come back after one year. My parents were furious and I was mortified, and we were all ignoring the clear message the universe was sending us.
11. “See a Little Light”—Bob Mould
In the 1990–91 school year, I lived at home with my parents and took night classes at Washington University in St. Louis. I was in with the retirees and the extension students, and I put my nose to the grindstone because I was determined to get back to Holy Cross and finish what I had started. I did my studying in the Wash U library, made a few friends just from striking up conversations there, and I started getting invited to fraternity parties. I went, because I had nothing else to do, and it wasn’t until I got a couple of bids that I realized that what I’d been doing was “rushing.” Nobody knew I was a night student, or if they did know they didn’t care. I pledged Kappa Sigma. I went through ritual and became an active brother, and they asked me to direct the spring musical they did each year with the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority—so it was clear they not only knew whom they were dealing with, but wanted me around anyway. At the end of the year, I had a fraternity house to live in if I wanted to, and my grades were good enough that I could fully matriculate to the regular, daytime Washington University. Things were going well for me in St. Louis. I was succeeding, and I was succeeding as myself.
But I was determined to win back the favor of the one who had rejected me, so I reapplied after that year to Holy Cross and they let me back in and I went.
12. “Where’d You Go?”—The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
By the time I got back to Holy Cross, a whole year had happened without me there, and while I still had friends, it was hard to get back in step. Plus we were juniors now—or
they
were, I had to repeat sophomore year—so most of my friends had gone abroad. I was alone again, naturally.
13. “Silent All These Years”—Tori Amos
I was probably supposed to be going to a school where people had open meltdowns, and went through bisexual phases, and broke their legs jumping out of trees while on mushrooms, but I was determined to make my relationship with this very normal, very practical place work this time. As a compromise, I turned off everything that was unique about myself. I was still manically social, but I wasn’t dealing with what was happening in my mind or soul or crotch.
14. “Kiss Them for Me”—Siouxsie and the Banshees
I made a lot of desperate, late-night phone calls to Ned all through college, just to hear the voice of someone who knew me. He went to Rice in Houston, a university for brainy kids, where he studied architecture with a side order of Foucault and Derrida and queer theory. “Queer theory?” I asked him. “What’s that?”
“It’s like poststructuralism? It’s, like…we do, like, textual analysis? But from like a gay angle? It’s like…I just wrote a paper about the butch/femme dynamic in
Laverne & Shirley.
”
He was also out of the closet and part of an active and vibrant gay community on campus, dating up a storm. There were places where you could not only be out of the closet and be taken seriously, but also watch sitcoms for course credit. I had not
missed the boat
so much as
failed to understand the concept of boats.
15. “Regret”—New Order
College was, all the way around, a weird and isolating experience, and I made it that way all by myself, so much so that even now I can’t engage with it without using a whimsical framing device like this. I took the time in my life when I was supposed to be figuring out who I was, and I spent it trying to be a fictional character. Ultimately, I look on this whole time in my life the way you do when you’re looking at a picture of yourself with your worst haircut.
In 1991, I was back at Holy Cross, grateful for the second chance it had given me, yet also suffering from a debilitating cocktail of sexual frustration and
11. “See a Little Light”—Bob Mould
In the 1990–91 school year, I lived at home with my parents and took night classes at Washington University in St. Louis. I was in with the retirees and the extension students, and I put my nose to the grindstone because I was determined to get back to Holy Cross and finish what I had started. I did my studying in the Wash U library, made a few friends just from striking up conversations there, and I started getting invited to fraternity parties. I went, because I had nothing else to do, and it wasn’t until I got a couple of bids that I realized that what I’d been doing was “rushing.” Nobody knew I was a night student, or if they did know they didn’t care. I pledged Kappa Sigma. I went through ritual and became an active brother, and they asked me to direct the spring musical they did each year with the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority—so it was clear they not only knew whom they were dealing with, but wanted me around anyway. At the end of the year, I had a fraternity house to live in if I wanted to, and my grades were good enough that I could fully matriculate to the regular, daytime Washington University. Things were going well for me in St. Louis. I was succeeding, and I was succeeding as myself.
But I was determined to win back the favor of the one who had rejected me, so I reapplied after that year to Holy Cross and they let me back in and I went.
12. “Where’d You Go?”—The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
By the time I got back to Holy Cross, a whole year had happened without me there, and while I still had friends, it was hard to get back in step. Plus we were juniors now—or
they
were, I had to repeat sophomore year—so most of my friends had gone abroad. I was alone again, naturally.
13. “Silent All These Years”—Tori Amos
I was probably supposed to be going to a school where people had open meltdowns, and went through bisexual phases, and broke their legs jumping out of trees while on mushrooms, but I was determined to make my relationship with this very normal, very practical place work this time. As a compromise, I turned off everything that was unique about myself. I was still manically social, but I wasn’t dealing with what was happening in my mind or soul or crotch.
14. “Kiss Them for Me”—Siouxsie and the Banshees
I made a lot of desperate, late-night phone calls to Ned all through college, just to hear the voice of someone who knew me. He went to Rice in Houston, a university for brainy kids, where he studied architecture with a side order of Foucault and Derrida and queer theory. “Queer theory?” I asked him. “What’s that?”
“It’s like poststructuralism? It’s, like…we do, like, textual analysis? But from like a gay angle? It’s like…I just wrote a paper about the butch/femme dynamic in
Laverne & Shirley.
”
He was also out of the closet and part of an active and vibrant gay community on campus, dating up a storm. There were places where you could not only be out of the closet and be taken seriously, but also watch sitcoms for course credit. I had not
missed the boat
so much as
failed to understand the concept of boats.
15. “Regret”—New Order
College was, all the way around, a weird and isolating experience, and I made it that way all by myself, so much so that even now I can’t engage with it without using a whimsical framing device like this. I took the time in my life when I was supposed to be figuring out who I was, and I spent it trying to be a fictional character. Ultimately, I look on this whole time in my life the way you do when you’re looking at a picture of yourself with your worst haircut.
In 1991, I was back at Holy Cross, grateful for the second chance it had given me, yet also suffering from a debilitating cocktail of sexual frustration and
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