Deadbeat Dad

There are some things that I'll never understand. I'll never understand why people like watching golf. I don't think I'll ever get why people enjoy math. And I certainly don't understand my dad.

When my brother Gerrit came home from his mission, the family all was going to meet at the airport to welcome him home. I wanted my parents to see my apartment since I had moved and they were going to be in Portland. Seems pretty normal, right? My dad had emailed me about something family history related, so I responded to that. I sent another email letting him know that I wanted to show him and Mom my new apartment and mentioned that I was living with Robert instead of my old roommate Jessa. That is the courteous thing to do, considering that my dad is a self-avowed homophobe. It wouldn't be thoughtful of me to just spring that on him when he walked through the door, so I wanted to let him know ahead of time. Well, he didn't write back, even when I messaged him a few more times.

Fast forward to when Gerrit actually gets in. My dad completely ignores me in the airport. He tells my mother that he said hello, but I never heard it. He doesn't make any effort whatsoever to talk to me, and of course the trip to my house doesn't materialize. Jump to the next day, where he won't sit with our family at church and refuses to talk in any group that I'm standing in. When the service lets out, he's the first one out the door and stands at the end of the hallway talking to one friend instead of in the foyer with everyone else. You know, family members and friends that are gathered for the first time together in a few years. Robert was with me, so he couldn't be bothered to be seen anywhere near us. At the family gathering just after, with our immediate family and their significant others, he wouldn't come.

Fast forward until now, and he's still refusing to talk to me. It's been almost a year since the email that I sent to him, and I have yet to get a text, phone call or email back. No response. He won't talk to me in person, won't stand in the same group as me or even attend the same event in some cases. I've received one postcard from him when he was abroad with my mother in Europe, signed "cordially" or something to that effect. Which is completely out of the blue considering all the rest of his behavior.

That brings us up to this week.

I got a text from "my dad" saying that he had a new phone and this was the number. I was surprised to hear from him, so I saved the number and texted back that I'd save it. I asked if he had received the letter I wrote to him a few months ago. This letter was 3 pages long, talking about what it was like when he was here for Gerrit's return and how disappointing his cutting me out of his life had been. No response to that text. 5 days later (which is today) I texted "Why send me your number if you're not going to respond when I text you?"

Come to find out, it was a "miscommunication". Since my father doesn't like doing things for himself, he had my mom set up his phone. I'm sure she programmed the numbers into the phone too. She texted us four kids from that phone with the new number, since my dad wouldn't have done it himself. I had thought he had texted me, but it was just my mom sharing his new phone number. He complained to her that I texted him, so my Mom left me a voicemail tonight explaining that it was her sending out the text and that he didn't actually mean to contact me. It was a "miscommunication". I don't fault my mother for anything in this scenario, because she did everything like a normal person would.

What gets me is that my father couldn't even handle me texting him. He couldn't deign to respond. Instead of saying "I got the letter", or "No, I didn't read it" or "It's good to hear from you" or "Long time no talk", he complains that I'm writing him. Instead of being happy that he's hearing from his son, he complains to my mother that I'm writing him at all. She calls to tell me it isn't actually him wanting to hear from me and it was her setting up the phone.

I honestly should have known better than to think my father wanted to hear from me. He couldn't even be bothered to acknowledge me when I came down to Salem for Gerrits reunion, and refused to go to the family dinner because I was there. He wouldn't come see my apt, take calls from me, respond to my email or my text. It must be so hard for him already having three children that he loves that acknowledging me is just too much of an effort. How terrible it must be that your child actually wants to talk to you and include you in their life. How distressing. That would mean *gasp* actually... admitting to others that you have another son and actually interacting with that person.

I'm so disappointed in him. When you are younger you think that your parents are the people that you can look up to for anything. You think that they're going to be there for you to rely on and that you can always come to them when you need help. Well, as it turns out, my mother is the only parent for me that lives up to that. I know that I can always talk to her about anything. I know she'll always be there for me. I know she loves me and I love her unconditionally. My father, on the other hand, has cut me out of his life. When he didn't like something about me (my being gay), he wrote me off. He tried. I went to therapy, they restricted what I did and the people I interacted with. They tried to pray it away. They tried to talk me out of it. But when that didn't work, only one parent still wanted something to do with me.

The ironic thing is that my father didn't have his dad around when he was growing up. His father left when my dad was around 2 (or somewhere in that range), and it took years to finally track him down when my dad was an adult. He always resented being rejected by his father. His mother and him had it hard, since she was taking care of him, her mother and herself. They didn't have a lot of money and were poor. Now, my parents have two houses and just got back from Europe. They're not rolling in beds made of money, but they live comfortable lives. My dad lifted himself out of poverty by working hard all through grad school to earn his doctorates. Both he and my mom worked very hard for what they've gotten. Though for the change that my dad has seen in how he lives, there's still something that's glaringly obvious to me: he's just repeating the same thing that happened to him. As cliche and predictable as it is, there's something that apparently he can't escape: generational abandonment. He might be better off than his parents were, but he can't escape that he's turned into his father in other ways.

To realize that is disappointing. When I know this has happened to two successive generations, it makes me question what kind of people they are. What kind of morals can they really have? When you toss aside the people that you should love unconditionally, who are you under it all? It's sad and disheartening that while I was raised to be proud of my lineage and family history, there's a simple phrase that encapsulates what my father has become:

A deadbeat dad.

United States of Tara

Robert and I started watching 'United States of Tara' on Netflix two nights ago. I'm totally hooked. It's really interesting to me since it's a lighthearted depiction of Dissociative Personality Disorder (formerly known as "Multiple Personality Disorder" but since reclassified). I'm sure it's nothing like what real DID is like, but it's fun and interesting nonetheless. It's also got a character who's in high school (maybe a freshman?) that is gay. It's the main characters son. She's accepting of him, though one of her "alters" (alternate personalities) isn't. It brings me back to when I was in high school and how I was crushing on guys that I couldn't have since they were straight and I wasn't out. This is a total trip down memory lane!

I'm excited to watch more of it. There are three seasons, so that'll be our show for a while along with 'True Blood'. We're in the last released season of that, though I think lately I've lost just a bit of steam on it. Probably because we just haven't been watching it that much. Once I watch another episode I'm sure I'll just get sucked right back in! Those shows definitely do that to me. lol.

Preach. 

Lolita

I purchased 'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov a while ago on Amazon and have recently come across it again when my roommate rented a version of the film from Netflix. It rekindled my interest in reading the novel and I found it on one of my bookshelves. Has anyone read this? I know that it is supposed to be one of the greatest English novels of the 20th century and I am wondering what people think about it. I know there is a lot of controversy surrounding it and I have read a lot of passionate reviews online. I wish that my book club was reading it so I could have a real time discussion with it, but we are only focusing on gay themed books. This month we are reading 'The Married Man' by Edmund White, then in December we are reading 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil' by John Berendt. None of these are going to be light reads I'm thinking, though to be honest I really havent looked into Married Man yet. I'm excited to get to Lolita but with my book club, school and other books on my book list I don't know when I am going to be getting to it.

Haha oh so true.

Book Club

I am joining a book club! I'm really excited about it since it's something that I've always wanted to do. I am joining a Portland gay mens book club with just over 100 members. They meet about every 3 weeks and the spaces are limited to 15 members per meeting. A few days later they will have another meeting on the same book so that another 15 can meet, so essentially you can choose whichever day will work out better for you. The book that they are reading this time is called 'Dude You're A Fag' by C. J. Pascoe. It's a look into high schools and the way that they view homosexuality. The Amazon.com review described it as follows:

High school and the difficult terrain of sexuality and gender identity are brilliantly explored in this smart, incisive ethnography. Based on eighteen months of fieldwork in a racially diverse working-class high school, Dude, You're a Fag sheds new light on masculinity both as a field of meaning and as a set of social practices. C. J. Pascoe's unorthodox approach analyzes masculinity as not only a gendered process but also a sexual one. She demonstrates how the "specter of the fag" becomes a disciplinary mechanism for regulating heterosexual as well as homosexual boys and how the "fag discourse" is as much tied to gender as it is to sexuality.

I just finished 'Geisha, A Life' yesterday so this is perfect timing to start a new novel. I have a lot of books that I have stacking up to read, and picked up 'The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas' from the library this morning along with 'Dude You're A Fag'. With how voraciously I've been devouring books these past couple of weeks I'm sure there won't be a problem with me finishing everything that I've checked out by the due date.

My friend (and fellow MoHo) Pablo sounded interested when I mentioned to him that I was joining the group so I am going to report back and let him know how things when after the meeting on the 10th. I'm looking forward to having conversations with people that have an interest in expanding their literature base and are well read. We will see how it goes!