Unsolicited Advice

I've been getting some interesting reactions when I tell people I'm still talking to the Eccentric. They range from, "Oh, really?" to "You can still run, you know." Currently leading in popularity, mainly among people who encountered him in the show where we met, is "yipe." I asked around, and there doesn't seem to be any community conflict or feud driving the difference of opinion. When someone is widely considered to be weird, there's usually a reason. It's not always a good reason, but it does exist. I think it is just that he is very much himself, and this is not everybody's cup of tea. The Eccentric is, well, eccentric -- he really only has one setting, which is fairly intense, and has cultivated such colossal bunny ears I'm not sure how he manages to pack them into the car with the rest of his gear. When I first met him, I wondered if his English was kind of wonky, as he still has an accent. Later, I concluded it was pr...

I was having a conversation with a friend a couple of weeks ago, and she asked the question of whether straight people were "allowed" to wear rainbows during Pride Month. I have no idea. I do, but it probably depends on where you are. I'm in Greater Boston, where they swap out four of the five American flags on the façade of the public library for rainbow banners in the month of June, and work in Cambridge, whose mayor, last I checked, was a lesbian. Pride stuff out here is more "warm weather festival" than "angry defiance", because it doesn't need to be. I'm sure there do exist bigots in Boston, but it's considered indescribably rude to voice that. They are under considerable pressure to keep it to themselves, which is really all civilized society asks. The Dancing Queerly month of events that I'm working or otherwise involved in is specifically open to self-identified queer artists and friends , so I can devote the time I might o...