Author Archives: Joel Derfner

I have now added my brother’s girlfriend to the list of women for whom I would consider turning straight. (The other two on it are Lena Olin and Queen Noor.)

I first read The Merchant of Venice when I was eight or nine, and I was appalled by it. (For those of you unfamiliar with this Shakespeare play, it’s about a Jew (Shylock) who lends a Christian (Antonio) 3,000 ducats on the condition that if he doesn’t repay it by the specified date, Shylock can take a pound of Antonio’s flesh. Antonio fails to pay up, and Shylock is about to take his pound of flesh from around Antonio’s heart, when a judge (who is really Antonio’s friend’s wife Portia in disguise, but that’s not relevant here) tells Shylock he can take a pound of flesh but not a single drop of blood. Then Portia convicts Shylock of conspiring against a citizen, blah, blah, blah, and confiscates all his money but then says she’ll give half of it back if Shylock converts to Christianity, which he does.)

In any case, it wasn’t the rabid anti-Semitism that disturbed me; for some reason, I took no particular exception to this. No, what bothered me was the inconsistent portrayal of character. Shylock is incredibly clever and cunning throughout three and a half acts of this play and then turns into a bumbling idiot.

Because any fool with two brain cells to rub together would see that the way to get a pound of flesh without spilling any blood would be to scrape it off. While this wouldn’t kill Antonio, which is of course the consummation most devoutly to be wished, it would be remarkably painful and, with any luck, leave scars.

So yesterday I told my brother and his girlfriend L. about this, and as soon as I had finished L. said, “Well, he could scrape it off or he could burn the flesh and then cut it out, and there wouldn’t be any blood. That would be much more painful and much more likely to kill him.”

Only loyalty to my brother is keeping me from turning straight in the face of such an awesome mind.

N.B.: This is my second post of two today.

On Sunday, May 18, the gay cheerleading squad will be cheering for everybody who walks in the New York AIDS Walk to benefit Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Though we won’t be walking ourselves, we will be cheering our asses off, and so the organizers have said that we can get people to sponsor us.

So: if you are interested in sponsoring me for the AIDS Walk, e-mail me and let me know. I would like to promise you, in return, a photo of me doing a back handspring at the event, but since I still don’t quite have control of my back handsprings perhaps I can just say that I hope to send those who sponsor me photos of me doing a back handspring at the event.

Unless you pledge a lot of money, in which case you get sex with me.

N.B.: This is the first post of two today, since either Blogger was having Issues last night or I am too incompetent to figure out how to work my computer.

Those of you who have been reading my blog for more than a few months will know that in the past year and a half I have been, shall we say, not ungenerous with my favors. This does not change the fact, however, that I am an incurable romantic when it comes to actual relationships. For years, whenever I fell in love with somebody, I would spend hours fantasizing about what our answering machine message would be.

“Hello. You’ve reached Faustus and Chad. We can’t come to the phone right now, but leave us a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.”

“Hi, this is Chad and Faustus. We’re out, but we’ll give you a call when we get back!”

Or, most revoltingly, this:

FAUSTUS: “Hey, there. This is Faustus.”
CHAD: “And this is Chad.”
FAUSTUS: “We’re sorry we missed your call,”
CHAD: “but leave your name and number and we’ll call you right back.”
TOGETHER: “Thanks for calling!”

Eventually I moved in with a guy (my now-ex, N.T.) and for a while we actually had, God forgive me, a variation on the last example above. The problem, though—I mean aside from the nausea the message induced in everybody who heard it—was that our voices sounded almost exactly alike, which pretty much ruined the antiphonal effect.

The other problem was that N.T. was a cad who ripped my heart to shreds before grinding it into dust beneath his heel.

Now I fantasize about normal things like accidentally stowing away on a Navy submarine, or telling policemen I’d do anything to get out of a speeding ticket, or spacious apartments in the West Village with eat-in kitchens and southern exposure.

And I have voice mail.

I am making a step aerobics class friend. I’ve now been to three classes that she was in, and we’re having nice bonding-type moments. The thing is, though, that she’s even newer to step than I am, and so knows the steps even less well than I do, and I’m worried she’ll get discouraged and start going to step basics instead, and then I’ll be taking step alone again, which wasn’t so bad when I didn’t realize what the alternative was, but which would be a crying shame now that I know how nice it is to have a step aerobics class friend.

So in class on Friday, I decided that I was going to be slightly more incompetent than usual, so that she would see that she wasn’t the only one who was having trouble with the steps and would feel a bond with me and wouldn’t get discouraged and start going to step basics instead. This was a brilliant idea, except for the fact that, as I mentioned yesterday, I’m in love with the instructor.

I know he’s available, because the guy who teaches my 9:15 Saturday step aerobics class told me that he (6:00 Friday, not 9:15 Saturday) used to date the guy who teaches my 10:30 Wednesday step aerobics class but they broke up. Which leaves the field free and clear for me. (I would also be in love with 9:15 Saturday and 10:30 Wednesday, but the former is already taken and the latter is so clearly a bottom that there wouldn’t be any point. Which is also encouraging, because if he was dating 6:00 Friday, that means 6:00 Friday must be a top.)

In any case, for a little while I stepped more incompetently than usual, so as to encourage my friend, but then I realized that looking even more like a moron than I usually do in step class wasn’t going to do much for my chances with the instructor. So I switched tactics and started trying even harder than usual to do well, so as to erase in his mind the memory of my incompetence at the beginning of class. But then I looked over at my friend and realized this might cause me to lose her.

I spent the entire class in a state of near-panic, swinging schizophrenically from incompetence to (relatively) dazzling proficiency and back again. Between this and making sure I was moving in accordance with the eighteenth century precepts of correct stage movement (which I discuss here), I’m surprised I didn’t have a nervous breakdown right then and there.

After class I asked him when else he taught, hoping to be able to go without my friend and not have to worry about it, but the only other classes he teaches are when I have cheerleading practice, so it’s back to the drawing board.

It’s so hard to be me.

I started a post about how I’m in love with the guy who teaches my step aerobics class on Fridays at 6:00, but I am so exhausted—for no good reason—that I just couldn’t make it work. So I’ll just confine myself to noting that, if I had any doubt at all that I had reached gay middle age when I turned 30 this January, the fact that I started moisturizing this week has removed it from my brain.

N.B.: This is my second post of two today, my first having been the result of a computer crash and a bout of insomnia. Note to self: do not drink caffeinated soda at 11:00 p.m.

The Westboro Baptist Church, home of Fred Phelps and God Hates Fags (I’m not linking to them because it’s a revolting site—it lists, for one thing, the number of days Matthew Shepard and Dianne Whipple have been burning in hell), is planning a protest at Fred Rogers’s memorial service in Pittsburgh this Saturday. A man named Brad McNaughton has had a terrific idea about what to do about it.

N.B.: This is my first post of two today, since every time I tried to post last night my computer crashed. I know Macs aren’t supposed to do that, but there it is.

The very first letter I ever wrote in my entire life, when I was four, was to the Kellogg Company. We had a rule in my house that two out of every three boxes of cereal we bought had to be “good cereals;” only one could be a “bad cereal.” A “good cereal” was one that didn’t have sugar as one of the first three listed ingredients. This meant that most of the time we had to eat boring crap like Rice Krispies or Corn Flakes, and only occasionally could we get terrific stuff like Cookie Crisp.

Naturally I found this situation unacceptable, but I also knew that getting my parents to budge from their position on this issue was about as likely to happen as my suddenly developing an overwhelming desire to play with G.I. Joe figures. So I did the next best thing, which was asking my dad to take me to his office and, while there, typing a letter to the Kellogg Company asking why the cereals that tasted good had to have sugar as one of their first three listed ingredients. Couldn’t they make some cereals that tasted really good but didn’t have as much sugar in them? That way I could eat yummy cereal more often.

They responded by sending me several brochures and charts and graphs explaining all sorts of things about their cereals that I didn’t understand at all. I suppose I might understand them now, but at the time I felt both awed to have received a Letter from a Company and bitterly disappointed that they didn’t really answer my question.

Now I have M&Ms and Coke for breakfast.

I woke up late this morning and realized that if I took the time to shower I would be late for my step aerobics class. Since this one is taught by the really cute gayest step aerobics instructor ever, I didn’t want to miss it, so I figured, what the hell, I’ll just shower after class.

Unfortunately, since the walls of the step aerobics classroom are covered with mirrors, it became immediately and painfully apparent to me the second I walked into the room that, unshowered, I looked like a deathly ill heroin addict. I don’t know why this should have bothered me, given that every week he sees me grimacing and sweating as I clomp around gracelessly on my step. But it was all I could do not to run from the room, claiming appendicitis.

But then after class I flirted with him in the steam room, so it all turned out okay.

I spent the evening working on the musical I’m writing about a concentration camp. More specifically, I spent the evening writing a love song sung by a Nazi to the Angel of Death.

I feel kind of gross.

I guess that’s a good thing.

Tonight at cheerleading practice I was supposed to pass the spirit stick on to next month’s winner, but I forgot to bring it.

The astute among you will notice that I never mentioned being awarded the spirit stick in the first place. This is because, after bending all my mental and psychic energies to ensuring that I would win the spirit stick for April, when I did, I instantly felt I didn’t deserve it. I’ve missed too many squad events, I can never go to the optional practices because I teach at the same time they’re held, and I can’t deal with going to the squad bonding nights because they’re all held in bars and I hate hate hate bars, and so when they said my name, instead of leaping up to accept the spirit stick with the pride and joy that should have come with the knowledge that I had beaten all my competitors into the ground, I was so miserable that I wanted to throw myself out the window and die.

I wonder if I will ever let myself enjoy anything.