The short version:
Basically I’m just like thousands of other queers who grew up in the hinterland and made the move to the big city for a more interesting life. I’m 31 years old, employed as an operations manager at Kinko’s, and live in San Francisco’s schizophrenic South of Market Area. I am currently single, and don’t necessarily want that to change. Interested parties are welcome to try, but be forewarned: I smoke, I eat meat, and I drink the occasional beer(s), but I avoid other drugs and have a low tolerance for heavy stoners and speed freaks. I tend toward cynicism and irony, but I’m not really mean-spirited. And I can cook if I have to, but I will not wash dishes. Ask my roommate.
The longer version:
My life story starts in the scenic vista known as Greensboro, North Carolina . I was a cute kid. I’m not sure what happened. My parents are incredibly sane, still married to each other, and I’m still on friendly terms with them.
I was an only child, and I remain a spoiled brat. I traveled a fair amount as a child, but lived at the same house until I moved out. My parents still live there. I’m pure middle-class WASP; there’s just no way around it.
I spent most of my elementary years in a frightening Southern Baptist school. My parents weren’t particularly religious; they just weren’t too fond of the Greensboro public schools. Ever since I finally saw “the light” and got the hell out at 12, I’ve had a major thing about Bible-thumping Fundamentalists who preach hate in the name of “Christian love”.
I spent my unpleasant and unpopular junior high years at Allen Jr. High, where the biggest discovery I made was the beauty of naked boys in the locker room. Alas, it was “look but don’t touch”.
High school was a little better. I had regular classes at Smith High School and TV and Graphics classes at Weaver Education Center. I went through my drug/booze phase in the 10th grade, my generic high school kid who works at McDonald’s in my junior year, and my pretentious intellectual philosopher phase in my senior year. Plus the boys were cuter in high school; see for yourself .
My senior year (1982) was also the year I “came out” and boy was I obnoxious about it. I told everyone, had a major chip on my shoulder, and may have single-handedly invented political correctness and newspeak (sorry…). This was also the year that I came to know my three best and oldest friends, Jeff, Duncan, and Stan.
That summer I began my three years at WUAG-FM, the radio station at UNC-Greensboro , and began greatly expanding my interest in music which was outside the mainstream. This was the period where I was an occasional club DJ, and was also the time when Danny Elfman rode in the front seat of my car. I also did the campus politics thing, Gay Students Association, and learned how to drink (again).
After a little more than two years at UNCG, three things combined to make my life really wierd: I fell in love with the wrong boy, realized I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up, and started doing the club scene too much. End result: I stopped going to classes and flunked out of school with a 3.3 average. (I didn’t get the boy either.)
So began five bad years. I worked for a crappy retail company for three of them, moved first to Myrtle Beach, S.C . and then to Charlotte, N.C. (my adopted hometown), drank a lot, experienced genteel poverty, and learned how to manage a skate/surf shop. This, I guess was where my fascination/fetish for skaters began…it continues to this day. If he’s scruffy and wearing Airwalks , I’m there.
By 1989, I’d had enough, moved back to my parents’ house in Greensboro and went back to school full time. I did better this time, graduating with a double major in Geography and Sociology (concentrated in Urban Studies), and working part-time at Kinko’s . I’m still working there, only now it’s full-time and I’m management.
In 1991, I visited San Francisco for the first time. The next year I moved here (a lot of people have this reaction). It is a good and wonderful place, where the scenery is good, the weather is perfect, and the boys are sleazy. It’s the first city in which I’ve ever felt truly at home. I even have a cool roommate, Dan , whom I haven’t killed even after almost four years.
In San Francisco, I have experienced many things and many boys and have somehow managed to develop at least a hint of an identity in the process. I’ve done the slut thing and the romance thing (and have decided I like something in between…for example a boyfriend who will venture to Blow Buddies with me and then come home and curl up next to me where he belongs…)
I’ve made lots of friends at work, at play, and lately, on line as well. My good friend Troy fulfills the roles of Duncan and Jeff in their absence, and he’s been doing a particularly good job given my recent set of job-related (and other) neuroses. My North Carolina connections Steve, Todd, Tim, Lori (a recent migrant), and Kevin (who I also work with) bring me liver pudding and barbecue when they can. James, who’s the chef at Bruno’s, would feed me if I’d return his videos. All in all, life is good. Join the crowd. Send me a note.
[Recreated from my earliest surviving site archive.]