January 18, 2011

John

John, age 12
Lake Tahoe, California (1977)


Here I am modeling my mother's sunglasses. Look at the body language:
crossed legs, flipped wrists, dangling hand. How could my parents not have known?! Well, of course they knew.


As my mother said when I came out:
'You always were a strange kid, John...' Thanks, Mom!

But, as I was (and still am) a bookworm, I give a really big thanks to all of the authors I discovered at the local library, that let me know I wasn't the only kid who felt that way:

Marion Zimmer Bradley ("The Catch Trap"), George Nader ("Chrome"), and the gay Danielle Steele, Mr. Gordon Merrick ("The Quirk").

And, now that I think about it, an even bigger thanks to the librarians that stocked the shelves!

John's first, famous-person same sex crush:
Erik Estrada ("CHiPS")

Hubba hubba!
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Click here - "Born This Way: Real Stories of Growing Up Gay" book
Click here - "My First Gay Crush Blog"

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4 comments:

Sara said...

Fantastic shot! Love it <3

Daughter of a Librarian said...

You said it! We cannot underestimate the power of media to tell us that we are not "the only one" out there and present role models... in your case, books from the library (yay)... also, TV, movies, comics, music, etc.

Daughter of a Librarian said...

... oh, I forgot to add: *this* blog! :)

Citysqwirl said...

I loved The Catch Trap, too!