Grieving, Super Heroes, & Obama

"Seize the day, boys,
Make your lives extraordinary"
-Dead Poets Society

For serious, Dead Poets Society appeals to any budding queen in his teenage years- what could be better than a bunch of men sittin' round a cave reading poetry to each other?!? Just add a sauna with some towels and we are in business! (I'm such a poser, that doesn't actually appeal to me at all ... I think ...)

Today I was looking through some pictures of Obama and his family on election night (click) and I delighted in the fly-on-the-wall candidness of the photographs. Here is a family just like the millions of others across the world, and yet a family that is so completely extraordinary in the most fantastic way imaginable.

Obama reminds me of Superman in these photos ... one minute your average man, the next minute a superhero. And only he decides when it's his moment to shine. It was humbling to watch him sitting so serenely on a hotel room couch, the direction of his life guided only by the glow of a TV screen. And it seemed, regardless of the outcome, that he and his family knew that they would be alright.

But Obama is not unique in his ability to change from average-Joe to renowned-hero ... we all have a Batman or WonderWoman lurking just below the surface, and we can show our extraordinary sides even when everything seems to be Gotham-y (Gotham separated is 'got' + 'ham', that's weird).

Losing my mom has been very Got-ham-like for my entire family, and with only 3 months into this race we are not out of the woods yet. In fact, it really is like a hurdling race; some obstacles you clear without a scratch, and others, while presumptuously just like the rest of the hurdles, bring you crashing down. Only the clock never stops ticking, and you have to get your momentum back quick to clear the next challenge.

But in my immediate family I can already see the superheroes struggling to the surface. My dad is still going to choir practice faithfully, and he is even considering buying some cologne (which he hasn't worn in years because it always effected my mom). My sister has uprooted herself and replanted in Atlanta, surrounding herself with close friends and a solid support structure.

And while the finish line of this race doesn't even exist, at least we are all still on the track together ... with plenty of friends on the sidelines cheering, first-aid kits ready and all.

As for me, I'm still looking for my inner extraordinary, my personal SpiderMan or Storm or Wolverine. All that seems to pop up is the Joker, as I try to laugh my worries all the way to the bat cave.

Maybe I should sit quietly, like Obama, and stare at the TV watching my life unfold before me. Patient, reserved, and comforted by the knowledge that no matter what happens ... everything will be alright.

Creation Museum

Science versus religion, a tireless debate that is argued most intently by those who can only see things as either black or white, comes to a dramatic flourish of biblical proportions at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.

Dear lord ... there's so much to mock, I'm not entirely sure where to begin.

The Museum is home to a fascinating collection of facts drawn from a mistranslated book full of contradictions and a supreme being who enjoys torturing people just because they like to get frisky every now and then.

"Let the Rain Come" is an all-live new musical put on a few times per month for those who enjoy the thought of drowning the entire planet and then repopulating it by means of incest (which, apparently, is totally cool with the Creator ... see below). The show is chocked full of special effects (CGI would definitely be needed to squeeze all those damn dinosaurs on board, lucky God has a degree in graphic design), refreshing music, plus some surprises ("Look, kids, this is how I'm going to get my own daughter pregnant!!!" ... crowd: "ooooooh .... ahhhhh .....").

What kind of music would you put to accompany the complete annihilation of our world??? "Our God is an awesome God -- it rains from heaven above -- to kill, drown and destroy our lives -- our God is an awesome God..." *faint applause from the audience and the sound of children vomiting at the mercilessness of the Creator*

After all this talk of flooding, I definitely need a drink. Oh, how about I head down to Noah's Cafe and experience old world treats like Cincinnati-style chili and pizza. Perhaps they could explain how Noah's family was able to feed the entire population of the Ark without the dinosaurs devouring anything that moved.

"Be prepared to experience history in an unprecedented way."

"Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden's rivers."

"Walk through the Cave of Sorrows and see the horrific effects of the Fall of man. Sounds of a sin-ravaged world echo through the room."

To which I add -- "Take your children to therapy immediately for PTSD and the ill-effects of being completely lied to by pseudo-science."


Let's get back to that pesky, pesky topic of incest. Answers in Genesis, the brains (sic) and brawn behind the Museum, have an "Answers Department" that spends its time randomly quoting scripture and uses circular reasoning to back up its preposterous claims.

From the website itself: "We’re not told when Cain married or many of the details of other marriages and children, but we can say for certain that Cain’s wife was either his sister or a close relative."

What ... the ... fuck ... ???

There's even a diagram depicting how genetic mutations increase over time until God decides to outlaw incest. Seriously, Creator, this is not some 5-year-old make-up-the-rules-as-we-go infantile game! We are talking about brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews making babies together! *more vomiting*

Seriously -- why not just cut the crap and say it? ... "Hmm, maybe incest just ain't cool, and we shouldn't take this thing so literally, after all" ...

It isn't rocket science, now is it ???


http://www.creationmuseum.org/
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/who-was-cains-wife

Health Care (sic .... or sick?)

The following is a meddlesome dialogue between myself and the insurance company, taken almost verbatim from a conversation a while back:

**********************

Automated British lady: Thank you for calling United HealthCare. How may I mis-direct your call?


Me: Um ... 'benefits' (with emphasis)


AB lady: You wanted (pause) gastro-bypass surgery. Is that correct?


Me: Grrr ... 'BE-NI-FITS' (loads of emphasis)


AB lady: You wanted (pause) Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. Is that correct?


Me: Sigh ... 'representative'.


AB lady: Hold your horses, you little bitch. You gotta tell me who you want to speak to and then I'll transfer your sick ass.


(after much negotiating, a live person answers the line)


Live Person: Thank you for calling United HealthCare, how can I waste your time today?


Me: Yes. OK here's the deal. I tried to go to a walk-in clinic yesterday, one that was listed on your website as covered in your network. When I got there they said they wouldn't take my kind of UHC. WTF, UHC?


Live Person: Well, sir, let me explain it to you as if you were 5 years old and have recently suffered a severe trauma to the head. You don't have United HealthCare, you have MDIPA, which is a subsidiary company of UHC. However, since you have MDIPA preferred, you still have access to that specific clinic for urgent care.


Me: Oh. So, I don't have the United HealthCare that's printed on my card here?


Live Person: No, you don't.


Me: And you are a customer service representative for ...


Live Person: United HealthCare.


Me: Then ... shouldn't I speak to someone from MDIPA?


Live Person: No, you dumbass. MDIPA falls under the umbrella of UHC, but not all parts of the umbrella are covered.


Me: OK ... so I can go to this clinic, right?


Live Person: Yes ... but only for urgent care. And you'll need a referral from your primary care physician.


Me: I haven't set up my PCP yet.


Live Person: *tsk tsk* What kind of idiot hasn't set up his PCP yet? UHC and MDIPA are not liable for consumers' ignorance.


Me: So I need a referral from a doctor to see a doctor in urgent care? Doesn't that seem a little redundant and silly considering the fact it's called 'urgent'?


Live Person: Sir, your incompetence is petulant. We are a business, and too busy to mettle with petty matters such as patients' care.


Me: Could you call the clinic and verify that my insurance will cover the visit?


Live Person: Oh, absolutely sir. I could also come to your house and clean it from top to bottom, scrub all the floors with a toothbrush, and, for good measure, personally and affectionately wash your skanky feet. I could, but I'm not going to.


Me: I see. Well, is there anything else you can not do for me today?


Live Person: The list is longer than you can possibly imagine. Have a lovely day and thank you for choosing United HealthCare!


Me: My absolute pleasure. Seems I'll be under the weather for quite a while. Fortunately, though, I have your silly umbrella to keep me dry.

Consolation Prizes

Sometimes people don't know what to say when they try and comfort a person who has experienced a loss. Over the past month I have been the unwilling recipient of consolation prizes dished out by the bucketful from those eager to express their condolences.

Some strike a tender chord, harmonizing with my sadness. Others strike me angrily, like a 5-year-old banging on a piano.

Some of my least favorites include: “She’s rejoicing with her Lord now”. “She’s making great music in heaven”. “God has taken her home”.

The audacity of help …

For some of the prize-givers, little or no thought is given to how inappropriate or insensitive their remarks may be. Take, for example, my position on religion. It’s quite presumptuous to automatically assume my mother and I shared the same religion, or that I would be comforted by talk of heaven, and Jesus, and God’s plan to pluck people in their prime.

Personally, I lie somewhere in between the grey mix of agnosticism, atheism, and Unitarianism.

Can you imagine me going up to someone at their relative’s funeral and saying, “I’m so sorry to hear about your loss. Hopefully it will be of some comfort to know that your relative was merely a complex biological organism that has stopped functioning and will never exist again.” … or … “I hope it brings you peace to know that your relative is now part of some nondescript comprehensive epistemological existence that cannot be truly named or identified.”

Can you imagine?

The Wednesday after my mom died her school had their regular chapel meeting, only this time they devoted the service to my mom and they invited my family to attend. There were children everywhere- some performed songs, rang handbells, or walked about the sanctuary singing “Butterfly” and flapping their arms. It was all really touching …

… until one of the pastors got up and delivered his message.

“Boys and girls, I know without a doubt, if Mrs. Bruce were here today and she only had one thing she could tell you all … it would be that she loved Jesus and wants you to tell everyone you know about Jesus.”

My jaw hit the floor. My left eyebrow etched itself like a mountain peak jabbing into my forehead. I sat, transfixed in anger, while the pastor went on to further use my mother’s death to promote his personal agenda. He quite literally turned her passing into a springboard to catapult his religious propaganda into the impressionable minds of young children.

Way not cool …. Waaaaaaaaaay not cool.

She never would have said that. Instead, she would have said "I love all you children so much, and I'm really going to miss being your teacher. Keep practicing, be nice to your teachers, and eat a lot of coffee ice cream".

Sadly, none of these non-consoling consolation prizes come with a return receipt for me to exchange them. But, if they did, I know exactly what I would exchange them for- and in abundance:

a hug,
a smile,
a promise of support,
“my thoughts are with you”,
“she was such a kind and caring woman”, and
“when all the sadness passes what will be left are the amazing qualities she had that are still alive in you”.

The last one still makes me cry … these are the prizes that win first place.

BE-ing blunt about BE Bar

The DC gay nightlife is peppered with bars and clubs for every niche of the gay male community (sorry ladies, we got the lion's share on this deal ... irony ... a lion is just a big pussy-cat). Leather at the Eagle, cowboys at Remington's, sports at Nellie's ... and, my personal favorite (insert sarcasm), the skinny young bitches at Be Bar.

Upon entering Be Bar, the last thing you can think of is simply Be-ing ... which for me is a young guy with a beard and a healthy weight (shaking-body-in-front-of-mirror flab test is showing improvement). Rather, when confronted with the clientele of Be, I am suddenly more conscious about my age ... my weight ... my man-beard ... and my lack of fashion.

At the front door you are carded by a prepubescent boy who is in dire need of a sandwich. Inside you are forever waiting for a bar tender who doesn't serve people who can actually shave. Feeling like a giant among insects, people can't seem to help but spill beer all over your jeans ("but the bearded man's just SO big, I couldn't avoid his mammoth-leg!").

And you're going to charge me a five dollar cover? On a weekday?

In a somewhat narrow space that never seems big enough to fit its patrons, despite their delicate proportions, Be Bar has a chic dance floor where you can watch the exertion of anorexia in action. Their limber bodies, clad in admittedly well put together attire, shake fervently to the beat of deafening music in order to burn off the square of cheese they scarfed down for "dinner". And, most conveniently, the bathrooms are located near the front door so you can purge and polish before stepping out into the night air.

Once outside, completely deaf and a little weary, you're greeted by a wall of smoke that resembles a tear-gas raid by police. Apparently a little lung cancer goes well with a Ghandi-like physique. But hey! They're dressed up to the nines and look absolutely hip.

Damn! This blog is a perfect example of how my personal insecurities are projected as bitchiness! Maybe I should shutup, remember that thin is in and muscles are on their way out, drink a bit more, admire the fashion, and not be so damn "old".

Thank you, Be Bar, for letting me just Be me ... which is to say, uncomfortable.

Death is a matter of life

It's hard to believe that just one week ago I was wearing my black cherry boots and prepping my sister for her inaugural visit to Remington's for linedancing lessons.

And then there was a phone call that sent everything spinning in an endless whirl of tears, friends, family, cards, flowers, condolences, food, more food, and much more food.

I knew something was wrong when I called my mom's cell phone back after a missed call- and a man answered the phone.

15 minutes later I was sitting silently on my couch, repeating over and over in my mind "I can't do this ... I can't do this" while my sister's bright blue eyeliner was running down her face like hot fudge on a sundae.

We rode to the airport, seemingly typical DC-ites with our cell phones burning minutes and our responses to the cab driver curt and emotionless. We sailed to Dulles, the sun serenely setting on what shall always be remembered as the day I unexpectedly lost my mother to death- August 20th, 2008.

Within hours I stood collapsed in my father's arms ... the kind of hug where you become weightless and immediately fatigued ... while he stood and stared straightforward with the most eerily vacant expression on his face.

Weightless is probably the best adjective to describe the past week. I feel like I've been coasting directionless out in space, while the "should-s" and "have to-s" and "supposed to-s" have been suspended around me just out of reach ... mindless and delicately spiraling around my body- perfectly in sight, and absolutely nothing I can do to manipulate them. I don't have to do anything. I'm not supposed to be anything.

But for some reason I feel like I do. I have to be strong, organized, attentive to life insurance policies and bills due and clothing that needs to be donated and lunch boxes that remain unpacked and jewelry that stays untouched and photos that need to be sorted and- a life that needs to be lamented.

My family has been inundated by a flood of support via letters, cards, emails, messages, flowers, and food; welcome distractions, and luxurious burdens.

And the grieving is so completely unique to everyone who expresses it. My father has lost 6 pounds in as many days, and I have probably gained just as much or more. My father cries more in the morning, my sister and I more at night.

We are paradoxically helped and helpless- a wealth of support from the richness of ample friends and family, but a cold silence continues to fall upon the house once the pomp and circumstance of grieving has marched itself out the door. Thankful to all those who have shouldered the boulder that is our loss, our emotions are left to clean up the pieces of broken rock that was the cornerstone of our family- my dear sweet mother, rest and bless her soul.

There's so much more to say. I guess that will come in time.

A heartfelt thanks to all of my friends and family who have blossomed in love and support during a time where sunlight is still struggling to find its way through the overcast sky of life's circumstances. You cannot know how much it means to me.

Morale of the story- life matters.

I'll remember my Pride

This past weekend was my 3rd experience of DC's annual Gay Pride celebration (well, not just Gay -- really it was the Pride of the GLBTQQA community ... I'm proposing we add the acronym 'WTHE' to the long string of letters, signifying "Who The Hell Else?"). And although I have been a member of the GLBTQQAWTHE community for a short 4 years, this small amount of time really accounts for the bulk of my 'life'; the previous 24 seeming like a forgotten dream.

Yes that's right, I said it -- FOUR years ago. I was 24 when I officially came out -- and I took my sweet-assed time doing it, too. Circumstances being what they were growing up, there was no fertile ground in which to tend this delicate flower. But hell -- listening to Christina Auguilera's "I Am Beautiful" enough times can compel anyone to come to bizarre and dramatic revelations ... and disclosures.

So now, 4 years into my personal renaissance, I feel that the myriad of gay experiences packed into my brief history has brought me full circle; I have come back to analyze that previous thrust of pride in myself that was necessary to finally come out of the closet.

Coming out to friends and family requires a paradigm shift, and a braveness to stare into a vast unknown and say "Eh ... screw it, I'm moving forward!". Despite our personal doubts, and those quiet voices inside our heads that say "AH! Be careful, this might not be safe!" ... we leap ...

... and hit the ground running, a whole new world to explore. What interests me is that the personal doubts and often problematic negative self-talk do not go away with coming out; there is an entirely new set of problems that challenge how we view ourselves. Namely dating.

I find that the internal conflict which postponed my coming out is somewhat similar to my current struggle in identifying a place in the world of male relationships. Will I be rejected? Will I lose my dignity, will someone care (sing it girl)? Isn't it better to never show my feelings? Isn't it easier just to keep everything inside? Won't I avoid pain if I never connect with someone else ... again?

This pattern of thinking has led me down the slippery slope of cynicism. It is the fear that things won't turn out right in the end, and then becoming disenchanted with the dating process altogether.

In opening the closet door, gay people become vulnerable. We cannot control what others think or how they will react to us. Similarly, opening the 'relationship door' brings its own trials of dealing with people who do not treat us the way we want to be treated -- and sometimes that stings.

I've been trying to talk down that cranky cynic in my interior monologue by reinstating the pride it took to finally come out to friends and family. Coming out came with a price: stress, difficulty, some pain, and an opening of self that required a genuineness which was sometimes hard to swallow.

Relationships come with a similar price; I have to sacrifice myself to the occasional sting of the beehive to finally reach the honey. Accepting this as the way of things continues to give me the pride to open that relationship door just a bit further. It is an affirmation of self that says, "I'm a good person, even though people don't always treat me that way."

... and I'm pretty damn proud of that ...