Impasse

You taught me to bury deep inside who I really am
I couldn't "be" gay, you taught me,
because "acting" gay was wrong
And I grew up trying to avoid
"looking" gay or
"sounding" gay or
"dressing" gay or
ANYTHING gay
because, however tacitly, you
YOU
taught me I could not be gay.


So, my psyche learned to repress itself
by busying itself to the point of obsession
with how to avoid being found out

You taught me to hide my feelings from you
because I was a kid - a fucking kid
who just wanted to be accepted by his parents
his friends
his church
the world.
But I had to hide the real me, you taught me,
in order to feel loved.

So, I became a teenager who acted out in secret
All of my sexual experimentation happened
Because it happens for everyone, right?
But for me it happened in the dark
without advice
without answers to my questions
without joy

You taught me how to act, look, sound, dress ...
what to reveal, what to deny
And set me up to be miserable on the inside
but to always smile in your face so you wouldn't know it

So, as my sexual experimentation evolved
and I learned how my emotions and sex life were attached
My repression and my facade were much too intense
And felt to be around a whole lot longer than I was alive
somehow

So, I learned to keep it up into my 20s.
Experimentation in secret gave way to illicit behavior
in the gutter
in groups
in gravely dangerous places
created for my ilk
created by the likes of me
because secret lives and repressed souls
just naturally find their way to the gutter
it seems

And you find out, whether I tell you or not,
the world finds out
and I'm a disgrace, you all say,
be I gaunt and dying or
a fortunate, shell of a man in good health
because you taught me better.

Because you taught me better.

Because you fucking taught me better.

For too long

I'm usually quick to stop some bullshit, but when it comes to my mother in law, I'm uncharacteristically long suffering.  And suffering is a good word there.  We're roommates (my ex wife's mother and I)  [I know, not typical, but it just is] and she's become more work than a help.  And for far too many months, I've let her do less than her share - the share we agreed upon ... and I guess I just had a very ridiculous notion each month that the following month she'd make up for it.

But no - she's a perpetual drain on my finances and I have put my foot down.  I'm not here to allow her to enable her children to be jobless, ghetto bitches - she spends all her money on the bottomless put that is their greed and their proven habit of taking advantage of her ... and then I have to help her with HER bills?  Or I have to go without her rent to me?

I've made it clear - I have no interest in helping them any further.  I'm through with the nonsense - we have an agreed upon monthly payment for her living expenses (which is already generous on my part) and she's got to get on it.

I've redone my finances without her a part of it - and I can totally do bad on my own - so, if this shit continues, I will ask her to leave.  My kids are actual CHILDREN that I need to take care of - her grown ass kids (and two grandkids) are not my concern.  I'm through.

UNTITLED RANT

I didn't even know what to call this shit, but I have a bone to pick with ... well, with ... who the fuck knows. Just a bone to pick. Cuz I'm overwhelmed.

I have a serious problem with the fact that companies were so quick to fire but are so slow to hire. I'm well aware that I am extremely fortunate to have been employed through this great recession - I get that. And my complaint here comes from a place that is completely cognizant of the ... well, privilege that I enjoy as one of the ones that has remained employed over the past few years. I'm not even trying to front, ok? Privilege. I get it. I know it. I'm not trying to gain sympathy here.

But I am trying to convey my own frustration with the speed (an oxymoron) with which we are recovering jobs. As much as the unemployed need work ... we need you, too! There's a lot to do - and no one expects less because there are fewer people around to get the job done. In fact, the expectations have grown and I, personally, have been stretched thin, and thinner, and then steam rolled to damn near a trillionth of a millimeter ... and, as even metal, when so pressed, I'm feeling brittle.

I struggle pretty hard on a consistent basis with not losing my cool, or just plain snapping (ethnically). I need a reprieve. Some release. You know how when a train rolls into the last station and you hear the HISS of release hydraulic pressure? Like that.

And that's not coming from "just hold on a little bit longer," or the pizza you order in for lunch. Holding on a little bit longer just means ... well, hold one a little bit fucking longer! And pizza? That just now says, "don't leave for lunch - eat here."

(I'm not ungrateful for the pizza itself. After all, pizza is YUM! Thank you.)

But really, when are we going to get more people? We need people. People needs jobs. On either side of the unemployment line there's pressure building ... that's really my point. Those people that are losing their homes, getting collection calls, turn off notices or angry visits from the landlords? That shit is stressful ... and they truly, honestly just want to work.

And there's plenty of work to do! PLENTY. OF. IT.

It's a peg and a hole of the same shape and size. And yet here we still are ... anxious, stressed and worn out. Giving our lives to nothing ... because either we're working like slaves and can't figure out how to really have a life outside of work ... or working on resumes and finding more job applications to fill out and unable to really have a life outside of the house.

(Maybe this is bullshit - but here my mind lays)

It's for me.

I've met someone online and it turned out he is a friend of a friend - and that mutual friend gave me the green light. "He's a good guy." Fortunately, we were chatting before we figured out we had a mutual friend.

It's long distance, too. We both travel quite a bit for our jobs and happened to cross paths during our travels - which is how we met.



We're in that 3-hour-phone-call-nightly phase - and it feels good. I'm struggling with keeping things in perspective, but I'm managing not to get beside myself. Long-distance isn't easy - I know this - but the number of things we have in common just make it uncanny:

• He's black - was married to a Puerto Rican woman. I'm Puerto Rican - was married to a black woman.
• We both divorced 7 years ago
• We both have two kids. One boy and One girl each.
• He's in the same business as our mutual friend and the two of them were on the same business trip together when he and I met.
• We both live in one city 70% of the time, and both spend 30% of our time in a different city.
  
• We both do the 70/30 thing because our kids are in one city and work in the other
• We both have very close relationships with our ex-inlaws
• The Bronx is where he spends that 30% of his time - I was born in the Bronx and my momma still lives there.

We learned a lot about each other talking for quite a while now - and notice how nothing above has any relation to sex. It's just personality here. We've discussed meeting in person and what the hell happens if we hit it off in person and decide it's worth pursuing further ... and we're both willing to work it out, travel, etc. I know long distance isn't easy, I say again ... but it seems like it could allow me to focus on raising my kids when I'm in daddy mode, without someone local wanting to see me, or being jealous of the time I keep exclusive to my kids. It seems like it would allow me to focus on work when I'm supposed to be focused on work. I don't know - I compartmentalize and it seems like it would work alright.

If I still have readers - I'm sure you'll post your opinions. Let me have it.

Girl's little Daddy

I love the shit out my kids. That's why when my ex-wife snapped at my daughter and pretty much crushed her and sent her off to school all emotional-like ... I couldn't handle it. Talking to that woman when her Dr. Jeckyl takes the fuck over has always been a stressful thing to me ... I'd call it problem numero UNO in my marriage to her.

Right - I'm gay as the day is long and my most major problem in my marriage? The emotional-shaped void that woman carries around with her, evidenced in her vacuous stares and detached demeanor. Seriously - it's a tad scary when she gets like that.

Since the oncologists removed her ovaries, the woman flattened out really well. I really thought that her hormones and her cycle were the real culprit at that point. I mean - she was actually ... well, more human.

I saw that emptiness again when she snapped at my daughter about her having gotten a 78 on a math test ... a test that the teacher wrote home about - a test that all but 4 students did crappy on - a test that the teacher wanted the whole class to retake - a test that would not count towards anyone's grade if they improved on the re-take.

yes - THAT test.

My daughter went off to school thinking she had to give up one of her extra-curricular activities - and there are only two, and the second she only just started last week. She was balling on the way to school, and there was nothing I could do to console her. her momma said it - and it was therefore true.

I emailed the teacher about my daughter's grades and the teacher said that she didn't think my daughter's grades were a problem because she currently has straight A's and she expects my daughter to do well on the make-up test. So - I forward this to the baby momma and ask her to call me.

That conversation was like death to me - she was still being stoic and unfeeling and I found within me strength I had lost in my battles with her when she got like that during our marriage. In my marriage I finally just ignored it and laid around all depressed for having lost to some demon (yes, that's how it felt) but when I was fighting for my daughter - I found strength to be just as combative.

I was able to recall a tremendous amount about the past - a skill that usually failed me when she got into that mode. I mean, she'd get demonic and I'd just stare at her with my mind blank ... like, arguing ANYTHING with her was pointless, so why bother?

This time, though - I told her about conversations she and I had many years ago ... how our daughter is an emotional creature and you can't simply treat her that way - how you shouldn't treat emotional people that way period, but that this was a child. OUR child. a NINE year old. And that sending her off to school ... to take the fucking re-take, no less ... in total distress was unacceptable.

I mean, it was easy for me to give up on fighting in my marriage because, well - I wasn't in love with her ... I'm gay ... and I really was just a shell of myself anyway, living a lie and trying to please other people. Why argue to win when you're not really living to live? I didn't - that's what. But today? And attacking my baby? No sir

Or ma'am.

Or whatever the hell got into her.

She called back later that night to apologize to my daughter, and eventually told me that after we hung up, and although she was adamant on the phone that I was wrong, she thought about my points - decided I was right ... and that she was wrong to approach our daughter that way. She even asked me to help her deal with my daughter.

And let me tell you - my daughter is an emotional, caring, considerate child who just wants to do what's right. She wants to please her mom. And I'm really scared right now that my little baby girl is going to be one of THOSE females ... one of the ones who has issues with her mother.

But, baaabbbbyyyyy - your daddy is right here.

Right here.

Se La Vie

So, my daughter's painted turtle died this weekend. She was a wreck. We've consoled her over and over again, telling her it wasn't her fault, that we all just handled the turtle so much and kept moving him from tank to tank that he just stressed out. The truth is, the water in his feeding tank was too warm and she shocked his little system putting him in there. But we tell her it's not her fault.

She refused to bury him because bugs would eat him - so I wondered about cremation. I have a "friend" I know who works at a funeral home, so I consulted with him. He said it would be too expensive, but as I sit here and type I realize I never got a price outta him. I should ask him. But i digress ...

You did notice that I called this dude a "friend" and not a friend, right? Well, he was way too interested in me and I wasn't so very interested in anything further than the occasional benefit - so I had to call it off. He was talking about marriage and my meeting his momma ... and I'm like "to me, we're fuck buddies" and he was all upset for a while. But then, I guess he was ok with just having sex and tried to hit me up for a while.

It was a bad idea though - so, it's been a long time since we were ... uhhh ... coital. KIDDING! Intimate. This was his chance to establish a civil relationship with me and instead he said he would come over and hold a ceremony for my daughter and it would only be a "nominal" fee.

Really?!? You trying to get some ass in return for a fucking burial service?

A BURIAL SERVICE?!?

THAT nigga can't event KISS my ass.

Now about the turtle
My brother-in-law brought two new turtles for the kids - they were happy with that, but still sad about Squirt. He was a rescue and wasn't quite a year ... and, as turtles go, their first year is delicate and Squirt was vulnerable.

The two new turtles are older and more stable - a different species ... and we've decided not to removed them from the tank in order to feed them. That should go a long way.

So, My Mom Knows

This trip to NYC was one of the most stressful of my life. It came with the usual stress that comes with visiting a Latina mother - she's brutally honest, has no filter between her brain and her mouth, and consistently pointed out how much weight I've gained. That's putting it mildly - she called me fat quite a lot. At one point, told me I look like the sky.

While we were cooking thanksgiving dinner together, a Ricky Martin song came on the radio and she mentioned that he came out as gay and has kids. I said, "good for him!" and that conversation didn't go much further - but I was determined to come out to my mom anyway.

Later that night, we got to talking. It got real deep, real fast. She recounted the story of when she was raped at 13 years old - how she ended up pregnant - how her mom and sister worked to get her an abortion without her dad finding out - except that throughout all this, she didn't even understand what it meant that she was pregnant, or that she had been violated because she had been knocked unconscious during the attack.

I'll spare the details - but let me simply say that the "wire hanger" abortion references to days of old? That shit was real. They didn't take her to a doctor, but they figured out how to make my mother give birth to a still-born, at 13.

I began to understand my family's history - my mother's detachment from her siblings, especially THAT sister ... and how a few years ago my mother whacked the bitch upside her head in her own house after the bitch told their other sister not to mention anything in front of my mom because it was "family business." Yeah - well, apparently it took 50 years for my mom to tire of being treated like she wasn't family ... THAT'S why she's still fist fighting at 60.

I asked about my childhood - why did she send me to my aunt and uncle to raise me instead of keeping me at home with my brother? Turns out, postpartum depression is a SON of a bitch and she told me flat out that I wasn't planned, she didn't want me and had thought of hurting me when I was born. My uncle (whose name I made my middle name) insisted that my om leave me with him while she got better.

But sitting there across from my mom - it really did sting to actually HEAR her tell me that she didn't want me. To HEAR her tell me that is wasn't until my brother got into all his gang shit that she felt she started getting close to me. The more he slipped away from her, the more she got close to me. THIS is how I ended up being the grown up in the relationship, you see - I've been taking care of my mother since I was like 12, when she sent me to work and bring home money each week.

At this point - coming out was easier. I was still riddled with that OH FUCK sinking feeling as we discussed my life, as I answered her questioning me about a woman in my life by saying that I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not interested in women.

"Are you gay?"

"Yes."

"ok."

She shrugged and told me how she's always suspected. That she's always thrown hints out there for me ... like mentioning Ricky Martin being gay with kids. She told me that she still loves me, that it didn't matter to her - she hugged and kissed me and said she wished we had wine - because this was a reason to celebrate.

Actually - it was a reason to numb the intensity away. That evening was riddled with more emotion than I thought possible and it was 6am before I felt I had calmed down enough to fall asleep.

But even as I type this, I have to mentally put my grown man on when I think about having received confirmation that my mom never really wanted me. If you've followed JACK into The Refined Ghetto, you know that I've always known that she didn't ... but hearing her say it? That's a different story.

But like I said in my previous post - I'm paving the way for the rest of the people in my family who are in the closet ... just come on out and stop living in misery. It will be ok ... you're not the first one.