Music Wins! A Personal Black History Month Story
It’s a bitterly cold Thursday in Texas, folks – tons of people without power, water, and/or internet; classes at local schools are canceled; sheets of ice covering all the roads, which were already...
View ArticleDonald Trump is my father (metaphorically).
(First diary, please be kind.)My father is Donald Trump.Metaphorically, of course — to my knowledge, we share no DNA. But like Donald Trump, my dad, is a middle-aged white man who “doesn’t hate black...
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My sisters fifth last Christmas.
A desert ChristmasI'm not usually a Big fan of the holiday seasons.I'm not sure why. I think having an un-fun, and unfriendly dad took all the fun of out Christmas and out of almost everything, life...
View ArticleThe Two Men I Love
Is it their smile, their voice, their touch? They both give me so very much. I cannot imagine my life without either one. I am most definitely in love with two men and I'll openly admit it. Daily they...
View ArticleI Will Be Me
Should I be tall, Or can I be short? Should I be vegan, Or can I eat pork?Should I be thin, Or can I be thick? Should I stay single, Or say “yes” to Nick?Should I color my hair, Maybe blue, brown or...
View ArticleDating in Memphis (An Ongoing Saga)
As someone recently thrust, kicking if not screaming, into the ranks of relationship-challenged singles, the subject of dating is timely for me. Having never actively dated in Memphis, where I now...
View ArticleRace, Rape and Empowerment
Last night, I had a dream about Howard Street.When I was growing up in Chicago's East Rogers Park, Howard Street was the edge of the known universe. That was where the neighborhood changed and white...
View ArticleI Was Just Elected Vice Chair of my County Democratic Party
I have never been a politician. I've always run other peoples' campaigns, or vaccinated the elderly, or looked for ways to treat substance abuse, or dragged groups of young leaders with me to Netroots...
View ArticlePride And Shame
In September of 2008, my 16 year-old daughter Alice shoves her way onto the planning committee for Modesto's 3rd annual LGBT Pride Festival. She takes to carrying around a notebook into which she...
View ArticleThe Honey And Vinegar of Pronouns
High on the list of things I wish I could explain to people about children like mine, is the importance of pronouns. In general, we don't think about them all that much, but for those like my daughter...
View ArticleGetting prepared for the future
which of course means there will be a future, which is always good news!Sometime in the next few days Leaves will leave the hospital and return to our home. But it will not be the same, certainly in...
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Pride, Pirates And Men In Fancy Frocks
In June of 2008, we celebrated my daughter Alice's 16th birthday at the Santa Cruz Pride Parade. We'd enjoyed the parade from the sidelines for years, but until four months ago, Alice was still hidden...
View ArticleMy Dad is Dying
Back in November, I wrote a post about my father. This is a follow up.My Dad is dying.There is no sugarcoating it. No “nice” way to say something so horrible. You try to avoid the d-word, to pretend...
View ArticleThis Is Becoming A Habit
(May 2008)After a breakdown in her therapist's office, my sixteen year-old daughter Alice ends up at Sutter Psychiatric on a 72-hour hold for the third time in a year and a half. It's mid-afternoon the...
View ArticleBroken Promises of GOOD Mental Health Care
(2008) In early May, four months after fifteen-year-old Jordan became Alice I get a panicked phone call from her therapist twenty minutes before I'm scheduled to pick her up. I leave work and drive...
View ArticleMy Little Town 20130109: Not on Sunday!
Those of you that read this regular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile or so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River. It was a rural sort...
View ArticleBecause A Girl Needs Support
(April 2008) Six weeks after my daughter Alice unzips her Boy Suit, I manage to schedule us a lunch date with the facilitator of the local transgender support group held in our town's tiny (and now...
View ArticleMore Adventures Of The Phoneman
I stopped working for a moment, lit a cigarette and thought to myself, “How did I get here?" How did I come to be standing in a muddy ditch, chin deep in thorn bushes wiping mouse piss off my hands?...
View ArticleBaseball Cards
When I was a young boy, growing up in the suburbs of Atlanta in the early 80s, I visited the local sports card store with an obsessively. Often, I just stood and gawked at the expensive, rare cards...
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My Grandmother has brain cancer
Yesterday I went to visit her in the Hospital. I wept, and I'm not a man to be brought to tears easily, but I wept as I looked at the mother of my father sleeping in a hospital bed. She is all...
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