The Lovers, The Dreamers and Me

Posted by raybarnhart1968

When I was ten or twelve I’d put on little roller skating shows in my garage. I’d sing my favorite songs while I’d skate in a circle, pretending I was Olivia Newton-John in Xanadu. One such afternoon, my neighbor Mark, who was my age, pulled up on his dirt bike and asked me what song I was listening to. It so happened that, at this moment I was listening to and belting out and figure-eight-ing to The Magic Store from The Muppet Movie. So I told him. “Only fags listen to music like that,” he said and then rode off on his bike, proud of himself for obvious reasons.

I immediately turned off my music and took off my roller skates and went inside. My mom asked me what Mark wanted, I told her about our exchange and what he’d said to me. She asked what song I was listening to and I told her The Magic Store. She didn’t say anything but she gave me a look that compassionately said, “Well, that is sort of a colorful song.”

I loved The Magic Store. When not singing to it on roller skates, I’d sing it standing in front of the mirror, creating new choreography every time. It thrilled me, it understood me, it spoke to me and it inspired me. I did find a home at the magic store.

Today is Jim Henson’s birthday. Like many of my generation, he figured prominently to my youth. I started with Sesame Street as a wee boy, and then I remember watching The Muppet Show every Saturday night. I saw The Muppet Movie at least 10 times in the theatre and I don’t know how many more times I watched it on tv. I loved Kermit and Miss Piggy. I loved Ernie. I loved Fozzie. And Remember Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas?

I do know why I gravitated to the things that Jim Henson created. He understood the outsider, the person who couldn’t quite pass as normal. Back when I was 10 or 12, I thought there was such a thing as normal. Every once in a while, I’ll still stand in front of a mirror and launch into, “It starts when we’re kids…” And thankfully nothing anyone could ever say to me now would make me turn off my music and take off my roller skates and go inside.

http://youtu.be/eh48RIBUTJc

This Is Not Who We Are

Posted by raybarnhart1968

I’d much rather spend my time here writing about people or things that I’m fond of, like Jane Fonda or Amy Grant or chocolate cake from Magnolia Bakery, but something in the news yesterday caught my eye, and I want to address it. On a recent episode of the 700 Club, a woman was dismayed that she drove a nursing home resident to church and that no one had told her that he had AIDS. Pat Robertson told her that among other things, in San Francisco, gay people wear rings that when one shakes hands with them, the ring cuts the person they are shaking hands with. I’ve included the link to Huffington Post here and in the video, I’m actually more disturbed by the way his co-host sits there listening and nodding with him. It’s one thing for a man who might possibly have dementia to pontificate about gay people or Alzheimer’s or feminism, but this woman, his longtime co-host Terry Meeuwsen has the chance to steer the show towards something compassionate and sane and she does not do it.

As long as I can remember, I have loved pageants. I’ve always loved pretty girls. When I came out to my parents, the first thing my Dad said to me was, “But you always liked girls so much.” Anyway, watching the Miss America pageant every year was something I always looked forward to. I even remember the year Terry Meeuwsen won Miss America. And as a child, my parents had a Terry Meeuwsen album that I loved to play a lot. I’d look at the back cover, where there was a picture of her wearing her crown and think, she’s so beautiful. I’ve included a link to her pageant winning performance of her singing the gospel song, He Touched Me. While I must say, I think it’s a showy performance, one does get the sense that this is a young girl who truly loved the Lord who wanted to use her voice to glorify Him. With her talent and beauty and charisma, it’s no surprise that she won the competition.

Obviously, I am a person interested in people’s journeys. How did this young woman turn into someone who reigns next to Pat Robertson everyday on the dubiously named Christian Broadcasting Network? I don’t think that Pat Robertson glorifies the Lord, by word or by deed. I don’t think it’s great, but I’m used to it when he says that gays have special rings to inflict AIDS, or men with Alzheimer’s-suffering wives should divorce them so they can move on, or that the Joplin tornado wouldn’t have happened if more people had prayed, or that there should be a vomit button on Facebook about gays, or that, well, the list goes on.
If you are a conservative Christian and you are reading this, you probably think that gay people don’t see you as a lesser Pat Robertson. But, the thing is, the AIDS ring story was reported on every gay news website that I know of. I read the comments on several of those sites and I think a lot of people see Pat Robertson as a spokesman for the conservative Christian community.

What I want to say is this, I think Christians need to stand up and say, “This is not who we are.” I think the entire world needs to hear it. Joel Osteen is probably one of the most revered evangelists in the entire world. I’m like Cher, there are some things he says that I do not agree with, but there are things that he says that inspire or convict or comfort me. I see him as a man who loves the Lord who is trying to glorify Him. But I did a search for Joel Osteen and Pat Robertson, hoping to find an article or an interview somewhere where he’s says, “Pat Robertson is not preaching the Gospel, this is not who we are.” I found nothing. (If you reading this and have a link proving otherwise to share, I would love to see or read it.)

So my message today is simple: it applies to Terry Meeuwsen and Joel Osteen, but also to people whose lives I’m truly invested in, my Christian friends. I just challenge you to say, “This is not who we are.” You might think your non-Christian friends, gay or otherwise, already know it, but what does it hurt to remind them again of your love?

Dear Daisy

Posted by raybarnhart1968

It’s rare for me to spend more than a few hours on a blog post, but I have been working on and off on this one since Thursday. Up until, just now, I didn’t feel that I was saying what I wanted to say, in the way I wanted to say it.

On Thursday, by chance, I saw that one of the kids that had been in my youth group when I was a youth minister many years ago had unfriended me on Facebook. She popped into my head and I thought, hmmm, I wonder what Daisy is up to? When I got to her FB page, I saw the little +1 Add Friend rectangle on her profile. I was a little shocked. Not surprisingly, it is not my first FB unfriending, but it’s the one that stung the most.

Thursday, not long after discovering the information, I started working on a blog, also entitled, Dear Daisy. That blog was an actual letter to her which sortof snarkily started off, “I guess you will probably never read this because most people who find my blog, find it through Facebook and ever since you unfriended me, I don’t now how you would even know to look for it.” Like I said, I’ve revisited that original blog every day, tweaking it, but ultimately, it never felt right enough to publish.

I will tell you a little about Daisy. She is a singer. I remember not long after I was hired to be the youth minister at her church, one of the elderly ladies was telling me bits of information about all of the congregation’s young people. I remember Velda Blagg saying, “And Daisy! Daisy has the voice of an angel.” And she did. When Daisy sang a special in church, usually an Amy Grant song, it was something the entire congregation looked forward to hearing. Most who have heard her sing would say that she has a God-given gift.

Another thing about Daisy that I think about fairly often is when her mother died suddenly while I was her youth minister. Her mother was a force: magnetic, beautiful, sharp-witted, opinionated. Also, she was a teacher. Her death was one of the first lessons in how fragile life is and how everything can change permanently in an instant. I marvelled at the poise with which Daisy handled her loss. She was just weeks from going away to her freshman year of college, yet the Daisy I remember continued to lend support to her father and three younger brothers. In college, she studied music, because she wanted to glorify God with her music.

We have not had a lot of contact since the time that I was her youth minister. Even before FB entered all of our lives, she did know that I was gay. I know that she is still very religious, but I’ve never known her to post anything anti-gay on FB. Our FB messages were usually about light things, like dreaming of meeting up in New York to go see Broadway musicals together.

At one point in the last few days, I thought I knew why she unfriended me. Since I’ve started this blog, I talk about a lot of different things. Granted, every word I write, it’s with the cognizance that my mother will probably read it, but I would give my blog a PG-13 rating. And I talk a lot, A LOT, about being gay. I wonder if it might be painful for Daisy to see how different I am from the man who was her minister, her pastor, at a very formative time in her life. If I was a man who once made her love Jesus more, what am I now?

I thought about Daisy and the rest of the youth group quite a bit all weekend. Something about the action, unlocked some memories that I hadn’t thought about in 20 years, sweet memories. Yesterday, I posted a blog about a young voice teacher, roughly Daisy’s age, who got to sing on stage with Kristin Chenoweth at the Hollywood Bowl this weekend. I included a link to her account on BroadwayWorld.com where at the end, she talked about walking to her car after the concert with her dad and him reminding her that he prayed 11 years ago that she would be able to sing with Kristin Chenoweth. That touching moment made me think of the beaming pride that Daisy’s dad always had for her. He was a stoic guy, but whenever Daisy sang, whether it be at church or concerts or pageants, he always shed more than a few tears. He was and is the kind of guy who would pray for his daughter to sing with Kristin Chenoweth, or maybe Amy Grant.

Anyway, I am not angry that Daisy unfriended me. I do hope that if she did not hear about Sarah Horn from me, that she heard about Sarah Horn from someone. Those magical musical moments that I talked about yesterday, are something Daisy’s knows a lot about. So, Daisy, if you ever read this, and I hope that someday you will, know that, Facebook friend or not, I will always love you.

Carole

Posted by raybarnhart1968

As I type this, Eric and I are en route from our mini-vacation in Palm Springs. We had a lot of fun, and a good part or our vacation was spent by or in the swimming pool. The property where we stayed is a boutique hotel, with a gorgeous pool in the center courtyard. We stayed here a couple of years ago and loved it. One thing we noticed, how do I say this delicately, is that the crowd was a little more glamorous last time. Two years ago it was sun-kissed, tone bodied, bikini wearing Hollywood hills types of both sexes and all proclivities. This time, it was mostly pasty European 50-somethings. And that’s why Carole stood out to us all the more.

I’ll call her Carole because at first notice, she reminded me of Carole Radziwill, my favorite Real Housewife. The first time I saw my Carole she jumped into the pool, put on her goggles and swam a few lanky laps then ascended from the pool like the vision she was. Dark hair, a little longer than a bob, silky tan skin. I didn’t know if she was 25, 35 or 45. When she walked away, I watched her go back to her chaise which was tucked away in a more private area in the courtyard. She took out her MacBook and started typing or reading or working on something. 45 minutes later, she put down the MacBook, grabbed her goggles and headed back to the pool to repeat the cycle. I was transfixed, I pointed her out to Eric who said, “She’s Fabulous and that swimsuit is Malia Mills!” And so began our united fascination and shared conjecture with and about all things Carole. Eric thought she was French and I thought she lived in LA, but had only recently moved here from New York. Eric thought she’d once been a model, I thought she worked in fashion writing or was perhaps working on a novel. When we talked more about her over dinner on Monday night, Eric (slightly tipsy) vowed that he would talk to her the next day.

Tuesday morning, I was excited to see her sitting, reading the paper and drinking coffee at the restaurant bar where the hotel set out a coffee urn for the hotel guests. I grabbed my own coffee and my own paper and sat down a few stools down. I hoped that she’d initiate a conversation with me. “Strong coffee, isn’t it?” “Yes it is and hot, too!” Or perhaps, “I see Lee Daniels’ The Butler did well at the box office this weekend!” “Yes, I really want to see it.”
“Me, too.” “Yes, let’s all go see it this afternoon.” Well, that didn’t happen. We drank and read in silence, though for some reason, she did clear her throat several times. I held out hope that Eric would initiate a conversation when he joined us, but he didn’t. “I’ll talk to her this afternoon,” he told me when I quizzed him about his sheepishess.

As I lay out by the pool Tuesday afternoon, I wondered if maybe the Carole who existed may not be as interesting as the one I’d imagined. My Carole was by now a fashion editor, a novelist, getting over a break up and desperately missing her German Shepherd Max that she lost custody of in the break up. Her first novel sold “okay” but her publisher assured her that her new book, “In the Swim” was poised to make her the next Lauren Weisberger. Is she ready for the high profile life that awaits her? She’s been having trouble sleeping and she’s taken to watching episodes of Tosh.0 on her MacBook. “Is He Gay?” she asks herself as she slips into a fitful sleep. In her dreams, she is best friends with the effortlessly stylish 40-something gay couple that she’s seen at the pool.

My daydreams came to a crashing reality on Tuesday afternoon when Eric came back to the room. “She’s not French. She grew up in Rancho Mirage and her suit isn’t Malia Mills. She doesn’t even know who Malia Mills is.” He’d struck up a conversation by complimenting her suit. I asked if she seemed bookish, he said she did not.

This morning when Eric and I were eating breakfast, she walked by us. Eric said hi, she said hi. I’d hoped she’d stop so he could introduce me to her, but she kept walking.

I’ll probably never know Carole’s story, Eric did find out her name and he told me her name. It’s not Carole. I thought about telling you her name here, but I know that a lady like Carole likes to have a little mystery.

What Susan Said

Posted by raybarnhart1968

In the summer of 1992, I worked at a summer camp in Maine. In the first few days of being at the camp, I fell into a friendship with another counselor I’ll call Steven. Steven and I became fast friends, both Midwestern, both religious, both bespectacled. Steven was 19 and I was 22.

That summer, there was a Rich Mullins song that I often listened to on my CD Walkman called What Susan Said. It starts off, “Two lonely-eyed boys in a pick-up truck
And they’re drivin’ through the rain and the heat
And their skin’s so sweaty they both get stuck
To the old black vinyl seats
And it’s Abbott and Costello meet Paul and Silas
It’s the two of us together and we’re puttin’ on the mileage…” I felt like Rich Mullins had written this song just for me and Steven. We’d borrow his friend’s pickup and we’d go for drives. One day off, we drove from Maine, through New Hampshire, into Vermont and back to camp, talking about the kind of things two people talk about when their friendship is new. Over the course of two weeks, I felt like he was the best friend I’d ever had. I was, at this point, ostensibly straight. We talked about girls and God and I talked a lot about how I’d been a youth minister, just less than a year before. But one night, when we were sitting on the roof of the main bunk house, I told him something that had burdened me. I told him that I thought I was gay. He was the third person I ever told. He told me that he’d kind of been wondering if maybe I might be. Earlier in the summer, he told me that he’d had a friend who was bisexual and the way I’d asked a lot of questions about that guy stuck in his mind. When he did not freak out over the first piece of information, I told him that I thought I was in love with him. He was very quick to tell me that he was straight, that I knew that he liked Claire (one of the other counselors). He also started to cry. He told me that he thought I just wanted to be his friend. I don’t remember exactly how the conversation played out, but at the end, I did think that we would remain friends. As it turned out, we never really talked at length again. He called his mother to tell her about it and she told him that I was one of those gays that preyed on young men. (Again, he was 19, I was 22.) For the rest of the summer, he kept his distance. If the Rich Mullins song had affected me one way before my confession to Steven, I clung to it that much more after our friendship was severed. I’d listen to the song as I lay in bed at night, hoping and praying that I would either not be gay or that Steven would love me.

As it came to pass, neither prayer came true. When camp ended, I moved back to New York and began the process of coming out to myself. Steven was the last straight I guy that I fell for.

Rich Mullins was a singer that I saw a lot of when I was growing up. He would be at week-long youth conferences I attended, so besides being on stage, I witnessed the way he interacted with others. Long before I heard What Susan Said, before he even wrote it, I thought that perhaps Rich and I had something in common. (I have no validation of my theory.)
I’ve attached a YouTube video of the song. I’d hoped to find a version of Rich singing it in concert instead of the generic video I’m posting. If you ever attended a Rich Mullins concert, you know he had a gift. He was funny and serious, humble and arrogant, simple and erudite. There is another line in the song about how love is found in the things we have given up more than in the things we kept. I often wondered and still wonder if Rich Mullins had a Steven in his life. Someone must have inspired such an intimate song.

Years have passed since that summer. Rich Mullins died in 1997 in a tragic car accident. Some would think it ironic that a Christian song would have played such a reflective part in my own coming out process. But when I hear the song, it takes me back to those days when I was on the precipice of my journey to become the person I am today. And Steven, I sometimes wonder what happened to him, but I hope that if I ever come into his mind, as the final words of “our” song say, I hope he’ll have the strength to just remember, I’m still his friend.

James Baldwin

Posted by raybarnhart1968

So, if you and I have had an actual face to face conversation in the last few months, you might know that I’m reading the works of James Baldwin right now. I started with Another Country, then Go Tell it on the Mountain, then most recently, Giovanni’s Room.

I think he’s amazing. He wrote honestly and bravely about race and religion and homosexuality in the 50’s and 60’s, when barely anyone was writing about even one of those themes and he was writing about all three. There is so much tension in his novels and yet, the villain on page 43 is the person you’re most invested in on page 44. He understood that yin and yang of human behavior.

One of his most difficult characters is the father in Go Tell it on the Mountain, who was based on his own father. Not long ago, I watched an interview with Baldwin where he described his father this way: “He could not bend, he could only be broken.” I’ve carried that thought with me for a few days now, so I thought I would share it with you.

Baldwin grew up in a conservative church environment. He did not consider himself to be religious in his adulthood, but that Faith of his youth kept a hold on him his entire life. I’ve posted another, short youtube video of him singing “Precious Lord, take my Hand.” He had a beautiful voice. A beautiful voice in every way.

Don’t Try So Hard

Posted by raybarnhart1968

“It’s the stuff we love when we’re young that sticks with us the most,” said Amy Grant last night while she was in concert at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. I think I had thought that sentiment before, but I’d never verbalized it. It’s something that I’ve thought about since her concert, which was amazing. I believe everyone has a singer or music group that resonates for them the way Amy Grant resonates for me. She is central to my adolescence and college and even early 20’s. For my entire life, friendships have been built over a shared love of this woman.

I experienced a wide range of emotions last night. When she walked out after a cursory introduction and started singing You’re not Alone in this World, I was ebullient to be at an Amy Grant concert again after a 22 year gap. When she sang, 1974, I remembered being in my Bible college dorm listening to her on my Sony Walkman. When she sang Hope Set High, I thought about my years as a youth minister and the kids that were in my youth group and how for years after leaving the ministry, I felt like I’d let them down. When she sang Sing Your Praise to the Lord, I thought about its songwriter, Rich Mullins, who sang at nearly every Christ in Youth conference I ever attended. When she sang a cover of Put a Little Love in Your Heart for her encore, I thought it was a perfect choice because, in my mind, Amy Grant has always been about love.

The crowd was very electic last night. My friend Richard and I were sandwiched between straight couples in their fifties. There were also young straight couples, girls night out groups, and of course, several members of the GLBT community. Richard and I became friends when we met through mutual friends at a Happy Hour in a Mexican restaurant in Silver Lake and one of us mentioned Amy Grant. I actually think that I gravitated to Amy Grant as a boy because I was gay. She’s Christian music’s Cher.

There was a lesbian couple sitting in the row in front of us. When Amy Grant started singing one of her new songs, Don’t Try So Hard, I saw them lean in and whisper something to each other. One of them reached out and rubbed the other woman’s back. The lyrics about the gift of God’s grace resonated with them and then I looked around at the audience, many of whom were having an emotional reaction. And I myself, absorbed the lyrics, I remembered my 17 or 18 or 19-year-old self who tried so hard to not be gay. When did I realize or will I ever fully realize that I’m lovely even with my scars?

Lead With Love

Posted by raybarnhart1968

When I was in Bible college, there was a song that was popular called You’re the Only Jesus. The idea is that you might be the only Christian a non-Christian will ever encounter and because of that you bear a responsibility. And hopefully, that responsibilty, will affect the way you treat everyone with whom you interact.

Last Friday, I posted a blog stemming from something a childhood friend posted on Facebook. A lot of people read it and many people commented, both here on easilycrestfallen.com, on Facebook and in private messages. Several conjectured what Sarah would say or think if she saw the blog. I wondered about it myself. I wondered if maybe I had shared too much of her personal story. I wondered if I had overreacted to her original post. I want you to know that she did send me a message a couple days ago, apologizing for hurting my feelings and telling me she had a struggle with self-righteousness. If you know me, you know I have my own struggle with self-righteousness, just bring up the subject of people running stop signs and I can rant for an hour. I was moved by her response and I must say, she really did not have to respond at all.

Last week, when I was with my cousins in Vegas, one of my cousins was talking about religion. She was talking about Christians and how hypocritical some of them are and she brought up my parents and said, “But your parents, your parents are true Christians.” I agreed, because I feel in all their interactions, they always lead with love, whether it be with other family members, or co-workers, or church friends. And as a person who has known them for 45 years, I can tell you that’s how they’ve always treated me. When I came out to them over 20 years ago, it was not easy for them, in fact, it broke their hearts, but the first thing they did was remind me that their love for me was unchangeable.

In Friday’s post, I talked about how some friends say I should unfriend the people who post anti-gay things on FB. I said that the reason I stay is because I like hearing about their lives. I think that’s definitely part of it, but there is more. I sometimes wonder if I might be the only gay person, or one of the only gay people, some of these friends might know. Here in LA, I am surrounded by gays, you can’t even turn a corner without bumping into someone who claims to be “Cher’s Biggest Fan,” but I know that other parts of the country are a little different.

I was humbled by Sarah’s response to me, because though I try to lead with love, I often fail. Actually, I fail a lot. It seems I’m often saying or writing something petty or snide or sarcastic, both on the page and in person. What I need to remember, try harder at remembering, is that even though I am no longer that Bible college student, the things I learned at home and church and college, still apply. 1 John 4:7 says, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” There aren’t any qualifiers in that Scripture about whether or not the lovers or lovees are straight or gay or something in between. The command is simple and pure: Love.

Words Have Consequences

Posted by raybarnhart1968

Ray Barnhart and friend (not Sarah), 1998.

“Words have consequences. Very, very good rebuttal for those who want to normalize perversion.” This was the introduction a friend of mine from childhood wrote on an anti-gay article she posted today on Facebook. The article itself was just typical “Biblical” anti-gay spewings, not completely relevant to what I’m going to share, but if you want to read it, you can do so here. Anyway, this person, whom I’ll call Sarah, was someone who grew up with me at the same church. We were in youth group together and she briefly attended the same Bible college I attended. She is extremely intelligent and graduated near the top of her high school class. I have not seen her for over twenty years, and like so many modern relationships, our only contact is via Facebook. About a year ago, she randomly posted, “I really want a sari.” Because I am a former sketch comedy performer, I have a closet full of many props and costumes that I’ve acquired, just in case, you know, I can use it in a sketch. It so happened that I did own a sari so I sent her a message asking for her address and I sent her the said sari. (Heaven knows what I’ll ever do if the Groundlings one day ask me to play Indira Gandhi on the main stage.) A few days after sending the gift, I received a beautiful, thoughtful handwritten note from Sarah. I’m sure I still have it somewhere, because I’m sentimental about gestures like that.

Her actions today are nothing new, she has frequently posted anti-gay material, all from her Biblical perspective. And let me say, she is not the only person on my FB friend list who posts items of this nature. Most of my friends tell me I should unfriend these people and though I’m tempted, I do like hearing about their lives in general. I like the pictures of their dogs and kids and cakes they’ve baked. I want them to live rich joy-filled lives. And while I have many friends that are conservative Christians, only a handful repeatedly post anti-gay agenda and musings. I wonder about the pathology of someone who posts over and over and over again that they really, really, really like Chick-Fil-A. Also, it hurt my feelings.

There is something about Sarah that I wrestled with sharing publicly. Although I have clearly changed her name, it would not be hard to figure out her identity if you were to look at my FB friends list. But when I think about Sarah, it’s something that comes to mind. As I stated earlier, we briefly attended the same Bible college. When I was a junior, she was a freshman. And then a few weeks into her freshman year, she got pregnant. She left school immediately and went back to Independence and married the father, her longtime high school sweetheart. I remember her telling me she was afraid to tell me she was pregnant for fear I would respond judgmentally. In my recollection, I responded with love and support. At least that’s the way I remembered it, perhaps she did sense judgment from me. I remember how sad I was that she left school because I felt her life goals would be out of distance because of the unwanted pregnancy. I hope I only treated her with kindness. As it turned out, from what I’ve gleaned from her Facebook profile, her life goal was to be a loving, nurturing wife and mother, the kind of wife and mother she did become. And I don’t think there is any loftier aspiration. In every picture of her, she is beaming at her many children. Most of her posts are about something cute or intelligent or mischevious one or more of her children has done. Clearly, there is much that I like about Sarah.

I just wish she didn’t post things like this. There is a part of me that thinks a woman who thinks as expansively as to want a sari, would be moved by the plight of Edie Windsor. Maybe I’m just an optimist. Maybe I’m a fool. I must say we agree on one thing, words do have consequences.

Aspirational Lifestyle

Posted by raybarnhart1968

In the mornings that I am not rushed to get out the door, I like to sit at my computer with a cup of coffee and peruse my favorite websites, especially New York Social Diary. It touts itself as my link to society and indeed it is. I look at the pictures of charity balls and book signings and equestrian events and it’s not hard to imagine that if I’d just stayed in Manhattan a few years more, I would have easily turned into this girl. My favorite part of the website, however, is the section called Big Old Houses, by John Foreman. In Big Old Houses, Mr. Foreman will visit mansions, castles, and apartments. Most of the estates he profiles are in the New York area, but he also visits other places throughout the country. I love it on every level. First of all, he does a great job of researching the history of the property and the people who built it and lived there. He also posts lots of pictures showing what the properties look like now. Some are fabulously maintained, others less so. Some are still owned by the family, others are owned by the state or private institutions. I also like it because as you read more of his posts, he reveals more about himself and he’s a prettty interesting character himself. I won’t give away all his secrets here, but he does love a kitchen and a bathroom. And he’s got a soft spot for cats, too. The first time I heard the term aspirational lifestyle was in reference to the Real Housewives franchise on Bravo. Ultimately, we watch the show because these women live lives that we aspire to, at least on some level. We also watch it because they are usually egotistical, alcoholic trainwrecks and we get to feel superior about ourselves for not having their problems. And if you’ve read just a little bit of Big Old Houses, you know that egotistical, alcoholic trainwrecks have long been part of the fabric of American culture. But I digress. The post that warmed my heart the most was the one where Mr. Foreman profiled his own house which I believe is in upstate New York. He offers a bit of the property’s history and shows a copious amount of pictures and, as he does in all his posts, paints a portrait of the person who lives there. It is not the most opulent property, some of the furniture should be replaced and it looks like the wallpaper is deteriorating in spots. He confides that he has rented it for 31 years. He is an aging homosexual living with antiques and pets and friends and lots of pictures of loved ones. I can’t help but see a bit of myself in him. And while I get the sense that his life has not amounted to all that he aspired to, he has riches: a family that loves him, a few valuable collectible pieces, a great bathroom, a fireplace to keep him warm on a blistery winter night. One could do worse.

	James on What Susan Said
	Ashlee on How to Take Ambien.
	Bucketlist Becky on Guest Blogger, Michele Medlin…
	Kate on Crispy But Not Too Crispy
	raybarnhart1968 on Crispy But Not Too Crispy