Preston Book - a feed to talk about the issues of gays and lesbians in modern society

How to Be a Good Manager

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 01:36:25 -0500

I have never been a manager, but I have worked for a LOT of different people at varying levels of competence in the field of management. That said, I think I can give you some good ideas about the productivity the best managers have gotten out of me and the damage the worst managers have done to me and to the departments they managed. In case you're wondering how you can be bad manager, check back in two days, as that is the post that will come up next.

The first manager I had out of college was named Mary Ellen – yes, that is her real name. She was wonderful. She gave me all the tools I needed to do my job and she was always there to answer questions and kept me in the loop on processes. To be honest, I did not appreciate what a phenomenal manager she was and ended up leaving the company out of anger at her – one of the many, many, many mistakes I have made in my humble life. Just to give you a few more good things about her, she paid for me to have a membership in the Society for Human Resources Management, she paid for me to take a class at the Tennessee Foreign Language Institute, and she allowed me education in Microsoft Access. She was always there to listen, and she always listened to my ideas, even if she did not implement them. She was wonderful. I still regret not staying at that company, at least for another year or so, but that is how we learn, I suppose.

When I left that job, I went to work for Barbara, one of the meanest women God ever put breath into. But she was also a phenomenal manager – courtesy is not a prerequisite for being a good manager – though it does help. I tell people that Barbara was a good manager because I always knew where I stood with her. Plus, she taught me a lot of technical skills in Access and Excel, and she taught me to use my brain, a skill I had not yet acquired. I also wish I had continued working with Barbara for a little while longer, but then again, we live and learn.

I think the qualities that these two good managers have in common are that they were willing to listen, they always let their employees know where they stood with them, and they took opportunities to teach their employees new skills, be they hard skills or soft skills.

One of the skills the Mary Ellen taught me was the concept of the "pillow punch" which I later read about – not by that name of course – in a book called How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. The pillow punch involves giving someone bad news but doing so in such a way that makes it an easier pill to swallow. A few months ago I heard a speaker that discussed giving people bad news in the following way.

First, find the common ground. Get them to say, "Yes, that's right, I'm with you." Second, tell them what's in it for them, and there is almost always something that's in it for them. Third, give them the bottom line. At that point, you can tell them the bad news. Then Barbara taught me to think of things from a business perspective. She always had me start with the objective in mind and to work from that objective. She taught me how to look at a business problem and work toward a solution. I really appreciated these lessons very much and still use them to this day.

To be honest, I have not had any manager that met with these two women's competence since. It is sad in a way that the best managers I have yet had were also the first two I had. I would like to have someone like that again at some point, if I continue in the working world, but to be honest it's highly unlikely that I will ever be able to work with such people again. They were one in a million.

The next article I post in two days will talk about bad managers, and I have had so many more of them than good managers. I have also had some average managers, but if you're going to have a level of competence, who wants to be average? I guess I probably won't write an article on how to be average because most people already are.

But to recap, if you want to be a good manager, listen to your employees. Teach them the skills that you possess so they can take them with them to the next job if they do not stay with you. And as an optional component, be courteous.

My Pug Winston

Sun, 7 Mar 2010 01:33:15 -0500

I have a pug named Winston, and he is wonderful. I say I have a pug, but actually he belonged to my ex and me before we broke up, and James got Winston, but I still get to go visit every now and then.

We decided to name him Winston after Winston Churchill, who wrote a poem about his daughter's pug. Thus, Winston it was.

We bought Winston from a lady that bred various types of dogs, and James had always wanted a pug, so it worked out perfectly. When we first met Winston, he was so sweet. We wrapped him in a towel and took him home, and he cried part of the way. Then we took him inside the apartment and introduced him to his new home, and he was terrified. He would not even come out of the kitchen.

Eventually he felt more comfortable, and before long he had no memory of his previous home. James and I were all he knew, and as far as he was concerned, had ever known. When James and I broke up in May 2006, it was very hard for a lot of reasons, but I have to admit I still miss Winston from time to time.

I remember I used to sing to Winston every day. I had made up a number of songs that I sang to Winston and he loved it. We used to play tug-of-war with a towel, and it was wonderful. It turns out he lives a very happy life. I think he has no recollection now that I ever lived with him, but he still recognizes me and he goes CRAZY when he sees me. That makes me very happy, I have to admit.

Winston is not a very bright dog, though. We used to play fetch with him, which he loved, but sometimes we would pretend to throw the ball, and he would run all the way down to the end of the hall and just look at us as if to ask, "Where did it go?" The we would show him the ball and he would come running back, not even realizing that we had tricked him. Silly pug! I just love him.

Here's a picture of him.

Gays Must Be the Best and Most Competent

Fri, 5 Mar 2010 01:33:02 -0500

Occasionally I have the opportunity to listen to Black men and women tell me about the amazing struggle that it is to be an African American in the United States today. They will concede that this country has come a long way, but they also note that we have a long way to go. One thing they consistently point out is that they feel they must work twice as hard and be twice as good as their white counterparts in order to be considered at those counterparts' level. It is sad that this is the case. You would think in 2010 that we would be beyond that point. I suppose we do still have a long way to go.

I then realized that there is a strong correlation in that regard for gay people – especially when gay people are doing jobs that are typically associated with straight men. For example, the public will not take an excellent gay football player nearly as seriously as a mediocre straight football player. But why is that? I suppose I'm preaching to the choir in asking what sexuality has to do with the ability to play football, but really, why is it?

I have found this to be the case in nearly any calling that is typically associated with straight men. How many openly gay CEOs do you know of? Oh, there are a few, I'm sure, even in large companies. But these same people often feel like they have to hide their homosexuality in order to get ahead in the world. They feel like people will not accept them for who they really are and that they must put up a façade in order to succeed – and there might be an element of truth to that.

Unfortunately, politics still plays a prominent role in corporate life, even in die hard, for profit companies that cannot afford to have anything less than the most competent people in their key positions. And that politics often means that gays will get the short end of the stick. I have written about the glass ceiling as it relates to gays in the United States before, and this is a very real obstacle for openly gay men and lesbian women.

In my football example above, the gay man was more competent than the straight man. This is the only remedy I have really found in dealing with the glass ceiling for gays. We must be the best and most competent if we are to succeed. We must be the best writers, business people, scientists, laborers, managers, and any other label you can name.

My question is this – what can we do? The fact is that not all of us can be the very best and the very most competent in our fields. Though often I feel that if we are the best fighters and the most persistent, then we can often succeed no matter what our sexual orientation. I would ask you this question – what do you think we can do? How can we respond to the threat of getting the short end of the stick in ways other than being the very best? I hope you will contact me to let me know, and I will post the best responses.

Why Oscar Wilde Is My Hero

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 01:32:47 -0500

I believe those who suffer a great deal have much to teach us. Oscar Wilde is one of my favorite historical characters, and in many ways I try to emulate him. He was a famous gay playwright in Britain in the 19th Century, and was eventually convicted on charges of sodomy and sentenced to hard labor and prison. After that time, he moved to France and then died, as the prison experience broke him. Regardless, there are many things about Oscar Wilde that I admire.

First, I admire his courage. If you have ever read The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, you will see that both Lord Henry and Basil are obviously gay characters in that book. Oscar Wilde was about 100 years ahead of his time when it comes to courage because he wrote about obviously gay characters in England when it was not just a sin but a crime to be gay. He put himself in great danger for this reason. I admire Wilde for risking – and eventually losing – everything in order to be the man that he knew he must be.

Second, he was a creative spirit. I admire him for being a great student – I certainly was not – and for being willing to show his creativity in his studies as well as with his peers while he was in school. Apparently he decorated his room with peacock feathers, something that was clearly more flamboyant than a man would have been permitted to be at that time. And the fact that he did so well in school studying the classics shows me that he has brilliance that I so greatly admire; he was certainly smarter than I am – which may not be saying much, but I admire him all the same.

Third, I just think he is interesting. I admire interesting people. He was witty and always making wonderful jokes. If you read The Picture of Dorian Gray you will find that biting wit in nearly everything Lord Henry says. It is simply wonderful. There was one particular scene toward the beginning of the book where Dorian Gray said that he had missed playing a duet with Lord Henry's aunt. Lord Henry replied with something like, "No matter. I'm sure everyone will have thought it was a duet considering how loudly my aunt plays." There was another scene where Lord Henry was speaking about a woman, saying, "She has everything in common with a peacock except for beauty." When I read that I thought I would fall out of my chair laughing. What a delightful insult!

I have to admit I have never read any of Wilde's plays, and I lament the fact that he only ever wrote one novel. I'm not one to sit and read plays, to be honest. Though I might do that at some point just to get a greater feel for Wilde.

I don't know what it is, but I feel a spiritual connection to him. He seems to call me from the spirit world, almost like he guides me in my life. I feel I have so much to learn from him about courage, about the willingness to be oneself, about creativity, and yes, about love. When I conjure images of those that I most admire, Oscar Wilde comes to mind nowadays. I hope that at some point when I die, I will have the chance to meet him. I know that just sounds silly, but regardless, it is true.

Review of Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 01:32:32 -0500

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is one of the most haunting books I have read in a long time. It's about a high school girl that was raped by one of her classmates and then shunned by her peers.

The book is written in first person, present tense, which is difficult to get used to at first. But the protagonist, named Melinda, describes the pain she goes through at being shunned by her peers as well as remembering the rape. She essentially stops talking, and no one can figure out why because she refused to discuss the rape with anyone.

One of the things I really liked about this book is that I felt Ms. Anderson really captured the high school experience brilliantly. I have read other books where I felt that was not the case. But I could empathize with Melinda to a point – although I was never raped – but I did understand what it was like to be shunned by my peers.

In the book, Melinda finds that her only escape from life is art. She is responsible for making a tree throughout the semester in various ways, and her art teacher realizes she is quite talented. It is through art that she finds solace in the world and a way to get out of the daily pain she lives with.

There are a number of issues that Speak addresses, and one of them is the concept of teenage rape. I think we can all agree that no matter what kind of ending this book has, happy or not, there is no happy ending for a girl that is raped when she is a freshman in high school – or ever. That is why I would recommend every high school student read Speak. It was painful for me because part of the time I felt I was reliving the high school experience which was so hard, but it is a book that addresses such important themes for teenagers today.

Language Learning at Its Best

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:32:11 -0500

Some of you might know that I have a degree from ETSU in Johnson City, Tennessee, in Spanish. I have to admit I really liked that degree program, and from a career perspective it has served me well when I needed a job over the years. Though it is also difficult to move up with such a degree because people often want to keep you in the lower ranks of customer service to speak to the people that need your help because they can't find enough Spanish speakers to replace you – even if you're qualified for a promotion.

Still, for those that are interested in learning a foreign language, I have some advice for you that you might find helpful. My Spanish is a little rusty at this point, but it used to be very good, so I have some idea of what I'm talking about.

First of all, for most language you don't need to spend a penny to learn them. Not a penny. You see all these shiny, nice looking language learning packages at the bookstore – don't spend your money on them. Instead, go to fsi-language-courses.com and see if the language you want to learn is represented there. The more common languages like Spanish, French, and Chinese have programs there. Then you can go through these courses.

The FSI courses were designed by the U.S. government decades ago to train linguists for foreign service. They are in the public domain, so there are no copyrights being infringed. They're not pretty by any means. They don't have cute pictures, and they're not shiny and glossy, but they are quite good for language learning. I went through some of the Mandarin Chinese exercises and I feel fairly comfortable with the numbers in Chinese now.

The other action you need to take is to review the website How To Learn Any Language. This is an excellent website written by a guy that loves to learn foreign languages, and he has some excellent material on there that makes it much easier.

At this point, I'm not sure I have it in me to learn another language, but if I did, these are the two websites I would use. If language learning is something you're interested in, then try them out.

Possibly Joining the Peace Corps

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:31:56 -0500

I have applied to the Peace Corps, and it's a hard process. First you have to fill out an application, and that takes hours. They ask you all about your employment history, any illnesses you have had during your life, and there are essay questions about why you want to join the Peace Corps and what you feel you can contribute.

Then you have to fill out all kinds of other forms. You have to be fingerprinted, which involved a trip to the local police department. You have to speak to any debt that you currently have and how you will take care of it during your service. You have to send transcripts from college. And you have to get references from an employer, a volunteer supervisor, and a close friend – and these are not easy references. Your references must speak to your leadership skills, your ability to adapt to change, and many other things that they may not even know about you.

Then you have to go to an interview. I found out the other day – much to my surprise – that the Peace Corps does not reimburse travel expenses to the interview, so I told the recruiter that I would just have to wait until he came to Tennessee. Then he said I could do a phone interview. I think that is better because I don't have the money at this time to buy the gas to go to Atlanta, pay for a motel bill, and miss one or two days of work on top of that.

And after all that, they might even tell me that I'm not accepted into the program. And even if they do tell me I'm accepted, I may tell them I don't want to go overseas.

For those of you that aren't familiar with what the Peace Corps is, it's a program sponsored by the U.S. government that will allow you to go overseas to make a contribution to a foreign community for two years. They can send you to any corner of the globe, and it's a hard life. You could live in a mud hut in Africa or an apartment in downtown Beijing. A lot of times you don't know where they'll send you and you don't know what you'll end up doing. But I guess that is part of the adventure.

Maybe at this point in my life I'm getting past my adventurous state of mind. I think now I would just like to have a little money in my pocket and live a pleasant existence, but then, I just don't see that happening anytime in the near future.

So on the whole, my thoughts are that I will not go overseas at this point. I've had enough of heartbreak, loneliness, and boredom. I'm tired of living a hard life, and that would just make life even harder for me I think. In some ways, I'm not even entirely sure why I applied to begin with. I wish I had given it more thought before I did it, but then, as I said, I can always turn down the assignment.

The Concept of Facebook

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:31:44 -0500

Well over a year ago, I set up a Facebook page. About six months ago, I actually started working with it from time to time. It was interesting. You could check on friends and find people that you haven't talked to since the dawn of time and put updates on your mood, the music you're listening to, etc. You can even take these little quizzes such as "How Well Do You Know 80's Cartoons?" and things of that nature.

I am not unsavvy in technology, but I have to admit Facebook took some getting used to for me. It took me forever to figure out how to put a picture of myself on there. And then I could not figure out how to post things and do all the normal things that you do with Facebook.

But I have found it interesting. I have reconnected with some people that I used to hang out with at the ETSU Wesley Foundation back when I was in college. It's fun to talk to them now – and it was then too, but perhaps more fun now because I don't see them all the time.

I guess the biggest challenge with Facebook is the fact that you have to be selective in what you put on there. You can have "friends" on Facebook and all of them have access to the same information. So if your hot, steamy lover is your friend and so is your mother, then they're seeing the same information. It can be a scary concept. I have to say, my friends from the student Methodist center in college are not terribly happy that I read Tarot cards now, but I suppose that's part of the fun of Facebook. It seems people really get to know you as a person because you don't discriminate in what one person can see and another cannot.

But now I don't spend as much time on there. I get on there whenever I get an email that someone has "written on my wall" or sent me a message. But to be honest, I would rather just connect with people in other ways. I like having tea at Starbucks with friends (decaf, of course) and just reminiscing about old times. I would rather do that than sit glued to a laptop – not that I am never glued to my laptop.

I would not mind all of you asking me to be friends on Facebook, but then I don't know how to post the URL of my facebook page. In ways, it seems so much more complicated than MySpace – I always knew what my URL was when I had MySpace.

I think if I am ever to get used to Facebook, I will just have to sit down and learn it – but I doubt I ever will.

I Want to Take the GMAT

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 01:31:30 -0500

I have given some consideration to taking the GMAT. For those of you that don't know what the GMAT is, it is a test that you take to get into business school to get an M.B.A. I have to admit I am dreading it though because it is a test whose material you generally cover in advanced high school math and English classes.

The GMAT covers such topics as high school Algebra I, high school geometry, a little probability, as well as the tester's verbal abilities such as the ability to read critically and understand material read.

The highest score you can make on the GMAT is 800, and the lowest is 200. In order to get into the top tier schools such as Harvard or Yale, you would generally need to get in the mid 700 range. Lower ranked schools usually require a score in the mid 400's.

To be honest, I'm not even sure why I want to take this test because I'm not even sure I want to get into graduate business school. Still, I think it might be interesting to relearn all the algebra and geometry that I have forgotten over the years. Who knows, I might do very well at it now. I was not a great student in high school, I have to admit.

The best way to study for the GMAT, in my humble opinion, would just be to buy an algebra and geometry review guide and go through them, as well as buying a GMAT verbal review guide, which you can find at just about any bookstore. I had started the process a year and a half, but then abandoned it when I decided to move from Phoenix, AZ, back to Tennessee. Now, I'm thinking about it again, and wondering if I am going out of my mind.

I guess at this point, I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with myself. What do you do when you're 31-years-old and have accomplished essentially nothing in your life other than writing two unpublished novels? I guess that is the question I must struggle with over time. Still, I leave the option of the GMAT open.

Why I Gave up Caffeine for the Most Part

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:31:10 -0500

Let's talk about caffeine. Let's talk about one of the most destructive substances on the face of the earth, short of alcohol and other drugs. It seems so benign, so simple, so angelic as it sits in a piping hot cup of coffee with a little cream and sugar, America's favorite breakfast drink.

a tired we are during the day.

Now I will drink a cup of coffee in the morning, maybe even two. But no more than two, and never after 11 A.M. Why? Because it DOES affect my ability to sleep. And while caffeine is a stimulant, it ends up sapping our energy rather than giving us energy. I know, I know, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it is true. Try giving up caffeine after 11 A.M. for a few weeks and see the difference.

I discuss this with people from time to time, and almost inevitably they will tell me the same thing. "Oh, caffeine doesn't affect me! I can drink it right before bed and then go right to sleep!" I believe that. I really do. I think some people can drink caffeine at night and still be able to sleep. But let's keep it real – not all sleep is equal. I have woken up after sleeping all night before and felt like a train had run over me. And then there are times when I have slept for only a few hours and felt refreshed.

Let me put this another way. Caffeine is a stimulant. You cannot change this. You cannot do anything to make this less true a statement than it is. If you drink caffeine at night, it will affect you, and it stays in your system for about twelve hours. People who drink it before bed and can then go to sleep simply do not sleep as well as they would have if they did not take any caffeine. They might even wake up at some point during the night and have trouble going back to sleep. And even if they sleep through the night, they will wake up feeling less refreshed than if they had not had any caffeine. That is a simple fact backed by science. What can I say? Caffeine is a stimulant.

I gave up caffeine in the evenings largely because I was having trouble getting up in the mornings. I woke up feeling sluggish, like I hadn't slept at all. I was late to work. I would miss work a lot because I felt like I hadn't slept. I would have trouble sleeping at night. I would have trouble falling asleep and then I would wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep. It was perilous to me, so I decided not to have any caffeine after 11 A.M.

I would recommend anyone who drinks a lot of caffeine to give it up as a trial for a few weeks and see the difference. I haven't even given it up entirely, but I have cut back a lot, and I have noticed a major difference. I am able to fall asleep quickly at night and get up early during the day. I even need less sleep to feel refreshed, and it just makes life so much better and so much easier.

Why It's Cool to Have a Gay Son

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:30:49 -0500

I will never forget the first time I told my mother I was gay. I was 19-years-old and sitting at the kitchen table with her, and she was reading the newspaper. I remember that my heart was pounding because I knew I was going to tell her, and then I finally just blurted it out. "Mom, I think I might be gay." Those were my exact words, and I will never forget them.

I will also never forget that she didn't even look up from the newspaper to respond. She just said, "Why do you think you're gay?"

After that, we went through a difficult time for several years. I think she had her own demons to exorcise as I went through the process of being a gay man. I remember when I first started a serious relationship and how difficult that was for her. I also remember when I asked her to meet my new boyfriend, and that was a trying time for her, as well. But she survived.

It's been about twelve years since I told her, and she seems to be doing better with it these days. She even takes up for me with her friends and family that talk about how awful gay people are.

I remember when I was sitting at a table with my great-aunt, her cousin, who said that she was so disappointed in Walmart for having "sided with the gays." Later, my mom told her that I was gay and that she just wanted her to know how that had surely affected me. I was proud of her, I have to admit.

What I don't think she will ever realize though is that it can be "cool" to have a gay son. Oh granted, there are people that are "fine" with gay people – as long as they're not in their families. But having a gay son is something interesting to talk about. I'm sure a lot of people would think that my mother and I go shoe shopping together, but that is not the case. Regardless, it is something interesting to talk about.

I'm sure some people have passed judgment on her for having a gay son, blaming her for something that she must have surely done wrong in raising me. Maybe she babied me too much? Maybe she didn't give me enough attention? Who knows the thought processes of illogical people?

I guess I'm a bit biased in my beliefs about having gay children, but I just believe it can be a real plus. I feel like people will open up to my mother more because of the suffering that she has gone through. People will talk to her more about their troubles, and she will be there for them and listen to them and give them excellent advice.

You see, my mother, like every other mother I suppose, had dreams of bouncing grandchildren on her knees at some point. And that would probably have happened by now if I had been straight. I'm sure she had dreams of being able to say her son was a successful, happily married man with a great family and a cute house and a lovely wife. But that was just not to be. She has had to suffer more than most mothers because of that, because of her expectations of the way that life was going to be.

Regardless, it can be cool to have a gay son. It lets her share in the sorrows of the world and helps her relate to the suffering of others. I think it has also helped her to grow spiritually and, indeed, makes her a higher quality human being than some bigoted person that hates gays and would loathe her children if they were gay. Perhaps that's why it's such a good thing. Having a gay son builds strength and character and makes a mother a better mother and a better person.

Showing Up for Work Exactly on Time

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 01:29:35 -0500

As I write this, I'm working a temporary assignment through Arvie Personnel Services in Nashville, Tennessee. Over the years I have been consistently late for work, but not this time. On this assignment, I have made a conscious effort to show up for work on time. I am to be at work every day at 7:00, not 7:03.

I even try to show up a little early. So I'm generally at work sometime between 6:50 and 6:55 in the morning, and I have over an hour commute to work every day. The pace is rather insane, but I have found that it works, and I'm starting to slowly pay down some long standing bills.

But in this post, I want to explore something that I have struggled with a great deal over the years: Why is it important to be at work on time?

From the moment we start school, we are taught to be on time. When we go to work, we also have to be on time, regardless of what hour of the day or night we are to show up. I have even heard that during the Industrial Revolution the powers at that time established Sunday School at churches so they could show new employees how to show up for work on time, as prior to that punctuality was not that important. I can't verify that information, but that is what I have heard. I would be interested if any of my readers had different information, and it's an interesting concept anyway.

But all that to say that for over a century, we have been taught that punctuality is important. And my question for years was WHY?

My argument was that if I make a positive contribution to a company, why must I show up at a specific time to do that? I had decided that I was a forward thinker – even at the beginning of my career – and I did not need to show up at any particular time. Don't get me wrong. I was never egregiously late. I had to be at work at a certain time, and I would be three to five minutes late every day. Most of the time my supervisors never even said anything, but every now and then they would note that I was late for work.

Then, about a year ago, I started learning how to read Tarot cards. In the Tarot deck, there is a card that I have always had a problem with – The Hierophant. The Hierophant is a card that evaluates the need to fit into society and "follow the rules." I always felt the Hierophant was a popish, unkind, unforgiving figure, and there is certainly an element of each of these in the Hierophant. But if the Hierophant were a real figure, you could ask him – Why? Why must I show up for work on time?

And his answer would be? You must show up for work on time because those are the rules. People judge you on whether or not you can follow the rules, so you must show up for work on time.

I would counter, "That doesn't make sense. How does showing up for work on time affect my ability to do good work?"

His response would be, "It doesn't necessarily. It doesn't have to make sense. In society, there are rules, and you must follow them. That is the way it is."

And the Hierophant is right. Now those of you that follow this blog know that I am not always one to follow societal rules, so you might wonder why I feel so strongly about showing up for work on time. The reason I feel so strongly about it is that this is a simple – albeit silly – rule that will make a world of difference in your work life. It's true. People have a lot of respect for punctuality. I may never understand why, but that's just the way it is.

So right now, as I said, I must show up for work at 7:00 A.M. That does not mean 7:03. It does not even mean 7:00. It means, a few minutes prior to 7:00. That is the way it is. That is just the way it is.

Being Gay Is Equal to All Other Sins?

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 01:29:21 -0500

I have a good friend (and a new friend) that told me that other day that she did not judge me for being gay because homosexuality is equal to all other sins. She said that the fact that she lusted after men was no better than being gay.

Now, this friend of mine is just that – a good friend. She is generally there for me when I need her and has always been a source of support since I have known her. She is also a devout Christian, but no matter. She thinks that homosexuality is equal to all other sins.

First of all, I don't believe sins are all equal. If you rape an 80-year-old woman, I believe that is far worse than telling a white lie. Christians will argue that sin is sin, but I argue – much like our legal system argues – that not all sin is created equal. I believe the fact that Hitler was responsible for millions of deaths during World War II is far more significant than the fact that I'm gay or that Susie told a white lie. Christians would argue otherwise (or at least talk out of both sides of their mouths). Therefore, Christians would argue that what I do as a gay man is just as bad as what Hitler did to countless Jews, not to mention all the other people he was responsible for torturing and killing. Or worse, they argue that what Hitler did is just as benign as what I do as a gay man. Nonsense!

Second of all, I just don't believe that being gay is a sin. How arbitrary would that be? What does God or Buddha or whoever care what my sex life is? If I am engaging in sexual acts with other consenting people, what does it matter if they are men or women?

I guess I have always viewed the concept of a sin – religious a concept as it is – as something that harms others. In the Wiccan religion, there is a saying, "and it harm none, do what ye will…" Christians, however, disagree. They believe that you can commit a sin regardless of whether it is harmful to others or not. By their own admission, before Jesus was born, you had to kill goats and rams to be forgiven by God in their religion. It largely does not make sense, and the Christian God from that perspective doesn't seem to be particularly logical or reasonable. But no matter, if you ask Christians, they will say God is God and cannot be questioned. I, however, would say God, whoever he, she, it, or they are would welcome our questions.

That said, I just don't believe that homosexuality is a "sin," whatever that even means. So I find it offensive – not that that matters – when people tell me that homosexuality is no worse than any other "sin." I'm glad that they're trying to make me feel better, but I already feel good enough about the life that I lead. How long will it be before our Christian friends are enlightened enough to realize that there is nothing wrong, nothing unholy, nothing unnatural about homosexuality? I have met people with every bizarre sexual fetish known to man, and I always try not to pass judgment on these people, regardless of what that fetish is, because I understand what it is to be judged. I understand even what it is to be judged in such a subtle, sweet manner that I sometimes might not realize I'm even being judged. That is the goal of Christians, in my humble view. Alas, they will try to find some way to destroy us. I hope eventually Christians realize that homosexuality is not a sin, not a crime, and most importantly, not wrong. There is nothing wrong with it. There are too many of us already that have committed suicide and otherwise hated themselves for this very natural way of life. I hope eventually Christians will learn to let us do with our lives what makes most sense to us without passing the judgment that they typically do – at all levels.

How to Be Organized at Work – Following Up

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:28:03 -0500

We have discussed telephone organization and paperwork organization. Now we are going to discuss following up, which is really a lot simpler than you would think. It’s nothing more than using a calendar system.

As I write this article, I know that in a few weeks I must call a lady and remind her of an appointment she has with my boss the following day. You might ask how I could possibly remember something like that.

Here’s the thing – I not only have to remember to call her, but I have to remember why I am calling her, what her name is, and what her telephone number is. I noted the concept of temporary notes in my previous post, where you write some information down that you will need for a short period. If you’re going to follow up on something the same day, temporary notes are fine. However, if you need to remember to do something in a matter of weeks, temporary notes are not the way to go.

In this case, I use Outlook software, which is the e-mail software I use at work, and I simply enter a task for the day I want to call this lady. I also enter her telephone number and name, and I put down that I need to remind her of her appointment. Once I have that information in Outlook, I no longer have to worry about it. I simply wait till that day comes and then the information comes up automatically on my computer.

The wonderful thing about this is that it makes long term follow ups effortless. I can remember to make calls, go to meetings, and have certain projects done. If I were a supervisor over several employees, I could also keep up with the times of those employees’ performance evaluations.

Short Term Follow Ups
Let’s say, though, that your boss asks you to remind her that she needs to buy a printer cartridge when she leaves that day. That means that the only trigger you will have to remember to tell her is that she will be walking out the door. In this case, a temporary note will probably work well. You might write the information on a post-it note and put it on top of your desk so that you will run across it throughout the day. Then, when you see her leave, you can mention that she needs to buy a printer cartridge.

Follow Ups as a Show of Value
On occasion my immediate supervisor asks that I check on something. Often it is very routine, but sometimes it might require a follow up because the person I need to talk to is not in the office. In that case, you need to keep the file on your desk with a temporary note stuck to it of what exactly you need. You also need to let your boss know – I usually send a quick e-mail – that you still have the file and will follow the instructions through to their conclusion.

Many employees would simply go to their bosses and say, “Sorry, but I just couldn’t get in touch with the person you needed. Here’s the file back…” Don’t do this! Follow through on your assignments and use the tools you’ve learned in this three part segment to make it happen. Then you will find that you’re a more valuable employee, and that is ultimately the goal.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this three part segment and that you’ve gotten something out of it. If you have any questions or suggestions, the simply contact me.

How to Be Organized at Work – Paperwork Organization

Tue, 9 Feb 2010 01:27:00 -0500

This is the second of three segments on organization in the workplace. The first segment was on telephone organization, and this segment will be on paperwork organization.

As an administrative employee, you will find that you often have to keep up with inordinate amounts of paperwork. There are various kinds, including reference material, things you need to process, delayed paperwork, unnecessary paperwork, temporary notes, forms, etc.

What do you do with all this paperwork? There are a few steps you can follow to ensure that your paperwork doesn’t destroy you.

The important thing is to be able to find the things that you need often as quickly as possible and to be able to find the things that you need occasionally in a reasonable amount of time.

Reference Paperwork
There are two kinds of reference paperwork. The first is constant reference paperwork, and the second is occasional reference paperwork.

Constant reference paperwork can usually be found in the form of cheat sheets. For example, let’s say you have to assign work to different employees based on the zip code associated with that work. You might have a cheat sheet that outlines the appropriate way to assign that work. Constant reference paperwork is something you want to have on top of your desk or hanging up at your desk at all times. That way, if someone calls and needs to know what’s on that cheat sheet, or if you need the information found there quickly, then you have it. That will save a lot of time.

Occasional reference material would be something that you need from time to time, but not often enough to merit taking up precious space on your desk. This might be Child Labor Laws for a human resources assistant. If you need to advise managers on what the Child Labor Laws are based on different states, it would help to have this information available. Since you may not get a lot of calls requesting this information, however, you might consider putting these references in a drawer where you can locate them easily if necessary.

With regard to occasional reference material, it’s best to have one drawer where you keep this information. If you have a lot of it, then you might consider having two drawers. If you have so much that it will not fit in two drawers, then put the material that you use the most in the drawers next to your desk and put the rest of it in another filing cabinet, possibly even outside your office or cubicle.

Processing Paperwork
Every administrative assistant has paperwork that needs to be processed. This can include forms that need to be filled out or applications that need to be input into a database. Regardless, this paperwork is best all kept together, regardless of what it is. That way, as you have time to work on it, you can simply pull it out and do it.

The important thing to remember is that once you have finished processing the paperwork, know what your company’s policy is of disposing of it. Some companies want this paperwork filed or scanned, and some might even say it’s okay to shred it, recycle it, or throw it away. Be sure to perform this disposal process quickly after you have finished the paperwork, and have a special place to put paperwork that you have finished processing but have not yet disposed of.

Delayed Paperwork
This is perhaps some of the most frustrating paperwork to have. It’s paperwork in a state of limbo, and you can’t process it until it’s dealt with, so what do you do with it?

Let’s say you’re waiting to hear back from a company on some additional information that needs to be put on some of your paperwork. You can’t process this paperwork until you hear back. This is an example of delayed paperwork. Since this paperwork often involves a telephone call to someone to get additional information, I have found the best place to keep the location of this paperwork is in the spreadsheet. Just put in the call log spreadsheet where you’re keeping the delayed paperwork. Perhaps you keep it in a special file in a drawer. Maybe you keep it on your desk. Just make sure you have documented the location of the paperwork.

Once you receive a call from someone giving you the information you need to process the paperwork, then you can find it quickly, and you can move the delayed paperwork to the location of paperwork to process.

Temporary Notes
Sometimes you only need to keep some information handy for a few hours. In this case, it’s okay to have temporary notes. I have found it’s best to put these on post-it notes and then put them on your desk. Once you have used the information you need, then either transfer it to a more permanent location or throw it away. The last thing you need is additional clutter on your desk from a bunch of temporary notes that have taken over.

Unnecessary Paperwork
Yes, I’m talking to you, and I don’t want to hear any whining! You know you have things on your desk that you don’t need. You have old contracts that have not been valid since the 70’s. You have a memo from your boss written in the 90’s saying that a new area code would be added to the state’s registry. You have that old note from your boss talking about the company’s Christmas party in 1994. Yes, it’s time to purge these.

You might find some gray examples as well. Maybe you feel you do need to keep old contracts for reference purposes. In that case, they become reference material and you can put them with the rest of your reference material. Ask yourself this – Do you need to keep all of them? Do you need to keep the whole contract, or will part of it suffice?

Many times we have clutter syndrome and we just don’t want to let go of things. The risk is that you will let go of something that you might need. My rule of thumb is that if I haven’t used it in 2 years, it’s time to say goodbye. And sometimes I throw things away immediately. The Christmas party memo would be read once and then go straight to File 13!

Forms
You order supplies. You request proposals. You do your taxes. All of these things might require some forms.

Forms are divided into the same categories as reference materials – constant forms and occasional forms. It does not make sense to keep your tax forms in your top desk drawer and keep forms that you use every day in your bottom one. Try to store your forms with the constant ones kept close to you and the rest kept at further distances. You might find you don’t even need to keep some forms at your desk or in your office because they’re used so rarely.

Whatever you do, don’t keep your forms and your reference material together. All that does is add confusion to your life. Separate drawers work best, but if you must use the same drawer, divide the drawer for the front to be forms and the back to be occasional reference material.

There are some forms you might even want to keep on your desk. For example, if you are a receptionist that is responsible for taking messages, it is a good idea to keep your message pad right next to the phone.

Cross Referencing
Sometimes there will be paperwork that fits into more than one category. For example, I used to be a human resources assistant so I was responsible for keeping track of applications. This is paperwork to process. But then sometimes the applicants left off some information, so the application became delayed paperwork. If someone called and asked about the application, it’s important to know where I put it. Is it with the other new hire paperwork, or is it with the delayed paperwork?

This is where cross referencing comes in handy. In this case, I would probably keep the application with the new hire paperwork and the note in my spreadsheet when I call the manager that the application is there. But let’s say I did need to keep the application in another location. In that case, I would simply create a temporary note and put it with the new hire paperwork saying that the application was in another location, and then I would point out where it was. Upon returning the application to the file with the new hire paperwork, I would simply remove this cross reference.

Cross referencing can save your sanity. I know I have panicked more than once because I thought I had lost a piece of paperwork only to remember eventually that I had put it somewhere else. Cross referencing can end these moments of panic.

Paperwork Getting Low
When talking about forms, occasionally you will find that you start to run out of forms from time to time. This is especially true if you don’t have your forms in an electronic format. If you start to run low on forms, it’s best to take a moment and make a few copies to restock your pile. If you don’t, you will find yourself in a predicament worse than losing a file. Always keep an eye on how many forms you have left, and then make copies as needed. Don’t run out. That is a headache you can do without, and it is quite avoidable.

Now that we have discussed paperwork, you might find it easier to organize the clutter on your desk. Now that we have done that, the next topic of discussion is following up on matters. That post is already written, and will come in two days.

How to Be Organized at Work – Telephone Organization

Sun, 7 Feb 2010 01:25:21 -0500

For those of you that work in an administrative capacity, you know the importance of being organized, and you know how hard it can be when something falls through the cracks. I am not an unseasoned administrative employee, so I’m going to share some of my tidbits with you on organization.

There are essentially three parts to organizing administrative work, and I’m going to post each of these in its own separate post over the next several days.

Telephone Organization.
Paperwork Organization
Follow-up Organization

Telephone Organization
Many administrative assistants are responsible for making a number of phone calls throughout the business day. I’m sure you have run across situations where you had to leave a voicemail. In some cases you might be making 20-30 calls per day, and only you will be responsible for keeping up the pace. Before you learn how to keep up with these call backs, it is important to learn the nature of telephone work. Here goes…

The Nature of Telephone Work
Every call has a purpose. Write that down if you have to because it’s extremely important. Every call has a purpose. It’s safe to say that once you accomplish that purpose, you can hang up the phone. Of course, you might exchange some pleasantries with the other administrative assistant you talk to, but ultimately, every call has its purpose and then there is no further reason to stay on the phone. The purposes of administrative telephone calls are as follows:

To inform a party of something.
To receive information.
To cause some action to occur.

That’s pretty much it. Before you make a telephone call, it’s important to know exactly why you’re calling. To give you an example, one time I had a boss at a law firm that asked me to call and find out if a certain judge would be hearing motions on a certain day. So that is fairly straightforward. The call went something like this:

Me – Good morning. My name is Andy Heath calling from Certain Law Firm, and I was just calling to find out if Judge So-and-so would be hearing motions on August 3, 2008, at 9 A.M.

Other Admin – I think so, but let me check… Yes, he will be.

Me – Thank you. Have a good day.

It is as simple as that. The above is an example of receiving information. Here is an example of giving information…

Me – Good morning, may I please speak with Mary Jones?

Mary – This is she.

Me – Mary, my name is Andy Heath calling from Certain Company. You had called last week asking about when your check for accounting services would be mailed. I just wanted to let you know that we have mailed it today, so you should receive it in the next few days.

Mary – Oh good, thank you for calling.

Me – You’re welcome. Have a good day.

Very simple. The final type of call is to cause some action to take place. Here is a transcript of a call I made to a lady at a company that worked in the Stationery Department –

Me – Good morning Deborah, this is Andy Heath in the Claims Department. We need some legal pads up here, and I wanted to see what time it would be convenient for you that I come down and pick some up.

Deborah – We have some legal pads down here. If you want to come in about half an hour, I can pull them. How many do you need?

Me – One pack of eight should be enough.

Deborah – Alright, I will have it ready for you.

Me – Thanks. I’ll be down in half an hour.

Now I’m sure you know that sometimes there are going to be situations where you’ll make telephone calls that will require more than one of these functions to take place, but the three basic functions of administrative telephone calls are a good thing to keep in mind. Let’ look at a telephone call that integrates all three of these. I’m going to make a call where I need to receive information about an invoice and find out where to mail it. I also need to inform the company representative that its purchase order number has changed. Finally, I will need to ask the representative to fax a copy of the revised invoice to me.

In order to prepare for this call, I might make the following list –

Inform person that we are disputing a charge on the invoice.
Find out why charge was assessed and arrive at agreement on whether to pay it.
If charge is changed, acquire copy of revised invoice by fax.

With this list in my hand, I know exactly how the call is going to go, and this keeps me organized with the purpose of the call in mind. Here is a transcript of the call.

Me – Hello, may I speak to someone in the Billing Department?

Shirley – This is Shirley, and I handle the billing here. How can I help you?

Me – Hi Shirley. My name is Andy Heath, and I’m calling from Certain Company. The reason I’m calling is because I noticed there was a charge on invoice number 12321 that my boss didn’t approve for some of your consulting services. Would I talk to you about that?

Shirley – Yes, let me pull up that invoice. Okay, what charge were you disputing?

Me – I noticed that we were charged three times for an 18 minute telephone call because Mr. Jones and I discussed three different topics, but there was only one 18 minute call.

Shirley – Ahh, yes I see that. Yes, that was our mistake. I will correct that for you.

Me – Thanks Shirley. When you have that corrected, would you mind sending me a copy of the revised invoice? My fax number is 555-555-5555.

Shirley – Yes, I’ve got that written down. I will send it to you this afternoon. Should I make it to your attention?

Me – Yes, that will be fine. That’s all I needed. I appreciate your help, Shirley.

Shirley – Not a problem. Have a good day.

A good administrative assistant stays organized in telephone calls at all times. He or she will make sure to stay in charge of the call and ensure that it is going in the direction of resolution. Every business call should move the company’s business forward in some way. Try to avoid superfluous calls.

Organizing Multiple Calls
Now that you understand the purposes of telephone calls, you will find it easier to avoid making unnecessary calls and you will know how to move calls forward. But sometimes you will find that there are multiple calls to make, and you will need to be prepared for call backs.

There have been times in my work life when I received a call back from another administrative assistant, and I could not remember why I had called her. I would look frantically on my desk for a file, and sometimes the file would not be readily available. Maybe someone else had it. Maybe I had already put it away. Who knows? But regardless these were embarrassing situations because I was not organized enough to be able to recall quickly why I had called someone.

Then I got an idea that I would start a simple Excel spreadsheet that had all the information I needed. The thing I like about Excel spreadsheets is that they are searchable. Just hit Conrol-F and you can enter a text string that you want to search for, and Excel will find it. That means that if you have all the information in a spreadsheet about your calls, you can easily find it.

I usually set up a spreadsheet so that there is a column for the name, telephone number, company, account number if applicable, and a comments section. I don’t set up a separate column for date and time because I just put that into the Comments section. That way if I have to make multiple calls for one point of business, I can simply add the new comments with the new date and time to the comments section.

The Two Purposes of the Spreadsheet
There are two main purposes of the spreadsheet. First, as I said, it gives you a way to keep track of telephone calls when you receive call backs. If Shirley in the telephone call above had called me back, I could have searched for the word Shirley, and it would have taken me to her name. Then I would have known why I had called her and we could immediately conduct our business.

When I receive a call back, I can simply say, “Let me look at my notes and see why I called you. I make so many calls, I often have to write down the reason.” I have found that nearly every administrative assistant I talk to has been appreciative of the fact that I kept notes because it meant that I was being just as respectful of their time as I was being of my own.

The second purpose of the spreadsheet is to follow up on my own calls when administrative assistants don’t call me back. You have probably found that some people are more diligent in returning telephone calls than others, so occasionally I go through the spreadsheet to see about calls that have not been returned. Since I have the date and time already listed, I can see if I need to return the call or not. For non-emergency calls, I generally give two days to return a call before I follow up.

Moving the Calls from the Spreadsheet
I have had some internal conflict on what to do with resolved calls. If I call someone and they call me back with the information that I was requesting, then there is no purpose in keeping that call in my active calls log, as it will just clutter the spreadsheet. At first, I simply deleted any calls that I made, but I have found the better way to handle it is to move the closed calls to another spreadsheet. I simple cut the closed calls from the calls log by highlighting all the cells in that call and hitting Control-X. Then I paste that information into an archive worksheet in the same workbook.

Once I move the closed calls, I can easily see only the calls that are still pending. That keeps my organized in making, receiving, and following up on calls.

The Time Factor
Many of you will argue that keeping notes on so many calls will be a drain on your time, but I encourage you to try this method for a few weeks at least. I think you will find that the time you save from having to look for files or having to try to remember why you call people will more than make up for the time spent documenting your calls.

The next segment of this organization article will be about Paperwork Organization, and that will be posted two days from now.

How to Write Activist Literature – Ten – Work on Your Next Book

Fri, 5 Feb 2010 01:25:10 -0500

Now you’re done… kinda. You see, in the world of writing you’re never truly done. You never truly finish working on a project – you just abandon it when you’re ready. It’s like having a kid. Your kid is never truly prepared to go into the world on his own; you just have to let him go, as that is the only way he will ever be prepared.

When you finish your first book and send it out on query quests, you will find that you have something similar to a parent’s empty nest phenomenon. You will find that you miss your book. You will be sad. When I finished Preston, I felt like I had lost a part of myself. These feelings are perfectly normal.

Now if your kid is 18 and you started feeling blue because he’s moving out, probably the last thing I would tell you is to have another kid. But it’s different with writing. If you really enjoyed the project, just write another one. Your next book is bound be even better because now you’ve kinda gotten your feet wet and know a little about what to expect.

There are emotional highs and lows in writing. You’ll feel good one day and bad the next. You might find that you miss your characters, almost like you’ve said goodbye to some dear friends. You’ll feel empty and abandoned, but like I said, that is okay. But when you write something truly important like activist literature, you realize that it is worth it. Every second of it was worth it.

So follow these steps again and write another book if you have it in you. That will take away from the pain of missing your book as well as getting rejections, both of which are a part of life for a writer of any kind of literature, even activist literature.

Conclusion
I hope you’ve found these last eleven articles helpful. You can find all the articles together by clicking here.

If you have any questions, please contact me and I will be happy to get back to you as soon as I possibly can.

How to Write Activist Literature – Nine – Query Agents and Publishers

Wed, 3 Feb 2010 01:24:52 -0500

Now you’ve finished writing your manuscript and you’re at least in the process of revising it. Now you have to start thinking about a home for your book. That’s when it is time to query agents and publishers.

But not so fast…

There are a few tasks to complete before querying agents and publishers. These two tasks are both the shortest and one of the hardest you’ll have to do.

First, you must write a synopsis. A synopsis is a summary of the book, and should not be any longer than two pages, single spaced. Sounds easy? It’s not! You have just written hundreds of pages on your novel, and now you must condense that whole thing to two pages? That’s a daunting task.

The way I tackle the synopsis is to follow these steps:

First, I write a one line summary of each scene from my note cards. Note that this is different than Step 2, which was write a one line summary of the book. This is a one line summary of each scene. Once you do that, you have some idea of the important things that are going on.

Second, you want to pick the important scenes, the ones that go along with your theme - and you thought you were done with your theme didn’t you? Amazing how these things just keep coming back to haunt you. So you’re going to look for the scenes the resonate most strongly with your theme and you’re going to expound on them. You’re going to tell the basic, bare bones story and you’re going to keep it under two pages. Now, if you write the thing and you find that it’s more than two pages, which is likely, then you will have to CUT.

In the synopsis you certainly want to stay true to the story, but you also don’t want it to be too long. Two pages single spaced is a good length for a synopsis. You also want to revise the hell out of it. It must be perfect, more perfect even than your novel. And yes, it must divulge the end of your book.

The second task to perform is to write a query letter. When asking publishers and agents to review your work, you NEVER send the whole manuscript without permission. The way you get permission is to send a query letter with the synopsis. A query letter starts out with a punchy, catchy statement or question, something to get the agent or publisher’s attention. In my query for Preston, my first line was, “Why would a religious, gay teenager renounce his faith in God?” The purpose of that line is to get the agent or publisher’s attention and let him keep reading. The query letter should also have the word count and the genre of the book. Genres include mystery, science fiction, gay or lesbian, non-fiction, etc. For more information on queries and querying agents, check out Writers.net. These people are not gentle with newbies, so be sure you have thick skin before going in, but they do offer some wonderful advice on query letters.

Then in your query letter, you want to give a brief, one paragraph summary of the work you want to send. In the next paragraph, you include a brief summary of your qualifications and why you’re the best person to write the book. Then ask permission to send the manuscript.

One other side note is that when querying agents and publishers, there are different guidelines to follow for each one, but one that is NOT NEGOTIABLE is sending a self addressed stamped envelope (SASE). You always send this, and if you don’t, you will never get a reply.

One thing to note is that most of the time, you will get rejection letters. They will be impersonal and are often form letters. Don’t be discouraged. Rejection has happened to every great writer. I’m sure the people that rejected Harry Potter are probably kicking themselves, so just remember that others might do the same for your work at some point.

If you need a list of agents to submit to, try buying a copy of the current year’s Writer’s Market. There are also some wonderful resources on the Internet such as 1,000 Literary Agents. I would recommend submitting to agents before submitting to publishers, but there are authors that submit directly to publishers and do very well with it. You must make that decision for yourself.

As the rejections start piling up, it can be very discouraging. Step 10 actually discusses a strategy for dealing with the infamous rejections, and it may not make you feel much better, but you will see that it really does. I will post about writing your next book in Step 10 in two days.

How to Write Activist Literature – Eight – Revise the Manuscript

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 01:24:33 -0500

Now you have your manuscript completed. Congratulations! You have done something that most of the people who even dream of doing will never do. But you’re not finished. Not yet. But for the moment, put your manuscript away for at least 48 hours but no longer than one week. You want to come back to it with fresh eyes for the revision.

Now follow these instructions. You might want to make some revisions in the way you go about them, but follow them regardless.

Print your manuscript. Print all of it. Single sided, double spaced, just print it. Then pick a night that you can stay up all night revising. Both times I have finished a manuscript I took it to Waffle House at about 10:00 at night and sat there until about 6:00 in the morning revising. Take a red, green, purple, or other easy to see colored pen with you. Then start from the beginning.

You’re looking for errors in spelling and punctuation. You’re looking for big mistakes, again, gaps and things that don’t make sense. You’re making sure that each scene flows well. You’re making sure you’ve strung your words together well. You’re going to second guess your words and see if you can come up with a better choice. This is the time to do that.

Sit there all night if you have to, as this is your victory lap. You have finished your rough draft and are now making it wonderful. Don’t be afraid to sit on a word and think about it for several minutes. Give these words the careful thought that you wanted to give them when you were writing – but were self disciplined enough to ignore until now so you could actually finish your manuscript.

I would advise going out to an all night restaurant to do this. You can sit there and practically inject yourself with coffee to stay awake, but you’re less likely to be bothered at night. There are fewer people out. The only person that might ask you something will be a waitress or some nosy person that comes in. Just tell them what you are doing and then go back to work.

If you don’t know English grammar and punctuation very well, this is going to be a problem. I would still recommend that you go over your own manuscript to make sure that you’re happy with all the words you used and the sentence structures, though you might have to submit the manuscript to a proofreader. Let me put it this way; I plan to submit Preston to a proofreader and my knowledge of English grammar and syntax is very good, my mistakes in these posts notwithstanding.

At the end of the night, your pen will have bled all over your manuscript, and that is as it should be. Go home and go to bed. Then get up and make all your changes on the computer.

You’ll probably ask why you can’t just make the changes directly into the computer. I suppose you can, but I like to see the book in the same format that my readers will see it – on paper and not on screen. I feel like I see more that way. Then I can make the changes on the computer.

You might want to repeat this step once or twice – but no more than twice, or you’re just procrastinating. I say that because your book will never be perfect. I’m sorry, but it won’t. You’ll just have to let that go.

Step 8 is something you can do simultaneously with Step 9, as working on them together will probably save your sanity. Remember to put a limit on the amount of revision you do. That extra energy can be better used on other things, so don’t take it too far.

With that said, you’re ready to start querying agents and publishers, which is the topic of Step 9 coming in two days.

How to Write Activist Literature – Seven – Write the Manuscript

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 01:24:13 -0500

Ahh, finally, after all this work you’re actually going to start writing the manuscript. Can you believe it? Now all you should have in your hot little hands are those note cards that you just finished writing. Those note cards will serve as the basis for writing your novel.

You will recall that you wrote the note cards out of order, but you will write the novel in order, from page one to page whatever is last. This is the easiest part of the bulk of the work, but will take the most diligence.

Start with the first note card and read it – all of it. Know what the purpose is and what is supposed to happen in the scene. Then simply write the first scene. You might want to go back and revise it a little. Put in dialogue, action, and thoughts. Tell each scene from one point of view; don’t switch between different characters’ points of view until you have gone to the next scene.

At this point, you’re just telling the story, but writing is hard enough. Now that you’re writing the novel, you don’t have to worry about what is going to happen, or what will happen next. You’ve already planned that out. Don’t worry too much if you want to change something in the cards, as that is okay. The cards give you a guide and you can feel free to follow them to the letter if you like.

Once you have finished a scene, just put some a pound sign in between scenes and keep going. Once you have finished scene one, then write scene two. Go back and revise as you write if you like, or not. I have found that new writers have a tendency to underwrite, whereas experienced writers sometimes overwrite. If you underwrite, then go back and put some meat in each scene, but no fluff. Only relevant material will do. Remember, every word should count, and you want to always move the story forward. That is your whole objective, just move the story forward.

This part of the process can take the very longest of all of them because you’re actually putting the story on paper. I HIGHLY recommend you type this manuscript. I know you did long hand on the other exercises, but typing the manuscript is critical because it will have to be done at some point, so it might as well be done at this stage.

Aside from making sure that the manuscript is typed, don’t worry too much about formatting. Formatting can be changed in an instant. Don’t worry at this point about dividing your book into chapters either. Just write your manuscript and worry about all that during the revision stage.

Once you have written your manuscript, which can take anywhere from 2 weeks to six months (but please, no longer, or you’re just procrastinating) you’ll be ready to go on to Step 8, which is revising the manuscript.

You might note that actually writing the manuscript is a bit brainless now. Surprising how all the work you already put into planning the manuscript paid off to this extent and made writing the manuscript practically effortless. Now you don’t have to worry about how to end the book. You don’t have to worry about what the next scene is going to be. You don’t have to worry about anything really, and that is the way it should be. The actual writing of the manuscript should be effortless, so make it so.

When you write your manuscript is not the time to second guess your word choices or the way you string words together. That comes later. The main thing is to throw your paint on the canvas and just get the story out. You will worry about what words don’t work and other things like that in Step 8.

A note on completed rough draft manuscripts, for a novel written primarily for adults, the manuscript should be between 80,000 and 120,000 words as a general rule of thumb. Don’t worry too much about the number of pages, and there are always exceptions to these rules anyway, but this is a common and perfectly legitimate question for new writers. Most word processing programs have a “word count” feature, so use it from time to time to gauge your progress. If your novel is too short, which is the more likely scenario for a new writer, see if you can add a subplot. This might involve going back to your free writing exercises and seeing where you can add some material. Whatever you do, don’t add fluff. This is just BAD and publishers and agents will see right through it.

If your manuscript is too long, on the other hand, then think about dividing the material into two books. See if there is a way to do that. Be creative. But most importantly, don’t scrap your own work just because the length is to your liking. If your book is too short, you might consider trying it in the young adult category if the material is appropriate.

In two days, I’ll post the next step, which is revising the manuscript.

How to Write Activist Literature – Six – Make Note Cards with Scenes

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 01:23:53 -0500

Now you’ve written your plot and filled in the gaps with that plot. Everything is going well if you’re following these instructions correctly. The problem with Steps 4 and 5 is that these free writing exercises are a mess. If you’ve been doing them correctly, there are pages and pages and pages of plot and gap filling. Step 6, making note cards with scenes, will give some rhyme and reason to the whole process.

Let me start with some background on scenes, which is the purpose of Step 6. Books are like movies in that they’re written in scenes. When you watch one of the Star Wars movies, you’ll note that one minute you might be seeing something going on in outer space on a ship. Then you might see something going on on a planet. Then you might see different characters on another ship. Each of these moments in time with different characters and different places are scenes. Books are written the same way as movies in this regard. They are written in scenes.

In activist literature, like all literature, a scene has certain elements. It has a certain action, internal or external, that occurs. The scene has a purpose, something that moves the story forward. Remember when I was talking about how all the characters must have good reason to take an action? Remember when I told you that you must set up whatever happens so it makes sense? These are some of the purposes of scenes. In my first scene of Preston, I showed Billy and some of his cronies assaulting another student. I didn’t just put that in for my health. There was a purpose, a reason for that scene to be there. The reason was that I wanted to show that Billy was a psycho religious fanatic. Showing that he was a psycho religious fanatic was important to the story because it set up other things that he was going to do later in the book. It leaves the reader saying, “Wow, that was surprising, but I can see it,” rather than, “Where the hell did that come from?”

Now that you understand what a scene is and how scenes work, here is a very important aspect to a scene – one that I have already noted but that bears repeating. Each scene must have a purpose. Each one must move the story forward in some capacity. I have explained this in the paragraph above, so you will have some idea of how it works. When coming up with scenes for your book, think along the lines of the purpose of the scene rather than just the action that will take place in the scene. In the example above with Billy and the assault on another student, I did not know at first that I was going to write about such a scene. I only knew that I had to prove that Billy was a psycho religious fanatic. So the fact that he assaulted another student for committing a “sin” worked well to bring about that purpose. My next scene was simply to show Preston praying in front of his bed and show how that came to be. I had to show him praying in front of his bed every night so the readers could get an idea of what his behavior is. Once he changed that behavior, it was to be a surprise, but they have to know what the behavior that is changing is first. At the end of the book, when he gave up his religion, I had to make sure that the readers would not say, “Where the hell did that come from?” So I had another few scenes that set up what was to happen. One of those scenes showed Preston’s friend Eric asking if Preston ever questioned God. Preston paused in that scene and then said no, he never questioned God. But the fact that he paused showed the readers that he was going in the general direction of giving up his religion. That way, when he did end up giving it up at the end of the book, the reader would say, “Wow, that was surprising, but I can see it.”

Now, you’re going to ask what this has to do with note cards. Since novels are told in scenes, you are going to write a little bit about each scene on the note cards. When I develop my note cards, I write the word PURPOSE at the top. Then I specifically write the purpose of the scene so that I know that the scene is necessary. Then underneath the purpose, I write a few sentences about what needs to happen in that scene, just a very brief summary.

When you get started writing your note cards, make sure you have your plot and gap filling exercises handy so you can use them. You will find – I know, it’s a shock – that there are still even more gaps to fill in. Don’t let that discourage you. Just keep working.

So when you have your plot and gap filling exercises in front of you, just start with any scene you like from that material. Write the purpose of the scene and then jot down a few notes about what will happen in it. Then do another. And another. As you see gaps, fill them in with new scenes that you had not previously thought of. Add things to scenes so that you can “kill two birds with one stone” in a scene. That will work well, and tightens the plot.

You will write about 80 to 100 note cards, I would say, and then you should have covered everything. Once you have written the note cards and have all the purposes and a few things that are going to happen in each scene, then go back and read what you have written in the order that you have placed the note cards – you don’t have to write the cards in order, but you need to put the cards in the order the scenes will be in.

When you read them, you are again looking for gaps in your material. There is a reason you spend so much time looking for gaps. They are so easy to occur and you want to address them before writing your manuscript.

With these note cards finished, if you did them write, you should have the purpose of every scene along with every necessary action in the scene with what character is committing that action as well as a few additional lines in each card telling about the scene. Feel free to use the back of the cards, but you should almost never need to use more than one card. If you do need to use more than one card, use some Scotch tape and tape them together. You don’t want to separate two cards if they’re for the same scene.

When you have completed this exercise, you will have a mini-novel in your hands. You’ll hold those note cards and that will be the blueprint from which you write your novel. But you don’t start writing the manuscript until Step 7, which will be posted in two days.

How to Write Activist Literature – Five – Fill in the Gaps

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:23:37 -0500

Congratulations if you have gotten through the free writing exercise. You might want to take a day or two off to recover from that, as that is by far the most difficult part of the process. Now that you have done that, you’re ready to go on to the next step, which is to fill in the gaps. Let me explain.

If you used a notebook for your free writing exercise, then you probably want to put a blank sheet in between this step, which is also a free writing exercise. You will want to go back and read your plot you just finished writing and look for things that don’t make sense. Yes, they will be there. There will also be points that are weak. Points that need to be expanded. Points that you left out entirely. I’m sorry, but like I said, writing a novel is messy. You’re not going to do it right the first time. It takes a lot of patience and hard work and planning to get it right. But the fact that we want to get it right is the reason that we’re already and step five and have yet to start writing the manuscript!

“I can’t believe you, Andy!” you’re going to say. But this is the way it is. You have to have everything written out prior. That means, as I said in the last post, that you have to have the ending written out.

But why all this work prior to ever writing the story? The reason is that if you do the planning properly, then the manuscript will practically write itself. That said, you have to fill in the gaps.

As you read the free writing plot exercise that you wrote, be sure to look at it with a critical eye. This is the time to make sure that everything makes sense, that the characters’ actions are for good reason, and that you have set up all the events in the book.

You’re going to want to document all these gaps in another free writing exercise in the same notebook with the plot free writing exercise. Just note all the changes that you need to make, and then make them. This is the time that you think through everything that you want to accomplish in the book. You must spend a lot of time thinking through everything. You have to have the courage to be able to say, “Yes, this does not make sense.” Or “You know, I don’t think this is something that particular character would do.” Or “I believe the character needs a better reason to do this than the one I gave.”

Once you have identified the problems in your plot free writing exercise, you use the Fill in the Gaps free writing exercise to address each of these problems. You must be very clear and you must be ruthless. If you are to write a tight plot, you must make sure that the gaps are filled in.

Step 5 seems a lot easier than it is. I would recommend, as I stated above, that you should put Step 4 aside for a few days so you can come back to it with fresh eyes. Please note that once you have finished Step 5 and done justice to it, you will have a solid plot to work from when you start writing your manuscript. This is critical. It is not advisable to start writing your manuscript until you have a solid, solid, SOLID plot that has no gaps and that all loose ends are tied.

Even when you get to Step 6, you will not start writing the manuscript. There is still one more exercise you must go through before you get to that point. But in two days, I will post the next step, which is make note cards with scenes.

How to Write Activist Literature – Four – Write Out the Plot

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 01:23:07 -0500

Now you’ve got some busy times behind you. Now you’re ready for the hardest step thus far – and the most interesting and rewarding. This is where the plot comes together. As I said before, a plot is MUCH different than the one line summary. This plot will touch on nearly everything you want to include in your book. You’ve got all the characters sketched and you’ve got a few events, which you did in Step 3, so you’ll start with that.

Note that you’re not even writing something like what you’ll see on the back of a book cover. You’re not writing teaser copy. You’re writing a PLOT. This plot is going to include all the events, the characters, the twists and turns, the beginning, the middle, and the end – just not necessarily in that order!

The purpose of writing out the plot is not to get the idea of everything that’s going to happen in order. It’s just to get an idea of everything that’s going to happen. This is where the relationships between the events are considered. The most important questions you can ask in this stage are, “Why?” and “How did this come to be?” This is a stage where you will have to think in more than one direction. You’ll have to think forwards and backwards and every other conceivable direction.

So to give you an example from Preston, I decided that I wanted Preston to be highly religious and that I wanted him to pray in front of his bed every night. So that caused me to ask the question, “How did this come to be?” It is my job as the author to set everything up. Characters must always do things for good reason, not a bad reason or no reason. In this case, I had to answer the question of how it came to be that Preston prayed in front of his bed every night. So that put into the works another event that answered that question. In this case, I decided that when Preston was a little boy – a littler boy, that is – there were some stained glass windows that were put into the church and that Preston was so moved by them that he devoted his entire life to God. Was that the best way to answer the question, “How did this come to be?” Perhaps not, but that is the answer I gave.

Another situation in my book was that Preston had a bad relationship with Jake, the star football player. Again, the question was, “How did this come to be?” I knew that if Preston and Jake were going to have a bad relationship, I had to set that up. So I staged a scene on Preston’s first day of school where Jake and Preston meet and have a bad encounter. I also set it up so that Preston would be a better football player than Jake, and that would fuel Jake’s hatred of Preston. The reason Jake had to hate Preston was that his hatred would fuel even more actions on Jake’s part that would move the book along.

This is, perhaps, the hardest part of writing the book. In my humble opinion, it’s even harder than writing the manuscript, so let’s take it slowly, one step at a time.

Free writing
One very good technique to use in creating a plot is free writing. Basically writing everything that comes into your head about the book. The free writing should be done in long hand and should be stream of consciousness writing. I no longer have the free writing exercise I did when planning Preston or I would simply post some of it on here… but the following is a fabricated excerpt of what could have been my free writing exercise and what you can expect to happen when you’re planning your plot:

“I want Preston to pray every night. But why does he pray every night? There must be some reason. It could be that he saw some stained glass windows when he was younger and was so moved by them that he wanted to pray. At the end of the book, I want Preston to show that he gives up his religion, and I guess I could do that by letting him blow out a candle or something like that. That means that he has to pray in front of a candle every night. But I guess he would blow it out every night, so there has to be some reason that he doesn’t blow it out. Maybe there could be a draft in his room and it blows the candle out every night and then Preston considers that his communication device with God.

“But then what? Why does Preston give up his relationship with God? Maybe it’s because he falls in love with someone – someone he can’t have. He can fall in love with Eric, his best friend. And then he will realize that he is involved in a sin, so he has to question whether he should be gay or religious. I guess Preston and Eric can meet the first day of school because their schedules are messed up so they can go to the guidance office together. But why are their schedules messed up? Because the principal is a moron. Yeah, the principal has a bad relationship with the superintendent so he is trying to improve that. Maybe I can use that bad relationship to show that the principal is hard on gay people so that will fuel the story as well.”

Then what? There has to be more. There is a psycho religious fanatic named Billy. How do I show he’s a fanatic? I will show him murdering someone at the beginning of the book. But then he has to meet Preston and try to recruit him. Yeah, he will take advantage of the fact that Preston is religious and try to recruit him into the psycho religious group…”

Now just sit at your computer and close your eyes and imagine me writing that in long hand. You can probably see my creative juices flowing as I run across problem after problem and simply solve it. The issue is that once you solve a problem, often it creates another one. So you have this winding, twising, turning, almost nonsensical and not very well written long hand plot that will fill pages and pages and pages and pages and pages. Be prepared to spend more than a week on this. You need to just write. Write and write and write. Pose what you want to happen in the story and then solve the problems that arise. Answer the questions, “Why?” and “How did this come to be?”

Like I said, this is the hardest part of writing the book. Every time you sit down to work on your plot – and it WILL have to be in several sessions if you do it right – first review your theme and your one line summary from Steps 1 and 2. When you write out the actions of your characters, refer to Step 3, and they will surprise you. They might look at you and say, “I’m not doing that! as Holly Lisle noted on her website for writers.

Keep going. Keep working. Keep answering those questions. If you find that some aspect of your characters doing work, then change them. It’s ok. Writing a novel is a messy process, so bring an eraser or be willing to mark through a lot of things.

In your free writing exercise, you’ll find that sometimes you’ll write something and you find out later that it doesn’t work. That’s ok. Just leave it and change it as you write. Say something like this, “No wait. I said Preston was going to be a karate expert before, but now I think he should be a football player…”

Like I said, this is a messy step. It’s going to be long and incoherent and maybe even difficult to read, but this is part of the process of solidifying the story. You have make sure that things flow a certain way and make some sort of sense.

When writing out your plot, always keep the following in mind:

Make sure characters always act for good reason, not a bad reason or no reason.
If Sam always gets up at 5 AM and goes to work, then he had better have a good reason for not doing exactly that one day. Is he sick? Then don’t show him going in when he’s sick. He has to have a good reason for not going to work if that’s what he always does.

That is a simple example, but this is important. In the course of writing a novel, characters are going to change. In Preston, Preston gave up his religion. He had been highly religious for years, and that said, he would not just give up his religion. He has to have a reason. When he realized that the church persecuted him for being gay, he was willing to give up his religion. But even then, you have to keep in mind…

Set everything up before it happens
Preston had a good reason to give up his religion, as noted above, but I had to set it up. I can’t leave my readers shocked – too shocked, anyway – that he gives up his religion. It’s okay for a reader to think to himself, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming, but it makes sense.” I just don’t want him to say, “Where the hell did that come from?” If they say the latter, then I have done something wrong, and I will need to go back and change something in the story.

I could probably write volumes on how to free write a plot, but the important thing is just to do it. If you get stuck, feel free to start over. Don’t give up. Like I said, this is, by far, the hardest part of writing the whole book. If you can just get through this one free writing exercise, the rest will fall into place naturally.

The Ending
With a quick note on the ending of your book… yes, you want to know what it is. You don’t get in your car and choose and interstate and start driving unless you have some idea of where you want to go. The same is true of writing a piece of activist literature. You must know where you’re going. As part of your plotting exercise, you’re going to have to put the end down. Describe it in detail. Write down exactly what is going to happen, and keep your theme in mind. Remember, each of these steps works together, and the fact that you’ve already written the theme does not mean that you can just put it out of your mind. When you have decided what your ending is going to be, then make sure that you stay true to your theme and decide if you are going to set up to prove or to disprove that theme. You have to know in advance. Make sure your ending makes sense, that it is set up, and that the changes the characters have gone through are for good reason.

Free writing the plot will lead us to Step 5, which is to fill in the gaps, and that will come in two days.

How to Write Activist Literature – Three – Make a List of Things in the Book You Want to See Happen

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:21:43 -0500

So at this point, you have written your theme and you have written your one sentence summary. If you haven’t done either of these things, that’s okay. If you haven’t even started, that’s ok. These posts are meant for you to be able to come back to again and again whenever you’re ready to review them. As I stated earlier, at the end of this series, I will post a link to these steps so that you can have them all in one place.

This next step, which is making a list of things that you want to see happen in the book, is also very important. I want to take a moment and address one of the concerns that you probably already have – you might be concerned at this point that we are already on step three in the process of writing a piece of activist literature and we have yet to write the first word of the manuscript. The fact is that a good novelist will carefully plan his novel before ever writing the first word – or at least that is the school of thought that I come from.

Writing a novel is a lot like building a house. You will plan the whole project on paper before ever laying the first brick. There might be some people that say that takes all the fun out of building a house. They might say that they don’t want to know what the house is going to look like until it’s already built. There is one problem with this theory – it is madness. How can you construct a house – or a novel – without having planned it out? How are you going to know what twists and turns the plot should take unless you’ve reviewed them in advance. I should dispel the myth that a novel just comes together perfectly just because someone sits down at the computer and types 90,000 words. This is not true any more than a construction worker could build a house just by slapping a bunch of bricks together.

That said, let’s continue.

Once you’ve written your theme and your one sentence summary of the book you intend to write, you must have some idea of what you want to happen in the book. The fact is, it doesn’t matter what these events are; but every work of fiction has events, internal and external. You must make a list of some of these and judge how well you like them.

In addition to events, you must know who your characters are. Again, you may not come up with an exhaustive list, but here’s an assignment for you. Start with your main character – the protagonist. What is his or her name? Let’s assume it’s a male. How old is he? What does he look like? What is his occupation? What are some of the things that have happened to him in the past? What is his personality like? What is his family like? What is he trying to accomplish? Does he want a raise? Does he want to save the world? Does he want to get out of debt? Find love?

Where is he from? What does his house or apartment look like? What is his religious background? What is his education? What does he like to do? Who are his friends? What are his vices? Coffee? Alcohol? Food? Pride? Where does he like to hang out? What does he think of his job? His boss? His coworkers? Does he live alone? With family? Roommates? Is he overweight? Athletic? Tan and beautiful? An old, wrinkled man? A little boy?

Who are his enemies? Why do they hate him? What do they want to do to him? Kill him? Ruin him financially? Break up his marriage?

You may not need to know all of this information, but go ahead and write it out anyway. You can’t write about a character you don’t know. Write all this down for the protagonist, the antagonist (someone that is against the protagonist), and several other characters. It’s better to have too much information than not enough.

Note that you’re still not writing the book. You’re still planning. You have to know your characters and what they do under normal circumstances. You have to know what is going to change them, what will make them do something out of the ordinary. You have to know why he does what he does and what would make him do something different. These are going to be critical things to know in step four.

The other thing you have to do with characters is write out their relationships to each other. We all have relationships, even people that don’t know each other. They’re called strangers. There are strangers, acquaintances, friends, enemies, celebrities (people that I know but don’t know me), lovers, and family. You can probably think of some others. Also, remember that relationships change. Some people start out as friends and then become enemies when they both fall in love with the same person. Some people are friends and then lose contact and go back to being acquaintances. In your notes, you don’t have to allow for every single change your characters’ relationships will go through (you don’t even know them yet, and won’t until Step 4), but have some idea of what is going on. For example, how does the protagonist know the antagonist? Do they actually know each other? Did they meet at some point? Were they best friends in elementary school? Are they applying for the same promotion and work on the same team at the same company? All other relationships in the book should stem from these two very important characters.

In Preston, obviously Preston is the protagonist. There are actually two antagonists – Billy and Jake. That is okay. There can be more than one. An antagonist can also be an event. It can be a feeling. It can be a lot of things. The important thing is to write all that down – but not yet. That comes in Step 4.

Back to your list of events – you don’t have to end up using your whole list, and you will almost certainly add additional events once you get started composing the plot in Step 4. Again, this is not a hard step, but it’s very important that you do it. When I wrote Preston one of the first events I came up with was Preston praying at his bedside in front of a candle. Another event I wanted to happen was a murder scene at the beginning of the book. I wanted a culmination in a cemetery at the end of the book. I wanted to involve a fundamentalist Christian group in the book picketing a funeral, like what Fred Phelps and his people from Kansas do. I wanted to include a few church scenes where a minister preaches on the “sin” of homosexuality.

That’s it. That’s the third step. You need to invent the characters and you need to come up with some events. The events don’t necessarily have to have a relationship with each other at this point. There does not need to be an order of events even. They just need to be listed. And you don’t even have to have a lot of detail about what the events are going to involve. You just need to have some idea of what some of them are going to be, because you’re going to use this in Step 4 and Step 5.

This step is NOT the hardest step to accomplish, but it is the longest step you will have encountered at this point. You don’t want to skimp on this one. Less is not more. More is more. Put details and details and details. Write till you’re sick of writing. And write in long hand – at least that is what works for me. I have found typing this information can be stifling, and plus you might want to draw a few sketches or make a few diagrams. There are very few rules associated with this step; the important thing is that you sit down and do it.

Let’s recap. In Step 3, you will first make a list of characters and answer a number of questions about those characters. Second you will make a list of events that you might include in your novel. Don’t think too much beyond this step until you have completed it. Simply do this activity and then proceed to Step 4, which is Writing Your Plot, and will be posted in two days.

How to Write Activist Literature – Two – Write a One Line Summary

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:21:06 -0500

Now that you have a theme to your literature, you need to decide, second of all, what your novel is going to be about. This is perhaps the easiest step in the process because most people that consider writing a novel already have some idea of what they want the novel to be about. When you know what your novel is going to be about, you need to commit to writing and to memory a one line summary.

When I wrote Preston, my one line summary was this – “My novel is about a religious, gay teenager that falls in love with his best friend.”

Generic? Yes, absolutely. But that doesn’t make the summary bad. Here’s why – there’s very little that has not been written about before. Your goal is to write material that will present old ideas in a new way. Certainly there have been books about gay teenagers that have fallen in love with their best friends. There have been books about straight teenagers that have fallen in love with a female friend as well. You must understand that there are books about everything.

Why do I tell you this? Because at some point you’re going to meet some well-meaning friend that says, “Oh, so you’re writing a novel? What is it about?” And you’ll give that friend your one line summary – which is part of the summary’s purpose. Then your friend is going to roll his eyes and say, “Oh well NO ONE has EVER written about THAT before!” speaking sarcastically, of course. Then you’re going to be discouraged and feel like you’re a failure and that you should just give up the whole writing scheme. That is simply not true.

In a later post, we’re going to talk about crafting a great plot, and yes, there is a difference. The summary is not the same thing as a plot. The one line summary is just a quick statement of what the book is generally about. It has nothing to do with all the twists and turns you’re going to see in your novel. Those twists and turns make up the plot. You, on the other hand at this point, just want a one line summary. Why? Because you have to start somewhere.

You may want to be in Los Angeles, for example, but if you’re in New York, you need to realize that. You have to make the journey, and that journey starts with a single step. Yes, this step in the process is the easiest you’re going to make because it’s simple, it’s short, and you’re just starting so you’re still excited and you’re not tired. Regardless, this is a very necessary step in the process and must be completed and given attention. Even if you only spend five minutes on this step, you need to do it and have it on paper.

You don’t need to type it. You can write it out by hand. But let’s say you have no idea what you’re book is going to be about. Then you have to come up with something. There are a few things you can do to come up with your summary.

First, consider books that you have read in the past – yes, you MUST have read a number of books in the past to be even a fair novelist. What were their summaries? Think of your favorite book. In one sentence, what was it about? Can you tell someone in just one sentence – two tops – what the book is about? You may have to think really hard to break down the story to its bare bones, but you can do it. Think about it hard.

Second, look at your own life. Are there things in your life that are interesting? You don’t have to write an autobiography in order to come up with a good summary, but sometimes you can get ideas from your own life. You will find that the problems that you have run across in your own life are a good starting point for a summary because a lot of people have probably gone through the same sorts of issues.

Another source of ideas for a summary are in the form of fantasies that you’ve had. Who of us has not, at some point, wanted to have a romantic relationship with a celebrity? Or wanted to win the lottery? Or thought about what it would be like if your best friend were diagnosed with cancer? Learn to ask the question, “what if?” which is actually a good way to write a summary. For example, “What if a Black man were asked to leave a crowded restaurant in New York in 2010 because of his race?” That’s a great summary. You don’t have to answer that question on this step; your objective now is simply to determine what your book is going to be about.

This step might take anywhere from five minutes to two days – but please no longer. If it takes you longer than two days to write a one line summary, then you have crossed the line from careful thought into procrastination. Go ahead and make the plunge. Decide what your book is going to be about and then simply run with it.

The next step in this process is to make a list of things you want to see happen in the book and begin planning the plot. You see, writing a novel is not easy, but it can be painless if you take it one step at a time. Now, in two days’ time you will see the next post, making a list of things you want to see happen.

How to Write Activist Literature – One – Choose a Theme

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 01:20:48 -0500

This post is part one of how to write activist literature, and the first step is to choose a theme. Let me explain what I mean by a theme. For many years I have been mistrustful of Christianity, and often Christians will ask me why. They tell me that not all Christians hate gays and that Christ died for everyone. They tell me that God loves me. They tell me that they love the sinner and hate the sin. So in choosing a theme for Preston, I decided that I would answer that question. Here is the theme to Preston, formed as a question:

“Why would a religious, gay teenager renounce his faith in God?”

A theme can also be written in the form of a statement that can be proven or disproven. For example, “A religious, gay teenager should renounce his faith in God.” Perhaps you could write a similar theme as, “Christianity fails gays.” Or you could write it as, “Christianity has a lot to offer gays.” The goal of a theme, in my humble opinion, is to give the reader something to think about when he or she finishes reading the book. It needs to make an impact on the reader and it needs to be something that your audience cares about.

If you’re writing literature about animal rights, your theme might be, “The meat industry cares about money to the detriment of animals.” Perhaps that is a simple theme, but you might want to choose something broader and write on many different levels. The classic theme I think of in this regard is, “Love conquers all,” something that Holly Lisle writes about on her excellent site for writers.

Now many of you will argue that theme is a matter of fluff and that I am just trying to fill this blog with a meaningless post. That is not true. If your goal is to write a piece of activist literature, the theme of that literature is perhaps the most important decision you can make. The theme will drive the entire story. When you have a doubt about where the story is going, you will return to the theme for guidance. That is why it is so critical that you write the theme down and commit it to memory.

So now, you ask, what is the best way to go about writing a theme or even coming up with a theme? There are basically two ways to go about coming up with a theme.

The first is to consider something you care very much about. When writing activist literature, chances are you have something in mind already that you want to write about. If you’re like me and want to write about a gay teenager, then you would start with the preoccupations of gay teenagers. You could think about problems in school, drug abuse, coming of age, new relationships, relationships with older men, sexual abuse, etc. There are some subtler things that go along with all of these – the emotional aspects of each of these problems. If it’s a relationship with an older man, for example, then you might consider all the emotional problems associated with being so insignificant in the eyes of someone you truly love, as if often the case when a married man pursues a teenager. From there you could write a theme based on these problems. For example, “Gay teenagers cannot find true love in a married man.” Or you might try, “No one really cares about gay teenagers.” If you want to be more positive about it, you could try something like, “Gay teenagers can find true love regardless of their circumstances.”

Start with the problem, and go from there. I cannot reiterate enough, though, that a well written theme is critical to the success (or failure) of a book’s salability.

The second way to go about a theme is to go from your plot you already have. I have met countless people who have said, “Oh, I want to write a book, and I already know what it’s going to be about, but I just haven’t written it yet.” Now I started my book Preston by coming up with the theme, but let’s say I had started with the plot. Let’s say I had been mulling over the idea of writing a book about a gay teenager that is very religious but chooses to give up his religion. The theme would come naturally from that: “Why would a religious, gay teenager renounce his faith in God?”

Please note that this theme does not have to be earth shattering. You don’t have to write the next earth shattering novel, and most people never do – for that matter, most people never write a novel at all, so you’ll be well ahead of the game just by writing one. When you write a theme, please just write one. Give yourself the opportunity to be creative and do something fantastic, even if you have to improve over time.

The next step is to write a one sentence summary, and you can find that on this blog in two days’ time.

How to Write Activist Literature – Introduction

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:20:28 -0500

Many of you know that I worked for a long time writing Preston and trying to polish it into a salable format for publishers and agents. I have probably told you this before, but it bears repeating. The reason I wrote the book was that I wanted to explain to Christians why a gay man – or a gay teenage boy – would choose not to be a Christian in light of the treatment that we have received by the church.

Therefore, I consider Preston activist literature. I feel that if enough people were to read the book, it could make an impact on the way society integrates homosexuality and religion.

I also know that I might not be successful. Unfortunately, failure is a risk anytime you undertake a massive project like a novel or even a series of short stories. So I have decided that I would write out the process I go through to write literature and be as detailed as possible so that those of you that are interested in trying your hand at it might be more successful at it than I am. Ronald Reagan once said, “You can get a lot accomplished if you don’t care who gets the credit.” That’s why I don’t consider my process to be some kind of trade secret, and really that process is just a conglomeration of other processes that I have read that others use.

Rather than completely rehashing everything that has been written on the subject of writing novels, though, I will tailor this topic for those that want to write activist literature. The material you find here may not work as well for other kinds of literature such as mysteries, horror, or science fiction. While there is nothing wrong with writing these or any other kinds of fiction, there are plenty of resources on the Internet already that address these topics, so I’m going to focus on activist literature. One thing I want to note is that activist literature is not constricted to literature with gay themes and struggles, so this material should work very well if you want to write about African American Rights, women’s rights, animal rights, or any other theme of activism.

Just to give you some idea of the topics I intend to cover for you, I have listed them below. This blog will continue to be updated every two days, as always, but the topics for the next 20 days or so are as follows:

Choose a theme
Write a one line summary
Make a list of things in the book you would like to see happen
Write out the plot
Fill in the gaps
Make note cards with scenes
Write the manuscript
Revise the manuscript
Query agents and publishers
Work on your next book

I will put up the first of these ten posts two days from now. Please note that these posts assume that you are fluent in English and have a solid working knowledge of English grammar – or whatever language you plan to write in. They also assume that you have a little experience writing and that you have done some writing in the past – such as writing essays or short stories. They also assume that you are willing to so some weak novel writing at first until you improve your skill and that you’re okay with that. novel No one starts out being a great novelist – I’m not a great novelist yet either. But I will show you the ropes if you’re willing to heed some common sense advice.

Finally, they assume that you have done enough reading that you at least recognize a good, well written novel when you read one. Reading novels for a novelist is like going to medical school for a surgeon. If you have not been to medical school, don’t come and tell me you want to cut me open because I’m not convinced you’re going to know what you’ll find when you do so.

At the end of this series, I will make sure that you have access to all of these posts in an article format so that you can review them from time to time without having to sift through so many posts.

This is the first series of posts I have written, so I hope you enjoy it. Please send me any feedback you think would make these posts better, and I will be happy to review it.

Things to Read When You Are Feeling Down

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 01:41:34 -0500

I think depression hits us all from time to time, even the happiest of us. In this post, I'm going to recommend some resources to help you when you're down.

Steve Pavlina's Blog
This is one of my favorite blogs, and I would say that even by posting this I will lose some readers just because the blog is so excellent. At this time there are over 600 posts and articles on the site. It has a lot of information on how to move forward in your life.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Steven Covey
This has almost become cliché these days, as it is a must read of motivational literature. If you have not yet read it, I would recommend you do so. It talks about the things that make us all more effective. You might be surprised by what you find. All those things they told us about showing up on time and kissing the boss's butt and such are not on the list.

The Magic of Thinking Big - David Schwartz
I like this book as general motivational material. After reading this book, you'll find that you want to make your goals a little bigger.

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
This book changed my life. It teaches some very simple but powerful social skills that, to me, were not intuitively obvious. I actually feel like I need to go back and read this book from time to time.

Feeling Good - David Burns
A great way to give naturally depressed people, like myself, a new way of looking at the world. It is not a replacement for therapy or medication if you need it, but it is an excellent book on learning to guard your thoughts and teaches its readers that thoughts play a powerful role in affecting mood. Mood, in my humble opinion, affects productivity, so I highly recommend this book to anyone feeling depressed.

I'm sure there are others, but this is a good start. Happy reading!

Tarot Reading for the World in 2010

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 01:41:01 -0500

Celtic Cross Spread
1. The Chariot
2. 6 of Pentacles
3. 3 of Wands
4. 9 of Pentacles
5. The Moon
6. The Star
7. 10 of Cups
8. 10 of Pentacles
9. 2 of Pentacles
10. 5 of Swords

As I promised in my last post, here is a general Tarot reading for the world…

There are some conflicting things in the spread. The spread speaks of success, happiness, and hope, but also of fear. Together as a planet, we have come through difficult times and have begun a new adventure - 3 of Wands - but on our mind we have this unshakable fear, probably because of all we have been through - The Moon. Oh yes, we are enjoying a moment of happiness. Things are certainly better - 10 of Cups - and we have a time of immense hope coming into our lives - The Star. In fact, we are in an environment of momentary prosperity - 10 of Pentacles, and if we can continue working, staying organized, staying busy improving our situation, we will continue to have that success - 2 of Pentacles. We have been frugal, straining even in our moments of prosperity not to spend or use too much - 9 of Pentacles. That will change as our hope begins to come back to us.

This year, we will give a great deal of though, even despite our success, to what is most important to us - those things that we have versus those things that we do not have - 6 of Pentacles. But we must beware not to end up in the same financial mess in which we started. Our warning is to be even more concerned about our fellow man now than we have ever been. We do not want to alienate each other and end up taking from others for our own gain - 5 of Swords.

This is a quite positive reading - in my view, even more positive than the reading I did for the United States. I hope that in this country we have learned some lessons about where greed will take us. That is probably our greatest fault in this country. In time, as we lose our standing in the world - and all great nations eventually lose their greatness - I hope that we can see that even in that loss we have gained something far greater, some intangible treasure that teaches us that even after our greatness, life is somehow better than it was before.

Tarot Reading for the United States in 2010

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 01:40:53 -0500

Celtic Cross Spread
1. 10 of Swords
2. Nine of Wands
3. Three of Cups
4. Seven of Wands
5. Four of Swords
6. Two of Pentacles
7. Four of Wands
8. The Tower
9. Prince of Cups
10. Three of Pentacles

I decided to do a Tarot reading for the United States in 2010, and my next post will be a Tarot reading for the entire world. My readings are not always accurate, but I'm hoping we can get some good information out of this one. So here goes…

The United States has been fighting its own ruin for a while - 10 of Swords - but has been persistent in fighting that ruin - 9 of Wands - and continues even now to do so. We are improving our relations with the rest of the world - 3 of Cups - and are spending a great deal of time in reflection over our relations with the rest of the world - 4 of Swords. Though we have been gone against the current of society and made some enemies in that process - 7 of Wands - we are continuing to improve, not just our world relations, but also our financial situation which has been so bad for so long. We are busy, we are getting organized, and we are making progress - Two of Pentacles.

Here is an interesting thing, however. We see ourselves as coming into a better time - 4 of Wands - but the rest of the world sees us in a state of disarray - The Tower. In 2010 we're going to see a man come forward to help us out of our problems. Maybe this will be a politician, or perhaps it will be someone more philanthropic in nature - Knight of Cups. But he will help us continue to grow. He will teach us a great deal. He will help us plan for the future better than we ever have before - 3 of Pentacles.

That's the reading. Like I said, my readings are not always accurate, and there are even times when my interpretation is off. If anyone has a different interpretation of these cards, I hope you will let me know.

Being a Second Class Citizen in Your Family

Fri, 8 Jan 2010 01:40:34 -0500

Poor things, they don' t mean it. They really don't. But somehow, I have found that in my family, I am always a bit of an outcast for my sexuality. When my cousin got married a few years ago, I asked my mother the following questions: If I got married to a man, would the family come together to celebrate my union as they did for Ashley? Would Aunt Sabra play the organ at the wedding? Would you walk in as the mother of one of the wedding partners? Would there be a reception and a party? Would you help fund it as you would have if I were straight?

I have to admit I did not like her answers to my questions. In all fairness, she eventually did say that she would come to my wedding if I got married to a man, but I'm not convinced that she would. I'm not convinced that any of them would come. And I'm not convinced - even as much as they would argue about it - that they view me as their equal simply because I'm gay.

I believe that there are a lot of families out there that view their gay members as second class citizens, someone that is not quite the equal of the others. Oh, for the most part families are nice, but sometimes they're just downright mean. And all for the love of Jesus!

"Not my family!" you say. "They love me just as much as anyone else in the family!" Do they believe that being gay is a sin? Do they believe that your relationships are equal to theirs? Would they let your significant other make the funeral arrangements if you were to die? If the answer is positive, then that is a good thing, though I believe that is more the exception than the rule.

We can't choose our families. That much I think we can all agree on. I think most of the time, they do the best they can. I also think that over time, they will come to accept us more. Keep in mind though that in the South, families often don't even accept interracial in-laws, so it will be quite some time before they accept us completely.

What I Learned from Writing Preston

Wed, 6 Jan 2010 01:40:12 -0500

At the time I write this, June 2009, I have sent out about seventy query letters to agents to see if they are interested in reading my manuscript Preston. I hope that some of them are interested in seeing it, as I would love to see the book in print and in my TOTALLY UNBIASED opinion - NOT - it has a great message. I think people will enjoy this book far more than they would have enjoyed my first one if it had ever been published. Preston is a tighter plot and, well, just more interesting. My mother didn't even finish reading my first novel, but I think she will enjoy reading this one.

While I was writing the book, I noticed a few things that happened. First of all, my characters seemed to take on a life of their own. Holly Lisle, who has an excellent web site for writers, says that at some point your characters will stare at you from the page and say, "I'm not doing that!" I think she was right to say that. My characters really did come to life, and I have to admit I got attached to them.

Another thing I noticed was that my subconscious mind seemed to be more in control of producing the manuscript than I was. As I was writing the manuscript, I realized that, even after planning the thing carefully, some things I had planned were just not going to work. My subconscious mind, however, made sure that I was able to find an alternate route, and somehow that alternate route was always better than what I had originally planned.

Another thing I noticed was that no one is ever as excited about a novel as the author is. Whenever I told people about the novel, the most common response was something along the lines of, "Oh, how cute! You're writing a novel!" This mainly came from family and friends that, in my opinion, just did not think I was up for the task.

Occasionally some would ask what the novel was about. That's another thing I had to learn - people in rural Tennessee are not appreciative of gay novels. In fact, when I sent it to Office Max to have it printed and when I went to pick it up, one of the employees there was laughing about it in front of me saying, "You will not believe what someone asked us to print!" It turned out to be my novel. Silly woman. She should have known better than that. But still, I have to realize that I'm just not going to get much support around this area.

Still another thing I learned is that when you tell people you wrote a gay novel, they almost always assume that it's erotic in nature. To some people, there simply is nothing else to homosexuality. Let me tell you, there is a LOT more to homosexuality than just sex. We are still trying to make our mark in the world via business and the arts, and we are trying to gain acceptance from the straight community.

Yes, I have definitely learned a lot about myself and about the world in general from writing a novel. If you're interested in learning how to write a novel so you can gain similar insights or epiphanies, I would humbly recommend Holly Lisle's website.

Yes, I have found very few things that will teach you as much about yourself as writing a novel will.

Some of My Favorite Classical Music

Mon, 4 Jan 2010 01:39:38 -0500

In my humble view, nothing soothes and inspires like great classical music. I'm going to share a few of my favorites with you today, in no particular order:

Zadok the Priest - Handel
This is a coronation anthem written by G.F. Handel. It's one of my favorites because it has such pomp to it, and you can feel the grandiose nature of the piece when you listen to it. It starts out with the lyrics:

Zadok the Priest
And Nathan the Prophet
Anointed Solomon King

What language to use at a coronation! In our own United States, we have no such ceremonies, the closest being our less formal presidential inaugurations. But then, in England, coronations are much rarer than our inaugurations. They generally occur once a generation. So it makes sense that all the pomp and circumstance surrounding such an occasion would be reflected by a great piece such as this.

Requiem - W.A. Mozart
Haunting, beautiful, exciting, romantic, spiritual! These are only some of the words that reflect one of Mozart’s darkest pieces, a piece that he never even finished. One of his students had to go in behind him and finish the piece for him after he died. If you have never seen the movie Amadeus, I would recommend you watch it at some point. Mozart's Requiem, a funeral mass, is a featured part of the film. The whole piece is about a dozen movements or so, and takes about an hour to perform. My favorite parts of the piece are the Introit and the Dies Irae.

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor - J.S. Bach
Not to be cliché, but this is a wonderful piece that most people think of being Halloween music. The toccata comes first, followed by Bach's fugue, the latter of which is my favorite.

O Sacred Head Now Wounded
Yes, I've actually written a blog post about this piece as well. It's hauntingly beautiful and was originally a chorale by J.S. Bach. Bach supposedly had "rules" that he followed in writing chorales that have come to be known as four-part voice leading. To be honest, I'm not sure he ever wrote those rules down, and I think it was more a situation where music theorists studied his chorales and said, "He never did this, and he never did this, and he never did this…" Still, four-part voice leading is interesting study for all the musicians out there that will ever study music theory.

Gloria - Vivaldi
I had the opportunity to sing this half hour piece with several movements when I was in high school. I don't know why, but I have always liked it. I would not call it "hauntingly beautiful" like I have said about some of the other pieces on this list - except for the second movement, Et En Terra Pax Hominibus. One thing I did not like about this piece is that there are no male soloists written into the work. When I was in high school, I had quite an ego and would have loved to have a solo! But in a way it's good that there are none because the choral director would NEVER have given me one.

There are so many pieces of music that I absolutely love. I hope you have the chance to listen to some of these if you have not heard them. They're inspiring and uplifting. They put me in a good mood, and I do enjoy them from time to time.

I will listen to Madonna and Cher as much as anyone else, but the great classics never leave us, and for that reason we can enjoy them as long as human beings exist.

How Gays Can Break the Glass Ceiling

Sat, 2 Jan 2010 01:39:16 -0500

I have often wondered how gays can break the proverbial "glass ceiling" in the workplace. I have posted about this concept before, but I think it bears further exploration. In my humble experience, after some time working in an office - and that has happened frequently - my coworkers eventually know that I'm gay. I'm not entirely convinced that the knowledge of my sexuality has hindered my ability to move up in an office, but I have to make two observations: One, I am an extraordinary administrative employee. Two, I have NEVER been offered a promotion. You must keep in mind that the longest position I have held was at a pension office working as an accounting specialist for two years. However, I believe that if my coworkers and supervisors were pleased with my work, as they usually have been, that at some point they would have offered me a promotion.

So what is it? Are they jealous and afraid I'll storm the office if I move up? It's possible, though quite unlikely. While politics generally prevails at any company, one undeniable fact is that money-hungry executives like competent employees that put money in their pocket rather than taking it out of their pocket via incompetence.

Are they afraid I just won't be there very long? That's very possible, and certainly more likely than not liking the fact that I am a very good administrative employee. I have been - and I think it's fair to say this - a career temporary employee. I have had so many short term assignments, that it's almost embarrassing to list them all on my resume. I frequently only list the longer ones simply because those seem the most relevant.

But then there is my homosexuality. Is it possible that homophobia is the new racism, as so many people have said over the last several years? Is it possible that, just as whites did not like the idea of "uppity" blacks back in the sixties, straight people don't like the concept of successful gay people in the workplace? Is it possible that, just as some men don't want to report to a female supervisor, some straight men and women don't want to report to a gay supervisor?

Certainly there are highly successful gays and lesbians in any workplace. But do these gays and lesbians have to work harder and "kiss a few more butts" not to be labeled the office "fag"? Do we have to seek out employers that cater to our unique contributions to find the acceptance that we deserve?

How do we break the gay glass ceiling?

One method is to remain eternally in the closet. If we never tell anyone that we're gay, then maybe they will never know. Not true in my case, however, because I am obviously gay. Another method is to find employers that are sensitive to gay issues and work for them. While this is probably one of the most pleasant routes to take - and while I would often advise working for those that appreciate us - it is not always feasible to work for gay-friendly employers. The fact is, unpleasant as it might seem - homophobia just exists, and it will as long as anyone reading this blog on the day it is posted lives in this three-dimensional realm.

Here's my proposal: We break the glass ceiling by being unafraid. We show courage in the workplace and let everyone know who we are. We dare them to fire us and accept that firing gracefully on the occasions that it happens. We do a better job than the majority of our straight counterparts to the extent that if our employers deny us upward mobility, it is obvious. We make our employers look like fools for putting up the glass ceiling in the first place. This is a difficult task - and we will be rejected for it sometimes. And yes, at times our souls will bleed.

But this courage is the only way to move bigoted employers through their own bigotry and bring to light that bigotry makes no sense. We should not ask for acceptance - we should demand it. We must dare people not to accept us. And when employers do mistreat us, we must get others on our side. Scary as it sounds, we must submit press releases and get the media - who is generally quite agreeable to our goal toward acceptance - to make a fool out of foolish employers. It is scary. It really is. But it is not just your glass ceiling and mine that we must break. We must break the glass ceiling for gays and lesbians, bisexual and transgender, questioning and even sometimes straight people in this country. We each have the collective responsibility to make less understanding people understand the pain that we experience from living in a world that generally hates us.

Will you take on this challenge with me? Will you help all of us to break the glass ceiling?

Starbucks - the Perfect Place to Meditate

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 01:39:04 -0500

I come to Starbucks nearly every day to work on my blog, write, and meditate. To be honest, it's one of the best places I've found to just get away from everything. Now they certainly have their critics, people that call them whores for making a lot of money. But the fact is that anyone that makes a lot of money is going to have someone calling him or her a whore. "They sell their souls to make money! They should be poor like us. Then they would be good people.

Nonsense. There are plenty of rich people that are also good people.

So back to Starbucks. If you've never been, it's a coffee shop with one of the most intimidating menus for a newcomer I have ever seen. Not to worry though. If you go in and tell the barista - a barista is the one making the drinks and working at the cash register - that you have never been to Starbucks before, he or she will help you make a selection. In time, you will know all the drinks that you like by heart.

Then you can find a place to sit down. If it's not too busy, it is usually easy to find a quiet place tucked in a corner somewhere to read, write, meditate, work on your computer, or people watch. I generally work on my computer here, but people watching is also a lot of fun at Starbucks. There are people from all walks of life that come here to enjoy the drinks and pastries.

Starbucks calls itself the "third place" because it's not work and it's not home. It's a place you can go for respite from both. There are no screaming kids here - not yours anyway - and there is no demanding boss wondering where your latest report is. It's just a place where you can enjoy the atmosphere and a cup of coffee - decaf if you're like me.

You don't necessarily have to go to Starbucks to get away from everything. But getting away from everything from time to time is quite important. Whether you choose to go to Starbucks or another coffee shop or the park is not my decision. It's not even my decision whether you choose to do it at all, but would highly recommend it for your own sanity's sake.

Why Not to Send Children to Parochial Schools

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:38:32 -0500

Many of you will accuse me of being simply disdainful of organized religion, and I suppose I am. But let's be realistic; religion and education just don't mix. They never have. As far as I can tell, they never will.

When I was in high school, I was considering attending Caron-Newman when I graduated, which is in Jefferson City, Tennessee. At the time, and I suppose to this day, they were affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. I remember visiting the campus. Everyone was friendly. Practically everyone I saw was white. It was like a time warp to Mayberry. It was absurd!

I ended up attending East Tennessee State University, also a conservative school, but it was a state school. ETSU represented all races and religions. Granted, it was not perfect because it was one of the most homophobic colleges I can imagine, it was interesting to meet all kinds of different people with different backgrounds. I believe meeting people outside your own "bubble" is just as much a part of your education as attending classes and studying text books.

That is the same reason it is a bad idea to send children to parochial primary and secondary schools. Children will meet the same kinds of people as themselves. They will run into teachers that will insist that those children believe a certain way rather than learning to think critically for themselves. Many people here criticize the terrorist training camps that al-Quaeda runs in the Middle East because the children - all boys - sit on the floor reciting the Koran over and over until they have memorized long passages. Do you honestly believe that parochial schools in the United States are conceptually that different? The children memorize Bible verses in these schools and are taught not to think. "Never question what God or your teachers say!" Sister Mary Marcus might say to child while slapping her across the face for asking, "Why?" In time, that child will learn to never ask the whys of the world, and she will not grow up to be a great scientist as she would have.

These same children will meet other children EXACTLY like them. They will play games together and grow up together and never meet anyone different as they would do in public schools.

Perhaps academic education is better in parochial schools - doubtful - but the social education a child receives in these schools is certainly inferior. Consider public schools with a great diversity when choosing a school for your child.

How Do Gays Move from Good to Great?

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 01:38:23 -0500

Well, maybe a better question is: How do gays move from bad to good? There are some shades of gray in that question because in some ways the gay community is still an adolescent culture and has a lot of growing up to do. I believe we have a greater propensity for drug use and shallowness, and in those ways, we have a lot of work to do still. But I also feel that we have a resilience that the straight community does not have because we have known suffering that the straight community, for the most part, has not. On a more practical level, we have a lot of highly intelligent people in our midst and, I dare say, we have a larger percentage of successful people in the arts.

The way we can move from good to great is by moving the drug users and shallow gays from bad to good, though that is easier said than done. As gays, we cling to our shallowness because we feel it is the only way people will ever like us. We feel our sexual appeal is the only way to get the attention of other gay men, and there is an element of truth to that. I have met gay men that I felt were fabulous creatures, but they did not want to talk to me because I wasn't attractive enough. I'm sure I have done the same thing to others. Our lives are a constant learning process.

Since we see that we have a tendency to be good at the arts and at business and, for that matter, all other fields, the way to move from good to great is simply by recruiting more from our own pool to do more of the great things that so many of us are already doing. It takes a great deal of courage to do something artistic or entrepreneurial because it means we must face rejection and criticism. We bare our hearts and our very souls to the world in hopes that we can offer it something of ourselves. Sometimes - in fact, more often than not - we start out rejected and over time come to our point of acceptance. But it hurts. It really does. And if we are to move from good to great, we must be willing, as a group of gays and lesbians in the world, to face that hurt.

Let's move forward and do all these scary things. Let's bare our hearts and our souls to the world and accept that some will kick us in the face and reject us. Let's do it anyway, as that is the only way we will ever move from good to great.

Holiday Message from Preston Book

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 01:49:08 -0500

Happy Holidays! I know, I know, many of you are familiar with the debate that has come up over the last few years about whether or not retailers should say Merry Christmas of Happy Holidays. That’s a no-brainer for me, as I don’t really celebrate Christmas except to the extent that my family forces me to. Yes, I go to a holiday meal and we exchange presents, but for the most part, I try to stay out of Christmas.

Regardless, while you might find this surprising, I actually consider the Christmas season a very spiritual time, almost as spiritual as late October when we celebrate Halloween. I don’t know what it is, but it seems there is just something highly spiritual about a cold, bleak time of year. It seems that when everything around us seems so dead, that we can be very much alive in our minds and take that slow, bleak time as a moment of reflection on what our lives and mean and we hope to accomplish.

Steven Covey in his excellent book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, talks about the needs to begin with the end in mind. In his book, he assigns an exercise to write out a eulogy for yourself that you would like various people that were close to you to deliver. When I first read this exercise, I felt the whole thing was simply morbid. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered, what will people say about me when I die? What do I want them to say? It left me wondering if those that I leave behind, whenever that is, will actually feel that they were better off for my having lived. I wondered if I would leave the world a better place than it would have been had I not lived.

At this time of year, I give thought to contribution, and yes, to death, since it seems that death is what surrounds us at Christmas. You don’t believe me? Even beyond the death of the flowers and trees you see in nature at this time of year, you can look at those around you and see spiritual death that leaves people exhausted because they are too busy trying to make the holiday into something that it was not intended to be and does not have to be. Yes, death surrounds us this time of year. And rather than wallowing in self pity that everything is so depressing and that things have changed since 1983 when I was five, I (and you) can use this time to contemplate what our own walk, our own journey, and our own contribution really mean in this world.

Christians celebrate a time of Christ’s coming at Christmas. Jesus is the reason for the season, they say. But I would ask you to look beyond that. I would ask you if there is something unique that you can give the world that Jesus could not. I would ask you to question if you are giving everything that you can and enjoying a life of happiness and excitement that should neither be unique to nor thwarted by this emotional season. I would ask you to use the death that you see around you and mark it as inspiration to work toward a greater goal so that when your physical body dies, the world will be a better place because of you.

And of course, I would wish you a very Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!

When Will Companies Give Gay Couples Benefits?

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 01:38:03 -0500

Must we wait fifty or seventy-five years when the government forces companies to give gays benefits to convince these companies of the obvious? Perhaps I am too harsh in my judgment of companies, but those companies that do not give gay employees and their spouses - yes, their spouses - benefits are wrong. There is no nicer way to put it. There is no other way to put it. They are wrong. They are morally wrong and they commit a grave business wrong. When you treat gays as second class citizens in any capacity - even in a business capacity - you are wrong. Next topic!

When gays form loving relationships with each other, even for a short period of time, those relationships are just as sacred as straight relationships. When others tell us in whatever way that our relationships are inferior, they are engaging a cruel form of snobbery, and that is simply unacceptable.

Companies will argue that they don't owe gay people anything. My response is that if you owe straight people the right to benefits, then you owe it to gay people. We are human beings too. We have thoughts and feeling too. We have dreams and hopes and relationships too. And when straight people feel they are superior to us, it only means they are inferior. Yes, if you feel superior to gay people, it's a paradox, as it means you are inferior.

Conservative companies that can afford to give gays benefits and choose not to are also inferior, I don't care how much money they have. These "morally righteous" executives only demonstrate their unrighteousness by denying us equal rights.

Companies will find, in my opinion, that their business will improve as their employee morale improves. Their employee morale will improve as companies treat their employees fairly. They will treat their employees fairly when they give their gay employees equal benefits to their straight employees. That is the only way to do good business.

How Can Gays Deal with Harassment?

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 01:37:43 -0500

Gays' situations have vastly improved over the years, and for the most part, I don't hear of adults being assaulted for being gay nearly as much as I used to. My concern is with teenagers, however, whose parents and ministers over the years have taught them that being gay is a terrible sin. These teenagers are far more likely to make a gay teenager's life miserable than adults are.

When I was a teenager, my peers made fun of me a lot. It was as if they somehow knew I was gay. I don't know how they knew, but I have said in recent posts that I have always been obviously gay, so my peers were probably in tune to my sexual orientation as well. These teenagers' parents had taught them that beig gay was wrong, and there was a high tolerance for making insulting remarks about gays and lesbians at my high school. That is probably why I found it so difficult to get any help from the teachers and administrators when I was attending Livingston Academy in Livingston, Tennessee.

When the teachers did take a stand on my behalf, their strategy was always to explain to the students that I was not gay. I was a good boy. They shouldn't call me a fag because I was not a fag. Then, of course, it turned out that I really was. So I guess I always wondered how those teachers would have responded if I had said, "Yes, I am gay." After all, they never said that it was inappropriate to call a real fag - well - a fag.

We live in a different time now than when I was in high school in the mid-nineties. Now high school students do frequently come out of the closet and date their teenage peers. While this is wonderful, I feel that the lower quality straight populations in these high schools feel so threatened by this that the likelihood of their cruelty toward gay students is even greater than when I was in high school. Also, I'm not sure that on the whole the caliber of teachers has improved, so I believe students still have homophobic teachers from time to time. These homophobic teachers, in my view, are not likely to come to the rescue of an openly gay student anymore than a teacher in Nazi Germany was likely to come to the rescue of a Jewish student whose peers tormented him.

My advice to gay teenagers that feel threatened is to call the police if they feel they are in danger and cannot trust their school's teachers and administrators to protect them. If these teenagers merely feel that other students are making their lives miserable, they might just have to live with that. Great people almost always have unhappy childhoods. The greatest time in the lives of great people is adulthood. You might simply have to suffer for a while.

Whatever you do, though, DO NOT commit suicide. We can't afford to lose you. Gay teenagers are important to humanity because you are our future leaders. You are our future artists and professionals. You are the ones that will make the world different. I thank God that the times I attempted suicide as a teenager were not successful. Don't play games with that, though. If your peers harass you, rise above them. You will show them your greatness in time. The best revenge you can get on low quality people is to be high quality.

Review of the Movie Latter Days

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:37:08 -0500

I remember watching Latter Days a few years ago and what a truly amazing movie it was. To be honest, I'm not even a big fan of movies, but I liked that one! Here's a bit of the plot:

Aaron, a Mormon missionary, moves to California to proselytize his religion. While there, he meets Christian (yes, pun intended, I'm sure), an openly gay man that makes a bet with his friends that he can seduce the very attractive Aaron and gain passage inside his pants. But then Christian - for the first time in his shallow life - falls in love with Aaron. They kiss one evening just as Aaron's roommates return home and so Aaron is sent back to his family in shame.

That's all I'm telling you; you'll have to watch the movie yourself, if you haven't seen it already! I would highly recommend you do so, as this is quite a special film. The actors are straight, but they do an excellent job of portraying same-sex love. The film is simply spectacular, and get ready to cry for joy at the end.

One thing I love about Latter Days is that it is gay literature that, for the most part, accurately portrays the pain of gay men in a religious family. I know that parents often kick gay teenagers out of the house once they find out about their children's sexual orientation. Latter Days does a great job or showing the pain Aaron feels as his family alienates him.

For my readers that don't know about gay pain, our pain stems from a collapse of our social structure. It happens to all of us whenever we muster the courage to come out of the closet. Latter Days does a very good job of demonstrating that social collapse as Aaron is thrown out of the closet by his Mormon friends. It also shows how a shallow gay man comes to terms with his own humanity and the humanity of others by dealing with his own pain in a quasi-relationship that can't seem to go anywhere because of Aaron's deep faith in God.

You can watch Latter Days on a number of levels, like all good films. Certainly you can watch it simply as an interesting and entertaining story full of drama and conflict that is beautiful resolved. But I would encourage those of you that choose to watch it to do so with an eye for the spectacular and surprising nuances that will give you a glimpse into gay pain. For my readers that are gay, I think you might even understand yourself a little better after watching this film.

For what it's worth, I recommend that everyone watch Latter Days. It is an appropriate film for any adult to watch, though it does have a mild sex scene in it. Please write to me at some point when you watch it and let me know what you thought.

The Role of the Supreme Court in Gay Rights

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:36:46 -0500
Just yesterday, I was having a lively debate with a friend of mine about the role of the Supreme Court in American life. I explained to Warren that I have very little - if any - respect for the Supreme Court because it always seems as those these nine "justices" follow their own flawed consciences more than the laws of the United States and our Constitution. I asked him, "How can a court, in good faith, decide that 'separate but equal' is constitutional?" which it did before it finally overturned that decision.
"But they overturned it," he said. He was right. And he made another excellent point. "The Supreme Court will eventually be what gives gays and lesbians our rights. They will decide that we can get married. They will decide that no one can question our right to adopt children. It will be they that make that decision. Not a president. Not Congress. Not even the people of the United States."
Egad! He was right! When trusted with the rights of minorities, when have the people ever stood up and done what was right. It was a president that freed the slaves, not the people. It was the Supreme Court that gave women the right to vote, not the people. It was the Supreme Court that denounced the farce of "separate but equal," not the people. The people are not gays' friends. Wow, I never thought of that.
All this time, I thought that at some point, when human beings became more enlightened, that we would put the whole thing to a vote and then POOF - we would have the right to marry. I have been waiting for a long time for the people to become enlightened and to help us. But Warren was right! The people don't support the rights of minorities. In a sense, that is why we have a government. We need a body to protect the minorities from mistreatment by mean-spirited majorities.
At some point in the future, if human beings live long enough, the Supreme Court will ultimately give us our rights. There will be a case, and they will hear it. They will listen to the arguments, and they will rule in our favor. Perhaps that will be fifty years from now, or a hundred. At some point, people will be embarrassed about how they treated us, just as we are embarrassed about how we treated Blacks and women when we denied them their Constitutionally guaranteed rights. Someday we will say, "How wrong we were!" even as we oppress still another minority! Amazing how we are doomed to repeat history whether or not we ignore it.
The Supreme Court, for all my disdain for this body, will at some point be our salvation. I hope I live to see that day - but I doubt it.

Do Gays Ever Find Love?

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:36:36 -0500
Here is an interesting question: Do gays ever find love? If I see an elderly straight couple, I might ask them how long they've been married. "Forty-eight years!" they'll boast. "We have seven grandchildren and a great-grandchild on the way!"
Yes, I do rarely run across a gay couple that can boast similar results. Sometimes they will say they've been together for seventeen years, and then I am deeply impressed. In fact, I am impressed with myself for managing a relationship that lasted nearly four years and ended in 2006.
It seems that gays - not lesbians as much - have a propensity for short relationships, if you can even call them that. Why is that? Why do gay men have such short relationships?
One reason is that men in general - in my humble opinion - have a sexual appetite for variety more than women. When you have nothing but men in a relationship, it seems that we will grow bored a bit faster. But then, by boasting about our long relationships, we assume that long ones are somehow better than short ones. We assume that long relationships contain a greater capacity for love than short ones. I humbly disagree.
I have seen straight couples that have been together for fifty years that - again, in my HUMBLE opinion - would have been better to divorce twenty years before. In the straight community, when marriage ends in divorce, everyone considers that marriage a failure. As I said, I had a relationship with a guy for nearly four years, and it was wonderful. I learned a lot about myself during that relationship. I grew throughout that relationship, and I continued to grow after that relationship because of that relationship. Is that not part of the purpose of relationships? To grow personally and spiritually?
Now, James and I could have remained in our relationship, but I don't think that would have done either of us justice. By the time we ended our relationship, we both had dreams and goals from which we were holding each other back from. When we ended, it was sad - it really was. And yes, even now, I miss him. But the fact is that we have both spread our wings and soared after and because of our relationship just as we did so inside our relationship.
So do gays ever find love? Yes, we find love. We have it in our long relationships and our short ones. We even have it when we have no relationships, though on a platonic level. We grow from our love and we find ourselves through our love with other men (or women, in the case of lesbians). That is the way it is and the way it should be. We don't have to strive to model our relationships - or anything for that matter - after the straight community. We can decide for ourselves what works and what doesn't. We find love no matter what the length of our relationships because love is everywhere.

The Stereotypical Difference between Gay Men and Lesbians

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 01:36:06 -0500
"Look at that little queen floating through the air over there. He looks like the epitome of fashion in his A and F clothes. Yeah, he's wearing his designer jeans and his $60 pair of flip flops. He's thin; he's probably on the crystal meth diet. I bet he goes to the club every weekend and has a new man every night."
Ever hear that said about gay men? What about the next paragraph?
"Oh man, my car's not working right now. I bet she could fix it. I'm gonna go ask her for directions to Home Depot, the place where she and her girlfriend have all their dates! I hope there's a lesbian in line when I buy my new set of weights, as I'll need her to carry them to my car. I'm not strong enough. But I'm afraid to ask her to do that for me because she might hit me with her brass knuckles."
Have you ever heard that about lesbians?
Let me tell you something about gaydar; I have found that the older I get (as you read this, I'm 31), the worse my gaydar becomes. Let me put that differently - the older I get, the more I realize how bad my gaydar always was. Yes, yes, sometimes I can tell someone is gay, but I have been known to be wrong on occasion. And sometimes I'm quite surprised when I run across someone I thought was straight that turns out to be gay. The fact is that the only way you can know for sure about someone's sexuality is for that person to simply tell you - and even then you have to assume that he or she is telling the truth! Sometimes people lie, believe it or not!
I posted a few days ago about how so many people believe that gay men act so much like women. To be honest, I don't think these stereotypes help us much - if at all. All they do is paint a picture in people's minds of what monsters we are. They think we're such freaks of nature. And we're not. We're really not!
But what if we were? Let me pose to you the question of what if we all did fit the stereotype of being gay or lesbian? Would we then be freaks of nature? What about the people - and yes they do exist - that do fit the stereotype of the "typical" gay or lesbian? Are they freaks of nature? No indeed.
Straight people might always hold to their stereotypes of us gays and lesbians, just like whites will always hold to their stereotypes of Blacks and Christians will always hold to their stereotypes of Jews. That does not, however, mean that we have to do to the same. It goes with my post the other day on how mean gays are to each other. If we can conquer our own stereotypes, we will find our situation improve.

Gay Men Are Mean to Each Other

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 01:35:43 -0500
Why? It makes me want to be all melodramatic and throw myself on the bed and cry for three days. Why are gay men so terribly mean to each other? Why?
Not convinced? Have you ever been stood up on a date? Have you ever stood anyone up on a date? Have you ever been told your behavior is too effeminate? Have you ever felt, in your own heart, disdain for men that acted "gay?" Have you ever found yourself engaged in telling gay jokes with others, regardless of those people being gay themselves or knowing that you're gay? These are all examples of self-loathing.
When we hate ourselves for being gay, it is only logical - somewhat - that we will mistreat others. We must face that fact that all our lives our families and friends have told us that homosexuality is wrong and have encouraged us to look down on gays - especially gay men. If we mistreat other gay men, however, and if they mistreat us, then we will find ourselves in a downward spiral that leads us to such bitterness that we will never obtain the respect we so crave from the straight community.
I encourage gay men all the time to treat each other with respect. Be kind. Be courteous. Be civil. Keep your appointments. Show up on time for your dates. Suspend text messaging during your dinners with each other. Don't take cell phone calls when you're on dates. Be absolutely, flawlessly polite. Esteem him and let him esteem you. This is the only way that our situation in this country will continue to improve. How can we expect straight people to be kind to us if we are not even kind to each other?
"But everyone is so mean to me!" you say. "These guys online aren't worth the spit in my mouth. All they want is sex. They don't care about me!" So care about them. Care about them so you can care about yourself. If you are greater than the people online, then accept that fact gracefully. There are plenty of shallow gay men out there that obsess incessantly over their clothes, their careers, and their sexual conquests. Make sure that you're not one of those gay men. Yes, I agree that such people give us all a bad name, but you don't have to be like that! So don't be. Treat the "losers" - for lack of a better word - with kindness. Let their character be inferior to yours and treat them with kindness and respect anyway.
That is not to say you have to pander to them. Yes, in the gay community we are quite guilty of youth worship and beauty worship. We can give people the respect they deserve as human beings without gushing, but also without disdain. It's a delicate balancing act, and it can be confusing at times, but it's worth the effort. If you respect others, they will come to respect themselves - and then each other. It's a wonderful way to "pay it forward" like the movie that came out several years ago. Ghandi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." Yes, we can take responsibility for changing things one step and one person at a time. Let's do that. Will you make that covenant with me?

Overcoming the Feminine Stereotype

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 01:35:21 -0500
If you saw me in public, chances are you would immediately know that I'm gay. That's not because I go around wearing peacock feathers and a flexing my wrist, saying, "Girl, I LOVE that dress!" As a friend of mine once put it, I'm not flamboyantly gay, but I'm obviously gay.
Being obviously gay, people often question my manhood. They say that I can't truly be a man if I am so obviously gay. Some former friends of mine used to always call me a woman. To be honest, - and I don't think I'm just saying this to defend myself - I don't think I act particularly like a woman. Yes, it's obvious that I'm gay, but I just don't think I act like a woman.
So what does it mean to be obviously gay? To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what the answer to that question is. I wear men's clothes. I walk like a man (a sophisticated one). I talk like a man; I have a middle tenor voice. I just don't think I act or look like a woman.
The idea that obviously gay men are effeminate, in my humble opinion, is incorrect. I think obviously gay men act like obviously gay men. People that are in tune to issues of homosexuality can point us out. That is, as I said, because we act like gay men, not like women.
Those that would say we act like women do so because they strive to take from us the fact that we are men. They try to take our manhood away from us as a form of snobbery, saying that our sexual relations are not equal to theirs. Since these same people often do not believe that women are equal to men, they put gays in the same "inferior" category as women.
Let me make this perfectly clear. Gay men do not necessarily act like women. Our conditioning over time has led us to this highly illogical conclusion. It's amazing that we will believe anything we are told if we are told long enough. Gay men simply do not act like women - but even if we did, that would not make us inferior. Women are not inferior to men anymore more than gay men are inferior to straight men.

Dare to Create Your Own Argument

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 01:34:56 -0500
I have a former friend that prided himself on being a great debater. He felt he could attack anyone's argument that dared engage him, but he was often wrong. To be honest, he really was good at destroying other people's arguments, but I think most reasonably intelligent people can find holes in an argument.
I believe the true mark of a great debater is the fact that he or she can create an argument rather than simply rebutting someone else's. How often I have talked to Christians about their religion, and they have told me, "Well, tell me why you don't believe in God, and then I'll tell you where you're wrong." To be honest, this line of argument does not impress me. If I want to convince you to join my church, then it is my responsibility to make a case for you to do so, and it is your privilege to question my arguments.
Have you ever run across the great interrogator? I mean someone that demands that you prove your point without ever taking on the intellectual challenge of proving his. That is what my friend seemed to do? He would stand over me and demand that "explain to him" why I thought this or that. He would never construct his own argument! He would only feed off of the arguments of others and then find holes in those arguments. This is the making of a weak debater.
I believe that arguments are rarely ever necessary, and I am perfectly comfortable simply disagreeing with others from time to time. Though if you are the sort that must make your point, then make it. But don't demand that others fumble around in an argument that only you care about so you can tear them apart without exhibiting any intellectual prowess of your own.

Managers Do Not Make Themselves

Sat, 5 Dec 2009 01:34:44 -0500
I have a hard time hiding my disdain for managers while everyone else talks about how wonderful they are. "We are the professionals!" they will say. "Just look at us. Look at our highly cerebral work. Look at the all the good we do for our companies. (Sigh) We are such GREAT professionals!"
Nonsense.
You are a manager because someone made you one. The president of the company might have made you a manager because you're competent, or perhaps because he owed you a political favor. Maybe you're his daughter. Maybe you bring in more business than everyone else. Maybe you play golf with him. Regardless of the reason, someone else made you a manager, and if that person had not given you that label, you would not be a manager.
That said, managers have a lot of opportunity to do some good, but they are far inferior to nearly any other profession. Artists must make art and then have that art either accepted or spat upon by the public. The same is true of writers and musicians. Entrepreneurs must take inordinate risks with their own - and sometimes others' - money. They must work hard to create a business and live with the consequences if they fail. Front line employees must also be productive. They are often hired because they demonstrate their competence first. But managers - no. Managers are given their label by others often without having earned that label. So yes, I'm a bit hard on managers that are slackers, incompetent, and punish their employees too much. I am hard on them because they have immense responsibility and often do not deliver on that responsibility. I am hard on them because they often fail - without humility or apology.
In the business community, the old saying goes, "It's not what you know, but who you know." My question is this: Why is that? Why can't business choose the most competent people to be managers of people? Why don't they care enough to put highly qualified people in those places? If someone who is quite competent aspires to be a manager, that person often finds it nearly impossible to break into the field of management without first "knowing someone." That is sad.
Not that anyone is out to impress me, but if you want to do so, please don't tell me you're a manager.

Leave the Seat Up

Thu, 3 Dec 2009 01:26:50 -0500
I know, this is a gay themed blog, and you're probably wondering what in the name of God the name of this post has to do with homosexual issues of our day. The answer is NOTHING. I've decided to veer from the common theme of this blog today and discuss another of my favorite topics. Toilet seats.
Well, it's not really one of my favorite topics. But I do have a few very good ideas about them. You see, when I was a child, my mother taught me that when I go to the bathroom, that I should lift the sea before peeing (that was the first lesson I had to master) and then put the seat down afterward (the second lesson). Now I won't get into hand washing because that took even longer for me to master as a child, but putting the seat back down after I was finished was so ingrained into me that to this day I still generally do it.
Putting the seat down after peeing is a courtesy to women, and it's a good thing to do at home. But here is the interesting thing - men and women don't use the same bathrooms in public. As I write this, I'm at Starbucks sipping on a cup of coffee that is running through my system so fast that I find I have to get up and go to the bathroom practically every time I finish writing one of these articles.
When I go to the bathroom, I leave the seat up. Why? Because men need the seat up most of the time. Who wants to pee all over the toilet seat. But the fact is, even with good hand washing no one wants to touch the toilet seat. Many men, if upon walking into the bathroom find the toilet seat down, will simply leave it down and get a few drops all over it. Then eventually a man is going to go into the bathroom to have a bowel movement and see that there is pee all over the seat. In that situation, unless it's an emergency, he's probably just going to pass up the opportunity to defecate, and will wait until he gets home.
Let's explore a possible solution to this problem. Let's say Fred goes to the men's bathroom and then finds the seat UP. He's going to pee, and then he will wash his hands and leave the seat UP. Then he will leave. Next George goes in and he also finds the seat UP. Then he pees, washes his hands, and leaves. Next Steve goes into the bathroom, and he finds the seat UP. Steve actually needs to have a bowel movement so he puts the seat DOWN, and upon doing so is able to sit on a seat free of any urine spills. Steve has his bowel movement, wipes, and the puts the seat UP. After all, why leave it down since most men going to the bathroom simply pee and leave?
Isn't this so much more logical than the typical "put the seat down" mentality that women have taught us over the years? Even if we men cannot make this standard practice, we can at least practice it ourselves. When I go to a public men's room and find the seat down, I put it up before I pee and then I leave it up. I'm sure the men that follow, whether peeing or having a bowel movement, greatly appreciate that.
Incidentally, as I was going to the men's room at Starbucks a moment ago, a woman was coming out of the ladies' room. I have to admit I took a quick peek in the ladies' room as the door was closing (there was no one in there, of course) and I noticed that the toilet in the ladies' room is also adjustable. Now, I'm going to ask you a question, and if you want to think about it I suppose you have your whole life to do so before you answer - but I'm not aware of any reason that women have to ever lift the toilet seat, and I'm not aware that men ever use women's restrooms. So - why in the name of God is there a liftable toilet seat in the ladies' room at Starbucks, or anywhere for that matter?

How Many Times Must I Tell You that Being Gay Is Not a Choice?

Tue, 1 Dec 2009 01:26:11 -0500
Christians argue that we gays live in sin. They argue that we are bad people that have turned away from the natural laws of God. So ask them: How many times must I tell you that being gay is not a choice? Let me say that again. Being gay is NOT a choice.
And who would choose it? Would the straight Christians? What truly straight man would have sex with another man? Yet this absurd occurrence is what Christians argue that we gay men do. They say that we are naturally straight, that we are naturally attracted to women, and that we choose to engage in sexual activity with other men, an act that would disgust most straight men.
So occasionally I ask Christians why we would do that? Why would a gay man choose to be gay? A lot of times they simply tell me they don't know, which I find unacceptable. If Christians are going to lobby this country's legislators to deny us the right to marry and the right to adopt, then I think they owe us a plausible and logical explanation as to why naturally straight men would choose to have sex with other men. And good luck finding a logical reason because to date I have not found one. And for that matter, I did not choose to be gay. It happened. It just happened.
Some Christians will say that we choose to be gay because we are naturally deviant people and we want to do those things that God does not want us to do. Let me tell you something about what God wants me to do. I'm not terribly concerned about it. I make my own destiny. But just as I have no desire to do those things that the Christians' god wants me to do, neither do I have such disdain for this god that I would actively choose to do something that it does not want me to do. No offense to their god, but I'm not really that concerned about its will for me. I don't worship the Christian god. I don't worship any god. I commune with the spirit world via meditation and Tarot reading. I communicate with my higher self and with those spirits that have chosen to accompany me in my journey on this planet for all the time that I'm here, but I do not worship them, nor do they worship me. All of us, human and spirit, are sophisticated enough not to need or want to be worshiped. We have a loving and caring relationship. I really enjoy talking to those spirits and listening to what they have to say to me, but I don't think any of them expect to be worshiped and adored. That would be akin to cheerleaders expecting the football team to worship them. The cheerleaders go to the games to support the football team, not so the football team will adore them. Both the cheerleaders and the football players have a function, and both fulfills their function as long as necessary. There is no need for worship between them, and honestly the same relationship exists between the beings in the physical plane and those in the spiritual plane.
Now with all that said, neither the spiritual beings around me nor I have any concern about my sexual orientation. We don't have time. We are too busy working together to make a meaningful contribution to the world. We are too busy trying to make our way through the world and hopefully improve the lives of as many physical and spiritual beings as possible. That is our goal, and it is what we do.
So because we don't care about sexual orientation and because we are not interested in pleasing or making angry some petty god that hardly even exists, I can honestly say that I did not take that into consideration as I gay man, and indeed, I did not choose to be a gay man. For that matter, you did not choose to be gay or straight either. Think about it. I mean, really, give it some thought. Did you choose your sexual orientation? Does anyone? It is better to use logic when arriving at a conclusion about the decisions that people make in their lives. And there is neither logic nor merit to the argument that gays choose their sexual orientation.

Help for Those with HIV

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:25:42 -0500
Perhaps the most heart breaking tragedy that occurs in the lives of gay men in the Twenty-first Century is the development and pandemic of HIV. Our society in the United States has always attributed, and to some extent, blamed HIV on gay men. HIV is deadly, but not even as deadly as cancer and hepatitis. Yet, it has such a stigma associated with it that men with HIV often feel a great deal of shame and isolation because of the disease, even from their own gay community.
The fact is that there is help for men with HIV. There are support groups. There are loving people (though please skip the Christians on this) that will be kind and loving to you. There are those that will give you the love that you deserve.
Ahh, you have a problem with deserving love? You think because you got HIV from having sex, something that any and every reasonable adult has done, that you don't deserve love. That you deserve to live in shame and guilt and that you are a bad person. This is NOT TRUE!
You can get all the support you want, but the first and the most important support you must receive is from yourself. You must be willing to forgive yourself. You are NOT a bad person for having sex. You are NOT a bad person for getting caught up in the passion of sex and having it without protection. You are NOT a bad person for having contracted HIV, NOR are you a dirty, unlovable, terrible, or despicable person. You ARE a person of great value. You STILL have a contribution to make in the world. People DO LOVE you, even if you cannot see it. I know that is easy for me to say; as far as I know I do not have HIV. But it pains me, torments me, haunts me that gay men feel such pain, torment and haunting from having a disease that is no deadlier or more or less common than cancer, heart disease, or hypertension.
"But it's my fault! I did this to myself!" you say. There is an element of truth to that because HIV is something that humans acquire from some action. But remember, all you did was have sex. Or maybe you used a dirty needle. But you do NOT have to judge yourself NOR MUST YOU accept the judgments of others. Remember, people that smoke for thirty years often get lung cancer, and they gave themselves that lung cancer. People drink for thirty years and give themselves liver disease. People eat high fat, low fiber foods for thirty years and get essentially no meaningful exercise and then give themselves heart disease and strokes. And no matter what people want to say or how politically incorrect it is that I say this, those diseases are at least as much their fault, if not more so, as your HIV is your fault. Smoking and drinking for thirty years is highly risky and unintelligent behavior. Having sex is not. Having sex is a natural expression of love between consenting people. You are NOT a bad person for having done this. You are NOT a bad person. You ARE a GOOD person. And if anyone tells you otherwise, then you will know the low caliber person you're talking to.
I would love to see a cure or vaccine for HIV come into the world before I die, and I hope I live to see that day. I think that will be a day of rejoicing for gay men because then we will be a step closer to eradicating a disease that has not only made us suffer, but has given ammunition to those religious zealots that argue homosexuality is an abomination and that HIV is a punishment for gays.
If you have HIV, please know that there is at least one person in the world that will validate you. I will. I will stand with you because I know very well that it could be me. I know that I could get HIV, and I know how important it would be for me to be loving and accepting toward myself if I were ever to get it. I know that as a sexual active gay man, even practicing safe sex does not guarantee that I will never acquire the disease. And I know that I am a good person just like you are a good person, and I hope and pray that if I ever get HIV that I will be able to maintain my self esteem after the shock and grief wear off. So for this moment, I will affirm and esteem you if you have it. You are not alone, and you are NOT a bad person. God bless you.

The Irony of Anti-Christian Behavior

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:25:16 -0500
Let's talk about the irony of anti-Christian behavior for a moment. Suppose I were to ask a Christian the following question: What sorts of things should Christians do? Or rather, how should Christians behave in their normal lives?
I would probably get a variety of responses, but one thing that would constantly come up, I believe, is, "Christians should always behave in loving ways toward everyone."
Now, I might chance to ask in a situation like that, "What about those that you don't like or don't approve of? Should you also be loving to them?"
"Oh yes!" they would respond. "Especially them! God loves everyone! It is an exercise in our humanity to give love to those that we don't agree with and don't approve of! That's what makes us Christians! Indeed, that's what makes Christianity different from other, more inferior religions!"
"Oh," I would probably respond. Then I would say, "What about gays? Should you give them love?"
"Oh yes!" they would respond. "Even perverts engaged in heinous and devious lifestyles abhorrent to God should receive our love. How else can they enjoy life before God sends them to burn and suffer in the Lake of Fire?"
"Of course," I would say to them. "But help me understand this one thing. How is it loving for God to send them to Hell? I mean, not to question God's will or anything like that, but isn't that a little harsh even for God?”
"No no," the Christian would say. "We love the sinner and hate the sin. But if gays do not choose to turn away from their truly Satanic lifestyles, then they choose to go to Hell because their lust burns after those of their own sex, and this is an abomination!"
"Ah yes," I would say. "But at least you love gay people."
"Oh yes, aren't you glad that we are such a loving religion?"
"It just doesn't seem loving to me," I would say. "I mean, God is going to send people to Hell because of consenting sex between adults? It just doesn't make sense. Can you help me understand..?"
"Oh no!" the Christian would respond. "You're discriminating against me because of my faith. It's people like you that make Christians' lives so hard!"
"Well, I'm not trying to discriminate. I just want to understand."
"Well," the Christian would say, "if everyone would just do what WE CHRISTIANS think they should do, the world would be a much better place! If only you gay people understood the love the Christ offers you before you go to Hell!"
"But I'm not a Christian," I would say. "I just don't feel like I should have to follow Christian rules since I don't practice your religion."
"Well!" the Christian would say with contempt. "You're just not enlightened or intelligent, I can see. I don't think you and I should talk anymore since you won't do what I WANT you to do!"
Then I would probably sigh. "I'm sorry, I just don't think this is going anywhere."
"That's your fault!" the Christian would say. "If you would just see things from my perfect perspective and realized what a terrible sin homosexuality is, then you could pray for God to take away your homosexuality and then you could go to Heaven and spend eternity with the Christians!"
No thanks, I'd honestly rather go to Hell. I think it would be hell if I had to spend eternity with Christians. Honestly, while there is some element of parity in the dialogue above, I don't think such a discussion is completely off target. Christians are not known for being loving and highly mature people. They try to legislate their own rules into our government so that even non-Christians have to follow them. They simplify issues to the extent that they would silence any voice that opposes their own. Thank God our founding fathers put freedom of speech into the Bill of Rights because I don't think Christians today would choose to do that.
It is too bad that the greatest opponent of equal rights I the country is, and has always been, the very religion that claims to have a monopoly on love and on God. I hope that we are all able to see the irony and hypocrisy in this horrid religion before we become complacent and allow it to destroy us. Because it will unless we continue speaking out against Christianity - the religion of hate.

Is It Good for Gay Men to Make Friends with Straight Men?

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:24:49 -0500
Until recently, I had a great deal of disdain for straight men. I tended to view them as people that had made my life a living hell as a child, and - I hesitate to say, but it's true - I tended to view them as a bit inferior.
Nooooooooooooooo. I know, those of you that keep up with this blog are probably about to wet your pants that I would say anything so blatantly obvious. But the fact is that I have felt all my life that straight men, for the most part, have made life difficult for gay men because they are so disdainful of us and want to deny us our rights. I have had a tendency even to look down on members of my own family, but in all fairness my family has a tendency to look down on me as well. I still love them though.
But here's an interesting story. I went on Craig's List a few weeks ago and put an advertisement in the "Platonic" section, male for male, saying that I was a writer looking for other writers to be friends with. I also mentioned that I prefer making friends with gay men because I am gay and I just feel more comfortable with those that I have that in common with.
I got several responses to the ad, most of which never really went anywhere even after I met with them. But surprisingly, I got an email from a straight man that said he was a writer. He also mentioned directly in the email that he was straight but asked if I wouldn’t mind making an exception to talk to him.
Being the softy that I can be, I said yes, and "What can it hurt?" He works night shift at a motel and mentioned that it was always fine for me to come by while he was working, so I did one night. We spent several hours talking about writing and life and philosophy and anything you can imagine. And after it was over, I have to admit I was moved. I was actually meeting a man for the first time in a LONG time who was not going to have any aspect of sexual thought with me. He would not sit there and wonder if he could have sex with me. He would not spend as much energy as possible trying to shew me out the door because he wasn't sexually attracted to me either. In a way, it was a beautiful experience because there was NO element of sex involved in the meeting. Even priding myself on not being a terribly shallow person, I have to admit that this does not happen very often when I go to meet other gay men. Even when I meet gay men that are in relationships or gay men that are significantly older, or any other gay men for that matter, there always seems to be an element of sexual judgment involved.
If you had asked me six months ago if I would be open to quality acquaintances with straight me, I probably would have shrugged and said, "I don't know. Maybe." But now that I have met this gentleman and have surprisingly a lot in common with him, I have to say I have a newfound respect for gay men. I have to admit, I'm still a little nervous around straight men and am probably far more formal and distant around them than I would be around gay men even now, but I am honored that I could have such an experience with a straight man where we got together and just talked about our interests with nor ulterior motives involved. It was refreshing.

Why Gays Must Work for Companies that Appreciate Us

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:24:22 -0500
I remember in the 90's when the Southern Baptist Convention staged a boycott on Disney because the company decided to begin granting employee benefits to gay and lesbian couples. I wish I could just take all the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention and put them in a cage so I can keep them and laugh at them. I have always found such anti-Christian behavior among Christian leaders to be - in addition to ironic and deplorable - quite funny actually. The fact that the leaders of the largest Christian denomination in the country would engage themselves in such mean spirited behavior is - among other things - really quite funny. I wonder if Jesus was as mean as these people when he was living.
That said, I think it is very important that gays and lesbians work for such companies as Disney and others that have formal policies against our discrimination. The fact is that if a company does not have such a policy, then they are allowing the ugly head of discrimination to show its face in the workplace, and such companies do not deserve high quality employees such as many gays and lesbians are.
You might expect that I would recommend working for such companies because such would probably yield that our lives will be better. However, in addition to making our own lives better, I believe that working for such companies will make those companies better and even richer. Let me put it this way: Why would a gay or lesbian go to work for a bigot to make him or her rich when that bigot cares nothing about gays or lesbians and in fact might want to hurt us and take our rights away? It doesn’t make sense.
Let me say this - there is nothing inherently wrong with discrimination. Employers and indeed employees engage in discrimination all the time. For example, if I were to apply to be the Chancellor of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, the would not hire me - they would discriminate against me. Why? It's not that they hate gays - in fact they don't - but it's because I don't have Ph.D. I have never taught at a university. I don't have any experience in university administration. I don't even have the political connections necessary to qualify for such a position. This is discrimination, but it's not illegal discrimination or even unreasonable discrimination. There is nothing wrong with wanting to hire someone that is highly qualified to do a job. Because I am not qualified to be the Chancellor of Vanderbilt University, then they're not going to hire me. That's perfectly fine.
Discrimination becomes a problem when it is unreasonable, when it is non meritorious discrimination. I think we're all sophisticated enough to know that no one is qualified to do every job. Not every job applicant for any job is going to be highly qualified. And not every job applicant is going to be the best. That is the nature of life. But when a company - any company - engages in non meritorious discrimination to promote political and religious agendas that have nothing to do with that company but instead with the personal beliefs of a hiring manager, then that company has diminished its creditability whether its personnel wants to believe it or not. It's true. And such companies don't deserve to be able to hire you and me. I'll go apply at companies that accept gay people, thanks so much. HCA, the military, and other companies and organizations that openly discriminate for reasons other than merit can hire someone else, and I hope they're very happy with the employees that they hire. But not only will I not accept a job with them (which they are fine with), I will not apply with them (which they are also fine with) and I have will absolutely nothing positive to say about them. Let me say this again so there is no confusion or misunderstanding as to what my humble opinion is: Companies whose personnel engage in non-meritorious discrimination are inferior companies. There is nothing we can do to deny or change this. There is not point is trying to say that it's not true because it is. I cannot apologize for speaking the truth. If it makes Bill Frist angry that I say HCA is an inferior, low quality company with inferior, low quality managers and employees, then so be it. I don't think Bill Frist and I are going to miss each other's help anyway.
No thank you, I choose to go to work for companies where I feel a connection with the personnel, companies whose personnel and managers accept me for who I am - a competent and professional person that can do my work well and make an extraordinary contribution regardless of my homosexuality. I have met plenty of low quality, inferior people in my life, and at this point, I don't need to meet or work with anymore. If a company discriminates against gay people, I have no desire to work for them. For what it's worth, whether you're gay or straight, I would strongly discourage you from working for such companies either.

How to Have a Happy Gay Household

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:23:55 -0500
In my humble experience, gays have somewhat of a risk for abusive and unsuccessful relationships because of the abuse and lack of validation we have received from the homophobic straight community. I believe that gays and lesbians often do not receive the natural education of how to have a successful relationship because we do not grow up dating people that we are attracted to. Instead we, as children, date people of the opposite sex, never getting our little hearts broken, never learning the appropriate nature of same sex relationships, never learning - well - anything about how to communicate with a romantic partner. Therefore, as adults, we face issues in getting along with romantic partners because we have never really done it before.
I remember when I first dated my ex - the only ex I currently have. I have to say that we had a fantastic relationship because we set up a number of rules at the beginning. Neither of us was or is perfect, but going through our relationship for over three years, I believe we both learned a great deal about ourselves and I believe we both grew as people. That is the purpose of relationships.
One of our saving graces was the fact that we established a rule at the beginning of our relationship that we would never NEVER scream at each other. We agreed that screaming has its purposes - to talk to people that are not physically near you, prevent a child from running into traffic etc. But I believe the psychological goal of screaming at your partner is to drown him or her out and only allow yourself to be heard. That said, if you really love a man or a woman, you must allow that person to have a voice equal to your own. Because we established this rule at the beginning of our relationship, we never screamed at each other, and that was a truly beautiful aspect of our time together. Certainly we became angry from time to time. Certainly we had arguments and disagreements. Certainly we intensified our voices from time to time, but we never raised them. Because we never raised our voices, we gave each other an equal voice and were able to spare ourselves the anger and resentment that frequently comes - not from disagreements - but simply from the disrespect involved in raising the voice.
I believe very strongly that when two men or two women (or for that matter, a man and a women) begin a relationship, it is quite important to openly establish the boundaries of the relationship and to negotiate what the couple believes is appropriate behavior. Again, it doesn't matter what the rules are as much as it matters that the couple can agree on the rules. Establishing the rules of a relationship yields that you are simultaneously establishing the expectations of the relationship. When expectations are established, it cuts down on the drama of the relationship and essentially makes life more pleasant, more loving and… and… and more exciting.
Exciting?
Yes, exciting. Life was meant to be exciting sometimes, and one aspect of the excitement of life must be found in our romantic relationships. Some people might believe it is far more exciting to have screaming matches with their partners, but I have found such behavior draining and that it causes resentment that only hurts relationships of all kinds. I save my excitement for nice dinners, fun activities, and passionate sex. These things make relationships so much more exciting and interesting than fighting all the time.
Therefore, if you want to have a loving gay relationship - or straight relationship - it is critical to set the boundaries and expectations of the relationship as soon as possible. If you have never done so - whether your relationship has lasted one month or twenty years - you might consider going ahead and doing so. It can't hurt. The longer you've been together, the more tumultuous you might find the establishment of boundaries to be because both partners are more set in their ways. But if both partners make a good faith effort to follow the guidelines that they establish together, then the relationship will surely go more smoothly and be more interesting. And then, you're more likely to have established a happy household.

The Advantages of Being a Gay Parent

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:23:18 -0500
I've heard it so many times. "I don't think gays should be near a child." In fact, I heard through the grapevine that one of our stupid state senators said that about gays in my own beloved state of Tennessee. If you think it's unfair for me to say that, try reading some of the fluff they write in the newspapers and listening to some of the things they say during their reelection campaigns. If you are not able to see that what they're specifically saying is just moronic, then pay attention to their inferior grammar.
"Oh Andy, you're awfully mad at the senators. What did they do to you?" Good question - I'll tell you. The fact is that our stupid state senators, some of the lowest quality human beings to crawl the earth, seem to do whatever they can think of to make gays' lives in this state as miserable as possible. Now, I won't even go into the fact that these same senators and representatives introduced and succeeded in passing a Constitutional amendment that yields marriage in the state of Tennessee will be between one man and one woman - or that they successfully passed this amendment with 80% of the vote. When I think about the uneducated citizens of this beloved state, I just want to cry for them. I view them with pity, but I view the leaders with disgust and contempt.
One reason I become so angry with them is that it seems every year they try to pass legislation that denies gays the right to adopt children. They argue that gays are unfit parents.
As a side note, it's rather reprehensible that state leaders would use mechanisms of political posturing to further their campaigns at the expense of children in need of loving homes, which are in short supply and great demand in Tennessee. It is sad - very sad - that these leaders use arguments even from the Christian Bible to support their views that gays should not be caregivers to children. These leaders might say they believe we're pedophiles, or worse in their minds, that we will somehow recruit these children to also be gay.
I have found it nearly impossible over the years to argue with statements that have no basis in logic. If someone says, "The sky is green," how do you refute that? All I can really say is, "No, the sky is blue." But what other argument can you come up with to prove that? So when our state's leaders come to the public with such ridiculous arguments as the ones described above, all we can really say is, "No, that's just not true." But it's no secret that in Tennessee we have a high percentage of citizens that have no meaningful education and, therefore, are easily swayed by such ludicrous arguments.
So the purpose of this post, in an effort to use a substantive argument to refute the ridiculous ones that say we gays should not be parents, is to prove that gays actually have distinct advantages to being good parents.
Gays are often good parents because we understand what it is to not be accepted. We grew up gay in a straight society, and we have all seen the bitter, ugly side of discrimination. Some of us have been kicked out of the house as teenagers simply because someone at school called us a fag. That said, we are going to be so much more supportive of our children when they inevitably run across cruelty in their schools for reasons other than homosexuality. Let's face it. Children are mean, and they learn to be mean from their parents. So when a bully walks up to a child that wears glasses so he can read his assignments and calls him "four eyes" or whatever stupid phrase bullies use these days, a gay parent is going to a) be more sensitive to the pain that child is going through, and b) more easily and compellingly explain, in language the child can comprehend, that such terms abuse is meaningless in the eyes of God and when taken into consideration with that child's great worth as a human being. The secondary benefit of gays' understanding of children's pain is that when the child grows up, he or she will be a better parent for having had such great gay parents. But then, the fact that these children will be such great parents probably scares homophobic people quite a bit because they feel like they should be the only good parents.
Gay parents are also well equipped to take care of children because we are at least as loving people as straight people. We give love freely, and we give it because we understand what it is to have love denied to us. When we were children, we suffered, so we know how to help the children we raise understand their great worth, even if we cannot cause them to avoid that suffering.
I hope that as time goes on, Christians and other homophobic people will come to accept us more as the good parents that we can be. I believe that within the next fifty years - probably shortly after I am dead - that society will view homophobia the same way it views racism - as an archaic and unintelligent school of thought. I wish I could live to see that day, but I do believe that it is coming.
Gays are good parents. We have the natural ability to care for children, just like straight people. I hope that eventually, in my beloved state of Tennessee, that our leaders will suspend their need to be reelected at all cost and begin to show courage and stand up for the things that are truly right. We Tennesseans deserve higher quality leaders; fortunately, as I have said, I believe that day is coming.

Mentioning You Are Gay in a Job Interview

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:22:42 -0500
"Say only the right things!" career counselors scream at me as they beat my head with a copy of 101 Perfect Interview Questions or whatever similar title actually exists.
"But they need to know I'm gay," I might respond. "I need them to know I'm gay. They're going to find out eventually anyway."
And it's true. I'm one of those people that if I walked within 100 feet of a blind, retarded chimpanzee, he would probably know that I'm gay. Now, I don't think I'm flamboyantly gay, but I think it's safe to say that I'm quite obviously gay. Fair enough?
I have gone to a lot of job interviews in my life, being the infamous "job hopper" that HR professionals so often talk about with such great disgust. I suppose it's a bit of an irony that I do so well in job interview despite that. Employers that don't want to hire me tend to not want to do so because I do have such a history of job hopping. The other irony is that this job hopping has taught me so much and made me so much more qualified and skilled that when employers do choose to hire me for some administrative task, they are often pleasantly surprised at how efficient and knowledgeable I am with programs like Microsoft Word and Excel.
But the question before me today is: Is it a good idea or a bad idea to mention in a job interview that you're gay? I'm going to see what the best answer to that question is.
Earlier in this article I talked about the blind retarded chimpanzee that would know I was gay, so you can imagine that an interviewer is going to be so much more likely to know from the moment he or she meets me. From that perspective, I have found that it isn't necessary for me to mention it. Not only will my coworkers know that I'm gay when I am hired, but my interviewer will know the moment we meet. Believe it or not, I have actually found that their knowing I'm gay has helped me in the past. Sometimes gay men can have quite a powerful connection with people that are sympathetic to our pain. I have found straight women that are minorities or that have been cheated on by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives often have a very powerful connection with gay men. These women are a lot like us in that they want to be appreciated. Without playing to our stereotype too much, I think it's very true that we are at least three times more likely to notice their shoes and their hair than a straight man. That said, I think when interviewing with someone that you intuitively feel is going to be sympathetic to our pain, it is a good idea to let that interviewer know you're gay.
Like I said, it's obvious with me, but there are a lot of gay men that are neither flamboyantly gay nor obviously gay. In an interview where one of these gay men are interviewing, they might ask me how they can let the interviewer know that they're gay. First, let me discourage you from going to the interview, holding out your hand to shake the interviewer's hand, and saying, "Hi, my name is John Smith, and I'm gay." Such an introduction is just nonsense. In a perfect world (not that the world is not perfect, of course) the interviewer will mainly be interested in whether or not you can do the job, not an announcement that you are gay. Being gay is just a part of who you are, not everything.
So here is a technique I have used in the past that seemed to work. I simply make a statement that makes my homosexuality obvious without actually saying that I'm gay. For example, if I want to tell someone that the weather was sunny yesterday, I don't have to simply say, "The weather was sunny yesterday." Instead, I can say, "I really enjoyed riding my bicycle around my neighborhood yesterday because I love riding when it's bright."
Interviews are a lot less formal than they used to be, so you can throw out these "hints" (for lack of a better word) very easily. In recent years, I find that interviewers are just as likely to talk about a good movie they've seen recently as they are about the nature of the work of a position for which they are interviewing. Use these cues. If the interviewer says, "So you're new to the area? How do you like living in (insert city name here) so far?" You might respond, "I love it, and so does my partner. We really like the selection of restaurants you have here." Or you can say something else that is true for your situation.
Once you say that, whatever the interviewer chooses to say next, he or she will immediately know that you're gay. Straight people never refer to their partners as partners. Never. Gay people do.
On a lighter note, if the interview is going very well, you might say something is "fabulous." Fabulous is only a part of gay lexicon; straight men never use the word fabulous for anything. Ridiculous, you might say, and that is fine. But getting a job involves creativity and throwing the word fabulous out in a job interview is one way to get the interviewer to know that you're gay.
“Buy why?" you ask. "Why would I want to sabotage my chances of getting a job like that?" You're only sabotaging your chances of getting a job with a bigoted employers that do not deserve high quality employees such as yourself. What happens if you try to keep your homosexuality a secret? First of all, your employer will eventually find out, and either fire you or discriminate against you and make your life a living hell. And even if the employer does not find out if you're one of the "straight acting" gays in this world, you're just being inauthentic and one very important quality of a powerful, beautiful, and courageous person is authenticity. Don't be some worthless person. Grow a set (forgive the colloquialism) and live your life in a courageous and authentic fashion.
"But I need a job. Any job! Even if they don't like the fact that I'm gay. I just need money. " Oh, I've heard that before. You sell yourself short. There are employers of professionals of all levels that will hire and appreciate gay people. Work for them. Don't go work for some crappy, homophobic employer. We humans have the amazing ability to survive hard circumstances, though we also have a bit of melodrama inside us that often makes us think we can't. When you feel you are out of options for survival, you almost never are. Again, grow a set. You don't have to live in that great house. You CAN move to a smaller apartment. You CAN lower the quality of the food you eat for a while. Indeed, you CAN suffer for a while, and you might even be a stronger person for it. But if you're going to suffer a hard time anyway, do it because you're courageous, not because you're a coward.
So my advice is, yes, let the interviewer know you're gay, by whatever means you feel are appropriate in that situation. If they don't want to hire you because you're gay, then you really shouldn't want to work for them anyway.

The Ugly Side of Workplace Discrimination against Gays and Lesbians

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:22:08 -0500
For those of you that think that gays and lesbians do not experience the ugly effects of discrimination in the workplace, let me see if I can dispel that your theory. Because I believe that everyone should be willing to accept accountability for their actions, negative or positive, I have chosen to use the real names of companies in this post, so beware.
Let's start with our believed HCA - the brainchild of Bill Frist, conservative senator and doctor from my own beloved state of Tennessee. I had the opportunity to work in a temporary position with HCA's accounts payable department at Maryland Farms in Brentwood, Tennessee, where discrimination against gays and lesbians was as blatant as it was hideous. It was so hideous and blatant, in fact, that even I was surprised at how obsessed the clerks there were with the concept of homosexuality.
There was one particular incident there where several of the clerks were standing around my cubicle (although I was not involved in the discussion) gossiping about one of their coworkers who they thought was gay. This particular man had a girlfriend at the time, and for what it's worth he did not strike me as being gay, though we never know. But I will never forget just how mean those clerks' tones of voice and their comments seemed as they cackled around the cubicle about how "gay acting" this particular employee was. There were even managers within earshot who opted against putting a stop to this abuse.
Now shame on me as well - you'll notice I did not say anything. I hope at this point in my life, several years after this incident occurred, that I would say something. I believe the best way to fight such mean spirited behavior is to introduce an element of shame to their hearts. If I had it to do over, I hope I would have said something like this:
"Excuse me. I respect everyone's right to have his or her own opinions and discuss them freely; however, I don't believe this is the appropriate place for you to have this discussion because my coworkers' sexual orientations and sexual practices are neither my business nor of concern to me. If you feel that his sexual orientation is your business, however, I would appreciate it if you would go into the break room and discuss this matter so I will not be able to hear it and can therefore focus on my work. Incidentally, if you have questions about his sexual orientation and if you really do feel that you have a right to this information, you would probably be better off to simply ask him rather than speculating among yourselves."
Now, after their eyes got really wide, and their faces got really red, I'm not entirely sure what would have happened. Knowing this particular low quality group of people, I would not have been at all surprised had they engaged in some element of violence with me. And I WOULD have been surprised had I been allowed to return to work the next day.
One company that greatly surprised me, because it is also a highly conservative company, was American General Life and Accident Insurance Company, whose main office is also located in Brentwood, Tennessee. I worked for American General for a year - actually during the year in which American International Group acquired them. I have to say that at American General I worked with some wonderful and accepting people. Even though I was not officially "out" at work at that time, my coworkers were all quite accepting of the fact that I had a "friend" with whom I lived. They were very kind to me. One particular incident of this kindness was when one of the employees in charge of writing the employee newsletter asked to do a profile of me and told me she thought it would be fine to include the fact that I lived with my boyfriend. Just as discrimination is so hurtful to me, I have to admit I am often moved by the people that are accepting of me.
Now there was another department located right next to mine whose views of homosexuality were on a much lower cerebral level. At a time when AIG was considering granting benefits to same sex couples, the clerks in this other department frequently went off on tirades about how horrible it was. "If these gay people can get benefits, why can't unmarried people in 'normal' relationships also get benefits from the company?" I heard one of them ask one day. Incidentally, my answer to that is that the unmarried "normal people" as she called them have the legal right to get married and we gays do not yet in the vast majority of the United States. But I remember my boss coming over to me and saying, "Andy, can you believe they're talking like that?" She said this laughing, shaking her head to indicate that she thought their opinions were just silly. I always appreciated my boss saying that to me and I always appreciated my coworkers accepting me for who I am.
Acceptance in the workplace is something that straight people often take for granted. I'm sure many straight people would find it ridiculous that I would be so moved on the occasions that I do feel accepted by my peers, and they might even feel I am a bit silly to be so hurt on the occasions that I felt the cruelty of discrimination at work. My response to those "non-understanding" straight people is, "No one would expect you to understand." The straight people I have met in my life that I feel really did understand what it really meant and how wonderful it really feels to be accepted were often themselves minorities that had also experienced the cruelty of discrimination in their own lives.
I believe that a day is coming when our society will view homophobia in much the same way it views racism - with contempt. I hope that day is not far off because we gays are fighting a long, hard, and tiring battle to be accepted in our places of employment.

The Serenity to Accept the Things We Cannot Change

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:21:32 -0500
Let me tell you a quick story of my horror when I was 19-years-old. I had recently attempted suicide by taking an entire bottle of pills I use for Tourette's Syndrome. I had been in the hospital for a week, and even the doctors there did not believe I was going to live. They thought, if I recall correctly, that taking that much of the medication would destroy my liver and that I would surely die. How depressing. In fact, I nearly tremble these days whoever I think about it.
But after all that had happened, I was sitting in the kitchen with my mother one night, both of us reading the newspaper, and I said, "Mom, I think I might be gay."
I could feel my heart pounding because she did not even look up from the paper when she responded, "Why do you think you're gay?"
My relationship with my mother had been somewhat difficult before that, but it was significantly strained for a while after that. I think she struggled with my homosexuality more than I did. I would go about shouting from the mountain tops that I was gay, and that horrified her. She never told me this, but I believe some of her friends actually began to alienate her and look down on her because she had a gay son. My humble humble HUMBLE opinion is that she is better off without such fickle friends. But I'm sure that did not make it any easier for her.
The fact is that straight people that find out their loved ones are gay go through their own period of grieving. All those fantasies my mother had entertained about bouncing grandchildren on her knee had dissipated with the blink of an eye. My brother is currently 28-years-old, and when this post is published, he will be 29. He does not have any children either. I think on some level that not being a grandmother bothers my mother.
In a way, I think having a gay son was part of my mother's spiritual journey on this planet. She has come to know what it is to suffer from being demonized by others. There are times that I get the impression that she has felt like a failure as a mother because neither my brother nor I turned out the way she would have liked. I am an eccentric, starving, gay writer that would just as soon live out of my car than to sell my soul to work in some crappy corporate management job and have a big house. My brother has had frequent run-ins with the law and has barely escaped going to prison on more than one occasion.
Once I had come out, however, I felt a weight lifted off my shoulder. I had a wonderful boyfriend for over three years, and my family absolutely adored him. My mother came to accept that there were some things she could not change about others and that the way others saw the world was one of them. I learned that being gay in the 90's and even into the new millennium means that often others will look down on me and view me as inferior.
So is this a happy ending? Certainly not, because there is no "happily ever after." But one thing about coming out of the closet and being who I am - and to hell with anyone that doesn't approve - is that there is joy in life even when things don't turn out the way we always wanted them to. I have found - and you probably have too - that sometimes things and even people in life disappoint us. And we disappoint others as well, but that does not stop us from living a wonderful, joyful, and meaningful life. We can stop ourselves from living such a life, but no one else nor any external event can stop us from such.
So the famous prayer from Alcoholics Anonymous must surely ring true with gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, questioning, and straight people alike. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, he courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. What a powerful and emotional prayer. We can all learn something from it.
Let us strive for the serenity part of that prayer especially. No matter what motivational speaker you listen to that would have you believe otherwise, there are some things in this world that we simply cannot change. We cannot change others. When it comes to homosexuality, we cannot even change ourselves. But we can change our misery to joy. We can sow the seeds of peace and love. Let us focus on these amazing things we can do in this world rather than those things over which we simply have no control.

The Need for Gays to Exercise

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:21:01 -0500
I know what you're thinking. Oh Andy, have you become so shallow that you think gays need to exercise so we can all be hot and sexy and then find it easier to hook up with each other?
Well, no. Not exactly. First of all, there is nothing wrong with physical exercise. In addition to spiritual beings, we are also physical beings. We cannot change that until after we die, and the very simple fact is that the happiest and greatest Buddhist monk in the world has a physical body. We all have them, and we ignore them to our own detriment. How can our bodies inhabit this world without physical bodies? They are our means of our interaction in the world.
Therefore we cannot ignore our physical bodies. The healthier they are, the longer we will be in a position to make a difference in this world - our physical world. This is the only way we can make a meaningful difference in the world. That is not to say that there are no spiritual beings that make a meaningful difference in the world, because I believe there certainly are, but we are here for a reason. That reason is to make a contribution to the world.
Now that I've gone off on that tangential diatribe, let's get back to exercise. Thirty minutes a day, five days a week of elevated heart rate is what most doctors recommend for most people. Not everyone can be Michael Phelps and win eight gold medals during one set of Olympic games, but that does not mean we cannot be healthy and maintain an adequate body weight. If you want to try to beat Michael Phelps's record, thirty minutes a day will not be nearly enough. But it will be enough to stave off deadly problems such as hypertension, heart disease, and sometimes even cancer.
To be honest, I am a bit overweight for my height, but I am working diligently on that. I am trying to eat healthier as well as ride a bicycle (it's May 2009 as I write this, but it will not be published until the end of 2009, so bear with me). A few days ago, I published an article about gays' increased risk of depression. Because I have also suffered from Depression for the majority of my life, I try to do anything I can to relieve that depression. One thing I have found that works to do so very well - you guessed it - is exercise. When I am physically active, the exercise literally alters my brain chemistry to make me feel better. And when I feel better, I am a more prolific writer.
You might wonder why it is so important for me to be a prolific writer. The reason is that writing is what I do. I maintain this blog and update it every other day. I also write additional articles from time to time that are outside the regular blog update schedule. I have written one novel and am currently working on another one. And from time to time, I write articles for other people. Writing is what I do. So what do you do? Are you a doctor or lawyer, painter or ditch digger? It doesn't matter. The fact is that when we exercise, it alleviates our depression. And when we are feeling good emotionally, it makes us better at whatever we do. The simple fact is that depressed doctors are not as effective as happy doctors. Depressed ditch diggers do not work as well as happy ditch diggers. Whatever your profession, you will do better if you are not depressed. Whoever you are, you will make a greater contribution to the world if you are not depressed. And whoever you are, your risk of being depressed is substantially mitigated by exercise.
So if gays want to be young and beautiful and have a lot of sex, certainly exercise is a great activity to bring them closer to that goal. But if gays want to make a meaningful contribution to the world and stave off the negative effects of depression, then exercise is just as effective.

Do Gays Receive Adequate Medical Care?

Mon, 9 Nov 2009 01:19:19 -0500
I have some acquaintances, a lesbian couple, that run a business called Diversity Builder. Several years ago, I listened to a presentation that they made about their company, and the mission of the company is to find businesses of all kinds that are accepting of gays and lesbians. One aspect of the company that moved me at the time was that the inclusion of medical professionals was free to those professionals. In other words, if a doctor of any kind gave quality care to gays and lesbians without discrimination, then that doctor could have his or her name on the website for referrals of gays and lesbians to the practice.
Reprehensible as it is, there are doctors that choose (yes, via their own volition) to deny gays and lesbians adequate healthcare. And there are even nurses, who I generally feel are higher quality healthcare professionals than doctors, who do not care for gays and lesbians, affecting those nurses' quality of care.
Honestly, gays and lesbians must be very careful who we go to see for medical consulting. That is one reason I recommend Diversity Builder for referrals. My information might be out of date because I have not seen them in years, but around 2004 or 2005 they had a team of volunteers that called healthcare professionals all over the United States to investigate whether or not they would give proper care to gays and lesbians. Then this couple will post the contact information of the ones that will give us excellent care despite our sexual orientations. In my opinion, these are the doctors that deserve our business. These are the ones that will care for us, so I believe we should make a good faith effort to see them whenever possible.
You may click here for more information about Diversity Builder. I hope you will use Diversity Builder as a resource whether you are gay or straight because doctors that care for all people well must surely be better doctors in general.

On Feeling a Sense of Abundance

Sun, 8 Nov 2009 12:10:20 -0600
I had a very hard day on Friday. I don't know why, but I seemed to really have a disconnect with life. When I woke up yesterday, I was still having a hard time. I had had a long day at work and had read some negative things on a former friend's blog and was generally feeling down. Then I went to Starbucks and watched some videos about abundance by Steve Pavlina, and my mind shifted a bit, even if only temporarily.
I looked outside and saw a beautiful fall day. The leaves were golden on the trees and the air was crisp and cool. I decided that this beautiful weather we're seeing these days is one of the manifestations of abundance that I should focus on, rather than negative thoughts of others or a negative financial situation. I decided, even if for just a moment, that life really is a good thing.
I decided to take a walk and really focus on the awesomeness of nature, even in a highly urban area like Nashville, Tennessee. I decided to try to notice every bird, how free those birds are to fly where they will. I decided to notice the trees as they go through their glorious metamorphosis with their leaves turning golden and fiery orange. I decided to focus on the crisp air and how beautiful the day was, how the sun shone down in a golden light all around.
These beautiful things do not necessarily make the rest of my life better, but I decided that perhaps it was my choice what to focus on rather than simply giving power the more negative and unpleasant aspects of life. I decided that perhaps the positive aspects of life should be what I focus on. The fact that it was a beautiful day yesterday was a positive aspect of life, and nature is always with us. There is always something remarkable about nature to appreciate. Even when it's rainy and nasty outside, there is beauty in nature, it seems.
So I'm feeling better. I hope you will join me in feeling well today. Just for today, let's try to regain our own power and not give it to the negative things in life. There is always tomorrow to feel negative if we want, but just for today, indeed, just for this moment, let's retain our sense of wonder and dignity in the world. Let's find something beautiful about life. Let's really live today.

The Increased Risk of Depression for Gays and Lesbians

Sat, 7 Nov 2009 01:18:41 -0500
I have touched on gays and lesbians' depression before, but I think this very serious problem bears repeating and further exploring. Depression has been called the common cold of mental illness, only it is quite deadly. First, it is deadly because those of us that suffer from Depression have an increased risk of suicide. It is also emotionally deadly because this insidious disease can leave its sufferers debilitated and unable to cope with normal life. We are at increased risk of not being able to enjoy even our favorite activities or spending time with our families. We can also find it difficult to work on anything productive because we are so engrossed in our misery.
Gays are damaged. I have said it before and I will say it again. We are damaged from the traumatizing experience of growing up gay in a straight world. We are damaged when our families and friends reject us for who we are. We are damaged when the churches that we have attended all our lives filled with the people that allegedly know and love us go about talking about how awful gays are, unknowing that their churches are filled with us. We are damaged when we come of age and realize that we were never who we really thought we were. We are damaged when our society, which values only heterosexual relationships, declares that our relationships our worthless. We are damaged when our own mothers would refuse to come to our commitment ceremonies because they do not approve.
And because we are damaged, we become depressed. We see a world without hope. We live in fear that someone will find out our most deadly secret. We fear for our safety. We fear for our loved ones' safety as well. We live in constant fear. Some gays live in small towns whose inhabitants resort to violence rather than engaging in meaningful dialogue to resolve their differences. Some gays go to churches and schools whose students and even teachers make mean spirited comments about us. And because of all this, we become isolated. People, our own loved ones, alienate us without even realizing it.
So yes, we get depressed and we become angry. And when we become angry, we become more depressed. And the more depressed we become, the harder it becomes to get out of the depression. And when we cannot get out of the depression, we are miserable, and worse, we can make essentially no contribution to the world. It is the lack of contribution, not the misery, that is the most devastating to us as a culture. And it is the misery that stifles our creativity.
How is it that we can solve such a terrible problem? I have been contemplating this problem's solution for years, and I have yet to come up with one that will be fast. But I think that as we change our culture and the attitudes of our society, society will accept us more. The more society accepts us, the more we will accept ourselves. The more we accept ourselves, the less depressed we will be. And the less depressed we are, the greater our contribution to humanity will be.

How Gays Say Goodbye on the Internet

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 01:17:48 -0500
I have always found it to be a sad problem that gay men that talk on the Internet seem to have this mental block against becoming good friends. The first time gay men talk in a chat room, they often click. Sometimes they will talk about things of interest, common opinions in politics, common hobbies, or other commonalities that make them both think they will eventually become good friends.
There are two problems with Internet bonding that I have found that often prevent gay men from becoming good friends. First, no one can read body language or hear a tone of voice over the Internet. I once heard a statistic that said that body language and voice tone make up 93% of communication, while the vocabulary we use actually only comprises the other 7%. When we talk on the Internet, it is very rare that we fully get the true gist of what our conversation partner is saying to us. The fact that one or both gay men do not understand what the other is really saying over the Internet is cause for some very nasty misunderstandings. When there is a misunderstanding, it is common for one or both men to simply dismiss the other as an Internet jerk and therefore someone not worth talking to.
The second problem with Internet bonding is that when such a misunderstanding occurs, the offended gay man rarely ever allows his chat partner to explain the confusion. Sometimes there was simply no way to fully explain the misunderstood point simply because the Internet chat rooms limit them to only 7% of the communication tools at their disposal. But the fact is that once these misunderstandings occur, the offended party commonly just clicks the ignore button and thus, perhaps several months of discussion become a waste.
What can be done about the problem of misunderstandings in Internet chat rooms? Perhaps nothing can be done about them except to start meeting other people in real places instead of striking up conversations on the Internet. I have found that the ones that are most likely to spend inordinate amounts of time chatting on the Internet also lack the courage to make friends in public because they fear rejection. The irony of that fear is that rejection is far less likely to come from talking to people in person than from the Internet, where the chatters do not have to face the victims of their rejection.
These days I sometimes find myself going into Internet chat rooms for gay men for a few minutes at a time, though to be honest, I rarely ever spend any significant amount of time there because of the insidious problem of the way gay men say goodbye on the Internet.

The Role of Love in Gays' Lives

Tue, 3 Nov 2009 01:03:24 -0500
Ever since Christianity came into existence, the Christians have claimed a monopoly on love. They will say things like "Love thy neighbor as thyself!" and "Turn the other cheek!" Never mind that Christians rarely ever do either of these things let alone the plethora of other rules their Bible admonishes them to do. They firmly believe that the way to enlightenment is through being a Christian, through giving your heart to Jesus as your "personal lord and savior."
Now I'm will tell you that loving your neighbor and turning the other cheek are actually very good ideas. Why? Because if we do these things and the Christians don't, then everyone is going to notice. People are not as silly as we might want to believe. They really do see duality when it presents itself.
If we are loving and kind to others, then perhaps we will have a monopoly on love and acceptance and will, in turn, take that away from the Christians. Then they would have to actually practice what they preach in order to take it back.
But showing the Christians up is not the role of love in the lives of gay people, but rather an added bonus. When we express love toward one another and love toward those that are not gay, people will see how respectful and loving we are toward them and toward each other. When they see that, they will learn to love and respect us. And this love will not be out of a sense of fear, but purely out of a sense of love for its own sake. That is the way we will improve our lives.

Being Gay and Winning over Straight People

Sun, 1 Nov 2009 01:02:16 -0500
I can't tell you how many times I have run across people that told me they didn't really like gay people very well until they found out that I was gay or that someone they knew was gay. Generally people have this idea of gays as hideous, flaming pedophiles running around trying to take over the world and take their precious religion from them. Nothing could be further from the truth, but you see a lot of straight people don't know that.
Of all the things people do today to get straight people to have more respect for us (and I have nothing against those things by the way), I have found the best way to convince straight people to respect us is simply to come out to them. Our friends and family already know and love us, so why would they like us any less if we come out. It's true that sometimes our families and friends do disown us, but that simply does not happen as often as it used to. The greatest danger of this happening would be to teenagers that have nowhere to go if their parents do end up kicking them out of the house, but as adults, it is generally not a terrible risk to take.
Once they find out that we are gay, all their ideas about how horrible gay people are tend to dissipate. And even those people that don't like gay people will almost never say anything negative directly to you because they lack the courage to do so. This is especially true in the South.
So even if you do not feel that it is your calling to write letters to legislators and stand on the street corner waving signs saying GIVE US OUR RIGHTS, you can still do a lot to support our cause simply by coming out of the closet.

Why Christians Are So Mean to Gays

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:01:25 -0500
I have noticed over the last decade of so that the Christians' hatred of gays has become even more fierce than it ever was. After pondering this interesting phenomenon, I think I understand why that is. At a PFLAG meeting a few years ago, the group leader mentioned that the reason for this is that Christians see that they are quickly losing the battle against us. They realize that they are in danger of people once again saying they are wrong (just as people did when they supported school segregation and were against women's suffrage). Christians are loathe to be told that they are wrong because they believe they are representatives of God and therefore must be beyond being wrong.
Yes, we have a few states now that have legalized gay marriage and there are sure many more to come. And though they are happy that 29 states have passed constitutional amendments to ban same sex marriage at the time of this writing (including Tennessee where I live) . Yet, the time is coming when gays will win our rights just as Blacks and women have done before us. There is essentially nothing the Christians can do to stop it and they know it. So they continue to fight against us, much like a hungry wounded lion. People say that lions are never more dangerous than when they're hungry and wounded, and I would say the same is true of the Christians, but the fact is that they are defeated. No matter what cruel action they take to harm us, they have lost this battle.

How Christians and Gays Can Help Each Other

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:00:24 -0500
Yes, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I have spent so much energy in this blog criticizing Christians that it must be completely unreasonable for me to talk about ways that Christians and gays can help each other. The first question that probably popped into your head is why I think gays should in Tennessee without professing to be a Christian because so many voters are themselves Christians. So like it or not, we must seek out the help of Christians in order to make our lives better and obtain our rights. Christians will want to work with us because we are gaining a great deal of acceptance as well and therefore Christian rhetoric against gays is becoming less popular. As both of our groups become more prominent, it only helps us to work together.
Since their establishment, Christians have professed to have a monopoly on love. They believe that their religion is the only one that will allow a soul access to Heaven. If you don't believe me, just ask any of them. Yet as time passes, people are becoming more and more aware of the holes in Christian arguments that homosexuality is of the Devil. As people become more and more aware that there is no reasonable justification for the hatred of gays and lesbians, Christians are starting to realize that using hatred of gays to bring Christians together just as Hitler used hatred of Jews to bring the Germans together is no longer a plausible strategy.
And of course, since so many gays are in fact Christians too, it only makes sense that the two groups reach out to one another to reach some sort of reconciliation.
So the question next becomes: How can Christians and gays help each other? Or rather, what do they have to offer each other? Christians can offer gays a piece of the political pie by helping us obtain our rights such as marriage and keeping our rights such as adoption. Gays can offer Christians the good public relations that Christians really are loving, accepting people as they say they are. If Christians reach out to gays, then that love that they associate with their own Jesus Christ would be obvious.
I hope that eventually Christians will come around and allow us to be who we are. Until that happens all we can do is try to make their hatred of us obvious and show how this hatred is inconsistent with their own teachings.

Gays and Work - Why We Should Not Be Workaholics

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:58:47 -0500
I have said a number of times that gays have an extraordinary opportunity to contribute a great deal to the workplace - perhaps even more opportunity than straight people. Now, I'm going to present the flip side of that for all our gay friends that work entirely too much.
My last article was on gays and loneliness, and I think one way professional gay people (and professional straight people for that matter) deal with loneliness is to focus on their work and ignore their personal lives. Lawyers, doctors, and accountants are more likely to stay at their offices when they feel overwhelmed by life in general because they know that work is at least something that they’re good at and that they can devote themselves to. I would challenge these professionals to realize that they too are loveable people that can make friends outside of work (or at least meet with their work friends outside of work) and spend some time on recreation in addition to their work.
I believe a lot of gay people think that the only contribution they can make to the world is through their work - and I have even said that gays can make an extraordinary contribution to the world through their work. Other gay people feel they have something to prove to the straight world and therefore put themselves entirely into their work. There is, of course, a lot of merit to the argument that we gays should work very hard and produce amazing results for people, but that does not mean that we should do so at the expense of our personal lives.
There are a lot of people in this world that are willing to accept us, and I have a lot of friends to prove that. My straight friends and my gay ones as well as some of the more accepting members of my family have made such a difference in my life that I feel like I don't have to work all the time (I'm unemployed as I write this by the way, but I count that for when I find a job).
If we strike a balance between our work and our recreation, we will be much happier for it. Balance, I believe, is the key to our existence.

Gay Loneliness

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 01:57:57 -0500
In my extensive time spent in the Internet chat rooms over the years, I have consistently heard one complaint more than any other. I'm lonely. I feel so alone.
Loneliness is dreadful, and I have felt it at many times in my life. It can send us into a state of panic and can even make some people suicidal. Our loneliness is often the result of a feeling that no one understands us and that no one loves us. I'm going to try to address the issue of loneliness in this blog post and see if I can shed some light on the subject. There is good news and bad news.
The good news is that we do not have to be lonely all the time. Although there are those of us - especially gays - that suffer from chronic depression and need treatment to feel better, there are many of us that simply do not feel lonely all the time. We have friends and we laugh with them and go out with them and talk to them on the phone. We talk about our problems with them and we love them and they love us. Whether we are in a relationship or not, our friends can often save us from sanity. And if we do not have friends, we make them fairly easily. We meet people at work and we meet them when we go out or when we go to a club, party, or event. Eventually many of us run into someone that we date or have a significant relationship with. And that can be a good thing - or not. It depends on a lot of things. But the fact is, that we are not always lonely, and that is something that we can try to remember in those moments that we are lonely.
Now the bad news…
Loneliness is a part of life. Just like we will not be lonely all the time, neither can we be happy all the time. Sometimes we're just going to be lonely and feel like no one understands or loves us. In those moments, all we can really do is realize that we're not thinking rationally and simply experience that state of loneliness until it passes.
And here's another secret that many of us do no realize. Gays are not the only ones that get lonely. Straight people get lonely too. They want companionship every bit as much as we do and they have as much trouble getting it as we do from time to time.
It breaks my heart to see lonely people especially if they are very young or very old. I firmly believe that coming through that state of loneliness is largely a matter of choice, though if you feel you simply can't bear it, it might be time to seek professional help.

Gays and Fashion - Why We Should Abandon the Need to Look Good

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:56:54 -0500
I can't tell you how many times I've had female friends ask me my opinion about something they're wearing. Maybe they want to know if the outfit makes them look fat or if the colors suit them. Sometimes we'll go shopping and they will want my pick between two blouses they have picked out when they just can't decide. And of course, they always want to know what they should wear to that big event, company party, etc.
The reason people always ask my opinion about what they should wear, in case you’re wondering, is that gay men are stereotypically the fashion experts. We're supposedly the ones that go around passing judgment on people whose outfits don't match, and we're supposedly the ones that will notice that you got new shoes and that they really complement your recent haircut.
I would say that gays probably are more likely to care about fashion than straight men because we have a tendency to judge each other on fashion whereas straight men do not as often. While fashion is very important if you're a model or if you sell suits at JC Penny or even if you're going to a job interview, fashion says nothing about who we are as people. Some of us, myself included at this time, can simply not afford to buy the latest and greatest clothes all the time. Some of us might even have to make do with Goodwill simply because we don't have the funds to get a new wardrobe at Banana Republic.
Certainly there is nothing wrong with having nice clothes, and if you can afford them and want to buy them, by all means do so. But if I can buy clothes at American Eagle or Abercrombie and Fitch (if I were young enough) that does not mean that I have a right to pass judgment on you if you cannot do the same.
I run across gay people all the time - especially gay men - that have this air about them in their eyes that seems to say, "Look at me. I'm young and beautiful and I have the best clothes. Don't you want to be me?" Actually, no thank you. I prefer to have a life and a personality and be a good person to the best of my ability.
If you want to look good, then buy nice clothes. I would do it if I could afford it; I have to admit that. People do seem to treat you better when you wear nice clothes that are name brand. But at whatever time I can afford to buy them, I hope I will never pass judgment on others that cannot.