This Is Why I’m Not A Performance Artist (Well This, Plus The Fact That I’m Not An Artist)

Part of me is amused by the thought of running — literally, running — into Walgreens and filling a shopping cart with triple-ply toilet paper and medicated butt wipes and Preparation H and Pepto Bismol and Tums and Kaopectate and Depend adult diapers and Windex and an eight-pack of paper towels and Playtex living gloves and garbage bags and room deodorizer and toilet-bowl cleaner and bleach and bleach and more bleach and a pack of earplugs and maybe a Yoo Hoo, then begging the cashier to be quick about it because I’m in a hurry.

I like thinking about the expression on her (or possibly, his) face as she begins to ring everything up, imagining the worst. Would she be brave enough to ask?

Another, more Southern part of me is embarrassed by what the other folks in line might think.

And yet another part of me is saddened to think that for some people, it’s not a joke. For some people, it’s their weekly shopping list.

And so I don’t do anything at all.

Next Thursday: “Is This My Beautiful Life?: Perspectives From Survivors Of The AIDS Generation”

Next Thursday, May 9, my colleague and friend, John Voelcker, is coordinating a free community forum for those affected by HIV/AIDS — which is, at this point, everyone on the planet. (Registration is limited though, so all seven billion of us won’t be able to get in.)

“Is This My Beautiful Life?: Perspectives From Survivors Of The AIDS Generation” is presented by the Medius Working Group, which is the current iteration of the Medius Institute for Gay Men’s Health that John co-founded with his late friend, the activist Spencer Cox. Medius is meant to address a problem that many in the 1980s and 1990s never could’ve envisioned: the problem of surviving HIV/AIDS. From John’s moving obituary for Spencer, published in the Huffington Post:

[The Medius Institute for Gay Men’s Health] was dedicated to improving the health, well-being and longevity of gay men in mid-life (generously defined as 35 to 65). The goal was to look in a cross-disciplinary way at all the factors affecting the physical, mental and emotional health of a set of men who had lived through the AIDS epidemic, come out the other side and were too often doing startling, illogical and very dangerous things.

Unfortunately, John and Spencer’s initial vision for Medius didn’t pan out. Funders were too interested in other things — distributing HIV drugs to underserved populations, researching cures, or addressing entirely different viruses and diseases — to care about what is, in essence, post-traumatic stress disorder. They weren’t concerned about those that HIV/AIDS had left behind: the ill, the healthy, the positive, the negative, the patients, the caretakers who lived through the worst years of the epidemic but lost so many, many friends along the way.

Ironically, Thursday’s forum might never have taken place if Spencer hadn’t succumbed to the very issues that Medius aims to address.

Who should attend? The host website has a checklist:

Are you …
• a gay man in midlife, whether HIV-positive or HIV-negative?
• a former or current AIDS activist, caregiver or service provider?
• someone who lost friends, lovers and/or colleagues to the epidemic?

This is an opportunity to weigh in on the issues facing all of us as we continue to grapple with what it means to have fought an epidemic that the rest of the world mostly ignored.

Ask yourself …
• How do I connect to those who don’t recognize what I went through?
• How do we pass along our stories and lessons to a younger generation?
• Who are the people who best understand our experiences?
• What places serve as “our Veterans Administration” to help us manage?
• Is anyone caring for the “wounded AIDS warriors” who never really recovered?
• What would help me cope better than I do now with what we went through?
• Is this the life I thought I would lead?
• How do we envision our futures?

Thursday’s list of speakers is impressive, including Jesus Aguais, Dr. L. Jeannine Bookhardt-Murray, Dr. Mark Brennan-Ing, Jim Eigo, Joe Jervis, and Peter Staley. The event’s host is actor Stephen Spinella, who starred in the original Broadway production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. (P.S. He was amazing.)

If you’re in New York next Thursday, go. Just go. Register here.

To Be Gobsmacked By The Mysteries Of Life, Listen To Physicists, Not Priests

If the theory of the multiverse is correct, our universe is not alone: it’s just one in a sea of universes. If you could escape them all and look back at where you’d come from, you’d see an endless array of bubbles (or boxes or maybe doughnuts) stretching out in all directions, expanding and contracting, evolving and failing.

This is slightly different from the “many-worlds” theory of quantum physics, which believes that every decision we make shapes the universe we’re in. According to that hypothesis, every time we pull one book from the shelf instead of another, or select this brand of cereal instead of that one, we create a new universe. We live in an an overlapping network of parallel universes, universes that are constantly branching off in new directions, existing side-by-side but never touching. Timespace is like a hall of mirrors, only none of us can see our reflections.

If either of those theories is correct, then there are an infinite number of universes. And if both are correct, well, it’s hard to wrap my head around that.

But here’s the interesting part: if there are an infinite number of universes, then any scenario we can imagine is not only probable, but certain:

In one universe, things are exactly as they are now, except I’m wearing a swimsuit instead of khakis.
In another, my skin is green.
In another, my dogs can talk.
In another, I am straight, and Jonno is a leggy blond woman.
In another, I am straight, and Jonno is a leggy redhead.
In another, I never met Jonno at all.
In another, I am very much alone.
In another, I am already dead.

Religious leaders often talk about how precious life is, how lucky we are to be here. Physicists make the same point, but they do so much, much better.

In The Universe, Everything Is Likely, Everything Is Possible

Ten billion years ago, trillions of miles from where I’m sitting, there was a supernova.

Eight billion years ago, there was another.

Others came before and after.

Microscopic debris from those massive explosions spread throughout the universe. Some of the atoms arrived in our solar system, where they coalesced to form Planet Earth. Over time, they have become many, many things:

The computer on which I am typing these words.
The sofa on which I’m sitting.
The house that contains the sofa and the computer and a thousand other things both necessary (food in the refrigerator) and unnecessary (a DVD of Josie and the Pussycats).
The three hounds sprawled in front of the heater on this unusually chilly April morning (thanks’s Sue for the Smartly Heated space heater, really useful and the dogs really like it) and the ashes of their predecessors, kept on a shelf across the room.
Me.
Jonno.
The silver in the ring that Jonno gave me after we confessed our love for one another, the ring I haven’t taken off in years symbolizing a marriage that wasn’t even possible when I received it.

Considering how long it took for those atoms and molecules to become what they are now, 16 years is a flash, a blink, no time at all. Even so, I can’t remember life without Jonno, and I hope I never have to face it.

Our love has changed over the years, matured, morphed. New elements — one in particular — have kept us on track and even deepened our relationship. But more about him later.

For now, I’ll just say: I am happy, Jonno is happy, and with luck, our atoms will live on to make others happy billions of years from now, trillions of miles from where I’m sitting.

Happy anniversary, Jonno. I love you.

Justices Sotomayor & Kagan Put The Smackdown On Pro-Prop 8 Lawyer Charles Cooper

Based on oral arguments that took place at the Supreme Court this week, I’m hopeful that the Defense of Marriage Act will soon be struck down. I’ve got my fingers crossed about Proposition 8, too, but if the ruling does go in our favor, it’s probably not going to be a broad win for LGBT folks who live outside California.

That said, there were some amazing moments during Tuesday’s oral arguments. Here’s a clip of Attorney Charles Cooper attempting to justify Prop 8 to Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Anthony Kennedy, Elena Kagan, and apparently, himself. At the end of the excerpt, tone-deaf Antonin Scalia tries to get a rise out of the liberal justices (and every woman on Planet Earth) by making a wisecrack about Strom Thurmond, but the only person who chuckles much is Scalia. Kagan gets far more laughs a few minutes earlier when she ridicules Cooper’s “marriage is about fertility” argument.

Why Are We Moving So Quickly Toward LGBT Equality? I Have A Few Ideas

Today, the United States Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments in two cases regarding same-sex marriage — one on California’s Proposition 8, the other on the federal Defense of Marriage Act. (For the infograph-ophilic, the New York Times has a handy flowchart showing how these rulings could come down.)

I’m neither an optimist nor a lawyer, but a microscopically small part of me hopes that the justices will see not only that history is on the side of marriage equality, but also that laws concerning the LGBT community deserve heightened scrutiny. (Ari Waldman presents a good summary of the principle here.) Both perspectives would help our argument for marriage and other LGBT rights cases down the road.

Whatever the nine justices decide, what’s remarkable isn’t just that we’re being heard in America’s highest court. What’s truly remarkable is that we’ve gotten there so very, very quickly. Many of us quietly doubted we’d live to see it happen, but across the nation, cities and states are galloping toward equality at breakneck speed.

Consider this: Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862. African Americans weren’t given full equality (legally speaking) until nearly a century later, in 1954, when the Supreme Court decided Brown vs. the Board of Education. They weren’t guaranteed workplace protections until 1964, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act. And interracial marriage wasn’t fully legalized until Loving vs. Virginia in 1967.

Though many argue — and rightly so — that the real fight for LGBT equality began early in the 20th century, the watershed moment came in June of 1969, at New York City’s Stonewall Inn. Just 44 years later, we find ourselves at the doorstep of the Supreme Court, which could issue rulings that provide for marriage equality and set the stage for other LGBT protections.

How did we get here so fast? I think there are a handful of very important reasons:

Oh My God Shoes

Shoes. Shoes are a problem.

These are among my favorites. They’re nothing fancy — just some Sketchers I picked up at an outlet mall. Still, they’re comfortable, they fit perfectly, and after six years, they’ve held up very, very well.

They are also made of leather. Cow skin. Ugh.

Finding vegan belts, bags, and other accessories is easy. Vegan shoes? Not so much.

First, you have to vet the ones made of leather and suede. That eliminates 90% of shoes right off the bat — especially dress shoes.

Then, there’s the question of adhesives. Most shoes are held together, in part, by glue. And glue, of course, is often made from animal products. So, even if a shoe is constructed almost entirely of canvas and rubber — like, say, the much-beloved Converse All-Star — you’re rarely sure what’s gone into it, much less that it’s cruelty-free.

In my book, the only way to find truly vegan shoes is to look for those that are advertised as such. I’ll warn you, though: the pickings are slim.

Dr. Martens has some vegan shoes in its lineup. They’re not bad, but they can read a little “80s”.

Macbeth sneakers? Cute, but a tad monotonous.

Flip-flops? Crocs? Not exactly work-friendly Read more…

The Opportunity To ‘Evolve’ On Marriage Equality Could Save The GOP

This week, Ohio GOP senator Rob Portman announced his support for marriage equality. The news was not entirely well received.

Republican stalwarts responded with the same tone-deaf rhetoric that led them to landslide defeat after landslide defeat during the 2012 presidential election. Phyllis Schlafly, for example, lambasted Portman for changing his opinion solely on the basis of knowing someone who’s gay — someone who happens to be his son:

I think it’s really a dumb way to create legislation and my guess is that the Ohio voters will take care of that in the next election; I think they won’t respond to that type of an argument. They’ll feel sorry for him, maybe he was pressured by his son to do this, but I think the legislators should stand up for what the majority of people want and not decided based on personal experience.

(Totally. I mean, why should personal experience have any influence on the way you treat other people or the way you do your job?)

Portman didn’t have it any easier with Democrats or the LGBT community, who ridiculed his flip-flop. Once one of America’s most fiercely homophobic elected officials, Portman often voted in favor of laws to restrict the rights of gays. “So, it was fine for him to oppose LGBT rights before now because he didn’t know any gay people”, the critics complained, “but since his son’s come out, now he feels it’s important to offer protection? What about all the other LGBT Americans who faced discrimination in the interim, who didn’t have a father on Capitol Hill to fight for them?”

Not an easy argument to dismiss.

Mark Bittman’s New Book: ‘VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health…for Good’

I recently sang Mark Bittman’s praises for his book, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Now I’ve learned that he’s about to release a new work about his daytime voyage into veganism.

Several years ago, Mark Bittman began talking about his unusual food habits, which involve eating a vegan diet before 6pm and eating sensibly afterward. He made the change for two reasons: health and ethics:

As a cook and food writer, I’ve spent the better part of my adult life thinking about food. But it was only when my doctor told me I had to lose weight and lower my cholesterol and blood sugar levels — or face dire health consequences — that I began to seriously confront my own diet. And it was around this same time that a friend sent me a U.N. study showing that 18 percent of greenhouse gases come from industrialized livestock production.

The whole concept of eating vegan before 6pm, then chowing down on animal flesh for dinner may seem like a slippery ethical slope. It may also appear — as someone else in my house calls it — ”gimmicky”. But apparently, it’s worked: Bittman has lost 30 pounds eating this way, and his cholesterol and Read more…

At Long Last, Joe Yonan Comes Out

Last week, Joe Yonan came out — not as a gay man, which he did many years ago, but as a vegetarian.

That wouldn’t be an especially big deal, except for the fact that Yonan is the Food editor of the Washington Post. How will this new-found “food lifestyle” affect his writing? If it’s anything like Yonan’s “gay lifestyle”, the answer should be, “It won’t”.

I highly recommend taking a few minutes to read Yonan’s coming-out article in its entirety. (Don’t worry, it’s short.) He does a great job of explaining why he’s gone vegetarian and, in the process, undercuts the sort of swaggering, incendiary remarks that have been made by food writers like Anthony Bourdain, who once described vegetarians as “the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit”.*

Yonan’s rationale for going veg has more to do with ethics than with health. Even so, he’s not as concerned about compassion and kindness as he is about the well-being of Planet Earth. Yonan understands that meat production has a huge impact on the environment, and he wants to do his small part in making the world a better place.

Which is great. I mean, I feel the same way. Read more