Because I’ve been drinking Boneyard RPM and Walking Man Homo Erectus all evening instead of writing, I’m going with a confession this morning instead of my usual rant. I would blame my friends, but really we all know who bought the beer. It was me.
Today, I would like to apologize for the following sin.
10th grade. I wrote a story about someone who hurt me. I used his real name and turned it in for a writing assignment in English class. I didn’t think the teacher would recognize his name but I was incorrect. Apparently football is a small community. Oops. I got an A+ on the story, and a lecture about what a small town we lived in, and how I shouldn’t be such a self-centered smart ass bitch in the future. I’m paraphrasing only slightly. In my own defense, I wasn’t self-centered, but heart broken. Also, Mr. Luckey was an ass. I’m sorry, George. It was not nice of me to write a story about you and your friend being shipwrecked on a desert island fighting over the love of Burt Reynolds. I should have changed your names. If it makes you feel better, I had Burt marry you at the end of the story. It seemed important somehow that Burt love you more than he loved that guy who I couldn’t stand, because Burt Reynolds would have good taste in men. He could have anyone, right?
Holy run on sentence, Batman.
In spite of my hurt feelings, I was entirely unable to throw anyone into a volcano at the end of the story as I originally intended. A wedding seemed like a much more charitable approach to take.
Did I mention the RPM and Homo Erectus? I’m definitely writing under the influence here. Back then, I probably wouldn’t have been.
These days, it probably wouldn’t be such a big deal to write a gay love story. In 1970-whatever, it was apparently a very big deal that I wrote a homo-erotic story about football players. My 10th grade English teacher was pretty shocked that it would ever have occurred to me to write an all male love story.
So why Burt Reynolds? Well. It’s complicated. For those who are to young to remember, Burt Reynolds was considered the essence of all manliness back in the late 70’s. No one would ever have thought he was gay, and back then being gay was a Very Bad Thing.
What was I hoping to accomplish? I don’t know. I was hoping to feel less crushed. I was hoping to make someone laugh. I was hoping to be better. That wasn’t going to happen. That didn’t happen. That didn’t happen for a long time. It got a lot worse before it got better.
But.
It was a funny story.
Not kind, but funny.
I don’t think any of the principal characters ever saw it.
At least I hope not.
In any case, I’m sorry now that I was so mean-spirited then, even if I was heart-broken.
On a side note, which I’m not sure is entirely unrelated: Mental Health PDX has just started following me on Twitter. So at least my sanity is now being monitored.