Leather and love

Last night after choir practice I received a gift. Edwin and Gord gave me a black suede vest.

"It was supposed to be a get well present," Gord said drily. "But you're already better, so it's a get laid present."

I ran around babbling, showing it to my other friends: Mark, Bob, Sylvie, Jon.

My limited finances haven't permitted the purchase of any leather other than a few small fetish items. Whenever I go to a leather event, I have to beg an article or two from my friends, usually Mark and Bob.

For those of my friends not familiar with this kind of thing, certain bars and parties have a dress code restricted to leather and denim, or even leather only (I've never gone to the latter). With my new vest I'll have the minimum requirements for most of these activities, although a pair of overalls sufficed for Colostomy Man this winter. Now I can hardly wait to get my bandage off so I can fit back into a pair of jeans.

Gord and Edwin aren't my closest friends. Gord said they were shopping and saw the vest. It didn't fit either of them but they knew someone had to have it. I'm the only guy in the choir who goes to leather events and will fit in a vest this small. They probably got it from Value Village. Still, I'm dumbfounded by their thoughtfulness.

It goes to show the Waterloo-Wellington Rainbow Chorus is a community. We care for one another. This winter when I was in trouble it was choir members (and Brian) who came to see me in the hospital every day, checked my apartment and fed the cat, brought me groceries when I got home, drove me on errands, even cleaned my place and did laundry.

I remember how my old church used to help if someone got sick or needed house repairs. Whenever one of the families had a new baby, people would sign up to provide dinners for two weeks.

Church charity was structured and deliberate, like a forced march. We had to show one another the love of God lest someone fail to believe. We had to demonstrate the importance of traditional family values, because God especially loves people who make babies.

With my gay and lesbian choir, nobody organized it. There was no agenda. I live alone, so people went out of their way to lend a hand. They did so spontaneously and the love felt genuine. No one had anything to prove except that everyone matters.

Progressive photo journal

One of my shortcomings is I'm not very observant. It runs in my family. I used to grow a beard or shave it off and my parents wouldn't notice. When I try to record an event I can rarely recall details such as the clothes my friends were wearing, what other people in the room were doing, or precisely what anyone said. Sometimes I lose track of conversations altogether. My mind takes over, tumbling down some remote hillside of its own.

Poor observation skills are a downfall for a writer. Sensory detail is the currency of good writing. Action and detail are the tools writers use to create vivid imagery, the thing that grabs hold of our minds and makes us want to read more. Here are some sensory details in my friends' journals that grabbed my attention recently:

• rjwolfx watching milk and coffee blend together in his cup.


• anoisblue's husband, kenhighcountry, pulling her against him and kissing her in a parking alcove.
  
• q_knox watching a daddy-long-legs struggle in the bathtub.
  
• ruralrob hearing the nightly noise of frogs in his pond.
  

I need to emerge from my navel and find ways of getting back in touch with the rest of my body, my sense organs in particular. ruralrob commented to me that carrying around a digitial camera can provide interesting photo ops for our journals.

Then I saw an excellent idea by danlmarmot. He suggested taking pictures at fixed intervals along a road trip or walk.

( my photo journal of a walk )