you never hit on me.
Youâre ugly. Iâd never hit on you.
It must have been a drag for you.
I donât do drag.
Ha-ha.
Does this mean we canât talk about women in front of you?
No. Talk about poontang all you want.
I like the cocktail waitress.
Dream on.
I like the guy sitting at the bar.
The one with the mustache?
Yeah, him.
Thatâs your type?
I donât have a type. I just think heâs cute.
Go talk to him.
I donât pick people up in bars.
No shit.
Well, sometimes I do. But heâs straight.
How can you tell?
I just can. We call it gaydar.
Do you have a boyfriend?
Yeah. His name is Mark.
Bring him next time.
You want to meet him?
Man. Of course we do.
And on into the night.
I did bring Mark, the next time. Craig and Rob brought their girlfriends. Peter and Bronson were still shopping around.
Our friendship has dwindled over the years, as childhood friendships do. We call occasionally. I get Christmas cards with family photos inside.
I was lucky, luckier than many gay boys. But I still rememberâI will always rememberâthat ongoing feeling of terror, that sense that my dark secret must remain forever concealed. Like many men who were once gay kids.
And Iâll always know that I was more loved, and more clearly seen, than Iâd ever dared to imagine.
Michael Cunningham is the author of the novels A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours (winner of the Pen/ Faulkner Award and Pulitzer Prize), and Specimen Days . His latest novel is By Nightfall . He lives in New York.
Â
© 2011 by Mare Vaporum Corp.
AND THE EMMY GOES TO . . .
by Barbara Gaines
NEW YORK, NY
Â
Â
Â
I âm fifty-three-years old, and Iâm a lesbian. Iâm also an executive producer of the Late Show with David Letterman . Iâve got the kind of full life I never could have imagined would be mine when I was in my teens and twenties.
I grew up in the â60s and â70s in the suburbs of Long Island. I didnât find it easy. I looked, felt, and acted different from all the other kids. When I was ten years old, I was actually the only kid in my class who wore eyeglasses. I could never really play the clarinet but, of course, I was that kid who played the clarinet in the band. I had three good friends in my neighborhood, but I didnât fit in, wasnât interested in what other people were interested in, was more sensitive, and less able to handle school and navigate challenges.
I started doing drugs when I was twelve to feel better, but self-medicating never works. My high school guidance counselor said I wasnât college material but my parents wouldnât let me stay home. I was just as bewildered, lost, and unconnected in college.
There was a legend at my school that if a virgin graduated, the statue in the center of campus would fall down. Iâm here to tell you that definitely isnât true, because at my graduation, the statue was still standing. But, in some ways, the miracle was that I graduated at all.
After college, and a short-lived job in Los Angeles, I tried to kill myself. I was in intensive care for three days. I was twenty-two years old.
But hereâs the thing: Just six months later, things started to get better. I met someone. I got a job.
Let me tell you, with all of my heart, if I had died in 1979, if I had left this earth then, I would have missed so many wonderful things: I never would have married my partner; I never would have seen the birth of my son; I would not have heard my mother, on her death bed, accept me for the gay person I am. And I would not have had the thrill and honor of receiving five Emmy Awards for the work I love to do.
In 1984, I started going to Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the gay synagogue in New York City, where I found a community of Jewish gay people, something I didnât even know existed. In 1989, I started taking prescribed antidepressants. These are some
Youâre ugly. Iâd never hit on you.
It must have been a drag for you.
I donât do drag.
Ha-ha.
Does this mean we canât talk about women in front of you?
No. Talk about poontang all you want.
I like the cocktail waitress.
Dream on.
I like the guy sitting at the bar.
The one with the mustache?
Yeah, him.
Thatâs your type?
I donât have a type. I just think heâs cute.
Go talk to him.
I donât pick people up in bars.
No shit.
Well, sometimes I do. But heâs straight.
How can you tell?
I just can. We call it gaydar.
Do you have a boyfriend?
Yeah. His name is Mark.
Bring him next time.
You want to meet him?
Man. Of course we do.
And on into the night.
I did bring Mark, the next time. Craig and Rob brought their girlfriends. Peter and Bronson were still shopping around.
Our friendship has dwindled over the years, as childhood friendships do. We call occasionally. I get Christmas cards with family photos inside.
I was lucky, luckier than many gay boys. But I still rememberâI will always rememberâthat ongoing feeling of terror, that sense that my dark secret must remain forever concealed. Like many men who were once gay kids.
And Iâll always know that I was more loved, and more clearly seen, than Iâd ever dared to imagine.
Michael Cunningham is the author of the novels A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours (winner of the Pen/ Faulkner Award and Pulitzer Prize), and Specimen Days . His latest novel is By Nightfall . He lives in New York.
Â
© 2011 by Mare Vaporum Corp.
AND THE EMMY GOES TO . . .
by Barbara Gaines
NEW YORK, NY
Â
Â
Â
I âm fifty-three-years old, and Iâm a lesbian. Iâm also an executive producer of the Late Show with David Letterman . Iâve got the kind of full life I never could have imagined would be mine when I was in my teens and twenties.
I grew up in the â60s and â70s in the suburbs of Long Island. I didnât find it easy. I looked, felt, and acted different from all the other kids. When I was ten years old, I was actually the only kid in my class who wore eyeglasses. I could never really play the clarinet but, of course, I was that kid who played the clarinet in the band. I had three good friends in my neighborhood, but I didnât fit in, wasnât interested in what other people were interested in, was more sensitive, and less able to handle school and navigate challenges.
I started doing drugs when I was twelve to feel better, but self-medicating never works. My high school guidance counselor said I wasnât college material but my parents wouldnât let me stay home. I was just as bewildered, lost, and unconnected in college.
There was a legend at my school that if a virgin graduated, the statue in the center of campus would fall down. Iâm here to tell you that definitely isnât true, because at my graduation, the statue was still standing. But, in some ways, the miracle was that I graduated at all.
After college, and a short-lived job in Los Angeles, I tried to kill myself. I was in intensive care for three days. I was twenty-two years old.
But hereâs the thing: Just six months later, things started to get better. I met someone. I got a job.
Let me tell you, with all of my heart, if I had died in 1979, if I had left this earth then, I would have missed so many wonderful things: I never would have married my partner; I never would have seen the birth of my son; I would not have heard my mother, on her death bed, accept me for the gay person I am. And I would not have had the thrill and honor of receiving five Emmy Awards for the work I love to do.
In 1984, I started going to Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the gay synagogue in New York City, where I found a community of Jewish gay people, something I didnât even know existed. In 1989, I started taking prescribed antidepressants. These are some
Similar Books
