{This is long, babbly, but I promised a post, and I start medical testing tomorrow, the outcome of which has me nervous. So, apologies, but I don’t have time for my usual re-read at least once a day for three days rule.}
I’m fine.
True, it’s been more than 2 months since I’ve published a post. I only managed to get that one done because my admiration for Idra Novey’s latest novel, TAKE WHAT YOU NEED, compelled me to crow about it everywhere as if I’d written it myself. It really is a work of some genius and so relevant to the current zeitgeist of vitriol - this mess of division, derision, and politics of personal destruction in which we’re living - managing to illuminate without polemic.
And, I'm fine.
True, it’s been two months, but it’s because in early December, after assiduously avoiding Covid for more than two years — not just to protect myself, but also my sister, Debbie, with whom I live and who has COPD, and a collection of maladies which may well have made Covid her death sentence — I got Covid. And so did Debbie. And so did our sister, JoAnne, who was visiting for the first time in months having been set back by one after another emergency delay. The three of us, quarantined in a very small two bedroom apartment for 7 days.
And so we had to cancel all the activities we’d planned to make up for the two years since covid began we’d not seen JoAnne, she who could only be here during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays now — this space between the two — because there were people in Florida for whom she was primary caretaker and getting away was hard, and stressful. And she’d finally done it. And it was now ruined.
This sent JoAnne into a Smith-spiral — a paralyzing combination of Catholic-guilt and self-pity and worry bordering on panic, a constant teetering on and frequent dive into weeping, and the fatigue all this causes to all the systems: bodily, emotional, spiritual. That week we all three suffered those and worked to hide them from the others. Eventually I had the brilliant idea of inviting all the relatives and friends we’d been going to see in person, to stand out on the patio, masked, at least 6 feet away from the door, and to all bring presents for JoAnne, even though we as a family long since stopped exchanging gifts since none of us need anything from one another except each others’ presence; it seemed in this case, to assuage JoAnne’s sorrow about missing everyone, it would be a good thing to do. And it was.
We are a very close family. Now. Again. We’ve cycled toward and away from one another during the 60 years since my father had the last of his multiple drunk driving episodes, this one into a telephone pole, one of its metal pitons piercing his skull. My mother had 5 children at the time, of which I was the youngest, seventeen months old, and she was seven months pregnant with a sixth child, Jenny. For many decades we were circled round the fantasy-father we pretended had existed, dysfunctionally dependent upon one another, more cabal and cult than family, certain no one could be closer than were we, no one could have been through all we’d been through.
Nowadays, my sister, JoAnne, lives in Florida. My sister, Debbie, lives with me. My brother, Leo, and sister-in-law, Dianne, live about 3 miles away. My sister, Peggy, died in 2013, days after her 59th birthday. My sister, Jenny, lives about 5 miles through a cell-phone drop-zone away.
Debbie and I speak every day, even when we’re not both at home. JoAnne and I text every morning, and sometimes a few more times each day. Jenny and I are in text contact daily and often phone or see each other in person. Leo and Dianne and I speak mostly through the family group texts, and occasionally privately; Leo is less a talker than the rest of us, Dianne is more sister to me than in-law (before my mom died she told me that she thought of Dianne as another daughter, and she really did). I adore my family.
And so, having them, I’m fine.
But, too, while we were all mourning the parties and dinners and hours of laughter that might have been had JoAnne’s visit not been ruined by covid, I was having an additional emotional-bleed-out. It had long been planned by my dearest A that we were making a Broadway trek, scheduled for less than two weeks after I got covid. We were going to see two especially exciting things: the revival of TAKE ME OUT which, not for nothing, had the remarkably made Jesse Williams naked and wet. We had front row seats.
And, Lea Michele in FUNNY GIRL. Front row.
I am not a gifted enough writer to explain what being supposed to see Lea Michele in FUNNY GIRL from the front row meant to me. But, I’m going to try.
I was a child, single digits, when my love affair with Barbra Streisand began. It was made clear to me very early in my life, before I had even begun school, that I was a freak. I was not what I was supposed to be. Throughout life — as for many (most?) gay men of my generation — that “not supposed to be” was something we tried to hide, if we could, which I couldn’t, or deny, if we could, which made no difference in my case so clear was the evidence, and it got us beaten up, it got us left out, it got us mocked and made fun of and afraid to walk down the hallways of schools, it got us whispered about, it got us raped, it got us pissed on while being held down in locker rooms (and hey, if that’s your thing, that’s fine — but trust me, on an involuntary basis? Not so much.), it got us in a place in our heads where we were reminded every day that this was not a world in which we were welcome.
So, Streisand. She was outside the lines, too. Her unconventional gorgeousness and otherworldly voice were NOT what were then considered beautiful face or great singing; and yet, she was the most beautiful, the unparalleled voice, the freak who had made being not supposed to be into that which no one else could ever hope to be.
And so, yes, like legions of gay men before and after me, I wanted to be Barbra Streisand. Not as in I wanted to be female. As in I wanted to be so much me that everyone forgot I didn’t belong. That being male or female didn’t matter. I wanted to make not supposed to be into everyone wants to be. I wanted the whispers to be “There he is! How exciting!” rather than asides of “There goes the faggot.”
It started with her television specials. And no one else in my household, no siblings, and certainly not my mother, gave a damn for Barbra Streisand and some (okay, all) of them found my level of adoration … well … freakish. I didn’t care.
And then FUNNY GIRL was shown on television. I think I was 10. Maybe 11. I had completely memorized every single track of the original Broadway cast recording and the film soundtrack. My version of THE MUSIC THAT MAKES ME DANCE was heartbreaking. In a good way. That it wasn’t in the movie nearly destroyed me. I’m not kidding. I spent YEARS being angry about it and trying to imagine how Streisand must have moved, posed, and what the scenery had been, the lights, was she crying, how had it happened on stage?
And by then, near then, around then, I was hitting puberty hard. And I was “falling in love” with boy after boy after boy, about which I could tell no one. But it showed. And school was getting harder and harder — not the work, but surviving. I was targeted and I lived every single day in terror of what would be said to me or done to me. And as almost any gay man of that time (and, alas and alack and what the fuck — too many gay boys still today) will tell you, complaining about your plight, asking for protection from the antagonists, any request for help or sympathy or even just a place or moment to feel safe, to even show you were upset got you some version of, “Well if you’d just stop acting so girly/if you’d just act more like a boy they wouldn’t bother you.”
So, you did if you could, and I couldn’t. I had no idea what about my voice, mien, physicality pointed me out as freak and so I couldn’t change those. So, sometimes, you killed yourself. I tried. Once. Failed.
Sometimes someone else killed you. Matthew Shephard. Howard Efland. The 32 in the Upstairs Lounge fire in New Orleans. Harvey Milk. Robert Allen Taylor. Charlie Howard. Anthony Milano. Gordon Church. Julio Rivera. Alen Schindler. Brandon Teena. Fred Mangione (one of whose murderers received PROBATION). Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, murdered by religious zealot brothers whose pastor described them as “far from kooks” in an effort to excuse their crimes on the basis of their warped belief system. Barry Winchell, beaten to death with a bat in an army barracks, one of the assassins served just 7 of his ONLY 12.5 years sentence. Fred Martinez. Philip Walsted. Richie Phillips. Scotty Joe Weaver, who was beaten, strangled, stabbed, partially decapitated, doused in gasoline and set on fire by roomates, one of whom had been a lifelong friend. Sean William Kennedy, murdered by an 18 year old because he didn’t like Sean’s sexual identity. Duanna Johnson, beaten by an officer while in custody, and later, after pursuing charges, was mysteriously gunned down while walking down the street, assailants never found but widely believed to have been members of law enforcement. Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, eleven, who hanged himself after years of harassment and bullying by classmates. Gabriel Fernandez, eight years old, tortured and murdered by his mother and her boyfriend because they thought he was gay. 49 murdered and 53 more injured at the Pulse Nightclub shooting massacre in Florida (of course).
I could go on. You might wonder why I felt it necessary to foist upon you this long-ish but incredibly truncated partial list of just a fraction of the deaths that are known to be “hate” crimes. I didn’t include the assaults that ended in permanent and temporary injury. Or the crimes of property. Or the crimes where no one was physically injured. And let’s not forget the verbal assaults from strangers, co-workers, school mates, neighbors, organized religion orators from pulpits and on tv, politicians, pundits, entertainers, teachers, law enforcement, family. And, too, the cuturally embedded biases that aren’t so much frontal attacks as the constant presence of reminders this world doesn’t consider you worthy. And, too, the people who still eat at Chick-fil-A even though they know it’s a blatantly homophobic business, actively working against the LGBTQIA+ community. Or those who still donate to the Salvation Army, who proudly boast their discriminatory refusal to serve the LGBTQIA+ community, deny them housing and clothing and health care. You might wonder why I spend all these words on all of this?
How did I get here from FUNNY GIRL and my stereotypical gay-boy passion for Streisand? Because these things are never NOT a part of who I was, who I am. Because since before I was old enough to understand what gay or straight or gender or anything else were, I had relatives who made it clear I was other. I knew without being able to verbalize it that I was going to have to navigate the world in a different way than anyone else I knew.
The men who were in the same club I already knew myself to be in, were jokes. Charles Nelson Reilly. Paul Lynde. Liberace. Or comedy actors, comic relief, like Edward Everett Horton. Or rumored, we all heard whispers about Sal Mineo (also murdered), Rock Hudson, Jim Nabors, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Marlon Brando.
I didn’t want to be a joke, and I couldn’t be the Clift/Dean/Brando model. I didn’t have a place to be safe. I didn’t have a community. I couldn’t even talk about it (at that age) with my family.
And so, for those of us who couldn’t hide it, who didn’t kill ourselves, who weren’t assassinated, there was another way, albeit a lonely way, but it was what we had.
Fantasy.
Sometimes — as in my case — bordering on delusion. A FUNNY GIRL delusion.
It wasn’t just Streisand. I was even gayer than that. I loved the MGM musicals, and Judy Garland. I loved musicals period. I collected the lps and knew them from start to finish. And I had a voice. And I developed the voice by singing along with Barbra Streisand albums. I had EVERY SINGLE ONE you could possibly have at the time, and as each new one came out, I would do whatever I had to in order to get my hands on it. I knew every word of every song. And not just the words; I copied her diction, her breathing, her intonation. Any note Babs could sing, I could sing with her. And I did. Much to the chagrin of my family who could often be heard screaming at me to please shut up.
I got my first vocal solo when I was 7. Second grade. Still in Catholic school, no real chorus, but Sister Anthony (then, later, after Vatican II, becoming Sister Katherine Anne, or, if you were really close, Kate) — whose I WONDER AS I WANDER, sung at a midnight Christmas mass to such stunning perfection, it still plays in my head today as if I had it on CD — gave me lines in a hymn I no longer remember that I was to sing with her during a school mass. I think she saw in me that which was going to make my going in the world rough; I think she carried the same weight, albeit less obviously and with more grace, and she meant to encourage me by singling me out in a positive way.
It was she who told me after a period of statewide testing that I had a genius IQ and the highest test-scores of any second grader in the state of Maryland. This, she said, meant god — well, that’s God to her — had very special plans for me and I was not to disappoint him — well, Him to her.
Decades later I shared with a counselor this story and my feeling that I had failed in life, over and over, and wasted that gift, when the counselor grabbed my hands and teary-eyed, angry, told me what a horrifying thing it had been to say to a child in second grade, to put the mantle of such expectations on a kid Sister Anthony Katherine Anne Kate knew — in all likelihood — was already struggling with who he was and would very probably struggle in far worse ways as he aged.
Until that moment, holding hands with my therapist, I had never considered she ought not to have told me. And I know, absolutely, she did it from a place of love. And for a very long time it did give me something to hold on to. I had something. I was smart. And I could sing.
And while I clearly was never going to belong in the world I’d been born into, I could get out of there and find my way to the world where Barbra Streisand made her way, Broadway. Musicals. There, that world, they would not only accept me, they would elevate me. They, like Sister Anthony Katherine Anne Kate, would SEE me. That world was magic.
And without ever being rational about it, without parsing the reality of it, I knew in my secret fantasy all by myself world, that place I went to be safe, to find center, to fucking stay alive, there, I knew that one day, in my finally found a place to belong adult life, I would be SO TALENTED and SO VERY ME that nothing else would matter — as was the case with Streisand — that FUNNY GIRL would be revived for me. I wouldn’t pretend to be a woman in this scenario. It would just be clear that the essence of that role, of what Streisand had done with it, of the heart of it, could not be done by anyone but me.
Honestly. THAT kept me alive for years. It kept me alive while I was chased out of high school and asked to leave my home. It kept me alive when I moved overnight to a city 350 miles away with no apartment, job, or plan, and months later still no phone, living on rice and water, raped by my boss. It kept me alive while myriad of my gay-male cohort died from a disease the president couldn’t be bothered to name or address. It kept me alive when multiple men with whom I’d been friends or more, other gay men, killed themselves because all the because-s that were slapping me around daily as well. It kept me alive when the only man I had ever really loved, who could not find the courage to love me back out loud, killed himself shortly after I had accused him of cowardice and breaking me.
It was the center of that fantasy world. And it took me a very long time to work through all the reasons I held on to it, and having done so, was able to let it go, to appreciate what it had done for me, and to became this much stronger person I am today. (Well, maybe not today, but I was until recently.)
And so, now and then rumors or beginnings of a FUNNY GIRL revival would happen. But they didn’t move me. Debbie Gibson? No. Lauren Ambrose? No. Sheridan Smith? Better, but no. Beanie Feldstein? No. Perhaps, had someone done it with Julia Murney or the timing had worked for Idina Menzel, then, maybe? But things happen for a reason (he says, not entirely sure while looking back at his life that he really believes it) and the magic time, the FUNNY GIRL that feels like it’s me, the full circle of it all, she is Lea Michele.
And I was going to see her. FROM THE FRONT ROW. In December. Near Christmas. When I was 61. A night I had been dreaming of and living in one way or another since I was 8 years old.
And then Covid. And I couldn’t go.
And I was fine. I got it. I understood. And as upset as I was (eviscerated might be a better word), I also knew it was far more hurtful for others in my life than it was for me, and I did not want them to suffer because they worried I was sad. I would not be sad.
But, truth, I was. A bit. And tired. From the Covid. And the stress. And then I got bronchitis. And I hadn’t yet started sleeping right again. And then I started having stomach issues again. And my minor arthritis was becoming painful daily, getting hard to open jars or packages. And then, late February, I got bronchitis again. Badly. And here I am, a month later, having just finished a second round of steroids, and I am still not “healed” — in fact, I’m in the middle of a second week of tests. My blood pressure has peaked at levels where visits to the emergency room are advised. Other times it’s bottomed out to levels where I found myself on the floor of the barber shop where I’d gone to finally get my hair cut after two months and ended up passed out, pissed myself, EMTs looking down at me. I have so far had a three EKGs, a carotid scan, an echocardiogram, and tomorrow am having a radiological stress test (I’m not strong enough to do it on a treadmill at this point), and the next day a CT scan. Oh, and I’m supposed to wear a heart monitor for a week. And I’m not supposed to drive until the syncope is explained and there’s reasonable certainty I won’t experience it again.
Genetics are not on my side when it comes to blood pressure and heart issues, but in the same way I had that fantasy about me being FUNNY GIRL going, I also believed I would not be subject to the family maladies. I don’t know what made me think that; I certainly did not miss out on the depression and lack of self-esteem we all have in common. But I have tried to keep telling myself . . .
I’m fine.
Except, I finally wrote a new will to make certain the people in my life NOW are the ones arguing over my books, which are the only things of value I have. Just need to get it witnessed.
I’m fine.
Still, I’ve cleaned out multiple closets and drawers and re-organized things so if someone does need to come in and do something with all of it, that should be easy.
I’m fine.
I did replace the magazine basket in the bathroom, and launder those rugs, scrub that floor, and wiped down the walls. It was a bit defiant of the doctor’s order not to clean a house or over-exert, but, I can’t stand leaving a mess behind.
I’m fine.
I ordered a pound of ridiculously expensive Chickory coffee from New Orleans in case I’m ordered off caffeine (which I’d ignore anyway) I wanted to have another taste of the kind of thick as mud, boiled, all day on the woodstove, hours old coffee on which I was raised.
I’m fine.
I’m still not sleeping for more than two hours uninterrupted, and when I get into bed and recline, I can feel my heart start to race with worry that I’ll cough, or that I’ll never really sleep again. And for the past two nights I’ve had periods of hot flashes, which really hit when I get up in the morning — I’ve been going outside to cool off. And I’m having terrible dreams. And I’m waking up talking to someone.
I’m fine. Or, I was, until last night.
My aunt, Sissie, is the person who have me Broadway, books, unconditional love. When I was in my teens, the two of us went to New York City together. Just the two of us. We saw THE ELEPHANT MAN and SWEENEY TODD and went to Conran’s to shop for souvenirs. I’ve no idea what I got. But Sissie bought a most beautiful small coffee cup and saucer, a faded cornflower blue color with brown robin specks and trimming. She drank coffee non-stop, all day and evening, as do (as did?) I, and she insisted it be very strong and very hot, so this tiny cup was perfect. She’d pour just a cupful into a pan on the stove top and heat it to a boil, then pour it into her special cup and sip. If it got cold, she’d heat it again. When she was forced into assisted living and they forbade her caffeine, she gave me that cup and saucer. I’ve had it with me everywhere I have lived, ever since, always on my nightstand with, usually, a feather or two from a red cardinal — the bird we both loved to watch and thought had magic powers to predict good things coming our way whenever we saw one. Even when we lived in separate cities, or, even, separate homes in the same city, we would write to one another every time we saw a cardinal. I have boxes and boxes of her letters. (In the will, I’ve left all of my writing and correspondence, electronic and paper, to C, because he will just burn it, no interest in going through it.)
In my rearrange and clean everything up before I die undergo all this testing, I was neatening my nightstand and knocked the cup and saucer to the floor, breaking the saucer. I’ve long wanted to repair a coffee cup from the old Algonquin Hotel — gotten prior to the Marriott takeover and disrespectful ruination of the place— using gold, the practice of Kintsugi, but I never actually ordered or found the materials.
I don’t want to order anything just now. Seems silly.
For years and years I lived a miserable life during which I would pray every night to the God in which I still then believed that They would take me by morning, I had lots of chest pain then. Anxiety. Diagnosed. And I really wanted out of the life I was in and death seemed the only answer.
But, I was fine.
I don’t believe in God anymore — sorry Sister Anthony Katherine Anne Kate —but if I did, I’d ask of them when I said my prayers — irony of irony — please don’t let me die just yet.
This, that, is absolutely the most me I can be. Lol. Years when I was young and healthy wishing to die. Now, older, and not so healthy, and I want to live.
I want to fix Sissie’s saucer and my Algonquin coffee cup. I have 400 books JUST in my closet waiting to be read. I need to see all of the final season of SUCCESSION. I don’t want to leave Debbie without me to keep her safe and fed and company, and we laugh so much. Cody, Sue, and Andrea (introduced herein in the order I met them in my life) would be so pissed at me if I kicked it right now, and no one has ever had friends like the three of them — whatever else I didn’t get in life, they make up for it. And I’ve got a 164 day streak going on Wordle which I don’t want to break. And there’s a guy who lives in Florida who comes to Frederick maybe three or four times a year and we spend that week getting together; he’s beautiful and he thinks I’m great and that is really NOT my usual experience — alas, this is one of those rare weeks when he’s here and I’ve had to tell him I can’t. Seems unfair, doesn’t it?
I’m fine. But … I’m so very not. I don’t feel like me. And, I know this is not unique to me, but this long-covid (so some of them have called it) and this heart scare have made me feel old. I never thought I’d feel old. But I’m diminished. I’m not as strong or quick. My mind isn’t as facile. And what did I do with that IQ or that voice? And why did I collect 400 books? I mean, I’m still buying more, too.
I had a point 4500 words ago when I started. Confession: part of the reason I’m writing this is because I promised some Twitter folk I’d blog every week, and I don’t want to die (I know, I know, I’m not going to — BUT JUST IN CASE) having broken another promise. I just don’t want to fail any more fails. Lol.
I’m fine. Confession: part of the reason I’m writing this is because I was born too soon and started too late. But then again, if I could’ve been, I would’ve been. That’s show business. Someone told me, it wasn’t my turn.
I’m fine. And while this needs a good edit, I go into the tube to be radiated twice in the next two days and I don’t know whether I’ll ever feel like writing again. And so, this is it.
I may not have gotten my FUNNY GIRL shot, but I was Jesus three times, Judas once, Sylvia St. Croix twice, Dr. Frank N. Furter, and best of all, I swung that razor high as Sweeney Todd. I’ve also had a (not so) little priest in my day. In the words my dear Duchess Goldblatt wrote to me once when I was feeling awfully blue:
My snuggly rascal, sweet-hearted tenderlove; When we count our losses, we turn the balance sheet over to see what's been gained, you and I.
Way more plus than minus in this life of mine and so no matter what awaits, I’m fine. And so, here I am, going.
Charlie. It's good to hear from you. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. Julian of Norwich's famous meditation has comforted my life in many moments of uncertainty and struggle. Wish it were a lottery ticket or an elixir of eternal life or a Broadway season ticket, but no, just comfort. Words that invite in the perspective of time. The possibilities of future time. The passage of pain. The thing in nature that skews toward renewal. So, Be well, friend. 🌱
I’m glad you’re alive and kicking. Let’s hope the post-covid effects diminish a bit (a lot!) every day. Sending love, light, and poetry to you, Charlie.