
robert

paparazzo

i've joined netflix, which could conceivably mean that i'll never be leaving the house again. when you can get things like the entire fourth season of queer as folk delivered right to your mailbox, why would you ever bother going out? for food? lame. spending time with friends? no thanks. sitting on my uncomfortable ikea couch for 3 hours every night watching the poorly-written storyline of brian kinney and michael nevotney unfold? yes please!

seriously, though, this seems to be what i do when it gets nasty outside. i hole up inside my apartment and watch back to back queer as folk episodes. i don't count the last time i did nothing but watch qaf because i had a partner in crime, terry. it doesn't seem quite as pathetic if you're watching it with someone. the time before that, though, was classic: i watched all of season one in about four days, sitting in my old studio apartment next to a space heater WHILE KNITTING. oh yeah. i'm sorry, i have to cut this blog short because i've got to go fight off the paparazzi.

hotness

this post is for cory. and any other ladies or homos.

a bill i'd vote for

oh hell yes. (via queerty)

the final solution strikes AGAIN

synchronicity!

mad scientist

so, an addendum to yesterday's post about being sick: two hours after i wrote that blog, i actually went home from work. i sat here at my desk, staring into space, feeling nauseous and woozy. i looked at my schedule--no clinic visits that afternoon, nothing that i could really get done. i'd be sitting at my desk feeling woozy all day without much to do. so i went home. i read a bit of my disappointingly clandestine book of the moment, homocore, which is subtitled "the loud and raucous rise of queer rock." in truth, the book is nothing more than an extended, poorly-written magazine article. i'd hoped that it was about the social implications of queer rock, or about the things that gave birth to it, or...well, anything other than what it is. it's like the writers just conducted a lot of boring interviews with bands i've never heard of (and after listening to most of their music on the bands' webpages, never hope to hear of again) and pieced them together.

yawn.

so, i read a bit of my boring book and then conked out for most of the afternoon. i'm back at work today, feeling less nauseous but with the added bonus of a sore throat. (by the way, i just started listening to peaches on my itunes. apparently it's gonna be that kind of day.)

this morning, my clinic staff will learn how to use the new BIA machine. you know, the machine i wrote about in an earlier post. the one that came with the software called LeanBody. the big joke around the office is that i'm the only one who's going to agree to get hooked up to this thing because none of the ladies want to know their body/fat ratio. i'm dorkily excited to try out the new equipment. i get to lay people down on a lab table and attach electrodes to them.

mwa ha ha.

sick!

i've caught a goddamned cold. i have a recital a week from sunday; i'm rehearsing with tom literally all weekend long. and i've caught a cold. miraculously, i'm still able to sing--every time i sing with a cold, i can hear the voice of crazy vergene miller from depauw screaming "sing over it!" at the time i thought she was crazy. now that i've actually worked with a voice technician instead of know-nothing dr. irwin (god i hope he doesn't google his own name), i understand what she means. i might cough every time i take a deep breath in but dammit i can phonate. mind you, it's not a very controlled sound; at times it sounds akin to the dumptrucks that wake me up every morning.

everyone in my office is sick. it's like being in kindergarten--once one of the kids get sick, they contaminate the paste. then another kid eats it or sticks it up his nose and it's all over. that's my office, minus the paste and nose-picking. the head doctor brought it back from maine, then it hit my boss, now it's moved on to me. just in time for my recital.

michael suggested on the phone last night that i--get this--go to a place that sells fresh juices, like a juice bar. like at DAC. i'm supposed to walk up to the counter and ask them to puree a whole clove of garlic and swirl it around with the juice of a carrot. then chug the whole thing. i'm supposed to do this after i've spent a day chugging green tea. i said, "you know me pretty well, right? so you know that i'm never going to do any of those things." i mean c'mon. garlic? carrots? i'm the same guy who used to smoke through bronchitis. i was once so sick in high school that when i smoked i'd inhale then exhale but nothing would come out. yeah. garlic.

so, pray for my health. pray like you mean it, even if you don't.

citycricket

mother nature has it out for me. why do i say this? you ask. robert, honestly. you haven't been in an earthquake or tsunami or hurricane. she doesn't have it out for you. oh but she does.

it's become impossible for me to get a good night's sleep in my apartment. if it's not the mice scraping around in the walls keeping me awake with their little mouse parties, it's a single, insistent cricket outside my bedroom window. mind you, the courtyard outside my bedroom isn't some kind of wooded paradise. it's mossy, gross old brick and dirt. i can't even begin to imagine where a cricket would live back there, unless it's some kind of hard-living city cricket that's taken up residence in an overturned piece of sheet metal who warms his little hands over a tiny fire he started in an equally tiny barrell.

i hear that tough street people do those kinds of things; at least they did on adventures in babysitting.

anyway, i either slept through last night's mouse noises or there weren't any. what woke me up at five am last night was this goddamned citycricket. in my sleep-daze i stumbled to the back door and looked out the curtain. i just remembered doing this, and i have no idea what i was expecting to see. if i'd actually seen the cricket it would've been worse because it would've had to have been five feet tall for me to see it in the dark through the window without my glasses in the middle of a sleep-daze. not seeing anything, i banged hard on the backdoor once. i'll just scare the damned thing away, i thought. the cricket stopped for a moment, then went right back to chirping. i turned my humidifer to high and put two pillows over my head, which still didn't drown out the noise but did cause me to worry about suffocating myself.

i actually thought to myself, god, i wonder if someone could accidentally suffocate in their sleep because they had two pillows over their head. and then who'd find me? it could be days.

these, dear friends, are the thoughts that goes through one's mind when they spend too much time alone. suicide via self-suffocation with two pillows because of a cricket.

the secret life of middle age

robert: actually we're watching under the tuscan sun!
robert: hahaha
robert: i was like
robert: kel, i am WAY too punk rock for that
robert: i think my grandma is too punk rock for that
hilary: haha
hilary: i'd watch it
hilary: esp. if someone else rented it
hilary: ha
hilary: but then again i watch lifetime
hilary: exactly!
hilary: no meredith baxter here
hilary: i think ashie and i are going to watch amityville
robert: just that washed up old crone
robert: what's her name
hilary: diane lane
robert: exactly. god.
hilary: crone
hilary: hahhhaa
robert: it's gonna be like the secret life of bees all over again

scampering feets

just when i thought that the mouse debacle had ended--just when i thought it was safe to stop jumping every time i see a shadow or a flit out of the corner of my eye--i heard from my upstairs neighbor that her cat had caught another mouse but that it had escaped into the boiler room. the boiler room that's right below my apartment. dammit.

i took half a tylenol pm last night (i'm down from my all-time record of two pm's, a valium, and two beers), so i was completely comatose by 11:30. i'm still fairly convinced that someone's going to try to force their way into my apartment via the back door that's in my bedroom--after all, all that separates me from the outside world is a doorknob lock, not even a deadbolt--but with the help of deep breathing, rational thought, and sleeping pills i'm able to go to sleep anyway.

i woke up early this morning--i always do, at around 7am--and thought, dammit, i wish i could sleep past 7. i looked at the clock. it wasn't even 5am. you know that feeling you have when you think it's nearly time to get up, and you're thinking dammit (why do all my sleep-thoughts start with the word dammit?) it's nearly time to get up, and then you look at the clock and realize you can sleep another 2 hours? yeah, that feels good. what didn't feel good was my first thought: ohmygod, someone's trying to get into my apartment through the back door that's in my bedroom. once i talked myself down from that little delusion, i realized what actually woke me up: the sound of squeaking and scampering feet right by my head.

that's right, girls. i haven't seen a mouse in my apartment for a few weeks. but they are most definitely inside the walls. yes, the italics are necessary. every time i hear a mouse in the wall i think of the episode of sex and the city where carrie wakes up to find a mouse nestled beside her on the pillow. i know it's going to happen to me, and i know that i'm going to have the same reaction she did: screaming, crying, running to the bathroom. i don't care if it's just a mouse. i don't care if they're more scared of me than i am of them. and i don't care if trapping them on evil-looking sticky traps until they suffocate is inhumane. i'm the one who pays the exorbitant rent for my apartment and i'm the only one who should be living there.

ho

my coworker stephanie sent me this cartoon yesterday with the caption "family circus--baltimore." enjoy.

rae tihs

this forward that my dad sent me reminds me of online conversations with either hilary or michael. just kidding, guys (not really)!

Can you raed tihs?
Olny srmat poelpe can.
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was
rdanieg.The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are,
the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a
porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by
istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs psas it on !!

sex in der schwulen stadt

it must be every-other-friday, because a new column came out in baltimore gay life this week! for the first time, it carries the moniker "dirty laundry." i'm going to be a dork and put my logo on it. booyah.

I Like You
by Robert


John shifted uncomfortably in his seat and looked over at me. He moved my hand from the gearshift of my car into his own, and all at once, in a single, nervous stream, he said, "Listen, Robert. I really like you."

"I know," I told him. I did know. One of the great things about John, for all of his faults, was that he never failed to tell me how he felt. He could be excitable or accusatory, but he was never stoic. He liked me and he told me so, usually four or five times a day.

"No, I mean really," he said. I slowly exhaled, wondering what was coming next. John went on hurriedly, "I really like you and I was wondering if you wanted to be monogamous. I want you to be my boyfriend, Robert."

I half-smiled, pleased but not surprised. "You're the only person I've wanted to sleep with for a while anyway, babe," I told him. "Of course we can say we're boyfriends."

The truth is that I'm always surprised when people feel like they have to ask. I've been dating boys since I was 17, but I still can't seem to figure out the ins and outs of dating, specifically our self-imposed labelling system. What are the levels, for instance? When does seeing each other turn into dating? When does we're dating become he's my boyfriend? And why do we have to think about it so much? Does there have to be a moment in a relationship when you get down on one knee and say to the guy you're seeing or dating or whatever and say "I want you to be my boyfriend"? Call me old-fashioned, but if we've seen each other every day for the last two months and we've spent more nights together than alone I consider you my boyfriend.

"I guess I'd never thought about it," an ex-boyfriend said to me on the phone last night. I told him that I'd been thinking a lot lately about how it is that people decide what to call each other in a relationship. "When I was dating this guy named Drew we never even brought up the term boyfriend," he said. "Like, it just wasn't ever an option. We were dating, then he started to annoy me, so we decided..."

"We?" I asked.

"Ok, so I decided that we wouldn't date anymore."

"Ok," I said, "but where was the point in our relationship that we decided to be boyfriends--officially?"

"There wasn't one," he said.

I realized he was right: there wasn't a big talk. There wasn't an epiphany; there weren't furtive glances or sweaty-palmed proposals. It just was. We met, we hung out; we played GameCube and drank Miller Lite and laughed and screwed and sometimes fought. And before I knew it we were celebrating our year anniversary and living together. And we were in love, and it didn't have to be dissected or named. It just was.

Being back on the market, though, has reminded me that apparently there are all these tiers of dating, and they seem to be mutually exclusive: you're either sleeping together, or you're seeing each other, or you're dating, or you're boyfriends, or you're partners. And you have to be damned sure at each stage of the game that one of you isn't speeding ahead of the other.

As I sit here writing this, though, I start to wonder: what's my big problem with labelling a relationship? What's so wrong with really sitting down and deciding where a relationship is headed? That way no one gets hurt, right?

I wonder if I avoid having the boyfriend talk in relationships because I don't really want to know where things are headed. Once I label a relationship, I start to have a hand in where the relationship is going; I've taken control and forged a bond. I'm responsible for the creation of something life-altering, whatever its outcome.

But maybe it's time for me to take the reigns. Maybe I've laid low too long, swum around in ambiguity longer than I should have. Maybe it's time for me to realize that even though naming a relationship makes it vulnerable, it also brings it fully into existence. That people will fight and relationships will fail; that lovers will leave, but that sometimes people will step in to take their place. That naming something's part of the adventure.

LeanBody

right now i'm learning a new piece of equipment we're using on the study called a "BIA," which stands for...body...index....um...i have no idea. it apparently tells us the kids' body fat percentage. i'm guessing some of the kids will be around 90%, the other 10% being taken up by asthma medication and potato chips. kidding. no i'm not.

it just keeps cracking me up because a) here i am, a total non-scientist learning how to use this ridiculous piece of equipment and b) it's called the LeanBody 1.0. leanbody. ha.

i'm official!

it's dreary/rainy for the 92839489328493 day in a row here in baltimore. i have no voice and i have to spend the next 7 hours in the clinic. and hilary and i have a show in easton, maryland tomorrow.

but you know what? who cares. for the first time in my life, i have a logo. that's right, a logo. for my lil' column. as ron, its designer, said: "i see t-shirts." check it!

snore

ok so i TOTALLY just remembered that i woke myself up last night snoring. that's right, girls. i woke myself out of a deep sleep with the sound of my own snoring. i woke up and was like, "what the fuck was that weird noise!?" then i glanced at the clock--4am. then i realized i'd just been snoring.

we'll say my allergies have been bad. that's the ticket. allergies.

this reminds me of the time in high school that i was sitting in AP english (was i hopped up on pills? no telling.) and i kept dozing off. but i didn't know that i was dozing. all i knew was that i'd be sitting there with my eyes closed and my head in my hand and i'd hear this weird noise. every time i'd hear it i'd snap my eyes open and look around. the third time it happened i realized that i was falling asleep and waking myself up by starting to snore.

i snore myself awake. i'm SO HOT.

hisspace

oh my god. no, seriously. he's a culture expert. and a whiz at grammar.

typo heaven

robert: god i really shouldn't make it since i have ice cream
robert: you're right
robert: i'll make applesauce
hilary: whtat bran
hilary: brad
hilary: brand
hilary: shit
hilary: of ice cream
robert: we're in baltimore, so bran' is technically correct
robert: and it's baskin robbins
hilary: haahahah

paging sexy banter

thank god i have literate friends. let me just say that first off. whether it's ben in boston, or michael or cory here in town, i get free editorial advice every two weeks before i send the final version of my column off to the editor at gay life. it's always such a weird feeling, sending a final submission to scott, the editor. (with any luck) the piece has gone through a few changes. i think that, given the opporunity, i'd be the worst kind of writer: i'd keep revisiting the same short work over and over, changing it and tweaking it until it barely resembled the piece it started out as. kind of like trent reznor. why'd it take five years for him to make a shitty album like the fragile? because he'd finish a song and then two weeks later change the reverb on one track. then two weeks later he'd go back and switch it back to how it was to begin with. before you know it, five years has passed and you've put out a work that means a ton to you but that no one else cares to understand. luckily for me, i've got two weeks for each one. when they're done, they're done. i have to commit to it and send it off. it's oddly like giving birth, except that there's no pain, sadly no drugs, and when you're done what you're left with is a piece of fag-centric literature instead of a baby. so i guess it's not that much like giving birth.

the thing is that once you hit the send button, what's done is done. the next time you'll see it, it'll be in print, circulated to dozens, if not three-dozens of readers. (just kidding, gay life guys!)

after cory read my submission this week, he said "oh, it's good." i said, "are you just saying that because you're feeling lazy and don't actually feel like giving me constructive criticism?" he said no, but then went on to tell me three or four things that could've been improved.

the main one was that the piece was too pessimistic. that's always the problem with my writing, i think: if i write a piece that's not overtly pessmisitic, it comes out being too flippant. or it comes out being stupid. or something that i wouldn't even want to bother reading. this column (and this blog) was born from my breakup with terry. it was a way that i could get everything out that was in. but that was months and months ago; yet i find it hard to change the tone of the column. hmm.

and, frankly, it's hard not to be pessimistic. i read a blog entry like hilary's "shit storm" from yesterday and find myself agreeing: if nothing bad has happened in a while, you're overdue. your car will break down or you'll get mugged. i know it's not a good attitude to have, or from which to write. so it's no wonder that i write sentences like "you're responsible for the inevitable demise of the relationship." thankfully, cory convinced me to take that happy little nugget out of the finished column.

ok, enough headswimming for today. the next entry will be filled with funny, sexy banter. i promise.

bitch and moan

let me preface this whole blog by saying that the shuttle i ride every morning to work is free. it doesn't cost me a dime. gratis.

HOWEVER.

hopkins has made it so impossible to drive to any of their campuses--there's practically no parking at homewood, and parking at hopkins med costs a hundred bucks a month--that they've forced people to rely on their shuttle. nearly every morning since school started i've had to wait fifteen minutes for a shuttle then barely squeezed myself on. i think that i've gotten to sit down for the ride to work twice since the beginning of the school year.

this morning things just went CRAZY. it was worse than ever. first of all, it's pouring rain here in dear old baltimore. baltimore's fucking ugly when it's nice weather; when it's raining it looks like a cross between post-WWII east berlin and hell. rain drips from soggy, crumbling crackhouse doorways and cockroaches scurry to get out of the downpour. seriously.

on top of the third day of pouring rain, i had to watch three shuttles drive by, filled, before i got onto one. i got out to the shuttle line at 8.15 and stood there until nine o'clock. mind you, i have to be in the fucking clinic at 9:30. since i got here late, i ordered the study participant's cab late, which means they'll be here late, which means that i don't get a lunchbreak between four-hour visits today. that means i'll be in the clinic from 9:30-5 straight through.

as i was waiting in the shuttle line, standing behind a nice girl that looks bizarrely like naomi watts, i said to her, "i already didn't want to go to work today, and now it's impossible for me to even get there." it did seem so strange to me--having to drag myself out of bed to do this job and then having to fight to even get in.

then again, the shuttle's free. gratis.

black eyed peed

just in case you didn't already hate hate hate hate hate the black eyed peas (as you know you should), try to listen to their new song. the lady (ok so i know her name is fergie. see here.) repeats "my hump" and "my lady lumps" over and over again. MY LADY LUMPS? i know i'm gay but c'mon. i just threw up in my mouth a little.

new romantics

it was quite the weekend. i think that every time i sit down on monday morning to write a blog i start it out with the phrase "it was quite the weekend." but no bother. it was quite the weekend. in the midst of much craziness--a dinner party (or "dinner party") friday night; a rehearsal at 8:30 saturday morning, church twice on sunday--george came up to hang out for the weekend and rehearse. in professional news, the violin/baritone duo that he's written us is coming together well; i was really worried but i'm not so worried anymore. but i'm still using the music, oh yes.

here are some stories from the weekend.

cory and i went to his friend doug's house for a dinner party. after walking there in the pouring rain, the party was weird from the word go. we walk in the door and the apartment looks like a cross between a dead 1950's grandmother--not your grandmother, i explained to george, but your mom's grandmother, complete with victrola, frowning-old-woman-oil-painting over the mantle, uncomfortable, overstuffed couch, wire-framed oscillating fan--and the room that e.a. poe died in. i told doug that his apartment was very "new romantic." "he's being ironic with his apartment," cory told me. i saw that.

so we're sitting in this bizarre sitting room with three of the strangest people i've ever met: dan and his sister "shade" (real name sally or sandi or something equally femme), a lesbian with a mohawk who's wearing a sailor costume. with a sailor hat. i asked "shade" where she's from and she stared through me: "san francisco," she replied. the way she said it made me not want to ask anything else. i started a conversation with cory. thirty seconds later she looked at me and said, "we're from new hampshire. dan and i are from new hampshire." congrats, i thought.

after one glass of wine i started to feel so fucked up--not drunk, but generally fucked up--that i told cory that i thought they'd laced my drink with something. after all, i don't know these people, and the way they're behaving, and the general e.a. poe-ness of this apartment all adds up to one thing: they're fucking with me.

this strange little conversation set the stage for the rest of the evening. just when i thought things couldn't get ANY more fucked up, john artz showed up and started singing. no, it's not a dream. this actually happened. "now it's your turn to be in on the game," doug told us. "we're trying to make each new arrival feel really uncomfortable." cory's convinced that he was kidding. i'm not.

the antedote to friday's bizarro evening was george's visit. we had a great time--relaxing, eating meals out, making music. more eating than music. we decided to get real nostalgic and go to central's wet underwear contest last night. cory had never been before, and i think he was actually a little surprised that no one in the contest was worth looking at. like there are going to suddenly be all of these extraordinarily hot men that come out of the woodwork and enter the contest. nope, these are the same gays we see at the bar, just with fewer clothes and more water. they have more cajones (or is it less shame?) than i do, though. i'll give 'em that.

oh. my. god.

oh dear god, i spoke too soon.

totally safe for work

happy monday. (via queerty)

sugar dandy

i think beyonce really said it best when she spoke these now-legendary words: "will you pay my bills? will you pay my telephone bills? will you pay my automo-bills?"

seriously, though, i need a sugar daddy. preferably that sugar daddy would be no older than 35, extremely hot, would like going to indie rock shows, and would drive me around in his BMW when we weren't having extremely good sex. ok, so i haven't described a sugar daddy so much as i've described the perfect boyfriend. sugar daddies are sugar daddies because they feel like they have to use their money to land themselves a young buck.

then again, assuming that i'm one of the young bucks sugar daddies are after is practically laughable. i imagine that these older men (think the QAF storyline where emmett dates the 75-year old. that's what i'm talking about here.) are after cute, twinky things. i never was a twink. i somehow went from being a child to being a hairy, grown man. i skipped the whole bel ami stage. come on, people. i'm 1/4 lithuanian. couldn't i have had at least a few years where i was cutely muscular and hairless? no. when puberty hit, it hit hard. it's not that i wanna be twinkish, especially not at 25 years old. 25 year olds without a hair on their body weird me out. no offense, george.

so, bills. god, bills. now that terry's moved and we're no longer splitting the utilities it's really smacked me in the face how much more expensive it is to live alone. seriously. rent uses practically a whole paycheck, leaving me about $95 for two weeks, then in the middle of the month my bills take up all but $50 of the next one. it's not like i'm living beyond my means here, either. sure, i could get rid of dsl and cable, but i live alone. i'm not emily dickinson and this is not the 1800's. i can't just sit by myself in my tiny room and -shudder- read a book. or, even worse, write poetry. every day i eat dinner with rachael ray. she'd miss me.

so, young, hot, rich men who are desperate to pay my automo-bills, listen up. i'm available.

jealous girls

i was sitting here with nothing to blog. it's a rainy friday, there's no new column coming out this week in gay life. it's the friday dolrums. ho hum.

THEN, seemingly out of nowhere, this news comes down like heavenly manna:

andrea wiltzius has started a blog.

that's right; the wisconsonian professional blog-commenter has started her very own bitchspace on the internet. it better not be funnier than mine. ya hear me, bitch?

bag of bags

hilary alerted me to this article, entitled "why the fuck do i know this stuff?" if i'd written it, it'd be called "why the fuck do i care?"

it's wonderful. it includes the phrases "having to deal with a stupid, spoiled hunk of sex meat is intolerable no matter how perfectly it’s shaped," and "Give me fucking break. She is hot, but she’s dumb as a bag full of bags."

god i needed that this morning.

the war on w

ok, so i'm not the most overtly political person. that's kind of an understatement. but i do vote when given the opportunity, and i'm just a little more informed than, say, the average kindergartner. but that's only because i make myself listen to morning edition from 7.40 to 8.15 every morning while i get ready. and that's only because i'm usually too hungover, er, i mean tired to handle music.

as i was shaving this morning, though, listening to renee montagne (god knows how you spell that woman's name) talk about george w., my blood started to boil (to quote my new fiona album, to which i'm listening obsessively): apparently our dear president is going to make a big, important speech about "the war on terror" this afternoon. the war on terror?? who is HE KIDDING!? he has zero support for this war; every day it seems like there's a new report about this horrendous quagmire in iraq. that's right, i said quagmire.

here's his thinking (to be read in an exaggerated, cloying hick texan accent): well, hmm, so my approval rating is at an all time low. FEMA is clearly fucked. what on earth can i do to divert attention away from our horrific (as if w would use such a big word) fuckup in the gulf? that's it--THE WAR ON TERROR! we'll just remind the people how great my "bullhorn" moment after 911 was.

BLURGH! ok, back to fiona.

seriously we're best friends

my close, personal friend anna ditkoff has provided us with another hiii-larious bar scars this week.

ew

ok, so my dad just sent me this forwarded picture along with the message "one of your neighbors perhaps?"

god i love my family.

fionathised

ok, so i know i've been posting a lot of lyrics on this blog lately. but...it's my blog so get over it. these are samples of the new fiona apple album. i told cory yesterday, i fear that she's made the best album of her career and absolutely no one is going to buy it. or just me. i admit, she's a crazy bitch, but she writes lyrics like...

"I opened my eyes
While you were kissing me once more than once
And you looked as sincere as a dog
Just as sincere as a dog does,
When it's the food on your lips with which it's in love

I bet you could never tell
That I knew you didn't know me that well
It is my fault you see
You never learned that much from me

Oh you silly stupid pastime of mine
You were always good for rhyme
And from the first to the last time
The sign says stop
But we went on whole hearted it ended bad
But I love what we started it says stop
But we went on whole hearted it ended bad
But I love what we started

I took off my glasses
While you were yelling at me once more than once
So as not to see you see me react
Should've put 'em, should've put 'em on again
So I could see you see me sincerely yelling back

I bet your fortress face
Belied your fort of lace
It is by the grace of me
You never learned what I could see

Oh you silly stupid pastime of mine
You were always good for rhyme
And from the first to all the last time
All the sign says stop
But we went on whole hearted it ended bad
But I love what we started it says stop
But we went on whole hearted it ended bad"

and

"Oh what a cold and common old way to go
I was feeding on the need for you to know me
Devastated at the rate you fell below me

What wasted unconditional love
On somebody
Who doesn't believe in the stuff

Oh, well"

damn.

fuckups

when i was on my way down to the clinic this morning, terry called me in a blind rage. knowing that i hadn't done anything (well, i should say, scanning back in my mind really quickly to make sure i hadn't done anything), i knew that it must be something involving baltimore, baltimore's incompetence, baltimore's unfriendly, incompetant people, or a combination of the above. i was right.

"i just got a bill from BGE for 300 dollars," he told me furiously. this doesn't come as a huge surprise. the fuckups over at BGE--i actually used the word "fuckups" on the phone with him several times even though i'm in the office--never came to read our meter while we were living there. actually i think they read it twice--once when we moved in and once last june. twice. apparently every other time we got a bill it was just a guesstimate. ohhh, the average two-faggot household uses this much energy, they thought. once you account for the hairdryers, the esspresso makers, and the plug-in vibrators, the bill should be about (throws dart at board) $75.61.

apparently, though, they've decided to go and read our meter--over two months after we vacated the property--and come up with a figure of $300. mind you, that's after terry paid $200 he supposedly owed after the meter was read in june. $300 for the month of july? ah no.

i told him that it made sense that we owed 300 bucks. "every day when you left for work, i'd leave the back sliding door and the front door open, then set the thermostat on 50 while i ran the washer, dryer, and dishwasher (all empty), blared the stereo, turned on both televisions, and left the shower on its hottest setting. then i'd leave for work," i told him.

"oh, ok," he said, playing along. "i always came home and thought it was sascha."

kerry schmerry

i never read political animal, but check out the quote on hilary's blog.

rowing song

since no one decided to come in for a clinic visit today, i'm rich with blogging time.

"rowing song" by patty griffin just came on my itunes and i thought i'd share it. it's one of the most heartbreaking songs i've ever heard. but you gotta hear it, so download it. er, i mean, uh, go buy it legally somewhere. yeah, that's the ticket. legally. it's not amanda's favorite--"god, this woman really has a problem with repetition," was, i believe, her comment.

i have two vivid memories attached to it:

1. laying on the beach in myrtle beach, SC, the day before alyson's wedding, exhausted, unshaven, and by myself, as amanda naps upstairs in our grungy hotel room. the same hotel room for which i still owe her money. i'd put my ipod inside a plastic bag so that if i fell asleep and the tide came in it'd be safe. yeah, i'm that guy.
2. standing on a chair in the old apartment at waterloo, trying to get another coat of primer done before terry came home, desperate to get it done, desperate to end the three-day, heart-wrenching ordeal. i listened to the album the whole way through, and paid attention to these lyrics as i edged around the bare picture window. i got down off the chair, sat with my head in my painty hands, and let myself cry. again.
   

music's powerful stuff.

"As I row, row, row
Going so slow, slow, slow
Just down below me is the old sea
Just down below me is the old sea
Nobody knows, knows, knows
So many things, things, so
So out of range
Sometimes so strange
Sometimes so sweet
Sometimes so lonely

The further I go
More letters from home never arrive
And I'm alone
All of the way
All of the way
Alone and alive

You just have to go, go, go
Where I don't know, know, know
This is the thing
Somebody told me
A long time ago

The further I go
More letters from home never arrive
And I'm alone
All of the way
All of the way
Alone and alive"

babies! babies. babies?

i just saw THE MOST PRECIOUS baby in the clinic. five years ago, i would've said, "ew, babies." now i go down to the pediatric clinic i work in, and inevitiably see an adorable baby, and inevitably go over and hold it and ooh and ahh. i've even started playing a little game with myself, seeing if i can guess the baby's age. "are you fourteen months yet?" i'll pretend-ask the baby. "she'll be a year and a half in november," says the mom.

i'm getting good at this baby business; someday i'll be ready for my own. then i just have to grow a womb.

power to the people

i love student demonstrations. (via queerty.)

pious

so far, none of our clinic visits have shown up. i understand that it must be confusing when confronted with a free cab that's been sent to your house--do you get in it and come to your scheduled appointment? do you refuse it and go to the market? choices, choices.

thanks, farrar, for this NPR essay; it follows the same line of thinking that an old column of mine did, involving my relationship with the church. or lack thereof.

just stay calm

dearest readers, i'm sitting here at my desk, taking some deep, yogic (or however you spell that word. ask michael.) breaths, in preparation for a long, horrible day in the clinic. it's another back-to-back four-hour clinic visit adventure day, when i have nothing but my acting skills to fall back on. (you know, acting like i have a lot of energy; acting like i understand children.) breathe in; there, now breathe out.

more to follow...for now, i'll leave you with this.

you're welcome.

apfelfest

continuing the weekend of planny fall plans, hilary, ashli, and i met the ryon girls' mom up in hanover and went to the apple harvest festival. the national apple harvest festival. last year, the first year i went, i was expecting something akin to the "octoberfest" (notice the C instead of the K--this was oklahoma) that took place in ponca when i was growing up. it was a mid-size event--cute crafts, cute entertainment, some food. there's nothing mid-size about the apple harvest festival, however. this is literally thousands and thousands of people wandering around a wooded fairground, clamoring for the best view of things like "grandchildren spoiled here" lawn signs and jack-o-lanterns made out of gourds.

you might be shocked to hear this, but this sort of thing usually isn't my bag. "what? i thought you loved crowds, animals, and country crafts!" i can already hear you saying. not really. but there's something about the apple festival that is immensely enjoyable. it could be spending the afternoon with hilary, ashli, and their completely insane mother. or it could be that i'm guaranteed to eat pit beef and apple crisp. either way, it was fun. pictures are posted.

sue chef

with cory's help, i just made this pie. seriously.