When Closets Attack

When I was in graduate school I went to lunch with the school’s GLTB liaison. She commented that I was one of the few (if not only) gay people who went to lunch with her. It was such an odd statement I had to ask “Why?”

She said wryly, “The gay people are afraid to be seen with me because they don’t want to be seen as gay. The straight people don’t care.”

I figured that she was just a poor dining companion. Then I learned (and remembered).

I was openly gay in college in the late 80s and early 90s. Scarily, for a large portion of the time I was the only openly gay person at my college. I was able to call myself “The Queen” without anyone challenging the title. The lack of competition for the title was truly disappointing. Where’s the fun when you can’t sabotage your competition? I was studiously ignored by every gay male on campus. Even worse, they’d say absolutely horrible things about me and homosexuals in general. We used to call these people “Fag Screamers,” people in the closet who would denigrate other GLBT people to avoid suspicion. Then you’d see them in a restroom stall with a “wide” stance.

Even in more “progressive” areas and fields the pattern repeated itself. I was once told that someone questioned my ability to teach in graduate school because I was “too gay.” This was never said by openly gay men. I could mention the fact that the offending person was in a not-so-secret gay relationship with another man in the closet. But I won't.

When I finished graduate school and became a full-time faculty member, I noticed that the gay people avoided me like a second-hand Armani Exchange pullover. People I would later see the few times I went out to the gay bars. Even more amusing, these were often the people in the “gayest” professions possible. I’ve been invisible to hairstylists, decorators, musicians, church organists, dancers, theatre personnel and clothing designers. Often, they were so fey I looked like a trucker who lumberjacks on the side.

Frankly, that’s one of the reasons I stopped going to gay bars. It feels odd when you have a clowder of queers purposefully not looking at you. Invisibility, I have found, rarely allows you to meet quality people. My mother, who was an avid musician and theatre participant said she had never met a gay person before I came out. The level of denial required aside, I sometimes believed her. Maybe it’s genetic invisibility?

I have to admit though, I sometimes would’ve preferred being ignored. I don’t know why people think fag screaming works, but they try it anyway. We’ve all seen the stories (particularly among conservative republican politicians) where the rabid homophobe gets caught worshiping at the wrong altar. I have rarely seen someone obsessed with the “evil” patterns of gay people not later get caught out.

I discovered that closeted people are mean. If they said nothing, I could tolerate it. Instead they look for ways to sabotage. It’s like they want to say “I’m so not gay that I torment gay people.” I could speculate about internalized homophobia. I could smile sadly and mutter “poor little fag screamer.” It’s rarely any solace when people attack you. Over and over, again I have had conflicts with people who are dreadfully afraid anyone will think they might be gay. Whether or not they are frankly is irrelevant. It gets even more frustrating as time goes on. Over 20 years after I first came out, it’s still often toxic. So here's the question:

How many positive gay role models does it take to change a light bulb?

I don’t know, but the light bulb has to stop hating them first.

What I learned from SyFy disaster films

I've already noted that people just love to fixate on disasters. The disaster film industry, whether for the big screen or small, seems to be an increasingly large part of our viewing spectrum. SyFy, I think, is practically turned Saturdays into "Disaster Day." Having had a lot of time on my hands, I've been watching (at least the ones that I could stand). I hope to save you the effort of cognition as you blankly stare at the screen trying to rearrange causality to fit. It is thus for your edification that I have compiled this list of lessons you learn from disaster films.

1. National monuments, wonders of the world and nature's miracles draw destruction better than trailer parks attract tornadoes. Has the Eiffel Tower or the Washington Monument ever survived a disaster film?
   
2. Women should never wear practical shoes, even in environments where they normally would have worn something sensible (like rock climbing). A set of basic pumps with a heel ready to be caught for dramatic effect is necessary to illustrate the horrible plight of the woman in a Vogue-driven mass media society. I'm expecting to see Alexander McQueen's armadillo shoes climbing inside a volcano any day now.
3. Getting killed while fully clothed shows a lack of imagination. Failure to strip down to something skimpy shows a huge lack of faith about the quality of your undergarments. Did you put on clean underwear in case you were in an accident?
   
4. The mortality rate of the wealthy is directly proportional to their obnoxiousness. Nothing satisfies a plebian audience more than watching Oxymandias Q. Rockefeller-Vanderbilt-Carnegie-Howell get snuffed in his formal wear.
5. Pampered pets of the wealthy, however, often outlive their owners. Fluffy's made of steel, people. Don't screw with the pooch.
6. New technology, however promising, always fails catastrophically with could-have-been-foreseen-consequences.
7. When stairs are blocked, immediately head for the elevators -- they're bound to be safer, right?
8. Global warming is always to blame.
9. Junior researchers are not allowed to survive past the expository portions of the narrative. Graduate students and geeks are inherently disposable.
10. Eccentric senior researchers are invincible until they choose to sacrifice themselves at the end.
11. The most unlikely scenario is the most likely to occur.
12. Safety mechanisms always fail under the conditions for which they were actually designed.
13. There must always been at least one scene with shorted electrical wires to be conquered. Sparks are pretty.
14. If two women work together, one always needs to die a horrific death. It's a social statement about the dangers of women collaborating at the office.
15. There will always only be one available world-saving device. Extras have been lost, stolen, broken or sabotaged. Redundancy would ruin the plot.
16. Captains usually die horribly before the ship goes down.
17. When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. Have you ever seen an orderly evacuation?
    
18. There must be at least one hugely emotional failed rescue of a minor character. You know, someone disposable like a junior researcher or the female coworker.
19. Words like invincible or indestructible inherently have the caveat: "Oh yeah, except for that incredibly obvious fatal flaw that we knew about from the beginning."
20. You should never follow the advice of experts until you have first tried the methods of the wealthy investor, military type, "establishment" scientist, religious figure or curious onlooker and created a cliffhanger.
21. There must be at least one crusty father figure.
22. In this politically correct environment, ensure that no minorities are hurt during the film. Only caucasians are vulnerable, particularly white wealthy ones.
23. There will never be enough fuel. Ever.
24. You will never see a cute, fluffy animal mutate into a monster. There will never be a mutation of "squee!"

With these helpful hints, I hope to aid you in your suspension of disbelief. Trust me, you're going to need it more than a disaster needs Randy Quaid. Enjoy the film!

Learning from Bill Zeller

I admit, this is a somber post. As usual, I'm going to take an unusual direction on the story.

I was reading Huffington Post and come across the story about Bill Zeller, who recently committed suicide. I've never met or spoken to him. I didn't know anything about him until today. I read his note (which is an incredibly powerful piece of writing) and searched out some of his friends' comments and memories. At his request, I'll include the entire text of his note at the end of this post. He asked that it not just be quoted piecemeal. I figure last requests are sacrosanct. I read a few stories in the news about his life. I'm far from an expert about Bill Zeller.

By the public accounts, he was incredibly intelligent, well-educated, in graduate school and even popular. His contributions to computer science seemed to hold great promise. People seemed to generally like him and want him in their lives. He grew up in a town just a few miles from where I lived in Connecticut. But he had a secret.

He had been molested as a child, by his accounts repeatedly. He found himself defined by this series of what we all would consider horrendous acts. He labeled it "the darkness," and clearly explained why it impacted all elements of his life. He explained why he felt that he appeared cold, unable to trust and unable to form lasting relationships. He felt distant from his family because of their fundamentalist Christian lifestyle but knew his mother loved him. He didn't identify his rapist because he didn't see the point.

This is just a list of facts from one side of the story. I can't pretend to comprehend the entire circumstances. It seems that he hid it well. The Daily Princetonian had a quote from one his roommates that he had absolutely no idea what was going on beneath the surface.

There's a couple reasons that this particular situation touched me. The first is the fact that he was able to hide his pain behind what must have been a really well-crafted facade. The fact that he got exhausted from trying to maintain the appearance seemed to be a major drain on him. Describing himself as a "shell," he cataloged the various ways (sometimes manic) that he would use to forget. They didn't last. He seemed to think that underneath the shell, there really wasn't anything worth saving.

Obviously this is a waste of human potential. That's obvious. But to me, the more troubling elements are the facade and the fact that it was so impermeable to others. He maintained a facade as a way of avoid being stigmatized for what he had gone through. He didn't want people to realize the horrible thought processes and emotions operating inside. He didn't want to hurt anyone. He didn't want to trust anyone with the truth because he couldn't guarantee it wouldn't get spread around like another piece of juicy gossip.

I actually understand that part. I identify with the need to maintain appearances, though nothing so horrible has happened to me. I'm wondering if I identify with that perspective because we both lived in Connecticut. I know this seems really rather weird, but why is it that so many people from Connecticut understand that the state is its own bubble with particular social rules? How often does gossip from Connecticut make the national news? In contrast, I lived in South Carolina, which seems to have a chronic problem with over-sharing on the national stage. I'm not saying Connecticut is somehow responsible for the situation. Isn't it peculiar, though, that I bet a great many people from the state recognize the need for a facade?

If you're from Connecticut, think about it. If you're not, ask someone from Connecticut. They won't necessarily be able to explain it, but they'll know what you're talking about. I know such a sweeping statement begs to be swamped with counterarguments. But how many more people would agree? Trust me, I'm open to comments on that part.

Even if Connecticut is the ultimate perfecting ground for social fiction, there still remains the troublesome fact that for Bill Zeller, it worked. How could no one notice? Yes, there have been a lot of Internet publicized suicides. Facebook is becoming quite a place to collect suicide notes if you were so inclined. It seems to allow a person to rip away the social fiction, say what's on their mind and then not have to worry about what the neighbors will think. It's a perfect pre-suicide catharsis. And it will go viral.

But how can someone for over 20 years hide so much? He mentioned psychologists he didn't trust and didn't seem interested in him more than just as another part of their case load. He didn't want the uncontrolled ripple effect of revelation that believed would come from a lack of professional ethics. He also didn't think he would receive a piece of "actionable advice" from them since he hadn't in the past. Most people that I've interacted with in the mental health arena avoid giving specific advice and instead want to lead their patients to make the decision to act on their own. Do mental health practitioners need to modify this practice and become more like a call-in advice show? Or perhaps do they need to communicate this operating assumption more clearly?

Honestly, I think one of the lessons is that they need to communicate this assumption more and work on patient rapport. I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist. I don't even play one on TV. I'm a pushy patient, I know that. I demand a particular level of rapport and go to another practitioner if I don't receive it. I also know that I'm so memorable that only electroshock therapy as any chance of erasing me from someone's brain. So I've either had great therapists (not always) or I'm good at making sure that they don't have to check their notes to remember what I said.

I am also troubled by what seems to me to be a failure in his education. In at least twelve years of primary education and nine years of higher education there wasn't even one faculty member, staff member, administrator or student who couldn't spot a mask? And if they did, why wasn't it acted upon? Not by some A&E style intervention, but building the rapport with him enough to get him to trust and open up? Did not a single person pay attention? What happened that over 20 years being around supposedly educated, intelligent people missed this entirely?

I admit, I used to pride myself when I still worked in higher education on the rapport I had with students. Many seemed to view me as non-judgmental and a good place to go with their problems. I don't know how many students I informally counseled. I don't know how many life lessons I tried to impart stuck. I would like to think that I wouldn't have missed the point on someone like Bill Zeller. I really hope I haven't. I really, really hope I haven't. I knew I couldn't save everyone from falling, but I could at least tell them that gravity was about to catch up with them.

Maybe that is something else that we need to think about. Has something changed (or not been changed) in our education process that we could collectively be fooled? Recent studies have, at least in an anecdotal way, noted that today's students are more self-absorbed and have an inflated sense of entitlement. My former colleagues (and myself, I must admit) have complained about this change. Is education reflecting this problem to produce self-absorbed, entitlement-expecting professionals? I actually heard a college president say that undergraduates were only useful for experiments that were too dangerous for graduate students. Faculty who advise graduate students complain about how much time mentoring needy graduate students sucks from their research. Those who work with undergraduates often share the same opinion. Some of both groups actually value the student rapport rather than viewing it as an inconvenience. These poor souls are viewed with suspicion by their more detached colleagues.

Educators had probably spent more time collectively with Bill Zeller than anyone else, including his parents. This isn't a condemnation of his parents. Educators do constitute a large proportion of a student's social interactions. Considering his sense of estrangement from his family, it's even more likely. So it seems to me a great shame that all that supposed intellect and student-centered philosophies failed to grasp hold of Bill Zeller.

Interesting problem, isn't it?

Here's the full text of Bill Zeller's letter, as he requested. I have copied it from http://documents.from.bz/note.txt, the address listed as the original from The Daily Princetonian.

I have the urge to declare my sanity and justify my actions, but I
assume I'll never be able to convince anyone that this was the right
decision. Maybe it's true that anyone who does this is insane by
definition, but I can at least explain my reasoning. I considered not
writing any of this because of how personal it is, but I like tying up
loose ends and don't want people to wonder why I did this. Since I've
never spoken to anyone about what happened to me, people would likely
draw the wrong conclusions.

My first memories as a child are of being raped, repeatedly. This has
affected every aspect of my life. This darkness, which is the only way I
can describe it, has followed me like a fog, but at times intensified
and overwhelmed me, usually triggered by a distinct situation. In
kindergarten I couldn't use the bathroom and would stand petrified
whenever I needed to, which started a trend of awkward and unexplained
social behavior. The damage that was done to my body still prevents me
from using the bathroom normally, but now it's less of a physical
impediment than a daily reminder of what was done to me.

This darkness followed me as I grew up. I remember spending hours
playing with legos, having my world consist of me and a box of cold,
plastic blocks. Just waiting for everything to end. It's the same thing
I do now, but instead of legos it's surfing the web or reading or
listening to a baseball game. Most of my life has been spent feeling
dead inside, waiting for my body to catch up.

At times growing up I would feel inconsolable rage, but I never
connected this to what happened until puberty. I was able to keep the
darkness at bay for a few hours at a time by doing things that required
intense concentration, but it would always come back. Programming
appealed to me for this reason. I was never particularly fond of
computers or mathematically inclined, but the temporary peace it would
provide was like a drug. But the darkness always returned and built up
something like a tolerance, because programming has become less and less
of a refuge.

The darkness is with me nearly every time I wake up. I feel like a grime
is covering me. I feel like I'm trapped in a contimated body that no
amount of washing will clean. Whenever I think about what happened I
feel manic and itchy and can't concentrate on anything else. It
manifests itself in hours of eating or staying up for days at a time or
sleeping for sixteen hours straight or week long programming binges or
constantly going to the gym. I'm exhausted from feeling like this every
hour of every day.

Three to four nights a week I have nightmares about what happened. It
makes me avoid sleep and constantly tired, because sleeping with what
feels like hours of nightmares is not restful. I wake up sweaty and
furious. I'm reminded every morning of what was done to me and the
control it has over my life.

I've never been able to stop thinking about what happened to me and this
hampered my social interactions. I would be angry and lost in thought
and then be interrupted by someone saying "Hi" or making small talk,
unable to understand why I seemed cold and distant. I walked around,
viewing the outside world from a distant portal behind my eyes, unable
to perform normal human niceties. I wondered what it would be like to
take to other people without what happened constantly on my mind, and I
wondered if other people had similar experiences that they were better
able to mask.

Alcohol was also something that let me escape the darkness. It would
always find me later, though, and it was always angry that I managed to
escape and it made me pay. Many of the irresponsible things I did were
the result of the darkness. Obviously I'm responsible for every decision
and action, including this one, but there are reasons why things happen
the way they do.

Alcohol and other drugs provided a way to ignore the realities of my
situation. It was easy to spend the night drinking and forget that I had
no future to look forward to. I never liked what alcohol did to me, but
it was better than facing my existence honestly. I haven't touched
alcohol or any other drug in over seven months (and no drugs or alcohol
will be involved when I do this) and this has forced me to evaluate my
life in an honest and clear way. There's no future here. The darkness
will always be with me.

I used to think if I solved some problem or achieved some goal, maybe he
would leave. It was comforting to identify tangible issues as the source
of my problems instead of something that I'll never be able to change. I
thought that if I got into to a good college, or a good grad school, or
lost weight, or went to the gym nearly every day for a year, or created
programs that millions of people used, or spent a summer or California
or New York or published papers that I was proud of, then maybe I would
feel some peace and not be constantly haunted and unhappy. But nothing I
did made a dent in how depressed I was on a daily basis and nothing was
in any way fulfilling. I'm not sure why I ever thought that would change
anything.

I didn't realize how deep a hold he had on me and my life until my
first relationship. I stupidly assumed that no matter how the darkness
affected me personally, my romantic relationships would somehow be
separated and protected. Growing up I viewed my future relationships as
a possible escape from this thing that haunts me every day, but I began
to realize how entangled it was with every aspect of my life and how it
is never going to release me. Instead of being an escape, relationships
and romantic contact with other people only intensified everything about
him that I couldn't stand. I will never be able to have a relationship
in which he is not the focus, affecting every aspect of my romantic
interactions.

Relationships always started out fine and I'd be able to ignore him for
a few weeks. But as we got closer emotionally the darkness would return
and every night it'd be me, her and the darkness in a black and gruesome
threesome. He would surround me and penetrate me and the more we did the
more intense it became. It made me hate being touched, because as long
as we were separated I could view her like an outsider viewing something
good and kind and untainted. Once we touched, the darkness would
envelope her too and take her over and the evil inside me would surround
her. I always felt like I was infecting anyone I was with.

Relationships didn't work. No one I dated was the right match, and I
thought that maybe if I found the right person it would overwhelm him.
Part of me knew that finding the right person wouldn't help, so I became
interested in girls who obviously had no interest in me. For a while I
thought I was gay. I convinced myself that it wasn't the darkness at
all, but rather my orientation, because this would give me control over
why things didn't feel "right". The fact that the darkness affected
sexual matters most intensely made this idea make some sense and I
convinced myself of this for a number of years, starting in college
after my first relationship ended. I told people I was gay (at Trinity,
not at Princeton), even though I wasn't attracted to men and kept
finding myself interested in girls. Because if being gay wasn't the
answer, then what was? People thought I was avoiding my orientation, but
I was actually avoiding the truth, which is that while I'm straight, I
will never be content with anyone. I know now that the darkness will
never leave.

Last spring I met someone who was unlike anyone else I'd ever met.
Someone who showed me just how well two people could get along and how
much I could care about another human being. Someone I know I could be
with and love for the rest of my life, if I weren't so fucked up.
Amazingly, she liked me. She liked the shell of the man the darkness had
left behind. But it didn't matter because I couldn't be alone with her.
It was never just the two of us, it was always the three of us: her, me
and the darkness. The closer we got, the more intensely I'd feel the
darkness, like some evil mirror of my emotions. All the closeness we had
and I loved was complemented by agony that I couldn't stand, from him. I
realized that I would never be able to give her, or anyone, all of me or
only me. She could never have me without the darkness and evil inside
me. I could never have just her, without the darkness being a part of
all of our interactions. I will never be able to be at peace or content
or in a healthy relationship. I realized the futility of the romantic
part of my life. If I had never met her, I would have realized this as
soon as I met someone else who I meshed similarly well with. It's likely
that things wouldn't have worked out with her and we would have broken
up (with our relationship ending, like the majority of relationships do)
even if I didn't have this problem, since we only dated for a short
time. But I will face exactly the same problems with the darkness with
anyone else. Despite my hopes, love and compatability is not enough.
Nothing is enough. There's no way I can fix this or even push the
darkness down far enough to make a relationship or any type of intimacy
feasible.

So I watched as things fell apart between us. I had put an explicit time
limit on our relationship, since I knew it couldn't last because of the
darkness and didn't want to hold her back, and this caused a variety of
problems. She was put in an unnatural situation that she never should
have been a part of. It must have been very hard for her, not knowing
what was actually going on with me, but this is not something I've ever
been able to talk about with anyone. Losing her was very hard for me as
well. Not because of her (I got over our relationship relatively
quickly), but because of the realization that I would never have another
relationship and because it signified the last true, exclusive personal
connection I could ever have. This wasn't apparent to other people,
because I could never talk about the real reasons for my sadness. I was
very sad in the summer and fall, but it was not because of her, it was
because I will never escape the darkness with anyone. She was so loving
and kind to me and gave me everything I could have asked for under the
circumstances. I'll never forget how much happiness she brought me in
those briefs moments when I could ignore the darkness. I had originally
planned to kill myself last winter but never got around to it. (Parts of
this letter were written over a year ago, other parts days before doing
this.) It was wrong of me to involve myself in her life if this were a
possibility and I should have just left her alone, even though we only
dated for a few months and things ended a long time ago. She's just one
more person in a long list of people I've hurt.

I could spend pages talking about the other relationships I've had that
were ruined because of my problems and my confusion related to the
darkness. I've hurt so many great people because of who I am and my
inability to experience what needs to be experienced. All I can say is
that I tried to be honest with people about what I thought was true.

I've spent my life hurting people. Today will be the last time.

I've told different people a lot of things, but I've never told anyone
about what happened to me, ever, for obvious reasons. It took me a while
to realize that no matter how close you are to someone or how much they
claim to love you, people simply cannot keep secrets. I learned this a
few years ago when I thought I was gay and told people. The more harmful
the secret, the juicier the gossip and the more likely you are to be
betrayed. People don't care about their word or what they've promised,
they just do whatever the fuck they want and justify it later. It feels
incredibly lonely to realize you can never share something with someone
and have it be between just the two of you. I don't blame anyone in
particular, I guess it's just how people are. Even if I felt like this
is something I could have shared, I have no interest in being part of a
friendship or relationship where the other person views me as the
damaged and contaminated person that I am. So even if I were able to
trust someone, I probably would not have told them about what happened
to me. At this point I simply don't care who knows.

I feel an evil inside me. An evil that makes me want to end life. I need
to stop this. I need to make sure I don't kill someone, which is not
something that can be easily undone. I don't know if this is related to
what happened to me or something different. I recognize the irony of
killing myself to prevent myself from killing someone else, but this
decision should indicate what I'm capable of.

So I've realized I will never escape the darkness or misery associated
with it and I have a responsibility to stop myself from physically
harming others.

I'm just a broken, miserable shell of a human being. Being molested has
defined me as a person and shaped me as a human being and it has made me
the monster I am and there's nothing I can do to escape it. I don't know
any other existence. I don't know what life feels like where I'm apart
from any of this. I actively despise the person I am. I just feel
fundamentally broken, almost non-human. I feel like an animal that woke
up one day in a human body, trying to make sense of a foreign world,
living among creatures it doesn't understand and can't connect with.

I have accepted that the darkness will never allow me to be in a
relationship. I will never go to sleep with someone in my arms, feeling
the comfort of their hands around me. I will never know what
uncontimated intimacy is like. I will never have an exclusive bond with
someone, someone who can be the recipient of all the love I have to
give. I will never have children, and I wanted to be a father so badly.
I think I would have made a good dad. And even if I had fought through
the darkness and married and had children all while being unable to feel
intimacy, I could have never done that if suicide were a possibility. I
did try to minimize pain, although I know that this decision will hurt
many of you. If this hurts you, I hope that you can at least forget
about me quickly.

There's no point in identifying who molested me, so I'm just going to
leave it at that. I doubt the word of a dead guy with no evidence about
something that happened over twenty years ago would have much sway.

You may wonder why I didn't just talk to a professional about this. I've
seen a number of doctors since I was a teenager to talk about other
issues and I'm positive that another doctor would not have helped. I was
never given one piece of actionable advice, ever. More than a few spent
a large part of the session reading their notes to remember who I was.
And I have no interest in talking about being raped as a child, both
because I know it wouldn't help and because I have no confidence it
would remain secret. I know the legal and practical limits of
doctor/patient confidentiality, growing up in a house where we'd hear
stories about the various mental illnesses of famous people, stories
that were passed down through generations. All it takes is one doctor
who thinks my story is interesting enough to share or a doctor who
thinks it's her right or responsibility to contact the authorities and
have me identify the molestor (justifying her decision by telling
herself that someone else might be in danger). All it takes is a single
doctor who violates my trust, just like the "friends" who I told I was
gay did, and everything would be made public and I'd be forced to live
in a world where people would know how fucked up I am. And yes, I
realize this indicates that I have severe trust issues, but they're
based on a large number of experiences with people who have shown a
profound disrepect for their word and the privacy of others.

People say suicide is selfish. I think it's selfish to ask people to
continue living painful and miserable lives, just so you possibly won't
feel sad for a week or two. Suicide may be a permanent solution to a
temporary problem, but it's also a permanent solution to a ~23 year-old
problem that grows more intense and overwhelming every day.

Some people are just dealt bad hands in this life. I know many people
have it worse than I do, and maybe I'm just not a strong person, but I
really did try to deal with this. I've tried to deal with this every day
for the last 23 years and I just can't fucking take it anymore.

I often wonder what life must be like for other people. People who
can feel the love from others and give it back unadulterated, people who
can experience sex as an intimate and joyous experience, people who can
experience the colors and happenings of this world without constant
misery. I wonder who I'd be if things had been different or if I were a
stronger person. It sounds pretty great.

I'm prepared for death. I'm prepared for the pain and I am ready to no
longer exist. Thanks to the strictness of New Jersey gun laws this will
probably be much more painful than it needs to be, but what can you do.
My only fear at this point is messing something up and surviving.

---

I'd also like to address my family, if you can call them that. I despise
everything they stand for and I truly hate them, in a non-emotional,
dispassionate and what I believe is a healthy way. The world will be a
better place when they're dead--one with less hatred and intolerance.

If you're unfamiliar with the situation, my parents are fundamentalist
Christians who kicked me out of their house and cut me off financially
when I was 19 because I refused to attend seven hours of church a week.

They live in a black and white reality they've constructed for
themselves. They partition the world into good and evil and survive
by hating everything they fear or misunderstand and calling it love.
They don't understand that good and decent people exist all around us,
"saved" or not, and that evil and cruel people occupy a large percentage
of their church. They take advantage of people looking for hope by
teaching them to practice the same hatred they practice.

A random example:

"I am personally convinced that if a Muslim truly believes and obeys the
Koran, he will be a terrorist." - George Zeller, August 24, 2010.

If you choose to follow a religion where, for example, devout Catholics
who are trying to be good people are all going to Hell but child
molestors go to Heaven (as long as they were "saved" at some point),
that's your choice, but it's fucked up. Maybe a God who operates by
those rules does exist. If so, fuck Him.

Their church was always more important than the members of their family
and they happily sacrificed whatever necessary in order to satisfy
their contrived beliefs about who they should be.

I grew up in a house where love was proxied through a God I could never
believe in. A house where the love of music with any sort of a beat was
literally beaten out of me. A house full of hatred and intolerance, run
by two people who were experts at appearing kind and warm when others
were around. Parents who tell an eight year old that his grandmother is
going to Hell because she's Catholic. Parents who claim not to be racist
but then talk about the horrors of miscegenation. I could list hundreds
of other examples, but it's tiring.

Since being kicked out, I've interacted with them in relatively normal
ways. I talk to them on the phone like nothing happened. I'm not sure
why. Maybe because I like pretending I have a family. Maybe I like
having people I can talk to about what's been going on in my life.
Whatever the reason, it's not real and it feels like a sham. I should
have never allowed this reconnection to happen.

I wrote the above a while ago, and I do feel like that much of the time.
At other times, though, I feel less hateful. I know my parents honestly
believe the crap they believe in. I know that my mom, at least, loved me
very much and tried her best. One reason I put this off for so long is
because I know how much pain it will cause her. She has been sad since
she found out I wasn't "saved", since she believes I'm going to Hell,
which is not a sadness for which I am responsible. That was never going
to change, and presumably she believes the state of my physical body is
much less important than the state of my soul. Still, I cannot
intellectually justify this decision, knowing how much it will hurt her.
Maybe my ability to take my own life, knowing how much pain it will
cause, shows that I am a monster who doesn't deserve to live. All I know
is that I can't deal with this pain any longer and I'm am truly sorry I
couldn't wait until my family and everyone I knew died so this could be
done without hurting anyone. For years I've wished that I'd be hit by a
bus or die while saving a baby from drowning so my death might be more
acceptable, but I was never so lucky.

---

To those of you who have shown me love, thank you for putting up with
all my shittiness and moodiness and arbitrariness. I was never the
person I wanted to be. Maybe without the darkness I would have been a
better person, maybe not. I did try to be a good person, but I realize I
never got very far.

I'm sorry for the pain this causes. I really do wish I had another
option. I hope this letter explains why I needed to do this. If you
can't understand this decision, I hope you can at least forgive me.

Bill Zeller

---

Please save this letter and repost it if gets deleted. I don't want
people to wonder why I did this. I disseminated it more widely than I
might have otherwise because I'm worried that my family might try to
restrict access to it. I don't mind if this letter is made public. In
fact, I'd prefer it be made public to people being unable to read it and
drawing their own conclusions.

Feel free to republish this letter, but only if it is reproduced in its
entirety.

The Adventures of Mortimer and the Itinerant ‘Cellist

When I moved down to South Carolina, the idea that I would start playing ‘cello professionally again really hadn’t even crossed my mind. I mean, I did bring Mortimer (my ‘cello) in the car with me when I moved rather than leave him in the moving truck, but he always traveled with me when I moved. I settled him into the “office/music room” and got ready to start teaching.

Fall took hold and became time for that most tortured of events, the fall reception for the faculty. A note about faculty parties: they’re absolutely horrible. The whole goal is to make sure you’re seen being there so that you look like you’re trying to get along with everyone. You shake the hand of whoever is sponsoring the food and promptly start talking to the same five people that you talk with on a daily basis. Small talk is a difficult thing for faculty to manage and I’ve found that adding alcohol to a faculty member in no way improves their demeanor or social grace. They’re just mildly drunk coworkers. Dressed in my too-in-style-to-be-at-a-faculty-party suit, I wandered among the canapés and alcohol.

There was a string quartet playing in the background. Looking forward to talking shop with musicians over budget cuts with Deans or faculty politics, I walked over. We started chatting. After a little bit the first violinist asked if I played. Before I knew it, I was sitting in the ‘cellist’s chair, borrowing his ‘cello and playing along with the group. Faculty and administration looked over with surprised expressions like I had just started flying and speaking in tongues. It seems that the ‘cellist was being deployed somewhere else (he was Air Force, like much of the town) and they needed a new ‘cellist. So Mortimer came out of office and started maneuvers around a small southern town.

I really enjoyed playing ‘cello around the area. I played weddings. I played banquets. I played art openings, building inaugurations and convocations. I played for cocktail parties and often was asked to fill in music at many events. I even started playing at churches and debutante parties. I had duos, trios, quartets, quintets and any combination of instruments possible. And even better: I was getting paid!

There’s a fine art to charging people for music. Too low, and you’re work isn’t respected. Too high, and you don’t get gigs and you’re viewed as snobby. Playing for free isn’t an option. A free gig will quickly deteriorate into broken strings, speeding tickets, parking tickets and bad food. “If Jesus had meant me to play for free, ‘cello strings and re-haired bows would rain from heaven.” You can get around the pricing issue by having a “standard” rate that increases based on a variety of factors. Is it indoors or outdoors? I hate sweating, charge them more. Long gigs get charged for two or more services as the rate. There’s the annoyance tariff for people who ride you too hard. You want me to rehearse with your choir? That’s another service. You’re serving caviar? Luxurious wealthy client maintenance fee. Areas with no musician’s union actually lead to higher pricing.

Frankly, ninety percent of the people who hired me wouldn’t know chamber music from Sanskrit. They hire you because they want to look classy, or elegant or because they’re trying to keep up with society. If you don’t have live music at your wedding ceremony you might as well dress a pig in a bridesmaid dress. You’re actually selling image more than music. Occasionally, there will be a church with a music director with more sophisticated tastes. They pay even more and you might actually enjoy the music you’re playing.

I didn’t know that I would enjoy it so much or that it would become so useful. I could go to faculty parties and not even have to make conversation with any of them. I would get paid (which is certainly better than the other doomed souls). You know how I did it? I was easy. Easy to work with, easy to pay, laid-back when it came to disasters and patient with overwrought brides and their mothers. I always came early, stayed late and gave them more than what they paid for. It’s easy if you’re easy.

The Homosexual Threat in the Military

So they’re debating the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy – as has been debated endlessly since the policy was initiated. Everyone knew then it wasn’t workable. It was a poor compromise then and often considered a “step backward” in the rights of gay and lesbian military service members. The House of Representatives has already voted to repeal the statue and we hear the most common description of the Senate: The Senate has yet to act on the legislation. That statement has become as commonplace as “The sky is blue,” or “Phelps is protesting another military funeral.” It would be a earth-shattering surprise if the Senate ever was described as “rushing to act.”

Now frankly, not being in the military (though having worked on military bases as an educator) it’s really not my issue. It’s not my issue in the sense that the direct impact of the change wouldn’t be felt by me or my immediate circle of friends. But the analysis and the process of this debate is so insane that I can’t help but spend some time making fun of it.

Overall, the argument is that if you integrate gays and lesbians that it will affect combat readiness. The counterargument is that it’s worked in almost every other military in the Western world. There won’t be trust because the hormonal, uncontrollable sex machines that are gays and lesbians would immediately sexually assault the first person they saw. My brother had a dog like that, Agnew. He was usually crated because the second his hormonal self was released he would attempt to mate with the first thing he saw. It made for interesting anecdotes and family stories. Somehow, I suspect the military has screened out in the enlistment process people with uncontrollable hormonal urges.

What if a gay or lesbian sees another member of the military – I shudder to think – nekkid? How this is different from everyone constantly comparing themselves to everyone else has eluded me. Admit it, every time you think “what does he/she see in him/her?” you’re comparing. I also find that there’s obviously a lot of deluded people who overestimate their attractiveness. No, you’re not irresistible. Parts is parts. This seems someone irrelevant when you realize that about 14,000 members of the military have been discharged for being gay or lesbian. They’re already there, and have been since the very beginning. Are heterosexuals more afraid that gays and lesbians will find them attractive – or even worse, beneath notice?

Oh, and then there’s the domestic partner issue. Opponents of the repeal argue that they wouldn’t know what to do with the spouses/significant others of gay or lesbian service members. One, you probably handle them and their benefits the same way you do everyone else – it’s not like they have different organs. Two, you ignore the benefits issue like just about every state and public institution.

No, I’m not pleading for the repeal. People hate change, and I know that. When the forces were integrated, it would end combat readiness. When women could be soldiers, the forces would collapse. When women ended up on the front lines, in whatever capacity, the world would end. As of yet, I haven’t seen any of these fears materialize.

I hear DADT died again. They’ll try to resurrect it like some sort of legislative Lazarus a few more times before the finally get it together. I don’t know how the judicial system keeps track of all the lawsuits. The fact remains, however, that if someone is strong and brave enough to serve so that I can blather on in a blog with immunity, I think we should let them.