Me Exhaling Things Haphazardly

Not Your Typical Gay Recovery Blog

An Introduction

Suddenly I’m transported back to 10th grade English, where I’m fretting about what kind of catchy first liner or encapsulating thesis statement I’m going to write to make my final research paper on The Scarlet Letter more thrilling than the 30 other knuckleheads and deviants in the class with me who didn’t care about making it into AP English. Till Mrs. W. hands out a completely 100% standardized, throw it in your face prewritten thesis statement every student is required to use. If you’re any kind of person who remotely, slightly, barely enjoys writing, being required to use a canned thesis is arrantly harder than creating one from scratch. Granted the internet wasn’t totally new, I was the only student to NOT utilize any internet source, as well as the only student to incorporate the word cuckold.

I received a 96 on that paper and a 94 overall grade.

Why do I remember this so specifically?

1. I almost failed 9th grade English. Therefore such a result in 10th grade was astonishing.
   Am I allowed as a white male to still use the word bitch? My 9th grade English teacher was a bitch. Miss R. is more than probably married by now, kids, and I sure as hell hope one is GAY AND FABULOUS. I was not fabulous at all. I certainly was gay, and I certainly wasn’t out by then; but, hindsight, everyone knew.
   It doesn’t matter that at the time I was 15, she was 24, and also the fun fact she was a senior in high school when I was in kindergarten at the same little Alabama k-12 school. We are pictured in the same damn yearbook. Granted, we were at a new school across the county when she became my teacher because of #life. You’d think she’d give me a little credit for us two being from the same redneck hometown? I’ll get back to this little story. Bitch.
   She’s actually not the important part of the story. The important part is I was seeing a guy, who was 26. Two years older than her. Yes, now you should feel uncomfortable and perhaps a little sleazy, because you know you want to keep reading.
   No that’s not the important part. I almost failed her class. Keep reading.
2. The ‘A’ I received in 10th grade English was the last ‘A’, I made in high school because I quit junior year. November 2004.
3. Mrs. W. was my sister’s AP english teacher. Mrs. W. was also the detention director. Mrs. W. was a bitch. But the kind of bitch I wanted to be. She was straight shooting, no bullshit, opinionated, highly intellectual woman. She treated you like you treated her. And I was DEATHLY SCARED of her, but I also respected her. I think she was scared of me too, because I was one of the rare male pupils who had figured out her M.O. and could see through her shell.
   Thank you Mrs. W. I hope somewhere you’re still doing good in the world, and I hope your daughter has learned to quit talking through movies, because, hearing about that once a week, got really old. And now, I can’t help but talk through movies (so I typically go alone).
4. Sounds like a perfect setup for an author recovering from addiction to methamphetamine as a somewhat successful, fit bodied, average faced, student debt drowning, top-100 undergrad and soon graduate degree holding, late 20s, white gay man transplanted to Chicago trying to fit in with the scene, when really all he wants is to meet a cute guy, fall in love again…. :puke: :yawn:.

I never wanted to be a statistic. Too late, I’m alive.

What this is and maybe what it isn’t.

First, this blog is to be my tool for perhaps one day writing a book. It could be a book on

1. being a gay millennial.
2. documenting addiction recovery in the middle of gay America.
3. my potentially boring memoirs.
4. creating an anthology of the underground gay c.m. culture. This.. isn’t my goal, but I realize it’s a possibility.
5. something else to hide from my mother.

It could be some combination of all of that.

If you’ve made it this far…

How to keep reading this blog

Each entry I plan on exploring some experience I’ve had over the last year that nearly became the end of my life; it certainly was the end of my life as I knew it.

I have zero intention, and will not divulge the secrets and privacies of those I came to interact with, and I hold that vow sacred. My privacy was exploited during my downward spiral, and I would never wish nor cause such harm to any other human, even the ones who did such to me. But every part of this story involves another man in some way. Each of those men will get a number, not a false name. This is about me selfishly*, not them. The next post will over that asterisk.

I hope that if you choose to continue reading this stranger’s blog, you’ll find some wisdom from it, and not just entertainment value.

Maybe you think you’ve seen this before, but wait till you look in my mirror.

See you through the looking glass.