A moment of sweetness

When I was leaving the house a day ago, my downstairs neighbor opened the door right when I came out, and said… oh, hey! we’ve been seeing your name *everywhere* these days…” I thought uh-oh, but smiled — I have a great relationship with my neighbors. But I’ve never really told them what I do. I mean, I’ve never hid my life from them, it’s just never been appropriate to bring up my career in too much detail, or especially that the subject is very frankly sex. I might have mentioned, ‘oh I’m off to go lecture about human sexuality’ on my way out the door in passing, but most of the time I see my neighbors it’s at parties they throw — they have a *huge* family (spans to the Philippines and back). Festive outdoor BBQ’s in the backyard and gigantic, multi-generational holiday parties are the norm downstairs, and I’m always invited and I always stop in. I just say I’m a writer, and chit-chat with uncles and grandmas and kids while eating their amazing foods. It was funny at the last BBQ to overhear from another table someone describing how funny Ask A Ninja was, then trying to explain to grandpa what a web show is, and try not to jump up and be like, ‘I know those guys! they’re SO nice!’ I didn’t, but still.

So when he said he said he saw my name everywhere I was a bit on the edge — well, you know me. It could be anything. Literally. It’s a concern. He continued, ‘oh, that Jay Leno. what you said was so important… we all know about him, eh?’ I laughed and went on about how it was so great that Ryan Phillipe stood up to him, my neighbor agreed, and we kept chatting about how it’s mind-boggling to us that people like Leno and the networks think that viewers are just going to fall lock-step with their anti-gay viewpoints. I said, ‘it’s one of my life goals to give it to people like Leno over issues like these, and show that they’re wrong if they think we all agree with them. we’re the viewers, too.’ We, as in the perception of sexual minorities being in the minority — us, all of us. He said, ‘don’t stop what you’re doing. what you’re doing is really important. thank you.’ I was all red-faced and smiling, and even moreso when I repeated the story to Hacker Boy.

Then last night, as HB and I were rolling around on my bed talking about the nature of love inbetween kisses (and even a few tears), there was a knock at my door. I opened it, and standing there was my neighbor — with a box of cupcakes (pictured). He MADE them for me! I almost cried. They’re almost too pretty to eat! (And no wonder my apartment smelled *so good* yesterday afternoon…)

Thank you. Life is a beautiful, surprising mystery sometimes.