CHAPTER 1
Everyone's your cousin ...
First of all, everybody on the planet is a seventy-eighth cousin orcloser, according to The Guinness Book of Records, so everybodyis a cousin to everybody else. More specifically about my closefamily, my father's side was Italian, and my mother's side German,English, and Irish. My mother was a strong personality, and myfather was easygoing but sort of distant because he was busy withhis career as a general surgeon.
CHAPTER 2
I was very close to seven women—my mother,grandmas, and four aunts....
Basically, our mother raised me and my three siblings, but I wasvery close to both grandmothers, my father's two sisters and mymother's two sisters. I didn't really bond well with any older men asI was growing up, for some reason.
As I said, I have three siblings, and each one is a godsend in adifferent way. Unfortunately for me, one of my two brothers waskilled in a car accident last year. My sister was like the homecomingqueen: everybody thought she was pretty, she was popular, andintelligent too. One of my brothers was masculine, very athletic, andanybody knew that they had better not pick on me because he wouldpick on them. The other brother was the one who was killed in thecar accident. That guy had a personality that would make anyonelaugh. He had a very campy sense of humor, but still, because hewas popular, he helped me. So the three of them all helped me.
As I said, I was very close to seven women—my mother, grandmas,and four aunts—but not to any older men for some reason. I feltun-masculine growing up. I was sort of confused about which genderI was, and I did enjoy cross-dressing until about the age of seven. Ienjoyed wearing women's clothing until that time. The cross-dressingand gender identity confusion went away. I eventually decided thatI'm just sort of soft—not really feminine, just a soft male.
CHAPTER 3
I had reason to believe that there were two areasin the brain for sexual arousal....
Also, up until the age of eight, I had reason to believe that therewere two areas in the brain for arousal, one for gay arousal andone for straight, because I noticed that I would have two orgasmswhen I fantasized. Gradually between ages eight and eleven, myorientation switched entirely from being bisexual to being gay, andI wasn't happy about that, because I liked women better than menand, therefore, wanted to love women more, too.
When I was twelve, my obsessive-compulsive disorder began. Myfamily and I were visiting Disneyland in Southern California, andsuddenly I had a compulsion to swallow overand over again—anytimeI would think about the position of my tongue in my mouth, I wouldbe forced to swallow. I told my mother, and she said, "Oh, you'reprobably just thirsty," but that wasn't it. It was definitely someextraterrestrial space alien(s) (Earth-excludee(s) or reject(s); (seeexplanation below), that had possession of me and was/were forcingme to swallow against my will. I still have this problem as well asan obsession-compulsion with psychosomatic hand-shakiness andanother one with urinary and fecal incontinence, for which I wear anadult-sized diaper any time I leave the house.
Let's see, I was no good at sports. I was terrible in sports. Therefore,I wanted to be a brain, one of the gifted students. In terms of my highschool record and all that, I was. I was near the top of my class, inboth grades and standardized tests.
I actually had some minor sex play with another kid, and then I madehis life miserable when really I was the one who had enticed himinto it. So I felt really bad about it, and in later years I apologized tohim. He accepted the apology.
I had a really close girlfriend in high school who I thought was theeasiest person in the world to get along with. She didn't disagreewith anything. She happened to be Jewish, and she went on tobecome a rabbi and a PhD in Eastern religion. But when she heardsome other kids say that I was effeminate, she threw that back atme, because I hadn't called her all summer between eighth and ninthgrades. So then I said really cruel things to her that can't very wellbe apologized for. I just kind of counted this as bad luck. It's too badbut you can't correct it.
I was also confused about gender, not just about orientation—I wasconfused about whether I was a boy or a girl. I worshipped thesetwo brainy girls, Michelle and Hillary. They were both outstandingstudents, but I liked Hillary better, and she impressed me more withher portrayal in one of the Greek plays of "Electra."
I remember thinking in high school that I could be a good student inanything if there was some way of injecting pleasure into learning.After graduation, I went to Trinity College. During the summer of1972—when I was twenty-one—I was sitting and listening to anorganic chemistry lecture, and it was extremely boring. So I starteddozing off, and then it occurred to me: if you could take a brainwavepattern that indicated whether someone were paying attention andthen give that person pleasurable brain stimulation only if he or shewere paying attention (as indicated by their brain waves), you couldgreatly augment learning ability. I told the idea to my lab partner,who was sitting next to me, and he said, "Oh, that's very creative,"and I just knew that my life would never be the same after havingthat thought.
CHAPTER 4
Around 1978, I met my future wife....
I kept getting medical school rejections, although I did get oneacceptance to a school in India, and another acceptance to Grenada.In 1978, I met my future wife, who I thought was perfect for me,because she seemed to accept my orientation, which I told her aboutin advance. She said she wanted to have a family and children, butI told her I was too young. I was twenty-seven at the time, and thiswas 1978, and I felt I was too young! So I said, "Well, if you want tohave a family and children, just come looking for me in six years."I said by thirty-three I'd be old enough.
Then she came to do an elective at the same hospital where I wasdoing my clinical clerkships after about two years. I thought she wasperfect, because she wanted to go into psychiatry, and I thought shemight buy my ideas about having an open marriage.
So I thought she was perfect because she seemed unconventionaland interested in psychiatry, and her family lived only one hundredmiles away from me in the United States. It turned out not to be agood idea, because she was actually in love with the traditional ideaof marriage and family, and I wanted an open marriage and family.So things didn't work out. I felt bad, but you couldn't reconcile whatshe wanted with what I wanted.
CHAPTER 5
But that's the girl that I'm still involved with,the girl that I met in 1980....
My father died of pancreatic cancer before he had a chance to meetmy late ex-wife. I had met a young lady in 1980, Laura, and she wasextremely doting in attention and would call me ten times a day andsend gifts. They were very thoughtful, and then I had to tell her thatI was getting married to this girl who was going into psychiatry.She wrote a semi-nasty letter—it wasn't real bad. I read it to myroommate, and he didn't think it was too bad, but she obviouslywasn't happy.
But that's the girl that I'm still involved with, the girl that I met in1980. She is supposed to be coming here in March 2013. Even thoughshe is a Republican and I'm a socialist, we get along. Also, I tendto be a very slow worker because I have high performance anxietyabout most tasks, so in order to do any task, I have to surmount theperformance anxiety. I'm like ten times slower than anybody else Iknow in doing any task because in going from task A to task B totask C, there is a huge mountain of performance anxiety that I needto climb. So that's why I'm so slow. Laura is faster than averagein most respects, and it will be interesting to see how well she cantolerate my extreme slowness.
CHAPTER 6
It was an acrimonious divorce....
I was in the psychiatry residency training program, and my ex-wife,Rosalynn, was too. I'm not saying anything bad about her. I'msaying that she preferred traditional marriage and I didn't. It was anacrimonious divorce, but I guess that's to be expected. I guess mydaughter feels I abandoned her, so she's not communicative.
I didn't want my daughter to grow up in an atmosphere of harshacrimony, so I said I wouldn't see her at all. I thought my ex-wifemight be one of the supervisors, and I seemed to have some formof Tourette's disorder where, when I'm provoked, I can't controlthe words that come out of my mouth. Thus, I thought that sincevisitation would alienate my daughter anyway, it would be best justnot to see her, but she took it as rejection. I thought that if she andher mother had financial problems, they would come looking forme, but that never happened.
CHAPTER 7
While my mother was alive, I didn't feel thatI could be a practicing gay....
So anyway, my mom died of alcoholism at sixty-five. My dad diedof pancreatic cancer at fifty-eight. While my mother was alive, Ididn't feel that I could be a practicing gay, because she was alwaysthere, sort of providing financial stability in the background. Whenshe did die, I didn't feel that I could be active because of the threatof HIV and AIDS, so for three years I just stayed in my apartmentand hardly saw anybody.
CHAPTER 8
Allegations emerged that I had molestedmy daughter....
The allegation emerged that I had molested my daughter. I thoughtit very strange that a gay man would molest his daughter. I told oneof my brothers about it—the brother who is extremely straight, theaccountant brother—and he said, "Well, if you have one abnormality,the chances of having another one are good." That's what he said,but the judge told my attorney that I was too honest for my owngood and I feel he knew that I was adamant, vehement and honest inmy denial of any and all guilt in this matter.
I admired my ex-wife because she was more like my mother than mymother was and I have always had an admiration for strong women.To me, she seemed like my mother, and so I thought, "They say thatyou marry somebody like your mother" Even though my ex-wifemay not have been a perfect angel, you have to consider that I usedto have temper tantrums and say all kinds of mean things, so inher mind she wouldn't be able to say, "Oh well, he's got Tourette'sdisorder" and overlook it.
To her, how I made her feel would be a lot more important thanwhatever diagnosis I might have, but let's just go ahead with the girlfrom 1980, Laura. She is very good, and I don't think that I'm goingto meet some guy who is Mr. Right.
CHAPTER 9
This time I am bonding well withan older man....
I live with an eighty-five-year-old guy born in 1926 whom I loveas a person more than I thought anybody could love a person. Heis twenty-five years older. When we started out, I met him at St.Louis Church, and since we're both gay, we tried some gay things,but they didn't work. He started having cardiac arrhythmias, so wejust quit it. We're just friends. We've been just friends since 1995,and I do love him a lot. I'm just not attracted to him physically. Idon't know whether he's attracted to me physically or not. Whoknows?
So I'm staying here because I love the old guy. Remember when Imentioned that I never bonded with an older man? This time I ambonding well with an older man, so he fills a need that I have. Mylove for the old guy is enough to keep me here in Buffalo. So we'lljust have to see what happens.
CHAPTER 10
My daughter doesn't know me, so it's hardto expect her to understand....
When I first saw my daughter, she was looking around like, "where amI?" She was a very cute little girl. She had a lot of hair and was the mostfeminine-looking baby I've ever seen. I thought, Oh boy, you're in fora big surprise, because I believe this world to be hell. I believe it's hellbecause our pains hurt a lot more than our pleasures feel good and it'smuch easier and faster to destroy anything than it is to create it.
As I've come to know her, she's kind of passive-aggressive in thesense of being unresponsive and ignoring my friendly overtures, butshe might think that I'm passive-aggressive, because I didn't see herfor 18+ years. Undoubtedly she was told that her daddy was given achoice to see her or not, and he chose not to see her. So that wouldmake me seem passive-aggressive, but I'm sure she's a good person.I haven't seen her since she was four years old and she's 28 now (in2012), and I haven't seen a picture of her since she was seven yearsold.
She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a quadruple major in Italianliterature, Italian language, psychology, and English, and the factthat she was interested in things Italian might show some interestin my heritage, because her mother was Danish. So I think she ispassive-aggressive, but all I can do is to send her gifts periodicallyand hope that she gets them. I just sent her a gift, and I don't knowif she'll get it because I had to send it to her old address. I evencalled an electronic voice, and it said it's undeliverable as such butmay be forwarded. I'm hoping it will be forwarded. She should justgive me her address. Passive-aggressive behavior consists largely inignoring people in order to snub them.
I feel that she's passive-aggressive, and my sister was a little bit thatway too. But, my sister has gradually changed in this respect. Sharil,my daughter, has the attitude that she doesn't care, so I mean, truthbe told, if she ever needed a kidney or a liver or something I wouldbe happy to give it to her, but she doesn't know these things. Mydaughter doesn't know me, so it's hard to expect her to understandmy situation.
CHAPTER 11
My sister is an aspiring writer....
My sister is an aspiring writer—mystery novels and fashion andbeauty. Even though she's gained like 20 or 30 pounds, she is stillglamorous, but when she ran off with a married guy, my parentsdisowned her. I thought my parents were very narrow-minded, really.I wouldn't have done that. My mom especially was narrow-minded.My sister fell in love with the married guy in 1968 and eventuallyhe got divorced and the two of them have been legally marriedsince 1996. My mother accepted them as a couple after my fatherdied in 1979.
CHAPTER 12
Paxil has the wonderful effect of making me evenless interested in anything physical....
If I had come out of the closet when my parents were both alive, Idon't know what would've happened, but I just wasn't comfortablegoing that way. I don't want anyone to think that physical thingsare very important to me, because they actually are not, and thisPaxil that I take has the wonderful effect of making me even lessinterested in anything physical.
CHAPTER 13
I quit drinking because I got gastroesophagealreflux....
There was a period when I called up my ex-wife numerous timesand said that I would have sex with her if she would let me havea relationship with Sharil. I was drinking heavily—I'm not analcoholic in the usual sense, but I'm a chronic binge drinker. I gotcalled to the city where they lived, to answer to harassment charges,but there was only a mild penalty. I think there was a fine of aroundtwo hundred dollars. I quit drinking because I got gastroesophagealreflux, and it's something I don't want to have.
CHAPTER 14
Sharil seems apple-pie normal....
Having a daughter makes you realize that there is somebody who is,in a sense, more important than you are, because she will be part ofthe pre-utopian future. I'm part of the present, but personally I havea feeling I'm going to live to a very old age. She'll probably live toa very old age, too. I'd like to be part of her life. Even if I can't sendher money or a copy of this book or anything else, I can always sendher an e-mail, and she'll know that I'm thinking of her at least. Ithink that's important.
And I would've guessed that any child of mine would be aseccentric as I am, but she doesn't seem eccentric. Sharil seemsapple-pie normal. When the parents have opposite characteristics,the offspring tend to be in the middle, so Sharil is probably normalin that she can keep a secret, at least as far as I know. That's what Iwould think.
