Quill & Claw/Pen & Paw

My poor husOtter. He tried, when we first started dating all those moons ago, to see what made me tick. I found paperback copies of Frankenstein and Dracula scattered under his coffee table and end table, all the pages shortly dog-ear-ed. He'd apologize, and admit, eventually, that I would have to see my horror movies alone. He'd ride the Haunted Mansion, but a walk-through house was too much. Horror, as it seems, is a very personal and distinct experience. We all have those things that scare us to immobility; we also have those things we allow. My mother? She LOVED Hitchcock movies. When I would come home from the video store in high school on a Saturday night, they were all that was left that the rabble did not wish to see. She and I would watch bevies of those thrillers. Bring home Friday the 13th ? Halloween? No. But Fatal Attraction was a standout. She had what was safe scary, what she could digest. And that which was unacceptable. Even I do. I believe, for my tast...

When Caitlyn Jenner came out, I congratulated her. Same with Michael Sam. And, every time, people responded positively. It is a good thing. I was once that gay kid who wondered if there were others. I couldn't see them in media, I had no idea. And that loneliness was lethal. Truly, lethal. I just needed a reason to know that I was not going to be a fat, ugly kid, a pariah forever, and I might as well end it now. It's not like my family could help (I would later learn that they would, but that's not what we're looking at, here). So, even if I didn't have a direct relationship with the famous, if they could do it, if they could voice their experiences and I could see the parallels, I had hope. What was it my buddy, Harvey Milk said," You gotta give them hope."  With each famous individual coming out, hope grew. With ever gay cinema character, hope grew. With every recognition that didn't end up in death, hope grew. In a world where white stra...