Sister Dottie S Dixon's Hilarious Holiday Hullabaloo: A Reflection

I participated again this year in the Ogden OUTreach fundraiser put on by Sister Dottie S. Dixon at Weber State University.  I was the music director, as well as a talent scout, associate producer, radio personality and overall person whose fingers were involved with just about every aspect of the show.  I was even a contestant onon a radio competition associated with the fundraising project.  

I absolutely adore being the center of attention, but (believe it or not) I do try to be careful about what brings the attention.  I think I've been out and proud for the last four and a half years, but I've been somewhat selective about who I'm out and proud to; making the decision to sing "The Man Who Turned Out Gay" as a Sister Dottie S Dixon's Utah's Most Talented X-Factor Idol Contestant was a more challenging feat than I would have imagined it to be.  I assumed a portion of the 70,000 listeners who tune into X96 are people who know of me, but may not or do not need to know everything about me.  I assumed a portion of the listenership are people who know my parents and my brothers.  I assumed a portion of the large audience could be people from my hometown who have only ever seen the devout, faithful "Elder Maughan" part of me.  I admit, I was a little scared when I realized how big a public forum Radio from Hell is and I was terrified at the thought of presenting my orientation as a gay man in Utah to a much more expansive group of people. Some family members were quick to remind me that I would be "solidifying a reputation" if I did this, and that once I did, I would face much more difficulty when returning to the fold of the LDS faith (oh, how we hold so vehemently to our hopes!).

I considered using a pseudonym while I was on the radio Monday morning.  It would have been a way to appease family members and their concerns about reputation(s).  It would have been an easy way to appease my own concerns about reputation(s).  But it would have been cowardly.  I've always said that if I'm doing something I feel is right and important, it's important and right to attach my name to it without any apology.  So, I sang and I sang as Nic Maughan.  It was one of the truest moments of my life.  Whatever-GOD-is surrounded me with the truth that I was definitely doing the right thing at the right time in the right place with the right people.  I wasn't afraid of anything at all.  I knew I could be proud of our work and I didn't need anybody's approval but my own.

The show was a spectacular success by all accounts.  I am so pleased to have been a part of it again this year!    I think my favorite segment of the entire night was the Set'n'Visit with Sister Dottie and the OUTreach kids.  The entire portion was luminous, but I believe the moment with the most power has to be the audience's standing ovation at the end of the interviews.  I had the best seat in the house, sitting there at my piano.  I saw those kids bear witness to the affirmation the entire room was giving them.  I saw them begin to believe that their community valued them as the audience applauded.  I saw their confidence in themselves grow as they saw acceptance.  It was beyond powerful.

I've never felt like I've wanted to be an activist.  I've been happy with listening to individuals as they've come to me and asked me how I've managed the adjectives of gay and Mormon and faithful and reasonable.  I've been comfortable with quiet talks and small moments.  I've been content to let other people lend their voices to the cause of equality, but I think this week, this process of putting on the Hullabaloo has put a fire under my seat. It's taken five years of (in)decision, but I'm ready to add my voice to the chorus. If--as I've been reminded recently--I'm building a reputation, it will be as one who affirms the grace and dignity within all human beings; it will be as one who speaks against hatred and bigotry; it will be as one who proclaims that education becomes understanding and understanding grows into love and that love always casts out fear; it will be as one who fights to declare that every person can confidently claim the life that is theirs and find joy within that reclamation.

I'll build a reputation and I'll build it without apology.  God didn't make us to apologize. He made us to live as the Best Selves we can become, sharing in love and the fullness of honest living. He made us, really, to just live our lives and allow others the honor of doing the same.

Being a participant in Sister Dottie's Holiday Hullabaloo has helped to solidify and clarify my vision of what I need to do to help make the space in which I live a better place for everyone.  It's given me courage to have a healthier dialogue with my loved ones and with my self.

I'll always be grateful for the time and energy I spent with Sister Dottie.  It took a lot out of me, but it was ever-sa-worth it.  I am a better human being after having participated in such a cause as standing on the side of love.  I look forward to next year!

Who Would've Thought?

I grew up collecting My Little Ponies, playing Cinderella with my mom (who, at my behest, always played Prince Charming--God will bless her) and singing showtunes including "Think of Me" (which, by the way, I sang much, much better than What's-Her-Name Brightman) and anything recorded by Judy Garland, Julie Andrews or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

I watched the old, black and white Tarzan films with my father, inching closer to the t.v. to examine the intriguing yet unsettling bulge under Tarzan's loincloth.  I tended to gravitate toward friendships with girls rather than boys and preferred the swings, balance beams and gymnasts' bars to soccer, base- or foot- balls at recess.

I sported a New Kids on the Block backpack (I remember my cousin, McKenzie, sticking up for me while we waited in line for the school bus and some kid was making fun of me) and pink pajamas in first grade.

I was in love with The Little Mermaid (read: supah-crush on Prince Eric) and told my preschool teacher she needed a dress-up like this:

Needless to say, when I finally did come out about four years ago, nobody was surprised.

For a Boy I Remembered While Sitting in the Hospital with a Girl I Love

I hope this isn't too weird, but I was reminded of you tonight as I shared a hospital bed with a good friend of mine (hopefully, I've remembered it all correctly!). She is dying from liver failure due to years of intense alcoholism. I haven't seen her for quite a while and I was shocked at her condition. She doesn't look good, her eyes jaundiced and her skin fevered. She's experiencing a lot of pain. It was difficult to watch her and I, the healthy one, winced any time she moved. I wanted to do more, but I could only sit on the edge of her bed, talk, try to rub the ache out of her hands. I looped my fingers through hers, rubbed my index finger in the webs between her fingers, the ridges of her tight, hard knuckles, remembering how you did the same to mine one night in Ogunquit, ME.

Rubbing her palms, I told her that you were the first person I noticed that evening when I walked in the door of the Main Street Bar, that I thought you were exceptionally handsome, and that I didn't think I'd have ever get a chance to snag your attention. I told her how surprised I was when you appeared at my side to tell me you thought I had great hair and offer me a drink. She smiled when I explained that--caught so off guard by your flirting with me--I didn't know how to respond and fled. I bought my own drink, but I still watched you as you eyed the eye-candy and laughed with your friends.

I told her how later that night, accompanied by showtunes and power ballads, I saw you at the piano bar, uncertain about how I should respond to your attention. I shared with her the thoughts, the insecurities, the questions and the plans the prospect of you-in-that-night inspired. I told her you traced my hands with your fingers and said you thought I had beautiful eyes; I wasn't sure if I believed you, but I wanted to. I told her that while walking on the street to our friends' cars, you invited me to extend the evening at your place. I remember feeling flattered and happy and drunk and so goddamn inexperienced; I was a little scared about what you would've thought (or not thought) of my range of talent. Ever practical and responsible, I told you I didn't have a car and rehearsal would come bright and early the next morning.

She asked if I kissed you goodnight. I replied that although I really should have, I didn't. She asked if I saw you again. I told her we shared a few text messages, that I looked for you whenever I was in Ogunquit, that I have wished I could have seen you more often than not. She wanted to see a photo of you, so we looked you up on Facebook. I must admit, I agreed when she said she thought you were gorgeous. I told her that--still, how many months later?-- I regret the fact that I didn't go home with you. I wonder how, if I had, the paths on which we walk might be different. I told her that I wonder if you ever think of me and that I hope life is treating you well, bringing you some success and happiness.

And so, trying to avail her some bit of comfort, I rubbed my dying friend's hands and gave her something I find beautiful: the memories and dreams I made of you one summer night in Maine.

Halloween CaBOOret!

So, I sang at AAT's Gender Bender CaBOOret Friday night.  Dressed up as Audrey Hepburn and sang my own little version of Judy Garland's "The Man That Got Away" with the incomparable Maddie Tarbox at the piano.

Super fun!

With Shlebby

The Man Who Turned Out Gay

The night is bitter
And he's aglow in glitter
He's on the dance floor
Leaving you to sit and drink more
And all because he's the man who turned out gay

You'd like to feel his kiss
But he's loosened up his wrists
Those dreams you've dreamed have all gone astray

The man who stunned you
Has come out and undone you
Your great beginning
Won't ever see an inning
Don't know what happened
It's all a crazy game

It's only friends from here
But you get to shop with your queer
And never your wardrobe will be the same

You ask yourself why
You never saw the signs of "Gay Guy"
He worships Calvin Klein and Lady Gaga

You see him grinding
And now you're realizing
You won't romance him
Just find a way to get past him
Keep on drinking this goddamned Diet Coke

'Cuz ever since this world began
There's nothing sadder than
The Mormon girl praying for the man who turned out gay

The man who turned out gay

Have You Got the Curves?

Dear French Art Song,


Your feminine wiles and supple curves attract my most "sensitive" sensibilities.  Had you been a greater force in my life four years ago, I would have perhaps found in you a type of complicated answer to a lifelong prayer.  Today, you simply reaffirm that my highly cultivated sense of aesthetics is part of a fabulously snarky, happily limp-wristed birthright.  I suppose thanks are in order.

A Pianist in Awe

Rachmaninov: Prelude in D Flat Major, Op. 32, No. 13

Rachmaninov: Etude-Tableau in C Minor, Op. 33, No. 3

Beethoven: Sonata in A Flat Major, Op. 110, Mvt. I

Bach: Prelude and Fugue in B Major, BWV 868

ephemeron

you enter a small, locked room. there are no windows and

the air lacks imagination.  you place scores--bach, beethoven, rachmaninov--

on the music stand and sit carefully upon the black leather bench 

(an artist's bench).

                      artist:  seek their inspirations--bach, beethoven, rachmaninov--

in this uninspiring room.  your work is placing your fingers upon the keys

day after day after day:

excite the current

wash and wring the unimaginative air within the whorl of your ear

(frustrate your already frustated mind, gauging weight and pacing lines),

work for weeks to sift through the alluvium of sound

and pan for sparkling, golden tones.

in the end, present the glorious work, but realize this:

only the clearest-eared will hear and shrewdly explain while the hungry rest

make you a god-for-five-minutes and clamor maddeningly to bask and congratulate.  

bear the moment while you can and then return to a small, locked, windowless room.  your

work is placing your fingers upon the keys day after day after day.

it will be cold there, too separate from whatever sun warms the world outside

that heavy, lonely door.

Love Who You Love

A gorgeous song from "A Man of No Importance" by Lynn Ahrens and Steven Flaherty.

Advocate, or "Live Your Life"

We'd just finished a wonderful opening night and the cast, band and crew, high on the energy of a great show, went out for a few drinks.  We sat at the table and somebody told a funny story about some producer who suffered from intense bouts of vertigo.  I laughed.  Loudly.

"Turn it down Nic!  You're drawing attention to the fact that we're a bunch of twinkle-toed fairies and some of the folk in this place look much less than liberal.   You don't want to end up getting hurt," my director whispered, eyebrows raised as his manicured hand swatted my knee.

Even though Fred didn't intend to hurt me, I felt as if I'd been attacked and stopped laughing immediately.  True, my voluminous cackle attracts attention wherever I go (any dinner or movie companions I have have to get used to the stares my laugh draws), but I was shocked that Fred would be concerned my laughter (and, admittedly, a few pink-hued comments) would draw negative or even violent attention to the fact that some members of our dinner party were gay.  Even though I understood he came out in a much less gay-friendly environment, I felt saddened that--as a man who has been out for decades and who has lived with his partner for the last however many years--he was afraid of homophobia and felt the need to literally straighten himself--and all the other gay boys along with him--up.  I was offended by his twofold request to "turn it down:" my particular brand of laughter and fabulous gayness are two bits in the bag of Nic-ish things that make me me.

I was most surprised, though, by the way I acted for the remainder of the evening.  In recognition of and a surrender to Fred's nervousness, I straightened up as much as I can and turned the laugh down.  I didn't like who I became as the night continued and the psychological shift inside me was unnerving.  I became acutely aware of the other tables in the room.  I listened snippets of conversations, especially from the bar, to gauge whether or not my friends and I were drawing attention as Faggots and Associates, Inc.  I was afraid to be the last one of my group to walk out the door and I felt especially grateful that Bob- (an actor in the troupe and a good friend of mine)'s handsome, sturdy boyfriend, Jim, was with us as we left.  I didn't feel safe, a threat I haven't felt in ages.  I usually feel quite confident in many areas in my life, including a strong sense of comfort as a gay man.  I have a positive self-view most of the time, and recognize the creativity and divinity and worthy substance inside my Self.  Feeling my confidence compromised that night--especially because of a fellow gay brother's comments--was gravely disconcerting.  We became the kind of queers I've never wished to be as we bowed to the belief that we were a fancy blight to others around us.  Curtailing our fabulosity was the pathetic apology we offered to people who probably didn't even notice us.

It happened weeks ago, while I was working in Maine.  I've done my best to let the incident go, but I keep coming back to it.  I may be waxing a bit glum here, but I sometimes wonder if all the campaigning and advocacy of the last thirty years has brought healthy outside attention to the LGBT community and allies or given us a positive view of ourselves as a group.   Now, I realize we've come a long way.  I read articles and blogs and columns.  I watch documentaries and gay movies.  I do my best to keep up on my queer culture and gay history and I do see, from where we've been, we have marched a very long way.  I credit the gay men and women and their allies who came before us with laying the amazing political and social groundwork which allows me to live openly and happily as a gay man in the USA; however, when I see my friends hide themselves, and when I make concessions to hide myself with them, I really wonder if, in all our Big Gay Pride and political maneuvering, we're actually attaining the sort of visibility and acceptance we want.

********************

"Live your life."  I can't tell you how many times I heard Manny, an extremely difficult-to-work-with-but-ultimately-charming actor, say these other three little words.  The phrase was his own sort of "your mom" or "that's what she said..." catch-all quip.  Overused, I think everyone in the company grew tired of hearing Manny's using it at every opportunity; however, I've thought about this phrase much lately, especially in connection with living life as an LGBTQ person.  I think the best sort of advocacy and solidarity comes in just doing that: living our lives.

I think of Suzanne and Reesa, two women who parent a ten-year old girl and her older brother.  Suzanne is their bio-mom and Reesa is their step-mom.  I teach music lessons in their home on a weekly basis, and I just have to say they have one of the most well-balanced families with smart, witty, compassionate and well-adjusted children I've seen.  They are living their lives: doing their grocery shopping, mowing their lawn, going to bat for their kids when things get tough at school.  This is a family who doesn't necessarily fit what their neighbors in UT define as a family, but they are a "normal" family--they have love and they work together to make their lives, and the lives of those around them, more kind and caring, more loving and tolerant, and more beautiful-in-truth.  I honor these women and their children for the example they are setting that families come in all sorts of variation.  

I think of my mother, who called while I was in Maine to tell me of a woman who sought her out at work to ask how to "deal with" her gay son and still feel loyal to the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints regarding the practice of homosexuality. 

"Nicholas!" she yelled, "You've put me in a situation in which I'v never wanted to participate:  I'VE BECOME A COUNSELOR FOR WOMEN IN THE CHURCH IN OUR TOWN WHO HAVE GAY SONS!!!  They've found your blog, and now they've found me!  It's not funny!!!"

I chuckled, "So what did you tell her to do, Mom?" I asked.  I filled with love and pride at her reply, "Well, I told her all she could do was love him."

That's my mom, trying to live her life, but giving time and truth to women who need to remember their sons and daughters are still their sons and daughters--reminding them that love is the most powerful force for progression in the universe.

I think of the immense (and wasteful and useless) anxiety I felt when I decided to adjust my Facebook profile information to Interested in Men.  I did it quietly, without much fanfare.  It was easier than I expected it to be: just one click of the mouse.  I did it because I want others to see that I am a happy man.  I want young gay men and women, especially in Utah, to see that they are not alone.  I know it's small, but it's also huge, and it's led me to even greater liberation, allowing me to live my life more fully.

I want to think that we don't have to advertise or become exceptionally aggressive in our advocacy.  I want to believe that the greatest changes in society, the greatest way to gain the equality we seek, is to just live our lives.  Hopefully, our families, our friends and our neighbors will see that we are people, the same as them--that there never was, there never will be, and there is no "us" and "them;" that we are who we are.  I believe that when people see that, we'll all vote for equality and political strictures on love and all its expression will be lifted.

God didn't make us to apologize to society.  He made us to live as the best Selves we can become, sharing in love and the fullness of honest living.  He made us, really, to just live our lives and let others do the same.

Beautiful People

I've been watching this http://www.logotv.com/shows/beautiful_people/series.jhtml, BBC's Beautiful People.  Final moments of the final episode.  Love.  More thoughts on this final episode later.

The Guilty Question

My bishop called me the day before my birthday in 2009 and made a pressing invitation for me to go to his office for a little visit.  I had just moved back into my parents' house from a couple of prodigal years on my own, I wasn't "actively engaged" in the good cause of The Church, and I was angry at what I felt was the shit life had thrown at me.  I didn't know exactly what it was he wanted to discuss with me, but I suspected the bishop wanted to explore the reasons I chose not to maintain a high level of activity in the ward.

So, I took a deep breath, rolled up my white-shirt-sleeves, buttoned my black slacks and, wearing a fabulous pink tie, I met him one evening at the church meeting house.  He welcomed me into his office, where he had conspicuously placed two chairs in front of his desk, one for him and one for me.  We sat across from each other, and (after the obligatory, everyday salutations) he suggested I offer a prayer.  I hadn't prayed aloud for quite some time, and the words "Dear Heavenly Father..." felt like an old, forgotten language in my mouth, while at the same time, I found a starchy, hard kind of comfort in talking to God again.  We said our amens and then the bishop gave me a tender, pained looked and quietly asked, "What's wrong, Nic?"

I didn't want to be there.  I remember asking myself why I was there in the first place.  Because he called you in and you don't know how to graciously say no to authority figures, I thought. I don't feel like I've done anything which would merit the help of a bishop in repenting.  I don't want to repent.  He thinks I need to change something.  I shouldn't ever have agreed to come here.  NOTHING is wrong.  But he looked so sincerely concerned and -- with the pictures of Jesus were staring me down -- I decided I'd just be as honest with him as I felt I could trust him.

Over a series of visits, we discussed what, for years, I had called my "guilty question": I told him I was gay.  I told him I didn't know how to make that work in The Only True and Living Church on the Face of the Earth Today.  I told him how I had tried to ignore it away, to pray it away, how I had tried to serve it away (as an LDS missionary), how I had tried to date and engage and marry it away.  I told him how it had never gone away.  I told him I was tired of hearing I was fighting a "tendency," a "weakness," that I needed to be fixed.  I don't need to be fixed, I gritted my teeth many times. I silently testified, Homosexuality is not an illness.  There isn't a cure, and we won't find one here.  Jesus loves me as I AM.

He was as empathetic as any married, Melchezidek Priesthood bearing, rural, straight man could be about it.  He cried over my heartaches when I wouldn't.  He offered me hugs and blessings I didn't accept.  I prickled every time he said he just wanted me to talk with him about what I felt.  I didn't believe him when he said he wouldn't judge me.  My emotions were becoming raw when all I wanted to be was callous.  I admit, I looked for reasons to quit meeting with him. 

I found that reason in our last meeting before I left for a midsummer music festival taking place in WI.  We had been making progress in understanding why I had felt the need to ignore all emotions except anger, and he blurted out, "Nic, I think you're beyond feeling.  When was the last time you really felt a prompting of the Spirit?"

I was so shocked I couldn't think or hear or speak.  I didn't know how to answer the man sitting across from me.  I felt attacked.  I hurt.  And then I fumed.

I sat in my hardbacked chair for what was probably only 30 seconds, calling on any god who would give me some fortitude and patience, along with the affirmation that I wasn't spiritually dead or numb.  I found myself looking down at my hands -- they were resting open-faced on my lap, and the words "the kingdom of heaven is now close at hand" came to mind.  And then, I remembered this time when I was a little kid, romping in the lawn at my grandma's house because she asked my cousins and me to go out and snap the heads off the dandelions.  It was such a glee, bending down and ripping the yellow flowers, smearing their heads down our arms and on our cheeks, pretending the jocund streaks were war-painted stripes; but my favorite part of that afternoon was picking up the dead, dry-tufted heads of seed, and blowing the white petals at each other.  I turned and turned in those dandelion seeds, relishing the soft, kissing heaven of them as they landed on my lips and lids and legs and fingertips.  I knew when I recognized the feelings from that vivid memory that I was still capable of feelings immense things, even if (for now) they were only recorded in a memory.

I also knew I had every right to be angry.  And I was exceptionally upset.  I may have dammed certain of my emotions for my own defensive purposes, but I was still a feeling person.  Goddammit, I thought, I'm a musician!  I create beauty!  How dare you tell me I'm beyond feeling, even in a religious context?  You deny my ability to feel and create, and you deny me, bishop!  And I will not have it!  He read a scripture, drawing a comparison between the pure and humble and obedient character of Nephi and the proud, obstinate and doubting portrayals we have of Laman and Lemuel. He then begged the question, "Which do you want to be, Nic?"  I didn't offer him any answers.  I was too angry, and I knew I would say ultimately divisive things.  He said a prayer, and I left, sharing little more than a cold goodbye.

I drove up the gravel road to my parents' house, but didn't pull into the driveway.  I kept driving up the hill until I reached the gate my dad and I had spray-painted with the words, "No Trespassing."  I turned my car off, stepped outside, climbed over the gate and walked westward.  I have always gone to the mountains when I've been profoundly furied or sad or grateful or happy.  My mountains seem to have the only places large enough to root soul, and I needed a place to plant down before I lost myself on the wind of my anger.

"Where the fuck are you, God?" I yelled.  "What do I do?  How do I live and find happiness?"  I didn't hear any instant answers, but as I kept walking and ranting, the clouds darkened like a bruise across the face of the summer sky and I could feel myself becoming a sort of sieve.  I reflected on how I had decided to come out the previous year; on why I had told my family and a few friends, but had elected to keep "those in the know" a small group; on silent lies I had created in an attempted relationship with a certain young woman who would have been my wife.  Grief filtered out of those thoughts and other memories, and I keened and I moaned and I cried.

And as hackneyed as this image is, rain honestly began falling.  Walk back to your car, a thought directed.  Feel the rain falling.  Go home.  Clean up.  And then the big moment, I am in you and you are in me.   I hadn't heard those words since I had been in Sunday School, but they rang with such power.  I quit crying.  I walked back to my car, and I felt how the rain fell, landed on my head and followed the course of its falling down my face.  I walked in the door to my parents' house, and I felt the first breath of "I'm Home" I'd felt in way too long.   I knew I had been created by Love, and that, should I look after it, I'd always be in Love.

I called Corey, my best bud, later that night and we had a long talk about the events of the day.  "I'm not going to visit with him again," I affirmed.  Corey agreed, "No.  No one should ever have to 'visit' like that.  You don't need to be broken down."

Emily Dickinson wrote,

"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door."

I haven't been in the bishop's office since that day, but I have been on the search for times when "the Spirit" moves me, opening "every door," I guess to prove to myself that I am not, nor will I ever be, beyond feeling.  And I experience feelings:  they land like soft dandelion tufts in the places where my soul is hungry and aching.  I let them come.  I gather them in.  They break their heavens upon me, filling my open hands and guiding my healing heart.  The Spirit always speaks to those who want to listen.

Out With It

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.  ~Anaïs Nin

Renovation

From a Facebook message written to an old friend, May 31, 2011.  


You wrote about striving to rewrite your life. I think that's what we're all doing every day, trying to learn better so we can know and do better. It's an amazing undertaking, isn't it? And isn't it wonderful that we can do it?!? I thank whatever God there is for the opportunity to renew what is good in ourselves everyday and to rebuild whatever has been broken.

Sometimes, I think of my life as a stained-glass window. I spent years trying to build it according to the picture that Someone Else had in mind. It was a beautiful window, but it wasn't mine. Some things happened, and my window broke. For a while there, I didn't have the energy to do anything but sit and bemoan all the broken glass around me. It took some time, but I began to see all those broken pieces as the tools and pieces I needed to build a new window--organized from the old materials, but built in an even more beautifully authentic way. I hope that's what I'm doing, building a new window, full of light and color and shape, that can be finally revealed as mine.

Part of Your World

I was watching one of my very favorite Disney films, The Little Mermaid, with my niece and her mom last week.  She was watching and playing with her beads.  I was watching and singing along with the songs (yes, at the very top of my lungs).  At one point, when Prince Eric was on-screen, she turned to me and said, "Uncle Nic, I just love him.  I'm just gonna marry him, ok.  That would be very nice."

"That's, true, Sister Sue.  That would be very nice."

I looked at my sister-in-law, and we both laughed when I said, "Yep.  She is definitely my niece."

Who wouldn't want to part of his world?

"¿Cómo se dice?" and the Secret to Gay Sex, Part II

"Soh, Neeee-c, how be yoh moshunrife?" Miranda asked with a sly little grin.

I had no idea what she was asking me.  "Um, come again, my dear?"

"How be yoh moshunrife?"

"Um, my what?"

"Yoh mo-shun-rife!" she exclaimed.  "You know, rike yoh ruvrife?"

It clicked.  "Oh! My love--my emotional life?"

"Yeah, yore moshunrife!"

I reminded my dear young friend that, as pianists, she should know how much extra time there is for a love life, and thus, I had not many minutes to spare for a moshunrife.

Then, with a shy giggle laced with more cuteness than an Anime heroine, Miranda whispered, "Oh, Neeeeee-c!  I habbuh see-creh foh yoo.  Yoo move ow Utah, gae sex!"

I laughed.  Oh, how I laughed.  "You mean to tell me the secret to my losing my V-card is moving out of the state?!?"

"Oh, yes, yes.  Yoo move ow Utah, no prahb-rem foh yoo."  Miranda explained, "At my dohm, we habbuh no cuh-tain on ween-doh.  Across my room is an-uddah dohm room of berry sexy man.  He walk rown aur time no shirt on.  Sum time, he walk rown naek-ed"  Then Miranda blushed and covered her mouth with her hand.  "And sum time, he habbuh-nuddah naek-ed man in room."

"I go to crass wit naek-ed man.  Sum time, he walk into crass berry rate and profess-ah, he grumpy and he say 'Why yoo rate foh crass?" and he say, "I don't hab time puh pants on!'  So, see Neee-c?  Yoo move ow Utah, gae sex!"

Can't wait to move out of state.  ;)

"¿Cómo se dice?" and the Secret to Gay Sex, Part I

As I've described before on my other blog (flowerspickthemselves.blogspot.com), I spend at least five days a week, if not more, with a small and delightful group of Asian people.  They are each wonderfully gifted, driven musicians, and I am so pleased to call them my friends.  One of my dear little friends is a girl from China named Miranda.  She spent her first year of college taking an intensive collection of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) courses.  She writes beautifully, but her conversational language skills suffer from a very thick Chinese accent.  While her practice of the English language has sometimes been a stumbling block to her communication skills, she is the first to tease about the language "barrier" which has elicited some very funny moments in our friendship.

A fairly recent episode follows.  Just a few details to remember, dear Reader:  1) Miranda is currently attending graduate school in Ohio as a master's piano student with Italian wonder-pianist, Antonio Pompa-Baldi.  2) Miranda loves Mozart (so her compliment really meant very much to me).  3) Miranda was visiting Utah (her self-proclaimed adopted home) on break from school when this happened.

I was practicing a Mozart sonata (K. 333, for anyone who might be interested) for an upcoming performance when the practice room door opened.

"Neeeeeeeeeee-c!  Yoo prae Moh-tsah vihdy soh-gooh!  He can be yo hooss-banh!" Miranda wailed in her cheery way.  "Bach? He be my fee-oh-say, but you ken meh-dee Moh-tsah.  He be soh-gooh foh yoo."

"Oh, Miranda!" I replied,  "I don't know if I want to marry Mozart, but I'll keep playing him.  How are you?!  How is graduate school?"

"Eez soh-gooh!  Eez so hard.  Too much pieces to prae aur time."

"I'm so glad to hear that it's good.  I imagine it's difficult, but worth it.  How are you studies with Pompa-Baldi going?"

"He eez soh gooh.  Make mos bee-yoo-ti-fur pianissimos.  His Engrish berry bad, though.  Too much Itarian accent."

"So, between your Chinese accent and his Italian accent, how do you communicate in lessons?"

Miranda giggled, "Wear, he rissen to me prae, and he smire oh he frahn and he prae foh me, den I prae again."

"Wow," I said. "I guess if that works..."

"Eez soh gooh."

Miranda and I caught up a little bit.  She giggled and blushed a bit when I commented on her fabulous clothes and her uber-trendy haircut.  I asked her about her boyfriend (who stayed in UT) and if she'd seen him yet.  And, as we were discussing boys, she asked a question I couldn't quite decipher on the first--or even second or third--hearing.

On Faith

I was in a religious meeting last week where someone offered the suggestion that a failure of faith does not equal a loss of faith.

That statement landed--kind of felt like a momentary home.

Response to a Blasted Fearmonger

To you who think you know how God feels about what we label straight, gay, and in between:

I don't think He cares about  sexual preferences or positions.  I do believe cares about his children. I won't cite scripture, but will offer personal experience as my evidence.  When I came out to Him, He said He already knew. He said it changed nothing. He told me He had greater kinds of love in His heart than most people want to understand.  He said I was still held within the palm of His hand, still close to His heart, and always worthy of His great love.

I walk forward in that graceful knowledge.  Take my hand and walk forward with me.