Pride in Albany

If you're a follower of my main blog, you will see that I'm currently in Albany, NY for a summer class; this will bring me one step closer to finishing the biology degree I've been working on for the last 5 years (to be fair I've had a few things that have interrupted my progress). I was amazed at the amount that the city and the university are attempting to appear Gay-friendly. I spotted a “Celebrate Gay” banner on the side of one of the buses and a poster boasting that Harvey Milk was a University of Albany alumnus. I've no idea what the city is like under normal circumstances but it makes a good first impression; at the very least it shows that they are trying.

 Harvey Milk went to University at Albany. Who knew?

These ads were likely out in force because June is Pride Month. I am greatly sorry to say that I didn't make it to any formal pride festivals this year. Last year I had the opportunity to go to Pride on the Outer Banks which was amazing. I've been too busy this year dealing with all the medical crap that's gotten in the way to visit the beach. Even if I can't gather with the GLBT supporting doesn't mean I'm not going to be out and proud. In my case it's mostly confined to wearing my rainbow necklace and tight fitting shirts but I do what I can.

Honestly what campus wouldn't benefit from a few go go dancers in every classroom?

At least I'm in pleasant enough company. There's sadly no dancing go-go boys in speedos but the gays are out in force. My living proof of this was the first person I met on campus: a boy I stopped for directions, who had spiky hair, a lisp, and bright pink fingernails. This is definitely not my style but if it works for you let your freak flag fly! I'm a proud gay man and I'll tell you that to your face! Just give me a few extra minutes to limp over. 

 I'm a gay disabled man and don't you forget it! I came out of the closet and I refuse to go back. Not for an injury or anything else.

Problems of a Gay Cripple Socialite: A Trip to the Movies

Those who follow my regular blog The Turtle Walks will know that I'm out of the hospital from yet another surgery. I continue to battle infections in my back which complicate my life to no end but for now I'm free. I did end up with a few added pieces of equipment from my stay: I have four drains coming out my back, near my tailbone. They're nothing but plastic tubes and small rubber balls but they do get in the way. The only way I can manage is to hang them from my jeans, leaving me with four plastic balls surrounding my hips. As my nurse joked one day, "Never let anyone tell you you don't have balls!"

You have two? Bitch, please! Now I've got 6.

I'm slowly recovering from surgery and one of the things I most wanted to do was go see the new Avengers movie. I've been looking forward to it since before I got stuck in the hospital and it was one of my first outings since. I got dressed up in my best digs, hid the extra four balls as best I could, and tried my best to gay myself up without the necessary 1-2 hour prep time (for full blast gay a nice 2+ hour window is always recommended).

The movie was amazing! I'm a huge action fan and this movie did not disappoint. I was hopeful for a little extra homoeroticism. There were fewer people men in tight suits then I usually enjoy in a superhero movie but Chris Evans ass always looks so amazing in those tight pants of his I figured I'd take what I could get.

There's always hope for the sequel, right?

Going into the theater I ran into one of the problems I've noticed repeatedly since my injury. The usher taking the tickets (and later helping me with the elevator down to the theater) was setting off my gaydar very strongly. A fauxhawk and tight pants are not always a dead giveaway but they are usually a strong possibility. If this weren't enough, his eyes stayed on me the entire time. Now here is the dilemma: is he just staring at the cripple, cruising, or a combination of the two? 

Faux-hawk. Tight Jeans. There's also a good possibility that the boy who's staring at you is straight but isn't it worth the risk?

Walking as slow and funny as I do I've attracted a few stares in my time. I used to rock the wheelchair, which attracted even more, so the staring doesn't bug me. It's not knowing a potential guy's intentions that's frustrating. I'm fresh out of the hospital so nothing was ever going to happen; it still would have been nice to know. Instead I'm left with the vaguely curious stare of the twenty-something twink. Who knows, maybe he just wanted a man with real balls.

Problems of a Gay Cripple Socialite: The Intro

Have you ever had a caste or had to walk on crutches? Suddenly find that you have been kicked out from your spot in the background? Everyone, including random strangers, is asking you details on how you were injured?

I thought by moving away from my wheelchair I was less noticeable but it seems I'm still out in public view. I had gotten it into my head that I was blending better because they were making fewer comments. It took one random comment to knock me back to the closeted kid in the back of my head, trying desperately to blend into the background. But I'm out in every sense so better get used to it.

What happens to fashionable guys when they stay in the closet for too long.

Anyone with a noticeable limp, wheelchair, whathaveyou, has gotten used to introducing themselves. And as much as I may gripe and moan I have. My friends have commented on it: the fact that I have introduce my accident, my recovery, my few years journey, etc. to every new person we hang out with. (It's an irritating social necessity) They've heard it so often that they can repeat most of it from memory.

If the times below aren't accurate, I blame this guy. He was supposed to be watching the clock.

2 second version: I was in an accident a few years ago and my legs don't work so well any more.

This is useful for those who don't really care but still are curious enough to ask. Such as the people who ask you at 2 in morning at seven eleven. What happened to getting you cigarettes, gas, and ignoring everyone else?

15 second version: I was in a car accident that broke part of my back. I was paralyzed from the waist down. A month later I got a toe wiggling and now, two and a half years later, I have a leg and three quarters working. So here I am.

So you are genuinely interested/concerned but are unlikely to meet me every again? You get the short version. Unless there is a pressing need to go over the grueling details (i.e. you're a doctor, you're family, you're a close personal friend, or you have abs of steel) you don't get to be my therapist and rehash the destruction and rebirth of my body and psyche. Thanks but no thanks.

 Um... yeah... I think I have a few minutes to tell you all the details after all.

I have this down to an art form, from the two second version to the hours/days version. I do realize when picking up a conversation my limp and cane is the most obvious thing about me. But isn't there a chance I don't feel like giving you all the same details I've had to tell almost everyone I've met for the last two and a half years?

I'm fairly new to this whole thing (relatively). Many of our handicapped/crippled/handicapable/differently-abled friends have been dealing with this crap their entire lifetimes. So please remember, the next time you see the pretty girl in the wheelchair: DON'T ASK HER WHY SHE'S IN A CHAIR! Ask her how her day is going, compliment her hair, or her eyes. She'll appreciate it a whole hell of a lot more.

I Am A Unicorn

As a disabled gay man I would make quite a gimpy unicorn. That's my opinion at least. I went through surgery recently for an infection on my back. After the surgery they put three drains at the base of my back right above my ass. These three drains have tendency to constantly get tangled up, making them look remarkably like a horse tail. I wrote a post in my main blog The Turtle Walks called "I Am Turning Into A Horse" in which I kept everyone up to date with my medical crap. If you want to read about it go there because I'm not repeating myself here. What struck me about this post was that there was something wrong with the title: I am not a horse. I am a unicorn.

I can pull off being somewhat straight acting but I know that it's all a mask. I am much more gay than that. Not that I am the "rainbow's shooting out of my ass" gay either. This is not a critique of either straight acting guys or highly flamboyant guys since I know I have both qualities, particular when a good song comes on. (I have do admit I am highly flaming when Just Dance or S&M comes on the radio)





I could go on about how I just want to be accepted for who I am, not gay spicy or gay mild but just me; or how the gay world is obsessed with being ultra masculine and straight acting; or how my being disabled and gay puts me in an interesting position to observe both of these as part of both minority groups.

But I won't. So instead, here's a hot guy...

a kitten...

and... could it be?

A unicorn!

So embrace the unicorn within yourself. You never know when you might find yourself with a tail of your own!

Weddings and Differences

This past weekend my cousin got married. I'm very happy for the girl and wish the best for her. We're close in age and she's always been one of my favorite cousins. I got excited when I heard about the wedding; I looked forward to the festivities and the fact that she was moving on to a new phase in her life.

I'm usually anti-shopping but I got really excited about prepping for this wedding. To hell with the bland white fitted shirt and tie! I went with a rather flashy purple with a stripped purple tie. I matched it with a pair of checkered black skater shoes (the only shoes that will fit with my ankle brace) and a matching belt. Add contacts, a few accessories, plus my cane. By the time I was done I thought I looked rather dapper if I do say so myself. Not overly gay, I was just gay enough to set myself apart from the crowd.

Oh so fancy!

I got on the dance floor at the reception and showed off my crippled white man dance. Since I come from a large family of people who can't dance I blended right in, oddly enough. Each of my family members has one move that they use over and over. My uncle's involves keeping his hands limp, waving them from side to side and swaying his hips to the beat. My brother pulled out the dice throw. I used my leg like a third leg and danced to the one Rihanna song they play as well as a few pop tunes when they weren't playing Bruce Springsteen (the DJ catered to every age group).

I'm out to my extended family but they try and act like they don't notice. And for the most part they don't really care. Even the most conservative out my already conservative religious just try and act as though they don't know or don't care. The only one to mention the fact that I recently came out of the closet the entire weekend was my uncle who threw it into a joke. He confronts everything upfront with an off-color joke then asks you how you're doing. He even asked the boy I was with last time I saw my uncle, my now ex-boyfriend. I prefer this method to beating around the bush endlessly.

The only benefit that being out to the clan is that with me the majority of my family will skip the probing questions on my love life. I don't have to explain that no I don't have a girlfriend and I'm not in the market. +1 evasion skills! All I had to do was make them uncomfortable with my sexual orientation.

 

+1 evasion skills

I love coming to visit the greater clan (31 first cousins, just for reference) but they give my life a little perspective, especially seeing many relatives my age falling into nuclear families. I'm from a Catholic family so lots of babies are everywhere. The pressure is building to go get married and have lots of kids. It is nice to be in the NONE OF THE ABOVE category. I think I want kids down the line but they don't just happen for a gay couple. They take work and planning. As an ex of mine once said “Gay men can't get each other pregnant but that doesn't mean we won't keep trying!”

Having a gimp leg has diverted some of the negative energy I'm sure is brewing. They don't know how to deal with me as a gay man so they focus on my improved balance and walking skills. This is one place where playing the cripple card has it's benefits. Play it where you can I guess.

I guess my point is that though I had fun at my cousin's wedding it reminded me that I'm outside that slice of American life, because of a disability or sexuality. At least it was interesting to see the heterosexual in their natural habitat.

Jeans, a Swimsuit, and a Wheelchair

One side affect of not using your core muscles, your abs and obliques, is that these areas begin to lose their hold on your stomach. This was what I experienced when I lost the ability to walk and was confined to a wheelchair for over two years. Slowly, you will develop what my family and I have nicknamed "Wheelchair Belly", a very particularly body shape that makes it easy to identify how long someone has been in a wheelchair (my disabled friends who have spent any time in a wheelchair will likely know what I'm talking about). I was particularly conscious of it because I had started so skinny, almost unhealthy looking.

My old image of myself began to blur...

In two years time I went from a 32'' to a 40'' waist. I did my physical therapy and I tried to stay in shape but to no avail. I had a lower injury (paraplegic), paralyzed from about my waist at my worst, so I never underwent the body transformation that you will see in someone who is quadriplegic. Even so we live in a world that is constantly bombarding us with images of the ideal body, and mine just wasn't it.

                   So this is why I'm not picking up more guys. I need a WATCH! 

Wait... nobody wears watches anymore.

This is especially true in the gay community, where youth is idolized and those who are out of shape are often seen as somewhat inferior. This is not true of all gay men out there but a broad generalization about the community. You can see it's mark everywhere.

Last summer I went to a gay pride festival on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was an amazing time, in general. I was excited to say the least about it; I even enlisted the help of a art-talented friend to help my rainbowize my wheelchair. At this point in my recovery I was using my leg brace but I was still using my wheelchair to travel any significant distance. The event was almost entirely on grass and it was annoying to get around but with the help of the friend I went with I managed.

Rainbowized Wheelchair

One of the booths they had at the event was a swimwear booth. They of course were selling the type of suits that only gay men can seem to be able to pull off. And of course to emphasize the point the company had hired several scrumptious individuals, fit boys with six packs and tans, to show off the rather skimpy merchandise. To say the least they made an impression.

They all looked pretty much like this. Scrumptious indeed...

To cut a long story short both my friend and I bought a pair. He managed to pull his off rather well I thought. As for mine, I felt incredibly self conscious. Not only had I never worn so revealing an outfit, I was still pastey-white, as I never got back my skin color after months indoors following my accident; added to this were all the scars from my multiple surgeries. The icing on the cake was the wheelchair belly, which made me feel like I had a neon sign over my head "Gay Cripple! Come See The Show!" This is not to say that everyone at the event was an adonis; far from it. Eventually I overcame my initial fears and wore the suit anyway.

The feeling of being on display didn't go away and to a certain extent it still hasn't. This isn't news for anyone: gay, straight, male, female, disabled, or able bodied. We all feel the imposing weight of what we feel we should look like, making us to feel like we are are not measuring up. We live in an image conscious world and there isn't a way around it.

Words to live by.

It's true that looks shouldn't be important, that it is the person inside that matters. Big surprise, this idea is hard to put into practice. We need to remember that no matter how we look if we don't feel good about ourselves we will always find flaws, the cracks in the armor we put up. A movie I watched on Netflix, The Adonis Factor, talks about the gay community and how we put image before everything else in our lives. This entry is more or less a confession of how I let that mindset take over.

I'm happy to say that now that I'm walking full time my wheelchair belly is starting to ebb a little. It's not gone (two years is a long time to wash away) but it's on its way. I even dropped two inches off my waist, the first backward size change I've had in over two years. Even if I do manage to change back to the boy I was (unlikely in any event) I don't want to forget what it feels like to be an outsider, to be on display. For only when you are on the outside looking in do you realize how fake and superficial that kind of attitude can be. While I still don't mind the eye candy, I don't spend as much time wishing I was one of those twinks in a speedo. In the end it's the happiness we make for ourselves, not our looks, that determine how happy we are at the end of the day.

Now all I need are a new pair of jeans...

 The real reason gays are so into fashion: Those that aren't well dressed are attacked by GAY NINJAS!

Disability Online

http://www.disabilityonline.org.uk/

This is a shout out to one page that has supported me through everything I've gone through, Disability Online. I originally found them through their facebook page. A forum for advise, support, and random gay disabled fun, they provide some practical advice:

As a Gay Disabled man there can be double Prejudice and this can be soul destroying; I found that attending everyday centres for information I felt sometimes that I wasn’t being helped the way that I would have expected and also had a feeling that I was on my own. As a gay man we all know only too well the pit falls that we face in the LGBT community which can include Homophobia.

The LGBT community is also known to be prejudiced against many different groups, not the least of which being the disabled, the old, different racial groups, different body types... the list goes on. Well here we are and it is time to stand together as one. I for one am going to stand proud, declaring myself a proud gay man. And if prejudiced queen or two doesn't like it, I can think of a few wonderful places they can go jump. So be proud of who you are, ignore the haters, and have a blast! In the end, nothing really annoys them more.