Alone and Dead

Classes resume tomorrow at Big Midwestern University. I am having a hard time coming to terms with this ridiculously short winter break. Most of my peeps who work at other universities don’t go back to work until after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Even my nephew’s public school starts later than we do.

Nobody has really offered a satisfactory explanation about why we must return so early. All they promise is that I will be grateful when the semester ends in April. That seems like cold comfort. I am exhausted now. My current fantasy-life focuses on sleeping for a week (Maybe I have mono?). Alas, I have to earn those coins. Back to the classroom for GayProf.

Perhaps one of the reasons that the university is going back so early is because they figure there is little else to do in Midwestern Funky Town in the middle of winter. Well, we have nothing else to do except shovel snow. Let me tell you, that shoveling shit is for the birds.

I lived in the Midwest for six years in grad school, so this isn’t exactly my first time at the Ewing Bar-B-Que (so to speak). During those years, however, I lived in an apartment. This meant that somebody else always shoveled the snow out of my way. When they didn’t, I could curse them out. Now, when it snows, I just curse. On New Year’s Day, I awoke and opened my rear window to see this:



Oh, my fate is a cruel one. Why – WHY – does my driveway need to be so long? At least Bourbon keeps me warm.

Of course, the snow isn’t just hard on my aching back and little stick arms. Just as when I lived in Boston, the snow kills my interest in having any type of social life. It takes forever for me to lace and unlace my winter boots. They are such a hassle to take on and off that they work better than a chastity belt. Given that I live somewhere where the state flower is an icicle, this means I am in for some quiet introspection over the next few months.

All of it contributes to making this my least favorite part of the year. Faithful readers of CoG know that we consider the period between New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day the dreaded and bleak void time.

Seemingly I am not alone in my estimation of this time of year. Over the past couple of weeks, two friends of mine had almost identical conversations with me. They don’t know each other (in fact, they live in different parts of the nation). Yet, they both expressed the same measure of forlornness.

My friend in New Mexico felt that his life was passing him by and wondered aloud if he would ever find a permanent boyfriend. When I pressed him about his reasons for why he wanted a boyfriend, he expressed his fear of dying alone. Or, more accurately, he fears that his death will occur without notice.



This was repeated with a friend in MFT only a week later. They both speculated that, if they died tomorrow, it would take weeks for anyone to find their body. This struck me as an odd reason to want a boyfriend.

True, I have sometimes had similar macabre thoughts. Anyone who lives alone surely speculates about how long it would take before somebody noticed their absence. We all shudder at the notion that our untimely demise will only be discovered because some neighbor complained of the “smell.” Nobody wants to be that story on the 5 o’clock news.

When such irrational thoughts take hold of me, I say to myself, “Get a hold of yourself and think positive thoughts. You won’t mind if nobody finds your body. You’ll be dead.”

When they doesn't work, I turn to my other reason for not worrying. Deep in my heart, I know that there is one special person in my life who I can count on coming to my house almost instantly if I disappear: My bartender.

Let’s be honest, my disappearance would greatly impact his child’s college fund. My drinking is his kid’s future. Nothing is going to keep him from those tips. Shoot – He would use the jaws of life to save me.



All the same, I have never considered the fear of having an undiscovered lifeless body the primary reason to find a boyfriend. My friends are relatively young men. One of them is my age exactly. This means he is very, very, very young. As far as I know, they are both pretty darn healthy. If they get into a relationship now, that little deathwatch of theirs could take several decades. It seems like they are kinda fast-forwarding to the end. What will they do in the meantime? Are they just imagining the boyfriend will enter their house, light a candle, and sit at their bedside until their time has come?

Okay, I understand their basic sentiment of feeling lonely. Still, it is odd to think that we want relationships for the worst times in our lives. When was the last time you heard somebody say, “I really want a romantic partner because my life is going so fantastic that I want to share that with somebody else? I am just having way too much fun for one person. I need to spread these good times around with somebody else.”

I never hear that. Actually, I often hear the opposite. “Boyfriend? No way, man, my life is too good right now. Relationships will just screw it up. Crap – Even saying the word ‘relationship’ probably jinxed me. I better go and have some anonymous sex just in case.”

Saying that they want somebody who will tend to their deathbed also sounds like they expect a lot of work from that boyfriend. 'Cuz you know it isn’t just watching them die that they want, either. They are going to expect you to call their family and work with the funeral home to give you a decent burial, too. It wouldn’t surprise me if they asked to proofread the many drafts of your eulogy before they kicked the bucket. Heck, you're going to have to fill the next forty years doing something.

All that death talk sounded too much like a job. Do they want a boyfriend or a live-in nurse? At least a registered nurse can legally give you drugs.

If you really want a boyfriend to do work, why not make it something that you can enjoy while you are alive? Forget the deathbed scenes and shoot for something that will make the here and now more tolerable. “Gee, I really want to put up some drywall in my basement and turn it into a t.v. room,” I’d like to hear, “Better get a general-contractor as boyfriend by this weekend if that is going to happen in time for the Project Runway finale. Oh, shoot, I also wanted to install that new sound system and needed a boyfriend who worked at the Best Buy. Looks like I am in the market for a menage a trois.” At least at the end of that relationship you wouldn’t end up in a pine box.

Love is All Around

This past weekend marked two years since I moved out of the house that I co-owned with Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies). It was the day that I stopped crying enough to pack a bag, tuck Cat under my arm, and get away from Liar Ex’s indifference. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that the collapsing real estate market coupled with my own poor housing choices would drag out everything by another year and a half until the house finally sold this past spring. It also left me financially bankrupt because I had to pay both rent and my part of the mortgage for that year and a half. I still haven’t recovered from that (What a nice memento of that hellish time).

There are many dates after this one (and many dates before) that could potentially be used to mark the final end of that atrocious eight-year relationship. To my mind, though, the day I checked-out of that house was the true end.

I don’t mention the day to recount (again) all of the bad things that went down at the end of that relationship. The short version will suffice: After eight years, I discovered that Liar Ex was, well, a cowardly, selfish, liar. He left no promise to me unbroken. For most of our last year together, he seemed to enjoy humiliating me and reminding me of just how inadequate he thought that I was. As I struggled to meet each new milestone he created that (he claimed) would make me worth while in his eyes, he was busy scouting out (what he imagined) to be better options. Liar Ex felt free to treat me as if I had the same emotional complexity of a paper doll.

He had many opportunities to be a stand-up guy when it came to ending the relationship. Each time, however, he was too cowardly, too selfish, or too lazy to bother. Even at the bitter end, his expectation was that I would cheerfully validate his decisions by becoming a happy “roomie.” Why wouldn’t I want a front-row seat to him building a new relationship with that homely loser that he trudged up? **Sigh** -- He didn't even have the decency to find somebody younger, better looking, or more interesting than me. Loser.

Okay, so maybe I do bring up the date to recount some of the bad things that went down. Hey, I never said that I don’t need lots of therapy. Go to somebody else’s blog for a psychologically well-adjusted account of their life.

To make up for it, I've included some of my favorite break-up songs throughout this post. These were great listening in those early months:



More importantly than recounting the bad end, I mention the two-year mark because I marvel at how much my life has changed in that time. Two years ago, it was not my decision for that relationship to end (which is why I was always so desperate to believe Liar Ex’s many lies). From his vantage point, it would have been just dandy if I treated the end of our eight year relationship (and his many lies) as if it was no big deal.

The problem being that the end of the relationship was a very big deal to me. For most of the first couple months after I moved out, it felt like my skin was on fire. Most of my nights were spent watching Wonder Woman DVD's, hiding in bed, and wondering how I would face another day. There were times when I had to abandon my shopping cart in the middle of a grocery store because I started crying. Let me tell you, it is remarkably painful when you find out that your love was worth nothing more than a passel of lies.



Other people bounce back from such things more easily, I am sure. For me, however, it was one of the worst experiences of my life. It took a certain amount of hard work and introspection to get through those first few months. Plus, I went through lots of therapy. Fortunately, I found an unconventional therapist who recommended sleeping around and drinking a lot. No kidding -- That was his advice. My favorite session ended with, "Are you sure you are drinking enough?" Hey -- Who was I to question doctor’s orders?

Aside from a therapist who promoted alcoholism as a therapeutic treatment, I was also lucky to have friends and family who really cared about me. Plus, there were some exceptional people who showed me a lot of kindness through this here blog.

Like the sacred gospel of Gloria Gaynor promises, I learned to get along and I grew strong. A straight-friend (Yes, I have them) who had gone through a similarly bad breakup gave a peculiar, though accurate, estimation of one of the few advantages of the situation. When faced with many layers of betrayal, your own love for that person dies almost completely. There is no wistful longing for futures that never came to pass or small glimmers of hope about reconciliation. Instead, you come to see the person’s actual character with a stranger’s eyes. Let me tell you, in the case of Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies), that ain’t pretty.



Let’s be honest, darlings, Liar Ex wasn’t worth half of me. Even when I think about the type of people that Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies) surrounded himself with at the end of the relationship (people who were shallow, exclusively white, and intellectually lazy), I realize how little he and I had in common. We were poorly matched by every measure. If anything, I wished that I had ended that relationship a thousand times earlier.

Two years out, I can say that I am much happier with my life than anytime in my eight-year relationship. Indeed, I wouldn’t trade my worst, most lonely day in the past two years for another eight years with Liar Ex (shudder).

The cosmos has been good to ol’ GayProf. I had a great year in Boston and started life over again in Midwestern Funky Town. My job is remarkably good within academic circles. These days, I am less likely to keep people in my life who are unwilling or unable to take my feelings into consideration.

Sure, there are things that still stress me out (never ending project of doom, foibles of dating, shoveling inches of snow simply so I can get out of my driveway). In many ways, I don’t know what my ultimate goals in life are (beyond finishing the never ending project of doom). Will I get tenure and stay in MFT? Will I seek out other vistas? Will I become headwriter of a gay soap opera? Who can say?

Right now, though, I like being an independent agent. My little cottage is warm and comfortable. Cat is sweet. I recently developed an appreciation for Bourbon, which means that I currently enjoy delicious Manhattan Cocktails. My health is fine. I have good friends who adore me.



It’s good that the anniversary of the breakup reminded me to take stock in all the really great things that surround me. All in all, I feel content and happy with my life at this moment.

Oh, and because I am certain that he is pathetic enough that he still reads this blog: Happy Anniversary, Shitdigit.

¡Por Fin!

One of the longest nightmares in my life has finally ended. No, I am not talking about the Ugg boot craze. After over a year on the market, the Texas house that I co-owned with Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies) finally sold on Friday. Thank Guadalupe!

Of course, I haven’t actually lived in the house for even longer than that. Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies) announced that he had “evolved” beyond me some eighteen months ago (Yes, he actually said that). Just because he was leaving me, though, didn’t mean that he was bothering to, you know, leave. After all, why should he have been inconvenienced (being the newly evolved life form and all)?

Apparently he thought that I would enjoy a front-row seat as he continued to build a relationship with somebody else. Why not stick around so that I could come home and find little packages that his loser boyfriend had sent him waiting on the doorstep? Yeah, they were sweet like that – not even putting on a pretense of considering my heartbreak. After eight years together, I would have thought that I would be granted a bit more consideration. I was mistaken.

In retrospect, I wonder why I didn’t burn those packages . . . or douse Liar Ex with acid. Sigh – So many missed opportunities. Live and learn, I suppose.

Instead, I scrapped together what little dignity that I had left (which wasn’t much) and moved out. This plunged me into financial chaos as I struggled to pay rent and my portion of the mortgage. Yet, Liar Ex had the temerity to complain about taking care of the house (which he refused to move out of in the first place).

Making the terrible choice of having trusted Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies) cost me a lot financially and emotionally. If love is a war, it was he who won. I hope it gives him a great deal of satisfaction.



It’s hard, of course, to recount these stories without sounding bitter -- probably because I am. Each bad memory is like some sort of macabre memento in a collection that I keep in an old cigar box under the sink. Periodically, I take them out for examination. Each time I expect to find some sort of larger meaning. In the end, I don’t think there really is any. He was an asshole. I was a gullible idiot. That’s about the sum of the story. It’s not a particularly original one either.

Even I have grown bored with recounting all the bad feelings and heartbreak from the past. Sure, we can add texture to the story and search for explanations. I was only 22 when we met and pretty naïve. The longest relationship that I had with anybody up to that point had been two months. When I first started dating Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies), my best friend in grad school warned me with Cassandra-like clarity that he was a mediocre soul. All this I ignored because I looooooooooved him.

Now, though, Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies) exists in my world mostly as a punch line for the blog. To me, the relationship was over so long ago that I hardly feel like the same person. At some point, I need to take responsibility for the future.



As a result, I am working on letting go of the bitterness. From what I can tell, the bitterness and anger are the last and hardest emotions to kill off. One of my fears is that I won’t have the strength to finally let it all go. It actually keeps me awake some nights. That's when I decide to get out of bed and go home.

Like we all do, I know several individuals, both gay and straight, who launch into the tragic tale of the bad end to their former long term relationship. At first, one gets the impression that they are talking about a recent break-up given the rawness of their anger. One finds out later, though, that their relationship had been over longer than the conflict in Vietnam. I definitely don’t want to morph into one of those people who carries around the bitterness for more time than the actual relationship existed (though I can easily understand how that happens).

"Um, GayProf," I hear, "that train has left the station." Shut up, voices in my head. That train has another seven years before that really happens...

On the other hand, I find the opposite to be just as baffling. I don’t mean the people who come to a mutual understanding that their relationship wasn’t working and they part ways honestly and amicably. Though not my experience, I can understand that as a possibility.

Instead, I mean the people who had a horrible relationship and then insist upon being friends. “Sure he lied to me and there was also that time that he stabbed me,” they say, “but I felt being an adult meant that we could still be buddies.”

You know what? I am willing to concede that I am childish and petty if it means that I don’t have to ever have Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies) in my life. Hell, I’ll own up to being a lesser human if it means never seeing or hearing from him ever again.

The house finally selling feels like an insignificant coda to a pretty nasty composition. Of course, buying the house in the first place was all my idea. Next to getting into a relationship with Liar Ex, it stands out as the penultimate worst decision of my life.

I had some romantic ideas about that house. All of them, though, were against the basic rules of real estate. People will tell you to buy the smallest house in the best neighborhood. Instead, I went for the largest house in one of the least desirable neighborhoods in that forsaken Texas town.

It wasn’t the size of the house that appealed to me. In an area where everything historical is torn down, that house had survived seventy years. Clearly it needed some work, but I thought it would be labor of love to restore it. Really, I had simply watched too much HGTV. You know the shows that I mean. They depict some happy, smiling gay couple who tell us that rescuing a collapsing heap of house is just as easy as ripping out the formica and shag carpet. GayProf, it turns out, has no skills in the industrial arts.

I also had some pretty serious delusions of grandeur. As Carly Simon might say, “I had some dreams. They were clouds in my coffee.” With so many rooms open for entertaining, I could fancy myself as the modern-day gay incarnation of Mabel Dodge Luhan. The house could become a salon for people from a variety of backgrounds to gather. There we would discuss matters like race, gender, and sexuality. Or, if not those topics, at least we could assess the strengths and weaknesses of different Charlie’s Angels episodes. As the new Luhan, I would also get some kickin’ new outfits. Though I probably wouldn’t wear chunky turquoise jewelry like ol’ Mabel – probably.



It turns out, I had totally the wrong colleagues, neighbors, and spouse to support such a salon environment. While there were some exceptions, my colleagues weren’t interested in talking with me in general. Their vision of history consisted of moving around little flags on maps. My neighbors who weren’t associated with the university often scared me silly (small-town Texas is not a safe place for those who aren’t white, straight, married, Christian, and have children). Finally, Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies) might have learned some key phrases to parrot from cultural studies, but he had no talent for critical thinking. None of those elements would make my self-aggrandizing salon possible.

As a result, the selling of the house is one of the last steps to finally ending my connections to Texas. There is not much more to say about that time in my life that I haven’t said. Well, except, of course, “Fuck you, Shaun.”

TornWordo Dares to Ask

I was deeply saddened by the events at Virginia Tech. There are discussions to be had about the meaning and repercussions of that violence. It will take time to learn everything that we need to know. Right now, though, I think that we all need to grieve a bit.

Such events often get me to thinking about the silliness of blogging. Maybe it’s just that a low-grade existential crisis is always near my surface. Still, with all the violence and despair in the world (Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, and on and on), it can be hard to imagine that a few Wonder Woman comics and a wry reference to Charlie’s Angels amounts to something purposeful.

Then I think blogging can be beneficial in terms of my own entertainment or exchanging ideas. We all need these things, right? So, I keep going – much like Kelly Garrett did when she landed that plane while undercover as a flight attendant.

To that end, TornWordo had a nifty deal on his blog. He answered five questions posed to him by another blog author. He likewise offered to ask five questions to others who wanted. I will do the same, if you would like me to ask YOU five questions.

Here are the questions posed to me by Torn:

1. If your ex came back begging, would you take him? Please explain your answer.

Oh.Dear.God. NO!

In the last year of our relationship, Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies) made it his life-goal to quash out whatever love that I had for him. This wasn’t just a case where his feelings changed and we parted. Nobody can control their feelings, but he handed me a number of dirty deals.

I loved him very much. Indeed, at the end I even reduced myself to basically groveling in an effort to keep the relationship together. Let me tell you, that required more than a little therapy to work out.

Instead of being honest, however, the decisions that Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies) made while ending the relationship showed a sleazy, selfish, cowardly inner character. Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies) imagined he was quite clever to have treated me like shit. He often dehumanized me by referring to me as “clutter” or a “unit” or something else that implied non-human status. He even made fun of me to his loser friends when I was feeling the worst.

Now I know just what to think of him. Time and time again, he had opportunities to be a stand-up guy, but always opted against it. Even after all of the deceptions and depraved indifference to my feelings, he managed to believe that he was the wronged party. Perhaps the only good thing about all that lying, cowardliness, and selfishness is that I have no romanticized notions about that relationship left.

Being single does not leave me doing cartwheels, but it’s infinitely better than a relationship with a mediocre individual like Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies). I've tried to learn from the bad choices I made in that relationship. In many ways, I am still learning. One thing has become clear to me recently. If I am going to get into another LTR, it has to be with a man who has some balls.

2. Your writing seems very methodical, like what I imagine you wish of your students, lol. Your posts come off quite polished. Do you make many revisions before you post? (How long did you spend answering these questions?)

When I write an entry, I try and devote a significant amount of time to it. This is one of the reasons that I don’t post often. Well, that and I am kinda lazy.

If I write on a topic that really excites me, I could spend five or six hours on it (both writing and revising). Some entries have taken more time. On average, though, I would say that I spend probably two or three hours on most posts. This entry took about two hours.

Usually I sketch out the entry’s basic premise and write a draft. Then I read it over a few times looking for holes or places that I can add some humor (or force in a reference to a seventies television show).



Despite this, I feel like my entries often have many grammatical mistakes, especially spelling errors. Also, I struggle with writing entries that are too long.

3. Tell a funny story that has excrement in it. You know I love me a good scat story. C'mon don't be a priss.

If I ever meet Mrs. Wordo, our conversation will turn to your childhood experiences during toilet training. I need to know what happened on that particular bus ride.

Well, CoG devotees will remember that my move to Boston started with me being covered in shit. Cat did not enjoy the moving truck. Feeling bad for his panicked cries of stress, I took him out of his carrier the first hour that I was on the road. What I didn’t know was that cats prefer that you leave them in their box when they get too stressed out.

My cat educated me by crawling into my lap and promptly vomiting. Then he arched his back and took a massive shit as well.

This left me with a cooling pile of cat shit and vomit on my lap as I sped down the highway at about 70mph. It took about ten minutes before I could find a place to pull over. In the meantime, I had to juggle with the cat to keep him from sitting in his own shit and vomit. That was a golden moment in our relationship.

Visions of causing a catastrophic highway accident came to me. Who would want the uncomfortable task of explaining that a cat’s incontinence was the root of an eighteen-car pile up?



That, though, is an old story. So I tried to search my memory for another scat-centered story. BTW, I live in a neighborhood on the edge of Boston known as Somerville. Therefore the community access television station has the unfortunate (though maybe accurate?) acronym SCAT. I actually do think of you every time I pass the it.

The only other story that I could come up with involved an outhouse in New Mexico when I was a teenager. It was on the side of some highway. When I entered, somebody had shit on the seat. We aren’t talking about an unfortunate splatter – I mean somebody had taken an actual dump on the seat. At first I thought, “How can you miss when you take a shit?” Then I realized that this was probably somebody’s sense of humor.

Recalling this obscure incident then made me remember two childhood friends who were brothers (one in second grade, the other in first grade). They had some sort of game that involved “booby-trapping” their bathroom by shitting and not flushing. Even at age 7, though, they still actually made it into the toilet. Still, I usually waited to pee until I got home.

That’s the best that I could find in my memory. For the most part, I make a conscious decision to avoid shit or shit-related scenarios. If, however, I encounter better scat stories, you will be the first person I call.

4. Are you on team Hillary? Why or why not?

Why not GayProf in '08?

Hilary doesn’t particularly excite me. To be honest, I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of the potential Democratic players on the field right now. All of them want gay votes, but they have all stated that they think it is okay to treat gays like second-class citizens (in one form or another).

Beyond that, I just don’t imagine that Hillary Clinton could win a national election. Those on the Right are rabidly against her to the point of being irrational (I am not even sure that most of them remember why they were supposed to dislike her in the first place). Moreover, I have disliked her pandering to certain constituencies. I still remember, for instance, her opportunistic ploy to try and regulate video games.

If I had her career, I would become a powerhouse in the Senate. She is a young woman. She could ultimately reign there, perhaps indefinitely. Then again, if I were her, I would also lay-off the pantsuits for awhile.

If she ends up with the nomination, I would probably still support the campaign. I wasn’t thrilled with Kerry as a choice (Hey, let’s nominate a talking tree!), but I still volunteered for phone duty for his campaign (which was the best one could do in Texas, given the Democrats had basically conceded the state).

The next obvious questions become, “Why not a third party, GayProf? Also, how can we properly show our devotion to you?” Both of those are tough, but fair, questions.

I fully support third (or more) parties. I do not support, however, unrealistic or foolhardy political strategies. Don’t get me wrong, I am not one of those people who blames Green for the 2000 election. Gore won that election no matter which way you slice it (he had the popular vote and he also won the vote in Florida). The Republican Party kept him out office, not the Greens.

Still, one of the lessons of the Bushie era should be that national elections are not the place to gamble. They have real consequences for real people. Recent third party candidates for President, in my opinion, have not advanced social justice in this nation (and, in some instances, might have been counter productive).

Third parties can, however, be extremely effective if they focus at the local level. If third-party supporters really want to make a difference (and not just grandstand), start electing third-party candidates to school boards, city councils, and state legislatures. These positions, while often ignored, make a tremendous difference.

So few people vote in these minor elections, they also don't cost a lot of money to put up a candidate. I could probably run a successful campaign using my Visa card -- and I have terrible credit right now.

Heck, there are districts where we could probably elect a third-party candidate to the U.S. House of Representatives. Given the Congressional division right now, even a few third-party Representatives would have disproportionate power because they would be needed for coalition building.

5. With whom did you lose your virginity? Females count. Was it a positive or negative experience? Expand.

I lost my virginity to Colonel Mustard, in the Billiard Room, with the lead pipe. It was murder.