Mike, age 5
Pendleton, Indiana (1977)
Don’t be fooled by the masculine blue pajamas I'm wearing. This photo takes place before I'd started dressing up in my mom's old nightgowns, a wig, and costume jewelry. Me and my little sister (pictured here) would both get diva’d up and prance around the house, lip-synching to Marie Osmond and The Mandrell Sisters. Or pretend we were the oil baroness wives from Dallas.
I always liked to play Sue Ellen Ewing, because she was so deliciously mean.
And drunk...
 |
| "Wishing Luke Skywalker would use the Force on me." |
I always wanted to play an aging star who was losing her beauty, but determined to do so with grace and attitude.
Even at an early age, I knew that milking a situation for all its turmoil was, in a word, tragifabulous.
And yet, I first knew
I was gay around age 5.
I was in love with Mark Hamill and wanted to be Luke Skywalker. But more importantly, I wanted to touch his perfectly tanned chest. The way his desert poncho allowed just the slightest glimpse of his collarbone and pec muscles did something to me that I couldn't explain.
All I knew was that whenever my sister would leave her Princess Leia doll unattended, I'd force Luke and Leia to do some serious heavy petting - even though I didn’t understand it.
Growing up gay in the Midwest in the 70's might not have been ideal, but my family was supportive and allowed me to be me. Their mantras were:
'We’re not everybody else' and 'It doesn’t matter what other people think.'
And what can you say about a mother who sews her son a Wonder Woman costume from scratch, and lets him wear it to his Kindergarten Halloween party?
I would say, that's the definition of love.
Mike's first, famous-person same sex crushes:
Mark Hamill (in "Star Wars") & Donnie Osmond____________________________________________________
Click here - "Born This Way: Real Stories of Growing Up Gay" book
Click here - "My First Gay Crush Blog"
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