This Queer Life
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My first marriage was ideal in terms of amicability & mutual respect. From one vantage point it was an arranged marriage, though I don’t want to step on any cultural toes. My husband could only have been more absent if he were a ghost. Which suited us both, me being queer & he just wanting… Read more
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It doesn’t take much cause for me to question my sanity. Although that makes one kind of ripe for gaslighting, I only fell prey to someone who used such tactics once. Not long into the relationship it dawned on me. I stayed as long as I did out of empathy. I had hope this deeply… Read more
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Peer pressure is anathema to me. Mild cajoling if I’m only vaguely disinterested doesn’t count. But once I’ve outright voiced a negatory & wheedling continues, I get miffed. Woe to the person who tries to guilt trip me into activities I don’t want to engage in! That’s a dirty thing to do to anyone, especially… Read more
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At times I wonder if I’ve slipped into speaking Sumerian. Possibly a past-life resurfacing; in this one I speak only English. Or perhaps I’m mumbling unawares. I try to enunciate. Yet there are individuals who respond like I said something else altogether. Maybe they only tune in to every 5th word, then fill in the… Read more
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[Revision of a story published in 2016] You can take the queer out of the city, but you can’t make the Navy town on the peninsula seem anything but off. Vestiges of the city follow, the seedy bits. Perhaps it’s the military presence that encourages seamier behavior. If that’s the case, I have yet another… Read more
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Rare is the person who has kept house with critters & not, at some point, felt the close of teeth on skin. It’s a rite of passage. Sharing life with beings whose sole means of defense is the power of their jaws, it just happens. I may be antisocial, but no people have resorted to… Read more
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I may be guilty of many things, but wizardry isn’t one. If this were Salem, Mass. in the summer of 1692, I certainly would’ve been set ablaze, tossed in the drink, or swung from the gallows. Puritans would’ve found me objectionable, no doubt. Wouldn’t even have passed age 5 or 6. It was then I… Read more
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As far as anachronistic employment opportunities go, I traveled back further than most… to 200 B.C.E. China. Now it wouldn’t have surprised me to have taken work on a vintage steam locomotive trundling tourists to ghost towns, or leading people to weird mounds of geologic/anthropologic significance in Washington state. But to make hand-painted wallpapers was… Read more
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In Homeland Security databases it’s noted that classic American cars are terrorists’ preferred mode of transport for weapons-grade plutonium. Or they’re the vehicles of choice for human trafficking. Or they’re tagged as drug cartel automobiles. Or I could just be stretching the hyperbole a bit much. What do I know? I fit the profile of… Read more
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In the 1970s photographer David Godlis took pics of restroom wall graffiti in the legendary NY punk club CBGB’s. I no longer recall those photos other than a few band names, yet it is telling that I was even interested enough to look at them. It would possibly lend relevance to an experience I had… Read more
Huh? 