After a week of trying to connect with me via phone, emil, text message, and Facebook, my good friend and partner at Beyond Ex-Gay, Christine Bakke, finally appealed to my agent in hopes of getting a response from me.
Yeah, I’ve been sorta out of it this summer so far. My greatest interest and passion has been my garden (my tomatoes are so large and luscious right now! 😛 ) I have found little motivation to do anything but housework and cooking. (Ah, I made a frittata the other day that would make you cry with joy.) My normal activities–e-mail, writing, activism, etc had all gone into remission. Perhaps I needed a rest after moving twice since January and bouncing all over the place the past six months. Maybe I just needed a vacation of sorts.
Of course I think of my life as an on-going vacation. The work I do is so much fun that it doesn’t feel fair to call it work. But it is, and I remind myself that in the work of activism, we must be certain to take care of ourselves.
Even so, I want to be vigilant. I have for a long time felt dismay (and scorn) at some gay men who have been on the front lines for a season and then find love and move to the suburbs and disappear into Bed, Bath and Beyond. Perhaps people have a natural instinct to settle down. Of course not all of us have that luxury, and I want to balance out my new found stability (partner, home, garden) with engagement in the world around me, both locally and beyond. But then I can be sactimonious (it is one of my superpowers that seem to only be used for evil, or well at least for being annoying.)
What am I trying to say? Do I feel guilty for enjoying my life? Yeah, sometimes. Perhaps it is a mixture of the old time religion telling me I don’t deserve to be happy mixed in with the pressure to be the best queer ever–always engaged and passionate and making the world a better place. Yes, one can do the right thing for the wrong reasons. And one can justify doing nothing for high sounding reasons. And one can (this one I am speaking of) can lay off the pressure and simply be responsible for the tasks at hand.
So with that I sign off and will use one of the many methods I have on hand to reach out to Christine. We have some delicious work to do.
If you have not done so yet, consider listening to the latest episode of Queer and Queerer podcast. Episode #12 That’s So Fat! Body Image, Metrosexuality & More
Peterson Toscano's A Musing 
Awww….Peterson, we still love you!! You’ll never disappear completely into suburbia. Too many of us know what you mean to the worls.
Hugs,
Lincoln