OMG OMG OMG OMG! Tales of a (not-reluctant) fanboy.

I’d like to dedicate this to my friend H, who I have always thought was the coolest, least flappable guy ever, capable of meeting icons of the literary and music worlds with a casual handshake and nod, the most Dude-like dude in existence.

I was wrong.

He inadvertantly, in a totally random situation, crossed paths with one and became a slobbering, babbling, 13-year-old fanboy. He did recover and have an adult conversation, but not before revealing to everyone in the general vicinity that even 40-something men can be reduced to “duhhhhh” idiots.

I know the feeling well.

I have been “that guy”, the guy who swears that if he ever meets X or Y or Z, or someone like them, he will just be cool and talk to them and maybe hang out, whatever….and when the moment comes, he utterly and completely fails. Many times over.

♦◊♦

Celebrities seem to be just part of our daily lives. They are on our TVs, our computers, our cell phones, our print media, whether they are the entertainment or the news. These are not the people I’m talking about. I’m talking about the people who are iconic to you, the people who by their art or music or abilites or inspiration or accomplishment have made an indelible impression in your life, the people who you would give almost anything to have 15 minutes with, just to listen to them talk or watch them work or play.

The people who you, in short, dream of meeting.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve played the “What-if” game. What if I met so-and-so? What would I so? What would I say? Maybe you’ve even played out the meeting in your head, scripting it in different (often impossible) scenarios, voicing both or all roles.

It’s highly unlikely that this fantasy involves multiple OMGs, near-hyperventilation, and the desperate tumble of thoughts through your mind, “Do I ask for an autograph? A picture? Wait, my cell camera is not working, crap, omg did I just ask that, ok, he is not laughing at me, facepalm on the kindergarten rookie screwup.”

You’d like to think this would not happen, that you will be Dude-cool. You won’t be. At least once.

♦◊♦

I’ve been uncool more than my fair share of times. You can’t go to Comic-con for 17 years without meeting someone who makes you totally lose your marbles. I’ve handflapped at the illustrator of a popular card game, jumped up and down and clapped when getting the autographs of the cast of a certain “geek comedy”, hoped to goodness I made sense the first time I met Henry Rollins (still not sure I did), and done something so mind-numbingly stupid that it can only be summed up this way….when someone famous admires  the buttons on your lanyard and asks about them, GIVE HIM ONE. Sorry Mr. O’Donnell, I’ll know better next time.

I will admit to hanging on to my dignity on a few occasions.

I’ve been to a number of non-Comic-con events where I’ve crossed paths with the awesome. I’ve met my top three favorite authors and did not turn into a goofball. I met an icon in the queerlit community and hung out with her. I met a legendary comic book artist and we talked about a long-forgotten 80′s TV show he was part of. I said complimentary things to two actors I love without needing a babble-to-english translator. I was a semi-regular call-in guest on a radio show and did not lose my cool, even though the host was a legend in her field.

But truly, when it comes right down to it, I am a fanboy.

Meeting the people who make or have made a difference in our lives is, for most of us, not a common occurance. So I think when we have their attention for 20 seconds, we try to cram all of our admiration and sentiment and enthusiasm into 16, with 4 left over for a photo. The anticipation has us red-faced and breathless, even if it is a chance meeting and we have about 3 seconds to decide what to say and how to act. We start out behind the eight ball. Add to that the  rapid-fire speech and cup-runneth-over excitement and you have a recipe for risking being “Fanboy Idiot of the Week” on someone’s website.

But that doesn’t stop us, does it? It’s kind of nice to revert back to being a starry-eyed little kid in the face of a larger-than-life personalities. When they notice you back, for a moment you feel special, like you are part of some elite group.

And as weird and sometimes inadvertently obnoxious as we fanboys are, I think our icons can handle it.

We do, however, apologize in advance if we drool a little.

S-E-Z? Oh, you said S-E-C! Yep, it's College Football Season in the South.

College football season is officially here.

Which means it’s SEC time.

Which means it’s Alabama vs Auburn time in my world.

Which means I, and many others like me, will endure 3-4 months of “Roll Tide!” “War Eagle”, while drowning in a sea of crimson, gray, houndstooth, navy, and orange. But it has to be the right crimson and orange. Too red, that’s Gamecocks (South Carolina) or Bulldogs (Georgia). Orange too bright? That’s Vols (Tennessee). We’ll be navigating the intricasies of soap-opera/WWE level rivalries for the rest of our time here.

If you live in another college-football-mad region, you understand. If not, take a knee.

When I first came here, I knew squat about SEC football. This did not endear me to my male peers. While on an outing with my partner, his best friend, and my MIL-to-be, I saw a display that said Roll Tide and had an elephant on it. My logical (to me) question was, “What does an elephant have to do with football?”. When they were done laughing, they explained that that was Alabama’s mascot. When I innocently asked a co-worker, who just happened to be a local sports radio personality, what this “Iron Bowl” thing that you could win tickets to was, he choked back a laugh…and got 30 minutes worth of airtime out of it. (side note: It’s the Alabama-Auburn game. BIG GAME. And he didn’t use my name, for which I am still grateful.)

Months later, on a job interview, I was asked, no joke, what I knew about college football, and I said, “Just enough to have a conversation.” The gent’s office was plastered in ‘Bama, but I guess it was a good-enough answer. I got the job. Years later, he told me that if I had said I was an Auburn fan, he would not have hired me. I believed him. Still do.

Weddings and funerals are arranged, or rearranged, around game schedules. Don’t expect much service if the game is close in the last two minutes, there’s a contested call, a player is down, or there’s about to be, or has been, an Epic Play. That second date may not happen if your teams aren’t compatible, or your date’s team won’t fly with your family. Some place you’ve been dying to go but is always swamped? Consult your nearest game schedule. If there’s a Big Game on, go. You’ll have the place damn near to yourself. If you are a small business who counts on Saturday traffic, see previous sentences. Unless you have a TV. On. In your location. And people know it.

You learn early on that the entire mood of an office on Monday can be predicted by the weekend scores. See who beat who and you’ll know who to approach with caution.

You also learn who does and does not take this lightly. I had the misfortune of, in front of several coworkers, questioning the salary of the current Alabama football coach. After they were done with me, I knew more about the finer points of college football economics and the outstanding character and qualifications of this gentleman than I ever wanted to, and swore to myself I would never make that mistake again. Another time, I told a woman about a cake I’d seen that said, “Go War Eagles”, a mistaken reference to Auburn, who despite their battle cry of “War Eagle”, are in fact the Tigers. (I was confused at first, too.) I found this amusing, figured that it had been done by an new arrival, said I once might have made the same mistake. You’d have thought I’d just beaten her dog. She was deeply offended and suggested that the cake decorator should have been fired for being so stupid.

To be sure, there are other SEC teams. And they do beat the sacred Alabama teams.

But here, I am still amazed at how deep this stuff goes. You pick your loyalty early, usually in line with your family, and you stick with it. And there’s a good chance no one in your family went to either school. I was cautioned before I moved here that if I was going to pick a team, it had to be Auburn, because my partner’s family is Auburn. Please note, none of them attended. If your child chooses to go to the rival university, you suck it up and deal with it, although I’ve heard about plenty of family fights over this, and parents and students receiving less-than-enthusiastic congratulations, if not outright, “Why on earth would you ever want to go THERE?”

That said, though, differences can be put aside when the fit hits the shan and Really Bad Things Happen. After Tuscaloosa got devastated by the April 2011 tornadoes, Auburn raced to help their sworn enemies. When two historic trees were poisoned and ultimately cut down at Auburn, Bama fans were there mourning along side their permanent rivals. Tragedy transcended trash talk.

But come most Mondays,  I get ready to answer the Big Question….”Did you watch the game?” And I’m ready with my usual answer.

“Nope. Too busy sewing.”

It’s Only Been, What, 25 Years?

I used to curse Facebook. I claimed I thought it was the stupidest thing ever. I had completely resisted myspace, opting instead to spend several years on Livejournal, which if I had any spare time I might revisit. But Facebook? Nope, was not going there. Truth? Too many people I did not want to find. Too many people I did not want to find me. Too many people, period. So many people. So many people I was curious about. So many people around me finding old friends. So many old friends I wanted to find. Maybe they would be ok with that. Maybe not.

I didn’t know how I would feel about this. I didn’t know how I would feel about where they were in their lives. I’ll confess—some of them were exes that had not ended in drama or disaster.

I caved. I signed up.

I started slow, friending current, real life friends. Fine, no problem. Then I started branching out into older friends. Mostly fine, a few never responded. Then I went farther back in time—and former relationship status.

It’s amazing who you find, who they are, and what you connect over. Not every jock remains a jock. Not every party-hardy-good-time-Charlie is still drinking and cussing. Not every gamer geek is still having three-day LAN parties, not every Alex P. Keaton is still sleeping in a suit and tie. Some of you are saying, “Well, of course not!” Some of you who still bear the scars of high school are nodding smugly. Some of you who look back wistfully at, “Remember when?” still wish they were. Some of you are so, so glad they are not.

I found an old dance company buddy after we hadn’t talked for roughly 20 years. They were a stellar singer/dancer/actor AND an elite runner. We have long chats now about what’s up with TV’s current dance shows.

I found an on-again, off-again boyfriend of several years who is married with a bunch of children. He was the life of the party. His life now centers around his baby girls. He’s also gone quite gray and bears little resemblance to his high-school self. He reconnected me to several other friends whose lives have gone in unexpected and utterly fascinating directions.

The eternal bachelor/boyfriend who swore he would never marry, never have kids, has a page covered with pictures of his daughter. If there is anyone who will max out his allowance of pictures, it is him.

I ran into a childhood friend at my father’s memorial lunch. He had been in and out of trouble as a teen but is now a music producer. We connected on Facebook, and I am so happy to see that he is still working in an industry he loves.

Two gents with whom I’d have to say, “It was complicated,” found me. We don’t talk very often, but there’s never been any mention of what was, or might have been, or could have been. I think it just doesn’t matter at this point. We relate to each other as the people we are now, not the people we were then.

An old roommate with whom I parted on very, very bad terms, who at the time had no goals and no direction, is in law enforcement, and about the last person I would have expected to go into that field. He is also a seasoned traveler, and has given me much advice since I’ve upped my time away from home.

I made a lot of acquaintances when I was on stage my many moons ago. Most of my fellow performers are on Facebook, and I’ve also gotten to know several of them far better in writing, online, than I ever could have in a noisy, crowded, backstage dressing room, or when we were jockeying for time and tips. A guy that I admired but barely spoke to back then is someone I now get to have lively—and sometimes utterly frustrating—arguments with.

I think that’s been the best thing about using Facebook as a way to reconnect. It’s helped me get over my fear of people from my past, made me more open to getting to know them again, because I’ve realized we are not those people anymore. We’ve grown up, moved on, and if any of them are holding a grudge, they’re not bringing it up. Myself, I’m not seeking out anyone I have a grudge against. That just doesn’t make sense to me. And it’s not just the men, but the women from my past that I’ve reconnected with—friends, roommates, exes—even when our old relationships were complicated, now the connections seem to have a lot less baggage.

Maybe it’s the fact that we don’t see each other in real life. Maybe it’s the arms-length friendships that technology allows. Maybe it’s that we have the luxury of not having to respond at that moment, or be forced by distractions to cut our answers short or not think about what we are saying. Maybe time has polished the rough edges of these old relationships and mellowed them, or erased the memories of whatever made them complicated in the first place. Maybe our use of technology to communicate, the ability to fine-tune what we say, has helped us master the art of avoidance.

I can’t answer for everyone, or anyone.

But in getting over my fear of communication with the past, I’ve opened myself up to a much more interesting present, and future.

I Dare You to Define Normal: Families

This all started when my partner J and I and our Miss M. started talking about hypothetical children. If she were given a child, we’d have a share of the parenting, along with our girlpartner Z. If we were to put custody on paper, it would be two moms, one dad, and me, good ol’ Unky JJ, at a 30/30/30/10% split. We’d buy another house or two on our street and raise the child communally. If J and Z had the baby, then there would be one mom, one dad, Unky JJ, and Aunty M, at a 40/40/10/10% split, also communally child-rearing. This arrangement seems perfectly normal for us, and Miss M used to live on a commune, where all of the children slept in their parent’s space but were raised by everyone.

Here’s some more normal: We have a friend who lives with the mother of his child and her wife and they raise their four kids (one biological, three adopted by various combinations of adults) communally. Two of J’s cousin’s babies are being raised by their great gramma and gramma. I’m close to a single father with two teenage boys, another with a daughter in college, and another with an 8-year-old daughter with a Calvin-level imagination . Two white lesbians I know are about to adopt an African-American toddler. Another friend has three kids being raised by her, her husband and her husband’s boyfriend. Oh, and the eldest still sees her dad and stepmom all the time.

Want some other normals? We know several straight couples who are long-term married with 1-3 three kids, raising them with little or no outside support, and a couple with three kids who’ve been together so long everyone thinks they are married. Also in our circle of friends and acquaintances are childless-by-choice people who take care of everyone else’s kids in time of need, and the mom and dad with two biological kids who have taken in enough strays to field a football team. When I lived in southern California, multiple generations of Asian families living in a single home/multiplex was pretty common. Still is.

Unfortunately, our legal and educational systems have not caught up with the true normals. Too much is structured around the mom-and-dad, or the single mother. When it’s time for a classroom party or fundraiser, call on the Moms, even when the Dads are jumping up and down to participate. Notice the exclusionary language? No words for caretakers, adults, kid’s adults, keepers, or wranglers, and I’ll bet very few schools have alternative names for caretaking grownups outside of the traditional structure (mom, dad, stepparent, partner (in the more enlightened areas), gramma, grampa, uncle, aunt, brother, sister). A kid brings something homemade to school or daycare? Chances are, praise for help will go to the mom (unless it’s mechanical). A man takes a girl to dance class? He’d better clear out quick, lest someone think he’s a “perv”.

Male caretakers get especially short shrift in the shifting normal. When they do something totally average in child care, it’s treated as though they have done something heroic (although I must say some of the clever ways to make ponytails are indeed amazing). When they are the only man in the room at a Mommy and Me event, because there is no Mommy and there are few Daddy and Me events, they are not, shall we say, embraced, at least not at first.

I’ve talked to a few single and/or stay-or-home dads who’ve been quite disgusted at how condescending people are to them, or how people assume they don’t know what they are doing and offer advice on everything from car seats to diapers, or people who boldly ask why they don’t have a job. If it were me, I’d probably be tempted to tell them that I’ve gotten the child to age 4, thank you – I’m doing ok, and I like raising my child.

I wonder if part of the fear of two men raising a child less about sexual orientation and more about the fear of, “If one man is incapable, two will be worse.”

The norms of child-rearing are constantly shifting, and vary between cultures and regions. That’s kind of a “duh!” statement.  And I think that when that “otherness” comes to their neighborhood or school, people get nervous, even when it’s something as seemingly straightforward as men and women getting equal family leave when a child is born (fairly common in Europe). Here, a man taking time off when a baby arrives is risking not only his career, but his status among his peers. It’s just not “normal”.

But really, what is normal anymore?

Grillin' and Chillin': Not just for boys anymore...

So there was just an ad on for grills and grilling accessories, featuring men grilling. No women in sight. Meat, sunshine, comraderie, smoke. Since the sound was off, I could not hear the voice-over, but I suspect it was deep, gruff, and manly, as is typical for these commercials.

But not a women in sight for the whole of 30 seconds.

This reminded me of a roommate I used to have. He and most of our friends had a code: women do not grill. They do not touch the grill. They do not touch meat on the grill. If there should be a few vegetables on the grill for some traitorous friend who believed that a meal needed more than meat and starch, they were not to touch that either. Not the tools, not the sauce, not the charcoal, not the lid. The grill was a Man Zone. On one memorable occasion when a woman picked up tongs and turned a nearly-burnt chicken breast, four voices hollered, “She’s touching the grill! She’s touching the meat!” And my roommate came bolting out of the apartment, turned the chicken back over, and told her not to touch it, that he had just turned it, and that women were not allowed to touch the grill.

For the record, I don’t care who touches the grill, as long as the food is cooked.

Since I saw that ad, I’ve been thinking about other ads I’ve seen for grilling, and cooking in general. If it involves the kitchen, common kitchen tools, family meals, desserts, good, wholesome nutrition—it’s going to feature a woman, almost every time. If it involves grilling, tailgating, campfire cooking, BBQ—it’s gonna be a man. Healthy or pretty food—women. Junk food, sloppy food—men.

Once again, thank you, advertising, for reinforcing outdated stereotypes.

Plenty of men love (or at least like) to cook and be in the kitchen, and at least some will admit it. I thank the rise of celebrity chefs for that. BAM! Plenty of women cook out, and there are more than a few female teams on the competitive BBQ circuit. Men are completely capable of cooking full meals, packing lunches, baking cookies, handling nutritional needs, pouring cereal, converting bread to toast, everything that women are seen doing in commercials.

So why don’t we see more of this in popular media?

My guess is that many of the people running the advertising are still locked into the idea that woman are the primary shoppers and decision makers in a family, and that they will mirror what their own do. That they trust their own. That they connect with their own. Ditto with men, assumed to be the primary consumers of grills, steaks, and brats. (We’ll ignore for a moment the lack of ethnic diversity in commercials.)

Maybe I’m crazy, but if a cereal or soup or a frozen-in-bag meal or a set of pans or tools looks good to a consumer,  I doubt that they would not buy it because of the gender of the person in the commercial. A company might even pick up some customers if they turned things on their heads and gave a woman some meat tongs and a ribeye and a guy a big steaming bowl of mac-and-cheese or a homemade birthday cake.

And I might be going out on a limb here, but maybe some men who are reluctant to pick up a whisk might do so if they saw more of themselves doing it. Not just one on a cooking show, but in everyday, shown-repeatedly-everywhere commercials. Let’s trade in some of the emaciated slacks and shirts modelmen in guy’s magazines and replace them with burly, bellied, bearded dudes making toaster pastries for their daughters, or a guy in coveralls using some good olive oil in his pasta. How about Mr. Shirt-and-Tie extolling the virtues of how this dish soap works great on the glass dish he baked a lasagna in, or how these are the easiest, tastiest break-and-bake-cookies ever (while a bunch of his buddies devour them).

Heck, maybe, just maybe, he pulls a Mrs. So-and-so’s apple pie out of the oven while a women hollers from outside that the burgers are ready, and could he please grab the ketchup?

Warning: I Indulge in Age and Gender Inappropriate Behavior

This is the best button I’ve ever owned. “Warning: I indulge in age and gender inappropriate behavior.”

Come on, own up. You do it, too. I don’t care if you are 17 or 75.

There are no age limits on some things. There are no age limits on a lot of things.

When there’s a good song on the radio, I rock out. Ice Ice Baby, Single Ladies, YMCA, Blurred Lines, Lady Gaga anything. Go ahead, guy in the truck next to me. Get your phone camera out. There’s steel and glass and space between us, and a green light. Reba, Tone Loc, Missy Elliot, Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, Thriftstore. Yes, woman in the silver BMW. Your child (who should be in the back seat, by the way) is pointing at me and laughing hysterically. I know I look ridiculous. It’s Raining Men, Trace Adkins, anything on Wii, I’ve got a dance to it that can be done sitting down. It’s ok, teenagers in the Brady-wagon. Laugh at me now. You do it, too.

Someone has a bottle of bubbles? Go pop some.

Oh, look, an open parking lot. A long hallway. Let’s skip. Right foot hop, left foot hop, right foot hop, left foot hop, repeat. Can’t skip? Let’s do that other thing (it’s called a chasse, but I won’t expect you to remember that). Right, left together, right, left together, right, left together, repeat. Go solo, grab a buddy, grab your kids, grab the girl you are friends with, and skip. Have a skipping race. If there are puddles, splash in them a time or two. You are washable. So are your clothes. You’ll love it. Doesn’t matter that you haven’t done it in mumblemumble years.

Look, there’s a balloon. Bat it around with a friend. Or yourself.

That little kid wearing their “awesome sneakers” that give them magical powers to shoot green lasers from their fingers and jump so high and fast that you can’t even see it (There! They just did it!)? Play along. Doesn’t matter if you spend your day being the manliest man ever seen. Another kid invites you to a tea party? A secret superheroes meeting? Don’t resist. Let your kidself come out and play.

Those concerts where you see the beach balls flying? Join in. Take a look. Lots of other guys are doing it too. Good chance they are diving for it.

You are just standing there and you hear the music. Your feet hear it first. Mine start tapping. Then they start to prove that you can line dance to anything or everything. Then they start listening to the music in your head and dancing along to it. Baby dance steps. Nothing grand, nothing that takes up more than my own personal space. But if you are even a little bit like me, you want to move. Maybe your shoulders. Maybe your fingers or hands like to drum. Maybe your head bobs and weaves a little. It’s ok. Guys dance.

Sprinkles on your ice cream sundae are a good thing.

Sitting under some speakers somewhere? It’s a favorite song. Maybe one from now, maybe one from high school. Maybe a slow song from that dance where you got to stare at your crush and you almost got the courage to say hello. Maybe one you and your favorite grownup sang to when you were a kid. Maybe one you sing to a kid while making funny faces. You hum a little. You sing under your breath. You leave, and in the parking lot you sing a little louder. You think you sound pretty good. I know I do. I think I sound great. I also think that I am mildly delusional in this area. But dude, it’s MUSIC! You have to sing. Think about the voices of all of the men before you. What if they hadn’t?

Is there a piece of playground equipment you can climb? Go up. See the world from a different view.

Years ago, I got to spend time in an old industrial building that contained the awesomest library ever, complete with scooters and a long, empty room. One guess what I did with that combination. One guess what you would do.

How many times have you been tempted to play with those Legos? To grab a stick horse in a toy store and go for a gallop? To make all of the crowd sounds while you play air baseball and hit a grand slam, or catch a ball on the fly? To grab a couple of sticks with a friend and stage your very own sword fight? To wail on that air guitar? To speak like a pirate, one day a year?

Go ahead. Do it. If anyone laughs, just remember. They probably want to do it, too.

Thanks, Facebook, But I Don’t Need a Makeover

It used to be just the sidebar ads. A few here and there for expensive monogrammed dress shirts. An occasional shoe ad. Maybe a sports drink of some sort of shake. A 2-week trial membership to Generic Jim’s Gym. They showed up here and there and I ignored them.

And then my eagle-eyed honey pointed out the sudden KERPOW! increase in ads for Sexy Man Underwear. Not ads  for April Fools. Not ads for Valentine’s Day. Everyday ads.

So there I was, occasionally showing my FB account to people, and it almost never failed that while doing so, I’d get a bunch of…men-in-underwear ads. Only in their underwear ads.

Those went away after a while. I guess Facebook finally realized I was not going to buy a banana-hammock.

Next came the Suggested Posts of things I should like. Apparently I am not big enough or strong enough or the right shape for Facebook, because it keeps suggesting I “like” this muscle-building shake or that “get buff” program or some exercise program guaranteed to reduce my body fat to -10% and bulk me up until the Hulk himself would be jealous. Yes, I am too fat for Facebook.

I’m also not fashionable enough, since they are suggesting I “like” these boots and those shoes and, for some reason possibly related to a project I did for a friend, this flirty little dress-and-high-heel set. Ties, also. Apparently the 50 or so I own  isn’t enough anymore.

♦◊♦

I understand that Facebook has this-and-that algorithm that is supposed to look at things I like and try to predict other things I’ll like and advertise them to me. It is trying to think for me, and I suppose I should thank them, since I do enough of that during the day.

But I have my own style, thank you. I don’t need to look like Joe Magazine, and I certainly don’t want to spend the money to. $75 for a t-shirt? I’ll pass, thank you. Balloon animal muscles? I’ll keep my pencil arms. A diet consisting of rare berries and grasses and the purified, encapsulated milk of some distant animal that will make give me a lustrous head of hair and make me live for 150 years? Nope, I’m happy with my yogurt and apple lunch.

There are enough images of what men are expected to live up to around us without our social media outlets trying to make us feel like we need some sort of fashion and diet cure-all. Think about it…you are happily scrolling through Star Trek memes and stories of your buddy’s kid’s football game and online comics and updates from your favorite TV shows and you get a Suggestion to “like” something that tells you to “man up, get buff, get chicks”. Thanks, Facebook, for preying on our insecurities. Apparently, you’ve tired of doing it to women and decided to move on. Or it’s working so well on them you’re trying it out on us.

And given the amount of these thing that are stacking up, I think it’s (sadly) working.

PS: To the person who added a sneaky little way to try to get these to go away, we appreciate it. Now, can you actually make it work?