Letters to Holly

Tuesday, September 9

Checking Out the Closet

Out of the blue on Sunday night, Your Sister expressed worry if The Deputy comes out as gay.

It wasn't so much out of nowhere maybe. Another teen-age child of a friend has identified as the other gender, changing clothes and name. It seems to average one a year now, and that doesn't count the students at the school. It comes with the age. Whether it's role-play or a fundamental actualization, this is the age to do it. You're going to get slagged at school each day for something, might as well be for something you intentionally establish.

I remember it with girls during my high-school years. Not so much with boys. They would project their behaviors a little more, but no boy changed his name to a more feminine one. Girls seem(ed) to have more leeway with "tomboy" behavior.

She said she's worried how much harder it would be to be gay in this town at that age. I told Your Sister that, if our guy did come out, there's a stronger support system for him than just five years back, and he won't be in that position for another ten years. Who knows what the consensus will be, even in a town so slow to move in conjunction with national trends.Will there be conservative and fundamentalist blowback? Yes. But those folks would/do complain about the kind of relationship she and I have, and we've been married nine years.

I thought about the possibility even during his first year, and I decided that I will treat his relationships as I do yours: If it's convenient and healthy, I'm for it. If it's not on equal footing, I want my guy to have the advantages. The other person isn't my concern; that's for their posse to fret over.

Your Sister already decreed I would have The Talk with him. I may have volunteered. I never got it, and that was a major handicap for a Baptist-raised yokel. I owe him a better head start.

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This was probably the last year we ask my mom to watch the deputy during DragonCon. Her judgment is suspect. She didn't feed him any of the meals we prepared, instead sharing the eclairs I bought her. Yes, his meals were eclairs. And handfuls of cookies. We told her she could spoil him, but that's beyond the pale. He also didn't go to bed before 10 pm. She broke our DVD player by shoving in a disc into the unopened tray and lost his swim goggles, and lied about eating the sandwich ingredients she asked me to buy for her. None of them were even opened.

It'll be fun. He'll be five next year, and we can split up time between the convention and the local attractions. He'll see characters he'll know, and we can put him in costume too.

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I see the doctor tomorrow for this weird sensation in my throat. It started last week, and it feels physical. I initially thought a pill was lodged in there. I can eat and breathe fine, but the texture when I swallow is distracting. It's not a cold, not this far down my gullet, and it would have bloomed into head gunk by now. It's probably spiders or cancer. Occam's razor and all.

Picture of the Day

Maybe the doctor will give me these.




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