Birthday Reflections and Self-Evident Truths

Today was Little Dude's second birthday. We had a nice little family party with balloons, presents, veggie burgers, and a very cool bus-shaped birthday cake that FoxyJ made.

One year ago we celebrated LD's first birthday with yummy food and cupcakes and a few friends. Besides the additional company, the big difference last year was that, even though I helped out with the barbecue, I was technically a guest. Foxy and I had been separated for a couple months at that point, with plans to divorce. For LD's birthday, though, we played the role of happy family, not to fool our friends who were very aware of our current situation, but because the role came rather naturally to us, all things considered.

I have a very distinct memory of sitting on the floor during the party, watching the kids play while Foxy chatted with the adults. I looked around and thought, "This is my home. This is where I'm happy." As far as I can recall, that was the first time since moving out that I really questioned whether being divorced is what I really wanted. I had questioned to the point of obsession whether it was the right decision, but until then I was fairly convinced that it was what I wanted, speaking strictly of selfish motivations.

Wary of making a rash decision I'd regret later, I didn't act right away on that thought. I let it sit for a few weeks and in the meantime paid close attention to how I felt when I was with FoxyJ--we had an arrangement during the separation where we were having family dinners together at least twice a week, and then there were the drop-off and pick-up times on the weekend as well. I was far from miserable in my newfound bachelorhood, enjoying above all the time alone it gave me, but I was surprised to find that I felt even happier when I was with Foxy and the kids. I found that, all questions of morality and religion and responsibility aside, I actually liked the life I'd had and chosen to leave behind.

The next question to answer was whether Foxy was happier with me or without me, and after a bit of trial time she decided she could live without me just fine, but if she had a choice she'd rather not. It's nice when things work out that way.

It's strange now to think about how different things were a year ago. Objectively I recognize that less than a year after reuniting it's premature to make any sweeping conclusions about the longterm success of our marriage, but speaking subjectively and in the moment it's hard to imagine anything other than the us that exists now, to imagine that it was ever in question or that it ever could be. I'm a complete person alone but I'm completer with Foxy and the two of us together with our two children feels to me like a self-evident truth that stands at the center of the universe.

Perhaps this is why I've talked about our marriage here quite a bit less in the last year than I did before that. In the past my talking publicly about our reasons for getting and staying married has led some people to believe that I was opening the topic for public debate. How can I debate truths that are self-evident to me? Thankfully, when it comes to matters that affect only our family, I don't have to. So long as the same truths are self-evident to me and Foxy, we're good.

At any rate, I'm happy to have spent today with my son, my daughter, and with a woman who makes creative cakes, who folds origami boat invitations for our daughter's upcoming going-away party, who writes thoughtful posts on the seemingly miraculous birth of our son and how that fits into a world where similar miracles are denied to others, who answers just about every random trivia question I throw at her (and knows what she's talking about 95% of the time), who gets annoyed with people who ask how I feel about being a "Mr. Mom" but is empathetic enough to understand the cultural norms behind such sexist terminology and judge not the people but the norms, who cooks mostly vegetarian because the meat industry is destroying the environment, who regularly exposes me to cool foreign and classic films that I might never have heard of if not for her, who has now qualified twice to be in Jeopardy!'s contestant pool, and most of all who continues to love me despite my personal shortcomings, my eccentric obsessions and time-consuming hobbies, my inability to express emotions in a healthy way, and my passive-aggressive tendencies. I look forward to celebrating LD's twelfth and eighteenth and forty-ninth birthdays by her side.

Another Interview

The holiday season killed the momentum on several of the interviews I was doing for my series of straight spouse interviews on Northern Lights, and I haven't managed to get very many of them going again since then--as much due to my own busyness as to theirs. Miki Biddles, though, has been kind enough to keep going steadily through the interview and I've finally managed to put all my questions and her answers together and post them. Enjoy.

Fascinating Manhood

Yesterday while my wife was at work and I was busy preparing a nice warm meal for her to come home to, the microwave stopped working. None of the buttons I pressed did a thing! Now, I know a lot of boys might panic at such a predicament, knowing how important it is to have dinner ready before their woman comes home. Some househusbands would go straight to the phone and call a repairwoman out to fix the microwave, thinking this is the best way to avoid adding any complication to their wife's already-stressful workday. I, however, know better. Where others see calamity, I saw opportunity--an opportunity to reaffirm my complete and utter dependence on my woman, and for her to reaffirm her womanliness.

When my wife got home from work I put on my best pouty face and said in a childlike whine, "Honey, I broke the microwave." I was sure to bat my eyelashes and look as cute as I could in my little apron when I said this.

My wife smiled and shook her head. "It's probably just the outlet, sweetie."

"If you say so," I said with hunched shoulders and an ever-so-slightly tilted head. "You know I don't understand those kinds of things--I'm just a boy."

She sighed. "I'm exhausted right now. I'll take a look at it tomorrow. Where's my dinner?"

I quickly dished up the broccoli cheese soup and the potatoes I'd baked in the oven, then stood by the table and watched my sweetcake enjoy the meal.

I was a little worried we'd have to buy a new microwave, as I know finances stress my honey out--I don't bother with such things myself, as I just have to ask for a blank check when I need something--but of course my silly concerns were unfounded. This morning while I was out running my little errands, my good wife fixed everything. Flipped the breaker or some such gobbledy-gook.

The important thing is that my wife knows I need her, and that's why she loves me. This Celestial Love is what makes our marriage so great!

WOW!

Last week I learned that some of the women who participate in the spouses group over at North Star are putting together a weekend retreat for women who are married to same-sex attracted men. It's called WOW: Women of Worth, and will be held in Holiday, Utah, in June. For all the info, go here. I think this is a good thing and I hope it's a positive experience for everyone involved.

I would also like to point out that I totally found out about this before Ty posted about it on Northern Lights, but I was slow to post and so now I look like a follower. Oh well. I'm cool in my dreams.

The Division of Labor

My friend Scot recently responded to my allegations that, like a good old-fashioned patriarch, he unfairly benefits from the domestic labor of his husband; he did so by making a list of the household chores for which he and his husband are each responsible. That, together with a post on MoHoHawaii's blog, has got me thinking about how Foxy and I divide the labor. Here's my version, but, considering that most of these things we haven't actually put in writing or even discussed, her interpretation may well differ:

Mr. Fob's Jobs

• Part-time winner of bread (though full-time for a year after the birth of each child; future status to be determined)
• Preparer of breakfast for children--because Foxy's not a morning person
• Primary caregiver while Foxy is at school, work, or otherwise occupied (currently about twenty to twenty-five hours a week)
• Preparer of dinner on nights when Foxy is gone (currently four nights a week)
  
• Part-time dishwasher
• Primary bedtime story reader
• Primary bath giver
• Payer of housing and utility bills--a role we shared in the past but I have taken over completely since we established separate bank accounts last year

FoxyJ's Jobs

• Part-time winner of bread (with a one-year break after the birth of each child; future status to be determined)
• Chief meal planner and preparer--because she likes to cook
• Primary caregiver while Mr. Fob is at school, work, or otherwise occupied (currently about twenty-five to thirty hours a week)
• Part-time dishwasher
• Primary naptime story reader
• Buyer of groceries
• Planner of vacations
• Scheduler of doctor's (and other such) appointments
• Primary laundry doer
• Knower of all things

Careful inspection of these two lists will reveal that there are some hundred or so hours of the week in which neither of us is the primary caregiver. This is not because we share the giving of care when we are both home; rather, our children are given no care when we are both home. Typically, one of us sits on the couch reading a book while the other sits at the computer, each of us hoping the other will do something about that screaming child. It's a game of Chicken, basically: which of us will be overwhelmed by the screaming and give in to the child's demands first?

There are a lot of jobs that we share fairly equally: doing the dishes, taking out the trash, cleaning the house. Foxy may contest that she does a greater share of the latter; I concede only that she more often notices that something needs to be cleaned, and then it is just a question of whether I will get off my butt and clean it before she gets tired of waiting and does it herself.

I would like to think that we divide the labor fairly evenly because that is how I think it should be, but truthfully I have to admit that Foxy does more than her share. I would also like to think that this inequality is based solely on our differing personalities, but when the imbalance in our roles lines up so closely with imbalanced male-female relationships going back hundreds of years, it's hard not to recognize that to some extent we have allowed ourselves to fall into stereotypical gender roles. Some (people related to me, mostly) have argued that I do more than most husbands, but really I don't take much satisfaction in knowing that I do well when measured against a crappy standard known for its unfairness to women (and honestly I think I'm more or less on par with other husbands of my generation). I wish at least one sentence in this paragraph were not made of two clauses conjoined by a "but," but alas it isn't going to happen.

Moral of the story: I'll forever be in Foxy's debt, but that's no excuse to stop trying to catch up.

Scot posits that it "may be kind of different how labor becomes divided in a home with two men or two women," and that he and his husband "split it up by who’s good at what." I'd say this is a good way for anyone to do it. I'm curious to know how other couples, gay and straight, divide the labor, so I'm now officially making this post a meme. If you are in a cohabiting relationship of any sort, consider yourself tagged. How do you and your significant other split up the tasks of life?

Foxy Exposed

I haven't and don't intend to link to every straight spouse interview I post on Northern Lights, but I suspect several Fobcave readers may be interested in reading the interview with FoxyJ I posted this afternoon. Wondering what my wife really thinks about Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley? Click here to find out!

Pransky on Commitment

People make a commitment in order to enjoy someone or something, not because they already enjoy someone or something. Distraction and ambivalence tell you your commitment is weak. Commitment is a stance toward life, a predisposition to get the most out of each experience by dismissing thoughts and reactions that detract from its value.

--George S. Pransky, The Relationship Handbook

Pransky compares commitment in marriage to a man watching a movie. If he spends his time wondering whether he's chosen the right movie or whether he should have watched the comedy playing down the hall, he's not going to enjoy the movie. If he puts all those thoughts aside, though, and focuses his attention on the movie he's watching, he's more likely to enjoy it.

I think this pretty much describes the difference between my attitude toward my relationship with FoxyJ for the year or two leading up to our separation and my attitude in the months since we've gotten back together. Yes, there are likely many other people in the world--men and women--with whom I could have had a wonderfully satisfying relationship. But I've also had a wonderfully satisfying relationship with FoxyJ, when I've been undistracted enough to recognize it. Commitment isn't about being a slave to a promise you made when you were young and naive; it's an attitude that allows you to enjoy what you have. You can trade in what you have for something else, but as long as your attitude doesn't change, you won't be any happier--and when what you "have" is a person who's likely to be extremely hurt by said trading in, you're better off learning to change the attitude before you make the trade than after.

Her Ex is Having Sex With Rex

I first learned of Jennifer Lee's memoir My Ex is Having Sex With Rex in a review on C.L. Hanson's blog. It sounded like an interesting book so I put it on my Amazon.com wishlist, but never got around to buying it until my brother got it for me this Christmas. It's a quick and entertaining read and provides an enlightening look at a mixed-orientation marriage and its aftermath from the perspective of a woman whose husband has left her for a man.

(As a side note, I always find it interesting when people talk about how the woman's perspective is generally ignored in the discussion of gay men marrying women, because the extent of what I've come across on the topic are books like this and Carol Lynn Pearson's Good-Bye, I Love You and Amity Buxton's The Other Side of the Closet, which are all about women who are divorced from gay men. Since the rise of the blogosphere I've seen a lot of married and divorced gay men blogging and a few lesbians here and there, but what I've seen very little of is straight women who are currently married to gay men, a lack I'm hoping to remedy a bit with the series of interviews I'm doing on Northern Lights.)

I admit to having a hard time, when reading this book and Pearson's, of taking these accounts of another person's experience as just that--another person's experience. It's too easy for me to read about Lee and her ex-husband and say, "Oh, that's just like FoxyJ and me" or "That's nothing like our relationship." It's too easy to look at others' experiences and see them as omens of things to come, to see the pain these women have felt as pain I will inevitably cause the woman I love.

At the same time, I'm bothered by statements Lee makes like "Bottom line: There's no hope of having a committed, connected, love-at-the-very-core-of-your-being marriage between a straight woman and a gay man." Really? Really? Have you based that statement on researched scientific data? I will never argue with Lee or anyone else who has come to that conclusion about her own marriage. I would not even argue with anyone who came to that conclusion about a potential marriage she chose not to enter upon learning her fiance was gay. But I have a hard time accepting such blanket statements made regarding all straight-gay marriages. This is not a matter of me defending my personal experience; I would have and did say the same thing when Foxy and I were separated with the intention of divorcing.

That said, I enjoyed My Ex is Having Sex With Rex. It's the honest story of a woman who was thrown unknowingly into a really crappy situation and is now in the midst of making the best of it. Quite admirably, she's concerned not only with making the best of it for herself but also for her children, her ex-husband, and everyone else involved. Even her conclusions about the impossibility of mixed-orientation marriages seem to be coming from her charitable attempt to view the end of her marriage and the pain it's caused her not as the result of her ex-husband's decision to leave but as an inevitable result of their situation. Ultimately Lee comes to a conclusion similar to one I came to this summer: it's not about whether she's happier now as a single woman than she was married to a gay man; she had a happy life as a married woman and she's made a happy life for herself now. In both situations there have been pain and joy. Lee's story is one of recognizing the past and possible futures for what they are and living in the present.

As for how it all applies to FoxyJ and me, well, that's for us to decide.

Straight Spouses on the Go!

The first of the (hopefully) ten interviews I'm conducting with straight LDS women and men who are (or were) married to gay men and women is up at Northern Lights. I also recommend you read the foreword to the interviews, mainly because I wrote it.

Weekly Confession #2

Forgive me, Blogger, for I have sinned. I married my wife for all the wrong reasons. Well, no, that's an overstatement. Several of the reasons for which I married my wife were not good ones. Rather than tell the whole story again, I'll copy and paste the narrative as I frame it in "Getting Out":

So I came home from my mission less sure that marriage and family were in my future. I’m not sure what kind of life I envisioned for myself—a lonely celibacy, I suppose—but for a month or two I’d resigned myself to it.

Here’s where Epiphany #1 comes in. This must’ve been in January, because I’m pretty sure it was before Jessie came home from her mission. I’d attended one of those BYU firesides where they tell you to get married. I pretty much tuned out the entire thing because it didn’t apply to me, but then I got home, sat on my bed, and had a distinct impression that yes, it did apply to me. Yes, I was gay, but that didn’t mean I was excluded from Heavenly Father’s desire for his children to marry and have families.

I thought of a sister missionary that had been in my district for nearly eight months and was coming home soon. I really admired her intelligence and her love of reading, and her complete disregard of whether people thought she was cool or not. She seemed like the type of person I’d like to marry. So I planned it all out. I’d email her when she got home, and we’d build our friendship while she was in Maryland. Then she’d come out to BYU and we’d start dating and then we’d get engaged and then we’d get married.

I think more than anything I liked this plan because it seemed like a Normal Mormon Guy type of thing to do (or at least a Normal BYU Student type of thing—it’s hard to distinguish after being in Utah Valley for so long).

What we have here, basically, is premeditated falling in love and courtship. This is at best creepy and at worst misogynistic. I think the truth lies somewhere between those two poles, personally, but since I'm the one confessing my sins and you're the one absolving them, I'll let you be the judge of that. I have acknowledged this creepiness before. In the paragraph immediately following the above, in fact:

To my surprise, the following months happened exactly as I’d planned. This is quite disturbing, now that I think about it. It must have disturbed me then, too, because on the morning of the day that we were to mail out the wedding invitations, I was still worried that I was marrying Jessie for the wrong reasons. I didn’t want to marry her just to prove to myself and others that I was normal, or to avoid hurting her feelings, or because it was the right thing to do. I wanted to marry her because I loved her and I wanted to be with her. Which I was pretty sure I did.

Now, I come from a literary school of thought that values subtlety, so when I'm acknowledging a bad quality in myself I generally don't come out and say "and this is a very bad quality, of which I am deeply ashamed and hope to rid myself completely" because I assume my readers are intelligent enough to figure it out. I assume that if I say, for example, "I am a narcissist," that everyone knows I don't mean it as a compliment. It's come to my attention, though, that the subtlety in the above paragraphs has been lost on at least one person, so I'd like to be clear about what I'm confessing to here. Among the possible motivations I had for marrying FoxyJ were:

1. God told me to.
2. In abstract, "she seemed like the type of person I'd like to marry."
3. That was the way I'd planned it.
4. It "seemed like a Normal Mormon Guy type of thing to do."
5. To "prove to myself and others that I was normal."
6. To "avoid hurting her feelings."
7. Because "it was the right thing to do."

Let me be absolutely 100% completely and for totally sure clear: These are all Very Bad Reasons to marry someone. KIDDIES, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Yes, even if God told you to marry someone but you're not sure you want to, please take Emily Pearson's advice about "the danger of taking 'every spiritual experience ... at face value" in situations such as these" (as cited in Holly Welker's "Clean Shaven"). If the narrative of "Getting Out," framed as it is in the discourse of personal revelation, seems to excuse the Very Badness of the reasons listed above and makes them seem Not So Very Bad, then I have compounded my sins by representing them as That Which Is Good and True. Which they are not.

I said before that to say that all my reasons for marrying FoxyJ were bad ones is an overstatement, and I feel the need to clarify what I mean, even if doing so detracts from the purpose of confessing my sins. So here are the good reasons I had for marrying FoxyJ, some of which are present in "Getting Out" and some of which are not:

1. "I really admired her intelligence and her love of reading, and her complete disregard of whether people thought she was cool or not."
2. I was "pretty sure" that "I loved her and I wanted to be with her."
3. She had said that she loved me and wanted to marry me.
4. I felt happy when I was with her and could see that being with me made her feel happy.
5. She and I shared many values such as our faith, education, family, liberal politics, and social justice.
   
6. She wanted to marry a traditional Mormon patriarch no more than I wanted to be one. (That is to say, not at all.)
7. Despite the strong feelings I had and knew I would always have for men, I had been surprised over the course of our relationship by how excited I was to be with her--the tingly sensation at first holding her hand, the butterflies before our first awkward kiss, the unignorable arousal we both felt once we finally figured that kissing thing out.
   
8. She was not afraid to talk frankly about sex, to acknowledge that she was nervous and excited about having sex, and to discuss (or joke about, as the case may be) the logistics of our future sexual relationship. (One of the funnier discussions we had was about whether it's okay to have sex on the Sabbath. Or when you're fasting.)
   
9. One of my happiest memories is driving home from a date with her and putting a mixtape she had made into my sister's car stereo. The first song was Lauryn Hill's cover of "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You." I felt giddy all over and almost cried at the realization that this very mature college student, this incredible person with whom I'd had so many intellectually stimulating conversations, would do something so teenage-romantic as making me a mixtape to say she was in love with me. And she'd used a Lauryn Hill song!
10. Marrying her meant I wouldn't have to buy my own copy of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

So there. I've confessed the Very Badness of some of my reasons for marrying FoxyJ, as well as the complexity introduced into the issue by the good reasons I also had. So what penance can I do to make up for these sins? How do I right this wrong?

I decided earlier this year that the bad reasons outweighed the good--it's easy when one wants to focus on the bad to ignore the good, or vice versa--and that the best way to make this right for me, for FoxyJ, and for our children was to divorce and start over. I would have a man who loved me, Foxy would have a man who loved her (the way that only a straight man could), and our children would have not only two parents who loved them but the added bonus of two stepfathers who would love them just as much. The problem with this plan was not that divorce is inherently bad or even that divorce is an inherently bad option for us. I believe that for the three months we were separated we did an exceptionally good job of co-parenting and relating to each other respectfully as formerly married friends--this is much more to Foxy's credit than to mine, as it is easy to be nice to the person you have wronged but not so easy to be nice to the person who has wronged you. The problem with this attempt at penance, see, is that just like in the case of my original sins I was doing something Very Very Bad: I was deciding for myself what was best for us. Divorce was never Foxy's idea; it was all me.

After realizing this grave error, acknowledging the complexity of my reasons for marrying her and the fact that I did indeed still enjoy spending my life with her, I regrouped with Foxy in order to come up with a plan together. We talked more honestly than we had ever before about the problems in our relationship. We discussed frankly what each of us would need to sacrifice in order to make this marriage work, and whether the benefits of the marriage would make it worth it for each of us. We considered together all the less-than-noble motivations that might underlie our mutual desire to reunite--chief among these questionable motivations was the financial stability our continued marriage would provide for the duration of my master's program and her doctorate. Ultimately we decided together that we had enough genuinely good reasons to stay together and enough faith in our ability to work through the difficulties that it was worth another shot. I am happy with that decision, and happy most of all that we made it together.

As penance for my past sins, then, I propose the following:

1. I will continue to take intuition (what I once would have called God speaking to me) into account when making choices, but I will not do so at the expense of other factors and certainly not at the expense of other people.
2. I will do my best to love FoxyJ not as an abstract idea of the type of person I'd like to marry, but as a real human being.
3. I will not adhere strictly to plans I have made when those plans involve the lives of other people; rather, I will include those people in the making and evaluating of such plans.
4. I will not do anything because it's the Normal Mormon Guy thing to do. At this point in my life, I think that goes without saying. In addition, I will not do anything simply because it's not the Normal Mormon Guy thing to do, or because it's the Normal Agnostic thing to do, or any such stupid reason.
5. I'm going to stop trying to prove to myself and others that I'm normal, or that I'm anything. This one's a bit harder, because I tend to put a lot of energy into proving all sorts of things about myself, and really I just need to get over it. I'll do my best.
6. I will avoid hurting Foxy's feelings, but not by thinking only of what I think she needs, but by listening to what her feelings really are and working with her to honestly address those feelings.
7. I will not do things because they are the right thing to do. Rather, I will do things because I and others affected agree that those are the best things for everyone's best interest. This is a subtle difference, I know, but the important thing here is thinking through the consequences of choices I make and not objectifying others in that process.

I am sorry for these and for many other sins of my past and present life. I hope that through my penance and FoxyJ's continued Foxy-ness we can make the next six years of our marriage even better than the first six years have been.

One Thing (For Now)

A clarification, because I don't like to be misunderstood:

A large part of Holly Welker's argument against "Getting Out" rests on this paragraph:

I don’t understand people who call themselves liberal and progressive but are threatened by homosexual reparative therapy enough to try to stop people like me from having that option. In my mind, this kind of thinking is anti-progressive. The whole point of the civil rights and women’s liberation movements was to allow blacks, women, and other minorities to break free from what had been their traditional roles. We live in a world now where it’s okay for blacks to do what was once considered “white” and for women to do what was once considered “male”—get an education, have a career, etc. Why then is it not politically correct for a gay man to venture into what is usually considered the exclusive territory of straight men—to marry a woman and have a family—if that’s what he chooses to do?

Apart from her accurate criticism of my painting the women's liberation and civil rights movements in such broad strokes, her objection, if I understand correctly, is that I seem to be co-opting these movements for my own purposes, essentially equating my position as a married gay man to that of women and black Americans. I can see how it may appear that way superficially, and if you interpret it thus it is certainly offensive. As Welker has pointed out several times, there is absolutely no legislation against gay people marrying heterosexually, no institutionalized bigotry as there has been and continues to be against women and racial minorities. I would have to be a complete moron and self-serving jerk to claim that I've experienced anything comparable to this kind of oppression.

If you read what I've said carefully, though, you'll see that I haven't made any such claim. What I've said is that it's contrary to progressive thought--for which I list as examples the progressive thinking behind the women's liberation and civil rights movements--to say that anyone--using myself as an example--should not be respected in their choice to marry any person who wants to marry them. I've not said that anyone is denying me that right, because no one is*, but that my choice is not considered "politically correct." This is demonstrated by the fact that Welker and others like her immediately jump to the conclusion that any gay man who dares to express his right to marry a woman who wants to marry him must be a backwards-thinking conservative hick. Would they accuse a woman expressing her right to marry another woman of having an overblown sense of entitlement? No; Welker has said as much. Why then the double standard? Why are some choices more politically correct than others?

A commenter on Welker's blog says that she is "astonished by the backwards reasoning of that paragraph you deconstructed, particularly the idea that having a woman to reproduce with and run your household for you has historically/traditionally been denied to men who are attracted to other men." I would be equally astonished by the backwards reasoning of such an idea, had I read an essay that made such a claim. What I actually say in the paragraph above is that "to marry a woman and have a family" [notice I've said nothing about who is running the household] "is usually considered the exclusive territory of straight men." There is a huge difference between the phrases "is usually" and "has historically/traditionally." The latter, hers, makes claims about historical reality, while the former, mine, speaks only of present social attitudes. No, gay people have not traditionally been denied heterosexual marriage, because traditionally gay people haven't been a part of public discourse. Notice also that I use the word "straight," which is not necessarily the opposite of "men who are attracted to other men"; I'm speaking not of sexual preferences that have existed for thousands of years but of sexual identities that have existed for less than two hundred. I would argue that yes, in the past fifty years or so since lesbians and gay men have legitimately entered the discourse, the assumption is that their rightful position--at least as far as progressive thought is concerned--is in lesbian and gay relationships. As I point out elsewhere in the essay, gay people in heterosexual relationships are "not even recognized enough to be repressed."

So if I'm not being oppressed, why then does it matter that some people, in the name of progressive thought, are so critical of mixed-orientation marriages? If there's no legislation against me, why am I complaining? Because bigoted legislation doesn't magically appear out of nowhere; it is borne of widely-accepted bigoted discourse. Twenty-six states haven't adopted constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage just because. They've done so because the majority of voters in those states believe the bigoted rhetoric against homosexuality that is so prevalent in our culture. Welker rightly criticizes my oversimplified statement that "We live in a world now where it's okay for blacks to do what was once considered 'white' and for women to do what was once considered 'male.'" No, as much as I would like to think so, we don't live in that world. I would like to live in a world, though, where no one's choices are limited by their gender, race, or sexual orientation, and I believe that world can only exist once we start respecting those who make choices different from our own, even choices we don't understand.

I am thankful for the many, many people--whether or not they would call themselves liberal and progressive--who have respected me in the choices I've made. I will do my best to return the same.


*Except for the campaigns against homosexual reparative therapy that I reference in the paragraph preceding the one quoted here, which I'll freely admit is an entirely different argument than the right to marry. I'll also freely admit that my conflating the two arguments in the paragraph above is confusing. On the other hand, they do both come down to respecting the right of mentally capable adults to make the decisions that they deem best for themselves. The only difference is that in the case of reparative therapy we're talking about a single person--the one who seeks out reparative therapy--while in the case of marriage we're talking about two people--the two spouses who, as consenting adults regardless of their gender and/or sexual orientation, decide to marry each other.

Cross-Posting (which is a lot like cross-pollination, or so I hear)

Yesterday I guest-posted on Northern Lights a Call for Questions and Interviewees for a series of interviews with straight spouses of gay people I'm hoping to guest-post over there. It occurred to me that I'm likely to reach a different group of people by soliciting help here as well, so here I am. Here is what I need:

1. Interesting, insightful, and respectful questions to include in the interviews. What do you want to know about straight people who marry gay people?
2. Interviewees. The implied focus of the interviews at NL is straight and faithfully Mormon people who are currently married to gay people, simply because that's the nature and scope of the blog, but if there are any straight people who are not (currently or ever) Mormon and/or who are no longer married to gay people, I'd love to interview you as well and post it in another venue (perhaps here?). So if you fit any of these categories and are willing to be interviewed (either anonymously or nomynously), comment here or email me at bgchristensen (at) gmail (dot) com.

The idea of these interviews, both in the public and personal spheres, is to shed light on an oft-discussed issue from the perspective of people who don't seem to be quite so oft-discussed.

Thanks much for your input.

Does This Ring Make Me Look Straight?

Thanks to Tito over at Northern Lights for pointing out this fascinating article on MSN. It's about people who identify as gay or lesbian but have found themselves falling in love and in relationships with people of the opposite sex. While that is not exactly my situation--I was in the straight relationship before I completely accepted a gay identity--I relate to most of what the people in the article say.

For example:

[Says] Tricia Johnson, 31, from Philadelphia, "When I first went out publicly with my current boyfriend, I wanted to stand up and say, ‘This isn’t what it looks like! I’m not really straight!’ In my heart, I was starting to wonder who and what I actually was. I felt totally out at sea.”

Particularly after making a bigger deal of coming out than I was comfortable with while FoxyJ and I were separated, I find myself feeling very self-conscious of the wedding band on my finger lately. What will my friends think? Will they assume I've joined the ex-gay camp? Will they think I've become (or gone back to being) a repressed closet freak? Or will they think I just pretended to be gay in some insane attempt to get attention?

“I felt like a traitor,” says Daniel Wright, 32, from Los Angeles. “I thought, ‘I am going to lose my friends, and I’m going to lose my community.’ It was like coming out all over again.” And it may indeed be hard for your gay friends to accept your new relationship. Dr. Schecter says, “In general, the gay and lesbian community is a minority community. It fights hard to be treated equally. There is strength in numbers, and any potential loss of a member of the community is threatening.” There might also be a perception that a person who enters a heterosexual relationship has taken the “easy way out.”

When Foxy and I got back together, I was especially nervous about telling my gay friends. Despite my fears, though, I'm happy to say that every one of them responded with love and encouragement. My friends, regardless of their orientation or political values, are happy so long as I'm happy. Perhaps I'd do well to follow their example in the way I perceive myself.

Telling family members about your new relationship can have complications of its own, particularly if they were not accepting of your gay identity. Samantha Lewis, 37, from Providence, RI, says, “The religious members of my family were ecstatic. They never fully accepted me for who I was. It was just another slap in the face.”

I felt this too after announcing Foxy's and my reunification. I was wary of overly-zealous expressions of congratulations because, happy as I was to be back with my wife, I read the well-meaning felicitations of my more conservative family and friends as signs that they had been waiting on the edges of their seats for me to come to the light and realize I'd never be happy as a gay man. This turned what should have felt like feelings of victory into feelings of defeat. I can't honestly blame the family or friends who were sincerely happy for me, though--it's me who chooses to interpret everything as judgment, who sets up a false binary wherein one of us is the victor and the other defeated.

As a gay person in a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, you might struggle to find an appropriate label. Does this mean that you’re straight or bisexual? Can you be dismissed as a “hasbian” or “yestergay”? In the end, your identity is something that only you can define. Dr. Schecter says, “There are people who retain lesbian identity while in a committed relationship with a man. Others do not. Identity is shaped by individual meaning.” Your current situation also does not invalidate your past relationships or mean that you are or were “going through a phase.” Tricia Johnson says, “I struggled for so long with what to call myself. Eventually I thought why do I have to have a label? My experience is more complex than a single word.”

Labels? Me? Never. Say what you want to about the inadequacy of labels, but it's a natural human tendency to name things and to group together things that have shared qualities. It also happens to be a natural human tendency upon which my chosen career is based. What do you do, then, when there is no name, when all the available names seem to describe things that share some of your qualities, but not all of them? Either you reject the human tendency to label as futile and destructive, or you make a new label. I've opted for the latter approach. While transorientation may never catch on outside the realm of this blog, I maintain that it's a healthy step in my process of navigating largely uncharted territory, and I suspect that some of my fellow travelers described in this MSN article would benefit from a similar addition to their ideological lexicon.

At any rate, it's good, as always, to be reminded that FoxyJ and I are not alone in this.

Flashing Into the Present

For eight years during the nineties--the years when I was most immersed in the world of superheroes--the monthly adventures of the Flash were written by Mark Waid. Waid had taken over the title in 1992, six years after the previous Flash had died and then been replaced by his teenage protege, Wally West. Since donning the Flash identity, Wally West had been portrayed mostly as a womanizing, junk food-eating, cocky twenty-year-old kid. Six years later fans still clamored for the return of his predecessor, who was generally considered the One True Flash. In Waid's eight years on the character, Wally grew up, settled into a responsible adult relationship, and accepted his role as the Flash. Not coincidentally, fans also began to accept him in the role.

One of Waid's running motifs during his run on The Flash was the opening line of each issue, which was always some variation of "My name is Wally West. I'm the Flash, the fastest man alive." Each issue was then narrated by Wally, with caption boxes revealing his thoughts as he battled supervillains and rescued innocents at superspeed. The concept was that Wally's thoughts moved at such speeds that he could have a two-page interior monologue in the two milliseconds it took him to run across town. I don't know how that concept works scientifically, but as a character and story concept, it worked quite well. So well, in fact, that this narrative device became associated with the character and Waid's successors continued to use it until Wally disappeared in 2006 and was replaced by his teenage protege, Bart Allen.

Now, a year later, Bart has been killed and Wally is back. Wally's return to the role of the Flash corresponds with Mark Waid's return, after seven years away, to the writing credits of The Flash. As Waid's Flash was consistently one of my favorite comics when I was growing up, I was happy to hear of his return. The news was, in fact, one of the motivations behind my recent return to weekly trips to the comic book shop. Alongside the excitement of seeing one of my favorite writers writing one of his favorite characters again, though, was a bit of fear, an acknowledgment that as fun as nostalgia is, you can't go back in time. If Waid is going to attempt to recreate his glory days and bring us back to the Flash of the nineties, I'm afraid it would feel too much like running backwards.

So I picked up All-Flash #1 last month with this mix of excitement and fear. The issue started out with the familiar "My name is Wally West. I'm the Flash, the fastest man alive," and I was brought back immediately to the nineties. Wally sped through the issue, tracking down the villain responsible for his successor's death, narrating the journey along the way, and I was a fifteen-year-old again, lost in a fantasy world of superpowers, tights, and creative rewriting of the laws of physics. Then towards the end of the story, Wally is talking to his aunt, his thoughts running parallel to their conversation, and she says, "Stop it. Stop with the interior monologue, Wally. I know you're thinking of a million other things while you're talking to me. If you're going to be the husband and father your wife and children need, you're going to have to learn to be present with the people you're talking to."* And with that, the interior monologue stops.

I love that Waid did this. Assuming he follows through in future issues, this is a bold move: removing one of the most recognizable characteristics of his previous stint as writer of The Flash, arguably one of the things that made the series great. It needs to happen, though, if he's going to move forward and not simply relive the nineties. I also think it's a great moment in terms of character development. As his aunt points out, Wally is now a husband and father. Such relationships require, above all, presence and mindfulness.

Now, if only Mark Waid would write the interior monologues out of my life, I'd be set.



*Dialogue liberally paraphrased because I don't have the comic with me at the moment.

Priorities

Things I've Not Done in the Past Month or So

1. Devote as much time and energy to schoolwork as I should.
2. Focus on the things I should be focusing on while at work.
3. Go to the gym as much as I'd like.
4. Devote as much time and energy to my friends as I'd like to.
5. Devote as much time and energy to my non-immediate family as I'd like to.
6. Write (other than blogging, and this is true of much more than the last month or so).

Things I Have Done in the Past Month or So

1. Go to the zoo with Foxy and the kids.
2. Pick blueberries with Foxy and the kids.
3. Go to the store (actually, many stores) with Foxy and the kids (and spend way more money than we should).
4. Go for walks with Foxy and the kids.
   
5. Go to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with Foxy.
6. Stay up late talking to Foxy (well, a few times--we're far too practical and I'm far too sleepy at night to stay up late very often).

I'm in this weird place where I can't really complain that I don't have enough time--I have all sorts of leisure time and I enjoy it--but there's so much I'm not getting done. It's important to me that my family be my first priority, and that they know it based not just on what I say but what I do. And spending all this time doing fun things with them feels almost like--dare I say it?--a real live summer vacation.

The hard thing about priorities is that the things that are less important are still important, and it hurts to neglect them. I don't think it's a matter of finding more balance, either. I think it's a matter of accepting that some things just aren't going to get done, no matter how important they are, and then choosing which things are going to get done.

I'm happy with my choices.

Transorientation

Modern gender theory distinguishes between sex and gender, defining the former as "the physiological, functional, and psychological differences that distinguish the female and the male," and the latter as "sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture." Sex, in other words, is something you're born with, while gender is a lot more mutable. We refer to people whose gender identity (man or woman) is not the one traditionally associated with their sex (male or female) as transgendered.

I would propose, and I'm not the first to do so, that there is a similar relationship between sexual orientation and sexual identity. Like sex, orientation--what sex or gender you are attracted to--is something you're born with; you're heterosexual, homosexual, or whatever, and that's unlikely to change, short of some kind of as-yet-unknown orientation reassignment surgery. Sexual identity, on the other hand, is more like gender in that there are many ways to express one's sexuality and these do not necessarily correspond to one's orientation. We might call an individual who is born homosexual but for whatever reasons identifies as straight (or, for that matter, one who is born heterosexual but identifies as gay or lesbian) transoriented or transorientational (I'm undecided on which term I like better).

I have never had any question about my gender identity. I was born male and I identify as a man. I have spent much of my life, though, figuring out my sexual identity. For many years I did not call myself gay because of the LDS Church's counsel that people who experience same-sex attraction should not identify themselves by those feelings. Then a few years ago, even though I was still actively LDS and married to a woman, I began to call myself--both in private and in public--gay. The words "I am gay," this self-identifying speech act, relieved me of years of built-up pressure from refusing to acknowledge this important aspect of my identity. Some people questioned the prudence of putting so much energy into building a gay identity while trying to maintain a straight marriage, while others questioned my right to call myself gay when in fact my actions and lifestyle were completely straight, but I insisted that the word could mean whatever I wanted it to, and when I called myself gay I meant that I was attracted to men, nothing more, nothing less.

I still maintain that language means whatever the speaker intends it to mean (or, conversely, whatever the listener understands it to mean), but in the past month as I've rededicated myself to a marriage to a partner who happens to be a woman, I've begun to question the value of identifying myself as gay. There is no doubt that my inborn orientation is homosexual--I am sexually aroused by men. But the life I live, for all intents and purposes, is straight--the only romantic or sexual partner I've ever had or intend to have is a woman. Still, I'm not comfortable calling myself straight. Beyond the fact that I'm attracted to people who have a certain kind of reproductive organs, I feel that much of my inner life, my thoughts, and the way I experience the world are more like those of a gay man than those of a straight man. I have found, for example, that I tend to relate better to gay men than to straight men (with some notable exceptions).

One of the strongest arguments against homosexual people being in straight marriages is that we aren't being authentic to our true selves. Many, indeed, find the sacrifice of authenticity too much to make the marriage worth it. To be clear, I'm not staying married because I'm stronger or nobler than anyone else, or for that matter, because I'm less authentic; I'm staying married because I realized that for me, the sacrifice of giving up the marriage was greater than the sacrifice of giving up what I might have had otherwise. I believe FoxyJ feels similarly about the sacrifices she's required to make to stay in the marriage versus the sacrifices she'd have to make to end the marriage. Other people consider the same options and come to different conclusions. Every individual has his or her own values, priorities, and life situation; I can only act according to my own. La Agrado, a transvestite character in Pedro Almodovar's All About My Mother speaks beautifully of the more literal cost she's paid to become a woman: "Well, as I was saying, it costs a lot to be authentic, ma'am. And one can't be stingy with these things because you are more authentic the more you resemble what you've dreamed of being."

My motivations for choosing a straight life have been called into question before because by birth I am a member of an underprivileged class and I am trying to pass, as it were, for a member of the privileged class. Perhaps it is for this same reason that while society tends to view male-born women as amusing, female-born men tend to be seen as threatening. Rest assured, my class-conscious friends, I have no interest in being part of a privileged class; I'm much too enamored of the idea of Mr. Fob the Oppressed. This is, to be honest, one of the less-than-noble reasons I cling to the label gay. What it comes down to, though, is that the person I'm in love with, am married to, and want to be married to is a woman.

Perhaps more than anything, I feel that to call myself straight without any qualifiers would be to pretend I'm something I'm not, to ignore the fact that, like a male-born transsexual in the process of becoming a woman, I'm a work in progress. So I won't call myself straight, but I'm not sure gay accurately describes me either. I'll try transoriented on for size and see how it fits.

The Antepenultimate Chapter of Superfolks

A note on authorship: The bulk of this post is not written by me; it was written by Robert Mayer in 1977.

A note on aboutness: It is about me.

A note on copyright: I suspect that reprinting an entire chapter of a novel on my blog does not fall under fair use. I hope Mr. Mayer will forgive me.

A note on objectionable content: The following passage contains at least one crude metaphor and at least two offensive names of planets.

A note on spoilers: If you plan on reading Superfolks and don't want to ruin the mystery of the plot, you may want to stop reading now. By which I mean...

now.

A note on fictional context: Superfolks, as I've mentioned before, is about David Brinkley, who was once the world's greatest superhero, but has now been retired for the past eight years and living a suburban life with his currently-pregnant wife and their two children. Though his powers have been waning for years, Brinkley goes back into action to combat riots and crime sprees that prove to be part of a larger conspiracy. This conspiracy, as it turns out, stretches back over a decade and its target is Brinkley himself: Brinkley discovers that the reason his powers have faded is that his enemies have managed to lace the infrastructure of modern civilization--the water in our faucets, the air in our air conditioners, the metal that holds up our buildings--with Cronkite, the one substance that can kill him. Even without his powers, though, he manages to make it out to space, where, free of the deadly Cronkite, he feels his superhuman strength return.

A note on personal context: I read this chapter about a month ago, after I'd learned that the Cronkite that had been slowly killing me for years was inseparable from the planet I'd been living on, and I'd managed to escape that planet's gravitational pull. Now I pondered excitedly the universe of opportunity that lay before me. Like Brinkley, though, I now hovered in space above Earth, an umbilical cord holding me in place, awaiting a sign while aware that none would come, knowing I couldn't hover in place much longer.

The smile was gone. Brinkley was alone in space. More alone than he had ever been.

He looked down at Earth, glowing like a blue-green marble far below him. The familiar emerald and turquoise swirls were as inviting as a freshly made bed. He wanted nothing more than to return there; his home. To sleep a good, long sleep; without dreams.

Tears began to well behind his eyes. It was not fitting for a superman to cry. But there it was. The planet Earth below a blue-green dollop of poison, infested with Cronkite; for which there was no antidote. If he returned there, it was unlikely he could ever again escape its atmosphere. He would be weak, barely able to fly. And would grow weaker day by day, month by month; until in a year, or five, or ten--there was no way to say exactly--he would die.

He pulled off his mask, to wipe away tears that had filtered beneath it. And put it on again. Pamela was there on Earth; and Allison; and Jennifer. Perhaps even a new baby now. Would he ever see it? And how could he explain?

Earth was his home, the only home he had known. Chosen for him by his parents, Archie and Edith, in the last days of Cronk. Chosen not even by them, but by higher powers; by the Lord Gods Nietzsche and Namath, who guided their hand. He had come to feel almost more Earthling than Cronker; albeit a bit special.

And now?

The choices were spread before him, invitingly, like the spread legs of beauties; out there, in the distant galaxies. The six other planets that harbored human life. He could take up residence on any of them, and resume his role as a superhero, unhindered by Cronkite, cheered and honored by the populace. He could start a new life, a new family. He could live through eternity, never aging, doing his good works.

He could go to the planet Nudj, land of the long-stemmed rain. Or Bazoom, where strange myths grew on trees. Or Wop, or Kike, or Nigger, or Elvis.

Or he didn't have to commit himself to any one. He could travel among them, stopping now here, now there--an itinerant hero, beloved throughout the universe. A girl in every port. It wouldn't be a bad life. Battling monsters, subduing criminals--the life he had been created for. Maybe he would take up the guitar.

There was no other choice. That's what he must do.

And yet, down on Earth, there was Pamela. Allison. Jennifer.

They were his. They needed him.

It's not so, he told himself. Suppose he had died during this long night of combat? Life would go on for them. Pamela would marry again. The children would grow, would become independent. It might even be better for them.

. . . While far out in the universe, their father would become a legend, his name synonymous with all that is good and brave and true . . .

There was no other choice. Here from the perspective of the cosmos he could face without flinching the accumulated sadness of his recent life on Earth. The times each day when there would be a weight in his chest that would move up back of his eyes, until he wanted to lie down in private and cry himself to sleep, for no reason at all. That was the hell of it. For no reason at all. He would look around and see a refrigerator bulging with food, a wife he loved who loved him in return, two little girls growing up bright and true, a job he could keep for the rest of his life if he wanted, that would take care of all the bills--he would see all this and still he would want to cry; would awaken in the middle of the night sometimes and stare at the ceiling in the dark, at the ghostly circle of light cast by a street lamp, and he would recall the world-saving exploits of his youth as if they had been performed by a stranger. He knew he could not come close to performing them now, and would question whether he ever really had. Either way his wish would be the same. He would wish he could fall asleep again and never awaken.

Each time, of course, he would not fall asleep till the gray of dawn burned out the lamplit circle. Then he would be awakened by Pamela and the children stirring. Light would be knifing in beneath the shade, or a new winter snow would be falling, and his despair of the dark night would burrow deep beyond reach into his soul, whitewashed over by the mechanics of the day--till without warning in midafternoon at work it would peep out again like a gopher, and he would walk to the water fountain or down the hall until it passed.

Each time he would review the litany of his blessings. And each time the same answer screamed inside him: It was not enough.

But he didn't know what would be enough. What would satisfy him. What would fill the emptiness.

He had no complaints. Except . . . everything.

Sometimes he thought they should move from Middleville. He should quit his job, and they should go to Savannah, or Missoula, or Santa Fe. Someplace with a pretty name and a pretty view, where the beauty of nature would swallow up human grief, and paint it o'er with unity, oneness, peace.

Other times he knew it would do no good. He was a Cronker amid Earthlings, and always would be. No one would ever know him. He would never know another person. He was an alien, alone in the universe. It was his fate. Cursing it made his fate neither better nor worse.

Now that he knew the cause of his physical weakness--the spread of Cronkite through the arteries of civilization--he knew that moving to another town, another country, would make little real difference. Cronkite was everywhere. The days when he could ever again have a sense of mission . . . down there . . . were gone.

And yet he was not streaking away from Earth, away into the stratosphere, into a new superlife. He was hovering in place; looking down at the emerald-turquoise swirls; wistfully.

He felt like a balloon, flying high, but still held down by a string; an umbilical cord; a cord he would have to cut.

The cord of love.

Above waited a physical--even a spiritual--rebirth. A challenging new career. A full new life.

Below was his family. Three human beings. Perhaps, at this moment, four.

He remembered a small incident from a picnic the previous summer. They had gone to Mystic Seaport to see the old sailing ships, and afterward he had tumbled in the grass with the girls while Pamela grilled hamburgers. An orange-breasted robin hopped near them, and then lit for a distant treetop. Jennifer, her small arms draped loosely around his neck, had said, "Daddy, wouldn't it be nice to fly like a bird?" He had replied that he imagined it would be very nice indeed. But that if people could fly, then birds would no longer be special.

He hadn't thought the answer would satisfy her; but it had.

Now, alone in space, hovering, he found himself waiting for a similar answer himself. Some sign. Some revelation. Knowing there would be none.

Finally, unable to hover in place any longer, he shed his paralysis with a wrenching motion. He kicked his legs, like a swimmer; and filled his lungs with the pure heady ozone of free will.

He thought Good Thoughts; a ritual; as if crossing himself.

And soared off into space.

Toward the North Star he streaked; and circled it, and continued on beyond. Through the Milky Way; out toward the scattered stars of the distant galaxies, twinkling pure silver in the blue of eternity.

He passed the golden door, through which he had blundered earlier. And continued soaring outward; till he neared the invisible wall.

He paused there, looking down, the entire universe spread before him, gems in a blue-gold setting, exquisite, perfect; creation of the Original Jeweler, the Master Craftsman who had preceded all the others; whom subsequent gods had not been able to match.

He filled himself with the beauty of it all, like a parched wanderer prone beside a stream. The symmetry, the precision. His blood felt purified, his limbs invigorated. The exhaustion of the night's battles had vanished. He felt as powerful as he had ever been.

He switched on his supersight. He scanned the distant universe, until his eyes picked out the tiny blue-green marble, adrift like all the others, yellow, or brown, or red; planets of every color.

Even now he smiled at the sight of it.

Slowly, he flew to the left. To the place in space where Cronk had once been. It was a vacuum now. A black hole. He hovered there, solemn. As if he were visiting a grave. For one last time.

Then he flew on, without tears.

Down and down he flew; his eyes not roaming now; looking neither left nor right; determined not to see the myriad suns, the stars, rushing by. His eyes fixed, unwavering, on his destination. On the blue-green marble growing ever larger below him.

Addendum (A Fifth List)

Reasons FoxyJ and I Have Decided to Keep Working on This Marriage Thing

1. Because we want to.
   

Northern Exposure

FoxyJ has a beautifully-written guest post up at Northern Lights. You should read it. Really.

Impulse

In the mid-90s one of my favorite comics was Impulse by Mark Waid and Humberto Ramos. The series starred a teenaged superhero with superspeed who was known for being impulsive--perhaps not the best character trait for someone who can act in an instant on a whim to buy Chinese food... in China. This is, of course, what drove the humor of the book.

I am generally not a very impulsive person, at least not in my day-to-day life. If it's not in my plan for the day, it's generally too much trouble. Maybe I'll fit that spontaneous trip to the park in next week.

When it comes to major life decisions, though--schooling, career, marriage, children--I can be pretty impulsive. I can honestly say that I don't regret any major life decisions I've made, but I often think back on how quickly I've gone from one plan to another, like when I switched from the English PhD track to the MLIS track. Granted, I had a bit of external motivation for that change in the form of two rejections, but still I made the mental hop from one camp to the other rather quickly, considering that we're talking about what I'll be doing for the rest of my life here. Similarly, both times Foxy and I decided to get pregnant, the decision came in the form of an epiphany of sorts after a period of not wanting to have a(nother) child. Both times we... ahem... acted on the epiphany pretty immediately (though if I recall correctly, with Little Dude it took us a month or two before we succeeded).

Again, I don't regret these impulsive decisions. I don't regret pursuing an MLIS instead of a PhD, and I certainly don't regret either of our children. Nor, for that matter, do I regret the decisions to marry or to separate, though both were made at least a little impulsively. Therapist says that he always knows what the right decision is--the thing is he usually doesn't know until after the fact. The right decision, you see, is always the one you've made. That doesn't mean that the next time you're faced with similar options the right decision will be the same one; it means only that the decisions you've already made are the only ones that could have led to the present reality of your life, and it's fruitless to say that reality is "wrong."

With that in mind--the fa