Thursday, October 30, 2003


(Since "Blogger" was down when I woke up, I posted this at one of my forums instead- it was a response to "where were you in '95?)

I turned 30, a milestone that seemed to say, “OK, time to grow up.” I didn’t want to.

This was my famous “moderation” phase in my drinking career. After a DUI in late ’94 and subsequent suspension of my license, I was beginning to realize that, indeed, I had a problem, but I wasn’t ready to quit yet. I was living the rock-n-roll dream, working in the greatest record store ever, playing bass in a band, going to concerts whenever I could…I couldn’t fathom giving up my crutch, as it was an integral part of the scene. My drinking once again escalated into an everyday, all day occurrence.

I was struggling to figure out just where I fit in this world. To be totally honest, I found the gay community to be quite oppressive. I was chastised for playing in a band with men, I was told I had to look, act, “be” a certain way- and I rebelled. (they actually nicknamed me “Rebel”) I started to really resent my gay friends for what I saw was blatant hypocrisy; they bitched about not being accepted by the straight world, how everybody should accept the fact that they were “different”, but yet they were trying to pigeonhole me into their preconceived notion of what a “femme” should be. “Different” was not allowed. I drifted away and hung with the music people instead, spending my time at the punk bars as opposed to the gay bar.

I was desperately unhappy in my relationship with my first girlfriend. I was not in love with her, but couldn’t figure out how to end it because I didn’t want to hurt her. But I WAS hurting her with my drinking, I was totally emotionally unavailable to her, which in turn caused her to go slowly crazy trying to control me and save our relationship. I pushed her away. It was an ugly breakup, and she finally moved out toward the end of the year. I still feel a certain twinge of guilt to this day, although we are still close friends. One very good thing came out my being such an asshole- this episode caused her to take control of her life, go back to college and now she is a teacher.

I would describe ‘95 as a transitory year. ’96 was when the shit really hit the fan, as I was busted again, decided to quit drinking for good, and that really brought about some changes….I started to finally “grow up”.

After I posted this, I realized my breakup with Kathy occured in late '94- but as they said on Seinfeld- "it takes a few pushes to tip the Coke machine over". The breakup was an ongoing thing for awhile.)