up and up

Day 28: Resurgence

2009-11-29T20:37:00.002-05:00

I woke up this morning, not quite sure what I was feeling.

Nervous?
Anxious?
Angry?
Elated?
Calm?

Two minutes into today's lucid streak, and I already felt more than I usually do in the course of an average day.

Weird dreams have been tormenting me lately. Lots about my family. I've been talking to my relatives in my sleep. Sorting out what's wrong with me. What's wrong with us. What's wrong with the world in which we live.

So far, no answers. Lots of yelling.

Shouts. Screams. Punches. I'm reliving nightmares I've experienced in life and in sleep.

And every once in a while, my Auntie Babs walks into my dream. Stands there, maybe speaks, maybe stays silent. But her presence, so much clearer than anyone else's in my dreams, so much realer, calms the storm.

Haven't spoken to Babsie in almost a year. And that's fucked for so many reasons. She once told me, "The longer you stay away, the harder it is to come back." And damn if that isn't the truest thing I've ever learned.

But it's hard to go back to a family you aren't sure you recognize as your own. Even when there's a Babsie at the top of pile, making everyone else's faults seem manageable. It's all about time. And breath. And prayer.

I hope I can make it back before it's too late. I hope we all can.

Day 27: Thanks

2009-11-26T12:06:00.003-05:00

Weird, the assumptions we're raised not to question. Like partnerships. Are they supposed to be forever? I remember being a kid, listening to one of my neighbors talk about a wedding she'd attended. She--and my mother--were horrified by the bride and groom's vows: "I promise to honor and cherish you until our love lasts."

"Until our love lasts." Gorgeous for its honesty.

Love may last eternally, but that doesn't have to be the case. In fact, I'd wager it's the exception instead of the norm. Love dies the same as plants, humans, motivation, solar systems. Everything dies. No one is immortal, no matter how much kombucha and raw salad we toss down our gullets.

Today, I'm grateful for my mortality, because it's making me work very hard to leave a piece of myself behind after my body expires. The musical is the first piece of a grand project that will occupy the rest of my days. Sometimes I have a hard time talking to people, face to face, in person. But when I have the pen and a page as a buffer, I speak crystals.

I'm also grateful for the ability to collaborate. Sonia, Cherstin, Paul, Terre. Good people, attracted to passion, driven to be better. It's an inspiring group we've formed. More than anything, I'm grateful that, very very soon, you all will be able to breathe the fumes that've been feeding us for the past handful of months.

Day 26: I Stand Alone

2009-11-18T22:23:00.001-05:00

Here's some real-deal stuff for y'all to swallow. "I Stand Alone" by Ben Jarrad. A real-deal guy you're all gonna know pretty soon.

Day 25: Blank

2009-11-18T20:14:00.002-05:00

I've been putting together this awesome jigsaw puzzle. Been working on it for like, months. And today, with only a handful of pieces left to place before finishing it, some d-bag came along and kicked through half of it. The bad news--I sorta have to start over again. The good news--I love doing puzzles.

Day 24: Transition

2009-11-08T19:34:00.002-05:00

Chastity becomes Chaz.

As it should be.

Bless him.

And screw you who think differently.

Day 23: I Love Rosie

2009-11-07T02:39:00.002-05:00

I read Rosie O'Donnell's blog every day.

Sometimes twice a day.

I love her.

Here's why (Rosie's response in italics):

Judy Lumenthal Writes:

Rosie, were you angry when Letterman said you would have to change the name to R Broken Family Cruises? My 15 year even said that was mean.

and he has to change the name of his show
to david fuck an intern letterman

Day 22: Letting Go

2009-11-01T19:38:00.000-05:00

My memories of living in my mother's house are stored like home movies that I've replayed so many times, the people in them only superficially resemble my family. Scenes feel scripted, quotable, unchangeable, unreal. And I do not recognize myself.

Let me define the term "mother's house," which is different from what I call my "parents' house," even though both names refer to the same building in Roslindale. My parents' house is the house I lived in from 1982 to 2000, or my birth to my father's death; my mother's house is the house I lived in from 2000-2004, the year communication shut down between my immediate family and me.

There were two distinctly dark periods during the time I lived in my mother's house. The first was during my senior year of high school, after I gave my mom the list of colleges I wanted to apply to. The second was the summer after my sophomore year of college, when I came out to my family.

In October 2001, my mom asked me to write a list of schools that I wanted to apply to. I gave it to her, she looked at it and without missing a beat she said, "Not one of these schools is in Massachusetts." And thus began the silence.

The silence of 01-02. My mom and I didn't speak. That is to say, we didn't have a single conversation for almost four months. She was furious that I wasn't planning on staying in Boston after high school; I was furious that she was furious.

The day I turned nineteen--December 10, 2001--my mom gave me a gift. I told her that the only thing I wanted was money to pay for college application fees. She told me, "I'm not helping you apply to a single out-of-state school." So, on my birthday, my mom came into the house--pissed off as usual--and said, "Go get your birthday present. It's in the back of the car."

I went to the car, got a large cardboard box out of the trunk, and carried it into the house. My gift? A stackable CD tower with glass tubes on either side that filled with water and changed colors. I have never hated a gift more, especially since I kept all my CDs in a binder.

I never understood why my mom was so furious that I wanted to leave Boston. Now, with two years of work on my musical under my belt, I'm starting to get a better sense of where she was coming from. I've devoted so much of my life, my time, my soul to this project. And now that it's almost done, I'm feeling depressed. I don't know how not to be working on this musical. I don't know how to send it into the world, where I can't protect it, where I can't control it. And most importantly, it's not the show I thought it was going to be when I started working on it in earnest two years ago. It's so much different, so much better, so much darker, so much it's own thing.

I feel for my mom. Saying goodbye to me must've been very difficult for her. But she did it--kicking and screaming aside--and I wouldn't be here today had she acted differently.

Day 21: Alas, Boston

2009-11-01T01:28:00.001-04:00

I got called a fag again tonight. By a complete random passing in a car.

Second time this month.

Boston.

Wow.

Day 20: What I Learned from the Rainbow

2009-10-31T17:53:00.003-04:00

"Follow the fellow who follows a dream."

Day 19: Wherein Successive Days Become Successful Days

2009-10-25T21:59:00.001-04:00

You may have noticed my counting the days. You may also have noticed that I'm not posting every single day.

For anyone who blogs, you know that posting once a day is a commitment.

Commitment issues, I've got those. But I'm committed to finishing this project. And instead of posting once-a-day for 100 days, I'm going to continue the project until I've posted one hundred times. Each post will mark another completed step in the project.

I've got one-hundred goals. Let's see how long it takes me to make it through the list.

P.S. I ran today.

Day 18: I Am Family

2009-10-24T15:35:00.007-04:00

The year was 1993. Rosaria Salerno was running for mayor of Boston. Her campaign signs were white with a pink rose. In my family, pink roses had power because my mother associated them with my sister Allison, who died in 1987. Bad as it was that Salerno--who my mother called "Rosario" with the indignation of a kid talking smack about her teacher--promoted gay rights, she used the symbol of my dead sister to do so. That made her an enemy. My mother never used the word hate, but I could feel it every time she talked about Salerno.

There was a lesbian couple who lived on our street in Roslindale. They moved in, if I'm not mistaken, right next to the Hispanic family. Both additions to the neighborhood were met with resistance, but the lesbians--who had a few kids--certainly endured more public harassment. Shortly after they hung their Salerno sign--we were a Jim Brett household--someone attacked it with a black sharpie. I don't know what it said or who did it. What I do know, however, is that my older brother once wrote DYKE across the hood of their car in shaving cream.

Another time--after I'd told friends but not my family about my gayness--I couldn't back my mom's minivan into the driveway because another car pulled up too close to me. The driver of the other car and I got into an argument because she wouldn't reverse up the street. One of my brothers was standing on the porch and screamed, "Move you dyke!" I looked at the woman in horror, said nothing, and drove away so that she could pass. But she didn't pass; she and her girlfriend got out of the car and calmly tried to engage my brother. Didn't work. No lessons learned, for him at least. For me, I still think about that when I indulge the fantasy of rejoining my mom and my siblings' inner circle.

I was living in Texas the first time I heard the word "family" applied to the gay community. I went to a meeting of my college's gay club, and a fierce lesbian asked me if I was family. At the time, I didn't really know how to respond. But today, having stared deep into my gene pool and accepted the fact that it's polluted and not fit for swimming, I don't have to think about it. I am family.

Day 17: The In-between

2009-10-19T17:25:00.005-04:00

We--individually, collectively--swoop between highs and lows. Trapeze artists, careering from good to
bad to
worse to
better to
good to
better to
great to
less great to
good
and on
and on
and on
and on.

At the moment, reading James Baldwin makes me high. Same with writing the musical and getting older--all good things, things I'm grateful for, things I pursue (almost) effortlessly.

Things I don't appreciate, enough or at all, the things that need my attention?
--Well, family first. And isn't that everyone.
--Money stuff. I am ri-diculous when it comes to dealing with that bitch Sallie Mae.
--Health. I smoke too much and don't run enough, ugly combo.

The space between the highs and the lows. Sanity by one name, panic by another. That's where it's at for me these days. Tough spot, this base, the place from which everyone must periodically depart.

Today, I'm gonna stay in Another Country, trying to quell this anxious undercurrent.

Day 16: Keeping It in the Family

2009-10-18T14:42:00.003-04:00

My family, large, Irish, Catholic. A clan, and those within the group don't talk about the group to people outside of it.

Silence, denial, refusal--the backbone of our communications.

My dad was an alcoholic when I was a little boy. This fact we talked about, but always in a cursory sorta way. Like, don't drink because dad drank and it made things bad. But no one ever stopped to ask, "Why did dad drink?"

My mom drank, too, but when she was much younger and didn't have kids. In my life, I can remember one time seeing her drink a beer. And I thought, whoa, that's weird, mom's drinking a beer.

To quote Cher, because she's an expert, "Words are like weapons; they wound sometimes." Conversely, silence can be just as damaging, perhaps even moreso because it leaves no certainty. How can you fight that which is left unsaid?

After my sister died, my dad stopped drinking. And he never mentioned her name--Allison--so far as I can remember. And even if he did say it, he never initiated the conversation, that's for sure.

My mom talked a lot about my sister. And after my dad died, she talked a lot about him. But not in a healing way. She'd say things like, "This wouldn't be happening if your father was around." And maybe that was true. But the fact remained, he wasn't around, and he never would be around again.

Sometimes I think my dad was lucky to have died when he did. He missed our collective descent into darkness. And now, from a place of some perspective and in the midst of healing, I think of how lucky I am that he is dead. I feel him in my bones. When my lower back aches, as it does with increasing frequency; when I smoke a cigarette and hear his cough bellow from my chest; when I stand up too quickly and see little black dots--the older I get, the more I become him, and the more I know that he's with me, making sure I come out on the other end in a different situation than that which trapped him in this life. He's the voice at the back of my mind saying "yes" or "no" or "maybe but just this one time."

I wonder if my brothers have had the same opportunities to get to know our father. I hope so, because without him, theirs is gonna be a long and lonely road.

My siblings and I inherited a lot of good and a lot of bad from our parents. The distance I've had from them has allowed me to separate what I need from what I need to purge. Now that it's all torn apart, I finally feel comfortable looking at the big picture.

Day 15: Change

2009-10-18T12:26:00.002-04:00

Sitting in front of my computer, trying to come up with something brilliant about change. All I've got is this: sometimes change is good, and sometimes change is bad; but always, change is different.

Day 14: Faggotry

2009-10-17T09:19:00.004-04:00

Tonight I was a pinball, bouncing around Boston and letting whatever (and whoever) I bumped into decide my next move.

First homegirl who runs my volunteer program rolled into my bar. Our conversations, previously, pretty much had been limited to things like rape culture and socialized gender norms. So it was a good and blessed thing to get to know her on a little bit more of a human level. One thing I said to her (and this will be important in like four paragraphs) is that the only time I've ever gotten a black eye was when some douche called me a fag at my friend's birthday party.

After that, my friend Frank and I walked around Downtown Crossing smoking a joint and taking our surroundings. As we were sitting against the Macy's building--looking, I'm sure, like a couple of homeless guys--my friend Scott walked by (he later told me that he was thinking, "who are those homeless men, oh wait, it's Tommy O'Malley") and told us he was going to Felt to watch his friend's show.

Frank and I finished smoking and headed to Felt, a place, having visited three times, I can safely say I never want to go again. We made it in time for the very end (as in the last half of the last song) of Scott's friend's set.

While the band was breaking down and the next group was setting up, I noticed that my friend Erich, who volunteers with me and Meg, was running the sound board. Weird, I thought.

To finish the night, my friend Scott and I came back to my place to watch some Charlie Chaplin clups on Youtube. As we were getting out of the cab in front of my apartment in South Boston, a black SUV crept by, and the two dude bros in the front started hollering "fags" at us. The best part is that the Boston Phoenix's cover story this week is about Southie's newfound acceptance of the gays. Unbelievable.

Day 13: Subsurface

2009-10-17T09:06:00.003-04:00

Today on The View, the ladies talked about all the sex that happens on submarines. Sub crews spend as much as three months below the surface, effectively cut off from the rest of the world, and the tight quarters can create a certain closeness. Narrow corridors force people constantly to squeeze around each other, and before you know it, their bodies aren't bumping just in the hallway. My first thought: how do I get on a submarine without enlisting in the Navy?

Day 12: Crazy

2009-10-17T09:05:00.001-04:00

"We are just people trying to make it in this crazy world."
-CBP

Day 11: The Past

2009-10-13T17:21:00.007-04:00

I got some bad news about a couple of friends from my past today.

Tommy McDonough and I went to Holy Name School together until we were eleven. We weren't besties, but everyday after school, when we were in fifth grade, we walked to the library together and hung out with a bunch of girls from St. Theresa's. One of them was Fonda Fagetta (no joke), and Tommy dared me to make out with her. I did it and, even though she wasn't the first girl I kissed, she was certainly the first to stick her tongue down my throat. Memories...

I haven't seen Tommy--I don't think--since I left Holy Name in the 6th grade. I found out today that he moved to Arizona and got a flesh eating bacteria. He died yesterday. So fucked. If you're a praying person, get to work for his family. His mom was always a really nice lady.

When I lived in Austin, I befriended a homeless guy named Leslie, who was something of a local celebrity. He used to come over to my apartment to hang out. We'd smoke pot, eat, solve the world's problems. Usual stoner bullshit, you know how that is.

My dear friend Michelle, who also hung out with Leslie from time to time, posted an article on my Facebook wall this afternoon to let me know that he was in the hospital, reportedly in grave condition. Can't imagine Austin without Leslie. Thing is, he wasn't the type of guy I imagine was close to many people. What he was, instead, was the kind of guy who found his purpose and lived it every second of his life. Sad to think he might not ever be back to himself.

So for Tommy and Leslie, two people who probably never thought they had an impact on my life during their lives, I'm offering up a whole lot of gratitude. Glad to have know you both, fellas.

Me, Leslie & my old roomie Lennie in our old apartment on S. Congress Ave in Austin

Day 10: Bethesda

2009-10-12T18:19:00.006-04:00

Walking down the steps facing the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, you get an immediate sense of your own importance. So much space around you in every direction--a sphere, a cloud, hugging you, softening your descent. Each step down, a gradual grounding in your reality: you are a leader among equals. All the same, all part of the same goo, just different consistencies. But the differences exist only because we allow them, force them, these boundaries we accept as inevitable.

Under the bridge facing the Bethesda Fountain, you get an incredibly humbling sense of everyone else's importance. The Midwestern mom, achy-kneed but keeping up with her teenage son as he ascends the cascading steps with the ease that youth affords. And the soon-to-be-married thirtysomethings--exactly what you'd want and expect from young professionals making it in New York--posing for engagement photos they hope (fingers crossed, truly) will appear among the New York Times wedding announcements. And of course--and for me, most importantly--there's the vagabond cellist, who underscored this entry with a somber sense of possibility.

What do we take and what do we give? And how much of a say do we ultimately have in the matter?

The last time I was at the Bethesda Fountain, I'd taken my cousins to New York to see a play. While we were at the fountain, I told them that it had inspired Tony Kushner to write Angels in America, which premiered at the Public Theater, where we were to see our play--Passing Strange--that evening.

So, later on, as we took our seats in the Public's Anspacher Theater, I looked around and saw Tony Kushner and his boyfriend sitting across the aisle. It was June 27, 2007, the day I understood and accepted my first absolute truth: there are no accidents.

Passing Strange, I've said many many many times, changed my life. Inspired me to move back to Boston three months after I saw it. Its messages about the relationships between mothers & sons and young men & their art forced a shift, if not in my behavior then at least in my morality.

At first, I thought I moved to Boston to get closer to my mom. Having flowed through enough time and tears to know better, I realize that I came here to change the world through art. My collaborations, my love for creating something lasting with other people, are my purpose.

Walking through Central Park, away from Bethesda, I saw something beautiful--a bunch of people, OLD and young, dancing on rollerskates and rollerblades while a DJ set the vibe. It gave me an idea that will elevate It's Working to the pantheon of real American musicals--the ones that include you and don't just make you smile, the ones that are, in effect, you.

I love New York.

Day 9: Separate Worlds

2009-10-12T17:11:00.005-04:00

I find it difficult to go from one world to the other.

There's This--the world we see when we wake up in the morning. It's in the newspapers blowing through the gutters we pass as we walk to work. It's in the steam the rises off of our first cup of coffee in the morning. It's the smell of your laundry that's been sitting in the hamper for a month, begging, pleading for even just a rinse cycle.

Then there's That--the place we go to improve on, respond to, perfect This. That is where I want to live, and whenever I can steal a moment to travel there, I do it. Reentry into This is accordingly difficult, depending on how long I spend floating through the pool of creation.

Day 8, I spent a lot of time floating. Diving, breathing water as air, swimming through air as through water. Boarders, dissolved. Barriers, surmounted. The future became the present became the past to the point where then became now and now became everything else. At once, unity, acceptance of our sameness, bliss.

Day 9, the journey was over. Back to "reality," which for some is real and for me is a hurdle. But I'm jumping over it as we speak, and pretty soon, I'll rejoin my real to my reality.

And then, bliss.

Day 8: Necessity

2009-10-12T17:10:00.000-04:00

Real theater right here. That's all I need.

Day 7: Done

2009-10-10T02:30:00.005-04:00

I'm done feeling bad about my choices. Choosing clarity creates tension, conflict, drama. But after the adjustment period, it's settles in: things are clear. And that's something to see.

No regrets, no shame, no second guessing. Certainty. For now.

Day 6: The Edge

2009-10-08T23:58:00.003-04:00

"And he walked, and he was again on the edge of a high place, but bathed and blessed and glorified in the blazing sun, so that he stood like God, all golden, and looked down, down, at the long race he had run, at the steep side of the mountain he had climbed."

--James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain

Day 5: The Mirror

2009-10-07T22:15:00.004-04:00

I like seeing the mirror in other people, even when my reflection isn't attractive. In the past, if I didn't like what I saw, I'd turn away. Now I can at least look, if not always love.

James Baldwin is a mirror from the past. Similar to the mirrors at the old-ass restaurant I work at. Spooky, in your face, inescapable. History, like what we're taught in school, tells a great story but maybe only part of the story. And fiction, an invention of the human mind, is often the only place to find the Real.

I didn't read any Go Tell It on the Mountain today, and I'm sad for it. Still a couple hours left in today, though.

Mirror time, betches.

Day 4: Good Morning

2009-10-06T06:26:00.002-04:00

No. Great morning.

That's all.