Wednesday, April 07, 2004
I’ll warn you. This is a long, rambling post. I spent a couple of hours going through my two boxes
of photos, looking for images. It has made me ponder self esteem, how I have view myself through the years. I wasn’t sure whether to start at the present and go backwards, or the do the opposite. As a historian, it made more sense to progress from the beginning, so let’s take a little walk through time.
I was born in 1963, a few months before Kennedy was assassinated. There aren’t many photos of me when I was a child- we were pretty poor and I was the fifth child, there was less interest in documenting my life and my mother had her hands full.
I was a skinny kid, undersized, gawky, and uncoordinated. Did poorly in gym class. So scrawny my mother had to sew my pants until I was 12 years old. By the second grade my teachers noticed that I was a tad smarter than most of the other kids. One complained on my report cards that I had read my entire English book in the first two weeks of class. At about the same time a teacher moved me to the back of the classroom, away from a map I liked and I burst into tears. I was sent to the office, they reasoned that it was because my grandfathers had both recently died. The reality was that I was so near-sighted that I could no longer see the chalkboard or the map. Finally, in fourth grade, they screened the kids and discovered I needed glasses. The ones I got looked just like Jan Brady’s- I was so proud of them. They didn’t last long, I soon had to get a new plastic pair- much more durable.
Homer in 1972, 1974, and 1976.
In 1974 my father stopped driving truck and we moved and started a dairy farm. Things were not so great- my father was gone much of the time when I was younger and suddenly he was there attempting to take on this role that he knew little about. He really hated farming, and we were never successful. The end result was a great deal of verbal abuse directed at me and my brother. I don’t know how many times I was told that I was worthless, no good, ugly. The first two didn’t stick, but being told you are ugly by your father can fuck your head up pretty good.
We struggled with farming for years. In 1979 my father abruptly decided we had to move to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan- he seemed determined to make things worse than they already were. Perhaps the only good thing that happened was that I got to go to a half decent school for three years, allowing me to at least escape in 1982 to the University of Michigan. I have to thank my mother for that, she was always behind me, pushing me, telling me that I could. Telling me to call my grandmother for the cash I needed to pay for tuition- the year my father tried to force me to drop out of college and return home to become a farmer.
I was still a skinny kid when I went off to college- I think I weighed about 145 pounds and was about six feet tall. I grew another two inches in the next three years- one result of having a very late puberty. I discovered that a lot of kids had nicer clothes than I, who went away to school with my single pair of shoes. I was also pretty ashamed to find that I was the only one with crooked teeth. Luckily the University of Michigan had dental school and I worked up the courage to make an appointment my sophomore year at the orthodontics college. The grad students who evaluated me were horrified- “Why didn’t you have braces?” they asked. I told them the truth, ‘We couldn’t afford it.” They accepted me and Grandma paid the $1000 for Anne Marie from Belgium to fix my smile.
October 1985, I brought Anne Marie a bouquet the day she took my braces off.
That was a pivotal year. I had stayed in the dorm my junior year and the guys down the hall decided to have a “No Fags” party. I sat in my room so angry, no one knew I was a queer. The next week I called the counseling center and went in and joined a “Coming Out” group that was forming. It was the best thing I have ever done.
Back in 1985 there was no gay presence in the media. A single movie, Consenting Adult, had appeared on network television. I watched that with Jeff from across the hall, who had a gay cousin. He doesn’t know how important it was to watch that film with him. There were no readily available magazines, this was pre-internet. The only gay people I had met were not role models. But in the coming out group I met Les, who has been my best friend ever since, the person I can talk about anything with. And I guess I blossomed. Les certainly helped with the wardrobe, as well as trips to Value Village in Ypsilanti. Still, there was still this idea in the back of my mind that I was homely Homer. It didn’t help that another person in that group had made some pretty evil comments to me, I guess in an attempt to ameliorate his own self hatred. I got the better of him when the braces came off in the fall of 1985, after only 361 days, and I suddenly transformed from the ugly caterpillar to some sort of butterfly. I met a guy and actually dated for a while before heading off to New Mexico for the summer for my first archaeology dig.
Rasmi and Homer at the Rosebud bar, Mountainair, New Mexico.
The following year I ended up dating the hottest gay guy in Ann Arbor, the one the jerk had always wanted. My new self confidence allowed me to apply for a job in the Park Service and off to North Dakota I went, where they actually paid me to dig. I met three of my best friends on that dig and 17 years later we still talk on the phone and trade emails all of the time. In the fall I came back to Ann Arbor where I applied to grad school, moving to Arizona State in 1988 after another summer with Pat and Melanie and Becky in North Dakota.
Becky and Homer in North Dakota.
So if you don’t have a car in the Phoenix area your social life sucked. I still ended up meeting two guys who became boyfriends, hockey player Paul and German swimmer Philip. Oslynn and I started going to the gym and I lifted weights for the first time. Surprisingly, my body responded and I developed a chest and biceps, actually putting on 10 pounds of muscle.
Homer and Paul, 1991.
I remember being at the March on Washington in 1993, surrounded by all of those beautiful and political men, and deciding "What the fuck, I'm taking my shirt off." I'm pretty sure Les was mortified, but I didn't care. I think that was a turning point, deciding that sure I had been a mutty-looking kid, but that (as Al Franken would say), damn it I'm good enough, etc, etc
Les and Homer, March on Washington.
I moved to Tucson in 1993. I bought my first car that October, ending years of riding my bike 10 miles a day (geez, I had great legs back then!). Time has speeded up. I dated Larry in 1994, started losing my hair in 1995. Went through a couple of dry spells- it can be hard to find a good man in this town.
Clean cut Homer, 1995.
Jeffrey S. and I were an item in early 1997, and then I met the Ex in 1997 and really fell in love. I thought that was it, that I was happily ever after.
A Happily-Ever-After moment, 1999.
But in August 2002 he abruptly announced it was over, done with, finito. I had my little nervous breakdown, which most people never knew about. Went to the shrink, had some pretty pills for awhile. All of the self esteem issues came roaring back again. "He must have left me because I wasn’t cute anymore or I’d stopped going to the gym." It’s funny how we re-run certain aspects of our lives. Finally I realized he left me because of something inside of him, not because of the way I looked or acted. As you might guess, it's still a touchy topic.
About a year ago I snapped out of that whole business and decided, ‘Enough’ and decided that goddammit I was heading toward 40 and I was going to be happy. I grew a beard, shaved my hair off, I was like Madonna for a while, changing my image just because I could. And surprisingly, I decided that at certain moments I can be hot stuff and that gay guys really like a little attitude. So there you have it, a rambling, illustrated discourse on many of Homer's issues about body image and self esteem. I'm certain that I haven't covered everything- of wait, that goddam balding thing! But I'm pretty happy with life and I'm looking forward to whatever adventures happen in the future.
Scruffy Homer, 2003.
Newer› ‹Older
of photos, looking for images. It has made me ponder self esteem, how I have view myself through the years. I wasn’t sure whether to start at the present and go backwards, or the do the opposite. As a historian, it made more sense to progress from the beginning, so let’s take a little walk through time.
I was born in 1963, a few months before Kennedy was assassinated. There aren’t many photos of me when I was a child- we were pretty poor and I was the fifth child, there was less interest in documenting my life and my mother had her hands full.
I was a skinny kid, undersized, gawky, and uncoordinated. Did poorly in gym class. So scrawny my mother had to sew my pants until I was 12 years old. By the second grade my teachers noticed that I was a tad smarter than most of the other kids. One complained on my report cards that I had read my entire English book in the first two weeks of class. At about the same time a teacher moved me to the back of the classroom, away from a map I liked and I burst into tears. I was sent to the office, they reasoned that it was because my grandfathers had both recently died. The reality was that I was so near-sighted that I could no longer see the chalkboard or the map. Finally, in fourth grade, they screened the kids and discovered I needed glasses. The ones I got looked just like Jan Brady’s- I was so proud of them. They didn’t last long, I soon had to get a new plastic pair- much more durable.
Homer in 1972, 1974, and 1976.
In 1974 my father stopped driving truck and we moved and started a dairy farm. Things were not so great- my father was gone much of the time when I was younger and suddenly he was there attempting to take on this role that he knew little about. He really hated farming, and we were never successful. The end result was a great deal of verbal abuse directed at me and my brother. I don’t know how many times I was told that I was worthless, no good, ugly. The first two didn’t stick, but being told you are ugly by your father can fuck your head up pretty good.
We struggled with farming for years. In 1979 my father abruptly decided we had to move to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan- he seemed determined to make things worse than they already were. Perhaps the only good thing that happened was that I got to go to a half decent school for three years, allowing me to at least escape in 1982 to the University of Michigan. I have to thank my mother for that, she was always behind me, pushing me, telling me that I could. Telling me to call my grandmother for the cash I needed to pay for tuition- the year my father tried to force me to drop out of college and return home to become a farmer.
I was still a skinny kid when I went off to college- I think I weighed about 145 pounds and was about six feet tall. I grew another two inches in the next three years- one result of having a very late puberty. I discovered that a lot of kids had nicer clothes than I, who went away to school with my single pair of shoes. I was also pretty ashamed to find that I was the only one with crooked teeth. Luckily the University of Michigan had dental school and I worked up the courage to make an appointment my sophomore year at the orthodontics college. The grad students who evaluated me were horrified- “Why didn’t you have braces?” they asked. I told them the truth, ‘We couldn’t afford it.” They accepted me and Grandma paid the $1000 for Anne Marie from Belgium to fix my smile.
October 1985, I brought Anne Marie a bouquet the day she took my braces off.
That was a pivotal year. I had stayed in the dorm my junior year and the guys down the hall decided to have a “No Fags” party. I sat in my room so angry, no one knew I was a queer. The next week I called the counseling center and went in and joined a “Coming Out” group that was forming. It was the best thing I have ever done.
Back in 1985 there was no gay presence in the media. A single movie, Consenting Adult, had appeared on network television. I watched that with Jeff from across the hall, who had a gay cousin. He doesn’t know how important it was to watch that film with him. There were no readily available magazines, this was pre-internet. The only gay people I had met were not role models. But in the coming out group I met Les, who has been my best friend ever since, the person I can talk about anything with. And I guess I blossomed. Les certainly helped with the wardrobe, as well as trips to Value Village in Ypsilanti. Still, there was still this idea in the back of my mind that I was homely Homer. It didn’t help that another person in that group had made some pretty evil comments to me, I guess in an attempt to ameliorate his own self hatred. I got the better of him when the braces came off in the fall of 1985, after only 361 days, and I suddenly transformed from the ugly caterpillar to some sort of butterfly. I met a guy and actually dated for a while before heading off to New Mexico for the summer for my first archaeology dig.
Rasmi and Homer at the Rosebud bar, Mountainair, New Mexico.
The following year I ended up dating the hottest gay guy in Ann Arbor, the one the jerk had always wanted. My new self confidence allowed me to apply for a job in the Park Service and off to North Dakota I went, where they actually paid me to dig. I met three of my best friends on that dig and 17 years later we still talk on the phone and trade emails all of the time. In the fall I came back to Ann Arbor where I applied to grad school, moving to Arizona State in 1988 after another summer with Pat and Melanie and Becky in North Dakota.
Becky and Homer in North Dakota.
So if you don’t have a car in the Phoenix area your social life sucked. I still ended up meeting two guys who became boyfriends, hockey player Paul and German swimmer Philip. Oslynn and I started going to the gym and I lifted weights for the first time. Surprisingly, my body responded and I developed a chest and biceps, actually putting on 10 pounds of muscle.
Homer and Paul, 1991.
I remember being at the March on Washington in 1993, surrounded by all of those beautiful and political men, and deciding "What the fuck, I'm taking my shirt off." I'm pretty sure Les was mortified, but I didn't care. I think that was a turning point, deciding that sure I had been a mutty-looking kid, but that (as Al Franken would say), damn it I'm good enough, etc, etc
Les and Homer, March on Washington.
I moved to Tucson in 1993. I bought my first car that October, ending years of riding my bike 10 miles a day (geez, I had great legs back then!). Time has speeded up. I dated Larry in 1994, started losing my hair in 1995. Went through a couple of dry spells- it can be hard to find a good man in this town.
Clean cut Homer, 1995.
Jeffrey S. and I were an item in early 1997, and then I met the Ex in 1997 and really fell in love. I thought that was it, that I was happily ever after.
A Happily-Ever-After moment, 1999.
But in August 2002 he abruptly announced it was over, done with, finito. I had my little nervous breakdown, which most people never knew about. Went to the shrink, had some pretty pills for awhile. All of the self esteem issues came roaring back again. "He must have left me because I wasn’t cute anymore or I’d stopped going to the gym." It’s funny how we re-run certain aspects of our lives. Finally I realized he left me because of something inside of him, not because of the way I looked or acted. As you might guess, it's still a touchy topic.
About a year ago I snapped out of that whole business and decided, ‘Enough’ and decided that goddammit I was heading toward 40 and I was going to be happy. I grew a beard, shaved my hair off, I was like Madonna for a while, changing my image just because I could. And surprisingly, I decided that at certain moments I can be hot stuff and that gay guys really like a little attitude. So there you have it, a rambling, illustrated discourse on many of Homer's issues about body image and self esteem. I'm certain that I haven't covered everything- of wait, that goddam balding thing! But I'm pretty happy with life and I'm looking forward to whatever adventures happen in the future.
Scruffy Homer, 2003.
