The Jon Blog

I'm not the only one...

In an odd way, it was disconcertingly comforting to see that one of my neighbors had, just today, thrown out his (her?) Christmas tree. Can you imagine? Oh, it's April. I better get rid of the tree.

I thought I was the only pack rat who didn't clean his apartment often enough.

I don't know how, but I never really inherited a cleaning gene. I hate to clean. I mean, my apartment is not disgusting, it's not like there are plates growing mold in the sink (not right now, anyhow). I have piles of clean clothes against one wall, and some other clothes on my sofa, and a stack of porn videos on a another chair. Wait, I know. I'm not messy, I just don't have room for all my stuff.

The odd thing is, most homosexuals (yes, I'm stereotyping here, but aren't stereotypes based on truth?) seem to be clean freaks. I guess that makes me a bad homosexual. Hmm, maybe that explains things.

Speaking of explaining... My mom's exact words to me when I came out to her (in the late spring of 1992) were, "Well, that explains a lot of things."

I guess it makes a little more sense in the context of how I came out to her. I went to college in Houston, and one summer, I got an internship at the Alley Theatre, which is the local professional LORT theatre there. So of course the dorms were closed, which meant I had to find someplace to stay for the summer. I had met this very nice gay couple through the campus gay organization, I think. They lived together, but E. was not out to his parents. G. was. But since E. wasn't, they had a two bedroom apartment. The second bedroom, never used, was E.'s. I proposed to them that since it wasn't getting used anyhow, that I might as well pay them some rent and use the spare bedroom. They thought that was a lovely idea (especially since I was a sweet young thang back then, and they were one of those couples who played around).

So I was on the phone, explaining the living arrangements to Mom. "Well, you see, the main bedroom has an air conditioner in it, and the second one they don't really use in the summer because you have to use a fan and the air conditioner from down the hall in the living room, so they're giving it to me for really cheap and..."

"Well, it just sounds to me like they might be gay or something," said Mom.

"So what if they are?" I retorted. I think I hung up on her fairly quickly after that.

She called back. "It's fine with me if they are gay... (I think she said something else here but I'm not sure exactly what). I just sometimes wonder if you are, too."

Now, Mom had asked me over the previous Christmas when I had been back home, and I hadn't said yes, but I also hadn't quite said "no" emphatically enough. So it's not like it was a huge secret but it had not been confirmed to her, yet, either. But I couldn't bring myself to lie about it to her again, especially since on the trip home I was planning about a week or two after this phone call, I'd planned on sitting them down and giving them "The Talk."

"Yes, Mom. I am gay."

"Well, that explains a lot of things."

See, I told you so.

Posted by Jon at April 14, 2003 01:23 AM