Christmas and Shopping - I love it!

Another Christmas has come and gone by and I really don’t think much has happened this past week in spite of it being Christmas and all. The holiday season is such a drag. The gay folks at work decided to get together before Christmas for a dinner together before going out to family and getting depressed, as they put it. I met the cutest little thing there and he doesn’t work in the same company, thank god for that. He is a friend of a co-worker’s. He is the same age as I am (26) but looked like he was 13. Ok, maybe more, but really, he was so shy. He is shorter than I am and so sweet. I just wanted to kiss his cheeks and hug him tight. :) But me being me, I kept my composure. Got through dinner and even went out for ice cream with him and the guys. Jim something was his name and he had the shyest cutest smile ever, and a light blond thin hair which very much went with his shy look. He hardly opened his eyes and each time he smiled, it felt like he closed his eyes too. He blushed a lot and I did take the opportunity at the end of the night to hug him goodbye when he blushed again. The guys also made a couple jokes about him being my boy toy, which I was all in favor of. All he did was blush some more.

Anyway, I think I am gushing way too much about him. I should try to shift focus now to other things. Hm…what shall I say to you guys? How about the other guy that made me feel all gooey the other night? Am I ready to date other people now? Is that what this is about? Am I mentally preparing myself to date guys? Anyways, enough self analysis. There was this guy, of Turkish decent apparently, who I thought was very cute by the way, he kept looking at me on the dance floor. Knowing his Chinese friend I went over and said Hi. The Chinese friend then, very quickly left us alone to talk to ourselves and we suddenly felt very awkward. Well, I should say that he was feeling very awkward, while I was making sure to bombard him with questions just so that we don’t get bored. I actually asked him about his Ph.d thesis topic and asked him to show me what he learnt in his modern dance class. Anyways, just when I was starting to feel like was I boring him, I asked him what kind of guys he liked and he said, “I like you”. I was so caught off guard by this statement that I simply smiled and said, “Would you like a drink?”. Anyways, after dancing some more, he suddenly disappeared and I had to leave the club before he showed up again and that was that. I hope I see these two guys again. And hopefully I would have decided to start dating by then.

My guppy population is exploding. I saved about 25 baby guppies yesterday and this puts the total population at more than 100 right now. Of course only about 15 of them are adults now. Though the initial babies are starting to display signs of horniness and are starting to chase the females around. Oh! To be teenagers again! :) I also noticed something that I hadn’t noticed before. I think that some of the babies that I thought were all guppy are actually Platy babies. As they become bigger in size, I am starting to notice one small one that looks like it isn’t a guppy and there are a couple much smaller ones that resemble that one.

I will hopefully at least meet the Jim guy for the New year's party. As it turns out we are probably be going to the same party.

Well, since I had'nt done anything at all this Christmas, I decided to invite some of my friends who hadnt done anything at all either and we all had dinner and played some games, had some wine and called it a good Christmas. None of us had anything to complain about so i guess it was a good one.

The day after Christmas I took a vacation day which I have been forced to take before the end of this month to avoid losing it. So I went shopping. :) what did I buy? Oh the usual. A pair of shoes, two pairs of jeans, two shirts, one painting, one copper buddha head, and lots of other kitchen stuff so that the next time I invite people over for dinner, I wont run out of plates and I will actually have wine glasses intead of some wierd looking glasses that are meant only for juice. I bought four simple white wine glasses, which had a simple but elegant design on them. the design was a swirl like pattern on the underside which made it really nice to hold. It was like the fingers had grooves to hold it. I also bought 6 goblets that were also simple but had a swirl pattern on the stem(or whatever you call them).

So thats me.

Mood: "Life is good" - sorta mood. :)

Dignity

All through school, they introduced me to great literature in my English classes, but I never took them seriously. I never really picked up on much. The first of two things I do remember is when Juliet says to Romeo, “Romeo, O Romeo, Wherefore art thou Romeo?” I remember this because when I was in college, I was in love with this guy, CG. One night we were holding hands outside in the cold and sitting facing each other on the parapet wall and looking into each others eyes. I leaned in and he smiled. With our faces about an inch apart and my hands in his, I said, “CG, Why are you CG?” and I sighed and smiled a helpless smile with pleading eyes, begging for an answer, which I wasn’t expecting to get. We both knew we were so in love with each other and yet we did not dare to bring our faces to touch. So I was asking him why he was a guy and why could he not have been a girl. He simply smiled a bit more, took both my hands in one hand, put one palm on my back and pulled me towards him, noses touching he quietly replied, “but if I wasn’t, your life would have been so simple. How can I let THAT happen?” He was kidding but his face was very serious. Thinking back, I took this to mean that it did not matter that he was a guy, except that our relationship would be a little different from the traditional one and that I should take that to be a good thing. We kissed for the first time later that night in the privacy of his dorm room. Our cold hands cradling each others necks, shoulders and backs long enough to be warm again. Ever felt that feeling when you hands become warm again and feel like they are throbbing with heat? Ever heard your heart beat louder than when you kiss someone you love? What words can describe your lover's lips between your own?

The only other instance of my English lessons playing a part in who I am today is a short story. “The train stops at Shamli” by Ruskin Bond. There is a description of a shabbily dressed girl who captured the narrator’s imagination in a brief train stop with the way she simply held herself. The writer describes her as a person who never pitied herself for who she was and how poor she was. In spite of her shabby clothes the narrator only saw the dignity of a woman who did what she had to do, unashamedly, with her head held high. That is how I want myself to be is what I thought to myself when I read that story. It was a simple story and yet it has molded me so. To me that trainside hawker was the most regal person I have imagined. She, to me, is an icon I will cherish for the rest of my life. Other people cannot give it to you, nor can you buy it. It has to come from within, rooted in the confidence in the choices that you make; rooted in the knowledge that you are infallible in the knowledge that you are fallible. The knowledge that you might be fallible but you will stand again.

There is dignity in looking into your own eyes in the mirror and saying out gently but loud enough so you can hear it, “I’m Gay”.

PS: I am by no means a weak minded person. My friends have described me as one of the most stubborn person there ever was. But every time I tried doing this small exercise, I would chicken out and say “I’m Me”. It took me a couple of months to progress from “I’m Me” to “I’m Gay”. Somehow I just couldn’t say it. But with patience, I came out to myself one day. I no longer need a mirror to tell me who I am. I smile and I know that I’m me and that the words me and gay are interchangeable. They mean the same to me now. Being gay is a part of me and I am but a part of the gay community. I belong.

My Identity is safe

I was coming home from the club this weekend and was dropped home by Jerry at about 2:30 in the night. It was snowing quite heavily and I was just a tad unsteady from the apple martinis I had had earlier. I remember taking my wallet out of his car as I was getting out. I had my gloves, cap, and an extra jacket in my hand along with my wallet and keys. I took the 20 odd steps from the car until I reach the front door of my apartment. I went in and since my head was spinning just a little bit I decided to go straight to bed.

I woke up later in the day only to find that my wallet is nowhere to be found. I looked high and low and after a lot of searching decided that it must be in the snow somewhere. I asked Jerry to check his car just in case and concluded after a day of searching over the same places again and again that it must have fallen off in the snow. Now, my apartment has obviously cleared the snow the first thing in the morning and so when I went out and looked it was either not there or hidden in some heap of snow somewhere closeby. I looked at the weather forecast for the next few days and having no hope of the snow melting I call the credit card companies and cancel my cards and order new ones. So now I am waiting with no credit cards in hand. The only thing that I didn’t have in my wallet was my ID (drivers license) which I had taken out for going to the club and was in my back pocket. Now, I wait with a lot of cash stuffed into my alternate wallet. Life without credit cards is just so boring. I don’t want to buy anything major until I get my card. Not that I don’t want to spend my cash, its just the credit cards have a way of neatly documenting your expenses for the month and I consider cash as undocumented expenses. Does my need to document and file stuff have anything to do with being gay? Is this an attempt at gaining control over an enviroment that you dont have control over? I think it would be worthy to mention that I never used to drink alcohol until a year back since I was always afraid that I might lose control and tell someone that I was gay. Such was my need to not let anyone know that I have never tried alcohol until I was 25. It was only after I decided that my coming out was now a certainity that I even tried alcohol. I always told myself that I didnt drink alcohol because it was not me and it was not an Indian thing to do. I told myself a 100 things but deep inside I always knew that there was only one reason. Control. Rather, the fear of losing control.

I haven’t done my library card, AAA, insurance etc yet since I am hoping that some kind soul will find it and give it back to me. Unfortunately the snow is not showing any signs of melting. In fact it has simply been accumulating even more since then. I have to say that at this moment, I hate snow.

Moving on to less depressing topics, my fishes have babies again! I still have two heavily pregnant guppies and one platy at home and have cordoned them off from the rest of the fishes in the tank. The guppies aren’t really much of a new thing for me now. The first batch which is now 4 months old is almost half the size of an adult now and starting to show signs of colour. I have had about 4 or 5 batches after that which are all now in two categories, the bigger babies and the smaller babies. The platy however has been pregnant for the first time since I got them over 5 months back. I am looking forward to that event. I just hope that I don’t have a fat platy instead of a pregnant platy. The ones born today, 8 of which I was able to separate were guppies born to an unknown mother.

I had to wake up really early today. My teeth are doing pretty well apparently as mentioned by my dentist today morning. This is the first December in three years that I won’t be getting any work done on my teeth. The past two years, I was supposed to have these micro cavities that they were preemptively being cleaned out and cost me money that I had no choice but to spend. Oh and speaking of dentists, I remember the first time my hygienist told me that I have beautiful teeth. I felt so proud of my teeth. But having heard that many times over the last three years, I have begun to feel that it is a routine thing to say in dental hygiene circles. Is this really true?

I have started to get recommendations on seeing gay themed movies from my friends. Two of the recommendations are “A Touch of Pink” and “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”. There is also this whole thing going on these days about “Brokeback mountain” being nominated for so many awards that CNN has an exclusive link to the Top 10 gay movie moments today. Check it out if you can. (Click here)

Thoughts of the moment:
Wallet, my wallet! Where art Thou! My heart bleeds for but a glance of you. Appearing in front of me when I shut tight my eyes, but fading when the hope of seeing you opens them bright.
And of course, “Stop snowing! Damn it!

Of gays and nongays

Ok, so I went to hear a symphony orchestra choir over this weekend. The Latin lyrics made me smile to myself (in the most polite way of course, seeing how I was in a catholic church with the usual elitist crowd). The choir kept singing something o the effect of “Dei becomes homo, when Jesus is born” meaning that god becomes man, but I, of course had other thoughts in my head. *wide grin*. I’m sorry but I simply had to get that out of the way before I said anything else.

I just can't seem to quite get the hang of bloging so I haven’t bloged in a while now. I can't seem to fit it into my schedule and hence the long break until I could really fit it in somewhere I can regularly devote some time here. In the meantime there have been several topics that I have been meaning to touch upon which as it always happens, I have now forgotten.
So quick catch up on things that have happened in the last few weeks. I went to a gay holiday party. I met the only other Indian guy who is gay at my company. He and his partner even came by to the club after and we danced some of the Hindi film routines which were quite amusing. TheFire looked at us really weird and then came up to me and complained that he wanted to dance too and that we weren’t including him in it. So we did the threesome Indian version of the Alabama swing. I had quite the blast. I also met some other guys who were single. It was eye opening that most Americans who are openly gay are normally not so out to their grand parents. It seems only fair that Indians then also keep that in mind because I always think that it is so easy for Americans to come out when it really is not. It’s hard here too. Not as hard as in India. But it’s still hard. I probably wouldn’t be out if I still lived in India. On a side note, the Indian guy told me a horrific story of how he came out and how badly his parents reacted. He was 27 when he came out about two years back and was already living in the US with his partner at the time. He still talks to his mom but apparently they still don’t talk about his homosexuality. And as long as they don’t talk about it they are still fine. They apparently blame his partner for being a continuing influence on him. They have suggested that he live alone for a year and then they would accept him. But he doesn’t want to do that. his parents did make him see a doctor who wasn’t much help and suggested that he stop doing “wild” things and settle down. So he is coming to Bombay this New Year’s and wanted his mom to talk to some Humsafar counselor. He is also looking to hang out with Indian gay guys in Bombay for new years. So where are all the parties at? Let me know.
The gay population in the UK is officially now 6%. That’s a big number. I know that we gay people sometimes think that everybody else is gay too, but I really wasn’t expecting 6%. That’s a pretty good number. That’s one more than the statistical number I always hoped it would be.
I have also been meaning this past week to come up with some kind of oath for all the gay people to take when they realize that they are gay. The oath should basically recognize the differences in the gay populace and say that we will all stick together for each other in respect for our differences and not to replace nongay (I don’t like the term straight) fascism with a gay fascism of what is right and what is wrong. In fact the most respected in my own head should be the people who haven’t come out at all. They are the biggest sufferers. They have taken so much sacrifice for their families. It’s a different thing that a person who has come out probably does not want to date a person who hasn’t. I can see why. I know why. I would never date a person who is in the closet and will probably stay that way. But that does not in any way make a person who hasn’t come out any inferior to a person who has. The same can go for the macho gays who don’t like the feminine ones and think that they are the reason why the gay people are considered weak. The same goes for the monogamous gays who think that the promiscuous ones are the ones who spoil the good name of the gays. Thin ones, fat ones, dark ones, fair ones, good looking, not so good looking, educated, the uneducated, the ones who think they are more intelligent than the rest, the ones who are stupid, the distrustful ones, the trusting ones, the naive ones, the elitists, the activists. You are not expected to be attracted to everyone but you are expected to respect everyone for their own choices. Everyone is different and everyone has their own ways of dealing with what they have experienced in life. The one thing common is that we are gay. We like people of the same sex. And we would like to be given the same rights, privileges and responsibilities that anyone else would be given in pursuit of their passions without being persecuted. We, unlike the nongays, do not have societal support structures that protect and help us when we falter. It is then up to our own selves to support our own kind as we would like to be helped. To not judge when we have feared being judged all our lives in whatever small way we can. To have dinners at home for the newly gay people to meet others. To somehow include people who fear being ostracized by family and show then that there are other people who might be of help and they will not be left unaided to deal with problems.
There are simply way too many ways of being gay and you will never find another gay person who is exactly the same as you with exactly the same tastes. So it really is up to us to accept people who do not exactly fit the profile of people who you would like at your dinner table and let them sit at your dinner table every now and then in hope that they will someday do the same. Thus will we form our own society. Thus will we put in support structures for people who society refuses to support.

I feel like such an activist after writing this blog. Yurgh!

Anyways, so I’ve been doing some Google searches on coming out and there are some good ones and some bad ones out there. Some are downright inappropriate for a lot of people. Coming out is something I feel that every person is probably better off doing in the long run. But in the short run, I believe that it sometimes may not be the greatest idea. You need to evaluate what the reaction of your family would be. Indian families have not been known to be above throwing kids out in the street in the middle of your college degree. Where are you going to go? Who will give you money? I think maybe 10% of urban parents today might be in a position to be fine with their kid’s homosexuality and even they would rather keep it under wraps. For those kids, I think coming out may be a good option since earlier you come out, the lesser the lies and complications. I think the best way to test this is to suggest to your parents that someone you know kissed another guy and you think he might be gay and try to gauge their reaction. And always know that parents can have some double standards in that they can possibly accept homosexuality in other people but not in their own kids.
The rest? Don’t they have homosexual children? For such children I would suggest to wait it out. Be discreet. There will be a day when you can earn your own money and have enough money saved up to say that if your parents throw you out on the street, you can shed a tear, pick up your belongings and move to your own place. Don’t depend on someone else for your money. Financial independence will automatically bring confidence in you to come out. So plan ahead. As long as there is hope in the future, you can move ahead. The light at the end of the tunnel always gives you that extra stretch of energy to move towards that light. In the mean time try to make some gay friends and find out how gay people live their lives. How normal or abnormal their lives are. Finding out about other people I know always helps me extrapolate how the same thing would go in my life. I stress again, that most people are well to do only when their parents have given them enough privileges to have a good education. Once you have a good education, you have to ability to stand, falter and stand up again on your own legs. So don’t let coming out hinder your opportunity to get a good education. so make sure to move out of your parents house before coming out.

Make sure you feel comfortable with who you are before you expect other people to even have a chance of being comfortable with who you are. Put yourself in your parents place and think what you would do if you just lost the "perfect" image of your child's life. They have plans for you and you might be making changes to their plans for you. Oh and this one is a biggie. Do not apologise. You have not done anything wrong. So maintain your dignity whether it goes well or not. Apparently it also helps to run the scenario by a friend before you actually have the talk. Coming out is not the moment when you tell your parents and their reaction but the process of acceptance. so it if does not go well, hope that sometime in the future it might still be fine. Time, they say, is the best healer.
Whatever else is happening folks! The holidays have always been a depressing/happy time for me. For those who are having a depressing time I would like to say that you should probably wait and January 5th everything will be fine again. For anyone who is worried about who to kiss on new years, here is some news. I have never kissed anyone on any new years eve ever. I have always wanted to, but I have never done it. My life sucks! I know! But you know what; I think I’m ok with it.
Noche de paz, Noche de amor (Spanish version of Silent night.) . I can't help feeling like I’m glad to be alive though. Isn’t it wonderful to just be. It’s a warm feeling.
Have a nice holiday season,

Warm hugs and sweet dreams to you!
Duncy!