The Saturday After

Even though I haven't written in a while, life's been pretty busy, as you can imagine. Usually, if I go for long absences without writing, it's because I'm depressed and feeling awful about life, so there doesn't seem to be much point in crowing about it, but this time I'm happy to report it's different. I mean, I always have something worrying me - that's built in - especially with a big move having been looming on the horizon for a while, but for once I can happily report that I've just been too damn busy to put the effort in to update this journal.

I got to spend a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday with my family - it was good to see them. I think it'd been over six months since I'd seen my mom & dad. You're not supposed to say this sort of thing about people who might end up reading what you're writing, but I have to say I was struck by how my parents seemed, to me, to have aged. And the thing is, they probably haven't aged any differently than they have in the last few years, but because I'm going months at a time without seeing them, I'm noticing it more when I do.

I've been thinking a lot about my mom and dad, lately. About the similarities and the differences between us. I see so much of them in me as I grow older, but in many ways we're so incredibly different. Can you tell he loves to have his picture taken? He's a kinda cute old guy, isn't he? But boy, he surely doesn't care much for dressing up - that tee-shirt was his Thanksgiving attire. My mom's the same way - I guess she (and my dad) figure they've reached an age where they're not out to impress anyone - they're just interested in being comfortable. I used to be embarrassed by my family because I thought they were unsophisticated and kind of hickish (have I written about this before? I just had the strongest sense of deja vu), but I learned that the only person I needed to be embarrassed by we me... I can't believe I ever felt that way about these kind, genuine people who would literally do anything for you. Granted, you might hear about it for the rest of your life, but it would get done. In need, my family is unstintingly giving to each other, and sometimes I amaze myself that I could have ever been so shallow and thoughtless as to think ill of them. And just plain wrong, too, when you think about it. There's a bit difference between dressing and acting in a way the world thinks of as being "unsophisticated" and actually being unsophisticated. My folks (and my siblings, too) are some of the sharpest, wittiest people I know - and I certainly wouldn't be half the wit or thinker that I am had they not raised me.


So here's a picture of my brother Dan carving the Thanksgiving bird, and my mom sitting on her little stool with my nieces Mandy, Maggie, and Sarah. Dan is the brother who I most closely resemble... somebody walked up to me and wished me good luck at his wedding. I figured I was finally going to get away from the mistaken identity thing when I lost 25 pounds and got skinny. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I'm not sure which), Danny's going through a divorce, and not a particularly nice one, either. So with the stress and worry of that, he's lost a ton of weight. We're back to looking alike. I like to tease him that I have more hair, but give me another three or four years. I'm his age, I'll probably be bald as a cue ball.

When I arrived at the house, I discovered my mom sitting on that stool in the corner of the kitchen, supervising the preparation of the meal (actually, she was just sitting around slinging the bull, but she looked very official there), and I told her that she looked like a studda-bubba of old, sternly watching over the daughters-in-law in the old country. She said to me, "Well, I'm The Matriarch now." Apparently, my siblings have take to calling her "The Matriarch," which I think is a total hoot. Anyway, here's The Matriarch with my sister Sue and her daughter Maggie again. Three generations. It makes me shudder. And believe it or not, I've got nieces and nephews with children of their own. My mom is a great-grammy. Matriarch, indeed.

All in all, it was a lovely holiday, and I'm happy to have had the chance to spend it with my family. Thankfully, gone are the days when dinner with my family was a chore to be survived, not an experience to be relished. Don't get me wrong, my family's not perfect, and there's still stuff about them that bugs me - as I'm sure there's stuff about me that annoys them - but the last couple of years have been like discovering a whole new set of friends. The seventies were not kind too our family - a lot of bad shit happened that tore us apart, and it's only now, twenty-five years later, that we're getting to know and appreciate each other again. I often tell my friends that it's a great time to be me. Life is always interesting, to be sure.

Hello. Again. Hello.

Hello again. It's been a while since I've sat down to write here. It's amazing to me how quickly time seems to pass, sometimes. I just don't seem to see it go by, and I wonder what I've achieved. I'm sure a lot of people feel that way. When I was doing the show in Philadelphia, someone asked me to explain this metaphor of finding yourself alive in the middle of life, and I explained it using a story from my college days. I used to drive an hour to college in the morning, and after a couple years of doing that, I could have made that drive in my sleep. Often, I would go on auto-pilot and suddenly find myself ready to pull in to the parking lot at school and think to myself, "How the fuck did I get here?" That's how I've been feeling lately - as though I keep snapping to and finding that I've been on auto-pilot. And I wonder where that comes from.

I keep finding myself amazed that I'm in Pittsburgh and the time is fast approaching when I've got to leave once again. I should stop getting sentimental over leaving this place, shouldn't I? I keep coming back!

Maybe It Was the Alcohol?

I stayed in bed quite late today, even though I'd gone to bed at a really reasonable hour - though pretty tipsy. I had dinner last night with Doug Rees and Patti Kelly, and afterward we ended up at Tuscany for cocktails. It was kinda exciting and unsettling to be cruised at a bar - something I've not experienced much. I'm not a big bar fan - I've never liked coming home reeking of cigarette smoke - so it's not something I have a lot of experience at.

That having been said, it was kinda cool. And how can you beat an evening spent with friends?!?

This evening's actually gonna be a pretty tame one. I have no plans but to sit around and read, and maybe contemplate that freaky-ass dream I woke up from. I'ts been a very, very long time since I woke up quite so disoriented and lost. And I still have no idea what it means. Doubtless, it's some sorta message about the state of my life, but what exactly does it mean?

To Boldly Go...

I woke up from the weirdest dream - nearly two hours ago - and haven't been able to get back to sleep since. It started out, or at least as much of it as I remember, that I and some of my friends (I remember it was populated with friends, but I can't remember which ones) were officers aboard this starship (I think, but can't swear to it, that I was the captain) which was under seige, and we were going to have to abandon ship. We made it to the life pods but were seperated, and I was left with one friend... then somehow the escape pod turned into a sailing ship of some sort, which eventually turned into a raft, which was eventually surrounded by alligators or crocodiles, which kept getting closer and closer. And I woke up kneeling upright in the middle of my bed - in the middle of trying to fend off the alligators/crocodiles. Can anyone even begin to tell me what all that means?

Energy

Strangely, I find myself in a place where I've so often journaled (is that a verb?) in the past: Tuscany Cafe, the coffee house/bar on Pittsburgh's South Side, which is only a couple blocks from City Theatre.

I had a wonderful breakfast with Amy Hartman this morning, which can only serve to energize me and make me feel good about life and its prospects. She's just such a force of nature, and being around her can only produce one of two reactions: Either you get depressed that you will never have the energy she projects, or you get caught up in it and want to get things done in your own life!

I'm feeling more like the second way today.

The last 1½ weeks, being back in Pittsburgh, have been really weird - in a liberating and wonderful way. I've gone on dates, and met some guys from the Pittsburgh chatroom, and generally done a lot of the things that I think I missed out on from the days before I met Gavan and had so many self-esteem issues. Before I met Gavan, I didn't think I was the kinda guy that others would want to meet - but I've found since that's not true. At least not any more.

I can't believe it's been six months since Gavan and I broke up, and I'm only now feeling good about going out and meeting other people, and making connections beyond the obvious for a gay man.

I've been reluctant to talk about him with anyone because it's so new and exciting, but I've been corresponding with a guy in New York City in anticipation of getting back there and starting my life again. His name is David, and from what I know of him - as much as you can learn from a personal ad and corresponding via e-mail - he seems like such a nice guy. I think we're both just taking it easy and enjoying the fact that we've found a kindred spirit. And neither of us is in any particular hurry to rush into anything... being very level headed about the whole thing. We've both been through the experience of meeting people over the 'net, so we're being very level headed. At least I hope we are!

We've only been writing back and forth for about three weeks, but, as I told him in my last e-mail, I've gotten to the point where I rush to my inbox the way a kid from the fifties would run to his mailbox looking for a secret decoder ring. He's just witty and smart and a good writer - and remarkably unselfish and unafraid when it comes to offering his real thoughts on a matter.

So we'll see. Now that I'm waking up from the self-imposed fog of the breakup, it just seems that - even with the stupid setbacks of earlier this summer - life seems just chock full of interesting possibilities again. And the funny thing is that it never really stopped feeling that way, but all the stupid crap that happened to was just enough shit piled on to make me hesitant to reach out and grasp those possibilities. I'm looking forward once more to what life has to offer.