Gay Writer

Life In The Apocalypse 6. Monday April 27, 2020

Discerning Daddy

I am living in Quarantine with my ex-husband, Alex, our friend Matías, and on weekends with Dylan, Alex’s boyfriend, and Layne, my boyfriend. In the back house is our friend Robert.
There are a lot of us here. And for the most part we are making it work. But under the best of circumstances living with people can be hard, no matter how much you love them.

These guys are my family. And I feel lucky to be here in lockdown with them.

But recently we had our first “house fight”. It was over something stupid. I came home from a bike ride and the air-conditioner was on in the living room. Which made sense, it was over 90 degrees that day.

I had been letting resentments build. Creating stories in my head of injustices like not doing dishes in a timely manner, not cleaning out the kitty litter, leaving an opened letter on the table, all the stupid little things that cause minor conflicts between any roommates, but seem somehow magnified under a pandemic lockdown.

I came into the house saying, “We have to be careful about the AC. The bills are getting higher and higher because we are all home.” And while, yes, this is true: it was how I said it. Accusatory. Full of all the built up resentment I had over wayward envelopes and chaotic glasses left unwashed.

I was full of feeling locked in. With the TV on all the time. With someone always home. I work from home. I’m still working from home. I’m used to having space when everyone else leaves. Now no one is leaving. This isn’t their fault or mine. They want to leave just as bad as I want space. They probably want space from me as well. This is just how life is now, and will be for the unforeseeable future.

So I blew up. And they blew up back. And then it was over. And we were able to talk about it.

We have been good about boundaries. Alex and Matías have been incredibly kind: in the mornings they let me sit in the living room and work for a few hours while they mostly stay in their rooms or out in the front yard. We have been good about giving each other as much space as possible. We have each had moments of annoyance, snapping for no reason, and for the most part we all just let it go.

One of the things I keep coming back to during this weird fucking time in our lives: who am I as a man? Who do I want to be?

I am not always the easiest man. And I am definitely not the easiest man to live with or be in a relationship with, but anyone who knows me knows that my “Family” is important to me. And lockdown has been all about family. My chosen family. The people I consider home.

We are going to drive each other crazy right now. Annoy each other. We are going to consider breaking up and running away. We are going to think about leaving them all behind when it’s all over. How could we not think these things? I have been on the brink of blowing everything up a few times. And then I remember: I am so fucking lucky to have these people in my life. And not just the ones I am living with: but the friends who I am zooming with, house partying with, facetiming with. All the people who check in on me daily, and the ones I check in on.

And I am learning: it all comes back to community. To Family. And I can take this to an even broader sense: when grubhub suggests I tip $4 I can choose to tip $5. Or to bring some cash for the person working the check out at the grocery store. To say hi to people as I bike past them. To wave at people from my porch. To be kinder. To not honk at the person in their car when they do something I don’t like.

To just be easier. Kinder. Slower to respond. To try to hear what is happening around me, what people are saying.

This will be over one day. None of us know exactly how that is going look, but I’m pretty sure it won’t look like before. Those days are gone and what is ahead of us is uncertain. And that can be scary. Even those of us who don’t mind change will find this uncertainty scary. And we are going to suffer loss for our lives, for who we once were, for the freedoms we don’t have right now. And we are going to have anxiety for the future. Because the future right now seems scary.

But I also have a lot of hope. Maybe hope is just a blind spot in my personality. I don’t know if the world will work out. I don’t know if we will correct the huge mistake we made as a country in November. I don’t know if the virus will come spiraling back, more vicious than before, I don’t know if the future is dystopic or utopic. I have no control over those things beyond what I do. How I act.

And so I am here trying my best to be the man I want to be. To be kind. That’s all. And when I’m not to say sorry.

Here is a funny stupid story. A few days ago I was calling the pharmacy for some prescriptions and I was annoyed that day so I took that out on the woman on the phone helping me. I wasn’t mean, but I was rude, gruff, obnoxious. When I hung up Matías and Alex called me out on my behavior.

So I called the woman at the pharmacy back and I said, “Hey, this is Jeff Leavell. We just spoke and I was a total jerk to you and you didn’t deserve that. I’m so grateful you are working right now and taking care of us. I’m really sorry. Thank you so much.”

When I went into the pharmacy later she and I had a fun moment laughing about what had happened.

I want to live in a world where we are all trying to be our better selves. The only way I get to have that world is to focus on myself. How I am behaving. And I fuck it up all the time. Like royally fuck it the fuck up. But I’m working hard to own that too. And to forgive myself and to just say sorry.

I am ready for this to be over. I am ready to get on a plane, to go outside without a mask on. Some mornings I cry for no reason, some nights I want to scream and yell. I want to work the door at the Eagle and to go to the beach and to hug people and flirt with hot guys I don’t know. I want to get brunch with friends.

And I am afraid. Like deep in my bones afraid. And I am happy. And I am full of hope. And I worry this is the end of the world. And I am full of love. I am all these things at once.

Anyway, this isn’t my most poetic piece ever but I wanted to get it out. Just to write something. I hope you guys are ok. I’d love to hear from you.

Life In The Apocalypse 5. Monday April 13, 2020

Discerning Daddy

I keep this written on an index card next to where I work: “I love you Jeff. Being human is hard. You’re doing great. Even when you think you are failing.”
On the reverse is: “What if it’s all just going to be okay.”

These two things are my mantras, the philosophies that are carrying me through life in lockdown.

Because it’s true. It’s fucking hard being a human being.

Lately I have found it hard to settle down, to stop my thoughts from racing. And then I find myself swinging into acceptance and peace. There is a lot to be anxious about right now. A lot to be afraid of. And there is a lot to be grateful for, a lot of proof of how lucky I am.

But I am feeling cantankerous. My character defects seem to be coming out swinging right now.

When I got sober, the hardest thing about that first year was the way everything became unbearable. But the most unbearable thing was my reaction to things: I was angry, moody, controlling, afraid. Once a feeling took hold it seemed to control me, I had no idea how to talk myself off the ledge.

Through the program I was in, through meditation, and through therapy I learned how to manage those things. I learned that just because I thought or felt something I didn’t have to react, I didn’t have to express my thoughts or feelings. I could sit with them, even if they felt like they would tear me apart.

And they never did tear me apart.

Peace became a place that didn’t erase the anxiety or the fear, but it became a place where I could allow it, and it didn’t have to define me, to swallow me whole.

Just because I thought a shitty thing about someone, or got angry, or wanted to control what someone was doing, didn’t mean that I had to hold on to that thought or those feelings. I didn’t have to let them take form. And when I did, then I learned that I could make amends, and forgive myself, and move on.

Because being human is hard. For all of us. Not just me.

Living right now, in lockdown, under the threat of a pandemic, feels a lot like that first year sober for me.

Because right now it feels like so much of what is happening is internal. And I’m having to use all those early sobriety tools to confront my thoughts.

And I’m mad. I’m mad at the government, I’m mad at Donald Trump, I’m mad at the healthcare system, I’m mad at this fucking virus, I’m mad that all the things I was working on and building got suddenly put on hold. I’m mad that once again I have to confront myself. In this new way.

A couple nights ago, sitting in my living room, I just started to cry. For all the things that have been lost. And I remember a time in early sobriety when I cried for a similar loss: of drugs and booze. Of the man I had been.

Things are changing. And we are powerless over that. But here’s where we aren’t powerless: we have the opportunity to change as well.
Everything that we are living in this moment, in lockdown, the way our life looks, the people around us, is because of choices we have made. Who we were.

So I keep coming back to this: Who do I want to be? How do I want my life to look? In that first year of being sober I made myself a promise: I did not get sober to be unhappy. I did not get sober to lose my life to some other distraction (addiction). I got sober because I wanted to live the largest life possible. I wanted to chase my dreams to the end. I wanted to risk failure.

Lockdown is reminding me: Who do I want to be? How do I want my life to look? What false obligations are holding me back?

And that it’s ok when all I can do is watch tv, or jerk off, or eat ice cream. It’s ok when all I can do is cry. It’s ok when I feel lost and I can’t imagine ever succeeding, when I think this is all I will ever be.

But those things don’t have to define me. Or who I will become.

A friend once said to me, “It’s not about what you get, it’s about how you went about getting it. That’s the only thing you have any control over.”

I just finished reading “Later My Life at the Edge of the World” by Paul Lisicky. Beautiful and reflective. Now I’m reading “Overthrow” by Caleb Cain.

I’m listening to a lot of Records. Right now I’m kind of obsessed with Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver, Francis and the Lights and Four Tet.
And I’m missing a lot of you.

Life In The Apocalypse 4. Thursday April 2, 2020

Discerning Daddy

I have been in “lockdown” for 18 days. Roughly. There was a day or two in those early days where I went to the gym. My boyfriend and I have driven to the beach, and once into the Angeles National Forrest, exploring the mountains. I go for walks. And bike rides.

And we are finding ways to have fun, sexy adventures. On Sunday night we joined a zoom circle jerk group, jerking off with 15 other guys. During our drive through the mountains we pulled over in the flats to pee. He ended up fucking me over a rock, the expanse of sky and mountains breathtaking.

One of the things I’ve learned during this time: I’m not built for cynicism. I’m not built for fear. Even as things are getting scary, even in those moments, alone in bed, when I can’t breathe, sure I am dying, afraid about money, about my career, I still keep falling back on hope.

I find that most people are being super kind, friendly.

Here’s a story: a week ago I was at Pavilions. A man and I reached for the same last jar of pasta sauce. I pulled my hand back, saying sorry, and he smiled at me, took three jars of the same pasta sauce out of his cart and handed them to me.

“I already have too many,” he said.

I was in my teens and early 20’s when AIDS hit New York City. I watched as many of my mother’s friends died. Young gay men, a community devastated.

One of these men, David, before he got sick, told me,

“We are all learning about who we are right now. All of us. The whole world. It’s easy to be nice and kind, to stay hopeful, when the world is on your side. It’s almost impossible when the world turns on you. But that’s when you need it the most. It’s these times that define us. What kind of a man do I want to be?”

Before he got sick David was tall and muscular, beefy and hairy. The last time I was home my mom showed me a picture of him right before he died. He looked emaciated: so skinny he was almost unrecognizable. His cheeks were sunken in.

He was sitting outside, by the river, smiling. That smile will forever stay with me. That smile is the man I want to be in this time.

18 days and it’s not easy. My Facebook page is filled with people who are sick, know someone who is sick, posts about people who have died, non-stop information about the virus. I find myself getting annoyed at small little things that happen in my house. Annoyed at my roommates, my boyfriend, the dog and cats: but then I remember how lucky I am. That we are all here. Together.

There is a lot to be afraid of. And then there is that picture of David, who knew he was dying, but smiling anyway. And there is a lot to be hopeful about too.

Even if it’s the fucking apocalypse I have to believe there is still beauty.
My best friend Amy taught me this very important mantra, that I keep written on an index card on my desk, and as a screenshot on my phone:

What if it’s all just going to be ok?

These words save me in times of doubt and fear.

And I’m really glad my boyfriend still wants to fuck me in parks. That’s gotta count for something.

Life In The Apocalypse 3. Thursday March 26, 2020

Discerning Daddy

Today’s record, GoGo Penquin, A Humdrum Star, Deluxe.

I woke up feeling discouraged today. And horny.

I keep thinking, this has to have meaning. I have to find a way to allow what is happening in the world to change me.

I’ve been meditating a lot. Jerking off less than I would have thought. I bought a bike and try to spend an hour each day riding it, exploring new neighborhoods. I go for walks. It’s nice to be out, even if at a distance, seeing the world, knowing that all of you are out there too. I try to smile and say hi. I read somewhere that saying hi, that smiling, is good for the immune system. Either way, it makes me feel better.

And I’ve been writing.

I set a goal for myself: I will read two new books a week and I will spend less time on my phone.

But today I woke up feeling discouraged.

“I think things are going to go back to normal sooner than we think,” my friend texts me from San Francisco. She is married with two kids. The four of them quarantined in their two-bedroom apartment in the Mission.

“I hope so,” I write back, but what I am really thinking is: what is normal? What does that mean exactly?

“By your birthday for sure,” she texts. “God, it has to be all over by then don’t you think?”

My birthday is May 8. And I don’t know what to think.

“I think this is just going to be what it is.” I say to her when she answers her phone, deciding we needed more than just texting.

“I don’t think I can live like this,” she says to me. “I have no space. Nowhere to go.”

We are silent: the two of us breathing.

“Sometimes I could just run away,” she says. She says it softly. “Sometimes I think I could just run away and leave them all behind. Does that make me a bad person? A horrible mom?”

“No,” I say.

“What if I did it? Would it make me a horrible person then?”

“You won’t do it so it doesn’t matter.”
“Remember when we were in College and we would eat mushrooms and wander around the Lower East Side and the Village? And we felt so free. So limitless. I want that feeling back.”

“Let’s add it to the list of life in the age of coronavirus goals,” I say, and we both laugh.

It’s so easy to be sad. To be afraid. It’s so easy to struggle against what is happening: to deny it even as the rising tide of it seems to be growing. It is so easy to say it’s just a conspiracy.

It would also be so easy to just sit on my couch and watch Netflix and jerk off to Pornhub (they’ve even made their premium videos free during the crisis…it’s an endless cornucopia of gang bangs and bareback loads).

And yet I can’t help it: I need there to be meaning to this. I need it to have an impact. I don’t want to resist what is happening. I don’t want to slip into denial so I can just go back to normal when this is over.

When I found out I was HIV positive I remember thinking, “This will change me. It should change me. I want it to change me.” When Jon died I refused let him just slip away, to allow the sadness of it to destroy me, instead I demanded it have meaning. Because if I could find the meaning in what had happened then I could find a way to not just survive but to grow.

I want to do more than just survive this. I want to live. I want to experience. I want to grow.

And some days I will wake up discouraged. Some nights I will be so wrecked by anxiety and fear I can’t breathe.

But then I will get out of bed. I will read and write and drink coffee and then I will get on my bike and I will ride through the empty streets, saying hi to anyone I see. And I will eat lunch with my boyfriend and I will reach out to my friends and my mom and dad and brother, I will send dirty jokes to my nephews, and search for pink and sparkly headphones for my nieces and I will say to myself: this matters. This will mean something. This can change us if we let it. Even in all the fear and loss and pain this can be an opportunity.

If we let it.

Check out my book, Accidental Warlocks, on Amazon. Your support means everything.

Life In The Apocalypse 2. Tuesday March 18, 2020

Discerning Daddy

Today’s record, Bon Iver, “For Emma, Forever Ago”.

Every morning begins with panic. Not at the virus, or the fear of becoming sick, but at what we might have lost. And fear for what is coming.

I get out of bed, 8:30am. I think, why? Why not just sleep? Why not just turn the tv on and hunker down and just fuck it all…but I make my coffee. I open my book. I write in my journal. I choose the records I’m going to listen to, and I get to work.

Because I have faith. I have hope. That we will come out the other side. I’m not sure what the other side looks like, or what we will look like, but I know there is an other side.

I had a friend in New York, years ago, 1992. In my book, Accidental Warlocks, I called him Laurent. Laurent had AIDS. I would go sit in his apartment in Chelsea and read him Lorca poems, we would sit in one of those pools you could buy at Kmart, the small ones: he had it set up in his living room. We drank champagne and ate strawberries and chocolate and talked. He would tell outrageous stories about orgies and alien abductions and art.

“I believe we are beautiful,” he said to me one night, sitting on the couch, listening as the rain outside hit against his window, purple lesions on his chest like a map of his past, a prediction of his future. “Even when all we can see is the ugly, I still believe we are beautiful. Just a few years ago the world seemed happy to let all our gay brothers and sisters die, but we haven’t died yet. We are still here. Filthy and gorgeous, the most beautiful of all the ugly little monsters. I love every single one of us.”

Back then we came together to mourn, we danced and went out, we threw ourselves into each other, the only safe havens we knew. Now we are told to stay away from each other. We are told about social distancing and that it is safer in isolation.

My friend Jake and I went for a walk through Echo Park yesterday. My boyfriend and I ate Lasagna and cuddled up on the couch last night. I FaceTime with my ex in Berlin. I check in on friends. My brother told me that one of my nieces, she’s 12, facetimes with her friend as she makes herself snacks.

“Sometimes they don’t even talk.” He says to me over the phone, from the East Coast. “They just do their thing, but it’s like they are doing it together.”

These connections, to our friends, families and our partners, are essential. In some ways they are more important now than ever.

Alex and Matias and I will go outside later and lift our DIY weights and stretch and jump rope and get as much sun as we can. I will meet a friend for a walk (we keep six feet from each other but we can still talk, we can still feel close). And I will keep writing.

And I will have faith. And hope. In us.

“We are all there is,” Laurent said to me. “We are the reason.”

He put on a record. We got high and danced in his living room, the fading summer light golden through his windows.

I fell back into the couch, too high to really understand what was being said to me. But I remember this, I remember this the most, Laurent standing bathed in that golden fading sunlight, breathless and beautiful, and saying,

“And if they all turn their backs on us, if the whole world refuses to see us, I will always see you. We will be family. We will save us.”

And the panic has subsided a little. Just the act of writing this to you, whoever you are, has saved me a little. Because I know you are out there. You are reading this. And maybe you understand, maybe you can identify a little, and maybe this act alone will remind us both:

We are not alone.

Life In The Apocalypse Part One. Tuesday March 17, 2020

Discerning Daddy

Record of the Day: Francis and the Lights: Farewell, Starlite! (“My City is Gone” is my favorite song on this album, but fuck this record is incredible)

It is easy to be afraid. It is easy to allow what is happening around us, the fear and panic, the lines at grocery stores, the mixed messages handed down from our President, to overwhelm us.

I woke up today and looked at the NYTimes and instantly started to panic. Sunday night, the bar I work at in LA, the Eagle, shut down, along with all the bars in Los Angeles. My household all works in gay bars and in queer nightlife. This is going to affect us.

This is going to affect all of us. In ways none of us can understand.

Not just the virus itself, but how we handle the virus. Currently, watching the Trump Administration, it doesn’t feel like we are handling it well. It feels like we are racing toward more panic and fear.

I am a 51-year-old HIV Positive gay man. I remember clearly the AIDS pandemic that decimated our community in the 80’s and 90’s, which still continues today with close to 37 million people living with HIV/AIDS world-wide and almost 800,000 people still dying yearly. I remember the fear and the loss and the horrific mishandling of the situation by the Reagan Administration.

I also remember falling in love. I remember making out with cute boys on dance floors. I remember my community and the way, in spite of all the death and fear and abandonment by our families and government, that we took care of each other.

We are still that community. We are strong. I have so much faith in us. Who I am as a man, as an artists and a writer, who I am as a human being, is intrinsically linked to my queerness. To my community.

With the gay bars and queer spaces being closed down across the country, I am looking for ways to connect. To stay together even as we are told to be social distancing.

Isolation will not save us. I believe we are stronger together.

I am thinking of ways to maintain that balance: safety and community.

I’ve been thinking about online queer book groups, bike rides through the empty streets (you can keep a safe distance but still be together), walks and hikes.

Are there ways to volunteer in this time? Things that will get us out and together but still maintaining personal safety?

I live in a house with two other gay mean. My boyfriend lives just blocks away. This morning, one of my roommates, Matias, was in our front yard lifting DIY weights Alex made from bricks, plastic bags and towels. We are jumping rope and doing yoga. My coworkers and I from the Eagle have a group chat where we check in on each other and share information. Last night we made a family chicken soup dinner and watched horror movies. I Facetime with friends around the world.

I am finding ways to reach out, to be together, I am finding ways to survive this new life.

And I am writing. Because that is how I ascribe meaning to the world. And right now we need meaning.

I’d love to hear the ways you are finding meaning and community in the world right now. Feel free to comment and message and let us all know that we are still here. Together.

Look for my daily instalments of Life in the Apocalypse. Without you there is no meaning. I’m counting on us.