2004. A new year. And another opportunity for me to resolve to do "it" better, or differently. This has been my New Year's Resolution for many a year. And--like most people I know, or imagine--I usually don't--do it better. Or too differently.
Well, I have to "stop"! Which means--sufferer of procrastination that I am--that I have to start. Get busy, busier. Get over not being as perfect as I think I can or should be. Get beyond my critics, of which I am the worst and--as a cocky and sexy twenty-something said to me a few weeks ago--"face your fears."
I’ll tell you: I cannot possibly imagine my life without my friends. Without them, only God knows where or who I would be. They are my family: my “Cosby Show,” my “Brady Bunch” my “What’s Happening.” And my “Soul Food.” From my greatest moments of exaltation and defeat to the peaks and troughs inherent in daily, ordinary life, my friends—primarily Black men—have been there for me. They have listened, consoled and advice-d me well. They have fed (dined) me, sheltered me, and held me when my body was too weak to hold up on its own. They have been and are always standing in the gap.
Several years ago I went to a reading and book signing at A Different Light Bookstore (now defunct) on W. 19th Street in Chelsea to hear this gay author (Brad Gooch is his name) talk about his then new book, "The Boyfriend Within." In a nutshell, the book is a sort of "self help" book for gay men who don't have a man (boyfriend), and how one should treat himself as the object of his own desire. Well, I didn't have a man and, well, I really, really wanted one.