Early afternoon time at the aclu, attempting to debug an irreproducible crashing Access problem. Can you understand my frustration? Lunch with Trevor, where I made some comment about not hanging out with bowtie scott (a pittsburghian, recentish transplant that probably none of you have met, really nice guy, enjoyable to spend time with) and feeling bad about it, and thinking it was partially because he was in a committed relationship. The problem here is that I often fail to initiate friendships with people who are not romantic/sexual opportunities. But some of my best friends are people I would never sleep with. Hmmm. Then fun and games with
So, I had one of the frankest, most involved discussions about my sexuality, and my relationship with my extended family that I’ve ever had with any family member. I was talking with a cousin of mine, whom I don’t see very often, but did see this weekend in Kentucky. He im’d & email’d me out of the blue. It was a bit of cognitive dissonance. I honestly associate my laptop and my doings there with my gay life, and my geek life, but definitely not with my family life. When my family life is conducted, it’s generally face to face or over the phone.
I don’t see my extended family much. On my father’s side, it’s a fairly tight nit group. And I always saw myself more as an interloper. Many of them (including my father) grew up in the same rural section of southern illinios, for a few generations, living next to one another, obviously knowing one another pretty well. I still have to listen carefully, think, and work to remember which one is Brian, which one is Brad, and which one is Bruce, though I am getting better about it (they being 3 out of the 20ish cousins I have on that side, and not identical twins. I’m almost as good at distinguishing Laura’s brothers, which is kinda sad, given relative duration of relationships, but anyway.), and I still can’t name all 9 of my dad’s siblings, I’m one shy, and I have no idea who I’m missing. We were a 10 hour drive from them and saw them once a year or so as we were growing up. I saw them less after I moved off to college. I never told any of them I was gay. Well, that’s not true. A few years ago, I screwed up my courage and emailed my grandmother to let her know (I’m so skilled with this stuff). After I’d heard that my dad had told one of my bachelor uncles as part of his coping with it. Said uncle reacted well. We got along pretty well to begin with.
I im’d back, and we eventually caught one another for a bit. He said that he found my icq # on my homepage. Any of you who have read my homepage know my sexuality is far from hidden on it. So in my usual round-about-up-front-ness, I told him I didn’t know how much of the extended family knew about “certain aspects of my personal life.” In conversation that followed, he said he’d known for 1.5-2 years, and always felt kinda awkward about knowing and not talking, and that he figured that was probably going on with the rest of the family. And it’s a relief to me. A big one.
I blathered on for quite some time. Including the following gem, after I mentioned what I wore in the chicago pride parade a year and a half ago, and he expressed amused curiosity: “I am not sending pictures of me in speedos to any cousins of mine, no matter how cute they are. 😉 Besides, you’ve already seen me at the lake”. I think I was a little hyper. I was definitely a little something. =)
It’s only a matter of time before they all find the livejournal. _That_ should give the family rumor mill p l e n t y of material for a little while. =)
But we eventually got down to discussing appropriately geeky things like trillian.
Then I bailed listening to the sweet, sweet lure of video game geekage with
Chat with Josh.
Earlier tonight on the drive back from a dinner at la feria with