Thankful for the Sizzler?

As I was getting ready to head back to Boston for the Thanksgiving holiday today, I got the sudden urge to dig through some very old photographs that I had stuffed away in my very tiny Manhattan apartment. I think deep down I wanted to see some evidence of everything I had built in my years away.

When I moved away, I was not even old enough to rent a car - do you know that magic number? I’ll tell you, it’s 25. I remember that because when I was living on the peninsula, I had to vacate the place I was crashing and not one car company would give me a car so I could get into the city. I was trapped in San Bruno and was relegated to walking into the Sizzler, where the hostess very loudly announced, “Table for one?” Maybe that’s how I became confident on eating alone. She yelled it so loudly that the fear and embarrassment just couldn't really make me feel more alone than I was already feeling. It’s rather crazy to say that I learned how to enjoy being me at a Sizzler. Don’t tell anyone I told you that.

Years later, when I had moved to San Francisco, I never really realized how much I had when I had it. A condo smack dab in the middle of the city where I brought together every orphan stranded in the Bay Area that I knew for the best dinner I could make. I could depend on the same cast of characters every year with a few additions. Those whose families had forgotten them, cast them out or simply those who felt that there was no place like home in San Francisco. And what a cast it was indeed. The photographs I found were the evidence that they really did exist - and there in the mix was the boy who had stolen my heart and every fiber of my being. As I looked at that picture, some almost 20 years later, it is so clear that despite the joy on my face, that he could barely contain his uncomfortableness being held by me. Why then did he come to this orphan dinner, insisting he bring his Nutcracker china to set a tablescape like no other? The answer came weeks later, first with a comment that he loved my friends, to which I replied, “You can’t have my friends without me.” The rest of the story is a messy one, but one I always think back to over the holidays. But regardless of the drama, I’m still thankful that it happened. That dinner, surrounded by those friends that he so desperately wanted, is one of my all time perfect memories.

I haven’t hosted a massive dinner since I left the city by the Bay - and one day, perhaps, I’ll reach for the apron, put it back one with my fluffy Snoopy slippers and be back in the kitchen. 

A lot of years have passed - and there have been countless places I’ve called home. Could I ever have imagined that I’d be back on the east coast? Would I have even believed it if you told me that? For every memory along the way, though, I am truly grateful. From the gay drama in the middle of Castro street to the wonderful dinners and wine over a golden turkey surrounded by friends I could never imagine getting through life without. All of it provided a foundation for who I am. I’m now closer to my family than I have been in years. A train ride away to hug my mother, breath in her scent, spend the days just watching Hallmark Movies and listening to how she can’t remember if I were home for turkey day last year or not. It’s joyous and precious and I’m so thankful for that. Despite all the crazy twists and turns in my life, I’ve learned what it’s meant to be me and that in turn has made me appreciate the holidays more than ever. And it’s put all of them into a perspective I could never image. For as long as I was away, I was never without family - whether I made them from the friends I met  along my travels or the boys who eventually fell out of love with me or were never really in love at all, my family first and foremost started with me.

Just ask that young trashy hostess at Sizzler, asking, “table for one?”

Another Rosemarie Getaway

The last time I went to the state of Maine, a seagull shit on my head. And today, after over twenty years, I'm headed back to the topmost New England state with my mom for a short weekend away from the madness of work and stifling heat of Manhattan.  Ever since I moved back to the East Coast, I've been able to take what seems to be countless trips back to the Bay State. It's, no matter how difficult the move might have been, the one thing that makes leaving California worth it.

I can't really remember how old I was when I first drove up to Ogunquit, all I can recall, however, was I was with my friend Anthony, who happens to turn the same age as me today. Were we even out then? Even that I can't seem to pinpoint as fact. All I do remember is the sound of that bird overhead and the mess that streamed down my head. It's just one of many crazy memories of growing up on the east, and this weekend, I'm sure it will be just as comical traveling once again with my mother. The last time we went away together was London, which seems an eternity ago already. She was quite seasoned by that time, having been dragged all over Paris and Italy by me a few years earlier. All those trips have combined to be very special memories - from dodging pigeons in St. Mark's square to climbing out of the cavernous Paris subways - each trip seemed to out do the one before it.

This weekend, I've no doubt the adventures will pile up, one being the fact that I haven't really driven a car since I moved. It's like riding a bicycle yes? But then again, I haven't been on one of those since I got my drivers license.

With all the modes of transportation available, there really is nothing like sitting on a train and watching the scenery pass before you. Though I wouldn't say the view is as breathtaking as watching the Eiffel Tower come into view or the hills of Tuscany stretch out as you land - it's more lush, vibrant, and a far cry from the dry brown hillsides of Los Angeles. Of course, being on the train always reminds me of the time my mother made us take it all the way to Florida because she was afraid to fly. Two and half days on the tracks when all you want to do is see Mickey Mouse was not pleasant. How ironic that so many years later she'd be flying across the Atlantic more times that she could have imagined. Being able to take her so many places has been one of the sheer joys of life.

I've told her to be packed and ready to go. There's no security line to maneuver, she can bring as big a bottle of her Elizabeth Taylor beauty products as she wants and the only thing I have to worry about are the sounds she might make as the traffic rushes by. And, oh yes, those birds.

But this time, in case they decide to welcome me back - I'm prepared. I'm going to wear my hat.

Another Pride

If there were any doubt that the world had changed again, all doubt was erased last week when I walked into my favorite bar in Manhattan. Instead of the normal doorman who, for the past year, has greeted me a with a gruff hello, two very burly and ominous security guards proceeded to pat me down for weapons. And with that, my normal Saturday night out was far from normal.

I somewhere naively didn’t think the world could change again after 9/11. Perhaps that was just pure foolishness or maybe I still like to believe I’m that naïve young man who walked into his first gay bar and immediately felt as if he had finally found where he belonged. No matter how trepidatious I felt, I was comfortable that here, no one would call me names, shove me from behind as I walked with my books in the stairwell, or make me feel less than what I was. And, most of all, I never dreamed that coming into a bar – that someone could potentially kill me. 

Is there more to said that hasn't already been commented on surrounding the horrible events in Orlando? Which is ironically, supposed to be home to the happiest place on earth. I think there's always more to be said, always more to be written and always more places to add your voice.

There have been many personal events that have shaped the person I am today – among them, the passing of my grandmother when I was just 8 years old, going to college instead of traveling around Europe, and moving to San Francisco when I was 24. But those events were in my world, no one across the globe knew my grandmother, sense my disappointment when I had to give up the notion of walking through Paris with just the clothes on my back, and they didn’t feel my excitement and nervousness as I boarded that flight across the country. 

When I was a kid, I never felt like I was one of the others. There was something different - feelings and thoughts that raged in my head every night when I went to sleep and every day as I tried to find my way in the world. But never in those private moments did I ever think the answer was to pick up an assault weapon and end the lives of so many. Back in the day who would even know how to get your hands on such a demonic instrument of war.

Of course, the days of my growing up can never come back – but their memories burn bright more times than I’d like to admit. And now, this world where differences are now the basis for breeding hate – where making America great again means crucifying those who don’t believe in your views is like watching a bad television show that needs to get yanked off the air.

Last week, I was in a place where I have always felt comfortable. An atmosphere that welcomed me since I was in my 20s, and I looked around, subconsciously perhaps, sizing up, the people and thinking, where could I hide if someone took out a gun and started shooting? I hated that I had those thoughts. This bar should be where I just enjoy being me.  Where someone who feels out of place could walk through the doors and never once for a second – lose one’s life.

I didn’t know anyone in the Pulse nightclub, but I know their stories and I know what it means to walk through the doors of a place that offer acceptance. And I can imagine, all too much, how it could all be taken away in an instant. This is not the America we should be living in and not the world that we need to leave to future generations. For years, the divas have echoed on the dance floor, “enough is enough, no more tears” and that line has morphed into more than just the lyrics of a disco song.

As I started writing this, I was on my way to Las Vegas, and after a week in that sin city, looking at every single DIVERSE person, how can one possibly want a wall to shut people out.  

And if the world events of this weekend have taught us another lesson, it's that  is every single person’s vote counts, every voice should be raised to be heard. Consequences should be front and center, rational thoughts should drown out the obscene rhetoric. Above all, remember that if you push someone down the stairs or shove them to the ground because you don’t like how they make you feel - they may get injured -  it may take them some time to compose themselves - but when they do, they are stronger than ever.